Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Re: US Government About to Control Internet

who better?

On Nov 15, 12:04 pm, Travis <baconl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> **
>            New post on *ACGR's "News with Attitude"*
> <http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/author/amcogore/>  US Government About to
> Control Internet <http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/04-794/>by
> Harold<http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/author/amcogore/>
>
> da Tagliare, Godfather Politics 11/14/2011 Obama has been pushing for the
> federal government to take control of the Internet in the US and now it
> seems that a huge step towards that goal is about to take effect. On
> Sunday, Nov. 20, 'Net Neutrality' will take effect.  Proponents have
> claimed that the regulation is necessary [...]
>
> Read more of this post <http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/04-794/>
>  *Harold <http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/author/amcogore/>* | November 15, 2011
> at 6:10 am | Categories: Corruption <http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/?cat=22388>,
> Criminal Activity <http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/?cat=398859>, Freedom of
> Speech <http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/?cat=14676>,
> Government<http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/?cat=2311>,
> Internet <http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/?cat=22>, Police
> State<http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/?cat=1955>,
> Progressives <http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/?cat=182563>,
> Propaganda<http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/?cat=13722>,
> Sovereignty <http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/?cat=69462>, States
> Rights<http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/?cat=280753>,
> U.S. Constitution <http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/?cat=51155> | URL:http://wp.me/pmtmV-6Ur
>
>   Comment <http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/04-794/#respond>    See
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Fwd: [LeftLibertarian2] China's Countereconomic City



----------

http://reason.com/archives/2011/11/15/chinas-black-market-city/singlepage

China's Black Market City
by Bradley Gardner
Reason, December 2011

Chen Mingyuan has lived here all his life, but he still gets lost every
time he drives into Wenzhou. "All the roads in this town were built by
businessmen, so none of them make any sense," Chen says as we back out
of what we just discovered is a one-way street. For the last 30 years,
private citizens in this southeastern China metropolis have largely
taken over one of the least questioned prerogatives of governments the
world over: infrastructure.

Driving down the cluttered and half-constructed streets of this
3-million-strong boomtown requires frequent U-turns and the patience of
Buddha, but every road eventually leads back to a factory. Each factory
is in turn surrounded by a maze of roads filled with hundreds of small
feeder shops selling spare parts, building materials, and scraps. Every
haphazard street in this town seems to have an economic purpose.

We are driving to see Cai Shuxian, the manager and majority owner of a
clothing factory in which Chen owns a 10 percent stake. Cai, a lightly
built 32-year-old, is typical of the entrepreneurs who have made it big
during Wenzhou's three-decade boom, vaulting from shop-floor grunt to
factory owner in a dizzyingly short period of time. "We earned very
little in those days," the high-school dropout recalls of his first job,
"about 600 yuan [roughly $100] a month." Within six years Cai was able
to leverage his money and know-how into building a factory of his own,
which now employs more than 100 people.

Cai glides over the source of his start-up capital, although it
definitely was not one of China's state-owned banks. "Banks only give
you money when you don't need it," he says. He explains that during the
2009 financial crisis, when banks were aggressively lending as a form of
stimulus, people would reinvest the money in Wenzhou's underground
financial system, where deposit interest rates are higher than the
official lending rate.

Cai says his Horatio Alger story is "typical of Wenzhou." And it is.
Only a few days later I am introduced to the manager of a factory making
transmissions for South Korean cars. Although he had the advantage of
finishing high school, his starting salary wasn't any higher. Cai's
dismissive attitude toward the government is also typical. Wenzhou has
become one of the richest cities in China under a regulatory regime that
borders on anarchism.

The Wenzhou Model

Foreign businessmen, politicians, and journalists who fly into Beijing
or Shanghai often get the impression that the Chinese government is the
main driver behind the jaw-dropping development of what was until
recently one of the worst large economies in the world. In Shanghai you
fly to a state-built airport, ride on a state-built maglev train through
the Pudong district, and behold a city of skyscrapers that appeared out
of nowhere a little more than a decade ago with the help of generous
government subsidies and investment from state-owned enterprises.
Whatever local company you're interested in, chances are the government
is interested in it as well.

In southern China, things look rather different. The Chinese say that in
this region "the mountains are high and the emperor is far away"—in
other words, the government isn't paying much attention. Companies are
mainly small or medium-sized enterprises, government services are
slight, and laws are routinely ignored. According to official
statistics, the three southern coastal provinces of Zhejiang, Guangdong,
and Fujian have the first, second, and fourth wealthiest citizens,
respectively, in the country. They are the center of China's export
sector and the primary destination for China's millions of internal
economic migrants. Here is where the real Chinese miracle is happening.

The city and region of Wenzhou play an important role in this story. The
Wenzhounese have a reputation for both an uncanny sense of business and
an almost pathological disregard for the government. The mountains here
are no metaphor: Seventy-eight percent of the Wenzhou prefecture is
covered by mountains, a fact that proved pivotal to the area's early
development and the central government's response to it.

In 1978, when China's economic reforms were just being launched, Wenzhou
was extremely poor, about 90 percent rural, with smaller land
allocations than other areas and poor connections to larger markets.
Even today, the vast majority of local entrepreneurs have less than
eight years of formal education, and the current population of
foreigners is estimated at only a couple of hundred. The Wenzhounese
government received directives from Beijing but found that without
accompanying support they lacked resources to run the economy by diktat.
Fortunately, a central government that wasn't offering much support also
wasn't paying much attention.

So private citizens quietly took over many of the services that
elsewhere are either provided or heavily regulated by the state. Local
authorities, lacking other options, didn't try to stop them. The most
important development in those early days was the city's flourishing
underground financial system, which according to the local branch of the
People's Bank of China (China's central bank) currently is used by 89
percent of Wenzhounese private citizens and 57 percent of local companies.

More dramatically, private citizens were the first to connect Wenzhou to
neighboring regions by building roads, bridges, and highways, as well as
the city's airports and substantial portions of the dock. Even today the
city is scattered with infrastructure investment firms through which
groups of businessmen pool money to build the transport routes they all
need to get their goods from factory to the point of sale. The result is
not pretty. Aside from the confusion faced even by residents driving
into the city, it is not uncommon to see sidewalks torn up to insert
piping, with seemingly no intention of replacing the concrete.
Nevertheless, the system is crudely efficient, merchants can all easily
access factories, and the factories in this geographically isolated city
now have sales networks that span the globe.

The government's indifference didn't last forever. But when the
authorities got around to paying attention, they decided not to mess
with a good thing. In 1985 Liberation Daily, a paper sponsored by the
Shanghai Communist Party, referred to Wenzhou as a "model" for other
parts of China to study. In the next year 15,000 government officials
visited the city to learn, not crack down. Although bureaucrats still
occasionally try to impose state controls on the city, the futility of
the effort quickly becomes apparent. By now the local Chamber of
Commerce has taken to negotiating trade deals both domestically and
internationally because, as in most other things, the private sector is
more effective here.

Today Wenzhou is the center of China's light manufacturing empire and
the richest city in China's richest province. (Nationwide, Shenzhen,
Shanghai, and Guangzhou narrowly edge out Wenzhou—in the official
figures, at least.) A quick walk down a Wenzhou street reveals a
bewildering display of commerce. The streets around the railway station
are covered in stalls selling $3 blue jeans and $5 boots. There's a city
block dedicated to baby clothes next to a street that sells plastic
signs for bathroom doors. In one run-down alleyway you'll see people
repairing televisions, making blankets, and selling fruits, vegetables,
and poultry (live or dead). Further outside the center, you can find
small shops dedicated to aluminum rods, sheet metal, tire rims, and tires.

Much of this low-level commerce depends on the same official negligence
that fuels the factories. Pool halls are set up wherever there's open
space that you can set a tarp over. Gambling dens are openly advertised.
Taxi drivers often drive off the meter. The karaoke parlors are
numerous, and almost all of them double as brothels. The poorest
residents take part in one of the largest citizen recycling programs
anywhere in the world. In an alley one family collects scraps of fabric
to sell to the local textile mills, another hoards scraps of paper and
cardboard to send to the paper mills, and in front of a lot that looks
like it is being used for a garbage dump, a man has set up a secondhand
goods shop.

Unskilled workers in Wenzhou are paid one of the highest wages in the
country, roughly $380 a month according to official figures (even
higher—between $450 and $600—according to entrepreneurs' estimates). It
is here that people like Cai make their fortune.

Medicis on the Yellow Sea

China's formal financial system generally disfavors lending to smaller
companies. Interest rates are capped, state institutions come with a
government guarantee, and Beijing regularly issues lending decrees, all
of which make banks reluctant to throw money at small, private actors
with poor or nonexistent credit histories.

Wenzhou was one of the first cities to develop methods to work around
the financial sector's aversion to private enterprise. According to
local entrepreneurs, it was this secondary banking system that made the
biggest contribution to Wenzhou's early development. "While northern
people kept the money they made, Wenzhou people immediately lent it to
their friends to help get ventures off the ground," says Weng Yuwen, a
Wenzhou native now running a clothing design company out of nearby Hangzhou.

Dozens of financing options are available, and although most of them
intrude on the jurisdiction of the state-controlled banking system, they
are not all illegal. Or at least not completely illegal. The different
levels of legality that Wenzhounese perceive are a bit of a puzzle to an
outside observer. Weng quickly disavows any knowledge of "underground
banking"; like every other Wenzhou entrepreneur I speak to, he has
"friends" who have dealt with gray-market lenders but declares he would
never do so himself. A more standard form of getting a loan, he
explains, is borrowing from a contact…who also happens to be lending to
a large number of other entrepreneurs at interest. Weng contemplates
this arrangement, then admits that the whole thing might be "somewhat
illegal."

Gray-market lenders are often established, though technically illegal,
financial institutions that lend primarily working-capital loans at
rates as high as 10 percent a month. Contacts often modify interest
rates based on how well you know them. Forms of repayment enforcement
differ. Weng points out that in a community so dependent on
guanxi—relationships—defaulting on a contact's loan could blackball you
from future business opportunities. Weng doesn't clarify how defaulters
are treated by underground debt collectors, but he does say they "aren't
the type of people I'd want to get involved with."

Lending also takes place through a number of formal lending institutions
that have become informal depositing institutions. Pawnshops in Wenzhou
are very different from those in the West. The shops can give out loans
of millions of dollars backed by property and stocks, and they can pay
depositors interest rates three to four percentage points higher than
the official lending rate at banks. Similarly, credit guarantee
institutions, which were originally set up to co-sign on riskier bank
loans to small private firms, eventually began lending their own (or
depositors') money. These institutions are essentially legal, however,
because they call their depositors "investors."

As Wenzhounese have become more wealthy, they have found it easier to
operate within the formal financial system, although they still
frequently subvert state intentions. Every wealthy Wenzhounese I
interview, for instance, boasts of owning five to six apartments. Part
of the motivation for these purchases is the high return on real estate
in China, but the other major reason is that remortgaging real estate is
a relatively easy source of capital in both the formal and informal
banking systems.

The Wenzhounese are also well aware that government support is a ticket
to greater banking support—and doesn't come with significant
oversight—so they will often raise funds with state-owned enterprises in
order to get support for projects that are not always completed in the
form originally planned. "It helps being from Wenzhou," says Weng,
because "people just assume that Wenzhounese have the resources to
complete the projects they're pitching."

By far the most common form of start-up financing is something akin to
venture capital: investing in an entrepreneur's project on the hope he
will eventually buy you out with a decent return. This approach also is
used to manipulate the banking system. Once you get your business up and
running, it is much easier to get loans to buy your investor out.

Although Wenzhounese quibble about degrees of illegality, there is no
question that stepping over the line can lead to serious consequences.
In April, Wu Ying, a 29-year-old Wenzhou woman, was sentenced to death
for illegal fund raising. The case touched a nerve, with numerous
articles published supporting Wu in the Chinese media, because none of
the public evidence pointed to anything out of the ordinary about her
actions—except perhaps the 80 percent returns she was offering
investors, and the similar interest rates she charged on loans, which
led some to suggest her mistake was lending to someone with political
connections.

The State

In Wenzhou local commercial institutions generally have more
representative power than the local government. The Chamber of Commerce
has been known to independently approach government delegations with
potential investment opportunities—or challenges to trade
sanctions—without consulting the Chinese state.

Local officials, by contrast, are notorious for graft, especially
through land sales. The party chairman of one Wenzhou district refused
to return from France after being indicted in 2008. Internet vigilantes
at 703804.com have taken to tracking down individuals who have fled
after embezzling funds.

Corruption is particularly commonplace in the prefectural taxation
bureau, an agency that has been asserting more control over the local
economy. "In the '90s paying taxes wasn't that important," says one
Wenzhou entrepreneur, "but these days you can't avoid it." Despite
having one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, however,
China has a very generous deduction scheme, and if you have friends in
the taxation bureau, the same entrepreneur says, "you don't have to file
all the paperwork."

I see this process up close when I interview the head of an auto parts
factory over dinner. Several of his friends are present, the beer and
Baijiu rice liquor are flowing freely, and the food is far more than all
of us could eat. Halfway through the dinner, three members of the local
taxation bureau join us. The factory owner introduces them as friends
and proceeds to treat them on his tab. Afterwards he takes the officials
to a local karaoke bar to meet prostitutes.

