Think Globally, Act Locally

Thanks to Paul Roden for this economic tip [the White Dog is also a very fine restaurant near Penn].

The “slow food, slow eating and slow money” movement are part of this new vision of a new economy as well.

 Judy Wick, of the White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia, who is writing a book has started a foundation to promote “slow eating, slow food and slow money or capitalism.”  She wants a right livelyhood for all people with sustained businesses, customers and suppliers. Relationships that are just and sustainable that are fair and just.  Growth for the sake of growth, maximization of profit, cutting costs and cutting labor are not the vision of a new economy.  It is not about monopoly, franchising and global domination.  It is thinking globally but acting locally with business practices that are sustainable to the ecosystem of the planet as well to the workers, customers and the relationships of all involved.  Microfinancing is part of this vision as well.

Walter Ebmeyer called to cancel his Comcast cable TV service. “Why, sir?”      “Because you’re getting too big now that you’re merging with NBC.”       ”But sir, that’s the direction entertainment is going.  Pretty soon we’ll all be one big company.”       “Not if we enforce the Sherman Anti-Trust Law.”     You could tell by the tone of voice at this point that they figured they were dealing with a crazy.   But where is the Federal Trade Commission now that we need them?

 

Media Coverage Of The Gaza Freedom March

From Just Foreign Policy.  Thanks to Donna Holsten for sending us this.

Ask the NYTimes and the WaPost why they are not covering the International Gaza Freedom March

JFP’s Robert Naiman is in Egypt this week participating in the International Gaza Freedom March. But the Egyptian government has blocked the marchers from even approaching the Egyptian border with Gaza. Egypt is also blocking an aid convoy that has the support of the Turkish government from entering Egypt at Nuwieba. Even a peaceful protest at UN offices in Cairo was largely walled off from public view by Egyptian police. [1]

Meanwhile, there is largely a U.S. press blackout of these striking developments. A search of the New York Times and the Washington Post only turns up a tiny AP story on the websites of the Times and the Post. [2] [3] Would you email the editors at the New York Times and the Washington Post and ask them why they are not covering these incredibly important events?

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/gaza-march-press

As has frequently been the case, Agence France-Presse (AFP) is paying more attention to these developments. Today, AFP reported that Hedy Epstein and other members of the Gaza Freedom March have begun a hunger strike to press the Egyptian government to allow them to enter Gaza. [4] On Sunday, AFP reported on the efforts of the Viva Palestina aid convoy to enter Egypt, with the support of the Turkish government. [5] The British-initiated aid convoy has at least been mentioned by the BBC, [6] but no major US news outlet has provided any significant reporting on the U.S.-initiated Gaza Freedom March.

You can write to the Public Editor at the New York Times and the Ombudsman at the Washington Post by following the link below.

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/gaza-march-press

Thank you for all you do to help bring about a just foreign policy,

Robert Naiman, Megan Iorio, Chelsea Mozen and Sarah Burns
Just Foreign Policy

Please support our work. Donate for a Just Foreign Policy.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate.html

References:

1. Photo, “Confined Protests Outside UN Office,” 28 December 2009
http://husseini.posterous.com/confined-protests-outside-un-office
2. “Activists Push Egypt to Grant Access to Gaza,” AP, 26 December 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/26/world/AP-ML-Egypt-Gaza.html
3. “Activists Push Egypt to Grant Access to Gaza,” AP, 26 December 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/26/AR2009122601153.html
4. “Holocaust survivor stages hunger strike for Gaza,” AFP, 28 December 2009
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091228/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictgazaegyptdemo_20091228141344
5. “Gaza aid stuck in Jordan amid Turkish mediation,” AFP, 27 December 2009
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091227/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictgazajordanaid_20091227205342
6. “Ban Ki-Moon: Gaza reconstruction not being address,” BBC News, 27 December 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8431652.stm

© 2009 Just Foreign Policy

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Mondragon, Evergreen, and Workers’ Cooperatives

An interesting article from Time about an alternative way to organize the means of production.  Thanks to Paul Roden – paul.roden@comcast.net – for sending it along.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1947313,00.html

 

Spiritual Progressives – Tikkun

This is a review of the new 3-D sensation “Avatar” from the Tikkun magazine.  Jane Dugdale recommends the review and also the magazine and the organization behind it.  Enjoy. 

http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2009/12/27/avatar-the-spiritual-progressive-movie-of-the-decade/#more-8458

 

Reconciling The Two Healthcare Bills

Call your congresspersons: 202-224-3121.

Progressive House Leaders say Key Aspects of House Bill Must Be Included in Health Care Legislation

WASHINGTON – December 23 – Progressive leaders Reps. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) released the following statement today about Thursday’s vote in the Senate on health care reform legislation:”Now that the Senate is poised to pass its version of a health care reform bill, it is time to turn to reconciling it with the House legislation.

“For Congress to achieve true health care reform we must have a meaningful conference process that integrates both bills into the best possible piece of legislation for the American people.

“Several key provisions of the House bill must be included in any final bill:

“A public option-If the bill requires people to buy health insurance, there must be a public option to bring down costs by providing lower-cost competition to private insurers and choice to consumers.

“Affordability protections-The legislation must protect lower and middle-income individuals by ensuring that subsidies make coverage affordable and that Medicaid patients have access to primary care physicians.

“Tighter market regulation-New regulations must keep premiums reasonable and end abusive practices. Insurance companies should no longer be exempt from anti-trust laws and any premium increases must be reviewed before they take effect.

“Employer mandates-If individuals are required to buy insurance, employers should be required to provide it.

“Tax surcharges-Health care reform should be financed by tax surcharges on the wealthy not excise taxes on health insurance plans offered to many workers and union members.

“While we still have much work to do, we applaud Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sens. Ben Cardin and Roland Burris for their hard work to ensure that the much need health disparities provision remained in the legislation. Also, we applaud Sen. Bernie Sanders for helping to secure $10 billion more in the revised bill for community health centers.

“We look forward to working with the House and Senate leadership to ensure that the final legislation provides affordable and comprehensive health care to people who need it.”

###

 

Jerry Policoff On The Healthcare Bill Anti-Trust Exemption

I’ve just finished reading a series of articles at the web site Main Justice dealing with the fate of the health insurance industry’s exemption from Federal anti-trust law.

