Tag Archives: Afghanistan

Can We Leave Now?

12 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by in Afghanistan

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

The Afghanistan quagmire just gets uglier and uglier:

“Stalking from home to home, a United States Army sergeant methodically killed at least 16 civilians, 9 of them children, in a rural stretch of southern Afghanistan early on Sunday, igniting fears of a new wave of anti-American hostility, Afghan and American officials said.

Residents of three villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province described a terrifying string of attacks in which the soldier, who had walked more than a mile from his base, tried door after door, eventually breaking in to kill within three separate houses. The man gathered 11 bodies, including those of 4 girls younger than 6, and set fire to them, villagers said.

[…]

The officials said the suspect was an Army staff sergeant who acted alone and then surrendered…A senior American military official said Sunday evening that the sergeant was attached to a unit based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a major Army and Air Force installation near Tacoma, Wash., and that he had been part of what is called a village stabilization operation in Afghanistan…Another senior military official said the sergeant was 38 and married with two children. He had served three tours of duty in Iraq, this official said, and had been deployed to Afghanistan for the first time in December.”

Republican hawk and supporter of starting yet another war in Iran, Lindsey Graham, shrugged it off as ‘oh well, shit happens’:

“While this is tragic and will be investigated that soldier will be held accountable for his actions under the military justice system, unfortunately these things happen in war,” Graham said on ABC’s “This Week.” “You just have to push through these things.”

“The surge of forces have really put the Taliban on the defensive. The Afghan Army is better equipped and better trained than ever….I hope that the strategy partnership agreement between the United States and Afghanistan will stop the narrative we’re leaving,” Graham said on ABC. “We can win this thing. We can get it right.”

Yes, the Afghan armed forces are well equipped and trained, and are turning that equipment and that training on NATO forces at an increasing rate:

“Afghan security personnel have killed “around 70 members of the NATO force … in 42 insider attacks from May 2007 through January 2012,” Reuters reported, based on statistics provided by the US Department of Defense. Fifteen of the ISAF soldiers, or more than 20 percent, have been killed in the last seven weeks, according to press releases issued by ISAF.”

John McCain, advocate for military intervention in Syria, called the shootings just “one of those things”:

“It’s one of those things that you cannot explain except to extend your deepest sympathy to those victims and see that justice is done,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Cannot explain? Not to in any way excuse the actions of this sergeant, but this is the result of decade long wars requiring repeated deployments by an all-volunteer military. We seem to lose sight of the fact that our men and women in uniform are human beings, not robots. They are subject to human failings, like the psychological toll war takes on those who face death day after day after day, tour after tour after tour, and the actions that can result from that kind of constant stress.

Very few of us know because the burden of war is borne by a very small percentage of our population. Which explains things like this recent Pew poll showing 58% of Americans favor military action in Iran. Of course they do. It doesn’t cost the vast majority of them one dollar or one sleepless night worrying about the well-being of a loved one.
.
Two points. First, we need to get out of Afghanistan ASAP. Two more years or ten more years there won’t matter. Al-Qaeda is gone, bin Laden is dead. Mission accomplished, time to bring our soldiers home.

Second, a proposal for Sens. Graham, McCain and the 58% polled by Pew. Any US military intervention in any country from this point forward will be accompanied by a draft and a 10% income tax surcharge to pay for it. Let’s see how hot they are to go to war then.

Advertisements

U.S Taxpayers Funding the Taliban

25 Monday Jul 2011

Posted by in Afghanistan

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

“Every day, families are figuring out how stretch their paychecks – struggling to cut what they can’t afford so they can pay for what’s really important.  It’s time for Washington to do the same thing…We need an approach that goes after waste in the budget and gets rid of pet projects that cost billions of dollars.” President Obama’s weakly weekly address.

Speaking of:

“A year-long military-led investigation has concluded that U.S. taxpayer money has been indirectly funneled to the Taliban under a $2.16 billion transportation contract that the United States has funded in part to promote Afghan businesses.

