Pakistan

By David Swanson

Sometimes it's relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina, sometimes it's hate crimes legislation, sometimes it's education funding for veterans. One day soon it will be free kittens for children with cancer. It's always something. It's always something that could pass just fine on its own. But it's included as lipstick on the recurring and ever-fattening pigs of U.S. politics: war funding bills.

By David Swanson

That was not a peace prize acceptance speech. That was an infomercial for war. President Obama took the peace prize home with him, but left behind in Oslo his praise for war, his claims for war, and his view of an alternative and more peaceful approach to the world consisting of murderous economic sanctions.

Some highlights:

"There are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened of cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women — some known, some obscure to all but those they help — to be far more deserving of this honor than I."

Yet, you did argue. You argued by accepting the prize … and then making a false case for war:

Af-Pak War Racket: The Obama Illusion Comes Crashing Down
The economic elite have escalated their attack on the U.S. public by surging military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
By David DeGraw | Amped Status

As Obama announced plans for escalating the war effort, it has become clear that the Obama Illusion has taken yet another horrifying turn. Before explaining how the Af-Pak surge is a direct attack on the US public, let’s peer through the illusion and look at the reality of the situation.

Now that the much despised George W. Bush is out of the way and a more popular figurehead is doing PR for Dick Cheney’s right-hand military leader Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is leading his second AF-Pak surge now, and with long time Bush family confidant Robert Gates still running the Defense Department, the masters of war have never had it so good.

Barack Obama, the anti-war candidate, has proven to be a perfect decoy for the military industrial complex. Consider all the opposition and bad press Bush received when he announced the surge in Iraq. Then consider this: Read more.

By Dave LIndorff

There are so many things wrong with Obama’s “New and Improved” Afghanistan War that it’s hard to know where to begin, but I guess the place to start is with his premise.

If America needs to be fighting in Afghanistan because Al Qaeda planned and launched the 9-11 attacks from there back in 2001, as the president claimed in his lackluster address to the cadets at West Point last week, then we would have to assume either that Al Qaeda is still there, or that if we were not there fighting, that Al Qaeda would be back to plan more attacks.

Pentagon's War Pitch Belied by Taliban-Qaeda Conflict
By Gareth Porter | IPS

U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen argued in Senate Testimony Wednesday that the 30,000-troop increase is necessary to prevent the Taliban from giving new safe havens to al Qaeda terrorists.

But that argument is flatly contradicted by the evidence of fundamental conflicts between the interests of the Taliban and those of al Qaeda that has emerged in recent years, according to counterterrorism and intelligence analysts specialising in Afghanistan.

Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee that, "Taliban-ruled areas could in short order become once again sanctuary for al Qaeda, as well as a staging area for resurgent militant groups on the offensive in Pakistan."

Mullen made the same assertion in even more pointed terms. "[T]o argue that should they have...power the Taliban would not at least tolerate the presence of al Qaeda on Afghan soil is to ignore both the recent past and the evidence we see every day of collusion between these factions on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border," he said. "Put simply, the Taliban and al Qaeda have become symbiotic," said Gates, "each benefitting from the success and mythology of the other."

It is well known among government officials working on Afghanistan and al Qaeda, however, that serious tensions between the two organisations emerged after the attack on the "Red Mosque" in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad in July 2007. Western intelligence quickly discovered the attack was an al Qaeda operation, and that it marked the beginning of an al Qaeda campaign calling for the overthrow of the Pakistani government and military.

That created a serious conflict between al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to specialists who followed the issue closely. Read more.

Iftikhar Chaudri, President of Journalists for International Peace, issued this statement from Islamabad, Pakistan on the recent suicide bombing of a mosque there.

"Our group, the Journalists For International Peace vehemently condemn the suicidal attack at a Cantt Mosque Rawalpindi, in which more than 40 innocent civilian and military men killed. They were offering prayers.

