Posts by Joshua Holland

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.

Cynthia McKinney Detained (Again) by Israeli Defense Force; Israeli Protesters Brutally Beaten in West Bank
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on July 1, 2009 at 4:15 PM.

The Israeli right is moving U.S. perceptions of the I-P conflict to a tipping point. Among Americans -- and especially the Jewish community -- Israel had long enjoyed the moral high ground. But sentiment is shifting, in large part to the terror wrought by the settler's movement, the unyielding stance of the Netanyahu government, and stories such as these ...

A boat carrying aid to pro-Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip was surrounded and boarded by Israeli forces off the coast of the Gaza Strip Tuesday. Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was one of the 21 people on board who were taken into Israeli custody and held at the port of Ashrod in Israel.

McKinney is quoted as saying that the confrontation was "an outrageous violation of international law," and she claimed the boat was on a humanitarian mission and was not in Israeli waters.

The Israeli military said the boat tried to violate Israel's security blockade and enter Gaza illegally.

The 21 passengers and crew on the Greek-registered ship "Arion" was working for the U.S.-based "Free Gaza Movement." Among them, besides McKinney, was 1977 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Mairead Maguire.

Israeli forces have maintained a blockade on the Palestinian territory since 2007, partly to prevent smugglers from delivering weapons and munitions to Gaza.

It's a farce to claim that Israel's withdrawal from Gaza resulted in some semblance of sovereignty when its military controls Gaza's airspace, waterways and land routes, and Israeli forces continue to strike targets within the canton.

Israeli forces in the West Bank have long reacted violently to Palestinian protests, even peaceful ones. But recently, they used similar tactics on Israeli protesters -- an unusual occurrence ...

I am reporting the testimony of Dr. Amiel Vardi, and many other supporting testimonies. There is graphic photographic documentation, including a live video clip, which can be seen here. The pictures seen here are part of a series that can be viewed at this Flickr site...

The activists arrived in the morning at al-Safa to accompany Palestinian farmers to their fields, since it is nearly impossible for these farmers to work their land without the physical protection of Israelis: violent settlers from nearby Bat 'Ayin invariably attack the farmers and chase them away. This time, however, the army and Border Police were waiting, in force—dozens of soldiers (the Border Police are part of the army), including two Brigade Commanders. As usual, they declared the area a Closed Military Zone.

But they also immediately arrested the activists and then attacked several of them brutally with fists, rifle butts, and other weapons.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Media White Wash: U.S.-Backed "Dirty Brigade" Operating in Iraq
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on June 30, 2009 at 11:13 AM.

So, there is an "elite" group of commandos known by the Iraqi public as the "dirty brigade." Its commanders claim that the brigade is made up of soldiers embodying the height of professionalism, but they're perceived to be a hand-picked crew, outside the chain of command, that targets the Maliki regime's political enemies. They're trained and equipped by the U.S. 

The story should come as little surprise. During the 2004 campaign, conservatives in the U.S. talked a lot about deploying the "El Salvador model" in Iraq, and in 2007 Pentagon planners in fact acknowledged, as Reuters put it, "that the El Salvador model had influenced planning."

According to folks like Dick Cheney, El Salvador was a heroic struggle by a U.S.-backed government fighting "terrorists" who had killed 75,000 people. But as historian Mark Engler wrote:  

There is a serious problem with this story. The 75,000 people Cheney mentioned were indeed killed by terrorists, but not by the rebel FMLN forces that he intended to condemn. Rather, they were under assault from the very Salvadoran government that the Reagan administration was supporting and from its paramilitary death squads. With a list of opposition politicians having already been executed or exiled, the 1984 elections were little more than a farce designed to give democratic respectability to a regime that was perpetuating some of the worst human rights abuses in the hemisphere.

Again, the story itself shouldn't be a shocker for anyone who's followed the details of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. What I think is noteworthy is how the Ministry of Truth Associated Press (I know, I have to lay off the Orwell references) reported the story. The headline is: "Elite Iraqi troops in forefront after US pullback" -- they're "elite."

The lede:

As Iraqi security services prepare to take back their towns from the Americans on Tuesday, the sharpest arrow in their quiver is an elite, American-trained force with a reputation that leads many Iraqis to call it "the dirty brigade."

