Let’s allow those already in the country to stay and contribute without fear. Give them citizenship and collect taxes vs forcing them to hide. Then put in place a policy that treats the future arrivals the same as the laureates.
After bin Laden, a Reflection
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Lydia Howell: Now is the time for Americans to re-set our moral compass and demand an end to and accountability for torture of prisoners in the “war on terrorism” — at Guantanamo or at the remaining “black sites” in allied countries.
Let’s Call It ‘VO Day’ and Get Out
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Ivan Eland: Although the Obama administration has said that the killing of Osama bin Laden is not a VE or VJ day—which brought a return to normal times after World War II ended—perhaps it should be.
Afghanistan: A Moment of Opportunity for Obama
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Tom Hayden: The targeted killing of Osama bin Laden is powerful evidence that terrorist threats, both real and hypothetical, can be more effectively suppressed by special forces operations than by deploying hundreds of thousands of American soldiers on the ground.
Challenging The President’s Credibility
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Anthony Samad: We didn’t know at the time but President was intolerant to Trump’s politics of mass distraction. He had bigger fish on the hook, the REAL politic of mass destruction, Osama Bin Laden in his sights.
U.S. Refusal of 2001 Taliban Offer Gave bin Laden a Free Pass
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Gareth Porter: When George W. Bush rejected a Taliban offer to have Osama bin Laden tried by a moderate group of Islamic states in mid- October 2001, he gave up the only opportunity the United States would have to end bin Laden’s terrorist career for the next nine years.
The Death of Bin Laden
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Tom Hayden: While a triumph, the death of Bin Ladin is not likely to end the Long War on Terror, now spreading from Iraq to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and a dozen other theaters of counterterrorism.
Tax-Deductible Invasions
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Walter Brasch: If 60 million Americans want war, and the cost is a mere $300 million a week, then each supporter would have about $5 per week deducted from his or her paycheck.
Reliving the Soviet Experience in Afghanistan
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Tom Engelhardt: If, as 2011 begins, you want to peer into the future, enter my time machine, strap yourself in, and head for the past, that laboratory for all developments of our moment and beyond.
A Radical Solution for the War in Afghanistan
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Ivan Eland: The problem is that the U.S. goal in Afghanistan—although President Obama has reduced it from George W. Bush’s instituting democracy to merely stabilizing the country—is still too ambitious.
Be the Peace You Want to See on Earth
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David Swanson: I’ve never found any opponent of war who didn’t believe there was evil in the world. After all, we oppose war because it is evil. Did Martin Luther King, Jr., stand idle in the face of threats? Are you serious?
WikiLeaks Versus the Empire
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Tom Hayden: Informed sources say that the current deluge of WikiLeaks documents will continue for another week and grow in significance. Why is this drama important? Not because of “life-threatening” leaks as claimed by the establishment, but because the closed doors of power need to be open to public review.
The Drain of Blood, Taxes and Hope in Afghanistan
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Tom Hayden: Persistent waffling on dates for American troop withdrawals has eroded any remaining patience with the Obama White House among peace activists and voters, a majority of whom favors a timeline for US troop withdrawals.
U.S. Wars Are Bankrupting the World
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David Swanson: The endless and infinite “war on terra” is bankrupting the planet. I don’t mean moral bankruptcy; that goes without saying. I mean financial bankruptcy.
Tea Party America’s Al-Qaeda?
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Steve Ybarra: The Tea Party, like Al-Qeada, has no head but rather is run by many small groups (cells). It, like Al-Qeada, is ultra-conservative with each group deciding what essential documents (like the Qur’an) mean.
What to Do About the Wars
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Ivan Eland: Most analysts believe that the U.S. government will renegotiate the status of forces agreement with any new Iraqi government—making the heroic assumption that there is a new Iraqi government by next year—to leave some forces permanently in that country.
Lessons of the UNITE HERE-SEIU Deal
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Randy Shaw: The SEIU-UNITE HERE conflict also shows the peril of veteran labor leaders quietly deferring to destructive decisions by top union officials, a lesson that was supposed to have been learned from activists’ experience with Cesar Chavez and the UFW in the 1970’s.
