Dems to water down EFCA and betray workers

[From: www.counterpunch.org] [The following article documents the fact that Washington lobbyists with strong connections to the Democratic Party are busily trying to persuade Congress *not* to pass the pro-union Employee Free Choice Act. This is another proof that the Democrats constantly *betray* those who put them in office, just as they did in 2007-2008, by voting hundreds of billions of dollars to continue Bush's endless wars in the Middle East, after the US electorate had handed them, the Democrats, both Houses of Congress, with a single mandate, to extricate the US from conflicts in the Middle East, just as Obama did, starting *two days* after his inauguration, when he began to expand US attacks on Pakistan, the next big theater of action in the everlasting US wars in Mideast, and just as Bill Clinton did, in the space between his election in 1992 and his inauguration, the time when Wall Street lawyer Robert Rubin persuaded Clinton to turn his back on the campaign slogan, "Putting people first," by putting the big financial interests in first place, as documented in Robert Pollin's book, "Contours of Descent." No one will ever lose money by betting that the Democrats are going to betray their working-class supporters. -- Yosef M]

April 24-26, 2009

The Big Betrayal
Democratic Lobbyists Key to Fight Against Employee Free Choice Act
By CHRIS KROMM

If you missed, Tom Frank had a provocative column in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about the likely demise of the Employee Free Choice Act -- the bill that labor has made its #1 priority for the new era of Obama and Democratic politics.

First, it's important to note the EFCA isn't dead yet. Labor has vowed it will keep fighting, and as Roll Call reports they were in full force during the recent Congressional recess:

Union organizers held more than 400 grass-roots events, sent more than 27,000 letters to Members of Congress and put in nearly 100,000 calls supporting EFCA. Additionally, the unions spent more than $1 million on two TV ads over the recess, AFL-CIO spokeswoman Amaya Smith said.

But after the defections of key Senators like Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln -- and even pro-labor stalwarts like Ohio's Sherrod Brown (D) predicting it will be watered down -- Frank observes that the EFCA as we know it won't pass:

After massive lobbying both by labor and by business, it appears that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which, as it now stands, would allow workers to organize in many cases merely by signing cards instead of holding elections, will not have the 60 votes required to get past a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Even Andy Stern of the Change to Win labor federation is signaling compromise is on the horizon given the math.

But it's important to step back a moment and ask how, after the rush of hope that surrounded the victory of Obama and Congressional Democrats -- backed by millions in labor contributions -- did we get to this point?

Many have pointed to the well-financed corporate opposition to the act -- a war chest which, among other things, has been used to fund dubious research warning that the labor bill would cost "thousands of jobs."

But Frank points to an important and under-reported piece of the story -- lobbying firms with strong ties to Democrats who are helping deep-six labor's agenda. After asking why Democrats seem treat labor like an ATM machine for campaign cash, only to turn their backs on them in Congress, Frank offers these devastating set of facts:

[M]aybe it's just the money. Consider the lineup of lobbyists that retail giant Wal-Mart has assembled to make its case against EFCA. According to lobbying disclosure forms filed with the House and Senate we find that Wal-Mart's lobbyists include Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti (which employs former presidential candidate John Kerry's liaison to Congress during the 2004 campaign), a former legislative director for Rahm Emanuel, and a former assistant to Arkansas Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln.

Wal-Mart has also secured, according lobbying disclosure forms filed with Congress, the services of Tony Podesta, of the Podesta Group, one of the hottest lobby shops in Democratic D.C. Mr. Podesta is joined in pushing Wal-Mart's views on EFCA by a former assistant to Democrat Mark Pryor, the other senator from Arkansas. [FS note: The firm was co-founded with John Podesta, a lead Obama advisor, although he's no longer listed on the group's manifest.]

The real standout on Wal-Mart's labor-issues roster, though, is D+P Creative Strategies, which wears its liberalism as proudly as last week's tax protestors did their three-cornered hats. According to its Web site, D+P "highlights partnership, shared benefits, and a commitment to advancing social justice goals." The disclosure form for its Wal-Mart EFCA activities lists a former assistant to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. The bio of its principal, Ingrid Duran, who is also listed as a Wal-Mart lobbyist, declares that the firm's mission is "to increase the role of corporate, legislative and philanthropic efforts in addressing the concerns of Latinos, women, and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) communities."

