Inauguration Faces More Than History

The swearing in of Barack Obama makes history as the first US black president. Winning the election with 53% of the vote and riding a hide tide of popularity (79%), he has already been working behind the scenes to make the transition as quickly as possible. 1

He faces a nightmare of problems: the continued and unpopular war in Iraq and Afghanistan, an economic depression, climate change, health care. He comes into office facing a record fiscal deficit--$455 billion for 2008, $1186 billion for 2009...in fact, the CBO's current report shows a continuing deficit through 2019. 2 In addition, the unemployment rate for December was the highest since before 1998. Payroll employment fell by over 1.9 million in the last 4 months of 2008. 3

Last year, 25 banks failed due to tumbling home prices, rising foreclosures, and tighter credit. That's more than in the previous 5 years combined. Two have failed this year already. 4

This year alone, more than $700 billion in corporate loans will come due. Many companies were hoping to borrow more money in order to move that debt further down the road. But the credit market has squeezed them out, just as they have consumers and homeowners. Even companies with strong credit ratings are paying about 5% more than the US govt to borrow money--double the premium they paid a year ago. 5

Where does this leave Obama? He'll have to work with a Congress that is upset with Wall Street for failing to show where the first $350 billion went (though most suspect it purchased other companies, shored up their own debt, and paid internal bonuses). If Wall Streeters fly their corporate jets to the next Congressional session, I hope he impounds them.


Sources:
1. Christian Science Monitor, http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/01/19/american-milestone-obama-inauguration-is-a-moment-of-celebration-reflection/.
2. Congressional Budget Office, http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=9957.
3. US Dept. of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS14000000 and http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm.
4. http://www.13wmaz.com/article/20090117/NEWS04/90117003/1013
5. International Herald Tribune, http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/19/business/debt.1-410735.php.

The Power of Terror & Fear

In 2005, the BBC created a documentary called The Power of Nightmares (available on the web & in about 17 ten-minute segments on YouTube). It discusses how specific individuals in the US felt liberalism led to selfishness and social decay; thus neoconservatism was born. The role of politicians, according to these neoconservatives, should be to create myths for the people--nations battling against evil, for instance--thus giving rise to the use of fear as a tool to control the attitudes of people and shape the future. This goal was to lead not only to the rise of neoconservatism, but also of radical Islamism. A synopsis follows, but this should be required viewing across the country (click on this blog title to get started).

According to the film, the neoconservatives had to defeat Henry Kissinger (Sec. of State at the time) and the results of detente in the Nixon Administration. So they allied themselves with members of the Ford Administration. One of them was Donald Rumsfeld, who became Secretary of Defense; the other was Dick Cheney, the President's Chief of Staff. Despite lack of proof, Rumsfeld used his position to set up an inquiry (called Team B) that Russia was arming itself against the US. They began examining all the available data, but couldn't find anything. So, the team insisted that, because they couldn't find anything, the Soviets had such a sophisticated system that we couldn't detect it! At the same time, the CIA saw evidence of a Soviet collapse. Who was right?

Far be it for Team B to give up. They set up a PR group called the Committee of Present Danger and began airing tv ads. One of their members was Ronald Reagan. The neoconservatives targeted conservative members and their religion. They urged the religious right to engage in politics and the result was neoconservatives found a position in the Reagan Administration.

The neoconservatives continued to push for proof that the Soviet Union was behind all terror in the world. When William Casey became head of the CIA, he asked for a document to give to the President proving this. The CIA responded that they didn't have any, that any information found in such books as The Terror Network, was made up--by the CIA. Casey had made up his mind, so he found a University professor, described as a terror expert, who created a dossier that such a terror network did, in fact, exist. Thus Reagan signed a secret document in 1983 that changed American foreign policy. America would fight covert wars to push back the Soviet threat.

So, can you wonder that the US helped the rebels in Afghanistan against the Soviets? CIA agents trained the Muhadeen in terror attacks, including car bombings. In addition, Arabs were called to join the fight, hence combining a disparate group of jihadists & extremists for the first time. This was in 1985 and included Osama bin Laden and Zuwahari (the radical implicated in the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1979). These radicals started to believe that any politician or anyone participating in politics was setting themselves above the Koran and could legitimately be killed. Since America was the source of this corruption, it became the chief target.

In 1987, then Russian President Gorbachev decided to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and focus on the Soviet economy. Gorbachev asked the Americans for help negotiating a peace to create a stable Afghan govt, but hardliners in the US said "no." The future of that country would be with the "freedom fighters." Gorbachev warned the US that extremists would take over and not introduce democracy. His warning was ignored. Hence, both the US and the Muhadeen felt they were responsible for the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1989. The real reason the USSR collapsed was because it was a decrepit system.

Across the world, extreme Islamists rode to power. They believed the Koran was the absolute power; this could end democracy. In Algeria, elections were cancelled & the military stepped in to stop them. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was banned from political power. To the extremists, this was proof of western corruption. Bin Laden and others decided it was time to start their own jihad, to establish Islamist states through bullets and violence.

In the US, the neoconservatives felt they had brought down the Soviet Union. They felt other regimes had to be conquered as well, that America should always fight tyrants because they're going to come after us anyway. Saddam Hussein was one of their targets. He invaded Kuwait in 1990 and the US coalition went in to liberate that country. The neoconservatives wanted to push on into Iraq, but Bush senior, who didn't share their goals, felt the goal should be regional stability. Even Brent Snowcroft, the National Security advisor under Bush Sr, insisted that Hussein was not a threat. The neoconservatives were outraged.

The neocons dusted off their propaganda machine again, using religion for political uses. They called it the Culture Wars. The religious right were led to believe they were renewing and expanding their faith. The new campaign took over the Republican Party's policy making machine in 1992. Traditional conservatives were booed off the stage. Their tactics backfired: many voters were scared into voting for Bill Clinton, a moderate Democrat. The neocons would do to Clinton what they'd done to the Soviets--transform him into a fantasy evil. They accused him of corruption (Whitewater), murder (Vince Foster's White House suicide), drug smuggling and alleged sexual harassment. None of them was true. It took an affair to bring an impeachment attempt (despite polls that most Americans didn't care).

During this time, the jihadists, who had thought the people would rise up and join them, were dismayed. Governments remained in power, so they decided that the people were also corrupt. By 1997, the Islamist revolution had failed because people were shocked by all the brutal attacks. At that point, the jihadists started to kill each other. In May 1998, the jihadist called a press conference and announced they would support anyone who fought Americans all over the world. If they struck the Americans, it would impress their own people. The neocons grabbed on this group and decided to influence Americans into believing they were a large and wide-spread threat.

The jihadists set up training camps in Afghanistan, though most of those who joined did so in order to fight their own governments. Meanwhile, in America, testimony by an alleged associate of Bin Laden, painted a picture of a group he called al-Qaeda as responsible for bombings around the world--a new myth. Then 19 hijackers attacked America.

The neocons immediately blamed al-Qaeda, led by Bin Laden. The attack brought the neocons back into power: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz (mentioned earlier in the film) and others. Just as they'd done with the Soviet Union, they did with the network of evil--terrorism. Rumsfeld claimed Bin Laden was in Tora Bora (northern Afghanistan) in a sophisticated network of caves. Such caves were never found. The truth was that the small group of radical Islamists had already died or been captured. There was no organization of cells, sleeper cells, etc. The idea was what posed a threat.

The neocons continued to believe the myth and decided to look in America for terrorists. Local officials arrested many around the country in what was described as "sleeper cells." However, in all the cases they've brought since 9/11, the government has failed to prove any of them. This includes alleged threats in Britain. They failed to prove the fantasy that a network of terrorists existed all over the world. The next fantasy was the so called "dirty bomb." The government claimed terrorists had the capability to build one, an explosive that would spread radiation. However, experts (and even our own government) had already proved the effectiveness of "dirty bombs' was negligible.

Now that the neocons saw that the fear of terrorism was working with the American people, they then targeted Saddam Hussein. Despite the fact that Hussein banned al-Qaeda from Iraq and had no weapons of mass destruction, the government insisted otherwise and attacked.

The war on terror allowed governments to play on people's fear of the future. They embraced the "precautionary principle," the idea that governments should imagine what could happen in the worst case scenario and should plan accordingly. They could jail anyone for what they might do in the future. This went against human and legal rights. The affects are still being felt today.

Update: A Jan. 19, 2009 article, RussiaToday documents the 8 years of Bush.