Out of one side of his mouth, Obama says we cannot afford war spending; out of the other other he says spending is good because it's stimulus and we need more of it, deficits be damned. He spent more on one stimulus bill than the entire cost of the Iraq War.

So which is it? Is spending good, or is it bad?

Obama cannot give a single speech where he does not display his economic illiteracy.

And he still can't sound like a President, though he tried tonight. This is not about your campaign promises, Mr.President. It's not about using America's support for the troops to whip up support for a domestic policy which is widely seen as a failure. It's about America and Iraq and Afghanistan and the world, which are slightly larger subjects.

At least he mentioned the name of George W. Bush (until now, Bush has been He Who Must Not Be Named, like Voldemort). But Obama still cannot admit that Bush was right about the surge, or give him any credit for a policy which handed Obama a success in Iraq. That just makes Obama look petty and graceless.

Nadine,

You understand when we spend on bullets that are
fired in Iraq, those bullets can't buy things in
America? Unlike when we spend on jobs at home at so
people have disposable income to spend here.

Can you see a difference there?

Just a little tiny one?

Can you?

It will be interesting to see what the ratings are for Obama's speech; my guess is that no one watched.

Obama has accomplished something that no President has ever done before, or at least in a very long time. He's become a lame duck before reaching even the two year mark in his first term. Given the hype surrounding his election, it's really quite extraordinary. As amazing as it is to contemplate, even Jimmy Carter had a better first 22 months than Obama.

What's even more incredible is the fact that none of it means that Obama won't be reelected. In fact, if the Democrats lose one or both Houses of Congress, it probably helps Obama's reelection prospects.

But the bloom sure is off the rose.

And what about the thousands of tax payer enabled
mercenaries still undertaking combat operations
Barack? What about them?

This could take a while ...
http://www.politicalcartoons.com/cartoon/1cc957c3-67ea-4fe1-917d-bb2ffc50f9bf.html

"Unlike when we spend on jobs at home at so
people have disposable income to spend here"

Ah, yes, the mythical multiplier effect. I believe the CBO has already put paid to that particular claim. In short, you get the first dollar for paying someone's salary to make something, whether that something is bullets for Afghanistan (it's not like all the money is going to Afghans) or mag-lev trains for Nevada. You get multiplier-effect dollars for making something useful which improves the health of the economy. That, I'm afraid, does not describe the vast majority of the pork-barrel spending of the stimulus. There is no multiplier effect for keeping overpaid government workers at their jobs another year in bankrupt states.

"Obama has accomplished something that no President has ever done before, or at least in a very long time. He's become a lame duck before reaching even the two year mark in his first term. Given the hype surrounding his election, it's really quite extraordinary. As amazing as it is to contemplate, even Jimmy Carter had a better first 22 months than Obama.

What's even more incredible is the fact that none of it means that Obama won't be reelected. In fact, if the Democrats lose one or both Houses of Congress, it probably helps Obama's reelection prospects.

But the bloom sure is off the rose." (Wigwag)

Next up: killer rabbits.

If Obama loses both houses, it will give him an obvious campaign theme, but won't guarantee election. At the rate he's going, a majority of Americans may simply have decided they don't like this guy by 2012. My bet would be that he has a strong primary challenge from a Democratic Party deeply resentful of having been trashed by this narcissist.

Gallup has the generic congressional vote as 51% Rep to 41% Dem. That's the biggest margin for Republicans ever -- and this poll always favors Democrats because of their concentration problem; the election results always are MORE Republican than this poll says. Dick Morris fwiw says the Republicans will win the Senate and 60-80 seats in the House.

The amazing thing Nadine, is that all of this was so predictable. In fact, many of us (including Tahoe Editor) predicted the implosion of Obama in the comment section of Steve's website long before the Democratic nomination was stolen by Obama.

Those who supported Barack Obama's aspirations to win the Democratic nomination are now reaping what they sowed.

It's too bad that the entire country has to pay the price for their foolishness.

"Those who supported Barack Obama's aspirations to win the Democratic nomination are now reaping what they sowed." (Wigwag)

Yup. The enduring mystery for me is how Obama managed to fool so many really bright people into thinking he was truly an extraordinary figure, not just an "off the rack Chicago pol" as Bill Clinton called him, with an extraordinary gift for snow jobs. For example, Mort Zuckerman just wrote a column where he called Obama "the most fiscally reckless President in history." Um, so why did you support him, Mort? To the point of writing speeches for him?

For me, 2008 felt like staying sober in a room full of party-goers getting drunk as fast as they can. Obama ran as some kind of semi-divine hero -- and people believed it. It was scary to me. It still is, that this demagogue with no resume and a shadowy background could become President. Fouad Ajami compared it to Nasser's campaigns in Egypt: The charismatic leader who inspires belief in himself as the solution for everything.

Since one thing Barack Obama has managed to do is make the Presidency of Bill Clinton look moderate and successful by contrast, I would not be a bit surprised if Hillary leaves the administration after the election and begins laying the groundwork for another run. What do you think of that idea, Wigwag?

Nope. Hillary Clinton has tarnished herself by working for Barack Obama. I think she would have made a far better President than Obama but Obama's foreign policy is a disaster and Clinton is Secretary of State. While almost all of the fault for the foreign policy failures of the current Administration belong to Obama and not Clinton, she can't run away from the failures that she shares in just by being a member of the Obama team.

Clinton should have stayed in the Senate where she would have been well positioned to mount a primary challenge to Obama. She chose to leave the Senate.

She has no one to blame but herself.

You've got a good point there, Wigwag, but I still think she'll try. The Presidency bug is a terminal disease; once you get it, you don't recover.

