US looking to boost military funding for ‘right war’

Russia Today
Wednesday,
May 13, 2009

The US Congress is expected to pass an emergency bill on funding for the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Obama administration and Department of Defense are asking for around $95 billion of extra cash to beef up their overseas military operations, as well as humanitarian purposes.
Some of the requested funds will go towards aid purposes. For example, $1 billion is going to be spent to help countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq fight terrorism. About $2 billion will go towards stopping the global spread of swine flu.

If these figures are compared to a bigger picture, more than 19% of the bill is going towards military force, which goes against previous Obama rhetoric, as the new administration is heard constantly and insists that the US military policy in Afghanistan and Central Asia itself needs change and that this war cannot be won by military force alone.
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This 19% of the bill will be spent on new machinery and new military equipment which raises the question over whether the American administration is really preparing to change anything.

In addition, despite Barack Obama promising at the beginning of his term that he will close the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention center, the appears that the American lawmakers are putting their foot on this money – all because Obama still has not presented a solid plan as to where the prisoners are going to go. Even the Democrats, who are expected to support Obama and give him this money insist that there is no way Obama’s administration could get this money before it explains what it plans to do with Gitmo inmates.

Full story here.

Preparing for years in Afghanistan

This type of story drives me nuts. This cleary illustrates that the foreign policy of the United States is WAR.

DAVID S. CLOUD
Politico
April 21, 2009

The Pentagon’s senior military leaders are worried that the security situation in Afghanistan is stalemated or deteriorating, and now are preparing a far-reaching plan that would prepare the U.S. military for a war that could last three to five more years, officials said.
The effort, which is being coordinated by the Joint Staff and is still in its early stages, is designed to create an experienced cadre of officers and senior enlisted soldiers, who would rotate between assignments in Afghanistan and at their home stations until the end of hostilities.

By doing so, the Pentagon hopes to end a problem that has plagued the effort in Afghanistan—the lack of familiarity with local conditions by U.S. forces who rotate in and then depart after a year, just when they are beginning to understand the area or the mission where they are assigned.

“These would be small groups who would deploy together for shorter periods, going back and forth to the same place and the same mission again and again, so they would know the culture and the terrain,” said a senior Pentagon official briefed on the plan, who said the teams could be asked to conduct training or other specialized counterinsurgency missions.

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Who Will Stand Against The Millitary Budget

JEREMY SCAHILL
Counterpunch
Friday, April 10, 2009

Much of the media attention this week on President Obama’s new military budget has put forward a false narrative wherein Obama is somehow taking his socialist/pacifist sledgehammer to the Pentagon’s war machine and blasting it to smithereens. Republicans have charged that Obama is endangering the country’s security, while the Democratic leadership has hailed it as the dawn of a new era in responsible spending priorities. Part of this narrative portrays Defense Secretary Robert Gates as standing up to the war industry, particularly military contractors.
The reality is that all of this is false.

Here is an undeniable fact: Obama is substantially increasing US military spending, by at least $21 billion from Bush-era levels, including a significant ratcheting up of Afghanistan war spending, as well as more money for unmanned attack drones, which are increasingly being used in attacks on Pakistan. (David Swanson over at AfterDowningStreet.org does a great job of breaking down some of the media coverage of this issue across the political spectrum).
Obama’s budget of $534 billion to the Department of Defense “represents roughly a 4-percent increase over the $513 billion allocated to the Pentagon in FY2009 under the Bush administration, and $6.7 billion more than the outgoing administration’s projections for FY 2010,” bragged Lawrence Korb, author of the Center for American Progress’ report supporting Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan, in an article called, ” Obama’s Defense Budget Is on Target.”

Obama and his neoliberal think tankers clearly didn’t think much of Rep. Barney Frank’s call earlier this year to cut military spending by 25% to pay for urgently needed social programs and economic aid to struggling Americans. “To accomplish his goals of expanding health care and other important quality of life services without ballooning the deficit,” Frank said, Obama needed to reduce military spending. “If we do not get military spending under control, we will not be able to respond to important domestic needs.” Well, not only is overall military spending on the rise, but Obama is about to ask for billions more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a “supplemental” spending bill, the type which were staples in Bush’s campaign to mask of the full military budget and total cost of the wars. Obama could seek the funding as early as Thursday.

Now, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that we may actually see some spine coming from Congress in standing up to Obama’s request for this additional $75.5 billion in war funds. The WSJ characterized the situation as one of “raising tensions” between Obama and some lawmakers opposed to the wars. It should be noted off-the-bat that the Congresspeople speaking out are, predictably, members of the usual suspects club and the Democratic leadership is probably at this moment sharing cocktails in the backroom with McCain and McConnell, but, nonetheless, it is worth examining what is being said:

“I can’t imagine any way I’d vote for it,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat and leader in the 77-member congressional Progressive Caucus. It would be her first major break with this White House.
Ms. Woolsey fears the president’s plan for Iraq would leave behind a big occupation force. She is also concerned about the planned escalation in Afghanistan. “I don’t think we should be going there,” she said.

Similar sentiments echo across the House. Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.) said he fears Afghanistan could become a quagmire. “I just have this sinking feeling that we’re getting deeper and deeper into a war that has no end,” he said.
Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.) dismissed Mr. Obama’s plans as “embarrassingly naive,” and suggested that the president is being led astray by those around him. “He’s the smartest man in American politics today,” Rep. Conyers said. “But he occasionally gets bad advice and makes mistakes. This is one of those instances.”

Obama has vowed to break with the Bush-era tradition of seeking such supplementals to fund the war, saying that beginning in 2010 he will fund the wars as part of his overall budget. The anti-war caucus of Democrats is unlikely to have enough votes to block it given the increasingly overt pro-war nature of the Democratic leadership. And, as the WSJ notes, the funding bills are likely to pass “since many Republicans will support them.”

