In 2009, there is worldwide anger at the United States based on years of failed economic and military policy. This hostility is grounded in the resentment of Bush-era American arrogance and a reaction to the residual effects of an unregulated American economy and deliberate lies from American leadership.

In 2009, the “anti-war candidate” who campaigned against and defeated fellow Democratic Primary candidate Hillary Clinton on the basis of his opposition to the invasion of Iraq vowed to substantially increase American military presence in that country. It was reported that 2,100 Afghani civilians were killed as a result of American military action in 2008. The election of an anti-war President was supposed to remedy the senseless loss of human life caused by “Bush Doctrine” policy.

What are the lessons of Iraq? Has America learned that 9/11 should not be used as a justification for aggression against a foreign national population? Have Americans learned that attacking a small radical potion of a population with air strikes which also kill innocent civilians results in a net growth and the spread of Anti-American ideology and terrorism?

Afghan Parliamentarian Shukria Barakzai, founder and editor of Kabul’s Aina-E-Zan (a newspaper for Afghan women), and also a co-drafter of the Afghanistan Constitution, is engaged in the difficult battle for women’s rights in her country. Barakzai responded to Obama’s plan to increase American military presence in her country:

“Send us 30,000 scholars instead. Or 30,000 engineers. But don’t send more troops – it will just bring more violence.”

The growth of anti-American groups is indirectly but inexorably tied to poverty, lack of food, lack of drinkable water, lack of medicine, regional American occupation and violence. It rises from regions dominated by American military forces seeking to install governments capable of subduing its own population, but powerless against outsiders. These political conditions, tied to longstanding feelings of indignity and a lack of political freedom, drive terrorism. Terrorists are not poor, not undereducated, not desperate. The demographic is closer to middle class, above average education and subject to a repressive regime.

There remains a massive segment of the population that not only supports military aggression in Afghanistan, but also the failed war in Iraq. John McCain, who received over 50 million votes from Americans to preside over both wars, stated that he believed that the War in Iraq was “necessary and just”, as told to cadets at the Virginia Military Institute:

“I understand the frustration caused by our mistakes in this war. I sympathize with the fatigue of the American people. But I also know the toll a lost war takes on an army and a country. It is the right road. It is necessary and just.”

If the 2008 American Presidential election was a referendum on war policy, the ideological turn the country was seeking was for the responsible use of the military. There was a recognition that “Supporting the Troops” meant supporting responsible engagement of the troops, not just blind support for killing and imperialism.

The war in Afghanistan is not about the so-called “War on Terrorism”. Obama’s administration has ceased using the term. Though several months into office, his administration’s policy is essentially identical to that of his predecessor.

The criticism that has emerged against this war is that the real battle will not be won with bullets and missiles; that the ignored lesson of Iraq is that military presence does not secure a country so much as it projects imperialism and occupation. In Afghanistan – a place filled with poverty and subjected to foreign military powers for decades – the future depends on a change in policy. In Afghanistan and America, the future depends on real change, and the Administration depends on a resolute public that demands it. If the only voices of dissent are those of people waving teabags, demanding more tax cuts for the rich and more military solutions to foreign policy issues, the country will move in that direction, despite a growing acceptance of socialism in America (likely tied to the voices on the right screaming “Socialism” at every form of social government assistance program).

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his famous 1967 “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” speech, said that a nation which “continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Dr. King argued that “America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values.” America, who has not lead the world in this revolution, now has the opportunity to do so. Obama wasn’t elected to make concessions to the right wing – he was elected to lead and bring change. But when the anti-war movement does nothing but hope for a revolution of values, without demanding action, there comes a time when that silence is betrayal to those values. That time is now.

The lack of American debate and protest over the planned escalation of the war in Afghanistan – “Operation Enduring Freedom” – is deafening. As former anti-war Presidential Candidate Barack Obama vows to increase military presence – including bombing the country with unmanned “drone” planes and a surge of as many as 30,000 additional troops – the anti-war movement, largely built on opposition to the six-year-old war in Iraq, is virtually non-existent.

