Last night, Bill Moyers rebroadcast a 2002 show in which he talked about famine relief efforts after the US invasion of that country. The show followed Dominic McSorley, an employee for Concern Worldwide, an international relief agency which brings food to some of the most impoverished areas of the world. 20 years of fighting there, cumulating in the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, has turned that country into one of the world's wastelands as well as one of the poorest countries of the world.
First, the show took us to a Pakistan refugee camp, where there were extensive social problems there such as family breakups. The problem is that these places are supposed to be temporary; the people there get just enough to stay alive and cannot work in most instances. This, incidentally, is why the invasion and occupation of Iraq, cumulating in the McCain Doctrine, will be shown to be a spectacular failure even if the Battle of Basra had not imploded so spectacularly on the Iraqi government. The millions of refugees in neighboring countries will dwarf the problem of the Palestinians unless something is done now about these problems.
McSorley's life is a paradox; he became an international relief worker to get away from Belfast with all of its problems; he grew up in that area during the height of the violence there. But he has been drawn to some of the world's biggest trouble spots over the last 20 years as paradoxically, he has been drawn to other places with problems similar to his own city's. And northeastern Afghanistan, which is poor even for Afghanistan, is one of the poorest places in the world. Roads are so full of potholes and ruts that it takes five hours just to go 30 miles. Compound that with the logistical problem of trying to get 11,000 tons of food over the mountains and passes in a hurry, and you will see what McSorley was up against. On this particular trip, these problems were even more compounded by torrential rain mixed with snow. It took donkeys to get the 11,000 tons of food over the mountains to the people.
The American bombings drove most relief agencies out of Afghanistan; however, McSorley saw the war as a just cause because in many cases, places were opened to foreign relief agencies that had not been open for years. But there are still a wide array of problems; for instance, food frequently gets diverted to the units of local warlords. The only way for Concern Worldwide and other such agencies to guarantee that food gets there is for people like McSorley to actually be there.
The area to which McSorley went was one of the areas hardest-hit by the fighting because it was one of the front lines between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. During the US bombing, 90% of the homes were destroyed. People like McSorley have to be diplomats because their goal is to convince local warlords to allow food to come into these areas.
McSorley said that he believed that poverty and terrorism were linked; specifically, the absence of social services to help lift people out of poverty and into a better life. McSorley learned from his Irish background how to develop a pragmatic, grassroots approach.
Another problem was that there was not enough for all the people; therefore, they had to give the food to those with the greatest need. But even then, the food did not reach everyone; for instance, McSorley noted that most of those who needed it the most were not strong enough and did not have the animals that they needed.
In addition to famine relief, reconstruction was another priority for the area; for instance, they needed to transport enough timber over the mountains and pothole roads to reconstruct 2,000-5,000 homes just in that particular area. And there were social problems as well; for instance, people had lost their husbands, sons, and were sleeping hungry. Many mothers would starve themselves so that their sons could live and create a better life for themselves.
McSorley believed that one of the main ways of getting out of poverty was to teach people self-sufficiency skills; women would have to take a strong role in the future because many of the men were killed in the 20 years of fighting. But although one of the stated missions of Concern Worldwide was to achieve equality for women, McSorley said that it would take 10-20 years to achieve that because the repression of women was heavily ingrained even in places where the Taliban had never ruled.
One of the main concerns for a new Obama administration would be to facilitate this kind of work that Concern Worldwide is performing around the world. Yesterday, I wrote about how Obama had spoken out about providing relief for women in the Central African Republic, a place most of us have never heard of. Here are some of the other things that he would do as our next President:
"When I am this party's nominee, my opponent will not be able to say that I voted for the war in Iraq; or that I gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran; or that I supported Bush-Cheney policies of not talking to leaders that we don't like. And he will not be able to say that I wavered on something as fundamental as whether or not it is ok for America to torture — because it is never ok... I will end the war in Iraq... I will close Guantanamo. I will restore habeas corpus. I will finish the fight against Al Qaeda. And I will lead the world to combat the common threats of the 21st century: nuclear weapons and terrorism; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease. And I will send once more a message to those yearning faces beyond our shores that says, "You matter to us. Your future is our future. And our moment is now."
Here are some of the refugee crises that Obama would address:
Obama believes that America has a moral and security responsibility to confront Iraq's humanitarian crisis – two million Iraqis are refugees; two million more are displaced inside their own country. Obama will form an international working group to address this crisis. He will provide at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries, and ensure that Iraqis inside their own country can find a safe-haven.
First of all, he would get us out of Iraq and close one of the saddest chapters of our country's history. Then, he would begin the world of providing hope to the world's refugees, who have no place to go and who have to worry about where their next meal will come from. Relief agencies would spend much more to meet the immediate needs of Iraq's refugees. That would address the potential problem of Iraq refugee camps becoming a hotbed of terrorism. And with the new Pakistani government committed to rooting out Bin Laden, combined with a new direction for US foreign policy, we should be able to minimize any terrorist threats in the long term instead of the McCain Doctrine, which creates hotbeds of recruitment for the next generation of terrorists.
