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Coming Home from War is No 4th of July Picnic

2009-07-03T18:29:39Z

I'll never forget my Independence Day at war. On July 4, 2003, I was in Baghdad, preparing to return home with my infantry platoon after six months fighting Saddam's Army and an insurgency that was just beginning to exact its toll on coalition forces. On that day, however, my expectations were thwarted, as my men and I were notified that our combat tour would be extended indefinitely. So instead of enjoying fireworks stateside, my unit watched AK tracer trails zip across the sky, walked patrols instead of parades, and ate MREs instead of hot dogs.

Many Americans will never see the inside of a Humvee on the Fourth of July. Instead, they will enjoy three-day weekends capped by barbecues, block parties, and Roman candles. I'm extremely proud to be an American, but real patriotism is more than just picnics. And anyone who has served in any war will tell you that.

Ironically, for veterans, the Fourth of July can be a difficult holiday to celebrate. With every uniform that marches by in parades, we remember our friends that did not make it home. The sounds of fireworks remind us of incoming mortar rounds. And as large crowds gather to celebrate America's birthday, we sometimes find ourselves scanning the masses for potential danger.

But the impact of war isn't limited to July 4th.

In case you haven't been tracking the figures, our military is in crisis-mode, trying to fend off a silent killer among its ranks. Almost 20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are suffering from mental health injuries like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and less than half are receiving the help they need. Left untreated, the ramifications are clear: divorce, substance abuse, unemployment, and suicide.

Already, we've lost as many soldiers to suicide this year as to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. This frightening trend has triggered military stand-downs, and finally gotten the attention of the media. The alarm has been sounded. But our troops are still waiting on real action from Washington. And families of servicemembers like Specialist Joshua Omvig from Gillette, Wyoming--who suffered in silence until combat stress led him to take his own life--are left wondering what could have been.

The military must take immediate steps to reduce unnecessary stress on the force, and our nation's lawmakers must also take an active role. For months, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been petitioning lawmakers on Capitol Hill to include a provision in the Pentagon's annual defense bill that would provide mandatory mental health screenings by licensed mental health professionals to all servicemembers. These screenings would go a long way towards reducing the stigma associated with mental health injuries, and identifying those that need care the most.

In just a few weeks, Congress will recess for the summer, and before they do, they must have ensured that every returning veteran gets the care they deserve.

Six years ago today, my men and I held the hand of a fledgling democracy as it struggled for its own independence. This week, I watched as U.S. troops pulled back from towns and cities in Iraq as Iraqis celebrated their own "National Sovereignty Day." For Americans, this means that more troops will be coming home, and for that, we should be thankful. But we must be ready to welcome them. Parades and applause are nice, but real support comes in the form of robust mental health care for our returning troops.

As we celebrate the birth of our great nation, it's time to appropriately honor those who have stood on the front lines of freedom and sacrificed in the name of liberty. Every second Congress wastes, more lives are on the line.

**
Paul Rieckhoff is the Founder and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), and the author of Chasing Ghosts.

Sponsored Topics: Baghdad - Saddam Hussein - Iraq - British Army - US

Open Thread: Eagles vs. Michael Jackson

2009-07-03T15:20:12Z

David Kurtz asserted on the front page this morning that Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is actually not the best-selling album of all time - The Eagles' "Greatest Hits 1971-1975" tops the list. His source? Sales figures from the RIAA.

So many readers - and TPM staffers - have taken issue with this claim that we've set up this open thread as a forum for Eagles and MJ fans to go head to head (instead of flooding the TPM inbox with complaints). Enjoy the discussion, and enjoy the holiday!

Sponsored Topics: Michael Jackson - Thriller 25 - List of best-selling albums worldwide - thriller - American

Come Clean

2009-07-03T14:28:23Z

One telling moment in Scott Shane's NYT piece on the FBI's 2004 interrogations of Saddam Hussein, just released through the invaluable labors of the National Security Archive, is this FBI summary trying to explain why Saddam wanted to thwart UN inspections and cover up his non-possession of WMD. This is not brand new stuff, but still revelatory. Saddam told the FBI he

was more concerned about Iran discovering Iraq's weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions [from] the United States for his refusal to allow U.N. inspectors back into Iraq. [Inspections] would have directly identified to the Iranians where to inflict maximum damage to Iraq.

Shane then quotes the US's former chief weapons inspector, Charles A. Duelfer, attempting to explain why Saddam would have wanted to fake WMD possession. Evidently it did not occur to the geniuses then on a mission to run American foreign policy for God that Saddam, having warred with Iran at the cost of millions of casualties for eight years, might fear the Islamic Republic.

"We did not appreciate how large the threat of Iran loomed in [Saddam's] thinking," Mr. Duelfer said, calling the United States' understanding of Iraq in 2003 "cartoonish."

This insult to the subtlety of the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote must not be allowed to stand.

