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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

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Romney Takes Big Lead in South Carolina

By on 15 January 2012

**UPDATED**

Mitt Romney’s opened a whopper of a lead in South Carolina. Who says negative attacks can’t work, this time in reverse, especially when they shoot as wildly as When Mitt Romney Came To Town, and go well wide of the mark.

The poll showed 37 percent of South Carolina Republican voters back Romney. Congressman Ron Paul and former Senator Rick Santorum tied for second place with 16 percent support.

Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, has fallen far back after holding a strong lead in South Carolina in December. He was in fourth place at 12 percent in the Reuters/Ipsos poll.

[update] However, the consensus is that though Mitt Romney is ahead, it’s not by nearly as much as the Reuters/IPSO’s poll claims.

As you’ll see from the video above, individual stories continue to follow Mitt Romney everywhere. One unemployed woman said God told her to find him, which resulted in Romney giving her cash.

“God didn’t tell me to go to nobody else, he told me to pray for Romney,” said Williams, when asked why she has decided to support Romney. “I listened to the Lord.”

Newt Gingrich is now getting booed for his efforts against Mitt Romney and capitalism.

It’s got to be a sobering moment for some Democratic partisans readying the confetti guns, thinking that Bain Capital will be an easy shoot and score for them. Scalpel approach could prove deadly, but when has any campaign not preferred a machete? I’m still not convinced there won’t be ways around it for Romney, especially since the people most appalled are very likely not going to vote for him anyway.

Rick Santorum got too little way too late from “150 Christian leaders, business leaders and conservative activists” who endorsed him yesterday.

From the in case you missed it on Friday files, Standard & Poor’s went wild, playing slasher Over There.

S&P lowered its long-term rating on Cyprus, Italy, Portugal and Spain by two notches, and cut its rating on Austria, France, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia by one notch.

The move puts highly indebted Italy on the same BBB+ level as Kazakhstan and pushes Portugal into junk status.

The credit-rating agency affirmed the current long-term ratings for Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Americans for Prosperity, a Koch backed group, is doing a $5 million ad buy against Pres. Obama on Solyndra, which will hit during the State of the Union on January 24.

On SOPA, the White House tries to straddle the issue (I know, you’re shocked), while lawmakers are getting creamed by constituents (keep those emails and phone calls coming). From EFF:

Looks like proponents of the Internet Blacklist Bills are finally beginning to realize that they won’t be able to ram through massive, job-killing legislation without a fight. First, Sen. Patrick Leahy, sponsor of the PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA), announced on Thursday that he would recommend that the Senate further study the dangerous DNS blocking provisions in that bill before implementation. Then, a group of six influential senators wrote to Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, urging that the Senate slow down and postpone the upcoming vote on PIPA. Sen. Ben Cardin, a co-sponsor of PIPA, also took a measured stance against the bill, saying he “would not vote for final passage of PIPA, as currently written.” Cardin cited consituent activism as the primary reason for the about-face.

Oh, and if you’re thinking of seeing the film Iron Lady, you should reconsider.

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What Might Happen Around the World in 2012?

By on 14 December 2011

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?

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Pakistan to Boycott Conference on Afghanistan Future

By on 29 November 2011

According to Afghan security officials, their commandos were engaged with U.S. Special Operations troops in a nighttime raid against suspected Taliban insurgents when they came under cross-border fire and called in an airstrike. – Afghans say commando unit was attacked before airstrike was called on Pakistan

Watching the reaction of the Pakistanis after the NATO bombing incident that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers, it was hard not to wonder if this would escalate further. It just did.

Calling the event a “tragedy,” Pres. Obama did not offer an apology, mainly because the events that played out are being contested.

From Foreign Policy’s daily brief today:

Pakistan’s government announced Monday that it will not participate in an upcoming conference in Bonn, Germany on Afghanistan’s future, in protest to this weekend’s bombing of two border posts in Mohmand by NATO forces that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers (BBC, Tel, AP, Reuters, ET, AFP). The decision came during a meeting of Pakistan’s cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who promised in an interview with CNN Monday that there would be no more, “business as usual” with the United States following the raid (CNN, Reuters, ET, AFP/Dawn). In a briefing Tuesday Pakistani Gen. Ashfaq Nadeem called the incident a “deliberate act of aggression” by the United States, and said Pakistan was still deciding if they will cooperate with an American probe of the attack, whose results are due to be released December 23 (AP, Dawn).

Pakistan and the United States continue to dispute the events surrounding the bombing, as U.S. and Afghan officials describe a joint commando patrol near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that came under attack from positions near or even inside the Pakistani army posts, while Pakistan has said the assault continued long after Pakistani forces identified themselves to NATO (Post, NYT, ET, BBC, AP, WSJ). President Barack Obama and other American leaders have called the incident a “tragedy” but refused to apologize (AFP/ET, Tel). The Pentagon said Monday that it would “carry on” in Afghanistan without supplies from Pakistan, which has closed its border to U.S. supplies, and Pakistan reportedly refused a request by the United Arab Emirates to review its decision to evict American personnel from the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan, which the Emirates are believed to control (AFP, ET, Dawn, AFP).

