January 26, 2012| News | John Walsh

There are distressing signs that some antiwar progressives are withdrawing support for Obama as the 2012 election draws near. A few have gone so far as to whisper a begrudging respect for Ron Paul, although they have scrupulously refrained from acting on it. It is high time to stem this tide carrying votes away from our president, to take a stand, to show some ovarian fortitude and to slog on for Obama. In just such a spirit this pledge is offered for anti-interventionist progressives, a term redundant under Bush but edging closer to oxymoronic under Obama.

I pledge in the year 2012 to link the fight against war to the fight for social justice, social justice as I see it, and to do so without exception. With equal vigor I pledge to fight for justice with total disregard for the fight against war whenever it suits me. I pledge to follow the MoveOn segment of the Occupy Wall Street movement in so doing. I pledge that this will be the cornerstone of my approach, to be known henceforth as Van Jones Logic.

I pledge to exclude from the antiwar movement potential allies who do not share my notions of justice.  After all the antiwar movement belongs to progressives. I pledge to keep at bay libertarians, paleoconservatives and, above all, the average American Jane and Joe, with an unscalable Chinese Wall of political correctness. Let’s keep out the riff-raff. For this I pledge to look for leadership to “Progressive” Democrats of America, UFPJ, Peace Action and Juan Cole.

I pledge neither to sponsor nor to join any large antiwar marches or demonstrations this election year. For if there are antiwar marches, it is a sure sign that there are wars. I pledge, if forced into such marches of folly in order to preserve my credibility or my donor base, to censor any mention of Obama. I pledge to treat impeachment as a taboo subject.

I pledge until November 7, 2012 to keep far from my consciousness the unspeakable suffering being visited on the darker peoples of the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia by my president with his sanctions and bombs. These sufferings are as nothing compared to the purity of my movement and the hollow promises of Obama for better social programs.

I pledge to avoid like the plague any consideration of Ron Paul. I pledge to tear him down with bogus charges of racism based on guilt by association. I fully recognize that Ron Paul is especially dangerous, because every day he converts more to the antiwar cause and thereby threatens a breach in the wall that keeps antiwar barbarians out of the movement we own. I thought libertarians respected property rights. If pressed, I may whisper a word or two of praise for Ron Paul but never a full throated endorsement – and never, ever anything good without walling it off with airtight condemnation. I pledge most of all never to aid Ron Paul by money or action. After all, what would my friends say?

I pledge never to think tactically when it comes to Ron Paul, as many progressives do with their favorite candidates, forgiving piddling shortcomings – like voting for DoD funding.

I pledge to work with others to keep a serious challenge to Obama from emerging in the Democratic primaries. I recognize that this work is largely done with the passing of the New Hampshire primary and Iowa Caucuses; and I find myself on occasion smiling with satisfaction at this feat. I pledge to remain vigilant nonetheless. If our man, Obama, becomes even more embarrassing to the antiwar movement, I pledge to support a candidate from the moribund Green Party or some other entity cobbled together quickly, with no extensive organization and no hope of winning. If we cannot bring ourselves to vote for Obama, let’s get out there and waste our votes.

I pledge in the year 2012 to hold fast to wishful thinking – Obama is our man. I pledge to remind one and all that Obama is keeping secret his loyalty to the progressive cause to avoid criticism by Republicans. And he is proving damned good at it. I pledge to believe that combat troops left Iraq, because Obama wanted it, not because Bush signed an agreement to do so (and to ignore the fact that Obama wanted to stay but Maliki refused). I pledge to believe that those troops returned to the US (and ignore the fact that most of them were transferred to other countries). I pledge to believe that the NDAA is the Republican McCain’s idea (and ignore the fact that is was Obama’s baby according to Carl Levin). In general, I pledge to ignore reality, and to believe in the virtual world presented to me by the progressive authorities and gatekeepers. It will be as easy as doing my yoga or meditation. And besides Obama is sure to change course in his second term.

In sum, I pledge to ignore Obama’s Patriot act, his numerous wars, his bloated military budget, his deficit, his service to Wall Street and to the insurance industry. This is his dazzling plan to protect us from Republicans by tricking them into thinking that he is their man, so they will vote for him – our man! It is nothing less than brilliant.

John V. Walsh can be reached at John.Endwar@gmail.com. He thanks Josh A. for his thoughts on this important pledge. If you wish to sign the pledge, please let jw know.

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January 25, 2012| News | John Glaser

Shamila N. Chaudhary at Foreign Policy notes how the Taliban are getting criticized for not having a consistent message on peace talks: they issued a Jan.3 statement about starting up a political office in Qatar and a willingness to negotiate, and then on Jan 12 they issued another statement clarifying that talks don’t mean “surrender from jihad and neither is it connected to an acceptance of the constitution of the stooge Kabul administration.”

So which is it? Well, apparently some factions of the Taliban want talks and political reconciliation, and others want plainly to win militarily. Chaudhary then kindly reminds us that this is precisely what the U.S. approach looks like regarding Afghanistan.

Likewise, the U.S. approach of “fight, talk, build,” does not mean that the administration speaks with one voice. The tensions among American defense, intelligence, and diplomatic communities on the Taliban’s willingness to negotiate are well documented. At face value, the military’s reluctance to characterize Taliban intentions reflects an unwillingness to acknowledge the failures of its military campaign in Afghanistan. The risk-averse nature of the intelligence community often lends itself to the most conservative estimate possible — rendering any possibility of negotiation impossible. Meanwhile, diplomats believe political talks are the only solution.

It might get a little confusing for Afghan civilians and Taliban fighters that the U.S. expresses its commitment to peace talks and then demonstrates a commitment to killing Afghans, paying murderous militias, and occupying the country for the foreseeable future.

Relatedly, this RAND study from 2008 provides quantitative analysis on “how terrorist groups end,” and concludes political deals are the way to go:

Following an examination of 648 terrorist groups that existed between 1968 and 2006, we found that a transition to the polit- ical process is the most common way in which terrorist groups ended (43 percent). The possibility of a political solution is inversely linked to the breadth of terrorist goals. Most terrorist groups that end because of politics seek narrow policy goals. The narrower the goals of a terrorist organization, the more likely it can achieve them without violent action—and the more likely the government and terrorist group may be able to reach a negotiated settlement.

Two points: (1) This language reminds me of when the U.S. demands the Taliban “abandon terrorism” as a prerequisite to negotiations. Will the U.S. do the same? (2) It’s good to hear political solutions are inversely linked to the goals of, in this case, the Taliban; it doesn’t get much narrower than “get the hell out of my country.”

Addendum: As Jon Stewart would say, here it is, your moment of Zen…NBC’s Brian Williams in Monday’s GOP debate asked, “Governor [Romney], how do you end the war in Afghanistan without talking to the Taliban?” Romney replied: “By beating them.”

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January 25, 2012| News | John Glaser

Secrecy News has a post up on John Kiriakou, the former CIA officer being charged under the Espionage Act for contributing to the exposure of state crimes:

In the present case, Mr. Kiriakou is charged with providing the name of a “covert agent” in response to inquiries from a reporter, “Journalist A,” who then passed that information on to defense attorneys at Guantanamo.  (The attorneys used the information in a classified pleading that they filed in 2009, which is what first brought the unauthorized disclosure to official attention.)

An FBI affidavit attached to the criminal complaint against Kiriakou states repeatedly that no laws were broken by the defense team that received the classified information.  The FBI notably does not volunteer the same assurance concerning Journalist A (whose name is not yet on the public record), who actively solicited the proscribed information from Kiriakou and forwarded it to the defense attorneys.

…Mr. Kiriakou is the sixth individual to be charged in the Obama Administration’s unprecedented campaign against leaks of classified information to the media, following Shamai Leibowitz, Jeffrey Sterling, Thomas Drake, Bradley Manning and Stephen Kim.  Among other things, the Administration’s aggressive pursuit of leaks represents a challenge to the practice of national security reporting, which depends on the availability of unauthorized sources if it is to produce something more than “authorized” news.

