The transcript is here, if watching even a few minutes of Obama speaking is just too much for you to bear.
Norman, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about this latest effort by President Obama to get war authorization?
NORMAN SOLOMON: Well, unfortunately, in political terms, it represents a sort of repetition compulsion disorder, back to the future from an administration that came in saying it was going to dispense with the concept—or at least the phraseology—of a war on terror, an administration that even today, through the president’s statement, is again asserting that it’s against endless war, and yet both the statement from the president yesterday and the resolution—and, for that matter, the White House policy—is explicitly endless, perpetual war. And that’s the kind of policy we’re getting.
Our Partners in Peace:
‘No More Rubber Stamps: Five Reasons Congress Should Reject Obama’s ISIS War‘ by Peter Certo
From his internal link to Sarah Lazare, equally or more important:
“The most important question to ask is this: Do we really think that the U.S. military operation against ISIS will bring about a good outcome for the people of Iraq and Syria, or for U.S. society? Is there any evidence from the more than 13 years of the so-called “War on Terror” that U.S. military intervention in the Middle East brings anything but death, displacement, destabilization, and poverty to the people whose homes have been transformed into battlefields?
The answer to these questions must be a resounding “No.”
But there are also many things to say “Yes” to. A better path forward can only be forged by peoples’ movements on the ground in Iraq and Syria — movements that still exist, still matter, and continue to organize for workers’ rights, gender justice, war reparations, and people power, even amid the death and displacement that has swallowed up all the headlines.”
by Anthony Freda
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
I won’t/ can’t listen to the man, read a word he says, or writes, or watch him.
I guess as long as other countries are in worse shape than the USA, this will continue.
Americans aren’t interested in doing anything about it.
Thanks
this version should start at 1:40, after amy cuts away from him. the only times i can listen to him is to prepare for a diary, and if possible, i read the transcripts. if this doesn’t work, i’ll delete it.
no americans aren’t interested in doing anything about, and some who write at antiwar sites are bitter that over isis/isil, the putative left has been silent. that, of course, is a direct result of war propaganda, and media failing on purpose to show their genesis during iraqi shock and awe, then r2p libya, etc.
Nor to explain the situation and original instigation behind the US right-wing call for escalating war against Russia in the Ukraine.
My first thought when hearing pursuit, “anywhere,” includes on US soil against “suspected,” US citizens.
From a resident of the 100-mile Constitutional Free Zone (ACLU).
Thanks wendyedavis,
If it matters, FDL linked to the front page but sidebar selections didn’t want to load.
i’d figured the page was just a snapshot from the wording, dunno though.
ay yi yi: war on anyone we deem worthy of Xing? maybe so. but it’s not just the right wing, unless of course the Prez is…oh: wait! he is. i spent most of the morning reading on minsk II commentary, loads available, of course. lemme see if i can remember the best. (mr. wd read paul craig roberts, but his directives were utterly wrong, imo)
http://www.pressenza.com/2015/02/ukraine-caught-two-outsides/
mark weisbrot rec’d this, and indeed, walt may be the only non-neocon left at FP. i disagree with some of it, but at least it is sane.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/09/how-not-to-save-ukraine-arming-kiev-is-a-bad-idea/
margaret kimberly at BAR ‘war is peace in ukraine’:
http://blackagendareport.com/node/14661
But you’ll love this one:
meanwhile, the press is on to overthrow maduro and chavismo in venezuela; hit pieces are coming hot and heavy, maduro says he interrupted an actual coup, and much to my dismay…ian welsh bought into a NYT concern-troll hit piece. the capitalists may soon get their way. depressing, but not unexpected.
So again, thanks so much for being here and sharing.
If you recall Capper, who subbed briefly for ddayen at FDL almost two years ago, 3 top ten wishlists, on education, healthcare and environment/DNR , of the capitalists (Kochs) hidden in the proposed state budget. So immediate attention is so very close to home, just to survive to fight another day.
http://cognidissidence.blogspot.com/2015/02/governors-groundhog-day-budget.html
Yes capitalists may soon get their way, WI being another Koch/ALEC laboratory against humanity, which makes YOUR efforts to keep us informed on a wider focus all the more important.
