Least Responsible Pay The Most

Upsetting the Balance
Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

"...'We have a message here to tell these countries, that you are causing aggression to us by causing global warming,' President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda told an African Union summit in Ethiopia last February. 'Alaska will probably become good for agriculture, Siberia will probably become good for agriculture, but where does that leave Africa?'

A study by Oxfam, entitled 'Africa -- Up in Smoke,' noted that in line with climate models, droughts in northwest Kenya appear to becoming more frequent. It profiled the impact on the nomadic pastoralists of Kenya's northwest Turkana region, who graze cattle, camels and goats. They've always known droughts, but because they are now more frequent, families and animals have less chance to recover.

The Turkana people, said Oxfam, call this more persistent drought ' 'Atiaktiak ng'awiyei' or 'the one that divided homes' because so many families split up to survive, migrating in all directions.'

It really is wrong that those least responsible for climate change should pay the most. 'My recommendation is that the biggest polluter pays,' said Mr. Kipng'etich. 'We are one planet, one system.' He has a point. He deserves an answer."

Photo Credit: Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Non-TimesSelect Subscribers can read Friedman's entire op ed HERE.

Technorati tags: Thomas Friedman, New York Times, Kenya, Global Warming, Environment, Drought, news, commentary, op ed

Dying To Vote

In a Courageous Village, Ballots Bring Bullets
By Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times

DUMMERWALA, Pakistan

President Bush has become a bosom buddy of President Pervez Musharraf and sealed that friendship with $10 billion in military aid, but any American official who praises Pakistan’s “democracy” might want to visit this bullet-scarred village in the Punjab.

Dummerwala held free local elections here last year. But many people voted the “wrong” way, causing the candidate of the local feudal lord to lose. So a day after the election, a small army of gunmen arrived and began rampaging through the houses of the clan members who opposed the lord’s choice.

Waheed Rahman, a top student, 14 years old, who dreamed of becoming an engineer, was wounded in the opening minutes of the attack.

“When he was shot, Waheed fell down and begged for water,” said his father, Matiullah. “They were surrounding him. But they just laughed and shot at the water tank and destroyed it. Then they ripped the clothes off the women and dragged them around half-naked.”

For the next two hours, the attackers beat the men and abused the women, destroyed homes, and told their victims that the feudal lord had arranged for the police to stay away so he could teach them a lesson.

Indeed, the police did stay away. Even when two of the villagers escaped and ran to the police station, begging the officers to stop the violence, the police delayed moving for three hours.

By the time it was over, a woman was dying, as was Waheed, and many others were wounded.

The attack here in Dummerwala is a reminder that democracy is about far more than free elections. In Pakistan, many rural areas remain under the thumb of feudal lords who use the government to keep themselves rich and everyone else impoverished.

For real democracy to come to Pakistan, we’ll need to see not only free elections and the retirement of President Musharraf, but also a broad effort to uproot the feudal rulers in areas like this, 300 miles south of Islamabad. That’s not easy to do, but promoting education is the best way to combat both feudalism and fundamentalism.

Instead, we’ve been focusing on selling arms and excusing General Musharraf’s one-man rule.

Husain Haqqani of Boston University calculates that the overt and trackable U.S. aid to General Musharraf’s Pakistan amounted to $9.8 billion — of which 1 percent went for children’s survival and health, and just one-half of 1 percent for democracy promotion (and even that went partly to a commission controlled by General Musharraf).

The big beneficiary of U.S. largesse hasn’t been the Pakistani people, but the Pakistani Army.

General Musharraf has done an excellent job of nurturing Pakistan’s economy, but he is an autocrat. As Asma Jahangir, a prominent lawyer in Lahore, told me: “Until now, Pakistanis have hated the American government but not the American people. But I’m afraid that may change. Unless the U.S. distances itself from Musharraf, the way things are going Pakistanis will come to hate the American people as well.”

Just last week, General Musharraf’s secret police goons roughed up and sexually molested Dr. Amna Buttar, an American doctor of Pakistani origin who heads a human rights organization. Dr. Buttar says that she had been warned by a senior intelligence official not to protest against the government and that she was specifically targeted when she protested anyway.

When our “antiterrorism” funds support General Musharraf’s thugs as they terrorize American citizens, it’s time to rethink our approach. Imagine if we had spent $10 billion not building up General Musharraf, but supporting Pakistani schools.

One place we could support a school is here in Dummerwala. After the attack, the victims in the village were so panicky that they pulled all their children out of school.

“They say, ‘If you don’t cooperate with us, we will kill your sons,’ ” said Tazeel Rahman, one of the victims. “This is not democracy. This is a dictatorship. This is terrorism.”

(When I interviewed the attackers, they insisted that the victims had simply killed themselves. They compensated for this wildly implausible version of events by sending an armed mob to persuade me of its merits. There's a video of the encounter.)

We Americans could learn something about democracy from the brave people here. The villagers insist that if they are still alive and allowed to vote, they will again defy their feudal lord in the next election.

We in the West sometimes say that poor countries like Pakistan aren’t ready for democracy. But who takes democracy more seriously: Americans who routinely don’t bother to vote, or peasants in Dummerwala who risk their lives to vote?

Photo Credits: (1) Farzana Bibi mourns the death of her 14-year-old son, Waheed Rahman, who was murdered because people in her town voted the "wrong way" in local elections. (Nicholas Kristof/The New York Times) (2) Nicholas Kristof. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Also See:

• A Fight for Democracy | New York Times Video

Technorati tags: Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, International Relations, Foreign Policy, Pakistan, Freedom and Human Rights, Democracy, U.S. Military, Pervez Musharraf, news, commentary, op ed

The Real Threat to America

(Click for Illustration for Larger View)

Doomsday for the Greenback��������������:

"The American people are in La-la land. If they had any idea of what the Federal Reserve was up to they’d be out on the streets waving fists and pitchforks. Instead, we go our business like nothing is wrong.

Are we really that stupid?

What is it that people don’t understand about the trade deficit? It’s not rocket science. The Current Account Deficit is over $800 billion a year. That means that we are spending more than we are making and savaging the dollar in the process. Presently, we need more than $2 billion of foreign investment per day just to keep the wheels from coming off the cart.

Everyone agrees that the current trade imbalances are unsustainable and will probably trigger major economic disruptions that will thrust us towards a global recession. Still, Washington and the Fed stubbornly resist any change in policy that might reduce over-consumption or reverse present trends.

It’s madness...."

The Federal Reserve Monopoly Over Money:

"...Few Americans give much thought to the Federal Reserve System or monetary policy in general. But even as they strive to earn a living, and hopefully save or invest for the future, Congress and the Federal Reserve Bank are working insidiously against them. Day by day, every dollar you have is being devalued.

The greatest threat facing America today is not terrorism, or foreign economic competition, or illegal immigration. The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation. It is this one-two punch-- Congress spending more than it can tax or borrow, and the Fed printing money to make up the difference -- that threatens to impoverish us by further destroying the value of our dollars...."

Illustration: Secrets of the Federal Reserve

(Another Hat tip to Al B.)