The Wenzhounese have mixed feelings about this situation. As the factory
owner's friend escorts me back to my hotel, he adopts a cynical look and
says, "People do business differently here." But later, when I describe
the scene to Weng, he shrugs. "It's the same all over the world," he
says. "People who have good relationships are more successful in business."

The local government has helped Wenzhou enormously in one area:
protecting the city from more distant levels of government. Even during
the Cultural Revolution, authorities were relatively permissive toward
private business, and they defended the city against conservative
attacks in the 1980s. Many entrepreneurs acknowledge that local leaders'
laxity is deliberate. "Hangzhou has a good government: They ignore you
unless you're making more than RMB 10 million [$1.5 million]," says
Weng. "In Wenzhou you can make twice as much, and they'll still ignore you."

A sign of how much the city government has internalized the local
business culture came last January, when the Wenzhou foreign trade and
economic cooperation bureau began a pilot program to allow Wenzhou
residents to invest up to $200 million a year abroad. The program was
canceled a week later because local officials had forgotten to run the
idea by Beijing.

Spreading the Wenzhou Model

The government may not allow Wenzhounese to invest freely abroad, but
they do it anyway. Across continental Europe and in much of the emerging
world, people from Wenzhou are by far the largest component of the
Chinese diaspora. Wenzhounese make up the majority of Chinese restaurant
owners from Madrid to Vienna, and in some places they have recreated the
Wenzhou experience on European soil.

In no place is this more true than in Prato, Italy, near Florence, where
12,000 of the city's population of 188,000 are legal Chinese residents,
mostly from Wenzhou. The local government estimates that there are
10,000 more illegal Wenzhou residents, while estimates from the
right-wing party that runs the city reach 35,000. Forty percent of local
businesses are owned by Chinese.

Many of Wenzhou's business practices have carried over from China,
although Italians disagree about how much lawbreaking is going on.
According to Prato Mayor Roberto Cenni, between January and May 2010
police carried out 152 inspections on Chinese-owned premises, resulting
in 152 penalties. The region also has the highest level of tax evasion
in Tuscany, according to Vinicio Bacio of Invitalia, the Italian
investment promotion agency, although he argues that the situation is
getting under control. "While there is still a large quantity of
activities undeclared," Bacio says, "most of the manufacturing and trade
promoted by the Chinese community in the textile area is regularly
reported."

Despite a campaign by Mayor Cenni to crack down on Wenzhou business,
Bacio notes that the Chinese presence has revitalized the local textile
industry, which had long been in decline. "The relationships [between
Wenzhounese and Italian factories] are closer than what it appears
externally," notes Bacio, with contracts, supplies, and investment
crossing over between the two communities.

The global reach

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US Government About to Control Internet




New post on ACGR's "News with Attitude"

US Government About to Control Internet

by Harold

da Tagliare, Godfather Politics 11/14/2011 Obama has been pushing for the federal government to take control of the Internet in the US and now it seems that a huge step towards that goal is about to take effect. On Sunday, Nov. 20, 'Net Neutrality' will take effect.  Proponents have claimed that the regulation is necessary [...]

Read more of this post

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Things You Will Never See at a Tea Party #1,000,000,1: Taking a Dump on the Sidewalk


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**JP** What is the difference between dictatorship and current democracy?

What is the difference between dictatorship and what the current democracy is trying to do to innocent protesting people?

Re: Bloomberg Poll: Cain 20%, Paul 19%, Mitt 18%, Newt 17%

RP is by far the most intelligent and experienced candidate the GOP
has

but he won't be nominated because the majority of the GOP supports an
interventionist policy that favors israel and greed for oil

On Nov 15, 7:30 am, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> November15thBloomberg Poll: Cain 20%, Paul 19%, Mitt 18%, Newt 17%Tom Woods
> According toBloomberg, it s a dead heat in Iowa among the top tier. This is extremely good news for the Paul campaign, given Cain s poor organization on the ground in the state and given that Paul s supporters will likely come out in larger numbers than the polls indicate. Caucuses are long, drawn-out affairs, and only the truly committed attend. Paul did much better in 2008 in Iowa than the polls suggested he would, and as I ve noted before, at this year s Ames Straw Poll he was polling at 16% among supposedly likely poll-goers, but among those who actually bothered to show up, he got 28%.http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/bloomberg-poll-cain-20-paul-19-mitt-18-newt-17/

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Re: Return of the War Party?

you are in the minority
---
true
and I will stay there until Americans get tired of wars for oil and
israel
then you'll be in the minority
until then, your children will be killed in needless wars and mine
will live in peace