The US defeated Germany (with a lot of Russian help) and Japan simultaneously in 3 1/2 years, but it took 7 1/2 years to defeat a country, Iraq, which was already on its knees due to bombing and sanctions. The US military is the General Motors of military affairs. (The Navy does have a good bluegrass band, however.)

This is what we get for $700 billion a year, almost what the rest of the rest of the world spends on military affairs? Plus the damn thing was dead against the United Nations Charter, which says that "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

Hey, it took Obama only eighteen months to end it. Course he couldn't have ended it if it weren't for that other fiasco in Afghanistan that he's poured the troops into, some of them now dead: Patrick K. Durham, 24, of Chattanooga, Tenn., Andrew J. Castro, 20, of Westlake Village, Calif., Floyd E. C. Holley, 36, of Casselberry, Fla., Floyd E. C. Holley, 36, of Casselberry, Fla., Ellery R. Wallace, 33, of Utah, Bryn T. Raver, 20, of Harrison, Ark., Chad D. Coleman, 20, of Moreland, Ga., Adam J. Novak, 20, of Prairie du Sac, Wis., James C. Robinson, 27, of Lebanon, Ohio, James R. Ide, 32, of Festus, Mo., Daniel L. Fedder, 34, of Pine City, Minn., and James M. Swink, 20, of Yucca Valley, Calif., just to name a few.

What a waste. Tears me up, damn it.

It's interesting. But now that you have obviously moved so far over to the far right, WigWag, routinely aligning yourself with and supporting people like Nadine, Tahoe Editor and Kotzabasis, it's increasingly career that a good portion of the PUMAs were right-wingers all along. It was worth electing Obama if only to stop Hillary, especially given what we have seen from Clinton as Secretary of State.

It's not that PUMAs were right-wing all along, Dan, but rather that Obama has moved the definition of 'left-wing' so far to the left that it's left a lot of former Democrats behind. These former moderate Democrats have become independent voters who are bolting en masse to the Republicans to counter-balance Obama's lurch to the left.

I love you, man.

Obama, August 2010: "No one can doubt President Bush's support for our troops or his love of country and commitment to our security."

Obama, July 2004: "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute." [Chicago Tribune, 07/27/04]

Obama betrayed his base! Defending or applauding
the fascist in the bushgov is the death knell to
his future political life. The fascists in the
bushgov wanton profiteering in Iraq is
unforgivable. Mind you, that the bushgov falsely
and deceptively bruted the LIE that Saddam was
involved in 9/11, and that there were WMD in Iraq,
ghoulisly exploiting the dead and horror of 9/11
to hurl America into a war of choice in Iraq.
There is no excusing or condoning this crime!
When everyone who questioned the reasons and
justification for attacking Iraq, were ruthlessly
slimed as antiAmericans giving aid
andcomforttotheenemy, - the fascist in the bushgov
were profiteering wantonly from oil, energy,
military, private military, intelligence, and
private intelligence industrial complex
oligarchs!!!

Obama excusing and cloaking the bushgov for the
crimes, abuses, and wanton profiteering in Iraq is
a grotesque insult to the people who fought and
supported Obama's election.

Obama is toast, because all of us, who fought and
defended him know now, his is nothing more than a
spaniel and parrot for the bushcrimefamilycabals,
an deep in the pockets of the oligarchs who profit
wantonly from the illicit horrorshows in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

You are a oneterm president O, because you
betrayed the people who fought for, and defended
you!

I can't say I envy Obama the job of trying to put together a ruling coalition while pleasing the likes of you, Tony.

Still, he's done a remarkably poor job of it. He might as well have pleased you more, he has pleased everyone else so little.

"It's interesting. But now that you have obviously moved so far over to the far right, WigWag, routinely aligning yourself with and supporting people like Nadine, Tahoe Editor and Kotzabasis..." (Dan Kervick)

Dan, I haven't allied myself with anyone. I don't view the comment section of the Washington Note as a new media version of the Hatfields and the McCoys. To be fair, given how dimwitted many of my comments are, and many of the other comments from others, I wouldn't be surprised if our host, Steve Clemons, thought Abbot and Costello was a better metaphor.

I enjoy reading Nadine's Kotz's and TE's comments just like I enjoy reading yours and Paul Norheim's.

I write what I think; sometimes I even write what I don't think, because putting things in writing helps me clarify things in my own mind.

To some people, Steve's comment section might be akin to a school yard rumble, but not to me.

Why would I possibly "align" myself with people I don't even know?

What's a PUMA?

***

I think Zuckerman's apostasy sums up the election and future
prospects of BHO. They won't get fooled again. Given how his
administration now takes credit for success in Iraq, when he and
Biden were vociferous and unyielding critics of the surge, shows
me that the administration retains contempt for the memory and
cognitive ability of the electorate, however, so we shouldn't
expect any mid-course, Clinton-1994-style, correction. The
country is merely the reflecting pool for the glory that is BHO.

I also think he's tired of the job, considers it beneath him, and
won't run again. As far as I can tell the only thing he enjoys in
the job are the photo ops with visiting jocks. He is arms-length
from policy and politicking, and he has no new friendships or
relationships with foreign leaders, who see him as a self-loving
poodle.

Source:
North Bay Bohemian, January 24, 2007
Title: “Senator Feinstein’s Iraq Conflict”
Author: Peter Byrne

Dianne Feinstein — the ninth wealthiest member of congress—has been beset by monumental ethical conflicts of interest. As a member of the Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 to the end of 2005, Senator Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions of dollars to her husband’s firms.
From 1997 through the end of 2005, Feinstein’s husband Richard C. Blum was a majority shareholder in both URS Corp. and Perini Corp. She lobbied Pentagon officials in public hearings to support defense projects that she favored, some of which already were, or subsequently became, URS or Perini contracts. From 2001 to 2005, URS earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by MILCON; Perini earned $759 million from such projects.

