Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb, Obama

{ 11 comments... read them below or add one }

1. Jamie D. says:

   January 26, 2009 at 11:44 am

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   > What is going on?

   Obama is showing his masters that he's a good doggy and will do what Rahm tells him to do.
2. Jim Haygood says:

   January 26, 2009 at 12:12 pm

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   'What is going on?'

   Gambling in Rick's place? I am shocked, SHOCKED.

   Not really. As we all know — or should know — last summer Obama told a group of Cleveland 'Jewish leaders' that there are thirty, forty or fifty thousand incorrigible terrorists out there, who simply have to be rubbed out by the U.S. military.

   Let's see, 40,000 divided by 200 weeks … need to knock off about 200 presidentially-designated Bad Guys a week. Or maybe 'collaterally damaged' women and children count too, in which case the hurdle's a little lower.

   In any event, we're running behind schedule here. Oh well, give the man a break. He's just getting his hands bloody. Needs a little practice to get into the Stalin groove … the 3 a.m. ukases to wipe out scores of state enemies.
3. Tommy says:

   January 26, 2009 at 12:56 pm

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   In order for Obama to earn $100M like Clenis did, he will have to kill a lot more Afghani, Pakistani, Iraninan and Arab civilians. Holbrooke's appointment indicates it will be the Pakistanis who will populate the killing fields of Obama's leadership.
4. citizen says:

   January 26, 2009 at 3:26 pm

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   Playing a dangerous game–last time I heard Pakistan had nukes; if the place is reduced to further chaos, increased collateral damage…those nukes, that knowledge and material could go anywhere on the back of a mule, no? Maybe Obama should be
   trying to figure out how he should take some of our annual dole to Israel and give it to Afghanistan to replace their narco fields with
   some crop less likely to feed the Taliban?
5. Crimson Ghost says:

   January 26, 2009 at 5:43 pm

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   Rom Paul again speaking truth to power

   Obama's foreign policy pretty much the same as Bush's.

   link to dailypaul.com

   So much for "change you can believe in"

   Dumb American goy snookered again
6. Jim Haygood says:

   January 26, 2009 at 7:25 pm

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   Paul Craig Roberts sums it up for us:

   The Bush regime was a lawless regime. This makes it difficult for the Obama regime to be a lawful one. A torture inquiry would lead naturally into a war crimes inquiry. General [Antonio] Taguba said that the Bush regime committed war crimes.

   President Obama was a war criminal by his third day in office when he ordered illegal cross-border drone attacks on Pakistan that murdered 20 people, including 3 children. The bombing and strafing of homes and villages in Afghanistan by US forces and America’s NATO puppets are also war crimes. Obama cannot enforce the law, because he himself has already violated it.

   link to counterpunch.com

   ————

   Meet the new war criminal, same as the old war criminal. Except that he's a lawyer, trashing the constitution with mens rea (criminal intent).
7. moonkoon says:

   January 26, 2009 at 8:34 pm

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   "…those nukes, that knowledge and material could go anywhere on the back of a mule, no?"

   No.
   Besides, unbelievable though it may seem, they have motorized transport.

   Regarding the "narco fields", opium production actually dropped during the period when the Taliban governed Afghanistan.
   Saying the Taliban is an fundamentalist religious organisation and also supports opium production is like having your cake and eating it to.
   It is akin to saying that the Southern Baptists run the coke trade.

   The level of understanding in the West about the situation, past and present, in this part of the world is appalling.
   Its time we in the West looked past our own propaganda if we are ever to extricate ourselves from this murderous foreign adventure.
8. moonkoon says:

   January 26, 2009 at 9:10 pm

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   Some background on the Pakistan situation.

   "After the Israeli attack on Iraq's under-construction French-built
   nuclear Osirak-type reactor, Tammuz-I, south of Baghdad on 7 June
   1981, Pakistan felt that it would be the next target of an Israeli
   misadventure.
   The Israeli Air Force (IDF/AF) had, at first, explored the possibility
   of such a plan and, later, put together operational plans for a
   possible air strike against Kahuta in the 1980s…
   These operational plans are still kept updated in the Headquarters of
   the IDF/AF and pilots of some specially assigned IDF/AF F-16 and F-15
   squadrons are given special training exercises to carry out mock
   attacks on Kahuta.
   So much so that a full-scale mock-up of the Kahuta facility was built
   in the southern Negev Desert for the IDF/AF pilots to train on.