“They are beasts and damaging the very fabric of society - brain-washed teenagers are misguided by saboteurs and conspirators of local and foreign origin. JIP believes those beasts are against the concepts of Morality and Humanity --- they belong to NO religion. Government must utilize all efforts to identify & arrest the agent-handlers who are breeding terrorists. Religious scholars must condemn such suicidal attacks. We pray for departed souls."

Iftikhar Chaudri
President
Journalists For International Peace
Islamabad, Pakistan

Sources: Blackwater's Running A Secret War in Pakistan - So Classified, Even Administration Doesn't Know
By Susie Madrak | Crooks & Liars

There was a definite method to BushCo's madness: Namely, hire subcontractors to evade the laws that prevent the DoD and the CIA from taking part in torture and assassination. From The Nation:

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.

Sure sounds like Cheney's still got his moles deep inside, doesn't it? Read more.

A leading congressional Democrat who is the chief proponent of a new tax that would fund future military operations in Afghanistan suggested Sunday that continuing to fight the Afghan war under current conditions is “a fool’s errand” and, at the same time, said that his tax proposal would create a sense of shared sacrifice that has been missing in the last eight years.

Rep. David Obey, a Democrat from Wisconsin, is expressing serious reservations about the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan - just days before President Obama is expected to announce a substantial increase in U.S. troops in the country. Read more.

By Dave Lindorff

I once wrote an article about former President George W. Bush saying that he was a perfect Manchurian candidate. That is, if his missing year when he was supposed to have been flying fighter jets with the Texas Air National Guard was actually spent in the former Soviet Union being reprogrammed as a covert KGB agent whose job it was to go back to America, win election to the White House, and proceed to destroy the US, he couldn’t have done a better job than he actually did.

Now I wonder whether President Obama might not be a perfect Manchurian Candidate of the Republican Party, or perhaps of some nefarious foreign entity—perhaps the China or the always-enigmatic Al Qaeda. How else to explain policies that have wreaked such destruction on the Democratic Party in Washington and on the nation at large.

Michael Munk shared this note from David Delk, who wrote:

... Rep. David Obey with seven other members of Congress [Barney Frank (D-MA), Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA), Sam Farr (D-CA), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Linda Sanchez (D-CA), John Murtha (D-PA) and John Larson (D - CT)] along with Senator Carl Levin have proposed increased taxes to cover the expenses of war. The House bill would impose a progressive tax ranging from 1 to 5% on incomes whereas the Senate version would impose a income tax surcharge on incomes over $200,000.

Per Obey, “If we don’t address the cost of this war, we will continue shoving billions of dollars in taxes off on future generations and will devour money that could be used to rebuild our economy by fixing our broken health care system, expanding educational opportunities and job training possibilities, attacking our long term energy problems and building stronger communities. We cannot allow the war to derail that potential."

For myself, I vote for the House vote. We know that one reason for the great opposition to the Vietnam war was the draft. This tax, if it hit all the people, could be the "draft" for the war on Afghanistan.

Rep. Obey's Statement

Top Dem to Obama: 'There Ain't Going to Be Money for Nothing if We Pour It All Into Afghanistan' - Includes Jonathan Karl video with Rep. Obey

Blackwater’s Secret War in Pakistan: Jeremy Scahill Reveals Private Military Firm Operating in Pakistan Under Covert Assassination and Kidnapping Program

In an explosive new article in The Nation magazine, investigative journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill reveals the private military firm Blackwater is part of a covert program in Pakistan that includes planning the assassination and kidnapping of Taliban and Al-Qaeda suspects. Blackwater is also said to be involved in a previously undisclosed U.S. military drone campaign that has killed scores of people inside Pakistan. The article says the program has become so secretive that top Obama administration and military officials have likely been unaware of its existence. In a Democracy Now! exclusive, Scahill joins us for his first interview since the story broke. Read more.

