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Georgia candidate for governor says sex with mules, watermelon behind him

Candidate for Georgia governorship says he'd kill his own son to secede

John Byrne
April 30, 2009 - Raw Story

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A longshot Georgia candidate for governor who's already admitted having sex with a mule before finding God says he's ready to sacrifice his own son in an effort to get his state to secede from the union.

Neal Horsley made national headlines when he posted the names, phone numbers and addresses of abortion doctors online. His "Nuremberg Files" website also crossed off the names of doctors as they were killed.

Now he's ready to make new news. In an interview by Dylan Otto Krider published late Wednesday, he indicated he'd kill his own son to dissolve the United States (in an effort to overturn Roe v. Wade).

Asked if he was ready to sacrifice his own son in a national insurrection, Horsley recounts a fight with his son where he almost killed him.

"I was one foot from killing my own son, or hurting him really, really bad," Horsley told Krider. "If he would have attacked me again, I would have stuck him. Or cut him or sliced him or done something to stop him. That's the point, you hypothetical has literally already been worked out with me, and that's what makes me different from the other candidates for Governor. They understand I'm not like no politician they have looked at, ever. I am prepared to do a John Brown. I'm not prepared to do an Abe Lincoln and talk out both sides of my mouth and try to get a majority together. I'm looking for the people who are prepared to go with me and take over the foundry, then set up shop and prepare to fight to the death. I'll do it."

Asked again if he was willing to sacrifice his son, he was even more explicit, telling the interview to read the Bible's Matthew 10.

"Your own family are going to be your greatest enemy because unless you love me more than you love your father, your son, your wife, your daughter, you're not fit to be my disciple," Horsley said. "That's why there's a real rift of estrangement in my family," he says. "I contend this is really about people's ability to believe in God. When it comes to that place, when your're talking about God's plan to protect himself, then the lives of people become, really, almost irrelevant… in the degree that they result in Him being glorified. That's the nature of the truth."

In an earlier television interview with Alan Combs, the would be secessionist said he'd had sex with a mule when he was a child.

"When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule," he said, adding, "You experiment with anything that moves when you are growing up sexually."

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Georgia candidate for governor says sex with mules, watermelon behind him

April 28, 2009 - Examiner.com

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Rude Pundit likes to tell the joke about a man sitting in a bar who says to no one in particular, "A man can spend his life building bridges. Do they call him John the Bridge Builder? No. A man can spend his life raising crops. Do they call him John the Farmer? No. But you screw one goat . . ."

When you're a reporter, you occasionally have to ask uncomfortable questions of someone. In this case, I landed an interview with the Georgia Creator's Rights Party candidate for governor, Neal Horsley, who is running on the secessionist platform. During the course of my research, I stumbled upon the fact that Horsley had screwed a mule. (Horsely originally fessed up in an Esquire article, which was picked up by Alan Colmes.) At that point, the campaign, the crusade, everything else kind of takes a backseat to the fact that he screwed a mule.

How exactly does one go about asking that one? Do you throw that question in at the end of interview, all casual like?

I first learned about Neal Horsley when he sent me an email telling me he had been following my articles on secession and wondered if I could help him get in contact with the head of the Georgia Militia. I told him, sadly, no, but was curious about a link to a website he gave me for his campaign for governor. And then, there was the mule thing, which I'll get to.

He is running on the "nullification platform", which is kind of secessionist lite. Though, looking over his platform, there doesn't appear to be anything lite about it. But we'll get to that later.

Now, about the mule. Here's a snippet of his confession on Alan Colmes:

NH: "Absolutely. I was a fool. When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule."

AC: "I'm not so sure that that is so."

NH: "You didn't grow up on a farm in Georgia, did you?"

AC: "Are you suggesting that everybody who grows up on a farm in Georgia has a mule as a girlfriend?"

NH: It has historically been the case. You people are so far removed from the reality... Welcome to domestic life on the farm..."

Colmes said he thought there were a lot of people in the audience who grew up on farms, are living on farms now, raising kids on farms and "and I don't think they are dating Elsie right now. You know what I'm saying?"

Horsley said, "You experiment with anything that moves when you are growing up sexually. You're naive. You know better than that... If it's warm and it's damp and it vibrates you might in fact have sex with it."

Yep. There was no way we weren't going to ask about that one. It was just a matter of how. We worked in the question somewhat delicately this way: "So, as a candidate for Governor, are you worried about any skeletons in your closet that might get aired in the course of the campaign?"

"No, that's why I'm running for Governor because I don't have any skeletons in my closet," he says. " I've talked about things people would never have talked about. Any skeletons I have, I take them out and rattle them around."

"What kinds of things?" I ask.

Without missing a beat, he says, "You know what you're thinking about has been out there..."

"We're talking about the mule now?"

Yes, he says. The mule.

"A small mule?" I ask.

"No, a full grown mule," he says. "She loved me, though."

We both laugh, but I'm still trying to figure out the logistics. How big is this thing? The size of a horse, he says.

"All I had to do was give her an ear of corn." He laughs again. "She was a [prostitute] mule."

"How did you reach?"

"I don't know... I stood on something. The kicker is, as soon as I was done she pissed all over me. It was embarrassing. I never told anyone that before."

That's right, my friends. This is an Underground exclusive.

Not only that, but Horsley has had sex with men. He was in the Air Force, it was a cold night, yadda, yadda, yadda, he had sex with him, ahem, the way he did the mule. "It was gross," he says.

Really? He hadn't described the mule that way.

"I've [screwed] a watermelon," he says. And that's just for starters. He's had sex with just about everything it's physically possible to have sex with, and some that isn't. "How many times have I masturbated in my life?" he asks. Now he's 65 and orgasm-free for two years (his wife finally divorced him -- too much "drama", she said). "The bottom line is, I never treated it as if it were not a sin."

Good to know.

Now that we got that out of the way, we can talk about his campaign to secede from the Union.

A fleeting glimpse of Sri Lanka's hidden war zone

A fleeting glimpse of Sri Lanka's hidden war zone

David Gray
May 1, 2009 - Reuters UK

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PUTUMATTALAN, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - Getting to the frontline of the Sri Lankan army's war with the Tamil Tigers entailed a hair-rising helicopter trip over the jungle and a bone-jarring ride past scorched homes to the war zone.

Foreign journalists and aid groups have generally been kept away from the area where government troops have battled the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for months.

On those rare occasions when the government permits a trip to the front, the hazardous journey there and back takes just one day. Yet, as I found out, it could be a world away.

I was among a small group of journalists that took a pre-dawn military flight from Colombo to an airbase near the battle zone where we transferred to helicopters.

To avoid any ground fire, the choppers flew at maximum speed just above the height of the tallest trees, and when I say JUST, I mean scraping the tops of coconut palms.

This fast and furious ride lasted just 30 minutes to the town of Kilinochchi, the Tigers' one-time de facto capital.

From there we traveled in a clunky armored personnel carrier along pot-holed roads that bore testament to the 25-year civil war that has torn apart this Indian Ocean island.

We were thrown around so much as the speeding vehicle hit the craters that I could barely hold my camera up long enough to take photos of the devastation we were passing.

Eventually, I managed to get a few useable frames of a scorched landscape. Every single dwelling was either destroyed or uninhabitable. Burned-out vehicles lined the road. But what was most noticeable was the absence of people. There were simply no civilians anywhere.

RARE PHOTOGRAPHS

After what seemed like hours, but was actually one, we reached the ruined town of Putumattalan where we got into jeeps. The troops escorting us became noticeably nervous. They held their guns at the ready, looking alert and intently into the coconut groves as we passed. We must be close now, I thought.

Eventually we turned a bend in the dirt road and encountered thousands of weary civilians receiving small handouts of food and drink from the soldiers, enough to last them a day or so.

Our military escorts, it seemed, didn't want us around these civilians. After just 5 minutes, we were told to get back into the jeeps as we were headed to the front.

We soon arrived at a place where only days earlier government soldiers had pushed their way through the Tigers' defenses, leading to a mass exodus of civilians.

Smoke billowed from less than a kilometer away where, we were told, troops were still fighting.

Being so close, our escort now numbered almost 100 heavily armed soldiers. We were severely exposed standing on a road that cut a path through the lagoon. Yet for a full 30 minutes, we photographed what we saw around us.

While walking among scattered clothes and rubbish, I found a packet of film negatives that showed mourners at a funeral.

It gave a glimpse of the terrible loss of civilian lives that has taken place out-of-sight of camera lenses and international scrutiny as the government seeks to end the Tigers' fight for an independent homeland for the country's ethnic Tamil minority.

There is no accurate civilian death toll from the fighting, including from being caught in the cross-fire of artillery shells from both sides, but the United Nations has put the number in the tens of thousands. A U.N. working document says 6,432 civilians have been killed since the end of January alone.

Retracing our perilous journey, we reached Colombo a few hours later. In a single day I had been to the front line of a war in a remote area of Sri Lanka usually banned to coverage by foreign reporters.

Exhausted and dripping with sweat, I got to have a hot shower and unwind. But I kept thinking about the people still trapped at the front, enduring the horrors of war in dire conditions and horrendous temperatures, with minimal food, water, medical aid or even shelter.