Next, Obama would make Africa one of the main priorities of our foreign policy approach. Instead of closing consulates, Obama would open them even in the worlds' hotspots so that we can have a policy of active engagement. That way, he could develop a sense of what the ground truth was in any given situation and formulate effective responses. He would double foreign aid to Africa, which is possible because the withdrawal from Iraq would free up billions of dollars of US money for that purpose. Under an Obama administration, NATO would change from a primarily defensive mission to an active peacekeeping organization along with the OAU and the UN, sending troops for peacekeeping and humanitarian purposes. Troops could coordinate their efforts with aid workers to get food to where it was needed most. This is especially important in Africa, which is Ground Zero for global warming.
Another change that Obama would make is that his administration would be a lot more open and transparent in its approach. The problem is that the Bush administration is one of the most secretive in US history, and the McCain administration would be no different. That means that even when Bush does the right thing, such as with Burma, countries like China and Russia are suspicious about his intentions. Is Bush really concerned about the monks of Burma, or is he really trying to ring China and Russia with a chain of military bases around the world stretching from the West to South Korea?
Among other things, Obama would be involved in Congo, Darfur, and Liberia. In Darfur, Obama would fully fund the UN so that they could deploy a much more effective peacekeeping force in that region; he would protect it with a no-fly zone and target Sudan's oil revenues. Obama is much stronger on alternative fuels than John McCain, meaning that the more alternative fuels that we use, the more likely we are to bankrupt rogue states like Sudan. This would be combined with the kind of intense, engaged diplomacy that has been lacking from US foreign policy under the Bush administration.
Obama would rebuild the Congo, using $52 million to develop its infrastructure; he would hold neighboring governments accountable if they try to destabilize it. He would also commit millions of dollars to help bring war criminal Charles Taylor to justice; he was the former president of Liberia.
Today is the same day that King was shot and killed. Today is also the same day that he gave his speech about Vietnam as well:
"A time comes when silence is betrayal."
The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.
And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?" "Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people," they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.
Silence means consent. And for too long, the Bush administration has ignored the plight of refugees worldwide and have refused to take any kind of active leadership role in solving these problems; John McCain would be the same way. It was wrong for us to be silent about the things that mattered when there was segregation. It was wrong to be silent about the things that mattered when it was Vietnam. It was wrong for us to be silent in the face of Bush's lies to get us into war with Iraq. And it is wrong to stay silent when millions of people are still without a home and wonder every day where they are going to get their next meal. These issues are all related.
Bobby Kennedy's speech on King's death:
ODDS AND ENDS
It seems that in Bush's world, Constitutional protections such as freedom of assembly do not matter if you happen to be a peace activist:
I have one question to ask -- would they have arrested Barack Obama for speaking at his rally in 2002? Is this the kind of America that we want for the next four years?
Will Bin Laden be captured? Steve Coll thinks it possible:
Coll: It's more likely now, in the next year or two, that [bin Laden will] finally be captured or killed than at any time since late 2001. I say this not because American efforts to find him have improved; I don't think they have. But the situation in Pakistan has changed dramatically in the last six or eight months. He's now a much more unpopular figure than he was even a year ago. And also, the new government has a different set of motivations to find him in comparison to the government of President Musharraf.
Gross: So even though the new government is less friendly with the Bush administration than Musharraf was, you think the new government is going to do a better job of going after Al Qaeda and Bin Laden.
Coll: They have better motives to do so. The United States got itself in to a strange situation with Musharraf, in which the structure of its aid to the Pakistan government essentially incented the government not to find Bin Laden because if they found him they had reason to fear that the US would end this flow of more than $10 billion that it was providing directly to the army. The democratic government came to power arguing to Washington that constitutional democracy was a better counterterrorism strategy than reliance on an authoritarian military leader. So, I think they understand, if they can deliver Osama, they're not going to be punished for it, rather they're going to be rewarded. So, for the first time, you have somebody in the Pakistani government who has motivation to find him. And at the same time, the population in which he's hiding has turned more hostile to him, so the possibility of someone dropping a dime on him is much greater now than it was a couple of years ago.
Coll was speaking on yesterday's Fresh Air. We all hope and pray that Bin Laden is caught and brought to justice. He should have to face up to the massive crime that he committed on 9/11 when he bombed the World Trade Center. But all this suggests that Barack Obama's plan for going into Pakistan is the right plan -- this time, we have a government that will be fully committed to capturing him and bringing him to justice. And it will totally undermine the notion that we need to fight them in Iraq so that we don't have to fight them here. Not only that, we can get out of Iraq with honor -- we can point to Bin Laden's capture as proof that we did what we set out to do.
This undermines any logical basis for us to be in Iraq for 100 years like John McCain keeps insisting. Once we have caught Bin Laden and brought him to justice, there is no more reason for us to be there. Our next step will be to set a date certain beyond which we will no longer be in Iraq, forcing the Iraqi politicians to take care of their own affairs. Basic military strategy dictates that you strike for the heart -- if you cut off the head, the rest will collapse. If we capture Bin Laden, the rest of the problems associated with him will take care of themselves. That is the truth that George Bush could never grasp.
