Category Archives: Terrorism

20 Things President Obama Should Do After The Mid-Terms.

Posted on by

In no particular order of importance:

  1. Normalize relations with Cuba.
  2. Support Palestine for UN membership.
  3. End the War on Drugs and begin the process of decriminalization.
  4. Renew calls for a Public Option as part of the Affordable Care Act.
  5. Negotiate pharmaceutical prices as all other industrialized nations have done.
  6. Rally Americans to aggressively deal with Climate Change.
  7. Push for an end to mandatory sentences for non-violent criminals.
  8. Order the Justice Department to aggressively pursue criminal charges against the banksters who collapsed our economy in 2008.
  9. Order the Justice Department to aggressively pursue charges of war crimes against those involved in the CIA’s torture program.
  10. Deny permission for TransCanada to build the Keystone XL pipeline.
  11. Push for changes to the tax code to prevent the use of offshore tax havens by individuals and corporations.
  12. Push the IRS to prevent 501c3s and 501c4s from engaging in politics.
  13. Aggressively push for immigration reform.
  14. End drone assassinations except as an absolute last resort to deal with terrorist leaders and increase transparency.
  15. Order the removal of ALL American troops from Afghanistan.
  16. Offer government-backed, interest-free college loans based on need.
  17. Demand that Congress pass common-sense gun control measures, including universal background checks and a ban on large ammo clips.
  18. Order the Justice Department to create uniform voting rights across all states.
  19. Aggressively push for an end to human trafficking.
  20. Order the Department of Defense to reduce its reliance on private contractors.

An Act Of Sedition.

Posted on by

After watching videos of the armed confrontation between Cliven Bundy and federal agents executing a legal court order, I realized that I was watching more than a political demonstration or civil disobenience. When Bundy’s crowd of armed milita threatened government officials by drawing their weapons and taking aim from sniper positions, they crossed a very clear line into the realm of sedition. Incredibly, they were supported by Nevada Governor Sandoval, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar and dozens of state legislators from Arizona and Nevada.

Look up the definition of sedition yourself.

To save you the trouble, 18 U.S. Code 2384 reads, “If two or more persons…conspire to oppose by force the authority…or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States…they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.” Not only were the actions of Bundy and his friends in violation of that code, so, too, were the actions of the conservative media hosts and politicians who applauded and encouraged them.

Imagine if a group of drug dealers challenged federal authority to interrupt a smuggling operation. Imagine if a city neighborhood took up arms to prevent the arrest of a suspected murderer. Would anyone support and encourage them? If not, where do we draw the line?

I’d suggest that the line is crossed when someone, anyone, takes aim at government officials or incites someone else to do so.

Nevada Rancher Is Just Another Ungrateful “Taker.”

Posted on by

The Tea Party and those who believe states’ rights trump the federal government have hailed Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy as a “freedom fighter” and an “American hero” for standing against the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. But the fact is, by the definition of Mitt Romney, he’s just another one of the 47 percent – a “taker” who relies on federal government largess.

As a cattle rancher, Bundy benefits from numerous federal subsidies to support his cattle business. He and other ranchers who graze their cattle on public lands receive $100 million annually in direct subsidies. Such ranchers receive federal subsidies for losses from drought. They are eligible for low-cost federal loans. Their private properties are taxed at a lower, agricultural rate. There are government subsidies to provide emergency feed for cattle stranded by blizzard. Even the fences needed to contain the cattle are built with public money.

Worse, like most ranchers who graze their cattle on public lands, Bundy is greatly contributing to the destruction of our ecosystem. According to Mike Hudak, author of Western Turf Wars: The Politics of Public Lands Ranching, “Among 1,207 plant and animal species that are endangered, threatened or proposed for listing, 22 percent are affected by cattle grazing…” This is especially true on arid lands such as those used by Bundy. Such grazing damages the area’s water supply. Cattle pollute streams, destroy riparian and forest habitats for wildlife, and cause erosion.

In addition, such ranchers are often given permission to kill predators the ranchers believe are preying on their cattle. (The Arizona legislature is currently considering a bill that would allow ranchers to kill one or more of the 90 Mexican wolves that remain in the wild.) Yet, although ranchers like Bundy have a large impact on sensitive lands, they have little impact on our food supply or our economy. They represent only 2% of America’s cattle producers and only 2.8% of the nation’s beef supply.

Despite the consequences, the BLM continues to make public lands available to ranchers for a modest annual grazing fee…a fee that Bundy has refused to pay for more than 20 years. As a result, Bundy now owes more than $1 million for unpaid grazing rights. Bundy’s only defense for his refusal to pay is that the government changed the grazing rules in order to protect an endangered tortoise. He refuses to accept the government’s authority to make changes, saying his family has grazed cattle on those lands since the 1800s. So what? Native Americans hunted on those lands for many thousands of years. Should that give them the right to hunt Bundy’s cattle? My ancestors farmed in Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland for generations. Does that give me the right to take produce from those lands without compensating the current owners?

Even after the BLM was awarded judgments by the federal courts, Bundy still refused to pay. As a last resort, BLM officials finally decided to seize Bundy’s cattle by removing them from federal lands and holding them until Bundy made restitution. Not surprisingly, Bundy and his government-hating friends went nuts. (Well, that’s not entirely true. They likely were already nuts.) Militias and Tea Party parasites swarmed to the area to make a stand against such “injustice.” They came armed with semi-automatic pistols and assault weapons. They waved their American flags and their “Don’t Tread On Me” flags. They screamed and shouted. They blocked roads. They threatened and assaulted BLM officials.

Never wanting to miss a good photo op and the opportunity to denounce our government, Tea Party congressional and legislative officials from several Western states, such as Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, flocked to the area to rally the resistance. Afraid that the incident might lead to more violence, the BLM eventually released Bundy’s cattle, packed up and left. The question is: Why? Not only did Bundy act in contempt of court, his gun-wielding militia friends are guilty of transporting weapons across state lines in support of civil disorder. Should other American citizens be allowed to defy the law by threatening violence? What message does this send to the more than 18,000 other cattle owners who pay for permits to graze their cattle on public lands?

Imagine what would have happened had the Occupy Wall Street crowds armed themselves with assault weapons and refused to obey orders. Do you think the local, state and federal agents would have shown such restraint? Would government officials show such restraint when confronted by a group of armed individuals who refuse to allow the arrest of an individual guilty of other crimes, such as drug sales, especially in a minority neighborhood? Would Fox News, Americans For Prosperity and the Tea Party support them?

You know the answer.

If Obama’s Foreign Policy Was More Like Reagan’s…

Posted on by

Following the Russian confrontation in Crimea, the neocon politicians and right wing media have compared President Obama’s foreign policy to that of their idol’s – Ronald Reagan. Since I don’t remember those days as fondly as they do, and I remember conversations during a trip to Europe in which Europeans stated that they feared the US far more than the USSR, I thought it would be interesting to actually compare Reagan’s foreign policy with that of Obama’s.

Here’s what I found:

If Obama was more like Reagan, he would have immediately cut and run from Afghanistan as Reagan did from Beirut following the deaths of 241 Marines in a terrorist attack. He would illegally sell weapons to our enemies as Reagan did to Iran in exchange for the money needed to support death squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua. He would embrace torturers and killers resulting in the deaths of more than 100,000 innocent peasants. And he would encourage his National Security Advisors to break the law resulting in 14 convictions and at least one other indictment.

Obama would escalate military spending on wasteful and unnecessary weapons programs tripling the national debt. He would bluster and threaten other military powers demanding an end to confrontation then reject their concessions as Reagan rejected Gorbachev’s initiative for total nuclear disarmament.

In defiance of international treaties, Obama would provide chemical and biological weapons to a brutal dictator for use against his neighbors and his own people as Reagan did for Saddam Hussein. He would break international treaties and norms in support of other repressive regimes. He would publically joke about using nuclear weapons. He would order the invasion of a tiny island nation despite the protests of Canada, the United Kingdom and the United Nations General Assembly.

Obama would channel military aid and propaganda materials to fundamentalist Muslims that would later be used by terrorists against the United States. He would support terrorists known for skinning captives alive and throwing acid in the faces of women who failed to wear burkas.

Yes, those were the “good old days.” Let’s have more of that.

Men (And Women) Of War.

Posted on by

Now that the political upheaval in Ukraine is reaching a critical juncture, the usual warmongers are blustering and calling for military threats. At the same time, they’re blaming President Obama for “weak foreign policy.” Exactly which foreign policy do they consider weak? The policy that ferreted out and killed Osama bin Laden? The policy of targeting al-Qaeda leaders with drone strikes? The policy of providing air support for Libyan rebels? The policy of mandatory inspections and destruction of chemical weapons in Syria?

Or is it the policy of allowing the people of other nations to select their own government and leaders? Is it the peace negotiations with the new moderate President of Iran who requested a dialogue to end the severe economic sanctions in exchange for Iran ending its ambition for nuclear weapons? Or is it the resumption of US-led peace talks between Israel and Palestine? All of these are positive steps that stand as a welcome contrast to the Bush administration’s “you’re with us or against us” black and white approach to foreign policy.

The world is not merely black and white. It’s nuanced and complex. For example, Russia still has thousands of nuclear warheads with the capability of extinguishing all life on this planet. The US, Great Britain, France, China, India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea all have nuclear weapons. And all but North Korea have long-range delivery systems for their warheads. As a result, military threats and war are seldom the best solutions.

Without using nuclear warheads, which could escalate into the complete destruction of our planet, our options are limited. We have seen what happens when we involve our military in nation-building projects such as Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. We have seen what happened when we used our CIA to overthrow leaders in Chile, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and too many Caribbean and Pan American countries to count. We have seen what happens when we serve as the world’s largest arms and munitions dealer.

All of these tactics have created anti-American sentiment, anti-American terrorists and legions of heavily-armed militias who are determined to fight us and each other. Yet this reality seems lost on the neocons who still cling to Cold War beliefs and the ideals of the Project for the New American Century…a plan to expand the American empire by using our status as a superpower by bullying and threatening other nations to obtain an endless supply of cheap raw materials and underpaid labor.

It was neocons from both parties who led us to arm the Shah of Iran to help him oppress his people in exchange for selling us cheap oil. It was Teapublican neocons like Donald Rumsfled who armed Saddam Hussein to fight Iran. It was the neocon Richard Perle who convinced Ronald Reagan to rebuff Mikhail Gorbochev’s attempts to rid the world of nuclear weapons. It was the neocons who led us to arm and educate the radical Islamists of western Pakistan to fight the Soviets. It was neocons like George H.W. Bush, Oliver North, Elliott Abrams, Caspar Weinberger and Richard “The Dick” Cheney who arranged to sell arms to Iran in exchange for the illegal funding of death squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua. It was the neocons who supported the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in hopes that the Taliban would allow US oil companies to build a pipeline across Afghanistan so that they could gain access to Caspian oil and gas. It was neocons like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby and Condoleeza Rice who used the attacks of 9/11 to lead us into Iraq in order to ensure access to Iraqi oil.

More recently, neocon-lite Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham called for direct military involvement in Libya and Syria despite the fact that many of the militias involved in the war to overthrow Assad in Syria are allied with al-Qaeda. McCain, Graham and other warmongers from both political parties have called for increased sanctions on Iran – even as serious negotiations are underway – a move that would be likely to result in war with Iran. And now, the neocons are calling for confrontation and intervention in Ukraine. They are claiming that the problems in Ukraine are the result of the Obama administration’s “weak” foreign policy.

Seriously?

What do they want the administration to do? Invade Ukraine despite the fact that Ukraine has long been allied with Russia? Such an intervention rightly would be seen by Russia as an act of war. Since the end of the USSR, we have already broken our promises by moving NATO to the very doorstep of Russia, a move that is seen as a very real threat. We have already deployed our missile defense system in Europe, an act that is also seen as a threat to Russia by making a US first strike seem like a real possibility.

Any threat to use military force in Ukraine would, in effect, create a reverse version of the Cuban missile crisis. And there’s no guarantee that Putin is as realistic as Nikita Kruschev and as determined to avoid nuclear war.

The Project for the New American Century ended in 2006 in the aftermath of the group’s disastrous plan to invade and remake Iraq. Unfortunately, its members and proponents, including Richard “The Dick” Cheney, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, William Bennett, Jeb Bush, Steve Forbes, Dan Quayle and many others continue to sell the same bad ideas. Their ideas need to be relegated to the toxic waste dump of history where they belong. While we’re at it, we should bury the racist notion of American “Exceptionalism” along with the top-down economic policy known as Reaganomics, aka Trickle Down theory, Horse and Sparrow economics, and Voodoo economics. It’s time to leave the military and economic thinking of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries behind us.

It is a new century with new possibilities. It requires new thinking and new strategies.

The Growth Of Hate.

Posted on by

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors hate groups and other extremists throughout the US, reports that the number of hate groups has grown by 67 percent since 2000. The SPLC website states, “Currently, there are 1,007 known hate groups of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, black separatists, border vigilantes and others.” It lists as reasons for the increase “anger and fear over the nation’s ailing economy, an influx of non-white immigrants, and the diminishing white majority, as symbolized by the election of the nation’s first African-American president.”

Based on those criteria, I would suggest that nation’s largest hate group is the Tea Party. After all, the Tea Party is virulently anti-immigrant. It displays its racism on rally posters showing President Obama dressed in Nazi attire with a Hitleresque moustache. It continues to make unsubstantiated charges that the president is a socialist, a communist and a dictator. The Tea Party has launched relentless attacks on government institutions from the Environmental Protection Agency to the US Postal Service…even first responders and local school boards. Virtually every Tea Party meeting is devoted to tales of government conspiracies and fears of a “New World Order.” Moreover, Tea Party members continue to display guns at rallies and talk of “Second Amendment remedies.”

All of this paranoid nonsense is fueled by obstructionist Teapublican members of Congress, anti-government lies spread by Fox “News” Channel and right-wing hosts of hate radio, in addition to vicious attack ads paid for by a few angry billionaires. The resulting growth of hate has not merely divided our politics. It has pitted friend against friend, neighbor against neighbor, family member against family member, one race against another and the wealthy against the poor.

At its worst, this growing culture of hate can be seen in the recent “Stand Your Ground” slayings which have seen a teen killed for wearing a hoodie, another teen ruthlessly murdered for the volume of his music, and a military veteran killed for texting during movie previews and for throwing a bag of popcorn.

It may seem that these events are unrelated. They’re not. They are likely all symptoms of a growing national anger created by our toxic political environment and enabled by easy access to guns.

We have to ask ourselves, “Where will it end?”

Guns In The Neighborhood.

Posted on by

I live in a small development near several tourist destinations in Arizona. There’s absolutely nothing remarkable about the neighborhood other than it is primarily populated by retirees from California and snowbirds from New England and the Midwest. The neighborhood has virtually no crime and has never experienced a home invasion. Despite this, I have to assume the majority of my neighbors are gun owners. Arizona, after all, is a gun-friendly state. Many people come here to get their cowboy on. And it seems that our legislature values guns more than people.

If that sounds crazy, I assure you that it’s not as crazy as some of our laws.

In Arizona, you can carry a gun virtually anywhere…in your car, to the shopping mall, to your church, even to the bar. The state has even made it illegal for cities to destroy guns that have been confiscated from felons or used in crimes. The cities are mandated to sell them.

As a result of our gun-crazy culture, Arizona has more than its share of gun hoarders…those who have convinced themselves that the government and/or the UN is coming to take their guns. There is also a large number of so-called “sovereign citizens”…those who refuse to accept the rule of government.

I have no idea how many of my neighbors fit into these categories, but I do know of two. One is a retired electrical engineer who owned a large collection of handguns, shotguns and assault rifles until he got drunk one afternoon and threatened to kill his wife and himself. The sheriff;s deputies confiscated the weapons and the neighbor is now serving time in prison for that and a variety of senseless crimes associated with his drinking. Another arsenal of handguns and assault weapons belongs to a neighbor whose love of high-powered weaponry is exceeded only by his love of alcohol.

How comforting!

Knowing that a few yards away there is a large arsenal in the possession of such an individual does not make me feel more secure. Neither does knowing that there are dozens more who have guns at the ready. These people are exemplified by a neighbor who was convinced to purchase a handgun by one of his gun-loving paranoid friends. He told me the first time he fired it, the slide nearly amputated his thumb. He’s still uncomfortable with it, but that doesn’t prevent him from keeping the loaded weapon on the nightstand next to his bed. Even more disturbing is the fact that he keeps a round in the chamber, which means he is more likely to accidentally shoot himself or a friend than any potential intruder.

Rather than make our neighborhood more secure, all of these guns make it more dangerous; more likely that there will be an accidental shooting; more likely that the guns will be used in a shootout between neighbors than to shoot an intruder. But most suggested changes for gun control would fail to weed out these people. They all passed background checks. They all supposedly took at least one firearm safety class. Yet they are all armed and dangerous to themselves, their families and their neighbors.

These people clearly demonstrate that the only thing that can reduce the number of nincompoops who own guns is to reduce the number of guns. Period.

Worse Than Iraq.

Posted on by

This past Saturday, the United Nations reported that at least 733 Iraqis had been killed and at least 1,229 wounded in January as the result of violence. Worse, the UN said that the numbers did not include Anbar province due to problems verifying the numbers killed. Those numbers are startling and they justifiably made headlines in newspapers throughout the US.

But there was one nation that experienced even more violence last month – the United States of America.

As I noted in a recent post, there are more than 11,000 gun homicides in the US each year. That means that, on average, there are more than 916 gun homicides in the US each month…nearly 200 more than the deaths that occurred last month in Iraq! And, if you include those killed by other means, the US likely experienced more than 1,330 homicides last month…nearly double the number killed by violence in Iraq!

Looking at it another way, the US experiences nearly one-third the number of violent deaths each month as Syria, which is immersed in a cruel civil war. Yet I don’t recall seeing any headlines decrying the violence in the US. I don’t see humanitarian groups running to the aid of those in our most violent neighborhoods. I don’t hear conservative politicians calling for military intervention to help curb our violence.

Are conservative politicians so afraid of the National Rifle Association, that they have become willing to ignore our own violence? Have ordinary citizens become so accustomed to mass murders, gang violence, revenge killings, road rage and domestic violence that we no longer notice it? Or worse, yet, no longer care?

A Memorial To Gun Victims?

Posted on by

A new study by Dr. John Leventhal, professor of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine, found that firearms kill more than 3,000 children each year in the US.  Another 7,000 are wounded badly enough to be hospitalized, most from assaults. And those are just the statistics for children! Overall, there are more than 11,000 homicides per year in the US involving a firearm and more than 19,000 suicides involving a gun according to statistics from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

No other advanced nation comes close.

To put these statistics into perspective, the number of children killed by guns in the US in a single year exceeds the 2,977 people who died in the attacks on 9/11. The 4,486 US soldiers killed during the 6 years of the Iraq War is less than half the number of gun homicides that occur in the US in a single year. And the 2,287 US soldiers who have been killed during the 10 years we have been engaged in the Afghan War is roughly equivalent to two and a half months of gun homicides in the US!

Put another way, as of May 2011, there were 58,272 names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, representing the number of US soldiers killed during our 14 years of military involvement in Vietnam. The number of gun homocides in the US would exceed that number in approximately 5 years. And, if you included gun suicides, the number would be exceeded in just 3 years!

Do you still think we don’t have a gun problem in this country?

Yet despite the overwhelming reality of these statistics, American politicians refuse to act. The shooting of a US Congresswoman and the mass murder in Tucson, Arizona wasn’t enough to force common sense gun control. The mass murder in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater wasn’t enough. Even the slaughter of 26 children in Newtown, Connecticut wasn’t enough to prompt Congress to act. They couldn’t even pass a measure calling for universal background checks of gun purchasers when polls showed that a vast majority of Americans supported it.

It makes one wonder what it will take to bring Americans to our senses.

I would suggest that we create a memorial to gun victims listing all of their names. Make the memorial as visible and as powerful as possible, something similar to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Add the names of gun victims week by week; month by month; year by year. It may take a while, but eventually most sane people will realize exactly what our lax gun laws are costing us.

At least I would certainly hope so.

Beheading More Right Wing Lies.

Posted on by

According to the right wing blog, Freedom Outpost, “more than 68,105 new medical codes are being added due to the Obamacare monstrosity.” The blog claims that the codes are intended to “link us to the international system created by the World Health Organization (WHO). It goes on to state, “One thing is for sure. This coding is directly related and tied to creating their ‘International One World Government.’ While the WHO pretends to be for helping people, they create codes for ‘Legal Execution’ by beheading.”

You read that right. The author is claiming that Obamacare will result in the legal beheadings of patients! Presumably the claim was spawned by Sarah Palin’s “Death Panels.”

Of course, once Freedom Outpost sent this claim into the blogosphere, it was picked up and repeated by most other right wing blogs. It was passed from one Tea Party Parasite …er, Patriot… to another until it became so prevalent that Politifact.com had to debunk it with a “Pants on Fire” rating.

Obviously, the only ones who have lost their heads are Teapublicans afflicted with what some have called Obama Derangement Disorder.

This lunacy is not new. There have been other wild accusations such as the claim that Obama created a program that allows school children to earn higher grades by studying Islam; that a hidden provision in the health care law taxes sporting goods as medical devices; that Obamacare will provide insurance to illegal immigrants; that Muslims are exempted from the health care mandate; that the Obama administration plans to take away our guns as part of a UN treaty; that the Obama campaign offered citizens cell phones in exchange for votes; that Obamacare includes a 3.8 percent sales tax on all real estate transactions; that President Obama doubled the national debt; that Michelle Obama said “all this for a damn flag” during a 9/11 memorial; that President Obama banned prayer in the military academies; that President Obama demanded all military headstones with crosses be replaced. There have been hundreds more.

All of these have been awarded the “Pants on Fire” rating by Politifact.com.

Although Politifact.com draws no conclusions as to why so many of these preposterous claims have dogged President Obama, I’ll state the obvious: racism. Why else would conservatives question the president’s birthplace? Why else would they claim he is a radical Muslim? Why else would there be a six-fold increase in racist hate groups during his presidency?

Yes, I know, right wingers are quick to deny prejudice (most claim to have black friends) and they try to turn the tables by accusing those who call attention to their lunacy of “playing the race card.” Still, the racism of these “patriots” is both obvious and undeniable. Virtually every Tea Party rally has included racist chants, blatantly racist depictions of President Obama, and an abundance of Confederate flags. And it’s not just the far right wing wackos who have displayed their racism. So-called “mainstream” Republicans have piled on.

I believe that no matter how much they deny it, conservatives – they of family “values” and supposedly strong religious beliefs – simply were not ready for a black president. Most can accept black athletes, black entertainers and black co-workers. But black neighbors? Or (gasp) a black president? A black man who has real power?

Of course, these conservatives continue to say they’re not racists. They’re just passionate about freedom and patriotism.

Riiiight!