How Long It Took
by Alexander Cockburn
How long does it take a mild-mannered, antiwar, black professor of constitutional law, trained as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, to become an enthusiastic sponsor of targeted assassinations, "decapitation" strategies and remote-control bombing of mud houses at the far end of the globe?
There's nothing surprising here. As far back as President Woodrow Wilson in the early 20th century, American liberalism has been swift to flex imperial muscle and whistle u ...
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Posted by: Paul M. Petkovsek
Comment: #1
Fri May 22, 2009 7:08 PM
The Afghans beat the British and the Russians. I can't imagine why we would fare any better. Any army that stretches its supply lines deep into enemy territory usually does not fare well. That is what the Russians did to Napoleon and Hitler, and what Sam Houston did to Santa Anna. We need to quit fighting wars on the other side of the world.
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Posted by: michael nola
Comment: #2
Fri May 22, 2009 8:46 AM
In some ways, the election of Obama will grease the skids for yet more slaughter of innocent civilians and combatants who do hate us but have no capability of destroying America; we have seamlessly drifted from fighting Al Qaeda to the Taliban ( a group that nothing to do with 9-11, just as Iraq did not) and noone seems to notice, or care. Obama is clearly more urbane, intelligent and more humane than the last batch of war mongers and yet he is all too ready to inflict carnage on those with whom we differ, but only if they're weak; please note that North Korea, which has flaunted every agreement it ever made, most especially with bad ass Bush, has developed nuclear weapons and has launched missles capable of hitting our ally Japan all with total impunity and why? Because they have a large, well equiped military occupying difficult to fight terrain and they know to an absolute certainty the U.S. will never attack because there is nothing to gain at the cost they could extract. We are an empire, and one that is the most cowardly the world has ever seen, but that will not stop us from overreach and the inevitable collapse that awaits all who desire world domination.
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Posted by: Masako
Comment: #3
Sat May 23, 2009 8:25 PM
Sometimes you hit the target right on, Cockburn. Then again, sometimes you are lost in space. This column seems to reflect that latter incarnation. Why don't you just invite someone to assassinate Obama? Let me ask you, do you think Kennedy's replacement was better? And how about the replacement for the other Kennedy? It is an odd thing that writers who have never administered anything larger than a household, if you've even done that, can be looked to for critique of administrators of nations. It's a whole different world when you have to deal with reality. You, Mr. Cockburn, have a license to opine that global warming is a fiction even as the planet proceeds to burn up, just like Peter Duesberg could opine that AIDS was not caused by HIV while real people were dying because they could not get the antivirals that keep them alive today. You get to say whatever you want, and to your credit not a whole lot of people buy it because your brand is not exactly in favor. But the fact is that sitting back and criticizing with a bunch of easy-fling accusations in a column is awfully easy to do, isn't it? Why don't you sit back awhile and absorb a little reality before you accuse, so you don't lock yourself in?
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