If Top General Gets His Way, America's "Longest War" Will Become Even Longer

General John Campbell Says He Wants to Keep U.S. Troops in Afghanistan for as long as possible—and is considering asking for even more

Published on Wednesday, December 30, 2015 by Common Dreams

Written by Sarah Lazare

General John F. Campbell pictured in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, May 23, 2015. (Photo: Allauddin Khan/AP)

If the highest ranking U.S. and NATO military commander in Afghanistan gets his way, America's longest official war could become even more protracted.

Army General John Campbell said in a USA Today article published on Tuesday that he wants to keep the 9,800 American troops currently in Afghanistan there for as long as possible—and is considering asking for even more boots on the ground.

"My intent would be to keep as much as I could for as long as I could," Campbell told the paper from Kabul.

The general's comments follow President Barack Obama's October announcement that he plans to reverse his prior pledge to remove all but 1,000 U.S. troops from the country by the conclusion of 2016. Instead, Obama proclaimed that the 9,800 troops will be maintained through most of 2016 and then cut to 5,500 by the beginning of 2017.

Even then, Obama's statement came despite the official declaration a year ago that the war was "over."

But now Campbell plans to ask the president to put off troop withdrawals even further by delaying the reduction to 5,500 troops.

"If I don't believe that we can accomplish the train, advise and assist... the (counter-terrorism) missions, then I owe it to the senior leadership to come back and say, 'Here's what I need,'" Campbell said. "If that's more people, it's more people."

The general expressed confidence that he will get his way. "My job as commander on the ground is to continually make assessments," Campbell said. "Every time I've gone to the president and said, 'I need X,' I've been very, very fortunate that he’s provided that. So he’s been very flexible."

Campbell's comments come as the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan stretches well into its 15th year—and appears certain to extend into the next presidency. While many argue that the Afghanistan intervention is not, in reality, the longest war in U.S. history, it is widely recognized as the most protracted according to the official record.

What's more, the Bilateral Security Agreement signed in 2014 by the U.S. and Afghanistan locks in another decade of heavy American involvement in the country, including the training, funding, and arming of the Afghan military. The pact also secures immunity for U.S. service members under Afghan law—a highly controversial measure in a country that has suffered civilian massacres by U.S. troops.

The U.S. is planning a military role long into Afghanistan's future despite indications that its long-term intervention and occupation so far has worsened conflict and violence, with the Taliban now showing signs of increased strength.

Meanwhile, Afghan civilians continue to pay the greatest price. In the first half of 2015 alone, United Nations agencies documented 4,921 civilian casualties (1,592 deaths and 3,329 injured).

The End of the Nuclear Era? Not So Fast …

Published on Thursday, August 25, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

by Sandy LeonVest

The August 23, 2011 (5.9 magnitude) earthquake on the east coast prompted no less than 10 nuclear plants in four states to declare “unusual events,” according to the NRC. (The NRC defines an “unusual event” as a term used to denote that “something out of the ordinary” has happened.) The NRC reported that after the quake, the North Anna and Surry plants in Virginia; the Hope Creek, Oyster Creek and Salem plants in New Jersey; the Susquehanna, Three Mile Island, Peach Bottom and Limerick plants in Pennsylvania; and the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland all declared such “unusual events.”

The east coast temblor and the nuclear “events” that followed should remind us that, despite hopes that Fukushima would spell the end of nuclear power, the so-called “nuclear renaissance” is alive and well.

In the aftermath of the March 11 triple-reactor meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility, stories and opinion polls trumpeting Japan’s “growing anti-nuclear sentiment” flourished in both the corporate-owned and alternative media. When Germany’s Angela Merkel announced that her country would reject nuclear power and begin shuttering its old plants, the headline spanned newspapers across the globe.

Less widely reported is that, even as Germany, Japan and a handful of other countries -- among them, Italy, Switzerland and some ASEAN member states -- are rejecting or at least reconsidering their commitments to nuclear power, many more (including the US) are still on the nuclear fast track.

Russia, India, Brazil, some Middle Eastern oil economies and a host of developing countries number among those still hot to go nuclear. And the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported recently that more than 60 new countries have expressed “strong interest” in nuclear power -- among them, Iran, which is very close to commissioning its first reactor. The IAEA further promised that global use of nuclear energy will continue to increase for decades -- despite the ongoing crisis at Fukushima.

