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multi-billionaire's son from Saudi Arabia. If Osama is still alive, which is doubted by many, he's most likely safe behind bin Laden palace walls in Saudi Arabia where he'd have access to the best medical help, the most sophisticated medical and communication equipment, etc. etc. More likely that than holed up in some cave in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, roughing it with Afghan insurgents while his kidneys and general health fails. "The Taliban" isn't al qaeda. These are people, both in areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, who've been fiercely fighting for their freedom and independence for decades against invaders from the all directions, and now from overseas. They barely had time to collect their wits after a decades long war of attrition against invading Soviet forces, barely had time to begin setting up a gov't and the beginnings of an infrastructure, when the US moved in - not to take out al qaeda, but to replace the Afghan gov't and system of laws, to replace the economic alignments, with a "western" made-in-USA model written by the oil companies, by the new power elite of the companies created to profit on "reconstruction" (the 21st century word for "plundering"), none of which have the interests of Afghanistan and its people in mind.
The US can no more "win" militarily in Afghanistan, or northern Pakistan, or wherever else they take their ideological war, than they can in Iraq. And it's been made clear time and again, explicitly at the highest levels, that this war of aggression against Islamic countries that the US is waging is an ideological war. It's been made clear time and again that at the highest levels the US systematically lies to the world about their justifications for war, about their use of WMD against civilian targets, about the nature and affiliations of the insurgencies that follow their invasions, and so on. The list is intolerably long The US, at the highest levels, has lied about Iran. It has lied about it's wish for "democracy", as shown when confronted by actual elections which brought to popular power leaders of movements willing to defend their people from the depravities of occupying powers and peoples. As shown by their support for the some of the most repressive dictatorships (aka "monarchies") in the world
I'm happy that Obama promises to withdraw the US occupation army from Iraq, though not so happy the conditions on that promise, and not so happy about the US unwillingness to accept responsibility for the 100's of 1000's dead Iraqis, the total destruction of physical and social infrastructure, the pure hell that the US delivered on the Iraqi people. But I'm not happy about the escalating rhetoric against Iran, and the continued and rarely acknowledged LYING that substantiates that rhetoric. I'm not happy about the unquestioned rhetoric about a need to escalate the war "front" in Afghanistan, to widen that front to include large areas of Pakistan -- with precisely ZERO questioning of this rhetoric by political spokespeople, or even from the leading voices of the "netroot" progressive movement. I'm not happy that the vast majority of US citizens, even amongst the progressive elements, fail to grasp the fact that an administration that's had 8 years to build a war on lies, who systematically lies and rarely if ever speaks the truth about their ideological war on one front, will be systematically lying about every aspect of the war on ALL fronts. I'm not happy that one of Obama's key rationales for promising to draw down the war on one front, Iraq, is just so to have the troops and freed up resources to escalate the identical ideological war elsewhere in the region.
I'm not happy with the continued mass killings of indiginous populations by an imperialist war machine, and by the slavish devotion the american people have for their war machine.
It'll be nice to see the last of Bush, but I don't expect much from the political leaders of a blinkered population.
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