Many “progressive” voices have failed to provide any leadership. Moveon.org, whose membership was largely built on opposition to the war in Iraq, has not taken a position opposing the Afghanistan War. The Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) has not taken a position on the war in Afghanistan. Even the War Resisters League has qualified its opposition to this war. The Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus in the House of Representatives (chaired by Representative Maxine Waters) has been silent on the escalation.

The Dixie Chicks, the Pope, and anointed liberal-cause leader Bono have failed to publicly express the outrage that characterized much early opposition to the Iraq War. In fairness, Bono has never publicly opposed the War in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Dixie Chicks endured severe popular backlash for lead singer Natlie Maines’ 2003 stage banter:

“Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas…”

The Dixie Chicks were pulled from radio station play rotations and record store shelves. “Patriotic” listeners publicly burned their records and, in some cases, ran them over with tractors to express their disgust with the Chicks. The band received death threats and were publicly boycotted. Lipton Ice Tea dropped its sponsorship of the band. And in June of 2006, American Idol Chris Daughtry returned to Greensboro, NC for a homecoming celebration sponsored by Classic Rock 92FM. A DJ announcement regarding free tickets for an upcoming Dixie Chicks concert was met with substantial booing from the crowd.

The planes which crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 have been used as a political tool – from George Bush standing on a pile of rubble and human remains with a megaphone, stirring up bloodthirst (declaring to New York that “the people who knocked down these buildings will hear all of us soon”), to Rudy Giuliani’s single-minded presidential campaign. Despite the Bush administration’s lie saying so, the war in Iraq had nothing to do with what happened on 9/11. Iraq was not invaded to liberate a country, bring civil rights to women, or stabilize tremendous economic imbalance. Iraq was invaded, on its face, to eliminate the threat of a nuclear attack.

Bush himself addressed an angry, grieving country that had just been attacked, as its leader; explaining the need for military action in Iraq despite scant evidence which was largely manufactured and/or misrepresented, declaring that evidence was there, warning, that ”the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

There were rallies where people adamantly opposed anti-war sentiment, strongly supporting the War effort in Iraq. Signs at so-called “Support the Troops” rallies read:

“Freedom is not free”

“Arrest the traitors”

“Peace is the result of victory”

“We love Bush”

“Make love after war”

“Hey, Boeing! Ignore these other idiots and keep the missiles coming!”

“Kill, kill, kill. Annihilate Iraq”

“Ending the Iraqi war will drag it back to our door”

“Veto France”

“God hates fag terrorists”

“If you don’t stand behind our troops why don’t you stand in front of them”

“Gitmo rocks”

“Got freedom? Thank the military”

They traveled to New York City where they organized and chanted “U-S-A! U-S-A!” in Times Square, explicitly to show support for the war.

Estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths in the war have ranged as high as 655,000 as reported in a 2006, according to an MIT study. For comparison’s sake, in 2006, the population of Alaska was 670,053. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no justification for the invasion or killing of anyone in Iraq.

There is a tendency on the East Coast to dismiss the politics of fear that led to the advent of “Freedom Fries” and the opportunistic Republican-hatched enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act on October 26, 2001 (officially the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001”). In the 2004 presidential election, the first wartime election in America since 1972, the one state and the District that were attacked by “terrorists” voted in large numbers against George W. Bush and his policies.

In 2008 in a speech in Greensboro, NC, Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin displayed open hostility to the East Coast and, explicitly, Washingtonian D.C.-.ers:

“We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. We believe…” (interrupted by cheers and applause) “…We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation.”

The hostility was nothing new, and was largely reflected in the absence of any real Republican concern for the prevention of future terror attacks after 2001.

