The Blog

Brian Levin, J.D.: The Ft. Hood Massacre: A Lone-Wolf Jihad of One?

2009-11-09T02:56:48Z

The horrific shooting at Fort Hood, Texas -- that left 13 dead and 30 wounded -- allegedly by Nidal Malik Hasan, a disgruntled yet devout Army psychiatrist, puts the spotlight back on the lone-wolf offender who sits at the crossroads of crime, terrorism and mental distress. To better understand the Ft. Hood attack it is useful to contrast it with some other recent cases. In addition, it is also important to understand the tangled interplay that personal disappointments, traumatic events and ideology can have on such an individual. For sake of argument let's loosely define terrorism as an attack on symbolic targets, particularly non-combatants, to intimidate a population or subgroup for a political or social objective.

Hasan Probably Not Part of An Emerging Disturbing Trend of Foreign Radicals

Hasan was the sole shooter and no operational links to foreign terror groups have yet emerged. How much help rhetorically, if any, he got in his spiral toward self-radicalization is also still unknown. Reports indicate Hasan perused extremist websites and that his mother’s funeral service was held at a mosque where radical imam, Anwar al-Aulaqi, and two 9/11 also hijackers prayed.

In any event, with a few very recent disturbing exceptions, most American terrorism related cases do not involve those with direct coordinated links to overseas extremists. The ones that do, however, are a cause of increasingly immense concern. Najibullah Zazi, 24, who allegedly was leading a plot to bomb mass transit targets in the U.S. when he was arrested in September, is tied through intermediaries to al Qaeda’s Afghanistan head, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid- a chief bin Laden lieutenant. He was allegedly trained by al Qaeda in Pakistan as part of an effort to teach tactics to other radicals here in the United States, a charge he denies. Zazi’s case is believed to be the first plot hatched by an alleged al Qaeda associate in the United States recruited after 9/11 to try to hit the American homeland. Various other al Qaeda supporters such as attempted shoe-bomber Richard Reid, would-be bridge bomber Iyman Faris, the Lackawana six, Ali al-Marri and Jose Padilla had connections to the organization that preceded the 9/11 attacks.

Another disturbing case with overseas connections comes out of Minnesota. Four of five people charged have pleaded guilty in the case of the mysterious disappearance of 20 young Somali-Americans from the twin-cities area. The disappeared are believed to be in Africa on a jihad mission in support of Al-Shabaab, a Somali based radical terrorist group linked to al Qaeda that is fighting Ethiopians. Two of those Somali-Americans have been killed in Africa, including Shirwa Ahmed, 27, who detonated himself in a suicide bombing in October 2008 that left him and 29 others dead. Ahmed’s attack in Africa is the first fatal suicide bombing attack by a naturalized American citizen. In 2005, a non-citizen former resident of California, who was deported in 2003, killed 166 people in Hilla, in one of the worst suicide attacks ever in Iraq.

The most recent case of two Chicago residents and former classmates, David Coleman Heady, 49, and Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48, have been of significant concern in the analyst community, but far less so in the mainstream media. The men are alleged to have been involved in plots to target a Danish newspaper involved in the Prophet Mohammad cartoon controversy, as well as possible attacks against India. Of particular concern is the alleged connection of the men to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a violent al Qaeda affiliated terrorist group in Pakistan, believed to be behind the November 2008 Mumbai massacre that killed over 160 people. Analysts also point to Rana’s ownership of various businesses such as First World Immigration Services and a meatpacking plant as a potential cover to funnel would-be terrorists into the United States. Both men maintain their innocence.

Homegrown Plots

Even without the orchestration of foreign terrorist groups, homegrown plotters often seem to select symbolic targets, like the military and Jews, from the same playbook. The first operational plot by homegrown radical Islamic extremists with no direct connection to foreign terrorists was committed in 2005 by California’s Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh or JIS. The group which hatched out of the state prison at Folsom consisted of three converts and a young Pakistani immigrant with mental problems, but no connection to any foreign terrorist groups. Their plot involved a series of gas station robberies that were to fund attacks on military bases and Jewish targets. Since then other homegrown plots or attacks directed at military targets have come to light such as those involving Fort Dix, NJ; a Marine Base at Quantico, VA; and the fatal shooting of a recruiter in Little Rock, AR earlier this year by a convert who tried unsuccessfully to get training in Yemen.

Main Types of Offenders

There are three types of offenders who commit violent acts against symbolic targets. The first is the ideologically motivated perpetrator, who acts out of religion, politics, or both. The second is the psychologically dangerous offender, either someone with a degree of cognitive impairment that clouds his judgment or alternatively a sociopath-someone who is aware of right from wrong, but does not care. These two psychologically dangerous types are mutually exclusive. The third type of offender is one who acts out of revenge and/or personal benefit. Offenders are usually a hybrid of at least two of the three categories, although one will usually predominate.

Dr. Carl Jensen, a former FBI expert, now with the University of Mississippi explains that a key topic for researchers “Is terrorism primarily the result of rational actors deciding upon a course of action to advance their goals or is it the manifestation of psychological factors?” The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association has established its own rebuttable presumption on such matters:

Neither deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious, or sexual) nor conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society are mental disorders unless the deviance or conflict is a symptom of a dysfunction in the individual...(American Psychological Association, 1994: xxii).

Psychological Factors

Jensen points to psychologist Charles Ruby who maintains, “terrorism is basically another form of politically motivated violence that is perpetrated by rational, lucid people who have valid motives.” However, others, he notes, like former CIA psychiatrist Jerrold Post believe that psychological factors play a far more significant role for perpetrators of these attacks. Lone wolf offenders in particular often self-radicalize from a volatile mix of personal distress, psychological issues, and an ideology that can be sculpted to justify and explain their anti-social leanings.

Some of the most notorious acts of symbolic or mass violence over the last century were committed by disturbed individuals. This includes those that were either adjudicated insane, a very high legal hurdle, or those who at the very least had a history of psychological difficulties. The former include New York City “Mad Bomber” George Metesky and attempted Reagan assassin John Hinckley. Others like Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, neo-Nazi killer Buford Furrow, and Virginia Tech massacre shooter Seung-Hui Cho had unmistakable bouts with mental illness.

For many of these perpetrators personal setbacks and alienation are an important part of what catapults them to violence. A radical belief system will often justify, amplify, and direct where their growing personal anger and frustration are targeted. Difficulties in relationships and employment settings, as well as a childhood in a broken home are common.

As Islamophobes and armchair analysts jump to their own simple conclusions on Hasan, his personal dislocations and fears likely played a significant mutating role in his eventual spiral toward violence. These include fear and conflict over an impending first deployment, unresolved distress over the loss of his mother, difficulties with his colleagues and in finding a mate, a cross-country move, and repeated exposure to traumatized soldiers. After two of the main support systems that he knew all his life, namely job and family failed him, religion may have taken their place.