(WI is the only state with Senior Care, saving 85K seniors over $90M annually in drug costs over that available through Medicare pD, iirc. A special federal exemption through bipartisan action about 8 years ago established the program. Easy enrollment and low fees, also.)
Well, where are the “vast” numbers of (US 40 ‘regulars’ in St.Pete) war protesters who “stopped” the Obamanable first gaseous ‘red-line’ attack on Syria to stop this nonsense, as well? (Or was it FucKerry’s flub and Putin’s impetus previously all along; and 0 simply ignores US, like his patron Bushs in their previous 1990 and 2003 “Iraq” PNAC Attacks?!)
“2003 “Iraq” PNAC Attacks?’
15,000,000 people protested against that. And yet it went ahead.
people learned that demonstrations don’t change much, so they stopped doing it. That’s what I figure is a part of why nobody demonstrates against war anymore. We were taught that demonstrations won’t stop war.
I don’t know if they ever did.
As long as rest of the world is worse off than the US, the dollar and the stock market are ok. and then the US can pay to keep it going. At least that’s the only thing I can figure out.
Most of the world;s billionaires are Americans. They need to be able to not get arrested, so they need to keep America going as it is.
There’s just nothing on the horizon that makes me think America’s wars will stop. How many people have read Swanson, or hear of sister Rice? .001%?
The armistice in the Ukraine is barely mentioned on Canadian news television/ online. Cause Putin was part of it. The Canadian media is as useless as all the others.
well not nothing on the horizon… climate change is the one that will change things. no matter what the US wants.
Everything’s gonna change a lot over the next few decades.
holy hell, nonquixote; even scanning the gov’s budget notes was horrifying. no eduction needed for private voucher teacher licensing, different tests (well, of course, but so do most online high schools). the senior stuff is disgusting; does AARP not swat back? they used to have some major clout, back in the day.
more snap cuts comin’, but obma would sign the bill, given his pat performances.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/12/amid-lopsided-recovery-republicans-plan-cuts-food-stamp-program
i admit that i am coming to see that the R’s mean to kill us more quickly than the D’s…sometimes.
‘wider focus’: i’ve had a lot of tunnel visions with killings by police and BlackLivesMatter and related other rabble as well. next up is some of that, featuring some class action lawsuits in st. louis.
depending on how long this hiatus lasts, also more of ‘google is not what it seems’. maybe that’s next; it’s quick. the other i have about a hundred links for, as well as the ‘venezuelan coup in real time’ (eva golinger). i swear there are too many issues for our heads to keep swiveling toward. the three muslims murdered in chapel hill, for one. (post he*do, of course)
https://twitter.com/hashtag/chapel%20hill?src=hash
bruce, i know that it’s an article of faith with david swanson that ‘the people’ stopped the US from attacking assad for the gas attacks (that turned out not to have been militarized, if some commenters at fdl had said). but my take it was really the british parliament that put the skids on it.
many also said that the saudis, and indirectly, the US funding ‘freedom fighters’ in syria, which are now isis…oh, the complexities of foreign policy based on temporary ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. (see libya as now a failed state with hundreds of militias at war with one another; and who got the gold?)
‘what will stop the wars, and who?’ is a very big question, mark. but my sense is that it will take a major alliance of affinity groups to unite and create first: a major jamming of the gears of the economic machine, then a nonviolent revolution based on the revolution of values and consciousness that MLK and many indigenous have foretold.
mr. wd and i were discussing the many forms of evil haunting the planet now, and wondering….wondering…postulating…then we got to:
“it’s always darkest…
before lights out.”
not altogether funny just now, but…then there are sooo many nukes, and even mistakes happen.
edited in: i should also have said that dw bartoo is of the opinion that ‘outside forces’ are more likely to stop the wars, although i’m not sure what he imagines.
