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Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Video -- Eye on the Stimulus!
We haven't forgotten that the government is still spending $787 billion of our money and we are keeping an eye on where it's going. Now, with rumblings that Pelosi and the Dems are considering a second stimulus, it's even more important to understand what a miserable failure the first one was (and still is). Where are your stimulus dollars going? Glenn gives an update in this 'Eye on the Stimulus' video blog.
Obama quietly authorizes 15,000 troops for Afghanistan
(Fox News) In an unannounced move, the Pentagon is deploying thousands of support forces for the Afghanistan war ...
Rifqa Bary to be sent back to Ohio
from Jihad Watch
The message from child protective services to girls like Rifqa: You're on your own. "Judge Rules Christian Convert Teen Must Go Back Home," from Fox News, October 13:
A Florida judge has ruled a teenager from Ohio must return after running away to Florida in fear that her parents would harm her for converting from Islam to Christianity.
The judge ruled Ohio has jurisdiction over the case involving the teen, Rifqa Bary.
No date has been set for when she will be returned back home.
The 17-year old girl ran away from her parents' home in July, saying she feared being killed for changing religions. But a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation found no credible threats to Bary.
She has been staying in foster care in Orlando since she ran away.
Railroads, gov't spar over chlorine trains
FORT WORTH, Texas — Railroads, chemical makers and U.S. government regulators are battling to hammer out new policies on shipments of toxic chlorine gas, observers say.
Even as the federal government was proposing new safeguards to guard the public against gas leaks caused by accidents or terrorist attacks, the Union Pacific railroad was asking the government for authority to turn down such shipments and chemical makers sued in court to prevent it from imposing higher tariffs, The Fort Worth (Texas) Star Telegram reported Sunday.
Trade groups representing chemical makers eventually prevailed as the court struck down a Union Pacific policy charging much higher rates for chlorine gas shipments through major cities such as the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, while the U.S. Surface Transportation Board ruled it was the railroad's responsibility to ensure the shipments remain safe.
"The problem is they wanted to indemnify us for things they did wrong," Paul Donovan, a Washington attorney who defended the chlorine industry in the court case, told the Star-Telegram.
The newspaper said a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report postulates an attack on a chlorine rail tanker could kill 17,500 and hospitalize more than 100,000 people in an urban area.
Even as the federal government was proposing new safeguards to guard the public against gas leaks caused by accidents or terrorist attacks, the Union Pacific railroad was asking the government for authority to turn down such shipments and chemical makers sued in court to prevent it from imposing higher tariffs, The Fort Worth (Texas) Star Telegram reported Sunday.
Trade groups representing chemical makers eventually prevailed as the court struck down a Union Pacific policy charging much higher rates for chlorine gas shipments through major cities such as the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, while the U.S. Surface Transportation Board ruled it was the railroad's responsibility to ensure the shipments remain safe.
"The problem is they wanted to indemnify us for things they did wrong," Paul Donovan, a Washington attorney who defended the chlorine industry in the court case, told the Star-Telegram.
The newspaper said a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report postulates an attack on a chlorine rail tanker could kill 17,500 and hospitalize more than 100,000 people in an urban area.