Technorati tags: Federal Reserve, U.S. Economy, Monetary Policy, news

Tax Day! Do you know where your tax dollars are going?

From WAND comes these interesting tidbits for Tax Day:

When I put that whopping check in the mail on April 15, I like to think of...

small children getting free lunch at school... young men rebuilding houses for poor people on the Gulf Coast... health services for our veterans...

But that's NOT where most of my money goes.

Instead, the government is funnelling OVER HALF the discretionary federal budget to big ole weapons systems and big ole defense contractors.

This year, why not do something about it?

From Tanya Wallace, WAND National Field Director:

In a democracy, we all pitch in to pay for services that we believe the government should provide. Sure, it's no fun to have to pay taxes; but it's the price of maintaining a healthy, prosperous, secure community for all of us.

That's the idea, anyway. Sadly, the reality is somewhat different. And it's not a pretty picture. When you take a good look at what happens to our federal tax dollars, they're going places few people really like. Missile defense. New nuclear weapons. Weapons intended to fight the Soviet Union (remember them?).


So this April, we encourage you to have some fun, and take some action, and shake up the federal budget pie a bit. Here are a few ideas. Let us know what you've got planned!

Download a nice version of the pie chart:

In Color or In Black and White (These are PDF files)

Copy and distribute freely!

Technorati tags: Taxes, Federal Budget, WAND

Juicy Tuesday Tid-Bits

Bush v. Congress: The Looming Battle Over Executive Privilege
By ADAM COHEN, The New York Times:

"The Supreme Court’s ruling in the Watergate tapes case, and other legal and historical precedents, make it clear that executive privilege should not keep Congress from getting the testimony it needs....

Senators Press for More Files on Removing Prosecutors
By DAVID JOHNSTON, New York Times:

"Four senators are concerned that the Justice Department has not turned over all relevant documents related to the dismissals of eight United States attorneys...."

High Stakes: Chávez Plays the Oil Card
By SIMON ROMERO and CLIFFORD KRAUSS,New York Times:

"A showdown between President Hugo Chávez and U.S. and European companies over key oil projects could wind up with all sides losing...."

Huge Protest in Iraq Demands U.S. Withdraw
By EDWARD WONG, New York Times:

"Tens of thousands of protesters loyal to Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr demanded an end to the American military presence in Iraq...."

Destroy Gonzales-ism
By Brent Budowsky

"Thomas Paine once wrote that in absolute governments, the King is law, and in free nations, the Law is king.

The fundamental problem is not that Alberto Gonzales lied, prevaricated, misrepresented or played Pinocchio when he falsely stated he was not involved in the decisions to fire the U.S. attorneys. Those actions were wrong and appropriate grounds for removal, but there is much, much worse.

Alberto Gonzales is a basically decent guy, a second-tier-quality lawyer elevated to great heights by blind obedience to the concept of absolute power and the unwise president who claims it for himself on matters that grossly violate the American notion of the rule of law.

Gonzales-ism is the problem, not Gonzales....

[...]

In America nobody is above the law, and the principle of Gonzales-ism is that the White House counsel and the attorney general are just two more crony jobs given to weak and submissive sycophants who treat the King as his client, and treat the Constitution, the law and the people as petty cash to be bartered away because of the whims of the King.

In Gonzales-ism, the King is law; in America, the Law is king, and anyone who violates this notion that has defined America since 1776 is not fit to hold high office."

Iran Planning To Stop Using U.S. Dollar To Price Oil, Central Bank Governor Says
International Herald Tribune:

"KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Iran is planning to stop using the U.S. dollar to price oil, with less than half of its oil income now paid in the U.S. currency, Iran's central bank governor said.

"That's the plan for the future, we are working on that," Governor Ebrahim Sheibany said in an interview with Zawya Dow Jones News Service late Tuesday when asked if Iran was planning to stop pricing oil in dollars.

[...]

...Iran is doing fine without economic relations with Washington, and it has "perfect control" in keeping its currency stable, Sheibany said.

"We do not have any problem. We are trading with more than 70 countries, including (in) Asia and Europe," the governor said.

Iran's central bank is also shifting to holding its foreign reserves in a basket of 20 currencies and away from U.S. dollars, which now make up less than 20 percent of the reserves, Sheibany said...."

BBC NEWS | Americas | Guantanamo conditions 'worsening':

"Conditions for detainees at the US military jail at Guantanamo Bay are deteriorating, with the majority held in solitary confinement, a report says...."

Guant�namo Detainees Stage Hunger Strike
New York Times

"A long-term hunger strike has broken out at the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, with more than a dozen prisoners subjecting themselves to daily force-feeding to protest their treatment, military officials and lawyers for the detainees say...."

GOP-issued laptops now a White House headache - Los Angeles Times

"Democrats say a private e-mail system was used in violation of federal rules...."

How NRC unit became gun-toting cops
MSNBC.com:

"With no public discussion or input from Congress, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has quietly obtained armed federal police status for a small office of investigators whose big cases typically involve people sleeping on the job, falsifying documents or misplacing equipment. 'I didn't realize you needed guns and handcuffs to protect yourself against paper cuts,' said Dave Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a longtime critic of the NRC's Office of Investigations...."

Technorati tags: Bush, Congress, U.S. Justice System, Chavez, Oil, Iraq, Gonzalez, Iran, Guantanamo, NRC, news

Beyond Belief

If the story of Desre'e Watson is not proof of a nation gone haywire, I don't know what is....

6-Year-Olds Under Arrest
By Bob Herbert
The New York Times

Avon Park, Fla.

When 6-year-old Desre’e Watson threw a tantrum in her kindergarten class a couple of weeks ago she could not have known that the full force of the law would be brought down on her and that she would be carted off by the police as a felon.

But that’s what happened in this small, backward city in central Florida. According to the authorities, there were no other options.

“The student became violent,” said Frank Mercurio, the no-nonsense chief of the Avon Park police. “She was yelling, screaming — just being uncontrollable. Defiant.”

“But she was 6,” I said.

The chief’s reply came faster than a speeding bullet: “Do you think this is the first 6-year-old we’ve arrested?”

The child’s tantrum occurred on the morning of March 28 at the Avon Elementary School. According to the police report, “Watson was upset and crying and wailing and would not leave the classroom to let them study, causing a disruption of the normal class activities.”

After a few minutes, Desre’e was, in fact, taken to another room. She was “isolated,” the chief said. But she would not calm down. She flailed away at the teachers who tried to control her. She pulled one woman’s hair. She was kicking.

I asked the chief if anyone had been hurt. “Yes,” he said. At least one woman reported “some redness.”

After 20 minutes of this “uncontrollable” behavior, the police were called in. At the sight of the two officers, Chief Mercurio said, Desre’e “tried to take flight.”

She went under a table. One of the police officers went after her. Each time the officer tried to grab her to drag her out, Desre’e would pull her legs away, the chief said.

Ultimately the child was no match for Avon Park’s finest. The cops pulled her from under the table and handcuffed her. The officers were not fooling around. In the eyes of the cops the 6-year-old was a criminal, and in Avon Park she would be treated like any other felon.