 So it has a reputation that leads "many Iraqis" to call it the "dirty brigade." That's followed by several graphs disputing the perceptions of those "many Iraqis" -- none of whom are quoted in the piece. The only Iraqi quoted is ... Kalib Shegati al-Kenani, the Iraqi Army general who heads the brigade.

Its real name is the Counter Terrorism Bureau, and its commander insists it's professional, nonsectarian and not dirty at all.

The only insight we get as to why the force is known as the dirty brigade is this:

Formed soon after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the force became known as the "Dirty Brigade" because it was secretive and until recently operated outside the Iraqi chain of command, reporting directly to its U.S. handlers.

It was so little known that it even was rumored to be used against the Shiite-dominated government's opponents in the political mainstream -- a charge denied by the Iraqis and the Americans.

So, the reason it's known as the dirty brigade, according to the AP, is that it operated outside the chain of command and reported directly to the Americans. And then -- almost tacked on as an afterthought -- it was "even rumored" to be used against the government's political opponents.

But buried between the lines is some confirmation that those rumors are likely true:

They are thought to have been the main force that assisted the Americans during an offensive in Baghdad's Sadr City quarter last year to rout Shiite militias, and on operations targeting Sunni insurgents.

As Raed Jarrar and I wrote at the time, that "crackdown" was indeed targeted at Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's political opponents:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

My (First) Big Fat Gay Wedding: What Was Different?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on June 21, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

I love a good wedding (as long as I'm not the one being hitched)!

I attended my first same-sex wedding last night. It took place in one of those quaint little upstate New York farm towns that's been invaded by artsy hipsters and aging hippies from the city. You know the kind of place -- in the parking lot of the little country store nearby a red Prius with a bumper sticker that read, "The Best Things in Life Aren't Things" sat next to a monster truck with a bumper proudly proclaiming, "Diesel Fumes Make Me Horny!" You might be assaulted by the acrid aroma of fertilizer one moment and the taint of patchouli the next.

Elana, long-time girlfriend of Penny Coleman, our great and passionate writer, was finally making an honest woman out of her -- they've been a nesting pair forever. (The grilled mahi mahi they served must have cost a fortune, so a plug for her book, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War, is in order -- think of it as a wedding gift!)

And -- this shouldn't be a surprise -- it was pretty much like every other really nice, mildly hippie-dippy wedding I've ever attended.

There was a big tent on a sprawling lawn, tables of food, an awesome cake -- lovingly made by Penny's radiant daughter Sophie -- and revelry lasting long into the night.

Everyone was all decked out and looking great.

There was a series of blessing ceremonies from a mish-mash of different faiths that would have brought tears to the eyes of all but the butchest of cowboys.

The wine flowed freely.

A bride fell in the pool.

Shaky and reeking of wine, I made a sloppy pass at one of the hotties in attendance, who calmly told me, "you should go elsewhere now."

And, of course, every wedding requires one truly awkward moment. In this case it was provided by Penny's son, Charlie, who, during a round of toasts, decided for some reason to offer a tribute to his "first vagina" (I shit you not), and then, in response to the uneasy silence that followed, extended it to "everyone's first vagina" (which I for one found kind of gracious).

The sound system went down, but someone jerry-rigged some music and we danced. There were hugs and tears and congrats and mazel tovs all around.

So, it was just like a straight couple's wedding! 

Except for one key difference: it wasn't really a wedding. It was a reception, and all but a few of the guests were absent when the bride and bride actually tied the knot. Because, unlike folks like me (or, I should say, unlike straight people who aren't terrified of the prospect of being wed), Penny and Elana had to drive to Massachusetts to do the deed, and most of those assembled last night weren't able to make the trip for various reasons.

As I've argued in the past, marriage equality isn't about the right to get married. It's about equal treatment under the law (which is why I'd be just as happy to get the state out of the marriage business entirely as I would to see gay marriage legalized everywhere). "Separate but equal" still doesn't cut it with me, and it shouldn't with you.

And this situation brought home for me the utter insanity of this patchwork of laws we've created -- with marriage equality now the norm in 6 states, a federal "defense of marriage act" and a slew of states whose constitutions forbid it. I know this will change -- that in the future people will look back at the days when it was legal to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples the same way we regard those shameful old miscegenation laws today.