Main Effect of the WikiLeaks Documents Is Political
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Ivan Eland: So the only thing the WikiLeaks documents reveal is how persistent the post-9/11 war and nation-building fever continues to be among the foreign policy elite—even in the face of the dismal results on the ground for almost a decade and a majority opinion in America that the war is not worth fighting.
Pentagon’s Growing Robot Capability an Ominous Development
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Sherwood Ross: The Pentagon is rapidly improving its ability to fight wars with robots. This capability is “bringing about the most profound transformation of warfare since the advent of the atom bomb,” says Scientific American, and raises “a host of ethical and legal issues.”
Soccer Bombing Should Not Prompt More U.S. Meddling
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Ivan Eland: The synchronized and unconscionable bombings by the Somali group al-Shabab—of people doing nothing more than watching soccer games in Kampala, Uganda—counterintuitively illustrates why the United States should not be fighting Islamic militancy worldwide. Many of America’s editorial writers are screaming for stepped-up U.S. counterterrorism strikes in Somalia against the group. This option would be the worst possible course of action.
A Hundred Years of War
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Joseph Palermo: The invasion of Iraq was the greatest terrorist recruitment program ever. It destabilized one of the most important big cities in the Arab world. It fueled pan-Arab nationalism as well as jihad against the West. It caused a sectarian bloodbath because of the jolt given to power relations by external military force.
Bhutto:The Film — Heartbreaking, Thought-Provoking History Lesson
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Georgianne Nienaber: Bhutto: The Film presents the story of a woman whose strength of personality and conviction totally dominates the constraints of a fundamentalist religious society where women had no intrinsic value. The voice over of Bhutto describing her birth is the ghost in the room. Her extended family was in mourning that Benazir entered the world in a society where the only desire is that the firstborn be a boy. “Dogs and cats were giving birth to boys,” she narrates from the grave.
What Obama Must Do, and Cannot
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Tom Hayden: Obama may succeed in withdrawing 100,000 American troops from Iraq this year, and the rest by 2012. But even this goal faces opposition from the Green Zone to the Beltway, and any peace dividend will be swallowed by Afghanistan and the Long War.
The Wars in Yemen: More Complex Than We’re Being Told
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Carl Bloice: With Al Qaeda now in the picture and linked to an attempted physical attack on the U.S., the Obama Administration, obsessively carrying on the “war against terrorism,” has suddenly become enmeshed in still another civil war.
Learning the Wrong Lessons From the Attempted Bombing
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Ivan Eland: Although Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano’s stance that “the system” worked buckled under withering ridicule, she was right—but only if the non-governmental aspects of that system are included. The government’s performance and after-incident measures are ridiculous and even ill-advised.
No Chance Obama’s War in Afghanistan Will Succeed
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Sherwood Ross: If Afghans are dying by the thousands and Pakistanis have become refugees by the millions to ensure Obama’s political survival, the U.S. has lost any vestige of moral authority.
Thinking Outside the Box: What Obama Could Have Said
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nstead of resorting to outdated thinking, what if Obama had drawn upon modern instruments of international and interpersonal relations? What if he had adopted a program of change in the way the United States relates to the world?
Thank the President for Waking the Sleeping Giant
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There were more people protesting in the streets this week than we have seen in a long time: at least 80 communities rose up. I asked Jayne to thank the President for waking the sleeping giant and assured her that we will do all we can to make sure he does not get the money from Congress to escalate this senseless war.
Half Measures and Lukewarm “Reform” Won’t Save the Middle Class
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The 30-year class war the rich launched against the working people in this country (and reached its apogee during the George W. Bush years), has left the middle class reeling and wounded. Only bold federal action that puts something concrete in the palms of middle-class Americans can begin to turn these dire social conditions around.
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The Ghost of Geronimo
Marcus Daniel: What’s most immediately stunning about the decision to call the mission to hunt down Bin Laden “Geronimo,” is its sheer stupidity and insensitivity. How could this happen? What fool suggested this code word?