Get That Man a Place on Mount Rushmore
By Jonathan Schwartz | Tiny Revolution

Here's an overlooked part from a scary new article by Seymour Hersh about Pakistan's nuclear weapons:

A retired senior Pakistani intelligence officer, who worked with his C.I.A. counterparts to track down Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, said..."My belief today is that it’s better to have the Americans as an enemy rather than as a friend, because you cannot be trusted," the former officer concluded. "The only good thing the United States did for us was to look the other way about an atomic bomb when it suited the United States to do so."

The Pakistani intelligence officer is talking about actions by the Reagan administration. Usually we hear about this from U.S. sources, but it's interesting to have confirmation from the other side. There's a good summary in a Consortium News article about the movie Charlie Wilson's War:

[S]urely the most glaring omission in the film is the fateful trade-off accepted by President Ronald Reagan when he agreed not to complain about Pakistan’s efforts to acquire a nuclear weapons capability in exchange for Pakistani cooperation in helping the Afghan rebels. Read more.

By David Swanson

Around the United States, peace groups are engaged in effective campaigns against proposed new military installations, local funding of weapons companies, and the routine destruction of the environment and of workers' health by such companies. Activists are building better media outlets, educating young people, educating old people, keeping military testing and recruiting out of schools, and discouraging the Army from building real-weapon video arcades in shopping malls. But when it comes to stopping our wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, our citizens are less clear how to go about it.

Five Videos:

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, says another supplemental spending vote for war money in the next few months will be in the range of $50 billion.

Will we be prepared to stop it?

BBC

The US has been warned that its use of drones to target suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan may violate international law.

UN human rights investigator Philip Alston said the US should explain the legal basis for attacking individuals with the remote-controlled aircraft.

He said the CIA had to show accountability to international laws which ban arbitrary executions.

Drones have killed about 600 people in north-west Pakistan since August 2008.

Mr Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, told the BBC: "My concern is that these drones, these Predators, are being operated in a framework which may well violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

"The onus is really on the government of the United States to reveal more about the ways in which it makes sure that arbitrary executions, extrajudicial executions, are not in fact being carried out through the use of these weapons."

Increased use

By Mike Ferner, After Downing Street

In a statement today directed to the U.S. House of Representatives, President Obama and its membership, Veterans For Peace urged its chapters to demonstrate opposition to the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan by doing two things:

1) Take the actions listed below within the next several days, before President Obama decides to escalate the war in Afghanistan, and

2) Plan acts of even greater resistance during the two days following any such decision.

· Continue writing and calling our representatives and demanding peace.
· If we’ve done that: take to the streets
· If we’ve done that: sit down in the streets
· If we’ve done that: sit down in Congressional offices
· If we’ve done that: sit down, clog up, incapacitate, call in sick, withdraw consent and generally bring the nation’s business to a halt, wherever and whenever we can, with any peaceful means available.

DAMADOLA, Pakistan, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- A U.S. drone reportedly killed 24 people in northern Pakistan, including Taliban members meeting in an underground hideout, witnesses and officials said.

Twelve people were reported wounded in Saturday's attack in Damadola, Bajaur, about 4 miles from the Afghan border.

"I heard two loud explosions when a meeting of the Taliban was in progress," Damadola resident Hazrat Gul told Sunday's edition of Dawn.

Two relatives of Maulvi Faquir Mohammad, a Taliban commander in Bajaur, were among the dead, Dawn reported. Mohammad had left the meeting just minutes before the attack, local officials said.

A Pakistan army spokesman Sunday denied the deaths and injuries were caused by a drone, or pilotless plane. At a news conference in Islamabad, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Saturday's devastation in Damadola was caused by explosive material that blew up while being loaded onto a vehicle.

By David Swanson

Why is it that every time we elect "peace" candidates we defund the peace movement, stop calling for an end to wars, and limit our demands exclusively to opposing war escalations?

In 2006 we voted into Congress the candidates who looked most likely to end the war in Iraq. We congratulated ourselves on a job well done. Then we mildly urged them not to escalate the war they'd been elected to end, and they escalated it anyway.

In 2008 we voted into Congress and the White House the candidates who looked most likely to end the war in Iraq. Candidate Obama promised to pull out two brigades per month for sixteen months. Here we are in month 10 and that withdrawal has yet to begin. And what in the name of all that is true, good, and free-of-hope are we doing about it? Not a god damned thing.

By Dan Pearson and Kathy Kelly

Five months ago, shortly after the Pakistani government had begun a military offensive against suspected Taliban fighters in the northernmost area of the country, we arrived in Islamabad, the capital, as part of a small delegation organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org). Our initial travel plans had focused on learning more about civilian suffering caused by U.S. drone attacks. But, over the course of our three-week visit, close to 3 million people had become uprooted by violence in the Swat Valley and neighboring districts. Visiting tent encampments and abandoned buildings to which people had fled, we spoke with people who identified themselves as poor people, with meager resources, who were anxious to return to their homes as soon as possible. They were also alarmed because they feared that their crops, animals, shops and stores were already destroyed.

Report: One-Third of People Killed in Pakistan Drone Strikes Are Civilians
By Spencer Ackerman | Washington Independent

The New America Foundation's Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann have a new report out tallying how many civilians have died in the Pakistani tribal areas thanks to the CIA’s drone strikes. Their conclusion: the strikes have killed, since 2006, between 750 and 1000 people; 20 of them have been "leaders of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and allied groups"; and "the real total of civilian deaths since 2006 appears to be in the range of 250 to 320, or between 31 and 33 percent." That low?

Bergen and Tiedemann got their report by tallying up media reports on the drone strikes. They explain:

"Our analysis of the drone campaign is based only on accounts from reliable media organizations with substantial reporting capabilities in Pakistan. We restricted our analysis to reports in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, accounts by major news services and networks–the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, CNN, and the BBC–and reports in the leading English-language newspapers in Pakistan–The Daily Times, Dawn, and The News–as well as those from Geo TV, the largest independent Pakistani television network. (Links to all those individual reports can be found in Appendix 1 of this paper.)"

They don’t pretend their material is “accurate down to the last civilian death in every drone strike.” Read more.

AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, IRAN, IRAQ, VIETNAM: EXPOSING OFFICIAL LIES

Where: Ward Circle Building, Room 2, American University

When: Wednesday, October 21 at 8:10 pm

Who: Keynote Speaker:

Col. Larry Wilkerson (USA, ret.) Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell during the critical period from August 2002 until January 2005; Served as Army officer for 31 years;

Recipient of 2009 Award from Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence

Additional Speakers:

Daniel Ellsberg, Former Defense and State Department official who released the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, for which he was put on trial facing a possible sentence of 115 years; Author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers; Subject of newly released documentary “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” which he was called at the time by Henry Kissinger

Coleen Rowley, Former Special agent and legal counselor, Minneapolis FBI, who called the FBI director's attention to serious flaws that might have prevented 9/11; Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2002; Sam Adams Award Recipient, 2002

Craig Murray, Former U.K. Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who exposed the use of torture, declaring, "I would rather die than have someone tortured in attempt to give me more security." Sam Adams Award Recipient, 2005

Ray McGovern, Veteran CIA analyst, whose duties included preparing and briefing the President's Daily Brief under Nixon, Ford, and Reagan; Co-founder Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS); Colleague of Sam Adams

Peter Kuznick, Professor of History; Director, American University’s Nuclear Studies Institute; Co-writer (with Oliver Stone) “Secret History of the United States” (forthcoming on Showtime)

Dear Mr. President,

On October 5, 2009, I witnessed my mother, a 55 year old grandmother be assaulted by your Secret Service right in front of your house. It was so frightening for me, and what your protectors did in your name destroyed any faith that I had left in your willingness to listen to your citizens to end the violence being committed by our country.