On Nov 15, 8:53 am, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thankfully,  you are in the minority PlainOl';
>
> On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 9:38 AM, plainolamerican
> <plainolameri...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Under the Constitution, said Paul, no president has the right to
> > launch an unprovoked attack on Iran without congressional
> > authorization.
> > ----
> > Obama has proven to be in favor with the jews and won't hesitate to
> > take the advice of those in our government who support a strike on
> > Iran, albeit their submission to AIPAC.
>
> > why should thousands more Americans have to die or come home to be
> > fitted for metal limbs so Israel can remain sole proprietor of a
> > nuclear weapon from Morocco to Afghanistan?
> > ----
> > they shouldn't and those in our government who favor a strike on Iran
> > need to be replaced with honorable Americans asap by any means
> > necessary before they start yet another war for oil and israel
>
> > On Nov 15, 7:29 am, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> > > Return of the War Party?by Patrick J. Buchanan
> > > Is a vote for the Republican Party in 2012 a vote for war?
> > > Is a vote for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich a vote for yet another
> > unfunded war of choice, this time with a nation, Iran, three times as large
> > and populous as Iraq?
> > > Mitt says that if elected he will move carriers into the Persian Gulf
> > and "prepare for war." Newt is even more hawkish. America should continue
> > "taking out" Iran's nuclear scientists – i.e., assassinating them – but
> > military action will probably be needed.
> > > Newt is talking up uber-hawk John Bolton for secretary of state.
> > > Rick Santorum has already called for U.S.-Israeli strikes: "Either we're
> > going to stop them ... or take the long term consequences of having a
> > nuclear Iran trying to wipe out the state of Israel."
> > > But if Iran represents, as Bibi Netanyahu is forever reminding us, an
> > "existential threat," why does not Israel itself, with hundreds of nuclear
> > weapons, deal with it?
> > > Bibi's inaction speaks louder than Bibi's words.
> > > He wants the Americans to do it.
> > > For the retired head of Mossad, Meir Dagan, calls attacking Iran "the
> > stupidest thing I have ever heard of." He means stupid for Israel.
> > > Why? Because an Israeli attack would be costly in planes and pilots, and
> > only set back Iran's nuclear program. And such a pre-emptive strike would
> > unify Iranians behind the regime.
> > > Moreover, Israel would be inviting Tehran's ally Hezbollah to rain down
> > rockets on Israel, igniting another of the bloody Lebanon wars that Israel
> > was desperate to end the last time.
> > > As for the United States, the only way we could eliminate Iran's nuclear
> > program would be days of air and missile strikes.
> > > Iran could retaliate by cutting off oil exports and mining the Strait of
> > Hormuz, tripling the world price of oil, and hurling the European Union and
> > United States into recession.
> > > Iran could also turn Hezbollah loose on Americans in Lebanon and urge
> > Shias to attack U.S. troops, diplomats and civilians in Bahrain, Iraq and
> > Afghanistan, and here in the United States.
> > > No one knows how this would end. A U.S.-Iran war could force us to march
> > to Tehran to remove the Islamic regime and scour that huge country to
> > ensure that it was shorn of weapons of mass destruction – for an Islamic
> > regime that survived a U.S. war would be hellbent on acquiring the bomb to
> > pay us back. Yet, we lack a large enough army to occupy Iran.
> > > And why should thousands more Americans have to die or come home to be
> > fitted for metal limbs so Israel can remain sole proprietor of a nuclear
> > weapon from Morocco to Afghanistan?
> > > And where is the hard evidence Iran is acquiring nukes?
> > > The U.S. intelligence community declared in December 2007, with "high
> > confidence," that Iran was no longer seeking nuclear weapons. It has never
> > rescinded that declaration.
> > > And there is no conclusive evidence in that media-hyped report last week
> > from the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran is for certain
> > building nuclear weapons. Indeed, that report was exposed as the work of
> > incompetents within hours.
> > > Relying on intelligence agencies, the IAEA said a top Russian nuclear
> > weapons scientist had been instructing Iranians for years. The scientist
> > turns out to be V.I. Danilenko, who has no expertise in nuclear weapons,
> > but is a specialist in using conventional explosives to produce
> > nanodiamonds for the manufacture of lubricants and rubber.
> > > Are we being lied and stampeded into yet another war by the same
> > propagandists who gave us the yellow-cake-from-Niger forgeries?
> > > Bibi calls Mahmoud Ahmadinejad another Hitler and says we are all in
> > 1939 again. But is this credible?
> > > True, Ahmadinejad hosted a Holocaust conference featuring David Duke and
> > said Israel should be wiped off the map, but he does not control Iran's
> > military, has lost favor with the ayatollah, and has been threatened with
> > impeachment. Ahmadinejad is a lame duck with less than two years left in
> > his term. Is mighty Israel afraid of this man?
> > > Told that the IAEA said Iran was actively pursuing nuclear weapons,
> > Ahmadinejad laughed: "The Iranian nation is wise. It won't build two bombs
> > against 20,000 (nuclear) bombs you (Americans) have."
> > > Does he not have a point? How would an Iranian bomb secure Iran, when
> > Israel's nuclear arsenal would be put on a hair trigger, and Turkey, Saudi
> > Arabia and Egypt would then rush to get their own bombs?
> > > In that South Carolina debate, Ron Paul, the one person there proven
> > right on Iraq, was given less than 90 seconds to speak.
> > > Under the Constitution, said Paul, no president has the right to launch
> > an unprovoked attack on Iran without congressional authorization.
> > > Before America goes to war with Iran, let Congress, whose members are
> > forever expressing their love for the Constitution, follow it, and vote on
> > war with Iran. And before we go to the polls in 2012, let's find out if the
> > GOP is becoming again the same old War Party that bankrupted the nation.
> >http://buchanan.org/blog/
>
> > --
> > Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
> > For options & help seehttp://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> > * Visit our other community athttp://www.PoliticalForum.com/
> > * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
> > * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
>
>
>
>  MoonbatsInTheMinority.jpg
> 89KViewDownload

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Re: Obama is beige nixon

here you have Think Progress
heaping praise on Obama for seizing what is* literally the most
radical
power a President can seize*: the power to target — in total secrecy
and
with no checks or due process — their fellow citizens for execution:
specifically, assassination-by-CIA
---
capture and torture should always be our first choice when it comes to
terrorists, domestic or foreign