But seriously, the FBI documents, though remarkable, are incomplete. The redacted sections are voluminous, and whatever appeared there is intended to remain classified until 2034. What are the subjects closed to investigation until then? The National Security Archive says:

Not included in these FBI reports are issues of particular interest to students of Iraq's complicated relationship with the U.S. - the reported role of the CIA in facilitating the Ba'ath party's rise to power, the uneasy alliance forged between Iraq and the U.S. during the Iran-Iraq war, and the precise nature of U.S. views regarding Iraq's chemical weapons policy during that conflict, given its contemporaneous knowledge of their repeated use against Iranians and the Kurds....This series of interviews also does not address chemical warfare in Kurdish areas of Iraq in 1987-1988, although an FBI progress report says Saddam was questioned on the topic.

I suppose it's a backhanded tribute to the new-era FBI that the redactions are whited-- rather than blacked--out. But that's not quite the change we had the right to expect from the transparency-claiming Obama administration.

Bring out the rest of this history, people. We have a right to know.

Sponsored Topics: Saddam Hussein - Iraq - National Security Archive - US - United States

Presented By:

2009-07-03T14:28:23Z

Rosen Redux: Espionage Case Back In The News

2009-07-03T11:18:49Z

Jeff Stein of Congressional Quarterly keeps doing the best reporting on the continuing story. I assume we can expect more including from AIPAC as it fights off Steve Rosen's claim that alleged violations of the Espionage Act is just business as usual for the lobby (it isn't) and that therefore AIPAC owes him gazillions in damages for firing him and further damaging his reputation.

Also this from Natan Guttman, the ace Forward reporter.

Good reading for the Fourth of July.

Parting thought: Al Smith once said that the "only cure for democracy is more democracy." If he were alive today, he'd add "and by that I mean getting all money out of politics through 100% public financing."

Sponsored Topics: Congressional Quarterly - American Israel Public Affairs Committee - Fourth of July - Espionage Act of 1917 - Steve Rosen

Color revolutions and political branding: A guide for the perplexed

2009-07-02T22:23:13Z

The 'Green Revolution' in Iran has its paradoxes-- not least among them the anomaly of seeing young people out on the streets of Tehran in outfits that seemed openly defiant of Islamic dress norms while they also sported a color that many Muslims consider represents their religion.

The choice of that color, and of the accompanying rallying cry of "Allahu-akbar", seemed like deliberate attempts to build alliances between the often pro-secular west-o-philes of North Tehran and important reformist branches of the country's ruling hierarchy. (The lack of any real agreement between these two portions of the movement over whether the goal is to reform the country's Islamic system or to overthrow it is probably one of the movement's most notable weaknesses.)

But the use of the 'green' branding did seem like a bit of a master-move, regardless how things turn out. For me, it evoked first and foremost the great marching song of the old Sinn Fein/IRA struggle for Irish independence: "Oh, we're all off to Dublin in the green, in the green... "

In the Irish context, of course, "Orange" is also an extremely potent marker. Note that when the successfully independent Irish Republicans designed their national flag, it cleverly incorporated the orange along with the green-- in much the same way that the flag of democratic South Africa cleverly incorporates all the main colors and themes of that country's previously warring parties.

Here in the US, I think one of the most moving civil war memorials of all is the court-house at Appomattox, the spot where Robert E. Lee submitted the surrender of the Army of Virginia. Now preserved as a historical site, the courthouse has a thought-provoking wall of photos of the war dead: the ones matted with Confederate grey are checkerboarded somberly across the whole wall with those matted with Yankee blue. There's a lot to be said, I think, for undertaking a good mash-up of everyone's formerly partisan symbols at the end of a civil war.

In Palestinian politics, green is the color used by Hamas, while Fateh uses yellow (on the right here.) Orange is the color used by Moustapha Barghouthi's still-small Mubadara party.

Shift focus to Lebanon, and confusingly there it's Hizbullah, which is broadly allied to Hamas, that uses yellow, while the somewhat-in-competition Amal movement uses green.

The Grand-daddy of the present wave of pro-west "color revolutions" is the "Orange Revolution" of 2004-05 in Ukraine.

Oh, by the way, that last image comes from the website of the Green movement in the European parliament. Numerous countries have Green Parties these days, of course, with their "green" signifying their environmentalist concern. Can't forget them...

Okay, moving along from 2005 we then had the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia. I can't find any satisafactory images from that, such as would quickly clarify for me whether the "rose" actually refers to a color or a flower.

But while we're in that part of the color spectrum we cannot forget the feisty US women of Code Pink.

And then there is Thailand, which earlier this year had back-to-back "red" and "yellow" movements trying to take over the capital. That development prompted the Asia Society's Jamie Metzel to call for the creation of a new movement to bring the two sides together. Okay, what he really called for was an especially Thai form of an "orange" revolution: mashing up the symbols, again.

On a longer time-scale, the most lasting of all color brandings of political movements in modern times has almost certainly been the association of red with socialism and/or communism. That association has held true in almost every country except the US (and perhaps Thailand?)

In the US, for some unknown reason, political analysts started some time ago talking about "red states" and "blue states"-- with red signifying the Republican Party, and blue the Democrats. Maybe this is related to the exceptionalism American culture displays on other matters related to socialist movements, like the US's choice of what seems like a fairly random day in early September to celebrate "Labor Day", when every other country I know of that honors its working people does so on May 1st.