Only this summer, the UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a decades-old economic research group, predicted “a massive worldwide growth in nuclear energy production” over the next decade. In a new study, the EIU found that the impact of the Fukushima disaster, now widely considered the worst industrial accident in history, “is expected to be minimal.”

According to the EIU, Germany’s decision to scrap eight nuclear power plants and place its remaining nine under review will be more than made up for by an expansion of nuclear production in other countries. The report, titled “The Future of Nuclear Energy,” suggests a 27 percent growth in output by 2020. The EIU notes that reactors planned for China, India and Russia will add five times the nuclear capacity that the German decision will remove from world nuclear output. Sixteen new reactors began construction in 2010 -- ten in China, with others in Russia, India and Brazil. Even Japan, the EIU reminds us, has resumed construction work at a new nuclear plant, after putting additional anti-earthquake measures in place. Indeed, by 2015 one new nuclear reactor is expected to be coming online every month somewhere in the world.

The online publication, “Nuclear Engineering International,” while more reserved in its nuclear projections than the IAEA or the EIU, pointed out in August that, “Beyond Iran, the Gulf States are the most likely hosts of future reactors in the Middle East. The six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Oman – have been studying possible nuclear programs for about five years now. Together they have total installed capacity of about 80 GW with a common grid, all fossil fuel based.”

Here in the US, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that the Obama administration intends to resume talks on “nuclear cooperation” with Saudi Arabia. WSJ reported in July that the administration has promised to send a team of State Department and Department of Energy officials to Riyadh this summer to discuss “plans for pursuing nuclear power” with senior Saudi officials.

Massive expansion amid pockets of reason

All of this is not to say that there are no ‘pockets of reason’ amid what seems an increasingly unreasonable (if not pathological) pursuit, or that the nuclear power industry will not ultimately self destruct. There is plenty of reason to believe that nuclear power -- at least as a primary source of electricity -- is on its way out.

Today, largely thanks to dedicated activists like Michael Mariotte at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (www.nirs.org) and Solartopia author Harvey Wasserman (www.nukefree.org), a growing number of people across the globe are beginning to understand that, safety issues aside, the economics of nuclear power simply don’t add up. In Japan, a July 24 poll by the Kyodo news agency found that more than two-thirds of Japanese now support Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s call to do away with nuclear power. And, in the Northeast region of the US, the Vermont Yankee plant in Vermont, New York’s Indian Point, and the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant in Connecticut are all on the chopping block. In New Jersey, Exelon Corporation’s Oyster Creek nuclear plant is scheduled for shut down in 2019, and the state has begun to plan for the development of much needed alternative energy sources.

There’s little doubt that Fukushima has been a global call to sanity -- and that the technology is, as so many polls suggest, “losing favor” with growing numbers both here in the US and abroad. We are likely to see a host of nuclear plant closures in coming years. Yet, such developments have done little to deter a nuclear industry that is hell bent on proliferating its toxic product.

These safety issues were made all the more prescient by the spate of “nuclear incidents” occurring this summer -- both in the US and abroad.

In the US, besides the 10 “unusual events” declared after the August 23 earthquake on the east coast, there remain unanswered questions regarding the criticality of a host of other nuclear mishaps occurring this summer. Among them, those reported during the June floods at two of Nebraska’s nuclear facilities. (See www.solartimes.org.) And abroad, a July 3 explosion at France’s (EDF-owned) Tricastin nuclear power facility sent a dense cloud of black smoke into the air and over a nearby motorway on one of the busiest travel days of the year. The explosion occurred only weeks after the plant had been harshly criticized by the French nuclear safety authority, which demanded 32 new safety measures be immediately implemented.

In an industry notorious for its secrecy and deceptive marketing practices, these constitute only a small fraction of (reported) problems occurring at nuclear power plants in recent months.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead

A July 28 Reuters article is illustrative of current attitudes in the industry.

Cheerfully headlined, “Areva still upbeat on nuclear post-Fukushima,” an article by Reuters reporter Marie Maitre observes: “Areva’s new chief executive said the Fukushima disaster was creating new business opportunities for nuclear service providers as the industry’s focus moves to safety upgrades and sometimes plant dismantling.”

The executive told Maitre that although the impact of the Japanese catastrophe remained “difficult to assess in terms of lost business,” Areva (the world’s largest builder of nuclear reactors) was still convinced that “most countries would forge ahead with their atomic power plans.” He said that safety tests planned around the world “should delay the construction of reactors,” but that the tests would “also be sources of opportunities on the existing facilities.”

