Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, and the state of education
- from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Washington — Wherever there are Western troops in Afghanistan, the clatter-thump of helicopter rotors serves as the soundtrack. Choppers are the workhorses of this war, with hundreds of them moving soldiers and supplies daily across a rugged landscape.
Because of the NATO force's heavy reliance on them, one of the most eye-catching revelations in a trove of classified documents posted on the Internet this week was that insurgents apparently used a portable heat-seeking surface-to-air missile to shoot down a twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook in Helmand province in May 2007, killing seven Western service members.
If the Taliban and other insurgent groups possessed large numbers of these weapons, it could dramatically alter the dynamics of a war effort that already is struggling. Shoulder-launched missiles downed scores of Soviet helicopters in the 1980s, helping ragtag Afghan rebels prevail against a vastly superior force.
Most experts believe that the antiaircraft threat currently posed by the insurgents is relatively limited, and that they don't have significant stocks of surface-to-air missiles, at least for now.
The shooting down of choppers remains a relative rarity in the Afghan conflict, and heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades are almost always found to have been used.
"After nine years, if they had a lot of them, we would have seen them by now," said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the subject on the record. Sporadic reports of attacks with surface-to-air missiles have often turned out to involve other weapons, the official said.
But portable surface-to-air missiles can be procured from many illicit sources in the region. Afghanistan's neighbors include Iran, Pakistan and China. NATO said this month that an intercepted memo from Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar suggested that the insurgents were redoubling efforts to obtain a variety of sophisticated armaments.
"It's wartime, and our warriors are searching for new weapons," said Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, reached by telephone.
So that pretty much answers the question. Insurgent forces are simply shopping the global arms bazaar, and no doubt rogue regimes from Damascus to Tehran and beyond are all too willing to pump up the supply as the arc of terror stretches to South Asia. I guess the irony is lost on America's antiwar foes, but all of this demonstrates that American interest in AfPAK are as large as ever. (And the media's going to hype the threat, despite expert analysis to the contrary: "Stop Panicking About the Stingers.")
Rep. Charles Rangel of New York was charged Thursday with 13 counts of violating House ethics rules, placing the Democrat's storied, 40-year political career in jeopardy.
A House ethics panel outlined the alleged violations in a meeting that set the stage for a full-blown proceeding that could take place as early as September.
The charges stem from Rangel's alleged use of rent-controlled apartments for campaign purposes, his alleged solicitation of corporate donors for a public-policy center at a New York City college using office letterhead, the alleged failure to disclose $600,000 in income on financial-disclosure statements and the alleged failure to disclose income and pay taxes on a Caribbean rental property.
Until the moment the committee convened Thursday afternoon, talk was filtering through congressional corridors that Rangel's attorneys had struck a deal to avoid the hearing.
But Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the ranking Republican on the subcommittee that will try Rangel, suggested the time for a settlement had passed, saying Rangel, a Democrat from Harlem, had been given an "opportunity to negotiate a settlement in the investigation phase."
"The American people need to hear the truth," McCaul said.
A settlement could still occur, and reports indicate that the principles of a deal were in place. But it would require the approval of at least one Republican on the Ethics Committee, which may be difficult to secure in the highly charged partisan atmosphere on Capitol Hill.
From Stanley Kurtz. He describes the phenomenon of "boring from within":
What is so strange about the idea that President Obama might be a socialist? True, it would be a big deal if the president of the United States considered himself an opponent of the capitalist system, especially when he’s consistently dismissed and denied the socialism charge. On the other hand, the idea that a committed socialist might play a prominent part in everyday American politics is not particularly surprising.
Have a look at today’s piece on umemployment by regular Washington Post columnist, Harold Meyerson. Meyerson is a prominent public figure, and a Vice-Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. Can you spot the socialism in his column? Meyerson criticizes big business, attacks across-the-board tax cuts, and advocates government-directed infrastructure investment as a solution to unemployment. Meyerson also supports initiatives along these lines by the Obama administration and congressional Democrats.
Now some might say, what’s so socialist about all that? Meyerson hasn’t advocated a total government takeover of the economy. He’s even spoken out in favor of initiatives by conventional Democrats.