There was a problem, though. The handcuffs were not manufactured with kindergarten kids in mind. The chief explained: “You can’t handcuff them on their wrists because their wrists are too small, so you have to handcuff them up by their biceps.”

As I sat listening to Chief Mercurio in a spotless, air-conditioned conference room at the Avon Park police headquarters, I had the feeling that I had somehow stumbled into the middle of a skit on “Saturday Night Live.” The chief seemed like the most reasonable of men, but what was coming out of his mouth was madness.

He handed me a copy of the police report: black female. Six years old. Thin build. Dark complexion.

Desre’e was put in the back of a patrol car and driven to the police station. “Then,” said Chief Mercurio, “she was transported to central booking, which is the county jail.”

The child was fingerprinted and a mug shot was taken. “Those are the normal procedures for anyone who is arrested,” the chief said.

Desre’e was charged with battery on a school official, which is a felony, and two misdemeanors: disruption of a school function and resisting a law enforcement officer. After a brief stay at the county jail, she was released to the custody of her mother.

The arrest of this child, who should have been placed in the care of competent, comforting professionals rather than being hauled off to jail, is part of an outlandish trend of criminalizing very young children that has spread to many school districts and law enforcement agencies across the country.

A highly disproportionate number of those youngsters, like Desre’e, are black. In Baltimore last month, the police arrested, handcuffed and hauled away a 7-year-old black boy for allegedly riding a dirt bike on the sidewalk. The youngster was released and the mayor, Sheila Dixon, apologized for the incident, saying the arrest was inappropriate.

Last spring a number of civil rights organizations collaborated on a study of disciplinary practices in Florida schools and concluded that many of them, “like many districts in other states, have turned away from traditional education-based disciplinary methods — such as counseling, after-school detention, or extra homework assignments — and are looking to the legal system to handle even the most minor transgressions.”

Once you adopt the mindset that ordinary childhood misbehavior is criminal behavior, it’s easy to start seeing young children as somehow monstrous.

“Believe me when I tell you,” said Chief Mercurio, “a 6-year-old can inflict injury to you just as much as any other person.”

Photo Credit: Bob Herbert. (The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Bob Herbert, New York Times, Children and Youth, Crime and Criminals, Education, Desre'e Watson, news, commentary, op ed

Party of Deception

Sweet Little Lies
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Four years into a war fought to eliminate a nonexistent threat, we all have renewed appreciation for the power of the Big Lie: people tend to believe false official claims about big issues, because they can’t picture their leaders being dishonest about such things.

But there’s another political lesson I don’t think has sunk in: the power of the Little Lie — the small accusation invented out of thin air, followed by another, and another, and another. Little Lies aren’t meant to have staying power. Instead, they create a sort of background hum, a sense that the person facing all these accusations must have done something wrong.

For a long time, basically from 9/11 until the last remnants of President Bush’s credibility drowned in New Orleans, the Bush administration was able to go big on its deceptions. Most people found it inconceivable that an American president would, for example, assert without evidence that Saddam and Al Qaeda were allies. Mr. Bush won the 2004 election because a quorum of voters still couldn’t believe he would grossly mislead them on matters of national security.

Before 9/11, however, the right-wing noise machine mainly relied on little lies. And now it has returned to its roots.

The Clinton years were a parade of fake scandals: Whitewater, Troopergate, Travelgate, Filegate, Christmas-card-gate. At the end, there were false claims that Clinton staff members trashed the White House on their way out.

Each pseudoscandal got headlines, air time and finger-wagging from the talking heads. The eventual discovery in each case that there was no there there, if reported at all, received far less attention. The effect was to make an administration that was, in fact, pretty honest and well run — especially compared with its successor — seem mired in scandal.

Even in the post-9/11 environment, little lies never went away. In particular, promoting little lies seems to have been one of the main things U.S. attorneys, as loyal Bushies, were expected to do. For example, David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, appears to have been fired because he wouldn’t bring unwarranted charges of voter fraud.

There’s a lot of talk now about a case in Wisconsin, where the Bush-appointed U.S. attorney prosecuted the state’s purchasing supervisor over charges that a court recently dismissed after just 26 minutes of oral testimony, with one judge calling the evidence “beyond thin.” But by then the accusations had done their job: the unjustly accused official had served almost four months in prison, and the case figured prominently in attack ads alleging corruption in the Democratic governor’s administration.

This is the context in which you need to see the wild swings Republicans have been taking at Nancy Pelosi.

First, there were claims that the speaker of the House had demanded a lavish plane for her trips back to California. One Republican leader denounced her “arrogance of extravagance” — then, when it became clear that the whole story was bogus, admitted that he had never had any evidence.

Now there’s Ms. Pelosi’s fact-finding trip to Syria, which Dick Cheney denounced as “bad behavior” — unlike the visit to Syria by three Republican congressmen a few days earlier, or Newt Gingrich’s trip to China when he was speaker.

Ms. Pelosi has responded coolly, dismissing the administration’s reaction as a “tantrum.” But it’s more than that: the hysterical reaction to her trip is part of a political strategy, aided and abetted by news organizations that give little lies their time in the sun.

Fox News, which is a partisan operation in all but name, plays a crucial role in the Little Lie strategy — which is why there is growing pressure on Democratic politicians not to do anything, like participating in Fox-hosted debates, that helps Fox impersonate a legitimate news organization.

But Fox has had plenty of help. Even Time’s Joe Klein, a media insider if anyone is, wrote of the Pelosi trip that “the media coverage of this on CNN and elsewhere has been abysmal.” For example, CNN ran a segment about Ms. Pelosi’s trip titled “Talking to Terrorists.”

The G.O.P.’s reversion to the Little Lie technique is a symptom of political weakness, of a party reduced to trivial smears because it has nothing else to offer. But the technique will remain effective — and the U.S. political scene will remain ugly — as long as many people in the news media keep playing along.

Photo Credit: Paul Krugman. (The New York Times)

Related:

• Video: Pelosi's Syria visit highlights GOP, media hypocrisy


• David Sirota: If a Conservative Lies, And There's No Progressive Around to Tell the Truth, It's Still A Lie


• Lie By Lie: The Mother Jones Iraq War Timeline (8/1/90 - 6/21/03)

Technorati tags: Paul Krugman, New York Times, Politics, Republican Party, Democratic Party, Bush, news, commentary, op ed

BREAKING: George W. Bush Presidential Library Destroyed By Flood

Crawford, Texas (AP) -- February 20th, 2007

A tragic flood this morning destroyed the personal library of President George W. Bush. The flood began in the presidential bathroom where both of his books were kept. Both of the books have been lost.

A presidential spokesperson said the president was devastated, as he had almost finished coloring the second one.

The White House tried to call FEMA, but there was no answer.