But until that day comes, the situation will remain nothing short of bizarre. Consider this Los Angeles Times story about how gay and lesbian couples in some jurisdictions can end up having a tougher time getting a gay divorce than entering into a gay marriage (and just how surreal is it that gay marriage is forbidden in California, but gay divorce is still fine?).

Or think for a moment about the complexities that enter the picture when you consider that one's sex is quite fluid. Jennifer Finney Boylan, writing in the New York Times, laid out the issue nicely:

Deirdre Finney and I were wed in 1988 at the National Cathedral in Washington. In 2000, I started the long and complex process of changing from male to female. Deedie stood by me, deciding that her life was better with me than without me ...

I’ve been legally female since 2002, although the definition of what makes someone “legally” male or female is part of what makes this issue so unwieldy. How do we define legal gender? By chromosomes? By genitalia? By spirit? By whether one asks directions when lost?

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Rights and Stupidities: Why Would Iran's Disputed Election Justify Dismissing an International Treaty?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on June 15, 2009 at 11:28 AM.

Sometimes the best way to expose the incoherence of a foreign policy argument is to simply identify a parallel in the domestic sphere.

On Foreign Policy's blog, David Rothkopf argues that if you have a binding contract with someone, and that person breaks a wholly unrelated contract with another party -- something that has nothing to do with you -- then you are, in turn, fully justified in violating the terms of the agreement you have with that person. Ridiculous notion, yes, but this is the foreign policy realm, where such assertions are made with some frequency.

The rights of Iranians vs. Iran's "right" to enrich nuclear materials

At the very least, Iran's election results are under a cloud. But evidence certainly seems to be mounting that there was considerable intimidation, systematic efforts to quash the ability of the opposition campaign to spread its message in the days prior to the election, and likely voter fraud. Further, President Ahmadinejad certainly didn't do anything to help his already shredded credibility with his nonsensical Sunday news conference in which among other things he asserted Iranians weren't divided by the election while violent clashes took place in the streets.

These circumstances raise an important question. Given the apparent disregard for the rights of its own citizens exhibited by the Iranian regime, will the Obama administration rethink its stance vis á vis the Iranians?

The prevailing U.S. view, articulated by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair John Kerry last week, is that the Iranians have a "right" to uranium enrichment.

Scare quotes around the word "right" notwithstanding, this isn't just the "prevailing U.S. view," it's spelled out explicitly in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, an international agreement ratified by the U.S. Congress and thus the law of the land. But for Rothkopf, the law is apparently fungible, as long as we're talking about a regime he doesn't like.

He continues ...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Obama, GM and Silly Psuedo-Constitutional Arguments
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on June 14, 2009 at 10:06 AM.

There's much to criticize in the government bail-outs of GM and Chrysler.

But WaPo editorial writer Charles Lane doesn’t worry about the fact that we’ve allowed companies deemed “too big to fail” to proliferate — firms that can be mismanaged into the ground and have every expectation of a tax-payer bailout. He doesn’t worry about the moral hazard inherent in that kind of state-supported capitalism -- of shifting risk from private investors to the American tax-payer -- or the fact that we'll subsidize Detroit auto-makers as they offshore scads of good manufacturing jobs.

Instead, he examines a conservative talking-point about the Mad Megalomania of Barack Obama and, in doing so, gives it weight and legitimacy it doesn't appear to merit.

Let’s take a look:

Nationalizing General Motors, and part of Chrysler, may or may not turn out to be a good deal for the taxpayers. I have a different concern, though: Was it constitutional?

With hundreds of thousands of jobs on the line, this may seem a churlish question. Then again, the temptation to bend the rules of democracy is always greatest in a crisis. It wasn't so long ago that a president claimed the power to do all sorts of questionable things -- from waterboarding to electronic surveillance -- because the country faced a crisis.  

Watch the writer’s trick: first draw a ridiculously false equivalence, and then assert that you’re not really saying what it seems you’re saying:

Bailing out Detroit is not in the same category, morally, as torture.

Good to know.

Still, a presidential decision to federalize a vast sector of the U.S. economy affects the country's vital interests and, potentially, the rights of its citizens. Such an extraordinary measure should rest on the firmest possible foundation of democratic legitimacy. Does President Obama's rescue of GM and Chrysler meet the test?

