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Khazei: We have lost our way in Afghanistan

2009-11-16T23:22:15Z

+1 raves

By Matt Viser, Globe Staff

US Senate candidate Alan Khazei is calling on troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying the United States should hunt terrorists in other regions.

Alan Khazei

He plans to deliver a speech this afternoon at Harvard University saying that "we have lost our way in Afghanistan." Khazei plans to deliver the speech that, if he were senator today, he would deliver from the Senate floor.

"We've lost our way, strayed from our mission, and now we are asking our troops to build a nation in a place that is laden with corruption," he will say, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. "This isn't in our interest as a nation, and it's not fair to our troops."

Khazei's three rivals in the Democratic primary -- US Representative Michael Capuano, Attorney General Martha Coakley, and Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca -- have all been skeptical of adding more troops in Afghanistan.

Capuano has taken out a TV ad focused on his stance against adding more troops in Afghanistan, and during a debate last week on WTKK-FM he said, "Our mission has been complete … It's way past time for us to be getting our troops out of Afghanistan."

Pagliuca also called for bringing troops home, saying, "I'm supportive of bringing the troops back as soon as we possibly can."

Coakley was less clear during the WTKK-FM debate about whether troops should be removed, instead saying she was weary of adding more. "Before we send more troops, we need to have a clearer idea of what we're doing," she said. "I think the president understands that maybe more troops isn't a good idea."

Khazei this afternoon will argue aggressively against adding more troops, saying the United States should set a timetable to withdraw and calling for more focus to be on Pakistan, a country that has nuclear weapons.

"For eight years we have been losing our brave family members overseas in protracted wars in which often the rationale for, goals and costs of war have not been clearly explained to the American people and the citizens of Massachusetts," he will say, according to his prepared remarks.

"We must defeat the terrorists," Khazei will say. "I don't believe we can best do that by putting so many resources into re-building one single country, halfway around the globe."

Khazei also says that the United States should learn lessons from history, saying, "Afghanistan is where great powers go to die."

"No foreign power has ever succeeded in Afghanistan," he will say. "Ask Ghengis Khan and Alexander the Great. Ask King George V of Britain or Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Gorbachev of the former Soviet Union."

Khazei this morning also released a 10-point plan on his strategy for Afghanistan.

Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.

Report: US Troop Morale Down in Afghanistan

2009-11-15T09:43:27Z

mk, Smartass Oracle

0 raves

By VOA News
14 November 2009

A U.S. military survey says morale among American troops in Afghanistan has dropped sharply because of increased fighting and multiple deployments.

The army survey says the number of soldiers who reported their unit's morale as being high or very high dropped by nearly half (to 5.7 percent) in 2009, compared to 10.2 percent in the last study in 2007.

Army Surgeon General Lieutenant General Eric Schoomaker says soldiers continue to face stress from multiple deployments into combat.

One in five soldiers in Afghanistan reported psychological problems such as anxiety, depression or acute stress. It also found that a greater number of troops serving there are reporting problems at home, including marriage difficulties.

Separately, the NATO-led alliance in Afghanistan reported Saturday that two U.S. troops and one U.S. civilian were killed in separate bomb attacks in southern and eastern Afghanistan Friday.

The army survey also polled troops in Iraq who reported a boost in morale after a drop in fighting in that country.

The army survey was released Friday, a little more than a week after an army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, allegedly went on a shooting rampage at an army base in the southern state of Texas, killing 13 people. Hasan's relatives say the psychiatrist had wanted to get out of the military.

Authorities have not determined a motive for the shooting.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters

About my contest polls

2009-11-13T06:56:30Z

mk, Smartass Oracle

+19 raves

The whole point of my contest polls is for everyone taking part to have fun. One thing I started doing recently was asking members to make sure their nominee was aware of and ok with their nomination. You can never take it for granted that your friend wants to be in any kind of poll, no matter who flattering it may be. So ALWAYS be sure that your nominee knows about their nomination. Also many polls require as many as 3 parts. A< B and C. That is because the most options you can list in a poll is 13. I would dearly love it if I could list everyone in one poll and be done with it. But I have no control over that. So to be fair to everyone I do as many parts as necessary to get it done. Then I make one final poll from the top finishers from the preliminary polls. I also try to give each poll several weeks to run so everyone that wants to vote, can vote.

