I know it's hard to believe, but actually, Obama could have been worse. He
did hold back at times. He didn't always follow the advice of the Neo Cons.
Sanders would probably be similar. The Republicans would have had us at war
with Russia by now, as well as Syria.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2016 10:59 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Obama and the Pentagon Plan Massive Military
Escalation and the Media Barely Seem to Care
It is very difficult for me to listen to the Republican Candidates rattle
the sabers and actually growl and snarl like so many Mad Dogs.
But we will have no better from either Sanders or Clinton. The president no
longer holds any meaningful power.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/29/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Wednesday [6]:
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org) Home > Obama and the
Pentagon Plan Massive Military Escalation and the Media Barely Seem to
Care ________________________________________
Obama and the Pentagon Plan Massive Military Escalation and the Media
Barely Seem to Care By Adam Johnson [1] / AlterNet [2] January 27,
2016 Almost five years after the United States and its NATO allies
launched a campaign in Libya to overthrow Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the
United States is on the verge of massively escalating its military
operations in the war-torn country. According [3] to the New York
Times, the new effort is "expected to include airstrikes and raids by
elite American troops." It is unclear how long this newest effort will
last.
The announcement comes on the heels of U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash
Carter announcing combat troops were going back to Iraq last week [4].
While U.S special forces have been conducting "clandestine
reconnaissance missions in Libya to identify militant leaders and map
out their networks" over the past year, the New York Times report
marks the first time overt combat troops will be deployed in the North
African nation.
The 2011 campaign was itself something of a bait and switch. What was
originally sold as simply a no-fly zone quickly became regime change.
A few weeks after the UN-sanctioned bombing of Libya's infrastructure
and air capacity, the scope of the campaign pivoted when President
Obama, along with Presidents Sarkozy and Cameron of France and the UK
respectively, announced the entirely new objective [5]: NATO
airstrikes, in concert with ongoing CIA support of rebels, to
overthrow the Qaddafi government.
After this was quickly achieved, the pundit classes rallied to
congratulate a job well done. As Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept noted
War advocates such as Anne-Marie Slaughter [7] and Nicholas Kristofcame, we saw, he died,"
[8] were writing columns celebrating their prescience and mocking war
opponents as discredited, and the New York Times published a
front-page article [9]
declaring: "U.S. Tactics in Libya May be a Model for Other Efforts."
It was widely expected that Hillary Clinton, one of the leading
advocates for and architects of the bombing campaign, would be
regarded as a Foreign Policy Visionary for the grand Libya success: "We
Clinton sociopathically boasted [10] about the mob rape and murder ofU.S.
Qaddafi [11] while guffawing on 60 Minutes.
Despite the fanfare at the "overthrow" of Qaddafi (who suffered a
brutal death [11] at the hands of a mob), not much has been made of the
military's slow escalation of its involvement in Libya over the past year.the U.S.
This time the objective, much like in Iraq after the U.S. deposed its
leader, is destroying the presence of ISIS, a process that could take,
in the words [12] of former Defense Secretary Panetta, "thirty years."
And it's an escalation that has largely gone under the public's radar.
Slowly trickling wars are a common feature in U.S. policy. The latest
war in Iraq against ISIS was originally sold as "limited,"
"humanitarian"
airstrikes [13] to save the Yezidi trapped on a mountain from ISIS,
and it has now gone on for over a year and a half, spans two
countries, and soon will include "boots on the ground." All this with
neither the corporate media nor Congress, which hasn't yet brought
military authorization to a vote, paying much attention.
This new level of indifference on the part of the public about what is
an ISIS war spiraling into a massive global effort has even bothered
the normally hawkish Times. In the context of Libya, it wrote [3]:
This significant escalation is being planned without a meaningful
debate in Congress about the merits and risks of a military campaign
that is expected to include airstrikes and raids by elite American troops.
That is deeply troubling. A new military intervention in Libya would
represent a significant progression of a war that could easily spread
to other countries on the continent. It is being planned as the
American military burrows more deeply into battlegrounds in Syria and
Iraq, where American ground troops are being asked to play an
increasingly hands-on role in the fight.
It's always difficult to tell if public indifference is what leads to
a media blackout or the other way around, but the Times is correct
that a broad public discussion about the wisdom of committing to
potentially decades-long military efforts is disturbingly absent.