More concerning still, the expansion of nuclear power is an international phenomenon -- so the impact of any accident would be global. Yet there are still no internationally agreed and enforceable safety standards for the industry. Instead, as the Fukushima disaster has highlighted, national governments and the nuclear industry collaborate in a secretive manner and connive to cover up safety issues.

The UK Guardian recently released emails detailing the collusion between the UK government and the nuclear industry in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. Two days after the earthquake, British government officials emailed EDF, Areva, Westinghouse and the Nuclear Industry Association to warn that the “Fukushima situation” could damage public confidence in nuclear power. It was not as bad as the television pictures suggested, they said. And (apparently attempting to hedge their nuclear bets), the officials invited industry executives to “send their comments,” so they could be included in government statements: “We need to all be working from the same material to get the message through to the media and the public,” one email declared. Yet another neatly summed up the UK government’s nuclear attitude. The email stated: “Anti-nuclear people across Europe have wasted no time blurring this all into Chernobyl and the works. We need to quash any stories trying to compare this to Chernobyl.”

Sandy LeonVest is the editor and publisher of SolarTimes, an independent quarterly energy newspaper with a progressive slant. SolarTimes is available online at www.solartimes.org, and distributed in hardcopy throughout the Bay Area and beyond. Sandy LeonVest's work has been published locally, as well as internationally, and includes 15 years in the news department at KPFA Radio in Berkeley, CA.

Nuclear Nightmare

Published on Saturday, March 19, 2011

by Ralph Nader from Commondreams.org

The unfolding multiple nuclear reactor catastrophe in Japan is prompting overdue attention to the 104 nuclear plants in the United States—many of them aging, many of them near earthquake faults, some on the west coast exposed to potential tsunamis.

Nuclear power plants boil water to produce steam to turn turbines that generate electricity. Nuclear power’s overly complex fuel cycle begins with uranium mines and ends with deadly radioactive wastes for which there still are no permanent storage facilities to contain them for tens of thousands of years.

Atomic power plants generate 20 percent of the nation’s electricity. Over forty years ago, the industry’s promoter and regulator, the Atomic Energy Commission estimated that a full nuclear meltdown could contaminate an area “the size of Pennsylvania” and cause massive casualties. You, the taxpayers, have heavily subsidized nuclear power research, development, and promotion from day one with tens of billions of dollars.

Because of many costs, perils, close calls at various reactors, and the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979, there has not been a nuclear power plant built in the United States since 1974.

Now the industry is coming back “on your back” claiming it will help reduce global warming from fossil fuel emitted greenhouse gases.

Pushed aggressively by President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu, who refuses to meet with longtime nuclear industry critics, here is what “on your back” means:

1. Wall Street will not finance new nuclear plants without a 100% taxpayer loan guarantee. Too risky. That’s a lot of guarantee given that new nukes cost $12 billion each, assuming no mishaps. Obama and the Congress are OK with that arrangement.

2. Nuclear power is uninsurable in the private insurance market—too risky. Under the Price-Anderson Act, taxpayers pay the greatest cost of a meltdown’s devastation.

3. Nuclear power plants and transports of radioactive wastes are a national security nightmare for the Department of Homeland Security. Imagine the target that thousands of vulnerable spent fuel rods present for sabotage.

4. Guess who pays for whatever final waste repositories are licensed? You the taxpayer and your descendants as far as your gene line persists. Huge decommissioning costs, at the end of a nuclear plant’s existence come from the ratepayers’ pockets.

5. Nuclear plant disasters present impossible evacuation burdens for those living anywhere near a plant, especially if time is short.

Imagine evacuating the long-troubled Indian Point plants 26 miles north of New York City. Workers in that region have a hard enough time evacuating their places of employment during 5 pm rush hour. That’s one reason Secretary of State Clinton (in her time as Senator of New York) and Governor Andrew Cuomo called for the shutdown of Indian Point.

