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POPSIraq Cabinet Approves Removal of US troops Still, Kevin Drum argues that sticking to the deal would be good for Obama: since this essentially makes his decision to withdraw into a bipartisan agreement. After all, conservatives can hardly complain about Obama following a timetable that was negotiated and approved by Bush. Obama has enough on his plate already, and taking this issue off the table ought to be a considerable relief to him. Hmmm, maybe. But it wouldn't go down well with many progressives who expect Obama to stick to his promises to America before he sticks to Bush's promises to Iraq.
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POPSFrom The Department of "As If" Uncanny. Maybe I should go back and look through that victory speech for other tea leaves. And back in Iraq: Some military leaders remain wary of Obama's pledge to order a steady withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq, to be completed within 16 months -- an order advisers say Obama is likely to give in his first weeks in office. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has called a withdrawal timeline "dangerous." Others are distrustful of a new administration they see as unschooled in the counterinsurgency wars that have consumed the military for the past seven years. Gosh - a very public order to commence withdrawals followed by very quiet back-pedaling as conditions are evaluated and re-evaluated would be awfully cynical and manipulative, wouldn't it? On the other hand, Obama has said a million times that we must be as responsible in leaving Iraq as we were careless in entering, . .
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POPSThe Case for U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan So if aerial bombardments and occupations give legitimacy to those very fundamentalists who Afghans would remove from power, what does the real war on fundamentalism look like? And it's not just that the Afghan population believes that the Taliban resistance is legitimate; that resistance is legitimate under international law. No less important a document than the United Nations charter gives the Taliban and other Afghans the right to legitimate self-defense against U.S. aggression. Instead of scaling up an already disastrous war, the United States should change it's course The whole article is worth a read.
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POPSHeadlines from 2020 - Part V
• The Amish are relocated en masse to unelectrified penal colonies in Alaska because they refuse to pledge allegiance to anyone but God; they fail to accept that Obama is God. Unlike other deportations, this one saves the People's State money because the Amish are pacifists. Their formerly productive farmland is redistributed to ACORN staff and people George Soros likes (until he quits liking them; people do not think about what happens after that). Results similar to those in Zimbabwe fail to be reported in the state media. • The Amish are joined by those Rastas too stoned to fight back, although some Rastas merely remain under state suspicion after conceding that, as per Bob Marley, "the Almighty God is a living man" refers not to Haile Selassie but Barry Obama. • The Red Cross becomes the Red Circle (aka the Red 'O') and blood donations become mandatory. Those without recent donations are denied bread rations. . Mandated "volunteer" camps teach youth educational value of
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POPSObama’s Pentagon-in-Waiting ~ Center for a New American Security
“If they had, the saying in Washington is those who know, don’t say, and those who say, don’t know. I don’t fit in that category.” CNAS fellows and leaders declined to comment for this article. “We bring people together,” Floyd said, “not for a lowest-common-denominator bipartisanship, but for pragmatic solutions for problems we face.” CNAS papers are often vetted through an informal peer-review process, with experts at liberal, centrist and conservative think tanks. Still, some progressives have said that CNAS occasionally substitutes received wisdom for rigor. “I think CNAS’s work on Iraq, in particular, has been unduly tied to the conventional wisdom,” said Matthew Yglesias, a leading liberal blogger. Floyd contended that CNAS’s Iraq position has become the Washington consensus position. We were able to describe a responsible withdrawal,” he said, “and, in essence, the discussion is how to do that. It’s not if it will be done.”
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POPSObama Victory Alters the Tenor of Iraqi Politics Over all, however, there was a new tone of optimism. “The atmosphere is positive with the American attempt to preserve the sovereignty of the Iraqi nation,” the government’s spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, told the news channel Al Arabiya. He praised the inclusion of a new provision stating that Americans would not launch attacks on Iraq’s neighbors from Iraqi soil. “There’s going to be a significant presence, but they are not going to be ‘combat’ forces,” said the administration official. “The other thing we witnessed through the Bush period was that when the Iraqi politicians couldn’t reach a compromise, Bush interfered,” Mr. Habeeb said. “I don’t think Obama will do that; he will not try to set the Iraqi agenda,” he said. “I think the politicians will have to be mature enough to solve their own problems and dare to make compromises.”