In per capita terms, by 2004, New York State ranked 49th out of 50 states in Homeland Security funding. Fox news was accused of fueling hysteria and fear in the people of the Midwest, the West and the “red states.” These states had not been party to the attacks or even likely targets for attacks. Yet, this was the constituency which drove public policy by re-electing the Bush Administration in 2004. In 2004, when the New York Fire Department was still asking for radios that worked, the fire department in Zanesville, Ohio was learning to use federally funded thermal-imaging technology to find victims in dense smoke and test kits for lethal nerve gasses. Per capita federal Homeland Security funding in Wyoming and Guam dwarfed spending in New York.

In 2006, with the pointless search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq long over, and the Halliburton-Blackwater war-profiteering machine in high gear, Bush’s DHS actually cut federal funding for terror prevention in New York City and Washinton D.C., surging new funds into places like Omaha, Nebraska and Louisville, Kentucky. And while pro-war John McCain suggested, with no evidence, in 2001 on the David Letterman show, that the anthrax may have come from Iraq, the mailings all turned out to come out of New Jersey. The planes that hit the World Trade Center flew out of New Jersey as well. And New Jersey resoundingly voted against Bush in 2004 (and against McCain in 2008. The plain fact was that the anthrax, the planes and the terror were directly aimed – solely aimed – at those parts of the country that Palin and her constituency don’t consider a part of the “wonderful little pockets” of “real America.” Those wonderful little pockets were unwilling to accept that the war was based on a lie. That American soldiers were dying for motives that had nothing to do with the “mushroom cloud” Bush used to terrorize the living rooms of his own country.

While anti-war groups struggled to combat a popular U.S. war policy based on fear and the promise of revenge, champions like Bono failed to oppose the war in Iraq. The Associated Press reported in 2005, when he met with President Bush, that the reason Bono failed to oppose the war was because:

“the rocker admits that a certain diplomacy is necessary in order to accomplish his goals [of fighting poverty], which is why he keeps mum about the war in Iraq even though he disagrees with it.”

It’s clear that he has avoided the subject intentionally in order to gain access and photo appearances with world leaders like Tony Blair and George Bush. If one truly considers the merits of celebrity activism in the context of Bono’s failure to oppose war, it all appears as an ongoing unmistakably hollow publicity grab using the poverty and suffering of millions as the key to access. The 2005 Man of Peace award was given to a man who never demonstrated against any war and who owns a large stake of war-friendly Forbes Magazine.

Even Bono’s advocacy of helping the poor is belied by his personal tax avoidance behavior. While he advocates world governments spend millions to help the poor, the Irish singer has moved his publishing company from Ireland to the Netherlands to avoid paying a 12.5% tax rate to the Irish government and to avoid funding the projects he advocates to help the poor. Bono takes that money home. And Bono doesn’t understand. When he was criticized by a Christian Aid report in 2007 for ‘tax avoidance,’ he responded by saying:

“It hurts when the criticism comes in internationally. But I can’t speak up without betraying my relationship with the band – so you take the shit. People who don’t know our music – it’s very easy for them to take a position on us – they run with the stereotypes and caricature of us.”

It’s hard to imagine that someone who is a leading advocate for helping the poor could be so clueless concerning the damage done to “third world” nations by capital flight from their countries into schemes like he employs. Or as African law professor Issa Shivji, the former director of the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, put it:

“What the donors give is peanuts compared to the wealth that goes out.”

That wealth that goes out from the developing countries goes directly into tax avoidance centers, just like those used by Bono. A multi-millionaire cannot expect to be taken seriously when he advocates a worldwide moral obligation to fund aid programs to help the poor, but sees no moral obligation on himself to fund those programs though taxes.

Does an artist really want his or her political activism to be taken more seriously than, say, a cartoonish Elvis Presley meeting with President Richard Nixon?

Many Americans are stunned to learn that the most popular sport in the world is not football or baseball or basketball or NASCAR (the most popular sport in America); the world’s favorite sport is soccer. It comes as a surprise to us Americans, though we aren’t too surprised when we hear yet another story about unruly futbol fans in another country rioting on the field and beating opposing fans to death.