And remember that ALL nominees are winners. When I congratulate someone that got the most votes, its just that. They got the most votes. There are no losers. I hope we are straight on this, so anyone that does not get the most votes feels bad. These polls are for ALL to have fun. Period.

And it is important that eveyonre READ the poll qualifications so we don't have people nominated in the wrong categories. I am currently running several best looking polls that are divided into 10 year age groups. That way instead of one big best looking poll, we can have many top vote getters in their respective age groups. Personally I like to see different people at the top of these polls instead of the same small group of people. The more the merrier. The whole purpose is to make as many people as possible feel good about themselves. Make sense?

Who Are VFW’s 1.5 Million Members?

2009-11-13T06:30:09Z

mk, Smartass Oracle

+1 raves

As of July 2009,VFW’s membership
stood at 1,544,105. The single largest
number of members are veterans of
Vietnam. Though there are certainly
exceptions, the age brackets used
below would incorporate the lion’s
share of each war’s veterans.
VFW Membership Director
Matt Claussen says knowing a
person’s age can suggest a lot
to a recruiter about a potential member.
“It can tell a recruiter where the person
might have served, how they like to
communicate,what VFW programs they
might want to support or what sort of
lifestyle they might lead,” he said.
Based on the numbers compiled in the
pie chart below,Claussen said his department
will target two specific groups in
future efforts: Iraq/Afghanistan War vets
and Vietnam War vets. “There are almost
5 million potential members among the
two groups,” he said.
Claussen added that while it has been
relatively easy to recruit 20-29 yearolds,
it has been “a fight” to keep them.
“It’s not a recruitment problem, it’s
retention,” he said. “They make up onethird
of our yearly recruitment. We’re
simply not checking up on them to make
sure they’re satisfied once they’re in.”
Who Are VFW’s 1.5 Million Members?
membership
1991 Persian Gulf War/
Iraq/Afghanistan, 10.6%
161,214; age 36-55
Other operations in this age
bracket include Somalia, the
Balkans, Panama, Grenada and
Lebanon, for example.
Korean War, 19.4%
294,271; age 74-81
Also includes occupation
duty in Europe and Asia.
Afghanistan/Iraq Wars, 4.7%
70,620; age 19-35
Includes other overseas ops as well.
Vietnam War, 36.6%
554,104; age 56-73
This age bracket also
includes service in the
Dominican Republic
(1965-66) and Korea
DMZ (1966-74).
Note: Based on minimum age for war service being age 18 in the last year of the war (except Vietnam).
Vietnam = 19 in 1972; 56 today. The U.S. war ended March 29, 1973. Only 989 Marines went ashore in the 18-
hour embassy evacuation April 29-30, 1975, two years after the U.S. withdrawal.
World War II = 18 in 1945; 82 today
Korean War = 18 in 1953; 74 today. Korean Service Medal continued to be awarded until one year after the war.
Persian Gulf War = 18 in 1991; 36 today.
Editor’s Note: While these numbers
cannot be precise because calculations are
based on age and not receipt of an actual
campaign medal, they provide an approximate
snapshot of membership by war.
Also, keep in mind that a number of members
served in more than one war or operation.
And recipients of the Armed Forces,
Navy and Marine Corps Expeditionary
Medals span several age brackets. Vets of
Afghanistan/Iraq fall into two of the age
brackets. Calculations are based on known
ages; 1.8% of member ages are unknown.
World War II, 28.7%
435,439; age 82+

