Obama Throws Blind, Black Man Under the Bus

"Much to his credit, Governor Paterson is balking at marching orders delivered from on high in Washington, D.C. , and is betting that his vision for America prevails over that over that of the Fascist- in- chief now occupying the Oval Office.

"Said the governor from the same reference, in part:

'I am running for office,' Paterson told reporters at a Manhattan parade. 'I’m not going to discuss confidential conversations,' he said, adding that he planned to continue focusing on matters related to the financial crisis'"

"Way to go, governor! Keep focusing and you might actually see something worthwhile, like the writing on the wall or the hypocrisy of Barack Obama."

No Double-Standard Here

"I have to laugh though, at one line in the above editorial: 'O’Keefe’s hidden-camera methods are distasteful, and the extent to which his videos were edited is unknown.'

"As opposed to every episode of 60 Minutes that have aired on CBS since the show debuted in 1968? As Jonah Goldberg wrote in early 2001, before 9/11 and the birth of the Blogosphere:

"'60 Minutes has used secret cameras for decades and earned awards and ratings for it. But when 60 Minutes used a hidden camera to snoop on another journalist a few years ago, heads exploded in the hallowed halls of elite journalism. Why? Because we don’t do that sort of thing to our own. We only screw outsiders. Why do you think the media despised Linda Tripp so? It wasn’t just that she made life for Bill Clinton so uncomfortable; she was a scab, using the very techniques that thousands of journalists use each and every day. And she did it to protect herself! Nevertheless, when a private citizen employs such tactics she’s seen as an immoral betrayer of a friend. When a journalist does it, she’s a 'news hound' — and an ethical one at that.'"

HYPOCRISY ALERT, HYPOCRISY ALERT

"The so-called 'anti-war' groups that popped up before the Iraq War were never anti-war. Many of their founders and leaders cheered on BJ Clinton’s wars in the Balkans and in Haiti. They were not completely anti-American or merely 'on the other side' as some conservative and neo-libertarian bloggers accused them either. The 'anti-war' movement was simply a rallying point for leftists and Democrat party hacks who needed to gain traction against a popular (at the time) President Bush. They needed to sow doubt about the Iraq War (the mismanagement of the war by the Bush administration helped as well) in order to have a wedge issue against President Bush. Naturally, they rooted for more American deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq and for American objectives to go unfulfilled, at least while Bush was president.

"Now their Messiah has been elected and he wants to expand the Afghan War, possibly into Pakistan. What’s a leftist posing a peace activist supposed to do. Well, what all good leftists do, follow their leader, in this case the Messiah. He wants to send 17,000 more Americans into Afghanistan to bring democracy, destroy the Taliban, and put in chicken in every Afghan pot. He has not defined what 'victory' is in Afghanistan, nor does he have a plan, short of nuclear war, to combat the Talibanization of Pakistan. If George W. Bush planned this, the so-called peace activists would have been the ones having Tea Parties on April 15.

"Aren’t the so-called 'peace activists' being just a tad bit hypocritical now that their Messiah is in the Oval Office and wants his little war?

(Let me jump in here. As a former antiwar organizer myself who protested both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, I can say with authority that these poseurs are very HYPOCRITICAL. That is me at the podium in the above photo at an antiwar event in 1990. -- Robert)

"Finally, I just want to point out, I do not intend to attack sincere opponents of US foreign policy and interventionism, like Justin Raitmando. I disagree with some of Justin’s positions and lot of his rhetoric. However I can respect Justin and most paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians as principled noninterventionists who oppose most if not all US military campaigns over the past two decades and longer.

"It is the unprincipled hacks on the left who adopt the phony cause of 'anti-war' when they’re out of power that need to be condemned."

Tempest in a Tea Bag? Not If Mainstream Media and Obama White House Are Against Free Speech

"Never once did the media or the Democrat Party impugn the motives of anti-war-riors. In fact, white supremacist David Duke and much of the out-of-power white-power movement similarly rallied against the Iraq war. But the anti-war movement was not maligned, Napolitano-style, using guilt by association.

"The freak show that was Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink was elevated by the media and elected Democratic officials despite their ties to well-heeled partisans and extremists.

"George Soros took down currencies and countries in his pursuit of even more billions, but the media never called him on it. The radical left was given a pass for isolating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) and small-money donors (and California Black Christians -- Robert) for public attack after Proposition 8 passed in California.

