Its officially started, a new undeclared war begins as a US drone killed 12 people in Somalia (the UN declared Somalia in “famine” today, and I am sure that dropping bombs with drones will feed many children). The administration has also been holding a Somalian man secretly on a Navy Ship. He, of course, has no access to a lawyer or many other universally recognized human rights. In Libya, the rebels that the West have been supporting (and arming) have been committing some of the same crimes as Qaddafi's forces. This includes racial killings, rape, and an indiscriminate killing of civilians. 10 more rebels in Libya died this week after they tried to take control of an oil town. Can we stop calling this a “humanitarian intervention” and admit that this thing is about oil? The Syrian government has killed much more civilians than the regime in Libya has, and yet there has been no talk of a no-fly zone or any military intervention.

Harry Reid has decided that voting on the Libyan war is not important, as he won't allow the Senate to do so. His excuse is that they need to focus on the budget, but most Senators aren't even involved in the talks (its the “gang of six”, not the gang of 100), and there is no other voting going on. One wonders how long it would take to vote on the Libyan resolution. 5 minutes? 2 hours of debate? The leader of the Senate has decided that the Senate is not allowed to be part of the decision making of war resolutions. There has rightly be much ink spilled on how recent Presidential administrations have made the executive branch have almost unlimited power, but one must not forget that Congress and the Supreme Court has allowed them to do this. Slate tries to claim that Obama's Libya policy may be wrong and illegal, but at least its not as bad as Bush's torture. So yes, he has bombs dropped illegally, but at least he is not water-boarding. This is all while torture could very well still be a part of America's future, as the Bush 2 administration was not prosecuted for their torture, and even though Obama has insisted that his administration will not torture (even though the treatment of Bradley Manning obviously falls under torture), nothing is stopping future administrations from doing so. Also, it is widely known that US-ran countries like Iraq and Afghanistan do in fact torture.

The US is saying that the Yemenise military recently killed 40 “militants”. This should lead to serious questions that I have not seen being asked. The government of Yemen has been killing protesters and calling them “militants”. How do we distinguish the “militants” (if any really exist) and the peaceful protesters? Also, shouldn't it bother us that US taxpayer money is being used by this Yemenise government to make these decisions? Iraq and Israel, two countries with United States finger-prints all over them, are making alarming restrictions on free speech and shooting protesters, so when are we going to quit funding these governments?

4 more civilians have died in Afghanistan from “NATO” and American forces. “NATO” and Afghan police killed 13 “Taliban fighters” in a firefight, but the question remains as to whether we can know who are terrorists and who aren't without fair trials with juries. Now over 1,000 United States soldiers have died in Afghanistan, over 2/3rds of them under Obama's presidency. Can we finally admit that Obama's foreign policy is at least as bad as Bush's?

The new Defense Secretary has declared that Al Qaeda is nearly defeated. It sounds like he is rallying a sports team, but should make us question whether we need to continue these wars or not if Al Qaeda is nearly defeated (when that was the stated point of the wars anyway). The night raids in Afghanistan and Iraq have made the United States more feared and hated than the Taliban. The New York Times writes “there is no doubt that the night raids have been devastating to the Taliban insurgency”. Now whether that is true or not doesn't even really matter, the point is that the United States is killing so many civilians, that both morally and practically outweighs any benefits that could possibly be gained. Because of policies like these, in the Arab world, America is now less popular than it was under the Bush 2 era.

This is all very bi-partisan of course. Democrats actually get more money from the defense industry than Republicans do. Obama was the first candidate to get over a million dollars in campaign donations from the defense industry. The “anti-spending” Republican-led house actually voted to raise military spending right in the middle of the budget debate. Military Spending is being kept out of the whole debt ceiling debate, and instead both sides want to make cuts in Social Security and Medicare. The vote on raising military spending wasn't even close, as the vote was 336-87. This shows that a recent Politico article (and some beltway wisdom) insisting that the GOP was split over military spending is bunk. Both the Atlantic and Glenn Greenwald have written that President Obama has “finally become Dick Cheney” with his foreign policy and his war on whistle-blowers. Fareed Zakari wrote something laughable in his column at the Washington Post: “All American presidents have supported and should support the spread of democracy.” Now certainly they should, but clearly they have not.


War has cost the world 8 trillion dollars in the past year. With talk of defaults, bailouts, deficits, and recessions, wouldn't that money be better spent elsewhere?