It seemed strange to be a fleeting visitor to a war zone for just one day when others have had to endure the bitter consequences of the fighting day in and day out for decades.

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David Gray is an Australian photographer who has covered everything from earthquakes, to wars, to major sports events across the Asia-Pacific region. He won Australia's top press photography award last year with his portfolio of 10 images from the Sichuan earthquake in China, the Olympic Games, Tibet and daily life in China. Based in Beijing, he has been on assignment in Sri Lanka for the past few weeks.

Specter Connects With Sea Change

Specter Connects With Sea Change

Kris Maher
MAY 1, 2009 - Wall Street Journal

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Sen. Arlen Specter's decision to switch parties says as much about the transformation of state politics in the swing state of Pennsylvania as it does about Washington.

Pennsylvania has gone from barely blue to solidly blue, in large part because the state's Democratic leadership under Gov. Ed Rendell and Sen. Bob Casey has widened the party's influence and popularity by focusing on local issues like jobs, health care and education -- themes that may be playing well during a time of economic stress.

At the same time, the Republican Party has focused more on national security and tax cuts.

"This state is in major transition," said Terry Madonna, a political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, Pa. "The moderate base of the Republican Party is defecting, and that has put them in a precarious position in the state."

Across the state, counties that have voted Republican since the Civil War have gone Democrat, while the T-shaped conservative region in the state's rural midsection and north has been aging and losing population. Meanwhile, there has been an influx of people into the more liberal Philadelphia region. Others moving into the northeast part of the state, especially from New Jersey, also tend to vote Democrat.

Since 2004, 200,000 of the state's Republican voters have switched their party affiliation and become Democrats. In 2006, conservative Republican Rick Santorum, who argued that the theory of intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution and whose statements about homosexuality were viewed as intolerant by some voters, was soundly defeated in his bid for a third term by Sen. Casey.

Sen. Specter said his move to the Democratic side came after he assessed his chances for winning re-election in Pennsylvania, following his key vote in favor of President Barack Obama's stimulus package, which angered Republicans and prompted Republican Pat Toomey to declare that he would run in the Senate primary. In 2004, Mr. Toomey, who supports lower taxes and limited government, narrowly lost to Sen. Specter in the party primary.

"I have traveled the state," Sen. Specter said, "and have found that the prospects for winning a Republican primary are bleak."

Sen. Casey said he believes some voters in the state have left the Republican Party because of its "emphasis on ideology even in the face of what I believe are fairly urgent priorities of getting the economy out of the ditch."

Sen. Casey, who is pro-life, said the Democrats also have realized "that if they insist on ideological litmus tests or orthodoxy, then they lose elections." His own father, Bob Casey Sr., who was Pennsylvania's Democratic governor from 1987 to 1995, clashed with the party over his pro-life views.

Michael Barley, a spokesman for the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, said his party doesn't have a litmus test. "We're open to anybody that shares our commitment of less government and less taxes." He said the shift in the past decade from Republicans holding top elected positions to Democrats "typifies how much of a swing state we are. We're going to be back."

One survey last fall of Pennsylvania voters who had switched party affiliation from Republican to Democratic found that two-thirds said the Bush administration's policies were a significant factor in their decision, according to Chris Borick, a political scientist at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa.

Elizabeth McCabe, 45 years old, of the Philadelphia suburb of North Wales, switched parties last year over what she described as disappointment with the Bush administration and to support then-Sen. Obama in the state's Democratic primary.

Ms. McCabe, who first registered Republican when she turned 18, said her only hesitation in making the move was her pro-life stance. She approves of President Obama's performance, but said she's not sure if she will vote for Sen. Specter. "I'm disappointed because I think there are some other people who were going to run from the Democratic Party who could have been a better choice."

Another factor in turning Pennsylvania blue, say experts, was the 2002 election of Gov. Rendell, an effective fund-raiser who was also a major campaign force in the 2006 midterm elections. Democrats picked up four Congressional seats in the 2006 midterm elections and one seat last year.

"The short answer to what happened to Pennsylvania is Ed Rendell and his incredible ability to raise money and spend it and energize the Democrats," said William J. Green, a Pittsburgh-based political analyst, who is a Republican.

Meanwhile, a big challenge facing Sen. Specter is winning support from organized labor, which is a major political force in the state. Labor leaders were unhappy with Sen. Specter's decision not to support a key piece of pro-labor legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act.

"I think it's great that he sees that the direction of the Republican Party is disconnected from the mainstream of the country," said Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, which is based in Pittsburgh. But he added that Sen. Specter "still has to be re-educated" on labor-law reform, health care and trade policy.

Diners report seeing Virgin Mary in food griddle

Diners report seeing Virgin Mary in food griddle

April 30, 2009 - AP

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CALEXICO, Calif. – The hottest thing on the griddle at the Las Palmas restaurant these days isn't the food — it's the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe that a cook says she saw on the griddle.

Restaurant manager Brenda Martinez says more than 100 people have flocked to the small town of Calexico on the California-Mexico border to gaze at the likeness of the Virgin Mary since it was discovered as the griddle was being cleaned.

Among the awe-struck was a group of masked Mexican wrestlers who arrived Thursday for an exhibition at a nearby swap meet.

One, known as Mr. Tempest, says: "This is amazing. It's a true miracle."

Since the discovery, the griddle has been taken out of service and placed in a shrine in a storage room.

Giant 'Islands' of Garbage Floating in the Ocean

Giant 'Islands' of Garbage Floating in the Ocean, With No Fix in Sight.

Meg White
04/30/2009 - BuzzFlash

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Getting the attention of the daytime TV queen Oprah is the dream scenario for every cause. So after the island of trash floating in the Pacific Ocean made its debut on Oprah's Earth Day episode, one would think we'd already have an army of celebrities out in their yachts, scooping up garbage.

It's been billed as the world's largest landfill, characterized as a three million-ton garbage dump.

To be precise, this mass is not really an island, per se. The garbage itself floats just beneath the surface in a decaying soup that extends many feet below the surface in places. The mass is held together by oceanic currents called gyres. Also known as a trash vortex, this mass of mostly plastic doesn't discriminate. Large pieces mingle in a muck of tiny plastic bits broken down by the sun in a process called photo-degeneration.

To narrow the definition even further, it's not even an it: There may be as many as six of these trash-filled gyres swirling in our oceans. Greenpeace has a fascinating interactive animation showing how coastal garbage interacts with oceanic gyres.

The two best-known gathering points of oceanic trash are the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches, collectively known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Floating on either side of Hawaii, the two patches are actually connected by the Subtropical Convergence Zone, or "trash superhighway," as it's described by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

This "island" is where flotsam and jetsam meet. An estimated four-fifths of the oceanic debris comes from land sources: litter that is swept by rain or wind from streets as far inland as Iowa to tributaries and beaches. The remainder comes from garbage accidentally lost or deliberately dumped from boats and ship decks.

The dangers of these garbage patches are great in both quantity and quality. Marine animals of all sizes, from zooplankton to whales, mistake the plastic for food. Some organisms become entangled in the mass and die.

The patches also concentrate the most toxic part of plastic trash -- known as persistent organic pollutants, or POPs -- like a sponge, making the garbage itself even more harmful. The island also allows for the spread of invasive species by facilitating "oceanic hitchhikers" that travel from one habitat to another with unprecedented ease.

The remote location of these garbage patches, combined with the constantly-shifting nature of the ocean in general and the gyres specifically, makes determining the size of the garbage patches difficult. Estimates range wildly, from the size of Texas to the size of the continental United States.

Obviously, to combat this problem we need to reduce our plastic use and stop littering. We need to recycle more. This problem needs to be headed off at the source, or else we'll just keep feeding this man-made sea monster. Greenpeace has an excellent, practical list of what ordinary people can do to help stem the tide of this massive problem.

That said, we've been ditching plastic in the natural environment for the last 50 years, and our planet is already overflowing with toxicity. Plastic takes hundreds, sometimes thousands of years to break down. You do the math; I think you'll conclude that we need to do something now about the damage done.

As for the trash that's already there, many throw their hands in the air nihilistically. "There's just too much, and the ocean is just too big," said one expert about the possibility of cleaning up the garbage patches.

I'd posit that the garbage patch problem is too large to allow its continued existence, and the only part its remoteness plays is allowing nations to disavow responsibility by noting international waters statutes. Hell, we're having a hard enough political fight with carbon caps and climate treaties. But we are pursuing them nonetheless. If the political will is there to fight the smoggy Mothra on a global scale, why not soggy Ebirah?

On the home front, NOAA began looking into the possibility of a U.S. attack on Garbage Island a few years ago. According to their Web site, they've been contacted by several companies interested in helping out. They urge caution however, as a great deal of marine life could be destroyed in the process. The agency, in concert with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, does offer grants and other funding opportunities to those with ideas of how to clean up our oceans and local waterways in general.

There are already international efforts underway to remove plastic from the world's oceans. A group in Italy has begun paying fishermen in the Mediterranean (who pull trash out of the sea accidentally in the course of their work, but throw it back overboard as they have no monetary incentive to keep it) to bring back plastic from their expeditions. The group, called Green Ocean, later recycles the plastic. They are working with more than 60 universities and trying to get the attention of the E.U.'s environmental commission.

With the large amount of shipping vessels being docked (at a great price to ship owners and their crews) due to lowered productivity worldwide, now is perhaps the best time to pull together a plan to attack the garbage patch, mirroring what is already being done in Italy.

This is where multinational companies, many of which produce the stuff that populates Trash Island, come in. Can you imagine the goodwill a company like Google could garner by taking on this problem?

I'm not saying it has to be Google. But parts of the planning and execution would fit well into their portfolio, as well as their famous motto. With Google Earth diving into ocean mapping and photography, the company could give the problem a visual dimension.

In reality, it will take many companies cooperating to take on such a challenge. And there's no shortage of global companies who could take this on. Here are a few ideas:

A.P. Moller-Maersk, the world's largest container shipping company, could help haul the trash itself. After all, they boast their environmental foresight is evidenced by their development of the world's first double-hulled tanker to reduce oil spills. They say they want "to do more than what is simply necessary to comply with legislation, recognising [sic] that individual contributions make a difference" in global environmental challenges.

There are thousands of plastic recycling companies that could benefit from this project. Perhaps Nestle, a company that has done its fair share of polluting with its water bottle empire alone, could draw attention to (and expand?) its plastic recycling efforts by participating in the capture and reuse of the garbage patch.

On the manpower front, maybe Celebrity Cruises could donate its new cruise ship (the largest in the world) to an eco-tourism venture. I'd bet that there would be more takers on a heroic trip to battle Garbage Island than you'll find for their Mexican tours of late.

That's where we come in. Though the patch itself is a week's journey from the nearest port, I think it could make for an interesting vacation. Maybe you'll meet Oprah! And hey, why not bring the children along? After all, you're not raising them to be Garbage Patch Kids, are you?

http://blog.buzzflash.com/analysis/739

Churchgoers more likely to back torture

Churchgoers more likely to back torture, survey finds

April 30th, 2009 - CNN.com

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The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new analysis.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than 6 in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only 4 in 10 of them did.

The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants, and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small.

Now we're supposed to call it H1N1 to protect our pork interests?

An Editor's Post

OK, so there's been a noticeable shift in calling the Swine Flu by it's scientific name of the H1N1 Virus. I guess it's the politically correct thing to do now that both China and Russia have started to refuse our pork exports. I have a hard time buying into this since the science proves that you can't get the virus from processed pork or even a live pig for that matter. This is a virus that mutated, from a pig virus to a human virus. If you're going to catch it, you're going to get it from another human.

I don't mean to make light of the real and somewhat frightening risk of a pandemic breaking out worldwide. Regretfully, the reality of political correctness, political caution and misinformation is there. I'd bet real money that China and Russia's refusal of our exports has way more to do with 1) - Economic opportunism and 2) - Doing something stupid and of no real medical use so their leaders can look like they're doing something in front of their media that gives the appearance of them protecting their citizenry.

The widely publicised use of surgical masks has been getting some attention along with the fact that they don't really do much to protect you from getting H1N1. I would think however, that if you believe you may be infected with the H1N1 virus, wearing a surgical mask might help you from spreading it around. Coughing, sneezing and just breathing in general emits microscopic vapor particles on which the virus can ride along. Touching a surface that has collected these vapor particles and then touching your face, lips, nose or food you're about to consume is how you are most likely to contract it, if you get it at all. This means the best protection is good old hand washing and the use of hand sanitizers.

I think I'll scrub up and have a pork chop.

Yum!

-The Editor

And then Arlen did, and he wont be the last.

An Editor's Post

Who can blame him? It's not as if the mess we're in happened in the last 100 days. Now, right - wingers are trashing a guy they would have bashed their own mothers to defend a couple of days ago. The simple fact is, this one more example of politics overriding policy.

The G"NO"P crowd better get used to the idea of seeing the backs of their members as they walk away from the the hollering idiots. Rush Limbaugh started blasting away within minutes of the announcement and actually said "Take McCain and his daughter with you." Good idea, since Arlen made it clear he would not be an automatic "rubber-stamp" for the Dems.

Much has been made about Arlen's consideration of being able to win again in Pennsylvania as a Republican. Yes, I suppose there is something to that. But the G"NO"P better start thinking about the ads running against their candidates in the next round of elections. We can all expect to hear things that more or less sound like...

While [Republican Politician's name here] made every effort to block any legislation that was presented on [House/Senate] floor to fix the economy, health care, boarder security, [any other significant issue that comes up between now and then], they also provided NO legislative alternatives, NO plans, NO new ideas. Are you sick of "Just Say No"? Then this coming election day, say YES to [new guy's name here].

"Hi, I'm [the new guy] and I say YES to this message."

The ironic thing is, while we will most likely see these ads from Democrats, the greatest damage to the G"NO"P candidates will be done by Republican "up and coming" candidates. You "NO", the ones who want the job but can't get it because they can't get the PAC money, because they won't tow the party line.

-The Editor

The myth of Talibanistan

The myth of Talibanistan

Pepe Escobar
May 1, 2009 - Asia Times

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Apocalypse Now. Run for cover. The turbans are coming. This is the state of Pakistan today, according to the current hysteria disseminated by the Barack Obama administration and United States corporate media - from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to The New York Times. Even British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said on the record that Pakistani Talibanistan is a threat to the security of Britain.

But unlike St Petersburg in 1917 or Tehran in late 1978, Islamabad won't fall tomorrow to a turban revolution.

Pakistan is not an ungovernable Somalia. The numbers tell the story. At least 55% of Pakistan's 170 million-strong population are Punjabis. There's no evidence they are about to embrace Talibanistan; they are essentially Shi'ites, Sufis or a mix of both. Around 50 million are Sindhis - faithful followers of the late Benazir Bhutto and her husband, now President Asif Ali Zardari's centrist and overwhelmingly secular Pakistan People's Party. Talibanistan fanatics in these two provinces - amounting to 85% of Pakistan's population, with a heavy concentration of the urban middle class - are an infinitesimal minority.

The Pakistan-based Taliban - subdivided in roughly three major groups, amounting to less than 10,000 fighters with no air force, no Predator drones, no tanks and no heavily weaponized vehicles - are concentrated in the Pashtun tribal areas, in some districts of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and some very localized, small parts of Punjab.

To believe this rag-tag band could rout the well-equipped, very professional 550,000-strong Pakistani army, the sixth-largest military in the world, which has already met the Indian colossus in battle, is a ludicrous proposition.

Moreover, there's no evidence the Taliban, in Afghanistan or in Pakistan, have any capability to hit a target outside of "Af-Pak"(Afghanistan and Pakistan). That's mythical al-Qaeda's privileged territory. As for the nuclear hysteria of the Taliban being able to crack the Pakistani army codes for the country's nuclear arsenal (most of the Taliban, by the way, are semi-literate), even Obama, at his 100-day news conference, stressed the nuclear arsenal was safe.

Of course, there's a smatter of junior Pashtun army officers who sympathize with the Taliban - as well as significant sections of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency. But the military institution itself is backed by none other than the American army - with which it has been closely intertwined since the 1970s. Zardari would be a fool to unleash a mass killing of Pakistani Pashtuns; on the contrary, Pashtuns can be very useful for Islamabad's own designs.

Zardari's government this week had to send in troops and the air force to deal with the Buner problem, in the Malakand district of NWFP, which shares a border with Kunar province in Afghanistan and thus is relatively close to US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops. They are fighting less than 500 members of the Tehrik-e Taliban-e Pakistan (TTP). But for the Pakistani army, the possibility of the area joining Talibanistan is a great asset - because this skyrockets Pakistani control of Pashtun southern Afghanistan, ever in accordance to the eternal "strategic depth" doctrine prevailing in Islamabad.

So if Islamabad is not burning tomorrow, why the hysteria? There are several reasons. To start with, what Washington - now under Obama's "Af-Pak" strategy - simply cannot stomach is real democracy and a true civilian government in Islamabad; these would be much more than a threat to "US interests" than the Taliban, whom the Bill Clinton administration was happily wining and dining in the late 1990s.

What Washington may certainly relish is yet another military coup - and sources tell Asia Times Online that former dictator General Pervez Musharraf (Busharraf as he was derisively referred to) is active behind the hysteria scene.

It's crucial to remember that every military coup in Pakistan has been conducted by the army chief of staff. So the man of the hour - and the next few hours, days and months - is discreet General Ashfaq Kiani, Benazir's former army secretary. He is very cozy with US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen, and definitely not a Taliban-hugger.

Moreover, there are canyons of the Pakistani military/security bureaucracy who would love nothing better than to extract even more US dollars from Washington to fight the Pashtun neo-Taliban that they are simultaneously arming to fight the Americans and NATO. It works. Washington is now under a counter-insurgency craze, with the Pentagon eager to teach such tactics to every Pakistani officer in sight.

What is never mentioned by US corporate media is the tremendous social problems Pakistan has to deal with because of the mess in the tribal areas. Islamabad believes that between the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and NWFP, at least 1 million people are now displaced (not to mention badly in need of food aid). FATA's population is around 3.5 million - overwhelmingly poor Pashtun peasants. And obviously war in FATA translates into insecurity and paranoia in the fabled capital of NWFP, Peshawar.

The myth of Talibanistan anyway is just a diversion, a cog in the slow-moving regional big wheel - which in itself is part of the new great game in Eurasia.

During a first stage - let's call it the branding of evil - Washington think-tanks and corporate media hammered non-stop on the "threat of al-Qaeda" to Pakistan and the US. FATA was branded as terrorist central - the most dangerous place in the world where "the terrorists" and an army of suicide bombers were trained and unleashed into Afghanistan to kill the "liberators" of US/NATO.

In the second stage, the new Obama administration accelerated the Predator "hell from above" drone war over Pashtun peasants. Now comes the stage where the soon over 100,000-strong US/NATO troops are depicted as the true liberators of the poor in Af-Pak (and not the "evil" Taliban) - an essential ploy in the new narrative to legitimize Obama's Af-Pak surge.

For all pieces to fall into place, a new uber-bogeyman is needed. And he is TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud, who, curiously, had never been hit by even a fake US drone until, in early March, he made official his allegiance to historic Taliban leader Mullah Omar, "The Shadow" himself, who is said to live undisturbed somewhere around Quetta, in Pakistani Balochistan.

Now there's a US$5 million price on Baitullah's head. The Predators have duly hit the Mehsud family's South Waziristan bases. But - curioser and curioser - not once but twice, the ISI forwarded a detailed dossier of Baitullah's location directly to its cousin, the Central Intelligence Agency. But there was no drone hit.

And maybe there won't be - especially now that a bewildered Zardari government is starting to consider that the previous uber-bogeyman, a certain Osama bin Laden, is no more than a ghost. Drones can incinerate any single Pashtun wedding in sight. But international bogeymen of mystery - Osama, Baitullah, Mullah Omar - star players in the new OCO (overseas contingency operations), formerly GWOT ("global war on terror"), of course deserve star treatment.

.....

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge.

Let's Mess with Texas

Let's Mess with Texas

Richard Reeves
Apr 24, 2009 - Yahoo News

.....

Rush Limbaugh, the entertainer, announced the other day that he was moving out of New York City because New York Gov. David Paterson proposed higher state taxes on the rich. Paterson reacted by saying that if he had known Limbaugh would go, he would have proposed the tax a long time ago.

I had about the same reaction when Texas Gov. Rick Perry began babbling about the Lone Star State seceding from the United States. His rebel yell prompted a scene that may not be remembered as long as the Alamo, but should be. There were a few dozen of Perry's constituents waving "Secede Now" signs in one hand and American flags in the other.

Perry, who had his facts and history all wrong -- practically a given for Texas politicians -- was reacting to his own interpretation of President Obama's stimulus packages. What made him maddest was that the federal plan would have given unemployed Texans more money than the state gives them now. Then he got even madder when Democrats and other Republicans -- Perry is a Republican -- joined together to override his veto of that part of the Obama package of state aid.

"Texas is a unique place," he shouted. No argument there. "When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that."

Wrong! In that respect, Texas is the same as every other state. In fact, if you remember, Texas did secede, or tried to, once before. That was in 1861, The War Between the States and all that.

Perry is not alone. In a quick state poll published by The Dallas Morning News, almost one in five Texans said they would vote for secession if they were given the chance. One of them was that great Texan (and American) Tom DeLay, who brought so much honor to the state during his years in Congress. DeLay praised Perry for upholding Texas "sovereignty." The editor of D Magazine, Wick Allison, complained in an editorial that the national recession was far worse than Dallas' economic problems, and why should relatively prosperous Texans help Americans who did not help them during a local slump in housing prices from 1987 to 1994.

"Now the rest of the country has decided to drag us down with it," wrote Allison. "I find that more than a little irritating."

As for local Democrats, they are having some fun with such talk. Said state representative Jim Dunnam of Waco: "Talk of secession is an attack on our country. It can be nothing else. It is the ultimate anti-American statement."

Both Democrats and newspapers are saying that what Perry is really afraid of is not the United States but only one woman in it, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who has been talking about challenging him in the Republican primary for governor next year. He has been calling the lady a "Washington insider," ordinary stuff like that, but now maybe he intends to attack her as "an American." This is a state, after all, that booted its founder, Sam Houston, out of the governor's office because he suggested back in 1861 that it might not be such a good idea to take on the entire United States.

However serious Perry is, maybe the rest of us should take him at his word. Let Texas secede, keep its death sentences and become a buffer state between the drug wars of Mexico and the drug users of the United States. People like me with family in Texas will be bothered by getting visas to visit our own. But, presumably, anyone with half a brain will be heading north. We'll have a whole new illegal immigrant problem, Texans. Well, maybe we'll just have to build another border fence to keep them out.

Actually, what I regret about this messing with Texas is that it's just too late. If it had happened a few years ago, the rest of us, loyal Americans, would have been spared George W. Bush. He would have been president of the Republic of Texas. You can imagine the shape the former state would be in after its pre-emptive invasion of Mexico.

Circle of Blame

Circle of Blame

Ted Rall
April 24, 2009 - Yahoo News

.....

I suppose I should take a bow.

For eight long years (years that passed like centuries for the miserables rotting in cages at Guantanamo and Bagram and Abu Ghraib and Diego Garcia and Bulgaria and the U.S. Navy's fleet of prison ships) no one cared about torture. Law professors, politicians, and journalists justified it. Even liberals didn't care: there wasn't one major protest march against beating or raping or drowning people to death. Strange but true: the only forces raging against the collective madness that warped the American psyche after 9/11 were human rights organizations and a couple of cartoonists.

The syndicated political cartoonist Matt Bors and I took point, repeatedly ridiculing and ranting about the Bush Administration's torture policies and Americans' tacit tolerance of it in cartoons we knew would be reprinted in only a handful of publications. Editors and readers advised us to "stop obsessing" and "move on." Award committees passed us over in favor of cartoonists who bought Bush's tall tales about WMDs in Iraq. We were blackballed.

At least they didn't shove a flashlight up my ass. That is a favorite interrogation tactic at Gitmo (and Bagram, where Obama plans to send the Gitmo victims next).

Perhaps the declassification of CIA documents revealing that the CIA waterboarded one man 183 times (why not 182? Why not 184?) prompted Americans' newfound distaste for taxpayer-funded dungeons. Maybe it was the juvenile stupidity displayed by Bush's legal eagles: "As we understand it, you plan to inform Zubaydah that you are going to place a stinging insect into the box, but you will actually place a harmless insect in the box, such as a caterpillar," one memo said. Because, you know, they don't have caterpillars in the Northwestern Frontier Province.

Whatever the cause, better late than never (though not for the dozens of fathers, brothers and sons murdered in American torture chambers), but things have come full circle. Americans are against torture again. Some Congressmen are calling for investigations into Bush's war crimes. President Obama, forced to backpedal on his infamous inclination to "move forward" rather than compel the CIA's goons to "look over their shoulders" while applying electrodes to the genitals of 14-year-old Afghan boys, seems amenable to throwing the Dirty Half Dozen--the six Bushie lawyers including John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Alberto Gonz‡les--to the tender mercies of a special prosecutor.

My favorite aspect of the discussion involves whether or not torture works. "High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the Al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country," Obama's national intelligence director argued last week. Key suspects "provided much valuable information under less severe treatment, and the harsher handling produced no breakthroughs," countered The New York Times about the newly released documents.

I don't care if torture works. I don't give a damn if torture could reveal a plot that would cost millions of lives. I would rather die in a terrorist attack than live in a society that relies upon torture to protect itself. But what do I know? Maybe I've just been brainwashed by my Christian upbringing.

As I wrote two weeks ago, the Dirty Half Dozen lawyers ought to be prosecuted for constructing an illegal CYA framework to justify heinous acts by government torturers. An attorney who perverts logic and the law as follows is far too dangerous to be allowed to walk among free men: "Although we do not equate a person who voluntarily enters a weight-loss program with a detainee subjected to dietary manipulation as an interrogation technique, we believe that it is relevant that several commercial weight-loss programs available in the United States involve similar or even greater reductions in caloric intake."

An officer of the court who doesn't pack up his office supplies and type up a resignation letter rather than write the following suffers from both psychosis and stupidity: "Although the abdominal slap technique might involve some minor physical pain, it cannot, as you have described it to us, be said to involve even moderate, let alone severe, physical pain or suffering." Do a Google Image search on John Yoo, author of many of the Torture Memos: the pudgy little pig would break down in tears if he ran out of hand lotion.

Jail the lawyers, preferably for life. But don't forget their bosses. As has been amply documented, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld and others personally signed off on specific acts of torture. They ordered the Dirty Half Dozen to draft those memos to provide them with legal cover.

Lawyers don't write law; they interpret it. If a corporate executive relies on bad legal advice, he goes to jail. Hiring a crappy lawyer isn't a defense. Bush and his war council should spend the rest of their lives at Guant‡namo. Since he's continuing Bush's detention policies, so should Obama.