On Nov 15, 9:02 am, Bruce Majors <majors.br...@gmail.com> wrote:
> GOP and TP on Obama's foreign policy "successes"
> BY GLENN GREENWALD <http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/>
>
>    -
>    -
>
> *(updated below [Mon.])*
>
> Prior to last night's GOP foreign policy debate, the Center for American
> Progress Action Fund's Think Progress blog — which has several good and
> independent commentators who do excellent work —
> announced<https://twitter.com/#!/thinkprogress/status/135488206455046144>
> that
> it had compiled a list of "what you won't hear at tonight's GOP foreign
> policy debate: Obama's successes." It is very worth reviewing what
> this self-proclaimed
> progressive site <http://thinkprogress.org/about/> now — under a Democratic
> President – considers to be a "foreign policy
> success,"<http://thinkprogress.org/report/obama-foreign-policy-successes/>
> beginning
> with this:
> <http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KPD5SCfn6So/Tr_NcFooHfI/AAAAAAAAATk/sKn33-l...>
> <http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OjP0cOXoQdY/Tr_Ng3vtkyI/AAAAAAAAATw/y72YlbR...>
>
> As I pointed out just
> yesterday<http://www.salon.com/2011/11/12/u_s_takes_the_lead_on_behalf_of_clust...>,
> many Democrats not only passively acquiesce to Obama's continuation of core
> Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies, but enthusiastically cheer it as proof that
> they, too, can be Tough and Strong (manly virtues demonstrated by how many
> human beings their leader kills from afar). So here you have Think Progress
> heaping praise on Obama for seizing what is* literally the most radical
> power a President can seize*: the power to target — in total secrecy and
> with no checks or due process — their fellow citizens for execution:
> specifically, assassination-by-CIA.  Worse, to justify what Obama has done,
> TP spouts a blatant falsehood (that Awlaki was "a senior Al Qaeda leader"),
> even though actual Yemen experts have mocked that claim
> mercilessly<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/opinion/20johnsen.html>
> and
> the administration itself refuses to reveal any evidence
> whatsoever<http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/release-the-memo/...>
> about
> what it did or why. Revealingly, TP trumpets the claim that "Al Awlaki's
> death brought a damaging
> blow<http://blog.heritage.org/2011/10/01/awlaki%E2%80%99s-death-what-does-...>
> to
> Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)"; its link to justify that claim
> goes to the blog operated by the right-wing Heritage Foundation: *that*,
> quite understandably, is who TP must now cite as authoritative to justify
> Obama's foreign policy conduct.
>
> But what's most notable here is how inaccurate TP's prediction was: it
> turned out to be completely wrong that the Awlaki assassination was
> something "you won't hear at tonight's GOP foreign policy debate." In fact,
> we heard a lot about it — from the GOP candidates who heaped as much praise
> on Obama as TP did for murdering this American citizen. Indeed, among the
> most vocal cheers of the night from the GOP South Carolina crowd — second
> only to its vocal swooning for the virtues of waterboarding — was when
> their right-wing candidates hailed Obama's decision to kill Awlaki.
>
> Michele Bachmann gushed about Obama's decision this way: "Awlaki, who we
> also killed, he has been the chief recruiter of terrorists, including Major
> Hassan at Fort Hood, including the underwear bomber over Detroit, and
> including the Times Square bomber. *These were very good decisions that
> were made to take them out.*" Here was the exchange with Mitt Romney on
> this issue:
>
> CBS' SCOTT PELLEY: Governor Romney, recently President Obama ordered the
> death of an American citizen who was suspected of terrorist activity
> overseas.  *Is it appropriate for the American president on the president's
> say-so alone to order the death of an American citizen suspected of
> terrorism?*
>
> MITT ROMNEY: Absolutely.  In this case, this is an individual who had
> aligned himself with a– with a group that had declared (CHEERING) war on
> the United States of America.  And– and if there's someone that's gonna–
> join with a group like Al-Qaeda that declares war on America and we're in
> a– in a– a war with that entity, *then of course anyone who was bearing
> arms for that entity is fair game for the United States of America. *
>
> And here was one of most revealing exchanges of the year, which Pelley
> (whose questions were quite good on this topic) had with Newt Gingrich:
>
> SCOTT PELLEY: Speaker Gingrich, if I could just ask you the same question,
> as President of the United States, would you sign that death warrant for an
> American citizen overseas who you believe is a terrorist suspect?
>
> NEWT GINGRICH: Well, he's not a terrorist suspect.  He's a person who was
> found guilty under review of actively seeking the death of Americans.
>
> SCOTT PELLEY: Not– not found guilty by a court, sir.
>
> NEWT GINGRICH: He was found guilty by a panel that looked at it and
> reported to the president.
>
> SCOTT PELLEY: Well, that's ex-judicial.  That's– it's not–
>
> NEWT GINGRICH: Let me– let me– let me tell you a story– let me just tell
> you this.
>
> SCOTT PELLEY: –the rule of law.
>
> NEWT GINGRICH: It is the rule of law.  (APPLAUSE) That is explicitly
> false.  It is the rule of law.
>
> SCOTT PELLEY: No.
>
> NEWT GINGRICH: *If you engage in war against the United States, you are an
> enemy combatant.  You have none of the civil liberties of the United
> States.  (APPLAUSE) You cannot go to court.  *
>
> Of course, whether someone is an "enemy combatant" and has "engaged in war
> against the United States" is exactly what is in question in these
> controversies. But, critically, this mindset — that the President has the
> power to secretly and unilaterally decree you guilty of being an Enemy
> Combatant and then take whatever steps he wants against you (warrantless
> eavesdropping, indefinite detention, consignment to Guantanamo, execution)
> — was until very recently the hallmark, the defining crux, of right-wing
> Bush/Cheney radicalism. That's why Newt Gingrich — *Newt Gingrich* —
> defends Obama's actions by claiming with a straight face that Awlaki was
> "found guilty" — meaning "found guilty" by a secret White House
> committee<http://www.salon.com/2011/10/06/execution_by_secret_wh_committee/>
> and
> thus "has none of the civil liberties of the United States."  Thanks to
> Barack Obama, this twisted mentality about what the "rule of law" means and
> how treason is decreed (not by a court, as the Constitution requires, but
> by the President acting alone) has now been enshrined as bipartisan
> consensus. That's why Think Progress, Bachmann, Romney and Gingrich all
> find full common ground in embracing it as a "success" to be celebrated.
>
> It took Ron Paul — whom every Good Progressive will tell you is Completely
> Crazy and Insane — to point out to the GOP the rather glaring inconsistency
> between, on the one hand, distrusting government authorities to run health
> care, but on the other, wanting to empower the President to kill whomever
> he wants with no transparency or due process. As Conor Friedersdorf wrote
> last year in *Newsweek*<http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/05/25/is-rand-paul-crazier...>
> about
> who and what is "crazy":
>
> Forced to name the "craziest" policy favored by American politicians, I'd
> say the multibillion-dollar war on drugs, which no one thinks is winnable.
> . . . If returning to the gold standard is unthinkable, is it not just as
> extreme that President Obama claims an unchecked power to assassinate,
> without due process, any American living
> abroad<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/world/14awlaki.htm> whom
> he designates as an enemy combatant?
>
> Crazy/Insane Ron Paul also objected to the killing under Obama not only of
> Awlaki, but, two weeks later, of Awlaki's 16-year-old
> son<http://www.salon.com/2011/10/20/the_killing_of_awlakis_16_year_old_son/>,
> also a U.S. citizen, and his 17-year-old cousin. Think Progress forgot to
> include those dead teenagers on its list of Obama's "foreign policy
> successes" — just as they forgot to include such smashing successes as
> this<http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0610/ACLU_chief_disgusted_...>
> , this<http://www.salon.com/2011/11/12/u_s_takes_the_lead_on_behalf_of_clust...>
> , this<http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/gen_mcchrystal_weve...>
> , this<http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-06-30/politics/30095838_1_al...>
>  andthis<http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/expert_consensus_ob...>.
> But Ron Paul yet again showed how insane he is by pointing out that it's a
> bad thing — both morally and prudentially — for the U.S. Government to run
> around continuously killing Muslim children from the sky. All Sane and
> Serious People know that the President has the right and the duty to keep
> killing Muslim teeangers such as Awlaki's 16-year-old son; only crazies
> like Ron Paul object to such necessities.
>
> But even the craziest and most radical policies are immediately removed
> from the realm of craziness as soon as the leadership of both political
> parties agree on them. As evidenced by Think Progress' listing of the