In 2000, Perini earned a mere $7 million from federal contracts. After 9/11, Perini was transformed into a major defense contractor. In 2004, the company earned $444 million for military construction work in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as for improving airfields for the US Air Force in Europe and building base infrastructures for the US Navy around the globe. In a remarkable financial recovery, Perini shot from near penury in 1997 to logging gross revenues of $1.7 billion in 2005.

It is estimated that Perini now holds at least $2.5 billion worth of contracts tied to the worldwide expansion of the US military. Its largest Department of Defense contracts are “indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity” or “bundled” contracts carrying guaranteed profit margins. As of May 2006, Perini held a series of bundled contracts awarded by the Army Corps of Engineers for work in the Middle East worth $1.725 billion. Perini has also been awarded an open-ended contract by the US Air Force for military construction and cleaning the environment at closed military bases.
In 2003 hearings, MILCON approved various construction projects at sites where Perini and/or URS are contracted to perform engineering and military construction work. URS’s military construction work in 2000 earned it a mere $24 million. The next year, when Feinstein took over as MILCON chair, military construction earned URS $185 million. On top of that, the company’s architectural and engineering revenue from military construction projects grew from $108,726 in 2000 to $142 million in 2001, more than a thousand-fold increase in a single year.
Beginning in 1997, Michael R. Klein, a top legal adviser to Feinstein and a long-time business partner of Blum’s, routinely informed Feinstein about specific federal projects coming before her in which Perini had a stake. The insider information, Klein said, “was intended to help the senator avoid conflicts of interest.” Although Klein’s admission was intended to defuse the issue, it had the effect of exacerbating it, because in theory, Feinstein would not know the identity of any of the companies that stood to contractually benefit from her approval of specific items in the military construction budget—until Klein told her.

Feinstein’s husband has profited in other ways by his powerful political connections. In March 2002, then-Governor Gray Davis appointed Blum to a twelve-year term as a regent of the University of California, where he used his position as Regent to award millions of dollars in construction contracts to URS and Perini. At the time, he was the principal owner of URS and had substantial interests in Perini. In 2005, Blum divested himself of Perini stock for a considerable profit. He then resigned from the URS board of directors and divested his investment firm of about $220 million in URS stock.

1. Peter Byrne, “Blum’s Plums” North Bay Bohemian, February 21, 2007.

UPDATE BY PETER BYRNE

Shortly before my expose of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s conflict of interest was published in January 2007, Feinstein, who had declined to substantively comment upon serious allegations of ethical misconduct as reported in the story, resigned from the Military Construction Subcommittee. I then wrote three follow-ups, including a news column on her resignation, an expose of her husband Richard Blum’s conflict of interest as a regent of the University of California, and an expose of Blum’s business partner, Michael R. Klein. With Blum’s financial backing, Klein, a war contractor, operates a non-profit called The Sunlight Foundation that awards millions of dollars to reporters and government watchdog groups to research government ethics.

In March, right-wing bloggers by the thousands started linking to and commenting upon these stories—agitating for a Congressional investigation of Feinstein. In just two days, the stories got 50,000 online hits. Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh did radio segments on my findings. I declined to appear on their shows, because I do not associate with racist, misogynist, homophobic demagogues. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly invited me to be on his national TV show, but quickly uninvited me after I promised that the first sentence out of my mouth would frame Feinstein as a neoconservative warmonger just like O’Reilly.

As the storm of conservative outrage intensified, Joe Conason, from The Nation Institute, which had commissioned the Feinstein investigation, asked to have the tag thanking the Nation Institute for funding removed from my stories because, he said, Katrina vanden Heuval, The Nation’s editor and publisher, did not want the magazine or its non-profit institute to be positively associated with Limbaugh. I told Conason that not only was I required to credit The Nation Institute under the terms of our contract, but that The Nation’s editors should be proud of the investigation and gratified by the public reaction.

The back story to that encounter is that, in October, vanden Heuvel had abruptly killed the Feinstein story, which had been scheduled to run as a cover feature before the November 2006 election in which Feinstein was up for reelection. The Nation’s investigative editor, Bob Moser, who worked closely with me on the project from start to finish, wrote that I had done a “solid job,” but that the magazine liked to have a political “impact,” and since Feinstein was “not facing a strong challenge for reelection,” they were not going to print the story. Moser added that there was no “smoking gun,” which amazed me, since Klein’s admission that he was funneling defense contracting wish lists developed by Feinstein’s husband’s company directly to the senator, who was in a position to make those wishes come true, was a hot and smoking fact pointing toward corrupt practices. Subsequently, vanden Heuval wrote an editorial praising women leaders of the newly-empowered Democratic Party, including Feinstein: go figure.

I then sold the story to Salon.com, who abruptly killed it right before publication, too. This time the editor’s explanation was that “someone talked to the Sunlight Foundation” and that Salon no longer saw the matter as a serious conflict of interest. So, I pitched the story to Slate, The NewRepublic, Harper’s, the Los Angeles Times and, by way of experiment, to the neoconservative American Spectator and Weekly Standard. Most of the editors praised the reporting, but turned down the story. I cannot help but believe that, considering the precarious balance of power in the post-election Senate, some of these editors were not eager to critique the ethics of a Democrat. As for rejection by the neoconservatives, I theorize that they secretly adore Feinstein, who has consistently supported Bush’s war and homeland security agenda and the illiberal Patriot Act.

