Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Obama v. King, on War and Peace

By Peter Dyer
December 3, 2008

Can we successfully fight for social and economic justice in the United States while simultaneously escalating a war in Asia? Barack Obama says we can. But 41 years ago, Dr Martin Luther King Jr. warned against doing exactly that.

Read on.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The notion that all one needs to think about is peace and wars will end is sadly Utopian. Ask the survivors from the cafes near the Taj Mahal in Mumbai, doubtless few, if any, would have had hostile thoughts about Lashkar-e-Toiba on the night terrorism struck. In October 2001 to the public acclamation of most civilized nations of the world, the US invaded Afghanistan in retaliation to the murder of three thousand innocent people in America. Things have changed in Afghanistan and while Obama says that ‘Afghanistan is where the war on terror began and where it must end’, the mission of Enduring Freedom has been eviscerated. President Karzai of Afghanistan said that he was unilaterally prepared to meet with Taliban leaders to negotiate a peace. ‘If I say I want protection for Mullah Omar, the international community has two choices: remove me or leave.’ Karzai knows full well that if the US/coalition forces pull out he wouldn’t last a week. What gives Karzai the confidence to issue ultimatums? As a past consultant for the Union Oil Company of California, Karzai knows that the oil corporations need the pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea for the huge Asian markets and he believes that America will grovel rather than lose that oil. The US burns 20million barrels of oil per day (that’s one cubic mile of oil per year) and 60% of this is imported. So, while the preemptive strike on Afghanistan was morally defensible, Secretary Gates’ troop increases under the ambit of the new administration are for the wrong reason. By all means send more troops to seal the borders and complete search and destroy operations, but exit immediately the mission is achieved. To do that, 300,000 troops would be needed for a 90 day operation. If Obama simply reinforces Afghanistan for a long term venture he will be guilty of perpetuating the oil war. I wrote a book http://www.strategicbookpublishing.com/AClaytonsDefense.html which in part deals with these oil wars.

Wed Dec 03, 12:51:00 AM 2008
Anonymous said...

It's not a war, it's a criminal investigation, and I expect Obama will recognize it as such.

Mon Dec 08, 02:01:00 AM 2008

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