"Norm and his fellow protesters and armed forces veterans join fellow everyday Americans like Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber in the Democratic playbook’s strategy of destruction by media. For years, this unholy alliance has gotten away with this and hurt our democracy.

"I’m glad that the Democrat Media Complex took the tax day tea party protest personally. It should have. Its days are numbered.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

"The subsequent appointments by the president are classic example of Obama saying one thing to large crowds and doing quite another in office. He has named many officials who have had to drop out of consideration or who have had clouds of ethical controversies hanging over their head before they even stepped foot into their new offices.

"Twenty years ago, in early 1989, another new president was making appointments to his cabinet. That president was the first President Bush. The newly elected president nominated Senator John Tower as his secretary of defense. The media went wild over allegations of Tower’s perceived drinking and womanizing. Even Senator Ted Kennedy dared to jump in the fray, voting against Tower along party lines with every other Democrat in the Senate. It was front page news. You could not turn on a radio or TV newscast without hearing the reports.

"Although some of Obama’s appointees have similarly made the front pages of America’s papers — namely Tom Daschle — stories that aggregate the parade of nominees brought down by ethical challenges are stunningly absent from our media sources. The group that you will rarely find mentioned en masse includes:

"— Obama’s first choice for secretary of commerce, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who was forced to withdraw because he is facing a federal investigation involving allegations he pressured officials to award government contracts to campaign contributors.

"— Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who admitted he failed to pay more than $40,000 in back taxes and interest.

"— Jon Cannon, nominated to be deputy director of the Environmental Protection Agency, who pulled his name after it was disclosed that EPA auditors had accused a non-profit he had governed as a board member of mismanaging $25 million in taxpayer funds.

"— Chas Freeman, an Obama nominee for chair of the National Intelligence Council, who withdrew for a host of reasons: anti-Israel comments he made, the disclosure that Saudi royals financed Freeman’s think tank, the fact that he served on the board of a Chinese state oil company, numerous extreme comments he made concerning everything from 9-11 to Chinese suppression of dissidents.

"— Attorney General Eric Holder, who recommended and supported President Clinton’s pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich. Rich was indicted in 1983 on 65 counts of tax evasion and related matters, and his ex-wife had donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to President Clinton.

"— Wall Street lawyer H. Rodgin Cohen, who was forced to withdraw from Obama’s nomination for deputy U.S. treasury secretary. Cohen was named American Lawyer magazine’s Dealmaker of the Year for his role negotiating bank bailouts. The magazine says he was in the room 'when Fannie Mae was nationalized.'

"— Obama’s new choice for chief information officer in the White House, Vivek Kundra, who took leave from his job after the FBI raided his former office where he was the city of Washington D.C.’s chief technology officer. One of his former top aides has been arrested in an investigation of a kickback scandal in his office.

"— Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who is still in office after it was disclosed that her husband had more than $6,000 in former tax liens against his business. The couple claimed they were unaware of the liens.

"— Nancy Killefer, who withdrew as Obama’s chief performance officer after it was disclosed she had a tax lien against her in Washington for failing to pay unemployment compensation taxes.

"— And last but not least, who can forget former Senate Democrat Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s scuttled nomination for health and human services secretary after the disclosure he did not pay more than $128,000 in back taxes and almost $12,000 in interest? A fascinating disclosure regarding a man who voted multiple times against tax cuts.

"Obama also vowed to end the revolving door of lobbyists. His campaign website still states, 'As president, he will close the revolving door between political appointments and K-street lobbying.' It also contains the text of a speech he gave in Spartanburg, SC, on November 3, 2007, where he said lobbyists 'won’t find a job in my White House.'

"But those words appear to be a promise that he had no intention of fulfilling, if one is to judge by his actions since he took office.

"— Ron Klain, Vice President Joe Biden’s chief of staff, is a former lobbyist from the law firm O’Melveny & Myers. His clients included Fannie Mae, the same entity that pushed the subprime loans propelling our nation into economic crisis.

"— Attorney General Eric Holder was a registered lobbyist for clients like Global Crossing. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was a registered lobbyist for the NEA, the national teachers’ union.

"— William Lynn (deputy defense secretary), Mark Patterson (chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner), Mona Sutphen (deputy White House chief of staff), Cecilia Munoz (White House director of intergovernmental affairs), and Patrick Gaspard (White House political affairs director) are all registered lobbyists.

"The list of former registered lobbyists now working for Obama goes on and on.