Lane then offers another dubious analog:

The classic statement on such matters comes from Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson's opinion in a case about another crisis-driven assertion of executive power: President Harry S. Truman's seizure of steel mills in 1952. Truman wanted to prevent a strike during the Korean War; the court blocked him.

Truman nationalized the steel mills to break a strike over wage controls.  The U.S. steel industry was profitable. GM and Chrysler were going belly-up, and the government intervened to save hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

(Updated) Iran Vote: Fraud or Journos' Wishful Thinking?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on June 13, 2009 at 10:38 AM.

Update: Stephen Zunes says the election was indeed stolen. He makes some important points, so give it a read.

****

Most of what I'm reading on the Iranian elections today is so thoroughly filtered through a Western prism that it offers little in the way of context to help understand Iran's domestic political culture. 

News reports acknowledge that the economy and charges of corruption were crucially important issues, but only as an afterthought -- in the final graphs. References to Israel, relations with the U.S. and comparisons between Mousavi and Obama's calls for "change" are front and center.

I don't want to add to the cacophony of ill-informed analysis. But I'm skeptical -- pending more evidence -- of claims that the election was rigged. I agree with Abbas Barzegar, reporting from Tehran:

Of course, the rather real possibility of voter fraud exists and one must wait in the coming weeks to see how these allegations unfold. But one should recall that in three decades of presidential elections, the accusations of rigging have rarely been levied against the vote count. Elections here are typically controlled by banning candidates from the start or closing opposition newspapers in advance.

In this election moreover, there were two separate governmental election monitors in addition to observers from each camp to prevent mass voter fraud. The sentimental implausibility of Ahmadinejad's victory that Mousavi's supporters set forth as the evidence of state corruption must be met by the equal implausibility that such widespread corruption could take place under clear daylight. So, until hard evidence emerges that can substantiate the claims of the opposition camp we need to look to other reasons to explain why so many are stunned by the day's events.

Mousavi obviously represents the hopes and aspirations of millions of Iranians, and there are numerous reports of riots and police crack-downs. But conflicting claims of victory are not uncommon in elections (although typically when the results are tighter than this 63-34 outcome). Yet, the media seem quite eager to push the Mousavi camp's claims of massive fraud.

I think, in large part, that's due to the fact that the results were so far from reporters' expectations -- it was supposed to be tight, and turned out to be a blow-out. But why did they think it would be such a close result in the first place (Iranian polling is notoriously unreliable)?

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Meme-Watch: WaPo Pundits Get Messiah Complex
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on June 12, 2009 at 12:42 PM.

Conservative WaPo columnist Charles Krauthammer  -- my fave! -- today:

When President Obama returned from his first European trip, I observed that while over there he had been "acting the philosopher-king who hovers above the fray mediating" between America and the world. Now that Obama has returned from his "Muslim world" pilgrimage, even the left agrees. "Obama's standing above the country, above -- above the world. He's sort of God," Newsweek's Evan Thomas said to a concurring Chris Matthews, reflecting on Obama's lofty perception of himself as the great transcender.

Conservative WaPo columnist Michael Gerson  -- he coined the term "Axis of Evil"! -- Wednesday:

It is President Obama's defining rhetorical strategy. For every contending thesis and antithesis -- Islam vs. the West, Iran vs. America, Palestinians vs. Israel -- he is the synthesis. All sides possess a shiny shard of the truth. Obama assembles the mosaic.

Discounting for gush and swoon, the reaction of Newsweek's Evan Thomas to the Cairo speech was revealing: "I mean, in a way, Obama's standing above the country, above -- above the world, he's sort of God." Here is an American president so Olympian in his perspective that he is "above the country." Obama seldom chooses to be a participant in ideological struggles. He aspires to be history's referee.

I guess this is the best they've got, which is really kind of sad.

Is the Real Power in Iran ... Eastasia or Eurasia?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on June 11, 2009 at 4:24 PM.

I'm not going to call out Greg Bruno and Jamal Afridi of the Council on Foreign Relations for spinning the upcoming Iranian elections. I don't know the authors, and can't gauge their intent in writing this in a recent backgrounder (also, they're more or less correct):

Officially the highest elected office in the Islamic Republic of Iran's bureaucracy, the president remains subordinate to the Supreme Leader, who serves as the final arbiter on foreign policy, media, nuclear-related decisions, and military and national security.