My mother, Joy First, is the most peaceful, loving person that I have ever met. She has always had a completely selfless altruism that has led her to take care of others, even when it puts her own personal comfort and safety in jeopardy. As a mother and grandmother, she has always given up much for her children and grandchildren, in an effort to see us not suffer. In the past several years, my mother, Joy has extended this mothering and altruism to all of the children of the world. She has put her comfort and safety on the line countless times in an effort to stop the killing of the world’s children and grandchildren. On October 5th, my mother, Joy, went to your front door to plead with you to stop bombing and shooting of innocent children in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

My mother, Joy, was joined by a group of almost 2 dozen other peaceful civil resisters who were asking you to end the senseless killing in the Middle East. Instead of engaging in civil dialogue with these resisters, someone from the house where you live with your family sent out around two dozen armed secret service agents to assault these peaceful people. So, as I was watching what I believed to be a demonstration of our American democracy, I saw the scene descend into what frighteningly became much more like a scene from an Orwellian novel than from the America I had learned about in Social Studies. And then all of the sudden, people were being dragged, and then, there was my mother, being bounced around like a ping pong ball and being pushed violently by members of your Secret Service.

Pro-War Officials Play Up Taliban-al Qaeda Ties
Analysis by Gareth Porter | IPS News

U.S. national security officials, concerned that President Barack Obama might be abandoning the strategy of full-fledged counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, are claiming new intelligence assessments suggesting that al Qaeda would be allowed to return to Afghanistan in the event of a Taliban victory.

But two former senior intelligence analysts who have long followed the issue of al Qaeda's involvement in Afghanistan question the alleged new intelligence assessments. They say that the Taliban leadership still blames Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda for their loss of power after 9/11 and that the Taliban-al Qaeda cooperation is much narrower today than it was during the period of Taliban rule.

The nature of the relationship between al Qaeda and the Taliban has been a central issue in the White House discussions on Afghanistan strategy that began last month, according to both White House spokesman Robert Gibbs and National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones.

One of the arguments for an alternative to the present counterinsurgency strategy by officials, including aides to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, is that the Taliban wouldn't allow al Qaeda to reestablish bases inside Afghanistan, The Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 5. The reasoning behind the argument, according to the report, is that the Taliban realises that its previous alliance with al Qaeda had caused it to lose power after the Sep. 11 attacks.

Officials in national security organs that are committed to the counterinsurgency strategy have now pushed back against the officials who they see as undermining the war policy.

McClatchy newspapers reported Sunday that officials have cited what they call "recent U.S. intelligence assessments" that the Taliban and other Afghan insurgent groups have "much closer ties to al Qaida now than they did before 9/11" and would allow al Qaeda to re-establish bases in Afghanistan if they were to prevail. Read more.

Afghanistan: West's 21st Century War Risks Regional Conflagration
By Rick Rozoff | Stop NATO | Blog site

If McChrystal gains the additional 60,000 American troops he's requested and NATO provides several thousand more, combined Western military forces in Afghanistan could number some 180,000. With control of former Soviet airbases in the nation in addition to air fields in Central Asia, Iraq, the South Caucasus, Turkey and the Black Sea nations of Bulgaria and Romania, Washington and its allies could be poised for military operations against Iran far more ambitious than any discussed or rumored before.

On October 7 the United States' and NATO's war in Afghanistan entered its ninth year. The escalating conflict has over the past year become indistinguishable from military operations in neighboring Pakistan where the U.S. and NATO have tripled deadly drone missile attacks and the Pakistani army has launched large-scale offensives that have displaced over 3 million civilians in the Northwest Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, with the province of Baluchistan the next battle zone.

On September 29 the U.S. conducted four drone attacks in Pakistan's North Waziristan Agency in twenty four hours and during the past year has fired over 60 missiles into the area causing more than 550 deaths.

Three days later the Pentagon announced 72 more American military deaths in the fifteen-nation Operation Enduring Freedom, Greater Afghan War theater - Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay Naval Base), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, the Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen - bringing the official total to 774.