6. Nuclear power is both uneconomical and unnecessary. It can’t compete against energy conservation, including cogeneration, windpower and ever more efficient, quicker, safer, renewable forms of providing electricity. Amory Lovins argues this point convincingly (see RMI.org). Physicist Lovins asserts that nuclear power “will reduce and retard climate protection.” His reasoning: shifting the tens of billions invested in nuclear power to efficiency and renewables reduce far more carbon per dollar (http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/whynewnukesareriskyfcts.pdf). The country should move deliberately to shutdown nuclear plants, starting with the aging and seismically threatened reactors. Peter Bradford, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) commissioner has also made a compelling case against nuclear power on economic and safety grounds (http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/whynewnukesareriskyfcts.pdf).

There is far more for ratepayers, taxpayers and families near nuclear plants to find out. Here’s how you can start:

1. Demand public hearings in your communities where there is a nuke, sponsored either by your member of Congress or the NRC, to put the facts, risks and evacuation plans on the table. Insist that the critics as well as the proponents testify and cross-examine each other in front of you and the media.

2. If you call yourself conservative, ask why nuclear power requires such huge amounts of your tax dollars and guarantees and can’t buy adequate private insurance. If you have a small business that can’t buy insurance because what you do is too risky, you don’t stay in business.

3. If you are an environmentalist, ask why nuclear power isn’t required to meet a cost-efficient market test against investments in energy conservation and renewables.

4. If you understand traffic congestion, ask for an actual real life evacuation drill for those living and working 10 miles around the plant (some scientists think it should be at least 25 miles) and watch the hemming and hawing from proponents of nuclear power.

The people in northern Japan may lose their land, homes, relatives, and friends as a result of a dangerous technology designed simply to boil water. There are better ways to generate steam.

Like the troubled Japanese nuclear plants, the Indian Point plants and the four plants at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon in southern California rest near earthquake faults. The seismologists concur that there is a 94% chance of a big earthquake in California within the next thirty years. Obama, Chu and the powerful nuke industry must not be allowed to force the American people to play Russian Roulette!

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book - and first novel - is, Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us. His most recent work of non-fiction is The Seventeen Traditions.

The Disappearance of Keith Olbermann

Published on Saturday, January 22, 2011 by Consortium News from Commondreams.org

by Robert Parry

Keith Olbermann’s abrupt departure from MSNBC should be another wake-up call to American progressives about the fragile foothold that liberal-oriented fare now has for only a few hours on one corporate cable network.

Though Olbermann hosted MSNBC’s top-rated news show, “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” he disappeared from the network with only the briefest of good-byes. Certainly, the callous treatment of Olbermann by the MSNBC brass would never be replicated by Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing Fox News toward its media stars.

At Fox News, the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have far greater leeway to pitch right-wing ideas and even to organize pro-Republican political events. Last November, Olbermann was suspended for two days for making donations to three Democratic candidates, including Arizona’s Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in the Jan. 8 shooting in Tucson.

Now, with Olbermann’s permanent departure on Friday, the remainder of MSNBC’s liberal evening line-up, which also includes Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Lawrence O’Donnell (who will fill Olbermann’s 8 p.m. slot), must face the reality that any sustained friction with management could mean the bum’s rush for them, too.

The liberal hosts also must remember that MSNBC experimented with liberal-oriented programming only after all other programming strategies, including trying to out-Fox Fox, had failed – and only after it became clear that President George W. Bush’s popularity was slipping.

In nearly eight years at “Countdown,” Olbermann was the brave soul who charted the course for other mainstream media types to be even mildly critical of Bush. Olbermann modeled his style after legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow, who stood up to excesses by communist-hunting Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1950s, even borrowing Murrow’s close: “Good night, good luck.”

But MSNBC’s parent company, General Electric, never seemed comfortable with Olbermann’s role as critic of the Bush administration, nor with the sniping between Olbermann and his Fox News rival, O’Reilly, who retaliated by attacking corporate GE on his widely watched show.

In 2009, the New York Times reported that GE responded to this pressure by having GE chairman Jeffrey Immelt strike a deal with Murdoch that sought to muzzle Olbermann’s criticism of O’Reilly, in exchange for O’Reilly muting his attacks on GE.

Olbermann later disputed that there ever was a truce and the back-and-forth soon resumed. But it was a reminder that GE, a charter member of the military-industrial complex and a major international conglomerate, had bigger corporate interests at play than the ratings for MSNBC’s evening programming.

So, too, will Comcast, the cable giant that is assuming a majority stake in NBC Universal, which controls MSNBC. The Washington Post reported on Saturday that sources at MSNBC quashed speculation that Olbermann’s departure was connected to the Comcast takeover, which was approved by federal regulators this week.

