projection

AP photo / Morry Gash

"Troops training for and fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are firing more than a billion bullets a year."

Chris Hedges, seminarian and anti-war columnist at Truthdig, challenges us - and our new American President - to rethink our power in the world in his column today titled "America's Wars of Self Destruction."

"The most destructive evils, however, are not those that are externalized. The most destructive are those that are internal. These hidden evils, often defined as virtues, are unleashed by our hubris, self-delusion and ignorance. Evil masquerading as good is evil in its deadliest form."

This reminded me of Sharon's post today, because I was thinking after that good thought provocation that it's what we project onto others that gets us in trouble. (Jung said "The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others.") Fundamentalist beliefs that WE are right and THEY are wrong, to the point of a billion bullets on either side has got to stop. But will we keep stopping it with more bullets? (Ha, right, more like keep trying to stop it, because you can't win this one, folks. - I just noticed that when I posted this I had mistyped "can win this one" -yikes!)

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We have to change on the inside. And I hope Barack Obama's attention to political solutions will start down that path, even to change his own intention to escalate the criminal war in Afghanistan. It seems to me it begins with listening, and imagining how it is to be in someone else's shoes.

Transition President: Henry Paulson?

Hamilton Nolan makes a very good point in this piece with a short video of President Bush smirking during a speech about the tanking economy. We essentially have no president at the moment. Bush is a despised lame duck. Obama says "only one president at a time." So who is the de facto president? Hank Paulson! If the prime issue is the economy, and he's calling the shots, Nolan is right!

Should the U.S. intervene in Kashmir?

During his campaign Mr. Obama iterated an interest in a more active U.S. stand toward a peace process in Kashmir. He has said he'd like to appoint an envoy to help settle the dispute there (some say this could be Bill Clinton). More recently he has stated that he would like to see U.S. support of a bilateral effort of both India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir.

His idea is to help resolve the Kashmir issue so that Pakistan can stop focusing on India and focus on the militant problem on its border with Afghanistan, obviously one of the biggest American problems on the new president's plate. But adding a third party to the mix over Kashmir will not likely help India politically - has upset many in India in fact, just when the US-Indo relations have been developing well (yikes, the nuclear deal), and further it would likely encourage the militancy in Kashmir, upsetting their current election process. India has never sought international intervention over Kashmir, and recently U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon ruled out U.N. intervention unless asked by Pakistan and India, saying the two countries should resolve it themselves through talks.

Of course the separatist Peoples League in Kashmir welcomes potential official support from the U.S. to help resolve their concerns.

Does Mr. Obama really want to become more involved in the two-decade dispute that will only further complicate the U.S.'s already tenuous position in the military front between Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as its relations with India? His wish to escalate our military presence has been much criticized already, and rightly so.

President Obama will have to negotiate a great many disastrous messes. I am not sure that increasing U.S. involvment in the J&K issue is the best way to help resolve that one. And will he have time to address this issue any time soon with the collapsing economy worsening by the day?

secret order lets U.S. raid Al Qaeda "anywhere in the world"

photo by Hussein Malla/AP

The New York Times reports that a secret order titled “Al Qaeda Network Exord,” authorized in spring 2004 allows U.S. military special ops teams to attack Al Qaeda militants anywhere in the world. This is a secret order because it "allows" senior officials to approve attacks on Qaeda outside the official war zones, and without notifying the countries being attacked. The most visible and recent example was the raid in Syria on October 26 in which at least 8 civilians were killed.

"According to a senior administration official, the new authority was spelled out in a classified document called 'Al Qaeda Network Exord,' or execute order, that streamlined the approval process for the military to act outside officially declared war zones. Where in the past the Pentagon needed to get approval for missions on a case-by-case basis, which could take days when there were only hours to act, the new order specified a way for Pentagon planners to get the green light for a mission far more quickly, the official said. "

No doubt my fellow Americans who live in constant fear of being attacked by terrorists are happy for this and any tactics - "legal" or otherwise - our all-powerful President and his former Secretary of Defense deemed necessary to pre-empt any further attacks on the U.S.

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

A two and a half minute humorous video from The Onion.



Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

the white house goes black

Saw this over at Amy's.

a small window left

photo by Doug Mills, New York Times