November 30, 2009
By George Russell FoxNews.org

Environmentalism should be regarded on the same level with religion “as the only compelling, value-based narrative available to humanity,” according to a paper written two years ago to influence the future strategy of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the world’s would-be environmental watchdog.

The purpose of the paper, put together after an unpublicized day-long session in Switzerland by some of the world’s top environmental bureaucrats: to argue for a new and unprecedented effort to move environmental concerns to “the center of political and economic decision-making” around the world — and perhaps not coincidentally, expand the influence and reach of UNEP at the tables of world power, as a rule-maker and potential supervisor of the New Environmental Order.

The positions argued in that paper now appear to be much closer at hand; many of them are embedded in a four-year strategy document for UNEP taking effect next year, in the immediate wake of the much-touted, 11-day Copenhagen conference on “climate change,” which starts on Dec. 7, and which is intended to push environmental concerns to a new crescendo.

The major difference is that the four-year UNEP plan expresses its aims in the carefully soporific language that U.N. organizations customarily use to swaddle their objectives. The Swiss document makes its case passionately — and more plainly — than any U.N. official document ever would.

The ambitious paper, entitled “The UNEP That We Want,” was the product of a select group of 20 top environmental bureaucrats and thinkers, including UNEP’s current No. 2 official, Angela Cropper. The document was later delivered to UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

Other participants included Janos Pasztor, currently head of the team pushing U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s unprecedented Seal the Deal lobbying campaign to pressure U.N. member governments into signing a new environmental agreement at Copenhagen; Julia Marton-Lefevre, head of the World Conservation Union; Dominic Waughray, currently head of environmental initiatives at the World Economic Forum; and Maria Ivanova, a Bulgarian academic who is director of the Global Economic Governance Project at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy.

Another important attendee was John Scanlon, listed on UNEP’s website as principal advisor to UNEP’s Steiner. Among other things, Scanlon is credited in his UNEP biography with being the leader in developing UNEP’s new medium-term strategy, “Environment for Development,” covering the period from 2010 to 2013. The draft version of the strategy was presented to a UNEP’s Governing Council and a meeting of the world’s environmental minister’s in February 2008, and subsequently approved.

The Swiss paper was written not by Scanlon but by Mark Halle, the Europe-based director of trade and investment for an influential environmental think-tank, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), which originated in Canada and now operates in some 30 countries. IISD, which still has heavy Canadian government support, bills itself as a research institute promoting policies that are “simultaneously beneficial to the global economy, the global environment and to social well-being.”

Even though all of the Swiss participants took part in the brainstorming, the responsibility for the ideas in the paper are his own, Halle emphasized to Fox News, after he was contacted last week about the document. The paper itself says it offers “elements,” not a “complete offering,” of what UNEP should consider for its role in the years ahead.

Despite those limitations, the report was “very well received” by UNEP’s hierarchy, according to Halle, and “it has had a great impact internally.” He added, “I have participated in several discussions and presentations of the ideas.”

In fact, there is a high degree of overlap between the ideas pulled together at the small Swiss meeting of experts and the ideas that also appear in the new strategic plan for UNEP, a copy of which has been obtained by Fox News.

Those ideas are being espoused at a highly charged time. Both environmentalists and the entire United Nations, led by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, are still fervently pressuring governments around the world to sign a legally binding and more global successor to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas suppression, which expires in 2012. At the moment, that deal appears likely to be delayed, at least until next spring, as some wealthy countries, including the U.S., balk at the high cost and potentially crippling economic impact of targets to reduce carbon emissions into the earth’s atmosphere, even though President Barack Obama supports an ambitious Copenhagen deal.

But UNEP’s strategic plan, as well as the IISD document that grew out of the Swiss gathering, look well beyond the horizon of Copenhagen in suggesting the outlines of the world’s environment-centered future, to what the strategic plan calls “the next phase in the evolution of UNEP.”

Among other things, both documents argue for:

—a “new and central position for environmentalism in the world’s thinking,” as the Swiss paper puts it. “The current environmental challenges and opportunities will cause the environment to move from often being considered as a marginal issue at the intergovernmental and national levels to the centre of political and economic decision-making,” says the medium-term plan.

—a new position in the international power game for UNEP, reaching far beyond the member governments that currently finance its core budget and make up its normal supervisors. “It will have to make itself relevant well beyond the world of those already concerned with the environment, including very prominently its own formal constituency,” as the Swiss paper puts it.

UNEP will “actively reach out to Governments, other United Nations entities, international institutions, multilateral environmental agreement secretariats, civil society, the private sector and other relevant partners to implement the Medium-term Strategy,” says the UNEP document.

—a major restructuring of international institutions to merge environmental issues with economics as the central priority. “We require an Environmental Bretton Woods for the 21st Century,” Halle argues — a reference to the meeting that laid the foundations of Western international finance and economic regulation after World War II. “The linkages between environmental sustainability and the economy will emerge as a key focus for public policymaking and a determinant of future markets opportunities,” according to the UNEP strategic plan.

—new environmental rules, regulations and standards, and the linking of existing environmental agreements, in a stronger global lattice-work of environmental law, with stronger authority to command national governments. The Swiss paper calls it a series of “ambitious yet incremental adjustments” to international environmental governance. Indeed, the document says, UNEP’s “role is to ‘tee up’ the next generation of such rules.”

The UNEP four-year strategy puts it more obliquely, and only in a footnote on page 7 of the document: “UNEP will actively participate in the continuing international environmental governance discussions both within and outside the United Nations system, noting the repeated calls to strengthen UNEP, including its financial base, and the ‘evolutionary nature of strengthening international environmental governance.’”

—an extensive propagandizing role for UNEP that reaches beyond its member governments and traditional environmental institutions to “children and youth” as well as business and political groups, to support UNEP strategic objectives.

As the Swiss paper puts it, UNEP “should pioneer a new style of work. This requires going beyond a narrow interpretation of UNEP’s stakeholders as comprising its member states — or even the world’s governments — and recruiting a far wider community of support, in civil society, the academic world and the private sector.” At the same time the paper warns that these groups need to be “harnessed to the UNEP mission without appearing to make an end-run around the member governments.”

The official four-year plan uses more restrained language in declaring that “civil society, including children and youth, and the private sector will be reached through tailor-made outreach products and campaigns…. Civil society will also be engaged to assist with UNEP outreach efforts.” (The term “civil society,” as used by the U.N., usually refers to organizations and associations that have received formal recognition from one branch or another of the sprawling world organization.)

—along with increased political leverage for UNEP, bringing increased financial leverage to its cause, once again by reaching beyond the national environmental ministries that traditionally are the organization’s financial base to more powerful sectors of government as well as business and other interest groups that will see profit and advantage in the new, environment centered approach.

Says the Swiss paper: “UNEP must focus on priorities that meet two characteristics: they should appeal to the more powerful [government] ministers responsible for economic policy; and they should empower environmental ministers at the cabinet table. UNEP’s message is not for environment ministers — the already converted…. It must aim higher.”

As UNEP’s four-year strategy more circumspectly puts it: “Mobilizing sufficient finance to meet environmental challenges, including climate change, extends well beyond global mechanisms negotiated under conventions. It will require efforts at local, national and global levels to engage with Governments and the private sector to achieve the necessary additional investment and financial flows.”

As far as UNEP itself is concerned, the document says, the organization “will raise contributions from the private sector, foundations and non-environmental funding windows…Funds will also be drawn from humanitarian, crisis and peacebuilding instruments, where appropriate.”

—Perhaps the most important function both documents see for the newly enhanced UNEP is to seek influence as the world’s guiding arbiter of a new measurement of human development. “We believe the environmental argument should be recast in terms of its importance for and potential contribution to prosperity, stability and equity,” the Swiss paper argues.

Or, more discreetly, as the strategy document puts it: “Integrated environmental assessments that highlight the state of the environment and trends will be used to inform decision-makers and ensure UNEP plays its lead environmental role in the United Nations system and strengthens its capacity to respond better to the global, regional and national needs of Governments.”

According to Halle, however, in an e-mail exchange with Fox News, there are signs that the hugely ambitious role he and his fellow-thinkers sketched for UNEP as religion’s main competitor are “beginning to happen.” Halle pointed to UNEP’s espousal this year of a so-called Green Economy Initiative, a proposal to radically redesign the global economy and transfer trillions of dollars in investment to the world’s poorest developing countries, but one that is couched in terms of providing new green jobs, an end to old, unfair carbon-based energy subsidies, and greater global fairness and opportunity. Halle called the development “quite exciting.”

The Green Economy Initiative, also called the Global Green New Deal, is a major counterpart to the new treaty on greenhouse gas suppression that all branches of the United Nations, and a horde of environmental organizations, are lobbying loudly to bring to agreement at the environmental summit in Copenhagen.

It is certain to remain a UNEP rallying cry long after the Copenhagen meeting is over — and while the other brainstorming ideas that went into the new four-year strategy, not to mention the strategy itself, go into effect.

George Russell is executive editor

FoxNews.com November 30, 2009

Obama Issues Marching Orders on Afghanistan War Strategy

The anti-war left is turning on the president it helped put into office, launching a counteroffensive against President Obama’s decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan.

Activist groups are joining liberal members of Congress in condemning the president’s expected announcement on Tuesday that he will order roughly 30,000 more troops to the war zone as part of an overhauled strategy to finish what President Bush started eight years ago. Some are urging him not to go through with it — though the strategy apparently is set in stone, with Obama having issued his final orders to his generals Sunday evening.

“I simply can’t believe you’re about to do what they say you are going to do,” documentary filmmaker Michael Moore said in an open letter to Obama posted on his Web site. Moore warned that Obama would tarnish his legacy, turn away his supporters and effectively crown himself the new “war president” by escalating the war in Afghanistan.

“With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics,” Moore wrote. “Your potential decision to expand the war … will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you’ve said and done in your first year.

“For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God’s sake, stop,” Moore wrote.

Such warnings speak to the deep divide the president will face Tuesday night when he announces his strategy during a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. Many Americans have grown weary of the war effort, and some regard the Afghan government as a hopelessly corrupt partner that will undermine U.S. military efforts there. Others hold Obama’s stated view that Afghanistan is the right war and must be pursued to prevent the region from becoming an international staging ground for more terrorist attacks.

Obama highlighted his opposition to the Iraq war, not the Afghanistan war, during his presidential campaign. He repeatedly criticized his top Democratic primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, for voting in favor of the Iraq war, and he held up his own opposition to that war as a state senator in Illinois as a sign of his foreign policy judgment.

Now the groups that cheered him for opposing the Iraq war are blasting him for diverting military resources back to Afghanistan.

MoveOn.org, which broke its tradition of not intervening in the Democratic primary process to endorse Obama over Clinton during the campaign, has urged members to send messages to the White House voicing their opposition to the troop increase.

“President Obama is poised to make a critical decision about the Afghanistan war in the next few weeks. He needs to hear that we need an exit strategy — not tens of thousands more troops stuck in a quagmire,” the group’s Web site says.

The activist group Code Pink is urging people to protest and hold vigils before, during and after Obama’s speech. The group asked Obama to “stop the surge” and begin withdrawing troops.

While Republicans in Congress expressed dismay that Obama took three months to reach a decision on Afghanistan strategy, some Democratic members of Congress are siding with the anti-war groups in saying it’s time to wind down U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., who has called for a new tax to pay for the escalation, has made clear he’s opposed to Obama’s strategy.

“The problem is that you can have the best policy in the world, but if you don’t have the tools to implement it, it isn’t worth a beanbag. And I don’t think we have the tools in the Pakistani government and I don’t think we have the tools in the Afghan government. And until we do, I think much of what we do is a fool’s errand,” Obey told CNN on Sunday.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Sunday that while the administration cannot bring the troops home “tomorrow,” it should seek more international cooperation.

“I’ve got a real problem about expanding this war where the rest of the world is sitting around and saying, ‘isn’t it a nice thing that the taxpayers of the United States and the U.S. military are doing the work that the rest of the world should be doing’?” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”

And Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a leading skeptic of a surge-style strategy, said Sunday that the administration needs to focus more on building the Afghan army.

“I favored additional trainers. I have favored a real surge in equipment. But the key here is an Afghan surge, not an American surge,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” questioning whether more U.S. troops could do anything to increase the number of Afghan forces.

But the White House is trying to assure both sides of the debate, offering the troop increase while placing renewed emphasis on an exit strategy.

“This is not an open-ended commitment,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday.

Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”

The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.

Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, discovered data had been lost when he asked for original records. “The CRU is basically saying, ‘Trust us’. So much for settling questions and resolving debates with science,” he said.

Jones was not in charge of the CRU when the data were thrown away in the 1980s, a time when climate change was seen as a less pressing issue. The lost material was used to build the databases that have been his life’s work, showing how the world has warmed by 0.8C over the past 157 years.

He and his colleagues say this temperature rise is “unequivocally” linked to greenhouse gas emissions generated by humans. Their findings are one of the main pieces of evidence used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says global warming is a threat to humanity.

Times Online.

Monday, November 30, 2009
FoxNews.com

A racing yacht carrying five British crew members was stopped in Iranian waters Wednesday and its crew taken to Iran, the British government confirmed.

“On 25 November, a racing yacht owned by Sail Bahrain and crewed by five British nationals, was stopped by Iranian naval vessels,” reads a statement from Britain’s Foreign Office.

“The yacht was on its way from Bahrain to Dubai and may have strayed inadvertently into Iranian waters. The five crew members are still in Iran.”

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said U.K. officials have been in touch with Tehran and are trying to resolve the matter swiftly.

“Our Ambassador in Tehran has raised the issue with the Iranian Foreign Ministry and we have discussed the matter with the Iranian Embassy in London,” he said.

The Foreign Office statement added that all the crew members aboard the yacht are “safe and well” and their families were informed before the information went public.

From Sky News.

War tax proponent Obey calls expected troop surge a ‘fool’s errand’

By Jim Snyder – 11/29/09 01:19 PM ET

The chief architect of a bill to increase taxes to pay for the Afghanistan war said he didn’t believe adding troops would yield much benefit.

“The problem is you can have the best policy in the world but if you don’t have the tools to implement it it isn’t worth a bean bag,”

Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.), the House Appropriations Committee chairman, told CNN on Sunday.

President Barack Obama is expected to announce on Tuesday he will add 30,000 troops to the war effort in Afghanistan to stem the rise of Taliban and to pursue al-Qaeda.

But Obey said supporting a corrupt Afghan government by adding troops amounted to a “fool’s errand.”

If policymakers believe continuing the war effort in Afghanistan was an important public policy, Obey added, then they should be willing to pay for it by raising taxes on higher income levels. The war would likely cost as much over the next decade as the effort to reforming the healthcare system, Obey said.

“If we’re being told we have to pay for healthcare we certainly pay for this effort as well,” Obey said. Otherwise, Congress would eventually have to raid other parts of the budget targeted at education or the economy to fund the war effort. Using deficit spending to pay for the operations has also removed most Americans from any burden in the war effort.

“In this war, we have not had any sense of shared sacrifice,” Obey said.

Obey’s bill would increase taxes by 1 percent on incomes over $150,000. Tax rates would increase further at higher income levels.

The financial cost of sending more troops to Afghanistan was a central theme on Sunday talk shows.

Earlier on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said a surtax should be part of the debate about how to pay for the war.

“We’re going to have to have a serious talk about budget and about the $1 trillion deficit we are in now and will continue to be in,” Lugar said.

But his colleague, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), told ABC’s “This Week” that Congress should cut spending to pay for the additional troops.

TheHill.com.

International Security Assistance Force HQ Public Affairs

Date: 11.30.2009

KABUL, Afghanistan – The second U.S. paratrooper who was missing after being swept away by a fast moving current while on an airdrop re-supply mission Nov. 4 in western Afghanistan was found yesterday.

Sgt. Brandon Islip, 24, was recovered from the Bala Murgahab River in Badghis province after a local Afghan citizen provided information on his whereabouts.

United Kingdom divers searching the river recovered Spc. Benjamin Sherman, 21, Nov. 10. Sherman was posthumously promoted to sergeant.

Islip and Sherman from the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, were infantrymen assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment. They were attached to 2nd Battalion, 321st Airborne Field Artillery Regiment to advise and train Afghan national security forces.

In the weeks following their disappearance, a combined search and recovery effort involving Afghan national security forces, international forces, and 4th Brigade Combat Team paratroopers resulted in the recovery of the remains of the missing paratroopers in the Bala Murghab District, Badghis province.

Support from all military and civilian agencies in Afghanistan was unwavering and directly led to the timely recovery of the paratroopers, said Col. Brian M. Drinkwine, commander of the 4th BCT.

“The recovery of Islip and Sherman would not have been possible without the untiring support and efforts of our fellow international forces, the Afghan national security forces and the local people of Bala Murghab,” said Col. Drinkwine. “We owe a great debt of gratitude to our fellow warriors of the Marines, Air Force, Navy, the Italian and Spanish forces of Regional Command-West, Regional Command-South, the Afghan national security forces and the leaders of Bala Murghab.”

Located in Regional Command-West, initial support to Bala Murghab came from Afghan, Spanish and Italian forces in the area.

As the situation developed and a larger, sustained recovery operation was put into place, additional support was requested and given for the mission.

Aviation support from the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade allowed for a rapid increase of troop strength in the area over the following days. Regional Command-South and West assisted in providing British divers, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, and additional aviation assets to aid in the search.

Recovery efforts focused on searching the river and engaging the local government and leaders to assist in the search.

“We never leave a fallen comrade behind,” said Drinkwine. “We can only hope the families of Islip and Sherman will receive some peace knowing their loved ones have been recovered.”

A memorial service for the two paratroopers will be held in Afghanistan in the coming days.

via Digital Video & Imagery Distribution System.

For those who need a picture,
To the Congress:

The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775 – you have had 234 years to get it right; it is broke.

Social Security was established in 1935 – you have had 74 years to get it right; it is broke.

Fannie Mae was established in 1938 – you have had 71 years to get it right; it is broke..

The “War on Poverty” started in 1964 – you have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to “the poor”; it hasn’t worked and our entire country is broke.

Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 – you’ve had 44 years to get it right; they are broke.

Freddie Mac was established in 1970 – you have had 39 years to get it right; it is broke.

Trillions of dollars were spent in the massive political payoffs called TARP, the “Stimulus”, the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009…. none show any signs of working, although ACORN appears to have found a new source: the American taxpayer.

And finally, to set a new record:

“Cash for Clunkers” was established in 2009 and went broke in 2009! It took cars (that were the best some people could afford) and replaced them with high-priced and less-affordable cars, mostly Japanese. A good percentage of the profits went out of the country. And the American taxpayers take the hit for Congress’ generosity in burning three billion more of our dollars on failed experiments.

So with a perfect 100% failure rate and a record that proves that “services” you shove down our throats are failing faster and faster, you want Americans to believe you can be trusted with a government-run health care system?

20% of our entire economy?

With all due respect,

Are you crazy?

November 29, 2009 (AP)

WASHINGTON — The military says Capt. Michael “Scott” Speicher died when his fighter jet was shot down over Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War and was never captured or tortured.

But Speicher’s family is unconvinced.

The Navy pilot’s remains were identified earlier this year under about 18 inches of sand in the Iraqi desert.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, the chief of POW/MIA analysis at the Defense Intelligence Agency describes a series of twists and the duplicity of Saddam Hussein’s government led to a number of false leads and rumors about Speicher’s survival.

Thomas Brown worked on Speicher’s case for 15 years. He says while Speicher status was changed from killed in action to missing 10 years after the crash and intelligence suggested Iraq was either holding him prisoner or hiding his remains.

But Brown says in the end, it turned out that Saddam’s government had told the truth about the crash site in Anbar province at the start.

The military has declared the Speicher case closed, but for his family, the ending is too neat. One family member sees it as an effort to whitewash the Pentagon’s failure to launch a search and rescue mission in 1991.

Defense officials declared Speicher killed in action hours after his plane was shot down over west-central Iraq. Then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney announced on television that Speicher was the first casualty of the Gulf War.

Ten years after the crash, the Navy changed Speicher’s status to missing in action, citing an absence of evidence that Speicher had died. In October 2002, the Navy switched his status to “missing/captured,” although it has never said what evidence it had that he may have been in captivity.

Over the years, critics contended the Navy had not done enough, particularly right after the crash, to search for the 33-year-old pilot.

The military recovered bones and multiple skeletal fragments, and Speicher was identified by matching a jawbone and dental records.

The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Rockville, Md., is running DNA tests on the remains and comparing them with DNA reference samples from family members.

In this new day and age of our military legal system eating our own, if you haven’t noticed the military’s Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps has been prosecuting brave heroes left and right, while known terrorists are being offered the same protections that you or I are offered through the Constitution of the United States of America; maybe it is time to hold the highest ranking member of the military to the same standard as our troops.  No, I am not talking about any of our Generals, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the Secretary’s of the Services or Defense.  I am talking about the Commander-in-Chief, by technicality the highest ranking member of the military.

If we were to look back over the last couple of years we’d see many prosecutions by the JAG Corps that are not only sketchy at best but may even border on criminal prosecutions.  And it is not only the current Commander-in-Chief, President Obama, whose watch that this has happened on; it happened during the President George W. Bush Administration as well.  It just seems to have been given a massive dose of steroids as of late.  It all seems to start just after the 2006 elections in which the Democrats had taken control of both Houses of Congress.

You could make the argument that it started with the incident at Haditha in Iraq; where 24 Iraqis were killed in a fire fight, at least 9 of which were active combatants.

Of the eight Marines charged with crimes ranging from negligent manslaughter to premeditated murder, charges have been dropped for all except one.  Staff Sergeant Wuterich is still awaiting his Court Martial.  This does not mean that they are all out of the woods yet as the charges against Lieutenant Colonel Chessani have been dropped, but he is still facing a Board of Inquiry that may end his career in the United States Marine Corps.

Emboldened Democrats in Congress called for an investigation of the alleged cover up.  Leading this charge was Rep John Murtha, ex-Marine (as a Marine myself all slight intended), who went so far as to say that this incident was nothing more than retribution for the murder of Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas.  In fact he even said that this was a case of “Cold blooded murder” several times on different politically themed national television shows.  Rep Murtha even went as far as inferring that the Commandant of the Marine Corps had admitted that there was a cover up of the incident in Haditha Iraq in an interview with a major journalist with the MSM.  Murtha said “the Commandant was in my office last week” inferring that there indeed was a cover up; thankfully the journalist asked the follow up question.  The journalist asked if the Commandant directly admitted to the cover up, to which Murtha replied “don’t put words in my mouth”.  It is obvious to me that this was just another political trick to spin and manipulate the information to appear to be something other than what it was.

Then there was the three Marines that were charged with murder for killing bad guys during Operation Phantom Fury, the big fight in Fallujah, Iraq.  Two of the Marines faced Court Martial’s while a third was charged in Federal Court, Sgt Jose Nazario had already been discharged from the United States Marine Corps before the charges were brought.

The first of the three to go on trial was Sgt Jose Nazario.

Even though he had been Honorably Discharged from the Marines and was currently working as a Police Officer in Riverside, California, he was not outside the reach of the Federal Government for political prosecution.  I call it a political prosecution because there was absolutely no physical evidence, there were no witnesses against Nazario, and the fight in Iraq was still not a favorable topic in the partisan halls of the United States Congress.

It was alleged that Sgt Nazario had found four unarmed terrorists in a building while fighting house to house and took them prisoner.  When the Fire Team called back for instructions on how to handle the prisoners they were told by higher command to kill them.  All four terrorists were allegedly killed in cold blood as they were unarmed at the time of their deaths.  The problem is that the charges came about two years after the incident occurred; the building that this allegedly happened in was not even standing at the time that the charges were leveled and there were no witnesses or forensic evidence to back the charges.

Sgt’s Nazario and Weemer were acquitted of all charges; Sgt Nelson made a deal with the prosecution and pled guilty to Dereliction of Duty to have the Murder charges dropped.

There was not much reported on the trials of Weemer and Nelson.  Maybe because they were tried in the military judicial system, maybe because Sgt Nazario had already been acquitted; regardless of the reason why Nelson and Weemer did not get the attention of the press the part of the story that was never reported is that all three were offered immunity to testify against those in higher command who gave the alleged order to kill the unarmed prisoners.

In my estimation there was no murder.  In my estimation there was no order to murder unarmed prisoners.  And even if there was an order given to kill unarmed prisoners, every person who has put on one of the uniforms of the United States military knows that such an order did not have to be followed as it would have been an unlawful order.  These prosecutions were politically motivated as a way of decreasing the support of our military so that the defunding of the war in Iraq would have garnered political support that it was not receiving at the time.

Don’t forget about the Lieutenant Michael Behenna case.  Mike is currently serving a 20 year sentence for killing Ali Mansur a known member of al qaeda in self defense.

Ali Mansur was known by the Military Intelligence community operating in Iraq to be a member of al qaeda, and they knew that he had been involved with the deaths of US Servicemen.  Unfortunately because Mansur only had one Intel Report against him he was being released; and Behenna was tasked with driving Mansur back to his neighborhood.

On the ride back to Mansur’s house Behenna decided to try to get the names of the others involved in the IED attack that was coordinated by Mansur and had killed two members of the platoon that Behenna was tasked with bringing home safely.  Behenna took Mansur into a culvert along the route home and began to interrogate him with the help of his interpreter.

During the interrogation Mansur said something in answer to one of Lt Behenna’s question that Behenna did not understand.  As Mike turned towards his Iraqi interpreter Mansur lunged at Behenna trying to take Mike’s service pistol.  As he was trained Mike pulled the trigger twice.  Mike shot him once under his outstretched arm, and once in the temple as Mansur fell to the ground.

When the Army decided to prosecute Mike he was not taken into custody and held, which to me seems a little bit strange.  I mean why would you allow a dangerous criminal, whether in the Army or a civilian, continue to mingle with the general public?  Mike was even assigned to run a security detail for then President Bush.  Boy he seems pretty dangerous alright; but only if you are an enemy of the United States of America.  But that should be everyone who is wearing a uniform of the United States military.

The story only gets screwier from here.  You see the JAG lawyers assigned to prosecute the case against Mike hired a world renowned forensic expert to discredit the testimony of Lt Behenna on the stand.  Now I know that this only seems like the type of thing that would be done by any diligent prosecutor; the problem comes in not because the prosecution lawyers did not use Dr. MacDonnell but in why they did not use the testimony of Dr. MacDonnell.

You see after hearing the testimony given by Mike on the stand in his own defense Dr. MacDonnell said that Mike was telling the truth.  Forensically the only way that Mansur died was in the exact manner that Mike said that he did.  Dr. MacDonnell was sent home by the prosecution because he did not agree with the prosecutions premise that Mike shot Mansur in the head first and then tried to cover it up by shooting Mansur in the chest.

Mike has been sitting in Fort Leavenworth while the appeal process is ongoing since March 27^th, 2009.

Now some of the incidents that you have read did not happen while President Obama was sitting behind the big desk in the Oval Office there are things that have been going on that seem to be counter productive to helping our troops, the Soldiers and Marines on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, complete their missions.

At the moment it is his Department of Defense that is prosecuting three Navy SEAL’s for the assault of the most wanted bad guy in Iraq.  It seems that in the process of capturing the man who was in charge of the killing, mutilation and display of four members of Blackwater International the SEAL’s in question bloodied the lip of the terrorist.  Maybe it is just me, but from what I have heard about SEAL’s, if they had assaulted the terrorist he would be in some Intensive Care Unit.  These brave SEAL’s are scheduled to be arraigned December 7^th.

The question that needs to be answered now is:  Can the highest ranking member of the military stand Court Martial?  Or maybe the question should be:  Should the highest ranking member of the military be held to the same high standard of conduct as the Marine Lance Corporal or Army Private First Class (both ranks are E3’s in their respective Branches)?

My own personal answer to these questions is YES!

Going through the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) I can find a few articles that President Obama could be charged with.

The first of which is:

ART. 104. AIDING THE ENEMY

Any person who–

(1) aids, or attempts to aid, the enemy with arms, ammunition, supplies, money, or other things; or

(2) without proper authority, knowingly harbors or [protects or gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly;

shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.

It was just the end of February that President Obama sent just shy of one billion dollars to a known terrorist organization.  Ok so we are not in a direct conflict with Hamas, it is our greatest ally in the Middle East that is currently fighting directly against Hamas.  This really doesn’t change the fact that President Obama is aiding an enemy of the United States of America.

If that is not enough for you to think that President is Aiding the Enemy, what about the fact that President Obama just said that the Taliban is not our enemy because they are goal oriented; so is the Mafia and most serial killers.  I wonder if the Department of Justice is going to stop prosecuting them too.

The next Article under the UCMJ that President Obama could be charged with is:

ART. 119. MANSLAUGHTER

(a) Any person subject to this chapter who, with an intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm, unlawfully kills a human being in the heat of sudden passion caused by adequate provocation is guilty of voluntary manslaughter and shall be punished as a court- martial may direct.

(b) Any person subject to this chapter who, without an intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm, unlawfully kills a human being–

(1) by culpable negligence; or

(2) while perpetrating or attempting to perpetrate an offense, other than those named in clause (4) of section 918 of this title (article 118), directly affecting the person;

is guilty of involuntary manslaughter and shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

This charge would be in direct correlation to either of two issues that I have been working on with others.

The first of the issues would be the current Rules of Engagement (ROE’s) that our troops are currently operating under.  But you may ask how you charge someone for making a rule that hasn’t killed anybody; simple it is the reason that four Marines, a Navy Corpsman and eight members of the Afghan National Army are dead.

On September 8^th a contingency of Marines acting in an advisory role were accompanying a Afghan National Army unit to have talks with an Afghan village elder.  As they entered the open area leading to the winding road up to the village the Taliban opened fire on them.  The air support that was covering them was in the middle of a fight at a different location and was unavailable as the rounds continued to slam into the ground around the Marines.

As the Marines moved back out of the kill zone, fighting valiantly as they moved, they called the artillery unit that was assigned to provide fire support.  It was reported to the artillery unit that women and children were present in the impact zone, where the shells were going to land and explode, because of this and the new ROE’s meant to avoid civilian casualties the artillery unit did not provide the support that was being requested.  This may seem reasonable to some of you reading this, but how many of our son’s and daughter’s, brother’s and sister’s, mom’s and dad’s are we willing to sacrifice to save a few not so innocent civilians?  I say not so innocent civilians because the women and children that were present in the impact zone were actively supporting the Taliban fighting positions.  In my own opinion this no longer gives them the protection of being a noncombatant.

Then just for good measure we could throw one of the catch all general articles at President Obama like this one.

ART. 134. GENERAL ARTICLE

Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court.

Article 134 could be used to prosecute President Obama for the promise of ending the policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” because it would and will have a detrimental impact on the good order and discipline of the armed forces of America.

Or Article 134 could be used to Court Martial President Obama for the Lack of a decision on the strategy to be used to win the war in Afghanistan.  You know the war that President Obama has called the “Good War”.  The war that President Obama said is a “War of Necissity”.

President Obama continues to tell the American public that he supports the troops, even went so far as to tell the troops at one of his visits to see the bravest of the brave that he would get the American public to support them as well.  The problem with that is that it was nothing but a political trick, the American public is already firmly behind our troops; or the majority of the American public is firmly behind our troops and their missions!

Glenn Beck over the past few months has been calling for another 53 brave men or women to be “Refounders”; I am only calling for a few brave officers in the United States Army, United States Navy, United States Air Force and the United States Marine Corps to be brave enough to hold the highest ranking member of the Armed Forces to the same standards of conduct that he, President Obama, expects the lowest ranking members of the Armed Forces to live up to.

November 28, 2009
FOXNews.com

In his prime-time speech from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York, Obama is expected to announce he’s sending up to 35,000 more troops — while trying to affirm he has found a clear path of success in a country known as the graveyard of empires.President Obama said he intended to “finish the job” in Afghanistan. Now he has to say how.

No sweat? Hardly.

When the president announces his plans for the war Tuesday, he will have plenty of people to convince: frustrated liberals in Congress opposed to any troop surges, Republicans who have questioned Obama’s lengthy deliberations and an American public that increasingly is giving up on the eight-year war.

“The president has a tough job on Tuesday,” Patrick Murphy, a former adviser to the Clinton administration, told Fox News. “I think what he’s doing and has done for the last two or three months is really taken a careful look at the situation and responding with this war of the military.”

In his prime-time speech from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York, Obama is expected to announce he’s sending up to 35,000 more troops — while trying to affirm he has found a clear path of success in a country known as the graveyard of empires.

The speech caps several weeks of deliberations, including nine meetings with his war council, that has drawn criticism from conservatives who say the deliberative pace has emboldened the Taliban and endangered the troops.

Obama has been weighing whether to grant the request of his top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, for 40,000 additional troops or to follow his political advisers’ advice to scale back the effort and focus on pursuing Al Qaeda in Pakistan while cutting deals with the Taliban.

Foreign policy experts say the strategy must go beyond a change in troop levels.

“The feeling is the number of troops is not to going to change the outcome of the war. It will make a difference but not change it,” said Akbar Ahmed, former Pakistani ambassador to the United Kingdom and professor of Islamic studies at American University

“What will change the outcome will be a strategy,” he said. “President Obama really needs to give a clear cut strategy which ensures a long-term, stable relationship which guards the interest of America, relationship with Afghanistan and Pakistan. And that’s a difficult order because right now you have unpopular incompetent and corrupt leaders of both Kabul and Islamabad.”

Maj. Gen. Bob Scales told Fox News that the troop surge and a political strategy is needed.

“You need the additional troops to get enough boots on the ground to be able to effect any strategy,” he said, adding that the strategy needs to “take the initiative away from the enemy,” reduce corruption in both countries and train the Afghan security forces.

“Right now, the Afghan army probably has no more than 45,000 effectives,” he said. “In order to get the ratios they need, they need about a quarter of a million. That’s a lot of troops to train in very little time.”

Republican strategist Angela McGlowan told Fox News that NATO will also be closely watching the president’s speech Tuesday to determine whether it should stand by the president and commit more troops.

“So the president is going to have a tough night,” she said. “He’s going to have to use his diplomatic skills. He’s going to have be very precise. Why are we still in this war. Why are we doing this war and what should NATO stand fast with the president.”

Operational Update, Nov. 28: Militants Detained in Logar, Khowst

International Security Assistance Force HQ Public Affairs RSS

Date: 11.28.2009

KABUL, Afghanistan – An Afghan-international security force detained a few suspected militants in Logar province today while pursuing a Taliban IED facilitator involved with several attacks in the area.

The joint security force targeted compounds near the village of Alozi in the Pul-e Alam District where intelligence sources reported militant activity. The joint force searched the compounds without incident and detained the suspected militants.

In a separate operation today, an Afghan-international security force detained a couple of suspected militants in Khowst province while pursuing a Haqqani facilitator allegedly involved with the planning of attacks and the transport of fighters into the area.

The joint security force secured a compound near the village of Lewan Kheyl in the Sabari District after intelligence indicated militant activity. The joint force searched the compound without incident and detained the suspected militants. The force also recovered a number of AK-47 rifles and military-grade batteries.

No shots were fired and no one was injured in either of the operations.

ISAF Casualties

ISAF suffered no fatalities in the last 24 hours.

Sunday, November 29, 2009
FoxNews.com

TEHRAN, Iran — The Iranian government approved a plan Sunday to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities, a dramatic expansion in defiance of U.N. demands it halt the program.

The decision comes only two days after the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency censured Iran, demanding it immediately stop building a newly revealed enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom and freeze all uranium enrichment activities.

A Cabinet meeting headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to begin building five uranium enrichment sites that have already been studied and propose five other locations for future construction within two months.

In Vienna, spokeswoman Gillian Tudor said the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency would have no comment. But the announcement is likely to stoke already high tensions between Iran and the West over its controversial nuclear activities.

Iran has one industrial-scale uranium enrichment plant near Natanz, in central Iran. The IAEA said earlier this month that about 8,600 centrifuges had been set up in Natanz, but only about 4,000 were enriching uranium. The facility will eventually house 54,000 centrifuges.

The newly revealed enrichment site, known as Fordo, is a small scale site that will house nearly 3,000 centrifuges.

IRNA said the Cabinet ordered that the 10 new sites have a scale equal to Natanz’s.

In the enrichment process, uranium gas is spun in centrifuges to purify it. Enriched to a low degree, the result is fuel for a nuclear reactor — but highly enriched uranium can be used to build a warhead. The United States and its allies accuse Iran of secretly seeking to develop a bomb, a claim denied by Iran, which says it seeks only to generate electricity.

Under Iranian law, Iran’s nuclear agency has been tasked with providing 20,000 megawatts of electricity through nuclear power plants during in the next 20 years. IRNA said the country needs to build enrichment facilities to produce nuclear fuel for its future power plants.

Ahmadinejad told the Cabinet that Iran will need to install 500,000 centrifuges throughout the planned enrichment facilities to produce between 250 to 300 tons of fuel annually.

November 29, 2009 -
By: Greg Palkot Fox News

Eighteen “enemy” forces were killed in an overnight clash near the Afghan border in Tani, Khost, Major Matt Gregory at Camp Salerno told Fox News.

The clash happened when a group variously described as Taliban or Foreign Fighters apparently came across the Pakistani border and attacked an Afghan Border Police position. The ABP were involved in a prolonged firefight and contacted the nearby U.S. Combat Outpost at Tani. U.S. air strikes were called in.

In addition to finding the bodies, U.S. soldiers at the scene Sunday have recovered numerous heavy weapons including RPG’s.

The Afghan Border police, as well as Afghan Army and Afghan Police, are training and conducting operations with the U.S. Army now in this critical area.

Cross border strikes by the dangerous “Haqqani” faction of the Taliban are frequent. This group has close links to Al Qaeda. Fox News was embedded with troops in the region last week.
November 29, 2009 – 10:25 AM | by: Greg Palkot
Eighteen “enemy” forces were killed in an overnight clash near the Afghan border in Tani, Khost, Major Matt Gregory at Camp Salerno told Fox News.

The clash happened when a group variously described as Taliban or Foreign Fighters apparently came across the Pakistani border and attacked an Afghan Border Police position. The ABP were involved in a prolonged firefight and contacted the nearby U.S. Combat Outpost at Tani. U.S. air strikes were called in.

In addition to finding the bodies, U.S. soldiers at the scene Sunday have recovered numerous heavy weapons including RPG’s.

The Afghan Border police, as well as Afghan Army and Afghan Police, are training and conducting operations with the U.S. Army now in this critical area.

Cross border strikes by the dangerous “Haqqani” faction of the Taliban are frequent. This group has close links to Al Qaeda. Fox News was embedded with troops in the region last week.

Nov. 29, 2009 (AP)

President Obama is expected to announce Tuesday an additional 30,000-35,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, which reportedly may start with 9,000 Marines being deployed to southern Afghanistan followed by 1,000 Army trainers in February.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that final preparations for the 9,000 Marines will commence as part of a deployment aimed at Helmand province, where the Taliban stronghold has been partly gutted by an additional 10,000 Marines sent earlier this year.
“The first troops out of the door are going to be Marines,” Gen. James T. Conway, the Corps’ top officer, told Marines in Afghanistan on Saturday, according to the newspaper. “We’ve been leaning forward in anticipation of a decision. And we’ve got some pretty stiff fighting coming.”

Obama is expected to announce on Tuesday his new strategy for the eight-year-old conflict in Afghanistan. Speaking at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., the president is expected to call for 30,000 to 35,000 new troops to be deployed over the next 12 to 18 months.

Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., said additional NATO troops are likely to make up the difference between the number Obama will authorize and the 40,000 requested by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander on the ground.

Bayh said he is “going to trust the tactical judgment” of Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the appropriate force size, and that Obama and Gates “have to show some deference to the military commander,” but McChrystal’s suggestions “are just recommendations, they are not the Ten Commandments.”

Bayh, who was on “Fox News Sunday,” and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” both said that U.S. national security depends on getting it right in Afghanistan.

But the speed of deployment worries Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who said Sunday that a phased deployment will not force rapid change as the surge in Iraq did and will create more problems, as Vietnam demonstrated.

“You need to put in everybody you can as quickly as you can and deliver a knockout punch to the enemy,” Kyl told “Fox News Sunday.”

Bayh said that while he’d like to get troops on the ground as quickly as possible, the Afghan infrastructure also must be able to absorb them.

Supporters of a phased deployment say it will allow Obama to determine whether the counterinsurgency strategy proposed by McChrystal is working, as well as whether the Afghan government — and Pakistani government, which is battling Taliban in its northeast region — are doing their part in battering terrorist insurgents while also meeting goals of tamping down corruption and building up their own military and police forces.

But opponents of the war, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., say the cost of Afghanistan is too heavy a price for the United States, particularly since China and Russia are not helping.

“You’ve got to put Afghanistan in the context of what is happening in the United States today,” Sanders said on ABC’s “This Week,” adding the U.S. recession is deep and the gap between rich and poor in the U.S. continues to grow.

“So I’ve got a real problem on expanding the war when the rest of the world is saying isn’t it a nice thing that the U.S. taxpayer” is carrying the burden, Sanders said.

Graham said he’d be happy for Congress to engage in exercises on how to reduce the cost of war spending, but Bayh and Kyl said it’s not the time to discuss a war tax, as was suggested by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis.

“We have to provide for the nation’s security regardless of our finances,” said Bayh, adding that raising taxes during a recovery is not good economics.

Bayh and Kyl agreed that it is premature to discuss an exit strategy. Kyl said it sends a signal to allies and enemies that the United States is only marginally committed. However, Bayh said he wants a strategy to include the message to the Afghans and Pakistanis that “we’re here for the duration as long as you’re doing your part.”

Already European leaders are planning a Jan. 28 meeting in London to discuss progressively handing over security of Afghanistan to the Afghans in order to reduce the number of NATO forces. At the same time, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he’d be willing to send an additional 500 British troops if the Karzai government shows progress against corruption.

National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said Saturday the conference is an opportunity to build on a meeting in Brussels at the end of the week to determine the role of the coalition countries in Afghanistan in helping security transition, governance, economic development and reconciliation.

Saturday, November 28, 2009
FoxNews.com

Theran, Iran — Iran’s parliament may consider withdrawing the country from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in response to a resolution by the U.N. nuclear watchdog censuring Tehran over its nuclear program, a hardline lawmaker said Saturday.