While he had served for two decades in the military, he had become increasingly alienated from its mission, and upset over a feared deployment he could not escape. In addition his immediate family grew distant as his siblings established families of their own and his parents passed. In its place, religion-or at least a twisted idiosyncratic version of it appear to have become a support and belief system that provided a rationale for the growing fear and anger he was feeling. Hasan, like a Christian, killer Scott Roeder-who murdered abortion provider Dr. George Tiller at a church, twist their own conception of faith to comport with their pre-established violent leanings. As we confront a variety of terrorist threats across an array of extremist movements and structures, perhaps the hardest to guard against is the lone-wolf, or small cell, who overlays a contorted political or religious template on a simmering violent personal cauldron of hatreds, fears, alienation, and disappointments. In the extremism arena they can come from an array of diverse ideologies, but whatever their motivation they can be a violent and twisted army of one.

Will Durst: Breaking the Pre-Nup

2009-11-09T02:25:01Z

For liberals, Election Day '08 was the marriage of hope and opportunity. Election Day '09: not so much. More like a summons from a partner's divorce lawyer to give a deposition. After regaining statehouses in both Virginia and New Jersey, Republicans are fighting amongst themselves to see who can grab the megaphone and hail it as a sign from heaven above that the honeymoon between the American people and Barack Obama is over. All while mentally dividing up the community property.

Since Democrats typically come standard equipped with a spine so soft and pliable it can be used as a substitute for window grouting, ("Now With Less Calcium") it comes as no surprise that more than a few members of the wedding party are attempting to weasel out of their spousal responsibilities. Trying to break the pre-nup, as it were. Checking for loopholes with a molecular microscope. Thawing the cake chilling in the freezer and chowing down before the hitching juice gets turned off for good.

We have to assume the union was consummated so an annulment is out of the question. Of course, with these guys, you never know. And at this point it's doubtful that even the great mystical entity that tied the holy knot of wedlock in the first place could broker a reconciliation. But let's leave Teddy Kennedy out of this, shall we?

Whenever connubial bliss is torn asunder and heads south of Tierra Del Fuego, there's blame o'plenty to go around. Maybe too much anticipation was built up by all the pre- ceremony fooling around to sustain an actual relationship. This type of congenital post- nuptial depression tends to specifically afflict Democrats. Perhaps the yoke of marital responsibilities proved too burdensome for the betrothed. Do the terms health care and mid-term elections have any meaning here? And all that talk of the expected alienation of affection due in 2010 could just be acting as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Mister President doesn't skate down the culpability aisle either. He needs to understand that in the heartland, there's not a lot of call for a metrosexual head of the household. Time to grow a pair. Less photo ops. More power tools. Everyone knows the circumstances that forced the newlyweds into moving into a fixer upper. But now, it would be nice to see some actual fixing.

Both sides are praying a trial separation can be averted. On the same latter election day of which earlier we spoke, New York's 23rd Congressional seat went non-Republican for the first time since before the Civil War. When it was held by a Whig. Who knows, maybe some couples therapy could help. Double sessions twice a week with an assist from some heavy psychotropics. Independents are notoriously fickle and susceptible to pendulum swings. Besides, the dowry has been blown and there isn't anything left for alimony.

As always, the worst part of a break up is not the slow suffocation of the sacred bond of matrimony; after all, the majority of better halves in this country don't get it right until the second or third time around. No, the most distressing part is when children are involved, such as in this case. And yes, sadly, I am talking about Congress. Let the custody battles begin.

Will Durst is a San Francisco based political comic who writes sometimes. This is one of them. Catch his new one man show "The Lieutenant Governor from the State of Confusion," coming soon to a performing arts center near you. Such as: Saturday the 14th. Pantages Theater/ Broadway Center for the Performing Arts/ 901 Broadway, Tacoma, WA 98402/ 253.591.5890/ broadwaycenter.org

Marcia Angell, M.D.: Is the House Health Care Bill Better than Nothing?

2009-11-09T01:02:08Z

Well, the House health reform bill -- known to Republicans as the Government Takeover -- finally passed after one of Congress's longer, less enlightening debates. Two stalwarts of the single-payer movement split their votes; John Conyers voted for it; Dennis Kucinich against. Kucinich was right.

Conservative rhetoric notwithstanding, the House bill is not a "government takeover." I wish it were. Instead, it enshrines and subsidizes the "takeover" by the investor-owned insurance industry that occurred after the failure of the Clinton reform effort in 1994. To be sure, the bill has a few good provisions (expansion of Medicaid, for example), but they are marginal. It also provides for some regulation of the industry (no denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions, for example), but since it doesn't regulate premiums, the industry can respond to any regulation that threatens its profits by simply raising its rates. The bill also does very little to curb the perverse incentives that lead doctors to over-treat the well-insured. And quite apart from its content, the bill is so complicated and convoluted that it would take a staggering apparatus to administer it and try to enforce its regulations.

What does the insurance industry get out of it? Tens of millions of new customers, courtesy of the mandate and taxpayer subsidies. And not just any kind of customer, but the youngest, healthiest customers -- those least likely to use their insurance. The bill permits insurers to charge twice as much for older people as for younger ones. So older under-65's will be more likely to go without insurance, even if they have to pay fines. That's OK with the industry, since these would be among their sickest customers. (Shouldn't age be considered a pre-existing condition?)

Insurers also won't have to cover those younger people most likely to get sick, because they will tend to use the public option (which is not an "option" at all, but a program projected to cover only 6 million uninsured Americans). So instead of the public option providing competition for the insurance industry, as originally envisioned, it's been turned into a dumping ground for a small number of people whom private insurers would rather not have to cover anyway.

If a similar bill emerges from the Senate and the reconciliation process, and is ultimately passed, what will happen?

First, health costs will continue to skyrocket, even faster than they are now, as taxpayer dollars are pumped into the private sector. The response of payers -- government and employers -- will be to shrink benefits and increase deductibles and co-payments. Yes, more people will have insurance, but it will cover less and less, and be more expensive to use.

But, you say, the Congressional Budget Office has said the House bill will be a little better than budget-neutral over ten years. That may be, although the assumptions are arguable. Note, though, that the CBO is not concerned with total health costs, only with costs to the government. And it is particularly concerned with Medicare, the biggest contributor to federal deficits. The House bill would take money out of Medicare, and divert it to the private sector and, to some extent, to Medicaid. The remaining costs of the legislation would be paid for by taxes on the wealthy. But although the bill might pay for itself, it does nothing to solve the problem of runaway inflation in the system as a whole. It's a shell game in which money is moved from one part of our fragmented system to another.

Here is my program for real reform:

Recommendation #1: Drop the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55. This should be an expansion of traditional Medicare, not a new program. Gradually, over several years, drop the age decade by decade, until everyone is covered by Medicare. Costs: Obviously, this would increase Medicare costs, but it would help decrease costs to the health system as a whole, because Medicare is so much more efficient (overhead of about 3% vs. 20% for private insurance). And it's a better program, because it ensures that everyone has access to a uniform package of benefits.

Recommendation #2: Increase Medicare fees for primary care doctors and reduce them for procedure-oriented specialists. Specialists such as cardiologists and gastroenterologists are now excessively rewarded for doing tests and procedures, many of which, in the opinion of experts, are not medically indicated. Not surprisingly, we have too many specialists, and they perform too many tests and procedures. Costs: This would greatly reduce costs to Medicare, and the reform would almost certainly be adopted throughout the wider health system.