Photo Credit: Oct. 16, 1999. Sonya Frazier, left, and Marin Gow, kindergartners at Kimball Elementary School, listen to presidential candidate George Bush read a story to their class. Rick Giase/P-I

Technorati tags: Humor, Bush, FEMA, Presidential Library, Jokes

Stunts, Pratfalls, And Gaffes

Sunday in the Market With McCain
By Frank Rich
The New York Times

JOHN McCAIN’S April Fools’ Day stroll through Baghdad’s Shorja market last weekend was instantly acclaimed as a classic political pratfall. Protected by more than a hundred American soldiers, three Black Hawk helicopters, two Apache gunships and a bulletproof vest, the senator extolled the “progress” and “good news” in Iraq. Befitting this loopy brand of comedy — reminiscent of “Wedding Crashers,” in which Mr. McCain gamely made a cameo appearance — the star had a crackerjack cast of supporting buffoons: Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who told reporters “I bought five rugs for five bucks!,” and Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, who likened the scene to “a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.”

Five rugs for five bucks: boy, we’ve really got that Iraq economy up and running now! No wonder the McCain show was quickly dubbed “McCain’s Mission Accomplished” and “McCain’s Dukakis-in-the-Tank Photo Op.” But at a certain point the laughter curdled. Reporters rudely pointed out there were 60-plus casualties in this market from one February attack alone and that six Americans were killed in the Baghdad environs on the day of his visit. “Your heart goes out to just the typical Iraqi because they can’t have that kind of entourage,” said Kyra Phillips of CNN. The day after Mr. McCain’s stroll, The Times of London reported that 21 of the Shorja market’s merchants and workers were ambushed and murdered.

The political press has stepped up its sotto voce deathwatch on the McCain presidential campaign ever since, a drumbeat enhanced by last week’s announcement of Mr. McCain’s third-place finish in the Republican field’s fund-raising sweepstakes. (He is scheduled to restate his commitment to the race on “60 Minutes” tonight.) But his campaign was sagging well before he went to Baghdad. In retrospect, his disastrous trip may be less significant as yet another downturn in a faltering presidential candidacy than as a turning point in hastening the inevitable American exit from Iraq.

Mr. McCain is no Michael Dukakis. Unlike the 1988 Democratic standard-bearer, who was trying to counter accusations that he was weak on national defense, the Arizona senator has more military cred than any current presidential aspirant, let alone the current president. Every American knows that Mr. McCain is a genuine hero who survived torture during more than five years of captivity at the Hanoi Hilton. That’s why when he squandered that credibility on an embarrassing propaganda stunt, he didn’t hurt only himself but also inflicted collateral damage on lesser Washington mortals who still claim that the “surge” can bring “victory” in Iraq.

It can’t be lost on those dwindling die-hards, particularly those on the 2008 ballot, that if defending the indefensible can reduce even a politician of Mr. McCain’s heroic stature to that of Dukakis-in-the-tank, they have nowhere to go but down. They’ll cut and run soon enough. For starters, just watch as Mr. McCain’s G.O.P. presidential rivals add more caveats to their support for the administration’s Iraq policy. Already, in a Tuesday interview on “Good Morning America,” Mitt Romney inched toward concrete “timetables and milestones” for Iraq, with the nonsensical proviso they shouldn’t be published “for the enemy.”

As if to confirm we’re in the last throes, President Bush threw any remaining caution to the winds during his news conference in the Rose Garden that same morning. Almost everything he said was patently misleading or an outright lie, a sure sign of a leader so entombed in his bunker (he couldn’t even emerge for the Washington Nationals’ ceremonial first pitch last week) that he feels he has nothing left to lose.

Incredibly, he chided his adversaries on the Hill for going on vacation just as he was heading off for his own vacation in Crawford. Then he attacked Congress for taking 57 days to “pass emergency funds for our troops” even though the previous, Republican-led Congress took 119 days on the same bill in 2006. He ridiculed the House bill for “pork and other spending that has nothing to do with the war,” though last year’s war-spending bill was also larded with unrelated pork, from Congressional efforts to add agricultural subsidies to the president’s own request for money for bird-flu preparation.

Mr. Bush’s claim that military equipment would be shortchanged if he couldn’t sign a spending bill by mid-April was contradicted by not one but two government agencies. A Government Accountability Office report faulted poor Pentagon planning for endemic existing equipment shortages in the National Guard. The Congressional Research Service found that the Pentagon could pay for the war until well into July. Since by that point we’ll already be on the threshold of our own commanders’ late-summer deadline for judging the surge, what’s the crisis?

The president then ratcheted up his habitual exploitation of the suffering of the troops and their families — a button he had pushed five days earlier when making his six-weeks-tardy visit to pose for photos at scandal-ridden Walter Reed. “Congress’s failure to fund our troops on the front lines will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines,” he said. “And others could see their loved ones headed back to the war sooner than they need to.”

His own failures had already foreordained exactly these grim results. Only the day before this news conference, the Pentagon said that the first unit tossed into the Baghdad surge would stay in Iraq a full year rather than the expected nine months, and that three other units had been ordered back there without the usual yearlong stay at home. By week’s end, we would learn the story of the suspected friendly-fire death of 18-year-old Pvt. Matthew Zeimer, just two hours after assuming his first combat post. He had been among those who had been shipped to war with a vastly stripped-down training regimen, 10 days instead of four weeks, forced by the relentless need for new troops in Iraq.

Meanwhile the Iraqi “democracy” that Mr. Zeimer died for was given yet another free pass. Mr. Bush applauded the Iraqi government for “working on an oil law,” though it languishes in Parliament, and for having named a commander for its Baghdad troops. Much of this was a replay of Mr. Bush’s sunny Rose Garden news conference in June, only then he claimed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was taking charge of Baghdad security on his own. Now it’s not even clear whom the newly named Iraqi commander is commanding. The number of military operations with Iraqis in the lead is falling, not rising, according to the Pentagon. Even as the administration claims that Iraqis are leading the Baghdad crackdown, American military losses were double those of the Iraqi Army in March.

Mr. Bush or anyone else who sees progress in the surge is correct only in the most literal and temporary sense. Yes, an influx of American troops is depressing some Baghdad violence. But any falloff in the capital is being offset by increased violence in the rest of the country; the civilian death toll rose 15 percent from February to March. Mosul, which was supposedly secured in 2003 by the current American commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is now a safe haven for terrorists, according to an Iraqi government spokesman. The once-pacified Tal Afar, which Mr. Bush declared “a free city that gives reason for hope for a free Iraq” in 2006, is a cauldron of bloodshed.

If Baghdad isn’t going to repeat Tal Afar’s history, we will have to send many more American troops than promised and keep them there until Mr. Maliki presides over a stable coalition government providing its own security. Hell is more likely to freeze over first. Yet if American troops don’t start to leave far sooner than that — by the beginning of next year, according to the retired general and sometime White House consultant Barry McCaffrey — the American Army will start to unravel. The National Guard, whose own new involuntary deployments to Iraq were uncovered last week by NBC News, can’t ride to the rescue indefinitely.

The center will not hold, no matter what happens in the Washington standoff over war funding. Surely no one understands better than Mr. McCain that American lives are being wasted in the war’s escalation. That is what he said on David Letterman’s show in an unguarded moment some five weeks ago — though he recanted the word wasted after taking flak the morning after.