Mohammad Karamirad, a senior lawmaker, said parliament may also consider blocking inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Tehran has allowed such inspections so far.

The threats come a day after the board of the U.N. nuclear agency passed a resolution demanding Tehran immediately stop building its newly revealed nuclear facility near the holy city of Qom and freeze uranium enrichment.

Karamirad does not speak for the government but his statements reflect hardline thinking that the government usually pursues.

Iranian lawmakers threatened to pull the country out of the nonproliferation treaty in 2006, during another time of increased pressure by the U.N. over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran backed down, and the government has said in the past that it has no intention of withdrawing from the treaty.

“The parliament, in its first reaction to this illegal and politically-motivated resolution, can consider the issue of withdrawing from NPT,” Karamirad was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency, referring to the treaty.

“The parliament … (also) can block the entry of IAEA inspectors to the country,” he said.

Karamirad, a member of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said Iran was determined to continue its nuclear activities.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s chief delegate to the IAEA, also dismissed the IAEA’s fresh demands, saying Saturday on state television that Iran will limit its cooperation with the U.N. agency to its treaty obligations and will not cooperate beyond that.

“Our first reaction to this resolution is that they (IAEA) should not expect us to do what we did several times in the past few months when we cooperated beyond our obligations to remove ambiguities,” Soltanieh said.

Soltanieh stressed the resolution won’t stop Iran from continuing to enrich uranium.

Related Stories•IAEA Votes to Censure Iran for Nuclear Defiance
He said the country’s nuclear activities will not be interrupted by resolutions from the U.N. nuclear agency’s board, the U.N. Security Council or even the threat of military strikes against the facilities.

Friday’s resolution — and the resulting vote of the IAEA’s 35-nation decision-making board — were significant on several counts.

Iranian officials have shrugged off the resolution’s approval by 25 members of the 35-nation board, including the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. The vote marked a rare measure of unity from the six world powers on Iran.

Moscow and Beijing have traditionally cautioned against efforts to punish Iran for its defiance over its nuclear program, either preventing new Security Council sanctions or watering down their potency.

The IAEA resolution criticized Iran for defying a U.N. Security Council ban on uranium enrichment — the source of both nuclear fuel and the fissile core of warheads.

It also censured Iran for secretly building a uranium enrichment facility, known as Fordo, and demanded that it immediately suspend further construction. The resolution noted that IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei cannot confirm that Tehran’s nuclear program is exclusively geared toward peaceful uses, and expressed “serious concern” that Iranian stonewalling of an IAEA probe means “the possibility of military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program” cannot be excluded

Liberals Vow to ‘Spank’ Obama for Sending More Troops to Afghanistan
By Stephen Clark
- FOXNews.com Nov. 29, 2009

President Obama is days away from announcing a new Afghan strategy, but his immediate battle could come from liberals within his own party who are vowing to “spank” the president for committing tens of thousands of more troops to the eight-year conflict.

In a prime-time speech Tuesday from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Obama is expected to announce that he is sending up to 35,000 additional troops to Afghanistan beginning next year.

The figure is short of the 40,000 troops his top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, requested — but enough to anger many congressional Democrats who oppose any potential troop surge, arguing that the mission is too expensive and lacks a clear objective.

“I think there will be some disillusionment within his base,” said Paul Kawika Martin, political director for Peace Action, a grassroots organization, who added that thousands of activists are planning to protest following the president’s announcement.

“We’re going to spank him for sending more troops,” he told FoxNews.com, adding that they may also “thank him” if he announces a quick exit strategy.

The White House has said that the U.S. won’t be in Afghanistan for another eight or nine years. But that won’t satisfy liberals, Martin said.

Even though Obama’s announcement is sure to reawaken the anti-war movement, Martin said, the protests won’t be as intense as they were in the Bush era because the movement has been weakened by the economic recession — some organizations have shed up to 40 percent of staff in the past year, he said — and is distracted by the national health care debate. He also said many members of the movement voted for Obama and trust him more than the Bush administration.

“So you don’t have that same type of anger,” he said.

But without the support of congressional Democrats, Obama will find himself in the awkward position of relying on the support of Republicans who largely oppose his domestic agenda. And he may have to explain how he supports a troop surge in Afghanistan when he opposed one in Iraq two years ago.

Republicans, though, see the announcement as a chance for Obama to finally work with both political sides.

“The president does face a serious battle inside his own caucus, his own party, particularly in the House of Representatives,” former senior Bush adviser Karl Rove told Fox News. “But here’s a moment for bipartisanship. I suspect the president will easily win support for this if he reaches out and melds together the Democrats who are willing to support his war policy with the Republicans. I suspect virtually every Republican will support the president in this if he asks for their support.”

Before Obama speaks Tuesday, he is meeting at the White House with all the Democratic chairmen of the relevant committees along with their Republican counterparts.

Two top Democrats have already said they will push for a “war surtax,” a new tax on the wealthy to pay for any increase in U.S. troops for the war.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which controls the pursestrings for the war, and Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, are making the demands.

“If we have to pay for the health care bill, we should pay for the war as well … by having a war surtax,” Obey told ABC News this week. “The problem in this country with this issue is that the only people that has to sacrifice are military families and they’ve had to go to the well again and again and again and again, and everybody is blithely unaffected by the war.”

Republican Blasts ACORN Reprieve
By Foon Rhee, Political Intelligence: deputy national political editor
November 27, 2009

A top House Republican today blasted a ruling by the Justice Department that allows the Obama administration to pay ACORN for services provided under contracts signed before Congress passed a law banning the community advocacy group from receiving taxpayers money.

Republicans have been on the warpath against ACORN since its voter registration efforts came under scrutiny during the 2008 presidential campaign. After conservative activists, who posed as a prostitute and pimp, released videos appearing to show ACORN staffers advising them how to skirt the law, Democrats joined in the outrage, leading to the congressional funding ban that Obama signed on Oct. 1.

Since 1994, ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has received about $53 million in federal aid, much of it in grants to help poor people obtain affordable housing. The Justice Department asked whether the funding ban applied to prior contracts. In a ruling first reported by the New York Times, a department lawyer said the payments under prior contracts should continue because the language of the law did not expressly wipe them out.

But Representative Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said “the bipartisan intent of Congress was clear — no more federal dollars should flow to ACORN.”

“It is telling that this administration continues to look for every excuse possible to circumvent the intent of Congress,” Issa said in a statement. “Taxpayers should not have to continue subsidizing a criminal enterprise that helped Barack Obama get elected president. The politicization of the Justice Department to payback one of the president’s political allies is shameful and amounts to nothing more than old-fashioned cronyism.”

A homemade chemical bomb planted on the tracks in an apparent act of terrorism derailed a high-speed train in Russia carrying hundreds of people Saturday, killing at least 26 and injuring scores more near the village of Uglovka, northwest of Moscow.

The head of the Russian Federal Security Service told the country’s news agency Interfax that traces of explosives were found at the train crash site, including chemical residue from a homemade bomb.

Alexander Borotnikov was quoted by the Interfax and RIA Novosti news as saying that an improvised explosive device equivalent to 15 pounds of TNT had detonated when the express train traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg passed over it Friday night about 9:30 p.m.

“There is little doubt this is terrorism,” a source in Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s office told Fox News. Who was responsible for the derailment or why it occurred “remains unclear,” the source said.

A second explosive device partially detonated Saturday during the clear-up operation near the disaster site, according to the head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin.

Remains of the device were discovered at the scene, Borotnikov said. Twenty-six people were killed in the accident and nearly 100 injured after the last three cars of the 14-car Nevsky Express went off the tracks in the Tver province northwest of Moscow.

“Indeed, this was a terrorist attack,” Interfax cited Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for federal prosecutors, as saying. He told the ITAR-Tass news agency that the bomb crater on the track was 5 feet deep.

Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin told reporters Saturday that the Friday accident may have been caused by an explosion under the tracks.

The derailment of the upscale train, which was popular with government officials and business executives, would be Russia’s deadliest terrorist strike outside the volatile North Caucasus region in years.

Witness accounts appeared to back up reports of a bomb blast.

“It was immensely scary. I think it was an act of terrorism because there was a bang,” passenger Vitaly Rafikov told Channel One state television. He said he helped with the rescue, hauling victims from the wreckage and lighting fires for warmth.

Passenger Igor Pechnikov was in the second of the three derailed cars.

“A trembling began, and the carriage jolted violently to the left. I flew through half of the carriage,” he said.

A light rain started to fall at the scene of the derailment at daybreak Saturday as emergency workers huddled around fires, wrapped in blankets, and two huge cranes lifted pieces of the wreckage clear of the site as crews continued the search for victims.

One of the bashed and battered railway carriages lay on its side across the tracks, while baggage and metal debris lay scattered in the muddy ground.

Police and prosecutors swarmed over the site and restricted access to what was reported to be a bomb crater.

Friday night’s Nevsky Express was carrying 633 passengers and 20 railway personnel during its regular run to St. Petersburg, the emergencies ministry said.

The derailment occurred in a rural area near the border between the Novgorod and Tver provinces, about 250 miles northwest of Moscow and 150 miles southeast of St. Petersburg, authorities said.

Russian trains have been the targets of bombers in the past.

An explosion on the Moscow-St. Petersburg line in 2007 derailed a passenger train and injured 27 people. Two suspects have been arrested and authorities are searching for a former military officer they believe was behind the blast, but the motive was unclear.

A December 2003 suicide bomb attack on a commuter train near the Russian republic of Chechnya killed 44. At least 12 people were injured in June 2005 when a bomb derailed a train headed from Chechnya to Moscow.

Terrorism has been a major concern in Russia since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, as Chechen rebels have clashed with government forces in two wars.

But Russia has also been plagued by deadly accidents resulting from its deteriorating Soviet-era infrastructure, a high incidence of alcohol abuse and from negligence.

Russian news agencies reported that some injured passengers were taken by train and bus to hospitals in the area and to St. Petersburg for medical attention.

State-run Vesti-24 broadcast live from the national crisis response center in Moscow. Medvedev ordered authorities to help the victims and determine what caused the derailment, state media cited the Kremlin as saying.

Fox News’ Dana Lewis and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

By (AP)

Afghan National Army soldiers prepare a metal detector east of Kabul, Afghanistan.
The U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan government are launching an initiative to persuade Taliban insurgents to lay down their weapons, offering jobs and protection to the militants who choose to abandon their fight.

While President Hamid Karzai’s government has been trying to woo these insurgents for years, the new program marks the first time that the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces are systematically reaching out to Taliban fighters.

The tactic comes as the U.S. prepares to announce Tuesday how many additional troops it will send to Afghanistan as part of a new strategy aimed at bringing the eight-year war to a successful end. U.S. officials also hope America’s European allies will raise their troop contributions as part of the new push.

The Afghan government has had a reconciliation program in place since 2004, and claims to have turned more than 8,000 insurgents. That program, however, is widely derided as corrupt and ineffective. Insurgents were enticed with offers of jobs but rarely received the promised assistance, leading many to rejoin the fight.

Western officials behind the new reconciliation program say they believe the majority of insurgents are fighting for money — the Taliban often pay their members — or personal grievances. Luring such men from the battlefield is a central component of America’s new counterinsurgency strategy crafted by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top allied commander here.

“It is an issue of dialogue — we need to establish respect, even if they are the enemy,” said Graeme Lamb, a retired British general who spearheaded a similar effort to turn Sunni insurgents in Iraq, and who oversees the campaign out of NATO headquarters in Kabul

Thursday, November 26, 2009

From Reuters News Service

Hong KONG — China must be alert to any mutation or changes in the behavior of the H1N1 swine flu virus because the far deadlier H5N1 bird flu virus is endemic in the country, a leading Chinese disease expert said.

Zhong Nanshan, director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases in China’s southern Guangdong province, said the presence of both viruses in China meant they could mix and become a monstrous hybrid — a bug packed with strong killing power that can transmit efficiently among people.

“China, as you know, is different from other countries. Inside China, H5N1 has been existing for some time, so if there is really a reassortment between H1N1 and H5N1, it will be a disaster,” Zhong said in an interview with Reuters Television.

“This is something we need to monitor, the change, the mutation of the virus. This is why reporting of the death rate must be really transparent.”

The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that H5N1 had erupted in poultry in Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, posing once again a threat to humans.

“First, it places those in direct contact with birds — usually rural folk and farm workers — at risk of catching the often-fatal disease. Second, the virus could undergo a process of “reassortment” with another influenza virus and produce a completely new strain,” it said.

“The most obvious risk is of H5N1 combining with the pandemic … (H1N1) virus, producing a flu virus that is as deadly as the former and as contagious as the latter.”

Zhong told the Chinese media last week that China may have had more H1N1 flu deaths than it has reported, with some local governments possibly concealing suspect cases.

The doctor is known for his candor and work in fighting Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003, when nationwide panic and international alarm erupted after it emerged that officials hid or underplayed the spreading epidemic.

Cover-ups by local governments in 2003 during the SARS epidemic led to the sackings of several officials. More than 300 people died in that outbreak.

China, the world’s most populous country, has reported around 70,000 cases of H1N1 and 53 death from the virus.

While some regions simply lack the technology to test for H1N1, other areas have been treating deaths as cases of ordinary pneumonia without a question, Zhong said.

“Some local healthcare authorities are reluctant, unwilling to test patients with severe pneumonia because there’s some latent rule which says the more H1N1 deaths, the less effective the control and prevention work in your area,” Zhong said.

Zhong said China’s health minister Chen Zhu rang him up last week and agreed with his views. A notice then appeared on the ministry’s website threatening severe punishment for officials caught concealing deaths from H1N1 swine flu.

WHO reported more than 526,060 laboratory confirmed cases of H1N1 worldwide on November 15, with at least 6,770 deaths. However, it has stressed for months now that the figures were only the tip of the iceberg.

It urged countries to place more resources on mitigating the disease rather then on costly prevention measures or testing everyone. All WHO and the U.S. CDC will say is that “millions” have been infected.
China must be alert to any mutation or changes in the behavior of the H1N1 swine flu virus because the far deadlier H5N1 bird flu virus is endemic in the country, a leading Chinese disease expert said.
China must be alert to any mutation or changes in the behavior of the H1N1 swine flu virus because the far deadlier H5N1 bird flu virus is endemic in the country, a leading Chinese disease expert said.

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