Media Orphans

The troubling message to progressives is that they remain essentially orphans when it comes to having their political interests addressed by any corporate news outlet. While the Right has built its own vast media infrastructure – reaching from newspapers, magazines and books to radio, TV and the Internet – the Left generally has treated media as a low priority.

Though some on the Left saw hope in the MSNBC evening line-up, the larger reality was that even inside the world of NBC News, the other content ranged from the pro-Establishment centrism of anchor Brian Williams to the center-right views of MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to CNBC’s mix of free-market extremism and corporate boosterism.

While gratified to be given a few hours each night on MSNBC, the Left surely had nothing to compare with Murdoch’s News Corporation and its longstanding commitment to a right-wing perspective on Fox News and News Corp.'s many other print and electronic outlets.

As I wrote in an article last November, “Olbermann and the other liberal hosts are essentially on borrowed time, much the way Phil Donahue was before getting axed in the run-up to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, when MSNBC wanted to position itself as a ‘patriotic’ war booster.

“Unlike News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, who stands solidly behind the right-wing propaganda on Fox News, the corporate owners of MSNBC have no similar commitment to the work of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz.

"For the suits at headquarters, it’s just a balancing act between the ratings that those shows get and the trouble they cause as Republicans reclaim control of Washington.”

Those corporate priorities also were underscored in the pre-Iraq invasion days when MSNBC dumped Donahue, then the network’s biggest draw. But Donahue had allowed on some guests critical of Bush’s planned war.

After the invasion in March 2003, MSNBC’s coverage was barely discernable from that of Fox News, with both networks superimposing American flags on scenes from Iraq and producing pro-war promotional segments showing heroic images of U.S. soldiers being welcomed by happy Iraqis (with no scenes of the war’s carnage). [See Consortiumnews.com's "America's Matrix."]

The ongoing significance of America’s media imbalance is that it gives the Right enormous capabilities to control the national debate, not only during election campaigns but year-round. Republicans can deploy what intelligence operatives call “agit-propaganda,” stirring controversies that rile up the public and redound to the GOP’s advantage.

These techniques have proved so effective that not even gifted political speakers, whether the savvy Bill Clinton or the eloquent Barack Obama, have had any consistent success in countering the angry cacophony that the Right can orchestrate.

One week, the Right's theme is “Obamacare’s death panels”; another week, it’s “the “Ground Zero Mosque.” The Democrats are left scrambling to respond – and their responses, in turn, become fodder for critical commentary, as too wimpy or too defensive or too something.

The mainstream media and progressives often join in this criticism, wondering why Obama let himself get blind-sided or why he wasn’t tougher or why he can’t control the message. For the Right and the Republicans, it’s a win-win-win, as the right-wing base is energized, more public doubts are raised about the President, and the Left is further demoralized.

Like Clinton before him, Obama has reacted to this political/media landscape by shifting rightward toward the “center,” further alienating his liberal base. Many on the Left respond by denouncing Obama as a sell-out and deciding to either sit out elections or vote for a third party.

This dynamic has been instrumental to the Right’s political victories over the past three decades even as those policies – from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush – have worsened the lives of middle- and working-class Americans.

The sudden disappearance of Keith Olbermann from television is another ominous omen that this dynamic will continue.

© 2011 Consortium News

Don't Tone It Down, Tone It Up: Make Debate "Worthy of Those We Have Lost"

Published on Thursday, January 13, 2011 by The Nation

by John Nichols

Toward the end of the remarkable speech he delivered to the mourning citizens of Tucson Wednesday night, President Obama recalled that a photo of the youngest victim of Saturday's shooting rampage -- nine year-old Christina Taylor Green -- was featured in a book about children born on September 11, 2001. Next to the photo were "simple wishes for a child's life," one of which read: "I hope you know all the words to the National Anthem and sing it with your hand over your heart."

President Barack Obama pauses during the "Together We Thrive: Tucson and America" event held to support and remember the victims of Saturday's mass shooting, at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, January 12, 2011. (REUTERS/Jim Young)

The crowd of 14,000 that had gathered to celebrate the lives of the six people who died Saturday and to pray with Obama for the recovery of those who were wounded -- including Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford -- cheered the reference to a simpler, more innocent and more humane patriotism that stood in such stark contrast to the vitriol of contemporary politics.

It has been said that Obama strives for a post-partisan balance. But this was Obama speaking as a pre-partisan, as an idealist recalling a more innocent America -- and imagining that some of that innocence might be renewed as shocked and heartbroken citizens seek to heal not just a community but a nation that is too harsh, too cruel, too divided.

"If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate, as it should, let's make sure it's worthy of those we have lost. Let's make sure it's not on the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness that drifts away with the next news cycle," Obama told a crowd that included members of Congress from both parties, including the Republican he defeated in the 2008 presidential contest, Arizona Senator John McCain (but not McCain's controversial running-mate, Sarah Palin).

Cautioning against a politics that seeks "to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do," and he suggested that the way to do this is by recognizing it's the value of "talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds."

"If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate, as it should, let's make sure it's worthy of those we have lost. Let's make sure it's not on the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness that drifts away with the next news cycle," declared Obama, in language that recalled the most idealistic appeals not just of his own political journey but of past presidents -- Lincoln, FDR, Reagan and Clinton -- when they sought to heal a torn or traumatized nation.

"The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better in our private lives - to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let's remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy, but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud. It should be because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other's ideas without questioning each other's love of country, and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American dream to future generations," Obama explained.

"I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here - they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us. I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us," the president continued.

"That's what I believe, in part because that's what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. Imagine: here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that someday she too might play a part in shaping her nation's future. She had been elected to her student council; she saw public service as something exciting, something hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.

"I want us to live up to her expectations," Obama concluded. "I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us - we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations."

The president chose in Tucson to present an almost absurdly idealistic appeal to a "one nation" Americanism that only the most hopeful of our leaders -- and the most hopeful of our citizens -- have dared imagine. Obama took a risk in expressing it. His critics will, as is their wont, accuse him not just of naïveté but of cynicism.

So be it. We are a better nation when we are undimmed by cynicism and vitriol. And for a few minutes on Wednesday night, we dared with our president to answer cynicism with idealism, to answer tragedy with hope, to answer division as one nation, indivisible.

Copyright © 2011 The Nation

Nader: I am Looking for Someone to Challenge Obama in 2012

By Elise Viebeck from Commondreams. org

Perennial third-party candidate Ralph Nader predicted on Wednesday that President Obama's tax deal with Republicans will earn him a primary challenge in 2012.

Consumer advocate, author, and Presidential candidate Ralph Nader in this file photo. Nader had harsh words for the president's approach to politics: "He has no fixed principles. He's opportunistic — he goes for expedience, like Clinton." (NBC News)

Though he wouldn't rule out another presidential campaign himself, Nader, 76, said he hoped a new face would take up the progressive cause.

"I'm not foreclosing the possibility ... There are just other things to do," he said in an interview. "And it's time for someone else to continue. I've done it so many times. When I go around the country, I'm telling people they need to find somebody."

Nader, a consumer advocate, described the immense procedural difficulty - the "obstructions and litigations" - of appearing on the ballot in every state as a third-party candidate. He ran under the Green Party banner in 1996 and 2000 and as an independent in 2004 and 2008, and earned less than 3 percent of the overall vote each time.

He said Obama's decision to allow tax-cut extensions for the wealthy in the lame-duck deal betrays the progressives who supported his campaign in 2008 and called the president a "con man."

"There will be a primary," Nader said. "Just a question of how prominent a person [will run against Obama]. This deal is the last straw."

"Obama's position has been that the liberal, progressive wing has nowhere to go, therefore they can't turn their back on the administration. But a challenge will hold his feet to the fire and signal that we do have somewhere to go."

The tax deal, a blow to progressives, has prompted media speculation about such a challenge, although no names have been aired. Outgoing Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), one of the chamber's most reliably liberal voices, has said he's not interested.

"He [Obama] keeps one step away from the liberal progressive grasp," Nader said, describing the mood among on the left. "He's always just one step ahead from them grabbing his neck."

Nader had harsh words for the president's approach to politics: "He has no fixed principles. He's opportunistic - he goes for expedience, like Clinton. Some call him temperamentally conflict-averse. If you want to be harsher, you say he has no prlnciples and he's opportunistic."

"He's a con man. I have no use for him," Nader said.

In the 2000 election, Nader was criticized for contributing to Al Gore's defeat by taking votes from the left. He said then and again on Wednesday that the progressive agenda must be on the national ballot every four years.