Like his Letterman gaffe, Mr. McCain’s ludicrous market stunt was at least in the tradition of his old brand of straight talk, in that it revealed the truth, however unintentionally. But many more have watched the constantly recycled and ridiculed spectacle of his “safe” walk in Baghdad than heard him on a late-night talk show. This incident has the staying power of the Howard Dean scream. Should it speed America’s disengagement from Iraq, what looks today like John McCain’s farcical act of political suicide may some day loom large as a patriot’s final act of sacrifice for his country.

Photo Credit: Frank Rich. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Also See:

• Iraqi Insider Details U.S. Mismanagement | The Huffington Post

Technorati tags: Frank Rich, The New York Times, Politics and Government, U.S. Armament and Defense, Iraq, John McCain, 2008 Presidential Election, news, commentary, op ed

An Easter Sermon

An Easter Sermon
by Robert Wright
The New York Times

Jesus knew viral marketing.

In the Gospel of Mark, the disciple John complains that nondisciples are selling bootlegged copies of Jesus’ miraculous powers. “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”

Jesus tells John to quit obsessing about the intellectual property and to focus on getting the brand out. “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.” Jesus adds, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

Fast-forward two millennia. Weeks after 9/11, George Bush says roughly the opposite. His famous “You’re either with us or against us” means that those who don’t follow his lead will be considered enemies. The rest is history. Today, Jesus has more than a billion devoted followers. Mr. Bush has ... well, fewer than that.

The religious left — yes, there is such a thing — complains that Mr. Bush ignores the Bible’s moral injunctions. But leave morality aside. If he could just match the Bible’s strategic savvy, that would make a world of difference.

Consider a teaching of Jesus that seems on its surface devoid of strategic import. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Christians often cast this verse as innovative, a sharp break from Jesus’ Jewish tradition. But the same idea can be found in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament), and here it is clear that the point of the kindness is to thwart the enemy: “If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink; for you will heap coals of fire on their heads.”

Coals of fire? As the editors of the New Oxford Annotated Bible explain, submitting to this treatment was an Egyptian ritual that “demonstrated contrition.” (And how!) “The sense here seems to be that undeserved kindness awakens the remorse and hence conversion of the enemies.”

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s unlikely that sending Osama bin Laden a Hallmark card would induce paroxysms of self-doubt. Still, there are other ways that reining in hatred can hurt your enemy’s cause.

Suppose, for example, you were nurturing a nascent religious movement in the Roman Empire, and your antagonists welcomed excuses to harass you. Suppose, that is, you were the Apostle Paul. When Paul preaches kindness to enemies, he uses not the formulation found in the Gospels, but the one from the Hebrew Bible, complete with the coals of fire.

Of course, Mr. Bush is more in the shoes of the Roman emperor than of Paul. America isn’t a small but growing religious movement. It’s a great power threatened by a small but growing religious movement — radical Islam. But the logic can work both ways. Great powers, by mindlessly indulging retributive impulses, can give fuel to small but growing religious movements. If you want to deprive jihadists of ammunition, make it hard for them to persuade others to hate us.

Right after Paul espouses kindness to enemies, he adds: “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” Sounds like naïve moralizing until you look at those Abu Ghraib photos that have become Al Qaeda recruiting posters.

The key distinction is between man and meme. Yes, a great power can always kill and torment enemies, and, yes, there will always be times when that makes sense. Still, when you’re dealing with terrorists, it’s their memes — their ideas, their attitudes — that are Public Enemy No. 1. Jihadists are hosts for the virus of hatred, and the object of the game is to keep the virus from finding new hosts.

The Internet is fertile ground for memes, and jihadists are good at getting the brand out. One of the few things Osama bin Laden has in common with the Jesus of the Gospels is belief in the power of viral marketing.

The ultimate in viral marketing was Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice. Deemed a threat to the social order, he was crucified under Roman auspices. But the Romans forgot one thing: If you face a small but growing movement that threatens the imperial order, you shouldn’t attack the men in ways that help the memes.

Mr. Bush says his favorite philosopher is Jesus. One way to show it would be to spend less time repeat- ing the mistake of the Romans and more time heeding the wisdom of Christ.

Robert Wright, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, runs the Web site Bloggingheads.tv.
Maureen Dowd is on vacation.

Photo Credit: Robert Wright. (Bloggingheads.tv)

Technorati tags: Robert Wright, The New York Times, Jesus Christ, Bible, Terrorism, Osama Bin Laden, Morality, religion, Easter, news, commentary, op ed

Hang Up on War: Get a Tax Refund

(Click Image for Larger View)

Amy Goodman reports:

"If you are upset that Congress won't defund the war in Iraq, there's something you can do: Take the IRS up on its offer for a war tax refund...."

Find out how to get your refund HERE.

Hat tip to A.B.

Illustration Credit: Amy Goodman. (www.gregpalast.com)

Also See:

• Ralph Nader: The IRS Owes You Money

Technorati tags: Alternet, Amy Goodman, IRS, War Tax Refund, Iraq, Activism, news

Quote of the Day

From Valenzuela's Veritas:

"... We are a nation asleep at the wheel, drunk off our self-exceptionalism and gluttony, ramming head on into the massive trunk of unthinking self-destruction, our arrogance blinding us to the giant cancer in our midst, addicted to materialism and television, every day dumbed down further, unwilling to learn about the world outside our infallible bubble, creating a snowball rolling downhill, gaining momentum and growing in size, in its path eviscerating the dreams and hopes of the future as well as an American past that once offered humanity a glimmer of hope in an ever-dwindling and myopic world."

Technorati tags: Valenzuela's Veritas, Quotes, America, USA, Truth, Politics, Government, opinion

Proof of Pentagon Phoney Intel

Pentagon Office Created Phony Intel on Iraq/al-Qaeda Link

"Newly released documents confirm that a Pentagon unit knowingly cooked up intelligence claiming a direct link between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to win support for a preemptive strike against the country.
����
A report prepared by the Defense Department's Inspector General for Carl Levin, the Democratic Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, explicitly shows how former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith used his defense department position to cook intelligence claiming a connection between the terrorist organization and Saddam Hussein's regime...."

How much more will it take to throw these criminals out of office? How much more will it take to impeach these bastards and throw them all in jail where they belong?

Technorati tags: Truthout, Matt Renner, Pentagon, Phoney Intelligence, Carl Levin, al-Qaeda, Iraq, news

Obey The Constitution - or What?

"March 30, 2007. We the People Foundation [givemeliberty.org] sponsored a "Right to Petition" Vigil with 50 plus "V for Vendetta" characters who came to say "Obey the Constitution or Else." One protester showed to remind them -- or else we'll obey the Declaration of Independence's urgings to "alter or abolish" government. Recognize the background music??" -- Carol Moore



Trouble viewing this video? Click Here.

Technorati tags: V for Vendette, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Protest, March, Activism, news, politics

Noam Chomsky on "the Iran Effect"

TomDispatch - Tomgram:

On Tuesday, meeting with the press in the White House Rose Garden, the President responded to a question about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria this way: "[P]hoto opportunities and/or meetings with President Assad lead the Assad government to believe they're part of the mainstream of the international community, when, in fact, they're a state sponsor of terror." There should, he added to the assembled reporters, be no meetings with state sponsors of terror.