There's much more evidence of the ties between these firms to the Democrats. For example, this month the Podesta Group -- which proudly boasts [pdf] of its special access in the new Democratic administration -- announced the addition of six new principals to their lobbying army. Half have solid Democratic resumes.

The case of the former aide to Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) -- Walter Pryor (no relation) -- now lobbying against the EFCA for Wal-Mart is especially bizarre. As Wal-Mart Watch pointed out last month, Walter Pryor's lobbying filing for Wal-Mart lists him as still being an aid to Sen. Pryor -- which is impossible, because legislative aides aren't allowed to lobby.

Melhman & Co. started out as a mostly GOP shop, but ever since 2006 has been cultivating its Democratic Party connections.

Labor has mobilized people and money in unprecedented amounts to get the Employee Free Choice Act passed. But at the end of the day, the money and connections of the corporate opposition -- including Democratic lobbyists -- may carry the day.

[* * *]

Chris Kromm is director the Institute for Southern Studies and publisher of Facing South, where this article originally appeared.

IMF: Advanced economies will shrink by "unprecedented" 3.8% in 2009

[From: www.australia.to Story written by Wayne Swan; edited for length]

IMF World Economic Outlook April 2009:

["the deepest global recession since the Great Depression," "a longer, deeper global recession," "The IMF expects every advanced economy except Cyprus to contract in 2009." " ... there is a real danger that the global economy will continue to deteriorate for a protracted period."]

In its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) released overnight, the IMF paints a bleak outlook for the global economy, and particularly for advanced economies, which are expected to contract by an unprecedented 3.8 per cent in 2009.

The IMF notes that "the global economy is in a severe recession inflicted by a massive financial crisis and acute loss of confidence". It expects the global economy to contract by 1.3 per cent in 2009.

The IMF notes that "by any measure, this downturn represents by far the deepest global recession since the Great Depression"....

The IMF now envisages financial market stabilisation to take longer than previously expected and cautions that even once the crisis is over, growth may take some time to recover.

Against this backdrop, the IMF now expects a longer, deeper global recession. This latest report contains the fifth downgrade of the IMF's global growth forecasts in just over six months, illustrating just how rapidly the global economy has deteriorated....

Deep recessions are forecast for all major advanced economies. The United States is expected to contract by 2.8 per cent in 2009, the euro area by 4.2 per cent, the UK by 4.1 per cent and Japan by 6.2 per cent. The IMF expects every advanced economy except Cyprus to contract in 2009....

The IMF expects the global economy will recover gradually in 2010. However, it cautions that recovery will only be achieved if authorities continue efforts to heal the financial sector, while continuing to support demand with monetary and fiscal easing. The IMF warns that there is a real danger that the global economy will continue to deteriorate for a protracted period.

The global recession has severely eroded government budgets around the world, with budget deficits for major advanced economies expected to reach 10½ per cent in 2009....

Cancel the prohibition against US residents traveling to Cuba, Robert Kennedy's daughter asks

[Translated from http://www.aporrea.org/]

Cancel the prohibition against US residents traveling to Cuba, Robert Kennedy's daughter asks
By David Brooks in La Jornada 24/04/09


New York, April 23: At the end of 1963, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy sought to cancel the prohibition on travel to Cuba, and now his daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, has said that President Barack Obama should consider this and support legislative initiatives to permit everyone in the US freely to travel to Cuba.

In official documents declassified by the National Security Archive research center, it is recorded that on December 12, 1963, less than a month after the assassaination of John F. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy sent a message to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, urging that regulations prohibiting travel by US residents to Cuba, be withdrawn.... He was trying to reverse the prohibition on travel imposed by his brother's administration.

Robert Kennedy argued that the prohibition violated US freedoms. According to the document, he asserted that the current restrictions on travel are inconsistent with traditional freedoms in the US.

But that position did not win the argument inside the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson; the State Department expressed the opinion that suspending the restrictions would be perceived as a weakening of the policy towards Cuba that formed part of a common effort by the United States and other republics of the Americas to isolate Cuba. The official documents can be consulted at http://www.nsarchive.org/

In an opinion piece by Kathleen Kennedy published today in the Washington Post, Robert Kennedy's daughter expresses her wish that her father's position should be adopted by Barack Obama's administration, and that it should be the position promoted by Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., while the Obama administration considers its next step with Cuba, which should be to move beyond allowing only Cuban-Americans to travel freely to the island and should deal with the rights of all US residents, most of whom are not allowed to go to Cuba.