The unreleased investigation provides seemingly definitive evidence that corruption puts U.S. transportation money into enemy hands, a finding consistent with previous inquiries carried out by Congress, other federal agencies and the military. Yet U.S. and Afghan efforts to address the problem have been slow and ineffective, and all eight of the trucking firms involved in the work remain on U.S. payroll. In March, the Pentagon extended the contract for six months.

According to a summary of the investigation results, compiled in May and reviewed by The Washington Post, the military found “documented, credible evidence . . . of involvement in a criminal enterprise or support for the enemy” by four of the eight prime contractors. Investigators also cited cases of profiteering, money laundering and kickbacks to Afghan power brokers, government officials and police officers. Six of the companies were found to have been associated with “fraudulent paperwork and behavior.”

Fraudulent paperwork and behavior? That’s no big deal. Just ask the banksters.

All the Bad News That Fits

23 Saturday Jul 2011

Posted by in Afghanistan, budget, Congress, economy, Iraq, Medicaid, Medicare, Obama, Politics, Social Security, Unemployment, Wall Street

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“I met a girl who sang the blues, and I asked her for some happy news. She just smiled and turned away.”

In the latest episode of “As the Debt Ceiling Turns”; Boehner walks, Obama has a hissy fit, and Pelosi throws yet another plan into the mix:

“House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi acknowledged Friday that Democrats may reluctantly accept a last-minute compromise to avoid a default that involves up to $2.5 trillion in spending cuts — without agreed-upon new tax revenues — if Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are protected from the debt limit brinksmanship.”

Yes, by all means, let’s cut spending. Never mind this:

“Companies are laying off employees at a level not seen in nearly a year, hobbling the job market and intensifying fears about the pace of the economic recovery.

Cisco Systems Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp. and troubled bookstore chain Borders Group Inc. are among those that have recently announced hefty cuts, while recent government numbers underscore how companies have shifted toward cutting jobs.

The increase in layoffs is a key reason why the U.S. recorded an average of only 21,500 new jobs over the past two months, far below the level needed to bring down unemployment, which now stands at 9.2%.”

Or this:

“Initial weekly unemployment claims increased to 418,000. The 4 week moving average is 421,250. A weekly average above 400,000 does not indicate job growth and we now have a pattern of perpetual disaster for U.S. citizens trying to earn a living.”

About that default deadline, is it August 2, August 10, or August 15? Nobody seems to know for sure.

The Money Party has some questions and answers on Obama’s handling of the budget never let a good crisis go to waste. Here’s just one:

“Question:  Why did President Obama put Social Security and Medicare on the table in the budget negotiations when 80% of the people oppose cuts to these programs?

Answer:  The president is not in office to represent those people.  He was selected, funded and carried over the finish line by corporate America.  Look at the appointment of Wall Streeter Timothy Geithner, the bailouts, and the failure to prosecute any of the crooks who caused the current recession. He’s serving the people who put him in office.  Those people don’t need Social Security and Medicare.”

Not only serving the people who put him in office, but serving those who he is depending on to keep him there:

“Among big fundraisers, Obama has drawn close to a third of his money from people in the finance industry, up from 20% during his 2008 campaign, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The amount raised so far is more than two-thirds what Wall Street elites helped Obama raise in his entire 2008 campaign. And it is enough to make the finance world the single largest source of big-ticket donations for Obama.”

While we cut the social safety net out from under our most vulnerable at home, billions are going unaccounted for in Afghanistan:

“SIGAR [Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction] found that U.S. agencies have limited visibility over U.S. cash that enters the Afghan economy — leaving it vulnerable to fraud and diversion to the insurgency…”SIGAR auditors found that U.S. agencies have not done all they can to safeguard U.S. funds, and the Afghan government has not provided the cooperation needed to build a strong, secure financial system.”

