What Obama Said and Failed to Say About Afghanistan

Michael Collins

It is easy to forget that when this war began, we were united — bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear. I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again. President Barack Obama, December 1

President Obama made this appeal for unified support of his Afghanistan policy at the very end of his speech at West Point last night.  It seems awkwardly placed at the conclusion of a long and fairly cerebral oration.  After reviewing the arguments for his policy, the placement may make some sense.

What Obama Said and Failed to Say on Afghanistan

Michael Collins

It is easy to forget that when this war began, we were united — bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear. I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again. President Barack Obama, December 1

President Obama made this appeal for unified support of his Afghanistan policy at the very end of his speech at West Point last night.  It seems awkwardly placed at the conclusion of a long and fairly cerebral oration.  After reviewing the arguments for his policy, the placement may make some sense.

The president began by saying he was going to discuss “the nature of our commitment there, the scope of our interests, and the strategy that my Administration will pursue to bring this war to a successful conclusion.”

The pertinent history on our commitment, according to the president, began with the attack on 9/11 2001.    He told us that “ruthless, repressive and radical movement that seized control of that country after it was ravaged by years of Soviet occupation and civil war, and after the attention of America and our friends had turned elsewhere.”  That regime served as the incubator for al Qaeda’s planning and execution of the attacks on New York City and the capitol.

Obama outlined the nearly unanimous votes in both houses of Congress to authorize the war; an authorization that he reminded us is still in effect.  He moved from authorization to our quick military victory.  Those efforts gave “A place that had known decades of fear now had reason to hope.”  How?  In concert with the United Nations, the United States created a government headed by Humid Karzai, who remains the president of Afghanistan today.

Obama’s narrative shifted from the initial rationale and success of the Afghanistan invasion to the reasons for action today.  The Iraq War distracted from the efforts in Afghanistan and disrupted our unified post 9/11 relationships with the international community.  He mentioned 160,000 troops in Iraq and 30,000 in Afghanistan to illustrate the skewed priorities but claimed that some progress in Afghanistan had been made.

Obama then hit on the rationale for continued efforts in Afghanistan and his surge of troops.  “The review is now complete,” he said.  The president decided that al Qaeda poses an ongoing threat to the United States and that to meet that threat; three goals had to be met.

What is the nature of the threat?

“This (Afghanistan) is the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat. In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror.”

To reduce this threat requires three accomplishments.  Over the next 18 months, the United States will “break the Taliban’s momentum” and increase Afghanistan’s capacity.”  With increased security, U.S., NATO, and United Nations efforts will be more effective in implementing an “effective civilian strategy.”  Finally, “we will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan.”  We were told that accomplishing these objectives will achieve the security of preventing any more incursions by al Qaeda “within our borders.”

President Obama failed to mention any of the threatened “new acts of terror.”  He also failed to mention bin Laden.

The president then considered and dismissed three anticipated objections to his policies and delivered his peroration at the beginning of this article.

Comment

President Obama is a gifted orator.  However, in this case, he was long on style but lacking in substance.  He started out with a history lesson concerning U.S.  involvement with Afghanistan but he left out the most interesting parts.

From 1980 through the end of 1993, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan took the lead in creating a radical Islamist opposition to the Soviet invasion and occupation of Pakistan.  This opposition was funded by U.S.- Saudi dollars and driven, to a degree, by Saudi preferences for the most extreme Muslim groups in the country.  Fighters were also recruited by bin Laden, among others, to leave their homes in Arab states to volunteer for Afghanistan.

The decades of suffering mentioned by President Obama hangs there without a vital reference. U.S. policy helped create the chaos of the nation that we now occupy.

After Soviet forces left Afghanistan, there was a clear drop off in attention to the nation with little funding to aid rebuilding as the president correctly noted.  Known as the Afghan Arabs, these wandering fighters appeared in various hot spots, including Kosovo, where they fought openly for the Muslim Albanian population but used the chaos, as they had elsewhere, to create a route for Afghan heroin.

Yet President Obama said, “What we have fought for — and what we continue to fight for — is a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and access opportunity.”

What freedom and access to opportunity did the Afghanistan civil war and its aftermath provide “other peoples’ children” in view of the devastation of the U.S. supported civil war?

And what “freedom and access to opportunity” have “our children” and “other people’s” children had with the ongoing opium trade centered in Afghanistan.  According to the New York Times, this accounts for 90% of the world’s total right now.

From 2001 forward, political realities have taken precedence over heroin eradication.  In 2005, the governor of Helmand province, a close political ally of current president Hamid Karzai, was found with nine tons of heroin in his possession.  He was removed as a regional governor only to reemerge as a member of the Afghan Senate. But now poppy eradication and an end to the heroin trade is a major priority and a justification for the troop surge.