One final note about political branding. I still think one of the most powerful symbols anyone anywhere has ever developed is the peace symbol. It was designed in 1958 by the anti-war British designer Gerald Holtom, who said it was based on the semaphore symbols for "ND"-- nuclear disarmament.

He also wrote this about the development of the design:

Fifty-one years later, and we still have a lot of reason to be in despair about the number of nuclear weapons in the world... But Holtom's symbol is still a powerful and immediately recognizable mobilization tool for peace activists.

In the comments here, it would interesting to learn of other uses of color branding by non-governmental political movements around the world. I am sure I have missed some above!

**
Read more at Just World News with Helena Cobban.

Sponsored Topics: Iran - Tehran - US - Green Revolution - Politics

The lobby now admits it is a 'sliver,' unrepresentative of majority of American Jews

2009-07-02T22:13:34Z

Months ago I declared that Gaza had cracked the Israel lobby. It did so by causing non-affiliated Jews to at last speak out about Israel/Palestine policy. These Jews had traditionally ceded the foreign-policy turf to their pro-Israel cousins (as I did, deferring politely to Marty Peretz out of the stupid guilty feeling that he was a better Jew than I was) till they realized that their cousins were nuts.

The Israel lobby is slowly waking up to the new landscape, and blaming anyone but the real culprit: a state practicing Jim Crow with millions of Palestinians under occupation and promoting a policy of permanent war with its neighbors.

The latest evidence of the lobby's puzzlement is a highly-tendentious piece by Gary Rosenblatt in the Jewish Week about "Whispered Worries About Obama" that--while poohpoohing the settlements and feeding suspicion about Obama-- states that the body of American Jewry is with Obama, even if the "mainstream supporters of Israel and Jewish causes" (i.e. Jewish chauvinists) are against him.

Leaders of American Jewish organizations note an unease among mainstream supporters of Israel and Jewish causes... who say they voted for and admire Barack Obama and support many of his policies, but feel he is being overly critical of Israel and too soft on the Palestinians and on an Iranian regime bent on developing nuclear weapons that could end up aimed at the Jewish state...

An interview with Malcolm Hoenlein follows. The third paragraph, which I've emphasized, is the plum in the pudding:

he told me the other day that "judging from phone calls" he has received, and other responses, "there is an increasing unease" about a number of the Obama administration's recent statements and actions.
Those include... the public pressure on Israel to halt settlements -- as if they represented the key to peace rather than the Palestinians' consistent refusal to recognize a Jewish state in the region -- and the lack of specific demands on the Palestinians; and the concern that the president is still determined to engage in dialogue with Iran, despite the regime's brutal behavior following national elections last month.

..[I]s the gap growing between leaders of mainstream Jewish organizations and the majority of American Jews, more than three-quarters of whom voted for Obama, support a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian crisis and may well agree that settlements are a hindrance to peace?

More evidence of the same trend. Here's Jennifer Rubin fulminating at Commentary, and calling on the "sliver" of American Jewry that agrees with her:

Where is the outrage in the U.S. -- especially among the 78% of Jews who voted for Obama? Where are the major Jewish institutions that in the past offered rhetorical and political support for a vibrant pro-Israel policy? Yes, Marty Peretz is pretty peeved these days, but an irate column or two from a previously enthusiastic Obama defender are less than what one would expect when Washington decides to launch this sort of policy. One wonders what those offering themselves as official representatives of the American Jewish community and friends of Israel think they are accomplishing by their relative silence.
The sliver of American Jewry originally wary of Obama who had warned of just this result is outraged, but not surprised.

**
Read more at Mondoweiss.

Sponsored Topics: Gaza - Israel - Barack Obama - American Jews - Middle East

The White Supremacist in Us

2009-07-02T18:53:36Z

In recent weeks, Americans struggled to make sense of tragic shootings that seemed disconnected at first glance. Anti-Semite James Von Brunn killed Stephen T. Johns, a black security guard at the Holocaust Museum. George Tiller's murder a few days earlier seemed to be about abortion, yet his shooter, Scott Roeder, also had roots in the racial purity movement. Two weeks ago, it was reported that the murders of Raul Flores and his daughter in Arizona were charged to three people with white supremacist ambitions.

There's been lots of discussion about why hate crimes are rising and how to prevent future tragedies, yet we've largely missed the relationship between extremist racism and the less obvious version that plays out in our political debates. These shooters all felt that people of color (along with women and Jews) have stolen the birthright of white men. In his book "Kill the Best Gentiles," Von Brunn rails against "the calculated destruction of the White Race." Roeder was a member of the Montana Freemen; commenters on white supremacist websites praised him for ensuring that Tiller would never "kill another White baby." Flores' alleged murderers appear to have been preparing for a white uprising.

Our discussion of these events has boiled down to the idea that racism is an intentional, violent act of a lone crazy white man. Underlying this idea, however, is the unspoken assumption that since we criminalized such hatred through civil rights laws, there's nothing else we can do as a country. Collectively, we bemoan the backwardness of "some" people before we move on, thinking of racism as isolated extremism.

