Militarism: Americans are tiring of The Long War

Even as they enmesh the U.S. in other senseless, costly military adventures in Yemen, Honduras, West Africa, and the Philippines, to name but a few, Obama administration warriors are taking time off this weekend to try to persuade their erstwhile NATO allies that the war in Afghanistan has been worth the effort. "I can't let this be a war without end," the president is alleged to have said, "and I can't lose the whole Democratic Party."

Too late. Not only has the invasion lost support of the whole Democratic Party, but, as Robert Naiman wrote yesterday on his HuffPost blog (On Afghanistan, the Pentagon Has Lost the American People 2012-05-18), "a substantial part of the Republican Party as well; the majority of Republican voters, for example." Luckily for the president, his domestic allies are the GOP leaders, so the AfPak debacle probably won't be much of a factor in the fall election. Still, Obama seems to be anxious to control the narrative in Chicago.

Whatever the outcomes in Chicago this weekend and in Kabul some weekend in the future, the enthusiasm of security staters for the Long War will not diminish, whether Barack Obama continues in office or Mitt Romney becomes commander in chief. With access to oil and other resources the motivation and the failed "War on Drugs" the excuse, and no matter the harm that is being done at home, America's political elite will continue to bog the nation down in unwinnable conflicts big and small.

America's Pacific Century: The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action by Hillary Clinton (Foreign Policy 2011-10-11)
The National Security State Wins (Again): Why the Real Victor in Campaign 2012 Won’t Be Obama or Romney by William J. Astore (Tom Dispatch 2012-05-15)
Out of Africa: An expat witnesses the end of halcyon days in Mali by Jennifer Swift-Mogan (ForeignPolicy 2012-04-13)
Unmanned and Dangerous: Why NATO's expanding use of drones is a disturbing trend by Louis Arbour (Foreign Policy 2012-05-18)
The Long War: Year Ten  Lost in the Desert with the GPS on the Fritz  by Andrew J. Bacevich (Tom Dispatch 2010-10-01)
Fact Sheet: History of U.S. Military Involvement in Africa  (AfriCom/Congressional Research Service 2008-06-12)
U.S. Africa Command (AfriCom) History, Background and Fact Sheets

Here are some articles analyzing and debunking the "War on Terror," from a reading list on New Democracy:

• The Lockerbie Fraud Again by Dave Stratman
• Did 9/11 justify the war in Afghanistan? by David Ray Griffin
• PTSD, infertility, and other consequences of war by Bob Nichols
• Assassination by Government: An Exchange by Dave Stratman
• Whom Should We Support in Iran? by John Spritzler
• Obama's Afghanistan War: Morally Wrong, or Incompetently Waged?, by John Spritzler
• No War But the Class War
• Unethical Media Coverage of UK Events, by Elias Davidsson
• Concealing the Real Goals of War by John Spritzler
• Bosses and Workers,  a poem by Dennis Serdel
• My Country & The Railroad Tracks: two poems by Dennis Serdel, Vietnam '67-68 purple heart
• Important link:  911 Video, "Loose Change, 2nd edition, recut
• The true significance of Bush's no-warrant domestic eavesdropping by John Spritzler
• The Antiwar Movement Isn’t Where You Think It Is by Dave Stratman
• The London Bombings and the Class War by Dave Stratman
• "What Bush's 'Freedom & Democracy' Means for Iraqi Farmers" by John Spritzler (March 17, 2005)
• "The Witchhunts Continue: Columbia University and the New Anti-Semitism" by M. Junaid Alam
• "Collateral Damage"  a poem by Gary Corseri (February 2005)
• "The Triumph of Liberalism" by Dave Stratman (November 12, 2004)
• "Circles"  and "BREAKING THE LAW TO WIN"  poems by Dennis Serdel (September 28, 2004)
• "This Land Is Our Land" by John Spritzler (August 31, 2004)
• "Talking to the Wrong People: Lessons of the DNC" by Dave Stratman (August 26, 2004)
• Interview of Dave Stratman (focusing on his article Inventing the Enemy) on WING TV (August 18, 2004)
• "Inventing the Enemy" by Dave Stratman (July 26, 2004)
• "The 'Good War' Myth of World War II" by John Spritzler (July 22, 2004)
• "Beware the Liberal War on Terror" by Dave Stratman (July 5, 2004)
• "Abu Ghraib: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is NOT Us" by John Spritzler (June 2, 2004)
• "Abu Ghraib Prison Torture: a Few Bad Apples or Long Standing Policy?" by John Spritzler (May 12, 2004).
• "The Antiwar Movement Is Not Progressive -- And That's A Good Thing"by Dave Stratman. (March 18, 2004).
• "George Bush, The Anti-Family President" by Bill Kauffman. (October 27, 2003).
• "BULLETDUCKERS" -- poetry by Dennis Serdel. (November, 2003).
• Book Review: "The War On Freedom" by John Spritzler (October 5, 2003)
• "Bush and the 'Good War'" by John Spritzler (September 30, 2003)
• "No To Politics, Yes To Mass Refusal" by Dave Stratman. (September 26, 2003).
• "Making Connections: the War, the Budget, and the Crisis in Social Values" -- remarks by David Stratman at the Community Church of Boston (April 6, 2003).
• "Conspiracy Theory" by Floyd Rudmin. (April, 2003).
• "Free Asan Akbar And Put The System On Trial?" by Steve Hesske (April, 2003).
• "Rethinking Anti-War Strategy" by Jim Luken (April, 2003).
• "They Dare Not Speak Its Name" by Steve Hesske (March 25, 2003).
• "The Death March" by Al McKinnis (March, 2003).
• The Call of Workers for Peace  (January, 2003).  Workers for Peace -- Chinese translation. Workers for Peace -- German translation.
• "Stop The Endless War: Boycott The Volunteer Army" by Doug Fuda. (January 23, 2003).
• "Elite Spokesman Alarmed by Magnitude of Opposition to Iraq War" by John Spritzler (January 9, 2003).
• "Palestine & Iraq: Any Signs of Hope? The lessons we have learned" by Henry Lowi (November 10, 2002).
• "What Is War With Iraq Really About?" -- A New Democracy Flyer. (Fall 2002).
• "A War To Make Iraq Democratic?" by John Spritzler. (Oct '02).
• "The U.S. As Fourth Reich" by David Stratman. (September 2, 2002).
• "Useful Enemies" by Dave Stratman. (NDN* Nov. '01-Feb. '02).
• "Is It Really A 'War Against Terrorism?'" (NDN* Nov. '01-Feb. '02).
• "What Else Could He Have Done?" (NDN* Nov. '01-Feb. '02).
• "Why Is The US Bombing Yugoslavia?" by Dave Stratman. (NDN* May-June 1999).
• * "NDN" indicates that the article is from the New Democracy Newsletter.

