CS: The United States may be on the cusp of a double dip recession and the government (the President and Congress) appears to be on the verge of making the same mistake Franklin Roosevelt made in 1937 — namely moving to reduce the federal deficit before the recovery was locked into place. Most historians now agree that FDR's move prolonged the Great Depression and made it more miserable for the working classes. The fundamental issue was then and is today a question of values: Is reducing the deficit (favoring the monied classes) more important than reducing unemployment (favoring the greater mass of middle and lower classes)? In the attached essay, my good friend Marshall Auerback argues that reducing unemployment is more important.
President Obama is Hoisted on His Own Budget-Busting Petard
by Marshall Auerback, New Deal 2.0, 22 Jun3 2010
All it takes is simple accounting to stop obsessing about the deficit and start focusing on unemployment.
CS: As is (2).
Punishing Turkey
by Philip Giraldi, Antiwar.com, June 24, 2010
Switch to Petraeus Betrays Afghan Policy Crisis
by Gareth Porter, Antiwar.com, June 24, 2010
Phi Beta Iota: Ignore the nonsense fed to the journalist by the Kilcullen crowd. Two farces do not make a force.
CS: An excellent critique of COIN.
Rolling Stone Article’s True Focus: Counterinsurgency
23 June 2010
“COIN doctrine [is] an oxymoron.”
– Chief Adm. Eric Olson, U.S. Special Operations Command
CS: Portrait of a jerk with his hair on fire.
The Runaway General, Rolling Stone, 22 June 2010
Stanley McChrystal, Obama's top commander in Afghanistan, has seized control of the war by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House
CS: Why Obama needs to clean out the Augean Stables at the Pentagon (and this is just the tip of the iceberg).
Runaway Defense Spending Not Winning Any Wars
by William Pfaff, June 23, 2010
BP's Other Gifts to America and the to the WorldIran, BP and the CIA
By LAWRENCE S. WITTNER, Counterpunch, 22 June 2010
The offshore oil drilling catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico brought to us by BP has overshadowed its central role over the past century in fostering some other disastrous events.
