Change And The Chosen Path

[This author confirms what I have been saying lately, that We the People have the keys to slow things down, by making the Democrats appear to listen to popular opinion.  We can make them hesitate by threatening harm to their carefully crafted images as “defenders of the people.”  We have seen it over and over, since they returned to power, enough popular outrage gets vented, they change directions (or at least appear to).  If the Democrats cannot at least pretend to work for the people, then the scam known as the “two-party system”  is exposed for what it is, and its practitioners as the greedy treasonous monsters that they really are.]

By Kenneth Anderson
The Public Record
Dec 7th, 2009

Author’s note: This article was written several days before President Obama’s escalation speech at West Point, when it was first leaked that 30,000-plus troops would be bound for Afghanistan.  I offer this as argument that in less than a year, the Obama presidency is a failure, by his own campaign’s definition.  I do so in the hopes of being presented an argument that convincingly counters the evidence of Obama’s policy trajectories presented here.  And, as you will see, Sotomayor and the stimulus bill do not serve a sufficient counterweight to the general body of policy the Obama Administration has so far evinced.

The psychology of previous investment proscribes humans from responding rationally when conditions warrant or even demand.  If the investment has been heavy enough, the psychology behind the investment will insist that people hold on to it, no matter how badly the investment may tank.  This occurs at all scales.  The American public’s investment in Barack Obama is tanking badly.  The question at this point becomes, how much longer can the policy trend lines continue before the body of his political support collapses altogether?

***

President Obama has failed his mandate.

It’s not a happy thing to have to say.  Many won’t agree, desperately fending off the obvious. The campaign sloganeering, well, it turned out to be just that.  All the worse that so many had hoped otherwise. Obama has been embarrassingly supine in dealing with the know-nothings. The end game of which is what, exactly?  Republicans will suddenly — one day — apprehend their misbegotten ways and cuddle the furry kitten? The GOP and their agents continue the attacks, the lies, the filibusters — a well funded font of rancorous, racist, rancid bullshit.  Palin-Beck in 2012!  That’s the ticket.

The last straw was escalation in Afghanistan.  And didn’t he ever drag out the process of doing what the military told him he should do weeks ago?  Perhaps that was suppose to make him look steely-eyed and circumspect.  One wonders what the point of all this review was meant to reveal when the end product is to tap almost all the troops McChrystal wanted in the first place.  In fact, we almost suspect that McChrystal may have high-balled his numbers as a negotiation entry point.  Then again, maybe not.  Because McChrystal knows he is dealing with a Democrat, one who seems especially smitten with getting along.  Which meant, of course, that Obama would meet McChrystal’s opening bid, with the necessary appearance of due diligence of course, because, well, that’s how Democrats roll.  They are the party of looking like they’re for “the people.”  The “review” at this point looks like mere window dressing.  Whether it was or was not is unimportant.  Certainly, it is unimportant to those on the ground.

If this does go down with plus-30,000 troops, Obama can kiss it goodbye.  Here is the short of it.  One way or another, Afghanistan will be the doom of Obama.  Withdrawal is conventionally seen as political suicide. It matters not that the American and Afghan public would like to see this happen.  Obama will be “ravaged” by foes in Washington.  Just like LBJ fretted.  Once Afghanistan turns more deeply unpopular — more than now — political forces will then turn that against Obama, and it will become his Vietnam.  If this escalation is a cave to military pressure and political considerations (and really, what else could it be?), then Obama may think he is staving off a near term political hit.  In reality, he is only delaying political doom.  And worse, he is consigning to their deaths, who knows how many more thousands, ravaging the land and the lives of millions more.

Tellingly, the left are squabbling about whether Obama is worse than Bush.  Indeed, when one finds oneself in a position of defending any president by trying to demonstrate that they are “not worse than Bush,” or even mentioning, in a subjunctive clause, that Obama is not “worse than Bush,” the admission is plain: failure.

***
Obama has pathetically caved to most every Republican yowl on every domestic bill, only to watch no Republicans even vote for the butchered bill anyway.  The health care botch will be the same [see below].

Obama demands Israel halt building on the West Bank, only to watch Israel approve more building on the West Bank.

Obama shamefully and shamelessly pulled a complete one-eighty on the odious FISA amendment.  To his great pleasure now, as he only balloons the already expansive surveillance state [see below].  On the plus side, he did this before he was president.

Obama has adopted all Bush era legal positions and then some — even asserting sovereign immunity — in warrentless wiretap lawsuits and beyond.