Empire: "They" just don't have our "values"

A benefit of Ron Paul's quixotic presidential run is realized when he asks his audiences to walk in the shoes of people on the receiving end of our program of "exporting democracy." How would we feel if a foreign army rolled down our streets, occupied our capital, used drones, missiles and Apache helicopters to rain terror on the heads of our children? As for the rest, as Winslow Myers writes,

candidate Mitt Romney demagogues the security issue by advocating more “full-spectrum dominance,” or candidate Rick Santorum waxes bellicose about doing more to stop Iran’s nuclear program; Barack Obama is forced to maintain his own cred by dubious if popular ventures like high-tech extra-judicial assassinations.

As we build toward a hot war with Iran, it is worth examining how our attitude toward nuclear arms is animated by the same cultural biases.

“Our” nuclear weapons are justified by our need for security, while “theirs” indicate an unacceptable aggressiveness.

Parenthetically, will there be a peace candidate -- will someone stand against militarism and empire -- in November?

The rest of the story: Occupying Fears About Iran by Winslow Myers (Consortium News 2012-01-07).

Winslow Myers, the author of Living Beyond War: A Citizen’s Guide, serves on the board of Beyond War, a non-profit educational foundation whose mission is to explore, model and promote the means for humanity to live without war.

See, also: Recognizing the "Unpeople" by Noam Chomsky (Truthout 2012-01-07)
End of the pro-democracy pretense by Glenn Greenwald (Salon 2012-01-03)

2012: Heeeeeeere's Sarah

I don't often agree with Tony Blankley, but he's right that Sarah Palin is far from "washed up" despite her resignation as Alaska's governor (she actually got a boost among Republicans by quitting). While it's doubtful she will be the Republican standard bearer in 2012, with the inevitable talk show on Fox or CNN, a huge campaign chest, and hundreds of grateful GOP candidates from U.S. Senators to dog-catchers, she may be in position by then to determine who is.

From here, it's difficult to see how Palin has hurt herself, except with people who already disdain her. No longer "part of the problem" as an incumbent politico, she'll be free to scurry from fund-raiser to fund-raiser piling up truck-loads of dough as she rails against big government. Conservative candidates at every level will be indebted for the cash and attention she'll win them in 2010. In 2012, well-funded and with a hard-core following, she will be key to the success of the eventual nominee -- whether it's Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee or, as I fear, despite his high negatives, Newt Gingrich -- who will have to court her if he wants to hold on to the base. None of the other GOP presidential wannabes connects with the paranoid Right with the intensity of Sarah Palin. They adore her. As a result, she may more than influence the final outcome of the GOP competition; she may be the kingmaker.