Kathleen Kennedy writes that, as Obama learned at last weekend's Summit, Latin American leaders adopted a common message on Cuba: now is the moment to normalize relations with Havana ... By continuing to try to isolate Cuba, they essentially said to Obama, Washington has only succeeded in isolating itself.

Thus, the niece of the President who tried to invade and overthrow the Cuban revolutionary government and impose the blockade, is joining a constantly growing chorus in favor of reversing those policies established fifty years ago.

6 years in prison for airing Hezbollah TV in NYC!

[From: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jp299Ir4bFhwRyM_7lpd_zLEU1EgD97OF46G1]
[Bye-bye, First Amendment! ]

6 years in prison for airing Hezbollah TV in NYC
By LARRY NEUMEISTER – 4 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — A Pakistani immigrant described by prosecutors as "Hezbollah's man in New York City" was sentenced Thursday to nearly six years in prison for airing the militant group's television station.

U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman handed down a sentence of five years and nine months to Javed Iqbal, who had pleaded guilty in December to providing aid to a terrorist organization.

Iqbal, 45, admitted as part of a plea agreement that he used satellite dishes on his Staten Island home to distribute broadcasts of Al Manar, the TV station of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which has been fighting Israel since the early 1980s and has been branded by the U.S. government as a terrorist group.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Snyder said Iqbal recruited Al Manar, even traveling to "the belly of the beast, South Beirut," to meet with its general manager.

"He was, in a very real sense, Hezbollah's man in New York City," Snyder said.

Snyder said Iqbal bought special satellite equipment to allow Al Manar to provide 24-hour programming from November 2005 through May 2006 so Hezbollah could use it to recruit followers and suicide bombers. Prosecutors said Iqbal's business was paid $28,000 monthly for at least five months for airing the station to its North American customers.

Iqbal's lawyer, Josh Dratel, said his client didn't intend to aid Hezbollah as he tried to build his Brooklyn-based satellite television company, HDTV Limited.

Dratel called the airing of Al Manar "one discreet and narrow aspect" of an otherwise legitimate broadcasting company that also aired Christian programming, adult entertainment, a Jamaican channel and a gay and lesbian channel.

Before Iqbal was sentenced, he had Dratel read aloud a statement he had written. The statement said that he did not make any profit by airing Al Manar and that the resulting criminal charges had "hurt me financially, emotionally and physically."

It asked for leniency from the judge.

In court papers, Dratel argued that Iqbal does not possess any ideology sympathetic to terrorism or other political doctrine, and he noted that one of HDTV's partners was a city police officer.

"He is a businessman and sought to provide services he thought would generate profits," Dratel wrote.

Iqbal, who has lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years, will most likely be deported once he has completed his prison sentence, Dratel said. Iqbal, a former car mechanic, is married with five children and a sixth child due in July.

The August 2006 arrest of Iqbal initially sparked a First Amendment battle, with claims by his lawyers that he was no different from major news companies and Internet providers, some of which permit live streaming broadcasts of Al Manar. But the arguments were rejected by the court, and there was no mention of the First Amendment at the sentencing.

Hezbollah recently has taken a moderate tone before Lebanon's June 7 parliamentary elections

Just like Bush, Obama will *not* prosecute CIA torturers

[From news.antiwar.com]

Emanuel: Obama Won’t Prosecute Officials Over Interrogations
Policy Makers Apparently Off the Hook for Harsh Treatment of Suspects
by Jason Ditz, April 19, 2009 [Sunday]

Speaking today on ABC’s “This Week” program, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said that President Barack Obama has not only no intention of prosecuting individual interrogators for following guidance of dubious legality regarding interrogations, but that policymakers and lawyers involved in drafting the guidance in the first place won’t face prosecution either.

“It’s not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back and any sense of anger and retribution,” Emanuel insisted, saying that the practices laid out in the released torture memos aren’t being used anymore. The White House released the redacted memos last week over the objection of officials from the Bush Administration, insisting there was no legal basis to keep the memos a secret.

The memos from the Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel were released (albeit redacted) Thursday after a long Freedom of Information Act battle between the government and the ACLU. They detailed the Justice Department’s legal advice regarding a shocking array of interrogation methods, from waterboarding to insect-based interrogations.