President Obama’s eradiation of past history concerning the U.S. role in creating the original radical jihadists and the de facto tolerance of the heroin trade was matched by his failure to failure to address recent history.

The U.S. selected founding president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, was widely accused of election fraud in both rounds of the recent presidential election.  Peter W. Galbraith was the United Nation’s Secretary General’s special representative in Afghanistan.  When his efforts to monitor the election uncovered hundreds of incidents of election fraud, he reported that Karzai’s “majority” victory was due to fraudulent votes.

The situation was so intense, U.S. Ambassador and former commander of forces in Afghanistan, General Karl M. Eikenberry, weighed in on the fraudulent election and went so far as to be seen with opposition candidates who claimed that the election would be stolen.

Karzai was forced into a runoff but opposing candidates refused to participate noting that the same elements for fraud remained.  Karzai is now the president.  He was mentioned last night by President Obama as a key player in the success of our “civilian efforts.”

On November 11, the contents of a cable from Ambassador Eikenberry on the situation in Afghanistan were leaked to the press. The general made a strong statement on the futility of sending further troops to that country riddled with the corruption in general and, by implication, an illegitimate recent presidential election in particular. The White House placed a hold on any commitment for more troops pending further study.

This was President Obama’s opportunity to step back and asses the value of investing in further troop commitments for a nation ruled by an election thief.  He failed at the task.  His response last night was a carefully constructed, self serving, and selective history of our involvement in Afghanistan with a fairy tale explanation of why we fight — for “our children and grandchildren” and “other peoples” as well.

No wonder he put the glowing words about rallying the spirit of 9/11 at the end of his speech.  They were made no more meaningful by what was said before. Perhaps enough people had stopped paying attention to reduce pathos of the statement in the context of the rationale presented.

END

N.B. As an alternative to the president’s narrative on U.S. initiatives in Afghanistan see, Negotiating an Afghan Agreement by Brian Downing

See also, How We Got to Zero: General Eikenberry’s Hail Mary Nov 13 & The Big “Con”: Taliban About to Defeat Pakistan, Take Control of Nukes, and It’s Another 9/11  May 9, 2009

Full text of the president’s speech.

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Gone but not forgotten – the bin Laden revival tour

Dead man walking, with assistance

“I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a … kidney patient,” Gen. Pervez Musharraf said on Friday in an interview with CNN.

“Musharraf said Pakistan knew bin Laden took two dialysis machines into Afghanistan. “One was specifically for his own personal use,” he said.

“I don’t know if he has been getting all that treatment in Afghanistan now. And the photographs that have been shown of him on television show him extremely weak. … I would give the first priority that he is dead and the second priority that he is alive somewhere in Afghanistan.” CNN Jan 18, 2002

But he can’t be dead, at least he couldn’t have been dead on Jan 18, 2002 because the living bin Laden and his network (created with U.S. assistance) represented the rationale to invade Iraq. It’s bad enough that Bush and Blair invaded the wrong country to catch bin Laden. But, my lord, invading the wrong country to catch a dead guy would be even more unforgivable, if that is within the realm of imagination.

“Donald Rumsfeld had the chance when he was US defence secretary in December 2001 to make sure Osama bin Laden was killed or captured, but let him slip through his hands, a Senate report has found.

“The report by the Senate foreign relations committee is damning of the way George Bush’s administration conducted the aftermath of its bombing campaign in Afghanistan, saying it amounted to a “lost opportunity”. It states that as a result of allowing the al-Qaida leader to flee from his Tora Bora stronghold into Pakistan, Americans were left more vulnerable to terrorism, and the foundations were laid for today’s protracted Afghan insurgency. It also lays blame for the July 2005 London bombings on a failure to kill the al-Qaida leaders at Tora Bora.” Guardian Nov 29, 2009

So, we had bin Laden at Tora Bora. But he was sick and in need of dialisis. He got away. Who knows if the machines followed? And in January 2002, Musharraf, our cooperative ally at the time, said the guy is dead.

Obama needs bin Laden too!

“If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out”. Candidate Obama, Oct 20, 2008

Obama masked his aggressive doctrine behind the face of bin Laden, who may well be dead, and, at the same time, by implication behind the horror of 911.

After using General Eikenberry’s heroic report as temporary reprieve, President Obama is anticipated to announce more troops to Afghanistan. That was the right country to find bin Laden at one time and that rationale was the start of what turned into a years long occupation.

Will Obama play the part of political necromancer and roll away the stone for bin Laden’s resurrection?

Stay tuned. There’s more naked aggression around the corner.

P.S. But if bin Laden was dead in 2002, that means that this pre-2004 election video of the al Qaeda leader was likely a fake.  We would have suspected that then if these reports from 2002 analysis by a highly respectable lab had been aired to any degree.  But they weren’t and the bin Laden threats provided the rationale for a stolen election.  Dead or alive, bin Laden is the gift that keeps giving for those who favor perpetual crisis and war in the oil rich Middle East and South Asia.

END

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HHS Task Force Mammogram Recs Slammed

Cancer doc (left) tops bureaucrat (right) on cancer recs (WUSA).

HHS Head Sibelius Says, Ignore Panel, Get Checked

Michael Collins

Also published at The Agonist

“The (task force) recommends against routine screening mammography in women aged 40 to 49 years.” U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, Nov. 17, 2009

“My message to women is simple. Mammograms have always been an important life-saving tool in the fight against breast cancer and they still are today. Keep doing what you have been doing for years – talk to your doctor about your individual history, ask questions, and make the decision that is right for you.”  Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services Secretary,  Nov. 18.

Talk about a short news cycle.  A Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) appointed “best practices” task force dismissed the value of “routine” mammograms as a cancer prevention technique for women 40 to 49 years on Tuesday, November 17.

A day later, Wednesday, Nov. 18, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a statement dismissing the committee recommendations.

‘The U.S. Preventive Task Force is an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who make recommendations.

“They do not set federal policy and they don’t determine what services are covered by the federal government.”  Kathleen Sebelius, Nov. 18.

The committee is made up of independent practitioners but operates under  the sponsorship of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, HHS.   The agency states that their task force “recommendations have formed the basis of the clinical standards for many professional societies, health organizations, and medical quality review groups.”

Sebelius didn’t care.  Amidst Republican outcries that this was the way Democratic sponsored health reform would operate, she issued her terse statement dismissing the dismissal of mammography for women 40 to 49.

The DC flap started when Diane Rehm had task force member Dr. Diane Pettiti, MD on her show yesterday, Nov. 18.  She asked the doctor for the name of one cancer specialist on the task force.  Petitti was unable to answer  (video 1:53). The doctor also told Rehm that “Cost effectiveness was not a part of the discussion.  Cost was not uttered in the room.”

Dr. Rebecca Zurrbier, MD, Chief of Breast Imaging at Sibley Memorial  Hospital in Washington, DC was listening to the Rehm show and became incensed.  She pointed out that no one on the committee had either a clinical specialty or indicated any direct experience in treating cancer in a WUSA, Channel 9 special news feature (video).  Zurrbier’s WUSA critique was a devastating counterpoint to Rehm’s skilful questioning on her radio show earlier in the day.

The HHS sponsored task force had 16 members.  These members issued a statement on cancer treatment.  There is not one oncologist on the panel nor is there a radiologist.  The specialties of task force physicians consist of:  Family Medcine (4 members);  Pediatrics (2);  Obstetrics and Gynecology (2); Internal Medicine (2); Geriatrics (1); Epidemiology (1);  Primary Care (1).  The non MD’s had these specialties:  Nurse Practitioner – Psychiatry (1); Nurse Practitioner – Family Medicine (1); and, PhD researcher (1).

If you were seeking treatment for cancer or consultation on current treatment, would you consult anyone with the specialties listed?  Not if you’re concerned about your health.  Cancer is not what these doctors treat.  Dr. Zurrbier’s point was so obvious, she seemed amazed that this kind of finding could even occur.  So should we.

WUSA’s did an on-the-spot review of task force member affiliations.  They came up with three members tied to HMO’s or health insurance companies.  Dr. George Isham, MD is the Chief Health Officer for a major health care provider, Health Partners.  Dr. David Grossman, MD, is an investigator a research division of the Group Health Cooperative health care network in the Seattle area.  Dr. J. Sanford Schwartz, MD, is the past executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.  He’s also on the Blue Shield Medical Advisory Panel.

There are three other affiliations that deserve note.

Task force Chairman, Bruce Nedrow Calonge, MD, is a Colorado physician who is the Chairman of the Colorado Foundation for Medical Care, a major advisor on “quality improvement” in care for the state and other health care organizations.  Dr. Pettiti, who said the recommendations would have no influence on insurance coverage, is a health policy and medical advisor for Kaiser Permanente of Southern California.  Joy Melnikow, MD is the associate medical advisers for Healthwise, a medical knowledgebase company serving health providers, insurance companies, and government entities.  The firm also provides software for patient information.

Thanks to the incisive questioning of NPR syndicated radio host Diane Rehm and the quick and clear response of cancer specialist, Dr. Zurrbier on WUSA, the issue hit the public airwaves and was quickly resolved with the rapid response of HHS Secretary Sebelius.

Now it’s time to find out how this HHS research organization could impanel a group of experts to recommend cancer treatment protocols when none of the physicians on the panel were oncologists and none had any identified clinical experience treating cancer.  It’s also a good time for those on the task force to examine why they chose to issue this guideline without cancer researchers and clinicians on the committee?

Why were the deficiencies in this process, so obvious to us, too difficult for the HHS administrators to grasp?

END

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Benefactors or Piranha? Our Foreign Friends

Michael Collins

Like Blanche DuBois, the United States is “down on its uppers.”  We rely on the kindness of foreigners to finance our government.

A Whole Lot of Kindness

U.S. Department of the Treasury, Oct. 16, 2009

These customers must be extending kindness.  How else do you explain the massive purchase of Treasuries Securities?  They’re ignoring wars that we can’t afford and defense expenditures equaling 50% of the world’s total spending.  They’re also ignoring the giveaways to failed Wall Street firms and others plus the forgiveness of the executives in charge by assuring their ongoing positions and bonuses.

It would be easy for an investor to look at the United States and say forget about it.  But they don’t.  As a result, we’re able to function, at least for a while, as though we’re not totally upside down.  Of course, there’s self interest involved.  If we hit the skids, they’re likely to feel the back draft.  But their self interest serves us well right now.

But there’s another take on our benefactors.  A “new kid” on the advocacy new block is sounding the alarm.   Economy in Crisis is the new media group and their publication is America’s Economic Report Daily.

“The American sellout is happening faster than ever as our companies are being taken over in a buying frenzy by foreign investors – like piranha fish consuming its weakened prey. Many of these companies have taken one hundred or more years to develop and were the source of our wealth, strength, and living standards; now overnight, gone. We should be concerned and even outraged that our government let this happen.”  About Economy in Crisis

Economic Emergency has some well known political figures signed up.  These include Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Pat Buchanan, Paul Craig Roberts, and former Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-SD) are the headliners.  There also Democrats listed including Danny Schechter, Dan Mercia, and independent commentator Thom Hartmann.

There is a good deal of finger pointing in the group’s mission statement.  Foreign investors are like a school of piranha rippling the flesh off this country by devouring our businesses.  And it’s the “government” that let it happen.  This is curious.  Is the government some sort of discrete entity operating on its own rather than an arm of the financial interests that buy and control those who make up the three branches?

The people are left out in favor offering, “solutions to return America’s former economic glory” by becoming a key information source showing how the “US economy is being drained by foreign competitors and how our standard of living is being diminished.”

Where were these people in the 1980’s when Ronald Reagan systematically destroyed the union movement?  Where were they over the past three decades when wages have been essentially flat?  Where were they when money polluted election after election giving us a bought and sold Congress and White House?  Did they notice that we’ve been spending half of our budget on war and fighting a few lately that have nothing to do with defense?  We’ve had a tech bubble and a housing bubble.  The former ended poorly.  The latter triggered the current disaster.   What glory?  When would that have been?

It looks like our benefactors are losing faith based on these percentage changes from Dec 08 through Jul 09.  Is this a good time to start calling the foreign governments that keep us afloat nasty names?

You can tell a lot about a political advocacy group by what they leave out.  This organization has some good points on trade agreements etc. but there hardly any mention of people, other than in reference to “our living standards.”  Who knows?  That might mean the living standards of the membership.

Even if the foreign investors are piranha, the feeding frenzy wasn’t arranged by the fish.  It was home grown; Made in the USA by the very people screaming for protection right now.

END

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How we got to Zero: General Eikenberry’s Hail Mary

From The Agonist

How We Got to Zero:  General Eikenberry’s Hail Mary

Michael Collins

U.S. Afghan Envoy Urges Caution on Troop Increase

“WASHINGTON — The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, who once served as the top American military commander there, has expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country, three senior American officials said Wednesday.

“The position of the ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, puts him in stark opposition to the current American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who has asked for 40,000 more troops. New York Times, Nov. 11

This isn’t just any envoy.  General Karl Eikenberry has served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, the second as head of the Combined Forces Command.  After the second Afghan tour, Eikenberry was Chairman of the NATO Joint Military Committee.  He’s a West Point graduate with advanced degrees from Harvard and Stanford and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

General McChrystal has asked for 50,000 troops in early October.  By October 28, the president was said to favor a “McChrystal light” number as low as 15,000. On Nov. 7, just four days before Eikenberry’s statement, McClatchy Newspapers put Obama’s preferred number at 30,000. At this moment, the president is reported have rejected all of the troop increases on the table, according to Associated Press at 12:02 am EDT, today, November 12.

How did we get from McChrystal’s request for 50,000 troops in early October to Eikenberry’s “written reservations about deploying additional troops” just days before President Obama’s planned decision?

The only thing we know for sure is that Eikenberry’s statement was no accident.  Clearly, there is dissent in the Pentagon and White House as evidenced by this publicly reported assessment by a serving ambassador and distinguished officer.  Of interest, on troop levels, the Eikenberry statement agrees with the much criticized assessment of Vice President Joe Biden on made after a trip to Afghanistan

Two Paths – Obama’s Hedge

When General Stanley McChrystal was appointed to command combined forces in Afghanistan, he put together his own team for the long haul:

“General McChrystal is assembling a corps of 400 officers and soldiers who will rotate between the United States and Afghanistan for a minimum of three years. That kind of commitment to one theater of combat is unknown in the military today outside Special Operations, but reflects an approach being imported by General McChrystal, who spent five years in charge of secret commando teams in Iraq and Afghanistan.” New York Times, June 10

Little was know of the five year of secret commando work in the two nations until a Seymour Hersh gave a speech at the University of Minnesota on U.S. Intelligence policies.  Hersh said:

“Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command — JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. … Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on.” MinnesotaPost.Com March 11

According to Time Magazine, from 2003 through 2008, McChrystal “led the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).”

The March 11 description of Joint Special Operations Command, and its leader, General McCrystal, was seemingly contradicted by Hersh on May 19 (See analysis) but the cat was out of the bag on the general’s tactics.  Unless Hersh was referring to some other Joint Special Operations Command that McChrystal ran, we have a special type of general in charge of the war in Afghanistan.

A report in March validated the problems with the JSOC mission of commando actions eliminating enemies of the state:  “The commander of a secretive branch of America’s Special Operations forces last month ordered a halt to most commando missions in Afghanistan, reflecting a growing concern that civilian deaths caused by American firepower are jeopardizing broader goals there” New York Times, March 9.  In the same article, Iraq commander General David Petraeus was said to have “supported the decision to suspend the Special Operations missions.”

Despite his record or, perhaps, because of it, General McChrystal was appointed to the Afghanistan command after these statements and controversies over JSOC.

Just two weeks later, President Obama appointed General Eikenberry as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan.  In addition to his career achievements, Eikenberry’s good relationships with the Karzai government and NATO were mentioned prominently.

Eikenberry was a logical choice as ambassador to Afghanistan given the ongoing military missions and his emphasis on improvements in living conditions for citizens.  He’d held high level and top level command in the country for a total of thirty six months.  During that time, he had concentrated on a multi level approach with an emphasis on building a strong civil base of for a government and military run by the people.

In testimony before Congress in February, 2007, Eikenberry outlined progress in the military effort and civic governance and the largest threat to success:

“The long-term threat to campaign success, though, is the potential irretrievable loss of legitimacy of the Government of Afghanistan. If the Afghan Government is unable to counter popular frustration with the lack of progress in reform and national development, the Afghan people may lose confidence in the nature of their political system.”  Congress, Feb. 17, 2007

Eikenberry listed progress in public education, infrastructure, and training efforts for Afghan police and military but stressed the need for more support for civilians in the forgotten war.  He stressed the stakes for NATO in the largest ever non European military effort.  While not “make or break,” the stakes were high.  He also made this highly significant point:  “Pakistan’s military and security forces have taken significant casualties against the same enemy that we in Afghanistan face” Feb. 17, 2007

Eleven months into the new administration, we have radically different choices for policy in Afghanistan advanced by diametrically opposed military professionals appointed by the same president.

Why the Radical Split in Advice and Why Now

It seems that General McChrystal is on a special mission based a specific philosophy of warfare and that General Eikenberry is performing his duty according to his current assignment with an ongoing evaluation of the various players and facts at hand.  McCrystal job has been killing what Seymour Hersh called “enemies of the state” in Afghanistan and Iraq.  He’s not finished.  They’re still out there.  He made commitments to the 400 officers and soldiers that he hand picked.  He doesn’t want to let them down.

Given his history and assignments before his command role, everything he’s done suggests that he would want to finish the job.  Why wouldn’t he push for as many more troops as he can get?

But the real questions are:  does finishing that job make any sense and will more troops help finish the job?

Eikenberry’s position has evolved over time.  He once got along with Karzai but, as ambassador, during the recent presidential campaign, he appeared with the opposition candidates who accused Karzai of election fraud in the first election and pushed Karzai to overturn the initial disputed results that would have ruled out a runoff election.

Can you recall any U.S. ambassador ever showing up at a press conference with opposition candidates challenging the legitimacy of an election?

Eikenberry was interviewed on NPR just two days after he testified before Congress in 2007.  He said, “The Taliban military forces remain a much weaker enemy. Whenever the Taliban masses on the battlefield, those Taliban forces are defeated, always in very short order.”  He went on to offer this:  “… the challenge has been building the state of Afghanistan, extending the writ of governance. That has been a very steady growth of progress that we’ve had with the government of Afghanistan over the last six years” NPR Feb. 13, 2007.

Two and a half years later, General Eikenberry has “expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country” just at the point when President Obama was said to be announcing some level of troop increases.  The key to success, as outlined by the general previously, was real progress in responsive and trustworthy civil governance that delivers for the people.

In his congressional testimony, Eikenberry quoted a poll in which, “almost 90% of the Afghan people consider reconstruction and economic development the most important requirement to improve their quality of life.”

It is fair to assume that the illegitimate election played a major role in Eikenberry’s questions about the future of the Afghanistan military mission.  His recommendations represent a huge step given the stakes for the NATO military effort and the larger concerns about the nation.  Other factors may have included the McChrystal emphasis killing “bad guys” and the inevitable deaths of innocents paired with lackluster U.S. financial support for Afghan rebuilding and development.

General Eikenberry is both a soldier and scholar of history and political science.  He knows the history of occupations that fail to deliver for the populace and he’s telling us right now that the U.S. can’t succeed with more military forces in a nation run by an illegitimate president who has been exposed for election fraud.  More troops are not the solution.  In his view, success requires stronger governance and real democracy which means transparent elections free of fraud.

Had the attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden been just that, he’d have been captured or found dead and the United States would not be in this dilemma.  But that begs the question.  Of the choices this administration will make, which do not include immediate withdrawal, General Eikenberry’s is the most clearly reasoned position and has the strongest immediate and historical basis by far, in my opinion.

But what kind of ongoing evaluation can we expect from an administration that split the policy difference in the first place by appointing General McChrystal as military commander and General Eikenberry as Ambassador?  That’s too much of a difference to split.

The White House’s rapid downward trend in troop commitment from, 40,000 to zero for the moment indicates that an alarm bell is ringing.  If they just face the truth, they’ll announce that we’ve “hit bottom” and, as a result, we can’t afford any more of this because we’re flat broke.  If they just listen to the people through public polling, they’ll come up with something palliative that will allow the president to stay above 50% approval, at least until the next banking crisis.  That something was to rely on the advice of General Eikenberry, at least for now.

This is almost the same process President Obama put the military through just after his inauguration when General Petraeus tried his push for more troops in Iraq (see analysis)..  Obama’s a very good poker player.  Let’s hope that we move beyond gaming to a foreign policy based on recognizing our limitations and inserting fundamental respect for the lives and well being of all citizens wherever they might be.

It would be helpful to review this 2007 testimony and apply the democratic principles at home as well as abroad:

“In closing, allow me to emphasize that we are now at a critical point where a strategic investment in capabilities is needed to accelerate the progress toward the desired goal of helping establish a moderate, stable, and representative Government of Afghanistan.” General Karl M. Eikenberry, Congress, Feb 11, 2007.

That’s what the general did.  He tried to “help establish” a “representative government” by insisting on fair elections.  When he discovered they weren’t fair, he stood with the opposition in protest and used his influence to get another vote.  When the “winner” of that runoff won because the process was so crooked, Eikenberry then advised there was no point in providing more troops since more troops were not the answer.  The first step in the answer requires an honest election.   He’s right.  The citizens of Afghanistan have the same needs and rights and deserve the same respect we deserve, the same that all people deserve.  What a refreshing philosophy.  It’s almost cause for “hope.”

END

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40 Million “Health” Criminals

At least two provisions in the House  health reform bill are very troubling, the de facto repeal of Roe v. Wade and this.  In a powerful post on the Welcome Back to Pottersville, poster Jurasicpork laid it out.  This is as clear and logical a statement as I’ve seen on the utter contempt that Congress has for the people.  We’re creating a new criminal class, people who can’t afford health insurance.  The solution – fines and prison.  All thanks to the Money Party which has reached depths previously unimaginable.  Well worth a read.  Michael Collins

Congress Pulls the Trigger

From:  Welcome Back to Pottersville blog.  Posted by jurasicport

In the dead of Saturday night, the House passed their version of a health reform bill that, frankly, makes Max Baucus’ first health care proposal look like a bleeding heart liberal/socialist piece of legislation by conspicuous relief. One of the most alarming aspects of HR 3962, that passed 220-215 (219 Democrats and one Republican voted for it) are the purely evil sections 7203 and 7201. The less evil of these sections, 7203, calls for $25,000 in fines and up to a year imprisonment for “defying” the federal mandate for getting insurance. That’s the misdemeanor. The felony? A quarter of a million dollars in fines and up to five years in prison.

And those of you who are actually found guilty of the crime of not buying over $100 of health insurance every week will lose their jobs and earning potential. For up to five years, we will not be contributing to anything other than a prison economy. We will not be paying taxes. We will not be paying child support if we already are. And when we get thrown into the prison system, who gets to foot the bill for the health care that we’d defiantly refused to get?
Entire post

Obama on Penalties – in general

“Under the House bill those who can afford to buy insurance and don’t’ pay a fine. If the refuse to pay that fine there’s a threat – as with a lot of tax fines – of jail time. The Senate removed that provision in the Senate Finance Committee.

“Mr. Obama said penalties have to be high enough for people to not game the system, but it’s also important to not be “so punitive” that people who are having a hard time find themselves suddenly worse off, thus why hardship exemptions have been built in the legislation.

“The President said that he didn’t think the question over the appropriateness of possible jail time is the “biggest question” the House and Senate are facing right now.”

ABC News Nov. 9

Letter documenting tie in with IRS Code for penalties for those who don’t pay tax.

Letter from Joint Committee on Taxation describing IRS code Sec. 7201 & 7203

H.R. 3962. Title V – Amendments to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

One of the connections of the HR. 3962 to the IRS, which means IRS enforcement.

Specifics form letter in IRS code for those who refuse to pay the tax.

IRS Code 7201 Attempt to evade or defeat a tax

IRS Code 7203 Wilful failure to file return, supply informaiton, or pay tax

These are just some of the penalties regarding non compliance.  There are more in the JCT document.
It’s all there.

Goldman left foreign investors holding the subprime bag

Greg Norton interviewed on the Real News Network (Video)

NEW YORK — Inside the thick Goldman Sachs investment circular were the details of a secret, $2 billion deal channeled through a Caribbean tax haven.

Snip

One bond analyst who reviewed the 2006 Cayman deal dismissed it in a report to clients as “a not so cleverly disguised way for Goldman Sachs & Co. to unload its unwanted exposures to the subprime real estate market onto foreign investors.”

Goldman spokesman Michael DuVally said that the firm “sold mortgage securities only to sophisticated investors” and disclosed “all the appropriate information available.”

McClatchy also found at least two instances in which Goldman appeared to mislead investors. In one, the firm said that $65.3 million in securities were backed by safe “prime” mortgages when the same loans had been labeled a cut below prime in a U.S. offering. In the other, Goldman listed $10 million as “midprime” loans when the underlying mortgages had been made to subprime borrowers with shaky finances.

Snip

The 2006 Cayman deal was part of a flurry of Goldman activity in the hidden, unregulated parts of the securities industry. Goldman’s traders also made huge bets that those securities would lose value by buying insurance-like contracts, called credit-default swaps, with private parties. Beginning early in 2007, they bought swaps on a London-based exchange.

Link to full article at McClatchy Newspapers, Washington Bureau

More on this story from McClatchy Newspapers

• Story | How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash
• Story | Goldman takes on new role: taking away people’s homes
• Story | Mystery: Why did Goldman stop scrutinizing loans it bought?
• Story | Mortgage crisis shows why financial regulation is needed
• Story | Moody’s becomes latest to downgrade California bonds
• Graphic | Profile of Cayman Islands
• Video | Goldman Sachs’ secret bets
• Video | One couple stands up to Goldman Sachs
• Video | McClatchy’s Goldman Sachs probe
• Video | Goldman’s changing role in subprime mortgages
• On the Web | State-by-state data on troubled mortgages
• On the Web | See our complete Goldman report

Failure by Design – the “Public” Option

Triumph of the Money Party

Michael Collins

Do you know what the “public option” does or who it covers?  If you’ve had trouble finding out, it’s not your fault.  Reading corporate media coverage provides little or no clue.  It’s hardly ever defined.  There’s a very good reason for the lack of clarity and definition.  But first, a brief summary of the public debate that characterizes just about every public debate we have on critical issues.

If you think that the current version of the public option will provide a choice for a government administered health program, you’re right.  If you think that this option was designed for the general public, then you’re wrong.  It will apply to only the some  uninsured, possibly as few as six million citizens.  It’s a kind of public option.

But, if you support true choice by the public, then you probably expect this as an option:  a single payer system for health care — one source of payment for doctors and others funded and administered by the government for the public.  Medicare is such a program.  But we don’t get to hear about single payer proposals except from proponents like Representatives John Conyers (D-MI), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), and Anthony Weiner (D-NY), who define single payer universal health care very clearly.

President Obama’s outline of the public option in his September 9 speech to Congress is essentially unchanged in the current legislation.  The Democratic plan offers “a new insurance exchange” for “Americans who don’t currently have health insurance.”  This sounds good so far, but wait.  This exchange will be “a new insurance exchange –a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop.”  The option will be “available in the insurance exchange” and “it would only be an option for those who don’t have insurance.” (See What Obama Actually Said About Health Reform)

It’s not really public, it’s for a small segment of the population, and it is any where from four to ten years out in full availability.  This reflects the Oct. 29 House proposal, H.R. 3962, and some aspects of the latest Senate claims for a public option..  The entire effort, limited as it is, will be compromised from the very start since Congress linked public option provider reimbursement rates to those of the health insurance companies.

When citizens see “Open to the public,” they don’t take that to mean only some of the public.  When land is set aside for “public use,” does that mean only 5% or 6 % of the public?   All of this makes no sense unless you accept the deliberately confusing definitions and assumptions of The Money Party.

Why would any member of the public think that they were excluded from a public option?

