Tuesday, February 23, 2010

DSTruthout 2/23

Marjah Offensive Aimed to Shape US Opinion on War
Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service: "Senior military officials decided to launch the current US-British military campaign to seize Marjah in large part to influence domestic US opinion on the war in Afghanistan, The Washington Post reported Monday."
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George Lakoff | Health Means Life; Health Means Freedom
George Lakoff, Truthout: "Life and freedom are moral issues. It is time for Democrats to talk about health in those terms, beyond just policy terms such as health insurance reform, bending the cost curve, types of exchanges, etc."
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Air Strike on Civilians Reverberates Beyond Afghanistan
Charles Fromm, Inter Press Service: "Amid growing European discontent over the war in Afghanistan, the head of US and NATO forces apologized Monday for an air strike that killed at least 27 civilians in the central part of the country Sunday."
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No Justice Forever - America's New Foreign Policy of Indefinite Detention
Lt. Col. Barry Wingard, Truthout: "As evidenced by the recent outpouring of generous support for the people of Haiti, America remains a caring and compassionate nation. But when it comes to human rights and the rule of law, the United States falls woefully short, trailing behind the rest of the civilized world. Case in point, the US government is seriously considering indefinite detentions for some Guantanamo detainees."
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Teabaggers Trying to Rewrite the Constitution
Walter Brasch, Truthout: "Sarah Palin stood before an audience of 600 at the first Tea Party convention and in her twinkly homespun rhetoric, she declared we don't need a professor of law but a commander-in-chief. As expected, she received roaring applause. And, as expected, she was wrong."
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On Health Care, Just Do It
Eugene Robinson: "Better late than never. Now that President Obama has finally put a health care proposal on the table, the Democratic leadership in Congress has only one rational course of action: Pass the thing, and quickly, or risk becoming the loyal minority."
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More Candidates Favoring State-Owned Banks
Ellen Brown, Truthout: "State budgets for 2010 face the largest shortfalls on record, totaling $194 billion or 28 percent of state budgets; 2011 is expected to be worse. Unemployment has already officially hit 10 percent, and many economists expect it to rise higher. Continued high unemployment will keep state income tax receipts at low levels and increase demand for Medicaid and other essential services states provide."
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The Secret History of Gen. Alexander Haig
Melvin A. Goodman, Truthout: "The obituaries in the mainstream media failed to capture the full extent of the controversy and confrontation that marked Gen. Alexander M. Haig's political career in the White House during the Nixon administration and the State Department during the Reagan administration. In his memoir, Henry A. Kissinger praised Haig's role in 1973-1974 in 'holding the government together' in the final days of the Nixon era. Kissinger was respectful of Haig because the general allowed the national security adviser to do as he pleased in his stewardship of foreign and national security policy."
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Facing Down Danger to Make Reproductive Freedom a Reality
On The Issues Magazine: "Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures in the country; ironically, those professionals and staff who make sure that abortion is safe may find their own safety compromised. Since it began tracking anti-abortion violence in 1977, the National Abortion Federation has tabulated more than 156,961 incidents of violence and disruption at clinics."
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Navy Agrees to Study Impact of Camp Lejeune's Toxic Water
Barbara Barrett, McClatchy Newspapers: "The Navy has agreed to pay $1.53 million for a mortality study that could show a linkage between toxic water at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and the deaths of Marines and their family members who lived there over a 30-year period."
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Capitalism Offers Unlimited Irresponsibility, for Some
Writing for Le Monde, corporate governance expert Pierre-Yves Gomez explores the ever more tenuous relationship between personal risk-taking and corporate management or ownership in a society where managers and owners of the biggest companies enjoy assured returns and limited risks, while taxpayers reap limited - if any - rewards, and run unlimited risks.
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Report: 1,000th US Soldier Dies in Afghanistan
Reuters: "The number of US troops killed in Afghanistan has reached 1,000, an independent Web site said on Tuesday, and another deadly bombing in the volatile south highlighted the struggle to stabilize the country. Civilian and military casualties hit record highs last year as violence reached its worst levels since the Taliban were ousted in late 2001, with foreign forces launching two big offensives in the past eight months to stem a growing insurgency."
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Bomb Plot Suspect Pleads Guilty in Federal Court
Kyle Berlin, Truthout: "Najibullah Zazi, a suspected terrorist, pled guilty in federal court to conspiring to use explosive materials. Zazi, 24, a New York-raised Afghan immigrant, was accused of trying to build and detonate explosives close to the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, US terrorist attacks."
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Francis Njubi Nesbitt | Piracy Redux
Francis Njubi Nesbitt, Foreign Policy in Focus: "Over a year after the scourge of piracy escalated in the Gulf of Aden, the world is still mired in misguided and misdirected militarist policies. Meanwhile, millions of Somalis are caught in desperate circumstances. One-third of the country is on the run. Thousands choose to make the horrendous trek to Kenya where they face relatively safe, yet empty lives in refugee camps. At the African Union summit last month, diplomats lamented that even though Somalia was a major security threat, it didn't get anywhere near the attention that Afghanistan received."
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Power Team Battles Proposition 8
Bill Moyers Journal, Truthout: "They battled it out as legal adversaries in 2000 before the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore. But what's got these two prominent lawyers - one conservative and one liberal - working together in court now? Theodore Olson, one of the nation's premier appellate and United States Supreme Court advocates and David Boies, one of the country's preeminent trial lawyers, argued opposite sides for the fate of the 2000 election, but are now teamed up in the fight to overturn California's Proposition 8 ballot measure outlawing same-sex marriage."
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