cripes. while trying to sort links onto their own word documents just now, i ran into this interview with stephen cohen i’d posted a few days ago. i still haven’t watched it all, but the crap jen psaki spewed at the beginning echoed exactly what stephen walt was saying about the failure of US ‘deterrence’ against putin. and why it’s not working, of course. i do think walt’s wrong about the relative unimportance of ukraine to amerrika, though.
dunno which thread this might go, but this just came in from the bureau of investigative journalism’s newsletter:
‘Exclusive: US Senate Intelligence committee corrects CIA torture report after Bureau probe’, February 13, 2015 by Crofton Black
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2015/02/13/us-senate-intelligence-committee-corrects-cia-torture-report/
“The amendments were made after the Bureau, which together with The Rendition Project is investigating many of the details in the torture report, revealed inconsistencies in some figures in the original annex.
As a result the Senate committee discovered other errors and today a spokesman for the committee thanked the Bureau for its work.
The corrections were published on the website of the committee’s former chair, Senator Dianne Feinstein, with a date of February 6.
In one instance, the length of CIA custody of Hassan bin Attash – currently still in Guantánamo Bay after capture in September 2002 – has dropped from approximately 590 days to around 120, almost 16 months.
Three prisoners captured in summer 2003 have also undergone substantial revisions to their custody lengths.
Muhammad Khan, initially recorded as having spent between 10 and 19 days in CIA custody, is now recorded as having been there for around 200 days.” …and so on.
hi wd … it’s me — shootthatarrow — Seeing how FDL in recent days seems to have gone derelict / adrift on a sea of technical / site server contamination difficulties ( or perhaps it is about $$$ difficulties or site malaise / fatigue / political wind(s) vane pointing on the part of essential FDL site owners / operators ) Speculation opens upon several portals at this point.
>>> So — USian Election 2016 — Where USians get to pick either Jeb Bush( R ) or Hillary Clinton ( D ) to pick up from where Barack Obama leaves off ? The Barack Obama who has followed legacy of G.H.W.Bush so well — G.H.W.Bush who was POTUS since 1980 for 8 years after Ronald Reagan was installed by Bush / CIA Cabal plus being ” elected ” in 1988 for 4 more years — So we USians got 12 years of Voodoo Economics Bush then 8 years of Clinton-Bush —The Man From Hope, Arkansas and then 8 years of All Hat Bush and DeadEyeDarth Cheney and then 8 years of No Hope and Change and Not Looking Back No How Slicked Up Obama-Bush just so we can pick from another Bush or The Other Clinton in 2016 … Now how exceptional is that?…
>>> Anyhooo …Just wanted to drop by and and say Hi wd … I then decided to put up a comment on the ” Obama Declares More Never End War ” topic lead above as a first c-b site comment …
>>> Been begun reading ZeroHedge and NakedCapitalism on a more set pattern and will now also visit your c-b site wd regularly seeing how my internet butterflying about is in flux these days … :->
>>> Nice site you have put in place wd here at c-b…
>>> Until again … sta
so nice to see you, arrow; however did you remember this place? re: clinton: take a gander at the info about her and the Lords of Google in that piece; quite instructive. i admit that i probably don’t pay enough attention to presidential politics, perhaps hoping that the next big bubble to burst would be sooner than later, as in: more shizzle hitting the fan, and something large and good might happen before then. yes, hope can spring Infernal, eh? ;)
odd that your comment came in without an email address. and by the way, your FDL name and avatar should work here, as well, since they are both wordpress whatever-ya-call-em.
naked capitalism has one of the smartest commentariats online, and there are times i just can’t follow. like yesterday’s on greece and the absolute deadlines to play ‘let’s make a deal’. zero hedge i guess i mainly read when folks link to it.
yes, there are loads of possibilities for whassup with the site, and a forced rest is almost well met. ;)
as this seems to be the anniversary of the fire-bombing of dresden, the subject of vonnegut’s ‘slaughterhouse 5’ (iirc) as he witnessed it, and grieved in horror, from a bunker underground as a POW, and had billy pilgrim imagining ‘war in reverse’, i go scout up a copy. i sure have been thinking about it the past two days.
do come back, yes.