Obama Wins! What to do now...

Obama secured a second term as President on Tuesday, November 6, 2012.  I suspect, given the challenges that confounded his efforts to win a second term, his election will be seen as a major event historically. He prevailed despite obscne amounts of unregulated campaign funding, enabled by the right leaning Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. 

Given the political atmosphere, Democrats made remarkable gains.  They increased their majority in the Senate. One of my great hopes is that the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, will enact filabuster reform, denying the minority Republicans the ability to easily block any legistlation or political appointment hat doesn't suit them. The filabuster has been used 371 times since 2008.  Majority rules. That's what the Constitution says. That's the way it should be in the Senate.

It's true, the House is still in Republican control, but some of the most toxic tea party zealots where defeated at the ballot box and will not be back.  House Republicans can still be a mighty destructive force if they choose to be.  Let's hope the moderates in the Republican caucus decide its time to cast aside the tea party mantle, and work productively with their adversaries.

So, hear is how I would like to see the President expend the fresh politfcal capital he gained by winning a second term.

1.  Put our fiscal house in order. Allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. Retain current income tax levels for people earning under $250,000; allow those making more to pay more.  Enact a transaction tax on every trade done on Wall Street.  Retain capital gains tax at current 15% level,  but  boost that number to 30% for capital gains that exceed  $5 million annually. Retain social security and medicare as they are.  Strictly oversee and aggressively enforce the rules and regulations focused on banking and the financial system.

2. Speed up troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, with all of our people out by the beginning of 2014.  Put Pentagon spending on a substantial diet. 

3. Become a leading voice for global efforts to deal with climate change.   Enact a comprehensive system of government spending and incentive as well as regulations encouraging the phaise out of nuclear power and fossil fuels and the emergence of clean energy alternatives.  It will take decades to achieve this. A clearly stated progressive energy policy would be a very good place to start.  It should be the centerpiece of Obama's jobs strategy.   Much of America's energy infrastructure is aging and needs replacement. An internet-like smart-grid that is compatible with a broad range of energy sources, including the old that's already in place and the new, pollution-free renewable forms that are now emerging. You want to stimulate the economy, this is a great way to do it.

Of course, there are many many other things one could hope for under Obama's second term leadership. I would be very happy if we could just get some serious attention and action on the three big ticket items listed above.

Afghanistan - It's about Resources

Why are we still in Afghanistan?  Why did we go there in the first place?  Was it only about getting Osama and Al Queda?  More than likely, that was mostly an excuse. We are there because of that nation's untapped oil and mineral wealth.  About a trillion dollars worth of natural resources that are just beginning to be exploited.  We are still there because our government is acting as the armed surrogate of the oil, gas, and mineral extraction industries.

Thousands of American military deaths and injuries; billions in American taxpayer money...all to support the bottom lines of the rapacious corporate exploiters of Afghanistan's untapped natural resource wealth.   America's war in Iraq was about oil, and our continued presence in Afghanistan is totally about securing our place at the table when that country's resources are sold off to outsiders.

Here is a great piece written by Russ Baker from WhoWhatWhy.com about ths subject.

 

Treasure Trove of Mineral Wealth: The Real Reason for the Afghan War?

September 10, 2012 |

When the United States decided to invade Afghanistan to grab Osama bin Laden—and failed, but stayed on like an unwanted guest—could it have known that the Afghans were sitting on some of the world’s greatest reserves of mineral wealth?

We’ve raised this topic before (see here [3])—where we noted the dubious 2010 claim, published by the New York Times, that “the vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was [recently] discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists.” Other evidence, and logic, point to the fact that everyone but the Western public knew for a long time, and before the 2001 invasion, that Afghanistan was a treasure trove.

So we were interested to see a new piece [4] from the Times that emphasizes those riches without stressing the crucial question: Was the original impetus for the invasion really Osama—or Mammon?
The failure to pose this question is significant because the pretense of a “recent discovery” serves only to justify staying in Afghanistan now that the troops are already there—while ignoring the extent to which imperial-style resource grabs are the real drivers of foreign policy and wars, worldwide.
As long as we continue to dance around that issue, we will remain mired in disaster of both a financial and mortal nature. As long as we fail to tote up who are the principal winners and losers then we fail to understand what is going on.

Some of the least likely candidates for insight are waking up. To quote Alan Greenspan [5]: “I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Who will say the same about Afghanistan and its mineral wealth? Once we acknowledge what General Wesley Clark claims [6] (and which the media keeps ignoring)—that he was told the U.S. had plans ready at the time of the 9/11 attacks to invade seven countries (including Iraq and Afghanistan)– then the larger picture begins to come into view.

