Thirty years after his father massacred tens of thousands of innocent Syrian men, women, and children in Hama, Bashar al-Assad has demonstrated a similar disdain for human life and dignity. [...] Every government has the responsibility to protect its citizens, and any government that brutalizes and massacres its people does not deserve to govern. The Syrian regime’s policy of maintaining power by terrorizing its people only indicates its inherent weakness and inevitable collapse. Assad has no right to lead Syria, and has lost all legitimacy with his people and the international community… – Pres. Obama
Here in Munich, I have had productive discussions with a number of my counterparts concerning a list of critical issues. One that kept coming up is the ongoing violence in Syria. As a bankrupt regime clings to power by shelling its own people in their homes, we have seen a living nightmare play out in the city of Homs. It’s a nightmare that has been repeated across Syria over these past many months. Almost 30 days – almost 30 years to the day after the infamous Hama massacre, the international community must send Assad a clear message: By repeating the horrors of Syria’s past, you have lost your place in Syria’s future.
A United Nations Security Council effort to end the violence in Syria collapsed in acrimony with a double veto by Russia and China on Saturday, hours after the Syrian military attacked the city of Homs in what opposition leaders described as the deadliest government assault in the nearly 11-month uprising.
The veto and the mounting violence underlined the dynamics shaping what is proving to be the Arab world’s bloodiest revolt: diplomatic stalemate and failure as Syria plunges deeper into what many are already calling a civil war. Diplomats have lamented their lack of options in pressuring the Syrian government, and even some Syrian dissidents worry about what the growing confrontation will mean for a country reeling from bloodshed and hardship.
“What I saw was a humanitarian disaster. The regime is not just committing one war crime, but a series of crimes against its people,” said Malek. “The snipers are everywhere shooting at civilians. People are being kidnapped. Prisoners are being tortured and none were released.” – report by Column Lynch
After calling for President Bashar al-Assad to step down, which was ignored, the Arab League also called off its mission to monitor the carnage inside Syria this past Saturday. Considering they reportedly didn’t have enough armored vehicles and too few bullet-proof vests, with the details from Turtle Bay’s Column Lynch about the Chinese passing the walkie-talkies, it would be laughable if the situation hadn’t been so deadly.
Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Moustafa Al-Dabbi was in charge of the mission, which is part of the problem. Lynch has a good rundown on the general:
The mission’s international standing was also diminished by the selection of its monitoring chief — General Al-Dabbi, a close advisor of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. Al-Dabbi also served as a top military officer in Darfur, Sudan, at a time when the government was organizing local militia, known as the Janjaweed, that were involved in mass killings of civilians in the region. An Algerian member of the Arab team, Anwar Malek, resigned in protest, telling Al Jazeera that the mission was a “farce.”
The leaked report is available over at Lynch’s Turtle Bay. The Europeans are unimpressed by it, while the Russians and the Security Council are in it over the bloodletting in Syria. One thing is clear after reading the report and that is the Syrian government seems to have had no intention of allowing it to succeed. From Lynch:
On Jan. 18, Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby ordered the suspension of the organization’s observer mission, its first major experiment in human rights monitoring. He claimed that the escalation of violence had undercut its ability to do its job.
But a confidential account of the organization’s mission, signed by the monitor’s controversial chief and obtained by Turtle Bay, shows that the Arab monitors were hobbled from the beginning by a shortage of equipment — and by what Al-Dabbi describes as a ferocious Syrian media disinformation campaign against the monitors and him personally. “The credibility of the mission has been undermined in the minds of Arab and foreign viewers,” he wrote.
[...] “The mission…sensed the acute stress, injustice and oppression endured [by] Syrian citizens,” Al-Dabbi wrote. “Yet they are convinced that the Syrian crisis must be resolved peacefully, in the Arab context, and not internationalized so that they can live in peace securely, and achieve the desired reforms and changes.” That said, he is surprisingly candid and critical of the observer mission’s ability to perform well the task required of them.
Global recession with a surprise winner or two – The Eurozombies may avoid catastrophe but instead produce a macroeconomic remake of Night of the Living Dead. Recession in austerity-bound Europe will only be worsened by the sweeping downturn already taking place in the emerging world, and the result could be a deeper slump worldwide. But here’s the twist: the United States will win, as it is a destination for those in the midst of one of the most confusing, frustrating flights to quality in recent history. Japan too. They won’t do very well at all, but in the global ugly contest they may take home least-ugly honors. – David Rothkopf
So, what could happen in 2012?
David Rothkopf over at Foreign Policy has done his next year headlines in review list, many of which don’t take an expert’s mind to name. Stephen Walt has his own that includes Israel accepting the Arab League Peace Plan. Rothkopf thinks the Eurozone will strengthen. More are below.
The end of Ahmadinejad, but it won’t come through Dick Cheney’s fantasies or any neoconservative getting his war wishes in a Christmas stocking. From Erin Burnett’s “Out Front,” when Burnett brought up the RQ-170 sentinel:
CHENEY: I would assume that’s the case. Or they’ll send it back in pieces after they’ve gotten all the intelligence they can out of it.
The right response to that would have been to go in immediately after it had gone down and destroy it. You can do that from the air. You can do that with a quick airstrike, and in effect make it impossible for them to benefit from having captured that drone. I was told that the president had three options on his desk. He rejected all of them.
BURNETT: And they all involved removing the drone immediately?
CHENEY: They all involved sending somebody in to try to recover it, or if you can’t do that, admittedly that would be a difficult operation, you certainly could have gone in and destroyed it on the ground with an airstrike. But he didn’t take any of the options. He asked for them to return it. And they aren’t going to do that.
The world is going to continue to have major shifts in power centers.
The collapse of Assad in Syria, which couldn’t come soon enough as far as I’m concerned.
Political unrest in China? It’s the beginning, Rothkopf predicts.
Power struggle in Pakistan? Nothing new there.
Say goodbye to Castro and Hugo Chavez?