Also on the Endless War front, the State Department is telling the Special Inspector General in Iraq to mind his own business when it comes to State’s mercenary army in that country:

“By January 2012, the State Department will do something it’s never done before: command a mercenary army the size of a heavy combat brigade. That’s the plan to provide security for its diplomats in Iraq once the U.S. military withdraws. And no one outside State knows anything more, as the department has gone to war with its independent government watchdog to keep its plan a secret.

Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), is essentially in the dark about one of the most complex and dangerous endeavors the State Department has ever undertaken, one with huge implications for the future of the United States in Iraq. “Our audit of the program is making no progress,” Bowen tells Danger Room.

For months, Bowen’s team has tried to get basic information out of the State Department about how it will command its assembled army of about 5,500 private security contractors. How many State contracting officials will oversee how many hired guns? What are the rules of engagement for the guards? What’s the system for reporting a security danger, and for directing the guards’ response?

And for months, the State Department’s management chief, former Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, has given Bowen a clear response: That’s not your jurisdiction. You just deal with reconstruction, not security. Never mind that Bowen has audited over $1.2 billion worth of security contracts over seven years.”

To be continued…unfortunately.

Why Is This So Damn Difficult?

09 Saturday Jul 2011

Posted by in Afghanistan, budget, economy, Iraq, Medicare, Obama, Politics, Social Security, Taxes, Unemployment, Wall Street

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is so simple it’s ridiculous. The three major causes of the dramatic increases in debt and deficit are:

1) The Bush, now Obama, tax cuts.

2) The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

3) The financial collapse caused by Wall Street greed.

Ending the tax cuts just for those making over $250,000 will bring in $700 billion over 10 years. The wars cost about $140 billion a year. End both and we save $1.4 trillion over the same 10-year period. A financial transaction tax of just one quarter of one percent will result in $150 billion a year, $1.5 trillion over 10. There’s $3.6 trillion over 10 years, which is just about the same amount the debt ceiling dealers are talking about cutting spending. And we haven’t touched Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, etc. Yet none of these three are even on the debt ceiling/spending cut/revenue increases negotiating table. Why?

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the cost of repairing our crumbling infrastructure to be $2.2 trillion over 5 years. Do you see where I’m going here? Take the money we’ve saved, not from cutting the safety net out from under our most vulnerable who had nothing to do with the debt explosion and who did not benefit from it, but from the root causes and from those who did.

The result is millions of Americans have jobs. They’re paying income taxes, Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes. They no longer need unemployment, food stamps, or other forms of government assistance. They’re buying stuff, which creates demand for stuff, which creates more jobs, which creates more demand for stuff. And so on, and so on, and so on. Why is this so damn difficult?

But what do we get from our “leaders?” Gobbledegook and gibberish. Like President Obama’s remarks yesterday after the release of the horrible job numbers. Things like streamlining the patent process, advancing more so-called free trade agreements (which costs jobs rather that create them) and this:

“[T]o put our economy on a stronger and sounder footing for the future, we’ve got to rein in our deficits and get the government to live within its means, while still making the investments that help put people to work right now and make us more competitive in the future.

The sooner we get this done, the sooner that the markets know that the debt limit ceiling will have been raised and that we have a serious plan to deal with our debt and deficit, the sooner that we give our businesses the certainty that they will need in order to make additional investments to grow and hire and will provide more confidence to the rest of the world as well..”

Beside the fact that this is straight of the Republican playbook for economic growth, it’s nonsense (but I’m being redundant). Live within our means while making investments? What the hell is that? Give businesses the certainty they need? Businesses don’t need certainty, they need customers. Customers create jobs, not the ever-elusive confidence unicorn. Why is this so damn difficult?

The president’s mouthpiece at the Council of Economic Advisers, Austan Goolsbe offered more of the same:

“Today’s report underscores the need for bipartisan action to help the private sector and the economy grow – such as measures to extend the payroll tax cut, pass the pending free trade agreements, and create an infrastructure bank to help put Americans back to work.  It also underscores the need for a balanced approach to deficit reduction that instills confidence and allows us to live within our means without shortchanging future growth.”

