Gary Corseri: In this winter of our discontent, the war clouds gather and austerity miseries grind the souls of those who have no homes, or broken homes. We’re in a poisoned mine shaft and the canaries are singing. … Can we interpret their varied notes in time?
Heart Attack Iraq
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Tom Hayden: Obama, the black candidate, the liberal candidate, the anti-war candidate, the candidate with not a moment of military experience, certainly saw a strategic opportunity to focus laser-like on bin Laden, from the 2008 primaries right through the first two years of his presidency.
Assassination of Al Qaeda Leaders Keep Americans in the Dark
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Sherwood Ross: It is hardly surprising that President Obama ordered the assassinations of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki since the last thing he wants is to bring any leader of al-Qaeda to trial.
The Lies That Sold Obama’s Escalation in Afghanistan
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Gareth Porter: The Obama administration has relied heavily, of course, on the widespread impression that the Taliban regime was somehow mixed up with Osama bin Laden’s plotting the 9/11 attacks.
“Victory” Is the Verbal Equivalent of a Yeti
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Tom Engelhardt: If you haven’t joined the all-volunteer military, any of our seventeen intelligence outfits, the Pentagon, the weapons companies and hire-a-gun corporations associated with it, or some other part of the National Security Complex, America’s distant wars go on largely without you (at least until the bills come due).
RUR: Republican Unilateral Robots
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Jerry Drucker: All GOP robot models are programmed with specific daily attack/talking points and are preset to be repeated endlessly, often using the very same Frank Luntz power point words of the talking points.
Ding Dong, but Which is Dead?
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James Livingston: The man was waiting and wanting to be captured, assuming the American legal tradition would protect him, even in a time of war.
The Ghost of Geronimo
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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?
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.
From Geronimo to Bin Laden
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Georgianne Nienaber: The Militarization of Indian Country examines in dreadful detail how the military has poisoned, murdered, and exterminated parts of indigenous populations. It is carefully organized into sections examining the deep ties between the military and indigenous people, how the economy drives the military and vice-versa, the military’s appropriation of Indian lands, and a somewhat hopeful prognosis for future relations if America rethinks her priorities.
‘Unprovoked’ Attacks, From 1812 to 9/11
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Ivan Eland: American history vindicates the old saying that “truth is the first casualty of war,” but the passage of time should allow a republic to undertake a more honest and dispassionate examination of historical events. It rarely does, with truth being swept under the rug in favor of assuming uncaused indignities.
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.
Bigger than bin Laden
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Dick Price: The issue is much bigger than the killing — in your name and my name — of Osama bin Laden. The bigger issue is our endless warmaking, the callous assumption that the United States has the right to bomb or strafe or attack anyplace it pleases.
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.
Bin Laden Capture; Right Wing Nightmare
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Paul Hogarth: One of the Navy Seals who carried out the mission was a so-called “anchor baby” – the son of undocumented Mexican immigrants, who the American Taliban wants to strip of U.S. citizenship rights.
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.
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.
The Purloined Constitution: Or How to Look Only Forward and Still Look Like an Ass
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by David Swanson – The wonderful thing about big lies is their kettle logic. The term, of course, derives from the story of the man who offered several mutually incompatible excuses for returning his friend’s kettle in damaged condition: “It broke too easily.” “It was like that when I got it.” “I improved it for [...]
The Delusional Legacy Tour Continues
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by Denis Campbell – Since he truly cares not a whit, let’s plan a real tone deaf legacy tour for George Bush and the team. The only thing missing from the current trip is bomber tour jackets made by Bangladeshi school children earning $1 a week in wages. Is it possible for one man to [...]
Lessons on the Battlefield Need to Be Learned at a Higher Level
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General David Petraeus, the former military commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and author of the military’s most recent counterinsurgency manual, learned the lessons of the successful British counterinsurgency experience in Malaya in the 1950s. He was able to reduce the violence in Iraq by instituting a policy of U.S. military restraint in that country.
Obama Should Drop Plans to Escalate Afghan War; Send Peace Corps Instead
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by Sherwood Ross – President-elect Obama should drop his plans to escalate the war in Afghanistan, a country that never attacked America, out of pity for a helpless civilian population that will only suffer increasing misery from an expanded fight against the Taliban and its allies.
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This Jobs Crisis Is Obama’s Kryptonite
David Love: Obama can solve this whole thing tomorrow if he just calls for a new New Deal program already. But will he have the courage? Time will tell, but the President, like this sad nation, is short on time.