"That which you do not resist and mobilize to stop you will learn – or be forced – to accept.”
To the Anti-War Movement in the United States:
Barack Obama is sending a surge of 20,000 troops to Afghanistan.
An antiwar movement that does not move immediately to oppose the Obama doctrine of shifting the central front of the war on terror to Afghanistan, no longer deserves to be called an anti-war movement.read more...
The World Can’t Wait organizes people living in the United States to repudiate and stop the fascist direction initiated by the Bush Regime, including: the murderous, unjust and illegitimate occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan; the global “war of terror” of torture, rendition and spying; and the culture of bigotry, intolerance and greed. This direction cannot and will not be reversed by leaders who tell us to seek common ground with fascists, religious fanatics, and empire. It can only be possible by the people building a community of resistance - an independent mass movement of people - acting in the interests of humanity to stop, and demand prosecution, of these crimes.
This week President Barack Obama once again followed in the fascist footprints of his predecessor, George W. Bush. On Tuesday, February 17, 2009 Obama made official what he had promised during his presidential campaign--he is escalating the war in Afghanistan with the announced deployment of 17,000 additional troops to that war-torn nation. The Obama administration, as the new representative of U.S. imperialism, is intent on “winning” the Afghanistan war. Obama portrays the war in this Central Asian country as the good war or the real “war on terror.” This war was begun by Bush in 2001, but will continue under a president that claims to be an agent of change. What has changed when the new president is intent on escalating the war in Afghanistan on behalf of U.S. imperialism?
There are currently 37,000 US troops in the country (this does not include military contractors) but Obama has determined this is not enough to “win” the war. The additional troops to be sent by the new administration will include a Marine Expeditionary Brigade to be sent this spring, and an Army Stryker Brigade to be sent later this summer. There will also be a need for additional support troops and equipment. In his announcement Obama said, "This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires.” This is in keeping with Obama’s campaign criticism that the Bush regime was not putting in enough of an effort to win the war in Afghanistan.
"For months now, the right has been in a frenzy over the supposedly imminent return of the Fairness Doctrine, an old FCC regulation that mandated equal time for opposing viewpoints on public airwaves. Recent statements by a handful of Democrats who said they support the idea of reinstituting the rule, or something like it, have only fueled conservatives' fear that liberals are planning to censor talk radio and the Internet.
"Of course, as I've pointed out before, the chance the doctrine will actually make a comeback is right around nil, as it has been since the first time this became an issue, back in the Clinton administration. Certainly the Legislative Branch is decidedly unlikely to do anything -- when I asked him about it in 2007, Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, told me, 'To be honest, I barely even know what it is.' (A quote Manley gave to the conservative Washington Times earlier this year was even better; he told the paper, 'We have enough real problems facing this country that we don't need to invent ones that don't exist.')
"So lately conservatives have been focusing on President Obama and the FCC as the instrument through which the Fairness Doctrine will make its inevitable comeback -- nevermind that it didn't happen during former President Bill Clinton's eight years in office. But on Wednesday, a spokesman for Obama made clear that the administration has no such plans, telling FoxNews.com, 'As the president stated during the campaign, he does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated.'
…
"Unfortunately, the latest news is unlikely to put an end to all this manufactured outrage..."
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What Koppelman is doing here, of course, is aiming his fire at the GOP for making a mountain out of a molehill and he is congratulating Obama for his opposition to the Fairness Doctrine. But in "defending" Obama against the right-wing crazies, what Alex misses completely is the essence of what's going on.
Anybody who thought the nightmare of renditions, indefinite detention, and torture would be over when Barack Obama replaced George Bush ought to take a hard look at the case of Binyam Mohamed.
In 2002 Mohamed, a 31-year-old Ethiopian with refugee status in Britain, became a victim of rendition while visiting Pakistan. Rendition is the U.S. practice of snatching people overseas and throwing them into secret CIA prisons, or moving them to third countries where they may be tortured and/or killed. Rendition began in 1993 under Democratic President Clinton and was taken to a whole other level under Bush, when it became known as “extraordinary rendition.”
“Rendition” is the term to describe the secret kidnapping of people the CIA may believe to be linked to “terrorism.” Such abductees are then sent to undisclosed nations which cooperate with the U.S. where they have often been tortured. This practice received widespread criticism during the regime of George W. Bush, especially in Europe.
But now President Barack Obama has issued an executive order which allows this heinous practice to continue. The wording is hidden in the order Obama issued on January 22 entitled “Executive Order – Ensuring Lawful Interrogations.” A quick reading of it may lead one to say, “Well, good, at last the Bush torture years are finally past.” The order requires that interrogation of prisoners must follow the no-torture rules of the Army Field Manual, the Geneva Conventions and various other conventions making torture illegal.
BUT, and it’s a big “but,” after stating in Section 4 (a) that “The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future,” Obama goes on to write in Section 2(g) that “The terms "detention facilities" and "detention facility" in section 4(a) of this order do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis.” That means rendition facilities, although so far the CIA has had a very flexible view of what “short-term” means.
German citizen Khaled El-Masri tried to sue the CIA for wrongfully kidnapping and abusing him. But in May of 2006, a U.S. District Court dismissed the case on the grounds it would jeopardize state secrets. Secrets like the U.S. really does torture.
By Cynthia McKinney, Member of World Can't Wait's Advisory Board
On Thursday, January 29th, I sent President Obama this message:
"Mr. President: The Bush Administration lied to the people in pursuit of war. As a result, at least one million Iraqis and thousands of U.S. soldiers are dead. Thousands more are maimed. The stature of the U.S. is severely damaged. The U.S. Constitution is in shreds after signing statements, wiretaps, and torture. Your obligation is to investigate and bring to justice those who violated U.S. and international law, such as the torture treaty. Failure to do so makes you complicit in their crimes."
On Wednesday, January 28th, I sat in front of the television and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Exactly what I've been saying, myself. But it was coming from an unexpected source: the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak. I wrote down every word. He said that the United Nations has proof that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld knowingly approved of torture as a policy for the United States. He said that President Barack Obama has a responsibility to investigate and prosecute those who condoned, conducted, or approved of torture.
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