Incoming “cybershocker” that will take down somebody financially.
Putin’s not going to return to power easily.
…and get ready for extremism in Africa to become an American strategic interest.
Interesting list, as is Stephen Walt’s.
Do you have any thoughts on what might happen in the world next year?
The United States will begin using American foreign aid to promote gay rights abroad, Obama administration officials said on Tuesday. President Obama issued a memorandum directing American agencies to look for ways to combat efforts by foreign governments to criminalize homosexuality. – U.S. to Use Foreign Aid to Promote Gay Rights Abroad
To use American foreign aid to combat foreign governments from criminalizing homosexuality is something only a president can do and Barack Obama has done a great and controversial thing, given the focus on foreign aid and our economic state, through his decision.
This speech continues what Hillary began in Beijing, China as first lady in 1995, a speech that is foundational to my book, The Hillary Effect, and which is cited in the Introduction. The Hillary Effect itself, along with Secy. Clinton’s advocacy, helped by time, made possible by Pres. Obama’s courageous act, aided by the advocacy of gays and lesbians fighting for equality, which reached critical mass on DADT, manifested a global moment of pride for our country today.
Contrary to the naysayers, I always contended, in fact I knew, that Barack Obama could have no stronger partner than Hillary Clinton in his Administration. Having studied her for two decades, I had never a doubt. Their partnership here sings out.
It is a great day for which we owe Pres. Obama a great deal, with this speech by Secy. Clinton a historic moment for her as well.
Of course, in an election season, nothing this grand could go without scurrilous words from the right. It’s fitting that it comes from Rick Perry.
“This administration’s war on traditional American values must stop. … Promoting special rights for gays in foreign countries is not in America’s interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers’ money. … This is just the most recent example of an administration at war with people of faith in this country. Investing tax dollars promoting a lifestyle many Americas of faith find so deeply objectionable is wrong. President Obama has again mistaken America’s tolerance for different lifestyles with an endorsement of those lifestyles. I will not make that mistake.”
Ah yes, human rights as “special rights,” the threats of torture and even death for gays not enough to convince Republicans like Rick Perry that this is a human rights issue.
This is the sort of action that inspires people to repeat the axiom that presidential elections be seen as a choice and not a referendum. Only a president can make such a groundbreaking, sweeping decision. It’s a reminder that hits deep for many and will bind some people to Pres. Obama tightly, while also revealing a core tenet of the Democratic Party.
First Lady Hillary Clinton said “human rights are women’s rights.”
Today she spoke for America once again saying, “human rights are gay rights.”
President Obama is now neck and neck with a generic Republican challenger in the latest Real Clear Politics 2012 General Election Average (43.8%-43.%). Meanwhile, voters disapprove of the president’s performance 49%-41% in the most recent Gallup survey, and 63% of voters disapprove of his handling of the economy, according to the most recent CNN/ORC poll. – The Hillary Moment
The Obama supporter in the video shown here is “not disappointed by Pres. Obama.”
I’m not either.
The difference is that I’m not as exhausted as this particular Obama supporter seems to be, because I don’t feel the need to defend him or attempt a pitch on his presidency that comes with no enthusiasm and gives lesser of two evils as the foundation. Watching the video is actually depressing instead of convincing.
I’m also not disappointed to say most of the things Pres. Obama has accomplished most any Democratic president would have also done, which may be part of the reason most die hard Obama fans always end up their arguments talking about the appalling choices on the right.
But I wasn’t disappointed in Tim Geithner or Larry Summers, because it’s not like Barack Obama, who received more money from Wall Street than any other candidate in his time, was going to buck the boys that represent those jackals.
I knew Pres. Obama would not lead the country on issues he believed strongly in, inspiring Congress to find consensus, because what he does is compromise between ideas presented to him.
I also wrote that no one should take his anti-war Iraq speech as any indication of what he’d do as president, because his votes in the United States Senate on these matters were exactly like Hillary Clinton’s. I wrote that if Barack Obama had been in the Senate he would have likely voted for the Iraq war, just as all the Democratic presidential hopefuls did from the Senate, with his presidency proving that possibility very real.
It’s hard to take anyone touting Mr. Obama as the lesser of two evils, as Obama supporters do most often, while as President he’s shown a penchant toward militarism that rivals George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
I wasn’t disappointed when Pres. Obama decided to bomb Libya. See above.
I’m not disappointed that Pres. Obama assassinated an American citizen abroad using executive branch powers, because he’s been following the George W. Bush presidential model all the way.
So, I wasn’t surprised that instead of showing economic muscle, Pres. Obama opted for 2,500 Marines in Australia. See above.
I’m not disappointed that Pres. Obama handed over health care to Sen. Max Baucus and the insurance industry, because I watched him at the very first health care debate, sponsored by CAP/SEIU, in Nevada, long before I back Hillary. He came in and spoke about health care without a plan or a clue on what he would do.
I’m not disappointed in Pres. Obama’s compromise and capitulation, because there was never any evidence that he’d fight for Democratic principles.
I’m not disappointed that before the 2010 midterms Pres. Obama didn’t lead with an economic message to rival the Tea Party, because he’s not made one argument for progressive economics, preferring to tout Ronald Reagan a lot more often than Bill Clinton, the man who made Obama’s neoliberal presidency possible.
I’m not disappointed that Pres. Obama then caved to Republicans and extended the Bush tax cuts in December 2010, because after all, if he’s not going to fight before an election why would he fight afterward when his Democratic majority was in shambles?
I wasn’t even disappointed in the midterm outcomes themselves or that women split their vote with Republicans, with seniors tilting right, because Pres. Obama doesn’t make the Democratic case for why they shouldn’t.
I wasn’t disappointed that across the country state houses turned red, because Pres. Obama set the Republicans up by making things easier for them.
I wasn’t so much disappointed in Pres. Obama’s selling out women to the Bart Stupak crowd as wishing he’d simply voted “present” as he did in Illinois.