For the nonce, a Rasmussen poll finds Palin in a virtual tie for Republican affections with Romney and Huckabee  (although her negatives are much higher than theirs). Romney is fully up to the job of sacrificial lamb, the next Walter Mondale or Bob Dole, but even though, currently, he seems to offend the fewest members of his party, it's difficult to picture him as the GOP standard bearer, if, as seems likely, the party appears to have a real shot at winning. Barring some unforeseen scandal, I think it will come down to Huckabee vs Gingrich; the former Arkansas governor wouldn't gain much from adding Palin to his ticket, but the slick ex-speaker sure would. And Palin's most likely path to the Oval Office is still through Number One Observatory Circle.

Gingrich-Palin 2012.* You read it here first.

Haven't had enough?: Part 2 of Sarah Palin's resignation press conference.

Update: another non-obituary of Sarah Palin -- She Broke the G.O.P. and Now She Owns It by Frank Rich (NYTimes).

Update: fortunately for us, we have Conan O'Brian and William Shatner to decipher Palin's speech:

* As a prophylactic, I thought I might register some urls. Guess what. Gingrich-Palin.com, GingrichPalin.com, GingrichPalin2012.com, and a host of other combinations are being husbanded by entrepreneurial types (or, possibly, political cranks)  in places like Tampa and Scottsdale. You've been warned.

First they ignore Giuliani. Then they dump Romney.

The arrogance of Republican voters, thinking they have the right to choose whomever they want to be their nominee. Why can't they just get with the program, like the Democrats?

2008: GOP Hopes Hang on Huckabee

I have been saying for some months that there is only one likely Republican nominee: the Other Man from Hope.

Christian conservatives are not alone in feeling uncomfortable with the idea of a president who is a practicing Mormon, and Mitt Romney's prospects are not enhanced by the image he has contrived of a man with no ideas or beliefs that aren't fungible, that, as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, there is no there there. And, the polls notwithstanding, the prospect that the ethically challenged, socially moderate, thrice-married, cross-dressing, one-issue Rudy Giuliani would be the GOP candidate, while entertaining, was preposterous. But if not the cult member from Massachusetts nor the whacko from New York, then who? The John McCain of 2000 would have mowed down this year's stunted crop of Republican presidential wannabes, but the latter McCain is too compromised, too burdened by his support of Bush's occupation of Iraq, and probably too old, to seize the prize.

Unlike the Democrats, any one of whom would make a credible candidate, the only Republicans willing to waste their time trying to live down George W. Bush's record are, with one exception, third rate back-benchers (Tom Tancredo) and ideologues (Ron Paul). The exception, of course, is Mike Huckabee, an out-of-work former governor who had everything needed to be a viable candidate -- a modest, unassuming personality, an engaging wit, a natural constituency within his party, a moderate record in office (he actually may be that elusive political Bigfoot, the heretofore chimerical compassionate conservative) -- except money. The inadequacies of the three major candidates encouraged Republicans to forage elsewhere for a leader -- thus the under-amped entrance by Fred Thompson, but there was really nobody else to lead the band than the bass-playing former minister from Arkansas.

Huckabee, despite his new poll numbers, doesn't have a lock on the nomination, though. He's still way behind in the money game, although their are signs that he is enjoying a fund-raising surge. His lack of foreign policy experience is a liability. The party's anti-tax ideologues think he's a closet New Dealer. There are political skeletons in his armoire, including a Willie Horton-ish case of a gubernatorial pardon gone bad (parenthetically, I find it painful to watch progressives gleefully deploying the same techniques against Huckabee that the perfidious George H.W. Bush campaign used to smear the admirable Mike Dukakis -- surely it would be better politics to decry Huckabee's inexperience and discredit his off-the-wall economic ideas -- among other things, he'd replace the progressive income tax with a national sales tax -- than to further legitimize gutter politics). And Romney isn't out of the race -- most of Huckabee's surge has come from Giuliani, whose candidacy has begun to circle the bowl.

But as I argued a couple of months ago (Déjà vu all over again?), this agonizingly protracted and criminally costly nominating process will have been worth enduring if it comes down at last to a contest between John Edwards and Mike Huckabee, with vice presidential candidates of the caliber of, say, Bill Richardson and Chuck Hagel. Such a competition would be issues-oriented and civil out of all proportion to our custom, with the voter permitted to choose between clear and contrasting visions of the nation's future, both -- surprising in itself -- focused in their way on making the American Dream available to everyone. In contrast, a brawl between Hillary Clinton and Giuliani/Romney, I fear, would be muddled and brutish in the manner to which we are so painfully habituated, with an outcome unlikely to disturb the rest of even the lightest sleeper in the luxuriant bed of the status quo.