The president, meanwhile, carries out the "functions of the executive" as outlined in Iran's constitution, duties that range from appointing ambassadors and cabinet ministers to planning and executing the national budget. Article 113 of the constitution stipulates that executive power is subservient to "the office of Leadership" ...

And while Ahmadinejad has repeatedly defended Iran's right to pursue peaceful nuclear technologies, final decisions on uranium enrichment and the overall direction of the program lie with Khamenei.

Again, this isn't directed at the CFR backgrounder per se -- I could have used the Guardian's "How Important is the Iranian President?" to make my point. I just think it's worth noting, again, the perfect fluidity in which the power structures within Iran are described in the mainstream discourse...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Two Stupid Assaults on Religion and One Idiotic Religious Attack on Obama
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on May 29, 2009 at 3:26 PM.

Couple of stories relating to religion came across the transom this morning, and I figured I'd offer one of those lazy, cobbled-together blog-posts with no clear narrative arc (sorry, writing snobs!).

First up, the Washington Post reports that same-sex marriage advocates on the East Coast are making hay out of the Mormons' financial support for discrimination against gays and lesbians in California:

As more states take up the debate on same-sex marriage, some advocates of legalization are taking a very specific lesson from California, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dominated both fundraising and door-knocking to pass a ballot initiative that barred such unions.

With the battle moving east, some advocates are shouting that fact in the streets, calculating that on an issue that eventually comes down to comfort levels, more people harbor apprehensions about Mormons than about homosexuality.

"The Mormons are coming! The Mormons are coming!" warned ads placed on newspaper Web sites in three Eastern states last month.

The temptation is understandable; as a resident of California, I certainly resent the hell out of the fact that a religious denomination that basically governs the state of Utah provided about half of the financing for a referendum that stripped Californians of the right to equal protection under the law. And, as the Post story details, public opinion data show that more Americans have issues with Mormons than with gays and lesbians so it might be a sound strategy in a scorched-earth politics kind of way.

And while I am all for exposing the Mormons support for Prop 8 and other campaigns against gays and lesbians, I think the tone of these ads -- "the Mormons are Coming!" -- is quite dumb. It's a short-sighted move that risks undermining a push for equality that clearly has the moral high ground and is gaining a feel of inevitability about it. Attacking the Mormons only adds support to the otherwise ridiculous notion that the fight for gay rights is a covert assault on religious tradition and adds an element of hypocrisy to appeals for tolerance (which have won many political battles in our past). Activists should keep in mind that they have a winning argument -- not kill that argument by playing on people's prejudices about a religious minority. And I'm not saying that because I don't think they deserve to be attacked. It's a matter of bad strategy over the long-run fight for equality, even if it might sway some prejudiced voters on this battle.

Next, some really egregious Islamophobia, also courtesy of the WaPo:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Bob Gates Says Iran Arming Taliban ... He Can't Be Trusted
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on May 28, 2009 at 12:13 PM.

There's a lot going on in this article about Defense Secretary Robert Gates' assertion that the Taliban have the upper hand in Afghanistan, and his prediction that the American public's support for the conflict will soften if progress doesn't become apparent soon.

This statement certainly jumped out for me:

Mr. Gates also said Iran was harming U.S. interests in Afghanistan by sending weapons to the Taliban and other armed groups. He expressed particular concern that Tehran might step up its shipments of explosively formed penetrators, powerful roadside bombs capable of punching through even the strongest armor.

Afghanistan is known as the "Graveyard of Empires," and with good reason -- everyone's fought (and lost) there, leaving a country awash in weapons. In Pakistan's "tribal areas" bordering on Afghanistan, even very modern, heavy weapons are easily found -- here's a brief but fascinating documentary that reveals just how easy it is to get Soviet, American and even old British hardware for a song.

And, according to an investigation by The New York Times, there's evidence that Gates' DoD is itself supplying the Taliban with arms:

Insurgents in Afghanistan, fighting from some of the poorest and most remote regions on earth, have managed for years to maintain an intensive guerrilla war against materially superior U.S. and Afghan forces.