Bush-era officials and their supporters condemned the release, saying that it would fuel fear of recriminations among interrogators in the future, despite the Obama pledge not to charge any of them for all the laws they broke. However, Obama also was harshly criticized for the pledge, giving de facto immunity to torturers. In the end the president aimed for a middle ground - providing transparency without accountability, which ultimately satisfied virtually no one.

US--71% of us believe the criminal US trade embargo against CUBA should be lifted

[Translated from aporrea.org, Caracas]

71% of US citizens favor lifting the embargo against CUBA
By Telam Published on 4/19/2009

Former US diplomat Wayne Smith maintained that "71% of the citizens of the United States believe that relations with Cuba must be normalized, and the embargo must be lifted." "The opinion polls show that a majority of people in the US, around 71%, believe we should normalize relations and completely lift the embargo," Smith, a civil servant assigned to Havana during the 1959 Cuban Revolution, said. In an interview for the daily paper Página 12, the 76 year old former diplomat asserted that "there is a great deal of support for lifting the embargo against Cuba, but make no mistake, that support will not be reflected in crowds protesting and demonstrating in the streets in favor of Cuba," Smith anticipated. Smith worked with John F. Kennedy as one of his advisors for the region; Jimmy Carter named him to be the number one man in the new US Affairs Office in Havana. Smith recalled that "Cuba did not put restrictions on the trips of US citizens, nor did it block trade with the US," referring to recent decisions by the Barack Obama administration regarding Cuba. "If I know the Cubans a little, I know they will not accept conditions for so little; they never did that for anyone, and they will do it even less for Washington," the former official concluded. Smith warned that "until now we have not seen a change in United States policy towards Cuba," and the Department of State "goes on without speaking with the Cuban Interests Office in Washington and the United States Office in Havana, nor do they have a formal relationship with the Cuban diplomatic service." "The United States' policy towards the island is the same, and, regardless of what they may say in Washington, the ball is still in the United States' court," he related. Smith said US President Barack Obama "promised many changes in the election campaign, but I have the feeling that we won't see them." However, " it must not be forgotten that opposition to the blockade is growing stronger" in the US. In this connection, he reported that "the opinion polls show that the majority of those in the US, around 71%, believe we should normalize relations and completely lift the embargo." Finally, the former diplomat indicated that "changes from the United States could push Cuba a little from the pure socialist system, but it does not have that now," and he remarked that "beyond the adjustments that must take place, I believe the Cuban government is reasonably prepared to control the changes."

US--Average CEO made $10.4 million in 2008

[From: http://www.mediamouse.org/]

Average CEO Earned $10.4 Million in 2008

The AFL-CIO has launched its annual "PayWatch" website which reports that the average CEO received $10.4 million in total compensation in 2008.

According to the AFL-CIO: Even as the U.S. economy went into a tailspin, the median salary for CEOs of 200 large corporations increased by 4.5 percent to $1.08 million. On top of that, these corporations keep plying executives with generous freebies, despite the public outcry over private jets and other executive perks.

...the perks for executives rose on average by 12.5 percent in 2008 to $336,248--or nine times the median salary of a full-time worker. Even more appalling is the practice of rewarding executives who drive their companies into the ground.

For example, the site reports that in 2007--the year the financial crisis began to unfold--the top 10 recipients of the federal government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) collectively paid their CEOs a combined $242 million in total annual compensation. That averages nearly $25 million per CEO to run companies that might have gone bankrupt if not for billions of dollars in taxpayer assistance.

While CEO pay is down from 2007, it still dramatically outpaces earnings by workers. CEO pay has grown at an astronomical rate since 1980 when the average CEO earned 42 times what the average worker earned. In 2007, that had grown to 344 times.

The AFL-CIO also highlights a number of practices from stock options to retention bonuses that are keeping CEO pay high even as public outrage of CEO pay grows.

All of this is another reminder of why we need reforms like the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) to level the playing field between workers and CEOs. Strong unions and a revitalized labor movement are essential to reversing this dynamic.