Recommendation #3: Medicare should monitor doctors' practice patterns for evidence of excess, and gradually reduce fees of doctors who habitually order significantly more tests and procedures than the average for the specialty. Costs: Again, this would greatly reduce costs, and probably be widely adopted.

Recommendation #4: Provide generous subsidies to medical students entering primary care, with higher subsidies for those who practice in underserved areas of the country for at least two years. Costs: This initial, rather modest investment in ending our shortage of primary care doctors would have long-term benefits, in terms of both costs and quality of care.

Recommendation #5: Repeal the provision of the Medicare drug benefit that prohibits Medicare from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices. (The House bill calls for this.) That prohibition has been a bonanza for the pharmaceutical industry. For negotiations to be meaningful, there must be a list (formulary) of drugs deemed cost-effective. This is how the Veterans Affairs System obtains some of the lowest drug prices of any insurer in the country. Costs: If Medicare paid the same prices as the Veterans Affairs System, its expenditures on brand-name drugs would be a small fraction of what they are now.

Is the House bill better than nothing? I don't think so. It simply throws more money into a dysfunctional and unsustainable system, with only a few improvements at the edges, and it augments the central role of the investor-owned insurance industry. The danger is that as costs continue to rise and coverage becomes less comprehensive, people will conclude that we've tried health reform and it didn't work. But the real problem will be that we didn't really try it. I would rather see us do nothing now, and have a better chance of trying again later and then doing it right.

Reese Schonfeld: "Informed Sources": What Really Happened When Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin Got Into Upstate New York Politics

2009-11-09T00:50:04Z

As New York residents know, ever since Governor Spitzer got caught in the wrong hotel room, Albany has been in turmoil. The latest tempest involved the 23rd Congressional district where, to the astonishment of the political establishment, the Republican candidate was forced out of the race because of her positions on gay and abortion rights. Her departure left the field wide open for the Conservative Party nominee.

Who forced her out--Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and the other far-right Conservatives, who argued that a woman who supported abortion rights and gay marriage should not run be on the Republican ticket. (The Democratic candidate won, but that's beside the point.) The question is why did the Republican Party drop its own nominees and abandon out the race?

The answer (according to "informed sources"): former NY Governor George Pataki brokered a deal in an attempt to sew up his nomination on the Conservative line if he runs for the Senate in 2012. After the deal was announced Pataki made a statement in support of the Conservative candidate and campaigned for him. Pataki had been backed by the New York Conservative Party when he ran for Governor, but he was perceived as relatively "moderate" during his three terms in office. According to my sources, Pataki's political ambitions are centered on a Senate run for the seat formerly held by Hillary Clinton and now, thanks to Spitzer's successor as Governor David Patterson, occupied by Kirsten Gillibrand, a former upstate Democratic Congresswoman.

How did she get the nod from Patterson? My sources suggest that former Republican Senator Al D'Amato, a close Pataki political ally, and now an equally close advisor to Democratic Governor Patterson, persuaded him to choose the little known Gillibrand over Caroline Kennedy (JFK's daughter). who had been expected to gain the appointment. Patterson's decision seemed abrupt and strange, and was certainly badly handled. The appointment brought upon him the wrath of many in the Democratic Party, and according to polls, has reduced his popularity with Democrats in the state to a mere 17%.

Who has it helped? Certainly George Pataki, Al D'Amato's close pal. Gillibrand, who has done a pretty good job as Senator, is a far less formidable opponent than Caroline Kennedy would've been if Pataki decides to run in 2012.

But still, why did Pataki broker the deal in the first place? The answer: he wants to ensure the support of the Limbaugh-Palin wing of the Republican Party; he doesn't want a challenge for the Senate spot on the Conservative Party line either. So according to my upstate New York "informed sources", the biggest winner in last Tuesday's New York election is George Pataki. Republicans may have lost a seat in the House of Representatives, but that's a small price to pay if they gain a Senate seat in 2012.

As for pro-tem Governor David Patterson, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is favored to win the Democratic nomination for Governor in 2010 and Patterson may be consigned to the dustbin of Albany history. It cannot come too soon.

Robert Kuttner: The Audacity to Change

2009-11-09T00:44:56Z

What a long, strange year it's been since Election Night 2008. Whatever this administration has represented so far, it has not yet delivered change we can believe in.

We need a radical break with Wall Street, and we got the politics of prop up and bail out -- with the result that most Americans don't think the program is benefiting them.

We needed President Obama to focus like a laser on economic recovery, and instead we got the distraction of a barely-worth-it health insurance patch. We needed the president to go to the country and win support for fundamental health reform, and instead we got Rahm Emanuel's deal with the drug and insurance industries that won House support by the barest of majorities and managed to frighten senior citizens -- the most satisfied customers of our one public option -- Medicare.

We needed a recovery program that held down unemployment, and instead we got a stimulus that even the Obama team considered too small at the time of its enactment, according to the reporting of The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza.

And now we are on the verge of Barack Obama's very own Vietnam, in an escalating Afghanistan entanglement.

The 2009 off-year elections were a repudiation of incumbents -- only now the incumbent party is the Democrats. Popular cynicism about government representing the interests of insiders and economic elites is even more extreme now than in November 2008, when the desire for drastic change thrust Obama into the White House. If present economic trends continue, the Democrats could lose control of the House in 2010, setting up a repeat of Bill Clinton's period of "triangulation," but with an even more lunatic-fringe obstructionist Republican Party.

Yet, as a friend points out, if you had evaluated John F. Kennedy in November 1961, a year after his election, you would have adjudged him pretty much a failure. His administration began with the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. Kennedy did not have firm control over his nominally Democratic majority in Congress (despite almost identical partisan margins as Obama's). He did not make an effective impression on Nikita Khrushchev at their Vienna Summit, and the Soviet Cuban Missile offensive followed. But by late 1963, Kennedy had begun the turn to détente, and he managed to lay the groundwork for the civil rights and antipoverty revolution that his successor, Lyndon Johnson, delivered.

So, can Barack Obama recoup, and can he recoup in time?

If you look at what most historians regard as Kennedy's finest hour, his leadership of the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, you appreciate that Kennedy above all had to face down most of his own advisers. Most wanted a military confrontation with the Soviets. But the brothers Kennedy found an alternative to either war or surrender.

Obama, like Kennedy, needs to overcome the dubious counsel of his own advisers, this time both economic and military. With unemployment still rising to levels the administration did not anticipate, Messrs Summers and company are still opposed to a second stimulus, and the White House is mainly concerned with appeasing the budget hawks.

The president needs to listen to other voices, including his own. He needs to go to the country with a much stronger jobs program, to show people that his administration is on their side. He could take the TARP money that has been repaid by the banks and put it directly into mortgage foreclosure relief, as well as insisting that sub-prime bondholders take the same kind of write-down as auto-company bondholders. He could ask Congress for additional fiscal relief to the states, whose budget collapse is still worsening, undercutting the existing federal stimulus. Deficit reduction can come once the economy is back on track.

On Afghanistan, instead of the seemingly inevitable troop escalation that will please nobody and fail to alter events, he could pursue a policy of pressing the Karzai regime harder for reforms while helping Karzai keep the Taliban from taking control of Kabul and northern provinces -- and using a small troop presence of 20,000 or less to keep al Qaeda off balance. He could firmly reject getting dragged piecemeal into a war that will only be a quagmire. The Republicans would rattle sabers but most Americans would cheer.

Some of what Obama has faced was beyond his control. Nobody said digging out from the financial catastrophe would be easy, or that fashioning a viable policy for Afghanistan would be a cakewalk. Taming a Democratic majority that included Blue Dogs obsessed with fiscal balance and New Dems in bed with Wall Street was not exactly child's play either. But events did not require him to appoint an economic team headed by Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, or to reappoint Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Fed, or Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, or to favor the escalation faction in his Afghanistan advisers. Events did not require him to play an inside game with powerful industries instead of taking a case for radical reform directly to the people and offering a Rooseveltian program too popular to oppose.

From the day he declared for the presidency -- indeed, from the day he declared for the Illinois state senate -- Obama has displayed an audacity, a decency, an idealism, and an eloquence that gave us hope that here was a great president. But as chief executive, he has seemed buttoned up and damped down while a great crisis threatens to envelop the country and his presidency. He had the audacity to run and to win. Now, will he have the audacity to learn and to lead?

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos. He is author of Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency.

Steve Clemons: Give Joe Biden MVP Award This Week on Obama Foreign Policy Team

2009-11-08T23:37:33Z

Richard Wolffe wrote in his Obama campaign memoir that the president sees most of his challenges in basketball metaphors and that he's turned on by nail-biting contests when he, Barack Obama, can switch things up in the contest and come in to make the key decisions and plays that achieve a win.

But lately, it seems to be Joe Biden who has to be given the MVP award on the Obama team this week.

Today Iraq's government passed a politically controversial new election law allowing parliamentary elections to take place in January and also keeping a drawdown of US combat forces on schedule.

And behind the scenes, Vice President Joe Biden had a lot to do with ushering the US diplomatic and military team as well as Iraq's political leaders over the finish line.

Joe Biden issued this statement a short while ago today on the news of the election law's passage:

I congratulate Iraqi political leaders on today's passage of amendments to the Iraq elections law. Today's vote by the members of the Council of Representatives will allow for parliamentary elections in January 2010, as mandated under the Iraqi constitution. I commend the Council of Representatives for coming to agreement on the various difficult issues of considerable importance to Iraqis.

I also extend my appreciation to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq for its important role in providing technical advice. These elections will be a critical step forward in advancing national unity and forming an inclusive government. Our commitment and friendship to Iraq remain strong.

But the back story is that Joe Biden put forth a lot of hours last week coordinating the key players involved in the election law political mess.

Sources report that Biden spoke twice in the last seven days to Masoud Barzani, President of Iraqi Kurdistan. Kurdistan has been particularly paralyzed over the new election law because of ethic partisanship on how voting in Kurdistan should be structured.

In addition, US Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill and Multi National Forces in Iraq Commander Ray Odierno have been in regular communication with the Vice President during this last week according to senior administration sources and US personnel in Iraq. The Vice President also helped the Hill-Odierno team work through final issues in an "end game video conference" on Friday, the 6th of November.

And White House staffers report that Joe Biden played quarterback for them during the recent turmoil over the on-then-off-then-on-again Iraq election law while White House personnel were in hourly contact with the embassy team and the United Nations.

Not a lot has been going right lately for the Obama national security and foreign policy teams.

George Mitchell's efforts seem to be collapsing in fast motion. Karzai's re-election has done little to restore confidence in America's Afghanistan project. Iran is not taking the US seriously. Hillary Clinton just returned from a painfully frustrating trip to South Asia and the Middle East that seemed to open more wounds and problems than solve them.

But Joe Biden -- who early in the Obama administration was supposed to be a lot of things for the president but not an alternative foreign policy czar -- is turning out to be a very useful problem-solving tool for the president on the international stage.

Shortly before Biden became the president's running mate, Biden had been featured in Working Mother magazine as one of the most family friendly legislators in Congress. The Vice President's team shared this with me then as an indication that the eventual Vice President carried with him a skill set on domestic policy as impressive as what most already saw in foreign policy.

The VP also staked out the title "Advisor in Chief" to the president -- on all issues -- and was asked by the president to chair the Middle Class Task Force which had a meeting just last week reported by this writer. The Biden team also got specific tasks from the White House in dealing with global nuclear materials reduction and non-proliferation, working on some aspects of Russia policy -- particularly regarding the still simmering Georgia conflict and the future direction of NATO.

And Biden was asked to help out in moving Iraq forward.

And he has delivered in substantive ways that deserve attention. He has helped smooth relations and the interaction between Odierno and Ambassador Christopher Hill -- and kept everyone working systematically and seriously toward a positive conclusion of the Iraq election law drama.

We need results like this.

Once America begins showing that it can work with a complex set of actors at home and abroad and can actually achieve the results it sets out for itself, the world will begin seeing the stock of American power rise again.

Excellent work, Vice President Biden.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note and directs the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation

Lincoln Mitchell: Towards the Next Victory on Health Care

2009-11-08T22:44:43Z

The passage of the health care bill is good news for President Obama and the Democrats, but it is more a case of avoiding defeat than of scoring a decisive victory. Given that the Democrats have control almost 60% of the seats in the House of Representatives, by a margin of 257-178, and that all that was needed was a simple majority, this was not the greatest challenge facing Obama's health care reform. However, had the bill not passed the house, it would have been a stinging defeat for the president and his party.

Now the Democrats must win in the Senate. To do that, it is essential to somehow build on this initial, if unsurprising, victory in the House. However, the House and Senate are different institutions which often do not take cues from each other. Success in one far from guarantees success in the other; and momentum is an elusive, and often nonexistent issue in legislation, particularly given that it could be a number of months before the health care bill comes to the senate floor. The issue in the Senate will not be winning a simple majority, that should be relatively simple, but winning a cloture vote. A cloture vote requires 60 senators voting to end discussion and bring the bill to a vote. Winning a cloture vote will be difficult, but the make or break moment for Obama.

The real partisan makeup of the Senate is now 59-41 in favor of the Democrats. This includes one nominal independent, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who often votes with the Democrats, and one nominal Independent, Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who is part of the Democratic caucus but is really a Republican. Accordingly, the main focus of Obama's and the Democratic Senate leadership's aim should be to consolidate support of 59 Democrats and pick off one, or even two Republicans. The most likely candidates here are Senators Collins and Snowe from Maine. This is a different strategy than actively suiting a bipartisan bill. Doing that would require reaching out to the Republican Party and its leadership and seeking their input on the final bill. This would be a mistake because the Republican Party leadership had made it clear that their goal is to see health care, and with it the Obama presidency, fail. Reaching out to them would only make this easier for the Republican Party. Trying to peel off one or two Republicans through cutting political deals and appealing to the political realities in their home state is a distinctly different, and better, strategy.

A similar tactic should be avoiding compromising on the bill until as late in the process as possible. Obama could almost certainly get his 60 cloture votes in the Senate for a bill that is weaker than the house bill, but that tradeoff would be a mistake. This is the closest we have come to meaningful health care reform in decades, if the president compromises it away too early it will be devastatingly lost opportunity to put right one of the gravest problems facing many Americans. Rather than seeking to compromise on the bill with the misguided hope of ameliorating Republican rancor, the Democrats should seek to cut specific deals with specific legislatures when necessary, while maintaining the sound fundamentals of the bill which was passed by the house.

Winning even one Republican cloture votes will be difficult, but it may not be sufficient. Only if the Democrats hold all 59 of their votes will one Republican vote be enough. This is unlikely as there are other Democrats in addition to the already written off Lieberman, including Blanche Lincoln Arkansas and Max Baucus of Montana, who are threatening to vote against cloture. If Lincoln, Baucus and others do not vote for cloture it will be extremely unlikely that any Republicans will, so they are extremely important. One key tactic for attracting these votes is to make it clear, from both Reid and Obama, that there will be a big cost associated with not supporting the party on this. Offering incentives for wavering supporters will be helpful, but making it clear that no Democrat will get a free pass if they vote against cloture is essential. Democrats who vote against cloture should expect no support from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid or Obama on future pet issues, pork or other political considerations.

These tactics will seem unseemly coming from Obama and will allow his opponents to argue that he is no different of any of his predecessors. It seems like this is a tenuous attack and one that is worth fending off if real health care reform is at stake. If Obama is unwilling to take this relatively minor political risk, and therefore lets a small handful of recalcitrant Democrats destroy our chances for health care reform, he will have failed his constituents.

Dahr Jamail: Where Will They Get the Troops? Preparing Undeployables for the Afghan Front

2009-11-08T22:42:43Z

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com.

As the Obama administration debates whether to send tens of thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan, an already overstretched military is increasingly struggling to meet its deployment numbers. Surprisingly, one place it seems to be targeting is military personnel who go absent without leave (AWOL) and then are caught or turn themselves in.

Hidden behind the gates of military bases across the U.S., troops facing AWOL and desertion charges regularly find themselves in the hands of a military that metes out informal, open-ended punishments by forcing them to wait months -- sometimes more than a year -- to face military justice. In the meantime, some of these soldiers are offered a free pass out of this legal limbo as long as they agree to deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq -- even if they have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In August 2008 at TomDispatch.com, we reported on the deplorable conditions at the 82nd Replacement Barracks at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There, more than 50 members of Echo Platoon of the 82nd Airborne Division's 82nd Replacement Detachment were being held while awaiting AWOL and desertion charges. Investigations launched since then -- in part in response to our article -- have revealed that the plight of members of Echo Platoon is not an isolated one. It is, in fact, disturbingly commonplace on other bases throughout the United States. And it is from these "holdover units," filled with disgruntled soldiers who have gone AWOL, many of whom are struggling with PTSD from previous deployments in war zones, that the military is hoping to help meet its manpower needs for Afghanistan.

Nightmare in Echo Platoon

On August 16th, determined to put an end to unbearable mental and psychological pain, Private Timothy Rich, while on 24-hour suicide watch, attempted to jump to his death from the roof of Echo Platoon's barracks (where he had been held since being arrested for going AWOL). Prior to his suicide attempt, Rich had been offered amnesty by the military in exchange for agreeing to deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq.

He had already been through a hellish year awaiting a discharge and treatment for mental health problems. "I want to leave here very bad," he explained. "For four months they have been telling me that I'll get out next week. I didn't see an end to it, so I figured I'd try and end it myself."

He fell three stories, bouncing off a tree, before hitting the ground and cracking his spine. The military gave him a back brace, psychotropic drugs, and put him on a renewed, 24-hour suicide watch.

While he has recently been discharged from the military, Rich was not atypical of the soldiers of Echo Platoon, some forced to wait a year or more in legal limbo -- in dilapidated buildings under the authority of abusive commanders -- for legal proceedings to begin, and many struggling with mental illness or PTSD from previous deployments. As Specialist Dustin Stevens told us last August: "[It's] horrible here. We are treated like animals. Some of us are going crazy, some are sick. There are people here who should be in mental hospitals. And the way I see it, I did nothing wrong."

Shortly after our story was published, Stevens told us that at least half a dozen soldiers in the platoon, including him, were suddenly given trial dates. Although he was likely to be found guilty and face punishment, Stevens claimed to be "relieved" to have an end in sight. Soon after, according to Echo Platoon informants, their barracks were condemned as a result of a military investigation of the site and, on October 19th, the platoon itself was disbanded.

Recently, due possibly to the attention his story drew to the mistreatment and indefinite detention soldiers were facing in Echo Platoon, Stevens was informed by the military he would be "chaptered out" -- in other words, given an administrative discharge from the Army -- and will not be forced to serve formal prison time.

James Branum, Stevens' civilian lawyer, as well as the legal adviser to the G.I. Rights Hotline of Oklahoma and co-chair of the Military Law Task Force (MLTF), summed developments up this way: "After repeated complaints and congressional inquiry, Echo Platoon was shut down. The whole place was shut down. Everyone was scattered to other units. If your old unit still exists, they are sending you to your old unit. We know that at least one of the NCOs [non-commissioned officers] in charge of Echo Platoon was fired. I think this is a positive thing."

Echoes of Echo

The troubling state of affairs in Echo Platoon may only have been the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Army holdover units. Evidence suggests that soldiers being held on other bases in the United States for AWOL and desertion face similar apathy or intentional neglect - and that they, too, are often left with the choice between living in legal limbo or agreeing to be sent to a war zone.

Scott Wildman, a former Army Specialist, went AWOL in 2007 when he was unable to receive adequate help for severe PTSD sustained after a 15-month deployment to Iraq. In February 2009, he finally turned himself in at Fort Lewis in Washington State, only to find himself lost in a labyrinthine bureaucracy. For the first four months, he was not allowed to leave a confined area and was forbidden even to walk around by himself.

Here's how he describes his experience: "I was flipping out. My wife had left me while I was over there. I hadn't seen my kids in a couple years. I came home and tried to get help. At Fort Lewis, they do not care about you. I had been diagnosed by civilian and military doctors with severe depression, PTSD, and severe anxiety. When you are at the unit, they make fun of you. They crack PTSD jokes. They all have it too, but they're too cool."

During the eight months he has been held at Fort Lewis, Wildman claims he has suffered verbal abuse and substandard mental healthcare. "The command treated me like dirt. My commander ignored me for the first couple months until my roommate jumped me. They'll make sure you're in the room and call you a 'bunch of PTSD pussies.'"

Four weeks ago, Wildman was informed that he would be court-martialed, but was not given a trial date. Feeling he had no other choice, he went AWOL again and remains so today.

"I'd been going to see some military counselors, but we weren't making progress on the real problem.... They give us classes on calm and peacefulness, but they are right near the shooting ranges. There's gunfire and explosions all around, people being screamed at all the time because it's infantry. It's not a good place for someone with [mental health] issues."

At one point, despite a confidentiality protocol that should have prevented it, Wildman's commanders went through his medical evaluations and found out that he had been involved in the accidental killing of two little girls in Iraq. They proceeded to needle him by threatening to write him up for war crimes.

Explaining why he once again went AWOL, Wildman says, "I didn't know what was going to happen next. I had to remove myself from that situation."

"Examples of how the military is treating soldiers, like the case of Wildman, are common," comments Kathleen Gilberd, co-chair of the MLTF. She also points out that the Army, stretched thin by years of multiple deployments to two war zones, has taken to downplaying potentially severe medical conditions to keep soldiers eligible for service overseas. It is commonplace, she reports, for formerly AWOL soldiers to be "bribed" with offers of having all charges, or potential charges, dropped, as long as they accept deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.

"A lot of folks who are under-diagnosed or misdiagnosed are being deployed second and third times," she adds. "Barrier mechanisms that should prevent this from happening are being routinely ignored... If someone is on psychotropic medication or is diagnosed with a fresh psychiatric condition, there should be a 90-day observation period and delay, under DOD [Department of Defense] policy."

Remarkably, that sometimes-ignored 90-day hold period for military personnel on psychotropic medications does not always apply to soldiers who are diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI) of a sort commonly caused by roadside bombs. According to an Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center analysis, reported in the Denver Post in August 2008, more than "43,000 service members -- two-thirds of them in the Army or Army Reserve -- were classified as nondeployable for medical reasons three months before they deployed" to Iraq. The process, if anything, only seems to be accelerating when it comes to Afghanistan.

Deploying the Undeployables

Not all soldiers go AWOL in order to save their minds and bodies. Some are trying to save their families. One soldier held in Bravo Platoon, a holdover unit of the 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs (who did not want his name made public) disclosed that, having returned from service in Iraq, he was told he would soon be redeployed there. Because his mother was ill, he refused and was threatened with a court martial.

"When I turned myself in, I submitted a binder with letters from my mom's doctors and state officials that made clear that I needed to be home to take care of my mother. At that time, they had me on restriction and lockdown 24/7 to keep me from leaving again. Later they punished me. I was assigned extra duty and received a rank reduction from E3 to a private. I was treated like crap."

He and the other soldiers in his holdover platoon were subjected to verbal abuse and made to do menial jobs. He claimed that he was threatened daily with being sent to the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the military's maximum security correctional facility -- and then was urged to agree to go back to Iraq instead. It made no difference that he had "no-go" orders from doctors at Fort Carson exempting him from overseas deployment.

His commander promised him a clean slate if he would redeploy to Iraq, insisting that the only alternative was a court-martial. Despite a regimen of humiliation, he stood his ground and was finally discharged for family hardship in September 2008. There were at least 11 other soldiers then in Bravo Platoon. Like their counterparts in Echo, most were told that their records would be wiped clean once they agreed to redeploy. The alternative was a non-judicial punishment, followed by a court-martial some months down the line.

As he tells it, Sergeant Heath Carter, originally based at Fort Polk, Louisiana, found himself torn between pressing family needs and an indifferent military command. On returning from the invasion of Iraq, he discovered his daughter living in what he believed to be an unsafe environment. Heath and his new wife started consulting attorneys in order to secure custody of the child. Precisely during this time, the military began changing Carter's duty station. He was moved from Fort Polk to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, then on to Fort Stewart, Georgia, reducing his chances of gaining custody.

Convinced that this was a crucial matter for his daughter, he requested compassionate reassignment to Fort Leavenworth, Missouri, about two hours away from her. His appeals to the military command, to his chaplain, even to his congressman failed. In May 2007, having run out of options, he went AWOL from Fort Stewart, heading home to fight for custody, which he won.

This January 25th, however, he was arrested at his home by Military Police, who flew him back to Fort Stewart where he has been awaiting charges for the past eight months. Being a sergeant, he is in a regular unit, not a holdover one. Initially, his commander assured him he would be sent home within a month and a half. Several months later, the same commander decided to court-martial him.

Carter feels frustrated. "If they had done that in the beginning, I would have been home by now. It's taken this long for them to decide. Now I have to wait for the court-martial. If we had known it would take this long, my family could have moved down here. Every time I ask when I'll have a trial, they say it's only going to be another two weeks. I get the feeling they're lying. They've messed with my pay. They're trying to push me to do something wrong."

His ordeal has forced Carter to reflect on America's wars. Once, he admits, he was proud of his mission in Iraq. Now, he sees things differently. "I don't think there is any reason for us to be there except for oil."

His wife, who witnessed her husband's callous treatment, says, "He's been there [Iraq], done that, and seen horrible, terrible things, so of course he doesn't want to go back."

While the Obama administration decides how many thousands of troops to send to Afghanistan, service men and women are already facing repeated deployments, oftentimes while having already been diagnosed with medical conditions that should render them unfit for deployment.

Nothing has changed for these beleaguered troops, except the venue of their maltreatment and the desperation with which the military is now struggling to make the necessary deployment numbers as it continues to fight two endless wars.

Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan (Haymarket Books, 2009), and Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from occupied Iraq for nine months, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey over the last five years.

Sarah Lazare is the project coordinator for Courage to Resist, an organization that supports troops who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is also a freelance writer.

Bhaswati Sengupta contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 Dahr Jamail and Sarah Lazare

John Brown: The Backlash Against Cultural Diplomacy

2009-11-08T22:21:07Z

As I compile, for my sins (which are many), the Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review, I have noticed, in recent weeks, a backlash against what is known as "cultural diplomacy," often defined as government-supported promotion of a country's artistic achievements overseas.

These critical reactions are, in my view, worthy of serious consideration, as they underscore the importance of not turning art into propaganda.

But I would not go so far as to say the US government should not, openly and visibly, sponsor cultural events overseas.

The initial salvo in the recent anti-cultural diplomacy mood came from Michael Kaiser, President of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in a posting in the Huffington Post. He asks:

But does traditional cultural diplomacy work? Do we need state-supported tours by American performing arts groups when without federal funding so many of our performers and performing arts groups are appearing all over the world?

Instead of traditional cultural diplomacy, Mr. Kaiser suggests:

We can teach how we use marketing to expand the reach of our arts organizations. We can teach the importance of long-term program planning for building new sources of support.

The distinguished intellectual Benjamin R. Barber, in an article for the British Independent, writes:

[C]ultural diplomacy cannot pretend to change how countries do business and probably should not even try.

From across the pond, the most convincing, articulate case against cultural diplomacy is made by Tiffany Jenkins, in her thoughtful, but factually inaccurate, article "Artists: resist this propagandist agenda":

[T]he arts have been used by leaders throughout history to bolster their status and authority, and to lend weight to concepts such as 'the nation'. Artists, in turn, have used their talents to promote different agendas and to take sides in conflicts and revolutions. But, in recent times, this relationship has been formalised, made more explicit and prescriptive.