Arms and ordnance collected from dead insurgents hint at one possible reason: Of 30 rifle magazines recently taken from insurgents' corpses, at least 17 contained cartridges identical to ammunition the United States had provided to Afghan government forces, according to an examination of ammunition markings by The New York Times and interviews with U.S. officers and arms dealers.

The presence of this ammunition among the dead in Korangal Valley, an area of often fierce fighting near the Afghan border with Pakistan, strongly suggests that munitions procured by the Pentagon have leaked from Afghan forces for use against U.S. troops.

 Also, the reference to "explosive formed penetrators" raises a huge red flag ...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Media Inaccurately Refer to Sotomayor as Child of Immigrant Parents
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on May 26, 2009 at 8:52 AM.

A google search for "Sotomayor" and "immigrant parents" brings up 10 pages of results (including over 2,000 news pieces like this one, from the Baltimore Sun, which describes Obama's pick to replace retiring Supreme Court justice David Souter as having been "raised in a Bronx, N.Y., housing project by her Puerto Rican immigrant parents...")

Fun fact: Puerto Rico is part of the United States!

Like Sotomayor, I was born in New York city. I now live in California. Apparently, I'm an immigrant. The end.

PS: Talk about a tempest in a teapot; according to the WaPo, Sotomayor "stirred controversy by saying that judges' legal findings are informed by their own life experiences as well as their legal research." I can't imagine a more obvious statement of fact. 

Catholic Church too Busy Protecting Pedophiles to Fight Gay Marriage
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on May 20, 2009 at 10:14 AM.

In the Empire State, opponents of gay marriage are disorganized and poorly funded. The New York Times details several reasons why America's self-appointed moral scolds aren't mounting much of a fight on this one, among which is this delicious bit:

The state’s Roman Catholic bishops have been somewhat distracted, too, having focused their lobbying energies this session on defeating a bill that would extend the statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse to bring civil claims, and have appeared unprepared for the battle over marriage.

Hey, there are only so many hours in the day.

Unintended Irony Watch: the Washington Post on its (New?) Man in Bogotá
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on May 19, 2009 at 12:32 PM.

Oh, this is rich. On Sunday, the Washington Post ran a story on the scandals surrounding Colombian president Álvaro Uribe. "The latest revelations," according to the Post, are that "the secret police had spied on Supreme Court judges, opposition politicians, activists and journalists." They "come on top of an influence-peddling scandal involving the president's two sons, Tomás and Geronimo, and a widening probe of the links between Uribe's allies in Congress and right-wing paramilitary death squads."

Then there is this absolutely beautiful little piece of unintended irony:

The allegations have dominated news coverage, with even media outlets that are openly supportive of Uribe revealing details embarrassing to the presidency. Government officials appear clearly uncomfortable.

These embarrassing details come from the WaPo, which by any rational measure is a media outlet that is itself "openly supportive of Uribe." (It also quotes a number of American government officials who "appear clearly uncomfortable.")

Remember this editorial bashing Democrats who dared to question our unwavering support for Colombia's right-wing government?

COLOMBIAN President Álvaro Uribe may be the most popular democratic leader in the world... In a region where populist demagogues are on the offensive, Mr. Uribe stands out as a defender of liberal democracy, not to mention a staunch ally of the United States...

Democrats claim to be concerned -- far more so than Colombians, apparently -- with "revelations" that the influence of right-wing paramilitary groups extended deep into the military and Congress. In fact this has been well-known for years; what's new is that investigations by Colombia's Supreme Court and attorney general have resulted in the jailing and prosecution of politicians and security officials. Many of those implicated come from Mr. Uribe's Conservative Party, and his former intelligence chief is under investigation. But the president himself has not been charged with wrongdoing.

See, the president himself wasn't charged with any wrongdoing -- yes, his closest advisers and half of his family members have been, but not Uribe!

Interestingly, today's Post profiles Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, a candidate to replace Uribe should the latter decide against seeking a Constitutional change that would allow him to run for another term (it's worth noting that the Post, which greeted a similar move by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez as a seizure of dictatorial powers, characterizes the prospect in Colombia as a minor technocratic fix -- Uribe, after all, "stands out as a defender of liberal democracy," so ...).