> Awlaki assassination as an Obama "success" — joined in that assessment by
> Bachmann, Gingrich and Romney — that is what Barack Obama has achieved for
> due-process-free presidential killings of our fellow citizens.  Is there
> anyone, anywhere, who denies that had George Bush (rather than Obama)
> claimed the power to assassinate American citizens with the CIA with no due
> process or transparency, Think Progress would be vociferously objecting
> rather than celebrating?
>
> There are a couple of other "foreign policy successes" hailed by Think
> Progress worth highlighting, such as this one:
> <http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-INuxwrzCtLY/Tr_Q9qX2MZI/AAAAAAAAAT8/zrsvacg...>
>
> Here we have Think Progress celebrating Obama's subservience to Netanyahu
> and the Israeli Government as a grand "success." Obama, you see, has
> "strengthened America's military and intelligence relationship with
> Israel," has given unprecedented "support and cooperation" to Israeli
> actions ("even better than under President Bush"), and has "markedly
> increased" U.S. military aid to Israel — and these are all deemed Good
> Things by this progressive site. Here, again, there is extreme common
> ground with the Evil GOP, most of whom demanded last night that the U.S.
> get even closer to Israel (Think Progress is right that, minor rhetorical
> deviations on the settlement issue aside, Obama has been exactly as
> subservient to Israel — and exactly as hostile to
> Palestinians<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/8780859/Barack-...>
> —
> as the GOP demands). That they consider this approach to Israel a "success"
> is telling indeed.  Then there's this:
> <http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uexU-kKZzNA/Tr_THKlm45I/AAAAAAAAAUU/xzg5LD9...>
>
> Amazingly, Think Progress admits that Obama withdrew troops from Iraq*only
> because* he failed to convince the Iraqis to allow them to stay under a
> shield of legal
> immunity<http://www.nationaljournal.com/u-s-troop-withdrawal-motivated-by-iraq...>.
> In other words, American troops are leaving because Iraq forced them to
> leave, even though Obama tried desperately to have them stay. Still, Think
> Progress somehow classifies it as an Obama "success" that he "ordered the
> complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of the year" — the
> very result he tried desperately for many months to prevent. Think Progress
> also forgot to mention the Obama "success" of keeping a "small army" of
> private contractors<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/21/97915/state-dept-planning-to-fi...>
> in
> Iraq beyond the 2011 deadline — but, to be fair, so numerous are such
> "successes" for Obama that no single site can be expected to list all of
> them. Then we have this:
> <http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XI9nCVhbOLM/Tr_UmJAuSsI/AAAAAAAAAUg/ANfnrkG...>
>
> So it's now Democratic orthodoxy — rather than just *Weekly Standard*dogma
> — that Iran is a threat, that it is developing nuclear weapons, and that
> its government needs to be "isolated" and "weakened." Even more notably,
> Think Progress insists that Obama, contrary to GOP complaints, still
> aggressively preserves the "military option" as a means of dealing with
> Iran, and apparently considers this to be a good thing (does anyone doubt
> that a large majority of Democrats will vigorously support military action
> against Iran if the U.S. either does it directly or supports Israel in
> doing it?). Ironically, all of the steps which Newt Gingrich demanded be
> taken against Iran are already being pursued by some combination of the
> U.S. and Israel; here's what Gingirch demanded last night:
>
> First of all, as maximum covert operations– to block and disrupt the
> Iranian program– in– including– taking out their scientists, including
> breaking up their systems.  All of it covertly, all of it deniable.
> Second, (LAUGH) maximum– maximum coordination with the Israelis– in a way
> which allows them to maximize their impact in Iran.  Third, absolute
> strategic program comparable to what President Reagan, Pope John Paul II,
> and Margaret Thatcher did in the Soviet Union, of every possible aspect
> short of war of breaking the regime and bringing it down.
>
> Gingrich's proposals perfectly
> capture<http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/another-iranian-nuclear-sci...>
>  the Obama administration's
> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12633240> policies
> of aggression toward Iran <http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/052510.html>.
> And the GOP and Think Progress are of like mind that these are noble and
> Strong. Perhaps the most dishonest of the claimed "successes" is this:
> <http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d0nOxKXjX1k/Tr_XsYfZjVI/AAAAAAAAAUs/GnSDniN...>
>
> At the debate I
> had<http://www.browndailyherald.com/pro-legalization-speaker-dominates-de...>
> last
> week at Brown with former Bush drug czar John Walters, I could barely
> maintain my civility when he told the audience that they should be proud of
> the role their government played in helping to bring democracy to Egypt;
> the very idea that a member of a government that long funded and armed the
> Mubarak regime would claim credit for bringing democracy to that country is
> offensive in the extreme. And it's every bit as offensive for Think
> Progress to try to claim Egyptian democracy as an Obama "success."
>
> The Obama administration supported Mubarak up to the very last minute. Tear
> gas cannisters shot by Egyptian police at protesters bore the "MADE IN THE
> USA" mark<http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/egypt-protest-police-us-made-tear-gas-d...>.
> In 2009, Secretary of State Hillary
> Clintonproclaimed<http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/01/secretary-clinton-in-200...>:
> "*I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my
> family*." And
> when Mubarak's fall became inevitable, Obama tried to
> engineer<http://www.salon.com/2011/02/08/suleiman/> the
> empowerment of Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's long-time trusted lieutenant most
> responsible for its policies of torture and brutality. The U.S., under both
> the Bush and Obama administrations, did more to entrench Mubarak than any
> other single force; to attribute the fall of Mubarak to Obama is propaganda
> so deceitful that it defies words.
>
> Some of the successes noted by Think Progress are genuinely that: Obama's
> repeal of DADT was masterfully executed, and the negotiation with Russia of
> a reduction in nuclear weapons was a very modest though positive
> development. And tactically, Obama's pursuit of the same foreign policy
> goals as his predecessor has been, in many cases, more tactically shrewd
> and subtle, and more multilateral. Obama is a more competent technocrat
> than Bush, and it's perfectly reasonable, I guess, for progressives to
> claim those limited tactical differences as a "success."
>
> But the list of foreign policy "successes" compiled by Think Progress —
> echoed in many progressive precincts — is grounded  in little more than the
> premise that "success" is defined as: *that which Barack Obama does, even
> when what he does prompted years of progressive anger when done by George
> Bush. *As Ali Abunimah perfectly put
> it<https://twitter.com/#!/AliAbunimah/status/135543446487302145> last
> night: "all the questions in the GOP debate [were] about which countries
> these sinister clowns would bomb, invade, subvert, occupy, etc etc etc."
> That's true, but that is basically what American "foreign policy" generally
> entails (on*Meet the Press* this morning, Michele Bachmann said of Obama's
> drone policies: "Those are good things that I think all Americans would
> agree with"). * *That D.C.'s leading Democratic Party think tank celebrates
> so many of those acts, and particularly thinks exactly like *Newt Gingrich
> and Michele Bachmann* on one of the most controversial civil liberties
> issues of our generation — the power of the President to secretly target
> even American citizens for assassination — speaks volumes about the true
> legacy of the Obama presidency in these areas.
>
> *UPDATE*: More success<http://www.mediaite.com/tv/nyts-thomas-friedman-gives-obama-high-mark...>
> :
> <http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7rnh3V10ovM/TsEsud2BxnI/AAAAAAAAAWI/5AtyUet...>
>
> See also here<http://www.truth-out.org/former-guantanamo-chief-prosecutor-pair-test...>,
> where former Guantanamo chief prosecutor and vocal Bush critic Morris Davis
> complains about the Obama presidency: "*it seems like a third Bush term
> when it comes to national security*." Let the celebratory party at Think
> Progress resume.
> [image: Glenn Greenwald] <http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/>
>
> Follow Glenn Greenwald on Twitter: @ggreenwald<http://twitter.com/ggreenwald>
> .More Glenn Greenwald <http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/>
>
>    -
>       - PERMALINK<http://www.salon.com/2011/11/13/gop_and_tp_on_obamas_foreign_policy_s...>
>       - PRINT<http://www.salon.com/2011/11/13/gop_and_tp_on_obamas_foreign_policy_s...>
>       - SHORT URL <http://salon.com/a/sQMibAA>
>    -
>    http://beigenixon.blogspot.com/2011/11/obamas-obushmian-foreign-polic...