*Sigh* Can’t anybody here play this game?

“Grand Delusion” in Afghanistan

04 Monday Jul 2011

Posted by in Afghanistan

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

From phillyBurbs.com:

“President Obama has announced the long-awaited drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan will begin next month. The president told a national TV audience last week that 10,000 troops will be brought home by the end of the year, and that by next summer, 33,000 personnel will have been withdrawn.

Obama told the nation: “The tide of war is receding.”

Apparently, Afghan insurgents haven’t gotten the message.

No less than the luxury Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, came under siege by militants this week, and by the time the siege ended a day later, 20 people were dead. Among the slain were nine suicide attackers and 11 civilians.

This latest slaughter didn’t take place in some rural area of the country where security has never been demonstrated. These killings occurred in the capital city, supposedly a safe haven. The truth is, there’s no such thing as a safe haven in this landlocked piece of treacherous real estate, even after nearly 10 years of U.S. involvement.

It is here that the Afghan army and police are expected to gradually assume responsibility for securing people and property as the U.S. reduces its military presence over the next three years.

That’s a grand delusion.

This was hardly what the United States bargained for when this adventure began a decade ago. The war was launched in response to the attacks of Sept. 11. The objectives then were to get Osama bin Laden, destroy his al-Qaida terrorist network and replace the hated Taliban with a democratic form of government. Bin Laden just recently was neutralized … in neighboring Pakistan. Al-Qaida apparently has shifted its base of operations elsewhere, probably Yemen. The Taliban, meanwhile, remain a formidable force in a country that historically has defied stable, central government. Great Britain and the former Soviet Union learned only too well the folly of military involvement here. It’s curious how the United States government ever concluded that it could effect a different outcome.

We believe withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan is the correct strategy going forward. It should be accelerated beyond what the president has outlined, because even after the withdrawals over the next year, some 70,000 U.S. troops will remain. The bleeding must be stopped and quickly, because it is bleeding without a purpose. Nothing short of a miracle — not more casualties, not more billions — will produce a lasting, positive outcome in Afghanistan.

The evidence suggests no other conclusion.”

Amen.

The President’s Press Conference

30 Thursday Jun 2011

Posted by in budget, economy, Obama, Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

A review of President Obama’s press conference yesterday from one W. Shakespeare: “Sound and fury signifying nothing.” Meaningless rhetoric and duplicity, with a dose of class warfare red meat to stir up the base for the 2012 election thrown in for good measure. And by my reading of the reactions from the Obama faithful in the blogosphere this morning, it worked.

The president mentions “taxing the rich” and his supporters voice their approval with a hearty, “Yeah, it’s about time, go get ‘em.” But he’s not talking about what they’re thinking about. He’s already refused to been forced to not let the Obama Bush income tax cuts expire—twice. If he was serious about deficit reduction, as Willie Sutton once said, that’s where the money is.

The “revenue increases” Obama is referring to are trivial amounts like his oft-repeated slam at the tax break for corporate jet owners. By my count he mentioned this one in particular 4 times yesterday. Eliminating this break will bring in about $300 million in additional revenue–that’s million—a year. I’m not defending the owners of corporate jets by any stretch, but $300 million out of a $1.5 trillion deficit? Talk about a drop in the proverbial bucket.

A couple of the other “revenue raisers” that the White House is floating are an adjustment in the taxation of inventory and an increase in the tax rate on carried interest. The first would bring in about $7 billion a year, the second about two. Add those to the corporate jet tax break and the total comes to around $9.3 billion a year. By comparison, the tab for the war in Afghanistan is somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 billion—-a month.

How many college scholarships would that pay for, Mr. President?

Some Things Never Change

25 Saturday Jun 2011

Posted by in Afghanistan

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

‘Twas ever thus, and thus ‘twill ever be:

“The farmer picking apples in the outskirts of Kabul must pay the Taliban $33 to ship out each truckload of fruit. The governor sends in armed men to chase workers off job sites if the official bribes aren’t paid. Poor neighborhoods never get their U.N.-provided wheat, long since sold on the black market.