So I sold the tale to the North Bay Bohemian, which, along with its sister papers in San Jose and Santa Cruz ran it on the cover—complete with follow-ups. After it appeared, the editors and I received a series of invective-filled emails from war contractor Klein (who is also an attorney) but, since he could show no errors of fact in the story, he did not get the retraction that he apparently wanted. In March, the story crested a Google tidal wave generated by left- and right-wing bloggers wondering why the mainstream media was ignoring the Feinstein scandal. After two dozen newspapers ran a McClatchy wire service article in April observing that no one had found any factual faults in my reporting, the lefty group Media Matters attacked me on its Web site as a right-wing pawn, without even calling me for comment, nor finding any errors in my reporting. I parried their fact-free insults with facts and they were compelled to correct the inaccurate rant.

On April 30, The Hill newspaper in Washington D.C. ran a highly-visible op-ed by a conservative pundit quoting from my story and comparing Feinstein (unfairly) to convicted felon and former Congressman, Duke Cunningham. As the Feinstein investigation gained national traction, mostly outside the realm of the mainstream media, one of Klein’s employees at the Sunlight Foundation posted a “critique” of my story, which was loaded with personal insults, but contained no factual substance. Not coincidentally, Feinstein’s press office distributes, upon request, a similarly-worded “rebuttal,” which insults my personal integrity, finds no factual errors, and does not address the damning fact, reported in the story, that four non-partisan ethics experts based in Washington D.C. found the senator had a conflict of interest after reviewing the results of my investigation.
Also, in April, CodePink and The Raging Grannies held a demonstration in front of the Feinstein-Blum mansion in San Francisco demanding that she return her war profits to the Iraqi people. That was my proudest moment.
Five months after the story was printed, opinion-floggers across the political spectrum continue to loudly ask why the mainstream media has not reported on Feinstein’s ethical problem. Some say that the hurricane of opinion raised by the investigation has killed Feinstein’s chance for a spot on the Democratic Party’s presidential ticket in 2008. Klein has continued to send me e-mails full of verbal abuse, misspellings, and implied threat of lawsuit.

Blissfully, I delete them.

"Why would I possibly "align" myself with people I don't even know?", Wig Wag says.

Because your're a sneaky creep. Now your trolling to ally yourself with Tahoe Editor who hasn't been seen in these comments for ages.

And your love affair with Hillary was legion. Your dissembling is amusing to those who see through you.

Posted by drew, Sep 01 2010, 7:27AM - Link

What's a PUMA?
----------------

Not your cup of tea, I guess.... They were a group of militant
feminists who organized against Obama, and in favor of
Hillary C. during the election, arguing that Obama was an
obnoxious sexist who drank cafe latte. WigWag supported
them, and their leader was one of Steve Clemons' many
friends.

" . . .Obama has moved the definition of 'left-wing' so far to the left that it's left a lot of former Democrats behind. These former moderate Democrats have become independent voters who are bolting en masse to the Republicans to counter-balance Obama's lurch to the left." (nadine)

Nadine, you really ought not to spew this right wing talk garbage here. It's so offensively ignorant to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. How do you account for the almost total disaffection with Obama among progressives? There is a disconnect in you logic that requires the whole progressive wing of the dems to be nonexistent. The other possibility is that you are so far to the right that you actually believe Obama is on the left. And of course that's the take you prefer to see as "mainstream". Maybe you'll get your wish.

"Biden were vociferous and unyielding critics of the surge, shows
me that the administration retains contempt for the memory and
cognitive ability of the electorate," (drew)

I'll take your point, Drew, but wonder if you agree that's it's equally offensive to the memory of all, electorate, and particularly the dead on all sides, that the misbegotten, contrived, lied about Iraq "war" is now just down the memory hole. Just another war, a trillion bucks or so, for no good reason, and no good consequences. Ho hum. Let's just move on.

Thanks, Paul. If that's a PUMA, we haven't heard the last of
them, for sure. While skating on the edge of sexist caricature,
perhaps, I think that that cohort may prefer to have the last
word.

DonS, my opinion is that any intelligent policy-maker going
forward will shudder at the cost and near-catastrophe that was
Iraq, and that the potential strategic benefits of any future such
exercise will be drowned in cries of "are you effing nuts?" IOW,
the risk assessment will be very, very different next time. The
surge was the military equivalent of going for it when you're
backed up on your own 10 yard-line and it's 4th-and-20.

I do think that there remain profound strategic benefits to be
gained from a democratic Iraq, and I do not believe it is our
place to attempt to impose them on the world for a long, long
time.

Obama has an enormous challenge now convincing the world
that he was for it, after he was against it, in Iraq. And convincing
us, if he wearies of Afghanistan, that he is against it, after he was
for it.

The torpor that suffused his speech last night is the depression
of a personality that is increasingly encircled by his own words.

DonS: "How do you account for the almost total disaffection
with Obama among progressives? There is a disconnect in you
logic that requires the whole progressive wing of the dems to be
nonexistent."

I think people in the center and right are evaluating BHO on the
basis of what they believe he is doing over a far longer time
horizon than the progressives are, and as a result see each of his
major legislative and policy moves in the context of his strategic,
secular transformation of the American idea. That's why Gibbs
blew a gasket: his core constituency on the left doesn't realize
he's fighting a long war on their behalf. They want instanteous,
not secular change.

Example: they don't appreciate the sheer brilliance of his health
plan, because it backdoors what they really want: the mandatory,
public takeover of primary care; they don't appreciate the
brilliant, tactical legerdemain of the administration.
Conservatives and centrists correctly understand that he is
pushing the country toward a point of no return. In this regard
Obama is better appreciated by his enemies than his own voters.
None of this may apply to you, of course, so I hope you won't
take it as a personal comment.

Thanks for the reply Drew. I understand the argument that emphasizes secular change over the long term. Some of which, if we get there, is imperative, as in the destruction of the middle class' ability to afford health care. Other of which, as I see it, e.g., allowing the economy to drift while the middle class, again, is eroded, should not be a matter of left or right. But it is.

In the foreign policy realm, I see Obama, by conviction, or deference, acquiescing to the post 911 fear-based template, with all sorts of negative consequences for privacy and evolution of a surveillance apparatus. That's not long term secular change. That's jumping whole hog into the 'be very afraid' camp.

I'm not attributing the countervailing interpretations to you, either. Just that some of what I see as deficiencies may not have the luxury of time to await long term secular change.

Why are progressives so dissatisfied with Obama?

1) Excalating a pointless and futile war in Afghanistan.
2) Failure to close Guantanamo.
3) Failing the sincerity test about ending the war in Iraq, instead preparing to send in State Department mercenaries to replace the military.
4) Failure to apply any pressure on Israel to foster peace.
5) Endorsing domestic spying by intelligence agencies and their private contractors.
6) Failure to deal convincingly with the health care disaster.
7) Failure to reign in Wall Street or the oligopoly that dominates banking.
8) Failure to put together an economic stimulus of a size needed to actually stimulate the economy.
9) Continuing to fund the "Defense" Department lavishly while depriving health, education and job creation.
10) Failure to negotiate seriously with Iran, and spurning a deal done by others (Turkey and Brazil).
11) Letting BP do whatever it wanted, destroying the Gulf of Mexico.

Need I go on? Instead of showing leadership, Obama has simply chosen to go with the flow of powerful interests, bobbing along on a current created by the Pentagon, military contractors, health insurance companies, and the financial industry.

The problem with Obama?

"An essential problem remains with US diplomacy: We cannot trust a word they say...We should learn that the expressions of US diplomacy are utterly vacuous."
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&article_id=118836&categ_id=17#axzz0yHztMccs

Instead of showing leadership and using his bully pulpit to engage and educate the American people, Obama is interested in little more than putting lipstick on whatever pig that powerful interests plop down on his desk.

"Obama Closes Iraq War"
How can the US unilaterally declare that combat is over without checking with the enemy or at least its puppet local army?

from guardian.co.uk, 12 August 2010:
Iraqi army not ready to take over until 2020, says country's top general

Lieutenant General Babakir Zebari calls for US army to stay beyond Obama's 2011 deadline for complete withdrawal

The Iraqi army is not ready to take over responsibility from the Americans, its most senior general has warned, as the White House insists the US army is on course to end its combat role in the country by the end of this month.

Lieutenant General Babakir Zebari told a defence conference in Baghdad that the Iraqi army would be unable to cope without backing from US forces.

He suggested the Iraqi army would be incapable of assuming control for another decade.

"If I were asked about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians: the US army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020," he said. (end of guardian report)
---------------
Consider the current situation in Iraq: a continuing pattern of violent attacks, the failure of the Iraqis to decide on a president since the March election, the continuing unresolved Kurdish independence question and the fact that the new Iraq parliament has met only once since March, for 18 minutes on June 14th, plus the looming presence of Iran-backed Sadr and the ever-present possibility of a military coup.

"It ain't over 'til it's over"-- Yogi Berra

So when are we getting out of Afghanistan?

So Afghanistan can go back to being to being Afghanistan just like Iraq has gone back to being Iraq. Told you so.

Drew,
PUMA stands for "Party Unity, My Ass" which was the rallying cry of a group of pro-Hillary, anti-Obmama voters. It came out of the call for, of course, unity under Obama.

I wouldn't call them "militant feminists" as Paul did. My memory is that there was some suspicion that there were a number of Republicans pushing the PUMA line, and then there were a lot of women who thought that it was a woman's turn to be president or who felt that they had waited all their lives to vote for a woman and were once again seeing opportunity slip by. This latter is actually pretty understandable.

Just a further note on 1) why progressives are disgusted with Obama and 2) another reminder, because we cant have enough, of the unmitigated fiscal, strategic, moral, human disaster the US perpetrated by the invasion of Iraq

Or, in the final line of the linked post, "And I didn’t even mention how insulting it is for Obama to praise the man who should be getting investigated for war crimes. It reminds me of the final scene from Animal Farm."

"Why is Obama sounding like a neocon?":

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/68541

How clearly Obama seems to have been taken by, and easily slipped into the exceptionalist rhetoric that characterizes the delusional Disney-like version off America. Brought to you on the big screen with a side order of thought erasing drugs by the infomercial controllers funded and supported by the MI complex. We truly live in a time of supposed great battles between left and right. But when push comes to shove there is little reality and honesty to be found anywhere. You cannot profess to be working for the common man, from left or right, parrot empty shibboleths, and expect either trust or sound outcomes.

I think many of the comments on this issue were informative. But I still don't understand why people believe the problem is Obama. The problem is us. We have over 140 years moved the definition of government closer and closer to democratic, free enterprise communism (I recognize that is an oxymoron). Which cannot work. And because it can't work, only attracts people who have no moral fiber at all, but are willing to lie through their teeth to get attention. And having no moral fiber, once in office they are structurally incapable of making a single rational, morally sound, practical (has common sense) decision.

This will continue and get progressively worse, until we as citizens radically change our view of government, going back to the Declaration of Independence, where by exercising our inalienable rights of life, liberty and pursuing happiness, we begin to consider ourselves responsible for all of our own needs. Thereby voting for officials who will return government back to just providing simple administrative tasks, such as coast guard, embassies, post office, infrastructure, etc.

I still don't understand how people aren't clear Clinton and Bush were just like Obama. But maybe short term memory loss comes from wanting the government to be a nanny state.

And Nadine, to call Obama left is absurd. In most of his decisions he acts exactly as George Bush.