US soldier apologizes to Afghan legislator for US occupation of Afghanistan

Published on Wednesday, April 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

An Apology for an Occupation

Apology of US Sergeant Matthis Chiroux to Afghan leader Malalai Joya

by Matthis Chiroux/Malalai Joya/Elsa Rassbach

On April 21st, 2009, U.S. Sergeant Matthis Chiroux, 25, faces Army prosecution in St. Louis, Missouri for publicly refusing to deploy to Iraq last summer. Like many other resisters, Chiroux was in military service for many years before he came to the conclusion that the wars and occupations in Iraq and in Afghanistan are wrong and found the courage to speak out. Since last summer he has been a key activist in the U.S. veterans' organization, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).

Malalai Joya, 31, is the youngest person to become a member of the Afghan Parliament (one of 68 women elected to the 249-seat National Assembly, or Wolesi Jirga, in 2005); after she spoke out against the fundamentalists and former warlords in parliament, she was suspended. She was one of 1,000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, is one of the World Economic Forum's 250 Global Leaders for 2007, and was nominated for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament. In 2007, she was in Berlin and spoke at the Human Rights Commission of the German Parliament. She heads the non-governmental group Organization for Promoting Afghan Women's Capabilities (OPAWC) in the west of Afghanistan. She has survived many assassination attempts and can only travel in Afghanistan with armed guards.

From April 1st to 5th, Chiroux joined peace activists in Germany and France to speak out against NATO and the war and occupation in Afghanistan. If not jailed by the U.S. Army on April 21st, he will join European peace activists in Ireland on April 26th for their campaign against the use of Shannon airfield by the U.S. military.

On April 4th, at a large demonstration in Strasbourg, France, Chiroux planned to publicly apologize to Afghan peace activist Malalai Joya for participating in the occupation of her country; however, before he could do so, the demonstration was disrupted by attacks of the French police. He made his apology instead on April 5, 2009, at the NATO Congress in Strasbourg. Published on Wednesday, April 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Read the text of Sgt. Chiroux' apology and an interview with him at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/15-4

Obama, "an imperialist with charm," defeats the anti-war movement

First Black President Defeats U.S. Antiwar Movement

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The arrival of the Obama administration has crippled the U.S. anti-war movement, which has neither the fortitude nor political depth to confront imperialism with a Black face. The Out of Iraq caucus on Capitol Hill might as well call itself the Out of Action caucus, since it can’t figure out a way to respond to President Obama’s expanding military budgets and wars. National anti-war organizations cling to the fiction that Obama is really seeking a military withdrawal from Iraq. “The anti-war movement has hit rock-bottom because of its failure to challenge this particular president, an imperialist with charm, a warmonger with a winning smile."

First Black President Defeats U.S. Antiwar Movement
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Obama pretends he wants peace, and anti-war members of Congress pretend to believe him.”

In the streets, on the campuses and on Capitol Hill, the anti-war movement is no longer moving anywhere. It has been crippled by the Obama Effect, the deep and wide delusion that imperialism with a Black face is somehow – something else. When a movement disbands itself without coming even close to achieving its objective, that is a defeat. We can now definitively state that, for the time being, the U.S. anti-war movement has been defeated – not by Republicans, but by Barack Obama’s Democratic Party.

A recent article in The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress, relates a meeting among staffers for Out of Iraq caucus leaders Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey. They were supposed to come up with a response to President Obama’s announcement that he would immediately send 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, with lots more to come. Obama is determined to leave at least 50,000 troops in Iraq for an open-ended period of time under the guise of “training” the Iraqis, and is rapidly merging Afghanistan and Pakistan into one theater of war, called Af-Pak. Clearly, the Obama administration is expanding its war in Af-Pak, and has no intention of ending the U.S. military presence in Iraq – ever. The staffers for the Out of Iraq caucus leaders spent two hours trying to come up with a position. They failed.

For all intents and purposes, the Out of Iraq caucus has ceased to function. Black Congresswomen Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters have at times shown great courage in the face of stupendous odds. But they will not confront Barack Obama, even when he expands the arenas of war, claims that combat soldiers are merely trainers and advisers, and pushes through a war budget that is bigger than any of George Bush’s war budgets. Obama pretends he wants peace, and anti-war members of Congress pretend to believe him.

“The anti-war movement has hit rock-bottom because of its failure to challenge this particular president.”

Another Capitol Hill publication, the Congressional Quarterly, recently ran an article on the low demonstration turn-out and money woes of the anti-war movement. A March 21st rally at the Pentagon drew pitiful numbers of demonstrators, only 3,000 according to police. Organizers claim they can’t raise money these days, and have been forced to cut staff. A spokesperson for ANSWER, the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition, said the peace movement is seeing the impact of the “promises the Obama campaign made.” Outgoing United for Peace and Justice leader Leslie Cagan says her money people aren’t giving because “It’s enough for many of them that Obama has a plan to end the war and that things are moving in the right direction.”