"These are majoritarian positions. The polling shows that. Living wage, single payer, cracking down on corporate crime. ... It's time for someone to continue this."

Cruz requests President Obama visit Guam

by Nick Delgado from KUAM.com

Guam - Vice-Speaker B.J. Cruz is urging President Barack Obama today to include Guam in his November trip. Cruz sent a letter to the nation's commander in chief requesting that he make time to meet with members of the military and the civilian communities as part of his plans to visit India and Indonesia next month.

The vice-speaker expressed his disappointment that Obama's planned visit earlier this year was canceled and states that a November visit would be timely. He adds that the relocation of Marines from Okinawa to Guam plays a huge importance as to why the President should speak with the people regarding the impacts the buildup will have on the island.

New Political Status Options

FRIDAY, 01 OCTOBER 2010 04:23 BY THERESE HART | VARIETY NEWS

A bill funding an education program to enable Guam to explore other political status options is now headed to the president’s desk after the U.S. Congress passed the amended version of H.R. 3940 that Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo sponsored.

Guam has been an unincorporated territory of the United States since 1950.

The U.S. House and the Senate passed on Tuesday the bill which had since been transmitted to President Barack Obama.

Bordallo said the Obama administration supports her bill. So did other federal and local officials, including cause-oriented groups and decolonization and indigenous rights advocates on island.

“I look forward to President Obama signing the bill into law. As soon as it becomes law I will request Assistant Secretary Tony Babauta to follow Congressional intent and provide federal funds to Guam for a political status education program,” she said in a statement.

Bordallo introduced the bill on Oct. 27, 2009 and originally passed the full House of Representatives on Dec. 7, 2009 by voice vote.

On Tuesday, the House passed the amended version by a vote of 386 ayes to 5 noes. The Senate passed the amended measure by unanimous consent late Tuesday.

"The passage of this bill by the Senate and the House recognizes the importance of political self-determination for the people of Guam. The bill makes it clear that the Secretary of the Interior has the authority and should provide federal funding for political status education for a future self-determination vote,” said Bordallo.

Speaker Judi Won Pat said she’s happy to learn that the bill passed Congress but raised concern on funding issue.

“Of course, we're very happy. My concern here is the funding. I believe that $300,000 to fund this education program was identified at one time. However, according to the Commission on Decolonization, they said it would cost at least $500,000 and so, if we get $300,000, it's shy of what we're going to need,” she told the Variety.

With the military buildup progressing, the speaker said: “It’s important that we do a thorough, extensive education program on self determination on the different choices that we have. We really need to do a good job on this one.”

Firing Range

In related news, Bordallo also questioned Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn on the proposed firing range location on Guam during a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

“I urged Secretary Lynn and the Department of Defense to strongly consider proposed alternatives to Marine training requirements like moving the proposed firing range to Tinian or using existing DoD lands on Guam,” the congresswoman said.

The House Armed Services Committee held two hearings in September and another will be held on Oct. 1, Washington time, on H.R. 5136 or the National Defense Authorization Act which will appropriate funds for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for the fiscal year and for other purposes.

The bill mentioned Guam and the Committee’s commitment to the international agreement between Japan and the United States, including the movement of Marine Corps forces to Guam.

“This bill includes several key provisions to assist in a smooth implementation of this strategic realignment, including allowing the administration to spend up to $500 million to provide community infrastructure on Guam to support this move and a process to unify the utility systems on the island,” according to the bill.

Bordallo expressed her belief that acquiring additional land on Guam for a firing range is unlikely and that, in order to get the military build-up done right, all other options be considered.

Lynn stated that the DoD will examine alternatives to the proposed firing range location, including a location on Tinian, and agreed that a resolution beneficial to the civilian and military community must be reached.

“I appreciate the DoD's willingness to seriously consider other alternatives for the proposed firing range location and I will continue to work with my colleagues and stakeholders on this important issue,” added Bordallo.

Flying the Flag, Faking the News

Published on Thursday, September 2, 2010 by The New Statesman

Flying the Flag, Faking the News

Loud noises from Washington about a US pull-out from Iraq are a poor disguise for America’s determination to keep waging war. And the same sort of spin is at work in Britain

by John Pilger from Commondreams.org

Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, is said to have invented modern propaganda. During the First World War, he was one of a group of influential liberals who mounted a secret government campaign to persuade reluctant Americans to send an army to the bloodbath in Europe. In his book Propaganda, published in 1928, Bernays wrote that the "intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society", and that the manipulators "constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country". Instead of propaganda, he coined the euphemism "public relations".