I wasn’t even disappointed when Pres. Obama didn’t fight for Elizabeth Warren to head the agency that was her brainchild.
Pres. Obama isn’t a fighter, that is, unless he’s fighting for himself.
I’m not disappointed in Pres. Obama for not being a more progressive leader, because I knew he wasn’t a progressive from the start.
It’s also not disappointing that Pres. Obama has made the Democratic Party more like the Republican Party through his continual leaning to the right, because both parties are basically the same these days, though the Republican right’s crazy is more virulent, while the Democratic left is just feckless.
I’m not disappointed Pres. Obama didn’t get a primary challenger, because you’d have to be nuts to go up against a man so thoroughly bought and paid for by Wall Street and big business.
I’m not disappointed that Republicans are “deranged,” because that’s nothing new and so hearing the Obama supporter in the video make the case that Pres. Obama is better than the alternative isn’t disappointing, because as I’ve proven here, what else do they have?
Pres. Obama is better than the current leading alternative on the Republican side, which today is Newt Gingrich.
I’m just not sure what that says about this country or our chances of getting out of the mess we’re in.
I’m not disappointed that Mitt Romney will still likely be the one to challenge Pres. Obama, because they’re the flip side of each big party, matching each other pretty well on aloofness, elitism, lack of power to relate, cluelessness of the 99% and just how badly most everyone would like to have better choices than either of these two men.
It’s just the latest edition of the Hillary Effect.
POSTSCRIPT:The only relevant aspect to the so-called “Democratic pollsters” writing in the WSJ is the short bit I quote at the top. These very real numbers are indeed the inspiration for yet another chapter in the Hillary Effect. So, not even the opining of Fox News Channel shills can negate that the Hillary Effect has been in sway since 2008, going back to when Sarah Palin was chosen as McCain’s vice president, all of which is detailed in my book. As for those throwing around the false talking point about “Obama hatred,” there is absolutely no evidence of it, except among right wing extremists and wingnut conservatives, with the American people still liking Pres. Obama personally. As for me, I’ve been consistent over a long period of time. I’ve called out Secretary Clinton’s militarism and where we disagree on foreign policy (here, here, here, here, here). The case is made in my book The Hillary Effect, which anyone interested in the history of the last few years should read.
President Barack Obama’s job approval rating is up, from a negative 41 – 55 percent October 6, to a split today with 47 percent approving and 49 percent disapproving in a Quinnipiac University poll released today. The president has leads of 5 to 16 percentage points over likely Republican challengers. Voters also are divided 47 – 49 percent on whether Obama deserves reelection, compared to last month, when voters said 54 – 42 percent he did not deserve reelection. – Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Cain And Gingrich Up As Romney Stalls And Perry Fades
At least Mr. Gingrich has a working knowledge of the last 50 years and won’t pontificate about China going nuclear, as Cain did with Judy Woodruff, evidently not having a clue that they’ve been nuclear for decades.
Poor Sarah Palin, she’s a genius compared to the current frontrunner, a man who doesn’t know squat about foreign policy and whose economic plan is a joke.
It’s why I’ve been writing for over a year that Pres. Obama is still the best bet to win in 2012.
Never have Republicans had a better chance to fulfill their dream of making Mr. Obama a one-term president. But with these bozos, who keep proving they’re not fit for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the American people are getting a sense that though Obama isn’t inspiring at his job at this point, these people would be far worse.
The lesser of two evils bites again, at least so far.
However, I still feel if Mitt Romney can make it through the clown primaries, he’d be a formidable challenger for Obama.
Meanwhile, many hope for an outsider type to enter the race next year. Anyone who could give the establishment moneyed men a challenge.
– Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner during an interview in April, discussing the risk of the U.S. debt being downgraded.
Some links to go with your morning coffee/tea:
~China, our banker, is angry at the U.S. about the downgrade. I guess more administration-China ass kissing diplomacy is in order.
~The Super Duper Debt Committee will just cause more problems than it solves, for obvious reasons.
~The biggest US single-episode loss of life in the Afghanistan War took place Friday as insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter carrying 38 members of US special forces and 7 Afghan soldiers. More here.
~Also on Afghanistan- The International Crisis Group has issued a report which concludes that despite dumping billions of dollars into nation-building in Afghanistan, the U.S. and its allies have failed to stabilize the country. I think the billions of dollars they are talking about does not include the money spent on the actual war effort there-in other words, just the military and civil rebuilding and stabilization efforts.
~In today’s WaPo there is an article about the origins of the debt showdown and how Eric Cantor took advantage of the House’s new Tea Party recruits to turn the debt ceiling debate into a standoff over the role of government.
~The Wikipedia conference is currently taking place in Israel and the Wikipedia founder talked about how the community tries very hard to keep Wiki entries as neutral as possible. That’s not easy in an era where as soon as there is a political controversy, groups run to the site to get their version of the story out.
~Up to 12 million people’s lives are under direct threat in the Horn of Africa as drought, famine and war take their toll. Much of the world looked away when the predictions of an extreme famine were first put forth. However, the terror group al-Shabab claims there is no famine taking place in Somalia but of course, that could be because the group is preventing humanitarian aid from reaching the men, women and children who are currently starving to death and as a result, they bear direct responsibility.
~In much of the media’s coverage about the S&P downgrade, there seems to be a tendency to ignore the impact of the refusal to add ANY revenue-generating provisions in the debt deal. There was plenty of blame to spread around to both parties, but there are some interesting tidbits in the S&P statement about revenues. It would seem that the GOP is giddy about the downgrade because throwing a Molotov Cocktail into our already depressed economy was always the GOP plan leading up to 2012.
~While the S&P is certainly correct that Washington is completely dysfunctional and getting them to do anything constructive for the good of the nation is a bit like trying to herd cats, there is no denying the politics of what is taking place. Firedoglake has a good summary of some of the things that may have actually been behind S&P’s decision to downgrade the US credit rating.
~So, how is Saudi Arabia doing on the human rights front? Really, really well. [/sarcasm]
~Despite a lot of people giving Obama props about being willing to put defense cuts on the table, the truth of the matter is that the Obama administration shows no interest in curbing out-of-control defense spending as evidenced by his new Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, publicly complaining all last week about how disastrous defense cuts would be. Once again, fear trumps reason. Interestingly, when asked, Leon Panetta can’t seem to articulate any reason why any proposed cuts would be so dangerous to our nation’s security:
~Over 300,000 people took to the streets in Israel this weekend to protest the high cost of living. Good for them. We need to do that here in the U.S.
~The Obama administration will likely squander yet another opportunity to take a serious stand on environmental issues. The Alberta tar sands pipeline is currently being reviewed by the State Dept. and the review itself has been mired in controversy from the start. The pipeline’s chief lobbyist is a former Hillary Clinton deputy campaign director and Secretary Clinton made the none-too-subtle remark long before the review process even started, that she was “inclined to support” it. That made environmentalists and even many Congressional Democrats hopping mad. Of course, the buck doesn’t stop there and environmentalists and congressional democrats are urging the administration to not approve the project. Good luck with that, the fix is in.
~All eyes are on Wisconsin which is in the midst of the largest number of recall elections in U.S. history. Huge amounts of cash have been flooding in to the state via special interest groups from both the left and the right. Some see Wisconsin as a dry run of sorts for what may happen in 2012, ie. did the Tea Party types go too far?
~The repressive, human rights-abusing Communist Chinese government continues to throw fuel on the fire of religious freedom with respect to Buddhists in Tibet. Even if Americans know very little about this right now, it is a very big issue and could lead to bloodshed when the current Dalai Lama dies. And when that happens, Washington will be forced to take notice but by then it will be too late.
~The death toll in Syria continues to rise as government forces continue the siege on Hama. As Assad’s forces continue to slaughter his own people, the Syrian foreign minister comes out and makes the ludicrous statement that the Assad government will allow free legislative elections by the end of 2011. Yeah, and unicorns are real.
~Both Palestinian and Israeli security forces are frustrated with the politicians in Ramallah, Jerusalem and Washington DC. This is something I have heard over and over again. The Israeli and Palestinian security forces have been training and had unprecedented security cooperation over the past 8+ years, with impressive results, while the politicians piss away every opportunity for a reasonable solution to the conflict.
~Sean Hannity thinks it’s wrong to require insurers to cover birth control but guess what he thinks they should cover…Viagra. Indeed.
~Politico continues with its status quo hackery and prints an op-ed from GOP Representative Duncan Hunter, who fear-mongers about cutting defense spending. Ok, no problem there because people can write opinion pieces from various points of view. The problem is that a) he makes patently false claims about the role of defense spending in our current debt crisis and b) Politico knew, or should have known, that Hunter has a conflict of interest when it comes to defense spending given most of his top campaign contributions come from defense contractors. If Politico readers knew that, they might be a little bit more discerning when it comes to taking Hunter’s claims at face value.
~Some in Israel are concerned about a bill that is poised to pass the Knesset and which seeks to provide guidance to the courts such that they would be expected to privilege maintaining “the state as the Jewish nation state in ruling in situations in which the Jewish character of the state clashes with its democratic character.” Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf and other critics of the pending legislation have argued that proponents of the bill seem to be saying that maintaining a Jewish state and upholding democracy are at odds. It’s an interesting debate.
~Donald Trump really embodies the corporate greed and entitled attitude that seems to have infected this nation. His most recent stunt is to vow to do everything in his power to prevent the building of an offshore wind farm in Scotland because it will obstruct the beautiful view from the golf course he is currently in the process of building.
~Whatever you do, don’t read Thomas Friedman’s silly editorial about the financial crisis in today’s NYT, it’s five minutes of your life that you’ll never get back which is why I read it for you. It’s loaded with dumb analogies and really obvious points like “[r]egarding growth, we surely need a much smarter long-term fiscal plan than the one that just came out of Washington.”
Pres. Obama has already telegraphed that he’s ready to work with Republicans, as the Administration prepares to privatize education, while changing the public school system under the mantel of “reform.”
Matt Damon played offense recently and he effusively heaped praise on the teachers who don’t get paid enough and take way too much grief for what they are paid.
But this is when Austerity’s grip, the need for more and better schools, and partnerships with businesses wanting to help offer more options tend to make some people simply ask Why not?
It’s not about qualified teachers with experience getting a living wage and some control over the task they’ve been asked to do.
~This week Jeremy Scahill of the Nation did a fine bit of investigative journalism and revealed that the CIA is running secret prisons in Somalia, which if true, means that we still basically have a rendition program. And how did the fawning corporate media respond to the revelation? Well, two ways- 1. they largely ignored it and 2. when they didn’t, they dutifully jotted down administration talking points denying the allegations in the article. Naturally, they gave administration officials total anonymity to do this, lest said officials be held accountable at some future date. You know, for lying. Glenn Greenwald wrote a must-read article about how the administration uses the MSM to attack real investigative journalism that it finds inconvenient. For my part, I stalked followed David Gregory around Twitter on Friday asking him repeatedly if he would cover the story on MTP today. Naturally, that wasn’t on his agenda. Because foreign policy is hard.
~Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s maiden voyage to Iraq and Afghanistan was, shall we say, less than spectacular. Les Gelb has more here. Just what the White House needs, another wishy-washy consensus-builder.
~Sobering statistics: The Minimum number of people killed by CIA drone attacks in Pakistan last year was 607. Number of those who appeared on a U.S. list of most-wanted terrorists- 2. Hearts and minds people, hearts and minds…
~Did Obama lie about his dying mother’s battle with health insurance coverage? It appears he did. Does it matter? Probably. Why do politicians always do this and think that they can get away with it? As someone who did have a mother who was denied insurance coverage for potentially life-saving cancer treatment, I find his “misstatements” crass, politically expedient and insensitive.
~The GOP plan for the economy? Blow it up and blame it on Obama. This Red State article has been boomeranging all over the right-wing blogosphere and was apparently passed around at the House GOP caucus meeting. The fact that the Democrats, and the WH in particular, can’t use this to their advantage shows that after almost three years, their political messaging still sucks.
~Rupert Murdoch is very sorry that his media empire is an unethical, corrupt wasteland.
~The White House and State Department deflected questions all last week about whether President Obama or Secretary Clinton would meet with the Dalai Lama, who has been in Washington for over a week. Then, Friday evening, the WH released a statement saying Obama would meet with him- on Saturday (yesterday), and no photographers or press would be present. In response, China said that Obama’s meeting with him harmed Sino-U.S. relations and get this…”hurt the feelings of the Chinese people…”
~Good God, Michelle Obama eats a burger and fries for lunch while attending the opening of a eatery called “Shake Shack” and the self-righteous food nazis go nuts!
~Michelle Bachmann left her controversial Church not long before announcing her Presidential run. Coincidence? Does it matter?
Cats crash Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s interview in Istanbul:
~Thank goodness the GOP is keeping track of the important issues, like ensuring that the energy-draining incandescent light bulb sticks around for a while longer.
~Think Progress interviews the former head of the American Jewish Congress about the Mideast peace process and the Palestinians’ UN bid for statehood. He says the U.S.-sponsored peace process is a fraud and one of the main obstacles to peace is actually the United States itself. It’s a great interview, check it out here.
~Doctors Without Borders has formally spoken out against the CIA’s use of a fake vaccination program for children in Afghanistan, which they used to obtain information on Osama Bin Laden. DWB says it harms public health efforts undertaken by NGO’s in the region. Our MSM is not covering this issue at all.
~Meet the pay for play conservative nonprofit that writes a LOT of pro-energy industry laws around the country- The American Legislative Exchange Council. Democracy for the highest bidder.
~Remember the people who sold us all the lies about Iraq’s WMD’s? They are like bad pennies, they keep turning up. Only in Washington could such losers keep failing upward. Doug Feith, the man who Gen. Franks referred to as the “stupidest guy on the face of the earth” is now a foreign policy adviser to Rick Perry.
As a liberal who supported Pres. Obama’s Afghanistan plan when he first began it, I simply do not understand how anyone can support it today, at least not when judging what’s in U.S. interests.
Nineteen months ago the president announced the surge strategy in hopes of stabilizing Afghanistan and strengthening its military and police forces. Today, despite vast investment in training and equipping Afghan forces, the country’s deep-seated instability, rampant corruption and, in some cases, compromised loyalties endure. Extending our commitment of combat troops will not remedy that situation.
Sometimes our national security warrants extreme sacrifices, and our troops are prepared to make them when asked. In this case, however, there is little reason to believe that the continuing commitment of tens of thousands of troops on a sprawling nation-building mission in Afghanistan will make America safer.
National security experts, including the former C.I.A. director Leon E. Panetta, have noted that Al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan has been greatly diminished. Today there are probably fewer than 100 low-level Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has a much larger presence in a number of other nations.
Our focus shouldn’t be establishing new institutions in Afghanistan, but concentrating on terrorist organizations with global reach. And our military and intelligence organizations have proved repeatedly that they can take the fight to the terrorists without a huge military footprint.
It’s easy to understand why our troops being in Afghanistan is good for the Afghans, because Pres. Karzai simply isn’t doing his job and there’s no evidence he will. Women continue to suffer in Afghanistan, an issue to which Karzai is indifferent, even as real progress has been made, because the women and girls had only one way to go and that’s up.
In the past, I’ve argued with people over staying in Afghanistan, but after herculean efforts on the part of our troops, it’s simply not worth one more life, not one. I feel the same way about Iraq, too, but I felt that way from the beginning the Bush-Cheney misadventure that distracted the U.S. from getting bin Laden.
It’s also not as if we won’t continue to be involved in Afghanistan, because they’re sitting next to Pakistan in an important region. This begs the question of when regional powers, including India, China and Russia, will start doing their part? The U.S. is leaving Afghanistan, so they’d better step up.
Senators Merkeley and Udall are correct, Pres. Obama should change course, but he won’t because he’s prosecuting this war like a Republican, which is one reason why Afghanistan is starting to look like a bigger disaster than ever, because the same stubbornness that kept Bush in Iraq is keeping Obama from drawing down faster in Afghanistan.
President Obama plans to announce a troop reduction in Afghanistan that Pentagon and other administration officials say is expected to bring home about 10,000 personnel by the end of the year. – Obama expected to announce major Afghan drawdown
Zbigniew Brzezinski has a low bar for Pres. Obama. Sending a message for a “token of confidence” that things are moving in the right direction and that we’re not “stuck.” Ignoring Afghanistan after troops have left is the biggest mistake the U.S. has made over the last two decades, with Brzezinski naming former Pres. Clinton as having ignored Afghanistan. Staying engaged is his bottom line, which must include regional involvement from Pakistan, India, China and Russia.
But if Obama’s Wednesday speech doesn’t explain how the drawdown supports a political strategy for ending the war, it’ll mean one thing: he has no idea how to get out of Afghanistan. – Spencer Ackerman
Reports today reveal Pres. Obama will begin to drawdown the “surge” portion of his administration’s escalation of 30,000 troops this year, beginning with 10,000, with the remaining 20,000 to come home by 2012. It leaves 70,000 U.S. forces inside Afghanistan.
CNN is reporting this headline: Obama to announce plan to pull 30,000 troops out of Afghanistan.
However, 10,000 would be the starting number, which isn’t what the military wanted, as they were hoping for token troop withdrawal in the neighborhood of 3,000-4,000, which is politically unworkable in today’s climate.
Pres. Obama initially pledged to clean up George W. Bush’s mess in Afghanistan, after he dropped the ball to preemptively invade Iraq. However, Obama’s mission creep has been consistent, going into nation building from the start.