DonS,

According to Gallup, in 2008 40% of Independents thought the Democrats were too liberal. In 2010, 52% think so. They are breaking heavily for the Republicans this year.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/139877/near-record-say-democratic-party-liberal.aspx

"How do you account for the almost total disaffection with Obama among progressives? "

Their unrealistic expectations have met his incompetence. Though drew makes a good point; Obama's strategy is better appreciated by his enemies than his allies. It is far easier to grow government than to shrink it again; as Reagan observed, once created, any bureaucracy's chief mission is its own survival and growth.

"I wouldn't call them "militant feminists" as Paul did."

Yes, I wouldn't use that phrase either. I think they were just a bunch of people who, for one reason or another, were very strong supporters of Hillary Clinton and were very resentful of Barack Obama for running against her and beating her.

"And Nadine, to call Obama left is absurd. In most of his decisions he acts exactly as George Bush." (Warren Metzler)

Really? When did Bush push for universal health care or run a 4 Trillion dollar Federal budget?

Though Bush did pass Medicare Part D, so you have a point there -- but it's not that Obama isn't to the left, it's that Bush was not really to the right. Spending was too high under Bush; but it's risen exponentially under Obama.

Warren - Interesting description of US governance as "democratic, free enterprise communism". Would you describe China as just "free enterprise communism" - without the democratic part? I think the primary difference is how the government purse strings are controlled. In China, it's a few who have near-total control. In the US, it's a many who are also accountable to the electorate - an electorate that is maddeningly susceptible to advertising and dissembling.

"Thereby voting for officials who will return government back
to just providing simple administrative tasks, such as coast
guard, embassies, post office, infrastructure, etc."

Warren Metzler, as far as I know, your libertarian vision of a
small and powerless government is more or less implemented
in Somalia. You may try setting up a business in their capital,
Mogadishu?

Here is from an article in Time:

"Downtown Mogadishu is a tropical Stalingrad, a bullet-raked,
mortar-pounded, artillery-shelled canvas of Roman arches and
Italian colonnades that that testifies to man's capacity for
creation and also for destruction. Not the sort of place, in other
words, that you'd expect to find a $30 million
telecommunications concern doing a roaring trade in an ultra-
competitive market.

Yet, as Mustafa Sheikh, deputy managing director of Telcom
Somalia says, the absence of a functioning government for 16
years has been a boon for private enterprise. His firm is one of
three in Somalia that provides fixed-line and mobile phones,
creating competition so fierce that rates are among the lowest
in the world.

And business is excellent. Telcom boasts an annual average
return of 35% on investment since its founding in the midst of
the civil war in 1994. Last December, Sheikh secured $14
million from his Chinese partners, Shenzhen-based Huawei, to
upgrade his service. In total, the Somalian telecoms industry
employs 65,000 people. "No taxes, no regulation, no
bureaucrats — a total free market where we can do whatever
we want when we want," says Sheikh. "Somalia is Adam Smith's
dream.""

Food for thought?

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1583360,00.h
tml

Nadine,

You are welcome to debate the multiplier effect with
Obama all you like, and whether his stimulus
projects will qualify for that effect. You probably
will have a very strong case.

However, at least we now both agree that there is a
difference in the types of spending, and your
initial attack which was so shrill about his
inconsistency and "economic illiteracy" really was
inaccurate.

"However, at least we now both agree that there is a
difference in the types of spending" (hv)

No, there is very little difference. You claim that the money for the Afghanistan War is removed from the American economy, while I pointed out that the vast majority of money spent on military expenditures goes to soldiers and defense contractors, and is a boost to the US economy. Did WWII help or hurt the American economy?

I agree with all those conservatives who complain about bloated government. However, conservatives never acknowledge the causes of that bloat.

"Defense" has become the largest single category of government spending, exceeding even Social Security. Yet conservatives refuse to push for a GAO audit of DOD or any rethinking of strategic priorities or of America's position in the world. For conservatives, the mantra is to give DOD whatever it wants, and then some, without ever checking to see if the monies were wisely spent or even went to the projects Congress funded.

The Republiscum Party is not a party of fiscal conservatives. Rather, with one or two exceptions it champions the looting of the Treasury for all its worth, as long as the waste can someone be attributed to "security."

To make it appear that they are fiscally conservative, Republiscum hatch all sorts of schemes to destroy the security of the unemployed, the poor, the elderly, the infirm, as well as education for school age children.

Democraps are clearly the lesser of two evils in this regard, but barely, almost imperceptibly.

'"Defense" has become the largest single category of government spending, exceeding even Social Security.' (JohnH)

What are you, some kind of surrender monkey?

Interesting graphic. Click on "US versus rest of the world". Close to half the world's defense spending.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending

Hard to deny the US economy exists to service a bloated 'defense' posture. Or maybe offense? If it were truly defense one could legitimately ask why the US is so paranoid (and/or shouldering the burden for the rest of the so called free world)

"Thursday, November 12, 2009
Guest Post: Confirmed – Defense Spending Creates Fewer Jobs Than Other Types of Spending

Yesterday, I pointed out that a study by one of the leading economic modeling companies shows that military spending increases unemployment and decreases economic growth.

I have located (giant hat tip to Gordon) a paper by economist Robert Pollin published in 2007 by The Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst – entitled “The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities” – which concludes:

We present in Table 1 our estimate of the relative effects of spending $1 billion on alternative uses, including military spending, health care, education, mass transit, and construction for home weatherization and infrastructure repair."

....
"“Military Keynesianism” – the idea that war is the best economic stimulus – is false."

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/11/guest-post-confirmed-defense-spending-creates-fewer-jobs-than-other-types-of-spending.html

"“For example, defense spending means that the government is pulling away resources from the uses determined by the market and instead using them to buy weapons and supplies and to pay for soldiers and other military personnel. In standard economic models, defense spending is a direct drain on the economy, reducing efficiency, slowing growth and costing jobs.

