“The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating... ...and you finish off as an orgasm.” -- George Carlin

All good and well - and funny - but we can't create a world we can't conceive, and we can't be so myopic to believe that the "Western" way is the only way. How do the varying world views co-exist? First, we must compare them. And that's where the Utopian Visionaries website excels. Why not visit them?

Weak Public Option Myths That Liberals Believe
By Kevin Gosztola

On Saturday night, the Senate will take a procedural vote to move debate on the current health insurance enrichment bill in Congress forward.

Democratic Senators like Dick Durbin, Patrick Leahy, and Chuck Schumer, through a project called Citizens for a Public Option, have been building support for the public option and encouraging Americans to write letters to the editor that debunk health care reform myths---myths that the conservative echo chamber have been propagating.

Senators (and representatives in the House and Obama) can champion this health insurance legislation all they want and claim it will “foster greater competition in the marketplace, create more choices for consumers, and lead to lower costs and better quality for all,” but doctors who have been on the front lines of America's sick care non-system do not believe many of the arguments that Democrats are using to create support for a public option.

Myth #1 – Public option will help control costs

Webcasting: Watch & listen to the World Can't Wait National Conference Live

And, we are twittering from worldcantwait and DSweetWCW blogging here, too!

Specter Opposes Adding Troops in Afghanistan
By Spencer Ackerman | Washington Independent

On a blogger conference call this afternoon, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) announced he can’t support a potential addition of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. “We ought not to add troops in Afghanistan,” Specter said, adding that he questioned “even staying” in Afghanistan unless the administration demonstrates that continuing the war is “indispensable to our fight against al-Qaeda.” His position, he said, came as a result of extensive consultations with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the heads of the intelligence community, as well as antipathy to the government of Hamid Karzai.

I asked Specter if he wanted to see the Obama administration embrace an exit strategy for the eight-year war. “I think there ought to be an exit strategy,” Specter said, which ought to be “geared toward our expectations as to what we’re looking to accomplish.” But he demurred on seeking a timeline for winding down the war. “I would want to see the administration’s proposals, and see what people on the ground over there think,” Specter said. “It’s hard to answer that with any specificity.” He added that he endorsed the Obama administration’s style of decisionmaking, defending the “very thoughtful” president against charges of “dithering” lodged by former Vice President Cheney. Read more.

November 22, 2009, Bay Area, CA

* 10-11 a.m. protest at John Yoo's (Torture Professor) house, 1241 Grizzly Peak Blvd., Berkeley, CA

Followed by events on David Swanson's book tour: "Daybreak, Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union"

* 12:00 p.m. in downtown Walnut Creek
Community Center
1375 Civic Drive (in Civic Park)
Walnut Creek 94596
925-933-7850
http://www.mtdpc.org

* 3 p.m. at DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland
5433 College Ave., Oakland, CA 94618, (510) 653-9965

* 7:30 PM in the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar at Bonita, 1 block East of MLK Jr. Way
Wheelchair accessible. Donation requested.
Co-sponsored by the BFUU Social Justice Committee
http://www.bfuu.org

CONTACT THE ORGANIZERS:
Cindy Sheehan
cindy@cindysheehanssoapbox dot com

Susan Harman
susanharman1@gmail dot com

Mary Alice O'Connor
maryalice@mtdpc dot org
http://www.mtdpc.org

_____

November 23, 2009, Los Angeles, CA

VIDEO: Who Decides About War?

"Who Decides About War?," the National Conference on War Powers, Law, and Democracy, took place October 2-3, 2009 in Washington D.C.. Organized by the Guard Home! campaign, Liberty Tree Foundation, and many partners, and hosted by the National Lawyers Guild at the Georgetown Law School, this conference was the first of its kind in many years, uniting academics with activists, attorneys with veterans, in exploring key reforms necessary to democratizing defense in the United States, and making war less likely.

• Keynote Remarks: Dr. Morton Halperin and Jeremy Scahill
• Panel I - War Powers and the States

Panelists: State Rep. Michael Fisher (VT), Sen. Rich Madaleno (MD), Sen. Jamin Raskin (MD)

• Panel II - War Powers Principles: Constitution, Law, & the People

Panelists: Elaine Brower (moderator), Leah Bolger, Ben Manski, Benson Scotch, David Swanson

• Panel III - War Powers in Practice

Panelists: Jean Athey (moderator), John Bonifaz, Prof. Caleb Rossiter, Prof. Don Wallace

• Roundtable: Peace Advocacy and Defense Reform Panelists: Phyllis Bennis, Geoff Millard, Elaine Brower, Kevin Zeese, Jeremy Scahill

For a full listing of speakers at the conference, click here.

To order a DVD of the proceedings, please contact us. Watch videos of the event.

Did Rumsfeld Tour KGB Torture Museum to Pick Up Useful Tips?
By Jonathan Schwarz | Tiny Revolution

Where has the CIA tortured people? ABC has just reported that one place was Lithuania:

The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week. Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at a café, the CIA installed a concrete structure where it could use harsh tactics to interrogate up to eight suspected al-Qaeda terrorists at a time.