The American tobacco industry hired Bernays to convince women that they should smoke in public. By associating smoking with women's liberation, he made cigarettes "torches of freedom". In 1954, he conjured a communist menace in Guatemala as an excuse for overthrowing the democratically elected government, whose social reforms were threatening the United Fruit Company's monopoly of the banana trade. He called it a "liberation".

Bernays was no rabid right-winger. He was an elitist liberal who believed that "engineering public consent" was for the greater good. This could be achieved by the creation of "false realities" which then became "news events". Here are examples of how it is done these days.

False reality The last US combat troops have left Iraq "as promised, on schedule", according to President Barack Obama. The TV news has been filled with cinematic images of the "last US soldiers", silhouetted against the dawn light, crossing the border into Kuwait.

Fact They have not left. At least 50,000 troops will continue to operate from 94 bases. American air assaults are unchanged, as are special forces' assassinations. The number of "military contractors" is 100,000 and rising. Most Iraqi oil is now under direct foreign control.

False reality BBC presenters have described the departing US troops as a "sort of victorious army" that has achieved "a remarkable change in [Iraq's] fortunes". Their commander, General David Petraeus, is a "celebrity", "charming", "savvy" and "remarkable".

Fact There is no victory of any sort. There is a catastrophic disaster, and attempts to present it as otherwise are a model of Bernays's campaign to "rebrand" the slaughter of the First World War as "necessary" and "noble". In 1980, Ronald Reagan, running for president, rebranded the invasion of Vietnam, in which up to three million people died, as a "noble cause", a theme taken up enthusiastically by Hollywood. Today's Iraq war movies have a similar purging theme: the invader as both idealist and victim.

False reality It is not known how many Iraqis have died. They are "countless", or maybe "in the tens of thousands".

Fact As a direct consequence of the Anglo-American-led invasion, a million Iraqis have died. This figure, from Opinion Research Business, follows peer-reviewed research by Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC, whose methods were secretly affirmed as "best practice" and "robust" by the Blair government's chief scientific adviser. This is rarely reported or presented to "charming" American generals. Neither is the dispossession of four million Iraqis, the malnourishment of most Iraqi children, the epidemic of mental illness, or the poisoning of the environment.

False reality The British economy has a deficit of billions which must be reduced with cuts in public services and regressive taxation, in a spirit of "we're all in this together".

Fact We are not in this together. What is remarkable about this PR triumph is that only 18 months ago, the diametric opposite filled TV screens and front pages. Then, in a state of shock, truth became unavoidable, if briefly. The Wall Street and City of London trough was on full view for the first time, along with the venality of once-celebrated snouts. Billions in public money went to inept and crooked organisations known as banks, which were spared debt liability by their Labour government sponsors.

Within a year, record profits and personal bonuses were posted and the "black hole" was no longer the responsibility of the banks, whose debt is to be paid by those not in any way responsible: the public. The received media wisdom of this "necessity" is now a chorus, from the BBC to the Sun. A masterstroke, Bernays would surely say.

False reality Ed Miliband offers a "genuine alternative" as leader of the Labour Party.

Fact Miliband, like his brother and almost all those standing for the Labour leadership, is immersed in the effluent of New Labour. As a New Labour MP and minister, he did not refuse to serve under Blair or to speak out against Labour's persistent warmongering. He now calls the invasion of Iraq a "profound mistake". Calling it a mistake insults the memory and the dead. It was a crime, of which the evidence is voluminous. He has nothing new to say about the other colonial wars, none of them mistakes. Neither has he demanded basic social justice - that those who caused the recession clear up the mess and that Britain's fabulously rich corporate minority be taxed seriously, starting with Rupert Murdoch.

The good news is that false realities often fail when the public trusts its own critical intelligence. Two classified documents recently released by WikiLeaks express the CIA's concern that the populations of European countries, which oppose their governments' war policies, are not succumbing to the usual propaganda spun through the media.

For the rulers of the world, this is a conundrum, because their unaccountable power rests on the false reality that no popular resistance works. And it does.

© 2010 New Statesman

John Pilger was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He has been a war correspondent, film-maker and playwright. Based in London, he has written from many countries and has twice won British journalism's highest award, that of "Journalist of the Year," for his work in Vietnam and Cambodia.