But social psychologists who developed the Implicit Associations Test at Harvard and the Universities of Virginia and Washington in 1998 tell us that notions of the innate goodness of white people and the equally innate badness of people of color are so deeply imbedded in our minds that we're totally unaware of making such judgments. Even I, a woman of color and racial justice activist for 25 years, have taken their online test with dismaying results. White supremacists speak their beliefs aloud, but we all have similar ideas and act on them in tiny ways that add up.

The notion that people of color get more than our share plays out again and again in our institutions and policies, expanding the racial divide. If we think that Black people manufactured the foreclosure crisis in order to get a handout, the law limits their ability to get relief. If we think that undocumented immigrants are leeching off the U.S., we will not pass an immigration reform that changes their status. If we think that children of color can't learn, we don't do what's needed to improve public schools.

As a nation, we are about to make critical decisions about all our systems. Unconscious biases already permeate these debates every time we ask who deserves how much of health care, education, jobs. Our discourse is heavily coded. There's no need to say that "illegal" equals Mexican, or that the "irresponsible" homeowner is black, or that "unqualified" means woman of color. Even if we don't rhetorically attach these ideas to particular groups of people, our brains have been conditioned to make the connections anyway.

There's particular danger in characterizing racism as isolated madness during the greatest recession in 60 years. We now have to rebuild our economy - will we continue with a model that includes stark inequality? That seems likely if we can't grapple honestly with the racial gap, since structural inequality will always make our economy more vulnerable to a crash. That inequality is also what keeps us apart, in separate neighborhoods, schools and workplaces. That distance makes it much easier for violent extremists to recruit struggling white people into their ranks.

As white communities, particularly men, face conditions that have been chronic in communities of color, their vulnerability to racist ideas could disrupt the possibility of working together for real solutions. The unemployment of white men has more than doubled over the past year, from 4.2 to 8.5 percent. They are shocked, angry, and ready to direct all that heat somewhere. The most productive place for that energy is in alliance with communities of color, so that together, we can focus on changing the policies that allowed elites to run off with all our assets.

It is possible to craft truly universal social and economic policy that can both generate racial equity and improve life for everyone, including unemployed white men. There were racially-fueled murders before last week, and there's every reason to think there will be more. As we grieve, the Obama Administration and Congress continue the immense task of rebuilding the economy and reforming immigration and healthcare. Something positive can emerge from these tragic events if our efforts to understand them led to policies that actually brought us together - in our lives, as well as in our minds.

Sponsored Topics: Holocaust - Security guard - Antisemitism - Race-Ethnic-Religious Relations - George Tiller

The Possibility of an Obama-Chavez Understanding

2009-07-02T18:03:36Z

The media is full of speculation about President Obama's deft "deflection" against President Hugo Chavez' maneuvering and finger-pointing in the Honduras crisis. But another narrative is possible, of an undisclosed new diplomatic collaboration replacing the constant tensions and CIA foreknowledge of the brief 2002 coup against the Venezuelan leader.

It is too early to define a new era, but something profoundly new began developing between Obama and Chavez at the hemispheric conference in April in Trinidad.

According to eyewitness sources, under the apparently blind eye of the global media, the two leaders had lengthy conversations. The media covered the friendly photo of the initial handshake between the two leaders, then made much ado about an apparently-impertinent Chavez handing Obama a book in Spanish by Eduardo Galleano.

What has not been reported is that Obama, leaving his advisers behind, held lengthy private conversations with Chavez where only an interpreter was present.

It is not known what occurred in the secret talks. But sources in Caracas say that Chavez has become fascinated with Obama, seeking to understand the new US president and the forces around him, partly with advice from Brazil's president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The Honduran crisis has been mounting for weeks. According to the New York Times', Chavez "had his playbook ready", planning to blame the CIA. But Obama, according to the Times' headlines, "deflected" the Venezuelan president by coming out strongly against the coup.

The real story is that a gradual rapprochement - not an alliance but a dialogue - is happening between the US and Venezuela, and it began in Trinidad, was pushed by Latin American leaders and welcomed by those like Obama, who prefer diplomacy over a return to US Cold War isolation.

It was no accident that Venezuela's ambassador to Washington, Bernardo Alvarez, returned to Washington in recent days after his expulsion several months ago.

The rapprochement, if it holds, would seem to be welcome news. The fact that is has occurred so silently is evidence that peace has its enemies.

Sponsored Topics: Honduras - Barack Obama - Hugo Chávez - Venezuela - United States

How Racism Works

2009-07-02T17:22:05Z

Adding my thanks to Leonard for producing this timely and thorough book. I think mostly about how explicit, violent white supremacy relates to the more subtle ways in which racism works, as seemingly race-neutral policies like deregulation of the mortgage industry or immigration raids produce never-ending racial disparities. Those disparities segregate Americans and create the conditions for a racial divide into which white supremacists easily step.

In a piece called The White Supremacist in Us, which I wrote after the shootings of Dr. George Tiller and Stephen T. Johns, I note that our solutions to racist violence tend to focus on the individual - either punishment or education depending on how far gone the person is. But the policies that aren't obviously about hate crimes have the greatest potential to stop the perpetuation of racist ideas. Racial hierarchies show up in our policy debates every time we ask the question who deserves education/healthcare/legal status/prison. These are the policies that the Obama Administration will work to change, drawing even more ire from the white supremacist crowd.

I write about immigrants, race and the restaurant industry. The Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York has conducted studies revealing the hidden assumptions that create the industry's racial hierarchy. Employers want "tall, good-looking" people in the living wage jobs at the front of the house. They want "hard workers" who will put up with dangerous conditions and low wages in the back of the house. Even a cursory look around most high end restaurants makes it clear that to these employers, only white people look good enough, that the only people willing to put up with dangerous conditions for low pay are Latinos and Bangladeshis and that black Americans don't belong in there at all. We need policies, not just "education" for racist employers, to undo this hierarchy, but most Americans don't see the need as long as we think of racism as a problem that lives in individual rather than in systems.

Sponsored Topics: Racism - White supremacy - Race-Ethnic-Religious Relations - Race and Racism - Supremacy and Separatism

Marine Finds Unlikely Reinforcements Online: Nerds

2009-07-02T16:13:26Z

John Hodgman was right. It's the revenge of the nerds in America right now. These past few years we've seen self-proclaimed, highly-influential nerds using the power of online technology to play a huge role in driving public policy, political campaigns and organizing grassroots engagement. In the 2008 presidential campaign both McCain and Obama harnessed the power of new media to address voters, raise millions and rally their supporters. And just in the last two weeks, Twitter is revolutionizing the way protests are coordinated and communicated in Iran.

But social networking isn't just for electoral battles. It's transforming the way communities organize for the public good. And now, nerds--and I say that with the utmost respect-- are changing the lives of thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. Case in point, Rey Leal, an Iraq veteran, found his community online and began his journey home from war:

Rey served in Fallujah during some of the heaviest fighting, earning a Bronze Star with valor as a Private First Class, an almost unheard of accomplishment for a Marine of his rank. When he was discharged in February 2008, Rey looked forward to returning to Texas to begin a new chapter with his wife and infant son. Unfortunately, Rey's transition home from combat was far from easy. He struggled with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and spent months trying to deal with his symptoms, including severe depression and insomnia. His marriage at a breaking point, Rey sought treatment.
Yet, instead of having resources at his fingertips, his closest VA hospital was over five hours away. And at his nearest outpatient clinic, there was just one psychologist, taking appointments only two days a week. It wasn't until Rey saw IAVA's "Alone" Public Service Announcement on TV that his transitional journey began.

He decided to check out the website, CommunityofVeterans.org--a social network exclusively for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. The first of its kind, the website is the lynchpin of a new national outreach campaign to ease the transition for vets returning home from combat.

Immediately, Rey found a community on CommunityofVeterans.org. Thousands of other veterans were inside. For the first time since returning home, Rey started to feel like he wasn't operating in a silo with unique issues, but could share them with his peers, many of whom were all tackling the same issues he was.

According to Rey, "I honestly didn't find help until I learned of IAVA and Community of Veterans. This made me realize that I wasn't alone in my struggle. I felt I could talk to these strangers about my problems on COV and for some reason they wouldn't judge me. I knew they understood."

Rey told his story to other veterans through IAVA's social networking tools and Monday, I shared his journey with a much wider audience --again with a little help from technology. I was at the Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) in New York City to present IAVA's groundbreaking new social networking site with Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark and Ning CEO Gina Bianchini. For those of you who don't know, the PdF is the world's largest conference on technology and politics. Everyone from Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Ana Marie Cox have come together to explore how technology is transforming politics, democracy and society.

But Communityofveterans.org isn't just a tech phenomenon--it's a movement that is literally saving lives. And for that, we have online technology (and countless nerds) to thank.

Sponsored Topics: John Hodgman - Rey Leal - Politics - United States - Society and Culture

11th Commandment: The Key Difference Between Israelis and Americans

2009-07-02T14:26:33Z

Today's Israeli press quotes Prime Minister Netanyahu as telling 27 EU ambassadors that he was willing to "make concessions to the Palestinians" but did not want to be a "sucker" if the Palestinians pocket his "concession" and give nothing in return.

Netanyahu was speaking to the ambassadors in English. If he was using Hebrew, he would say that he didn't want to be a "freier" which is Hebrew (really Yiddish) for sucker. Ha'aretz says that "thou shalt not be a freier" is Israel's 11th commandment. Above all, an Israeli does not want to be taken advantage of which is why he often will take advantage of the other guy first. (The Palestinians have almost always been freiers in their dealings with the Israelis).

Americans don't spend much time worrying about being suckers. The equivalent "thou shalt not be" for us is not to be an "a-hole" which is what we would call the people who make other people into freiers. In my experience, most Americans would rather be accused of being a sucker than of being an a-hole. For Israelis, it is just the opposite.

See this Ha'aretz piece elaborating on this Israeli malady which causes so many problems, especially for those Israelis who have to deal with those adhering fiercely to that 11th commandment and, above all, for Palestinians.

