AWAKE AND READY TO SWIM

U.S. servicemen sit inside a C-17 Globemaster waiting to take off for Afghanistan at Manas Air Base near Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek

• I am in New Delhi suffering the reality of an up-side-down time zone sleep deficiency. I've been waking up in the middle of the night since arriving and having a real challenge getting back to sleep.

• I am struck by the photo above of US troops being ferried from a US base in Kyrgyzstan into Afghanistan. The Pentagon's footprint in Central Asia is growing as Obama expands his "right war" into Pakistan and beyond.

The news in recent days about US supply convoys being twice destroyed inside Pakistan following the killing of Pakistan's security forces by US helicopter attacks suggests to me the decision will next be made in Washington to increase the process of moving the war into that broken country. The US will never be satisfied just turning Afghanistan to rubble as long as Pakistan sits next door. The Caspian Sea oil and gas pipeline routes, long desired by the corporate oligarchy that calls these shots, must pass thru Afghanistan and Pakistan if their devious plans are to come to fruition. Thus Pakistan must be taken out. In the national media in the past few weeks you can see signs that the American people are being prepared for just this next step in the global endless war for resource control. (See the Washington Post story entitled "Obama: We need to make it clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan")

• I was impressed to read and listen to the commentary by one of the nation's best journalists, Glen Ford, about the October 2 "One Nation" protest in Washington. You can find it here. In recent days Ford and Chris Hedges have written strong words about how the event, as was expected by many on the left, was turned into a get-out-the-vote rally for the Democratic Party that made virtually no demands on Obama and his party. There has also been an exciting back and forth email exchange about this on the Internet so at least some strategic reevaluation is happening amongst some leaders in the peace movement.

• A plan is surfacing to hold a conference in early April in Washington DC under the title of "Dismantling the Permanent War State". Journalist Gareth Porter has sent around a letter proposing the event and says, "The conference will seek to reverse the process of demobilization of organized opposition to that system that has been so effectively carried out over the past decade by the forces supporting the system. My sense is that we are a point in history at which, for a host of reasons, the Permanent War System is now supremely vulnerable and that vulnerability will continue to grow."

I am in favor of any conference or discussion that leads to real progressive strategic review. The present "inside-outside" strategy of engagement with the Democratic Party is bearing little fruit. When you are drowning the idea is to let go of the weight that is pulling you under and begin swimming for shore. It's time to get started.