Part of that is due to his stalwart partner Sec. Clinton who believes strongly in our mission inside Afghanistan, particularly where Afghan society is concerned, particularly women’s roles.
I was on board until Stanley McChrystal’s implosion, which made the reality very stark, as it takes looking into the blackest abyss to cause a general to kill his own career.
Pres. Obama is under intense pressure from the Pentagon, who is no doubt telling him that he could be the proud owner of a failure on his watch if the withdrawal is too steep. It’s what the military always tells civilian leadeship, which has the same reaction every time.
I want to hear the Republicans make a different argument, the one begun by Ron Paul. Specifically, I want to hear Jon Huntsman make the case for complete Afghanistan withdrawal over the next 3-5 years. People forget that’s how long these things take.
If the presidential race could be about U.S. lack of foreign policy discipline and misadventurism it would actually be worth the space it will take up. Because there is no more important fiscal challenge to tackle than U.S. indiscriminate and unbridled spending in wars that have no end.
“We are about to pass down to the next generation a country that is less powerful, less compassionate, less competitive and less confident than the one we got. This is totally unacceptable and totally un-American,” Huntsman is expected to say in his speech.
… “He assured us we could ‘make America great again,’ and under his leadership we did. I stand in his shadow as well as the shadow of this magnificent monument to our liberty,” Huntsman is also expected to say.
[...] “He and I have a difference of opinion on how to help the country we both love,” Huntsman will say according to his prepared remarks. “But the question each of us wants the voters to answer is who will be the better president; not who’s the better American.”
Saddest of all, Huntsman said, “we have lost faith in ourselves.” Painting a picture of America that is “less” than what our parents had, he said that we have the “character to astonish the world again.” Then in the next breath he lauded our inherent possibilities.
Mr. Huntsman’s first job is to get his name and persona on the map, as most Americans don’t know who the hell he is.
Here’s the latest installment from Jon Huntsman, Jr. I wasn’t sure about posting it, but then the second installment dropped, which is the first video below.
Let’s just say Mr. Huntsman is going to do it his way and dare the media and everyone else to characterize it. Jason Linkins at Huffington Post takes the bait, calling him the “Mike Gravel of the 2012 GOP primary. That doesn’t apply to Huntsman on style and certainly not by resume.
On this day in history, June 5, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. Also on this date in 1967 the Six Day War erupted between Israel and the surrounding Arab states.
~Defense Secretary Gates is in Afghanistan saying his “goodbyes” and reassuring the Afghans that we will be there for the long haul. Obama has set himself up to have to battle not only the GOP on a myriad of issues but now his own party on Afghanistan. The troop surge didn’t work and the underlying problem- a corrupt, illegitimate government that is playing both sides- won’t be “fixed” by counterinsurgency.
~Speaking of Secretary Gates, why does the media help perpetuate the myth that Gates has been a leader in terms of cutting defense spending? Because really what he’s done is just moved money around. If people like David Gregory had stones they’d confront Gates with this but instead they fawn all over him in a rather embarrassing manner.
~Question: if the U.S. is willing to entertain the idea of having talks with the Taliban, a group that is killing Americans as we speak, why is negotiating with Hamas under certain conditions such a taboo? I’m not being sarcastic here, I’m honestly just asking the question.
~Are you tired of hearing about the Weiner scandal? Well, here’s the thing- we know the media loves anything having to do with sex, or anything that even hints of sex, because it’s so much easier to cover than, say, the latest Supreme Court decision. But it’s also a morality tale of sorts. Whoever was advising Rep. Weiner to go on the teevee box and give winding, circular, vague non-answers to basic yes or no questions should be fired or voted off the island.
~Yesterday was the 22nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Any mention of the anniversary is forbidden in China and they have done everything in their power to erase the tragedy from China’s history.
~You have to hand it to Fox News, they really take on the big issues!:
~Never under estimate the ability of far right conservatives to dumb down almost any issue. They are allergic to nuance and prefer instead to see everything as Black or White, Good vs. Evil. That’s all well and good and it certainly makes for much easier political messaging but at the end of the day, that’s not how the world works.
~I realize that Sarah Palin supporters get really, really angry whenever someone criticizes her but I simply don’t understand why someone would defend someone with such a limited grasp on national and foreign policy. Every politician makes mistakes or stretches the truth and no politician can be an expert on every subject, but Palin’s statements are simply incomprehensible and it is just not acceptable for any candidate or political figure to blame their lack of basic knowledge entirely on the media.
~Ambassador Chris Hill has an interesting commentary about the Mideast peace process, or lack thereof. There seems to be a widening gap between long-time diplomats and foreign policy experts and politicians in both the U.S. and Israel. Regardless of where one stands on this issue one thing is certain, the current politicization of the peace process won’t help resolve the conflict or keep either the Israelis or Palestinians one iota more secure.
~The administration and the media have reacted dismissively to Sy Hersh’s New Yorker article about Iran’s supposed nuclear capability. It would seem that the media really haven’t learned anything since the Judith Miller, Scooter Libby days of reporting in the run-up to the Iraq War. Glenn Greenwald rips Politico for their journalistic hypocrisy and their acting as stenographers to those in power. The way in which the media has responded to the Hersh article is more proof that the media don’t report the news so much as decide what is and isn’t worthy of national debate. Irrespective of what one believes about Iran or Hersh’s reporting on this issue, it’s interesting how the administration and those in the media seem unwilling to even allow a debate to take place.
~Richard Cohen gets paid to write this stuff? Actual money?
~Rather than screaming non-stop about the debt, which has been a problem in the making for well over a decade, we should be screaming for campaign finance reform so that voting isn’t just window-dressing for democracy.
~This is interesting- some religious Christians are questioning the morality of the GOP budget proposals. Apparently some people think selfishness and screw the poor isn’t a great Christian rallying cry. Good for them. A politician’s faith is/should be a personal matter unless they make it a center piece of their political platform and in that case, questioning some of the more blatant hypocrisy is justified.
~It’s official, hardly anyone in Congress agrees with Obama’s Libya strategy. Of course, the irony of the GOP maneuver is rather rich given most of them never met a war they didn’t like. The wording of the congressional resolution should have been applied to the authorization for the use of force in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Chris Hedges ushered in 2011 by calling it a brave new dystopia. For a brief moment in time, the Egyptian and Wisconsin protests provided a glimmer of “there’s something happening here,” but then we were returned to our regularly scheduled dystopic nightmare. I don’t know about you, but lately I’m finding that the actual headlines these days sound more satirical than the ones in the Onion. They leave me either wanting to lolsob…or just sob. So, on that note…
This photo of sailboats at sunset has us yearning for the sea, which makes it an Editors’ Pick for week one of our 2011 Traveler Photo Contest in the category of Outdoor Scenes. The photographer Ken Michael Jon Taarup writes, “Boracay has never ceased to amaze many people from all over the world. With its white crystal sand, pristine blue waters, and beautiful sunsets, this place still tops the list of the most visited and beautiful resorts in the Philippines.”
That’s so you have something calming to visualize while you read my Saturday picks.
Alright, grab your morning cuppa if you haven’t already, and read on.
Let’s just get the biggest distraction out of the way first…
Being pro-choice means understanding that self-determination for women regarding sex, sexuality, reproduction and motherhood is a fundamental precursor to womens’ ability to achieve their own educational, economic and familial aspirations, a fundamental precursor to the health and well-being of individuals and families, and a core condition of the long-term stability and health of society. It therefore also means understanding the profound connections for women–supported by more than ample evidence–between economic and educational status and unfettered access to comprehensive sexual health education, contraception, family planning services, and abortion care.
The War on Unions… now brought to you by Dems in MA?
The bill will take a month before coming to the state Senate, but the overwhelming vote in the House, and [Gov.] Patrick’s kinder, gentler rights-stripping plan, make it look like something’s going to happen in Massachusetts. Time to get out in the streets in another blue state.
“I’ve played at hundreds of protests and demonstrations, and this was really unique,” he said. “It was every segment of society. It was radical students and cops on the same side, and I’d never seen that before.”
Hillaryland
The otherwise serious and reliable Laura Rozen overreacted a bit to Hillary taking a few days of Easter R&R time off with her family. There’s a reason Hill was dubbed the “Energizer Secretary.” The woman works non-stop. She has a personal life that she’s entitled to attend to and/or just recharge every few years or so.
Sean Penn spotted at Foggy Bottom on Thursday. Rozen says one reason for his visit to the State Department might be his recent humanitarian work in Haiti.
First of all, I didn’t have modest experience in management. Managing Stanford University is not so easy. But I don’t know what Don was trying to say, and it really doesn’t matter. Don can be a grumpy guy. We all know that.
As always, Black Agenda Report tells it like it is…
This is an instant classic! Please read and disseminate. Bruce A. Dixon’s Top Ten Answers To Excuses For Obama’s Betrayals and Failures. Note Number 9 — it’s for all the Obamaphiles who won’t accept that Obama is the third Bush-Cheney term. And, to quote a snippet from Numero Uno (Re: “It’s our fault the Obama presidency hasn’t kept its commitments. We need to ‘make him do it.’”):
You cannot make a US president do what he fundamentally doesn’t want to. Michelle Obama is nice to look at, but she is no Eleanor Roosevelt. Franklin Roosevelt used to publicly bask in the hatred of wealthy banksters. Barack Obama’s dream is mostly not to piss off rich people.
For more on the atrocities of Bush-Cheney III, give BAR’s April 25th podcasta listen. In the first segment BAR’s Glen Ford interviews Labor Notes editor Mark Brenner, who sees no growth and no jobs on the horizon and says:
“Absolute disaster for working folks. If we follow the Ryan plan or if we follow the Obama plan, none of it spells good news for the rest of us.”
In another segment, Clarence Thomas, former Local 10 union secretary-treasury, says “what one needs to understand is that this is not simply an attack on public sector workers, it is also an attack on public services.”Thomas says the goal is to put labor back where it was before the New Deal, noting that it is a corporate and rightwing agenda in which“the Democratic party is complicit.”
In response to the brutality of the crackdown, President Barack Obama signed an executive order today instituting sanctions against the Syrian intelligence agency and two of Assad’s brothers, a White House official confirmed. Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Council voted in Geneva today to condemn the Syrian crackdown.
“The [Executive Order] is a watershed,” Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told The Envoy.“This is the first time an Assad has been designated by the [U.S. government], and the first time the USG has issued an EO on human rights in Syria. Until a few months ago Human Rights was a distant fifth on our list of issues with Syria. Now it’s emerged as the center of our policy.”
Ms. Cheng was arrested on what was supposed to have been her wedding day last fall for sending a single sarcastic Twitter message that included the words “charge, angry youth.” The government, lacking a sense of humor, sentenced her to a year in labor camp.
… [Donald Trump] assured a woman in the crowd who urged him to run that he expected to make her “very happy,” but added later, “there is a really good chance that I won’t win because of one of these blood-sucking politicians. – Donald Trump drops F-bombs on Las Vegas crowd
Did Donald Trump just pre-announce his intention to announce in Las Vegas?
Just when you thought this man couldn’t top himself.
On the nation’s involvement in military actions overseas, he said: “We build a school, we build a road, they blow up the school, we build another school, we build another road they blow them up, we build again, in the meantime we can’t get a f——ing school in Brooklyn.”
On how to deal with OPEC to lower oil prices?
“We have nobody in Washington that sits back and said, you’re not going to raise that f—-ing price,” Trump said, according to KTNV in Nevada.
And how he’d tell China he wants to slap a tariff on their exports?
“Listen you mother——ers we’re going to tax you 25 percent!”
