President Obama is asking for over $33 billion more to escalate the Afghanistan war. Jan. 13, 2010 (Reuters) — U.S. President Barack Obama plans to ask Congress for $33 billion in emergency war funding for a major U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan this year, defense officials said on Wednesday.The money, mainly for the deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and other war costs in the current 2010 fiscal year, would come on top of Obama’s expected request to increase the Pentagon’s overall budget in fiscal 2011 to a record $708 billion, the officials said on condition of anonymity.
Remember the concept known as blowback? The U.S. does something that angers someone in the Middle East, and terror attack threats rise. It’s happening again. Blackwater is acquitted, we escalate the war in Afghanistan and move it into Pakistan, and suddenly terror threats in the UK and the U.S. are on the rise.
(In video above) Blackwater continues to operate violently in Afghanistan and Pakistan and surreptitiously in other countries; despite their reckless violence in Iraq. On September 16, 2007, employees of Blackwater opened fire and killed at least 14 Iraqis in the infamous Nisour Square massacre. The youngest victim was Nine-year-old Ali Kinani, who died from a gunshot wound to the head. In this interview . . . . Ali’s father Mohammed talks about his son and the shootings. Two and a half years after the shootings, Mohammed may be the one man standing between Blackwater and total impunity.
Authors of Bush torture memos to be cleared of misconduct The men who advised former President Bush to waterboard detainees and deprive them of sleep will be cleared of charges of professional misconduct by a Justice Department ethics report. The report, which has yet to be released, states that Jay Bybee, now a federal appellate court judge, and John Yoo, now a law professor, showed “poor judgment,” but will not face legal action for their advocacy of harsh interrogation tactics. Previously, the probe concluded that the two men violated professional obligations, meaning Yoo could be barred from practicing law and Bybee could be impeached. Now, the brief states that because Yoo was giving advice to the president on a national security matter, Yoo should not be held accountable for his actions as it would have a chilling effect on advice provided to future presidents. In other words, treasonous activity is off limits for prosecution if it was done for the POTUS.
None of this is helping me believe in the “change” and “hope” we were looking forward to. As a result . . . .
Attempted Terror Attack Likely, Intelligence Chiefs Warn Feb 02 2010 An attempted ‘al Qaeda’ attack against the United States is a high possibility in the next 3 to 6 months, the nations’ top intelligence chiefs testified today. “An attempted attack, the priority is certain, I would say,” Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. CIA director Leon Panetta and FBI director Robert Mueller both told the committee they agreed with Blair’s stark assessment, when asked by committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
None of this is helping our safety and security. We need to have investigations into how we were led into war in Iraq in the first place. But we can’t even seem to get half our senators to realize that people (actual people, not corporations) deserve trials.
Senators push for 9/11 trials in military court 02 Feb 2010 A bipartisan group of nine U.S. senators on Tuesday offered legislation to force special military [show] trials for the accused September 11, 2001, conspirators, further complicating President Barack Obama’s bid to try them in a civilian court. Mounting bipartisan opposition [has grown] to trying the suspect of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four others in a federal criminal court in lower Manhattan.
Chilcot Inquiry News: Clare Short: Tony Blair lied and misled parliament in build-up to Iraq war. Blair ‘lied’ over war preparations — Attorney general ‘misled’ government — Brown ‘marginalised and unhappy’. Clare Short at the Iraq war inquiry – as it happened. (where is our Iraq War investigation? The UK has had two of them already. See more from George Monbiot here. (Published in the Guardian 2nd February 2010):
“What else can you do? When the entire administration is engaged in a criminal act, when there is no clear separation of powers between the government and the judiciary, when those appointed to hold the government to account are as scary as a litter of kittens, where do you turn? Do you appeal to the Attorney-General’s office to prosecute itself?”
We need to have an inquiry like this in the United States. There are questions that need to be answered, such as those surrounding 9/11 intelligence, whether the Bush administration committed willful negligence that led to the attacks that day and exactly what were the intelligence mistakes that led to the Iraq war, and who made them. Until these questions are answered, no accurate U.S. history book can ever be written and negative repercussions from the Bush years will continue to be felt.
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