For the record, Rahm Emanuel is not a freier. That is one of the reasons President Obama is not backing down in the face of the pushback from Israel on settlements. I can just hear him tell Obama, "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. You can't be a freier when you deal with the Israelis. Trust me on that one, sir."

Sponsored Topics: Middle East - Benjamin Netanyahu - Palestinian people - Israel - Prime minister

America's Effective Unemployment Rate at 18.7%?

2009-07-02T13:55:41Z

Each month, I receive from Leo Hindery an update on "America's effective unemployment rate" which includes not only the official unemployment figures but other data points showing off-the-books unemployed or underemployed people.

The numbers are staggering and are aggregates of official data. They matter because various Obama administration officials including the President himself started off calling for huge stimulus packages to help generate "jobs, jobs, jobs!"

But now, I have been hearing more and more from senior Obama economic team members about the jobs they hoped for coming at the very tail end of an economic recovery. Others are talking about a GDP recovery -- but not a jobs recovery. They are admitting as well that they underestimated the severity of this recession and its impact on unemployment levels.

And all this while Goldman Sachs and other financial houses have seen their balance sheets get cleaned up and bonuses surge.

Hindery writes:

Here is a June 2009 version of the summary that calculates the Effective Unemployment Rate, which is now 18.70%, and the Effective Number of Unemployed, which is now 30,172,000.
There are currently 14,729,000 officially unemployed workers, as just announced. However, this figure does not include the combined 15,443,000 workers either (1) in the "labor force reserve" because they have abandoned their job searches (i.e., 4,278,000) or (2) underemployed because they are "part-time of necessity" (i.e., 8,989,000) or "otherwise marginally attached" (i.e., 2,176,000).

The effective unemployment rate is therefore 18.70%, instead of the official 9.51%.

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of workers who are officially unemployed has increased by 7,188,000, while almost twice as many workers - 13,290,000 - have become effectively unemployed. And all the while, we should have been creating around 2,250,000 new jobs (i.e., 18 months times 125,000 jobs per month) just to keep up with population growth.

In June, the number of workers officially unemployed increased 218,000, while the number of workers effectively unemployed actually decreased 35,000.

It's important to see the entire picture of America's jobs profile -- no matter how unpleasant.

I recognize that credit bubble related recoveries are hard to work out and are usually quite slow -- with job growth at the back end. This all makes sense -- but with Christina Romer out raising expectations again with giddy talk predicting a V-shaped recovery and given the "jobs, jobs, jobs" mantra of President Obama himself -- the gap between the job figures expected and the disappointing economic realities generated may be politically consequential.

-- Steve Clemons directs the American Strategy Program and Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Sponsored Topics: Unemployment - Leo Hindery - Effective Unemployment Rate - Underemployment - Employment

Iraq: An occupation recedes

2009-07-01T22:38:41Z

Congratulations to my Iraqi friends on the occasion of the significant (if not quite total) withdrawal of US military occupation rule from your cities and towns that took place yesterday according to the November 2008 Withdrawal Agreement between our two governments.

I wish you all the very best as you continue working to reconstruct lives, communities, and a nation that have been harmed very severely indeed by the actions and decisions of my government and its military (as well as by others.)

I am so sorry that we in the peace movement were unable to prevent the disastrous (and lie-based) decision our government took to invade your country in 2003. We tried, but we were not strong enough.

I hope that the rest of the US withdrawal, as mandated in the Withdrawal Agreement, goes ahead smoothly.

The PDF of the Agreement's text can now be found here.) It stipulates, Article 24 (1) that:

All United States forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011.

I hope, additionally, that we in the US peace movement can work effectively with our fellow citizens here to persuade our government to pay due reparations to your country for the harm we have caused you-- though of course many of these harms can never be adequately "repaired." The 600,000-plus Iraqi citizens killed by and as a result of the US invasion and occupation cannot be brought back to life. I mourn the loss of their lives and send compassion and love to the family members and friends they left behind.

But our government is now, even if with painful slowness, doing the right thing in withdrawing the troops and ending their occupation of your country. We shall try to make sure the rest of the withdrawal occurs according to, or in advance of, the agreed timetable.

Foreign military occupation is always, in itself, a major infringement of the rights of the residents of the area occupied. How could it be otherwise when military rule is established over an entire civilian population-- and this military is, furthermore, in no way directly accountable to or connected by ties of common nationality to the residents of the occupied area?

As we Americans withdraw our military occupation regime from Iraq, we must equally work to ensure that Israel, a state to which we have given-- and continue to give-- an extraordinary level of all kinds of support, likewise speedily ends the military occupation regime that it has maintained for 42 years over the residents of the non-Israeli territories of the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan; and that it withdraws its troops from those areas back inside its own borders.

The US has committed many bad--indeed, under international law, illegal-- acts during its six years of occupation so far in Iraq. These included the mass detentions and the major abuses in the detention facilities; the complete (and quite illegal) transformation of the political and economic order in the country; use of excessive force in numerous military engagements; and so on.

