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Tag Archives: national security

Obama’s speech on drones and Gitmo is a repackaging of permanent war


MQ-9 Reaper flies above Creech AFB during a local training mission.  (Photo by Paul Ridgeway; attained from Wikipedia)

MQ-9 Reaper flies above Creech AFB during a local training mission. (Photo by Paul Ridgeway; attained from Wikipedia)

Recently, President Barack Obama gave a speech about his counterterrorism strategy at National Defense University. In it, he justified his targeted killing policy and drone strikes of suspected terrorists around the world. He also announced his plan to finally shut down Guantanamo Bay prison.

The speech is lauded by many as a signal that President Obama wants to end the War on Terror. But the speech was full of clever sophistry and Orwellian doublespeak that made it seem like the perpetual war was ending just as it’s being institutionalized and normalized. In essence, it was a repackaging of America’s targeted killing program and system of permanent war. Read the rest of this entry »

 

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The $1 trillion national security budget


The Pentagon, January 2008

The Pentagon, January 2008 (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

With high unemployment, massive poverty, inequality, and a weak economic recovery, the economy is obviously the number-one issue in public consciousness. President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney continue to trade barbs on the presidential campaign trail. Romney accuses Obama of being “anti-business”, while Obama criticizes Romney’s record with Bain Capital, Romney’s private equity firm that was involved in outsourcing American jobs overseas. Amidst this cacophony of superficial babble and quacking from two politicians backed by multinational corporations and Wall Street, one fact is conveniently left out of the discussion — the $1 trillion national security budget.

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