looks like you got it right again, the Captain of the Change Gang is only temporarily splitting the difference with the generals’ request. As you state, if they come up with something, anything that can pose as a viable justification, they’ll be awarded with their full buildup request.

It’s important that Captain Obama maintains a reasonable level of acceptability with the public who may already be growing suspicious of their new corporate representative’s motives.

The foul odor of no change, same old, same old peopleless politics, may be enough to wake the public from their hypnotic slumber.

¡Hail to the Putz of ifs and butts!

Best to you, Mr. Shields.

What guy this Obama. You can’t get anything thing past this ol’ boy. Loved to get him in a game of poker. What a putz.

and only their gov’t makes mistakes. the enemy gov’ts never make mistakes; all of their misdeeds are terrorist or criminal.
thnx

The Joint Chiefs are liars! The Joint Chiefs are liars!

They know exactly what the end game is, maintain US-backed conflicts through the M.E. and as much of the world as possible for as long as they can. These guys were trained for the job of war, even if you have to create it to stay in business. Their bombers, fighters, tanks, radioactive ammunition, laser sightings, dumb bombs, cluster bombs and cluster f**ks were all designed in order to be used. Christ all mighty, it’s about the only export the US has left, aside from spreading economic viruses around the planet.

Now that they’ve been revealed, what in the name of sweet baby Jesus shall we ever do?!

Very well said. All the more reason for those in the military today to emulate the example of their predecessors some thirty five to forty years ago by participating in the GI rebellion and tell the military and Obama that they will not be part of an organization that is illegally and unjustly occupying Iraq and Afghanistan as well as raining down drone missiles on innocent Pakistani civilians.

American soldiers-resist the American empire.

Do we really expect men who’ve made their careers in the military to now criticize the use of military power?

And with due respect and sympathy for the young people who join the military “to secure some food and shelter with the hope of minimal exposure to danger,” I think it should be pointed out that they’ve literally committed themselves to killing to perpetuate a system that denied them food, shelter, health care or an education unless they gave up their freedom and agreed to do its dirty work. If we continue to accept “just doing my job,” “just doing my duty,” “just following orders,” “just trying to provide for my family,” and “doing God’s will” as excuses for atrocities and oppression, there is NO hope for a change in direction for this society.

Mr. Porter has been a tad too vigilant in his “evidence” to show an Obama that is attempting to be prudent when we see a different picture unfolding.

It is not just the particulars and Porter’s sources but the repetition of the message that has been packaged on different sites (and not the same column as much as the message itself) on the part of Porter. One can be meticulous with details while getting the picture and the reason for it all wrong – harking back to Woodward (his creds with Watergate allowed him all kinds of Bush narrative crap).

Bush and Cheney were easy targets. Obama is a test of exactly, where one stands with regard to propaganda when it comes from the Dems vs the flipside. And so far, Porter is just to heavy on pushing the Obama agenda, here and elsewhere.

Porter and his “insider” info needs to be scutinized. We’ve seen this film before, I’m afraid – ala Miller/NYT.

The man portrayed Obama’s supposed move as a victory if not a brave and principled stance. Maybe those who didn’t vote for him don’t need to find a reason for legitimizing that vote?

That lesser evilism sure is a slippery slope…before you know it, changing the white house toilet paper to recycled against Emanuel’s wishes will be heralded as a victory by all those who voted for him.

Are some of you not inclined to kill the messenger?

I’ve had the good fortune to know Gareth Porter for the past couple of years. We are friends. He is an independent journalist who has developed his own “sources” within government, the military, international organizations; and he is respected by his peers in the U.S. and abroad. He has also verified his research, scholarly and journalistic credentials in his book, PERILS OF DOMINANCE, a study of the way crucial miscalculations about our strength vis a vis that of the “Communist world” led us step by inexorable step into the Big Muddy of Vietnam. Porter and I are both in our 60′s, and we’ve spent decades living through and digesting the offal of Vietnam and seeing how this American Empire, like so many empires before it, keeps making the same mistakes and generating the same miseries.

Porter’s work is relatively new to the pages of Dissident Voice. I am glad to find his work here. It is not his “brief” to offer his own opinions or editorialize upon the the facts he presents. He brings us information we will not find in the mainstream media. He gives us breathing room to formulate our own opinions. He “arms” us with facts so that we can disarm our critics!

Sometimes you’ve got to hold fire until the smoke clears. When the Left sits down for a discussion circle, it too often happens that they start shooting at each other or start a circle jerk. Either way, valuable energy is lost. So, let’s hold fire, gather the facts, and focus our passions wisely, where they will do most good.

http://www.darianworden.com/pics/votedemocrat.jpg

Best to you.

While you’re at it, get out of Africa. Western meddling and NGOs make more problems than they solve over there. It’s time for African leaders to get their shit together and run their own nations.

Oh yeah, Fauxbama ain’t that young. He was old enough to remember Cronkite giving a running tally on dead and wounded at the end of his newscasts. And if he picked up a book or other reading material during his formative years, he came across Vietnam stories. This, along with his 6-figure Harvard education, ought to have given him the sense to know a quagmire when he sees one.

I have done my share of shit shoveling as well, albeit not metaphorically as I mentioned, but the elemental type that we both know.

You’re correct about the US poor being relatively wealthy by world standards. However, once you calculate the cost of living in the US as compared to other regions of the world where it only takes a fraction of what is needed to survive, the US poor are still accurately categorized as poor by the standard which they are judged. In any society, the escalating number of poor without access to basics like food, shelter, education and medicine, is unacceptable based on human standards.

I agree that the best scenario for the planet is zero humans, assuming that the only means of living is polluting the planet and decimating resources irresponsibly as we have been doing. There are other ways though once we remove the capitalist system that blinds human rationality. With such a hard focus on profit, mankind will never reach a sustainable approach to living in harmony with the planet on which we depend. Nor will that ever be achievable while we live under the rule of old, elite bloodlines that have ruled humanity for centuries. Get rid of the elite and their capitalist system, and perhaps the people can come up with more syncronistic ways of living that value stewardship and compassion. It’s a long shot, but it’s not impossible.

Cynicism fails to address any sort of rational solution to our mounting problems. Everyone, however, is entitled to their own perspective.

Best to you.

Who said the poor “want” the empire to fall? And who said anything about “shit shoveling”?

But more importantly empires don’t crash and burn because the people “inside” them “want” them to crash and burn or collapse.

On the other hand, what makes you think the poor or anyone else is out doing the Empire’s work. Yea the unemployed youth may join the military, but not to save the empire, but to secure some food and shelter with the hope of minimal exposure to danger.

This Empire, like all that collapse, is unsustainable at every level. That means the what really matters isn’t really interested in “wants”; but rather in “needs”. And this empire is NOT needed.

The American people are not being fed shit because they don’t understand … rather because they understand all too well.

Think about it this way: Even the POOR in the US are wealthy by world standards. Even the dumbest American knows that is a fact. They also know that if we do not maintain the empire the wealthy will remain wealthy … it is the poor that do have the most to lose. In spite of people living out of their cars, and on the streets, those poor amongst us remain (relative to the poor in other countries) wealthy.

So, no one seriously wants the empire to fail … not even the poor.

Stick it to ‘em has been our motto since the first colonists hit the east coast … and stick it to ‘em is still our mantra.

Economic/ecological collapse may change things for the better (ie, fewer of us on the planet) but the best scenario for the planet is zero humans …

Cynically (cynicism is the hard shell an idealist grows to protect the ideal from reality),

RG the LG