Lack of Hospital Surge Capacity Still a Problem - by Anthony L. Kimerly
| Report highlights importance of surge capacity for pandemic, mass casualties A new report by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) concluded “that 15 states could run out of available hospital beds during the peak of the outbreak [of the H1N1 influenza virus now spreading across the nation] if 35 percent of Americans were to get sick" from this flu virus. “Twelve additional states could reach or exceed 75 percent of their hospital bed capacity, based on estimates from the FluSurge model developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),” the TFAH report, “H1N1 Challenges Ahead," concluded. Meanwhile, a report released by the American College of Emergency Physicians disclosed that nearly 90 percent of doctors said in response to a survey in September that they were concerned or very concerned about their hospital’s ability to handle a surge of H1N1 patients. This could quickly pose problems for many hospitals as serious H1N1 cases mount. During the last six months, more than a million Americans have been stricken with the H1N1 influenza virus and more than 10,000 have had to be hospitalized. About 1,000 have died, including 76 children. And flu season has just begun. It runs through next spring. Because of the risk that H1N1 seems to pose to young and at-risk children in particular, many more children could die than the 76 who've so far been killed by the virus, which is a number that appears to be a higher rate than pediatric deaths caused by traditional seasonal flu strains. In other words, many more children could die from H1N1 over the next six to seven months than die from seasonal influenza if they are not soon vaccinated. "We've already had 76 children dying from the 2009 H1N1 virus, and it's only the beginning of October," Anne Schuchat, head of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters last week. Also at risk are pregnant women. Officials believe at least 28 pregnant women who contracted H1N1 died from the virus or from complications arising from their flu infection. At least 37 states are reporting widespread H1N1 infections, up from 27 just a week ago. While the number of cases appears to be declining in some areas, it is increasing in others, and could continue to rise and fall in these places – as well as across the nation. "It's hard to know how many waves we're going to have into the fall, winter and spring," Schuchat said. "We still think the vast majority of people in a given community are vulnerable or susceptible to this virus ... Unfortunately, we do expect more illness, including more hospitalizations and deaths, to be occurring in the weeks ahead." Given that we’re just beginning to see the ravages of a full blown H1N1 pandemic season, authorities say it’s not a leap to extrapolate the possible numbers of most at-risk people who could be infected over the next six to seven months and to calculate the possible strain that this could put on the nation’s hospitals' ERs and intensive care units. Last April, for example, when H1N1 infections first erupted in the US, adults arriving with flu-like symptoms at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center's ER - one of the nation's busiest emergency rooms - rose 20 percent. Child ER visits jumped 40 percent. Similar situations were experienced by ERs across the nation. According to a study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, H1N1 was responsible for a 15-fold increase in intensive care admissions for viral lung inflammation in Australia and New Zealand, especially among pregnant women, people with chronic lung disease, and people who are obese. H1N1 patients filled 8.9 percent to 19 percent of all intensive-care hospital beds in each state in Australia and New Zealand, while nearly 65 percent of intensive-care H1N1 patients required ventilators. Similarly, severely ill patients in Mexico and Canada were in intensive care units on ventilators for nearly two weeks, according to reports published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. About 17 percent of the Canadian patients and 41 percent of the Mexican patients reportedly died and, in both countries, hospitals' ICU capacities were strained. Authorities in the US are bracing for a possible surge in hospital and ER/ICU admissions and a sudden draw down on resources, especially ventilators, if large numbers of H1N1-sickened persons require mechanical ventilation to survive. But studies such as one conducted in 2006 by the Trauma Center Association of America (TCAA) revealed that in the event of a mass casualty event in which many patients require ventilators, the majority of hospitals that responded to the TCAA survey reported that they would quickly run out, with few hospitals having plans in place to acquire additional ventilators. Numerous authorities HSToday.us talked to said it’s possible that the H1N1 pandemic could be the first nationwide test of national hospital surge capacity limits, the importance of which can’t be overstated when it comes to being prepared for mass casualties. For years, Homeland Security Today and HSToday.us have been reporting on the nation’s inadequate hospital surge capacity. In a two-part series a year ago, HSToday.us reported that inadequate surge and mass casualty trauma care capacity remains a problem nationwide. [Editor’s note: Also see the July 2007 report, “Seeking to Surge,” and the May 2004 feature, “The Trauma in America’s Trauma Care”] “Surge capacity … is one of the most serious remaining challenges for emergency health preparedness,” the TFAH report stressed, noting that “health care providers and hospitals could be quickly overrun or overextended during the H1N1 outbreak, even though it is currently a mild strain of flu, and the plans and capacities to deal with this influx are limited.” The report stated that “federal, state, local, and health system officials will have to continue to clearly communicate with the public as to which groups are urged to seek rapid care and who should practice sound selfcare measures and stay home when ill. The TFAH report stated “one of the biggest ongoing challenges health officials face is that preparations are taking place in the context of a public health system that has been chronically underfunded for decades. Many core systems and capabilities are lagging behind where they should be or could be, which leaves the nation unnecessarily vulnerable during times of emergency. The concurrence of lost workforce due to the economic recession, the continuing need to address other pressing public health issues simultaneously with a pandemic, and the diversion of health department employees to the H1N1 response have placed a severe strain on the public health system.” In short, the nation’s public health infrastructure is eroding. The TFAH report “examines the series of challenges the country faces in preparing to deal with the complications that an H1N1 outbreak adds to this flu season related to medical care capacity, antiviral medications, disease surveillance, vaccinations, budget cuts at public health departments, and caring for people in communities, particularly meeting the special needs of at-risk populations, and provides a series of recommendations for how to address preparedness gaps.” The report “estimates that the number of people hospitalized could range from a high of 168,025 in California to a low of 2,485 in Wyoming, and many states may face shortages of beds or may need to reduce the number of non-flu related discretionary hospitalizations due to limited hospital bed availability. The numbers of people who get sick could range from a high of 12.9 million in California to a low of 186,434 in Wyoming, if 35 percent of Americans were to get H1N1.” The TFAH report made the following estimates of hospital bed capacity at five weeks into a pandemic based on CDC’s FluSurge using expert predictions that H1N1 is a relatively mild strain of the flu and that up to 35 percent of Americans could potentially become sick with H1N1:
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Reclaim American Liberties - Find Out How!