That night, Brian Ross of ABC News reported that, since 2005, the U.S. has "encouraged and advised" Jundullah, a Pakistani tribal "militant group," led by a former Taliban fighter and "drug smuggler," which has been launching guerrilla raids into Baluchi areas of Iran. These incursions involve kidnappings and terror bombings, as well as the murder (recorded on video) of Iranian prisoners. According to Ross, "U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or 'finding' as well as congressional oversight." Given past history, it would be surprising if the group doing the encouraging and advising wasn't the Central Intelligence Agency, which has a long, sordid record in the region. (New Yorker investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has been reporting since 2005 on a Bush administration campaign to destabilize the Iranian regime, heighten separatist sentiments in that country, and prepare for a possible full-scale air attack on Iranian nuclear and other facilities.)

The President also spoke of the Iranian capture of British sailors in disputed waters two weeks ago. He claimed that their "seizure… is indefensible by the Iranians." Oddly enough, perhaps as part of secret negotiations over the British sailors, who were dramatically freed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday, an Iranian diplomat in Iraq was also mysteriously freed. Eight weeks ago, he had been kidnapped off the streets of Baghdad by uniformed men of unknown provenance. Reporting on his sudden release, Alissa J. Rubin of the New York Times offered this little explanation of the kidnapping: "Although [Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar] Zebari was uncertain who kidnapped the man, others familiar with the case said they believe those responsible work for the Iraqi Intelligence Service, which is affiliated with the Central Intelligence Agency." The CIA, of course, has a sordid history in Baghdad as well, including running car-bombing operations in the Iraqi capital back in Saddam Hussein's day.

And don't forget the botched Bush administration attempt to capture two high Iranian security officials and the actual kidnapping of five Iranian diplomats-cum-Revolutionary-Guards in Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan over two months ago -- they disappeared into the black hole of an American prison system in Iraq that now holds perhaps 17,000 Iraqis (as well as those Iranians) and is still growing. As Juan Cole has pointed out, most such acts, and the rhetoric that goes with them, represent so many favors to "an unpopular and isolated Iranian government attempting to rally support and strengthen itself."

In addition, just this week, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and other ships in its battle group left San Diego for the Persian Gulf. Two carrier battle groups are already there, promising an almost unprecedented show of strength. As the ship left port, U.S. military officials explained the mission of the carriers in the Gulf this way: They are intended to demonstrate U.S. "resolve to build regional security and bring long-term stability to the region."

And stability in the region, it seems, means promoting instability in Iran by any means possible. So, the President's Global War on Terror also turns out to be the Global War of Terror. No one has dealt with the way "state sponsorship of terror" works, when it comes to our own country, more strikingly than Noam Chomsky, who considers the larger Iranian crisis below. His latest book, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy, is just out in paperback and couldn't be more to the point at the present moment. Right now, if the U.S. isn't already a failing state, it's certainly a flailing one. Tom

Must Read:

What If Iran Had Invaded Mexico?
Putting the Iran Crisis in Context
By Noam Chomsky

Technorati tags: TomDispatch, Noam Chomsky, Iran, War, Mexico, news, commentary, op ed

Americans Wising Up

Poll: Few Americans trust military or media for information on Iraq

"Most Americans have little or no confidence in the information they receive from the military or the media about the situation in Iraq, according to a poll released Thursday...."

Technorati tags: Pew Research Center, Poll, Military, Media, Iraq, news

Justice Department In New Fight Over Papers on Firings

The Washington Post reports:

"The Justice Department is refusing to release hundreds of pages of additional documents related to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, setting up a fresh clash with Capitol Hill in a controversy that continues to threaten Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's hold on his position.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, whose investigators have been allowed to view, but not obtain copies of, the records in question, is preparing subpoenas for those papers as well as for all e-mails or documents from the Justice Department and the White House connected to the dismissals of the prosecutors.

The new sparring comes as Senate Democrats postponed a long-planned budgetary appearance by Gonzales that had been scheduled for next week. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (Md.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee panel overseeing the Justice Department budget, blamed Gonzales's 'leadership failures' yesterday for the postponement and demanded that the prosecutor controversy be settled before he makes his plea for a budget increase...."

Photo Credit: Alberto Gonzales. The Washington Post

Technorati tags: Washington Post, Alberto Gonzales, Justice Department, Senate, Senator Barbara Mikulski, Senator Charles Schumer, Patrick Leahy, news

Special Counsel Investigates GSA Chief For Use Of Government Funds To Help GOP Candidates

The Huffington Post reports:

"Another federal investigation is targeting a Bush administration official, this time for possibly using government resources for partisan political purposes.

The Office of Special Counsel confirmed to ABC News it has launched an investigation into General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan, probing concerns she may have violated a ban against conducting partisan political activity at government expense by participating in a meeting featuring a presentation by a White House political aide on GOP election strategy."

Read the original ABC News report here.

Technorati tags: GSA, Lurita Doan, Federal Investigation, ABC News, Huffington Post, news

Inspiration from Kenya

As American democracy continues its decline, democracy is rising in Kenya.

Cellphones, Maxi-Pads and Other Life-Changing Tools
By Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

NAIROBI, Kenya

For decades, the world has asked: How do we free Africa from its yoke of poverty, disease and misgovernance? In asking Kenyans that question, I’ve been struck at the simple, common-sense solutions they offer. Four in particular stand out: transparency, telephones, Tergat and Kotex.

Naisiae Tobiko is a 28-year-old dynamo who grew up in Kenya’s Masai region. She runs a public relations firm, but when we met all she wanted to talk about was Kenya’s shortage of sanitary napkins for girls. Here’s why, she explained: Her family could afford to send her to school, where she thrived. As she got older, though, she started to notice something about the less well-off girls — they missed four days of class every month, “and I could not understand why.” When she finally asked, they confided that they did not come to school when they were menstruating — because their parents could not afford sanitary napkins.

“They would say, ‘How can I come to a place when I am bleeding?’ ” she recalled. “Some were using rags or soil or mud.” Because of those lost school days, many eventually dropped out. So Ms. Tobiko recently teamed up with the Girl Child Network and other N.G.O.s here and started a project in the countryside to distribute free sanitary napkins. They have targeted 500,000 girls, and so far have reached 189,000. More school days means more educated women and better mothers.

“We’re keeping girls in school,” said Ms. Tobiko. If women get education, “we want nothing else,” she added. “We will fight our way into every field, but we need the main key — which is education.”

Kenya first began holding multiparty elections in 1992, and its next national election is slated for December. (By the way, Kenyans love the fact that Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan, is running for president of the U.S. since, they joke, someone from his Luo tribe could never get elected president of Kenya!) The field here is already crowded with presidential wannabes. But the most revealing conversation I had on this subject was with someone not running.

