Protest U.S. Military Aggression, March On The Pentagon!

Visit http://www.PentagonMarch.org for more info


7 Reasons You Should Join the March on the Pentagonon March 21, 2009

Please post the March 21st event on your Facebook and MySpace pages, and forward it widely to your friends and family.

1 The war in Afghanistan is expanding and widening. President Obama announced last week that another 17,000 troops are on their way to Afghanistan. Only 18 percent of Afghanis support this escalation and only 34 percent of the people of the United States approve of the added troops despite the president’s popularity, according to the Washington Post/ABC poll announced on February 17, 2009. This is a colonial war. The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, was not involved in the decision to add more occupying troops into his country. Rather, he was “informed of the deployments in a telephone call with Obama” on February 17, according to the Washington Post (February 18, 2009).

2 About 350,000 U.S. troops and U.S.-paid private contractors (mercenaries) still occupy Iraq. The Iraqi people want the occupation to end. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is insisting that only two of the 14 combat brigades in Iraq exit in 2009. The war and occupation of Iraq costs $430 million each day. If the U.S. government were to end the military occupation, any and all future Iraqi governments would return to a position of political independence from the economic and political dictates of the United States. Iraq’s anti-colonial legacy has created a political reality that prohibits the country from becoming like Kuwait or Saudi Arabia--an out-and-out dependency on U.S. imperialism. That is the real reason that the U.S. government fears a complete disengagement from Iraq and an end to its military occupation.

3 Israel’s Siege of Gaza remains in place, with the full backing of Washington. The U.S. government has continued to fund Israel’s war and blockade against the people of Gaza. The Pentagon provided the funding, and technical and logistical support for the establishment of the Israeli war machine, including its massive cluster and white phosphorous bomb arsenal, and the country’s large cache of nuclear bombs.

4 The new Justice Department has announced that it will continue the policy of renditions, meaning the CIA and Pentagon will capture and kidnap individuals anywhere in the world and transfer them to other countries. “The Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.” (LA Times, Feb. 1, 2009)

5 The new administration has stepped up the air strikes that are killing an increasingly large number of Pakistani civilians. Unmanned drone bombing attacks violate Pakistani sovereignty and are creating an ocean of resentment and anger inside of Pakistan. The U.S. government has no right to carry out these drone bombing strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The people of the United States would not accept the legitimacy of other governments ordering air attacks in the United States. We must openly and loudly reject such tactics by the government that speaks in our name and spends our tax dollars for such aggression.

6 The real Pentagon war budget is over $1.3 trillion annually. This is greater than the combined total of most of the other countries in the world, including all the NATO countries, and Russia and China. Some label this “waste spending” because it spends precious resources to build exotic and high cost weapons, a new generation of nuclear weapons, and space-based war fighting capabilities, while filling the coffers of the big investors (i.e., the biggest banks) in the war corporations. Pentagon contracting is often based on guaranteed “cost-plus” contracts that reward price gouging since corporate profit is based on a fixed percentage above their expenses. Another label for this process is “extreme corruption” and theft from the public treasury.

7 More than 20 million people are now unemployed and under-employed. Nine million families are either in foreclosure or are at risk of foreclosure this year, according to the statistics just released by the government. Forty-seven million people are without health care. College tuition hikes are soaring and millions of students are at risk of being forced out of school. The people want change. They don’t want a simple tweaking of Bush’s criminal foreign policies. They want to put people's needs before corporate greed. They want an end to wars of aggression that are wreaking havoc, death and destruction abroad, and diverting urgently needed resources in the service of semi-colonialism and Empire.

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Obama Escalates US-led Terrorist Attacks In Afghanistan, More Innocent Women and Children Killed

Afghans say 13 civilians killed in US-led strike

HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) — Afghan authorities said Wednesday that at least 13 civilians, including women and children, were killed in a US-led air strike on militants, prompting the military to order an inquiry.

The latest charges of civilian casualties from foreign operations follow tensions on the issue between Kabul and Washington, its main military backer in an escalating fight against a Taliban insurgency.

The strike outside the western city of Herat on Monday targeted a "key insurgent commander" named Gholam Yahya Akbari, the US military said.

"Killed in the attack were up to 15 militants suspected of associating with Yahya," it said.
However, provincial authorities said teams sent to the area to investigate found that civilians were killed.

"The information we have states that 13 civilians have been killed in that air strike -- six women, two children and five men," said provincial government spokesman Naqibullah Arwin.

The identities of three other men killed in the same attack were unclear, the spokesman said.
"Initial information indicates that two of the three bodies could also be civilians. Apparently they were two car mechanics taken there to fix a broken car which belonged to the armed opposition," Arwin said.

Ikramuddin Yawar, police chief for western Afghanistan, earlier confirmed the deaths of six women and two children whom he said were from a nomad tribe, and were killed close to their tents. Read On

Un-Changely, Obama Surges Troops In Afghanistan

more troops, more death & destruction, more billion$ (that could be spent on people's needs here in the US), more of the same....

Obama OKs 17,000 new troops for Afghanistan
Additional Marines, Army soldiers expected to deploy in coming months

NBC News and news services

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama approved adding some 17,000 U.S. troops for the flagging war in Afghanistan, his first significant move to change the course of a conflict that his closest military advisers have warned the United States is not winning.

"To meet urgent security needs, I approved a request from (Defense) Secretary Gates to deploy a Marine Expeditionary Brigade later this spring and an Army Stryker Brigade and the enabling forces necessary to support them later this summer," Obama said in a statement issued by the White House. Read On

US Terror Campaign Strikes Wedding Party In Afghanistan, 40 Civilians Killed

Karzai says air strike kills 40 in Afghanistan
Wed Nov 5, 12:57 pm ET

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday an air strike by coalition forces earlier this week killed some 40 civilians and wounded about 28 in Kandahar province.
Karzai called on U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to make it his priority to stop the killing of civilians.

Scores of Afghans have been killed in U.S. air strikes this year, leading to resentment against the presence of foreign troops and a rift between Karzai and his Western backers.
The air strike took place on Monday in the Shah Wali Kot district in the southern Taliban heartland of Kandahar province.

"By bombing Afghanistan, the war against terrorism cannot be won," Karzai told a news conference.

Several villagers who had taken a group of wounded to the hospital in Kandahar city said the air strike hit a wedding party. Read On

Heartbroken over U.S. killing innocent Iraqis, Afghans, Pakastanis

It's a tragedy, no doubt, when a fellow human being is murdered. I'm glad future president Barack Obama (yah, i'm calling it) expressed his heartbreak over the murders of actress Jennifer Hudson's family members. It shows compassion, an important human characteristic that, in many of us, is veiled by our nationalism or American exceptionalism.

Los Angeles (E! Online) – Sen. Barack Obama, a fan and friend of Jennifer Hudson, took time out from his campaign Saturday to send his condolences to his fellow Chicagoan.

"Michelle and I were absolutely heartbroken to learn about this unimaginable tragedy, and we want Jennifer and to know that she is in our thoughts and prayers during this very difficult time. We also pray for the swift and safe return of her young nephew."

What should be of great concern to all people is that Obama's compassion seems to be selective as evidenced here:

• Obama hasn't expressed any heartbreak over the deaths of a million civilians , the severe refugee crisis, and the destruction that resulted from the United States' unprovoked war of aggression on Iraq.
  


• To the dismay of Pakistani officials, Obama threatens to use military attacks in Pakistan, which have already caused violent deaths of many innocent people and is fueling anti-American sentiment.
  


• Obama wants to escalate war in Afghanistan, where U.S.-led bombing campaigns have violently killed and injured thousands of innocent people, and justifiably angers Afghans, which the Taliban successfully uses as a recruiting tool.

If you're reading this, please do me a favor and direct me to any statements Obama has made in which he expresses concern for the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan who are, have been, and will be subjected to unimaginable violence by the U.S. military.

I worry for humanity.

Corporatocracy Rising

Big Business Is Making Sure It Wins the Presidency
By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com. Posted August 9, 2008.

It's the same old story: Money talks, and bullshit walks. And don't be surprised if we're the ones still walking after November.

snip

.....The truth is that the campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain are being inundated with cash from more or less exactly the same gorgons of the corporate scene. From Wall Street to the Big Oil powerhouses to the military-industrial complex, America's fat-cat business leaders know that the Animal House-style party of the last eight years that made almost all of them rich with bonuses, government contracts and bubble profits is about to come to an end, and someone is going to have to pay to clean up the mess. They want that someone to be you, not them, and they've spared no expense to make sure both presidential candidates will be there to bail them out next year.

They're succeeding. Both would-be presidents have already sold us out. They've taken the money and run -- completing the cyclical transformation of the American political narrative from one of monopolistic Republican iniquity to an even more depressing tale about the overweening power of corporate money and the essentially fictitious nature of our two-party system.

In layman's terms, we've gone from being screwed to being fucked. Who knows -- maybe Barack Obama will surprise us if he wins the election. But if you look at the money, it doesn't look good.
Thanks in part to the dormant FEC, corporate America has had even easier access to the candidates than usual in its effort to buy off the next government before the crash........

read the whole piece here

World Welcomes Obama Win

Jun 4 01:39 PM US/Eastern
By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer

LONDON (AP) - Barack Obama's triumph over Hillary Clinton triggered jubilation among his relatives in Kenya, hope among people around the world—and a few questions about what he actually stands for.

Many expressed optimism Wednesday that a November victory by Obama—who has relatives in Africa and childhood friends in Asia—would mark a major shift from the deeply unpopular policies of the Bush administration.

In Kenya, home to Obama's family on his father's side, the Kenya Times newspaper devoted its front page to the story, under the headline "Obama makes history."

"I've just watched him on television, and as a family we are very happy. Really, it is something that is a trendsetter," the politician's uncle, Said Obama, told The Associated Press from the port city of Kisumu in western Kenya.

In Mexico City, hairdresser Susan Mendoza's eyes lit up when she learned Obama had clinched the nomination.

"Bush was for the elite. Obama is of the people," she said.
Read On