Obama has quietly backed renewal of the worst of the PATRIOT Act provisions, and doing so over the objections of fellow Democrats.

Obama has only escalated, atrociously so given his “Si, se puede” campaign, immigration raids and harassment across the country, the American Apparel episode especially mean-spirited in a time of brutal recession.  Only recently, a janitorial company “quietly let go” many illegal immigrants, a move that is part of an Obama administration plan to  “thin the ranks of illegal immigrants by going after the companies that hire them.”  Now, there’s a plan.  All those homeless nurses and accountants piling up in LA tent cities can go work as janitors now that the illegals have been purged.

Obama has continued to assert the power to conduct extraordinary renditions, or, as the Italian court that convicted 23 Americans (22 CIA) of just such an operation called it, “kidnappings”.

Obama has continued to assert the power to hold detainees indefinitely, without charge.  Apparently, he intends to do so.

Obama has continued to assert the power to conduct military tribunals in lieu of trial.  Apparently, he intends to do so.

Obama has continued to assert the power to spy on Americans.  Apparently, he intends to do so. With sovereign immunity.

Obama has continued to assert the power to torture and abuse detainees secretly, specifically within the confines of US SOC base at Bagram, and a similar facility at Balad Air Base in Iraq.

Obama has adopted a position on the Guantanamo detainees so arbitrarily pendulous, it makes Bush look like a model of sober reason: no trials for anyone. Say what you will about that, but it is consistent.  Obama’s “position” is no position at all.  He’s all over the map.  Particle and wave.  “Whatever works.”  Yes, he really is a Democrat.

Obama will fail to close Guantanamo Bay as a detainee prison by his own deadline and admission.  Obama fired the man who was trying to close it according to Obama’s own agenda [see below].  I predict this may go on for years, as Obama attempts to keep the GOP from swatting him on the issue.  And once again, petty domestic politics drive policy.

Obama has overseen the worsening of conditions at Guantanamo Bay.

Obama has upped the US military footprint in South America by bumping up military presence in Colombia, with the lapdog enthusiasm of a visibly excited Uribe on full display.  Pissing off everyone else, of course, but no matter.  Tensions are bound to escalate beyond those already on the rise.

Obama displayed an unaccountable hypocrisy and equivocation regarding the Honduran coup, even as his administration railed against Tehran for election rigging.  Of course, the one-way outrage is not unaccountable at all, and certainly not when one’s own military base is quietly involved.

Obama has continued to embrace long standing US-resistance to treaties banning landmines and other passive, deadly weapons, weapons that kill thousands of children every year.  This, even as the world observed the 20 year anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the passing of which was notable only for the sole company the United States keeps in refusing ratification of thattreaty: Somalia.

Obama has deployed private mercenaries in Somalia.

Obama has only continued the escalation of the Pentagon budget, and emergency off-the-books contingency funds.

Obama has more currently deployed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than Bush ever did.  And he is about to up that unhappy fact in Afghanistan again.  Certainly, we will be assured there will be a timeline for withdrawal. And certainly, it will be asham.

Obama is expanding the US “Embassy” in Islamabad to behemoth proportions, in keeping with the model presented to the world in Baghdad.  Pakistanis are fuming at this project, viewing it rightly as a “military and intelligence command outpost.”

Obama has promoted, rather than denounced and fired, the commander of JSOC, which oversaw extreme abuse and torture of detainees.  Under McChrstyal’s command, many subordinates were convicted of such crimes.  No one above of the rank of major was convicted, despite “the documented role of more senior officers and civilian officials in authorizing and then covering up these crimes.”

Obama intends that the “withdrawal” from Iraq will be as every bit as farcical as has always been planned.  Major permanent military bases (and a billion dollar embassy) holding 50-60,000 troops, scattered hither and pointedly yon.  Oil contracts are in the works.

Obama is escalating a global missile defense shield, first actively begun by Reagan,mandated by the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance and then later by the plowed under Project for the New American Century.  The putative suspension of the installations in Poland and Czech Republic was a technical ruse.  There will be missiles and radar in those places, and elsewhere, such Romania and Bulgaria.  Plans are afoot for footprints in Georgia, Azerbaijan and beyond the Caspian.

Obama has escalated pipeline negotiations throughout Central Asia.  This may not sound bad.  Did I mention that Blackwater and JSOC are conducting military operations in Uzbekistan?  No? Not yet?  [see below.]

Obama has escalated the drone war “dramatically” in Pakistan.  Blackwater appears to be fully involved.  Of course, the whole damned debacle is illegal, but no matter.

Obama continues to embrace the employment of Blackwater, which is roaming wild in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan, and elsewhere.  Yes, Uzbekistan. In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan

“That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don’t know if you noticed but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan,” he said. “So, did I miss something, did Rumsfeld come back into power?” Obama has overseen a skyrocketing forty percent increase in private contractors in Afghanistan between June and September of this year.  There is some change here: no other president has overseen a war employing more private contractor personnel than Obama.  Private contractor personnel now comprise fifty-seven percent of all US personnel in Afghanistan.

Obama has coddled Wall Street beyond anyone’s wildest fears.  He has said not a word that I can discern about the bailout sham.  Is he sad that the Wall Street brethren who dumped vast sums on his meteoric rise to the White House behaved so badly before, during, and after the bailout? His administration is more vested with Wall Street chums than the Bush White House.  A ghastly embarrassment.

Obama got needlessly shabby on Greg Craig.  Another embarrassment.  A gross performance and easily as bad as anything Bush ever did.  But worse, because Craig was pushing Obama’s own agenda and got burned because Obama discovered some scary things that make that ol’ Constitution just as silly as Bush and Cheney always said it was.

Obama is watching key supporteres flee his administration, either forcibly or by choice: personal matters.

Obama is pushing the Congressional Black Caucus and the GOP together in refusing to address the concerns of the CBC regarding financial reform.  “Waters suggested the CBC’s 43 members could vote with the GOP to scuttle a variety of Democratic bills if Obama and Emanuel don’t address what she thinks is a lack of understanding of the CBC’s wide-ranging goals of reducing urban unemployment, home foreclosures and bank failures.” Obama continues to ignore the Don Siegelman miscarriage, and leaves Bush/Rove DoJ hacks in situ in Alabama.  Siegelmanclaims that there has  been  “no substantial change in the heart of the Department of Justice from the Bush-Rove Department of Justice.”  The judge who oversaw the travesty, Mark Fuller, is friends with all the DoJ Rovian Canarys, and had a personal grudge against Siegleman.  Fuller is in ownership of a defense contracting company that fuels Air Force One.

Obama stood back on health care reform and watched the carnage from the sidelines.  He stood nowhere, for nothing.  Congress made a hash of it, as is their wont.  Who knows what it will actually do, but it will get tens of millions of new customers for the insurance companies.  In all likelihood, the bill will wind up being a shameless corporate crap shoot, without the snake eyes.  The man who once said single payer was the obvious solution, sat on his hands while a vestigial public option was ravage further, and pernicious C Street amendments popped up like ulcerous sores.  Not a word.  He’ll sign anything at this point.

Obama has ramped up the secret surveillance state beyond mortal reckoning.  There are estimates, of course, wherein numbers drop into the $50-100 Billion* bin. Under Obama, the NSA is building a giant secret facility in Utah that will house a Yottabyte archive.  Surveillance state “Fusion Centers” are spreading like wildfire.

Obama has thrown out a trail balloon about cutting NASA’s budget.  Yes, let’s cut that one half of one percent of the federal budget that goes to that wastrel NASA.  All that fancy pants galavantin’ about the solar system, and … learnin’ stuff.  Can’t recall Bush threatening to cut the NASA budget.  He wanted to kill Hubble — the certitude of that “billions of years” talk shook his biblical bones — but at least he wanted to go to Mars or some crazy shit.  Now, NASA are talking to the Chinese about partnering up.  Change!   Not exactly the change I was imagining.

Obama’s glamour is wearing thin.  In fact, it’s threadbare.  The Chinese know it.  He’s a pushover.  In this, the investment cannot let go; he is so damned likable.

That is over.  Obama’s plain failure is obvious.  Unlike the election of 2000, 2008 was a known, vital cast, one the American public knew was important.  No one really thought or knew what the stakes would become in 2000 (except perhaps for those in on the fix).  Not so in 2008.  We all knew it.  The wreckage is everywhere.

The above is not an agenda bent on fixing any of it, but reeks of acquiescence and inertia. It demonstrates that Santos knew, two years ago, what we know now.

Mr. Obama, if this truly is your path for the United States, you have failed your mandate.  Not your Goldman Sachs mandate — clearly not — but the one entrusted to you by the American public, one that is desperate for a change of course.  One that still believed it was actually possible.  This is not that change of course.  Though admittedly persistent, as many a dead president may testify, this course is a dead end.  Instead of doing or even attempting to take on the necessary tasks at hand, you have folded across the board.  Cowardice in the face of potent adversaries? or were you in on this all along?

***
* Let’s just note the institutional proclivities here. Up to a $100 Billion per year into op tech to spy on Americans is unremarkable,  secret in fact, yet $80 Billion per year on health care for American citizens redounds to gross public spectacle, reason dragged through the shit strewn ditch, spat upon by clotpols with guns fully strapped.  Because health care for Americans, well, that’s some dangerous stuff, there.
—————–

Kenneth Anderson, an astronomer who has worked on a number of NASA projects, devotes his scientific training to observations and inferences about current affairs, politics and the media. He blogs at boneheadcompendium.comand can be reached at ken-AT-boneheadcompendium.com

Obama to Issue Presidential Finding—Co2 Health Hazard

[This puppet president glad-hands the public and smiles his big polished smile,   while he pulls underhanded stunts such as this.  At least with Bush we all knew that he was a liar and that we were being sold a pile of horseshit, every time he opened his mouth.  With Obama, he slides by, without raising the hackles of the people too much, simply because he is our first black president (and probably the last) and he seems on camera like a nice guy.  If we want to stop this outrageous political stunt we will make our displeasure obvious to the world.  Every time we have shown a little anger at his telegraphed next move, he has backed-off.  It’s time to back-off, Obama!]

Obama finalizes ‘endangerment finding’ on global warming

The declaration could give the EPA the power to issue sweep regulations on greenhouse gases. That could mean tough new emissions standards for vehicles, factories and power plants.

By Jim Tankersley

Reporting from Copenhagen – The Obama administration has finalized a declaration that greenhouse gases endanger public health, a senior administration official said today, opening the door to broad new regulations that could affect the largest segments of the American economy.
Under the so-called “endangerment finding,” the Environmental Protection Agency asserts the power to regulate carbon dioxide and other gases that scientists blame for global warming. That authority comes from the Clean Air Act and has been recognized in a Supreme Court decision.
Now that it is final, the finding will allow the EPA to proceed with tough new vehicle emissions standards and a proposal to regulate factory and power-plant emissions.
The move figures to strengthen America’s bargaining hand in Copenhagen, where 190 nations kicked off a two-week summit today in hopes of reaching a new international climate accord.
jtankersley@tribune.com

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

Saudis Panic In Yemen, Seek Jordanian Special Forces Help

Saudis ‘in a panic mode’ as Shi’ite rebels move North from Yemen

LONDON — Jordan has sent several hundred troops from its special operations forces to help the Saudi military with its many Shi’ite units contain the Yemeni Shi’ite rebellion, which has spread deep into the Arab kingdom.ShareThis

Western intelligence sources said Jordan’s King Abdullah sent the SOF units to Saudi Arabia in November 2009. The sources said the Jordanian king was acting on an urgent request from his Saudi counterpart for elite soldiers who could hunt for Iranian-backed Shi’ite rebels in both Saudi Arabia and northern Yemen.

"The Saudis are in a panic mode and don’t have the troops or capabilities to stop the Yemeni Shi’ites," an intelligence source said.

The sources said Riyad’s need for foreign forces stemmed from a refusal by Shi’ite-dominated Saudi units to fight the Believing Youth. They said this has led to the dismantling of several local security units familiar with the Saudi-Yemeni border.

Saudi officials have not confirmed the assertion of the Western intelligence sources. But on Nov. 27, Saudi Deputy Defense Minister Prince Khaled Bin Sultan acknowledged that Yemeni Shi’ite fighters held at least two southern Saudi villages for nearly a month. Later, officials said 15,000 Saudis had been evacuated from their homes.

The sources said Jordan has been the only Arab League state to respond to Saudi appeals for help in fighting the Iranian-backed Believing Youth movement. Believing Youth has been fighting an intermittent war in northern Yemen since 2004, but in November 2009 invaded southern Saudi Arabia and captured several border villages.

"The Saudi air force has been heavily bombing villages inside Yemen, but this has not made a dent in the capabilities of the Shi’ite rebels," the source said. "They have been well-trained by Iran and Hizbullah and have moved steadily north in Saudi Arabia."

The Saudi military has focused on trying to impose a blockade on northern Yemen. The Royal Saudi Naval Forces has bolstered its presence with at least four fast attack craft and missile boats and reported the destruction of weapons smuggling ships from neighboring Somalia.

"The infiltrating terrorists intended to attack our nation when they encroached upon our territories and terrorized our peaceful people," King Abdullah said in an address to his troops. "Undeterred by religion or ethical values, the intruders shed the blood of the people."

Gordon Brown snubbed by soldiers’ ‘curtain’ protest

[Way to go, Boys!]

Steven Swinford

Private Dean Housley at a homecoming in Nottingham yesterday. He was not at Selly Oak when Gordon Brown visited

Gordon Brown was snubbed by badly injured Afghan veterans when they closed curtains round their beds during a hospital visit and refused to speak to him.

More than half the soldiers being treated at the Selly Oak hospital ward in Birmingham either asked for the curtains to be closed or deliberately avoided the prime minister, according to several of those present.

The soldiers, who have sustained some of the worst injuries seen in Afghanistan, described his visit as “opportunistic” and a “waste of time”.

Furious about equipment shortages and poor compensation for their injuries, one soldier said: “It is almost as if we are the product of an unwanted affair … he has done nothing for us.”

Brown visited the military wing of Selly Oak on September 2, where about 25 wounded soldiers were being treated. They were told about the visit in the morning and asked by nurses if they wanted to speak to him.

Sapper Matthew Weston, 20, is one of the most seriously injured soldiers to have survived. He lost both legs and his right arm when a bomb exploded on a dirt track outside Sangin.

He said: “I didn’t want to speak to him, I didn’t want to waste my time talking to someone who was just trying to make themselves look good. I spent the day with my family instead.

“Half the lads didn’t want to speak to him and those that did pretty much blamed him for everything. Many of the lads just closed their curtains and hid themselves away.

“I met Prince Charles and Sir Richard Dannatt [when they visited Selly Oak]. I have respect for them. Prince Charles spoke to me for two hours. I really didn’t want to speak to Gordon Brown.”

Another soldier, who suffered severe injuries when caught in a mine explosion, left the hospital in an attempt to avoid Brown.

He was angry at the government’s attempt to cut compensation payouts for injured soldiers. He said: “I went outside for a fag but when I came back he was still there. Most of us said we wouldn’t like to see him so we drew our curtains and waited for him to go.

“It was a pretty sour thing, we feel a lot of bitterness towards Gordon Brown. The guys read the papers, it is obvious to them that he doesn’t care. Many of us felt like it was an effort to accommodate him.

“At the time the Ministry of Defence were trying to sue wounded British soldiers to cut their compensation. It was so wrong. It doesn’t give the guys any faith in the government, it doesn’t make us feel like they support us or look after us.

“The lads didn’t say much after the visit. Some were grateful he had bothered to come up to see us, others were saying they wished they could have thumped him.”

Another soldier, who lost his right leg after being caught in a mine blast in Afghanistan, said that more than two-thirds of the 25 soldiers on the ward closed their curtains. He, however, decided to speak to Brown.

“I wanted to find out how the guy’s head worked,” he said. “I was interested in what he had made of his trip to Afghanistan and what he had learnt from it.

“I feel that even if someone is a moron, he should have the opportunity to defend his moronity. [His response] all seemed rather textbook and not from the heart.

“It is quite obvious to anyone that Brown is not concerned, it is almost as if we [the soldiers] are the product of an unwanted affair.

“The straight fact is this: we don’t like the man, he has done nothing for us and continues to kick us in the teeth over equipment and compensation.”

The most severely wounded troops are flown from the front line to Selly Oak for treatment, often within 12 hours of being operated on by teams of surgeons in Camp Bastion. The hospital has a specialist, 32-bed military-run ward to help soldiers recover from their injuries alongside other servicemen.

The concerns of the wounded soldiers appear to highlight a disconnection between front line troops in Afghanistan and Brown and his government. Earlier this year an official report suppressed by ministers revealed that soldiers’ lives were being put at risk by “endemic” failures at the Ministry of Defence.

It blamed a “political fudge” and Whitehall incompetence for the failure to provide soldiers in Afghanistan with adequate equipment, and said bungled projects were £35 billion over budget.

At the same time Brown has been accused of failing to give adequate funding to the military. As chancellor he oversaw a dramatic increase in government expenditure on education, welfare and health while the defence budget fell from 2.8% of GDP to 2.2%.

The cuts have continued since he became prime minister. In October he was forced to backtrack over plans to impose a £17.5m cut in the Territorial Army’s training budget, while a month earlier the government took two injured soldiers to court in a test case that would have slashed compensation payments to injured soldiers.

The failings are damaging the morale of troops on the front line. According to a survey of 10,500 Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force personnel, published in August, the majority of servicemen and women feel morale is low, singling out equipment shortages as one of their biggest concerns.

Two days after his visit to Selly Oak, Brown paid tribute to injured soldiers during a speech in London. He said: “There is nothing more heartbreaking than, as I did this week, meeting a teenager who has lost a leg.”

Yesterday a spokesman for the prime minister said: “The prime minister regularly visits wounded service personnel. He has the utmost respect and admiration for the soldiers’ sacrifice, bravery and dignity. As you would expect, we never comment on the PM’s private visits to injured soldiers.”

Corrupt, untrained, underpaid, illiterate

Posted by Richard Sunday, 6 December 2009 Afghanistan

The Sunday Times laments the poor state of the Afghan security forces, with a long piece headed: "Corrupt, untrained, underpaid, illiterate: the forces waiting to take over." This is by no means the first article to draw attention to the parlous state of the forces, on which the Coalition exit plan entirely depends.
In fact – as you might expect – the problem is very far from new. In 1900, Afghan ruler Abdur Rahman was recalling the state of the army he had inherited from his predecessor, noting that it was "defective in certain respects" …

… one of them being that the soldiers did not get their pay regularly, and had certain privileges granted them of extorting money from the subjects without any punishment being inflicted on them for so doing. The officers were lazy, steeped in indulgence and vices of all kinds, gambling, opium-smoking, Indian hemp-smoking, and other bad habits which cannot be mentioned …

The army was in such a condition, he ventured, that it could not stand against the English army half so well as any ordinary chief.
By1900 – ten years after he had assumed the Crown – Rahman claimed (with the benefit of a considerable English subsidy) that his army was "properly organised upon the modern European military method". His soldiers were paid regularly. Every cavalry regiment and artillery battalion was complete with its sappers and miners for trench work, engineers, bands, tents, medical corps, etc.
At that stage, Rahman wrote that he was making every effort to provide himself with 1,000,000 million fighting men, armed with the most modern weapons and war material. He died a year later, his dream unfulfilled. In 1919, when his successor launched the third Anglo-Afghan war, he was only able to muster 50,000 troops.
Confronting them was Lt-Gen George Molesworth, who gave the following evaluation of the Afghan army:

Afghan regular units … were ill-trained, ill-paid, and probably under strength. The cavalry was little better than indifferent infantry mounted on equally indifferent ponies. Rifles varied between modern German, Turkish and British types, to obsolete Martinis and Snyders. Few infantry units had bayonets.
Artillery was pony-drawn, or pack, and included modern 10cm Krupp howitzers, 75mm Krupp mountain guns and ancient 7 pounder weapons. There were a few, very old, four-barrel Gardiner machine guns. Ammunition was in short supply and distribution must have been very difficult. For the artillery much black powder was used, both as a propellant and bursting charge for shells. The Kabul arsenal workshops were elementary and mainly staffed by Sikh artificers with much ingenuity but little real skill. There was no organised transport and arrangements for supply were rudimentary.

Such is how it has always been. Most serious fighting by the Afghans has always involved large numbers of tribesmen, organised and led by their chiefs – either acting alone or in support of the Afghan army. Not ever in modern times has the state been able to field a credible force.
Patrick Cockburn, commenting in The Independent on Sunday on the late Obama plan, notes that he envisages training 100,000 new Afghan soldiers and 100,000 new policemen over the next three years.
But, asks Cockburn, where are these recruits to come from? Given the high desertion rate, the combat strength of the Afghan army is reportedly only 46,000 troops in a country that is larger than France.
Furthermore, he warns, these troops, and particularly the officer corps, are already disproportionately Tajik, the ethnic group to which a quarter of Afghans belong. The US can only increase the military strength of the Afghan state swiftly by skewing it towards the Tajiks, who were always the core of opposition to the Taliban. This will increase sectarian hatreds.
And this is what is supremely worrying about the current coalition military strategy. Its leaders, Brown and Obama included, have convinced themselves that they are going to be able progressively to hand over responsibility to the Afghan security forces as soon as 18 months. They will then take the load and maintain peace and security.
But, as The Sunday Times article points out, of the police alone – citing a police commander, talking about his recruits: "They start from such a low level. I need five years … With all the attention of the international community, maybe three years minimum." At that is given that the system is being organised properly, which it is not.
The plan is moonshine. Coalition leaders are locked into a fantasy of their own making, relying on the creation of mythical armies with false capabilities, dreams that will never be realised. Even in decades and with more money than the US could afford, there is not going to be an effective Afghan security force in five or even ten years time.
One can live with a degree of optimism and hope, but the current plans really are based on fantasy. Nothing good can come of them.

Five killed in suicide attack in Peshawar

A Pakistani man removes a gas cylinder from a burning rickshaw after a suicide bombing in Peshawar, Pakistan on Monday, Dec. 7, 2009. – AP

PESHAWAR: A suicide bomber struck outside a court in Pakistan’s Peshawar on Monday, killing five people and wounding 20 others in the latest blast in a city beset by Taliban violence, officials said.

Peshawar, capital of the troubled northwest, had seen the brunt of Taliban attacks avenging military offensives against them across the region, with more than 270 people killed in the city since early October.

Bashir Bilor, a senior minister in the northwest provincial government, told reporters that a man carrying explosives drove up to a district sessions court in the centre of the city in a rickshaw.

‘He got down and tried to enter the building but could not do so because of our security arrangements,’ he said.

‘Five people died… The injured included three policemen and two lawyers.’

He told AFP that the severed head of the bomber has been found about 70 metres (230 feet) away from the blast site.

Zafar Iqbal, a senior doctor at Peshawar’s main Lady Reading hospital, confirmed that they had five bodies delivered to the hospital, and added that at least 49 people were wounded in the blast, some seriously.

Local television channels showed images of blackened sandals lying in pools of water on a charred road. Smoke filled the streets as ambulances rushed to the scene and fire engines trained their hoses on smouldering cars.

An AFP reporter at the scene said that at least eight vehicles were completely destroyed by the blast, while the site was covered in smashed glass and the blood of the dead and wounded.

Senior bomb disposal official Tanveer Iqbal said that about six to seven kilograms of explosives were used in the suicide attack.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani swiftly condemned the blast, deploring ‘the loss of innocent lives,’ a statement from his office said.

We Will Take Your Children and Reprogram Them to Our Liking

[Under the heading: “Police State Begins in Britain,” for a nation that is reeling under the effects of a century of the state “dumbing kids down,” the ruling elite wants to force national service on seven year olds!  This follows state proclamations about profiling children to find future criminals and terrorists.  People, if you haven’t yet figured-out what the state is really all about, these trends tell the whole story—total control of every person, beginning in early childhood.  Both British and American governments are organized criminal enterprises, intent on forcing total enslavement on all mankind.  Join the fight.  Fuck the state.]

Think tank: National service for 7-year-olds

A programme giving us civic duties throughout our lives should start early

Sonia Sodha

‘Broken Britain” has become a broken record. Politicians and commentators sketch a society consumed by greed and celebrity culture, bereft of the “we’re all in it together” values of post-war Britain. We all agree that we need to create a stronger society, yet all sides seem to struggle with practical ideas for how to do it.

Demos today launches a report arguing that the principle of national service, abolished in Britain in 1960, still has something to offer. A national civilian service — a sort of “civic corps” — would look very different from its military forebear: it would be flexible and tailored to people’s lives, not a one-size-fits-all compulsory scheme.

It would, however, be based on the same principles that underpinned wartime service: the idea that we owe something to each other and that citizenship is more than a soulless contract between individuals and the state. It would be paid for by introducing interest on student loans, raising about £1.2 billion a year.

The scheme would see people serving throughout their lives, taking up opportunities, from school projects at the age of seven to paid leave for employees. For a week a year, people would down their tools or keyboards and pick up litter, dredge canals, become reading mentors or help the elderly. The community benefits would be huge.

Volunteer Reading Help, a charity, is already operating a reading mentoring scheme that has improved the reading ability and confidence of 90% of the children who take part. Mentoring of offenders in the criminal justice system has reduced reoffending by up to 11%.

There would be options to suit different needs: spanning service as back-to-work training for unemployed young jobseekers and gap year-style service schemes for young people with access to subsidised loans and grants on the same basis as university undergraduates. The expectation for undergraduates would be that they undertake 100 hours of service over the course of their degree.

It would cost £450m a year to set up. True, it’s a lot of money but, over the long term, civic service could pay for itself twice over in its economic and social returns. It’s estimated that the Canadian version of the programme returns an incredible $2.20 for every dollar originally invested. In Britain, a 2.5% interest rate on student loans would raise that annual £1.2 billion. Despite the inevitable howls of protest, this is fair. Undergraduates do so well by the system, with subsidies of at least £5,000 a year and extra average earnings of £600,000 over their lifetime, that it’s reasonable to ask them to shoulder the costs.