However, one violation of international law it did not commit was to seek to implant its own citizens as settlers inside Iraq.

During Israel's 42-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza it has committed all or nearly all of the same abuses the US committed in Iraq. (Including, after the free and fair Palestinian election of January 2006, it decided to work to overthrow the results of that election; and outrageously, it received full backing from Washington in that endeavor.) But in addition to all those violations of international law, successive Israeli governments since 1967 have also worked systematically to implant large numbers of their own citizens into the occupied areas.

This has constituted a major and ongoing infraction of the natural rights of the Palestinians and the Golani Syrians to the free use of their own land's resources. It has also made the act of withdrawing from the occupied areas, as international law stipulates must happen, that much harder for any Israeli government to contemplate. But that is the fault of all those Israeli citizens who for 42 years now have participated in, profited from, supported, or condoned the settlers' project. Now, Israelis need to take the settlers back into their own country.

When I was growing up in England in the 1950s and 1960s our country was also facing the demographic consequences of seeing an empire retract. English settlers had gone to many countries under British rule, in good faith and with the full backing of the British government. Many had lived in those other countries for some generations. Now, they had to face the choice of either living under the newly independent national governments of those countries, or of returning "home" to an England that many of them had never even seen before.

For the Israeli settlers, returning "home" to Israel will be, by comparison, an easy matter. They all know Israel well. They will not have to move far. Those who want to stay in their current settlement homes may be offered the chance to do so-- but they would have to live peaceably as foreigners under the government of an independent Palestine and would have no special privileges at all over their Palestinian neighbors. It is also possible that the PLO/PA may negotiate a land swap arrangement that would transfer some portion of the settlement areas to Israeli rule; but many of the current settlers would not be covered by it.

Anyway, that is the Palestinian issue-- though we Americans can understand what occupation rule means a lot better now that we have had six disturbing years of our own foreign-occupation rule in Iraq to look back on. So let's wish the Palestinians and Israelis well in their pursuit of a fair and durable agreement that mandates not only peace but also the end of foreign military occupation and the complete withdrawal of the troops that have maintained it.

Today, though, is primarily a day for congratulating Iraqis (and Americans) on their progress towards this goal.

**
Read 'Just World News' with Helena Cobban here.

Sponsored Topics: Iraq - Middle East - Warfare and Conflict - US - Military occupation

Israel lobby in action: the 'LA Times' once stifled Hezbollah story out of piety for Israel's foundational myths

2009-07-01T22:36:14Z

The other day Ashraf Khalil wrote about how hard it was for him to publish an account of the mistreatment of Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer in the LA Times last year. Khalil's story reminded a reader of the story that Ken Silverstein wrote in Harper's two years ago, describing his ordeal in trying to publish a story explaining Hezbollah's political appeal in Lebanon:

After submitting my story, though, I ran up against insurmountable editorial obstacles. It was clear that I was deemed to have written a story that was too favorable to Hezbollah, even though any article seeking to examine its popularity would, by necessity, require some focus on the group's more attractive aspects. After the story was near completion, a new editor was called in to review it because, I was told, Hezbollah had a history of inviting reporters to Lebanon and controlling their agenda. The obvious implication was that this had happened in my case--despite the fact that, outside of my interviews with Hezbollah officials, I had had no contact with the party. I had hired my own driver (who turned out to be sympathetic to Hezbollah, like most Shiites, but not connected to the movement) and translators (all Christians), with no restrictions placed on where I went or who I met with; and in fact I had spent significant time with the group's critics.

The primary problem, it soon became clear, was fear of offending supporters of Israel. At one point I was told that editorial changes were needed to "inoculate" the newspaper from criticism, and although who the critics might be was never spelled out, the answer seemed fairly obvious. I was also told in one memo that "we should avoid taking sides," which apparently meant omitting inconvenient historical facts. Over my repeated objections, editors cut a line that referred to "Israel's creation following World War II in an area overwhelmingly populated at the time by Arabs." That, I was told in an email from one editor, David Lauter, was

the Arab view of things. Israelis would say, with some justification, that much of the area wasn't overwhelmingly populated by anyone at the time the first Zionist pioneers arrived in the first part of the 20th century and that the population rose in the mid-decades of the century in large part because of people migrating into Palestine in response to the economic development they brought about.

But that argument, which in any case doesn't refute what I wrote, was long ago rejected by serious Mideast scholars, including many in Israel. It also avoids confronting a root cause of the conflict. According to the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the original Zionist governing body in what was to become Israel, there were roughly 1.1 million Arab Muslims living in Palestine at the time of partition--twice the number of Jews. "Perspective is everything," I replied in an email to the editors. "If my name was Mostafa Naser and I grew up in the southern suburbs of Beirut, I seriously doubt I would be an ardent Zionist. If we can't even acknowledge that Arabs have a legitimate point of view--and acknowledge what the numbers show--we caricature them as nothing more than a bunch of irrational Jew haters." As I noted in a conversation with one editor, religious hatred, on both sides, is an element in the conflict, but it is fundamentally a struggle over land and national identity. If an Eskimo state had been created in Palestine in 1948, one suspects that anti-Eskimo feeling would have increased markedly in the Arab world. When I asked [Nawaf] Musawi [foreign affairs chief for Hezbollah] about the Holocaust denial that has been espoused by some Arab leaders, and suggested it reflected an unwillingness to acknowledge Jewish suffering, he replied, "We are not denying that European racists persecuted an entire people or belittling the suffering of the Jewish people, and we say this with utter frankness and without compliment. But Europeans committed those crimes, and then we were made to pay for them with our land." After days of unfruitful negotiations, and a final edit that in my view gutted the story, I decided to pull the piece rather than "inoculate" it to the point of dishonesty.