And from the tone of the piece, it looks like the Post is ready to throw its weight behind Santos -- here are some key graphs:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

GOP Dead-Enders Consider Officially Branding Dems the "Socialist Party"
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on May 13, 2009 at 9:57 AM.

It says a lot about today's GOP that a loose cannon like Michael Steele is emerging as the cautious voice of temperance within the party:

A member of the Republican National Committee told me Tuesday that when the RNC meets in an extraordinary special session next week, it will approve a resolution rebranding Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party.”

When I asked if such a resolution would force RNC Chairman Michael Steele to use that label when talking about Democrats in all his speeches and press releases, the RNC member replied: “Who cares?”

Which pretty much sums up the attitude some members of the RNC have toward their chairman these days.

Steele wrote a memo last month opposing the resolution. Steele said that while he believes Democrats “are indeed marching America toward European-style socialism,” he also said in a (rare) flash of insight that officially referring to them as the Democrat Socialist Party “will accomplish little than to give the media and our opponents the opportunity to mischaracterize Republicans.”

Yes, if we act like lunatics the pernicious liberal media will mischaracterize us as lunatics.

Anyway, I applaud the effort. They'll start calling Dems a socialist party, the Dems can start referring to the GOP as the American Fascist Party, and with that elevated discourse, we can move right along to the right's wet dreams of civil war.

Don't Fall for the Health Industry Barons' Empty Promises
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on May 11, 2009 at 1:00 PM.

I am awed at people's capacity for self-deception. On Monday, the Obama administration and SEIU joined with Big Health lobbyists to trot out a six-month old, non-specific, non-binding "promise" to cut the rate at which health care costs grow to "only" 4.7 percent annually.

This is very simple: the insurance, pharmaceutical and medical devices industries see the writing on the wall -- American health care puts an unsustainable economic burden on families and employers, leaves 47 million people without coverage and results in some of the worst outcomes in the industrial world. Fearful of a growing movement towards real, substantive reform, they are trying to co-opt the process under the guise of "getting a seat at the table."

There's no news here -- "voluntary" codes  of conduct, self-regulation and industry-driven initiatives for the private sector to address complex policy issues have long been a standard tactic for heading off real regulation, real accountability measures, systemic reforms.

America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) -- the insurance industry group descended from the organization that aired the infamous "Harry and Louise" campaign during the Clinton health care wars -- first trotted out this proposal 6 months ago. It wasn't big news then, but with Obama's nod and one of the major, ostensibly progressive players in the health care debate getting on board, it is now.

Earlier this month, AHIP also "surprised" more credulous observers by calling for more regulation of the health care industry! At the time, Congressional Quarterly noted the obvious:

Part of the reasoning behind the industry’s push for regulation may be that, with the momentum Democrats have built for a health care overhaul, private health insurers face two choices: change the way they do business, or face competition from a government-run insurance plan that many say would eventually run them out of business...

And with support building for a government-run insurance option with some limits on how it operates, [AHIP CEO Karen] Ignagni appears to be offering concessions: dodging the government-run plan in return for regulation that would more strictly guide how her member companies operate.

Surprisingly, many otherwise bright progressive minds are hailing this latest move as some sort of breakthrough in the fight for health care reform. Paul Krugman called it "some of the best policy news" he's heard in a long time. Bill Scher at Campaign for America's Future said the insurance industry is ready to "play ball" with the administration, even though the outlines of the proposal preceded Obama's inauguration by two months.

Never mind that there's little in the way of specifics. Never mind that this "proposal" is non-binding -- based on pixie  dust rather than any solid commitment to contain costs. A key question is this: the economy as a whole has grown by an average of 3.2 percent per year for the past three plus decades, and this is a commitment to reduce the growth in health care costs to 4.7 percent. How does that fix a system on which we already spend close to twice as much per person on care than other wealthy countries, and get consistently poorer results? (We rank 42nd in the world in infant mortality and 46th in life expectancy. According to a study conducted by the Commonwealth Fund comparing health care in six wealthy countries, the U.S. ranked “last on dimensions of access, patient safety, efficiency, and equity.” Among residents of 30 rich countries polled by Gallup, Americans came in 18th in terms of satisfaction with their care, despite the fact that we out-spend everyone else on the list by a significant amount.)

Here's the other key question: how can anyone expect a coalition with diametrically opposed interests to hold together?

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