As Francis Boyle, international law professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, puts it, à � ? ��...?Now we have a situation where Obama is off on his own without authorization from the UN Security Council and also now illegally exceeding the authorization that had been given to Bush by Congress after 911"plus he has now escalated the conflict into Pakistan"(and) set off a humanitarian catastrophe for people of Pakistan akin to what Nixon set off in Cambodia.à � ? � �
America today is a à � ? ��...?failed state.à � ? � � It is a failed democracy. Its people want peace and its elected officials make war. After taking the lead in establishing the United Nations at San Francisco after World War II, America is today the chief occupier, the chief war-maker, the chief arms-maker, and the chief arms-peddler, on the planet, and the nation that is most feared by humanity at large. It spends nearly 200 times as much for war as diplomacy. America's Founders envisioned a nation that would show à � ? ��...?a decent respect to the opinions of mankindà � ? � � (Jefferson) yet today the Pentagon spends more taxpayer's dollars on war than all other countries combined. And while it frightens its citizens into thinking they are in danger from terrorists with fabricated color-coded alerts it is itself spreading terror in the Middle East. Mr. Obama is only the latest, slickest model in its long succession of imperial presidents. Maybe he should heed the advice President George Bush dispensed in Milwaukee on October 8, 2003, but never took himself: à � ? ��...?See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction.à � ? � � Speaking of color-coder alerts, Labor MP Eric Joyce, a former Army major has just resigned as an aide to the British Defense Secretary, saying, à � ? ��...?I do not think the public will accept for much longer that our losses (in Afghanistan) can be justified by simply referring to the risk of greater terrorism on our streets.à � ? � �
Of far greater importance than what the Afghan war will do to Obama's presidency or the national debt or even the lengthening casualty lists of our troops is what it is doing to the innocent people of Afghanistan. Afghans and Americans alike would be better off if President Obama sent in 60,000 Peace Corps volunteers with a multi-billion construction budget than Marines. The managers of the military-industrial complex who are promoting this war for their own profit apparently lose no sleep when they read reports such as the one from Farah cited above. Perhaps they should be made to live among the Afghans for a time and share their peril or carry water to the wounded in the hospitals and change the blood-soaked sheets. Maybe they should be required to put their own sons and daughters in Kabul and Bala Boluk and see if they continue the Predator attacks. Back in 1955, when Richard J. Daley first ran for mayor of Chicago, the public was unconvinced he had their best interests at heart. He won them over with the words, à � ? ��...?When I see your street, I see my street. When I see your house, I see my house. When I see your children I see my children.à � ? � � That's the kind of thinking those who hold power in America today need to adopt. When will President Obama see Afghanistan's daughters as his own?
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(Sherwood Ross is a Miami, Fla.-based media consultant who runs the Anti-War News Service. To comment or contribute to his work reach him at [email protected]. )
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