The U.S. Department of Defense and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) acknowledge that so far this year 406 foreign soldiers have been killed, the bulk of which, 240, are American.

On the eight anniversary of the beginning of the war, however, an authoritative Russian news source estimated that overall "The United States has...lost 1,500 servicemen, while its allies have lost several hundred." [1]

Obama's Nobel puzzles Pakistanis living close to war
While Obama is seen as an improvement over Bush, many Pakistanis feel the president hasn't done enough to merit the peace prize. They are still wary of Obama and his policies.
By Alex Rodriguez | LA Times

For Pakistanis, President Obama represents a marked improvement over his predecessor, George W. Bush. He believes in tackling world problems through consensus-building rather than unilateral action, they say.

But the way many Pakistanis see it, that doesn't mean he's done nearly enough to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

"Maybe if you compare him to Bush, you can say Obama is a bit better when it comes to dealing with Muslim countries," said Ajmal Khan, a 55-year-old mechanical engineer while taking a stroll through one of Islamabad's busy marketplaces. "Otherwise, I don't think he deserves the peace prize. Has he done anything special to bring peace in the world? Killing goes on in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in other countries."

Pakistanis still haven't fully made up their mind about Obama. When they compare him to Bush, they like that he has reached out to the Muslim community and appears genuinely interested in what other world players have to say.

But Pakistanis still are wary of Obama and his policies toward their part of the world. They worry Obama won't solve the conflict in Afghanistan, an eight-year war on Pakistan's doorstep. Read more.

Joanne Landy of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy wrote:

As you know, the President and Congress are reviewing U.S. policy on the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and we are writing you at this critical moment to invite you to sign the Campaign for Peace and Democracy emergency statement below calling for an end to military intervention in both countries. Your support can make a real difference: it will add to the impact of the statement at a time when public opposition to these disastrous wars.

A list of the initial signers and the text of the statement are below. We aim to collect a large number of signatures very quickly, and then publish the statement and list of signers as widely as possible, both in this country and internationally. If you would like to add your name, see the emerging list of signers, or make a tax-deductible donation to publicize the statement, please go to http://www.cpdweb.org/stmts/1014/stmt.shtml

You do not have to donate in order to sign, but please give if you can, as generously as possible. If you have already signed the statement but not yet contributed to our publicity efforts, please go to our website now to make a donation.

If for any reason you have difficulty at the website, just send us an email at cpd@igc.org. Please circulate the statement to your colleagues and friends.
In peace and solidarity,
Joanne Landy Tom Harrison
Co-Directors, Campaign for Peace and Democracy

INITIAL SIGNERS:

By Dave Lindorff

It’s not as much of a travesty as when Henry Kissinger, a war criminal of the first order who was an architect of the latter stages of the Indochina War, and was personally responsible for the slaughter of well over a million innocent people, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, while that war was still raging, but the awarding of the latest Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama is travesty enough.

We’re talking about a man whose practically first act upon taking office early this year was to escalate the ugly and pointless war in Afghanistan with the addition of some 20,000 troops, and who, even as the Nobel committee was discussing his award, was meeting with his military and political advisors to consider expanding that war even further, both in Afghanistan and across the border into Pakistan.

Team Obama: Afghan Taliban Not a Threat to U.S.
By Robert Naiman | Just Foreign Policy

All hands on deck, Obama Nation. The ship of state is turning.

The New York Times reports:

President Obama's national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the Taliban in Afghanistan do not pose a direct threat to the United States, officials said Wednesday.

This shift means that President Obama will not have to approve General McChrystal's request for 40,000 more troops:

the shift in thinking, outlined by senior administration officials on Wednesday, suggests that the president has been presented with an approach that would not require all of the additional troops that his commanding general in the region has requested.

Finally, the Administration is going to distinguish between the Afghan Taliban, an indigenous Afghan movement with Afghan goals, and Al Qaeda, a global movement with a global agenda of attacking the United States: Read more.