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POPS Day One Obama faces a Cold War threat and a warning from Israel Gordon Brown became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Obama in a ten-minute telephone call last night. Aides said they discussed Obama's plans for a phased withdrawal from Iraq and his commitment to boost forces in Afghanistan. Speaking from the South Lawn of the White House, President Bush said he would be meeting Mr Obama next week and is making 'unprecedented efforts' to make a smooth transition during his final 74 days in office. As if the instant foreign policy tests were not enough, Mr Obama was also facing more economic problems with the Dow Jones Index dropping for a second successive day. Wall Street greeted his election win by plunging nearly 500 points on Wednesday and it was down again by 274 points in afternoon trading.
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POPSThe Ghoul's Glossary: the 2008 Election Withdrawal: A way to avoid the worst consequences of a moment of pleasurable conquest, which, however, often comes too late to avoid years of support payments. Youth vote: The expectation that 21-year-olds will save the nation from the folly of their elders, in preference to gulping shots from the navels of hot barmaids during a Tuesday happy hour. Zionism: The theory that because Nazis hated Jews, the latter would be much better off all gathered together on disputed land in the midst of 300 million Arabs and Iranians.
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POPS If Iraqis Could Vote It Would Be For McCain Iraqi men watch a repeat of the final US presidential debate between candidates Barack Obama and John McCain as they smoke waterpaipes at a coffee shop in Baghdad on October 16, 2008. Iraqis in the Baghdad neighbourhood near Rasheed Street say if they could vote in the US election they would choose McCain.
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POPSThe Long Road Ahead -- Are You Ready for the Worst the Economy Has to Offer?
The killer tidal wave washes away all the things they have labored to build for decades, all their poignant little effects and chattels, and the survivors are left keening amidst the wreckage as the sea once again returns to normal in its eternal cradle. So, that's what I think we will get: an interval of deflationary depression followed by a destructive wave of inflation that will wipe out both constructed debt and constructed savings, scraping the financial landscape clean. There's no question that stage one is underway. But we can be sure the giant wave of money recklessly loaned into existence in just a few weeks time will wash back through the global economy leaving a swath of destruction. And then what? The societies of the world will be faced with the task of rebuilding systems of fruitful activity, i.e., real economies based on productive behavior rather than the smoke-and-mirrors of Frankenstein-finance con games.
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POPSIraq Condemns U.S. - Demands Quick Withdrawal
It's clearer now that Bush's false war for false reasons is going down the toilet. It seems one of the oldest civilizations in the world is not falling for USA junk food treaties. Apparently the people who started the skill of writing can read. There's much more to this story/clip than just the headline: all big time, bad news for Bush. For what the Bush Administration and military wanted: The rest of the article is even worse, . #1. Iraq wants U.S. troops out by the end of 2009. It how now firmly rejected a clause the U.S. Military wanted, an option to extend the occupation to 2011. #2 It wants sole discretion to put U.S. soldiers on trial for any crimes they might commit -- something the U.S. will never agree to. #3. It wants to inspect U.S. military shipments into Iraq, another things the U.S. military or Navy would never agree to. These terms, right here in this clip, spell out F-A-I-L-U-R-E for Bush's War in Iraq and it's ongoing scams for Oil. It'
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POPSIraq demands all troops out by 2011 "Conditions" talk removed from agreement; re-named “agreement around the temporary presence of US forces in Iraq, its activities and its withdrawal timeline.” Can be less than 3 years, but cannot be more.
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POPSWhy Barack Obama Is Winning Cont I would be making the exact same argument," he began. "Your job is to succeed in Iraq on as favorable terms as we can get. But my job as a potential Commander in Chief is to view your counsel and interests through the prism of our overall national security." Obama talked about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the financial costs of the occupation of Iraq, the stress it was putting on the military. Barack Obama has prospered in this presidential campaign because of the steadiness of his temperament and the judicious quality of his decision-making. They are his best-known qualities. The most important decision he has made — the selection of a running mate — was done carefully, with an exhaustive attention to detail and contemplation of all the possible angles. Two months later, as John McCain's peremptory selection of Governor Sarah Palin has come to seem a liability,
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POPSSenior Taliban Commander Reported Killed In US Strike A long-time Taliban leader killed . . . . confirmation pending Omar was born in the town South Waziristan. Like many Taliban leaders, he earned his stripes by battling against the Soviet Red Army in Bagram and Kabul, Afghanistan during the 1980s. He was wounded several times but continued to return to the fight. After the Soviets withdrawal, Omar left Afghanistan as the Afghan warlords battled for power. He returned after Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, took power in 1996. Haji Omar forged close links with Mullah Omar while serving as one of his senior lieutenants. He lived in Kandahar and took an Afghan wife. After the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Omar fled to his base in South Waziristan. From there he carved out his enclave and worked to build the Pakistani Taliban as a formidable fighting force. His fighters cross the border to fight US and allied forces in Afghanistan.
