Afghanistan Is Our Welfare State

El Rude-o

One of the less glamorous aspects of the release by Wikileaks of oodles of secret documents related to the sad circle jerk that is the Afghanistan war is the clear demonstration that the actual day-to-day existence of Afghans is dependent on the occupiers (or, you know, mostly us). Sure, it's important to talk about the other revelations (or confirmations): the collusion between Pakistani intelligence and the Taliban, the ill-equipped troops in battle, and the bullshit Afghan forces that have the discipline of a pack of brain-damaged cats. But, as Evan Hill writes for Al-Jazeera, the mundane and quotidian aspects of Afghan existence demonstrate a level of dependency on NATO and the United States that'd make an opium dealer jealous.

The NATO provincial reconstruction teams (PRT) essentially decide who has power and who does not, who gets paid with reconstruction cash and who goes home empty-handed, and you can bet that every one of those decisions simply leads to the inevitable creation of more enemies that need to be fought.

Cut to the chase:

What you get from these less sexy documents is a portrait of soldiers and officials attempting to transform a country into something it is not. It's impossible. And what Wikileaks has forced us to see is that it's madness to continue.

I have nothing to add to that. Well, one thing:

As we're leaving we should simply make it abundantly clear to the Afghans, Pakistanis, Taliban, to the most disinterested casual observer in the whole fucking world, that if ever another attack like 9/11 comes from there, we will turn that whole diseased region into perfectly-arced-to-the-curvature-of-the-earth self-lighting glass.

92,000 pages of misery

Mark Morford has (cough) analyzed the 92,000 page Wikileak.

I have scoured all the data, factored in the countless bombings and roadside detonations (and there are, seemingly, millions); I have made pie charts and bar graphs, plotted points of interest on special war paper, geo-located all the various deadly flashpoints using Google Earth, all while making 10,000 little explosion sounds with my mouth, just like George Bush used to do in the bathtub when Uncle Dick talked about "liberating" the Middle East.

I have come to some important conclusions. First off, as mentioned just about everywhere -- including by the president himself -- talk of these documents "putting lives at risk," is complete and utter BS, and is merely meant to discourage and intimidate anyone from doing anything like this ever again, because it's all been just hugely embarrassing and humiliating to U.S. intelligence, sort of like Tiger Woods' pervy text messages appearing on the front page of USA Today. They hate that.

War is hell. Have you heard that before? Of course you have. Do you know what it means? From what I can tell from the WikiLeaks scandal, here is what it does not mean: It does not mean war is some sort of rugged Herculean manly uberpatriotic exercise in glorious freedom, justice, truth, that just might also, whoops, get a little bloody. It does not quite mean a noble force for good and democracy. It might have meant that once, long ago, for a shining moment, maybe, on the back of a coin somewhere. It hasn't meant anything near that for 1,000 years. Capitalism saw to that.

It's sort of like evil. We love to imagine evil to be this towering, fanged menace, this spectacular fiend, a creepy and gruesome beast borne of a thousand horror movies. The truth is at once far less interesting, and yet far more terrifying. Because evil is more like Dick Cheney's tiny sneer, the religious nutball's weakest synapse, the wheezing death of the soul.

[...] The truth is, we will all be dead before we know the full costs of these wars. A generation or two will have to pass before we can get them in scale and perspective, and even then, like so many before them, they still won't make any goddamn sense.

They don't have to make sense as long as they make money.

"Not just Cheech and Chong"

Quite a long piece at AlterNet on Prop 19, the California initiative to legalize mota.

Prop. 19's newly hired field director, James Rigdon, thinks marijuana legalization has a lot more going for it than other issues. "There's something appealing about this for everyone -- helping the economy, incarceration issues, personal freedom ideas, public safety concerns. People from all walks are willing to come out and support us," Rigdon tells me. "Our supporters aren't just Cheech and Chong. They're everyday people who support this because it's good for everybody."

This is tied to another worry Gutwillig observes. "The research and focus groups I've seen see the whole revenue thing as gravy -- it matters to people who've already made up their minds about supporting Prop. 19. But it's not the reason someone is going to come off the fence. [Talking about revenue] doesn't resonate with voters, nor should it," he says. "But what does resonate is the other side of the fiscal coin, which is the opportunity to save and redirect scarce law enforcement resources. That message makes a big difference. People's instincts tell them there is something fundamentally hypocritical about marijuana prohibition."

Prop. 19 hopes to appeal to the instincts of Californians who believe the drug war has failed.

Prop. 19's most vocal opposition comes from the top. Gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown don't see eye to eye on much, but they both seem to have decided it's politically expedient to oppose the measure. Senator Dianne Feinstein also recently came out against it.

"I was at a party with doctors who said they used to light up with Jerry Brown," says Garzon. "But you know, the reality is that we know that politicians aren't going to lead on this issue."

Much, much more and quite a few comments, some good, some inane.

I guess if we're going to have to vote for Democrats, it makes sense to vote for legalization of a substance that can numb us a little to the way Dems do things.

That's better than having the Repugs in power. The only thing to numb us to their way would be legalized suicide and euthanasia.

The Enthusiasm Gap

First and last ¶ of a piece by Paul Krugman:

Why does the Obama administration keep looking for love in all the wrong places? Why does it go out of its way to alienate its friends, while wooing people who will never waver in their hatred?

Just to be clear, progressives would be foolish to sit out this election: Mr. Obama may not be the politician of their dreams, but his enemies are definitely the stuff of their nightmares. But Mr. Obama has a responsibility, too. He can’t expect strong support from people his administration keeps ignoring and insulting.

His point is hold your nose and go vote for Democrats.

Who knew ...

Phyllis Schlafly was still alive?

Modern Feudalism ...

To hear the other side tell it, we'd be better off if we were all serfs, under the 'protection' of our local billionaire lord. 'We must keep rich people rich so the rest of us can scratch out a living serving them.'

Blame Gordon, once again ...

See, he put up the wandering Jew music and I immediately thought of this.

Bond - Korobushka

Looks like the Reggae thing has been put to bed. Heh ...

Well maybe ...

One more. The King, Bob Marley ... heh ... at ... heh ... Harvard. Heh ...

Bob Marley - No Woman, No Cry

National disgrace ...

Our girl Martha Raddatz (honey's seen more time in war zones than I have) has a look at the PTSD epidemic in the US Army:

...

The figures in recent years are staggering.

The number of soldiers committing suicide has increased since 2004, surpassing civilian rates in 2008. Use of prescription drugs has tripled in the past five years; prescription amphetamines use has doubled between 2006 and 2009. One third of soldiers take at least one prescription drug and 14 percent of soldiers are on some form of powerful painkiller.

Crime is rising every year as well. Each year has seen an increase of 5,000 misdemeanors over the previous year, meaning soldiers are expected to commit around 55,000 such crimes in 2010. Sexual offenses have tripled since 2003. Domestic abuse is up 177 percent in the past six years.

Non-combat deaths among the force have increased steadily since 2001 to the point where the report says that in 2009 more soldiers died as a result of accidents and "high risk behavior" than at war.

...

They're strung out, drugged out, and suicidal (been there) and they'll make the scale of Vietnam vets with PTSD seem like a drop in the bucket.

Another note: Like I said about Michael Ware, it's time for Martha to get on a different beat. She's starting to show the stress herself.

Quote of the Day

Mr. Supertrain:

There's definitely a strong strain of thinking among elites in this country that the biggest problem this country faces is that our poor people have it just a bit too good ...

That's it. Unless the poor live in conditions resembling the Mumbai slums, they ain't gettin' any of our largess.

Totally Bored Thursday Mountain Music Blogging

I was sorta lookin' fer something to help Fixer come down from his ganja music kick. I like old-time mountain music and stumbled across this. This oughta do it.

Thanks to MsShai1990, Israel.

Totally awful afterthought that I will live to regret:

Would a dispute between Mountain Jew families be known as the Hatfeld-Mc Oy feud?

Sorry. It clawed its way outta my brain.

Headline of the Day

Are the American people obsolete?

Okay ...

Last one and I'll get off the Reggae kick. My man Jimmy Cliff:

Jimmy Cliff - The Harder They Come

Off to work.

Later ...

And then baste with red wine ...

Against the backdrop of a Senate that can't seem to grasp the reality of climate change, NOAA has issued "The 2009 State of the Climate report." It's just a scientific study "based on comprehensive data from multiple sources," so there's no reason for anyone in the GOP to take it seriously. They eschew science anyway. But, it's really happening:

...