These are some of the elements, large and small, that together form the elaborate organized crime environment Afghans contend with daily. And despite the hoped-for success of the U.S. military surge and President Barack Obama’s claims of significant progress, Afghanistan’s resemblance to a mafia state that cannot serve its citizens may only be getting worse, according to an upcoming report by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.

[…]

“Nearly a decade after the U.S.-led military intervention little has been done to challenge the perverse incentives of continued conflict in Afghanistan,” the research group says. Rather, violence and the billions of dollars in international aid have brought wealthy officials and insurgents together. And “the economy as a result is increasingly dominated by a criminal oligarchy of politically connected businessmen,” the report concludes.”

Sounds a lot like us.

Obama to Announce Afghanistan Drawdown

22 Wednesday Jun 2011

Posted by in Afghanistan, Obama

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

In an address to the country tonight, President Obama is expected to announce the beginning of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan. The Washington Post is reporting that the numbers will be 5,000 by the end of this summer, another 5,000 by the end of the year and possibly another 20,000 by the end of 2012. Not enough and not fast enough for me, and according to Pew, not for the majority of the American people:


Numbers which have increased substantially among just about every political and demographic group since June of last year:


Back to WaPo:

“Even by drawing down the 30,000 reinforcements, there still will be great uncertainty about how long the remaining 70,000 troops would stay there, although the U.S. and its allies have set Dec. 31, 2014, as a target date for ending the combat mission in Afghanistan.

…If Obama were to leave the bulk of the 30,000 surge contingent in Afghanistan through 2012, he would be giving the military another fighting season — in addition to the one now under way — to further damage Taliban forces before a larger withdrawal got started. It also would buy more time for the Afghan army and police to grow in numbers and capability.”

“Grow in numbers…” An audit from SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) showed that even though we’ve spent nearly $30 billion since 2002 to train and equip Afghan security forces, “Afghanistan’s government does not know exactly how many people work for its national police force.” And according to the Pentagon’s own report, “there are currently no Afghan National Police units that are able to operate independently.”

“…and capability.” This from an investigation into a 2009 battle in which 8 Americans were killed and 22 wounded:

“[F]irst-hand accounts from the battle at Keating, detailed in witness statements included in the investigation, provide a different, highly critical view.

One of the harshest came from two Latvian soldiers stationed at Keating and responsible for mentoring the three dozen Afghan troops at the base in mountainous Nuristan province near the Pakistan border. In interviews conducted after the attack, the Latvians told the U.S. investigators that the Afghan soldiers lacked “discipline, motivation and initiative.”

Close to 300 insurgents attacked Keating at dawn with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and guns. As the chaos of combat enveloped the base, the Latvians said they saw three Afghan soldiers at the aid station waiting to be treated for minor scratches and cuts. An Afghan platoon sergeant was in a corner of the station, curled up in a fetal position, they told the investigators.

Later, they opened a door to one of the buildings and found several other soldiers and Afghan security guards sitting on beds “anxiously waiting.” None of them had weapons at the ready or made an aggressive move when the door swung open. In other buildings, they found Afghan soldiers “in ones and twos, hiding under blankets in the fetal position.”

Whether we leave Afghanistan in stages or all at once, whether we do it in 2012, 2014, or 3014, Afghanistan is going to be what Afghanistan has always been. Not an actual country but a region on the map with lines drawn around it, with a weak, corrupt central government, and with never-ending tribal disputes and clashes. The only difference any kind of timeline will make is how many billions of dollars we pour in and how many flag-draped coffins we take out.

A Milestone in Colossal Stupidity

27 Saturday Nov 2010

Posted by in Afghanistan, Obama, Obama administration, Pentagon, war on terror

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Proving Santayana right, today marks a milestone in the Afghanistan quagmire. A milestone in colossal stupidity:

“On Saturday Nov. 27, the United States and its allies will reach a grim milestone: they will have been in Afghanistan a day longer than the Soviet Union had been when it completed its 1989 withdrawal.”