John McCain's campaign finance co-chair whines about Elizabeth Edwards. Here is the kind of asshole we are dealing with:
Finding a cure for cancer is a vitally important mission for this country. Supporting that mission should unite everyone – and should be off-limits from the political and partisan battlefield.
...I just hope that it doesn’t become a common occurrence on the campaign trail. The cancer conversation is best left to the experts, researchers, and doctors.
Thanks for your ad hominem distraction from Edwards' point about pre-existing conditions concern, Mr. Malek. I'll make sure to tell all the cancer survivors in my life to keep their cancer talk to themselves during this election season.
So, who is Fred Malek, anyhow?
On a Friday in August 1959, five men in their twenties were arrested about 2 a.m. and held in the county jail all day after sheriff's deputies found a blood-spattered, unoccupied car about 1:15 a.m. at the entrance to Vicary's Park on Kickapoo Creek Road near Peoria, Ill.
...After checking the blood-spattered pants of one of the men at the state crime laboratory in Springfield, it was determined that the stains were animal and not human blood. Backes said the men then changed their story and said they had "caught a dog and were barbecuing it."
Police then found the skinned animal on a spit in the park. The insides of the dog had been removed, and a bottle of liquor was found on a nearby park table. Backes said the men told him they had been drinking earlier in the evening at a West Bluff tavern.
One of the men arrested in the incident, in which a dog was killed, skinned, gutted and barbecued on a spit, was Frederick V. Malek, 22, of Berwyn, Ill.
Obama picks up a superdelegate in DC:
DC picked its add-on superdelegates tonight. One is an Obama supporter, DC City Council member Yvette Alexander, and the other, DC City Council member Harry Thomas Jr., is a former Clinton supporter who is now on the fence, given his ward voted 83% for Obama.
Billions of dollars worth of body armor contracts were not awarded properly:
The inspector general reviewed $5.2 billion worth of Army and Marine Corps contracts for body armor from 2004 through 2006.
"Specific information concerning testing and approval of first articles was not included in 13 of 28 Army contracts and orders reviewed, and contracting files were not maintained in 11 of 28 Army contracts to show why procurement decisions were made," the report concluded.
The full extent of the grave damage that Donald Rumsfeld has done to our national security is starting to be revealed. Rumsfeld did not go in with the good of his country in mind; he went in with a personal agenda. In other words, it was all about him.
John McCain voted against Martin Luther King Day:
McCain: I voted in my first year in congress against it. Then I began to learn. And I studied. And people talked to me. And I not only supported it, but I fought very hard in my own state of Arizona for recognition against a governor who was of my own party. ...
Reporter: On Martin Luthor King, what do you mean you say you learned?
McCain: Well, I learned that this individual was a transcendent figure in American history. He deserved to be honored. And I thought it was appropriate to do so. In my home state of Arizona, I was not proud that we were one of the last states to recognize Dr. King's birthday as a holiday. And I was pleased to be part of the fight for that recognition.
Reporter: What didn't you know when you voted initially against it that you later knew when you changed your mind?
McCain: I had not really been involved in the issue. I just had not had a lot of experience with the issue. That's all.
Reporter: [couldn't hear question]
McCain: In Arizona, I came from the military where we are the greatest equal opportunity employer in the nation and still are. And I had just not been involved in the issue. There were issues that I had not been involved in when I was in the military, and then I went relatively quickly to being a member of Congress.
Reporter: You just didn't realize the large role in American history?
McCain: I think I just explained it about best I could.
Reporter: It's not really an issue to be involved in, to be aware of his impact on this country, it's more of a knowledge of history.
McCain: I think you're entitled to your opinion on it and I respect your opinion on that, but I had not been involved in the issue. I had come from being in the military to running for Congress in a state that did not have a large African American population.
And lied about fighting against his own governor on the issue afterwards:
In Arizona, a bill to recognize a holiday honoring MLK failed in the legislature, so then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat, declared one through executive order.
In January 1987, the first act of Arizona's new governor, Republican Evan Mecham, was to rescind the executive order by his predecessor to create an MLK holiday. Arizona's stance became a national controversy.
McCain backed the decision at the time.
This is a person who is simply too radical for this country:
--He wants to stay in Iraq for the next 100 years;
--He wants to bomb Iran;
--He voted to abolish the Federal Minimum Wage;
--He would appoint radical right-wing judges who would overturn Roe;
--And now, it turns out that he has actively undermined the progress in this country on Civil Rights.
Barack Obama's speech in Indianapolis on the 40th anniversarry of Dr. King's death:
"Dr. King once said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but that it bends toward justice. But what he also knew was that it doesn’t bend on its own. It bends because each of us puts our hands on that arc and bends it in the direction of justice.
So on this day – of all days – let’s each do our part to bend that arc.
Let’s bend that arc toward justice.
Let’s bend that arc toward opportunity.
Let’s bend that arc toward prosperity for all.
And if we can do that and march together – as one nation, and one people – then we won’t just be keeping faith with what Dr. King lived and died for, we’ll be making real the words of Amos that he invoked so often, and "let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream."