Currently viewing the tag: “World”
Just who are these people in Libya trying to overthrow Qadaffi? Our government doesn’t know but Ed Schultz does. Maybe he has a secret line into the rebel camp because he knows exactly who they are: the Libyan rebels are Freedom Fighters. Last night on his show he decided that these unknown rebels are up there with George Washington and the other heroes of the American Revolution, or Martin Luther King Jr. They rank with people who have given their lives for the preservation of God-given freedoms. Schultz said:
The big question tonight that remains: will the United States or its allies arm these Libyan freedom fighters? “Reuters” also reports today U.S. officials have said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whose leaders despise Gadhafi, have indicated a willingness to supply Libyan rebels — I call them freedom fighters — with weapons.
Earlier this week during a press briefing Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, was asked a very simple question:
“Do you know who the opposition is, and does it matter to you?” “We’re not talking with the opposition,” Gortney responded. “We have — we would like a much better understanding of the opposition. We don’t have it. So yes, it does matter to us, and we’re trying to fill in those gaps, knowledge gaps.”
Knowledge gaps, that’s political double talk for ” I have no Idea,” Maybe the Admiral should ask Ed Schultz, because he believes himself to be the expert.
On Tuesday Admiral James Stavridis, NATO’s supreme allied commander, said in testimony before Congress that U.S. intelligence suggested there may be “flickers” of al-Qaeda and Hezbollah in the rebels.
We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al-Qaeda, Hezbollah — we’ve seen different things. But at this point, I don’t have detail sufficient to say that there’s a significant al-Qaeda presence or any other terrorist presence in and among these folks.
So the general says we don’t have enough detail to determine if there is a significant terrorist presence amongst the Libyan rebels — which also means the information is not enough to determine if there isn’t a large number.
Schultz feels very strongly that we should give weapons to these rebels, even though at this point we have no idea who they are:
After all that, does the world community stand by and watch the freedom fighters get crushed? The president pledged that there would be no U.S. troops on the ground in Libya. Today, we learned that CIA operatives are on the ground. What does that all mean?
Still, it looks like the freedom fighters’ only shot for survival at this point is a real injection of military hardware that they say they desperately need. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today said that there was still no decision on arming the rebels.
Nobody wants another situation like the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in 1980s. Whether or not we arm rebels, freedom fighters, whatever you want to call them, is a very hard decision.
But I think we have to do it. It is a moral decision at this point.
Schultz is right-it is a moral decision: is it right to arm people without knowing their ultimate intentions? History teaches us that the moral answer is NO!
At the end of the Carter administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski pushed the government into arming the Mujadhideen of Afghanistan who were fighting against the Soviets. The unexpected result of his policy was the creation of the Taliban and its alliance with al Qaeda.
After the Soviets withdrew, the Mujahideen who got their initial financing during the Carter Administration thanks to Brzezinski began to fight each other for power. After several years of civil war, a new armed group was formed from one group of Mujahideen with the backing of Pakistan. Known as the Taliban, this radical group entered the fray. By 1996, with backing from the Pakistani ISI, the Military of Pakistan, and al-Qaeda, the Taliban had controlled most of the country.
At the same time, Sudan, which had been the home of al Qaeda, told bin Laden he would never be welcome to return. The Taliban offered bin Laden the opportunity to re-locate its headquarters to Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda enjoyed the Taliban’s protection and build up its network from there and the rest is a very bloody history.
Today we are involved in two wars that can be directly linked to arming a group of “freedom fighters” that we knew little about. Those “freedom fighters” became violators of human rights and terrorists of the worst kind.
Ed Schultz can’t know yet whether or not these Libyan rebels are freedom fighters, our own military leadership is still trying to fill in the “information gaps.” He doesn’t know if weapons supplied to the rebels will someday be used to kill our American heroes like the weapons given to the nascent Taliban. But that doesn’t concern Ed, all he really cares about is blindly following President Obama and his progressive policies, even if they lead to the creation of a new terrorist network.
Please email me at [email protected] to be put onto my mailing list.
Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com![]()
Feel free to reproduce any article but please link back to http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com
Kevin Drum on radicalization:
Years ago I remember a lot of moderate liberals talking about how the Bush era radicalized them. For me, it was the economic collapse of 2008 that did it. The financial industry almost literally came within a hair’s breadth of destroying the world, but even so it took only a few short months for them to close ranks with Republicans and the rich to prevent anything serious being done to rein them in. Profits are back up, new regulations are barely more than window dressing, nothing was done to help underwater homeowners, bonuses are as obscene as ever, unemployment remains sky high, and the public has somehow been convinced that this was all their own fault — or perhaps the fault of big government, or big deficits, or something. But the finance industry has escaped almost entirely unscathed. It’s mind boggling. If this doesn’t change your view of who really runs the world, I don’t know what would.
Cross-reference with: “For most of 2009 and 2010, a range of U.S. corporations saw post-recession rebounds in profits … But in the last quarter of 2010, the story was all about Wall Street. Profits actually decreased a bit at nonfinancial firms. But companies like investment banks and insurers saw profits climb to an annualized $ 426.5 billion. The financial sector now accounts for about 30 percent of the economy’s overall operating profits.”
So, don’t tell anybody, ok? Good. We don’t want that getting out while we’re not sure if we know or care who it is we’re arming. Despite the headline, this story has been widely reported by a number of news organizations. “Exclusive: Obama authorizes secret help for Libya rebels,” by Mark Hosenball for Reuters, March 30:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told Reuters on Wednesday.
Obama signed the order, known as a presidential “finding”, within the last two or three weeks, according to government sources familiar with the matter.
Such findings are a principal form of presidential directive used to authorize secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency. This is a necessary legal step before such action can take place but does not mean that it will.
As is common practice for this and all administrations, I am not going to comment on intelligence matters,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement. “I will reiterate what the president said yesterday — no decision has been made about providing arms to the opposition or to any group in Libya.”
The CIA declined comment.
News that Obama had given the authorization surfaced as the President and other U.S. and allied officials spoke openly about the possibility of sending arms supplies to Gaddafi’s opponents, who are fighting better-equipped government forces.
The United States is part of a coalition, with NATO members and some Arab states, which is conducting air strikes on Libyan government forces under a U.N. mandate aimed at protecting civilians opposing Gaddafi.
Interviews by U.S. networks on Tuesday, Obama said the objective was for Gaddafi to “ultimately step down” from power. He spoke of applying “steady pressure, not only militarily but also through these other means” to force Gaddafi out.
“Other means”: Commence “Operation Barry Manilow?”
Obama said the U.S. had not ruled out providing military hardware to rebels. “It’s fair to say that if we wanted to get weapons into Libya, we probably could. We’re looking at all our options at this point,” he told ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer….
Prejudice and negative attitudes towards obese individuals is becoming a global norm, not just an American phenomenon.
Tara Parker-Pope, NYT Well blog (“Fat Stigma Spreads Around the Globe“):
At a time when global health officials are stepping up efforts to treat obesity as a worrisome public health threat, some researchers are warning of a troubling side effect: growing stigma against fat people.
“Of all the things we could be exporting to help people around the world, really negative body image and low self-esteem are not what we hope is going out with public health messaging,” said Alexandra Brewis, executive director of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.
Dr. Brewis and her colleagues recently completed a multicountry study intended to give a snapshot of the international zeitgeist about weight and body image. The findings were troubling, suggesting that negative perceptions about people who are overweight may soon become the cultural norm in some countries, including places where plumper, larger bodies traditionally have been viewed as attractive, according to a new report in the journal Current Anthropology.
The researchers elicited answers of true or false to statements with varying degrees of fat stigmatization. The fat-stigma test included statements like, “People are overweight because they are lazy” and “Some people are fated to be obese.”
Using mostly in-person interviews, supplemented with questions posed over the Internet, they tested attitudes among 700 people in 10 countries, territories and cities, including American Samoa, Tanzania, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Paraguay, Argentina, New Zealand, Iceland, two sites in Arizona and London.
Dr. Brewis said she fully expected high levels of fat stigma to show up in the “Anglosphere” countries, including the United States, England and New Zealand, as well as in body-conscious Argentina. But what she did not expect was how strongly people in the rest of the testing sites expressed negative attitudes about weight. The results, Dr. Brewis said, suggest a surprisingly rapid “globalization of fat stigma.”
[…]
Surprisingly, stigma scores were high in places that have historically held more positive views of larger bodies, including Puerto Rico and American Samoa.
[…]
Dr. McGarvey said that more extensive study was needed to determine just how much that had changed, and that it was important that public health campaigns intended to curb diabetes and high blood pressure did not end up creating negative images of overweight individuals. ”A public health focus on ‘You can change,’ or ‘This is your fault,’ can be very counterproductive,” he said. “Stigma is serious.”
What is not clear from the new research is how pervasive fat stigma has become. With only 700 people included, the study is not a representative sample of each country and reflects only a snapshot of cultural attitudes in the area studied. In addition, the research looked only at selected locales and did not include any Asian or Arab countries.
In India, for instance, being overweight or obese is associated with being middle class or wealthy, said Scott Lear, associate professor for health sciences at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. Even so, Dr. Lear, who is studying rising childhood obesity in that country and in Canada, agrees the potential for stigmatization exists. “We know in developed countries that obese people are less successful, less likely to get married, less likely to get promoted,” he said.
I’m not sure that it’s possible to simultaneously convince people that 1) being overweight is undesirable; 2) a healthy weight can be maintained through proper diet and exercise; and 3) we shouldn’t stigmatize those who are overweight.
Marin Cogan and Jonathan Allen report that House freshman Republicans think Harry Reid is an evil big spending socialist blah blah blah. But they end on a funny note:
“The American people sent us into the Congress of the United States to do the peoples’ job, and we have done it,” Texas Rep. Quico Canseco said.
“We’re here to implore the Senate to do something. If they’ve got enough time to go and pass bills like the March 11 national or international plumbing day, then they can certainly look at our continuing resolution,” Canseco said.
This turns out to be a real thing. March 11 was World Plumbing Day. Stupid as that sounds, this World Plumbing Day YouTube video actually makes a lot of good points, most notably that improved plumbing technology has probably done more to improve public health outcomes than all the health care in the world:
The real scandal here, however, isn’t that the Senate took the time to pass a World Plumbing Day resolution, it’s that the Senate has become so ossified that the vote didn’t take place until March 14.
Marin Cogan and Jonathan Allen report that House freshman Republicans think Harry Reid is an evil big spending socialist blah blah blah. But they end on a funny note:
“The American people sent us into the Congress of the United States to do the peoples’ job, and we have done it,” Texas Rep. Quico Canseco said.
“We’re here to implore the Senate to do something. If they’ve got enough time to go and pass bills like the March 11 national or international plumbing day, then they can certainly look at our continuing resolution,” Canseco said.
This turns out to be a real thing. March 11 was World Plumbing Day. Stupid as that sounds, this World Plumbing Day YouTube video actually makes a lot of good points, most notably that improved plumbing technology has probably done more to improve public health outcomes than all the health care in the world:
The real scandal here, however, isn’t that the Senate took the time to pass a World Plumbing Day resolution, it’s that the Senate has become so ossified that the vote didn’t take place until March 14.
Marin Cogan and Jonathan Allen report that House freshman Republicans think Harry Reid is an evil big spending socialist blah blah blah. But they end on a funny note:
“The American people sent us into the Congress of the United States to do the peoples’ job, and we have done it,” Texas Rep. Quico Canseco said.
“We’re here to implore the Senate to do something. If they’ve got enough time to go and pass bills like the March 11 national or international plumbing day, then they can certainly look at our continuing resolution,” Canseco said.
This turns out to be a real thing. March 11 was World Plumbing Day. Stupid as that sounds, this World Plumbing Day YouTube video actually makes a lot of good points, most notably that improved plumbing technology has probably done more to improve public health outcomes than all the health care in the world:
The real scandal here, however, isn’t that the Senate took the time to pass a World Plumbing Day resolution, it’s that the Senate has become so ossified that the vote didn’t take place until March 14.
Marin Cogan and Jonathan Allen report that House freshman Republicans think Harry Reid is an evil big spending socialist blah blah blah. But they end on a funny note:
“The American people sent us into the Congress of the United States to do the peoples’ job, and we have done it,” Texas Rep. Quico Canseco said.
“We’re here to implore the Senate to do something. If they’ve got enough time to go and pass bills like the March 11 national or international plumbing day, then they can certainly look at our continuing resolution,” Canseco said.
This turns out to be a real thing. March 11 was World Plumbing Day. Stupid as that sounds, this World Plumbing Day YouTube video actually makes a lot of good points, most notably that improved plumbing technology has probably done more to improve public health outcomes than all the health care in the world:
The real scandal here, however, isn’t that the Senate took the time to pass a World Plumbing Day resolution, it’s that the Senate has become so ossified that the vote didn’t take place until March 14.
Marin Cogan and Jonathan Allen report that House freshman Republicans think Harry Reid is an evil big spending socialist blah blah blah. But they end on a funny note:
“The American people sent us into the Congress of the United States to do the peoples’ job, and we have done it,” Texas Rep. Quico Canseco said.
“We’re here to implore the Senate to do something. If they’ve got enough time to go and pass bills like the March 11 national or international plumbing day, then they can certainly look at our continuing resolution,” Canseco said.
This turns out to be a real thing. March 11 was World Plumbing Day. Stupid as that sounds, this World Plumbing Day YouTube video actually makes a lot of good points, most notably that improved plumbing technology has probably done more to improve public health outcomes than all the health care in the world:
The real scandal here, however, isn’t that the Senate took the time to pass a World Plumbing Day resolution, it’s that the Senate has become so ossified that the vote didn’t take place until March 14.
Marin Cogan and Jonathan Allen report that House freshman Republicans think Harry Reid is an evil big spending socialist blah blah blah. But they end on a funny note:
“The American people sent us into the Congress of the United States to do the peoples’ job, and we have done it,” Texas Rep. Quico Canseco said.
“We’re here to implore the Senate to do something. If they’ve got enough time to go and pass bills like the March 11 national or international plumbing day, then they can certainly look at our continuing resolution,” Canseco said.
This turns out to be a real thing. March 11 was World Plumbing Day. Stupid as that sounds, this World Plumbing Day YouTube video actually makes a lot of good points, most notably that improved plumbing technology has probably done more to improve public health outcomes than all the health care in the world:
The real scandal here, however, isn’t that the Senate took the time to pass a World Plumbing Day resolution, it’s that the Senate has become so ossified that the vote didn’t take place until March 14.
Marin Cogan and Jonathan Allen report that House freshman Republicans think Harry Reid is an evil big spending socialist blah blah blah. But they end on a funny note:
“The American people sent us into the Congress of the United States to do the peoples’ job, and we have done it,” Texas Rep. Quico Canseco said.
“We’re here to implore the Senate to do something. If they’ve got enough time to go and pass bills like the March 11 national or international plumbing day, then they can certainly look at our continuing resolution,” Canseco said.
This turns out to be a real thing. March 11 was World Plumbing Day. Stupid as that sounds, this World Plumbing Day YouTube video actually makes a lot of good points, most notably that improved plumbing technology has probably done more to improve public health outcomes than all the health care in the world:
The real scandal here, however, isn’t that the Senate took the time to pass a World Plumbing Day resolution, it’s that the Senate has become so ossified that the vote didn’t take place until March 14.
Marin Cogan and Jonathan Allen report that House freshman Republicans think Harry Reid is an evil big spending socialist blah blah blah. But they end on a funny note:
“The American people sent us into the Congress of the United States to do the peoples’ job, and we have done it,” Texas Rep. Quico Canseco said.
“We’re here to implore the Senate to do something. If they’ve got enough time to go and pass bills like the March 11 national or international plumbing day, then they can certainly look at our continuing resolution,” Canseco said.
This turns out to be a real thing. March 11 was World Plumbing Day. Stupid as that sounds, this World Plumbing Day YouTube video actually makes a lot of good points, most notably that improved plumbing technology has probably done more to improve public health outcomes than all the health care in the world:
The real scandal here, however, isn’t that the Senate took the time to pass a World Plumbing Day resolution, it’s that the Senate has become so ossified that the vote didn’t take place until March 14.
Marin Cogan and Jonathan Allen report that House freshman Republicans think Harry Reid is an evil big spending socialist blah blah blah. But they end on a funny note:
“The American people sent us into the Congress of the United States to do the peoples’ job, and we have done it,” Texas Rep. Quico Canseco said.
“We’re here to implore the Senate to do something. If they’ve got enough time to go and pass bills like the March 11 national or international plumbing day, then they can certainly look at our continuing resolution,” Canseco said.
This turns out to be a real thing. March 11 was World Plumbing Day. Stupid as that sounds, this World Plumbing Day YouTube video actually makes a lot of good points, most notably that improved plumbing technology has probably done more to improve public health outcomes than all the health care in the world:
The real scandal here, however, isn’t that the Senate took the time to pass a World Plumbing Day resolution, it’s that the Senate has become so ossified that the vote didn’t take place until March 14.
Over here.