Every time I hear such a story I can’t help but wonder how it is that the fans will go so far to defend their team (brand) but yet not seem to be concerned with the political developments in their country. Even in this country, Yankees and Red Sox fans will allow the rivalry turn into violence at the drop of a hat, yet will do little more than complain at the bar when it comes to the political injustices of the day. I’ve always found it odd is that, in the midst of this fierce brand loyalty in sports, the players of these passionately defended teams are only too eager to switch sides should the right contract opportunity arise. Another team will pay me more? See ya later. Their loyalty is to their career and to the game, not the particular logo they wear on their chest.

And so it is with politics, isn’t it? The “fans” tend to be the most unruly and loyal to the brand (conservatism or liberalism) while the players – our elected representatives and leaders – play to win the PR battles day by day, talk a good game about how their team is the best, convince that it is their life’s calling to live up to their party’s principles, but will give up their principles at the drop of a hat if it means something for them. Remember the Terri Shiavo case? How many Republicans sold out conservatism like never before when they lined up to defend the government’s right to dictate the most personal of family decisions. The trophy at stake was re-election and securing a Republican majority in the Congress. Little did they know that the public was on the other side of the issue, and found their display despicable.

And on the other side of the aisle, one can’t forget the Democrats who sided with President Bush in the decision to invade Iraq. What a spectacle it was to see Democrats lining up out of fear that they would be portrayed as wimpy liberals who were putting the country at risk. It was not until the war started going sour that they started to come back, and not until a year or so ago that some of the top brass in the party started to distance themselves from the decision to use torture techniques on terrorism suspects.

This week, the analogy is a bit more consistent with sports. Arlen Specter, the Senator from Pennsylvannia, is now a Democrat… again. Yes, he was a Democrat as a young District Attorney, then switched parties after winning as a Democrat on the Republican ticket. Now he is switching back to Democrat because polls indicate that he could not survive a challenge in the next Republican primary. He is known as a moderate in the sense that he’s conservative on some issues and liberal on others. Seems to me like Specter has always been a Designated Hitter of sorts, and now he’s up at bat for a whole new team entirely.

But who can blame Specter? His party is in pieces. The Republicans have nowhere to go and no one leading them. The loudest voices tend to be the most out-of-the-mainstream. Its like a baseball team getting its ass kicked and the coach starts screaming at the top of his lungs at the end of the 9th inning. And the Democrats are only too happy to have him because it will make the next stretch of games that much easier to win.

The fans, on the other hand, will have none of the disloyalty. Whenever the NJ Devils play the NY Rangers, the Devils’ fans start booing whenever Devil-turned-Ranger Scott Gomez touches the puck. A great talent crossed over to the other side, and there is no sympathy for the man whenever he gets cross checked into oblivion.

In the world of politics, it is the same thing. If you want to hear the equivalent of those Devils’ fans in the political arena, just turn on talk radio. They are absolutely hysterical. It is as if Specter burned the American flag in his DC office and pledged to join the Taliban. They take it seriously, whereas our politicians approach the job as a game of sorts.

When I was in my office as a new congressman, I got to thinking: What do I want to change? Legalize weed in my district? No, too risky. Prostiution? Not with that Craigslist killer around. Help out musicians and artists? Yeah, that sounds good.

So here’s what I did. I called my friends from all the labels I used to be associated with in my musician days, and I told them to give me a list of all their artists. I would go down the list and contact them all, asking each to call their other congressman. Why?

I’m going to get them the money they are due! I’m tracking down all the internet conglomerates and demand they be fair. I’m going to tax the malarkey out of them. Being a congressman, I can’t curse like I used to. I’m a Christian now and must keep my words clean.

I’m introducing to legislation to give a tax credit to musicians whose music is downloaded, either for free or illegally. Hey, if they are compensated at the end of the year, is it still illegal?

Congressman Coyle

Check out this story from CNN about metal in Pakistan. Pretty interesting.