(Analyst's note: Thought you might be interested in a letter I just received.)
Dear Readers,
Dear Readers,
- In less than nine months we have experienced an unprecedented radical transformation in our culture, our economy and our political system.
- We have witnessed expansion of government authority and intrusiveness that is unique, dangerous, and probably, unconstitutional.
It is the job of We the People to temper and modify change to conform to the principles of American exceptionalism, freedom and meritocracy, as they are under attack like never before.
If you want to stop the destruction of the institutions that sustain free enterprise and opportunity, read on!
FSM has allied itself with our nation’s top speakers, writers and commentators who understand the challenge we are facing and are prepared to do something about it.
· In January we will co-sponsor with the Hudson Institute a spectacular event - a symposium to embark on our mission to reclaim American liberties, security and sovereignty.
· We will take what is learned at the symposium and put the information into tools that citizens can use to hold their congressional representatives’ responsible for the stewardship of our great nation.
· As an article in the 10/12/09 Wall Street Journal said (emphasis ours),
“If you think those town hall meetings over health care were fierce, wait until Americans come to understand the threat to our national financial survival posed by the interest on the government's credit card.”
Arming citizens to combat career politicians who do not care or realize what they have done to our country is our mission and you, the concerned citizen, can help us produce this ground-breaking event.
Yes, we need your tax-deductible donation to build a nationwide tsunami that restores the traditions on which this nation was built.
Every dollar you can spend for this event and educational literature brings us a dollar closer to the America we want to preserve.
We ask that you give – even $10 will do! – but if you can give more than $10, we’d be happy to accept that too.
Too much is at stake for any of us to sit back and let happen the dismantling of the America we have loved.
Please go to:
https://www.familysecuritymatters.org/donate/donate.asp to donate by credit card, and to
https://www.familysecuritymatters.org/donate/ to donate by check.
We can win this battle together – let’s get started!
Thank you so much,
The Family Security Matters Team
How to Tell if We're Winning the Afghan War
This commentary appeared in The Providence Journal on October 5, 2009.
With U.S. casualties in Afghanistan mounting, the public questions the eight-year U.S. involvement. Gen. Stanley McChrystal has declared the war "serious but winnable"—yet now, for the first time, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll, more than 50 percent of the American people say the war is not worth fighting.
As part of an effort to shore up opinion, the Obama administration is expected to submit to Congress a list of 50 metrics which will be used to measure success in Afghanistan.
That would be 48 metrics too many. Only two criteria are needed to determine whether the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is succeeding. Back in March, President Obama identified clear strategic objectives for Afghanistan: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Afghanistan, and to prevent its return. We can gauge progress toward those objectives by asking two simple questions.
1. How much territory do al-Qaida and the Taliban control within Afghanistan?
Right now, al-Qaida's main base of operations lies across the border in Pakistan. However, al-Qaida has a history of cooperation with the Taliban, and the Taliban does control large portions of southern Afghanistan.
The two organizations do not share the same goals: The Taliban wants to regain power in Afghanistan, while al-Qaida wants to use the country as a base for terrorist operations.
Still, the two groups have often found that cooperation suits both of their interests. If the government falls to the Taliban, it would increase the chances that al-Qaida would reconstitute its operations in Afghanistan.
Many of the 21,000 additional U.S. troops that were deployed to Afghanistan earlier this year have been trying to oust the Taliban from its strongholds in the south. This is an extremely difficult task, which includes intense fighting and requires a sustained military presence.
General McChrystal may soon request additional troops for this mission, according to news reports, and Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has rightly warned that it may take 12 to 18 months to see progress. At that point, if the Taliban controls less territory than it does today, then we will know the U.S. is winning. If it does not, we will know it is losing.
2. How capable are the Afghan security forces?
International forces will not stay in Afghanistan forever. Ultimately, the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police must bear responsibility for securing their own country, and for preventing al-Qaida's return.
Efforts to build Afghan security forces were starved for many years, so progress has been slow. The police continue to be plagued by corruption and poor performance, despite reform efforts. But in recent years, the Afghan army has emerged as one of the country's few bright spots. Its capabilities are slowly but steadily increasing.
More importantly, the army is now the most respected government institution in the country, and the Afghan people generally believe that it genuinely acts in the national interest rather than for the benefit of particular factions. But there is still a long way to go before the army can secure the country on its own.
Some officials in the Obama administration have reportedly called for expanding the size of the security forces and intensifying international training efforts. These will be key developments to watch.
In order to move toward the goal of securing their own country, the security forces will need to effectively recruit and train personnel and gradually improve their ability to conduct military operations independently.
The United States does have a range of other interests in Afghanistan, including democratization, economic development, and reconstruction. But these interests are best pursued by civilians as part of a normal program of development assistance, and should not be conditions that must be achieved before withdrawing military forces.
If one year from today, the Taliban controls less territory and the Afghan security forces are more capable, then we will know the United States is winning. If not, then we will know we are losing—no matter what the 48 other metrics say.
Nora Bensahel is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and a professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.
Living Conditions in Anbar Province in June 2008
Effective counterinsurgency is dependent on understanding the local population. A survey of those living in Iraq's Anbar Province (once one of the country's most violent areas) reveals both the many improvements and the suffering that has occurred.Full Document (PDF)
Protecting Critical Computer Networks from Cyber Attack
Because it will be difficult to prevent cyber attacks on civilian and military computer networks by threatening to punish attackers, the United States must instead focus its efforts on defending these critical networks—such as ones used for electric power, telephone service, banking, and military command and control.
News Release
Full document (PDF)
News Release
Full document (PDF)
In the Shadow of the War on Terror
by Salena Zito
The "Overseas Contingency Program" – the "war on terror" – is back at the center of the political world, thanks to the uncertain prosecution of the war in Afghanistan.
As President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Congress and the generals in the field contemplate the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't consequences of Afghanistan, terror has reappeared in the American vernacular.
"America is still a salient target and attractive target for terrorists," says Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA counterterrorism official who heads security studies at Georgetown University.
And while such terms as "Islamic terrorist," "jihad" and "Muslim extremist" have been scrubbed from administration chatter, we remain at risk.
Pillar points out that this administration continues the commitments and policies of the Bush years.
Those security and intelligence programs irritate radicalized Muslims who want to harm Americans – and chill left-leaning Democrats who fervently opposed Bush.
Pillar dismisses the notion that Americans' memories of 9/11 have faded: "If you look at the current debate about Afghanistan, it illustrates that we still equate Afghanistan with terrorism."
The public's turn away from the topic of terror is understandable: In light of the economic crisis, health care controversy and unprecedented government spending, the focus is on swift-changing pocketbook issues.
Last month's arrest of Afghan-born alleged terror-plotter Najibullah Zazi ran as "B-roll" on TV news and "below the fold" in most newspapers, though authorities called his plot one of the most significant terror threats since 9/11.
If the bad guys unleash one or two suicide bombings in the heartland, our country would become paralyzed economically and mentally.
"The various agencies of government, like the Defense Department, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, remain fully engaged, as well as state and local law enforcement," says Mark Davidson, a former member of the Clinton administration and a Navy Reserve captain. "The general public, the press and many politicians, on the other hand, apparently are not."
Davidson explains that the only measure is "Have we been attacked?" The public's answer since 9/11: "No."
Almost from the start, the Obama administration distanced itself from war-on-terror language.
Yet "Overseas Contingency Program" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
The irony is that the war on terror has been ongoing since the 1970s, including airliner hijackings, Olympic athletes killed in Munich and the Berlin disco, Pan Am Lockerbie and Beirut Marine barracks bombings.
Davidson says that war only became more intense after the collapse of the Soviet regime in Afghanistan and the crystallizing of extremist elements bent on hatred of the West (which, ironically, supplied the weapons and training to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan).
As for Americans no longer listening to talk about the threat, Davidson says the Obama administration lowered the volume: "Frankly, the American public was burned out by the color-code threats and rhetoric coming from the previous administration. Creating a perception of constant fear and using that fear for political gain is very dangerous."
That may be why many Americans and the media paid little attention to the Zazi arrest. Unfortunately, the pendulum has swung in that direction for some members of Congress and the administration. The president's challenge is that a left-leaning minority brought him his party's nomination, partly based on war opposition.
"This minority wants to withdraw from Afghanistan," Davidson adds. "Such a withdrawal may prove to be a disaster as our allies see a lack of commitment, Pakistan suffers a Taliban blitzkrieg and violent extremists possibly gain access to highly sensitive material in a Taliban-influenced Pakistan."
Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the military men in charge of Afghanistan strategy, know how to engage and defeat insurgencies. We know how to pursue violent extremists.
Let's hope the debate – and the White House's war-policy "review" – leads us to a sensible conclusion, defeating al-Qaida and leaving Afghanistan as stable as possible and able to fend for itself.
Napolitano Says Al-Qaeda-Style Terrorists Are in U.S.
from National Terror Alert
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said terrorists with al-Qaeda leanings are in the U.S. and that the threat of attack “is always with us.”
“It is fair to say there are individuals in the United States who ascribe to al-Qaeda-type beliefs,” Napolitano said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. “And so it makes information-sharing, it makes effective law enforcement and it makes the shared responsibility of law enforcement ever so important.”
Information-sharing between federal, state and local law- enforcement agencies is “much improved” since the Sept. 11 attacks, she said.
In September, U.S. authorities indicted Najibullah Zazi, 24, an Afghan immigrant and former Denver airport shuttle-van driver, on federal terrorism conspiracy charges. They found bomb-making instructions on a laptop computer in his rental car.
Attorney General Eric Holder said the case had connections to al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said terrorists with al-Qaeda leanings are in the U.S. and that the threat of attack “is always with us.”
“It is fair to say there are individuals in the United States who ascribe to al-Qaeda-type beliefs,” Napolitano said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. “And so it makes information-sharing, it makes effective law enforcement and it makes the shared responsibility of law enforcement ever so important.”
Information-sharing between federal, state and local law- enforcement agencies is “much improved” since the Sept. 11 attacks, she said.
In September, U.S. authorities indicted Najibullah Zazi, 24, an Afghan immigrant and former Denver airport shuttle-van driver, on federal terrorism conspiracy charges. They found bomb-making instructions on a laptop computer in his rental car.
Attorney General Eric Holder said the case had connections to al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001.
Napolitano said she met in New York today with leaders in financial security in order to discuss ways to protect the nation’s financial system from cyber-terrorism or other attacks.
“The financial institutions of this country are part of our bedrock infrastructure,” she said. “They need to be protected. We need to be able to protect them.”
U.S. Begins Official Effort to Destabilize Pakistan
by Erick Erickson
The ineptitude of this administration as it wages foreign policy knows no bounds. What makes it all the more disturbing is that the Obama administration is beginning to engage in an official effort to destabilize the government of Pakistan and potentially foment a civil war there.
On egg shells ever since Musharraf’s resignation as President and the assasination of Benazir Bhutto, USA Today has obtained a confidential State Department memo outlining how the administration intends to escalate Pakistan’s descent into chaos.
It is willfully naive. And it is dangerous.
Maybe Obama wasn’t misspeaking during the campaign when he said he wanted to bomb Pakistan . . . er . . . Pockeestun.
On egg shells ever since Musharraf’s resignation as President and the assasination of Benazir Bhutto, USA Today has obtained a confidential State Department memo outlining how the administration intends to escalate Pakistan’s descent into chaos.
The sad thing is the administration thinks it will be helping.
The problem — according to the memo by C. Stuart Callison, an economist with the U.S. Agency for International Development — is that Holbrooke is canceling successful programs run by U.S. contractors and preparing to bypass them by giving large sums to local organizations with shaky financial track records.
Holbrooke, the top civilian overseeing Obama administration policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, has asked to personally approve every project funding renewal involving U.S. contractors, Callison wrote — and “the disapprovals already received are shockingly counterproductive.”
In other words, the United States is shifting money from efficient operations that work to inefficient operations that line the pockets of people who we probably don’t want to make wealthy, given their loyalties.
It is willfully naive. And it is dangerous.
If Pakistan falls, war will come with India. Both have nukes. The consequences for this administration’s ineptitude will be major and the lives lost catastrophic.
Maybe Obama wasn’t misspeaking during the campaign when he said he wanted to bomb Pakistan . . . er . . . Pockeestun.
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