And let's not forget the CIA and military torturers, the so-called little fish. As servicemen learn during training, it is illegal to follow an illegal order. An order to torture or abuse prisoners of war violates U.S. law and international treaty obligations, as well as international law. When given such an order, it is every person's moral and legal obligation to refuse it, even if means facing a court-martial. Everyone involved with torture deserves prosecution, including the physicians and psychologists who sat in on sessions that involved "harsh interrogation techniques."

At the Nuremberg trials that followed World War II, hatemongers like the Jew-baiting newspaper publisher Julius Streicher were prosecuted for promoting racist Nazi ideology. Surely an analogy can be found for right-wing torture fans like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, who repeatedly fanned the anti-Muslim hatred that led to our current shame. Even Bill Maher, libertarian-cum-liberal post-ABC firing, was pro-torture after 9/11.

In the end, of course, we are all to blame. It was the American people's moral obligation to rise up as one against a government that carried out torture in our name. Yet we didn't lift a finger. If only there was a prison big enough to hold all of us.

The Clinton Bubble

The Clinton Bubble

Robert Scheer
April 29, 2009 - TruthDig.com

.....

Has Timothy Geithner ever had lunch with a non-megamillionaire who has lost his job or home because of the banking meltdown? I ask that question after reading the list of the treasury secretary's luncheon dates when he was head of the New York Federal Reserve, a list that the government was forced to provide in response to a lawsuit.

During those years when he was supposed to be supervising Wall Street, he supped most often in the top-echelon dining room of some bank or at the home of one of the financial moguls who created the mess that has now bankrupted billions throughout the world. One of his frequent luncheon buddies was Sanford I. Weill, who as chairman of Citigroup lobbied successfully for the reversal of key regulations that dated back to the New Deal era. That change permitted Weill's oligarchy to become "too big to fail."

Another preferred dining companion was Robert Rubin, who as Bill Clinton's treasury secretary pushed through Weill's favored deregulation-a disastrous "reform" that lies at the heart of the current mess-and who went on to become chairman of Citigroup, where he presided over a downfall of the company that required a $45 billion taxpayer bailout. Geithner had worked for Rubin at the Treasury Department, and it was Rubin who got him his job at the New York Fed and hooked him up with Barack Obama.

Geithner has since pushed the Obama administration to approach the banking crisis not in response to the needs of destitute homeowners but rather from the side of the bankers who are seizing their homes. Instead of keeping people in their homes with a freeze on foreclosures, he has rewarded the unscrupulous lenders who conned ordinary folks.

He still wants to give more money to Citigroup, which has just been found woefully short of cash by Treasury's auditors, and has not stopped Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and some other big banks ostensibly under government influence, and indeed sometimes ownership, from recently ending their temporary moratoriums on housing foreclosures. Geithner has been in the forefront of coddling the banks in the hopes that welfare for the rich will trickle down to suffering homeowners, but that has not happened.

As The New York Times revealed this week in a devastating exposé of Geithner's record: "An examination of Mr. Geithner's five years as president of the New York Fed, an era of unbridled and ultimately disastrous risk-taking by the financial industry, shows that he forged unusually close relationships with executives of Wall Street's giant financial institutions. His actions, as a regulator and later a bailout king, often aligned with the industry's interests and desires, according to interviews with financiers, regulators and analysts and a review of Federal Reserve records."

Most revealing was the Times' discovery that Geithner shocked a meeting of top government officials, convened by then-Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson to deal with the financial crisis, when "[h]e proposed asking Congress to give the president broad power to guarantee all the debt in the banking system. ... "

Now I know that the conventional wisdom among Democrats is that the Clintonistas were wildly successful in running the economy when they had their turn, and that Rubin and his protégés Lawrence Summers and Geithner deserve a lot of the credit. But that view is dead wrong. The seeds of the current economic chaos were planted in those years, in which Wall Street lobbyists were given everything they wanted in the way of radical deregulation, and hence was born the madcap world of credit swaps and other unregulated derivatives.

The result was a Clinton bubble, which saw the rise of a new superrich class that vastly skewed income distribution in favor of what was termed the "working rich" by Emmanuel Saez, who deservedly just won the top prize for young economists, the American Economic Association's John Bates Clark Medal. Members of the "working rich" are well represented in the top 1 percent of income "earners," who, according to a study by Saez, "captured about half of the overall economic growth over the period 1993-2006." The record is clear that from the first year of the Clinton reign, the new class of superrich, including many Wall Streeters, benefited as much as the other 99 percent of the nation's population did from the policies that Clinton put in place and George W. Bush accelerated.

To add salt to the wounds of those left out of the bubble, the Clinton administration summarily ended the federal poverty program in the name of a so-called welfare reform that "devolved" programs for the poor to the tender mercy of the states. The meanness derby between the cash-strapped states is on, and the poor, a category that includes a growing number of folks who only recently were judged "middle class," are abandoned.

What is involved here is an extreme case of government-condoned "moral hazard" offering outrageous compensation to the superrich for screwing up royally. Where is the socially conscious Obama we voted for? E-mail him and ask.

.....

Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.

What's the deal with Michele Bachmann?

A post by "The Editor"

So the gentlewoman wants to speak out on the CO2 tax. OK, fine. I'm down with that, I don't agree with her position in the least, but it is her job to get up and speak her mind, and present the argument for her and her constituents point of view.

Her recent appointment to the House GOP American Energy Solutions Group is pretty much a wash. Their primary focus is "More oil, and oh yeah, we should try to do something about getting clean energy." Pretty much same crowd that came up with "Drill, Baby, Drill". I guess it's hard to expect anything new from the "hey, let's do more of the same and see if that works" crowd.

Known for occasionally putting her foot in her mouth, she's made a few whoppers in recent months. This one takes the cake, and once again, the media's missing the bigger point. That is, that too often, our politicians are simply pulling stuff out of their butts to say, or simply repeating the party line because it's easier than thinking for yourself, let alone thinking at all.

Here's where things begin to get weird. In her recent speech on the house floor (video below), she goes on and on how CO2 is naturally occurring and therefor, should be left free of regulations. Well, I'm quite sure the IRS isn't knocking on Mother Natures door.



Apparently, no one has ever explained to her that anything in excess, no matter how good or natural, can be detrimental.

Water is a good case in point. In the land of the 15 minute memory span, folks (including the Congresswoman from Minnesota's 6Th District) may have forgotten this story.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Now go play it safe and have a beer.

-The Editor

Chasing Ghosts in Afghanistan

Chasing Ghosts in Afghanistan

Katrina vanden Heuvel & Greg Kaufmann
April 27, 2009 - The Nation

.....

There were two important hearings regarding Afghanistan on the Hill last week -- in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and at the Congressional Progressive Caucus' (CPC) third forum examining the war. Both raised critical questions about the current strategy of escalation -- questions Congress should take to heart as it considers the $83 billion war supplemental in coming weeks.

Senator John Kerry -- who as a young Vietnam veteran famously asked the Foreign Relations Committee, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" -- now chaired that same committee's hearing titled "Voice of Veterans of the Afghan War." He said in his opening statement that he "would not compare all of our conflicts to the Vietnam War.... [That] does not mean, however, that there are no parallels between the two wars." The hearing bore out some of those parallels.

There was a diversity of opinion among the four veterans and retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich as to whether sending more troops is the right thing to do. But there was also something they held in common: their connection to this war -- its stakes, costs, and consequences -- is very personal (in the case of Bacevich his personal connection comes not only from having served in Vietnam but also losing his son in Iraq.)

Retired Corporal Rick Reyes was the most vocal of the Afghanistan War veterans in opposing escalation. He spoke of his determination -- and that of his fellow Marines -- to "fight the enemy" following 9/11. But Reyes said that instead they were "sent to fight an enemy we could never see. The entire time we were there, we were chasing ghosts."

Reyes' mission was to "locate and capture suspected members of the Taliban" during nighttime raids. But it was impossible to distinguish between suspected terrorists and the civilian population and "we began creating enemies out of innocent civilians." He told a story of beating a suspected terrorist "to submission" only to discover he was a civilian trying to deliver milk to his kids.

"There were hundreds of incidents like this one," he said. "... Almost 100 percent of the time we would find that suspected terrorists turned out to be innocent civilians."

Reyes called the presence of so many troops "a sign of poor intelligence. With strong intelligence there's no need to occupy the country with [this] massive amount of troops. So we need to strengthen our intelligence, and then plan, and then execute."

He's convinced, in fact, that the escalation will only make the situation worse. "I can almost guarantee you that sending more troops will mean more civilian and US troop casualties, more homes being broken into, more children without food, more women without husbands.... Sending more troops will not make the US safer, it will only build more opposition against us." He concluded with an appeal "on behalf of truth and patriotism to consider carefully and rethink Afghanistan. More troops, more war is not the answer."

Bacevich -- a graduate of West Point and current Boston University faculty member -- also offered compelling testimony on finding an alternative to military force. He drew a parallel to the Vietnam War and President Lyndon Johnson's "tragic failure of imagination, persuading himself that there existed no alternative to a massive US troop commitment."

Bacevich said that if the objective is indeed to ensure that Afghanistan is not a "safe haven" for Al Qaeda, then one example of an alternative to escalation is to "recognize the tribal nature of Afghan politics... and to provide incentives to the tribal chiefs to govern their patch of Earth in ways consistent with our interests. In other words, just don't let Al Qaeda in. And where those incentives don't work then it might be necessary for us to engage in some kind of a punitive action... to eliminate any elements of Al Qaeda." He also spoke of building more "robust defenses" at home, denying terrorist networks financial resources through less dependence on foreign oil, and emphasizing smart police work and intelligence sharing which is more effective and cheaper.

Senator Russ Feingold -- one of the earliest of a growing number of Democrats to question President Obama's policy -- pointed out that increasing the number of troops "may have no lasting positive impact so long as there are safe havens militants in Pakistan.... [it] may further destabilize the situation in Pakistan to the detriment of US national security."

Bacevich agreed. "Even if we could magically wave our wand, and tomorrow have the Afghanistan problem be solved," he said, "...what exactly would we have achieved in a strategic sense...? In many respects the larger problem is in neighboring Pakistan. To invest enormous resources in Afghanistan I think is allowing technical considerations to take precedence over strategic thinking." (A point which seems all the more compelling in light ofrecent events in Pakistan.)

"What about the possibility that an escalation in Afghanistan can actually be more destabilizing to Pakistan?" Sen. Feingold asked. "In other words, in terms of militants spilling back over into that border. Is that a fair concern or not?

"I think it's a very real concern," Bacevich said. "...To some measurable degree, in places like Afghanistan, increasing the US presence actually increases the dimensions of the problem."

Even supporters of President Obama's policy expressed doubt about the prospects for success. Captain Westley Moore said -- even with the escalation -- the number of troops for the mission at hand is still "paltry." (He's right, if one follows General Petraeus' counterinsurgency principles it's been suggested we would need upward of 400,000 troops.) At the CPC forum, Hekmat Karzai, Director of the Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies in Kabul, said: "Counterinsurgency is supposed to be about 80 percent political and 20 percent military... but in Afghanistan we have had over 90 percent of our resources allocated towards military, about 8 percent towards development."

Retired Major General Paul Eaton -- who was charged with rebuilding the Iraqi Armed Forces from 2003-04 and later became an outspoken critic of the Bush Administration -- was also at the CPC forum. He quoted his son's commander in Afghanistan who said, "I don't need any more combat power. I need agriculture experts, I need water engineers, I need doctors, nurses, dentists...."

CPC Policy Advisor Bill Goold posed a critical question as to whether US and NATO forces are widely "viewed as foreign occupiers", and if so, "what military strategy could possibly succeed?"

Clare Lockhart, who served as a UN advisor in Afghanistan during the 2001 Bonn process -- a meeting of Afghans under UN auspices to help the transition to a permanent government and constitution -- said there is indeed "a risk" of the perception of the military as a foreign occupation.

Karzai pointed out that in 2004-05 Afghan support for the international forces was over 80 percent, and that support has now fallen to "the high 40s."

In a dramatic moment, Rep. John Conyers arrived during the forum to make a statement against escalation: "As one who supported the 44th President before nearly everybody else, I want you to understand that my reasons for thinking this is a mistake is not based on the fact that I think I'm smarter than Barack Obama. I think he's the smartest political person in the United States. But I think he's getting some terrible advice. And so I'm here to help straighten that out, because I want him to stay on track.... My first suggestion is that we're making precisely the same mistake that we've been making for six years in Iraq.... [There] is a very suspicious, uneasy feeling among a number of people that this is the beginning of an open-ended situation, that no matter how well tailored it is, no matter how carefully though out it is... we're getting into another hole...."

Conyers is absolutely right. The best thing anyone can do right now to support President Obama is to advise against digging us deeper into what could become a quagmire. Senator Kerry promised more hearings, a thorough vetting of all alternatives, and that the committee will exercise its oversight authority. Let's hope he follows through. Now is also a good time to let your legislators know you are against escalation and that you want to see more hearings that explore alternatives.

As Corporal Reyes suggested, it's time to stop chasing ghosts in Afghanistan.

Let's blame illegal aliens for swine flu!

Let's blame illegal aliens for swine flu!

Arturo Mora
April 29, 2009 - Kansas City Star

.....

American Hispanics are not exactly shocked that the hard right is using swine flu to once again demonize illegal aliens.

People like Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and Neal Boortz, having failed to stir up sufficient xenophobia during the 2008 campaign, are pointing to the outbreak as proof that they were right all along about the immigration issue.

Close the borders, keep out those illegals, and swine flu will not ravage our nation.

Never mind that the globalization many on the right also champion means disease will spread as easily as economic activity.

Never mind that American tourists and businesspeople returning from Mexican visits are as likely carriers of the virus as any illegals. They're instant epidemiologists and know better.

Never mind that the Mexican government recognized the danger relatively quickly and warned the world, despite the horrendous resulting damage to its own economy. Let's blame Mexico anyway.

You'd think the defection of Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter to the Democrats would remind the right of the dangers of conservative extremism to their party's fortunes.

These people are focused on conservative "purity" and conservative "principles" (Xenophobia bordering on racism? Really? Great principles!).

It doesn't matter to them that Republicans lost the entire Southwest in 2008 (except for home-stater John McCain's Arizona), in large part due to Hispanic voters turned off by immigration histrionics.

Ironically, before the hard right attack on illegal immigrants began American Hispanics were by no means monolithic on the issue. They have helped unite Hispanic voters against what they perceive as thinly disguised racism.

I'm not sure what people like Beck achieve for their party, except to help marginalize it and polarize America.

Immigration is a legitimate issue worthy of debate, as is border security and our relationship with Mexico.

Are extreme conservatives so bereft of logic and arguments that their only refuge is scapegoating?

Gun Control Without Gun Laws

Gun Control Without Gun Laws

How Obama can use government procurement regulations to limit gun violence.

Eliot Spitzer and Peter B. Pope
April 29, 2009 - Slate

.....

Ever since Al Gore lost the presidency in 2000, the national Democratic Party has avoided the issue of gun control. The Obama White House recently made it clear—abandoning a campaign pledge—that it won't push for a legislative ban on the sale of assault weapons. Yet a series of provocative recent events has revived the gun debate: the international tension arising from Mexican drug gangs using guns purchased at American stores, the 10th anniversary of Columbine, and a Supreme Court case invalidating a District of Columbia law prohibiting the possession of guns at home.

Political reality makes even a modest gun law a difficult legislative sell. But if the Obama administration really cares about limiting gun violence, it could pursue a different strategy, one that doesn't involve Congress and isn't likely to provoke a storm of opposition.

Modern government is not only a lawmaker. Indeed, the most effective executive powers may not derive from statutes at all. The government that President Obama oversees is also a gigantic, well-funded procurement agent. And it can—and should—use that power to change American gun policies. Specifically, the government buys lots of guns, for sheriffs, patrol officers, and detectives; for FBI agents, DEA agents, IRS agents, Postal Inspectors, immigration agents, and park rangers; and for soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and spies. The government buys guns by the crate.

What is striking is that the government buys guns from manufacturers who also sell them to criminals—either knowingly or by willfully overlooking the behavior of the retail outlets that the gun companies use as their distribution system. Those of us who were in law enforcement in New York City in the late '80s and early '90s remember how drug dealers pioneered the use of 9-mm guns. We heard over and over from our friends in the police department that they were outgunned, that their service revolvers were no match for semi-automatics in a shootout. So what did the police do? The New York City Police Department finally bought 9-mms, too. It was a classic arms race, with the gun manufacturers in the economically enviable position of selling bigger and better guns to both sides.

This prompts a simple question: Why do we buy guns from companies that permit their products to be sold to bad guys?

In this era of government ownership of financial institutions, we are getting more used to the notion that government as an economic actor can exercise its power in differing ways. After all, firms that received TARP money are subject to a bevy of pay restrictions—wisely constructed or not—and were forced to cancel showy parties and retreats.

If we can use a capital infusion to a bank as an opportunity to control executive compensation and to limit use of private planes, why can't the government use its weight as the largest purchaser of guns from major manufacturers to reward companies that work to keep their products out of criminals' hands? Put another way, if it is too difficult to outlaw bad conduct through statutes, why not pay for good conduct? Why not require vendors to change their behavior if they want our tax dollars?

Just as we now "purchase" good corporate behavior in the financial industry, let it be so with guns. Governors and mayors and federal officials should buy guns from only manufacturers that control their product distribution, from manufacturers that cut off dealers whose guns end up disproportionately in the hands of criminals. In the New York attorney general's office nine years ago, we proposed several ways of constraining gun manufacturers within existing laws. These same proposals could be implemented now. Nongun manufacturers across the nation routinely control how their product is distributed and impose contractual obligations on wholesalers and retailers. Gun companies should have to use a similar approach. They should sell their product through only authorized dealers. And the authorized dealers should have to keep track of how many times they got "trace" inquiries from law enforcement—that is, how many guns they sold were later used by
criminals. Dealers that sold a disproportionate number of "crime guns" would have to fix the problem, something that might be as easy as retraining staff to react to "straw" purchasers who were trying to evade existing laws. Data showing that a high percentage of guns used in crime come from a small subset of dealers suggest that closing these few retailers could have a dramatic impact on access to illegal guns. Likewise, the government could require manufacturers to make a few simple design changes in the interest of safety and tracking: trigger locks, or hidden serial numbers, or a magazine safety disconnect on every pistol.

