US AFGHAN WAR STRATEGY FIZZLES, UK TALKS TO TALIBS, PALIN HITS LECTURE TRAIL
August 31st, 2009 - by: danny
IN CASE YOU MISSED THIS: THE ACLU ON ORDERING A PIZZA
LISTEN: LAST WEEK’S NEWS DISSECTOR RADIO SHOW DISCUSSING SWINE FLU WITH DOCTOR/RSEARCHER MERYL NASS AND MEDIA LITERACY WITH BROADCASTER IRENE MCGHEE
NEW AFGHAN STRATEGY NEEDED: BRITS TO TALK TO TALIBAN
KRUGMAN: PREPARE FOR A SIEGE STRATEGY FOR CHANGE
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE ON THE VERGE
Just because I know you have a need to know, the official end of summer is just a few weeks off. September’s birthstone is the sapphire. The meaning is clear thinking.
So what should we be thinking clearly about? Well, there’s the past which is constantly in the news with the debates over torture, the former Vice President who will not shut up as he defends himself so stridently that even John McCain, who know something about being interrogated gets disgusted.
The there’s the present. When will the voices of opposition to the failed crusade in Afghanistan be hDeeard. (Un reported in the US but on page l in Britain are reports that PM Gordon Brown plans to speak to the Taliban.)
Domestically, there is likely to be eve more of a fierce confrontation between the modest reform agenda of this Adminsistration and the forces of the recjectionist right as Paul Krugman explains;
“Given the combination of G.O.P. extremism and corporate power, it’s now doubtful whether health reform, even if we get it – which is by no means certain – will be anywhere near as good as Nixon’s proposal, even though Democrats control the White House and have a large Congressional majority.
And what about other challenges? Every desperately needed reform I can think of, from controlling greenhouse gases to restoring fiscal balance, will have to run the same gantlet of lobbying and lies.
I’m not saying that reformers should give up. They do, however, have to realize what they’re up against. There was a lot of talk last year about how Barack Obama would be a “transformational” president – but true transformation, it turns out, requires a lot more than electing one telegenic leader. Actually turning this country around is going to take years of siege warfare against deeply entrenched interests, defending a deeply dysfunctional political system.”
AFGHAN WAR: CURRENT STRATEGY FAILS
Here we go again, as a war policy fails, the only Pentagon option offered up is escalation, more troops, a bigger war. We have been down this muddy road before. The NY Times reports: “Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s report on the war in Afghanistan could form the basis on which President Obama makes a decision about raising troop levels.” The Generals are said to be worried about Obama’s willingness to do what they believe must be done. The public is queasy, unsupporrtive.
Juan Cole reminds us: The Pashtuns Have Not Been Defeated by Anyone
“The Sunni Arabs of Iraq, who produced most of the insurgency against
the US presence and the rise of a new Shiite government, amount to less
than 20 percent of Iraq’s population of 27 million. In other words,
they are about 5 million strong. The compact Sunni areas such as
al-Anbar Province have been special challenges.
“The Pashtuns of Afghanistan, are probably 44% of the population of 34
million, or a little over 14 million. In other words, pacifying the
Pashtuns from whom the Taliban emerge is three times more difficult
than monitoring and pacifying Iraq.
“Moreover, the Sunni Arabs were ethnically cleansed from Baghdad by
Shiite militias, making them more willing to listen to the US and to
form Awakening Councils. The Pashtuns have not been defeated by
anyone.”
AP reports on the immediate issue at hand:
KABUL — The commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan said Monday in an assessment of the war that a new strategy was needed to fight the Taliban, while NATO officials disclosed he is expected to separately request more troops.
Explosions killed two more U.S. troops, raising the record death toll in August to 47 – the deadliest month of the eight-year war for American forces.
Boosting the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan is a hot-button issue that could ignite furious debate in Washington on the U.S. military’s future in an increasingly unpopular war. Some Democratic senators have increased calls for a timeline to draw down troops.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal sent his strategic review of the Afghan war to the Pentagon and NATO headquarters Monday. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates ordered the 60-day review to size up the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan as Taliban attacks rise and U.S. deaths spiral upward.
“The situation in Afghanistan is serious, but success is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort,”
Is he kidding? Success is achievable? What kind of successs> Forget the Taliban for a minute, there is an on going was amidst political factions and personalities in an environment of pervasive fraud. Whose bright idea was it to hold an “election” in the middle of a war in a country with no recent tradition of democracy? Repeat: When the center doesn’t hold, thinks fall apart!
The United States has been made a hostage to Iran and Russia by George W. Bush’s miring of the U.S. military in the midst of 300 million hostile, anti-imperialist Middle Easterners.”
Ditto for Iraq.The American commander in Iraq is said to be packing his bags.
Why She QUIT: SARAH HITS THE LECTURE TRAIL
Palin fields 1,070 invites
EXCLUSIVE: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has chosen among offers from 20 agencies that wanted to represent her and signed with Washington Speakers Bureau, which represents everyone from George and Laura Bush to Bob Woodward and Katie Couric to Alan Greenspan, Colin Powell and Rudy Giuliani. More than 950 requests for speeches have poured in for Palin, and over 120 candidates for office have asked her to appear, including folks running for Senate, House and state legislature. She’ll be doing both paid speeches, which are expected to go for six figures apiece, and unpaid speeches for political and charitable causes, including Christian organizations, groups that support families with special-needs children, and military families. Palin has made no commitments so far, and Washington Speakers Bureau will start responding to the invitations this week. She’s about 85 percent finished with her book, due out this spring from HarperCollins, and then she’ll begin looking through the inch-and-a-half-thick file her lawyer, Robert Barnett, has built of offers for network and cable pundit gigs, documentaries and business opportunities.
DAILY BEAST: HER SCOPE IS GLOBAL
What’s better than being able to see Russia from your window? Speaking at the CLSA Investors Forum, apparently. The Associated Press reports that Sarah Palin’s first commercial speaking engagement will take place on Sept 23 in Hong Kong. The former governor of Alaska, whose lack of foreign-policy experience was criticized during the 2008 elections, will follow in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Alan Greenspan, who have spoken at the event, which is hosted by investment group CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. A spokesman for the conference said the event presented investors with “a diversity of views” and included “topics that go beyond traditional finance such as geopolitics.” The event will be closed to the media, and Palin’s speaking fees were not disclosed. Palin received her first passport in 2007 in order to visit Alaskan National Guard members in Kuwait and Germany.
SWINE FLU SPREADS; FEARS OF ADEQUATE HOSPITAL CAPACITY
TORONTO – Intensive care specialists who fought to save desperately sick swine flu patients this spring and summer have a warning for hospitals that haven’t yet dealt with an influx of these difficult-to-treat patients.
Prepare. Now. Experts predict ICUs are likely to be the main battlefield in the war against a pandemic virus which so far doesn’t appear to have much of a middle ground.
The vast majority of people suffer through a typical bout of flu. But of those who become sick enough to be hospitalized, a significant portion – maybe as high as 15 per cent, the World Health Organization says – end up in ICUs for weeks, hovering between life and death.
“I’ve never seen this,” says Dr. Paul Hebert, editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal and an intensive care physician in Ottawa who has treated several of these patients.
“As an ICU doctor, it’s very, very, very rare I can’t deliver enough oxygen to someone to keep him alive. They die of other things, right? They die because their organs fail.”
“In this case, we can barely oxygenate them.”
TRANSMISSION STUDY
Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) — An American tourist in China spread swine flu while talking to fellow bus passengers at close range, suggesting that virus-laden droplets expelled from the mouth are a key mode of transmission, scientists found.
The 40-year-old woman who traveled in early June from New York to Jiuzhaigou, a popular tourist spot in southwestern China, probably sparked an outbreak among 30 members of her holiday group, the researchers said in a study in the October edition of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Colombian leader hit by swine flu
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has been diagnosed with swine flu, his spokesman says, days after attending a regional summit.
The 57-year-old leader was being treated at his residence and was continuing to work, the spokesman said.
Mr Uribe returned on Saturday from a summit in Argentina attended by leaders from across South America.
Those who held talks with him had been told of his infection, the spokesman said.
The Union of South American Nations (Unasur) summit met in Argentina on Friday to discuss a deal giving US troops access to Colombian bases.
Several countries say the deal threatens regional peace – a charge the US and Colombia deny.
To date, 621 cases of swine flu have been recorded in Colombia of which 34 have proved fatal, Colombia’s social protection ministry says.
FT: TRIUMPHANT IN TRIPOLI: LIBYA AT 40
Phaedra Ellis-LamkinS: Four Years After Katrina: Lessons from The Gulf Coast
READ: ROBERT REICH: THE GUNS OF AUGUST AND HEALTHCARE
“The Left has ideas. The right Has Discipline.”
See the whole Post / →
FIN CRISIS: COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE NEXT TO IMPLODE? FED STALLS LAW SUIT
August 31st, 2009 - by: danny
FINANCIAL TIMES: THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
The world economy is bouncing out of recession with more initial vigor than many thought possible until very recently, setting the stage for a strong third quarter in almost every corner of the globe.
SOME BANK PROFITS REPORTED, BUT ONLY A TRICKLE
The U.S. government has hauled in about $4 billion in profits from large banks that have repaid their obligations from last year’s federal bailout, The New York Times reported. Last September, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pressed congressional leaders for legislation authorizing a $700 billion financial bailout of some of the nation’s largest financial institutions, which were in danger of collapsing. The bill was signed into law in October. Critics of the bailout were concerned that the Treasury Department would never see a return on its investment. But the government has already claimed profits from eight of the big DIC Insured Institutions have $13.3 Trillion in Assets. 8,195 Banks and 116 Institutions
Hold $10.2 Trillion of Those Assets. One out of Four Institutions Unprofitable. 1,000 Banks Will Fail or Merge.
“The banking system has taken the country to the financial edge of the greatest recession since the depression. The enormous number of bad loans floating out in the economy only complicates the unemployment situation. When we look into the latest banking data, we realize that over 1,000 of current banks will fail or merge with a too big too fail bank. In fact, the total number will be over 1,000 simply because the “not too big” to fail banks heavily bet on commercial real estate loans that amount to $3 trillion.
Recent data shows that approximately 25% of all the banks insured by the FDIC are unprofitable. That number tells us that some 2,000 banks cannot turn a profit. Let us first look at the current data:
CASE AGAINST THE FED DELAYED
The case of Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan), No. 08-9595.
The Federal Judge that granted Bloomberg’s FOIA request for information about borrowers from the Federal Reserve has granted a temporary stay of execution to the Fed:
Federal Reserve has until Sept. 30 to appeal a federal judge’s order requiring the central bank to identify financial institutions that benefited from its emergency loans.
The Fed’s Board of Governors asked Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska to delay enforcement of her Aug. 24 decision that the identities of borrowers in 11 lending programs be made public by Aug. 31. The central bank wanted Preska to stay her order until the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York can hear the case.
The Fed’s “ability to effectively manage the current, and any future, financial crisis” would be impaired, according to the Fed’s motion for a stay. It said “significant harms” could befall the U.S. economy as well.
I suspect this is merely a delaying tactic, with the Fed eventually losing 3 to nothing on appeal.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND TODAY: SOBERING PARALLELS
WALL ST. JOURNAL: MASSIVE DOWNTURN IN COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE IS THE NEXT FINANCIAL CRISIS
Daily Beast: We may not be in the clear yet: The Wall Street Journal reports that the commercial-real-estate sector threatens to deliver “a roundhouse punch to the U.S. economy just as it struggles to get up off the mat.” In the same way that mortgage-backed securities created from home loans kicked off the last financial crisis, $700 billion in commercial-mortgage-backed securities are threatening the economy once again. Not only was the delinquency rate in July six times the rate at the same time last year, but property owners will have a hard time refinancing loans that have been bundled. By the end of 2012, $153 billion in loans bundled into CMBS will be due, and close to $100 billion will
THE NEXT FORECLOSURE WAVE
By Ellen Chang~News Max
U.S. banks face a tsunami of home foreclosures soon, says David Karsbol, chief economist at Saxo Bank.
Homeowners may be faced with no choice and will just stop paying their mortgages, he warns.
“I believe we are about to see a tsunami of foreclosures in the U.S. A lot of homes have been held back because if the banks are foreclosing on them they will have to do a writedown on the mortgages they have on their balance (sheets),” Karsbol told CNBC.
“That’s why they have been reluctant to do so.”
Soon homeowners may be looking around their neighborhoods and realizing that their neighbors have opted to stop paying their mortgages and are living scot free, he said.
“The fact that many homeowners are allowed to stay in their houses without paying on their mortgages begs the question: Why should you pay on your mortgage when your neighbor doesn’t?” Karsbol said.
Rising unemployment in the United States is the main cause behind foreclosures, economists and bankers told the Washington Post. Subprime mortgages are becoming less of a culprit.
MORE ON SWISS BANKS
NO VIRGINIA, THE ECONOMIC SCENE IS NOT GOING TO RETURN TO NORMAL
SEEKING ALPHA: JEFF NIELSON: DON’T TRUST THE JOB FIGURES
There are/were 2.5 million lay-offs in the U.S. in August, the total of the weekly lay-offs for this month. With another jobs report due out next Friday, the U.S. propaganda-machine is already brainwashing the markets and the American people to put their faith in a number with no basis in reality.
If we take the 2.5 million lay-offs, and subtract the “estimated” net job-losses for August — 235,000 jobs — this means the “experts” cited by Bloomberg (in its weekly propaganda report) are predicting that the U.S. economy created 2.265 million jobs in August.
At a time when these same “experts” state that the U.S. economy is in its worst crisis “since the Great Depression”, they expect us to believe that the U.S. economy is creating more new jobs every month than at any other time this decade.
Former Pa. Sen. Vince Fumo, convicted on fraud charges, starts 41â„2 .
The first person to be charged with fraud under the federal bank bailout has been sentenced to 10 years
LBN: STOCK MARKET FACTOID
The Dow Jones market peaked at 381 on September 3, 1929, and bottomed out at 42 in 1932, which is an amazing 89% decline. It did not reach 381 again until 23 years later in 1955.
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Dalai Lama Consoles Taiwan, Did Mr. O “SQUANDER” Honeymoon?, DAYBREAK IN AMERICA
August 31st, 2009 - by: danny
Dalai Lama in Taiwan:
The Dalai Lama began a five-day visit to Taiwan to console survivors of the island’s deadliest storm in half a century, as China said the Tibetan spiritual leader’s trip could have a “negative influence” on relations.
The government in Beijing “resolutely” opposes the visit and will keep a close eye on the situation, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing a spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office.”
I hope HH (His Highness) is able to console them to on the loss of their Little League baseball team to California on Sunday. That was a real blow.
As for the storm, many are blaming it in part on global warming,
OUT SEPTEMBER 1: NEW BOOK BY DAVID SWANSON
“Throughout the ferment of the Bush-Cheney years, the calls for change that followed, and the new moment we are all hoping to seize, David Swanson has stood at the forefront of citizens movements for a more just America. Popular blogger, a leader of the antiwar and pro-impeachment movements, and a star progressive, Swanson is, as John Nichols calls him, “the true heir of the most radical – and thus the most American – of our Founders.”
His first book Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union (Seven Stories Press; September 15, 2009) is an assessment of how Bush/Cheney fundamentally altered the way our government works, inflated the powers of the executive, and deteriorated the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Only through the active efforts of citizens, Swanson argues, can we restore our rights, and expand our conception of political rights to meet new challenges. Daybreak offers a shocking and inspirational breakdown of all that we have lost, and all that we have to gain.”
DID OBAMA SQUANDER HIS “HONEYMOON?”
INEVITABLE REACTION SETTING IN–WHAT PART OF THE MEDIA BUILDS UP, OTHER MEDIA TEARS DOWN. PREDICTABLY, HITCHENS LEADS THE DEMOLITION DERBY
(Newser Summary) — The Kennedy “legacy” is not pretty, precisely because it requires so much media “airbrushing” to stay intact. “One of the many dreadful aspects,” Christopher Hitchens writes for Slate, “is the now-unbreakable grip of celebrity politics, image-doctoring, stage management, and ‘torch passing’ rhetoric in general.” But even the venomous pundit saves his harshest words for Ted Kennedy’s hagiographers.
Think, Hitchens writes, of “Walter Cronkite referring deadpan to the ‘driving accident’ that had kept Kennedy away from the Senate” and the “ingenuity” it took from the networks to “airbrush the fascist sympathies and bootlegging background of Joseph Kennedy Sr.” And yet last year, appalled by “malicious” campaign ads, Ted Kennedy “withdrew his support from a candidate whose victory would have meant the continuation of the dynastic politics” – and that’s worth something.
Corrective? (T/h to Jack Tobin) Counterpunch weighs in with a Cockburn critique of Teddy Kennedy
ANDY BOROWITZ: In Week Before Labor Day, Pointless ‘Filler’ Columns Abound
Lazy Columnists Pad Out Stories by Quoting Experts, Experts Say
In a phenomenon that occurs every year in the week before Labor Day, national columnists across America file pointless, content-free “filler” columns, enabling the lazy scribes to hit the beach earlier, according to observers who have been following this trend.
The “filler” columns are churned out in a matter of minutes with no loftier goal than meeting a deadline and filling up space — meaning that columnists will often resort to using the same words or phrase again and again and again and again and again.
And rather than doing any original writing, the slothful columnists will rely on so-called “experts” to supply them with quotes to fill up space, experts say.
“They’ll often quote people you’ve never heard of,” says Harold Crimmins, an expert in the field of filler columns. “It’s pretty shameless.”
The typical “filler” column is often a reprint of a previously published column, but the writer will later plug in one cursory reference to current events, such as the health care reform controversy, to disguise this fact. \\
SLOW NOOZE TOO: DXM: “Jeez, you know its a slow news day when “uninjured” makes it to the top of Google’s aggregated entertainment news.”
Renee Zellweger Uninjured in Car Wash
Posted by Entertainment Weekly
LETTERS
ON THE TEDDY MEMORIALS
Esti Marpet: ‘yes i cried all weekend watching the coverage. the most moving for me was the image of hundreds on the steps of the capital among them Robert Byrd in a wheelchair with an American flag.
i couldn’t stand the Michael Jackson never ending noise and quickly got tired of Tim Russert being hailed as a great newsman which of course i had a problem with, but this time i was glued to the set sobbing.
William Haywood writes: “I don’t know. I really do not want the members of oligarchical families deciding anything in my world. I do not need them, nor will I eulogize them. This train wreck that we call America travels on a track that is supposed to go in both directions. Ted Kennedy’s fight proves me right. The track goes only in the direction of wealth.
I will give him that. He was wealthy. He fought hard. I will give him that and Nothing more.”
Sarah Meyer writes from the UK: “thanks for your good article, Danny. Ref MSMedia, what is wrong with the word “”Died” or “Death”?
What is wrong with the word “buried”? Why do we now have to have euphuisms of “passing away” and “laid to rest”?
I prefer reality, and guess you do too?!”
Well, right u are, I guess I do. No, I know I do. Thanks to all who write.
Comments go to dissector@mediachannel.org
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
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