At this point, we can’t help but revisit our WhoWhatWhy exclusive [7] tying the 9/11 hijackers to that very reliable U.S. ally, the Saudi royal family— which itself needs constant external war and strife throughout the Middle East to keep its citizens from focusing on its own despotism and staggering corruption, and to maintain its position as an indispensable ally of the West in these wars. It was the actions of the Saudi-dominated 9/11 hijackers and their Saudi sponsor, Osama bin Laden, that created the justification for this endless series of resource wars. So, learning that the hijackers themselves may have been sponsored by, or controlled by elements of the Saudi royal family is a pretty big deal.

Nevertheless, the Times plays a key role in sending us in the wrong direction [4]:

If there is a road to a happy ending in Afghanistan, much of the path may run underground: in the trillion-dollar reservoir of natural resources — oil, gold, iron ore, copper, lithium and other minerals — that has brought hopes of a more self-sufficient country, if only the wealth can be wrested from blood-soaked soil.

 

So, according to the world’s most influential opinion-making outlet, the fact of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth has nothing to do with why the United States and its allies want to stay—and why others want us to leave. No, we are told, it is just a fortuitous “discovery” that can benefit the Afghans themselves, make them “self-sufficient.” If only it can be extracted…..

Of course, this narrative continues, the suffering Afghans can only be helped to become self-sufficient if enough long-term military and technical might is applied to the country.

We’d love to see more reporting from The Times about what Western companies knew and when they knew it. Instead, we see JPMorgan Chase’s Afghan venture mentioned, in passing, between references to efforts by the Chinese to get their piece of the action:

Already this summer, the China National Petroleum Corporation, in partnership with a company controlled by relatives of President Karzai, began pumping oil from the Amu Darya field in the north. An investment consortium arranged by JPMorgan Chase is mining gold. Another Chinese company is trying to develop a huge copper mine. Four copper and gold contracts are being tendered, and contracts for rare earth metals could be offered soon.

 

The truth is, as long as the Chinese and Russians are cut in on the deal, their objections to military actions that enrich oligarchs everywhere are likely to be muted.

Imperial militaries exist in large part to grab and hold resources vital to the continuance of empires, while their paymasters back home reap benefits. That includes the rest of us, who must balance the security and creature comforts this approach provides against the death and destruction it inevitably entails. And we can’t begin to do the moral calculus until we acknowledge what’s being done in our name around the world, and why.

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Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/world/treasure-trove-mineral-wealth-real-reason-afghan-war

Links:
[1] http://whowhatwhy.com
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/russ-baker
[3] http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/05/30/how-do-you-support-your-troops%E2%80%94regular-special-or-super/
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/world/asia/afghans-wary-as-efforts-pick-up-to-tap-mineral-riches.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
[5] http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iFmgaccMh9xWKZfofR-BGfRT1J8g
[6] http://whowhatwhy.com/2012/08/10/tvwho-gen-wesley-clark-shocker-on-911-policy-coup/
[7] http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/09/22/saudi-royal-ties-to-911-hijackers-via-florida-saudi-family-0/






 

Divorce for the U.S. and Pakistan

I just read an article about the very sensible outlook of former Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani.  In 65 years of trying to be allies, the U.S. and Paksitan have failed miserably, says Mr. Haqqani. Right now, at a time when the U.S. is funneling billions of aid to Pakistan, three in four Pakistani people consider America an enemy.

We sell or give the Pakistanis fighter jets and modern weaponry. Their military and intelligence agencies work actively against our interests.  For years, they harbored Osama Bin Laden down the road from their equivalent of our 'West Point' military training academy.  They harbor the Taliban,  and look the other way as the Taliban conduct cross border raids into Afghanistan.  We use our UAV spy aircraft to seek out the Taliban in their Pakistani hiding places and end up recklessly dropping 'smart' bombs on innocent Pakistani civilians. Yes, sometimes we hit the right targets, but when we miss, it does serious damage to our relationship with the Pakistani people. They hate us. Should that be a surprise? If the Pakistanis were flying UAVs over our cities and dropping bombs around us, how would we react?

Pakistan is a very dangerous country.  It is a Muslim nation of nearly 200 million people that possesses nuclear weapons. It suffers from runaway population growth. It can barely feed its own people.  It has a long standing, unresolved conflict with the even bigger nation next door, India.

For decades, the U.S. has tried to have it both ways with Pakistan and India, whose natural enmity is based mostly on religious differences. As a consequence, America does not enjoy a comfortable relationship with either country.

Former Ambassador Haqqani suggests that we should drop the pretentions. The U.S. and Pakistan should 'divorce' and learn to get along, understanding that there are many areas where cooperation makes sense, and also some areas where we must acept that our interests are not going to coincide.  Seems like that's the kind of relationship we already enjoy with China and Russia.  We get along reasonably well with Russia and China these days, even though we have no illusions that they will ever reinvent themselves in our image.

While we're getting practical about Pakistan, let's focus on keeping their nuclear capability out of the hands of those who would really like to hurt us.

Here is an article reporting on Ambassador Haqqani's practical assessment of how best to manage America's relationship with Pakistan.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/23/13428824-us-pakistan-should-divorce-ex-ambassador-to-washington-says?lite