Radical imam praises alleged Fort Hood shooter

2009-11-10T01:58:39Z

mk, Smartass Oracle

+2 raves

By PAMELA HESS and EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writers Pamela Hess And Eileen Sullivan, Associated Press Writers – 32 mins ago WASHINGTON – A radical American imam on Yemen's most wanted militant list who had contact with two 9/11 hijackers praised alleged Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as a hero on his personal Web site Monday. The posting on the Web site for Anwar al Awlaki, who was a spiritual leader at two mosques where three 9/11 hijackers worshipped, said American Muslims who condemned the attacks on the Texas military base last week are hypocrites who have committed treason against their religion. Awlaki said the only way a Muslim can justify serving in the U.S. military is if he intends to "follow in the footsteps of men like Nidal." "Nidal Hassan (sic) is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people," Awlaki wrote. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, is accused of killing 13 and wounding 29 in a shooting spree Thursday. Hasan's family attended the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., where Awlaki was preaching in 2001. Hasan's mother's funeral was held at the Falls Church mosque on May 31, 2001, according to her obituary in the Roanoke Times newspaper, around the same time two 9/11 hijackers worshipped at the mosque and while Awlaki was preaching. Awlaki is a native-born U.S. citizen who left the United States in 2002, eventually traveling to Yemen. He was released from a Yemeni jail last year and has since gone missing. He is on Yemen's most wanted militant list, according to three Yemeni security officials. The officials say Awlaki was arrested in 2006 with a small group of suspected al-Qaida militants in the capital San'a. They say he was released more than a year later after signing a pledge he will not break the law or leave the country. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. A former senior U.S. intelligence official said Awlaki is well known in the intelligence community. The Homeland Security Department's intelligence division became concerned about Awlaki late last year when he published a new group of violent lectures targeting U.S. audiences, according to a Jan. 22, 2009 intelligence note. On Dec. 23, 2008, Awlaki, on his Web site, encouraged Muslims across the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. Awlaki also used these postings to declare his support for the Somali terrorist group, al-Shabaab, according to the Homeland Security intelligence note, obtained by The Associated Press. In December of last year, Customs officials intercepted a flash drive of Awlaki's lectures that his wife sent from Yemen to an Islamic publishing house in Denver, the intelligence note said. Awlaki told the FBI in 2001 that, before he moved to Virginia in early 2001, he met with 9/11 hijacker Nawaf al-Hazmi several times in San Diego. Al-Hazmi was at the time living with Khalid al-Mihdhar, another hijacker. Al-Hazmi and another hijacker, Hani Hanjour, attended the Dar al Hijrah mosque in Virginia in early April 2001. In his FBI interview, Awlaki denied ever meeting with al-Hazmi and Hanjour while in Virginia. He was investigated by the FBI in 1999 and 2000 after it was learned that he may have been contacted by a possible procurement agent for Osama bin Laden. During this investigation, the FBI learned that Awlaki knew people involved in raising money for Hamas, a Palestinian group on the U.S. State Department's terrorist list. Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, outreach director at Dar al Hijrah, said he did not know whether Hasan ever attended the mosque but confirmed that the Hasan family participated in services there. Abdul-Malik said the Hasans were not leaders at the mosque and their attendance was normal. The Falls Church mosque is one of the largest on the East Coast, and thousands of worshippers attend prayers and services there every week. Abdul-Malik said it's a mistake for people to conflate regular attendance at a mosque with extremism. Many Muslims pray at the mosque multiple times a day, he said. "It's part of family life. It's like going out for ice cream after dinner." Faizul Khan, former imam of the Muslim Community Center in nearby Silver Spring, Md., where Hasan also worshipped, said he was not aware that Hasan had attended services at Dar al Hijrah but said it would not be unusual for Hasan to attend more than one mosque concurrently. Khan said he did not recall Hasan mentioning having been taught or preached to by Awlaki. The London Telegraph first reported the potential link between Hasan and the mosque. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said Sunday it's important for the country not to get caught up in speculation about Hasan's Muslim faith, and he has instructed his commanders to be on the lookout for anti-Muslim reaction to the killings at the Texas post. Casey said evidence to this point shows that Hasan acted alone. He toured Fort Hood on Friday with Army Secretary John McHugh. Casey appeared on ABC's "This Week" and CNN's "State of the Union." Separately, the CIA denied an ABC News report saying that the agency has refused to brief Congress on the case. "This is a law enforcement investigation, in which other agencies, not the CIA, have the lead. Any suggestion that the CIA refused to brief Congress is flat wrong," said George Little, CIA spokesman. Associated Press Writers Ben Nuckols, Devlin Barrett and Matthew Barakat contributed to this story. AP reporter Ahmed al-Haj contributed from San-a, Yamen.

