While it is common knowledge that the Taliban were strongly supported by Pakistan during the 80′s and 90′s, many of the military links between the Pakistan army and Taliban were kept active post 9/11 even. This goes against what Pakistan, as an ally of the United States, has supposedly been fighting against in the War on Terror for the past nine years.

Judging by the disclosed documents, Pakistani spy agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.”

American commanders and policy makers react to this intel by having candid discussions with Pakistani Generals in air conditioned offices in Islamabad and promising $1 billion in aid per year along with modern weaponry. Even the White House National Security advisor called this morning’s leaks as destructive and hailed the combined “counter-terrorism cooperation” between the United States and Pakistan.

One has to ask who is double crossing whom? The Pakistanis, who are taking American money and working with the enemy? Or the US who, having full knowledge of ISI support for Taliban continues with a Pakistani alliance in the War on Terror?

Another integral question that is raised by this disclosure is in its timing. In the week where Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton and the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen had visited Pakistan on either side of a Kabul Conference, the release of these documents means that someone within the army is not happy with the way things are being handled on an official level. Any purpose of these documents other than to harm the US-Pakistan alliance is not missed here.

Meanwhile, Iranian media is reporting the leak as an exposé into the immense number of civilian casualties by American forces in Afghanistan. According to Press TV, the real figure of civilian casualties had previously been publically hidden and deliberately downplayed. Press TV’s account makes a brief mention of ISI involvement with the Taliban.

We invite our readers to express their views on whether the current approach to the War on Terror is the right way to go?

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About the Author:

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Thom Collier has out-raised all three of his opponents COMBINED in the first 12 month period.  For calendar year 2009, Collier out-raised his next closest competitor, an incumbent House member, by nearly $30,000, even though 59% of his opponent’s fundraising came from special interest lobbying groups.

Thom Collier raised $103,200 from 330 individual contributors. In stark contrast to his next closest competitor, only 3% of Collier’s $106,500 fundraising efforts were from Political Action Committees.  Further separating Collier from his opponents, Collier was the only candidate to receive significant contributions from individual donors in all five counties of the 19th Senate District.

Other candidates in this race have loaned their campaign thousands of dollars to make up for the lack of grassroots support.  Thom Collier is running his campaign debt-free, and just like his views on state government, believes that his campaign should be fiscally responsible.

With 83 days left in this campaign, Thom Collier is relying on conservative activists from all five counties in the 19th District to help him get his message out.  Volunteers and individual contributors will make the difference in this race.

Thom Collier stated, “I have been humbled by the support of so many on this campaign.  People have dedicated their time, talent, and treasure to help me get our conservative message to the voters.  The work, however, is just beginning.  Over the next two and a half months, I will be working extremely hard to get our message to the voters.  Ohio is at a crossroads, and we need conservative leaders now more than ever.  I am the only candidate with both business and state government experience, and I am in the best position to get the job done in Columbus.”

During a time when high taxes, uncontrolled government spending, and policies that are unfriendly to businesses and job creation, Thom Collier and his clear record of conservative policies on fiscal responsibility on the State level and for creating policies that favor businesses and job growth should prove very favorable in the upcoming state elections.

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Paid for by the committee to elect Thom Collier, Kelly Schermerhorn, Treasurer, 607 East High Street, Mount Vernon, Ohio 43050. For more information about Thom Collier, visit http://www.electcollier.com.

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About the Author:
Matthew D. Parker is the President and Founder of Front Porch Strategies, a national voter contact firm based out of Columbus, Ohio. Prior to forming Front Porch Strategies in 2006, Parker worked as a senior account executive at BrabenderCox, an award winning political, media, and marketing firm. He has also served as a top congressional aide, campaign manager, and a White House intern in the Office of Political Affairs. A native of West Virginia, Matthew holds a degree in Economics with a minor in Political Science from Marietta College.
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How brazen to have it told that the Obama machine (aka Chicago style politics) “controlled the press”. Anita Dunn, a senior White House aide, has boasted of how Barack Obama’s presidential campaign managed to “absolutely control” the press during the 2008. It seems like everyone knew that except the press!

But that was back then, this is now and Obama doesn’t like Fox News!

Two-and-a-half years into the Nixon presidency, White House Special Counsel Chuck Colson compiled a twenty person “enemies list”. The Colson list included then-CBS reporter Daniel Schorr and the late columnist Mary McGrory. It looks like the Obama administration is off to a head start. Not even having completed a year in office, President Obama’s most senior aides have a bead drawn on Fox News. Unlike the Nixon enemies list which was secret, the Obama enemies list is hidden in plain sight.

Talk about brazen and arrogant!

On Sunday, White House Chief of Staff and Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel announced that Fox News was “not a news organization so much as it has a perspective.” At the same time, Senior White House aide and Chicagoan David Axelrod went on ABC’s “This Week” and beseeched George Stephanopoulos and his fellow journalists to shun Fox. Axelrod said, that Fox was “not really a news station . . . .” Axelrod added “other news organizations, like yours, ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way.”

We have a serious political mentality going on here folks.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Tuesday pointed to two top-rated opinion shows on Fox News as the reason why the Obama administration has castigated the network as an illegitimate news organization. Gibbs weighed in on the controversy after several top White House advisers have gone on other channels to criticize Fox News’ coverage of the administration, dismiss the network as the mouthpiece of the Republican Party and urge other news organizations not to treat Fox News as a legitimate news station.

The White House also appeared to stand by its effort to urge other networks to isolate and alienate the channel. Gibbs said Tuesday that it’s up to the White House Correspondents Association to decide whether Fox News should continue to be part of the White House pool which covers President Obama.

“I’m not going to delineate for the White House Correspondents Association how the pool is conducted. That’s not my job,” he said.

Yes, and we can read between the lines as well as what’s not being said here and what is going on is DANGEROUS for America. If we start down this road, how are we any different, ultimately, than Hugo Chavez and Venezuela. So, think it not strange that Chavez loves the Obama SOCIALIST ideas. Birds of a feather you know!

As a spiritual-futurist, I have a BA degree majoring in history. One cannot know the future without knowing the past which holds clues to what is on the horizon. The world is in such a rapid expansion of knowledge that we are close to entering a tipping point that will forever change earth as we know it.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/hugo-chavez-barack-obama-1360284.html

I spent the better part of my professional life understanding and improving on operational processes in the financial services industry.  When a process appeared too complex or confusing close up, we had a standard phrase, “Step back and look down on it as if you were 10,000 feet above it.”

The actions of my government, the United States government, over the past nine plus months have been far too confusing for even the best of the political analysis ‘experts’ to define a direction much less an agenda.  Every action seems to have less analysis and planning than the announced ‘initiative’ the day before.  Starting with the closing of a prison (Gitmo) without giving one iota of thought to where do you put the 250 plus terrorists, onto a plan of spending a trillion dollars to stimulate the economy without the plan being read by the people making it law, much less being held up for measurement and evaluation by the folk whose money was being pledged.

The list goes on and on, buying bankrupt auto manufacturers, buying up all the used cars in America only to replace them by cars made by offshore companies, the health care ‘reform’ debacle, screaming at Fox News like a teenage girl screaming at her disciplinarian mother “I hate you.”  All of these and many more actions seem to have nothing in common, no identifiable direction, no shared thread of policy or agenda…until you erase all the pre-defined framework that we are used to viewing government action in and rise up 10,000 feet and look down on the last nine months of government action and the unthinkable concept of an agenda emerges, chaos, intentional chaos.

Now your immediate reaction is either, “Oh brother another conspiracy theory” or “Why would a central government want to introduce chaos?”  Please bear with me and read on, I will try, over the next several paragraphs to walk you through the process I followed to come to this conclusion.

Conspiracy is the foundation supporting all other actions of our political system.  The problem with conspiracies is that they only work as long as all participants in the conspiracy are committed to a common goal.  Republicans and Democrats (together with all other political parties) are committed to their group winning elections.  We recently got a look inside the communications strategy of a political party in the midst of an election courtesy of White House Communications Director Anita Dunn.  She said Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe (political strategist chief campaign manager for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign) put out Web videos so the campaign could avoid talking to reporters and focus the media message. 

“One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters. … We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter.  So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it.” 

To pull off this kind of managed/controlled dissemination of information on a man running for the most powerful position on the globe calls for a conspiracy so well managed that the first leak of its existence does not occur for almost a year after the election and only then because an embattled Anita Dunn needed to boost her own self esteem by bragging.  (She thinks that kind of voter deception is a good thing, if that isn’t unwavering commitment to a cause I quite frankly do not know what would be.)

I would love to be able to say that only the bad guys ‘conspired’ but that is patently not the case, all those in the political arena conspire, regardless of the level of the office.  Many, many years ago when I was a young man pretending to be Diogenes searching for an honest man, I was convinced to run for office as a trustee in a small but corrupt village…as a reformer!  I accepted the invitation and ran as an independent, meeting and greeting voters and spouting my words of honesty, integrity and open government.  Three months into the campaign and a week before the election, at a meeting of my ‘handlers’ I learned that ‘we’ had a spy planted on the opposition’s campaign committee who fed us all the strategy and tactical moves they were planning.  It was an election of the trustee of a village for God’s sake…yet the process included the usual unethical conspiracy.  It is a fact of life here in the US!

Why would a central government want to introduce chaos?

To paraphrase Euripides “Those whom the seekers of absolute power would conquer they first confuse!”

Let us start by once again turning to one of the White House insiders, Ms. Anita Dunn, “And then the third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa, not often coupled together, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you’re going to make choices.”

Mao Zedong’s concept of ‘making a choice’ was simply that he wanted China to represent a pure form of Communism at any cost and by the end of his Great Leap Forward a commune based  industrialization program that ran from 1957 to 1960 an estimated 30 to 50 million Chinese citizens were dead, their demise directly related to Mao’s choices.

If Ms. Dunn is a follower of the obsession with achieving a pure Communist system, and she is the acknowledged member of a conspiracy to get Mr. Obama elected, may we not conclude that there is likelihood that Mr. Obama shares her objective.

Prior to Mr. Obama’s election on November 4, 2008 we knew very little about either his beliefs or his agenda.  We had platitudes and his involvement with some less than attractive folk to go on.  However all that changed on September 23, 2009 when Mr. Obama ‘leaked’ a view of his agenda, not to the people he works for, the United States citizenry, but to a group of people salivating over the possibility of their getting their hands on the ‘wealth of a nation’, our Nation.

On September 23, 2009 at 10:10 A.M. EDT President Obama gave a speech to The United Nations General Assembly that committed our Nation’s wealth, resources, culture and life style to ‘saving the world’.  The speech is 5,000 words but 26 of those words tell a lot about where he wants to take this country of ours.

“We will integrate more economies into a system of global trade.  …And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.”  That is global poverty he is referring to.

In order to accomplish that objective he must spread the wealth of the US around the globe.  In order to carry out that rather larcenous act he must either get the US working person’s buy in (fat chance) or take control of the machine producing the wealth of this Nation by sleight of hand and set about the redistribution via near dictatorial powers supported by his own special group of…oh my God…co-conspirators!

I am often accused of resorting to numbers to emphasize a point, however I am by education an accountant and have always believed the adage, ‘the devil is in the details’!  So let us take a look at how much of the world’s wealth we are actually responsible for generating…that’s right, generating, how much of the global annual domestic wealth production are we, the hard working, innovative, sacrificing people responsible for producing?

To assemble these statistics I turned to three sources, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the CIA World Fact Book.  The individual numbers by country do not differ that much but for some reason the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank elected to leave off several countries.  Since my objective here is to point out the perspective of the 194 members of the General Assembly that sat salivating over our hard earned US assets relative to their balance sheets and income statements I will use the data from the CIA World Fact Book (a highly respected source) since it comes closest with data on all of the 195 country membership of the UN.

The Gross Domestic Product (the value of everything made or service provided) for all the 195 members of the United Nations (including the US) is $61.070 trillion ($61,070,000,000,000.00).

The United States contribution to that awesome number is $14.26 trillion or 23.4%.  The next largest economy on the globe is Japan with 8.1% or 4.9 trillion followed very closely by China with 4.4 trillion/7.2%.

All told, the top 15 UN members account for 75.7% of Worldwide Gross Domestic Product of which the US accounts for about 1/3.  The other 180 members are left to divide up the remaining 24.3%.

Beginning to get the picture?  This is the proverbial ‘have vs. have not’ only on a global scale.

I am not going to enumerate the various circumstances that brings us to the position on this world stage of the richest guy in town, but we are there and nothing jumps out at me justifying our continuing the hard work, innovation and sacrifices, but hand off to others the rewards, either within the borders of this great country or worse yet, across the borders to 194 other countries.  Further, I believe that very few of the 306 million folk inside our borders would elect to hand over large wads of their hard earned cash to pay for the lifestyle of others whether domestically or internationally!

…and President Obama and his insider group are very aware of this obstacle to their agenda.

If one analyzes, on a micro basis, the reaction to socialistic policies in the US it gets down to “I will get health care cheaper,” “I will get education cheaper,” “I will get energy cheaper.”  There is little or no discussion by the citizenry or by the ‘Ruling Group” as to who is getting all these products and services at a higher cost so that the recipients of the largesse get them more cheaply.  That question would force the analysis that would clearly point out the flaws in the concept.

Now let us expand that wealth redistribution policy globally.

As Mr. Obama spreads that 14.26 trillion bucks produced by us over an ever expanding international group of ‘largesse recipients’ even our lowest earners will become aware that they have less…and they will not be happy!

So Mr. Obama and his insider group have got to quickly get unimaginable powers to control the reaction of the US population, not just the big earners, but all 306 million of us.

What is their strategy, CHAOS!

1. (It is as if he were their spy inside our campaign.)  Now he has earned his bones with the global gang.
2. Keep the grand plan secret.
3. Never, never let the media point out that the definition of rich will keep descending until it includes the poor!
4. “Those rich people have too much, it should be shared.”  “Those people are poor because they are lazy and think they can live better off of my hard work.”
5. Create unworkable bankrupting programs on such a grand scale that the debt load of the United States as a sovereign nation explodes to a point that the case can be made that the US needs assistance from the other 194 members of the United Nations.
6. Massive unemployment, inflation, diminished dollar value, international movement to replace the dollar as the currency of choice, internal unrest, divisiveness, pitting American against American, etc.
7. Propose to the United Nations that the US will submit to an ‘interim’ World Government, turning over unprecedented authority to select members of a specially formed commission of the United Nations General Assembly, based on a Global/Socialism model.
8. Impose new laws in the United States, administered by special forces under the auspices of the United Nations.
9. Void the US constitution, dissolve the government and become part of the New World Order.
10. Redistribute the United States resources and assets until they are eventually depleted and the 195 members of the United Nations must look around for a new scam.

…and that is why the logical answer to the reason for a government that appears to be out of control is that “The agenda is planned, managed CHAOS.”

G. Hugh Bodell is the author of Treachery In Turtle Bay, a fictionalized mystery based on the 30 billion dollars that went missing from the UN Oil For Food Program.

He was consultant to the United Nations from 2000 through 2006.

Visit him and his books at www.ghughbodell.com

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/chaos-could-that-be-the-real-agenda-1364777.html

So let us begin. What follows are the actual comments of actual liberals. I am an idiot, according to liberals, because:

“ … [I] actually think that the average person is smart enough to control their own lives! Wake up! People are dumb!”

“ … [I] want everyone to embrace capitalism …”

“ … [I think] that people should be able to keep the money they earn! No one earns any money! Any money ‘earned’ is just money stolen from someone else!”

“ … [I think] that hard work is actually rewarded by those greedy SOBs on Wall Street!!!!!!!”

“ … [I] foolishly believe that there is actually some superiority to voluntarily giving money to charity compared to giving it to government to help the poor.”

“ … [I] don’t accept that President Obama is clearly the greatests (sic) President living or dead to ever lead this lost country called America back to greatness.”

“ … [all I] have done is trash ACORN when without them no African Americans would have the right to vote!”

“ … [I] don’t understand how great health care is in countries like Cuba! Instead [I am] too busy pushing [my] capitalist and anti-American agenda!”

“ … [I] refuse to accept how utterly right wing Adolf Hilter and his band of <em>national socailists</em> (sic) were!” (emphasis mine)

“ … [I] support the bloodsucking and evil Jews in theri (sic) conquest to take over the world and enslave all perpsons (sic) of color.”

“ … [I] do not believe that people should have a right to other people’s wealth in order to better their own lives and pay for their right to health ccare (sic) which has only been stripped by the greedy who run this nation.”

“ … [I] actually quote the Constitutioon (sic) as IF THAT REALLY MEANS ANYTHING SINCE IT WAS WRITTEN BY EVIL WHITE SLAVEHOLDERS AND IS NOTHING BYT (sic) LIES!”

“ … [I] cannot begin to understand how rought (sic) it is to be poor in America! It is WORSE than being poor in AFRICA by any means of measure!”

“ … [I] stand up against pedophilia when there is absolutely nothing wrong with an adult having sex with underage and teenage children! EVERYONE WHO HAS READ THE RESEARCH KNOWS THAT ADULT-CHILD SEX IS BENEFICIAL TO HTE (sic) CHILD!”

“ … [I] believe that the war on terror is something other than what it is which is a war for oil and to conquer the brown man!”

“ … [I] refuse to except the clear and dominant evidence the 9/11 was in fact an inside job perpetrated by the Bush Administration to rally America into a war of oppression in the Middle East.”

“ … [I] continue to spread the lie that the Democrats are the majority in both houses of Congress when [I] know damn well that the Republicans hold both houses and have been filibustering everying (sic) President obamma (sic) has tried to do to make America great again.”

“ … [I] keep spreading the conservative media’s lies about Hugo Chavez and ignoring what good he is accomplishing in Venezuela by throwing his political opposition in jail to keep them from hindering his progress and returning the ill gotten gains of the greedy to the people.”

“ … [I am] so ardent a believer that citizens have a ‘right’ to defend themselves against criminals and even those criminals perpetrating assualt (sic) on them and even suggest that it ok to ‘murder’ those criminals to stop them when everyone with a brain knows that it is a blatant disregard for the human rights of the criminal to allow such hideous acts.”

So basically I am an idiot because I believe in liberty, free markets, the right to self-defense, the repulsiveness of child molestation, promote the truth that Democrats control both houses of Congress and the White House, dislike left wing thugs and tyrants, tell the truth about their governments, read and quote the Constitution, think people are smart enough to make their own decisions, believe that people should be able to work hard and keep the fruits of that labor without forced confiscation for government social programs, support fighting miscreants stuck in the 15th Century, don’t think that Jews are the most evil force on the planet, disagree with President Obama, discuss corruption by groups that just happen to be associated with the President, and do not accept the premise that the United States is inherently evil because at one time in the past parts of the country engaged in the horrific and unconscionable act of race-based slavery?

I just want to make sure that we are clear as to why it is me, and not you folks, that are the “idiots.”

J.J. Jackson is the owner of American Conservative Daily Blog. He is also the lead designer for The Right Things – Conservative Political T-shirts and his weekly articles and exclusive content can be found at Liberty Reborn.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/i-am-an-idiot-because–1382281.html

The White House is right in step with UGLY as well.

President Obama’s decision to employ bare-knuckled Chicago tactics in his street fight with Fox News has provoked a growing backlash from across the political spectrum that, left unchecked, could complicate his larger agenda, experts warn. With key gubernatorial races looming in Virginia and New Jersey, Obama also risks alienating the all-important independent voters who could prove decisive in those races.

Obama told the Independents that he was a uniter. I think George W. said the same thing. 

Moderate Democrats have begun speaking out against the administration’s crusade against dissent, now that it has spread beyond conservative media to include the insurance industry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among others.

The Chamber of Commerce was drawn into the brawl despite its supported Obama’s stimulus package, and its cash-for-clunkers program. The schism began when it opposed the controversial cap-and-trade legislation that the House passed in June. And when it also opposed the administration’s plan to create a financial protection agency for investors, Obama declared its advertising “completely false.” Top aides then openly questioned whether the Chamber really was still representing the business community.

The environment is suffering more from emotional heating than global warming

As a spiritual-futurist, I have a BA degree majoring in history. One cannot know the future without knowing the past which holds clues to what is on the horizon. The world is in such a rapid expansion of knowledge that we are close to entering a tipping point that will forever change earth as we know it.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/now-it-gets-ugly-1381887.html

To the Women of The Senate and the Congress. Refuse to vote for any health care bill that includes any treatment for Prostate Cancer, Testicular Cancer, enhancement Drugs, and any other health care you can think of that is male specific.

Representative Bart Stupak says he will block the health Care Bill to keep abortion out of it. This is a Democrat saying this. I understand Joe Lieberman looking out for himself and Connecticut Insurance Companies. Not even surprising. That’s just the kind of human being he has always been. Thank God George Bush stole the White House! Considering who we could have had a heartbeat away from the Presidency. I’m getting sick to my stomach just sitting here thinking how close we came to that horror. Whew!!!

But anyway… this congress person wants to use the Health Care Bill to force his will on the Women of this Country. A few other congress people are willing to sell out the people of this Country too, because they are owned by some Insurance Company. But this one wants to deny people health care coverage and let them die, so he can force his will on the Women of this country concerning the abortion issue. As a man that makes me crazy. What place does man’s opinion or judgment have in that women’s issue. I feel the only men that should have a say on abortion are the men that need one. Anybody seen one yet?

?Let us all just admit there is not going to be any health care bill this year that is worth a Damn. The President played it a little too cute and stayed silent way too long while Paris was burning. We are not going to have a real Health Care Bill until after the Mid-Term Elections when these sellouts are replaced with real Representative for the People of their States; then we can concentrate on a Real Health Care Bill.

Madam Senator and Representative, please speak up. Let’s have at least one legitimate reason for the killing of this Health Care Bill. At least, lay this Bill to rest with the understanding that the people that are going to die, until the mid-term elections, will die needlessly; but, they will at least know that the Health Care Bill the rest of us finally get will be fair, and cover All the People for All the Medical Care they need.

I hope I have it all wrong. I hope there’s some intricate little dealings going on a simple man like me would not be aware of. I just don’t see anyone accept the Congress Person from Florida actually standing up for us, and telling us the truth. The People of the United States deserve more than this after we did our part in the Presidential Election. Ladies of Congress, you could stand up for the women of this country in a big way. And the thought of sending those puppets home to their insurance company bosses empty handed makes the wait a lot easier to bear.

I started writing political articles during the Obama, Clinton, and McCain/Palen primaries. I found my true passion. I hope you feel where I’m coming from. Check out my blog on HubPages.
http://hubpages.com/hub/A-Friendly-Word-on-Politics

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/the-women-of-the-senate-and-congress-should-revolt-1397597.html

The meeting itself was scheduled for 42 minutes. Not 40, not 45, just 42. That is a strange number. What did they do? Set a timer? Okay, 42 minutes are up, everyone out. Who decides how long these meeting will be? Did Prime Minister Harper say, “Let’s have a 42 minute meeting” and President Obama said, “Sure, 42 minutes sounds good.” It is more likely though, that that was all the time the President could spare.

The media made such a big deal about the two being on a first name basis. Why is that so strange? They are both leaders of big and powerful countries, are they supposed to hate each other? Nothing was accomplished at this meeting anyway. I think they spent the whole time talking about the weather.
The next day Prime Minister Harper was scheduled to meet with congress. This meeting was touted as being even more important than his meeting with the President. I think that is ridiculous. I do not know exactly how politics work, but how can congress be more important than the leader of the country?

A few weeks earlier Prime Minister Harper and President Obama where both in Mexico meeting with President Calderón. There was not much on the news about that meeting, but they were all smiling for the cameras, so hopefully all went well.

Learn more about air purifier Wal-mart style.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/the-42-minute-meeting-1411721.html

The same old question continues to haunt Obama as was before him when he assumed office in January? should he continue the course charted by his predecessor, which has caused great damage to his country and drawing it further into the sinkhole; or deliver on the promise of hope and change he made not only to his own people but the whole world? That time he missed the opportunity granted by a broad national mandate and the universal consensus against the Bush policies. One hopes he won’t miss the chance this time when the people are demanding to do something about the national and world ailments.

He was aware then and is convinced now that the policies of Bush administration have failed, rather worked against their declared objectives ? protecting the US in particular and the world in general from terrorists attacks, help the depressed people get freedom, promotion of the values of the free world and attainment of a fair degree of world peace. These have also put further farther those undeclared goals, which according to many were the real aims? free access and control of the energy assets in ME and Central Asia, security of Israel and world recognition of its sole super power status in a unipolar world.

The declared yet unattained objectives are even more relevant today and must be perused with a renewed vigour and commitment. But it is not just vigour and commitment that are needed, and it’s the policies, not strategies that must be changed. Unilateralism must be replaced with multilateralism, coercion with persuasion, isolation of ‘rogue states’ with engagement, and militarism with diplomatic and political initiatives. After all, one cannot bring a big change in output without a significant change in the input. The so-called wars against terrorism have provided a respite from attacks to the West, but the relief is superficial and temporary as these misadventures have brought a wholesale death and destruction to Muslim populations, thereby turning large sections of otherwise moderate Muslims into extremists.

As far the undeclared objectives, the situation is not different as Israel is more insecure today, the dream of controlling energy centres in ME and Central Asia now seems more difficult to realise, the people of Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan have suffered more from the wars than they would have otherwise and the US has landed in a world with many poles.

The real question is: has Obama enough courage to defy the hawks and the so-called Jewish lobby? If he does this, he risks losing his job. But on the other hand, sticking to failed policies is sure to bring him to a total failure. The fruits of policy shift are many: if he succeeds, he is a hero; if he is dethroned in the process, he has a chance of a Charles de Gaulle-style return, or, at the least, he will be remembered in US history as a man who sacrificed his position to uphold a moral cause.

There are many subtle and obvious changes that can help Obama in effecting a policy change. Among these is a growing awakening to the military defeat in Afghanistan and futility of Gulf wars; growing financial troubles; assertion of countries like China, India and Brazil, and resurgence of Russia; and reluctance, even denial, of NATO countries to make further commitment to the Afghanistan misadventure, besides growing demand of winding up the war by the people in the West.

When Mikhail Gorbachev told Americans they will never win in Afghanistan, his wise bit was turned down by many out of overconfidence on US might. But, this is exactly what has lately transpired. This is why Obama rejected the four military options he was presented recently. All of these involved sending more troops to Afghanistan, and none of which attached any strings relating to withdrawal, or reform in the Karzai administration. They were: One, send between 10,000 and 15,000 extra troops to augment the 68,000 US military on the ground now. Vice-president Joe Biden favours this option. Two, send 20,000 more troops. Three, send 30,000 more troops. Four, send 40,000 more troops, as General McChrystal wants.

Yet another aspect of troops surge debate is cost-benefit proportions. The internal government estimates place the cost of McChrystal option at $40 billion to $54 billion a year. Even if fewer troops are sent, or their mission is modified, the rough formula used by the White House, of about $1 million per soldier per year, appears almost constant.

So even if President Obama opts for a lower troop commitment, Afghanistan’s new costs could wash out the projected $26 billion expected to be saved in 2010 from withdrawing troops from Iraq. And the overall military budget could rise to as much as $734 billion, or 10 percent more than the peak of $667 billion under the Bush administration. Such an escalation in military spending would be a politically volatile issue for Mr. Obama at a time when the government budget deficit is soaring, the economy is weak and he is trying to pass a costly health care plan.

A recent survey by The Gallup Poll shows only 35% of Americans now support Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops, while 44% want to reduce troop strength in Afghanistan. In other words, the people of this country are beginning to bail on the mission. Seven out of 10 Britons, the people of the staunchest allied state, back the call for a phased withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan as a landmark report by Oxfam this week exposes the real human cost of the war.

According to the US Defence Department, as of Nov 13, 2009, at least 839 members of the US military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the US invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. Of those, the military reports 648 were killed by hostile action. But remember above mentioned figures are from the Defence Department and do not include the death toll among US civilians, Europeans and Afghan troops and officials. As far the Afghan civilians are concerned, various casualty counts suggest that between 12,000 and 32,000 civilians have been killed either directly or indirectly due to the fighting since 2001.

The UN has said the “surge” in fighting in recent months has also taken its toll on the non-military population. More than 2,000 had died as a result of the conflict in the first 10 months of this year – at a faster rate than any time since the initial invasion. The number of botched Nato air strikes, killing civilians, is continuing to rise. Latest UN figures for the first half of this year alone report 40 rogue air strikes, which are believed to have killed 200 civilians.

With US economy on an unrelenting decline and no military solution to Afghan problem in sight, Obama should ride the rising tide of the demand of ‘do something’ and dare to stare the hawks in the eye. If he again misses the opportunity, nothing would save him and his people from disaster.

 Email: journalis.ms@gmail.com

A lahore based journalist.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/time-for-obama-to-listen-to-saner-voices-1498927.html

The Michelle oboma photo can be found all over the internet with just a simple search. But in the terms in conditions of the blogger blog that has the photo on may be enough for the mars Michelle oboma photo to be removed on the rule of no hate speech websites. Well the photo is still available. The photo was removed by another site due to it uploading adware on to people’s computers.

Do you Think Google should remove the Michelle oboma monkey photo?

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Well the photo is available now if you want to see it. The Michelle oboma photo looks like it’s on the internet to stay so if you need to see the Michelle oboma monkey photo it’s their just search for it. This may be a racist photo but all the oboma haters are praising it and promoting it. It is a racism photo of the president’s wife but in the end it’s still funny by both black and white people. If you had your photo altered to look like a monkey should Google remove it? Well I don’t think it will happen so why should they remove this

Chris Sham

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/michelle-oboma-monkey-photo-should-google-remove-the-michelle-oboma-monkey-photo-vote-now-1502918.html