"Meet the New Boss - the Same as the Old Boss..."

"...So much for our anti-war candidate."

Excerpts from

It's Obama's War Now

By Chris Hedges, Mar 2, 2009

Barack Obama has shown that he is as capable of doublespeak as any other politician when he announced an end to the war in Iraq. Combat troops are to be pulled out of Iraq by August 2010, he said, but some 50,000 occupation troops will remain behind. Someone should let the Iraqis know the distinction. I doubt any soldier or Marine in Iraq will notice much difference in 19 months. Many combat units will simply be relabeled as noncombat units. And what about our small army of well-paid contractors and mercenaries? Will Dyncorp, Bechtel, Blackwater (which recently changed its name to Xe), all of whom have made fortunes off the war, pack up and go home? What about the three large super-bases, dozens of smaller military outposts and our imperial city, the Green Zone? Will American corporations give up their lucrative control of Iraqi oil?

The occupation of Iraq will not be disrupted. Lies and deception, which launched the war in the first place, are being employed by Democrats to maintain it. This is not a withdrawal. It is occupation lite. And as long as American troops are on Iraqi soil, the war will grind on, the death toll on each side will continue to mount and we will remain a lightning rod for hatred and rage in the Middle East. Add to this Obama's decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan and even his most purblind supporters will have to admit the new president is as intent on maintaining American empire as the old.

Iraq, because of our invasion and occupation, no longer exists as a unified country. The experiment that was Iraq, the cobbling together of disparate and antagonistic patches of the Ottoman Empire by the victorious powers in the wake of World War I, will never come back. The Kurds have set up a de facto state in the north. The Shiites control most of the south. The center of the country is a battleground. There are at least 2 million Iraqis who have fled their homes and are internally displaced. Another 2 million have left the country, most to Syria and Jordan, which now has the largest number of refugees per capita of any country on Earth. And perhaps as many as 1.2 million Iraqis are dead because of what we have done.

Do the cheerleaders for an expanded war in Afghanistan know any history? Have they studied what happened to the Soviets, who lost 15,000 Red Army soldiers between 1979 and 1988, or even the British in the 19th century? Do they remember why we went into Afghanistan? It was, we were told, to hunt down Osama bin Laden, who is now apparently in Pakistan. Has anyone asked what our end goal is in Afghanistan? Is it nation-building? Have we declared war on the Taliban? Or is this simply the forever war on terror?

Obama, during the campaign, promised that he would pull out one combat brigade per month over a 16-month period from Iraq. But this promise has been scrapped. Instead, troop levels will remain steady for most of this year and into the first few months of 2010. Troops will only start leaving, we are told, in large numbers in the spring and summer of next year, but even the pace of this downsizing will be left to the discretion of commanders. The troops left in Iraq after the "withdrawal" will, the Obama administration says, train Iraqi soldiers, protect U.S. assets and conduct "anti-terror operations."

The U.S. agreement with Iraq, known as SOFA, or status of forces agreement, calls for all U.S. forces to be out of Iraq by the end of December 2011. But this seems very unlikely. The Pentagon has, despite the SOFA agreement, built its long-range planning around the assumption that anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 troops will be based in Iraq long after 2011. The U.S.-Iraq agreement (which was ratified by the Iraqi parliament but never brought to the U.S. Senate for ratification, as mandated by the Constitution) calls for a national referendum to be held in Iraq during the summer of 2009. Iraqis will supposedly be able to approve or reject the agreement. The some 50 U.S. bases in Iraq are, under the agreement, to be turned over to the Iraqis. Will Obama defy the results of a referendum and ram the continued occupation down the throats of Iraqi voters? It certainly looks like it. Of course, all this will be handled, I suspect, by having our client government in Baghdad "request" that we remain, making an even greater farce of our public commitment to democracy.

There are huge corporations who are making a lot of money off this war. Obama seems intent on not impeding the profits. So much for our anti-war candidate.

Our imperial projects and killing will continue under the Obama presidency. Many more, including some of our own, will die.

Is This SICK, Or What?

US Army Recruiting at the Mall With Video Games

By Jon Hurdle, Reuters, 09 January 2009

Philadelphia--The U.S. Army, struggling to ensure it has enough manpower as it fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is wooing young Americans with video games, Google maps and simulated attacks on enemy positions from an Apache helicopter.

Departing from the recruiting environment of metal tables and uniformed soldiers in a drab military building, the Army has invested $12 million in a facility that looks like a cross between a hotel lobby and a video arcade.

The U.S. Army Experience Center at the Franklin Mills shopping mall in northeast Philadelphia has 60 personal computers loaded with military video games, 19 Xbox 360 video game controllers and a series of interactive screens describing military bases and career options in great detail.

Potential recruits can hang out on couches and listen to rock music that fills the space.

The center is the first of its kind and opened in August as part of a two-year experiment. So far, it has signed up 33 full-time soldiers and five reservists--roughly matching the performance of five traditional recruiting centers it replaced.

The U.S. military says it has been meeting or exceeding its recruiting and retention goals, with 185,000 men and women entering active-duty military service in the fiscal year that ended on September 30--the highest number since 2003.

Defense officials say the recession and rising unemployment were likely to boost recruiting.

The Philadelphia center lures recruits with a separate room for prospective soldiers to "fire" from a real Humvee on enemy encampments projected on a 15-foot (4.5 meters) tall battleground scenario that also has deafening sound effects.

In another room, those inclined to attack from above can join helicopter raids in which enemy soldiers emerge from hide-outs to be felled by automatic gunfire rattling from a simulator modeled on an Apache or Blackhawk helicopter.

The Army is not simply looking for new recruits, said First Sgt. Randy Jennings, who runs the center. It also aims to dispel misperceptions about Army life.

"We want them to know that being in the Army isn't just about carrying weapons and busting down doors," said Jennings, who wears slacks and a polo shirt rather than a uniform. About 80 percent of soldiers are not involved in direct combat roles, he said.

Jesse Hamilton, a former Army staff sergeant who served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, said the use of video games glamorized war and misled potential recruits, calling it "very deceiving and very far from realistic."

"You can't simulate the loss when you see people getting killed," said Hamilton, who left the Army after his Iraq tour and is now a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

"It's not very likely you are going to get into a firefight," he said. "The only way to simulate the heat is holding a blow dryer to your face."

The center is an experiment in boosting urban recruitment, which has traditionally lagged behind that of rural areas.

Eddie Abuali, 20, who was waiting to take an Army aptitude test, said he felt more comfortable in the center than he would in a traditional recruiting office. "It's a more relaxed environment," said Abuali, who plans to join the Army when he graduates from college. "You don't feel like you are being pressured."

Project manager Maj. Larry Dillard said recruitment was more difficult about two years ago when the United States was struggling in Iraq and jobs at home were easier to get.

"Now the news coming out of Iraq is better and we are in an economic downturn. It will be easier," he said.