An error in my best looking 30 something female SH poll

2009-11-09T00:10:53Z

mk, Smartass Oracle

+17 raves

Due to a misunderstanding Sher was nominated for the 30 to 39 poll when she was over the age of eligibility. Since its my poll I have to take responsibility. So I am sorry to all parties concerned, especially Sher who is a friend and very sweet person. Someone please nominate Sher for the 40 something poll. As I have already used my one nomination. http://www.sodahead.com/other/who-is-the-best-looking-female-...

Grand larceny sentencing By: Web Staff

2009-11-07T06:27:06Z

mk, Smartass Oracle

+5 raves

http://news10now.com/cny-news-1013-content/top_stories/487004... DELAWARE COUNTY, N.Y. -- A Delaware County man will spend six months in jail for cashing his dead mother's social security checks. Roland Auslander, 70, cashed at least 18 months of checks after his mother died of natural causes. Police found her body in a freezer in Auslander's Cooks Falls home back in October 2008. Auslander pleaded guilty to grand larceny and fraud back in July He still faces charges for unlawfully disposing of a body.

Some facts about US Veterans and Veteran's Day

2009-11-04T22:36:00Z

mk, Smartass Oracle

+20 raves

http://www.history.com/content/veteransday/veterans-day-facts

Be Prepared for the Worst

2009-11-01T05:15:17Z

mk, Smartass Oracle

+16 raves

Ron Paul, 10.29.09, 09:20 AM EDT Forbes Magazine dated November 16, 2009 The large-scale government intervention in the economy is going to end badly. Any number of pundits claim that we have now passed the worst of the recession. Green shoots of recovery are supposedly popping up all around the country, and the economy is expected to resume growing soon at an annual rate of 3% to 4%. Many of these are the same people who insisted that the economy would continue growing last year, even while it was clear that we were already in the beginning stages of a recession. A false recovery is under way. I am reminded of the outlook in 1930, when the experts were certain that the worst of the Depression was over and that recovery was just around the corner. The economy and stock market seemed to be recovering, and there was optimism that the recession, like many of those before it, would be over in a year or less. Instead, the interventionist policies of Hoover and Roosevelt caused the Depression to worsen, and the Dow Jones industrial average did not recover to 1929 levels until 1954. I fear that our stimulus and bailout programs have already done too much to prevent the economy from recovering in a natural manner and will result in yet another asset bubble. the central bank intervenes to pump trillions of dollars into the financial system, a bubble is created that must eventually deflate. We have seen the results of Alan Greenspan's excessively low interest rates: the housing bubble, the explosion of subprime loans and the subsequent collapse of the bubble, which took down numerous financial institutions. Rather than allow the market to correct itself and clear away the worst excesses of the boom period, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury colluded to put taxpayers on the hook for trillions of dollars. Those banks and financial institutions that took on the largest risks and performed worst were rewarded with billions in taxpayer dollars, allowing them to survive and compete with their better-managed peers. This is nothing less than the creation of another bubble. By attempting to cushion the economy from the worst shocks of the housing bubble's collapse, the Federal Reserve has ensured that the ultimate correction of its flawed economic policies will be more severe than it otherwise would have been. Even with the massive interventions, unemployment is near 10% and likely to increase, foreigners are cutting back on purchases of Treasury debt and the Federal Reserve's balance sheet remains bloated at an unprecedented $2 trillion. Can anyone realistically argue that a few small upticks in a handful of economic indicators are a sign that the recession is over? What is more likely happening is a repeat of the Great Depression. We might have up to a year or so of an economy growing just slightly above stagnation, followed by a drop in growth worse than anything we have seen in the past two years. As the housing market fails to return to any sense of normalcy, commercial real estate begins to collapse and manufacturers produce goods that cannot be purchased by debt-strapped consumers, the economy will falter. That will go on until we come to our senses and end this wasteful government spending. Government intervention cannot lead to economic growth. Where does the money come from for Tarp (Treasury's program to buy bad bank paper), the stimulus handouts and the cash for clunkers? It can come only from taxpayers, from sales of Treasury debt or through the printing of new money. Paying for these programs out of tax revenues is pure redistribution; it takes money out of one person's pocket and gives it to someone else without creating any new wealth. Besides, tax revenues have fallen drastically as unemployment has risen, yet government spending continues to increase. As for Treasury debt, the Chinese and other foreign investors are more and more reluctant to buy it, denominated as it is in depreciating dollars.

