|
|
By Michael Collins, on January 14th, 2013 Michael Collins
United States and European Union sanctions against Iran prevent much needed medical care for the Iranian people. Those with cancer, for example, have lost the option of treatment through chemotherapy while hemophiliacs are at high risk for any surgery due to a denial of essential pharmaceuticals. There are 85,000 new cases of cancer every year in Iran. Those with cancer and the newly diagnosed will have to do without effective treatments. A large percentage of them will die sooner than anticipated as a result. (Image: Fergal of Calldagh)
The Iranian medical community is unable to get required medicines due to financial restrictions in the sanctions regime. The restrictions effectively blocks pharmaceutical purchases by Iranian medical facilities. No ticket, no laundry is the policy of big and little pharma throughout the world. As a result, right now — as you read this — innocent Iranians are dying, sentenced to death by the U.S.-E.U. sanctions.
Who on earth would initiate and sustain such a policy? Continue reading Kill for Peace – US and EU Sanctions Deny Medicine to the Critically Ill
By Steve Hynd, on January 14th, 2013 
Obama is keeping all his options open by assembling the best possible team to negotiate with Iran or to convince the world that war is sadly necessary, according to Hussein Ibish.
The constellation of new national security/foreign policy appointees coalescing around President Barack Obama for his second term bears all the hallmarks of an overriding priority issue: Iran. Obama has assembled a team perfectly positioned to present itself to Iran as offering the best deal possible. Failing that, it is also the ideal group to convince the American public that—should negotiations fail and the administration decide to take some form of military action—these are precisely the policymakers who can be relied upon to have done so only as a last resort and because there are no other options.
…Whatever the final makeup of his new national security team—which will certainly eventually have to include some women such as Susan Rice or Michele Flournoy—it will be based around the Kerry/Hagel/Brennan nexus. The message to Tehran is clear: Whatever you are offered by this group is the best deal you’re likely to get.
…But the administration remains committed to the broadest outlines of its continuously repeated position that Iran will not be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon. Recently Hagel has reportedly joined Obama in reiterating that the military option is by no means off the table. And the message to both Tel Aviv and Tehran is that it isn’t Israel that’s going to be taking action if necessary, it will be the United States.
Should it come to that—and given the administration’s stated positions this is an entirely plausible scenario—the American people and the rest of the world will then be told that military action against Iran is being undertaken by the last group of people who would do so recklessly or avoidably. They are presented as informed and sophisticated realists, non-interventionists, battle-weary war skeptics and advocates of diplomacy, agreements and alliances. In the American political spectrum they have been packaged and marketed as, in effect, the “anti-neoconservatives.” As New York Times columnist Nick Kristof anticipated the argument, “How refreshing to imagine decisions about war made by brave doves rather than by chicken hawks.” Obama’s new defense/foreign policy team is an Iran cabinet, assembled to decide and act on war or peace over the nuclear file. Tehran should understand this as both the unparalleled opportunity and significant threat that it is.
Good stuff. Read the whole thing.
By matttbastard, on January 14th, 2013 
Scott Lemieux on what Brennan’s nomination says about Obama’s human rights legacy:
I do not mean to suggest that the nomination of Brennan means that there are no differences between the Bush and Obama administration on civil liberties. Obama did ban torture and extraordinary rendition by executive order upon taking office, and this matters. Where Obama has failed, however, is in creating the institutional incentives that will inhibit torture on the part of future administrations. His failure to prosecute even the most egregious instances of torture under the previous administration sends an unmistakable message that torturers can expect not to be held accountable. Nor has the administration (or the Democratic leadership in Congress) shown any interest in hearings that would at least shine a public light on post -9/11 security abuses. The Brennan nomination fits in all too well with this pattern of denying accountability. One would think that at a minimum being a defender of arbitrary detention and torture would exclude someone from consideration from a job as important as head of the CIA
Sadly, the nomination of John Brennan probably does not signal any significant changes in policy; it is but another hum-drum example of the Beltway’s increasingly debased sense of accountability. A consensual affair may cost a prominent public official his or her job and trigger a major investigation, privacy be damned. But abusing human rights has no consequence.
(h/t)
By Steve Hynd, on January 14th, 2013  “Yes, I’d like to live in some teenager’s map of a modern version of a Dungeons and Dragon’s walled city, please. I know it bears no resemblance to anything even remotely defensible from the historical record but I’m willing to pay $208 to a convicted felon for just the privilege of applying, and an as yet unknown sum annually to lease my rather-less-than-an-acre for my entire family. I’m sure that will allow us to be self-sufficient and save us against some as yet unspecified “grid-down, economic collapse scenario”. Rush me my application form now, please, I certify I have way more money than sense!”
That’s got to be the thinking of the rightwing libertarian nutbars considering signing up for The Citadel, a “redoubt” based on a fantasy medieval-style walled town being touted by the likes of FOX News and the Christian News Service today. The Fox story ledes:
No Liberals Allowed: Group To Build ‘Live And Let Live’ Community
A group of like-minded patriots, bound together by pride in American exceptionalism, plan on building an armed community to protect their liberty.
The group, named Citadel, intends to purchase 2,000 to 3,000 acres for the project in western Idaho. The community will comprise of 3,500 to 7,000 families of patriotic Americans who “voluntarily choose to live together in accordance with Thomas Jefferson’s ideal of Rightful Liberty.” …
Here’s the concept map of this libertarian fortified paradise, from their website. It looks like it was drawn for an ahistorical game of Dungeons and Dragons.
 Live-Action Role Playing For Wingnuts This is genuine Live Action Role-Playing for libertarian conspiracy theorists. Although the website says that “The Citadel is not designed to withstand any direct .Mil or .Gov attack. Nor is the Citadel, in any manner, attempting to provoke any government entity”, the funding vehicle – III Arms – prints on the side of every gun it makes (AR-15s, natch) the phrase “if they mean to have a war let it begin here”, uttered by Captain John Paarker, to his Minute Men on Lexington Green, April 19, 1775 in the kick-off event for the Revolutionary war. Draw your own conclusions.
To be a member of Citadel, you must sign a “Patriot Agreement” detailling the terms of residency. The bulk of the terms set out in that agreement involve firearms, the proficiency of everyone in the community over the age of 13 with firearms, self-defense drills and militia preparedness. Despite living in a faux-medieval walled compound, everyone has to go openly armed if they go into the town center – one wonders who they’re meant to be protecting themselves against. Other wingnut citizens who might go off the deep end and are heavily armed, perhaps? It’s certainly not going to be the tourists the website says they hope to attract as an economic adjunct to the arms factory that will be the town’s primary employer.
Tbogg did some reading and discovered that the founder and primary mind behind this venture, and the arms company, is one Christian Hyman, aka Sam Kerodin. In 2004, Kerodin was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and a $6,000 fine for extortion. After setting himself up as a security consultant, Kerodin had tried to shake down shopping malls by publicizing that they were especially vulnerable to terrorist attacks unless they paid him not to do so.
Seriously, what’s not to love if you’re a reality-challenged rightwing libertarian conspiracy nut with a hankering to LARP out your delusions of being a rugged survivalist badass? Of course you can trust Citadel, who only own 20 acres on a mountain in Idaho so far and aren’t even sure that’s where they want to build, with your money…
Jeff and the Protein Wisdom crowd do love it, of course.
By Steve Hynd, on January 14th, 2013 
Especially if you’re under 50. (NY Times)
Car accidents, gun violence and drug overdoses were major contributors to years of life lost by Americans before age 50.
The rate of firearm homicides was 20 times higher in the United States than in the other countries, according to the report, which cited a 2011 study of 23 countries. And though suicide rates were lower in the United States, firearm suicide rates were six times higher.
Sixty-nine percent of all American homicide deaths in 2007 involved firearms, compared with an average of 26 percent in other countries, the study said. “The bottom line is that we are not preventing damaging health behaviors,” said Samuel Preston, a demographer and sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, who was on the panel. “You can blame that on public health officials, or on the health care system. No one understands where responsibility lies.”
Panelists were surprised at just how consistently Americans ended up at the bottom of the rankings. The United States had the second-highest death rate from the most common form of heart disease, the kind that causes heart attacks, and the second-highest death rate from lung disease, a legacy of high smoking rates in past decades. American adults also have the highest diabetes rates.
Youths fared no better. The United States has the highest infant mortality rate among these countries, and its young people have the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy and deaths from car crashes. Americans lose more years of life before age 50 to alcohol and drug abuse than people in any of the other countries.
Americans also had the lowest probability over all of surviving to the age of 50. The report’s second chapter details health indicators for youths where the United States ranks near or at the bottom. There are so many that the list takes up four pages. Chronic diseases, including heart disease, also played a role for people under 50.
“We expected to see some bad news and some good news,” Dr. Woolf said. “But the U.S. ranked near and at the bottom in almost every heath indicator. That stunned us.”
For me the underlying reason that the US pays more but gets less healthcare is obvious. As medical science has advanced since the 1950′s, other first-world nations with their “socialist” healthcare systems have succeeded in bringing those advances to every demographic and every age bracket. In the US by contrast, only those who can afford it have benefitted.
Obamacare will have some marginal effect on this but not as much as Democrats think – the only real answer is to entirely remove the question of “how will you pay?” from doctor’s surgeries and hospitals. That would mean a vast contraction in the hugely profitable health insurance industry, moving entirely to non-profit hospitals and clinics and a hefty reduction in doctor’s potential earnings, as well as removing one of the privileges of being old and white - so there’s going to be a lot of resistance, so much so that it may be impossible. It’s still worth trying. As long as the U.S. does not have universal healthcare it will continue to restrict the pursuit of life, happiness and liberty for all.
By adrena, on January 14th, 2013 France committed its forces to a military intervention in Mali to stop the Islamists’ advance toward Bamako. Today, they threatened payback.
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Diabaly, 400km (250 miles) from the capital, Bamako, was taken in a counter-attack on Monday.
Mr Le Drian insisted France’s campaign was “developing favourably”.
He said Islamists had retreated in the east but admitted French forces were facing a “difficult” situation against well-armed rebels in western areas.
Aid workers said many people had been fleeing areas targeted by the French.
The UN Security Council is due to discuss Mali later on Monday.
Germany’s risky offer of help
In Mali, the French air force is fighting to push back Islamist forces. The German government wants to stand by its close ally and has offered Paris logistical assistance. Is Berlin getting itself into another lasting conflict?
Canada sends C-17 to Mali on France’s request
David Cameron: No UK troops going to Mali
Mali Islamists threaten to retaliate ‘at the heart of France’
The Arabist weighs in:
The situation in Mali, where France has launched a military strike because of the risk that the capital, Bamako, or its surroundings could fall into rebel hands (rebels here including jihadist groups) is incredibly complex. Beyond the question of the secessionist north and the junta that staged a coup against a democratically elected government last year, what is happening in Mali has far-reaching consequences for all the countries in the Sahel region. From those that may be as fragile as Mali is (Mauritania) to countries who appear to be playing on all sides of the conflict to have their cake and eat it too (Algeria). This consequence, in part, to the Libyan civil war is going to be with us for years.
For once, I am tentatively sympathetic to the idea of international intervention, since at least it is UN-sanctioned and demanded by the local government (although of course its legitimacy is scant.) Letting Bamako handle the situation itself hardly seems to be a solution, and the regional solution I would prefer does not seem to be forthcoming since every neighbor is either too weak or too reluctant to do anything. But I am withholding judgement here, since I know next to nothing about the situation. It just seems worth highlighting, though, as this war is not likely to get much attention in English, anyway.
By polizeros, on January 14th, 2013  I’m so sorry that what’s-his-name is dead but my political ambitions are very important to me. Aaron Swartz is dead. Federal Attorney Carmen Ortiz engaged in stomach-turning prosecutorial overreach. MIT could have pulled back but deliberately choose not to. Both share responsibility for his suicide.
Most conspicuously, there is the Obama administration, and its deep pocket contributors in the high tech, publishing and entertainment industries who have attempted to make what they call the “theft” and what Swartz regarded as the liberation of intellectual property a crime meriting the most severe punishment. A ridiculously disproportionate 35 year sentence was being aggressively pursued by Massachusetts Federal Attorney, Carmen Ortiz who likely viewed the prosecution as an opportunity to raise her profile within the party. The strategy seemed to be working: Massachusetts Governor and close friend of Obama Deval Patrick mentioned her as a likely successor.
It should be our job to ensure that Ms. Ortiz’s cynical calculation will not pay off. A petition demanding her removal from office is being circulated and should be signed, though this is a bare minimum. Demonstrations at her office should become routine and her public appearances should be greeted with conspicuous displays of opposition. Should she receive the nomination for governor, or any other position in the future, those honoring Schwartz’s memory should pledge to nominate, finance, and actively support a third party candidate who can benefit from the legitimate outrage at Ortiz’ exercise in prosecutorial over-reach and extreme Democratic Party triangulation.
Over the dead body of the internet activism will Carmen Ortiz have a future in politics. Internet activists have far more power than she ever will and they don’t forget, especially not in a sickening case of apparent selective and grotesque prosecution for personal political gain.
The other target, MIT, is not used to having the light of publicity affixed to it, but it is well deserved. As the Swartz’s family notes, by filing charges when the primary victim JSTOR refused to do so, MIT’s acquiesence was required for the federal prosecution to proceed.
MIT’s role here has been as bottom-dwelling, cynical, and sleazy as Ortiz’s.
By matttbastard, on January 14th, 2013 
“This is not a complicated concept… . You don’t go out to dinner and eat all you want and then leave without paying the check.”
- President Barack Obama, breaking down the GOP-led debt ceiling debacle.
Related: Pobody’s nerfect.
By steeleweed, on January 14th, 2013 We’re calling the tune but it’s future generations and perhaps the species who will pay the piper.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we occupy ourselves with anything which can distract us from the harsh truths we are unwiling to face.
We seem to have our heads stuffed so far up our myths we can’t see daylight.
I never saw a better example of the cliche that “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”.
Chris Hedges at Truthdig.
Like most of his writing, this article is so tightly written I could not extract highlights.
Just read the whole thing. And weep.
By matttbastard, on January 14th, 2013 
Via IRINFILMS:
By the end of 2012, as it neared the end of its second year, the conflict between Syrian rebels and their government had killed tens of thousands of people, sent more than half a million fleeing to neighbouring countries, and left many millions more either internally displaced, unemployed or otherwise struggling to survive. More than 30,000 are now living in Za’atari refugee camp, just past the Jordanian border in harsh desert conditions. Every night, another 200 cross over. Their lives are punctuated by cold winters, basic services, and the anguish of remembering those killed or still in danger back home. Where the War Still Echoes tells the story of Leila and her family, who have recently arrived in Za’atari camp.
WATCH [AFTER THE JUMP]: Continue reading Syrian Refugees Suffer As Civil War Rages (VIDEO)
By actor212, on January 14th, 2013
I love what Jodie Foster did last night at the Golden Globes. It was a magnificently snarky yet polite way of telling people to f-off. The juice quote, as far as I’m concerned:
But now I’m told, apparently, that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show. You know, you guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child. No, I’m sorry, that’s just not me. It never was and it never will be.
By Steve Hynd, on January 13th, 2013 
How low can the conspiracy buffs go? Very. As far as suggesting that the Sandy Hook massacre was a staged event using actors in the place of parents, organized by the Obama administration so that they can take away the guns of right-thinking libertarians everywhere. And then who would shoot down the black helicopters or keep the masses out of those imaginary FEMA concentration camps?
Update: It seems like this kind of conspiracy theory sicko has a longer history than I thought. They said much the same about Colorado – that it was a false flag psyops designed to disarm patriotic gun-nut Americans. In a must-read WaPo piece today on how the NRA transformed from a sportsman’s organisation into a massive money-making conservative lobbying enterprise, it notes that the man most responsible for the change – Neal Knox - was a conspiracy nut of the sickest kind too.
He believed that gun-control laws threatened basic American freedoms, that there were malign forces that sought nothing less than total disarmament. There would come a point when Knox would suggest that the assassinations of the 1960s and other horrors might have been part of a gun-control plot: “Is it possible that some of those incidents could have been created for the purpose of disarming the people of the free world? With drugs and evil intent, it’s possible. Rampant paranoia on my part? Maybe. But there have been far too many coincidences to ignore” (Shotgun News, 1994).
Cox’s son, Jeff, is director of the Firearms Coalition. Back in November he wrote for the ultra-right World News Daily that Obama and the UN were conspiring to take away American’s guns, in a piece replete with popular New World Order conspiracy wingnuttery. It’s so ridiculous, even the neocon Heritage Foundation won’t go along with it - and their people lied us into Iraq!
By adrena, on January 13th, 2013 (Check comments daily for updates)
 Israel evicts Palestinian activists from Gate of Sun camp
Israeli police evicted dozens of Palestinian activists early Sunday from a first-of-its-kind protest camp they set up in a West Bank area slated for Jewish settlement.
Police and activists confirmed that hundreds of Israeli police entered the campsite in the controversial E1 area on the outskirts of Jerusalem at around 2:30 am (00.030 GMT) on Sunday.
They quickly bundled around 200 Palestinian activists at the Bab al-Shams (Gate of the Sun in Arabic) camp into buses and drove them from the site.
Israeli PM vows to move ahead with E-1 settlement
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to move ahead with building a Jewish settlement in a strategic area of the West Bank, speaking just hours after Israeli troops dragged anti-settlement protesters from the site marked for construction
EU reportedly to offer new Middle East peace plan
The European Union is reportedly formulating a detailed peace plan to re-energize dormant Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
According to Israeli diplomatic sources cited by the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, the goal of the EU plan is to bring about the establishment of an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with its capital in East Jerusalem. The report intends to set a clear timetable for negotiations between the two sides in 2013.
The plan is reportedly to be presented in March, once a new Israeli government is in place following the January 22 elections. Sources said that the plan will include land swaps between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as well as a complete freeze on all Israeli construction in the settlements
*Jordan to host Israelis and Palestinians for talks
*Livni hints at joining Likud coalition (But only if Netanyahu-led government pursues peace).
*Netanyahu denies wasting money on Iran attack plan
*Netanyahu: Olmert’s words ‘bizarre and irresponsible’.
*Syrian warplanes bomb rebellious Damascus suburbs
*No end in sight for Syrian battleground
*A Desert Cold and Wet Multiplies the Misery of Syrian Refugees
*Syria to Brahimi: Your peace mission is useless
*Russia urges Syria transition, Switzerland to petition ICC for war crimes
*Egypt court grants Mubarak appeal, orders retrial
*National Salvation Front: current government unable to guarantee impartial parliamentary vote
*Education Ministry faces heat after deleting unveiled feminist from textbooks
*Military source: US arms deal continuing despite lawmakers’ objections
Egypt’s negotiations with the US to acquire F-16 aircraft and M1A1 Abrams tanks are proceeding smoothly, a senior Egyptian military source has said.
The source added that the negotiations are proceeding regardless of statements made by political opponents of US President Barack Obama, in what may have been an oblique reference to calls by US Congressman Vern Buchanan for the suspension of this deal over what he described as the “dictatorship of President Mohamed Morsy.”
*Iraq Sunni leader urges reforms to end protests
*Iran’s Revolutionary Guards hold exercises in Strait of Hormuz
*Iran confiscates over a ton of narcotics a day
*Marzouki: Tunisia becoming arms corridor for Malian jihadists
*Arson attack turns Tunisia prime tourism destination into ashes
*Rome condemns attack on Italy’s consul in eastern Libiya
Opinion/Analysis
*Israel avoids public spat with Obama over Chuck Hagel defense nomination
*Syrians need blankets not rockets
By Steve Hynd, on January 13th, 2013 
I haven’t been following the tit-for-tat between China and Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea at all closely. Today’s news suggests that was a mistake and we should all be paying attention. Reuters:
China criticised Japan on Friday for “creating tension”, a day after China’s air force scrambled two fighters in response to a flight by Japanese jets, the latest incident between the countries following months of tension over disputed islands.
China scrambled two J-10 fighters on Thursday over the East China Sea after two Japanese F-15s followed a Chinese military plane “on routine patrol”, the Chinese Defence Ministry said in a statement on its website.
The Chinese Y-8 was flying over East China Sea oil and gas fields east of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, when it was followed at close range by the Japanese planes, the ministry said. A third Japanese surveillance plane was flying nearby, it said.
…It was believed to be the first time Chinese jets had scrambled against Japanese military planes since tension flared last year over a series of small islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries.
Japan’s military has sent up jet fighters several times in recent weeks to intercept Chinese planes approaching airspace over the islands, called the Diaoyu by China and the Senkaku by Japan.
The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he’ll offer a “sterner response” to the territorial dispute if it continues, and refused to negotiate with beiing over the islands. Abe has called for an expansion of the remit of the Japanese Defense Force to allow overseas intervention operations and even nuclear weapons. He’s also said that Japan’s apology for taking sex slaves for its troops during WW2 may need revisited. I worry that such a man has command and control over armed aircraft in an escalating stand-off with China, to be honest, and doubt that the U.S. has him on a short leash. In the very first instance, the White House should tell him that if Japan initiates hostile fire it is on its own, the same message as Obama is alleged to have sent Israel over Iran.
By matttbastard, on January 13th, 2013 
This:
1) Raising the debt ceiling does not authorize one single penny in additional public spending.
2) For Congress to “decide whether” to raise the debt ceiling, for programs and tax rates it has already voted into law, makes exactly as much sense as it would for a family to “decide whether” to pay a credit-card bill for goods it has already bought.
Also, this:
[N]othing about the magic coin is less logical, or exposes America to more ridicule, than the debt-ceiling showdown we’re apparently about to endure once again.
|
|
Recent Comments