But Obama has no plans or intention to end his wars except on imperialism’s own terms – which means never-ending war, just like under Bush – a basic truth that United for Peace and Justice refuses to recognize or admit. ANSWER organizers also fail to confront the Obama White House head-on. The Congressional Quarterly article concludes that the anti-war movement is suffering from the results of “its own success.” That’s absolute nonsense. The anti-war movement has hit rock-bottom because of its failure to challenge this particular president, an imperialist with charm, a warmonger with a winning smile. Obama has whipped them, but good. And they will stay whipped, until they stand up like men, like women, like leaders. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

Bombing civilians: An American tradition

[From History News Network , via marxmail.org]

4-13-09

Bombing Civilians: An American Tradition

By Marilyn B. Young

Ms. Young is a professor of history at New York University. This excerpt originally appeared in Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth-Century History edited by Yuki Tanaka and Ms. Young.

Airpower embodies American technology at its most dashing. At regular intervals, the air force and allied technocrats claim that innovations in air technology herald an entirely new age of warfare. Korea and Vietnam were, so to speak, living laboratories for the development of new weapons: the 1,200-pound radio-guided Tarzon bomb (featured in Korean-era Movietone newsreels); white-phosphorous-enhanced napalm; cluster bombs (CBUs) carrying up to 700 bomblets, each bomblet containing 200 to 300 tiny steel balls or fiberglass fléchettes; delayed-fuse cluster bombs; airburst cluster bombs; toxic defoliants; varieties of nerve gas; sets of six B 52s, operating at altitudes too high to be heard on the ground, capable of delivering up to thirty tons of explosives each. A usual mission consisted of six planes in formation, which together could devastate an area one half mile wide by three miles long. Older technologies were retrofitted: slow cargo planes (“Puff the Magic Dragon”) equipped with rapid-fire machine guns capable of firing 6,000 rounds a minute; World War I– era Skyraiders, carrying bomb loads of 7,500 pounds and fitted with four 20-millimeter cannon that together fired over 2,000 rounds per minute.

Read the whole story at: <http://hnn.us/articles/67717.html>

Obama asks $83.4 billion more for Bush's wars

[From wire.antiwar.com] [IIRC, some time ago, a prominent economist (Stiglitz?) estimated the total cost of US aggressions in the Middle East as $3 trillion, so the "almost $1 trillion" figure in the following story has already been challenged by a knowledgeable source. Also, I seem to remember reading that when Obama was in the US Senate, he actually voted *in favor* of funding Bush's wars, at least 9 times, contrary to the impression created by the following text. Finally, we will soon be able to watch congressional Democrats tripping over each other in their eagerness to vote tens of billions more for wars they have occasionally claimed to oppose. I repeat: The Democrats are NO alternative and NO solution.-- YM]

Obama to seek $83.4 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan wars as costs near $1 trillion

ANDREW TAYLOR AP News Apr 09, 2009 13:56 EST

President Barack Obama is seeking $83.4 billion for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, pressing for a war supplemental spending bill like the ones he repeatedly voted against when he was senator and George W. Bush was president.

Obama's request would push the costs of the two wars to almost $1 trillion since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, according to the Congressional Research Service. The additional money would cover operations into the fall.

Budget office spokesman Tom Gavin said the White House will send an official request to Congress Thursday afternoon. Congressional aides briefed on the request revealed its overall cost on condition of anonymity since the briefing was private.

Obama was a harsh critic of the Iraq war as a candidate, a stance that attracted support from the Democratic Party's liberal base and helped him secure his party's nomination. He opposed a war spending bill in 2007 after Bush used a veto to force Congress to remove a withdrawal timeline from the $99 billion measure.

The upcoming request will include $75.5 billion for the military and more than $7 billion in foreign aid.

Obama announced plans in February to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq on a 19-month timetable.

Obama's request would push the amount approved for 2009 to about $150 billion, a drop from the $171 billion cost incurred in 2007 and the $188 billion approved for 2008, when Bush increased the tempo of military operations in a generally successful effort to quell the Iraq insurgency.