When the U.S. began its anti-ISIL efforts in August 2014, ISIL was in
two countries. Now, after tens of thousands of aerial ordinances have
been dropped on two continents, ISIS now has a presence in over 20
countries [14]. The U.S. has even expanded its war in Afghanistan [15]
to include ISIS, the White House announced last Thursday. None of the
major presidential candidates, including the most progressive member of
Congress, Bernie Sanders, outwardly opposes the U.S.' currentWednesday [6]:
anti-ISIL efforts, including the once-unpopular drone program.
Over the past two weeks, the Defense Department and the Obama
administration have been peppering the media with their plans to
massively increase the war effort in Libya as well as Iraq,
Afghanistan and potentially elsewhere. All the evidence points to the
fact that war-makers in Washington and Brussels are gearing up for a
major effort that could very well last a long time.
The
question is, will we ever have a public debate about it?
Adam Johnson is an associate editor at AlterNet. Follow him on Twitter
at @adamjohnsonnyc [16].
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [17]
[18]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/obama-and-pentagon-plan-mass
ive-mi litary-escalation-and-media-barely-seem-care
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/adam-johnson-0
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/opinion/opening-a-new-front-against-
isis-i
n-libya.html?_r=0
[4]
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/us-put-boots-ground-iraq-com
bat-is
il
[5] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/opinion/15iht-edlibya15.html
[6]
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/27/the-u-s-intervention-in-libya-was-
such-a -smashing-success-that-a-sequel-is-coming/
[7]
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/18cb7f14-ce3c-11e0-99ec-00144feabdc0,Auth
orised
=false.html?siteedition=intl&_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2
Fcms%2
Fs%2F0%2F18cb7f14-ce3c-11e0-99ec-00144feabdc0.html%3Fsiteedition%3Dint
l&
_i_referer=&classification=conditional_standard&iab=barrier-ap
p#axzz
3IkzBJYTa
[8]
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/opinion/kristof-from-libyans-thank-y
ou-ame
rica.html
[9]
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/world/africa/29diplo.html?pagewanted
=all [10]
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-on-qaddafi-we-came-we-saw-he-died/
[11]
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/globalpost-qaddafi-apparently-sodomized-af
ter-ca
pture/
[12]
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/10/06/leon-panetta-me
moir-w
orthy-fights/16737615/
[13]
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/08/world/middleeast/obama-weighs-milita
ry-str ikes-to-aid-trapped-iraqis-officials-say.html
[14]
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/17/world/mapping-isis-attacks-around-the-wo
rld/
[15]
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/21/us-loosens-rules-engagement
-for-i
sis-in-afghanistan.html
[16] https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonnyc
[17] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Obama and the ;
Pentagon Plan Massive Military Escalation and the Media Barely Seem to
Care [18] http://www.alternet.org/ [19] ;
http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org) Home > Obama and the
Pentagon Plan Massive Military Escalation and the Media Barely Seem to
Care
Obama and the Pentagon Plan Massive Military Escalation and the Media
Barely Seem to Care By Adam Johnson [1] / AlterNet [2] January 27,
2016 Almost five years after the United States and its NATO allies
launched a campaign in Libya to overthrow Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the
United States is on the verge of massively escalating its military
operations in the war-torn country. According [3] to the New York
Times, the new effort is "expected to include airstrikes and raids by
elite American troops." It is unclear how long this newest effort will
last.
The announcement comes on the heels of U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash
Carter announcing combat troops were going back to Iraq last week [4].
While U.S special forces have been conducting "clandestine
reconnaissance missions in Libya to identify militant leaders and map
out their networks" over the past year, the New York Times report
marks the first time overt combat troops will be deployed in the North
African nation.
The 2011 campaign was itself something of a bait and switch. What was
originally sold as simply a no-fly zone quickly became regime change.
A few weeks after the UN-sanctioned bombing of Libya's infrastructure
and air capacity, the scope of the campaign pivoted when President
Obama, along with Presidents Sarkozy and Cameron of France and the UK
respectively, announced the entirely new objective [5]: NATO
airstrikes, in concert with ongoing CIA support of rebels, to
overthrow the Qaddafi government.
After this was quickly achieved, the pundit classes rallied to
congratulate a job well done. As Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept noted
War advocates such as Anne-Marie Slaughter [7] and Nicholas Kristofcame, we saw, he died,"
[8] were writing columns celebrating their prescience and mocking war
opponents as discredited, and the New York Times published a
front-page article [9]
declaring: "U.S. Tactics in Libya May be a Model for Other Efforts."
It was widely expected that Hillary Clinton, one of the leading
advocates for and architects of the bombing campaign, would be
regarded as a Foreign Policy Visionary for the grand Libya success: "We
Clinton sociopathically boasted [10] about the mob rape and murder ofU.S.
Qaddafi [11] while guffawing on 60 Minutes.
Despite the fanfare at the "overthrow" of Qaddafi (who suffered a
brutal death [11] at the hands of a mob), not much has been made of the
military's slow escalation of its involvement in Libya over the past year.the U.S.
This time the objective, much like in Iraq after the U.S. deposed its
leader, is destroying the presence of ISIS, a process that could take,
in the words [12] of former Defense Secretary Panetta, "thirty years."
And it's an escalation that has largely gone under the public's radar.
Slowly trickling wars are a common feature in U.S. policy. The latest
war in Iraq against ISIS was originally sold as "limited,"
"humanitarian"
airstrikes [13] to save the Yezidi trapped on a mountain from ISIS,
and it has now gone on for over a year and a half, spans two
countries, and soon will include "boots on the ground." All this with
neither the corporate media nor Congress, which hasn't yet brought
military authorization to a vote, paying much attention.
This new level of indifference on the part of the public about what is
an ISIS war spiraling into a massive global effort has even bothered
the normally hawkish Times. In the context of Libya, it wrote [3]:
This significant escalation is being planned without a meaningful
debate in Congress about the merits and risks of a military campaign
that is expected to include airstrikes and raids by elite American troops.
That is deeply troubling. A new military intervention in Libya would
represent a significant progression of a war that could easily spread
to other countries on the continent. It is being planned as the
American military burrows more deeply into battlegrounds in Syria and
Iraq, where American ground troops are being asked to play an
increasingly hands-on role in the fight.
It's always difficult to tell if public indifference is what leads to
a media blackout or the other way around, but the Times is correct
that a broad public discussion about the wisdom of committing to
potentially decades-long military efforts is disturbingly absent.
When the U.S. began its anti-ISIL efforts in August 2014, ISIL was in
two countries. Now, after tens of thousands of aerial ordinances have
been dropped on two continents, ISIS now has a presence in over 20
countries [14]. The U.S. has even expanded its war in Afghanistan [15]
to include ISIS, the White House announced last Thursday. None of the
major presidential candidates, including the most progressive member of
Congress, Bernie Sanders, outwardly opposes the U.S.' current
anti-ISIL efforts, including the once-unpopular drone program.
Over the past two weeks, the Defense Department and the Obama
administration have been peppering the media with their plans to
massively increase the war effort in Libya as well as Iraq,
Afghanistan and potentially elsewhere. All the evidence points to the
fact that war-makers in Washington and Brussels are gearing up for a
major effort that could very well last a long time.
The
question is, will we ever have a public debate about it?
Adam Johnson is an associate editor at AlterNet. Follow him on Twitter
at @adamjohnsonnyc [16].
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [17]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[18]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/obama-and-pentagon-plan-mass
ive-mi litary-escalation-and-media-barely-seem-care
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/adam-johnson-0
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/opinion/opening-a-new-front-against-
isis-i
n-libya.html?_r=0
[4]
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/us-put-boots-ground-iraq-com
bat-is
il
[5] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/opinion/15iht-edlibya15.html
[6]
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/27/the-u-s-intervention-in-libya-was-
such-a -smashing-success-that-a-sequel-is-coming/
[7]
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/18cb7f14-ce3c-11e0-99ec-00144feabdc0,Auth
orised
=false.html?siteedition=intl&_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2
Fcms%2
Fs%2F0%2F18cb7f14-ce3c-11e0-99ec-00144feabdc0.html%3Fsiteedition%3Dint
l&
_i_referer=&classification=conditional_standard&iab=barrier-ap
p#axzz
3IkzBJYTa
[8]
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/opinion/kristof-from-libyans-thank-y
ou-ame
rica.html
[9]
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/world/africa/29diplo.html?pagewanted
=all [10]
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-on-qaddafi-we-came-we-saw-he-died/
[11]
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/globalpost-qaddafi-apparently-sodomized-af
ter-ca
pture/
[12]
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/10/06/leon-panetta-me
moir-w
orthy-fights/16737615/
[13]
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/08/world/middleeast/obama-weighs-milita
ry-str ikes-to-aid-trapped-iraqis-officials-say.html
[14]
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/17/world/mapping-isis-attacks-around-the-wo
rld/
[15]
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/21/us-loosens-rules-engagement
-for-i
sis-in-afghanistan.html
[16] https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonnyc
[17] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Obama and the ;
Pentagon Plan Massive Military Escalation and the Media Barely Seem to
Care [18] http://www.alternet.org/ [19] ;
http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