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Obama is beige nixon

GOP and TP on Obama's foreign policy "successes"

(updated below [Mon.])

Prior to last night's GOP foreign policy debate, the Center for American Progress Action Fund's Think Progress blog — which has several good and independent commentators who do excellent work — announced that it had compiled a list of "what you won't hear at tonight's GOP foreign policy debate: Obama's successes." It is very worth reviewing what this self-proclaimed progressive site now — under a Democratic President – considers to be a "foreign policy success," beginning with this:

As I pointed out just yesterday, many Democrats not only passively acquiesce to Obama's continuation of core Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies, but enthusiastically cheer it as proof that they, too, can be Tough and Strong (manly virtues demonstrated by how many human beings their leader kills from afar). So here you have Think Progress heaping praise on Obama for seizing what is literally the most radical power a President can seize: the power to target — in total secrecy and with no checks or due process — their fellow citizens for execution: specifically, assassination-by-CIA.  Worse, to justify what Obama has done, TP spouts a blatant falsehood (that Awlaki was "a senior Al Qaeda leader"), even though actual Yemen experts have mocked that claim mercilessly and the administration itself refuses to reveal any evidence whatsoever about what it did or why. Revealingly, TP trumpets the claim that "Al Awlaki's death brought a damaging blow to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)"; its link to justify that claim goes to the blog operated by the right-wing Heritage Foundation: that, quite understandably, is who TP must now cite as authoritative to justify Obama's foreign policy conduct.

But what's most notable here is how inaccurate TP's prediction was: it turned out to be completely wrong that the Awlaki assassination was something "you won't hear at tonight's GOP foreign policy debate." In fact, we heard a lot about it — from the GOP candidates who heaped as much praise on Obama as TP did for murdering this American citizen. Indeed, among the most vocal cheers of the night from the GOP South Carolina crowd — second only to its vocal swooning for the virtues of waterboarding — was when their right-wing candidates hailed Obama's decision to kill Awlaki.

Michele Bachmann gushed about Obama's decision this way: "Awlaki, who we also killed, he has been the chief recruiter of terrorists, including Major Hassan at Fort Hood, including the underwear bomber over Detroit, and including the Times Square bomber. These were very good decisions that were made to take them out." Here was the exchange with Mitt Romney on this issue:

CBS' SCOTT PELLEY: Governor Romney, recently President Obama ordered the death of an American citizen who was suspected of terrorist activity overseas.  Is it appropriate for the American president on the president's say-so alone to order the death of an American citizen suspected of terrorism?

MITT ROMNEY: Absolutely.  In this case, this is an individual who had aligned himself with a– with a group that had declared (CHEERING) war on the United States of America.  And– and if there's someone that's gonna– join with a group like Al-Qaeda that declares war on America and we're in a– in a– a war with that entity, then of course anyone who was bearing arms for that entity is fair game for the United States of America. 

And here was one of most revealing exchanges of the year, which Pelley (whose questions were quite good on this topic) had with Newt Gingrich:

SCOTT PELLEY: Speaker Gingrich, if I could just ask you the same question, as President of the United States, would you sign that death warrant for an American citizen overseas who you believe is a terrorist suspect?

NEWT GINGRICH: Well, he's not a terrorist suspect.  He's a person who was found guilty under review of actively seeking the death of Americans.

SCOTT PELLEY: Not– not found guilty by a court, sir.

NEWT GINGRICH: He was found guilty by a panel that looked at it and reported to the president.

SCOTT PELLEY: Well, that's ex-judicial.  That's– it's not–

NEWT GINGRICH: Let me– let me– let me tell you a story– let me just tell you this.

SCOTT PELLEY: –the rule of law.

NEWT GINGRICH: It is the rule of law.  (APPLAUSE) That is explicitly false.  It is the rule of law.

SCOTT PELLEY: No.

NEWT GINGRICH: If you engage in war against the United States, you are an enemy combatant.  You have none of the civil liberties of the United States.  (APPLAUSE) You cannot go to court.  

Of course, whether someone is an "enemy combatant" and has "engaged in war against the United States" is exactly what is in question in these controversies. But, critically, this mindset — that the President has the power to secretly and unilaterally decree you guilty of being an Enemy Combatant and then take whatever steps he wants against you (warrantless eavesdropping, indefinite detention, consignment to Guantanamo, execution) — was until very recently the hallmark, the defining crux, of right-wing Bush/Cheney radicalism. That's why Newt Gingrich — Newt Gingrich — defends Obama's actions by claiming with a straight face that Awlaki was "found guilty" — meaning "found guilty" by a secret White House committee and thus "has none of the civil liberties of the United States."  Thanks to Barack Obama, this twisted mentality about what the "rule of law" means and how treason is decreed (not by a court, as the Constitution requires, but by the President acting alone) has now been enshrined as bipartisan consensus. That's why Think Progress, Bachmann, Romney and Gingrich all find full common ground in embracing it as a "success" to be celebrated.

It took Ron Paul — whom every Good Progressive will tell you is Completely Crazy and Insane — to point out to the GOP the rather glaring inconsistency between, on the one hand, distrusting government authorities to run health care, but on the other, wanting to empower the President to kill whomever he wants with no transparency or due process. As Conor Friedersdorf wrote last year in Newsweek about who and what is "crazy":

Forced to name the "craziest" policy favored by American politicians, I'd say the multibillion-dollar war on drugs, which no one thinks is winnable. . . . If returning to the gold standard is unthinkable, is it not just as extreme that President Obama claims an unchecked power to assassinate, without due process, any American living abroad whom he designates as an enemy combatant?

