Memo to President Obama

In the United States, voter registration has never been higher (70 % of the eligible voters ) and yet there has been a steady DECLINE in voter turnout. We had a more than 10 % spike last election after Bin Laden released his video 2 days before the election, and I'm sure there will be another spike this year when Obama becomes the next President. This may placate the masses for a while, but nothing has actually changed. In this day and age of modern technology, a NATIONAL POLL - instituted so the masses can be actively involved in their REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY on a weekly basis, adding in their 2 cents on all the major issues of the week - is the best remedy for ailing voter discontentment. Of course there is probably not one elected official who would ever WANT such a thing, and that has more to do with the FACT that we are a FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC ( google United States, Wikipedia, first sentence ) and NOT a representative democracy. The PEOPLE want to be heard, my most distinguished and learned gentlemen and ladies, or so many of them would not be registering. If you truly want the people to feel positive about politics in general, why not give them an opportunity to become actively involved, say once a week, allowing them to voice their opinions on the major issues. When that day comes to pass, you will have solved voter discontentment in the United States.

Hirsh's article is encouraging pause for thought. However, lots more people than are today willing to admit fell for the idea of the free world having to wage a war on terror. Come to think of it, so did I in the days and weeks following 9/11, although I have never been a Bush supporter. Then again, wouldn't even Hirsh change his mind if America was again attacked, and the masterminds were not from Al Qaeda?

Needless discussion, since ob. will never be president!

Whatever happened to make-my-day Cold War?

Didn't Reagan, the great defense hero, melt down the Soviets with just one Hot War...a weekend run across the mighty nation of Grenada?

After just 25 years of incompetence, the Iranians nearly threw out the ayatollahs a few years back.

Hot War plays to the insurgents' strength. Cold War plays to ours. As we dance to their tune, Reagan rolls over in his grave.

To Tyler Durden: It's "Osama" -not- "Obama".

X.
Obama may talk about ???change,??? but Michael Hirsch is right. The biggest change of all would be facing that fact that America has already been changed drastically by the Bush administration???s ???War on Terror.??? We???re already off in a completely new direction. Congress no longer declares war. The whole world is our enemy, if the President says so. Instead of cooperating with sovereign nations to fight terrorist groups, we declare them enemies, bomb them, and invade them. Especially if they have oil. Journalists are ???embedded??? with the invading troops and told what to report. The President decides which parts of laws he will follow and which he won???t.
We???ve seen what happens by pursuing the War on Terror.
Why not try pursing the Peace of Common Sense?

IX.
Two weeks later, on October 7th, the USA unleashed its military power on the hapless country of Afghanistan. Not Saudi Arabia, where both Osama and the big majority of 9/11 hijackers were really from, but helpless, dirt-poor Afghanistan. True to the President???s promise, these were ???dramatic attacks, visible on TV.??? And the media covered them with red-white-and-blue flags. Bombs bursting in air, our flag was still there. Obama, however, wasn???t there. He was allowed to escape.
Then, on October 26, the USA P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act was passed by a Congress that almost unanimously rubber-stamped it without reading it.
And, as anyone who???s paying attention now knows, the Cheney/Bush administration had already begun its plans to move its ???war on terror??? into Iraq. Of course that took another year to get going. But it???ll be six years any day now, and it???s pretty damn clear that all the ???war on terror??? has brought Iraq, not peace and stability, but only more war, and more terror.

VIII.
America, on offense! All over the world! For ever and ever! You could just see it shining in his eyes. Everything had changed. A week ago, he was a laughingstock, a candidate for one of the worst Presidents ever. Suddenly, everything had changed. Now - finally - he was a war president. And the war he had declared was the greatest war ever in the whole world. It belonged not just to America, but ???the whole civilized world.??? It was a war on terror itself. Our President was going to punish terror. Our President was going to answer terror.
The very last questions in American minds, said the President was ???What is expected of us???? His answers: Live your lives, and hug your children. Be calm and resolute. Uphold the values of America. Support the victims. Cooperate with the FBI. Be patient with tighter security in the long struggle. Be confident in the economy. And pray.
It was that speech, not 9/11, that ???changed everything.???

VII.
And then our President threw down his famous gauntlet to the rest of the world. ???Every nation, in every region,??? he said, ???now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.???
Our President apparently wanted it to be very clear that he taking not only our country, but the whole world, into new territory, uncharted waters. Our President had just given himself permission, a second time, to declare war, if necessary, on the whole rest of the world.
He then mentioned, for the first time, the words ???Homeland Security.??? He set up Tom Ridge as the Homeland Security ???Czar.??? But, quickly said that defense wasn???t enough. American was going on offense. ???I have a message for our military,??? said our President. ???Be ready. I???ve called the Armed Forces to alert, and there is a reason. The hour is coming when America will act, and you will make us proud.???

VI.
We were now in completely new territory, where the old rules - including the Constitution- were definitely out the window. Our President had not only just declared war, all by himself, on a single sovereign foreign country. He had also given himself permission to declare war on any other countries he wanted to, for as long as he wanted to. And it seemed that almost everyone in Congress was standing up and applauding.
Having given the answer of endless, unlimited war to the first question he said Americans were asking, our President moved the second question he said we were asking: ???Why do they hate us???? His answer: ???they hate our freedoms.??? He linked them to fascism, Nazism, totalitarianism. And said they would be joining those lies in the grave of history.
There were only two unanswered questions left in American minds. The next, said our President, was ???How ill we fight and win this war???? And immediately he repeated the ???endless??? theme. This new war wasn???t going to be like anything else in our history. It would go on and on. There would be ???dramatic strikes, visible on TV,??? but there would also be ???covert operations, secret even in success.???

V.
This was no diplomatic offer, with a face-saving way the Taliban could respond to by saying they were against the taking of human life and would cooperate in finding the terrorists. It was a flat-out demonization of the Taliban and a declaration of war against them and their country. What our President was saying was, this was your fault, Taliban. It wasn???t just some terrorist weirdos. It was you. You did this. Your country. So from now on, your country???s ass is ours. Do whatever we say, exactly what we say, and exactly when we say it, or we???re going to bomb your country back into the stone age.
In little more than a minute, the President had gone from America the Attacked to America the Attacker.
And then, for the first time, came the phrase that has re-defined America ever since: ???the war on terror.???
???Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda,??? said the President,??? but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.???

IV.
???Americans have many questions tonight,??? said our President. ???Americans are asking: Who attacked our country???? And he pointed to Al Qaeda, using the word ???terrorist??? for the first time. Then he used the word ???terror,??? and ???terrorists,??? and ???the tactics of terror.??? He said they we hiding around the world, ???in places like Afghanistan,??? ???to plot evil and destruction.??? He said that Al Queda supported the Taliban regime. Then he said that the United States respects the people of Afghanistan, ???but we condemn the Taliban regime. He said that it was ???committing murder??? by aiding and abetting Al Quaeda. And then he started making demands on the government of this Afghanistan. A big list, a list ???not open to negotiation or discussion??? or that had to be done ???immediately.??? All Al Qaeda leaders had to be delivered to the US, all foreign nationals released, all journalists, diplomats and aid workers protected, every terrorist camp closed every single terrorist and every person in their support structure handed over, and the US given full access to all terrorist training camps. Or else. Or else ???they will share in their fate.???

III.
The President then went positive for a bit, thanking the world for its support, saying we would never forget. He ended by thanking Tony Blair, who had ???crossed an ocean to show his unity of purpose with America.???
Then he launched into a theme that has almost completely defined everything in American life ever since.
First, he re-defined that the attack of 9/11 was ???an act of war.??? Not ???an act of terrorism,??? but ???an act of war.??? And he immediately started talking about all the other wars we???ve been through. This time, though, he said, it???s different. After 9/11, he said, ???night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.???
This was entirely different from what we???d felt over the weekend. The energy he was evoking had nothing whatever to do with healing or rebuilding. This was about something very, very different.

III.
The President then went positive for a bit, thanking the world for its support, saying we would never forget. He ended by thanking Tony Blair, who had ???crossed an ocean to show his unity of purpose with America.???
Then he launched into a theme that has almost completely defined everything in American life ever since.
First, he re-defined that the attack of 9/11 was ???an act of war.??? Not ???an act of terrorism,??? but ???an act of war.??? And he immediately started talking about all the other wars we???ve been through. This time, though, he said, it???s different. After 9/11, he said, ???night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.???
This was entirely different from what we???d felt over the weekend. The energy he was evoking had nothing whatever to do with healing or rebuilding. This was about something very, very different.

II.
That hit me in my gut. What our President was saying to the nation, and to the listening world, was that the distinction between bringing our enemies to justice, and bringing justice to our enemies - didn???t matter. On the surface, as just words, it seemed almost harmless, just a changing around of the order of the words. But in our guts, everyone knew exactly where he was going with this. By making that distinction irrelevant, he was equating justice with revenge. The kind of ???justice??? that comes from gun barrels and missile launchers. He was saying, all rules are off the table. We???re gonna string up the bad guys. And whether we give ???em a trial or not first - that doesn???t matter. My stomach started turning over.
Within two sentences, he was talking about the $40 billion that Americans had given in response to 9/11. He called it money ???to rebuild our communities??? - but then he tacked on another phrase - ???and meet the needs of our military.???

I have to agree that by referring to our hunting down of Al-Qaeda as the War on Terror by this President a real disservice has been done to the American people. By dumping any and every group of people that we don't agree with including Al-Qaeda together this president has done a great disservice to the future of this country. There is no doubt that our quarrel is with Al-Qaeda and not with everybody else in the Muslim world. This war will never end as such, and any body that proposes differently will be lynched or destroyed.
We do have a lynch mentality. Yes, somebody like Obama could try and rationalize this problem. But, lets be frank, with the existing ignorance about these matters in America he would never make it to the presidency. I think that because of this that we will continue in this war for many years to come. And the conservatives will be happy to continue it. The cost, well, as long as the taxes to the very wealthy continue to be cut at the expense of the middle and low income classes things will continue as is. Too bad. Things could be different if everybody would pause and use their little grey cells.

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