Norman Solomon: Whether or not Obama’s vicious assault on Social Security is successful, it has already jolted an unprecedented number of longtime supporters. It should be the last straw, suffused with illumination.
Why School Test Resistance May Be About to Sweep the Nation
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Mark Naison: As high-stakes tests have proliferated in our public schools, and are increasingly used as the basis of closing schools and firing teachers, more and more people despair of challenging policies that have bi-partisan support, are championed by the media, have the nation’s economic elite pressing for their implementation.
Some Big, Civilization-Shaping Ideas from Religion
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Robert Fuller: Religious ideals, decoupled from political pressure, have seldom been enough to prevent predation or to arrest the cycles of vengeance that tend to ensue.
This Does Not End Well: Escaping Afghanistan
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John Peeler: An agonizing series of missteps by U.S. troops in Afghanistan show us how precarious is our hold there, reinforcing the idea that we just don’t belong there, that we don’t respect the Afghani people.
Romney Ignites Democratic Base
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Randy Shaw: Barack Obama’s campaign has lots of money, but there is no way it could match Romney’s success at getting this base to align with the President.
Occupy War! Stay After the Rose Parade to Hear Cindy Sheehan Speak!
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Steve Fine: While the Occupy Movement has been busy targeting the dominance and corruption of the 1% on the domestic side, it has inadvertently given those same people a massive free pass on the foreign policy side. This needs to change.
Sudan’s Lessons for Iraq
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Ivan Eland: The U.S. occupation has grown so unpopular in Iraq that those same receptive Iraqi politicians, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, are scared to publicly advocate a long-term U.S. military presence.
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.
Obama’s Disappointing Peace Plan
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Rebecca Griffin: Unfortunately, the president’s plan allows the war to last indefinitely and leaves in place almost twice as many troops as when he came in office. The American and Afghan people will pay the price for prolonging this disastrous policy.
Fearful “Liberals” Prolong the Corruption
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Jim Fuller: Rather than being genuine political liberals and/or progressives, those self-deluding, unquestioning Obama supporters are far more closely related to the members of the various Tea Party organizations than they are to anyone on the political left.
The New War Congress: An Obama-Republican War Alliance?
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David Swanson: The most silvery of possible silver linings here may lie in the possibility of a reborn peace movement. George W. Bush’s new memoir actually reveals the surprising strength the peace movement had achieved by 2006.
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.
State of Denial: After the Big Leak, Spinning for War
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Norman Soloman: And if, these days, “U.S. troops in the field” are not as inclined to express “frustration at having to fight a war without sufficient resources,” the latest boosts of Pentagon outlays for war in Afghanistan merely reflect the unhinged escalation of a war effort that should not exist.
Taliban’s Time Horizon Longer Than America’s
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Ivan Eland: The only solution is to cut the U.S. losses and leave Afghanistan for good. The good news is that removal of U.S. occupation forces from a Muslim land might actually reduce blowback anti-U.S. terrorism around the world.
Universal Healthcare is Still Needed
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Is Universal Healthcare still on our radar now that the Obama Administration and congress has passed the healthcare reform bill?
Pay for the War, or Just Call It Off?
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Finally, the worst option is for the government to run the presses and print money. Wars tend to cause inflation, and printing money makes things worse.
Kicking the Can Down the Street
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I am afraid to say that President Obama is even risking his presidency by this decision. From this point forward, he will lack the support of the rank and file Democratic majority and become dependent on the very Republicans whose highest priority is to defeat him in 2012.
Biggest State Party to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan
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This week begins with a significant new straw in the political wind for President Obama to consider. The California Democratic Party has just sent him a formal and clear message: Stop making war in Afghanistan.
Obama Still Doesn’t Quite Get It
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U.S. meddling in the Muslim world and elsewhere continues because politically powerful interest groups benefit from the policy at the expense of the general public.
Rethink Afghanistan
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Some say we cannot afford to leave Afghanistan. In fact, my opponent argues we must eradicate corruption there because – ‘… the United States has invested too many troops and too much treasure to fail.’ I say – We cannot afford to stay in Afghanistan because we will bankrupt our country.”
Will the Out of Iraq Caucus Live Up to Its Name?
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After the near comatose nod to escalation of US troops in Afghanistan, passage of H.R. 2346, the 97-billion Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009, is in doubt in the House – not because of the strength of the anti-war movement, which morphed into the elect-Obama-movement, nor due to the high suicide rate amongst veterans, but because [...]
The March of Folly, Continued
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To understand what’s up with President Obama as he escalates the war in Afghanistan, there may be no better place to look than a book published 25 years ago. The March of Folly, by historian Barbara Tuchman, is a chilling assessment of how very smart people in power can do very stupid things – how [...]
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Obama’s Peace Prize Continues Tradition of Dubious Choices
Only a few commentators, including the president, seemed to sheepishly realize the irony of his receiving the prize shortly after escalating one war and while continuing to fight another. You would have thought that the escalation alone would have been enough to satisfy all of the warheads at home; but to stanch the domestic fallout from being associated with too much peace, Obama, when accepting the peace award, gave a speech defending war.