An interesting point nestled half-way through the WSJ piece illustrates a point some antiwar activists have been making since Obama’s election—he is likely to win increased support from Democratic lawmakers for wars they may not have supported when Bush was in power:
The president argues that Afghanistan has been neglected, allowing al Qaeda to regroup and exposing the U.S. to new dangers.

Rep. John Larson (D., Conn.) suggests Democrats may be less inclined to joust with the current White House on the issue than they were with former President George W. Bush. “We have somebody that Democrats feel will level with them,” said Mr. Larson, the House’s fourth-ranking Democrat.

This truly is one of the most important trends to watch with the Obama presidency, particularly as it relates to war policy. Obama is in a position to greatly advance the interests of empire, precisely because he is able to build much wider support for policies that are essentially a continuation of those implemented by Bush.

War Will Continue Under Obama

I was always opposed to George Bush's foreign policy; A policy that promoted continual war, for we were to eradicate terrorism. Unfortunately no matter how much you fight, you will be unable to defeat terrorism, and so I ask, when will the fighting stop? Well, not any time soon. Despite the fact that Obama said he would withdraw troops, this is not the case. He has just asked Congress for more then 83 billion dollars to fund war efforts in both in Iraq Afghanistan. When will America wake up and realize that we simply have another "George Bush Administration: as it concerns foreign policy.

WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama asked the U.S. Congress for an additional $83.4 billion to fund the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on Thursday, saying the security situation along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier was urgent.

"The Taliban is resurgent and al Qaeda threatens America from its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border," Obama said in a letter to Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, that was released by the White House.

Obama said 95 percent of the $83.4 billion in supplemental funds he was requesting would go to support U.S. military operations in Iraq and the U.S. effort to disrupt and defeat al Qaeda.

Obama Considers Expanding Afghanistan Troop Level to 400,000

U.S. President Barack Obama is considering a plan that would double the size of Afghanistan’s security force to about 400,000 troops and police officer to stabilize the nation, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Obama was expected to approve a version of the plan in coming days as part of a broader Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, the report said, citing senior administration and Pentagon officials.

Afghanistan now has about 90,000 troops and the Afghan National Police numbers about 80,000 officers, the newspaper said.

The relatively small size of the security forces has frustrated Afghan officials and American commanders who wanted to turn security over to legitimate Afghan security forces, and not local warlords, at a faster pace, the Times reported.

The White House declined comment on the report.

The administration’s goal of a 400,000-strong Afghan security force is more than three times the size that U.S. officials believed would be adequate for Afghanistan in 2002, when the Taliban and Al Qaeda appeared to have been routed, the report said.
According to the newspaper, cost projections for the program range from $10 billion to $20 billion over the next six or seven years. The annual budget for the entire Afghan government is largely provided by the United States and other international donors

An American foreign Presence: Obama and Foreign Policy

Despite Obama's present contention to remove troops from Iraq within the next 14 months, I, as are many libertarians, skeptical about this point. There does not appear to be any strong effort on the part of the Obama administration to end conflict, and the Shia's do not appear to be willing to stand down. It is my contention that if conflict escalates in the middle east, we will find our new "fuhrer" sending in more troops. Moreover, Obama has been quite clear that he would like to see advancement in Afghanistan; this does not seem to line up with the campaign of "peace in the Mideast", so to speak" which he campaigned on. The facade which won this man the Presidency appears to be falling away, and what we have remaining is a man, and administration, bent on dominating the American people, both abroad and at home.

Ron Paul: Obama Foreign Policy Identical To Bush

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Congressman Ron Paul has slammed Barack Obama’s foreign policy, saying it is identical to that of his predecessor George W. Bush, proving once again that both parties follow the same agenda on major issues.

Paul compared Obama’s pre-election promises to those of his predecessor George W. Bush, who before his election in 2001 guaranteed that the U.S. would not be the policeman of the world or engage in nation building.

Since the inauguration, Obama has sent 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan and and rapidly expanded the Bush-era bombing raids on Pakistan.

“Even though Obama was the so-called peace candidate and was going to bring our troops home from that war in Iraq, I’m afraid there’s evidence now that shows he’s going to pursue the same foreign policy - which was my argument during the campaign, that no matter what happens, both major parties support the same foreign policy, the same monetary policy, the same welfare policy and there’s never really any change,” said the Congressman.

As we reported last month, Obama’s war chest for 2009 alone, when one includes the budget of the defense department, the vast majority of which is related to spending on new fighter jets and other weapons-related programs, is a whopping $805 billion dollars.

Every single component bar one of the DoD budget is up 5-10% compared to 2008, with the budget for “military construction” increasing by a mammoth 19.1%.

Meanwhile, despite public pronouncements by Obama that a plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq is in progress, the details of the agreement actually establish a permanent presence of a sizable occupying force in perpetuity.

Obama swept to power on the promise that he would “immediately” withdraw troops from Iraq.

In reality, after the “withdrawal” of U.S. troops in 19 months, “Mr. Obama plans to leave behind a “residual force” of tens of thousands of troops to continue training Iraqi security forces, hunt down foreign terrorist cells and guard American institutions,” reported the New York Times.

A senior military officer spelled it out more plainly to the Los Angeles TImes, “‘When President Obama said we were going to get out within 16 months, some people heard, ‘get out,’ and everyone’s gone. But that is not going to happen,’ the officer said.”

Ron Paul also discussed Obama’s monetary policy, noting that every time a new government initiative was announced to supposedly rescue the economy, the stock markets sink.

Paul said that he also did not hesitate to slam Obama’s policies on civil liberties, especially on liberal talk shows that were sympathetic with the new president.

“I don’t think there’s any reason for us to rejoice,” said the Congressman.