Vimal Shah owns an oil services company in Kenya, Bidco, and he was eager to tell me that with eight months until the election he had decided to make a big investment to expand his business. So what? I said. “People here never invest in the year before an election,” he explained. The fear is always that the new guy will change all the rules — often for his cronies. But Mr. Shah, like others here, believes Kenya’s evolution to democracy, with more transparent rules, has now reached a point where “even if the government changes, it won’t change the rules. The politicians can’t stop this.”

It is striking how just the little improvement in governance here can start a torrent of cash flowing in. But so could more cellphones.

Rose Lukalo Owino, a Kenyan author, told me this story: “I was recently in Ngutani, east of Nairobi. I was reporting for a book and interviewing these women who raised goats.” The women complained that for years they had been swindled by middlemen who would get them to sell their goats for a pittance, because the women didn’t know the price in the Nairobi markets. “But when I interviewed them, these women were holding so much money,” said Ms. Owino. Why? Fourteen villages got together and bought one cellphone, which they now share to check the market prices in Nairobi for goats before they sell. “They were talking to me about opening a microlending bank with their profits,” she said.

But Africa doesn’t just need more phone models. It needs more role models. I met one of the best here — Paul Tergat, the great Kenyan distance runner who’s earned five world cross country championships and two Olympic silver medals. Mr. Tergat recently won a contract from the government to promote anticorruption themes. For starters, he organized some of Kenya’s greatest distance runners to carry a torch from Mombasa to the Ugandan border. The torch represented a spotlight on corruption. Kenyans turned out to cheer them all along the route.

He used Kenya’s runners, Mr. Tergat said, because unlike politicians, when they win a medal it “is open, and genuine, and clean, and they practiced for 10 years to get it. The message is to say to young people, ‘Look here, you don’t have to be corrupt. You can do it if you are patient.’ ”

Add all this up and you have what impresses me most here: the way Kenya’s emerging democracy is unlocking Kenya’s best minds to find Kenyan solutions to Kenya’s problems.

Photo Credit: Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Thomas Friedman, New York Times, Kenya, Politics, Government, Democracy, Women, Paul Tergat, news, commentary, op ed

Of the Insurance Companies, By the Insurance Companies, For the Insurance Companies

The Krug Man asks, which will it be? A or B -- "health care for children, or subsidies for insurance companies?"

The choice is yours.

As for me, I choose the option not yet on the table -- "C" -- Universal Health Care available to ALL Americans -- not just children.

To me, it's a very personal thing. A close member of my family is (once again) without health care, seriously ill, in dire need of the best medical care and essentially up a creek without a paddle. In her early twenties, she is already tens of thousands of dollars in debt due to medical bills.

Are subsidies for insurance companies at the expense of health care for Americans the "values" our conservative friends and the "Christian Right" so abrasively embrace? Seems so, by their actions. If these are Christian values, I'll leave it to the hypocrits to justify.

I'm just sick to death of the bulls__t, corruption, and hypocrisy of our government and those who support it ....

Children Versus Insurers
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Consider the choice between two government programs.

Program A would provide essential health care to the eight million uninsured children in this country.

Program B would subsidize insurance companies, who would in turn spend much of the money on marketing and paperwork, and also siphon off a substantial fraction of the money as profits. With what’s left, the insurers would provide additional benefits, over and above basic Medicare coverage, to some older Americans.

Which program would you choose? If money is no object, you might go for both. But if you can only have one, it’s hard to see how anyone could, in good conscience, fail to choose Program A. I mean, even conservatives claim to believe in equal opportunity — and it’s hard to say that our society offers equal opportunity to children whose education may be disrupted, who may even find their lives cut short, because their families can’t afford proper medical care.

And here’s the thing: The question isn’t hypothetical. Universal health care may happen one of these years, but the choice between A and B is playing out right now.

Program A is the proposal by Senator Hillary Clinton and Representative John Dingell to cover all children by expanding the highly successful State Children’s Health Insurance Program. To pay for that expansion, Democrats are talking about saving money by shutting down Program B, the huge subsidy to private insurance plans for Medicare recipients — so-called Medicare Advantage plans — created by the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act.

The numbers for that trade-off add up, with a little room to spare. Covering all children would cost about $50 billion over the next five years, while the Congressional Budget Office estimates that eliminating the Medicare Advantage subsidy would save $65 billion over the same period (and $160 billion over the next decade.)

Now, nobody is proposing that Medicare ban private plans — all that’s on the table is requiring that they compete with traditional Medicare, run directly by the government, on a fair basis. And that’s not what’s happening now. According to Medpac, the official nonpartisan commission that assesses Medicare payments, Medicare Advantage plans now cost taxpayers an average of 12 percent more per enrollee than traditional Medicare. Private fee-for-service plans, the fastest-growing type, cost 19 percent extra.

As I said, it’s hard to see how anyone can, in good conscience, think that preserving subsidies to insurance companies is more important than providing health care for children. But that is, of course, exactly the position taken by the Bush administration, which is adamantly opposed both to any attempt to expand the children’s health insurance program — in fact, the administration wants to cut its reach — and to any attempt to reduce Medicare Advantage payments.

The official reasons given for this position are evasive and dishonest.

Explaining the administration’s opposition to expanding the children’s program, Michael Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, said the program “should not be the vehicle by which we insure every adult and every child in America.” But that isn’t what the Democrats are proposing.

As for why the administration wants to keep subsidizing insurance companies, Mr. Leavitt says, “The president and I are for competition.” But nobody is against competition — it’s subsidized competition that’s the problem. Mr. Leavitt added that “the marketplace beats the government at controlling costs and delivering value” — but he’s not willing to put that assertion to the test by requiring that private insurers compete on a level playing field.

Lately, both the insurance lobby and the administration have also started playing the race card, claiming that Medicare Advantage offers special benefits to the poor and to minority groups. (Remember how Social Security was supposed to be bad for black people?) But a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities thoroughly debunks these claims: low-income and minority seniors are less likely than the average Medicare recipient to be enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan.

Clearly, the real reasons for the administration’s position have nothing to do with any of these supposed justifications. They are, instead, political, having to do with the long-term battle over the future of the welfare state.

But that’s a subject for another day. For now, the choice is between A and B — health care for children, or subsidies for insurance companies. Which will it be?

Photo Credit: Paul Krugman. (The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Paul Krugman, New York Times, Health Insurance, Universal Health Care, Children and Youth, Medicine and Health, Medicare, Congress, news, commentary, op ed

The Secret War Against Iran

ABC News Exclusive
Brian Ross and Christopher Isham Report:

"A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News...." Read more.

Photo Credit: ABC News

Technorati tags: Iran, ABC News, Brian Ross, Christopher Isham, Pakistan, United States, news

US to Strike Iran on Good Friday?

Russian media: Assault could be carried out by jets, warships stationed in Gulf.

Here it comes, folks. Consider yourselves warned. This is not being reported in the U.S. mainstream press, but it is being reported in Israel and Russia.

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY .....

The Jerusalem Post and AP report:

The United States will be ready to launch a missile attack on Iran's nuclear facilities as soon as early this month, perhaps "from 4 a.m. until 4 p.m. on April 6," according to reports in the Russian media on Saturday.