A few years ago, the Center for Economic and Policy Research commissioned Global Insight, one of the leading economic modeling firms, to project the impact of a sustained increase in defense spending equal to 1.0 percentage point of GDP. This was roughly equal to the cost of the Iraq War.

Global Insight’s model projected that after 20 years the economy would be about 0.6 percentage points smaller as a result of the additional defense spending. Slower growth would imply a loss of almost 700,000 jobs compared to a situation in which defense spending had not been increased. Construction and manufacturing were especially big job losers in the projections, losing 210,000 and 90,000 jobs, respectively.

The scenario we asked Global Insight to model turned out to have vastly underestimated the increase in defense spending associated with current policy. In the most recent quarter, defense spending was equal to 5.6 percent of GDP. By comparison, before the September 11th attacks, the Congressional Budget Office projected that defense spending in 2009 would be equal to just 2.4 percent of GDP. Our post-September 11th build-up was equal to 3.2 percentage points of GDP compared to the pre-attack baseline. This means that the Global Insight projections of job loss are far too low."

http://topforeignstocks.com/2009/11/15/should-the-us-drastically-cut-its-bloated-defense-budget

"The HASC bill includes funding for the development of the alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, for example, which the military has repeatedly stated it does not need or want and cannot afford. The markup also orders the Pentagon to budget for the engine in 2012. Secretary Gates has advised the president to veto any bill that includes funding for the second engine.

The HASC bill also includes $65 billion for Navy and Marine Corps procurement despite Secretary Gates’s recent speech before the Navy League calling on the service to reexamine its force posture in the current operating environment. As Gates noted, the United States will maintain 11 carrier strike groups through 2040 when no other country has more than one. The $65 billion includes $5.1 billion to fund two Virginia class submarines—the first time the committee has ever authorized two of these boats in one year. And the committee’s FY 2011 authorization includes $1.7 billion in advance funding toward the purchase of two more Virginia class hulls in FY 2012. Including funding for the advanced purchase of these two submarines creates a strong incentive for lawmakers to allow the program to proceed in next year’s budget, which essentially ensures that the same misguided spending evident in this year’s markup will continue in FY 2012.

The list goes on. The HASC bill includes $361 million over what the administration requested for funding for ballistic missile defense despite the fact that the Pentagon already increased the budget by over $300 million from a year ago. "

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/05/defense_budget.html

""Defense" has become the largest single category of government spending, exceeding even Social Security. Yet conservatives refuse to push for a GAO audit of DOD or any rethinking of strategic priorities or of America's position in the world. "

Hey, JohnH, you seem to have a persistent problem with arithmetic. Defense is 20% of the budget. Social Security is 20%. Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP is 21%" -- and that does not count the matching payments these programs require from the states, nor how these entitlement programs will balloon as the Baby Boom retires.

" * Defense and security: In 2010, some 20 percent of the budget, or $715 billion, will pay for defense and security-related international activities. The bulk of the spending in this category reflects the underlying costs of the Department of Defense and other security-related activities. The total also includes the cost of supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is expected to total $172 billion in 2010.

* Social Security: Another 20 percent of the budget, or $708 billion, will pay for Social Security, which provided retirement benefits averaging $1,117 per month to 36 million retired workers (and their eligible dependents) in December 2009. Social Security also provided survivors’ benefits to 6.4 million surviving children and spouses of deceased workers and disability benefits to 9.7 million disabled workers and their eligible dependents in December 2009.
* Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP: Three health insurance programs — Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — will together account for 21 percent of the budget in 2010, or $753 billion. Nearly two-thirds of this amount, or $468 billion, will go to Medicare, which provides health coverage to around 46 million people who are over the age of 65 or have disabilities. The remainder of this category funds Medicaid and CHIP, which in a typical month in 2010 will provide health care or long-term care to about 64 million low-income children, parents, elderly people, and people with disabilities. Both Medicaid and CHIP require matching payments from the states."

https://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258

"We estimate the influence of defense spending and military labor use on economic growth in African and Latin American countries. Our model integrates disparate implications from the defense economics literature into a Barro-style model of economic growth that controls for political and economic institutional variation across countries. Our panel data analysis of 44 countries in Africa and Latin America from 1975 to 1989 also controls for cross-country variation in lost human capital and public sector production inefficiencies. We find empirical evidence that the defense burden on economic growth is non-linear, with low levels of military spending increasing economic growth but higher levels of military spending decreasing growth. We also find evidence that the influence of military labor use on growth is non-linear, and exhibits a greater drag on economic growth in those countries with relatively higher levels of adult male education attainment."

http://ideas.repec.org/a/cem/jaecon/v4y2001n2p329-360.html

"Hey, JohnH, you seem to have a persistent problem with arithmetic. Defense is 20% of the budget. Social Security is 20%. Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP is 21%" -- and that does not count the matching payments these programs require from the states, nor how these entitlement programs will balloon as the Baby Boom retires."

The salient fact is that the US defense budget is almost half of the world's total. Get your head out of the sand and start to think like a rational person.

Yeah, you're right, DonS. Guess I did my calculations before the latest CHIP numbers were in. The problem is those damned programs that help the sick, disabled, elderly, and children. Why can't those folks work like the rest of us! And what obligation does our society have to take care of the weakest among us? Aren't we all believers in Darwin? (Except for all those fundamentalist Christians, of course, who oppose any social program because they're not Darwinian enough!)

The real issue is the gaping hole in the discretionary budget, blown wide open by Bush's doubling of military expenditures and tax cuts for those who have trouble finding ways to spend their loot.