   … Israel was insisting on using Indian air bases but India was
   reluctant to allow them such a facility for fear of sparking of
   another Indo-Pak war.
   According to a paper published by the Australian Institute for
   National Strategic Studies, Israeli interest in destroying Pakistan's
   Kahuta reactor to scuttle the "Islamic bomb" was blocked by India's
   refusal to grant landing and refueling rights to Israeli warplanes in
   1982.
   India wanted to see Kahuta gone but did not want to face the blame or
   the retaliation nor bear any responsibility. Israel, on its part
   wanted it to be seen as a joint Indo-Israeli strike so that
   responsibility could be shared.

   The Reagan Administration was against this plan, not out of any love
   for Pakistan's nuclear programme, but because at that time it was busy
   fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and considered Pakistan a key
   ally in the conflict. It informed Israel and India that it could not
   support such a plan….

   …According to an Indian official, Subramaniam Swamy, a former member
   of the Hindu fundamentalist and extremist Bharati Janata Party (BJP)
   that rules India today, Israel in 1982 asked him to sound out other
   Indian leaders to see if India would grant Israeli warplanes landing
   and refueling rights were they to undertake an Osirak-type raid
   against the Kahuta nuclear reactor in Pakistan.
   India refused, probably for a combination of reasons. As one expert on
   South Asia speculated:
   "First, the Kahuta facility is well-protected and is thus a hard
   target to destroy. Second and more important, India expects that any
   first strike by India against Kahuta would be swiftly followed by a
   Pakistani attack against India's nuclear facilities.

   Such an exchange would leave India worse off, since any potential
   deterrent capability against China would thereby be eliminated.
   Finally, India would be wary of launching such an attack against
   Pakistan as it would cause not only great death and destruction to
   Pakistan, but could blow radioactive fall-out back over India.
   Such an attack against Pakistan would also alienate the Muslim Middle
   Eastern states whose amity India has assiduously cultivated." …
   …In the early 1990s, reports surfaced in London claiming Israel had
   repeatedly tried to pressure India into launching a joint strike on
   Pakistan's nuclear weapons development plant at Kahuta. The reports
   claimed Israeli and Indian pilots would be aided by detailed satellite
   photographs of Kahuta provided by convicted spy Jonathan Pollard.
   According to a report in The Washington Times, citing US officials,
   Pakistan's then Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed had notified the US
   government and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Israeli and Indian
   warplanes, equipped with long-range refueling gear and operating out
   of India, had planned to attack Pakistani nuclear facilities at dawn
   on Thursday, 28 May 1998. "

   More at,
   link to scribd.com
9. Rowan says:

   January 26, 2009 at 11:57 pm

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   those nukes, that knowledge and material could go anywhere on the back of a mule, no?

   No.
10. citizen says:

    January 27, 2009 at 3:17 pm

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    OK, no nukes on the back of a mule–I meant that poetically folks–or do you see that Pakistan's nukes and nuke material or products etc would not leak from Pakistan in the event of the Obama strikes
    creating lots more chaos in the Paki-Afgan area?
11. moonkoon says:

    January 27, 2009 at 9:52 pm

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    "…do you see that Pakistan's nukes and nuke material or products etc would not leak from Pakistan…"

    In a word, no.
    I don't know what Mr. Obama has in mind, but I doubt that he would be a party to spreading radioactive material throughout the region.
    If nothing else, it wouldn't look good on his CV.

    In terms of relative risk, I am more concerned about Israel's totally unsupervised nuclear activities and its ongoing attempts to disrupt the nuclear aspirations of others in South-West Asia.

    Although not a signatory to the NPT, Pakistan does allow some IAEA involvement, in contrast to Israel, which won't co-operate in any way with the IAEA.
    link to www-pub.iaea.org

    Not being a subscriber to the MAD doctrine, I think the world will be a better place when nuclear weapons are banished, but in the meantime supervision of all nuclear powers would lessen the risk.

    By the way, the most egregious nuclear security snafu of late was in the US where a B-52 armed with nuclear cruise missiles was "discovered" parked at Barksdale AFB.
    link to armytimes.com

    P.S. Many thanks to the courageous military types who nipped that one in the bud.