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January 25, 2012| News | John Glaser

I think this is a clever way to get around the financial blockade the government and the banks have placed on WikiLeaks:

Starting in March, Mr. Assange will host a 10-part series of interview programs with “key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries” on Russia Today (RT), a state-funded English-language satellite news network which claims to reach more than 85 million viewers in the US alone.

According to a statement on his website, the new Assange series will explore the “upheavals and revolutions” that are shaking the Middle East and expose how “the deterioration of the rule of law has demonstrated the bankruptcy of once leading political institutions and ideologies” in the West.

Entitled “The World Tomorrow,” the show will be filmed by an RT satellite crew at Ellingham Hall, the remote manor house 130 miles north of London. It’s the same place Assange has been under house arrest since December 2010 awaiting a Supreme Court decision on his extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations.

From the Christian Science Monitor.

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January 25, 2012| News | John Glaser

There was a long list of sanctions already imposed on Iran before this latest round from the U.S., and now that Obama’s diplomats have been successful in pressuring the European Union to ban the import of Iranian crude oil and block trade in other markets like precious metals, the Iranian people are suffering.

In this piece at CNN, entitled “Sanctions take toll on ordinary Iranians,” its clear that these measures are impoverishing the people instead of having any effect on the Iranian government. Jobs are being lost because the oil sector is weakened, rampant inflation (caused by sanctions targeted on the central bank) have pushed the price of meat and milk up 50 percent. In response, Iran has “increased bank interest rates” and plans to “restrict sales of foreign currency, hoping to halt a spiraling currency crisis after new Western sanctions accelerated a dash for dollars by Iranians worried about their economic future.”

“People are buying less because the prices have gone up,” Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari said. “That affects the shopkeepers. It’s a vicious cycle.” An Iranian interviewed for the piece says, “People are hungry and this is why crime has gone up.” Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian-American Council and author of A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran, told CNN, ”The government always has the ability to circumvent sanctions and shift the burden onto the population.”

What’s notable is that the Obama administration definitely knows that sanctions are hurting the population and are unlikely to effect the policies of Tehran (which, to recap, are to develop nuclear power, as is their right, and to signal to their antagonistic adversaries that they’re technologically capable of getting nuclear weapons without actually developing them). So why impose them?

Listening to congressional supporters of sanctions, you’d think the sole reason is a sadistic urge to harm innocent Iranians. As one of the top supporters of sanctions, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), said, “Critics [of the sanctions] argued that these measures will hurt the Iranian people.  Quite frankly, we need to do just that.” Or take Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY): “The goal … is to inflict crippling, unendurable economic pain over there. Iran’s banking sector — especially its central bank — needs to become the financial equivalent of Chernobyl: radioactive, dangerous and most of all, empty.”

The administration’s view, at least as reported, is more nuanced. An initial version of a Washington Post article this month reported an anonymous U.S. official claiming that the purpose of the sanctions is regime change. The Post later revised the report, supposedly clarifying that the official said the purpose was to “create hate and discontent at the street level so that the Iranian leaders realize that they need to change their ways.” But as I said, they know that’s very unlikely to happen. They’re doing it anyways, I suspect, to satisfy pressures from Israel, AIPAC, and Congress and avoid Obama being painted as a wussy. This is an election year, after all.

Making ordinary people suffer and struggle for jobs and for food so that one can protect one’s political capital isn’t the most evil thing in the world, but it’s pretty high up on the list.

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January 23, 2012| News | John Glaser

From a new Congressional Research Service report, American casualties soar in Afghanistan since Obama took over:

Afghan civilian casualties, although the numbers are less solid than DoD’s tracking of Americans killed, have also skyrocketed under Obama’s surge. See here for the estimates. Hard to match this up with Obama’s claim that “the tide of war is receding.”

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