Critics of cultural diplomacy (and there are others) are, and good for them, questioning its suppositions.

But, based on my simple experience as an American diplomat overseas for more than twenty years, what my colleagues and I did best (and all too seldom) was to present who we Americans are, through our all too often unexplainable culture -- or simply put, to repeat, who we, we Americans, are.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson: The Senate, Not the House, Is the Name of the Game on Health Care Reform

2009-11-08T20:47:28Z

President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, key House and Senate Democratic and Republicans, and most importantly the major pharmaceuticals and private insurers know one thing, and they've known it from the start of the health care debate. And that's that the Senate, not the house, will decide what, if any, health care reform plan is finally approved.

The pharmaceuticals and private insurers have repeatedly and forcefully made it clear that they flatly reject a true public option, any enforced restrictions of their right to charge whatever the freight will carry for health care, or dump or summarily exclude anyone who's too sick, poor, or too old from coverage. They also made it abundantly clear that they'll only accept a bill that requires millions to be covered by them at government (taxpayers) expense and that slaps penalties on those who refuse to go along with it.

The full enactment of the main provisions of whatever health care bill is passed won't take place for nearly another decade and that gives private insurers time to hike prices to cover any added costs in policy and coverage changes they must make under reform. They've fielded an army of lobbyists and health insurer flacks, held secret deal cutting meetings at the White House, stuffed millions in the campaign coffers of leading Democratic senators (including one-time Senator Obama), and poured more millions into ads, mailers, and planted articles to get their way.

The Senate, and even more specific, the Senate Finance Committee, has been the target of the insurers' relentless, prolonged, and well-oiled campaign to get the most generous industry health care plan possible, or no plan at all. Their time, effort and money has been well-spent. The finance committee quickly killed the public option, slapped penalties on non-buyers, and imposed no tough and enforced procedures to compel the private insurers to keep their bargain to insure everyone. It did not stamp on tight cost containment measures to insure that private insurers keep their prices down.

Senate leaders did not raise a peep at the crude, naked blackmail threat by America's Health Insurance Plans, the private health insurer's industry group. It publicly waved around a study it commissioned that claimed that private insurers would have to sharply increase the prices families would pay if the House version of the health care reform plan passed.

The actual house vote is far from the great victory that Pelosi and Democratic leaders declared. The Democrats had a crushing majority, had poll after poll that showed the public wants a real public option and full affordable health coverage for all, and no cuts in the Medicare services (the cuts are in the House and Senate bills). Yet, the house bill still barely squeaked through, and then only after Pelosi and other House liberals shamefully back pedaled and excised abortion coverage from the bill. This all guaranteed that the resistance to the most liberal provisions of the House bill will be even more ferocious in the Senate.

Even if none of these factors came into play in the Senate, it still more often than not has been the graveyard for House-passed legislation that the Senate considers too liberal, too pro-labor, too expansive, too costly, and too non-industry friendly. In the past couple of years the Senate has killed House-passed legislation on tougher energy standards, scaling back contributions to the IMF, increased education spending, House amendments on Iraq and Afghanistan troop withdrawal and decreased war spending, and immigration and major banking reforms. For years, it bottled up the House-passed expanded hate crimes bill.

Industry groups dead set against the House bill have one more trump card, and that's the conference committees. The Senate can amend, change the language, or red pencil out anything in a House bill it likes. It then tosses it back to the House to amend, change the language or excise things that the Senate wants tossed out. The conference committee negotiations on controversial legislation are long, tedious, and drawn out. When or even if agreement is ever reached it then goes back to both the full body of the House and Senate for a vote. There's no time frame for completion for any of this. Nor is there any requirement the Senate take a final vote. This was the case with other pieces of "landmark" bills the house passed.

The House vote on health care reform was historic only in that one body of Congress took the hotly contested first big step toward reform. The Senate hasn't spoken. And it, not the House, is the name of the game on health care reform.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.

Rep. Mike Honda: Health Care Reform: Historic Legislation

2009-11-08T20:24:29Z

Members of Congress are rarely presented with an opportunity to support the passage of truly historic legislation. Today was such a day, and H.R. 3692, Affordable Health Care for America Act, such an opportunity. Against an organized, scorched earth campaign of misinformation and fear mongering, we passed a strong bill, and an even stronger sense of unity and purpose in our fight to bring access, affordability, and high quality health care to every person in America.

As Chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, I am particularly encouraged by the inclusion of legislative language addressing racial and ethnic health disparities and the inclusion of the U.S. Territories in the health care exchange. I am proud of the impact we have had in making changes that will directly help the poorest and most disadvantaged communities across this nation. Finally, I thank fellow CAPAC member Rep Cao (R-LA) for his courageous bipartisanship support, in great service to his constituents.

As representative of California's 15th district, HR 3692 improves employer-based coverage for 500,000 residents, allow 16,700 small businesses to obtain affordable health care coverage and provide coverage for 28,000 uninsured residents. The bill reduces the cost of uncompensated care for hospitals and health care providers by $205 million, protects the seniors in my district from the doughnut hole, and improves the quality of their Medicare coverage.

In the words of Hubert Humphrey, 'The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.' Today, we passed that test."

The Affordable Health Care for America Act passed today covers 96% of Americans and guarantees stability, lower costs, higher quality, and a greater choice of plans for all Americans.

If you have insurance, this bill:

Keeps your insurance company from denying you care or coverage -- or charging you more -- because of diabetes, heart disease or any other "pre-existing condition."

Gives you peace of mind that you won't lose coverage if you lose your job, move, or change jobs.

Prevents insurance companies from dropping you because you get "too sick."

Covers preventive care with no co-pays or deductibles.

Limits out-of-pocket expenses your insurance company can make you pay.

If you don't have insurance, this bill:

Lets you comparison shop for a quality, affordable health plan through a new health insurance exchange or marketplace.

Offers you low group rates even for individual coverage.

Helps lower your premiums with affordability credits for those who need help paying.

Prevents any insurance company from denying you coverage for heart disease, diabetes or another "pre-existing condition."

Extends coverage for young Americans, allowing them to stay on their parents' health insurance plans up to their 27th birthday if they choose.

Includes a public health insurance option to compete on a level playing field with private insurers.

For our seniors, this bill:

Strengthens Medicare, extending its solvency for years to come.
Improves access to your doctor.

Lowers Medicare drug prices by beginning to close the coverage gap or "donut hole" immediately.

Reduces inefficiencies and program costs to help Medicare remain solvent without cutting benefits.

Improves coordination and increases the quality of care for seniors with diabetes, high blood pressure, and other chronic conditions.

Joe Bonsall: G.I. Joe and Lillie: A Song About World War II Vets Goes Viral

2009-11-08T20:03:57Z

A few years ago, I wrote a song about a young couple that served in the army during World War II. When G.I. Joe and Lillie met, he was a war hero recovering from severe wounds and she was a WAC assigned to help transport him. Both had grown up in abusive homes. They would marry and live with the demons of war for the rest of their lives. Yet just like so many others of their generation, they would survive and raise a family. The song is about faith, patriotism and plain old American grit -- desire and hard work. It's an American love story not unlike a lot of others. It is the story of my parents.

The song was included in an album The Oak Ridge Boys recorded in 2003 called Colors, one of our most popular projects over the past decade. We did the CD to honor and pay tribute to those who have defended (and now defend) our country. One of the cuts was "G.I. Joe and Lillie." My parents got to hear the song in concert before they both passed away in 2001. We were performing in Lancaster, PA at the American Music Theater. We had invited forty veterans from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Veterans Home to join us that evening, including my parents who also resided in what my mother called "The Soldiers' Home." There was not a dry eye in the house.

Over the years that followed, some amazing things happened. I wrote a book based on Lillie's memoirs that was a huge success on every level. A few years ago, The Oak Ridge Boys taped a television special for Feed the Children. It was the first time that we had performed "G.I. Joe and Lillie" since that night in Lancaster. As the cameras rolled, I got very emotional as I sang about my Daddy and Mommy. I found myself wishing that they could have been there, and when I got to the song's last line, I just lost it.

The television show has played hundreds of times on television and helped raise a ton of money so Reverend Larry Jones could feed hungry kids around the world. But that was just the beginning of the story. Around a year ago, someone posted our performance of "G.I. Joe and Lillie" on YouTube. And now, the floodgates have opened.

The YouTube video is up to over a million and a half views and counting, numbers you'd only expect from major hit music videos. Military websites also discovered it and began to embed the song onto their home pages. I am hearing from service men and women from Iraq and Afghanistan and military bases worldwide. If my father and mother only knew that so many young soldiers of today and their families are hearing their story and being inspired by it, it would make them very, very happy.

God bless our veterans and the young men and women of our armed forces. Keep them safe and bring them home to those who love them when their missions are complete.

Jeff Danziger: Hitler in Hell

2009-11-08T19:40:44Z

Amy Siskind: Why Women's Orgs Must Become Non-Partisan

2009-11-08T19:29:49Z

After yet another evening of being thrown under the bus, it is high time that women's organizations drastically change their approach!

Women in the Democratic Party have been taken for granted and have lost their bargaining power as a result. Ladies, this is business, plain and simple, and what it comes down to this: We can no longer work with only one political party: that is "speaking." Women's organizations must learn to "negotiate" and establish dialogues with all political parties. Party exclusivity is why women's organizations are failing in their missions to protect their members and their members' interests. Women's organizations must become non-partisan immediately.

Last night, our Congress, under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi primarily and President Obama secondarily, approved a health care bill that does not include funding for abortion. What did they gain for this concession? Nothing. Still, 39 blue dog Democrats voted against the bill. There is no better indication of how little bargaining power organizations such as NARAL and Planned Parenthood currently have thanks to their efforts with one party.

The organizations and religious groups that are against abortion have amply made their case with the Democratic leaders. The DNC Chair is anti-choice. Half our country does not know whether President Obama is pro-choice.

Here are some short-term suggestions for women's advocacy groups:

1. Change of leadership. I agree with parts of what Jane Hamsher wrote last night at HuffPost. Groups set up for this issue failed. Nancy Keenan in particular who endorsed then Senator Obama over Senator Clinton in 2008 when only Clinton had any clear record on reproductive rights -- the sole issue on which her organization is focused -- should step down immediately. Records show that Keenan has had ample access to the White House and yet has been ineffective at advancing her organization's cause. She must go.

2. The leaders of the women's group devoted to choice must immediately head this bill off at the next pass. These organizations should mobilize their members to write to their senators and ask them NOT to pass the bill in its current form.

3. The leaders of women's groups devoted to choice should immediately set up meetings with Michael Steele, Chair of the RNC, to make their pitch. While opinions in our country are split on abortion, most believe that this a personal decision.

4. The leaders of the all women's organizations should open lines of communication with political leaders of all political parties. Starting immediately. On all issues concerning women and girls. We need advocates in all parties and this is attainable.

The days of women's organizations being an appendage of the DNC must end immediately. Women have been taken for granted and speaking to one political party has led to defeat after defeat for causes important to women.

It is high time that women's organizations blaze a brave new path for their constituents. It is time that we fight for women and girls. And in order to do so, we need to make our case to all political parties. Else, women and women's issues will continue the easiest give for the Democrats.

Joe Cirincione: Berlin '89: When the Impossible Became Real

2009-11-08T19:29:49Z

I was in Berlin 20 years ago this week. I saw the impossible first-hand: the people of Germany taking down the Wall.

I was then working on the professional staff of the House Armed Services Committee. We were on a staff tour of NATO military bases and arrived in Berlin during this critical week by pure coincidence. When our delegation took off from Andrews Air Force base outside of Washington the Warsaw Pact was alive and apparently formidable. By the time we landed in Europe, it was falling apart.

It is amazing how quickly structures, paradigms, and ideologies that experts believe unchangeable can change. Forces can build undetected for decades, then explode in rapid, transformational movement.

I arrived in Berlin a couple of days after November 9. I was one of the last people to walk through the famous Checkpoint Charlie border crossing. When I passed through in the morning, East German guards were still checking passports. When I strolled back down Unter den Linden, after having a scotch with some Cubans in an East Berlin bar, marveling at the Ishtar Gate from Babylon in the Pergamon Museum, examining World War II bullet holes still peppering some buildings, and joining a student protest over required courses in Marxism-Leninism, the guards were gone. The checkpoint was open for free passage in both directions. As far as I know it never re-opened. Today, it is a tourist attraction.

At a German NATO base we got the standard briefing on NATO military strategy. But when the map went up showing how NATO forces would react to an offensive lead by East German tank divisions, we just looked at each other. We asked the general briefing us what the strategy was now, that the Eastern European forces would not be part of a Soviet offensive. He couldn't answer. We didn't know.

It took years for the West to understand that the events of 1989 were not a fraud or a feint. David Hoffman describes in this new book, The Dead Hand, how President George H.W. Bush "lost" the year 1989.

The fall of the wall was a European earthquake, but in Washington and Moscow, miscommunication and suspicion meant the leaders were badly out of sync. While Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was eager to move on cutting nuclear arsenals, President George H.W. Bush was cautious and uncertain, and a promising moment slipped away.

We cannot let another policy moment slip away. Twenty years after, we are at another historic point, ripe with transformational possibility. Domestically, we see it in issues like health care. Internationally, we see it in potentially profound changes in nuclear forces and policies, and in the very structure of global relations.

The transformation will be resisted. The forces of reaction are strong, as they were in 1989, arguing against change, clinging to the tired policies and weapons of the past. They tell us now, as they did before November 9, that change is impossible, that we are naïve to question the Cold War weapons and strategies, that diplomacy is appeasement, that they are the realists and we, the idealists.

But I have seen the impossible happen. I have a chunk of the wall in my bookcase to prove it. I have seen what the determined action of millions of people can do. I have seen decades of history change in days. These moments are not flukes; they are more the norm than we acknowledge.

We are in such a moment now. We must, like the Berliners of 1989, make the most of it.