According to Russian intelligence sources, the reports said, the US has devised a plan to attack several targets in Iran, and an assault could be carried out by launching missiles from fighter jets and warships stationed in the Persian Gulf.

Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted a security official as saying, "Russian intelligence has information that the US Armed Forces stationed in the Persian Gulf have nearly completed preparations for a missile strike against Iranian territory."

The Russian Defense Ministry rejected the claims of an imminent attack as "myths." There was no immediate response from Washington.

The reports come as the Iranian chief of staff, Hassan Fayrouz Abadi, was quoted on Saturday by Iran's Fars news agency warning leaders of Arab countries that Israel plans to open a "suicidal attack" on its neighbors this summer, to "prevent the withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq and the area."

"I warn the dear leaders and Muslim brothers in the neighboring countries of the occupied territories that this suicidal attack of the Zionists is threatening them," he said.

The countries in danger, he said, were "Lebanon and Syria, and later Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia."

Also on Saturday, Russia urged Britain and Teheran to resolve the dispute over 15 British sailors and marines captured by Iran last week, a local news agency reported.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin urged the two sides to provide the United Nations with their own assessments as to what happened and where exactly the detention occurred so that the body could conduct an independent probe.

"We hope these actions will provide a foundation for the soonest possible resolution of the crisis," Kamynin was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that the captured British sailors and marines trespassed in Iranian waters and called world powers "arrogant" for failing to apologize, the country's official news agency reported.

"The British occupier forces did trespass our waters. Our border guards detained them with skill and bravery. But arrogant powers, because of their arrogant and selfish spirit, are claiming otherwise," IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a speech in the southeastern city of Andinmeshk.

The European Union grappled with a double bind over Iran Saturday - the country's nuclear program and its seizure of the British troops - and reported no progress on either issue.

A debate about Iran's nuclear ambitions had been scheduled as a key agenda item but "was overshadowed to a certain extent by the issue of the sailors and marines," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after hosting a two-day EU foreign ministers meeting in Bremen, Germany.

The Foreign Ministry in Iran dismissed the EU's "biased and meddlesome" comments on the captured troops, saying the dispute solely involved the governments of Iran and Britain.

Speaking to reporters in Bremen, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett urged Iran to resolve the crisis over the military personnel peacefully, saying London remains open to dialogue.

"We encourage Iran to peacefully resolve this issue," she said.

"We continue to express our willingness to engage in dialogue and discussions with Iran," she added. "That is very much in the best interest of our people and that is our foremost concern."

"I think everyone regrets that this position has arisen," she said. "What we want is a way out of it."

Photo Credit: A flight deck crew passes by a fighter jet as it prepares to take off on the second day of operations on board of the USS John C. Stennis Wednesday in Persian Gulf waters. (AP)

Also See:

• Iran fears strike by 'warmongers' | Jerusalem Post


• Iran: Attack fears spurred nuclear block


• U.S. commander says no plans to attack Iran


• The War on Iran - Global Research


• US 'ready to attack Iran' claims Russian media - Turkish Daily News


• Venezuela will not fold its arms before US attack on Iran - eluniversal.com


• U.S. again denies doing preparation of war with Iran


• Nimitz carrier group heads for Gulf


• Foreign Policy In Focus | Rep. DeFazio: Don't Attack Iran


• Armenian News - PanARMENIAN.Net | Armenian News Agency - U.S. jets violated Iranian airspace

Technorati tags: Iran, Jerusalem Post, War, Nuclear Energy and Weapons, Israel, Russia, Intelligence, news

Distract and Disenfranchise

By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

I have a theory about the Bush administration abuses of power that are now, finally, coming to light. Ultimately, I believe, they were driven by rising income inequality.

Let me explain.

In 1980, when Ronald Reagan won the White House, conservative ideas appealed to many, even most, Americans. At the time, we were truly a middle-class nation. To white voters, at least, the vast inequalities and social injustices of the past, which were what originally gave liberalism its appeal, seemed like ancient history. It was easy, in that nation, to convince many voters that Big Government was their enemy, that they were being taxed to provide social programs for other people.

Since then, however, we have once again become a deeply unequal society. Median income has risen only 17 percent since 1980, while the income of the richest 0.1 percent of the population has quadrupled. The gap between the rich and the middle class is as wide now as it was in the 1920s, when the political coalition that would eventually become the New Deal was taking shape.

And voters realize that society has changed. They may not pore over income distribution tables, but they do know that today’s rich are building themselves mansions bigger than those of the robber barons. They may not read labor statistics, but they know that wages aren’t going anywhere: according to the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of workers believe that it’s harder to earn a decent living today than it was 20 or 30 years ago.

You know that perceptions of rising inequality have become a political issue when even President Bush admits, as he did in January, that “some of our citizens worry about the fact that our dynamic economy is leaving working people behind.”

But today’s Republicans can’t respond in any meaningful way to rising inequality, because their activists won’t let them. You could see the dilemma just this past Friday and Saturday, when almost all the G.O.P. presidential hopefuls traveled to Palm Beach to make obeisance to the Club for Growth, a supply-side pressure group dedicated to tax cuts and privatization.

The Republican Party’s adherence to an outdated ideology leaves it with big problems. It can’t offer domestic policies that respond to the public’s real needs. So how can it win elections?

The answer, for a while, was a combination of distraction and disenfranchisement.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were themselves a massive, providential distraction; until then the public, realizing that Mr. Bush wasn’t the moderate he played in the 2000 election, was growing increasingly unhappy with his administration. And they offered many opportunities for further distractions. Rather than debating Democrats on the issues, the G.O.P. could denounce them as soft on terror. And do you remember the terror alert, based on old and questionable information, that was declared right after the 2004 Democratic National Convention?

But distraction can only go so far. So the other tool was disenfranchisement: finding ways to keep poor people, who tend to vote for the party that might actually do something about inequality, out of the voting booth.

Remember that disenfranchisement in the form of the 2000 Florida “felon purge,” which struck many legitimate voters from the rolls, put Mr. Bush in the White House in the first place. And disenfranchisement seems to be what much of the politicization of the Justice Department was about.

Several of the fired U.S. attorneys were under pressure to pursue allegations of voter fraud — a phrase that has become almost synonymous with “voting while black.” Former staff members of the Justice Department’s civil rights division say that they were repeatedly overruled when they objected to Republican actions, ranging from Georgia’s voter ID law to Tom DeLay’s Texas redistricting, that they believed would effectively disenfranchise African-American voters.

The good news is that all the G.O.P.’s abuses of power weren’t enough to win the 2006 elections. And 2008 may be even harder for the Republicans, because the Democrats — who spent most of the Clinton years trying to reassure rich people and corporations that they weren’t really populists — seem to be realizing that times have changed.

A week before the Republican candidates trooped to Palm Beach to declare their allegiance to tax cuts, the Democrats met to declare their commitment to universal health care. And it’s hard to see what the G.O.P. can offer in response.

Photo Credit: Paul Krugman. (The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Paul Krugman, New York Times, U.S. Politics and Government, Economic Conditions and Trends, Democratic Party, George W. Bush, Presidential Election of 2008, news, commentary, op ed