More fundamentally, companies could be told to stop selling certain types of weapons to the general public. If a manufacturer did not comply with any of the limitations, then it would be excluded from the list of companies with which the government would do business.

In 2000, this idea's time had not come. The government did not so boldly exercise its prerogatives as owner and purchaser. It did not freely insist that companies receiving our tax dollars change their practices—even in fundamental ways—if they wanted our money. Today, of course, this is the way business is done.

If President Obama wants to devise a creative way to limit gun violence, he will use his power as the world's largest consumer to require the cooperation of gun manufacturers. If government cannot legislate the conduct it wants, then it can use market power to buy it. For the money we are spending, we should buy not only guns but some peace from gun violence.

.....

Eliot Spitzer is the former governor of the state of New York. Peter B. Pope practices law at Arkin Kaplan Rice in New York

Zen Moment of the Day

Trust Florida, home of the hanging chad, to come up with a Jesus license plate. It is causing some controversy among Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, anarchists, Darwinists, Satan-lovers and everyone else who isn't sure the purported son of God should be out in the sun, hard by the asphalt, breathing fumes. So much for separation of church and state. John Prine, we need a song, please.

-- Abby Zimet - CommonDreams.org

Money for Nothing

Money for Nothing

Paul Krugman
April 26, 2009 - New York Times

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On July 15, 2007, The New York Times published an article with the headline "The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age." The most prominently featured of the "new titans" was Sanford Weill, the former chairman of Citigroup, who insisted that he and his peers in the financial sector had earned their immense wealth through their contributions to society.

Soon after that article was printed, the financial edifice Mr. Weill took credit for helping to build collapsed, inflicting immense collateral damage in the process. Even if we manage to avoid a repeat of the Great Depression, the world economy will take years to recover from this crisis.

All of which explains why we should be disturbed by an article in Sunday's Times reporting that pay at investment banks, after dipping last year, is soaring again — right back up to 2007 levels.

Why is this disturbing? Let me count the ways.

First, there's no longer any reason to believe that the wizards of Wall Street actually contribute anything positive to society, let alone enough to justify those humongous paychecks.

Remember that the gilded Wall Street of 2007 was a fairly new phenomenon. From the 1930s until around 1980 banking was a staid, rather boring business that paid no better, on average, than other industries, yet kept the economy's wheels turning.

So why did some bankers suddenly begin making vast fortunes? It was, we were told, a reward for their creativity — for financial innovation. At this point, however, it's hard to think of any major recent financial innovations that actually aided society, as opposed to being new, improved ways to blow bubbles, evade regulations and implement de facto Ponzi schemes.

Consider a recent speech by Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, in which he tried to defend financial innovation. His examples of "good" financial innovations were (1) credit cards — not exactly a new idea; (2) overdraft protection; and (3) subprime mortgages. (I am not making this up.) These were the things for which bankers got paid the big bucks?

Still, you might argue that we have a free-market economy, and it's up to the private sector to decide how much its employees are worth. But this brings me to my second point: Wall Street is no longer, in any real sense, part of the private sector. It's a ward of the state, every bit as dependent on government aid as recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a k a "welfare."

I'm not just talking about the $600 billion or so already committed under the TARP. There are also the huge credit lines extended by the Federal Reserve; large-scale lending by Federal Home Loan Banks; the taxpayer-financed payoffs of A.I.G. contracts; the vast expansion of F.D.I.C. guarantees; and, more broadly, the implicit backing provided to every financial firm considered too big, or too strategic, to fail.

One can argue that it's necessary to rescue Wall Street to protect the economy as a whole — and in fact I agree. But given all that taxpayer money on the line, financial firms should be acting like public utilities, not returning to the practices and paychecks of 2007.

Furthermore, paying vast sums to wheeler-dealers isn't just outrageous; it's dangerous. Why, after all, did bankers take such huge risks? Because success — or even the temporary appearance of success — offered such gigantic rewards: even executives who blew up their companies could and did walk away with hundreds of millions. Now we're seeing similar rewards offered to people who can play their risky games with federal backing.

So what's going on here? Why are paychecks heading for the stratosphere again? Claims that firms have to pay these salaries to retain their best people aren't plausible: with employment in the financial sector plunging, where are those people going to go?

No, the real reason financial firms are paying big again is simply because they can. They're making money again (although not as much as they claim), and why not? After all, they can borrow cheaply, thanks to all those federal guarantees, and lend at much higher rates. So it's eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may be regulated.

Or maybe not. There's a palpable sense in the financial press that the storm has passed: stocks are up, the economy's nose-dive may be leveling off, and the Obama administration will probably let the bankers off with nothing more than a few stern speeches. Rightly or wrongly, the bankers seem to believe that a return to business as usual is just around the corner.

We can only hope that our leaders prove them wrong, and carry through with real reform. In 2008, overpaid bankers taking big risks with other people's money brought the world economy to its knees. The last thing we need is to give them a chance to do it all over again.

China tires of Pyongyang's antics

China tires of Pyongyang's antics

Shen Dingli
Apr 28, 2009 - Asia Times

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SHANGHAI - North Korea has said it will permanently quit the six-party talks on its nuclear program. Although an undesirable outcome from the perspective of non-proliferation, it is a predictable move by Pyongyang. This has put immediate pressure on China-North Korea relations. Why has China been unable to prevent this from happening? And what will be Beijing's next step?

North Korea may have a lot of reasons to be resentful of the international system, in which it feels insecure and threatened, but this radical, confrontational move will not help.

Pyongyang should welcome the new international environment. Since the Barack Obama administration took over in the United States it has signaled it is ready to solve international disputes through dialogue. Yet North Korea still went ahead with its controversial "satellite" launch on April 4. This has fueled tensions in East Asia, and other players in the region have said the reckless move will certainly not be beneficial to the North.

Pyongyang does not have many international allies, and China is the key, if not sole, supplier of essential aid to it in areas ranging from food to energy, medicine to fertilizers, and cash to conventional weapons. But China also has its own reasons for maintaining ties, which include maintaining neighborly relations, the nations' comradeship in the Cold War era, and lingering geopolitical and strategic considerations.

However, China also has broader interests as a result of its past three decades of reform and opening up. Beijing plans to modernize its economy and society, and this requires a secure and peaceful neighborhood along its entire periphery. The present North Korean stance of seeking security through owning nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles does not agree with Beijing's.

Beijing has accommodated some of the Pyongyang regime's basic needs for survival, but North Korea has not repaid China in kind. North Korea assumes that the best way to attain benefits and ensure its survival is to put pressure on Washington through its nuclear and missile programs. This could be why Beijing has failed to dissuade Pyongyang from taking aggressive and provocative moves.

North Korea may resent any intervention by China in its foreign and defense policies, but it is also aware that China poses no threat to its security. North Korea's paramount security concern remains the United States.

Although North Korea is fully entitled to guard its sovereignty, its lack of interest in respecting Beijing's legitimate concerns will not help it sustain friendly relations with China. Respect and friendship must be reciprocal. If North Korea continues to recklessly jeopardize China's legitimate security interests while still receiving Chinese aid, Beijing will inevitably be forced to review its relationship with Pyongyang.

It is obvious that the current sanctions regime against North Korea, which is related to nuclear and missile technologies, heavy armaments and luxuries, has nothing to do with China's existing trade or aid to the country. But given the provocative behavior of North Korea, these sanctions could be strengthened and expanded.

One could question the wisdom of North Korea's recent launch, whether it was a missile or satellite and regardless of its success or failure. It is understandable that North Korea sees a deterrence factor in its nuclear program. But is it conceivable that Washington plans to launch a pre-emptive strike against Pyongyang? No. So why does the Hermit Kingdom want to waste its resources on nuclear and missile programs?

North Korea must be aware of Beijing's increasingly sophisticated and successful handling of its relationships with the rest of the world. Pyongyang's geopolitical and strategic importance for China will not increase, and therefore it could well become the victim of its own self-isolation.

China has done its part, and any failures will be the outcome of Pyongyang's own strategic mindset or Washington's stubborn unwillingness to effectively engage North Korea. The George W Bush administration was first too arrogant to engage with North Korea and later too eager after Pyongyang's proclaimed nuclear test. Neither was a healthy policy approach.

The international community needs to draft a new strategy to engage North Korea that is effective. It must be based on the principle that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction constitutes a threat to world peace and security. This is the United Nations Security Council's view which is supported by China and other countries.

North Korea's nuclear weapons development can be averted with a strategy that includes at least three components:

The first is to make non-militarily overtures to North Korea that would render its nuclear program militarily useless, and economically self-destructive.

