Monthly Archives: February 2010

$600 Million for Police Stations in Afghanistan

25 Thursday Feb 2010

Posted by in Afghanistan, budget, Politics

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Deficit? What deficit? When it comes to the Pentagon, the checkbook is always open (emphasis added):

“In an attempt to increase the size of the Afghan police force to 160,000, the United States military intends to invest more than $600 million to build approximately 200 police stations for the Afghan National Police by 2013. This was announced only days after President Obama signed an executive order establishing a new, bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

Paul Giblin, spokesman for the U.S. Corps of Engineers, explained how the stations will be built. “There are five basic designs that are used for police stations, and they’re all pretty similar.” However, at the cost of nearly $3 million a police station, the structures will far surpass any standard set by local neighborhood precincts. In fact, the Afghan police stations will have a barbed wire perimeter with guards posted at each of the four corners. Additionally, reinforced concrete will make up the walls and roofs.”

At an average of $8,000 per person, $600 million could pay the health care costs of 75,000 Americans for one year. Priorities, anyone?

Senate Again Looks for Cover on Patriot Act Extension

24 Wednesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Congress, Democrats, Politics, war on terror

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First they tried to hide it in the so-called “jobs bill.” Now the gutless wonders in the Senate are going to try and pass an extension of the Patriot Act by unanimous consent, meaning they don’t have to go on the record with a vote:

“Senate Democrats are pushing for a short-term extension of key provisions in the Patriot Act as part of a package of must-pass measures…Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is planning to ask for unanimous consent to pass an extension for a host of measures set to expire February 28, according to Senate sources.

The third provision allows the government to apply to a court for surveillance orders involving suspected “lone wolf” terrorists who do not necessarily have ties to a larger organization.”

The large package of bills includes a year-long extension of three provisions of the anti-terrorism law known a the Patriot Act, as well as extensions for expiring tax provisions, including unemployment insurance, COBRA, flood insurance, the law governing the highway trust fund, the federal flood insurance program and a measure governing satellite television signals.

…The first of the three expiring Patriot Act provisions provides the power to seek court orders for roving wiretaps on terrorism suspects who shift their modes of communication. A second allows the government to seek orders from a federal court for “any tangible thing” that is says is related to a terrorism investigation.

More on those expiring provisions:

The first…would allow a secret court to continue to permit “roving wiretaps” without the government identifying who is being targeted, or which specific phone lines or communication devices are to be monitored. What officials must do is assert that the target is an agent of a foreign power or a suspected terrorist.

Under the “lone wolf” statute, the U.S. may target for surveillance non-U.S. persons it believes are engaging in terrorism or are preparing to undertake terrorist activities, whether or not that person can be linked to a foreign power or organization.

Oh, by the way:

“In a September letter to [Senate Judiciary Committee chairman] Pat Leahy assistant attorney general Ronald Weich recommended reauthorization of all three provisions on behalf of the Obama administration.”

Karzai to Appoint Electoral Watchdog Commission

24 Wednesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Afghanistan

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How much more American blood and treasure are we going to expend propping up Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s increasingly corrupt government?

“After his brazen bid to steal his re-election, Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, swore that he would do better — and the Obama administration swore it would ensure that he did. He hasn’t. It didn’t.

Mr. Karzai’s latest travesty: Issuing a presidential decree to take total control of the country’s electoral watchdog commission. Yes, that is the same commission that exposed widespread fraud in the 2009 vote.

The Electoral Complaints Commission adjudicates violations and will play an important role in the September vote for a new Parliament. By law, it has five members: three non-Afghans appointed by the United Nations and two Afghans, one named by the Supreme Court and one by a human rights commission. Mr. Karzai will now be able to appoint all five members.”

At a time when American, NATO and Afghan troops are putting their lives on the line to battle the Taliban, Mr. Karzai seems interested only in his own political power. That is hugely destructive. Mr. Karzai’s failure to build a credible, honest and even minimally effective government is the Taliban’s No. 1 recruiting tool.

Bring. Them. Home.

