This day marks the one year anniversary of Barack Obama being inaugurated as the President of the U.S. of A. When those who weren't smart enough to vote for Ralph Nader voted for Barack Obama they expected a new America, the economy would be much better within a year, Guantanamo Bay would be closed on 1/22/10 and there would be peace because he would go against the U.S. led wars in the Middle East. Oh and that pubic option deal too. Now we have a still open Guantanamo Bay, two wars with an escalation in Afghanistan, the jobless rate is still at 10% and seems to be still going up, and we have no public option and possibly not even any reform at all. But at least he helped work out a deal in Copenhagen by making a plan for the U.S.to reduce their carbon emissions. Oh yeah that's right he didn't do that so no one else did it so the talks collapsed.
And that war I mean how stupid do you have to be to have 100,000 troops going after 100 al-Qaedas? Even if their excuse is to kill the Taliban's who did oppress their own people and kill Americans it's only because the Taliban is a nationalist group that doesn't want to hurt America unless they enter their soil which America has.
And what about the public option? he gave up on that a long time ago and instead of making commercials explaining what a public option was they just said that it was a great idea. So the people were being informed by Fox News who then started to believe that the Government would take their health care and lobbyists would be in between the patients and there doctors. Why didn't Obama tell the American people the truth about the public option I have no idea but they were misinformed didn't realize that if you don't want a Government run health care plan you don't need to take it and that the people they listen to know the truth but don't want to tell it. O maybe it was because Obama got more money for his campaign than John McCain did. Oh well live and let live right?
He has done some good things though, his stimulus seems to have slowed down the failing economy and he has approved the use of expanding high speed rail around the country. He has kind of tried to make America greener but he has also allowed the use of tar sands to get oil where they have to burn other materials out to get the oil. But hopefully Guantanamo will close during his presidency and hopefully the two wars will really begin to end in 2011 and hopefully we will see the benefits of a health care bill by 2012 and hopefully the unemployment rate will be below 10% by 2011 and hopefully we will stop discriminating Muslims in airports by 2012 but where has the idea of hope gotten us so far?  

Everyone Knows that the U.S. is currently in 2 wars the Illegal war in Iraq and the War in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan is on my mind alot right now, mostly because Barack Obama recently made a statement that 30,000 more troops would be entering the War in Afghanistan. I have no idea why trust me I can't think of one reason to bring in even 1 more troop to Afghanistan. I also have the war on my mind right now because I recently watched Robert Greenwald's latest movie Rethink Afghanistan. It was easily my favorite of all of his documentaries because he brought up 7 different aspects of the war: The cost of the war, Women in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Troops, Civilian casualties, Security, and Solutions. Between my original knowledge of the war and this movie I have become incredibly opposed to the U.S. being basically anywhere in the Middle East. Whether it be Yemen, or Iraq, or Afghanistan or Pakistan. If someone were to only watch American media they would believe that by being in Afghanistan we are much safer because if we weren't al-Qaeda of the Taliban would kill America and the world. But there was one moment where corporate TV was of good use besides watching Keith Olberman, in the middle of 2009 Gen. David Petraeus went on CNN and said that he would agree with the idea that there are no more al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. The fact that he said that proves how stupid the war in Afghanistan is, who attacked us? Afghanistan. What did we go into Afghanistan to do? Stop al-Qaeda. Now I think that since there aren't any al-Qaeda's left in Afghanistan it would be logical to oh I don't know...leave. I know crazy right?
By far the biggest problem that I have with the war is the U.S. Air Force drone strikes. Many families are killed and displaced by these strikes and they barely ever actually kill anyone in al-Qaeda. Villagers say that when the Taliban comes in a few days later the U.S. will come and drop bombs on the area. Before 2001 there were no suicide bombings in Afghanistan, since 2006 there have been 94 or more suicide attacks inside Afghanistan. Could this be because of the war in Afghanistan? I think so. Many people who have to live through their villages being bombed later join the Taliban because they are so mad. They say that it was their only choice to be able to live. The fact that the U.S. is even concerned about the Taliban is shocking because the Taliban does not in any way want to attack America they are a nationalist group. Many of these men started attacking their country when the U.S.S.R. invaded and the U.S. gave them weapons and money. These men were also incredibly misogynistic. And because they were given weapons and power the rise of women's rights in Afghanistan came to a halt and hasn't come back up since. Even though a couple of women are in parliament doesn't mean they have more rights. An average of 29 women are raped every month in Afghanistan and girls have acid poured on them for daring to go to school. But the Bush Administration still claimed that women were much better off in Afghan society and were able to freely go to school. The cost of the war is incredibly shocking. The average cost that it takes to have one soldier in Afghanistan is $80,000 per soldier. That's $30,000 dollars more than it takes in Iraq. The overall cost of the war in Afghanistan to date is $248,028,287,922. In Bucks County PA the 862.7 million dollars that Bucks County spent could pay for 135,224 head start places for children for one year, or 1,037,558 homes with renewable electricity for one year, or 8,768 affordable housing units for one year or 270,793 children with health care for one year. That sounds much better than fighting a war against a enemy that doesn't exist. It is time to end this war and it is time to stop U.S. militarism all across the globe. The U.S. is the only country that takes the globe and cuts it up into pieces and assign one leader to cover the area. It is time for a change and that time is now.