Truth & Lies of 9/11
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8797525979024486145
This exaplins a LOT about the "bailout". What does this have to do with 9/11? Watch and see....
Ron Paul: Civil Disobedience is VERY IMPORTANT!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMm8hOqB8n4
Now guys I'm not saying that Ron Paul is the ultimate answer, but you have to admit he's speaking like a normal person, and not in CIRCLES. That's the first clue. he speaks very clearly and honestly. This guys is genuinely on our side, that is why in general, I agree with what he has to say.
We still need a complete overhaul of the constitution, so that this stuff never happens again. And we need a commonwealth, not a republic. But i'll say more on that later. :) Enjoy.
Most absurd during the two-hour special were the exchanges about "evil".
When asked how they would deal with evil if they were elected president - would they ignore it, negotiate with it, contain it, or defeat it - Obama said he would "confront it" while McCain said unflinchingly that he would "defeat it".
After this "civil forum" was broadcast on CNN, the network's so-called "best team on television" commented on the candidates' performance.
This only managed to add insult to injury.
One pundit commended McCain's steadfastness and courage in wanting to defeat, not merely confront, evil if elected president.
For the Republican contender evil is embodied in communism, Islamic fundamentalism and notably Osama Bin Laden, who he promised to hunt down.
Obama was also praised for acknowledging the existence of evil. He thought it present in Darfur but also on the streets of the US as well as in homes where parents abuse their children, and so on.
Evil is the enemy
The last time I checked, there was no legal or strategic interpretation of evil. An open-ended war on evil leads to Armageddon.
It makes absolutely no sense for a future leader of a superpower to speak of dealing with "evil" as commander-in-chief unless this term is used as populist propaganda during election season.
The threat of evil necessitates some sort of definition, otherwise, how can any president evaluate evil and apply the necessary measures to "confront it" or "defeat it"?
Sectarian and tribal wars in Africa and Asia, like religious fundamentalism, are modern phenomena that need to be rationalised first and foremost within our modern world.
In order to be defused or prevented altogether, such conflicts must not be defined or determined by the universal fight between good and evil.
The same applies to street gangs and abusive parents; they require rational explanation and social analyses in order to deter them or best prevent them form carrying out their actions.
In all such cases of violence, there is an urgent need for education, justice, fairness and the rule of law as well as a moral compass, not some religious crusade, to guide us.
But the US media was more than happy to report how the Democratic and Republican candidates were speaking of confronting and defeating evil.
In doing this, US media has pandered to the religious majority in the country.
Religiosity in the US
According to a Pew June 2008 study, 92 per cent of Americans believe in God or a universal spirit, and nearly 80 per cent think miracles occur.
Most Americans believe that angels and demons are active in the world, and one in five Christians speaks or prays in tongues - ecstatic worship or prayer using unintelligible speech.
But while the US has traditionally been religious, it has also been traditionally tolerant.
Since the 1960s, evangelical churches have become politically proactive as faith-based organisations went on to exercise increasing influence over politics in the US and especially within the Republican party.
In recent years, the less strident and more mainstream Christian and evangelical churches like Warren's Saddleback where the two candidates were interviewed, became more active then the southern right-wing churches represented by the likes of Pat Robertson.
The fact that McCain and Obama's first joint appearance (not debate) was coordinated and hosted by an influential religious preacher speaks volumes about the influence of organised religion on politics in the US.
Politics in a bubble
Such theological/political journalism is unthinkable anywhere in Europe or in so-called democracies around the world. Calling one's enemy or their ideology or religion evil is the language normally used by such groups as al-Qaeda, not constitutional democracies.
If religious interviews were done with such fanfare and influence in a Muslim country, democratic or otherwise, western and especially US media would have made mockery of such an imposition of religious fundamentalism on political process.
For most outsiders, the US is in denial over its own "evil doing" around the world. Obama and McCain could see evil in Darfur but would not admit that the invasion and occupation of Iraq on false premises or for oil is no less an evil act.
To his credit, Obama broke out of the delusional discourse of the US as the-city-on-a-hill to underline the need for humility when confronting evil so that the US does not perpetrate its own evils.
But for some people around the world, it may be a bit late for that.
Alas.
The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Al Jazeera.
WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.
According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.
"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.
Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops - and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its "state of weakness and political confusion."
"However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open." Zebari says.
Though Obama claims the US presence is "illegal," he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the "weakened Bush administration," Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.
While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a "realistic withdrawal date." They declined.
Obama has made many contradictory statements with regard to Iraq. His latest position is that US combat troops should be out by 2010. Yet his effort to delay an agreement would make that withdrawal deadline impossible to meet.
Supposing he wins, Obama's administration wouldn't be fully operational before February - and naming a new ambassador to Baghdad and forming a new negotiation team might take longer still.
By then, Iraq will be in the throes of its own campaign season. Judging by the past two elections, forming a new coalition government may then take three months. So the Iraqi negotiating team might not be in place until next June.
Then, judging by how long the current talks have taken, restarting the process from scratch would leave the two sides needing at least six months to come up with a draft accord. That puts us at May 2010 for when the draft might be submitted to the Iraqi parliament - which might well need another six months to pass it into law.
Thus, the 2010 deadline fixed by Obama is a meaningless concept, thrown in as a sop to his anti-war base.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Bush administration have a more flexible timetable in mind.
According to Zebari, the envisaged time span is two or three years - departure in 2011 or 2012. That would let Iraq hold its next general election, the third since liberation, and resolve a number of domestic political issues.
Even then, the dates mentioned are only "notional," making the timing and the cadence of withdrawal conditional on realities on the ground as appreciated by both sides.
Iraqi leaders are divided over the US election. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani (whose party is a member of the Socialist International) sees Obama as "a man of the Left" - who, once elected, might change his opposition to Iraq's liberation. Indeed, say Talabani's advisers, a President Obama might be tempted to appropriate the victory that America has already won in Iraq by claiming that his intervention transformed failure into success.
Maliki's advisers have persuaded him that Obama will win - but the prime minister worries about the senator's "political debt to the anti-war lobby" - which is determined to transform Iraq into a disaster to prove that toppling Saddam Hussein was "the biggest strategic blunder in US history."
Other prominent Iraqi leaders, such as Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani, believe that Sen. John McCain would show "a more realistic approach to Iraqi issues."
Obama has given Iraqis the impression that he doesn't want Iraq to appear anything like a success, let alone a victory, for America. The reason? He fears that the perception of US victory there might revive the Bush Doctrine of "pre-emptive" war - that is, removing a threat before it strikes at America.
Despite some usual equivocations on the subject, Obama rejects pre-emption as a legitimate form of self -defense. To be credible, his foreign-policy philosophy requires Iraq to be seen as a failure, a disaster, a quagmire, a pig with lipstick or any of the other apocalyptic adjectives used by the American defeat industry in the past five years.
Yet Iraq is doing much better than its friends hoped and its enemies feared. The UN mandate will be extended in December, and we may yet get an agreement on the status of forces before President Bush leaves the White House in January.
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