03-16-09

Impeach Obama for Ordering Our Military to Make War on Pakistan Without the US Congress Directing Obama to Do So

Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution states The Congress shall have Power To declare War, ... It is unConstitutional for the US president to direct our military to invade Pakistan and use drones to bomb people in Pakistan. The US Congress must direct the US president to engage in War in Pakistan for the President not to engage in treason against the USA. For Obama to direct our military to use drones to bomb people in Pakistan is an impeachable offense and treason because Obama is making war on the states. The US military by bombing people in Pakistan forces the people it bombs and kills to make war on the USA. The act of bombing and killing, as Obama is directing when he tells our military to bomb Pakistan with drones, is an act of war against the United States.

Obama may say it was comrade Little George who set the precedent for using drones to bomb and kill people in Pakistan. Little George was also violating the US Constitution and one of the reasons people wanted Little George impeached is because he ordered drones to drop bombs on and kill people in Pakistan. It is time to transfer the impeachment charges leveled against Little George and apply them Obama.

Obama to Escalate Drone Attacks in Pakistan
As President Raises Prospect of Talks With Taliban, Attacks Will Escalate Even Further
Posted March 9, 2009 Just days after President Obama spoke in an interview of reaching out to moderate Taliban in an effort to reconcile at least some aspects of the growing insurgency with the faltering Afghan government, reports are emerging that his administration is planning to dramatically escalate their attacks against Taliban targets in neighboring Pakistan.

Robert Gates has clearly bumped his head when he said in a PBS interview, Gates: Future Presidents Will Likely Be More Cautious of Preemptive Wars After Iraq. Secretary of Defense Gates is also committing treason and making war on the states with Obama when he encourages and directs out military to send drones and bomb people in Pakistan. Besides being unConstitutional, if dropping bombs on people in Pakistan is not preemptive, then what is it?, a direct effort to start a war. Gates is dying to and salivating to send our troops to Mexico. If this is not preemptive then what the heck is it?, another direct military offensive against a neighboring country.

Our president Obama is quoted as saying, The words of the speech were quite amazing: "And under the status of forces agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. We will complete this transition to Iraqi responsibility, and we will bring our troops home." Obama and Gates seem have acquired quick cases of the comrade Little George syndrome, We can tell they are lying when the move their lips. Obama has made a flat statement that he intends to remove all troops out of Iraq and at the same time increases the unConstitutional, impeachable, treasonable act of military action in Pakistan. Gates says presidents will be more cautious of preemptive wars out of one side of his mouth and out of the other Gates goes along with the preemptive and treasonous bombing in Pakistan and advocates the US invade Mexico and station military troops there.

Are US drones bombing and killing people increasing or decreasing the violence in Pakistan? Increasing. Drone bombing can't be helping bring peace to Pakistan because since the US drones have been killing people in Pakistan, Pakistan's situation has been getting worse. An interesting article states Officials: Top Taliban Leader Was at Gitmo. We have always heard prison is a training ground for criminals. Torturing people and then setting them free from Guantanamo Bay turns them into fighters against us, as this article tells us. The US bombing people from drones in Pakistan is treason is an act of war against the USA because the people affected kill our brave soldiers and make war on the USA. To my mind bombing in Pakistan, torture, and the desire to invade Mexico are deliberate acts by people running the USA to make war on the USA. The President and Secretary of Defense are not stupid, they are deliberately making war on the USA.

The communi$t$ are lying to us so often now I cannot see much difference in the number of lies comrade Little George and the communi$t propaganda department laid on us then and the number of lies the Obama Administration and the communi$t propaganda department is laying on us now. The reason for this is there is not a dime's difference between the comrade Little George and the comrade Obama Administrations. They both are the production of the Rothschild/Rockefeller bad guy departments. The reason I switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party before the election last Fall is because I knew the Rothschilds/Rockefellers were backing Obama. A popular lie of the Little George Administration were the Bin Laden pronouncements. It is interesting that the Bin Laden con, Bin Laden has been dead since October 2001, have become a part of the Obama show. Bin Laden calls Gaza offensive 'holocaust' in latest audio recording aired on Al-Jazeera Staff AP News Mar 14, 2009 08:39 EST Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called Israel's offensive on Gaza a "holocaust" and blamed Arab leaders for not doing enough to stop the fighting in his latest audio recording aired on Al-Jazeera. Another Rothschild/Rockefeller con which always causes me to smirk, because I wonder if the communi$t$ really believe anyone believes the BS, Detainees Say They Planned Sept. 11. No one believes the Little George Administration's version of Sept. 11.

No one. Why the communi$t$ are still trying to sell this tired ole lie is mind boggling. The only thing the detainee confessions prove is that they have been tortured and because they were tortured they admitted to Sept 11 which they were not the master minds. The detainee confessions are lies proven as lies from numerous angles. The facts behind Sept. 11 prove beyond a shadow of a doubt they were not the masterminds, and no one, except a person who had been tortured to confess, would confess to a crime that guatantees they get the needle. The only thing good about the communi$t$' laying on us Bin Laden and Sept 11 propaganda, is that it is an indication a Rothschild/Rockefeller war or act of terrorism is in the works. Also it is Lent and the communi$t$ love to do horrible deeds during Christian Holy Season. So between now and Easter I expect something communi$tic and horrible in nature laid on the world. Something violent about to occure may be playing a role in oil increasing in price.

By WILLIAM GLABERSON Published: March 9, 2009 The five detainees at Guantánamo Bay charged with planning the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have filed a document with the military commission at the United States naval base there expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting full responsibility for the killing of nearly 3,000 people.

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/03/12/gates-future-presidents-will-likely-be-more-cautious-of-preemptive-wars-after-iraq/

Gates: Future Presidents Will Likely Be More Cautious of Preemptive Wars After Iraq
Stricter Criteria to Be Demanded Before Future Invasions
Posted March 12, 2009
Speaking in an interview on PBS, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he believes that in the wake of the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq, future US presidents will be “very, very cautious” about attacking other nations, and that the “hurdle is much higher today than it was six or seven years ago.”
Gates admitted that the previous administration “didn’t anticipate at the time that this could be a protracted counter-insurgency kind of challenge and it clearly turned out to be that.” Six years after the invasion, over 130,000 American troops remain on the ground in Iraq.
At the same time, Gates patted himself on the back for the drop in violence in Iraq over the past year, saying “I think clearly the war in Iraq is in a better place than it was when I took this job and I think I’ve had some part in that.” Gates did not mention the study that showed the drop in violence was caused by sectarian cleansing of neighborhoods, which caused an enormous refugee problem across the region.

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http://news.antiwar.com/2009/03/09/obama-to-escalate-drone-attacks-in-pakistan/

Obama to Escalate Drone Attacks in Pakistan
As President Raises Prospect of Talks With Taliban, Attacks Will Escalate Even Further
Posted March 9, 2009

Just days after President Obama spoke in an interview of reaching out to moderate Taliban in an effort to reconcile at least some aspects of the growing insurgency with the faltering Afghan government, reports are emerging that his administration is planning to dramatically escalate their attacks against Taliban targets in neighboring Pakistan.

One diplomat was quoted by the Telegraph as saying “there will be talks but the Taliban are going to experience a lot of pain first, on both sides of the border.”

The Obama Administration has escalated the number and severity of drone attacks since taking office, in spite of concerns from Pakistani officials that the attacks are increasingly destabilizing the already unstable nation. Though the Pakistani government has continued to complain about the drone strikes, there is an increasing amount of evidence that they have been directly backing them.

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/03/11/officials-top-taliban-leader-was-at-gitmo/

Officials: Top Taliban Leader Was at Gitmo
Taliban Operations Chief Was Prisoner 008
Posted March 11, 2009

Mullah Abdullah Zakir is the Taliban leader in charge of operations in southern Afghanistan, the central front in the growing nationwide insurgency. But anonymous officials told the Associated Press today that the Mullah has a very interesting backstory.

He got his start as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, prisoner 008 at the American detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Captured in 2001 and held at the prison until being turned over to the Afghan govt in December of 2007, Rasoul was infamously held primarily on his possession of two extremely common Casio wristwatches.

The Helmand native was eventually freed, and is now charged with opposing the planned Obama surge. The Pentagon has repeatedly pointed to the number of former Gitmo detainees who, after being held for years without charges, have opposed the American military operation in Afghanistan.

The problem with the Obama Taliban initiative is Taliban is Sunni, and Obama himself may have Sunni in him, and Iran is Shiite. So Obama opening up to Sunni may be a way of seeking Sunni help to invade Iran, and we don't want this war.

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/03/14/bin-laden-gaza-offensive-is-a-holocaust/

Bin Laden: Gaza offensive is a 'holocaust'

Bin Laden calls Gaza offensive 'holocaust' in latest audio recording aired on Al-Jazeera

Staff
AP News

Mar 14, 2009 08:39 EST

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called Israel's offensive on Gaza a "holocaust" and blamed Arab leaders for not doing enough to stop the fighting in his latest audio recording aired on Al-Jazeera.

Bin Laden accused some Arab countries of "collaborating" with Israel on the offensive earlier this year that killed about 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza. He did not name any specific Arab countries in the brief audio recording played on Al-Jazeera Saturday.

The Arabic satellite network did not say how it obtained the recording, and the authenticity of the tape could not be verified.

It was the latest message from the terror leader since an audio message on Gaza in January. In that message, he urged Muslims to launch a jihad against Israel.

Source: AP News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20090310/pl_bloomberg/ayvhevellxa8_1;_ylt=Ap8kZeh9A3vQJZGGMijSSQQBS5Z4

Biden Sees Conversion of Taliban in Afghanistan
James G. Neuger James G. Neuger – Tue Mar 10, 4:56 pm ET
Vice President Joe Biden said at least 70 percent of Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan are mercenaries who could be persuaded to lay down their arms, stepping up U.S. calls for outreach to “moderate” elements of the insurgency.

Biden said the same tactics used in Anbar province in Iraq, where radical Sunni Muslims were co-opted by American financial support, could work in Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama’s strategy for winning the war raging since 2001.

“Five percent of the Taliban is incorrigible, not susceptible to anything other than being defeated,” Biden told a press conference at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels today. “Another 25 percent or so are not quite sure, in my view, of the intensity of their commitment to the insurgency. Roughly 70 percent are involved because of the money.”

Insurgent activity in Afghanistan rose last year to the highest level since the U.S. ousted the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks, and coordinated suicide bombings last month shook the capital, Kabul. The increasing peril to the country prompted Obama to order 17,000 additional U.S. troops into the war.

‘Far From Lost’

“We are not now winning the war, but the war is far from lost,” Biden said.

The Taliban most susceptible to being converted are those who live in Afghanistan rather than those from Pakistan who carry out violence across the border, said James Dobbins, the U.S. representative to the Afghan opposition fighting the Taliban after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

The insurgents might be disarmed by a combination of tribal loyalties, financial inducements and offers of participation in the political process, said Dobbins, director of the international security and defense policy center at the Rand Corp. research group in Washington.

“We ought to be making efforts such as the vice president suggested,” Dobbins said. “I think dialogue needs to be pursued both at the higher level but at the local level as well.”

Higher-level contacts probably would have to be pursued by the government of President Hamid Karzai, while the U.S. could approach local tribal figures, Dobbins said.

Keane on Strategy

Former Army General Jack Keane, who helped devise the strategy used by the U.S. military in Iraq, said it will be necessary to change the military balance in Afghanistan before serious talks with insurgents are possible.

“The majority of the Taliban will not respond to negotiation until they are convinced they cannot win,” Keane said “Then, political accommodation may be attractive.”

In an interview with the New York Times, Obama floated the idea of engaging with non-radical members of the insurgency, as Afghanistan heads toward Aug. 20 elections that will test its ability to govern itself.

Emphasizing that the Afghan government would have to take the lead, Biden said “it is worth engaging and determining whether or not there are those who are willing to participate in a secure and stable Afghan state.â€

Holbrooke’s Assessment

Biden said the breakdown of Taliban adherents into three categories came from Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Biden came to NATO headquarters to solicit allied input on Afghanistan, making a visible break with what some Europeans saw as the unilateralism of the Bush administration.

As he pulls U.S. troops out of Iraq, Obama last month ordered the additional soldiers to Afghanistan to finish a war that he says Bush failed to pursue with sufficient firepower.

A U.S. contingent of 25,000 military personnel forms the core of NATO’s force in Afghanistan, with roughly 13,000 more U.S. troops conducting counterterrorism missions independently of alliance command. The rest of NATO has fielded 31,000 troops, led by 8,300 from the U.K.

Biden warned that terror groups are using Afghanistan and Pakistan as staging areas to plot new attacks against allied interests around the world.

“It is from this same area that al-Qaeda and its extremist allies are regenerating and conceiving new atrocities to visit upon us,” Biden said.

Biden’s talks were part of a U.S. review of Afghanistan policy that Obama plans to complete in time for an April 3-4 summit of NATO leaders, to be co-hosted by France and Germany.

Earlier in central Brussels, Greenpeace protesters at a meeting of European Union finance ministers sought to block access to the EU building where Biden headed for a lunch with European officials.

Some of the 200 protesters chained themselves to the gates of the EU compound. Belgian police sawed through the chains and cleared the driveway to the building.

To contact the reporter on this story: James G. Neuger in Brussels at jneuger@bloomberg.net

http://www.slate.com/id/2213027/pagenum/all/

Obama, Bush Secret-Keeper
What's the president's rationale for keeping so many legal skeletons in the closet?
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Friday, March 6, 2009, at 6:40 PM ET
Having inherited an undifferentiated mass of legal "war on terror" doctrine from the Bush administration's constitutional chop shop, President Obama finds himself in the position of being Bush's Secret-Keeper. Picking its way warily through a minefield of secrecy and privacy claims, the Obama administration this week released nine formerly classified legal opinions produced in the Office of Legal Counsel (while holding back others that are being sought) and brokered a deal whereby Karl Rove and Harriet Miers will finally testify about the U.S. attorney firings (but not publicly). Meanwhile, the administration clings to its bizarre decision to hold fast to the Bush administration's all-encompassing view of the "state secrets" privilege, and the Nixonian view of executive power deployed to justify it. The Obama administration has also been quick to embrace the Bush view of secrecy in cases involving the disclosure of Bush era e-mails and has dragged its feet in various other cases seeking Bush-era records. If there is a coherent disclosure principle at work here, I have yet to discern it.

Trying to tease out a unifying theme here is probably not possible; there are not, as yet, enough data points. I have argued before that one of the reasons Obama will want to keep Bush's secrets is that he wants to protect his own. What's good for the goose and all. But it seems to me that along with good (or at least plausible) reasons for shielding Bush-era misconduct from public scrutiny, President Obama may also have some wrongheaded ideas about protecting Americans from knowing the truth.

Americans beg to differ. The president has been proved wrong in his claim that there is no political will in this country for unearthing wrongdoing. Polls increasingly show that—despite the tanking economy—close to two-thirds of the public want investigations into the Bush team's use of coercive interrogation and warrantless wiretapping. My guess is that those numbers will only go up, as America digests the OLC's newly released constitutional quilting projects. This latest batch of memos, after all, offers us the proposition that U.S. citizens wouldn't be protected by the Fourth Amendment if the military were deployed against suspected terrorists in the United States and that the president (as channeled by then-OLC lawyer John Yoo) had secretly granted himself the right to suspend free speech and a free press.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/us/10gitmo.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

Detainees Say They Planned Sept. 11
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: March 9, 2009
The five detainees at Guantánamo Bay charged with planning the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have filed a document with the military commission at the United States naval base there expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting full responsibility for the killing of nearly 3,000 people.

