The Voices

tomdispatch.com — Make no mistake: we’re entering a new world of military planning. Admittedly, the latest proposed Pentagon budget manages to preserve just about every costly toy-cum-boondoggle from the good old days when MiGs still roamed the skies, including an uncut nuclear arsenal. All this should reassure us that, despite the talk of massive cuts, the U.S. military will continue to be the profligate, inefficient, and remarkably ineffective institution we’ve come to know and squander our treasure on. Still, the cuts that matter are already in the works, the ones that will change the American way of war. They may mean little in monetary terms, but in imperial terms they will make a difference. A new way of preserving the embattled idea of an American planet is coming into focus and one thing is clear: in the name of Washington's needs, it will offer a direct challenge to national sovereignty.

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thenation.com — The grades for the president's State of the Union are in and the critics have been kind. In fact, it's chilling to see just how few hits the president takes for couching his entire address in unqualified celebration of the U.S. military. Speaking of the troops, President Obama began: "At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations." The president chose to celebrate the U.S. military; the press chose not to raise a peep about the spread of US militarism. Yet U.S. targets proliferate—abroad—with unmanned drones assassinating un-convicted suspects in innumerable undeclared wars. And militarism spreads at home. The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act makes indefinite military detention without charge or trial a permanent feature of the American legal system. It's kind of the critics not to mention that—or the president's four-year-old pledge to close Guantánamo, and to restore the "rule of law."

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huffingtonpost.com — I'm a runner, and before every race I write students' names on my jersey. "Because you keep me going," I tell them. As I attended President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night, I was not alone. I represented all of the teachers and support staff from across the country who are struggling with too few resources and too little support. This invitation was an honor, but my dedication to education is not exceptional or unique. Because, for all teachers, it is our students that keep us going. That commitment to quality public schools is even more important during these tough and uncertain economic times. Public schools and teachers need the basic resources necessary to effectively do their jobs. Our students deserve the best this country has to offer, and we all have a shared responsibility to make sure they receive it. However, too many politicians are balancing the budgets on the backs of students.

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slate.com — The narrative of contemporary Iraq is becoming etched in stone: United States troops are leaving, and the country is falling apart. Iraq, we are told, is once again on the brink of dictatorship, this time under Shiite politician Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister since 2006. The notion that Iraq’s ongoing political problems were caused by America’s departure, or that they could be improved by its return, is something that only a solipsistic American could believe. In fact, not everything that happens in Iraq reflects the presence — or absence — of U.S. troops. Iraq’s political problems are of Iraq’s making, and they need to be resolved by Iraqis. Outside mediation can help. But no one should be under the illusion that foreign troops, engaged for eight years as a post-invasion occupying force, are ideal for this task.

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truthdig.com — Now that America’s primary elections have eliminated the more implausible contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, it is possible to take a clearer look at what the electorate will be up against when the conventions are over in the fall, and when the newly elected president assumes (or resumes) command of American foreign policy. Barring the unforeseeable, the Democratic candidate will be Barack Obama. If the polls, and the wishful thinking of old-school Republicans, are right, the Republican candidate will be Mitt Romney, who has displayed the least ignorance of foreign policy issues among the surviving primary candidates. If Romney succeeds, and does what all the Republican candidates (Ron Paul excluded) have promised — strike Iran, or sustain Israel in attacking that country — the United States would begin 2013 in or at the edge of a new Middle Eastern war, estranged from the European democracies, as well as from much of the non-Western world.

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washingtonpost.com — Before there was the Tea Party to define the phrase “far-right fringe,” there was Rick Santorum. He’s a nice-guy zealot who should never be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office. It’s understandable that progressives would be tempted to cheer Santorum’s sudden rise as a viable candidate for the Republican nomination. The likely nominee, Mitt Romney, would love to be able to moderate his rhetoric and begin running a more centrist campaign that could appeal to independents in November. But if Santorum continues to pose a threat, Romney will likely have to move even further right — ceding valuable political ground to President Obama. And if Santorum somehow manages to win the nomination, he will be easier for Obama to beat than Romney. I mean, Obama beats him easily. Doesn’t he?

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tomdispatch.com — Welcome to an edgy world where a single incident at an energy “chokepoint” could set a region aflame, provoking bloody encounters, boosting oil prices, and putting the global economy at risk. With energy demand on the rise and sources of supply dwindling, we are, in fact, entering a new epoch — the Geo-Energy Era — in which disputes over vital resources will dominate world affairs. In 2012 and beyond, energy and conflict will be bound ever more tightly together, lending increasing importance to the key geographical flashpoints in our resource-constrained world. In the new Geo-Energy Era, the control of energy and of its transport to market will lie at the heart of recurring global crises.  This year, keep your eyes on three energy hot spots in particular: the Strait of Hormuz, the South China Sea, and the Caspian Sea basin.

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washingtonpost.com — Mitt Romney’s dead heat with Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucuses bolstered the media narrative that Mitt Romney may not be conservative enough for Republican primary voters. This characterization serves Romney well. His rivals carve up each other, hoping to emerge as the conservative “alternative” to Romney. And vast swaths of the media discount his reactionary views, anticipating his “pivot” to more moderate positions once the nomination is secured. In reality, Romney is a remarkably reactionary candidate, camouflaged in corporate pinstripes.

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tomdispatch.com — Dear Tea Party Movement: For the last few months, the world has been fascinated by your frenzied search for a presidential candidate who is not Mitt Romney. It was quite a spectacle, your quest for the non-Romney — and I think we all know why you undertook it. In ways that matter, Romney is clearly a problem for you. Still, my advice to you idealists of the right is this: get over it. You should get behind the charging Massachusetts RINO (Republican-In-Name-Only) because, in a certain paradoxical way, he may turn out to be the truest of all the candidates to the spirit of your movement. After all, given everything you represent, why wouldn’t you line up behind this quarter-billionaire who’s calling for just a little human love and sympathy for billionaires? I’m sure you already understand me perfectly well, but just to be certain, let me make the case.

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