“Villain Rotation” in the Senate

24 Wednesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Congress, Democrats, health care, Obama, Politics, special interests

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I hesitate to even comment on the health care reform charade any more because that’s exactly what it is and has been from the get-go, a charade. But Glenn Greenwald had a piece in Salon yesterday which nailed the situation perfectly. The bottom line is this–there will be no real reform for one reason–those in power don’t want it. Sure they, meaning the president and Democrats in the Senate, want to give the appearance of being for substantial reform, but the fact is they all benefit too much from the status quo. They aren’t about to kill the corporate goose that lays the golden campaign contribution eggs, and especially now that the Supreme Court has allowed corporations, like the insurance industry, to spend unlimited amounts on advertising for and against candidates.

Greenwald cites Sen. Jay Rockefeller as the latest example of what he calls “Villain Rotation.”

“They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it.”

From Politics Daily on October 4, 2009:

“Jay Rockefeller has waited a long time for this moment. . . . He’s a longtime advocate of health care for children and the poor — and, as Congress moves toward its moment of truth on health care, perhaps the most earnest, dogged Senate champion of a nationwide public health insurance plan to compete with private insurance companies.

“I will not relent on that. That’s the only way to go,” Rockefeller told me in an interview. “There’s got to be a safe harbor.”

Jay Rockefeller Monday:

“Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) threw a wrench into Democratic efforts to get a public option passed through reconciliation, saying that he thought the maneuver was overly partisan and that he was inclined to oppose it. . .

“I don’t think the timing of it is very good,” the West Virginia Democrat said on Monday. “I’m probably not going to vote for that.”

Greenwald:

“In other words, Rockefeller was willing to be a righteous champion for the public option as long as it had no chance of passing (sadly, we just can’t do it, because although it has 50 votes in favor it doesn’t have 60) But now that Democrats are strongly considering the reconciliation process — which will allow passage with only 50 rather than 60 votes and thus enable them to enact a public option — Rockefeller is suddenly “inclined to oppose it” because he doesn’t “think the timing of it is very good” and it’s “too partisan.”  What strange excuses for someone to make with regard to a provision that he claimed, a mere five months ago (when he knew it couldn’t pass), was such a moral and policy imperative that he “would not relent” in ensuring its enactment.

The Obama White House did the same thing…[B]ack in August the evidence was clear that while the President was publicly claiming that he supported the public option, the White House, in private, was doing everything possible to ensure its exclusion from the final bill (in order not to alienate the health insurance industry by providing competition for it).  Yesterday, Obama — while having his aides signal that they would use reconciliation if necessary–finally unveiled his first-ever health care plan as President, and guess what it did not include?  The public option, which he spent all year insisting that he favored oh-so-much but sadly could not get enacted:  Gosh, I really want the public option, but we just don’t have 60 votes for it; what can I do?.”

The problem was, and is, that the president and the Democrats in Congress are getting exactly what they wanted to start with. The backroom deal with PhRMA is intact. The individual mandate remains, forcing people to buy from private insurance companies. The president’s plan also raises the subsidies, which shovels taxpayers dollars to the same private companies, which in turn keeps the corporate contributions flowing and away from the Republicans.

If this plan passes, I would suggest buying stock in Aetna, WellPoint, United Health Care, et al. Maybe the dividends will help cover the cost of the premiums.

Kicking the (Yes We) Can Down the Road

23 Tuesday Feb 2010

Posted by in health care, Obama, Politics

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President Obama, who told a group of nurses in July that when it came to health care reform, “We can’t kick the can down the road any longer,” is in his plan released yesterday…..kicking the can down the road.

“Mr. Obama…identified a tax on high-cost insurance plans as a key mechanism for curbing the growth of health-care costs. He was right. Unfortunately, in the legislative process the tax already was whittled down several times. Now the president proposes delaying it until 2018 — long after he leaves office — and raising the threshold at which it applies.”

Hmmm, I remember candidate Obama treating with scorn John McCain’s proposal to tax health care benefits during the 2008 campaign. Oh well, another campaign promise bites the dust.

“…Overall..the president has proposed a plan whose uncertain savings are made even less certain, and whose known costs are increased..Now it postpones the key savings mechanism. Administration officials argue that Mr. Obama deserves credit for not dropping the tax altogether. But when did he stand up and fight for the better approach? And what credit or credibility is due a president who endorses a tax but leaves to his successor the unpleasant task of collecting it?”

Stand up and fight? President Obama? Surely you jest. Unless it’s fighting for the pharmaceutical industry to keep its monopoly via the backroom deal with PhRMA, or fighting to deliver millions of new customers to private insurance companies through the individual mandate.

Civilians Killed in Afghanistan “Believed” to be Insurgents

23 Tuesday Feb 2010

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More on the civilians killed  Sunday in Afghanistan, from the New York Times (emphasis added):

“KABUL, Afghanistan — An airstrike launched Sunday by United States Special Forces helicopters against what international troops believed to be a group of insurgents ended up killing as many as 27 civilians in the worst such case since at least September, Afghan officials said Monday.

…Zemarai Bashary, a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, said the victims were all civilians. He said two Land Cruisers and a pickup truck carrying a total of 42 people were attacked by air near Khotal Chowzar, a mountain pass that connects Daykondi Province with Oruzgan Province in central Afghanistan.”

…The Special Forces helicopters were hunting for insurgents who had escaped the NATO offensive in the Marja area, about 150 miles away, according to Gen. Abdul Hameed, an Afghan National Army commander in Dehrawood, which is part of Oruzgan Province. General Hameed, interviewed by telephone, said there had been no request from any ground forces to carry out an attack.

Believed? Before we blow away 3 vehicles on a highway 150 miles from where the fighting is taking place, with no request from troops on the ground, shouldn’t the burden of proof on who is in those vehicles be a little higher than “believed ?”

White Collar Contracts MUST Be Honored—Blue Collar Contracts? Toss ‘Em

23 Tuesday Feb 2010

Posted by in AIG, economy, Goldman Sachs, Wall Street

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The bonuses at AIG keep on coming:

“… AIG, the fallen insurer, paid out an additional $100 million this month, much of it to the very financial products division whose rampant risk-taking took the firm to the brink. And there’s another $75 million coming…[Treasury Secretary Tim] Geithner, and pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, say that while lamentable, the AIG payments must legally be honored.”

But yet last May during the General Motors–United Auto Workers negotiations, which the government insisted be a part of a GM bailout:

“People familiar with the UAW agreement said it largely mirrors concessions the UAW granted Chrysler LLC last month, including a suspension of cost-of-living allowances, bonuses and some holidays.

…The deal is the latest concession by the UAW after several years of cutbacks. Unlike past negotiations, which often dragged on for months and went past deadlines, the parties — under pressure from the Treasury, which has lent GM $15.4 billion — moved quickly to revise a contract approved in 2007.”

Compare that $15.4 billion for GM, which came with “pressure from the Treasury” to re-negotiate existing contracts, with the $182 billion given to AIG, no strings attached, and contracts that must be “legally honored.”

Sure sounds like a double-standard to me. White collar contracts? Sacred. Blue collar contracts? Toss ‘em in the garbage. But then again, Geithner wasn’t laundering money through GM to pay off his buds at Goldman Sachs, like he did through AIG (allegedly).

33 Civilians, Including Women and Children, Killed In Afghanistan

22 Monday Feb 2010

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Same song, different verse:

You know that hearts and minds can only be won,
When you blow ‘em all to kingdom come.

“KABUL, Afghanistan– A NATO airstrike on Sunday against what the coalition believed to be a group of insurgents ended up killing 33 civilians, including women and children, in Uruzgan Province, Afghan officials said on Monday.

“Yesterday a group of suspected insurgents, believed to be en route to attack a joint Afghan-ISAF unit, was engaged by an airborne weapons team resulting in a number of individuals killed and wounded,” the American-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement. “After the joint ground force arrived at the scene and found women and children, they transported the wounded to medical treatment facilities.” The ISAF did not specify how many people were killed or whether it believed there had been insurgents among them nor did it identify which country’s aircraft were involved.

…The American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal apologized to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and ordered an investigation into what happened.”

The first time it was 12, this time it’s 33. How many next time Gen. McChrystal?