But here's the lighter side of the CIA-Lithuania torture story, which ABC didn't mention: Donald Rumsfeld visited Vilnius in 2005, where he took the time to tour the KGB torture museum there. Then the U.S. embassy in Vilnius released an "Open Letter to People of Lithuania" from Rumsfeld: Read more.

Democrats Propose Surtax to Cover War Costs
Yahoo! News | CQ Politics

Senior House Democrats have introduced legislation that would impose a surtax beginning in 2011 to cover the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bill was unveiled late Thursday by David R. Obey of Wisconsin, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and has the backing of John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, and John B. Larson of Connecticut, chairman of the Democratic Caucus.

"For the last year, as we've struggled to pass health care reform, we've been told that we have to pay for the bill -- and the cost over the next decade will be about a trillion dollars," the three lawmakers said in a joint statement. "Now the president is being asked to consider an enlarged counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan, which proponents tell us will take at least a decade and would also cost about a trillion dollars. But unlike the health care bill, that would not be paid for. We believe that's wrong."

Discussing the idea earlier this month, Murtha said he knew the bill would not be enacted and that advocates of a surtax were simply trying to send a message about the moral obligation to pay for the wars. Read more.

A Unified Security Budget for the United States, FY 2010
By Miriam Pemberton | IPS

The Obama administration promised “a sweeping shift of priorities and resources in the national security arena.” The sixth yearly Report of the Task Force on a Unified Security Budget for the United States, FY 2010 finds that the promise of resource shifting has not yet been kept. The needle tracking the overall balance of spending on offense (military forces), defense (homeland security) and prevention (non-military foreign engagement) stayed stubbornly in place. In the FY 2010 request, like the one before it, 87% of the nation’s security resources were allocated to the tools of military force. This is true even excluding the appropriations for wars the country is currently fighting. Read more.

Obama Signs Military Basing Deal with Colombia -- Could Set Stage for Expeditionary Warfare
One of the principal concerns of the pending agreement had been the possibility of the bases’ use for aggression against neighboring countries.
By Moira Birss | AlterNet

After several months of secrecy and controversy, on October 30th the US and Colombia signed an agreement to allow the United States military extensive access to seven Colombian bases, notwithstanding serious concerns about true intentions and eventual consequences of the deal.   

Despite pledges by Colombian and U.S. governments about the limitations of the agreement, the text of the deal and U.S. military documents contradict such assurances. One of the principal concerns raised by regional governments after news was leaked of the pending agreement had been the possibility of the bases’ use for aggressions against neighboring countries. In an interview Sunday with the Colombian daily El Tiempo, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia William Brownfield claimed that joint operations aren’t planned outside of Colombia, and that Article IV of the agreement expressly forbids such operations. In fact, a careful review of the text of the agreement, finally made public on November 3, reveals no such prohibition. 

Not only that, but similar assurances by Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva that the agreement "has no geopolitical or strategic connotation, other than being more effective in the fight against drug trafficking" are even more hard to believe after reading a recently uncovered Pentagon budget document that expresses clear regional intentions for the Palanquero air base. The document describes the U.S. presence in Palanquero as an “opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America,” and confirms the fears of Colombia’s neighbors when it discusses the possibility of using the base to confront the "threat" of what it calls "anti-U.S. governments." The most chilling phrase, however, is the discussion of the potential use of Palanquero to “expand expeditionary warfare capability.”  Read more.

Iraq Throws Obama a Curve Ball, Key 2010 Elections in Peril
By Raed Jarrar and Erik Leaver | AlterNet

The idea of running national elections under a similar scenario terrifies the ruling parties, and is why they oppose an open list solution despite the public pressure to change the system to a more transparent and representative one.

The question now for the United States is if this latest roadblock in Iraq will have any impact on withdrawal plans. Currently there are two parallel plans guiding U.S. withdrawal: the bilateral security agreement (aka SOFA), and Obama’s plan for the withdrawal of combat troops.

Under the SOFA, all U.S. troops must leave Iraq before December 31st 2011. , Obama added another commitment in his February 2009 speech at Camp Lejeune, NC. He called for a phased withdrawal, reducing troops from 120,000 to 50,000 between April andAugust2010 before bringing all the troops home by the December 31st 2011 SOFA deadline.

Unlike the Bush administration’s original plans for Iraq, both the bilateral security agreement and Obama’s phased withdrawal plan have set deadlines and are “time-based” plans. But Obama has muddied the waters in his response to the current election crisis. Read more.

House Panel Approves Broad Auditing of Federal Reserve
By Fawn Johnson and Sarah N. Lynch | WSJ

A key House panel on Thursday approved an amendment offered by Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) to give federal watchdogs massive new authority to audit the Federal Reserve.

The approval came as the House Financial Services Committee concluded weeks of debate on a sweeping financial-overhaul bill to create a new council of regulators to wind down large institutions that pose a risk to the economy. A final committee vote on the bill will be postponed until after Thanksgiving.

Mr. Paul's amendment removes restrictions on the Government Accountability Office's auditing authority, giving auditors access to every item on the Fed's balance sheet. He for more than 20 years has championed significantly neutering the Fed. Read more.

