In a New York Times story posted Tuesday, it appears that Hamid Karzai, the “Mayor of Kabul” and former (current?) CIA operative, is on the outs with the new Obama administration.  Apparently Karzai’s complaining about the U.S. at-will blowing up of Afghan civilians, compounded with his failure to rein in the warlords and unseemly elements of the government has left him much less useful than embarassing to the new administration.

No doubt, Karzai has been little more than a pawn to make the Bush administration look like it was doing something, but as Obama plans on escalating the war in the country, he seems to be looking for a more competent ringleader.  In any case, Karzai’s days are numbered as Afghan head of state.

Mr. Obama is preparing to increase the number of American troops in Afghanistan over the next two years, perhaps to more than 60,000 from about 34,000 now… He [Gates] outlined plans for an increase of about 12,000 troops by midsummer but cautioned that any decision on more troops beyond that might have to wait until late 2009, given the need for barracks and other infrastructure.

So one campaign promise that Obama is living up to is upping the ass-whooping on Afghanistan.  I hate to bring up inconvenient lessons in history, but didn’t yet another superpower put all its eggs in the Afghan basket (while experiencing severe economic strains) and end up becoming a moot point?

Mr. Gates added that the United States should focus on limited goals. “My own personal view is that our primary goal is to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for terrorists and extremists to attack the United States and our allies, and whatever else we need to do flows from that objective,” he said.

Here’s a good thought experiment – did Gates make the above statement 6 years ago, or yesterday?  (Hint: We’ve seen this foreign policy already, and it hasn’t turned out so good).

Posted under Economy, News, Politics

I don’t normally report news, but since I haven’t seen this information elsewhere, I thought it was worth a blog post.  – Uri

Sent out by the Free Gaza Movement

www.freegaza.org

Jennifer Loewenstein; Beirut, Hamra; 1.10.09. 2:30am

Here are some newsworthy items out of Gaza that are unlikely to be making it to the Western presses. I received this information directly from one of the staff of the Mezan Center for Human Rights about twenty minutes ago.

1. Israel has begun a new policy in Gaza in the past two days called the “roof knock”. This is when a “small” rocket is fired from Israeli military aircraft that is strong enough to blast open the roof of a targeted building. It is sent as a “warning message” to the building’s inhabitants giving them between 2 and 3 minutes to evacuate before the building is completely destroyed. A number of cases of this new technique have been reported recently.

2. While the UN continues to claim that “only” 25% of the casualties from the attacks on Gaza are civilian, the Mezan Center for Human Rights (known for the care it takes not to overstate the numbers and for its strict verification policies) estimates that the number of civilian casualties is approximately 85%. In particular, the number of children has increased to over 200, and the number of women has surpassed 75. One reason for the lower civilian casualty figures used by the UN has to do with the reluctance to consider men -other than the elderly and sick- as non-combatants. In fact the overwhelming majority of men killed in “Operation Cast Lead” up to now have been non-combatants, including fathers, teachers, shopkeepers, construction workers, laborers, students, as well as the civil policemen. The vast majority are not “Hamas militants.” Note that the civil police are considered ‘non-combatants’ under international law and are therefore not ‘legitimate’ targets in any military confrontation any more than traffic cops or firemen.

3. The UN announced this evening that “almost everyone in the Gaza Strip” is now in need of humanitarian aid. Indeed, even those with adequate food supplies are a) handing out what they have to people in “shelters” (which have been targeted consistently by Israeli war machines in the past); Even those with adequate food supplies are b) unable to obtain bread anywhere. Many are using rice or spaghetti to substitute for carbohydrates — when these are availabe and when there is water and electricity to allow for cooking these items.

4. There are widespread reports now of forced evacuations of entire neighborhoods of people who go mainly to nearby schools or other public buildings not yet destroyed. These are considered no more secure than their homes but remain the only other places to go (other than to move into crowded dwellings with relatives; or places no more secure than their own homes). The congregation of so many people in these enclosed spaces increases the likelihood of major civilian casualties when airstrikes target the area.