An Edwards-Huckabee match would also discourage New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, from declaring (not necessarily a good thing: the mayor in his own way can be relied on to lay a soothing hand on the fevered brow of our politics), since a contest between between candidates of modest mien and low negatives would make it unlikely his independent run could exceed that of a Ross Perot-style spoiler.

Be sure to read Frank Rich's The Republicans Find Their Obama in yesterday's New York Times for a fuller discussion of the Huckabee phenomenon.
See also, New poll shows big shake-up in GOP race (CNN, 2007-12-10)

2008: Romney, Clinton health care plans similar, say the experts

Those of us who argue that the Hillary Clinton administration, should it come to be, will be a continuation of the Reagan-Bush I-Clinton I policies -- militarist, corporatist, anti-middle class -- have new evidence in Hillary's vaunted "universal" health insurance plan, like the proposal she backed during Bill Clinton's term, essentially health care for insurance companies.

Mitt Romney loves to take swipes at Democratic front-runner Clinton, Reuters says, calling her plan, which would require every American to have health insurance, "European-style socialized medicine" inspired by "European bureaucracies."

But experts say Clinton's plan borrows heavily from one Romney signed into law when he was governor of Massachusetts, making the state the first in the nation with near-universal health insurance.

"Hillary's plan is just like the Massachusetts plan. There's not a whole lot of difference," says Jonathan Gruber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economics professor who was an adviser to Romney on the state's health care reform law.

And, what do you know, as it did with the Bill Clinton campaign, corporate money is flooding Senator Clinton's coffers. Perhaps it won't come as a complete surprise to the Hillary-the-inevitable crowd, then, when progressives, labor activists and the peace movement start shopping around for a third party alternative a year from now.

The rest of the story: Reuters
See, also: Are Clinton, Obama, Edwards All The Same?: Despite What Fans Say, Differences Between Top Three Dems Aren't Clear by Katha Pollitt

2008: Non-candidate Fred Thompson #1 with Republican voters

So shallow is the GOP bench that non-announced candidate Fred Thompson now leads in the polls. Thompson, sometime senator, sometime actor, sometime lobbyist, sometime simple country lawyer and all-time blowhard, has turned vaporous politics, folksiness and a non-threatening sex-appeal into a serious shot at the presidency.

Call him the Republican Barack Obama.

Rudy Giuliani still manages to grip second place with a campaign targeted squarely on appeals to the "be afraid" crowd. He's also holding his own in fund-raising, though its hard to see how an unlikeable, cross-dressing, thrice-married, baby-killing social moderate can last through the convention, no matter how many times he cites 9/11.

Cult member Mitt Romney edges out hapless John McCain for third place, but Romney has had to loan money to his campaign in order to stay viable, while cash-poor McCain is reduced to laying off staff and curbing appearances. McCain has apparently decided to revert to the Iowa-New Hampshire-South Carolina boost strategy that became moot the moment the big states moved up their primary dates to get in on all that campaign dough.

Likable Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee leads the also-rans and might even have a shot but for the prospect of late and later entrances by Thompson and non-stop speaker Newt Gingrich.

According to Rasmussen Reports:

After weeks of turmoil and change, the race for the Republican Presidential nomination has stabilized.

Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson remains on top in Rasmussen Reports national polling with 27% support. That's unchanged from a week ago. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is three points behind at 24%.

Thompson has a 16-point advantage over Giuliani among conservatives while Giuliani holds an even larger edge among moderate voters. However, in the race for the Republican Presidential nomination, there are always more conservative voters than moderates.

A separate survey found that Thompson is currently viewed as the most conservative of all GOP candidates. Giuliani remains the best liked candidate. Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republicans now have a favorable opinion of America's Mayor. Thompson's numbers among the GOP faithful have been moving in the opposite direction. Sixty-four percent (64%) of GOP voters have a favorable opinion of the actor while just 12% have an unfavorable view.

This week's national GOP poll also finds former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney with a one-point edge over Arizona Senator John McCain for the fourth time in six weeks. Romney and McCain were tied during the other two weeks. Now, the numbers are 13% for Romney and 12% for McCain.

Romney is viewed favorably by 58% of Republican voters while 30% have a less flattering opinion. McCain is viewed favorably by 55% and unfavorably by 40% of Republicans.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is atop the second tier at 3%. Six other candidates--Senator Sam Brownback, Congressman Ron Paul, Congressman Tom Tancredo, former Governor Tommy Thompson, Congressman Duncan Hunter, and former Governor Jim Gilmore split 4% of the vote. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure.