Newshoggers.com

Brown Shirts in Camouflage

Commentary By Ron Beasley

Last spring the Department of Homeland Security warned law enforcement groups to be on the alert for extremists coming out of military duty or groups trying to recruit susceptible veterans for their combat skills.  The report was blasted by conservatives and some veteran's groups as being anti-military.  Well not so fast:

Dozens of active-duty troops found on neo-Nazi site

It is the Facebook for the fascist set, and the typical online profiles of its members reveal expected tastes.

Favorite book: “Mein Kampf”

Favorite movie: the Nazi propaganda film “Triumph of the Will”

Interests: “white women”

Dislikes: “anyone who opposes the master race”

But there’s one other thing that dozens of members of newsaxon.org, a white supremacist social networking website, have in common: They proudly identify themselves as active-duty members of the U.S. armed forces.

Participation in such a group is a violation of military regulations.

A Stripes reporter searched the user profiles listing their job category as “Military” and found 130 hits out of 7,906 total members.

A Defense Department directive issued in 1996 lays out the guidelines for “dissident” activities by service members, from publishing underground newspapers to organizing demonstrations.

“Military personnel must reject participation in organizations that espouse supremacist causes,” the rule states. “Active participation, such as publicly demonstrating or rallying, fund raising, recruiting and training members, organizing or leading such organizations, or otherwise engaging in activities in relation to such organizations ... that are viewed by command to be detrimental to the good order, discipline, or mission accomplishment of the unit, is incompatible with Military Service, and is, therefore, prohibited.”

Now I don't want to make more of this than it deserves but it only takes one - remember Timothy McVeigh.   Guys like this should be identified and watched:

This week, Stripes e-mailed interview requests to more than a dozen newsaxon.org participants claiming military affiliations. Only one responded.

The user, “clarkpatrick88,” said he would not reveal his real identity for fear of reprisals, but he said he was a 19-year old sailor. His profile includes a picture in which he is holding a Confederate insignia while wearing his blue Navy working uniform with a name patch reading “Clark.” The number 88 is commonly used among neo-Nazis as shorthand to the greeting, “Heil Hitler.”

“As for my political views, I have never once put them before my duty I signed up for,” the sailor said in one of his e-mails. “I didn’t outwardly show my beliefs or cause trouble.”

The sailor said he grew so frustrated at military life and at being closely quartered with servicemembers of other races that he sought psychiatric counseling for suicidal thoughts. He spent three days in the “psych ward,” he said, and is now being separated from the service on its recommendation.

NOTE:

When I was in the military 40 years ago The Stars and Stripes was a propaganda rag.  Well times change and so has Stars and Stripes.  I have it bookmarked and read it regularly.

I guess we are lucky

Commentary By Ron Beasley

We had a bat shit crazy VP in charge of the country for at least six years.  Can you imagine how bad it could have been in Israel had a bat shit crazy Prime Minister at the same time.

Netanyahu appears to be suffering from confusion and paranoia. He is convinced that the media are after him, that his aides are leaking information against him and that the American administration wants him out of office. Two months after his visit to Washington, he is still finding it difficult to communication normally with the White House. To appreciate the depth of his paranoia, it is enough to hear how he refers to Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, Obama's senior aides: as "self-hating Jews."

"He thought that his speech at Bar-Ilan would become mandatory reading at schools in the United States, and when he realized that Obama gave no such order, he went back to being frustrated," one of his associates said.

At a recent meeting with with Netanyahu, ostensibly about the understandings with the U.S. on the settlements, former prime minister Ehud Olmert was shocked to see the prime minister focusing mainly on the media. "Is this what he called me in for?" a source close to Olmert quoted him as saying.

Behind closed doors, Netanyahu's coalition partners - including Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman - have also expressed shock at his behavior. One senior minister told an aide that he is finding it very difficult to work with the premier. "He drives us mad," the minister said. "Every minute things change, and I am constantly busy doing maintenance on Netanyahu."

Of course Netanyahu's paranoia may be justified.  He finally gets back into power but it appears he can't get along with the US President.  He knows history and he knows that Prime Ministers who can't get along with the US don't last long.  And this brings us to a quote of the day from Spencer Ackerman:

Something like three-quarters of American Jewish voters in November cast their ballots for Obama. Are we self-hating Jews too, asshole? What would your explanation be for how so many of us are in the throes of a false consciousness? Seeing major American Jewish "leaders" push this kind of ethnic-anxiety bullshit is disgraceful enough. Watching the Prime Minister of Israel do it is an order of magnitude beyond. Bibi, we're not self-hating; we just hate you.