And the end is not in sight:

“Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell last week made clear that the 2014 date for an end to combat operations agreed by NATO was an “aspirational” deadline. And an Afghanistan progress report by the Pentagon to the U.S. Congress released Tuesday made clear that despite the Obama Administration’s “surge” of some 30,000 extra American soldiers into the war zone, progress has been modest and the insurgency continues to expand.”

2014? What happened to July 2011?

“…it appears as if President Obama isn’t prepared to cut his losses in the war and order a sharp drawdown of troops next July, when, at least according to his stated policy, US forces will begin to leave Afghanistan. Worse, it looks like the much anticipated December 2010 presidential review of war policy is being reduced to a rubber-stamp approval of General David Petraeus’s counterinsurgency scheme.

…Obama is increasingly in harmony with Petraeus. The president and the general are “meshing well, advisers say,” they reported, adding that the president strikes a “deferential tone” toward Petraeus even though Petraeus “has made clear that he opposes a rapid pullout of troops from Afghanistan beginning next July.”

A “deferential tone?” Who’s in charge here? That would be a rhetorical question, the answer is obvious.

“When asked by a reporter about the US “exit strategy” for Afghanistan, the senior defense official took issue with the term. “We don’t have an exit strategy. We have a transition strategy. The US commitment to Afghanistan is continuing, enduring, and long-lasting.”

A “transition” that, according to the former number two U.N. diplomat in Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith, could take 100 years:

“We’re talking about something that will take 100 years, generations,” says Galbraith, “You can equip them. You can provide some training, but you can’t make them honest. You can’t make them literate. You can’t make them committed to the notions of policing that we have in the West,” he says.”

Once again, we’ve been here before. Apparently the lesson was unlearned. More on the Pentagon’s report to Congress, with the appropriate editing inserted:

“The Pentagon’s semiannual report to Congress on the war in Vietnam Afghanistan paints a picture of a country where corruption remains rampant, violence has increased, and a well-funded Vietcong Taliban insurgency continues to make troubling gains.

The report, “Progress Toward Security and Stability in Vietnam Afghanistan,” which was released this week, actually cites little in the way of progress in the war, a major US undertaking that is rapidly losing popular support among Americans and threatens to become a political burden on President Johnson Obama.”

The song remains the same, only the names have changed.

A Conversation With Thomas Jefferson

22 Monday Nov 2010

Posted by in Afghanistan, Bill of Rights, Financial Crisis, Foreclosures, lobbyists, Politics, special interests, Uncategorized, Wall Street

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I recently sat down for an interview (sort of) with our third president and author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. The questions are mine, the responses all quotes attributed to Jefferson. You could look it up:

Mr. Jefferson, a topic in the headlines lately are the security measures being taken in our airports, the aim of which is, allegedly, our safety. What is your opinion on that?

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”

Many Americans are protesting these actions by government officials. Would you support that effort?

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent…Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.”

Some see this as the continuation of policies instituted after September 11 which erode our civil liberties and Constitutional protections. Your thoughts?

“Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers too plainly proves a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.”

Also, on a related subject, what about the controversy over whether or not to try terrorist suspects in civilian court?

“I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet devised by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”

Moving on to economic issues, have you been keeping up with what’s been labeled Foreclosuregate?

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

What about the influence of the financial system on our political process?

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.”

And the influence, in general, of special and corporate interests?

“Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.”

What about the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world?

“I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind…I love peace, and am anxious that we should give the world still another useful lesson, by showing to them other modes of punishing injuries than by war, which is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.”

“War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.”

Any thoughts about ending the policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?

“Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds…Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”

In closing, Mr. President, any final words of guidance for the American people?

“If a Nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be…. If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.”

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”

Thank you, sir.