Yet we could just as easily look at things in reverse. Meyerson’s support for these Democratic initiatives could be taken as a sign that some socialists agree with conservatives. That is, sophisticated socialists and conservatives alike believe that America can be pushed into socialism by degrees. In fact, this is exactly how Meyerson’s group, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), understands its task. Actual existing American socialists (of the sophisticated "non-sectarian" variety typified by the DSA) don’t go around demanding full nationalization of the economy at a blow. On the contrary, they offer support to those Democratic Party initiatives most likely to bring about a socialist transformation in the long term. That is, the DSA thinks of itself as working within the Democratic Party, as a force to steer the party onto an incrementally socialist path.
As I’ll show in my forthcoming book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, this vision of socialism has long shaped President Obama. (I announced the book yesterday. You can see the cover and a description of the book’s argument here.) The point is that the notion that Barack Obama is a socialist is too often dismissed as a lurid and impossibly extreme scenario, as if being a socialist had to mean throwing Molotov cocktails and demanding instant revolution. On the contrary, Harold Meyerson’s regular columns in The Washington Post show us that, even if their long-term goals are radical, it’s entirely possible for sophisticated socialists to participate in the everyday back-and-forth of American politics. This is the way to think about Obama.
Insured Americans are using fewer medical services, raising questions about whether patients are consuming less health care as they pick up a greater share of the costs.
The drop in usage is showing up as health-care companies report financial results. Insurers, lab-testing companies, hospitals and doctor-billing concerns say that patient visits, drug prescriptions and procedures were down in the second quarter from year-ago levels.
"People just aren't using health-care like they have," said Wayne DeVeydt, WellPoint Inc.'s chief financial officer, in an interview Wednesday. "Utilization is lower than we expected, and it's unusual."
Others say that consumers are beginning to forgo elective procedures like knee replacements. "We have a very weak economy and it's just a different environment for the elective parts of health care," said Paul Ginsburg, a health economist who runs the Center for Studying Health System Change and has been analyzing health-company earnings. But "this could go beyond the recession. Being a less aggressive consumer of health care is here to stay."
Continued weak demand could eventually put downward pressure on spiralling health-care costs, a long-sought goal of policy makers. It could also force insurers to lower premiums.
The new trend comes amid a broader drop in health-care use as more Americans lose their jobs and their health insurance. Such cutbacks have happened before in recessions, but the drop seems to be more pronounced this time, industry analysts say.
More Americans also are buying high-deductible health plans that force them to bear more of the upfront costs for health services. Some 18 million Americans bought high-deductible plans this year, compared with 13 million last year, according to Paul Mango, a director at consulting firm McKinsey & Co.
And this passage in particular needs to be fleshed out:
All this raises the question of whether, after a year of national attention on out-of-control health costs before the federal health overhaul passed in March, the trend portends a lasting change in the way Americans use the medical system.
For example, if market incentives are allowed to work, a more rationalize regime of health provision would develop absent heavy-handed government control. RTWT in any case.
I mentioned Julian Assange's TED interview previously. It's about 20 minutes long, so grab a cup of coffee if you're up for it (the last few minutes are the most intriguing, so if pressed for time, scroll ahead toward the end). By now it's no longer a mystery the kind of agenda Mr. Assange is working. Interesting is that he sees himself as a "journalist," although clearly not of the old school "objective" kind (if there ever was one). The boys and girls on JournoList would no doubt welcome the likes of Assange into their ranks.
WikiLeaks, frustrated at the lack of splash of recent leaks on its whistle-blowing website, has rolled the dice to try to raise its profile by teaming up with news organizations in its latest dump of classified documents.
The site's secretive founder Julian Assange surfaced in London on Monday to give a rare news conference as part of that new strategy. The white-haired Australian computer hacker schooled a packed room of reporters on how to navigate the 76,000 documents just released, arguing they contained evidence of war crimes and could work as "deterrents" to further abuses.
WikiLeaks was launched in 2007 by self-described Chinese dissidents and Internet hackers as a warehouse of leaked documents. Through its bare-bones site Wikileaks.org, it has landed big scoops, including its most infamous disclosure—video footage of American soldiers shooting down a group of people in Iraq in 2007. Representatives for the site have repeatedly declined to say how they obtain their material and their activities have prompted investigations by federal authorities
People familiar with the matter say Mr. Assange is frustrated that some of the site's other disclosures, such as a database of military procurements in Iraq and Afghanistan, didn't garner more attention. Some senior members of the group also want to combat the perception that the site is veering into the realm of opinion, one of the people said. The site took flak from some commentators for editing the 2007 Iraq video and for dubbing the video "Collateral Murder."
Mr. Assange launched a new plan this summer in a Brussels cafe. He offered a U.K. newspaper, the Guardian, advance access to documents the site planned to release about the war in Afghanistan, according to the Guardian's account. They came up with a password for accessing the trove based on the logo on the cafe's napkins.
Monday, the Guardian, along with the New York Times and German weekly Der Spiegel, published a flood of stories based on mostly raw field reports, citing WikiLeaks as the source. They say they weren't told how the site obtained them but tried to verify them independently.
A spokesman for WikiLeaks said the group didn't pay for the leaked documents.
Mr. Assange told reporters on Monday that he limited his outreach to these three organizations out of expediency and that more collaborations with traditional media are on the horizon. "We had hoped to partner with a network to do a more significant investigation, but limited time and resources eclipsed that," he said. "We do hope to do that next time."
RTWT.
Readers know my position. Assange and his media cohorts are way past any "good government" or "transparency" motives. These actions put lives at risk, no matter what your thoughts are on the continuing rationale for our fight against the Taliban.
Side B of Ziggy Stardust went live at about 7:15am, just as I pulled into the college driveway. I listened to the first four tracks before heading over to my classroom. It's been a long time. I'd forgotten how much I used to love "Star":
Tony went to fight in Belfast Rudi stayed at home to starve I could make it all worthwhile as a rock & roll star Bevan tried to change the nation Sonny wants to turn the world, well he can tell you that he tried
I could make a transformation as a rock & roll star So inviting - so enticing to play the part I could play the wild mutation as a rock & roll star Get it all yeah! Oh yeah
I could do with the money I'm so wiped out with things as they are I'd send my photograph to my honey - and I'd c'mon like a regular superstar
I could fall asleep at night as a rock & roll star I could fall in love all right as a rock & roll star
I could make a transformation as a rock & roll star So inviting - so enticing to play the part I could play the wild mutation as a rock & roll star ...
“This fight is far from over. In fact, it is just the beginning, and at the end of what is certain to be a long legal struggle, Arizona will prevail in its right to protect our citizens. I am deeply grateful for the overwhelmingly support we have received from across our nation in our efforts to defend against the failures of the federal government.
“I have consulted with my legal counsel about our next steps. We will take a close look at every single element Judge Bolton removed from the law, and we will soon file an expedited appeal at the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
“For anyone willing to see it -- the crisis is as clear as is the federal government’s failure to address it.
“The judge herself noted that the stash houses where smugglers hide immigrants from Mexico before bringing them into the country's interior have become a fixture on the news in Arizona and that, ‘You can barely go a day without a location being found in Phoenix where there are numerous people being harbored.’”
“When I signed the bill on April 23rd, I said, SB 1070 – represents another tool for our state to use as we work to address a crisis we did not create and the federal government has actively refused to fix. The law protects all of us, every Arizona citizen and everyone here in our state lawfully. And, it does so while ensuring that the constitutional rights of ALL in Arizona are undiminished – holding fast to the diversity that has made Arizona so great.
“I will battle all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary, for the right to protect the citizens of Arizona. Meanwhile, I also know we still have work to do in confronting the fear-mongers, those dealing in hate and lies and economic boycotts that seek to do Arizona harm.
“We have already made some progress in waking up Washington. But the question still remains: will Washington do its job, and put an end to the daily operations of smugglers in our nation, or will the delays and sidesteps continue? I believe that the defenders of the rule of law will ultimately succeed with us in our demand for action.”
From Democrats Patrick Caddell and Doug Schoen, at WSJ:
During the election campaign, Barack Obama sought to appeal to the best instincts of the electorate, to a post-partisan sentiment that he said would reinvigorate our democracy. He ran on a platform of reconciliation—of getting beyond "old labels" of right and left, red and blue states, and forging compromises based on shared values.
President Obama's Inaugural was a hopeful day, with an estimated 1.8 million people on the National Mall celebrating the election of America's first African-American president. The level of enthusiasm, the anticipation and the promise of something better could not have been more palpable.
And yet, it has not been realized. Not at all.
Rather than being a unifier, Mr. Obama has divided America on the basis of race, class and partisanship. Moreover, his cynical approach to governance has encouraged his allies to pursue a similar strategy of racially divisive politics on his behalf.
We have seen the divisive approach under Republican presidents as well—particularly the administrations of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. By dividing America, Mr. Obama has brought our government to the brink of a crisis of legitimacy, compromising our ability to address our most important policy issues.
We say this with a heavy heart. Both of us share the president's stated vision of what America can and should be. The struggle for equal rights has animated both of our lives. Both of us were forged politically during the crucible of the civil rights movement. Having worked in the South during the civil rights movement, and on behalf of the ground-breaking elections of African-American mayors such as David Dinkins, Harold Washington and Emanuel Cleaver, we were deeply moved by Mr. Obama's election.
I'm still not going with the hypothesis of an intraparty challenge to Obama, especially from an antiwar candidate. Hillary Clinton, for example, is far from the Howard Dean type. She could pose a threat to Obama running as a "unifier" in opposition to this administration. Either way, if the Dems gear up for a primary feud challenging an incumbent president, my sense is that the GOP will reap most of the benefits. That's good for me, although the Republicans need to get their own house in order as well. It's amazing to think that 2012 could be MORE of a crucial election than 2008, but the country got suckered into electing "The One," and now we're paying for it with an ever-deepening national crisis.
Which wasn’t necessarily negative, by the way. I was never a huge fan, I admit — didn’t really dislike him either, just never cared much one way or another — but damned if he ain’t proving to be very much worthy of respect ...
If you check the new poll out from National Journal, Americans by a 46 percent plurality support the continuation of Barack Obama's economic policies. Yet, despite the misinformation at Daily Kos, the public is deeply divided over the extension of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003:
Regarding the tax cuts, 30 percent of Americans believe all of Bush's 2001 and 2003 cuts should stay in place. That compared to 31 percent who believed that all of them should be repealed. Twenty-seven percent take the route Obama campaigned on: Tax cuts for the wealthy should be repealed, while the others should stay in place.
That sentiment was consistent across income lines. Among those making more than $75,000, 26 percent said only the tax cuts for the wealthy should be repealed. For those making $30,000 to $74,999, 31 percent concurred. And among those making less than $30,000, 28 percent said the tax cuts for the wealthy should be overturned.
Independents hewed closest to the overall sample. Twenty-seven percent said all the tax cuts should be kept in place. Thirty-two percent said they all should be repealed. Twenty-seven percent said the tax cuts for the wealthy should be repealed, but the middle class cuts should be kept in place.
This debate has intensified recently as the legislative calendar winds down and an agreement on how to proceed on the issue, particularly in the Senate, has remained elusive.
Unfortunately for Joan McCarter, one can't combine all the subgroupings into "large majorities" supposedly opposed to extending the cuts. This table might help her out:
Democrats and independents remain wary of a return to more market-oriented approaches to economic recovery. But time is running out. The 46 percent plurality is not a huge bulwark against anti-incumbent sentiment on the economy this year (Congress is down to 11 percent approval rating, and the majority party always bears the brunt of such throw-the-bums-out sentiment). And the 2012 primaries will commence a little more than 15 months from now. Basically, it's on.
Barack Obama's presidency has been a disaster. He is either unwilling to or incapable of doing his job. The economy is in shambles, the government is failing, and Americans are losing hope. Barack Obama was not ready to be President. He's not the solution. You are.
You have the opportunity to turn our economy, our government, and our country around by electing Republicans and restoring your voice in Washington. But to win this fall, we must start today. It's up to you to save your country. Are you ready? Because November starts now.
As much as I like it, I'm not sending these folks any money. It's going to take a lot more of Michael Steele sucking up to the base before that happens (or, memories of Dede Scozzafava are still quite strong):