Pakistan is sending a chilling message that in the short term is saying they’re pulling out of any regional involvement on what happens with Afghanistan. Since Pres. Carter signed off on funding efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan, there hasn’t been a development like this that I can remember.

A nuclear power in this region, with an unstable domestic landscape to boot, is not a positive prospect to consider.

Osama bin Laden picking Pakistan to hide away seems to have been foreshadowing and the result of the U.S. never quite understanding what we were dealing with in this country going all the way back to Ronald Reagan.

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Progressive Notes: The Left Takes French Senate in Blow to Austerity

By on 27 September 2011

Art offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.

Well, we saw an earthquake in Denmark as the Left returned to power. Now eyes are on France in a stunner: the French Left has taken the Senate. This is huge news. The Left has not held the French Senate since the formation of the 5th Republic back in 1958.

The French Leftist parties ran united against austerity and PM Sarkozy. It worked. PM Sarkozy faces reelection this April and this is a major blow; coupled with Socialist wins in local elections, the French Right are getting worried.

The French Senate power change will impact one major austerity measure:

There is no major legislation outstanding that a left-wing Senate could delay, but losing his majority there would bury Sarkozy’s grand plan to get a budget-balancing debt rule written into the French constitution, a measure that could have been an anchor for France’s AAA-rating.

The hope is the Left is truly having a comeback in Europe. France and Germany are major players in this whole austerity kick these days. The faster the Left can surge there the faster we can get off austerity.

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FT: Obama’s Planned Cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security **UPDATED**

By on 14 September 2011

The Financial Times lays out what has been talked about for months and months, with Pres. Obama set to deliver a speech on deficit reduction on Monday.

It begins with the way the U.S. government measures inflation, which would deliver “a less generous chained-consumer price index,” to quote FT.

This decision alone would devastate elderly women, as I’ve written before.

Research from IWPR has shown the current Social Security program is a mainstay for women, and these findings have been supported by research from other organizations. Adult women are 51 percent (27 million) of all beneficiaries, including retirees, the disabled, and the survivors of deceased workers (52.5 million). Women are more likely to rely on Social Security because they have fewer alternative sources of income, often outlive their husbands, and are more likely to be left to rear children when their husbands die or become permanently disabled. Moreover, due to the recession many women have lost home equity and savings to failing markets. Older women—and older low income populations in general—have become more economically vulnerable and dependent on Social Security benefits. – IWPR

To give you an idea of the story framing at FT, they call Medicare and Medicaid “large government healthcare schemes for the elderly and the poor.”

As for Social Security, we just learned that according to the U.S. Census the only group not being dragged into poverty in the Obama era is senior citizens. There’s only one reason why, but our Democratic President thinks it’s time to “reform” their reality.

Soaring Poverty Casts Spotlight on ‘Lost Decade’

… Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that the period from 2001 to 2007 was the first recovery on record where the level of poverty was deeper, and median income of working-age people was lower, at the end than at the beginning.

“Even before the recession hit, a lot of people were falling behind,” he said. “This may be adding to people’s sense of urgency about the economy.”

The suburban poverty rate, at 11.8 percent, appears to be the highest since 1967, Mr. Sherman added. Last year more Americans fell into deep poverty, defined as less than half the official poverty line, or about $11,000, with the ranks of that group increasing to 20.5 million, or about 6.7 percent of the population.

Poverty has also swallowed more children, with about 16.4 million in its ranks last year, the highest numbers since 1962, according to William Frey, senior demographer at Brookings. That means 22 percent of children are in poverty, the highest percentage since 1993.

Too bad the poor and children don’t squawk as loud as seniors, aren’t represented by AARP, but also don’t vote in as large numbers.

It’s funny how Republicans and now even Democrats are so courageous about putting the people’s safety net on the block, but these same politicians turn yellow when it comes to making real choices about military overspending, extravagance and waste, as if our military footprint around the globe isn’t a huge part of our economic problem.

But I’m reasonable.

So, I can be convinced to make serious entitlement reform, but something else has to happen first.

Get out of Iraq and begin a much more rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan, because Bin Laden is dead and Al Qaeda is scattered and broken apart; at the same time redeploy our troops from Germany and Okinawa, for starters, with an assessment begun by a committee filled with national security, military and Pentagon busting experts (like Winslow Wheeler) not currently attached to the Pentagon or having lobbyist ties, to ascertain the other countries from which we can remove U.S. forces, based on U.S. strategic interests.

Do all of these things then come to me and ask about entitlement cuts reform.

UPDATE – 9.15.11: Under pressure, today the White House pushed back on the FT story, with reports in the Washington Post and the WSJ reporting Pres. Obama will not tinker with Social Security. The problem for Pres. Obama is that he’s already floated these ideas, so whether he does it on Monday or not it’s in the political water, bolstering the Right’s passion for pulverizing the U.S. social safety net.

The last time President Obama negotiated with Republicans about overhauling the nation’s social safety set, he put several significant and politically explosive proposals on the table.

This time, it may be different.

As Obama prepares to present Congress on Monday with a detailed plan for taming the nation’s debt, a pivotal question is whether he will again propose raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 and propose cuts in Social Security benefits.

Over the objections of members of his party, the president had agreed to those changes as part of an unsuccessful effort to strike a debt deal this summer with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). But Obama’s aides say the plan being released Monday would not represent that sort of compromise.

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Well, That Worked Out Well

By on 24 March 2011

The original intent of the no-fly zone was to prevent carnage in Benghazi. It did. Now fears are growing that a humanitarian crisis is coming across Libya.

Who could have predicted that? After all, war never causes these types of secondary issues– Oh, strike that. Pres. Obama and his administration say this isn’t a war. I keep forgetting that point. If Obama says it isn’t a war it isn’t a war, right?

Then what is it? According to the White House, it’s a “kinetic military action.”

Q But it’s not going to war, then?

MR. RHODES: Well, again, I think what we are doing is enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals, which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone. Obviously that involves kinetic military action, particularly on the front end. But again, the nature of our commitment is that we are not getting into an open-ended war, a land invasion in Libya. What we are doing is offering a unique set of capabilities over a period of days that can shape the environment for a no-fly zone.

What could possibly go wrong with this mumbo jumbo?

See Byron York.

What a giant political disaster Pres. Obama has created. And not calling what’s being done in Libya a war? Who are these guys and how did they get to such a level of leadership? It’s absolutely juvenile.

It’s hard to find a precedent for a president ordering U.S. military forces into action, then heading off for a five-day tour of Latin America, but that’s just what President Barack Obama did when he approved the deployment of air and naval assets to establish a no-fly zone over Libya. His homecoming gift is a barrage of questions about the military action Obama aides refuse to label a “war.” – Unanswered questions about Libya

It takes “word salads” to a whole new level.

The New York Times is running an op-ed today about “Among Allies, Discord Over Libya.” That’s putting it mildly.

Jamie Rubin put it well on MSNBC this morning. There’s an old saying about NATO, which has an alternative acronym: Needs America To Operate. The reason America usually leads, which is why the Right and others are caterwauling about the operation, is that without our lead things fall apart.

Pres. Obama missed that lesson and is now in the middle of an international diplomatic firing squad, while his people are arguing about whether this is a war or not.

I can picture V.P. Joe Biden right now muttering expletives under his breath.

This post has been updated.

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Austerity is In Among Ruling Class

By on 26 January 2011

TM NOTE: Texan4Hillary offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.

“Plundering the weak and shooting them in their heads when they resist — that’s the definition of courage to America’s degenerate ruling class.”- – Reaganomics Critic Mark Ames

In the American era of austerity, where those who want to slash social programs are hailed by the media as heroes, it’s important we keep reminding ourselves that austerity is a loser at the ballot box for its proponents and often leads to much worse.

Last night we saw Obama move to freeze the budget for 5 years, like Hoover, which will have a devastating impact for those in need. NIH, HUD, education would be bludgeoned with this freeze. See this report for a preview of those painful cuts we must suffer.

As Obama moves to freeze the budget, his deficit commission lives on in a bill co-authored by Senator Mark Warner (D-Va) and Senator Chambliss (R-Ga). It would raise the Social Security retirement age to 69, get rid of key tax breaks for the middle class, make major changes to Medicare and best of all: it has 2 dozen sponsors thus far in the Senate. Read more on it here.

Perhaps the radical Right, Rep. Ryan, Obama, Warner and the rest of the ruling class should do a little reading. Author Mark Ames continues his work on Right wing economics and its destructive path. In his latest piece he finds some disturbing examples of austerity and its political impact:

(Austerity) measures almost always end in the worst worst-case-scenario imaginable: economic disaster, violence and repression.

Let’s start with the most catastrophic of all austerity programs in history—the one austerity program none of the Austerity Snake Oil peddlers want you to know about. It was the disastrous austerity program tested out in Germany way back in 1930, under Chancellor Heinrich Bruning, himself an austere centrist.

The Depression was just spreading around the globe, and Bruning, backed by Germany’s industry titans, believed Germany would only recover with a strong currency, which he tethered to the gold standard, and a balanced budget through brutal cuts in wages, pensions and unemployment benefits, and hikes in taxes and fees. Bruning learned austerity as a doctoral student at the London School of Economics — which nurtured and promoted “free-market” whores like Friedrich von Hayek and the “Austrian School” that is still being piped out to us through major outlets like the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal …

Bruning applied the von Hayek medicine to Germany, and the resulting backlash was so intense he suspended parliamentary democracy and ruled by emergency decree, setting a fine example for the next guy who took power. After just two years of “austerity” measures, Germany’s economy had completely collapsed: unemployment doubled from 15 percent in 1930 to 30 percent in 1932, protests spread, and Bruning was finally forced out. Just two years of austerity, and Germany was willing to be ruled by anyone or anything except for the kinds of democratic politicians that administered “austerity” pain.

Ames also looks at Venezuala, Lithuania and Russia:

Venezuela’s austerity programs created greater poverty, richer oligarchs, worse corruption, and the inevitable backlash in the form of Hugo Chavez, who staged a coup in 1992 that almost succeeded…and later won the presidency through the ballot box. Perez had to flee to Miami with his family to avoid being put on trial for the massacre; he died just last month in shame.

Austerity programs in the ex-communist Soviet countries led to similar disastrous results: As I wrote about in the Nation, Larry Summers oversaw Lithuania’s austerity program in the early 1990s, sparking overnight the world’s highest suicide rate, economic misery and a backlash that made Lithuania the first country in the former communist bloc to vote the communists back into power — anything to stop the pain.

In Russia, austerity measures dictated by the same Hayek groupies in the IMF led to a complete financial market meltdown, an over 50 percent collapse in the GDP, the untimely deaths of millions, and of course the requisite President Yeltsin ruling by decree, bombing his own parliament, then finally snuffing democracy by handing the Kremlin over to his crony, Vladimir Putin.

So we have Summers advising austerity in the 1990s in former Soviet bloc nations , and causing the return of the Communists to power in Lithuania.

Britain is today on a austerity binge of maddening proportions. College campus riots have ensued over tuition hikes, Prince Charles got pinned in his car by protesters, and P.M. Cameron is creating such a situation that it’s inevitable social and political problems are going to explode beyond his control. See Britain in 1930, Ames again:

In England, austerity measures led to one of the biggest mutinies in Britain’s military history since the time of the French Revolution; the Invergordon Mutiny of 1931, when up to half the Royal Navy rose up against austerity cuts, took over ships and sent fears of a Bolshevik revolution throughout the country. The mutiny and strikes worked somewhat: Britain was finally forced to abandon the gold standard, and wage cuts were softened.

Austerity is not a winner. Electorally its a proven disaster. In Texas in 2003 the GOP slashed public education and CHIP funding massively. The backlash was fierce with the Democrats taking 22 seats in the statehouse. They came 2 seats shy of controlling the state legislature, then the 2010 wipeout happened. But I predict in Texas and any other state doing this sort of thing the backlash is going to be monstrous. You cannot wholesale cut vital programs to the bone and expect to return to office when done.

Beware austerity Democrats and Republicans. Read history and the polls. Raise taxes if need be, but keep services running or pay the consequences.

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Wikileaks Diplo Docu Dump

By on 29 November 2010



Italy’s Foreign Minister Frattini called the Wikileaks release the “Sept. 11 of world diplomacy.”

Republicans are jumping on the leak, as expected, because transparency scares the bejeezus out of the Right. Rep. Pete Hoekstra using hyperbole to say what allies might ask, “‘Can the United States be trusted? Can the United States keep a secret?’”

Americans have grown accustomed to being kept in a state of permanent stupid on foreign policy. That’s how Iraq happened, but it’s also how dangerous moves in the Middle East towards Iran can be sanctioned through a simple sound bite.

Few news organizations bother to cover the Mideast, which is one reason I hailed Al Jazeera English when it came available in the Beltway area some time ago. Years of covering Israel without any way objectivity, along with Iran, has left Americans with a stilted view of American foreign policy. What’s worse is that the collective American ignorance about other countries and our involvement in their inner workings has given neoconservatives and traditional hawks the playing field, because our foreign policy is always presented as militaristic movements being strong, diplomacy is weak. When you have people like Rep. Eric Cantor making religious based Middle East foreign policy pronouncements, as well as people like Sen. Jon Kyl inventing the Cold War 2.0, circa 21st century, it shows just how vulnerable our foreign policy is to tilts in presidential domestic power, especially when Democrats don’t fight on their own ground.

Unclassified and not marked secret, 251,287 cables were provided to The Times by “an intermediary on the condition of anonymity.” Below are some stand out elements of what was released, with a fascinating look into Saudi King Abdullah’s advice to Pres. Obama equally interesting. However, the first standout element of the documents take us to Israeli and Saudi worries about Iran, but also fuller information about the Iranians long-range missile capacity.

There was little surprising in Mr. Barak’s implicit threat that Israel might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. As a pressure tactic, Israeli officials have been setting such deadlines, and extending them, for years. But six months later it was an Arab leader, the king of Bahrain, who provides the base for the American Fifth Fleet, telling the Americans that the Iranian nuclear program “must be stopped,” according to another cable. “The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it,” he said.

His plea was shared by many of America’s Arab allies, including the powerful King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who according to another cable repeatedly implored Washington to “cut off the head of the snake” while there was still time.

… The cables also contain a fresh American intelligence assessment of Iran’s missile program. They reveal for the first time that the United States believes that Iran has obtained advanced missiles from North Korea that could let it strike at Western European capitals and Moscow and help it develop more formidable long-range ballistic missiles.

The Right is making a lot of ruckus about the Saudi comments while pointing fingers at Arabists utilizing the See Even Saudi Arabia Wants To Strike Iran. The Right’s anti Arabist sentiment is what scuttled Chas Freeman’s possible appointment. However, the Shia v. Sunni dynamic has been an amped up challenge ever since Pres. Bush let the neoconservatives run things, which began with the disastrous preemptive attack on Iran that altered the balance of power in the region. With shifts in Lebanon, the Shia state rising has as its most important godfathers George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, intended or not, something that has been forgotten. But the dynamics being used right now to make the case for Iran action aren’t a sudden revelation with these leaks, though that’s what’s being talked about on the Right.

From The Times:

¶ A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, “if the local media got word of the fuel removal, ‘they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons,’ he argued.”

¶ Thinking about an eventual collapse of North Korea: American and South Korean officials have discussed the prospects for a unified Korea, should the North’s economic troubles and political transition lead the state to implode. The South Koreans even considered commercial inducements to China, according to the American ambassador to Seoul. She told Washington in February that South Korean officials believe that the right business deals would “help salve” China’s “concerns about living with a reunified Korea” that is in a “benign alliance” with the United States.

¶ Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.”

¶ Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money “a significant amount” that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)

¶ A global computer hacking effort: China’s Politburo directed the intrusion into Google’s computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January, one cable reported. The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said.

¶ Mixed records against terrorism: Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a generous host to the American military for years, was the “worst in the region” in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December. Qatar’s security service was “hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals,” the cable said.

¶ An intriguing alliance: American diplomats in Rome reported in 2009 on what their Italian contacts described as an extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and business magnate, including “lavish gifts,” lucrative energy contracts and a “shadowy” Russian-speaking Italian go-between. They wrote that Mr. Berlusconi “appears increasingly to be the mouthpiece of Putin” in Europe. The diplomats also noted that while Mr. Putin enjoyed supremacy over all other public figures in Russia, he was undermined by an unmanageable bureaucracy that often ignored his edicts.

¶ Arms deliveries to militants: Cables describe the United States’ failing struggle to prevent Syria from supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has amassed a huge stockpile since its 2006 war with Israel. One week after President Bashar al-Assad promised a top State Department official that he would not send “new” arms to Hezbollah, the United States complained that it had information that Syria was providing increasingly sophisticated weapons to the group.

¶ Clashes with Europe over human rights: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official “that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S.”

Pres. Obama is up against it politically right now, no doubt about it. His reelection map, with his support in the industrial Midwest wiped out, leaves him vulnerable in ’12, though no one should count him out. When Americans hear the Right saber rattling once again it will correctly make them revisit memories of Bush-Cheney and their disastrous foreign policy. But starting in the New Year the difficulty of Obama’s battle is immense compared to anything he’s ever faced before.

When you read about the leaked documents then think about a Republican in office, the possibilities on what could happen with a reflexive neoconservative in the White House should be a sobering thing to contemplate. If that person is a neophyte on foreign policy, which includes everyone running except Newt Gingrich, the dangers for this country jump exponentially. Just listen to the comments you’re hearing on Fox News, which is foreshadowing of more to come as the 2012 campaign on the Right revs up.

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Stuck at State: The Hillary Hole

By on 15 February 2010

palin_clinton

Joe the Plumber doesn’t like Sarah Palin anymore. Since the Tea Party blast directed at Palin, this is the second greatest news she’s gotten in a while. Having secured her outsider status, getting a little incoming from the right is not so bad for Sarah. As the attention on the former governor continues to rise, regardless of her electability status, which everyone keeps reporting is nil, Sarah is laughing all the way to the bank. That she’s filling the Hillary hole has not been discussed, but that’s part of her allure, even if nobody on the left, including Hillary’s former supporters, who remain in her camp regardless that she’s out of action, care one whit about Sarah Palin. The simple void of a female rock star since Hillary Rodham Clinton has been deployed to the State dept. has opened up a spot for Sarah, because there’s nobody else out there that can fill it. Though I’m still waiting for Liz Cheney’s entry. After enjoying a competent and eminently qualified female candidate on the national stage it’s clear the people want more, so some are settling for Sarah, especially since the rest of the politicians on the national scene are not only a snore but incompetent. Obama’s star having descended to earth. Just look at the state of the Congress and legislation, not to mention Pres. Obama’s agenda, which hardly resembles anything coherent. All eyes on the other side, waiting for the next election, because watching this vamping political nothingness is down right painful.

Meanwhile…

Clinton acknowledged that U.S. President Barack Obama’s approach to Iran had not borne fruit, blaming Iran for refusing to engage and suggesting that a fourth U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution was the only option. “I would like to figure out a way to handle it in as peaceful an approach possible, and I certainly welcome any meaningful engagement, but … we don’t want to be engaging while they are building their bomb,” Clinton said at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum conference. – Clinton tackles Mideast peace, Muslim ties in Gulf

Sect. Clinton is trying to cajole our allies in the Arab and Muslim world right now. It’s not going very well. In fact, the current state of Clinton’s job is to offer nothing but a bunch of words. Relegated to hand holding, asking for help on Iran, while the reality is that Iran is going to get weapons grade uranium to become a nuclear nation, which has always been the case, effective means of weaponization always the challenge. So, I’ve never understood all the international posturing about thinking otherwise. And even as this reality explains Israel’s and the right’s rumbling rhetoric, it was always a matter of when not if. But what this whole exercise from Clinton reveals is that over at State she’s got no juice to actually impact anything. The Middle East proving beyond the U.S. scope to mold once again. So, even as Clinton travels the globe, the most important representative Pres. Obama can deploy for our country, she’s powerless.

However, since her Senate colleagues weren’t exactly going to welcome her back and offer her the power she’d amassed as a presidential candidate, what else was a woman to do?

This reminds me of how different things are for women around the world. Even as they fight for basic human rights in some states, there are many nations around the world who have already elevated a woman to the top job. Not in the U.S. Why is that Latin America, a patriarchal culture if ever there was one, has had female presidents, but not the U.S.? Even after 2008, but also the continued rise of Sarah Palin, it’s clear the country hungers for it. Some women would rather have Sarah Palin than wait one minute longer. The Hillary hole one reason Palin enjoys such attention, coupled with the “it” factor that, regardless of her electoral challenges, Sarah Palin most assuredly has. So even as England had Thatcher, Israel had Golda Meir, Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia, even Ukraine’s heroine of the orange revolution, former PM Yulia Tymoshenko, the American presidency remains an elusive prize for American females. From the Oregonian editorial board, talking about President-elect Laura Chinchilla in Cartago, Costa Rica.

Isabel Perón became president of Argentina in 1974 and Cristina Fernandez Kirchner in 2007, but those roles come with asterisks. Isabel Perón was the third wife and running mate of President Juan Perón, replacing him when he died in 1974. After a tumultuous tenure, she was arrested and deposed. (Juan Perón’s second wife, Eva, was a political trailblazer because of her prominence as first lady, and a lively campaigner on his behalf.) And while Fernandez Kirchner won election in her own right, her husband and former president, Nestor Kirchner, gave her an advantage by placing her on the ticket when he ran successfully for president.

A woman was appointed interim president of Haiti in 1990. And in Brazil, two women, Dilma Rousseff and Marina Silva, are running for president in an election scheduled for this fall. Rousseff, who is chief of staff for term-limited President Luiz Lula da Silva, is considered a strong contender.

Why do women in the United States seem to face a higher hurdle to becoming president than women in Latin America? …

In Anne Kornblut’s book, someone I’ve pilloried for her part in helping create the negative national narrative on the Clintons, she talks about the difficulty of getting beyond the 18 million cracks in the ultimate glass ceiling. The “share of women in office in the United States is smaller than in more than 70 countries in the world, from Cuba to Rawanda to Norway,” writes Kornblut in “Notes from the Cracked Ceiling.” Kornblut going on to say if we don’t ask why the glass ceiling was cracked, but hasn’t been broken it might never happen.

This is a longer discussion than can be had in one single essay, as to why women aren’t poised to break through in the U.S. as has already happened around the world, because the subject is complex. In a country where women’s civil rights are enshrined in law, Democrats and Republicans are busy chipping away at these givens in health care legislation. Why modern women are letting it happen is part of the problem. Female leaders still apologizing for a woman’s right to self-determination in order to fit into the man’s paradigm. Not exactly inspiring. See Hillary’s falling to Mark Penn’s run like a man strategy. One can almost respect Palin’s strong stand against abortion, which amounts to a pro selective life stance as I’ve talked about before, even if it erodes women’s civil rights, because at least she’s un-apologetically wrong, you know, like Bush. (Again, wrong and strong, beats weak and right.) While female Democrats make deals like Pelosi did on health care posturing that they’re for women’s self-determination, which includes the right to have domain over her own body, but won’t fight for it, putting everyone’s needs above women. Beyond that you had Senate leaders like Reid and Ted Kennedy, but also Nancy Pelosi, saying they were neutral, but actually were always for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, even advising and pushing him on, something that obviously blindsided her team. I could go on, but you get the beginning of what is a larger problem for women, which begins with their own choices.

What’s clear is that nothing is the same since Hillary’s candidacy failed. The Hillary hole is real, palpable. More so when we continue to look outward. Even to watch the reaction to Hillary when she does get into the fire on her trips overseas. Like when she bristled in Africa at a question she was asked about her husband’s opinion, replying, “My husband is not the Secretary of State, I am.” Kornblut, typically, if ironically, chimed in with a schizophrenic analysis that reveals, at least one reason, why women rising to the top job in the U.S. is still so difficult:

KORNBLUT: [W]e reported out that there was no mistranslation. That she was asked about her husband. The reporters who were there said it was very hot. She was very tired. So maybe her demeanor is not the one she would have wanted, but that the underlining sentiment that she’s the secretary of state is one that she intended to convey, especially in a region of the world that is so male dominated.

But the incident is kind of bigger than that. It’s sort of the perfect encapsulation of the burden of being Hillary Clinton. That you are seen in relation to your husband wherever you go, not just by the media, but by the world and asked questions about him. And it reminded me a lot of the campaign, when she was seen in relation to him and having to respond and trying to be her own person. But it also raises the question of what kind of secretary of state she is going to be. And if she is going to be able to harness the celebrity, which of course is the reason we’re all talking about it, in a – to a larger purpose. Some people, when this whole incident happened said to me, you know, she looks kind of like a first lady on this trip. She’s out there. She’s been gone for 11 days, 7 countries. She’s away from the center of action here. So I expect we may see some shorter trips from her, ones where she’s not going to get as tired when she’s on the road. But at the end of the day, I think her, again the underlining sentiment is one that certainly the White House and she defend that she had the right to say that.

New media headlines doing a disservice to Hillary as well, ready to exalt her husband at the Secretary’s expense.

Maybe this explains, in part, why all the usual Hillary haters have been so complimentary of Sect. Clinton during her run at State. Because after all, it’s not like the Secretary of State can pick an open fight with Pres. Obama, or that Hillary ever would, at least not publicly, as that’s not her style. But she is effectively neutered at State, leaving her critics to mumble their total approval of Sect. Clinton, even Chris Matthews lauding her work. Since the election season and her diplomatic, a-political ascendance, a compliment for Sect. Clinton offered almost as a bridge over the competing sides of the 2008 election season. A wound that has still not healed, which has been proven recently when the Obama bubble burst, with his fans finally coming down to earth and swallowing the reality that he is simply another politician. Egads! Not that. Obama agnostics infuriated that warnings went unheeded.

Certainly, Hillary has given remarkable speeches, traveled to the Congo war zone, a first, continued talking about women, her work laudable by any standard of statecraft. Her latest warnings about an Iranian dictatorship, due to the Revolutionary Guard’s prowess, now making world headlines. Hillary Clinton always impressive, her travels and commitment to women’s issues unmatched. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as dynamic a diplomat as Obama could have hoped to have, even as John Kerry and others wait in the wings to possibly follow her. But last time I looked Afghanistan’s Pres. Karzai still supported the “rape law,” so what good it does for the U.S. to huff and puff is certainly in question, as we cannot change reality.

There is nothing that Clinton can actually do anywhere.

“I know people are disappointed that we have not yet achieved a breakthrough,” Clinton said of the six-decade Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “This is hard work.“

But who ever thought we’d hear Hillary Rodham Clinton reduced to quoting George W. Bush?

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Obama on Berlin Wall Fall

By on 09 November 2009

via the White House

A piece of the wall is in Missouri at Westminster College, where a Winston Churchill Memorial also resides. The structure is called “Breakthrough.” Every time I’ve seen it it moves me.

Secretary Clinton was in Berlin, representing the U.S. Pres. Obama made a surprise video address to commemorate the fall of the Berlin wall.

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Hail To The Chief

By on 03 April 2009
Photobucket

In one visit, President Obama turned the page from the Bush-Cheney era of cowboy leadership to one that acknowledges that in the 21st century we cannot go it alone.

Merkel of Germany and Sarcozy of France went from promising disgruntlement to giving credit where it’s earned:

Both credited the new U.S. president with helping to break a banking-secrecy logjam over tax havens and the release of a blacklist of non-compliant jurisdictions.

… “President Obama really found the consensus,” Sarkozy told reporters after the meeting. “He didn’t focus exclusively on stimulus … In fact it was he who managed to help me persuade [Chinese] President Hu Jintao to agree to the reference to the … publication of a list of tax havens, and I wish to thank him for that.”

In her news conference, Merkel noted that “the American president also put his hand into this.”

Pres. Sarkozy announced he will also take one detainee from Gitmo.

As for Russia’s Pres. Medvedev, what a difference a real leader makes:

The Russian president contrasted Obama as “totally different” to his predecessor George W. Bush, whom he blamed for the “mistake” of US missile shield plans fiercely opposed by Moscow.

[...] “I liked the talks. It is easy to talk to him. He can listen. The start of this relationship is good,” he said, adding: “Today it’s a totally different situation (compared to Bush)… This suits me quite well.”

It’s a turn in a new direction, though manifesting something concrete, especially on loose nukes, remains to be worked out, as does the missile defense issue, which waits a solution.

Obama went further today, reaching out in an historic townhall that was obviously meant to encourage the people of France and also Germany that their countries need to get further involved in Afghanistan. This as Pres. Obama heads to NATO to press his case for more regional involvement in Afghanistan, while also stressing that Al Qaeda and terrorism remains a world threat.

“France recognises that having al-Qaeda operate safe havens that can be used to launch attacks is a threat not just to the United States but to Europe.

“In fact it is probably more likely that al-Qaeda would be able to launch a serious terrorist attack in Europe than in the United States because of proximity.

“This is not an American mission, this is a Nato mission, this is an international mission.”[..]

It’s enough to make Glenn Beck cry.

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Bush Gropes Germany’s Merkel

By on 17 July 2006

cross-posted at Huffington Post

President Bush took time out from the G-8 Summit to grope German Chancellor
Angela Merkel. I'm not kidding. It boggles the mind. (Update: John at C&L has the video up.)

Via Mash (by the way, great get!), we get photos via a friend of his in Germany. Mash debuted his guest post on North
Korea this past Sunday, which will appear every Sunday (focusing on world foreign policy issues). He forwarded links to these pictures.

This is why Iraq and the Middle East are in flames, and we have no credibility around the world. We have a prepubescent president
in charge. It is an outrage.

KDinDC offers the German translation, from the comment section: Chancellor Angela Merkel is speaking with Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi — then George W. Bush comes into the hall…


… Merkel converses with her neighbor at the table, does not notice how Bush is approaching from the rear …


… suddenly the US president lays both hands on Merkel's shoulders …


… begins his Texan one-second massage …


… the chancellor jerks, startled, raises her hands high, does not know who has grabbed her from behind …


… and with an air of innocence the president after the joke navigates to his place at the conference table. Merkel takes the surprising love attack with humor, smiles.


Mash just sent me the link below from the LA Times, who offers no pictures and a false description. Does Merkel look like she smiled? Take another look above. Baby, that's no smile.



… Entering the meeting room, as relayed by a Russian television camera, Bush headed directly behind the chancellor, reached out and, placing both hands on the collar of her gold jacket, gave her a short massage just below the neck.

She smiled. …

Russia's Time to Shine on World Stage
Huge mansions and ceremonious greetings at a palace add sparkle to the G-8 summit.

UPDATE: George W. Bush's sexual harassment of the Chancellor
Merkle has pushed the wingnuts over the edge. Get a load of one of the comments
I pulled out below. Another wingnut liar on the loose. Not only that, but he
evidently believes women are men's property no matter the circumstances. Hodari2004
sets him straight. Lindsay nails the woman's point of view dead on.



Bill Clinton raped at least 2 women, exposed himself to another, used a White
House intern for sex, and you guys are worried about President Bush putting
his hands on Merkel's shoulders?

Bush is a Texan. Texans hug one another, kiss one another, place their hands
on other's shoulders, and give hand squeezes all the time. You libs are always
talking about understanding the culture of others and it's time for you to start
understanding Texas culture. We're not cold and frigid like you Yankees are.

Sheesh, you need to get a life.

Michael McCullough

——————————————————————————–

It's easy I suppose to dismiss the massage, “Hey, it's no big deal!”

But I'm looking at this man's behavior through the frame of the present world
geo-political climate. With Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East in chaos;
North Korea test firing long range missles; Iran developing nuclear capabilities;
people dying as a result of his policies, bombs exploding in Lebanon and northern
Israel… you would think the President of the United States of America would be in a
more serious mindset, not playing grab-ass (figuratively speaking) with the
only female leader in the room and talking s— with bread crumbs flying out
of his mouth! THE WORLD will see these photos and it will only confirm for many that this
guy is not and was never up for the gravity of this job. Merkel is gracious
enough to play it off once she sees who it is that has laid his hands on her,
but make no mistake, that is a grimace if I ever saw one. It was f—ing inappropiate
and a reflection of George the Lesser's poor character and judgement.

hodari2004

UPDATE II: The trackback system of Haloscan can be interesting at times. A wingnut commenter and I got into a discussion about the Middle East recently on this blog. Now he's all misty-eyed because President Bush has been caught sexually harassing German Chancellor Merkel, and some of us don't like it. He's all poor Georgie and is weeping that we “bash GWB.” Why is it that conservatives can't take issues that personally affect women seriously? It's like an affront to their manhood, which was proven after Bush's actions against Merkel turned her to disgust. No privacy, no respect, not even as the German Chancellor, because I can touch whomever I want. This is the response from conservatives in the modern era. No respect for women at all. When the leader of the Free World believes he can manhandle the German Chancellor at will there's a problem with the man. It's an affront to every woman and, frankly, most men; that is unless you're a boorish partisan who is just too plain ignorant to understand women deserve respect, which means HANDS OFF, unless you're invited. That it was the German Chancellor that Bush was fondling makes it even worse.

UPDATE III: This update is dedicated to the wingnuts who are desperately trying to make excuses for our Groper in Chief. Unfortunately, Bush has no boundaries and believes he can do anything he wants. David Lettermen reminds us of this fact, compliments of John @ Crooks & Liars, who is always looking out for the ladies.

UPDATE IV: Wolcott weighs in.

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