Trump’s low brow approach reached a new bottom with the f-bombs. But it somehow seems fitting for the Clark County’s GOP. See Sharron Angle.
If you’re looking at primary states, which one could Donald Trump take? **crickets** Who’s going to tell him?
One reaction among liberals to the Bush years and to Iraq was to retreat from “idealism” toward “realism,” in which the United States would act cautiously and, above all, according to national interests rather than moral imperatives. The debate is rooted in the country’s early history. America, John Quincy Adams argued, “does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all,” but the “champion and vindicator only of her own. In 1966, Adams’s words were repeated by George Kennan, perhaps the most articulate realist of the twentieth century, in opposing the Vietnam War. …The use of force to stop human-rights abuses or to promote democracy, they argue, usually ends poorly.” – Ryan Lizza
Philosophically speaking, Lizza contends that whether a decision by a president is moral or right depends on the consequences of that action, which he concludes makes Pres. Obama’s evolving doctrine “consequentialist.” By that theory isn’t every president’s doctrine consequentialist by nature?
Oy, some experts…
Read it anyway, at least then you’ll understand Libya.
If there is such a thing in foreign policy as a “consequentialist” doctrine, Harry Truman might agree, though his interpretation of Lizza’s theory would be far different from Obama’s, because Truman believed the buck stopped in the White House. John F. Kennedy, a president who doesn’t resemble our current one at all, wouldn’t agree at all with Lizza, because imagining Kennedy bombing Libya requires enormous feats of mental acrobatics, regardless of the consequences.
Interesting premise pulled out of thin air to try to unwind whatever it is Pres. Obama is attempting to do on foreign policy, which is hardly clear at this point. Unfortunately, Obama’s actions also reveal timidity to declare U.S. intent, because admitting an altered U.S. policy based on Lizza’s “consequentialist” theory would cause political havoc for Obama in 2012.
From Lizza’s article:
Nonetheless, Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine. One of his advisers described the President’s actions in Libya as “leading from behind.” That’s not a slogan designed for signs at the 2012 Democratic Convention, but it does accurately describe the balance that Obama now seems to be finding. It’s a different definition of leadership than America is known for, and it comes from two unspoken beliefs: that the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world. Pursuing our interests and spreading our ideals thus requires stealth and modesty as well as military strength. “It’s so at odds with the John Wayne expectation for what America is in the world,” the adviser said. “But it’s necessary for shepherding us through this phase.” – The Consequentialist – How the Arab Spring remade Obama’s foreign policy.
Ah, China, but first America has to wean itself off of our Middle East obsession, which includes that we can create an outcome by anything we do. But the take away on this one is “leading from behind,” with the notion of a “humanitarian hawk” haunting U.S. foreign policy in a very real way, the latest in Libya, neoconservative unilateralism replaced with righteous certainty of America the savior in countries that are not of strategic interest, meanwhile we can do nothing in Bahrain, with sanctions on Syria coming in 3… 2… … .. 10… 9… 8… Oh, and just try to do anything in the Middle East by pissing off the Saudis.
On the structure – despite Lizza’s 9,000 words, and despite Obama’s stated intention to reorient American foreign policy to be less Middle East-focused, the essay…. is totally focused on the Middle East. I’m not saying that the Middle East is unimportant, but I’d have liked to have read something about how the Obama administration is dealing with the rest of the world. Indeed, Lizzaa notes that Obama visited South America during the opening days of the Libya operation precisely “to show that America has interests in the rest of the world.” Despite this effort, the thrust of the article demonstrates its futility during the start of a war. New military conflicts crowd out attention that should be paid to other arenas of foreign policy. It would have been nice to see how the administration’s strategy is playing/affecting the rest of the world.
The inside elite from Pontificate Hill, of which Ryan Lizza is certainly one on foreign policy, lays down that Obama is a consequentialist, which is really just shorthand for making stuff up as he goes along, moving from crisis to crisis with no guiding light, except outcome. Good God.
Brzezinski, too, has become disillusioned with the President. “I greatly admire his insights and understanding. I don’t think he really has a policy that’s implementing those insights and understandings. The rhetoric is always terribly imperative and categorical: ‘You must do this,’ ‘He must do that,’ ‘This is unacceptable.’ ” Brzezinski added, “He doesn’t strategize. He sermonizes.”
Then Mike Allen says Lizza’s is “West Wing Must Read,” which sends the message.
All it means to me is that if Lizza and Allen are correct we’re in bigger trouble than I thought we were and I didn’t think that was possible.
The International Monetary Fund has just dropped a bombshell, and nobody noticed.
For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page’s Steve Moore critiques the president’s speeches attacking Republican budget plans. And it’s a lot closer than you may think.
According to the latest IMF official forecasts, China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just five years from now.
Put that in your calendar. [...]
Oh, and in case you didn’t know who’s to blame, this all just suddenly happened on the Democratic Party’s watch and Pres. Obama. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney raffling through the surplus Bill Clinton left them never happened.
Bonus Drudge belch:
…psst… Pres. Obama’s a secret Muslim. Pass it on. …
Some of The President’s Faith Allies On the Diane Rehm show today, according to my husband who sometimes listens to NPR while he’s driving from order [...]
Women Want Their Birth Control “The Peggy Noonan piece left some things out. … But I have to say, the article appears to be very [...]
Al Sharpton Schools Morning Joe The Catholic League, according to CBS, is “poised to go to war with Obama over mandatory birth control payments.” A [...]
Capitalism Out of the Closet **UPDATED** Would we be any worse off with Stephen Colbert as president? I doubt it. Politifact has watched the video [...]
Not Disappointed in Pres. Obama **Postscript added** President Obama is now neck and neck with a generic Republican challenger in the latest Real Clear Politics [...]
Fan Politics Despite rising public concern about the federal budget deficit, Americans favor keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are [...]
Good morning and welcome to Sunday!
Good morning and welcome to Sunday!
Good morning and welcome to Sunday!