"Really? When did Bush push for universal health care or run a 4 Trillion dollar Federal budget?"

The health care plan is pretty close to the plan that for years was known as "The Republican Plan". The Democrats eschewed both single payer and even a public option, and passed the Republican Plan. I don't know why the GOP isn't celebrating their victory in the 20-year health care debate, instead of running the plan down.

The stimulus package was a classic deficit-spending fiscal stimulus plan. The Republicans certainly would have passed a stimulus plan of approximately the same budgetary magnitude in the same dire economic conditions. Theirs would have been more heavily weighted with tax cuts rather than spending initiatives, but the budgetary impact would have been the same. That's because pumping more out into the economy than you are taking in, and running a large temporary deficit, is inherent in the very nature of fiscal stimulus.

The Republicans would have sold their own budget buster as something Reagan would have done, which would have been an easy sell, since Reagan also drove up the deficit massively.

I guess Paul, the Somalia expert, has never been to Costa Rica, which has no defense force, and no need for one. It's a pity, because it's such a beautiful, peaceful place.

The simple fact is that the USA has not been invaded since 1814 and faces no external military threat, so there is no need for a standing army, much less a two million person increasingly expensive force in being.

How about Norway?

Well Don, we've got this answering machine on the phone in the
Ministry of Defense office, with a message translated to a dozen
languages: "We surrender! Repeat: We surrender!"

Paul, would you disparage the brave Norwegian resistance to the Germans? (back on topic -- similar to the Iraqi and Afghan resistance)

Don Bacon, did you happen to see the Time Magazine cover of a young Afghan woman without a nose?

That is what the "Afghan resistance" aka the Taliban is fighting for.

Everybody is scared of Norway, ever since Steinbeck set "The Moon is Down" in a place assumed to be Norway. The characters in the book figured out how to deal with foreign occupiers...

The Time magazine photo was an example of war propaganda at its best -- demonizing the enemy.

Of course Time would never publish on any page, much less its cover, a photo of anybody terribly burned by a US military white phosphorous shell, for example, would it.

Judging from your example, nadine, it works, and that's why they do it.

It isn't "demonizing" if it's true and broadly representative of Taliban's treatment of women. By your logic, the British "demonized" the Germans by taking video of Belsen concentration camp when they liberated it.

US media has printed pictures of civilians wounded by US strikes -- far more often, in fact, than they printed pictures of the jumpers from the WTC, whose pictures vanished after a couple of weeks, and whose bodies were never shown.

The essential point is you, a self-proclaimed progressive, are ready to cheer on medieval fanatics like the Taliban, and even compare them to the anti-Nazi resistance of Norway in WWII. The Norwegian partisans were anti-fascists. If you are pro-Taliban, you are pro-fascist. This is a distinction the modern progressive can no longer make, apparently.

Nadine,

One type of spending clearly has no multiplier
effect. There is no debate.

Another type of spending may or may not have a
multiplier effect, depending on how wisely it is
implemented (and your opinion of that probably
depends on your politics).

See it now? There is the first type: no chance of
multiplier.... second type: possible but unlikely
multiplier. See that difference between
"impossible" and "unlikely"? To pretend that your
belief that it is unlikely is equivalent to
impossible merely reveals how mature you are about
politics. You're projecting.

There are 2 types. Obama may fail in delivering
the second type, sure, but he was not illiterate.
You overreacted. The end. If you don't get it
yet, I probably won't explain it again.

"One type of spending clearly has no multiplier
effect. There is no debate." (hv)

Are you claiming that defense spending never has a multiplier effect? that military spending never leads to new inventions, or the training of soldiers and defense workers can never improve productivity? That is a far-fetched claim, on which there is plenty of debate.

"Another type of spending may or may not have a
multiplier effect, depending on how wisely it is
implemented (and your opinion of that probably
depends on your politics)."

By now everybody agrees that most of the stimulus went to prop up states and legislators pet pork. Spending on government workers does not have a multiplier effect because government workers don't produce anything, generally speaking. They are an overhead cost. Maybe you could say the teachers produce, but front line teachers are such a tiny part of education spending. As for the pork projects, being chosen for short-term political effect, they are unlikely to be productive long term.

"Paul, would you disparage the brave Norwegian resistance
to the Germans? (back on topic -- similar to the Iraqi and
Afghan resistance)" (DonBacon)

Speaking of Afghanistan: there is nothing immoral in
defending your country against a foreign invasion; what is
immoral, is treating women the way the Taliban does. As for
staying there for years or decades to save Afghan women: I
don't buy that explanation. Nor do I buy the "safe haven"
argument: Afghanistan doesn't have a monopoly of
providing relatively safe havens for extremists; there is
plenty of competition in neighboring countries and on other
continents.

Note to Nadine: please read history books. Just because you
rightwing people and teabaggers hate The Other, that's no
excuse for claiming that Taliban was responsible for Katyn
and My Lai.

So Iraq has been 'liberated'?

Woohoo, .... How does that feel?

They must be dancing in the streets! The one's with legs left to dance that is.

The modern sacking of Baghdad is over and the US has 'cut-&-run' (round the corner) leaving only a small contingent of 50,000 to protect the US Embassy and a huge army of private mercenaries to maintain Cheney's oil men.

Anyone picking up the depleted uranium?

I guess there are a few less soft walking US targets for the Iranians to vaporize should a war break out.

Mission Accomplished II, now in a theater near you.

Nadine,

When you ask...

"Are you claiming that defense spending never has a
multiplier effect? that military spending never
leads to new inventions, or the training of soldiers
and defense workers can never improve productivity?"

Forgive me, but I was really expecting to see a link
to how the CBO analyzes these things, instead of a
lot of hand-waving. That is the standard you
proposed, right?

CBO or go home.