The second would be to not accept North Korea's nuclear status unless the weapons program was aborted. This would entail strategic cooperation among major powers. The US is the key to the success of such international cooperation. Washington's proper handling of the Taiwan issue is crucial to fostering the necessary confidence between China and the United States to form a united front.

The third tactic would be to impose incremental economic sanctions against North Korea to make it realize that its nuclear and missile programs are not welcome or rewarding. Given the availability of sanctions at various incremental levels, the international community has to take measured steps to send the right signals to affect its behavior.

In this regard, China is expected to be more proactive in using its own economic leverage on Pyongyang. This has to be taken in a concerted way - together with non-militarily overtures and measured political and economic pressure from the outside world.

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Professor Shen Dingli is director of Center for American Studies and executive dean of the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University, Shanghai

A new order emerges in Lebanon

A new order emerges in Lebanon

Sami Moubayed
Apr 29, 2009 - Asia Times

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Last week, one of America's top allies in Lebanon, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, caused a row when he made remarks - off the record - criticizing his allies in the pro-Western March 14 Coalition. Among other things, Jumblatt scoffed at his patron Saad al-Hariri, the head of the largest bloc in the Lebanese parliament, for having tried - and failed - to combat Hezbollah on the streets of Beirut last May.

Then, Hariri's armed men were round up and disarmed in a matter of minutes by the well-trained Hezbollah fighters. "We have seen the Sunnis in the field, huh!" he said, adding, "They didn't last for

more than 15 minutes!" Jumblatt quickly apologized - but the damage was already done.

Shortly afterwards, when landing in Beirut, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not meet the Druze warlord - who had often played host to her predecessor Condoleezza Rice, and been received previously at the Oval Office by George W Bush.

Jumblatt is a symbol of a loud anti-Syrian and anti-Hezbollah stance in Lebanon. The fact that he has lost faith in his own allies - who have bankrolled him for years - and was snubbed by Clinton, are testimony to how much things have changed in Lebanon. This is the same man after all who called for regime change in Damascus, and betted on American and Israeli forces to disarm Hezbollah in 2006.

Jumblatt is a political animal, however, who knows how to get off a ship before it sinks. The US is simply no longer interested in battle, either with Damascus or with Hezbollah. On the contrary, it is trying to find common ground with the Syrians to solve a basket of problems in the region, like Iran's nuclear file, Palestinian reconciliation and the future of Hezbollah.

If March 14 continues to challenge Syria, it should not except much support from the Barack Obama administration. That is why, according to some observers, Jumblatt might be toying with the idea of a u-turn - which from where the Syrians see it, is close to impossible, given the aggressive stance he took against Damascus during the difficult years in Syrian-American relations.

Why would the US continue to support March 14 if it is cooperating fully with the Syrians? March 14 was useful, after all, during the war against Syria in 2005-2008 - mainly to punish the Syrians for having worked against US interests in Iraq.

Jumblatt realizes that for all practical purposes, its only a matter of time until the United States begins dialogue with two arch-enemies of the former Bush White House - Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah. Delaying his own rapprochement with Hezbollah would harm nobody but him.

During the recent Summit of the Americas, Obama said that he would respect the "legitimacy" of all democratically elected governments, even if the US "might not be happy" with the results of any elections. He added that the US "condemns any efforts at a violent overthrow of democratically elected governments, wherever it happens in the hemisphere". Talks with Hamas have already begun in Europe and it is only a matter of time until they are expanded to include Hezbollah.

Earlier this year, Britain announced that it would commence political dialogue with Hezbollah, much to the displeasure of March 14. In early April, British parliamentarians came to Damascus and met with Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal. Certain American political figures, like former president Jimmy Carter, also met with the Hamas chief in Syria last December.

According to a January 9 article in The Guardian, "sources close to the [Obama] transition team" will change course via Hamas, and "initiate low-level clandestine approaches". For that to be done, not only would there be a need for a change in US mentality - both in the media level, on the street and in American officialdom - but it would also require changing a 2006 Congressional law banning any kind of assistance to the Islamic group.

Recently, however, Paul Volker, a senior economic advisor to Obama, was among those who authored a letter calling for a more rational approach to dealing with Hamas. Martin Indyk, the former US ambassador to Israel, who is close to Clinton, recently wrote that any peace deal without Hamas was destined to fail.

Additionally, former British prime minister Tony Blair in his capacity as international envoy for the Middle East warned of the dangers of continuing to ignore the Gaza Strip, which effectively is under the command of Hamas. He was quoted saying, "I think it is important to find a way to engage Hamas in dialogue."

Richard Hass, a diplomat under both president George H W Bush and George W Bush, who was earmarked to become Obama's Middle East envoy, also supports low-level contacts with Hamas. James A Baker, former secretary of state now based at the Baker Institute at Rice University in Houston, was quoted in Newsweek as saying that Obama must involve Hamas in any peace process in the Middle East. Baker said, "You cannot negotiate peace with only half the Palestinian polity at the table."

Richard W Murphy, a veteran American diplomat and former ambassador to Syria, added, "I don't think it will happen quickly but I think it is inevitable. Hamas is, in my opinion, a legitimate representative of part of the Palestinian community."

Taking all of that into account, many raised questions about Clinton's weekend visit to Beirut ahead of parliamentary elections in June, which are expected to bring about a smashing victory for Hezbollah. Already, France has said that it will not boycott any Lebanese government, even if it is packed with members of the Islamic group.

With loud voices coming out of Washington calling for engagement with Hezbollah, Obama promising to respect any election, Britain taking the lead in dialogue with non-state players, and the Syrians back in the international arena, times are not good for leftovers of the Bush era in the Middle East.

Decision-makers around the world have reasoned that not talking to Hezbollah or Hamas will not make them disappear. On the contrary, it will only lead them to radicalize.

Looking back at the Hamas tenure in government, everybody realizes that the Bush administration missed a golden opportunity when the Palestinian group said that it was willing to accept a long-term truce with Israel, and abide by the borders of 1967. Israel couldn't get them to disarm by force, clearly demonstrated by the results of the December 2008 war on Gaza.

The United Nations couldn't disarm them, nor could Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat or the United States. The same applies to Hezbollah, which emerged victorious from the war of 2006. Obama, a practical leader by all accounts, realizes that if these groups are voted into power, it would be sheer hypocrisy not to deal with them and repeat what was committed by Bush.

Walid Jumblatt - and anti-Hamas figures in Palestine like President Mahmud Abbas - is among the first to fully grasp this new attitude in Washington.

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Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria.

Climate Change Hitting Entire Arctic Ecosystem

Climate Change Hitting Entire Arctic Ecosystem, Says Report

Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme study tells of profound changes to sea ice and permafrost, among others

John Vidal
April 28, 2009 - The Guardian/UK

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Extensive climate change is now affecting every form of life in the Arctic, according to a major new assessment by international polar scientists.

In the past four years, air temperatures have increased, sea ice has declined sharply, surface waters in the Arctic ocean have warmed and permafrost is in some areas rapidly thawing.

In addition, says the report released today at a Norwegian government seminar, plants and trees are growing more vigorously, snow cover is decreasing 1-2% a year and glaciers are shrinking.

Scientists from Norway, Canada, Russia and the US contributed to the Arctic monitoring and assessment programme (Amap) study, which says new factors such as "black carbon" - soot - ozone and methane may now be contributing to global and arctic warming as much as carbon dioxide.

"Black carbon and ozone in particular have a strong seasonal pattern that makes their impacts particularly important in the Arctic," it says.

The report's main findings are:

* Land

Permafrost is warming fast and at its margins thawing. Plants are growing more vigorously and densely. In northern Alaska, temperatures have been rising since the 1970s. In Russia, the tree line has advanced up hills and mountains at 10 metres a year. Nearly all glaciers are decreasing in mass, resulting in rising sea levels as the water drains to the ocean.

* Summer sea ice

The most striking change in the Arctic in recent years has been the reduction in summer sea ice in 2007. This was 23% less than the previous record low of 5.6m sq kilometres in 2005, and 39% below the 1979-2000 average. New satellite data suggests the ice is much thinner than it used to be. For the first time in existing records, both the north-west and north-east passages were ice-free in summer 2008. However, the 2008 winter ice extent was near the year long-term average.

* Greenland

The Greenland ice sheet has continued to melt in the past four years with summer temperatures consistently above the long-term average since the mid 1990s. In 2007, the area experiencing melt was 60% greater than in 1998. Melting lasted 20 days longer than usual at sea level and 53 days longer at 2-3,000m heights.

* Warmer waters

In 2007, some ice-free areas were as much as 5C warmer than the long-term average. Arctic waters appear to have warmed as a result of the influx of warmer waters from the Pacific and Atlantic. The loss of reflective, white sea ice also means that more solar radiation is absorbed by the dark water, heating surface layers further.

* Black carbon

Black carbon, or soot, is emitted from inefficient burning such as in diesel engines or from the burning of crops. It is warming the Arctic by creating a haze which absorbs sunlight, and it is also deposited on snow, darkening the surface and causing more sunlight to be absorbed.