Keep Pretending You're Canadian

By Steve Hynd

Keep pretending you are Canadian when you go abroad, folks - because Obama's own popularity overseas isn't translating into popularity for America and Americans overall.

According to a new poll, while Obama is viewed positively in most of the world, global attitudes toward America have barely improved at all.

Asked whether they have confidence in Barack Obama to "do the right thing regarding world affairs," for all nations (excluding the US) an average of 61 percent say they have some or a lot of confidence.

But asked how the US treats their government, few--on average just one in four--say it "treats us fairly," while two-thirds say that it "abuses its greater power to make us do what the US wants."

Overall, these views are no better than they were in 2008. Only three countries diverged from this view (Kenya, Nigeria, and Germany).

The poll, by WorldPublicOpinion.Org, found that most folk, even most Americans, thinks the U.S. is still a warmongering bully:

The US is criticized for coercing other nations with its superior power (15 of 19 nations), failing to abide by international law (17 of 19 nations), and for how it is dealing with climate change (11 of 18 nations).

...In all nations polled, majorities say that the US "use(s) the threat of military force to gain advantages." Majorities range from 61 percent in India and Poland to 92 percent in South Korea and include America's close ally Great Britain (83%). On average, across all nations polled, 77 percent perceive the US as threatening. Even 71 percent of Americans agree.

...only one in four agrees that the US is "an important leader in promoting international laws and sets a good example by following them," while two-thirds say "the US tries to promote international laws for other countries, but is hypocritical because it does not follow these rules itself."

And the bad news for Obama himself is that, although Europeans trust him by wide margins, Muslim nations don't.

Views of Obama are especially positive among Europeans including 92 percent of the British, 89 percent of the Germans, and 88 percent of the French. Even a majority of the Chinese concur (55%). The exceptions are majority-Muslim nations and Russia. Those saying they have not too much confidence or no confidence at all include majorities in the Palestinian territories (67%), Pakistan (62%), Egypt (60%), and Iraq (57%) as well as Russia (55%).

Invading Muslim nations, saber-rattling at others and cozying up to Israel's foreign policy vision at an institutional level isn't going to be undone by just one speech. Who'dathunkit.

Generals: More forces needed for Afghan offensive

By Steve Hynd

Following Ron's last post about piecemeal incremental escalation being a very real danger in Af/Pak - the Vietnam process whereby ceilings become floors - it should be noted that such escalation is already what the generals are advocating. But they'd prefer the escalation came from other than US troops.

The American general who recently left his post as the top commander in Europe said NATO allies could and should send more forces and specialized help such as medical helicopters for the widening fight in the south.

"Certainly I'd like to see more U.K. forces," Gen. John Craddock said, because home base for the major fight in the south is in Helmand province, where British forces have had the lead for years.

..."I'm not going to sugarcoat it. The fact of the matter is, we don't have enough Afghan forces," [Marine Brig. Gen. Larry] Nicholson said during a telephone briefing from Camp Leatherneck in southern Afghanistan. "And I'd like more."

...Nicholson also said he'd like more U.S. troops in the region, but that "I don't necessarily need more troops."

Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen on Wednesday avoided discussing the possibility of sending more troops, telling a National Press Club audience that the new U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was still assessing his force needs.

Craddock said that review, due in mid-August, will be paired with a similar assessment by NATO.

"I think we'll hear shortly whether that's enough," he said of troops numbers.

The review will probably recommend subtle shifts in policy, such as an express focus on protecting civilians as the top mission, instead of hunting "bad guys," Craddock said.

That last sentence is highly significant. Although Obama stated plainly back in March that hunting bad guys and then getting out was the primary mission, military leaders like McChrystal have been speaking for months as if their Commander in Chief had never opened his mouth. Such a change in mission is definitely not a subtle one; it instead turns stated Af/Pak policy entirely on its head and means a major change in timeline. A full-on counter-insurgency campaign would take many years longer, involving many more deaths and billions more dollars, than a counter-terrorism one where COIN is simply part of the tool set at the operational level.

The military is preparing its infrastructure for exactly such a long war as well, to the enrichment of U.S. war profiteers.

DynCorp International Inc. and Fluor Corp. won Army contracts that could be valued at $15 billion over the next five years to build bases and other infrastructure for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

The deals show how lucrative logistics contracts in Afghanistan will be, since the country has a far less developed infrastructure than Iraq.

Would anyone like to bet against there being thousands of more American soldiers bound for Quagmiristan before 12 months have passed, no matter what Obama might be saying publicly right now?

Vietnam Redux

Commentary By Ron Beasley

It's become obvious that Barack Obama is not another FDR but is he another LBJ?  Normon Solomon sees some similarities when it comes to the escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

In the spring and early summer of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson decided to send 100,000 additional U.S. troops to Vietnam, more than doubling the number there. But at a July 28 news conference, he announced that he'd decided to send an additional 50,000 soldiers.

Why did President Johnson say 50,000 instead of 100,000? Because he was heeding the advice from something called a "Special National Security Estimate" -- a secret document, issued days earlier about the already-approved new deployment, urging that "in order to mitigate somewhat the crisis atmosphere that would result from this major U.S. action . . . announcements about it be made piecemeal with no more high-level emphasis than necessary."

Ceilings become floors. Gradually.

A few times since last fall, the Obama team has floated rising numbers for how many additional U.S. soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan. Now, deployment of 21,000 more is a done deal, with a new total cap of 68,000 U.S. troops in that country.

But "escalation" isn't mere jargon. And it doesn't just refer to what's happening outside the United States.

"Escalation" is a word for a methodical process of acclimating people at home to the idea of more military intervention abroad -- nothing too sudden, just a step-by-step process of turning even more war into media wallpaper -- nothing too abrupt or jarring, while thousands more soldiers and billions more dollars funnel into what Martin Luther King Jr. called a "demonic suction tube," complete with massive violence, mayhem, terror and killing on a grander scale than ever.

As war policies unfold, the news accounts and dominant media discourse rarely disrupt the trajectory of events. From high places, the authorized extent of candor is a matter of timing.

Lots of recent spin from Washington has promoted the assumption that President Obama wants to stick with the current limit on deployments to Afghanistan. Soon after pushing supplemental war funds through Congress, he's hardly eager to proclaim that 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan may not be enough after all.

But no amount of spin can change the fact that the U.S. military situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate. It would be astonishing if plans for add-on deployments weren't already far along at the Pentagon.

Meanwhile, the White House is reenacting a macabre ritual -- a repetition compulsion of the warfare state -- carefully timing and titrating each dose of public information to ease the process of escalation. The basic technique is far from new.

This is even trickier for Obama than it was for LBJ.  The American people and the congress are already war weary.  It's essential that Afghanistan be kept off the front pages.  The deterioration of support for the mis-adventure in Afghanistan will occur even faster than it did for Iraq.

The war planners in Washington are bound to proceed carefully on the home front. News of further escalation will come "piecemeal" -- "with no more high-level emphasis than necessary."

 

Lost Decades

By Fester:
The lost decade is ongoing:

Econbrowser on employment:

BLS reported that the total number of Americans employed in June on nonfarm payrolls came to 131.7 million workers on a seasonally adjusted basis. That's below the June 2000 figure of 131.8 million with which we started the decade.

And the Big Picture on investment returns:

Imagine two people who added $10,000 to their investment accounts on January 1st, every year for the past 15 years.

One of them is risk averse. They put the money into Certificates of Deposits, getting a few percentage points each year, but the principal is insured.

The other is less risk averse; they put money into an S&P500 Index each year....

As of March, Bonds had outperformed Stocks from 1968 to 2009 — 40 years

And the stock market was where we were supposed to trust our retirement, our college education and hell even our medical care with those great nifty flexible spending accounts and health spending accounts which would grow for as far as the eye could see to cover the ‘rationally’ borne risk. What a deal, what a scam. Unless you can either consistently top tick or exploit insider information, long term investing has not been a good strategy since before I was born.

Minimum Wage as Economic Stimulus

The federal minimum wage will increase in a couple of weeks.

On July 24th, 2009 the federal minimum wage will increase from $6.55 an hour to $7.25 an hour.  This amounts to an increase of 10.7%.  How will this change affect you?

This change will raise hourly wages for millions of workers in 29 states that have minimum wages lower than $7.25 an hour.  In some cases workers who already make more than the minimum wage will also get a pay bump because their coworkers who are making the current minimum wage are getting a federally mandated raise.  However, this does not mean that every worker will end up with more money because businesses may be forced to cut hours to adjust to the change.  For example, if a worker's hours are reduced by 15% then a 10.7% wage increase would not cover the shortfall.

Even at the site linked here the comments thread is eaten up with a lot of carping about how terrible this is considering the already bad condition of the economy. I can see it now. When the reality of the increase makes the news cycle there will be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of (still-employed but threatened) people who will not remember that this increase was scheduled years ago and is not yet another move on the part of the current administration to do something crazy.

It would not surprise me to hear that even as we speak some member of Congress (or in a Congressional staff position) is contemplating legislative measures to stop this already scheduled increase from happening.

The same people, mind you, are trying simultaneously to craft a new "stimulus" package, oblivious to the reality that the increase in the federal minimum wage is exactly that.

My time is limited this morning, but until I get back to this post, here are two related links to my old abandoned blog [another long story...don't try to leave any comments there because the place is in Google purgatory and no one can touch it, not even me, and I'm the one who put it there.]  that bear directly on this idea.

Minimum Wage as an Economic Stimulus (July, 2008)

Minimum Wage as an Economic Stimulus -- Part Two (April, 2009)

The Marwa al-Sherbini Case

By Hootsbuddy

This story has been burning a hole in my pocket for nearly forty-eight hours. It need to get legs in the West as well as on the "Arab Street". It's not in the same category as a Danish cartoon.

Via The Arabist we have this:

Sherbini was a young (32 years old) mother killed in a German court — yes, in an open courtroom during a judicial sesssion — in Dresden July 1 in front of her three-year old son. She was stabbed (18 times) in the courtroom by a xenophobic German who had previously attacked her as a “terrorist” for wearing hijab, leading her to lodge a complaint against him. He was appealing a fine when he stabbed her. Adding insult to injury, when her husband sought to protect her from her attacker, the security in the courtroom shot the husband, not the attacker. (As one person notes in one of the links, “he wasn’t blond so he must be the attacker.”) And to add more insult to that one, the prosecutor initially charged the attacker with manslaughter (for stabbing someone 18 times in an open courtroom?). (Now there are reports the charge will be changed to murder.)

Oh, sorry, now it appears she was also pregnant with her second child. And why, exactly, are people outraged? Oh, right. All these reasons.

It’s received very little coverage in Europe or the US, and that fact as well as the crime itself has outraged the Egyptian street to a remarkable degree. Her body was met at Cairo airport; thousands reportedly turned out for her funeral in Alexandria. Everyone from the Sheikh al-Azhar on down to the most secularist bloggers are expressing concern. The Egyptian blogosphere has been awash with postings, many noting that the killing of Neda Soltan in Iran (by the government, admittedly) led to Western outrage, while the killing of a Muslim mother in a European courtroom by a man clearly motivated by hatred of Islam and Muslims, is ignored.[LINK]

His comment tries to pour oil on the water but the outrage seems to be growing anyway.

I first noticed the Egyptian outrage about Marwa on Twitter, where the #marwa tag has been popular in recent days. Most of the complaints are about her death is not covered in the “MSM”, the stupid inaccurate blogo-acronym for mainstream media. Except that it is being thoroughly covered by the Arab media, so the complaints are, I suppose, about how it’s not dislodging Michael Jackson’s death and Sarah Palin’s resignation from the top items. And about how there’s a double-standard about her death compared to Neda Agha-Soltan’s death. Except of course the latter took place in the middle of the biggest protests in Tehran in decades, as part of a story on potential massive political fraud and a hardline coup in Iran, at a time when the country is perhaps the biggest story of the year. And her agony was caught on camera.

So really we’re looking at more “clash of civilizations” style victimhood. Of course the Marwa al-Sherbiny case is outrageous, it is a racist murder that took place in courtroom. But do we have to compare it to other news stories? And do we have to ask that the mainstream media in the West (which I advise to simply stop watching, at least TV) cover it? There are countless racist murders and attacks around the world all the time. This one is particularly nasty, but is the most important thing to do about it protest in front of the German embassy in Cairo (as if the German government is responsible) or complain that it’s not covered on CNN (although there was excellent coverage on al-Jazeera English)? Is it not enough that it’s a major story in most Arab media.

BBC reports that Germany's Prime Minister is in damage-control mode.

Looks like the President got out of Dodge just in time. I dunno though. After the Honduras mess he may be wishing he was back in Europe.

Palin Retrospective

By Hootsbuddy

I'm late to the party but it's still an amusing game to guess why Sara Palin threw in the towel. For the moment I will take her at her many words. Take your pick. Meantime Jotman has the definitive Palin Timeline for future reference and posted a compelling CNN iReport video which, although it is more an indictment of the US Supreme Court, will be an undeniable part of her legacy

Jotman's timeline is a tour de force of documentation, the most comprehensive collection of links and information about Palin to be found in one location. This is a brief snip.

2000
2000-2003 - Wasilla receives 11.9 million in federal earmarks (20 times per-capita average in other states)

2000 - Jan - writes glowing letter of reference for Wooten to become a state trooper. Palin called him "a fine role model."
2000 - hired a Washington lobbyist to secure federal earmarks for her community (Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, an Anchorage-based law firm with close ties to Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens)
2000 - May - new state law passed that would force Wasilla to pay cost of medical examinations for rape victims. Under Palin, Wasilla expected victims to pay for these tests, and the Wasilla Police Chief Fannon vehimently objected to the new legislation

2001
2001 - marriage between Palin's sister Molly and trooper Wooten.
2001 - McCain list of spending "that had been approved without the normal budget scrutiny included a $500,000 earmark for a public transportation project in Wasilla."
2001 - fee paid by Wasilla to Mr. Silver pf the lobby firm raised from $24,000 to $36,000.
2001 - piper born

2002
2002 - leaves Assemblies of God church, an Evangelical church which she had attended since the age of four.
2002 - McCain objects to $1 million for Wasillla "in a 2002 spending bill for an emergency communications center in town -- one that local law enforcement has said is redundant and creates confusion."
2002 - "As Palin campaigned unsuccessfully in 2002 to become lieutenant governor, she received contributions from executives at VECO Corp., a powerful Alaska oil field services company.(IHT)"
2002 - unsuccessful in her campaign for lieutenant governor.
2002 - Oct - Palin's second term as mayor of Wasilla ends.

2003
2003 - McCain criticized $450,000 for an "agricultural processing facility in Wasilla that was requested during Palin's tenure as mayor."

2003 - Feb - Palin, although she did not have an oil and gas background, was named chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission "with the $125,000-a-year seat designated for a "public" member."

2003-4 - Chairwoman, AOGCC
2003 - Nov - Ruedrich resigned from the AOGCC. "Palin, acting as chairwoman and ethics supervisor, passed complaints up the ladder to the attorney general and the governor's office." Press accounts make Palin the hero.

And that's just the snips for several years back. Recent information is organized by month instead of year.

Of all the guesses advanced I like Ron Beasley's best: a teevee show. But I'm having a hard time deciding what might be her forte. I'm thinking maybe someting on a cable channel, marketing sports gear late at night.

Crackdowns and capacity

By Fester

Dave Schuler at Outside the Beltway gives the short version of how to successfully repress protests. It is not complicated if the authorities have a plan and the will to use force.

Step 1: Cut off cellphone and Internet Access

Step 2: Control the message

Step 3: Crack down forcefully

Step 4: Reward successful repression of dissent

An authoritarian regime with the will to crush dissent and the wherewithal to do so can stay in power indefinitely.....

John Robb touches on the resource and cash flow advantages of the Chinese government compared to the Soviets in the late '80s. The Chinese are integrated in the economic system and they supply something (disinflationary labor and wages) that the Western elites want. The Chinese also control a significant amount of debt and have allowed for 'consequence free' short term decision making and irresponsibility. The Soviets by the mid-80s were in debt without a good economic chokepoint product to sell.

The great part about being a Chinese dictatorship in a world with one rule set (Adam Smith's), is that your paramilitary forces can slaughter 140 156 protestors without even a whimper from the global community. Western elites just don't care because business with China is more important than human rights and the fact that China reacts like a spoiled child when chastised (which makes it not worth the hassle).

It is this same basic set of analysis that has fueled by skepticism that the Moussavi led protestors will be successful in a meaningful manner. The Iranian state has been attempting to limit external communitcation, and it has demonstrated a willingness to crack down hard. Iran has been accumulating diversified foreign currency reserves over the past few years as oil prices have boomed. Hard currency reserves have more than doubled in the past five years. The net asset position has also improved for Iran. The Iranian government and hardliners have the resources to fight hard for its rent protection position, and it has the will. And that was as evident a month ago as it is today.