US Makes Debut Attendance at Hague War Crimes Court
By Aaron Gray-Block | Common Dreams

THE HAGUE - U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues Stephen Rapp made a debut appearance for the United States at the world's war crimes court Thursday and said the U.S. remained wary of politically driven prosecutions.

The United States is not a signatory to the 2002 Rome treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, and Rapp's attendance at meetings this week and next is the clearest sign yet of Washington engaging with the court.

"Our view has been and remains that should the Rome Statute be amended to include a defined crime of aggression, jurisdiction should follow a Security Council determination that aggression has occurred," he said.

Rapp said however that the United States was keen on "gaining a better understanding of the issues being considered and the workings of the court."

"The court itself has an interest in not being drawn into a political thicket that could threaten its perceived impartiality," he said.

Rapp's attendance comes after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in August it was a "great regret" the United States was not a full ICC signatory. Read more.

McChrystal Testing the Limits
By Ray McGovern

It is not too late for President Barack Obama to follow the example of Harry Truman, who fired Gen. Douglas McArthur in 1951 for insubordination. Then, as now, the stakes were high. Then it was Korea; now it is Afghanistan.

No more slaps on the wrist for Gen. Stanley McChrystal. In my view, Commander-in-Chief Obama should fire him for cause.

Then

In the Truman-McArthur showdown nearly six decades ago, the President and his senior advisers were preparing to engage North Korea and China in peace negotiations, when MacArthur, commander of the U.N. forces in Korea, issued an unauthorized statement containing a veiled threat to expand the war into China.

McArthur had been playing a back-channel game to win the support of like-minded Republican congressmen to widen the war, when Truman faced him down. With the backing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the secretaries of state and defense, he rose to the occasion and fired the distinguished “old soldier.”

Now

Today, Gen. McChrystal is conducting a subtler but equally insubordinate campaign for wider war in Afghanistan, with the backing of CENTCOM commander David Petraeus. It is now even clearer in retrospect that the President should not have appointed McChrystal in the first place, given what was already known of his role in covering up the killing of football star Pat Tillman and condoning the torture practices by troops under McChrystal’s earlier command in Iraq.

You Should, Too
By Missy Comley Beattie

The sign in the yard isn’t large, though its message is:

Support The Troops

They Want Victory

You Should, Too

Each time I travel to Kentucky to visit family, I deliberately check to see if these words that pack such a wallop are still displayed in front of a house that stands near my running path. At night, when I’m trying to go to sleep, I think of each line and wonder about the person or persons who placed something this significant on their lawn.

Support The Troops. What exactly does this mean? Those of us opposed to US imperialism and the savagery of war are demanding military and mercenary withdrawal from AfPak-Iraq. We want the troops home with their families and friends, receiving the counseling they need after multiple deployments have branded their hearts and minds with images that will remain in their days and nights for the rest of their lives.

Veto of Iraq’s Election Law Could Force Vote Delay
By Rod Nordland and Riyadh Mohammed | NY Times

Iraq was thrown into a fresh political crisis on Wednesday after a vice president vetoed a newly passed election law, delaying the vote, setting off fresh sectarian wrangling and possibly complicating plans to withdraw American troops.

In a move that caught American officials by surprise, one of two vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashemi, said Wednesday that he had vetoed the new election law the night before; he had threatened a veto but the Americans did not expect him to follow through. Shortly afterward, the chief executive of Iraq’s United Nations-supported electoral commission said in an interview for the first time that the elections would have to be delayed.

The veto touched off a political explosion. Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, condemned it as constitutionally questionable, while President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, warned that delaying the elections risked creating a constitutional vacuum during which the Iraqi government would lose its legitimacy. Read more.

Declare Victory, Leave Afghanistan
Obama's Decision On Afghanistan Expected Soon
Helen Thomas Hearst White House columnist | WCVB

The Nobel Peace crown lies uneasy on President Barack Obama’s head as he ponders the next U.S. move in Afghanistan, with hints and leaks showering down to tell us that he will eventually send thousands more troops there.

His decision -- which could be announced soon -- was triggered by the request from Gen. Stanley McChrystal for 40,000 more troops to secure the cities and protect the citizens of Afghanistan, in addition to the 68,000 U.S. troops there now.

Obama has been reviewing the U.S. role in Afghanistan for months, a time-consuming study that has led to accusations from conservative pundits that he is "dithering" and afraid to make a decision. Few, if any, of those pundits have been to war.

By taking time and seeking opinion from all sides, this president actually looks careful and deliberate, compared to his predecessor, who rushed to invade Iraq under wrong pretexts. Read more.

Woman Who Claims Sexual Assault Wins $3 Million From Former Halliburton Division
Tracy Barker Says State Department Employee Assaulted Her in Iraq -- Feds Refused to File Charges
By Drew Sandholm | ABC News

Tracy Barker, who says a U.S. State Department employee sexually assaulted her in Iraq in 2005 has won $2.93 million in arbitration from KBR, the military contracting company that employed her. As ABC News exclusively reported, the federal government had refused to prosecute the man Barker says attacked her, even though the State Department recommended he be charged. Read more.