Posted under News, Politics

Barack Obama is a very intelligent man.  Which is why his invitation of Rick Warren is such a confusing move.  Its his latest fuck you note pinned to the hope that swept him into office  (Jesus’ General has a short and brilliant synopsis).  It would also appear to be a fundamentally naive misunderstanding of what Rick Warren represents.  Rick Warren is an ultra conservative Christian who is actively working to put a mainstream spin on fundamentalist ideas.  As Lindsey Beyerstein notes:

Giving Warren even more mainstream cred is not just a cost-free nod to evangelicals. It’s a boost for someone who actively opposes Obama’s agenda and who is eager to influence secular affairs.

That mainstream cred may be cost-free to the evangelicals, but it comes at a deadly cost to the LGBT community…

Read More…

Posted under News, Politics, Religion, Sexuality

Claudia Lorena Castillo Sánchez, a successful trachea transplant patient

A transplant operation has been conducted (and successfully) in Spain that solely uses a person’s own stem cells. That means never having to worry about a match for tissue or organs, and never having to go on immunosuppressive drugs (which is often not part of the discussion about transplants, but are a permanent and precarious part of life currently after transplants). This has overwhelming implications for the future of medicine and the quality of life.

The folks at the University of Italy took a donor trachea, took off all the cells, and then used the patient’s own stem cells (taken from her own bone marrow, where our stem cells reside) to “coat” the trachea with the stem cells. And those stem cells, being the “Jack’s magical beans” of the biological universe, grew onto the trachea in exactly the way necessary to recreate a living, viable trachea.

Such technology means … we can live forever. Or at least for a mighty long time – whenever a part of us goes bad (i.e. cancer, from burns, even old age) – we just scoop out some of our bone marrow and grow us a new part. Welcome to the future! [Credit: Time/AP]

Posted under News

Crossposted at Fitness for the Occasion

Now that we’ve successfully elected Barack Obama, we need to make sure he stays honest and true to his campaign.  This article from the Wall Street Journal uses an interview with his transition team to suggest he might not be.  When running for office:

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama criticized many of President George W. Bush’s counterterrorism policies. He condemned Mr. Bush for promoting “excessive secrecy, indefinite detention, warrantless wiretapping and ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ like simulated drowning that qualify as torture through any careful measure of the law or appeal to human decency.”

As a candidate, Mr. Obama said the CIA’s interrogation program should adhere to the same rules that apply to the military, which would prohibit the use of techniques such as waterboarding. He has also said the program should be investigated.

However the word on the street suggests otherwise:

Mr. Obama is being advised largely by a group of intelligence professionals, including some who have supported Republicans, and centrist former officials in the Clinton administration. They say he is likely to fill key intelligence posts with pragmatists.

“He’s going to take a very centrist approach to these issues,” said Roger Cressey, a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations. “Whenever an administration swings too far on the spectrum left or right, we end up getting ourselves in big trouble.”

Given that this is coming from a single advisor I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be simply wishful thinking on his part, or even playing to the media’s obsessive need to claim that Obama must run a centrist administration when a largely left-wing coalition won him his office.

This is too important an issue to let alone, we need to keep the pressure on.  So I’ve started a petition (which is only a small start).  Any other ideas?

Please sign the petition asking President Elect Obama to Uphold Human Rights.

Posted under News, Politics

As I write this I can hear beeps from cars passing Obama volunteers with signs.  The response has been enormously positive, with only a stray middle finger or scowl from an old McCain/Palin supporter to suggest they even exist.  When I went to vote, I saw about 8 Obama volunteers next to one McCain/Palin volunteer.  Since I went at lunch, there was no line (although we did have a bit of confusion about where in the library to vote, at one point I joked perhaps either the nonfiction or the large print aisles were the spot to be).

While there was no line at my polling location, there was a line at Obama hq.  People were standing in line to volunteer!  Inside, they had us waiting in a room that was burning up from all the body heat.  Not because they didn’t have enough signs.  Because so many people were coming into help they were having trouble keeping up placing them where they were needed most.

Helping out with visibility was like yesterday.  People gave thumbs up, grinned, shouted “Go Obama!”, beeped (sometimes repeatedly), and pumped their fists.  One driver in an suv pulled up and handed me a water bottle!  Another woman crossing the street stopped by to offer to buy me a drink from Cosi.  We regularly got compliments and instructions to “keep up the good work” from passersby.  Two old ladies walking back from voting strolled past headed to starbucks for their free coffee.  One gave my shoulder a playful punch saying “We done voted, don’t get wet now!” with a big grin.  It was raining, and not a McCain/Palin volunteer in sight.  Just grins and Obama/Biden signs.

I didn’t see anywhere near this kind of enthusiasm or turnout in 2006.  Today Virginia feels blue.

Posted under News, Politics

Write to Marry Day!

Arguments in favor of California’s Proposition 8 are a fascinating study in hate apologetics.  Just as with the “life begins at conception” anti-choice movement or the pro-creationism lobby, from the start there is an intense pressure to hide the religious foundations beneath the nearest available logic-like substitute.  It comes down to an often hilarious yet very sobering look into the kind of people who think discrimination belongs in the California state constitution.

The favored defenses of institutionalized bigotry are:

Read More…

Posted under Culture, News, Politics, Religion, Sexuality

A plot to assassinate Obama was broken up by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. According to George Stephanopoulos’ Blog, the plot is not being treated as a serious threat:

An Obama aide tells ABC News that Secret Service headquarters “would be notified of anything that mentioned” Obama. But adds that “it never rose to any sort of serious level,” which explains why Obama’s personal detail was not notified.

Rather than explaining why the candidate’s detail was not notified, it raises questions about how seriously the government is pursuing these plots. Despite the FBI’s push to charge the Colorado Three, Troy Eid (a Rove Apppointee) dismissed the charges. This makes me wonder:

Is this administration — and particularly this Justice Department, as deeply compromised as it has become by the Bush White House’s crass politicization — capable of ensuring that true threats against Democratic figures like Obama are taken seriously and dealt with appropriately?

These men were found with firearms, and further investigation may lead to more charges. The Attorney General for Tennessee is Democrat Robert E. Cooper Jr, appointed in 2006. His office can be contacted here by phone.  It can’t hurt to encourage his office to take this threat with appropriate gravitas.

Posted under News, Politics

Via AP:

The ATF says it has broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree.

In court records unsealed Monday, agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target an unnamed but predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads.

No more details are available currently.  Lot’s of questions remain:

Are there any links between the neo-nazi’s and existing hate groups?  How many assasination plots are currently under investigation?  Would Sarah Palin consider these skinheads terrorists?

Posted under News, Politics

I have the great fortune to be living in a swing state during a historic election.  This is the first in a series of observations from Northern Virginia.

At about 30 strong, the crowd of children gathered outside the metro entrance in Arlington were an overcrowded-classroom full of energy and enthusiasm.  A few parents waded through the Obama/Biden signs, yet this was all the work of one 11 year old student: Mariah Brescia-Weller.

Mariah had put together an impressive show of force.  I talked briefly with her about the rally (note to self: should have brought a tape recorder!  I will paraphrase from my notes).  As we glossed over initial motivations (Excitement about the election, and wanting to channel that excitement and energy into persuading people to vote for Obama), issues came up.  Education, Health Care, Woman’s Right’s, Taxes, Immigration.  I found that last one rather interesting coming from an eleven year old.  So I inquired further.  Mariah had friends who were in various stages of immigration, and it was very important to her that the next president be someone who would help them.  The idea of the personal driving the political occured again when another Obama supporter, Jeremy, chimed in.  He knew a 5th grader who broke her arm, and had no health insurance.

I spoke with one of the mothers, Sandra, about where political beliefs come from at such a young age.  She acknowledged that some were sure to come from parents, but kids have their own ideas on things.  Pressed further she shared that she’d noticed with her son this year, when they watched the debates, he’d become incredibly animated and engaged around the issues that struck him.

Two elections from now these children will be voting, and they are a part of Northern Virginia’s continuing journey to blue state status.  Its easy during an election to focus purely on those eligible to vote.  But an election is an opportunity to invite people into the process of active citizenship.  All of the kids at that rally have taken a wonderful step into a life of civic engagement.  In particular Mariah, who at 11 was articulate, to the point, and organized a political event.  Her mother is a wonderful person for encouraging and nurturing her daughter’s political expression.  She’s also wise.  We can all use this election to meet future senators, community organizers, and activists.  In 7 years children like Mariah will be voting.  Imagine where they will be in 27.

Posted under News, People, Politics