President Obama halted the military proceedings at Guantánamo in the first days after his inauguration, and the five men’s case is on hiatus until the government decides how it will proceed.

Several of the men have earlier said in military commission proceedings at Guantánamo that they planned the 2001 attacks and that they sought martyrdom. The strategic goal of the five men in making the new filing, which reached the military court on March 5, was not clear.

In their filing, the men describe the planning of the Sept. 11 attacks and the killing of Americans as a model of Islamic action, and say the American government’s accusations cause them no shame, according to the excerpts read by the government official.

“To us,” the official continued reading, “they are not accusations. To us they are a badge of honor, which we carry with honor.”

It appears that the men wrote the document at meetings they are permitted to conduct periodically at the detention camp without lawyers.

In his brief court order describing the filing, the military judge who has been handling the case, Col. Stephen R. Henley of the Army, said the men sought no specific legal action. Judge Henley ordered that the filing be released immediately, but officials said objections from lawyers for two of the men had held up release Monday.

All five of the men have said they want to represent themselves, but in the case of these two men, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, the military judge had not yet determined their competency when the proceedings were halted.

Homeland Security Plans For Violence On US Border
Submitted by national on Thursday, 12 March 2009
http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2009/03/12/homeland-security-plans-for-violence-on-us-border/

Tighter gun control and stronger law enforcement in Southwestern states were recommended Thursday by lawmakers concerned about drug violence in Mexico possibly spilling across the border.
The escalating violence — which has killed thousands, mostly south of the border — has been blamed on Mexican drug cartels which one Homeland Security official described as the biggest organized crime threat facing the United States.
Roger Rufe, Homeland Security’s head of operations, outlined the agency’s plans for protecting the border, a response that includes — as a last resort — deploying military personnel and equipment to the region if other agencies are overwhelmed.
Echoing comments a day earlier from President Barack Obama, Rufe said there currently was no need to militarize the Southwestern border with Mexico, despite violence that threatens to migrate into the United States.
“We would take all resources short of DoD (Defense Department) and National Guard troops before we reach that tipping point,” Rufe told lawmakers on a House homeland security subcommittee. “We very much do not want to militarize our border.”
Rufe did not specify what circumstances would trigger a call for troops

