Southeast Asia: U.S. Revives And Expands Cold War Military Alliances Against China by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
June 9, 2012

On May 30 the two officials most in charge of the U.S.’s formidible global military machine, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, visited Pacific Command headquarters in Hawaii to launch multi-nation tours of the Asia-Pacific region and formally commence the announced shift of American military concentration and assets to the area.

American Exceptionalism to the Rescue by Bruce Gagnon

by Bruce Gagnon
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
June 4, 2012

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

U.S. Secretary of War Leon Panetta is making a tour of the Asia-Pacific where he is pumping up the next military conflict.  Yesterday I heard he was in Vietnam trying to close a deal to allow the U.S. Navy to once again have access to the base at Cam Ranh Bay.

Before leaving on this trip Panetta made the speaking rounds back home to consolidate U.S. media and build public support for Obama’s “pivot” into the Asia-Pacific. 

Pentagon Prepares for Confrontation in the Asia-Pacific by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
June 2, 2012

In January of this year the three officials in charge of U.S. global military strategy and operations – commander-in-chief President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey – unveiled the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance, entitled “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense,” which officially confirmed American plans to increase its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region to counter China, now the world’s second-largest economy.

The Democrats are a damn disaster by Bruce Gagnon

by Bruce Gagnon
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
May 27, 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to reign in the Pentagon budget in order that social progress could be maintained and flourish across the land.

Today’s headline in the Washington Post makes my blood boil: Panetta warns both parties on defense budget cuts.

U.S.’s Post-Afghanistan Counterinsurgency War: Colombia by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
April 23, 2012

Image map of Colombia and Venezuela with subdivisions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Pentagon announced on April 23 that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has begun a trip to South America, arriving in Colombia as part of a three-nation tour that will also take him to Brazil and Chile.

It is his first visit to the continent as Pentagon chief, though he has visited often in other capacities, including as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta’s meetings with top government and military officials in the three nations will follow those of America’s top military officer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, to Colombia and Brazil late last month.

The Holy Triumvirate — The United States, NATO, and the European Union by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
April 6, 2012

Putting Syria into some perspective

The Holy Triumvirate — The United States, NATO, and the European Union — or an approved segment thereof, can usually get what they want. They wanted Saddam Hussein out, and soon he was swinging from a rope. They wanted the Taliban ousted from power, and, using overwhelming force, that was achieved rather quickly. They wanted Moammar Gaddafi’s rule to come to an end, and before very long he suffered a horrible death. Jean-Bertrand Aristide was democratically elected, but this black man who didn’t know his place was sent into distant exile by the United States and France in 2004. Iraq and Libya were the two most modern, educated and secular states in the Middle East; now all four of these countries could qualify as failed states.

Karzai Demand on Night Raids Snags U.S.-Afghan Pact By Gareth Porter and Shah Nouri

by Gareth Porter and Shah Nouri
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at IPS
Feb. 20, 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

WASHINGTON/KABUL, Feb 20, 2012 (IPS) – Nearly a year after the Barack Obama administration began negotiations with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai on a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014, both sides confirmed last week that the talks are still hung up over the Afghan demand that night raids by U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) either be ended or put under Afghan control.

Endemic US/Israeli Double-Think Is Now Normal Discourse by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
East Africa
1 February 2012

Thanks to a subservient mainstream media, we are now fed a constant diet of preposterous double-think from American political leaders and their Israeli minions with regard to Iran and its alleged threat to world security.

In this inadvertently valuable service, the pliant uncritical mainstream media is giving full vent to the most outrageous drivel dressed up as serious discourse. By acting as mouthpieces rather than critical interlocutors, the media are allowing such political figures to indict themselves with their own baseless, contradictory and hypocritical words.

The Grand Ayatollah of nuclear menace by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
Feb. 3, 2012

The Lord High Almighty Pooh-Bah of threats. The Grand Ayatollah of nuclear menace.

As we all know only too well, the United States and Israel would hate to see Iran possessing nuclear weapons. Being “the only nuclear power in the Middle East” is a great card for Israel to have in its hand. But — in the real, non-propaganda world — is USrael actually fearful of an attack from a nuclear-armed Iran? In case you’ve forgotten …

Dennis Kucinich: Military action against Iran would be disastrous

Dandelion Salad

DJKucinich on Feb 3, 2012

During an interview last month on CBS’ Face the Nation, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta set the record straight on Iran: “Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No.” But if you read recent news reports lately, you’d think otherwise.

The media coverage on Iran is mirroring the coverage in the lead-up to the Iraq war: grand claims about a smoking gun that doesn’t exist.

U.S. Leak on Israeli Attack Weakened a Warning to Netanyahu by Gareth Porter

by Gareth Porter
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at IPS
Feb. 4, 2012

WASHINGTON, Feb 4, 2012 (IPS) – When Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told Washington Post columnist David Ignatius this week that he believes Israel was likely to attack Iran between April and June, it was ostensibly yet another expression of alarm at the Israeli government’s threats of military action.

Why I’m Suing Barack Obama by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
Jan. 16, 2012

Image by Shrieking Tree via Flickr

Attorneys Carl J. Mayer and Bruce I. Afran filed a complaint Friday in the Southern U.S. District Court in New York City on my behalf as a plaintiff against Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to challenge the legality of the Authorization for Use of Military Force as embedded in the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act, signed by the president Dec. 31.

Clinton Revives Dubious Charge of “Covert” Iranian Nuclear Site by Gareth Porter + Why Did Def. Sec. Panetta Say Iran Not Building Nukes?

by Gareth Porter
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at IPS
January 11, 2012

WASHINGTON, Jan 11, 2012 (IPS) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s charge Tuesday that Iran had intended to keep the Fordow site secret until it was revealed by Western intelligence revived a claim the Barack Obama administration made in September 2009.

Tax Dollars At War + Defense Secretary Panetta: Wrong on Military Spending

Dandelion Salad

SoftboxFilms on Oct 4, 2011

Based on a “Flashpoints” interview with Dennis Bernstein & Dave Lindorff.

Laying the Groundwork for the Next War: Yemen by Sibel Edmonds

by Sibel Edmonds
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Originally published by Boiling Frogs Post
September 13, 2011

Last Tuesday, following his visit to ground zero, Obama’s New Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned the public of upcoming 9/11-like terrorist attacks. After a decade of war with Al Qaeda, the potential for another devastating terrorist assault “remains very real,” Panetta said, and added that the nature of the terrorist threat has evolved to the point that Al Qaeda “nodes” outside Afghanistan and Pakistan are now the most dangerous, before delivering the most significant part of his fear mongering propaganda-speech: “Yemen has risen to the top of the list.”