Why would those controlling the debate want us to think that?

Here’s why.  The findings in this poll strikes terror into the heart of The Money Party.

Link

The poll shows a clear majority in favor of a single payer, universal health care program as an option for all citizens.  This poll is consistent with other polls despite the confusion from Washington.  In a fair debate, the health insurance companies would get their clock cleaned and be out of business within a year or two.  But we’re not allowed an open and fair debate because the risk of vanishing corporations is never in The Money Party’s game plan.  Their political bouncers just tossed us under the bus.

The “Long Con” – How Things Work

“A ’short con’ is an opportunistic scam designed to instantly fleece the victim of all the money they have with them at that time.  On the other hand, a long con takes much longer to execute and requires meticulous planning in order to scam the victim out of much larger amounts of money.”  Scam Types dot Com

The Money Party runs both short and long cons.  When they weren’t able to sell the Iraq invasion, the short con was:  Saddam has weapons of mass destruction.  He’s ready to use them … on you!  Get on board now or else! That short con operated within the long con of perpetual threats and endless war.

The current health reform debate is a classic long con.  The debate is limited to only those positions that will work for the status quo.  If reform fails, there’s no change from the extortion perpetrated against citizens in need of affordable health care.  If reform is adopted, the insurance companies are enshrined at the center of the program.  The fight is then over the size of the rake off.  That’s called bending the curve of health care costs.  Bend, don’t break.   It’s a win-win proposition for The Money Party.

What do legislators do when their patrons demand that an irrational and deadly system remains in place?  Confuse the dialog with weasel words and highly deceptive terms.  Keep the public thinking that they’re really going to benefit from a program and, better yet, that the opposition is trying to prevent that benefit.  Get party loyalists whipped up to fight for your program even though it’s a sham.

The current kind of public option is essential to The Money Party’s long con on health reform.  It allows people to think that there’s a real debate going on.  Someone is fighting for our option to choose decent and affordable health care.

It’s all part of the long con that limits critical debate to unacceptable options advanced by allegedly differing parties. These debates always end the same way — the perpetuation of the major corporate interests, the retention of those in power, and oligarchy; the triumph of The Money Party:

“The Money Party is a small group of enterprises and individuals who have most of the money in this country. They use that money to make more money. Controlling who gets elected to public office is the key to more money for them and less for us.

“In every campaign for major office, the party passes out money and buys candidates from both parties. Thanks to the candidates who get elected, this pay to play system remains perfectly legal … even though it looks like bribery.

‘In return for contributions, the election winners come through by fixing the laws so that The Money Party cleans up. … Cost is no object, because in the end it’s all paid for with our tax dollars.”  Michael Collins:  The Money Party, Sept. 30, 2007.

END

See:  Special Health Reform Series:  The Money Party and the sickness unto death

This article may be reproduced in whole or in part with attribution of authorship and a link to this web site.

McClatchy Busts Goldman on Double Dealing

Today, McClatchy Newspapers added the how to the what Goldman did in its investment banking business.   Right after the 2008 election, Pro Publica broke a story about Goldman urging key clients to dump California bonds after Goldman had a big pay day from the state to sell the bonds in the first place:

“Goldman, Sachs & Co. urged some of its big clients to place investment bets against California bonds this year despite having collected millions of dollars in fees to help the state sell some of those same bonds.”  Pro Publica, Nov. 11, 2008

The McClatchy Newspapers story shows the same pattern of self serving, double dealing.  Goldman sold packages of high risk loans as though they were premium securities.  This coincided with Goldman’s assessment that the subprime securities marked was a loser.   That’s the type of double dealing that gets you in serious trouble.  The article quoted below has it all — the story of the deceptive sales, a chart of the revolving door for Goldman and the federal government, and some very good writing.

Greg Gordon was the senior reporter for McClatchy’s excellent investigative series on the Bush Department of Justice scandals.  He is an outstanding investigator, thorough, and persistent.  McClatchy is well worth watching on this story.  Michael Collins

How Goldman Secretly Bet on the U.S. Housing Crash

By Greg Gordon|McClatchy Newspapers
Nov. 1, 2009

WASHINGTON — In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.

Goldman’s sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation’s premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.

Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.

Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and a five-month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman’s failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws.

“The Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion,” said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor who’s proposed a massive overhaul of the nation’s banks. “This is fraud and should be prosecuted.”

More on this story from McClatchy Newspapers Washington Bureau:

Story | Mortgage crisis shows why financial regulation is needed

Story | Mystery: Why did Goldman stop scrutinizing loans it bought?

Story | How Moody’s sold its ratings – and sold out investors

Graphic | Goldman’s revolving door with government

Video | One couple stands up to Goldman Sachs

Video | Goldman Sachs’ secret bets

On the Web | See our complete Goldman report

Full Goldman article at McClatchy Newspapers