And, like everything else, the Republicans will delay and obfuscate (solely to protect their corporate paymasters' bottom line) until the problem is intractable. Climate change is the greatest danger facing humanity as a whole and the Republicans treat it as a political toy instead of doing the responsible thing. By the time everyone wakes up it will be far too late.

Christ ...

David "Bobo" Brooks dresses up as a Dem.

Hey, let’s join David Brooks on a fantastical tour where every Applebee’s has a salad bar, every tax cut creates three beeeellion jobs, and everybody, including Democrats, takes David’s advice. All you have to do is put on a magic green jacket. No, seriously.

...

It's like Bobo won the Masters, but different.

...

Why Democrats can only save themselves BY ACTING LIKE REPUBLICANS AND NOT LIKE DEMOCRATS! (Who could have seen that coming from Bobo, huh?)

...

It's the old saw: Democrats can only be bipartisan if they do everything the Republicans want.

We'll get by ...

Poor BP:

In case you were wondering how BP will find the cash to put into its oil gusher escrow fund (assuming BP ever does actually put cash into it), you need not worry. Marketwatch explains that BP will take a $32 billion charge against earnings, due in part to the oil spill--which means it will get a $9.9 billion tax credit.

$9,900,000,000.

...

How does any corporation, in the most lucrative business in the world, qualify for any sort of tax credit?

Blame Fixer...

I like Harry Belafonte's Jamaica Farewell (wiki*), I really do, and I remember it from my younger days when it was a big hit for him, but it's awfully white bread, even for Calypso which is a heckuva lot older and more laid-back genre than Reggae.

*

In his album "My Son the Folk Singer," Allan Sherman included a parody of the song: "I'm upside down, my head is turning around, because I gotta sell the house in Levittown!"

Well, OK, not that white bread! Anyway, here's a livelier instrumental version played on de steelpans, mon:

Thanks to SteelDrumMusic.

Yo, justify ese, feds

Hanna Liebman Dershowitz in the LATimes. A 'must read' if you're interested in legalization of mota:

The law is the law. If we unquestioningly accepted that maxim, imagine where we would be today. Jim Crow would be alive and well, rivers and skies would be polluted, and women wouldn't be allowed to vote.

But the law is neither absolute nor infallible, and that's why Californians can — and should — legalize, regulate and tax marijuana-related commerce.

Let's think this through. If Proposition 19 passes, two important balls roll into the feds' court. The first is that the sole responsibility and expense of enforcing marijuana prohibition will be shifted to them. After Nov. 2, marijuana "offenders" could be arrested only by federal agents, prosecuted only under federal law, and sentenced only to federal detention.

This is good on its face - federal prisons are soooo much nicer than state ones.

The second ball is even more significant. Voter approval of Proposition 19 would shift to the feds the responsibility and burden of justifying marijuana prohibition in the first place. Now, the Washingtonians who have never questioned decades of anti-pot propaganda can explain to the people of California why we cannot be trusted to determine our state's marijuana policies. Let them endorse the prohibition laws' usefulness as a tool of oppressing minorities. Let them celebrate how minor marijuana violations cost people their jobs, their housing, custody of their kids, and entrap them permanently in vast criminal justice databases. Let them justify the utter hypocrisy of the legal treatment of alcohol and tobacco, as compared with the illegal treatment of marijuana. Let them tell us how many more people will have to be prosecuted and punished before marijuana is eradicated, how much that will cost, and where the money will come from.

Much more.

Yes on 19.

Parts of AZ law on hold

LATimes

PHOENIX — A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona's immigration law from taking effect, delivering a last-minute victory to opponents of the crackdown.

The overall law will still take effect Thursday, but without the provisions that angered opponents -- including sections that required officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws.

The judge also put on hold parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled that the controversial sections should be put on hold until the courts resolve the issues.

This was put in the paper about 15 minutes ago. More details as they become available.

Note to Mamacita: You can set the samovar down for a minute. Heh.

Nostalgia ...

This whole Reggae thing I'm on has got me waxing nostalgic about my youth. My dad had a great voice and used to sing me to sleep when I was a child. Harry Belafonte was a staple. This was one of dad's regulars.

Harry Belafonte - Jamaica Farewell

Late for work ...