Sir; in short, Mr. Obama has not thought through any of the situation in Iraq. Unlike our current president, he will be the victim of events, and not their master. Now that he is stuck he is stuck, and if he can get us out, it will be no less than three years and six months after taking office. You must understand the ethic at work here, and it is one illustrated by new Mccain adds. It does not matter what the truth is, so the truth must be dodged like every other piece of garbage that is thrown. Kennedy got us into Vietnam big time, and wanted out, as his best General advised. He could not get out without being tarred as soft on communism, so many more thousands had to die, over an idea. Let me tell you what the problem is, short, sweet, and simple. Normally, we use ideas to think, with. But we are so manipulated by ideas, that we let our ideas do our thinking for us. It is not just ideologies that we follow, but ideologues; people captured by their ideals, and no longer able to weigh objective benfits against costs. No matter what Mr. Obama does, he will be called soft of terrorism the way Kennedy did not want to labeled Soft on Communism. They are just people on the other end of that hate. From my perspective, they are all republicans. All they need is a gas station or a quicky mart, and they could be GOP. But so long as our ideas get us into situations we cannot get out of, people will die, and the world will be more unstable.

Obama stands for imperial war, power and deception

By Nasir Khan

What President Obama decided was no surprise. The Bushite high officials and generals in his administration had made it all possible. Bush and  Cheney may have already sent their congratulations to their worthy successor, who knows?
With the limited resources we have at our disposal, an existential reality, we who believe in human values and respect for human life should stand up, and say loudly and clearly: No to imperialist war in Afghanistan, No to fascism, No to warmongers.

Can we do that? Yes, we can. The people can.

We can defeat the warmongers and their criminal plans. I believe, the vast majority of ordinary Americans will be with us when they become aware of what crimes are being perpetrated in their name for the wars of aggression under the cover of false pretexts and misleading propaganda. A big task though, but we should do what we can because we love peace and hold humanity in respect. The war criminals have to use the rhetoric of ‘good wars' though, to deceive their people to gain support for their criminal wars and human bloodshed.

If we can inform the people by our continuous struggle about the reality of war, the motives of war and the profiteers of war, then and only then the ordinary man and woman will stop supporting genocidal wars.
The military-industrial complex in the United States has economic interests to carry on such criminal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

What Obama is doing now is part of the same game.

For the warmongers, weapon manufacturers, war contractors and the rest of the war profiteers war is a very lucrative business. The loss of human life, either of the invading soldiers or their victims has no significance. It is part of the game.

Obama's turnaround is nothing new. Every single president finds himself doing the bidding of the Pentagon and Wall Street. And that, Mr. Hightower, is exactly what we've seen.

I don't think Obama has any choice to make as to whether he continues along the path of perpetual war. I suspect he is often reminded of what happened to JFK following his defiance of the Military Industial Complex.

Re: minemule
Minemute is right on target. The author of this article doesn't seem to realize that it is not a Democratic or Republican issue: it is an Israeli issue, which means that the great majority of the money, power, and influence of the American Jewish community will ensure that the pres. and congress salute and take their orders.

As asked... How many more tens of billions of dollars should we let them siphon from our public treasury to fuel their war policy? How much more of our country's good name will they squander on what is essentially a civil war?

This war need not have taken more Americans. This war need only the experts, a handful, to follow and take into custody the leader of the terrorists without blowing up cities, countries, and ruining lives. If our country does not have, or has not had the ability to do this, alone, without War... something is wrong. We need NOT place men and women into harms way, but we need the strength to pull out, stay out, regardless of threats. How many more deaths do we have to add to the 911 tragedy? How many Americans are doing without because we can't handle our own business, and let big business do its thing. From War to Market! And today, they report that women, the underprivledged in CA. no longer can have mammograms??? And today, they report that women under the new health care bill will get everything they need. Tell me, in this country who do we believe?