Crazy/Insane Ron Paul also objected to the killing under Obama not only of Awlaki, but, two weeks later, of Awlaki's 16-year-old son, also a U.S. citizen, and his 17-year-old cousin. Think Progress forgot to include those dead teenagers on its list of Obama's "foreign policy successes" — just as they forgot to include such smashing successes as thisthisthisthis andthis. But Ron Paul yet again showed how insane he is by pointing out that it's a bad thing — both morally and prudentially — for the U.S. Government to run around continuously killing Muslim children from the sky. All Sane and Serious People know that the President has the right and the duty to keep killing Muslim teeangers such as Awlaki's 16-year-old son; only crazies like Ron Paul object to such necessities.

But even the craziest and most radical policies are immediately removed from the realm of craziness as soon as the leadership of both political parties agree on them. As evidenced by Think Progress' listing of the Awlaki assassination as an Obama "success" — joined in that assessment by Bachmann, Gingrich and Romney — that is what Barack Obama has achieved for due-process-free presidential killings of our fellow citizens.  Is there anyone, anywhere, who denies that had George Bush (rather than Obama) claimed the power to assassinate American citizens with the CIA with no due process or transparency, Think Progress would be vociferously objecting rather than celebrating?

There are a couple of other "foreign policy successes" hailed by Think Progress worth highlighting, such as this one:

Here we have Think Progress celebrating Obama's subservience to Netanyahu and the Israeli Government as a grand "success." Obama, you see, has "strengthened America's military and intelligence relationship with Israel," has given unprecedented "support and cooperation" to Israeli actions ("even better than under President Bush"), and has "markedly increased" U.S. military aid to Israel — and these are all deemed Good Things by this progressive site. Here, again, there is extreme common ground with the Evil GOP, most of whom demanded last night that the U.S. get even closer to Israel (Think Progress is right that, minor rhetorical deviations on the settlement issue aside, Obama has been exactly as subservient to Israel — and exactly as hostile to Palestinians — as the GOP demands). That they consider this approach to Israel a "success" is telling indeed.  Then there's this:

Amazingly, Think Progress admits that Obama withdrew troops from Iraqonly because he failed to convince the Iraqis to allow them to stay under a shield of legal immunity. In other words, American troops are leaving because Iraq forced them to leave, even though Obama tried desperately to have them stay. Still, Think Progress somehow classifies it as an Obama "success" that he "ordered the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of the year" — the very result he tried desperately for many months to prevent. Think Progress also forgot to mention the Obama "success" of keeping a "small army" of private contractors in Iraq beyond the 2011 deadline — but, to be fair, so numerous are such "successes" for Obama that no single site can be expected to list all of them. Then we have this:

So it's now Democratic orthodoxy — rather than just Weekly Standarddogma — that Iran is a threat, that it is developing nuclear weapons, and that its government needs to be "isolated" and "weakened." Even more notably, Think Progress insists that Obama, contrary to GOP complaints, still aggressively preserves the "military option" as a means of dealing with Iran, and apparently considers this to be a good thing (does anyone doubt that a large majority of Democrats will vigorously support military action against Iran if the U.S. either does it directly or supports Israel in doing it?). Ironically, all of the steps which Newt Gingrich demanded be taken against Iran are already being pursued by some combination of the U.S. and Israel; here's what Gingirch demanded last night:

First of all, as maximum covert operations– to block and disrupt the Iranian program– in– including– taking out their scientists, including breaking up their systems.  All of it covertly, all of it deniable.  Second, (LAUGH) maximum– maximum coordination with the Israelis– in a way which allows them to maximize their impact in Iran.  Third, absolute strategic program comparable to what President Reagan, Pope John Paul II, and Margaret Thatcher did in the Soviet Union, of every possible aspect short of war of breaking the regime and bringing it down.

Gingrich's proposals perfectly capture the Obama administration's policies of aggression toward Iran. And the GOP and Think Progress are of like mind that these are noble and Strong. Perhaps the most dishonest of the claimed "successes" is this:

At the debate I had last week at Brown with former Bush drug czar John Walters, I could barely maintain my civility when he told the audience that they should be proud of the role their government played in helping to bring democracy to Egypt; the very idea that a member of a government that long funded and armed the Mubarak regime would claim credit for bringing democracy to that country is offensive in the extreme. And it's every bit as offensive for Think Progress to try to claim Egyptian democracy as an Obama "success."

The Obama administration supported Mubarak up to the very last minute. Tear gas cannisters shot by Egyptian police at protesters bore the "MADE IN THE USA" mark. In 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clintonproclaimed: "I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family." And when Mubarak's fall became inevitable, Obama tried to engineer the empowerment of Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's long-time trusted lieutenant most responsible for its policies of torture and brutality. The U.S., under both the Bush and Obama administrations, did more to entrench Mubarak than any other single force; to attribute the fall of Mubarak to Obama is propaganda so deceitful that it defies words.

Some of the successes noted by Think Progress are genuinely that: Obama's repeal of DADT was masterfully executed, and the negotiation with Russia of a reduction in nuclear weapons was a very modest though positive development. And tactically, Obama's pursuit of the same foreign policy goals as his predecessor has been, in many cases, more tactically shrewd and subtle, and more multilateral. Obama is a more competent technocrat than Bush, and it's perfectly reasonable, I guess, for progressives to claim those limited tactical differences as a "success."

But the list of foreign policy "successes" compiled by Think Progress — echoed in many progressive precincts — is grounded  in little more than the premise that "success" is defined as: that which Barack Obama does, even when what he does prompted years of progressive anger when done by George Bush. As Ali Abunimah perfectly put it last night: "all the questions in the GOP debate [were] about which countries these sinister clowns would bomb, invade, subvert, occupy, etc etc etc." That's true, but that is basically what American "foreign policy" generally entails (onMeet the Press this morning, Michele Bachmann said of Obama's drone policies: "Those are good things that I think all Americans would agree with").  That D.C.'s leading Democratic Party think tank celebrates so many of those acts, and particularly thinks exactly like Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann on one of the most controversial civil liberties issues of our generation — the power of the President to secretly target even American citizens for assassination — speaks volumes about the true legacy of the Obama presidency in these areas.

 

UPDATEMore success:

See also here, where former Guantanamo chief prosecutor and vocal Bush critic Morris Davis complains about the Obama presidency: "it seems like a third Bush term when it comes to national security." Let the celebratory party at Think Progress resume.

Glenn Greenwald

Follow Glenn Greenwald on Twitter: @ggreenwald.More Glenn Greenwald

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