"Many have pointed out that it is next to impossible to staff an administration without lobbyists. After all, some of these registered lobbyists are hired based on their expertise — in this case, promoting liberal causes on the president’s agenda.

"Still, ending that 'revolving door' was the president’s promise and the basis on which he asked for voters’ support.

"The behavior shouldn’t come as a surprise when examining Obama’s political roots in Chicago, the home of America’s most indicted and convicted political class. Obama not only endorsed impeached former Governor Rod Blagojevich in 2002 and 2006, he served as an adviser to Blagojevich in 2002. David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political strategist and a West Wing employee, worked for Blagojevich’s past campaigns. Michael Strautman, now the White House’s chief of staff to the assistant to the president, was legislative director and even legal counsel to Blagojevich while he was in Congress.

"Apparently the new era of responsibility was to begin in Washington after Mr. Obama left Illinois."

Janeane Garofalo and me (AND I HOPE SHE READS THIS)

First click this link http://www.urbanconservative.com/2009/04/17/janeane-garofalo-calls-teabaggers-racist-rednecks-who-hate-black-people/#comment-21625

I sent a gentle email to Countdown at MSNBC because I want to contact Ms Garofalo:

"HELLO

"I have some questions for her. Please tell her she is wacked out on her statements of the Tea Parties.

"Racism? I'm black and from Chicago, the most segregated city in the North. When I was younger in the 60's, a large stone came through our house because we moved into a new neighborhood. (By the way, these were not the "racist Republicans." These were all white Democrats. Were not the white Democrats supposed to love black people?) I have experienced racism up close and personal many times in Chicago, all white Democrats, even on a daily basis at one time. I have even been "Heil Hitlered" by Neo-Nazis.

"When it comes to racism, I was out on the playing field getting knocked down for years. She was sitting in the nosebleed section of the bleachers just watching and eating hotdogs and going home unscathed. Her attempt to somehow sympathize with black people is very pathetic and very phony. She is only fooling herself with her rhetoric.

"Racism is only a nice spectator sport for her.

"If she really cared about black people, she would have been outraged about the four black students shot in New Jersey where she is from. Three of them died. But I did not hear a sound from her. As a matter of fact, here is what I found on Google: "Your search - 'Janeane Garofalo' 'black students shot' - did not match any documents." It was on the news everyplace. What is she doing to stop the deliberate destruction of the black community? Her actions speak so loud I cannot hear a word she says.

"I dare say, if she was offered a million dollars to change her skin color to my color, she would not do it. Please tell her that for me. She benefits from the same white privilege that she pretends she is against. How clever. I know blacks much better than her and we can see that through that phoniness, but she cannot. She is completely blind yet touts herself as an expert in racial relations.

"If you can give her my phone number I would appreciate it. It is XXX-XXX-XXXX. She needs to learn what racism is about from one who has experienced it and knows more about it than she would care to know."

Now if you happen to be a white Janeane Garofalo fan who agrees with her, you are going to take this and like it:

The same goes for you. Until you have walked 51 years in my shoes, you are completely clueless about racism. I experienced racism on a daily basis for 4 years when I was in high school in Chicago. When I wanted to visit a white friend in a fraternity at the University of Illinois, I was told by one of the frat brothers "We don't want any trouble here," and he turned me away. I had a racist boss in Ohio and that was not my choice. When I was walking a street in Texas, I heard from a car “Hey, you’re a nigger!” and “Hooray for niggers! Hooray for niggers!” I was even turned away from a motel in Canada because of my skin color. And I repeat, over 95% of racism I encountered was from WHITE DEMOCRATS and not Republicans. What does that say about you?

You all sit with Ms. Garofalo in the nosebleed section of the bleachers while I played on field taking the blows. You think you are the experts in racism? You have the gall to talk about who is racist and who is not. You white Garofalo fans would not trade places with me, to go through what I have gone through and probably will go through. You white Garofalo fans criticize white Republicans and conservatives but just like Garofalo, you also benefit from white privilege and you would not give that up yourselves. I was born and raised in Chicago, a racist city, where I heard little boys on the street near White Sox Park say “White Power! White Power!” By the way, that was a 100% Democratic neighborhood.

I have the utmost authority to say who is racist and who is not. I can also tell who are the white phonies who claim they love black people but don't realize they don't fool me. I have lived through racism. You have no authority whatsoever to flippantly call people racist.

Sit down and shut up.