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Obama's new detainee policy: Break from Bush, or the same?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/244/story/63963.html
By William Douglas and Carol Rosenberg | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday abandoned two key aspects of former President George W. Bush's policies on suspected terrorists, setting off a wide debate on whether the move undercut the government's rationale for holding at least some of the men who are now detained at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba or amounted to nothing new.
In a court filing in Washington, the Justice Department dropped the term "enemy combatant" to refer to those being held in Guantanamo. It also said that the government's authority to continue to jail terrorist suspects would hinge on proving that they "authorized, committed or aided" the Sept. 11 attacks or that they "were part of or substantially supported" the Taliban or al Qaida.
Some lawyers said the decision not to use the term "enemy combatant" marked the death knell for military commissions, which Congress established specifically to try Guantanamo detainees. Under federal law, the commissions have authority to try only persons declared "unlawful alien enemy combatants."
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, who defended Osama bin Laden's driver before such a commission, said Friday's move effectively gave the war court "jurisdiction over a category of persons that doesn't exist." "There is no such thing as an unlawful enemy combatant," he said. "International law has never recognized such a category of persons, and the filing is a welcome sign of America's return to the rule of law and community of nations."
Others said the filing meant the U.S. had no right to hold their clients. Air Force Reserve Maj. David Frakt, an attorney for a young Afghan at Guantanamo, said the new definition means that his client, Mohammed Jawad, gets to go home.
Jawad, now 23, is accused of throwing a grenade in December 2002 that wounded two U.S. soldiers and their translator in a Kabul market. The Pentagon, however, has never alleged that he was associated with either Taliban or al Qaida. Now, Frakt said, the allegations against Jawad amount to "an alleged domestic crime under Afghanistan law. There is no basis for the U.S. military to detain him."
While Amnesty International hailed the filing as "a strong symbolic gesture," other human rights groups said it changed little.
"It appears on first reading that whatever they call those they claim the right to detain, they have adopted almost the same standard (as) the Bush administration . . . with one change, the addition of the word 'substantially' before the word 'supported.'" the Center for Constitutional Rights said in a written statement. "This is really a case of old wine in new bottles."
The American Civil Liberties Union also criticized Friday's filing, calling it "a half-step in the right direction."
"It is critical that the administration promptly narrow the category for individuals who can be held in military detention so that the U.S. truly comports with the laws of war and rejects the unlawful detention power of the past eight years," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a written statement.
That position was echoed by Seattle attorney Joe McMillan, who defended Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, in federal and military courts.
Despite the absence of the term "enemy combatants" in Friday's filing, "the position set forth by the Department of Justice is quite similar to the position adopted by the Bush administration,'' McMillan said. The Obama administration position, he said, "very much contemplates the existence of 'enemy combatants' and justifies detention at Guantanamo on that basis under the laws of war."
Proponents of the continued detention of those held at Guantanamo found themselves on opposite sides of the dispute. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said he was "pleased that the Obama administration decided essentially to affirm the Bush administration's definition of who can be detained."
However, the former commander of the USS Cole, which was attacked by al Qaida, denounced the filing. "The president, in his search for justification to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, has now changed and lowered the standards for detaining terrorists; thereby setting the stage to justify their transfer and release," said retired Navy Cmdr. Kirk Lippold.
The Justice Department filing doesn't give the prisoners a specific designation. They aren't described as prisoners of war or enemy combatants, both categories of war prisoners under the Geneva Convention. The Bush administration created the term "unlawful enemy combatant" to remove detainees from the protections of international law.
A Justice Department official said on Friday that, for now, they're just considered "detainees."
At the Pentagon, a spokesman for the Guantanamo war court declined to comment on whether the decision to abandon the term "enemy combatant" would spell an end to military commissions.
"As you know, there are a series of comprehensive interagency reviews of all policies and procedures related to detainees," said commission spokesman Joe Dellavedova. "Until those reviews are complete, it would be inappropriate to comment."
Still, Friday's actions put a little more flesh on the bones of Obama's approach to terrorism suspects, according to some legal experts.
"What's important about it is it's a plan on how they will evaluate Guantanamo detainees and future detainees," said Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military law at Yale University. "It sets the bar higher than it had been set in the Bush administration."
Obama in January signed an executive order to close Guantanamo within a year and ban the CIA from operating other detention facilities.
Friday's filing seeks more time to unravel the enemy combatant policy that evolved in the Bush administration, and in the courts. Attorney General Eric Holder noted in a separate affidavit that he's leading an effort to close the prison camps in Obama's first year in office.
"The reviews addressing the disposition of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and the vital issue of detention policy are ongoing," Holder wrote. "Important and difficult legal, diplomatic and national security issues are at stake."

Friday, March 13, 2009

ExxonMobil making a play for Iraq oil deal

ABU DHABI — A U.S. energy major with large holdings in Qatar is crafting a strategy to enter the oil sector in Iraq.

ExxonMobil intends to play a major role in energy exploration and production in Iraq in 2010. Executives said ExxonMobil has been competing to win contracts to develop leading oil fields for Baghdad.
"I hope Iraq creates the conditions that will allow a company like ExxonMobil to be a participant in a significant way," ExxonMobil chief executive officer Rex Tillerson said.

"That's the dialogue we are having with them to make them understand what conditions will be necessary for us to take risk with our capital and have the opportunity to be successful over the long term."
ExxonMobil already has a major stake in Qatar's energy market. The company has been contracted to develop projects meant to double Qatari's liquefied natural gas production to 62 million tons in 2009.