Yoo: The President Could Order the Massacre of a Village

22 Monday Feb 2010

Posted by in Dick Cheney, Justice Department, Politics, torture, Uncategorized, war on terror

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Michael Isikoff at Newsweek.com has more on the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report in which David Margolis, senior lawyer in the Obstruction of Justice Department, found John Yoo and Jay Bybee guilty of nothing more than “poor judgement” in authoring the torture memos.

The report also contains an excerpt of an investigator’s interview with Yoo on the subject of the expanded powers of the president:

“At the core of the legal arguments were the views of Yoo, strongly backed by David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s legal counsel, that the president’s wartime powers were essentially unlimited and included the authority to override laws passed by Congress, such as a statute banning the use of torture. Pressed on his views in an interview with OPR investigators, Yoo was asked:

“Sure,” said Yoo.”

“What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? … Is that a power that the president could legally—”

“Yeah,” Yoo replied, according to a partial transcript included in the report. “Although, let me say this: So, certainly, that would fall within the commander-in-chief’s power over tactical decisions.”

“To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?” the OPR investigator asked again.

CarolynC at The Seminal comments on the fallout from Margolis’ decision:

“Because of the actions of men like John Yoo, our country’s moral standing in the world has been eroded. The country of Washington, Lincoln has become a country where legal justifications of torture are now viewed as a matter of “poor judgment,” as the OPR report concluded in its findings.”

One can only conclude that the extermination of an entire village would also fall under the “poor judgment” umbrella as well.

“… But far from being condemned and disgraced, our domestic war criminals live in comfort and ease, their opinions are eagerly sought by our slavish media, and they are treated with the utmost respect in the corridors of power.

…thanks to John Yoo, the President can now commit everything up to and including genocide. Nothing seems to have changed, but everything has changed. Most of us were brought up to consider ourselves citizens of a democratic country; now we are dangerously close to being mere subjects of a monarchical leader, whose powers know no bounds.”

Dick Cheney is so confident that he is in no danger of being held accountable that he triumphantly broadcast his guilt on national television; he admitted last Sunday that he personally ordered the CIA to waterboard detainees. No matter. He will still be treated with deference as an elder statesmen by the Beltway Elite. And John Yoo will continue to practice law, teach, give interviews and write books on the virtues of unlimited executive power, and the books will be greeted with glowing reviews.

Spencer Ackerman’s Open Letter to Liz Cheney

22 Monday Feb 2010

Posted by in Constitution, Dick Cheney, Justice Department, Obama, Politics, torture, Uncategorized

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Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent has an “Open Letter to Liz Cheney on Torture”:

Dear Ms. Cheney,

I don’t know if you saw ‘Meet The Press’ this morning, but a general you may have heard of named David Petraeus — he’s the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia and is the most distinguished Army general since Colin Powell — graced your television. He was asked about whether the U.S. ought to torture Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the deputy commander of the Taliban, recently captured in Pakistan. “I have always been on record, in fact since 2003, with the concept of living our values,” Petraeus replied. Every time the U.S. took what he called “expedient measures” around the Geneva Conventions, those deviations just “turned around and bitten us on our backside.” The effect of torture at Abu Ghraib is “non-biodegradable,” he continued, and boasted that as commander of the 101st Airborne in Iraq, he ordered his men to ignore any instruction to use techniques outside the Army Field Manual on Interrogations. Besides, the non-torture techniques that manual has long instructed? “That works,” he said. “That is our experience.”

But hey. You’re a former deputy assistant secretary of state! You obviously know better than the man who implemented the surge in Iraq. Why don’t you enlighten Gen. Petraeus about all the glories of torture? And since you consider “enhanced interrogation” so necessary to secure the country, perhaps there’s a full page ad you’ll take out in a major newspaper?

Cordially,
Spencer

Would that Ackerman’s letter might get Ms. Cheney’s mind right. But I think the only means to that end would be Papa Dick in his rightful place before a war crimes tribunal. But sadly, the Obama Obstruction of Justice Department and the Look Forward, Not Back Doctrine of the Constitutional Scholar-in-Chief isn’t going to allow that to happen.

Sadly, we will continue to be subjected to the former VP, and by extension his daughter, proudly extolling the virtues of torture, undeterred by any thoughts of being held accountable.

Sadly indeed.