The antiwar movement has largely collapsed in the face of Obama’s victory

"The big truth is that the antiwar movement has largely collapsed in the face of Barack Obama’s victory: the massive antiwar marches that were a feature of the Bush years are a thing of the past.

(Let me rant. I used to help to organize antiwar protests in the early 90's. This dishonest faction of the antiwar movement of today that protested Bush but will not protest Obama are full of spineless, gutless, jellyfish hypocrites. Please quote me on that. They don't hate war. People are still dying and they stay home. They don't care. They just hated Bush and that is all. They are happy their guy Obama is running the wars and Bush is not. Hey you gutless Bush haters, ESPECIALLY MOVEON.ORG! Your hypocrisy is sickening.)

"Those ostensibly antiwar organizations that did so much to agitate against the Iraq War have now fallen into line behind their commander in chief and are simply awaiting orders. Take, for example, Moveon.org (Hypocrisy Supremacists), the online activist group that ran antiwar ads during the election — but only against Republicans — in coalition with a group of labor unions and Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. Behind AAEI stood three of Obama’s top political operatives, Steve Hildebrand, Paul Tewes, and Brad Woodhouse. Woodhouse is now the Democratic National Committee’s director of communications and research. He controls the massive e-mail list culled by the Obama campaign during the primaries and subsequently, as well as a list of all those who gave money to the presumed peace candidate. These donors are no doubt wondering what Obama is doing escalating the war in Afghanistan and venturing into Pakistan..."

‘Progressive’ Warmongers: Liberals rally 'round Obama's war

The hypocritical Chicken Hawks are coming home to roost:

"As President Barack Obama launches a military effort that promises to dwarf the Bush administration’s Iraqi adventure in scope and intensity, the 'progressive' community is rallying around their commander in chief as obediently and reflexively as the neocon-dominated GOP did when we invaded Iraq. As John Stauber points out over at the Center for Media and Democracy Web site, the takeover of the antiwar movement by the Obamaites is nearly complete. He cites MoveOn.org as a prime but not sole example:

"'MoveOn built its list by organizing vigils and ads for peace and by then supporting Obama for president; today it operates as a full-time cheerleader supporting Obama’s policy agenda. Some of us saw this unfolding years ago. Others are probably shocked watching their peace candidate escalating a war and sounding so much like the previous administration in his rationale for doing so.'

"Picking up on this in The Nation, John Nichols avers that several antiwar groups are not toeing the Afghanistan-is-a-war-of-necessity line, including Peace Action, United for Peace and Justice, and the American Friends Service Committee, yet there is less to this than meets the eye. Naturally, the Friends, being pacifists, are going to oppose the Afghan 'surge' and the provocative incursions into Pakistan: no surprise there. Peace Action is not making a whole lot of noise about this, in spite of the issue’s relative importance. They are confining their opposition to an online petition. As for UFPJ, their alleged opposition to Obama’s war is couched in all kinds of contingencies and ambiguous formulations. Their most recent public pronouncement, calling for local actions against the Af-Pak offensive, praises Obama for 'good statements on increasing diplomacy and economic aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan.' Really? So far, this 'diplomacy' consists of unsuccessfully finagling the Europeans and Canada to increase their 'contributions' to the Afghan front – and selling the American people on an escalation of the conflict.

"Although energized and given a local presence nationwide by a significant pacifist and youth contingent, UFPJ is organizationally dominated by current and former members of the Communist Party, USA, and allied organizations, and you have to remember that Afghanistan is a bit of a sore spot for them. That’s because the Kremlin preceded us in our folly of attempting to tame the wild warrior tribes of the Hindu Kush and was soundly defeated.

"The Soviet Union did its level best in trying to accomplish what a number of liberal think-tanks with ambitious agendas are today busily concerning themselves with solving the problem of constructing a working central government, centered in Kabul, which would improve the lot of the average Afghan, liberate women from their legally and socially subordinate role, eliminate the drug trade, and provide a minimal amount of security outside the confines of Kabul – in short, the very same goals enunciated by the Bush administration and now the Obama administration. The Kremlin failed miserably in achieving its objectives, and there is little reason to believe the Americans will have better luck.

"In retrospect, the Soviet decision to invade and create a puppet government propped up by the Red Army was arguably a fatal error, one that delivered the final crushing blow to a system already moribund and brittle enough to break. The domestic consequences inside the Soviet Union – the blowback, if you will – sounded the death knell of the Communist system and revealed the Kremlin’s ramshackle empire in all its military and moral bankruptcy.

"What is to prevent the U.S. from courting a similar fate, at a time when our economy is melting down and the domestic crisis makes such grandiose "nation-building" schemes seem like bubble-think at its most hubristic?

"That’s where the pro-war progressive think-tanks come in: their role is to forge a new pro-war consensus, one that commits us to a long-range 'nation-building' strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. These are the Center for a New American Security, explicitly set up as home base for the 'national security Democrats' who make up the party’s hawkish faction; Brookings; and, last but not least, the Center for American Progress, which was an oasis of skepticism when Team Bush was 'liberating' Iraq, and a major critic of the occupation. Now the leadership of CAP is making joint appearances with the neocons over at the newly christened Foreign Policy Initiative and issuing lengthy white papers outlining their Ten Year Plan [.pdf] for the military occupation of Afghanistan.

"Not only that, but they are moving to the front lines in a battle against Obama’s antiwar opponents, with the Nichols piece – which merely reported growing opposition to Obama’s war on the Left – eliciting a testy response from CAP honcho Lawrence Korb and one of his apparatchiks. In it, the CAPsters aver, wearily, that none of this is new – the 'schism' within the 'progressive community' over Afghanistan is 'long-standing' – and they remind their audience that the release of CAP’s latest apologia for occupying Afghanistan is hardly precedent-setting. After all, their two previous reports supported precisely the same position, which was taken up by Obama during the 2008 campaign: Iraq was the wrong war, Afghanistan is the 'right' war, and the Bush administration diverted vital resources away from the latter to fight the former. Now that Obama is doing what he said he’d do all along – escalating and extending the Long War on the Afghan front – CAP is supporting him. It’s as simple as that.

"Still, it’s perhaps perplexing to those who followed the debate over the Iraq war to see CAP in the vanguard of the War Party. Or, as Korb & Co. put it:

"'Given our organization’s (and our personal) long-standing assertion that a U.S. military withdrawal from the war in Iraq was and is a necessary precondition for Iraq’s competing parties to find a stable power-sharing equilibrium, perhaps it comes as a surprise to some that we would "now" call for such a renewed U.S. military, economic, and political commitment to the war in Afghanistan.'

"Well, yes, now that you mention it, this cheerleading for Obama’s war is a bit of a turnaround for CAP and the Washington 'progressive' community. Their Stalinesque about-face – which recalls the disciplined hypocrisy of Communist cadre who were just as fervently antiwar in the moments before Hitler invaded Russia as they were pro-war every moment since – requires some explanation. Korb, however, is not very forthcoming. He does little to refute objections to the occupation of Afghanistan, which would seem to reflect the very same critique leveled at Bush’s conquest of Iraq. Yet we get relatively little out of him, except the bland assertion that 'Afghanistan is not Iraq.' Not convinced yet? Well then, listen to this: 'Unlike the war in Iraq, which was always a war of choice, Afghanistan was and still is a war of necessity.'

"There, that ought to quiet any qualms about embarking on a 10-year or more military occupation and a hideously expensive "nation-building" effort in a country that has defied would-be occupiers for most of its history.

"One searches in vain for a reasoned rationale for the Afghan escalation, or even a halfway plausible justification for lurching into Pakistan, either in Korb’s brief and dismissive piece for The Nation or in CAP’s latest [pdf.] 40-plus page defense of the administration’s war plans. The latter is long on sober assessments of how difficult it will be to double-talk the American people into supporting another futile crusade on the Asian landmass, and it has plenty of colorful graphics, including one showing how much they want the U.S. troop presence to increase over the next few years. Yet this 'war of necessity' concept is never explained beyond mere reiteration, although there are a few subtle hints. At one point, the CAP document, 'Sustainable Security in Afghanistan,' declares:

"'Al-Qaeda poses a clear and present danger to American interests and its allies throughout the world and must be dealt with by using all the instruments in our national security arsenal in an integrated manner. The terrorist organization’s deep historical roots in Afghanistan and its neighbor Pakistan place it at the center of an ‘arc of instability’ through South and Central Asia and the greater Middle East that requires a sustained international response.'

"If al-Qaeda has 'deep historical roots' in Afghanistan and Pakistan, then they run far deeper in, say, Saudi Arabia – where most of the 9/11 hijackers were from. If we go by Korbian logic, that merits a U.S. invasion and decade-long military occupation of the Kingdom.

"Is it something in the water in Washington, or is it just the water-cooler in CAP’s D.C. offices?

"Yes, by all means, let us examine the 'deep historical roots' of al-Qaeda, which originated in what Korb obliquely refers to as 'the anti-Soviet campaign.' This campaign was conducted by the U.S. government, which armed, aided, and gave open political support to the Afghan 'mujahedin,' who were feted at the Reagan White House. Supplied with Stinger missiles and other weaponry, which enabled them to drive the Red Army out, al-Qaeda developed as an international jihadist network in the course of this struggle, which later turned on its principal sponsor and enabler. None of this, of course, is mentioned by the authors of the CAP report.

"Shorn of sanctimony and partisan rhetoric, what the advocates of Obama’s war are saying is that Afghanistan and Pakistan are Osama bin Laden’s home turf, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks give us the right to militarily occupy the country, in perpetuity if necessary, in order to prevent a repeat.

"This argument lacks all proportion and belies the Obamaites’ appeals to 'pragmatism' and 'realism' as the alleged hallmarks of the new administration. Beneath the unemotional language of faux-expertise – the technical analyses of troop strength and abstruse discussions of counterinsurgency doctrine – a dark undercurrent of primordialism flows through the 'progressive' case for a 10-year war in the wilds of Central Asia. The unspoken but painfully obvious motive for Obama’s war is simply satisfying the desire of the American people for revenge.

"It is certainly not about preventing another 9/11. The biggest and deadliest terrorist attack in our history was for the most part plotted and carried out here in the U.S., right under the noses of the FBI, the CIA, and all the 'anti-terrorist' agencies and initiatives that had been created during the Clinton years. Earlier, it was plotted in Hamburg, Germany, and Malaysia, and the plot advanced further still in a small town in south Florida.

"Having concluded that another terrorist attack on U.S. soil is for all intents and purposes practically inevitable, the U.S. government during the Bush era decided to take up an offensive strategy, to go after the terrorist leadership in their 'safe havens.' The Obamaites, likewise disdaining a defensive strategy, have continued this policy, albeit with a simple switch in locations and the application of greater resources. They have furthermore determined – without making public any supporting evidence – that these alleged terrorist sanctuaries are located in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The president has even broadly hinted that Osama bin Laden himself is in Pakistan’s tribal area. One presumes we are supposed to take this on faith: after all, the U.S. government would never lie to us, or exaggerate the known facts – would they?

"The CAP report is mostly a rehash of liberal interventionist bromides, paeans to multilateralism (which ring particularly hollow in view of Obama’s recent failure to get more than a measly 5,000 European troops out of NATO), and pious pledges to build clinics, schools, and walk little old ladies across crowded streets even as our soulless armies of drones wreak death and devastation.

"This use of robots to do our dirty work recalls the bombing of the former Yugoslavia, during which American pilots dropped their deadly payloads from a height of 20,000 feet. Sure, it made for somewhat dicey accuracy, but better Serbian 'collateral damage' than American casualties. The same lesson applies to the Af-Pak war: better a lot of dead Pakistanis than a few downed American pilots. The U.S. death toll is already rising rapidly enough, and the shooting down of an American pilot over Pakistani territory would surely draw unwelcome attention on the home front, as well as cause an international incident. We can’t have that.

"I am truly at a loss to describe, in suitably pungent terms, the contempt in which I hold the 'progressive' wing of the War Party, which is now enjoying its moment in the sun. These people have no principles: it’s all about power at the court of King Obama, and these court policy wonks are good for nothing but apologias for the king’s wars.

"They are, however, good for an occasional laugh. I had to guffaw when I read the phrase 'arc of instability.' This is supposed to be a reason – nay, the reason – for a military and political campaign scheduled to continue for at least the next 10 years. Well, then, let’s take a good look at this 'arc,' which, we are told, extends "through South and Central Asia and the greater Middle East." From the shores of Lebanon to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan, and most places in between, that 'arc of instability' defines the geographical extent of U.S. intervention in the region from the end of World War II to the present. If any single factor contributed to the instability permeating this arc, then it is the one constant factor in the equation, which has been the U.S. presence and efforts to dominate the region.

"What is Korb’s – and CAP’s – solution to the problem of regional instability? Why, more of the same. This will lead, as it has in the past, to more blowback and an increase in the support and capabilities of the worldwide Islamist insurgency we are pledged to defeat."