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POPSEconomic Tsunami (Clusterfuck Nation) "The killer tidal wave washes away all the things they have labored to build for decades, all their poignant little effects and chattels, and the survivors are left keening amidst the wreckage as the sea once again returns to normal in its eternal cradle."
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POPSRWB Rank Israel near WORST for mistreatment of Journalist. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders organization have again ranked the Zionist state near the bottom in its annual World Press Freedom Index. That day 3 IDF soldiers had died and revenge was expected. It was not expected that a cameraman doing his job would be a target. Uniquely, the murder was recorder on the video camera on his shoulder. Supposedly the camera was mistaken for a missile. NO action of any type was taken against the killer. Par for the course in the morally corrupt society and its armed terrorist wing, the IDF. Hopefully Obama will withdraw financial support from this soon. I care little if the withdrawal is for moral or financial reasons.
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POPSFacts? We don't need no stinkin Facts. "Palin again, a few days ago: “Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.” At the end of the nineteen-sixties, when Bill Ayers was a leader of the New Left’s most destructive, self-destructive, and delusional splinter, Barack Obama was a small boy living with his mother in Indonesia. The fact that thirty years later Obama and Ayers sat on a couple of the same nonprofit boards tells us no more about Obama’s politics and character than does the fact that another member of one of those boards was Arnold R. Weber, the former president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago and a donor of fifteen hundred dollars to the McCain campaign. Ayers and Obama are not now, nor have they ever been, pals."
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POPSU.S. Perpetuates Mass Killings In Iraq
I couldn't care less who wins the elections. Looking at both candidates, it seems America isn't the least bit interested in real change. Is anyone asking the candidates about what they are going to do about the US' slow but steady slide into fascism? Or about limiting presidential power? Or about banning torture? Or about the return of Habeus Corpus? Or about extraordinary renditions and secret prisons? Or about preemptive aggression? Or about making your war criminals pay for their crimes? Hmm? Anyone? No. No. Let's just keep it entertaining, low key and unsubstantial. Let's talk about lipstick! Yeah! Blacks vs whites, Democrats vs Republicans, pro-life vs pro-choice, Christians vs atheists blah blah blah... "Divide and conquer!". The power elite working behind the scenes have that pat down and the US citizenry is blissfully (perhaps willingly) oblivious... *shaking my head in disbelief* Oops! No time to comment any more! The O'Reilly Factor's on! No spin! Really!
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POPSTale of the Two Bracelets My call? McCain unhesitatingly cited the name of the fallen soldier, with passion and commitment. The elitist man-child had to glance at his bracelet for the name on it, then stuttered the name, unfamiliar with it. The insincerity of this showed that the bracelet on his wrist is but another campaign prop, and a sneer to those of us who cling to our guns and religion.
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POPSThe Law of the Conservation of Violence
Edward S. Herman's article on Z-Net, touches some important points: Can we expect a "way different" (and peaceful) international policy , if Obama wins? Do the Democrats promise to put an end to that "muscular foreign policy" which have harmed America's image for years? An interesting read. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on the campaign trail called for a larger army to meet U.S. "defense" needs. Now Obama wants us to take on a bigger commitment to violence. This will keep the arms cargo ships and planes busy and the bomb factories and plane and missile factories working at full capacity. Of course, those wanting infrastructure improvements and resources will have to wait and "hope" for a better future after our enemies are defeated and full hegemony and stability are established. They need a good dollop of "vision." The law of conservation of the level of violence thus rests on the structure of power and its reflection in politics. If you want to compete
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