The Phony Radicalism of Michael Moore

2009-11-01T05:03:52Z

mk, Smartass Oracle

+4 raves

With phony radicals like Michael Moore around, the ruling elite has nothing to worry about. The filmmaker likes to pose as a radical critic of the status quo, but he isn’t. All the evidence you need is in his latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story. Sure, he rails against home foreclosures, bank bailouts, low wages, other real and imagined problems, but his solution would not disturb the sleep of any big banker, corporate bigwig, or political big shot. The tipoff comes right at the beginning of the movie. He paints an idyllic picture of life in America in the 1950s. His father worked for a big auto company, through which the family got free medical and dental care. All was well. He realizes that a major reason things were so good was that the U.S. military had destroyed Japan’s and Germany’s competitive industrial bases in World War II. But the dominance was great while it lasted. It was a time when an alliance of big government, big business, and big labor ruled the roost. The military-industrial complex was thriving. That seems fine with Moore, which puts him in the camp of the corporatists of Franklin Roosevelt’s Brain Trust, who thought free markets and competition among independent firms were passé. The new world required big monolithic entities that sat down together and worked things out nicely. The spirit of Mussolini hovered over all of it. Of course, Moore blasts Wall Street because it got all that taxpayer bailout money and is not being held accountable for it. That is worth getting mad about. But how would he feel if the money had been given with lots of conditions and regulations? He might have liked that. He certainly doesn’t mind that the government had the taxpayers’ money to give away in the first place. He never once suggests that the people should keep their own money because the political elite has no right to it. He also never indicts the Federal Reserve for its legal counterfeiting. That would be the true radical position. Moore sides with the politicians. He even complains that the top income-tax rate was lowered from 90 percent some years ago! Conveniently, he gets the history wrong. He says Republican Ronald Reagan cut the 90 percent rate, but it was really Democrat Lyndon Johnson who did it, following through on John Kennedy’s proposal. (Reagan presided over a cut from 70 to 50 and then to 28 percent.) At any rate, he is perfectly comfortable with government’s taking 90 percent of people’s earnings. He seems indifferent about whether the money is made through honest trade or political privilege. Favoring a high top rate may not win him favors from some in the establishment, but for generations there has been a wing of that establishment that understood that high marginal rates were the price of the lucrative corporate state. So Moore may not be the pariah among the ruling elite that he makes himself out to be. Moore’s movie contains much else to make us doubt his radical bona fides. He blusters about Robert Rubin, Timothy Geithner, Lawrence Summers, and their relationship to the current financial problems. Rubin, a Wall Street hotshot, and Summers were Treasury secretaries under President Bill Clinton. Geithner ran the New York Federal Reserve Bank from late 2003 to 2009, overseeing the Wall Street bailouts. In Moore’s eyes, they are the rogues who, along with former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, gave us the meltdown of 2008. So far so good. But when he gets to the election of Barack Obama in November 2008 he declares, “This is not what Wall Street wanted.” Yeah? Then why are Moore’s bêtes noires Rubin and Summers close Obama economic advisors, and why is Geithner secretary of the Treasury? A true radical would not have given Obama a pass. Moore says he’s for socialism, but all he means by that is that workers have some say in their companies. Nothing very radical about that. If Moore were truly a radical critic of capitalism as he conceives it, he’d be for its true opposite: the radical separation of business and State — that is, the free market. Source: Campaign for Liberty This entry was posted on November 1, 2009 at 12:08 am and