First of all, I did a little research on the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 which granted the exemption in the first place.  Its original intent was  not to weaken regulation of the insurance industry, but to strengthen it.  The act came about as a result of a Supreme Court decision, United States v South-Eastern Underwriters Assn. which ruled that insurance companies that sold policies across state lines were engaged in interstate commerce, and were thus subject to federal anti-trust law.  The original intent of McCarren-Ferguson was to enable the states to tightly regulate the insurance industry.  Many states had become concerned that, as a result of the Supreme Court ruling,  they no longer had the authority to regulate the insurance industry within their boundaries.  It stipulated that no act of Congress could invalidate any state law dealing with the regulation of insurance unless the federal law specifically related to insurance.  The Act permitted the federal government to regulate insurance, but it also stipulated that only the states have broad authority to regulate the insurance industry unless the federal government enacts specific legislation intended to regulate insurance and displace state law.  In plain English that means that the states have the power to regulate the insurance industry if the federal government fails to do so.  McCarran-Ferguson also stipulated that the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 (which prohibits abusive monopolies)  and the Clayton Act of 1914 (passed by the U.S. Congress as an amendment to clarify and supplement the Clayton Anti-Trust Act and  which prohibited exclusive sales contracts, local price cutting to freeze out competitors, et al, thus prohibiting abusive monopolies), apply to the business of insurance to the extent that such business is not regulated by state law.  In short, McCarran-Ferguson was designed to empower both the federal government and the individual states to keep insurance companies from becoming abusive monopolies.  How ironic that it has instead been used to enable the insurance companies to become the abusive monopolies it was intended to prevent.  This in itself would seem to suggest that it is time to eradicate any confusion or ambiguity that has arisen over the years by repealing McCarran-Ferguson and restoring the original intent which was to subject the insurance industry to state and/or federal regulation and federal anti-trust law. 

Nancy Pelosi apparently saw it that way and the anti-trust exemption was stripped from the House reform bill at her insistence. Not so with the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Max Baucus and his special interest-friendly gang of three, which produced a bill apparently written by Elizabeth Fowler, a former Baucus staffer who left his employ in 2006 to become VP and Director of Policy for WellPoint Insurance and then left to go to work for Senator Baucus’s Finance Committee in 2008.  Apparently Baucus, Fowler, and WellPoint saw no need to strip the insurance industry of its anti-trust exemption, so they didn’t – even though it was never intended to actually be an anti-trust exemption.

Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy had other ideas.  He proposed an amendment to the Baucus Finance Committee Senate bill that would subject health and medical malpractice insurers to federal laws that forbid firms from fixing prices, rigging bids, or dividing up markets, an amendment initially favored by the final arbiter, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who  maintained that a repeal of the anti-trust exemption would produce more competition and better prices for consumers.  President Obama seemed to agree when, in his weekly radio address, he championed revocation of the anti-trust exemption, complaining that the health insurance industry is “earning these profits and bonuses while enjoying a privileged exemption from our antitrust laws.”

You may have noticed that the bill passed by the Senate this week maintained the anti-trust exemption, though the media has largely ignored that little detail.  Why, you might ask?  Nebraska Senator Ben  Nelson, a former insurance industry executive, apparently took issue with revocation of that anti-trust exemption being included in the bill.  The insurance industry had also lobbied to keep the Leahy provision out.  Harry Reid, desperate for Ben Nelson’s 60^th filibuster-proof vote, went along.

Does the continuation of the insurance anti-trust exemption really make a difference?  In a word, absolutely!

Both the Senate and House bills leave regulation of the insurance industry to the states which have never been known for holding the industry’s feet to the fire.  A study recently published by The Center for American Progress  found that “State regulatory authorities haven’t brought any consumer protection suits against insurance companies in the last five years…”   The  study asks whether states have the resources to enforce antitrust laws or if they are stretched too thin.” “The study cites Georgetown health policy professor Karen Pollitz’s recent comments to Congress: “In four states, the Insurance Commissioner is also the fire marshal.”  “Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) used the study to reiterate his support for a repeal of the antitrust exemption for health and medical malpractice insurers. “If we remove it, they will have to compete,” Leahy said in a conference call with reporters.

Of course we have come to learn that the minority, not the majority, rules, if the minority bears the name of Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman (sometimes referred to as the Senator from Aetna)..

I know there are some serious reformers who think it is time to hold our collective noses and pass this bill.  I respect their opinions, but count me out.  I don’t see the insurance companies mending their ways, and now,  with mandates,  they will have even more power and more money to thwart any attempt to enforce regulations that already exist or that may be enacted in the future.  This, to me, is just one more reason to “kill the bill.”

Jerry Policoff

1117 Wheatland Avenue/ H-4

Lancaster, Pa. 17603

Home phone/fax:  717-295-0237

Cell: 717-682-4434

www.progressives4pennsylvania.com

www.healthcare4ALLPA.org

Face Book Causes: HealthCare4ALLPA

 

Coming Attractions

All events are free and open to the public unless described otherwise.

January 12 – Tuesday – 7-9pm.  Regular joint meeting of DelMont PDA and Main Line Peace Action at Dugdales’,  284 S. Roberts Road,  Bryn Mawr, 19010.  Agenda to follow.  For details or to suggest agenda items, please call 610-527-4170 or e-mail tjdugdale@verizon.net.

January 16 – Saturday – Noon.  Regular demonstration to close down the Army Experience Center in Franklin Mills Mall.  FGor details, go to www.peacecoalition.org. 

January 20 – Wednesday  – Noon.  Brown Bag Vigil at Rep. Sestak’s Media Office.  Bring your lunch if you like.   We’ll occupy the office until we can tell the congressman or a  senior member of his staff about what spending Afghanistan money at home could do for the 7th congressional district.  These vigils will be happening all over the country.  For details or for a ride, 610-491-9549.

 

 

First A Pretty Speech, Then Nothing

Worth a read.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/leadership-obama-style-an_b_398813.html

 

We’re Killing Civilians In Yemen Too

Our media don’t tell us about attacks like this.  But you can be sure the word has been spread far and wide among Muslim countries.  The persistence of our military, the slaughter of civilians, and the waste of trillions of dollars needed to build our own nation seems like a bad dream.  Read this from Common Dreams.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/21-3

 

Kill The Bill!

It is an ungodly mess of errors, loopholes, and massive giveaways. When the American people find out what’s actually in this bill, they will revolt. Congress and President Obama have no choice but to do better for health care than this bill.

Sign the petition: the Senate health care bill must be killed.  

How bad is the bill? 

Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations — whether you want to or not
1. If you refuse to buy the insurance,  you’ll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS
2. After being forced to pay thousands in premiums for junk insurance, you can still be on the hook for up to $11,900 a year in out-of-pocket medical expenses.
3. Massive restriction on a woman’s right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court
4. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-ays
   

Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won’t see any benefits — like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions — until 2014 when the program begins.

Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others

Grants monopolies to to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.

No reimportation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years

The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of 4 will rise an average of $1000 a year — meaning in 10 years, you family’s insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.

I could go on, but it should be clear: this is not reform.  This is a con job.

Sign our petition: kill the Senate bill.

Make no mistake, we need health care reform.  But the Senate’s idea of reform is a disaster, and will make things far worse than they are today.

We must kill this fake reform.

Thanks for all you do.

Jane Hamsher

Firedoglake

 

End The War! “War Would End If the Dead Could Return”

This remarkable call to action was written by Mike Ferner and came to us via OpEd News.

In a statement today directed to the U.S. House of Representatives,
President Obama and its membership, Veterans For Peace urged its chapters to
demonstrate opposition to the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan by doing two
things:
1) Take the actions listed below within the next several days, before
President Obama decides to escalate the war in Afghanistan, and
2) Plan acts of even greater resistance during the two days following any
such decision.

Continue writing and calling our representatives and demanding peace.
If we’ve done that: take to the streets
If we’ve done that: sit down in the streets
If we’ve done that: sit down in Congressional offices
If we’ve done that: sit down, clog up, incapacitate, call in sick,
withdraw consent and generally bring the nation’s business to a halt, wherever and
whenever we can, with any peaceful means available.
To President Obama and the House of Representatives:
As veterans of our nation’s wars, we insist you hear our call.
British Prime Minister _Stanley Baldwin_
(http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Baldwin_Stanley.html) spoke an unassailable truth when he said, “War
would end if the dead could return.” If you believe that is true, Mr.
President and Members of the House, you must heed our counsel well: we are the
closest anyone can come to that truth the dead would speak. Stop the
killing!
Because we personally understand what war truly means, we have written,
called and demonstrated repeatedly for an end to the killing in Afghanistan
and Iraq. We have protested at and have been arrested in House Office
Buildings, the House Gallery, the White House and Congressional offices across
the nation. We have pleaded, then demanded, that you stop the suffering in
these countries. Although promised prior to the election, no combat brigades
have returned from Iraq. And now we can smell the mire of escalation in
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Nevertheless, we cannot cease to appeal to that spark of humanity in your
hearts. We know wealthy, powerful interests such as weapons contractors,
lobbyists and right-wing broadcasters daily make a deafening noise, trying to
drown out the voice that insists, “Stop the killing.” We also know that
no matter how quiet the voice of humanity might become, it can never be
silenced.
So we lift up to you voices much more eloquent than our own, voices of
soldiers who survived the worst fighting human beings have ever experienced,
World War One. For nearly 100 years, the wisdom and compassion of their
poetry has endured. Their words now stand as one of the world’s most powerful
witnesses to the madness of war.
You must hear them.

“And you yourself would mutter when
You took the things that once were men,
And sped them through that zone of hate
To where the dripping surgeons wait;
And wonder too if in God’s sight
War ever, ever can be right.
– From “_Foreword_
(http://mounthoreb.org/Servicefolder/serviceselectionforward.html) ” by British ambulance driver, Robert Service

 

California Democrats Want Out

The 300-member executive committee of the California Democratic Party  called on President Obama this weekend to get out of Afghanistan.  Read on.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/497611/democrats_to_obama_get_out_of_afghanistan

 

What Are The Insurance Companies Really Thinking?

 

All About the www.delmontpda.wordpress.com blog

This blog is intended to reflect the interests of the Delaware/Montgomery County (PA) Progressive Democrats of America and Main Line Peace Action.  Your comments, which are most welcome, can be posted on the blog directly, or you can contact the two people who do the posting:  Jane Dugdale, 610-527-4170, tjdugdale@Verizon.net,  or Walter Ebmeyer, 610-491-9549, ebmeyer6w@comcast.net.

Archives, a list of recent posts, and tag clouds to help you find your way around the blog are to your right.

 

Walling Off Women’s Abortion Access

                                                                                                              Stupak Lays the Next Brick.
The following statement was issued by STEPHANIE POGGI, executive director of the NATIONAL NETWORK OF ABORTION FUNDS:

The Stupak/Pitts Amendment is the most far-reaching attack on abortion
access in a generation. It endangers the health and well-being of
millions of women by eliminating abortion coverage from the new
insurance exchange.
Thirty-two years ago, the Right began walling off abortion access with
the Hyde Amendment, which banned federal Medicaid coverage for
abortion. Three decades have passed – three decades of poor women
scrimping on food and other necessities to pay for their abortions.

Now, the Stupak Amendment builds the next layer of bricks on the wall
that stands between women and the promise of Roe v. Wade.

Representative Henry Hyde – and the Catholic bishops who were as
pivotal then as now – never intended to prevent only poor women from
getting abortions. Representative Hyde made this clear 32 years ago
during the Congressional debate on the Hyde Amendment: “I would
certainly like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an
abortion, a rich woman, a middle class woman, or a poor woman.
Unfortunately, the only vehicle available is the [Medicaid] bill.”
Today, the anti-abortion movement wants to use health care reform to
finish what Henry Hyde started. With the Stupak Amendment, millions of
additional women stand to lose their right to make the best decision
for themselves and their families.

We oppose Stupak because it would clearly worsen the status quo – but
let’s not forget that the status quo is indefensible. The status quo
on abortion access has discriminated against poor women and women of
color for a long time. Moreover, the so-called “abortion-neutral”
Capps Amendment is an enormous compromise itself. By preserving
federal funding restrictions on abortion, Capps does nothing to
redress three decades of interference with the reproductive choices of
low-income women.

The National Network of Abortion Funds and member abortion Funds have
spent decades assisting the women who have already been walled off
from abortion access by the Hyde Amendment. We know the hardship and
sacrifice – and the bitter frustration when women and families are
denied the ability to care for the children they already have. We will
work with our member Funds and allies across the country to make sure
that health care reform does not add one more woman to the thousands
who are already denied what they need. And we will continue to work
toward a new status quo that respects our sisters, our mothers, our
daughters, our neighbors – and ourselves.

We call on our Senators and the White House to remember that health
care reform was meant to be for all of us. Women, as well as men. We
also call on our Senators and the White House to ensure that health
care covers all people living in the United States. Immigrants, both
documented and undocumented, must have the right to be healthy and to
gain access to comprehensive care. And health care in the new plan
must be truly affordable, including a strong public option.

The National Network of Abortion Funds includes 105 community-based
abortion Funds across the U.S. and abroad. Last year, the Network and
Funds directly assisted over 21,000 women who needed help to pay for
their abortions. We also work to lift economic barriers to abortion at
the state and federal level.

 

Coal Conference Dance Party

.   For more information go to www.sierraclub.org/coal.

 

Escalation In Afghanistan! Radicalizing The Main Line!

We  would love to be able to tell you that  the December 2  peace vigil was called off – that President Obama decided to bring our troops home from Afghanistan.  But  no.  The vigils went on.  In Bryn Mawr 13 of us stood in the rain for an hour, waving anti-war signs, and listening to honking sympathetic motorists (sweet sound!).   I helped hold up a large cloth banner against the Afghanistan war that I found out had been made in 2002!     30,000 more troops will be in harm’s way in short order.  It is hard to believe.  Especially when you think of what 100,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan could do back home in a new CCC – rebuilding housing, clearing forests, providing daycare, helping in hospitals, teaching in our schools.

Progressives must apply themselves to this challenge.  Demonstrate for peace.  Demand an end to war funding.  Call your congressperson: 202-224-3121.

 

Bernie Sanders On Bernanke

 

What’s Cap And Trade All About?

 

An Alternative To Cap And Trade

If you loved credit default swaps, derivatives, and leverage, you’ll love cap & trade.   Here’s a better way.  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/opinion/07hansen.html?_r=1&ref=opinion.

 

Our Energy Solution Is Not Under The Ground

The New York Times  tells us about a new company, Tres Amigas, that plans to build a big power hub in New Mexico that will tie together the three power grids in this country.  Read it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/business/energy-environment/08grid.html?_r=1&ref=business. 

This will make possible not only the sharing of power among all regions, but will allow us to tap the enormous sources of wind and solar energy concentrated in the West.  Already wind turbines in Texas on some days generate enough electric power to take care of the whole nation.  The problem is transmission and variations in energy availabilities among regions.  The new hub will help solve that problem.

It is interesting that one site that would generate huge amounts of wind power is the tops of the Appalachian Mountains.  But instead of putting up those turbines, we are tearing down the mountains!  Mountain top removal is in full swing, destroying mountains that withstood the great glaciers, and filling mountain streams with rubble and waste (called  “fill” by the mining companies).

In a wide swath that extends from Virginia to New York, and especially under Pennsylvania,  lies the Marcellus Shale, a geologic formation that contains giant amounts of natural gas.  But to get the gas out, you don’t just drill a hole.  You have to do something called “frakturing,” pumping enormous quantities of water and chemicals into the shale to flood the gas out.  The water, full of contaminants that can cause cancer and birth defects, then either pollutes area drinking water wells or is trucked out to treatment plants in southeastern Pennsylvania and eventually pumped into the Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay, to further pollute our greatest inland marine environment.

What seems to be the lesson in all this?  “Drill Baby Drill” is not the answer.  Cutting down forests and mountains and blasting shale beds with contaminated water is the way to enrich a few large corporations but it is not the way to solve our energy problems.  Clean renewable energy is ours for the taking – wind and solar.  It is free and it is forever.  To distribute the energy we need modern electric grids as The Times article indicated.  That is all eminently doable.  Let’s get started.

Walter Ebmeyer.

 

Liberals Are Useless!

Jane Dugdale said we’d better put this on the blog.  “It’s seriously on target.”  I’m afraid she’s right, and we should all do some serious thinking.  Please read it:  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/liberals_are_useless_20091206/?ln.

 

Conyers Under Obama’s Skin?

John Conyers told “The Hill” that the President called him to complain about criticism.  So far we’re on Conyers’s side.   http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/08-0.

 

Elizabeth Warren For Federal Reserve Chairman?

 

This story has been updated

Add Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law professor-turned-crusader for Main Street and the middle class, to the growing list of experts calling for the Obama administration to scrap its failed foreclosure-prevention plan in favor of one that would actually help troubled homeowners keep their homes.

The Congressional Oversight Panel that Warren heads issued a new report Wednesday, concluding that the government’s $700 billion bailout program did in fact help stabilize the financial system — but has largely failed to boost lending or prevent foreclosures.

In a conference call with reporters Tuesday night, Warren spelled out just how dramatically the administration signature foreclosure effort, called the Home Affordable Modification Program, has fallen short:

• Nationwide, only 10,187 homeowners have received permanent mortgage modifications. That’s only 4.7 percent of those enrolled in three-month trial plans. In October, Herbert M. Allison Jr., the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for financial stability, told the panel that Treasury had internally forecast that “up to 75 percent” of trial modifications would achieve permanent status. 
• Of the 79 mortgage services enrolled in the program, only 10 have received payment for successfully modifying loans on a permanent basis. They earned $2.3 million for their efforts. By contrast, the administration had set aside $50 billion in bailout money for modifications on mortgages not owned by government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

 

The data is through the end of October. The administration launched its foreclosure prevention drive in March.

HAMP was supposed to help three to four million homeowners avoid foreclosure by modifying their mortgages, enabling them to make lower monthly payments. But with 10 percent unemployment (a 26-year-high), mounting foreclosures and as many as one third of all homeowners with a mortgage currently owing more on the mortgage than the underlying property is worth, the program simply “isn’t working,” Warren said.

“The program that Treasury has designed does not have the scope, the scale, or the permanence needed to deal with the foreclosure problem,” she said.

It’s a stinging indictment of a program launched to great fanfare not even a year ago, as President Obama sought to help aggrieved homeowners on Main Street who had watched for months as massive infusions of taxpayer dollars went to Wall Street instead.

 

 

Kucinich Will Bring The Troops Home

 

Why Quit Fossil Fuels?

For those who wonder how to convince resistant people we must move away from fossil fuels due to Climate Change, I have one word of advice: Don’t.

There’s actually no need. Not because Global Warming isn’t real – it is, and the overwhelming evidence is that it’s largely fueled by human actions – but because there are other reasons why we should move away from fossil fuel-based energy. The elegant thing about a multi-pronged approach like this is that you can always find some reason to convince someone with. For example, hard-core conservatives may simply refuse to believe anything people do could affect “God’s perfect world” but they are perfectly willing to accept that we should not be sending half a trillion dollars a year to foreign oil producers who mostly hate us, and who export terrorism along with their oil (#s 4-6).

1. Climate Change: Oil and Coal contribute to global warming and will only do so more as China, India etc. emulate American lifestyles. According to many scientists, we may already be past the temperature “tipping point” where runaway synergistic effects will make warming inevitable, even if we could stop all CO2 production today (which we can’t).

2. Balance of Trade: We import 70% of our oil – $500 billion/year – often from countries that hate us, fund terrorists, and buy our businesses (Citigroup) and infrastructure (Chrysler Building). This is an unsustainable transfer of wealth, which will only make America poorer. We are now paying foreign powers both what we earn personally AND what our companies earn, while they sit back and enjoy the results of their geological luck. Take a look at T. Boone Pickens’ presentation for a more realistic assessment of what exporting our wealth will do to us in 10 years. Or, take a look at post-Columbus Spain, which thought having all the gold in the new world would keep them prosperous forever and allow them to import whatever skills and goods they needed. It didn’t and they couldn’t.

3. Green Jobs: Germany has created 250,000 new green jobs in its solar industry, which supplies 13% of its electric needs. We need to replace oil, coal and nuclear producing jobs with wind and solar installation and maintenance jobs. (It takes 10 years to build a nuclear plant and 2 years to build a solar thermal field).

4. National Security: We must not depend on foreign powers to supply us with vital energy, which is as critical to modern society as food and shelter. Even if we drill the arctic for oil (home to up to 25% of the world’s reserves, according to US Geological Survey), we will have to defend those new wells not only from nature, but from Russia, Canada, Denmark (Greenland), and others with a claim to the high north, leading to unnecessary conflict with these countries. Clearly, ANWR has never been about the tiny bit of land off northern Alaska that would supply just 2 years of oil for America; it’s been about opening up the entire Arctic to exploration. We cannot afford to defend such a large and inhospitable region from other regional players with as large or larger geological claims.

5. The Oil Curse: Countries that depend on natural resources to make money, and not people, are the most corrupt, despotic, self-righteous and anti-human rights regimes on Earth. China does not seem to care where their oil comes from, encouraging rogue states like Sudan, Iran, Burma and Venezuela, where human rights barely exist. This is a naïve and ultimately counter-productive strategy for China but not one we should be encouraging again either (see: the downfall of the Shah of Iran).

6. Military Overreach: America cannot afford to defend oil fields. The Iraq war is, at least partly, a subsidy for Big Oil. Lives are being lost and resources are being spent ($12 Billion/month) so that – maybe, eventually – we can get more oil out of Iraq (estimated to be 2 or 3 largest holder of oil reserves). Meanwhile, Iraq does not even use $79 billion surplus to pay for its own infrastructure needs, while here in the U.S. our bridge collapse from lack of care (Minnesota) and our electrical grid blacks out.

7. Peak Oil: We are probably only seeing peak geopolitical oil, not peak geological oil, now, but it will only get more expensive to drill oil. Most estimates put peak oil within 10 years, and since global demand has exceeded earlier estimates, we may be even closer. The perversion of the OPEC dominated oil market means that they will drill LESS, not MORE, as the price goes up, since they literally collect more money than they know what to do with already, and they want to stretch out their supply. It’s only when the price of oil goes DOWN that OPEC members are tempted to cheat on their quotas because their dysfunctional economies become desperate for cash. Right now, they want to sell oil only a trickle at a time.

8. Local Environmental Damage: If we drill everywhere, we will eventually have oil wells all over the west (instead of wind turbines), and even in the (newly melted) arctic. These high-risk drilling areas will be more likely to see oil spills, soot, and CO2 damage and the further eradication of local animal (Polar Bears) and plant life. Already, regional water tables are being polluted by accidents and poisoness chemicals involved in the drilling industry. This is especially true of the Natural Gas and Coal industries, which use and pollute prodigious amounts of scare water resources. The cost to clean up the toxic coal ash release in Harriman, Tennessee has been estimated to be as high as $800 million higher than President Obama’s entire stimulus bill. This “pond” was merely average out of hundreds of similar ponds located all over the south and west.

9. We eat too much oil: Oil goes into fertilizer, which goes into corn, which goes into EVERYTHING we eat, including meat. Omega 6 fatty acids (the bad kind) are higher in factory-fed beef. Omega 3 fatty acids (the good kind) are higher in grass-fed beef and almost as high as in fish, according to Michael Pollen (the Omnivore’s Dilemma). Oil-based Corn-fed meat is making us fat and raising the national health bill. Cattle, pigs, chickens live a cruel, short life in tight, economical confines because it is cheaper to make them do so than to let them live on the open range. Even an omnivore must realize there is a difference for an animal to be raised humanely and then killed for food then one that is tortured in a CAFO its entire life and then killed. Each wind turbine pays farmers $5,000-$10,000 annually and allows livestock to graze in their shade, making natural grass-fed meat economically competitive again. This synergy could make us healthier AND wean us off imported oil. It would also make our streams, rivers and the Gulf of Mexico healthier by reducing fertilizer runoff.

10. Loss of American’s position as Innovation Leader: The oil and automotive industries were born here over 100 years ago. It is time for America to lead the world into the renewable era with Zero Emission Vehicles and renewable energy. If not us, then China or some other countries will take our place and America will become a second-rate power dependent on others for everything.

Take action — click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Support Energy Independence

Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers

Scott Baker is a Senior Editor and Writer at Op Ed News, a Writer for DailyKos

 

Lance Armstrong And The Insurance Companies

From Change.org Weekly

Hey Changemakers,

The health care debate can often appear muddled by political spin, but personal stories about the failures of our current system make it clear why reform is so important.

Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong writes on Change.org this week about his personal experience with the health care system and why he supports reform.

In 1996, Lance was diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer. He was 25 years old, in the midst of changing employers, fearless… and without health insurance.

Thankfully, Lance was lucky, with a sponsor threatening to pull all of their business elsewhere if the company’s insurance company refused to cover Lance. Without his sponsor’s help, Lance might be drowning in a sea of medical bills today. Or worse, not alive at all.

Lance writes that luck shouldn’t have anything to do with whether the 1.5 million people in the United States who will be diagnosed with cancer this year get life-saving treatment, or whether they go broke in the process.

Too many cancer survivors today are denied new coverage or have their current coverage revoked when they need it most. This is inexcusable and must change.

That’s why Lance is urging everyone to write Congress and encourage their representatives to pass health care reform that ensures that no American is denied health insurance coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and that no American loses their insurance due to changes in health or employment.

If you agree, join Lance by sending a message to Congress now. Because cancer won’t wait.

Call your congressman at 202-224-3121.

 

Obama As War President – David Swanson

 

What’s The Afghan War Going To Cost?

Tomgram: Jo Comerford, Afghan War Costs 101

Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, put the matter this way recently: “[N]ext to Antarctica, Afghanistan is probably the most incommodious place, from a logistics point of view, to be trying to fight a war… It’s landlocked and rugged, and the road network is much, much thinner than in Iraq. Fewer airports, different geography.”  In other words, we might as well be fighting on the moon.  In translation, this means at least one thing: don’t believe any of the figures coming out of the White House or the Pentagon about what this war is going to cost. 

As Jo Comerford, executive director of the National Priorities Project points out below, the president’s $30 billion figure for getting those 30,000-plus new surge troops into Afghanistan is going to prove a “through-the-basement estimate.”  As for the dates for getting them in and beginning to get them out?  Well, it’s grain-of-salt time there, too.  According to Steven Mufson and Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, some of the fuel storage facilities being built to support the surge troops won’t even be completed by the time the first of them are scheduled to leave the country, 18 months from now.

And keep in mind the endless, and endlessly vulnerable, supply lines on which so much of that fuel — and almost everything else the U.S. military has to have to survive — travels.  Along those mountainous roads, trucks are “lost,” or Taliban-commandeered, or bribes are paid for passage, or some are simply destroyed in what can only be thought of as an underreported supply-line war.  All of this adds immeasurably to the staggering expense of the project.  According to August Cole of the Wall Street Journal, in fuel terms alone, to support a single soldier in Afghanistan costs between $200,000 and $350,000 a year.

And while we’re at it: don’t expect all those surging troops to make it into Afghanistan any time soon.  In the heroic tales of presidential surge deliberations (based on copious White House leaks) that appeared soon after the president’s West Point speech, much was made of how Obama himself had insisted on speeding up the plan to get the extra troops in place.  All would arrive, the White House said, within six months.  That was quickly changed to approximately eight months.  Now, Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, deputy commander of American and NATO forces there, has just announced that it will take nine to eleven months (or maybe even “up to a year”), and that’s if none of the factors that could go wrong do — something not worth putting your money on when it comes to the Afghan War.

If all this leaves you with lingering worries about the success of both the surge and the war, you can put them to rest, however.  NBC’s Richard Engel found a “military schematic,” a single chart from the office of the Joint Chiefs, that offers a visual representation of the military’s full surge/counterinsurgency strategy.  It has to be seen to be believed.  (Just click here.)  It lays out as a flow chart (or perhaps overflow chart would be the more accurate description) just how our war will achieve success.  What could possibly go wrong with such a plan?  It’s hard to imagine.  In the meantime, let Comerford give you a little lesson in the economics of the Afghan War, and what we could have done with that low-ball figure of $30 billion, had we chosen not to fight a war on the moon.  Tom

$57,077.60
Surging by the Minute
By Jo Comerford

$57,077.60. That’s what we’re paying per minute.

 

December 16 Senate Hearing on SB 400

This is a brief report by Chuck Pennacchio, Executive Director of Health Care For All PA, on the hearings held December 16 by the Pennsylvania Senate Banking and Insurance Committee.  The very fact of the hearing was historic because it was called by a committee chaired by a Republican.  Dr. Walter Tsou wrote a lengthy report on the hearings (www.healthcare4ALLPA.org) , but Chuck Pennacchio was on the panel and was, in fact, the first speaker.  These are his comments.

 

In addition to Walter’s more detailed observations and insights below, I’d like to make a few key points intended to translate events and chart a path forward for passage of SB 400/HB 1660 at the earliest possible moment.

First, it was obvious that our SB 400 testifiers — including Senator Jim Ferlo’s tone-setting statement at the top — were far better prepared, passionate, and on-point than our opponents.  But no need to take our word for it.  The glowing wrap-up comments of Chairman White, his decision to extend the hearing time an additional 50 minutes, his desire to continue the hearings and research and bill-writing process, as well as his personal congratulatory handshake while saying, “your panel did a terrific job,” give us real hope that we are within shouting distance of accomplishing what all of us need — a healthcare system that, in moral and economic terms, puts patient care and dignity first and foremost.

 

I was also pleased with the preparedness, comments, and questions of Senator Jake Corman, part of the GOP leadership team, Chair of Senate Appropriations, and member of Banking and Insurance.  His grasp of issues, embrace of our “new ideas,”  openness to our fair-share health and wellness tax, and query of SB 400 opponents (exposing their ignorance of Single Payer) are all good signs.  

This leads me to a broader discussion of the significance of what happened yesterday…

 

I know, I know, you say, we’ve been here before.  Right?  Politicians raising our hopes and then letting us down.  Actually, so far and past and present experiences inform me, I perceive elements remarkably different and, I believe, promising.  

 

For starters, it’s time to imagine what is unimaginable to many (or most?) citizen activists.  And yet, the “unimaginable” is a course Healthcare for All Pennsylvania has been on since 2006 — a course that subsequent events have borne out.  

 

Based on a repeatedly validated assumption that, because of the destructive effects of campaign contributions from health insurance, pharmaceutical, and allied interests to politicians in both major parties, as well as a political culture of “incrementalism,” we must be fiercely non-partisan, evidence-based, organizationally sound, forthright and flexible, and mindful of our federalist constitution and political history.  

 

In other words, we have long held that the winning coalition around the proven Single Payer Solution will be comprised of “conscience Republicans” and “conscience Democrats,” beginning with one of our “modeling” fifty states.  And, in the case of Pennsylvania, not only do we have political advantages that others do not, but we have what appears to be a thoughtful and courageous GOP leadership on the joined issues of healthcare delivery, healthcare economics, and healthcare financing.  Put another way, we have legislative leadership in the State Senate that “gets it” – analysis of problems, openness to policy prescriptions, and a feel for the political choreography needed to bridge policy pieces, key players, and central institutions.   

 

Finally, and by way of consensus emerging from yesterday’s historic Banking and Insurance Committee hearing, our next critical step is to raise the funding to complete our ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY.  Two months ago, you and other HC4APA supporters provided the $5,000 in seed money to get us to the point where we are today.  Now, with the study prospectus in hand and bidding negotiations finalized, it is on all of us to raise an additional $49,000 to complete our EIS and, provided the learning experiences of other states, “grease the legislative skids.”  We truly are that close.  So, obviously, if you can give, do so to the best of your ability.  If you know others who can contribute, please ask them to help as well.  And if you know folks who are serious enough about considering a donation, but need a briefing on SB 400/HB 1660, let us know that as well.

 

 

 

 

Help State Single Payer in Pennsylvania and Everywhere

Pennsylvania state single payer took another giant step forward Wednesday at a hearing by the state Senate Banking and Insurance Committee (a Republican-controlled committee) on the merits of our case.  All the members, Republicans especially included, were sincerely interested in the plan and wanted more details, which we are prepared to provide.  To see video of the hearing, please go to http://www.senatordonwhite.com/banking.htm.

The next step is to commission independent auditing firms to do Economic Impact Studies that will show what we’ve been saying all along: single payer will save everyone in the state big amounts of money.  We’ve been collecting contributions to pay for the studies, and we’re still $49,000 short.

Nobody likes asking for money less than I, but please please consider making a tax-deductible donation to HealthCare4ALLPA to pay for this study.  Any amount – $4.90, $49.00, $4900 – will be be gratefully received.  You can easily make your gift by going to http://www.healthcare4allpa.org/donate.htm. Click on “Donate now through Network for Good.”   Please be sure to specify that your gift is for the Economic Impact Study (EIS). 

Our time is now.  Pennsylvania stands ready to lead the nation to single payer.  Please help.  Walter Ebmeyer.

 

Obama’s Favorite Healthcare Reform Bill

This thought-provoking article is by our friend Jerry Policoff in Lancaster,  PDA’s point person for the 16th congressional district.

The biggest and most often repeated talking point in favor of passing the so-called health reform bill is that it will insure 30 million currently uninsured Americans.  Lets set aside for the moment the fact that “health insurance” is not the same as health care.  Set aside for now the fact that many of the newly “insured” will be underinsured and will remain at high risk if they get seriously ill because their insurance will still leave them with huge bills they cannot afford to pay and that may cause them to avoid care until it is too late.  Nothing in this bill protects individuals from medical foreclosure or medical bankruptcy.  Forget for now that this is insurance provided by private insurance companies that are notorious for denying claims and/or preventing doctors from administering the treatment they often believe is most appropriate.

Let’s just deal with the numbers.

• Let’s assume those 30 million will actually choose to buy mandated private health insurance by the end of 2019 as they project.

 

• Today there are approximately 50 million chronically uninsured Americans.  Another estimated 12 million are uninsured at any given point in time.  Tens of millions more are underinsured.

 

• The population of the United States as of today is estimated to be 308 million.

 

• The Census Bureau projects the U.S. population in 2020 will be 341 Million.

 

Do the Math:  Assuming the projections they are throwing at us are accurate, that means that we will grow our population by 33 million by the end of 2019, and the ranks of the uninsured will grow from 50 million to 53 million over that same period, while the ranks of the underinsured grow by even more.

Is this really change we can believe in?  Is this really the best we can do?

Jerry Policoff,  jpolicoff@comcast.net

 

It’s Getting Crowded In Afghanistan

Published on Friday, December 18, 2009 by Rebel Reports

Stunning Statistics About the War Every American Should Know

Contrary to popular belief, the US actually has 189,000 personnel on the ground in Afghanistan right now—and that number is quickly rising.

by Jeremy Scahill

A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill’s Contract Oversight subcommittee on contracting in Afghanistan has highlighted some important statistics that provide a window into the extent to which the Obama administration has picked up the Bush-era war privatization baton and sprinted with it. Overall, contractors now comprise a whopping 69% of the Department of Defense’s total workforce, “the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel in US history.” That’s not in one war zone-that’s the Pentagon in its entirety.

DynCorp instructor with police recruits in Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan, June 2008. In Afghanistan, the Obama administration blows the Bush administration out of the privatized water. (File image via TPM)

In Afghanistan, the Obama administration blows the Bush administration out of the privatized water. According to a memo [PDF] released by McCaskill’s staff, “From June 2009 to September 2009, there was a 40% increase in Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan.  During the same period, the number of armed private security contractors working for the Defense Department in Afghanistan doubled, increasing from approximately 5,000 to more than 10,000.” 

At present, there are 104,000 Department of Defense contractors in Afghanistan. According to a report this week from the Congressional Research Service, as a result of the coming surge of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, there may be up to 56,000 additional contractors deployed. But here is another group of contractors that often goes unmentioned: 3,600 State Department contractors and 14,000 USAID contractors. That means that the current total US force in Afghanistan is approximately 189,000 personnel (68,000 US troops and 121,000 contractors). And remember, that’s right now. And that, according to McCaskill, is a conservative estimate. A year from now, we will likely see more than 220,000 US-funded personnel on the ground in Afghanistan.

The US has spent more than $23 billion on contracts in Afghanistan since 2002. By next year, the number of contractors will have doubled since 2008 when taxpayers funded over $8 billion in Afghanistan-related contracts.

Despite the massive number of contracts and contractors in Afghanistan, oversight is utterly lacking. “The increase in Afghanistan contracts has not seen a corresponding increase in contract management and oversight,” according to McCaskill’s briefing paper. “In May 2009, DCMA [Defense Contract Management Agency] Director Charlie Williams told the Commission on Wartime Contracting that as many as 362 positions for Contracting Officer’s Representatives (CORs) in Afghanistan were currently vacant.”

A former USAID official, Michael Walsh, the former director of USAID’s Office of Acquisition and Assistance and Chief Acquisition Officer, told the Commission that many USAID staff are “administering huge awards with limited knowledge of or experience with the rules and regulations.” According to one USAID official, the agency is “sending too much money, too fast with too few people looking over how it is spent.” As a result, the agency does not “know … where the money is going.”

The Obama administration is continuing the Bush-era policy of hiring contractors to oversee contractors. According to the McCaskill memo:

In Afghanistan, USAID is relying on contractors to provide oversight of its large reconstruction and development projects.  According to information provided to the Subcommittee, International Relief and Development (IRD) was awarded a five-year contract in 2006 to oversee the $1.4 billion infrastructure contract awarded to a joint venture of the Louis Berger Group and Black and Veatch Special Projects.  USAID has also awarded a contract Checci and Company to provide support for contracts in Afghanistan.

The private security industry and the US government have pointed to the Synchronized Predeployment and Operational Tracker(SPOT) as evidence of greater government oversight of contractor activities. But McCaskill’s subcommittee found that system utterly lacking, stating: “The Subcommittee obtained current SPOT data showing that there are currently 1,123 State Department contractors and no USAID contractors working in Afghanistan.” Remember, there are officially 14,000 USAID contractors and the official monitoring and tracking system found none of these people and less than half of the State Department contractors.

As for waste and abuse, the subcommittee says that the Defense Contract Audit Agency identified more than $950 million in questioned and unsupported costs submitted by Defense Department contracts for work in Afghanistan. That’s 16% of the total contract dollars reviewed.

© 2009 Jeremy Scahill

 

What Copenhagen Didn’t Do

Goodbye Africa.  Goodby Southeast Asia.  Goodbye glaciers and coral.  Read on.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/18-11.

 

False Assumptions About The Healthcare Bill

Three good reasons we don’t have to swallow this awful healthcare bill.  Worth a read.

http://www.openleft.com/diary/16588/the-three-assumptions-driving-the-push-to-pass-the-insurancedrug-industry-health-bill

 

Arlen Specter Opposes Funding War In Afghanistan

This is Senator Specter’s response to a letter asking him to stop funding the escalating war in Afghanistan.  I doubt that Joe Sestak would agree.

Thank you for contacting me regarding our presence in Afghanistan. We went into Afghanistan in 2001 following the barbaric attacks of September 11, 2001.  Our forces swiftly toppled the Taliban and denied Al Qaeda leadership the safe haven it had enjoyed in Afghanistan.  Both Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership survived the attack and were able to take refuge and reconstitute in the mountainous regions across the border in Pakistan. 

I’m opposed to sending 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan because I don’t believe they are indispensable in our fight against al Qaeda. If they were, I’d support such a surge because we have to do whatever it takes to defeat al Qaeda, which seeks to annihilate us. 

But if al Qaeda can organize and operate out of Yemen, Somalia or elsewhere, then why fight in Afghanistan, which has made a history of resisting would-be conquerors – from Alexander the Great in the 3rd century BC, to Great Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries, to the former Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s? 

In order to be successful in Afghanistan, it’s necessary to have a reliable ally in the Afghan government. The evidence demonstrates that President Hamid Karzai does not have the requisite reliability. 

The legitimacy of his administration is suspect because of vote fraud. There is widespread corruption at the highest levels of his government. His government has tolerated, if not encouraged, drug-trafficking. 

President Obama has said, “President Karzai’s inauguration speech sent the right message about moving in a new direction.” In my judgment, any such “message” amounts to a dubious and belated pledge of reform and deserves to be treated with the greatest skepticism. 

For too long, the United States has borne the overwhelming weight of providing troops with only modest NATO contributions. We currently provide 68,000 troops, Britain 9,500 and the other countries just over 36,000. NATO has pledged another 7,000 troops, an inadequate response when you consider the combined populations of NATO countries – excluding the United States – and the threat they face from al Qaeda. 

In the context of the Vietnam and Iraq wars, it is understandable that the American people are very skeptical about fighting in Afghanistan. Had we known that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, we would not have gone into Iraq. 

Historians have replayed the tragic mistakes in Vietnam. When you add the 851 killed and 4,605 wounded in Afghanistan to the 4,369 killed and 31,575 wounded in Iraq, it is understandable that the American people do not want to continue the overwhelming burden of fighting in Afghanistan with so little assistance from our allies and so little prospects for success. 

The cost of the Afghanistan war imposes an additional burden. It costs $1 million a year for each soldier, or $30 billion a year to support 30,000 additional troops. The cost for the total force in Afghanistan of approximately 100,000 soldiers would be more than $100 billion a year. 

Pursuing a successful war in Afghanistan would require considerable additional support from Pakistan. 

While Pakistan has been more helpful in recent weeks, their long-term commitment remains uncertain. For years, I’ve urged that the United States should take the lead in brokering a rapprochement with India that would allow Pakistan to redeploy forces from the Indian border to Taliban and al Qaeda strongholds in the mountainous regions of the north. If we could cool that tension with India, they could help us fight the Taliban and al Qaeda. 

My opposition to the troop surge in no way diminishes my concern over the challenge we 

face in al Qaeda and the need to confront it wherever it emerges. 

But I question whether Afghanistan is the primary front or even the only battlefield when we may face emerging challenges in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan itself. That is where we have the best chance to succeed. 

We should concentrate on fighting al Qaeda without limitation on time or resources, but we should not engage in the laborious and problematic task of nation-building, or civil affairs, or the protection of other societies in place of their own security systems.

Sincerely,

Arlen Specter

 

You Can Take Action For Peace!

Join thousands of others who demand peace – withdrawl from Afghanistan, closing of hundreds of overseas military bases, drastic trimming of the defense budget – by going to the Mall in Washington, D.C. on March 13 and getting ready to use those civil disobedience skills starting March 22.  Read all about it and get details :  http://peaceoftheaction.org/.