A few comments. Wonderful account. Note that Lauter subscribes to Joan Peters's discredited From Time Immemorial thesis.

The only thing missing from this piece is an understanding of the Israel lobby. Why is this censorship taking place? Three reasons: empowered Jews in the media who feel loyalty to Israel and exercise that loyalty; Jews and non-Jews in the media who are aware of their colleagues' feelings and have absorbed them; Jews and non-Jews who are afraid of offending powerful sentiments in the community. When will the Arab narrative gain any nobility? Soon, friends. I believe that Silverstein is Jewish. The inroads that progressive Jews are making into Israel-centered Jewish identity is nothing short of a liberation.

**
Read more at Mondoweiss.

Sponsored Topics: Israel - Palestinian people - Hezbollah - Mohammed Omer - Middle East

Lobby Agonistes: Worries That Obama Is Serious About Peace

2009-07-01T21:38:52Z

This is definitely worth reading.

It is by Gary Rosenblatt, editor of the New York Jewish Week, and one of the most highly respected writers in Jewish journalism.

Gary's thesis is that self-proclaimed "mainstream" pro-Israel organizations (i.e., the organizations of the right and center right) are deeply worried that President Obama is going to keep pushing Israel toward a settlement freeze. Their immediate worry is that Obama does not distinguish between good settlements and bad ones. And also that Jews are backing President Obama not Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Here are the money quotes but the whole piece is worth reading.

"When one Jewish organizational leader questioned a White House aide as to why the president only sought advice from American Muslim leaders prior to the Cairo speech, he said he was told: "Why should we invite Jews in? We have so many here." (N.B, the President's top two aides are knowledgeable Jews; one has Israeli parents. There are no Muslims in the West Wing).

"What troubles me most is a lack of consultation and the need [for the administration] to do things publicly. There's a [U.S.-Israel] relationship of 60 years and all of a sudden they're treating Israel like everyone else. I find that disturbing."

And my favorite: "There is an increasing unease" about a number of the Obama administration's recent statements and actions. Those include the president's reference in his Cairo speech to 7 million American Muslims, when in fact most studies believe the number to be closer to 2.5 million.

Say what. Unease because the President said there are more Muslims in America than these organizations believe there are? Bizarre. And kind of ugly, as if it is intrinsically threatening to Jews if there are more rather than fewer Muslims. What is that all about?

One thing is clear: the "mainstream" organizational leaders are out of step with American Jews who, like their neighbors, welcome the administration's push to achieve peace. These leaders -- like many Israelis -- liked and still like George W. Bush. But American Jews in general were (next to African Americans) the segment of the population that disliked Bush most intensely. 78% voted for Obama and his popularity among Jews is probably above that now.

Rosenblatt's piece provides good insight into what a certain segment of the organizational elite is saying. But the "Jewish street" is saying something very different. Of course, the "Jewish street" is almost 80% Democratic and inclined to deeply admire Presidents who make them feel proud rather than embarrassed. It is no surprise they like President Obama and know that he will not sell out Israel -- although he will do his damnedest to end the settlement enterprise.

The old Jewish organizations do have reason to be worried. Their attitudes toward Israel (right to very right) are, according to the polls, held primarily by older Jews. Jews born after World War II just don't see the world the way their parents did, let alone the Jews who were born since 1960.

With the baby boomers moving into their 60's, that means that very soon even the Jewish seniors are going to be left-liberals who came of age during the Vietnam era. That is their frame of reference. And that is why there will be ever fewer American Jews who buy into the nervously hardline approach of today's Jewish elders. Few have ever even experienced anti-Semitism and none recall a time when a powerful nuclear armed Israel did not exist. They worry more about America's future than about Israel's, if only because this is where they and their children and grandchildren will live and, after all, the worst terrorist attack in history happened here. This is not to say that they don't care about Israel. They do -- and that is why they support policies that will bring it peace rather than fear those policies as threatening the precious status quo.

Obama, and that overwhelming majority of Jews who support him, are the future. In that sense. the people Rosenblatt quotes have every reason to worry. Their audience is leaving the building, and it wasn't that crowded to begin with.

ALSO, See the great James Besser in the same New York Jewish Week pointing out that the Jewish organizational emperors are quite naked.

And here's Alan Dershowitz (of all people) who agrees that the "Jewish leaders" are utterly wrong about Obama.

Sponsored Topics: The Jewish Week - Jew - Middle East - Gary Indiana - Journalism

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2009-07-01T21:38:52Z