Why is this new? Up until now, all the focus of ideas for civic service have been on young people, especially those not in employment, education or training (Neets), whose numbers have been swelled by the recession to almost one in five. Too many young people are starting adulthood without basic skills such as motivation, sticking power and communication that are crucial to their ever finding themselves in work. Getting them involved in planning and carrying out community projects — for example, mentoring and supporting children from disadvantaged areas, working with local police to challenge gang crime and providing companionship in old people’s homes — would boost the interpersonal skills they need.

The evidence from the United States is compelling: taking part in service projects yields better results and better engagement at school. And employers value these programmes enormously — City Year, a scheme that places young mentors in deprived, inner-city schools, has a number of corporate partners who recruit from the scheme.

If it is to work, the service must be universal. During our research we held an event with 53 young people from all backgrounds. Their message was clear: a one-size-fits-all scheme won’t work. It shouldn’t just weigh on the young — “we get blamed for everything that’s wrong with society”, said one — and if you wait until the age of 16 before asking today’s young people to give back, it’s too late. They were right. That’s why our proposals run from the age of seven to adulthood, rather than a scheme for young adults.

When it comes to tackling intractable social issues, the state doesn’t always have the answer: we as citizens can do much more. But the state can help, providing a space in which young people can be taught how to put the values of citizenship into practice while they are still at school.

As both Labour and the Conservatives refine their policies, this is the first time anyone has set out in practical detail how a national volunteering scheme for people of all ages should work. The benefits are too many to ignore.

Youngsters, your country needs you.

The report Service Nation by Sonia Sodha and Dan Leighton is published today by Demos. The research was supported by the Private Equity Foundation

In Obama’s certainty, a tragic flaw

Susan Reimer

Longtime readers of this column know that I have a son in the military, so it is no surprise that I listened intently to President Barack Obama’s speech last week at West Point, my hands working each other nervously as he announced plans to send more troops to Afghanistan.
My son was in a pipeline to go to war no matter what the president said that night – I will say no more than that – so it was not like a different speech would have meant he was going on vacation instead.
And I heard candidate Obama say that Iraq was the wrong war, and that he would turn our attention back to Afghanistan if elected, so his decision did not surprise me – although I regret that this campaign promise is one he is so determined to keep.
I am no general, no foreign affairs expert, no CIA agent. But I suspect, along with many who have greater expertise than I do, that this is a fateful decision that will only inflame our enemies, cost us the lives of our young, drain our resources and win nothing lasting.
As you might imagine, my mind is often flooded with images I cannot keep at bay, and sleep is an absent friend. But through all the cacophony, one impression, one powerful impression, persists.
Hubris. The ancient word for pride. Where I saw in George W. Bush a willful stubbornness in the conduct of his war, I see in Barack Obama the tragic quality of hubris.
In his eloquence, in his rectitude, in his very posture, I saw last week the arrogance of a man who has ignored the lessons of history – both ancient and recent – and was not swayed by his midnight visit to Dover Air Force base and the coffins filled with pain and grief unloaded there. I saw the stiff back of a man who does not want to look weak.
Is there something, I wonder, in the mountain climb to the presidency of this country that infuses the triumphant with this sense of right-ness? With a determination to never show anything that looks like second thoughts – let alone retreat?
I watched the president speak, and my alarm was not at the fact that he was committing more soldiers and Marines to war, many of them cadets who were sitting before him in the West Point auditorium. That was known before he took the podium.
But he spoke with the conviction of a man who believes he can, with just 30,000 fresh troops and in only 18 months, do what others, including his own vice president, do not believe can be done at all: break the back of the Taliban, root out terrorist strongholds, stabilize a corrupt Afghan government and corral an equally corrupt ally in Pakistan.
And then turn the whole business over to junior-varsity Afghan security forces who have had what amounts to a speed-dating encounter with U.S. military trainers.
All this, without sacrificing the fragile recovery of our own economy, which is the source of our power in the world.
I don’t believe he can do any of these things, and I am alarmed that he is so certain that he can – or should even try.
I speak not as the mother of a son in the military, not as a liberal member of the East Coast media, and not as a member of some amorphous political base that is feeling betrayed.
I am speaking as a member of what I have often thought of as the Lowest Common Denominator group. If I am thinking that this is a futile effort at enormous cost that will accomplish nothing lasting, there are many who are thinking the same thing.
President Obama can be certain about that.