Got Tea?

House Democrats want a graduated surtax on individuals and corporations to pay for another big drain on the treasury: the Afghanistan war.

[...]

The speaker has been silent thus far, and many dismiss the idea as more rhetoric than real legislation. But with President Barack Obama due to make a final decision soon on adding more U.S. troops, the initiative testifies to the growing restlessness among Democrats over the costs of the American commitment in Afghanistan.

[...]

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), who oversees the Pentagon’s budget and supports the surtax, went so far as to send Obama last month a copy of Yale historian Paul Kennedy’s “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.”

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“We’re not trying to insult anybody. We’re just trying to keep in the forefront what the financial costs are,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) told POLITICO. “We felt conscience bound to speak up”

  Politico

That’s rich. Politicians claiming conscience. Anyway, this is one area that distinguishes Dems from Republicans: they don’t form a concrete block behind their party’s president.

Dubbed the “Share the Sacrifice Act,” the six-page bill exempts anyone who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan since the 2001 terrorist attacks as well as families who have lost an immediate relative in the fighting. But middle-class households earning between $30,000 and $150,000 would be asked to pay 1% on top of their tax liability today — a more sweeping approach than many Democrats have been willing to embrace.

If I’m not mistaken, we’ve already been paying taxes to support these wars. Nevertheless, that would be a good way to put an end to them. The “Tea Parties” would bring the country to a standstill. So I say, “Full speed ahead, gentlemen.”

There’s a breakdown of the expected costs and taxes in the article, should you choose to read it.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Al Gore Rhythm

This will put you into an alternative reality. Al Gore reading comedy. We're mellllllllting!

Separated at Birth

The Piper Is Playing Our Tune

Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.

  NYT

But the Fed can decide whatever it wants whenever it wants, so is that really an issue?

With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

That’s some pretty heavy interest.

Americans now have to climb out of two deep holes: as debt-loaded consumers, whose personal wealth sank along with housing and stock prices; and as taxpayers, whose government debt has almost doubled in the last two years alone, just as costs tied to benefits for retiring baby boomers are set to explode.

  

Funny how we get stuck with the debt when we never approved the borrowing.

“What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter,” said William H. Gross, managing director of the Pimco Group, the giant bond-management firm. “The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the ones left over from the last winter.”

I know a few nuts that should have been stashed away for the remainder of time. Or eaten.

The White House estimates that the government will have to borrow about $3.5 trillion more over the next three years.

Hey, I have an idea that will save us trillions. Get out of the Middle East.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Army Suicides: Fort Hood

Several years of repeated war-zone deployments are taking their toll, as Army personnel are experiencing record rates of PTSD, depression, other mental health problems, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicides.

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According to the Army Suicide Event Report, a total of 99 soldiers killed themselves in 2006, the highest rate of military suicides in the 26 years the military has been keeping statistics on suicides. More than a quarter of them were by troops in combat postings in Iraq and Afghanistan. The figure does not include post-discharge suicides by military personnel.

In 2007, at least 115 suicides were reported by the Army, another record. Last year set another record, with at least 133 reported suicides, in addition to there being a record number of suicides in the Marine Corps that year.

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Thus far, 2009 is on pace to set another record for the number of suicides in the Army.

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According to official military statistics, Fort Hood already suffers the highest number of suicides among Army installations since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. While Luther believes the number is far higher, Army officials at Fort Hood admit to at least 10 suicides on the base from January to July of this year, and at least 75 “confirmed” suicides since 2003.

  Dahr Jamail

And Don't Forget Pakistan

Two bombs rocked the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Thursday.

  Juan Cole

Meanwhile, In Afghanistan

UNICEF draws attention to the wretched living conditions of Afghans, calling it the world's worst place for a child to be born. The Guardian writes, "Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world - 257 deaths per 1,000 live births, while 70 percent of the population lacks access to clean water." [...]The life expectancy in Afghanistan at birth is 44. The adult literacy rate is 28%, which I suspect means that the female adult literacy rate is on the order of 6%.

Where is NATO going to get 400,000 well trained police and troops in a country with a 28% literacy rate?

  Juan Cole

This makes me curious. I wonder what the literacy rate of the US Army is. If honestly assessed, I bet it would not be encouraging.

USA Today undermines the entire master narrative of US/NATO military operations in Afghanistan, writing: "The U.S. military says the vast majority of the 700 detainees at its biggest prison in Afghanistan could eventually be released because they're fighting more for money than ideology."

So, without us being there to fight…

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

What Fresh Hell Is This?

Lebanese Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwaji instructed his troops to raise the level of alert along the border with Israel in preparation for an attack planned by "the Israeli enemy", London-based Alquds Alarabi reported on Saturday.

In a statement published ahead of Lebanon's independence day, which will take place on Sunday, the Lebanese military chief called for "greater vigilance" on the border "to counter the planned attacks by the Israeli enemy against the homeland."

  Jerusalem Post

What Year Is This?

Police arrested 52 students protesting a tuition hike Thursday at the University of California-Davis and held them in jail overnight without food. One was reportedly beaten by police, a source close to the incident tells Raw Story.

[...]

The protesters held a sit-in in Mrak Hall, an administration building on the UC-Davis campus near Sacramento that the authorities told protesters to vacate by 5 p.m. Thursday evening. Officers from the Yolo County sheriff's office moved in and arrested those who didn't comply with the order.

  Raw Story

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Speaking of Skeptics

Why is the Obama administration moving at this particular moment to make a controversial move, one that could quite possibly backfire? They’re taking a risk in which the downside is clear – but what’s the upside? What’s in it for them?

[...]

With President Obama getting ready to announce his new course on the "Af-Pak" front, which will involve sending as many as 40,000 more US troops to that graveyard of empires, what better time to underscore the alleged dangers emanating from that part of the world than a public trial of these particular al-Qaeda prisoners?

[...]

As Obama announces his decision about how many troops to send to Afghanistan – and tries to rally war-weary Americans around a supposedly "new"-and –improved strategy to win the war — the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow Gitmo defendants will be opening in New York. What a coincidence!

[...]

The trial of the Gitmo defendants isn’t going to be about the rule of law, it isn’t motivated by the Obama administration’s liberal idealism, and it most certainly won’t signify anything as rational as putting an end to the "war on terrorism" and treating Al Qaeda the same way we treated the Mafia and Cosa Nostra, i.e. as a floating international criminal conspiracy rather than a stationary military threat. What it will be about is generating war propaganda, positioning the Obama-ites as "tough" on terrorism and serious about national security.

  Glenn Greenwald

This also speaks to the issue of Obama’s remarks about KSM being found guilty and executed, and the two-faced aspect of trying some detainees because it’s the proper thing to do according to our rule of law, and on the other hand, keeping some detainees locked up without due process because it’s too dangerous (or impossible) to try them.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Reining in the Fed?

Something quite amazing happened yesterday in Congress: the House Finance Committee -- in a truly bipartisan and even trans-ideological vote -- defied the banking industry, the Federal Reserve, the Democratic leadership, and mainstream Beltway opinion in order to pass an amendment, sponsored by GOP Rep. Ron Paul and Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, mandating a genuine and probing audit of the Fed.

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The bill still faces substantial hurdles in becoming law, of course, but yesterday's vote has made that outcome quite possible.

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[M]any of the most consequential political conflicts are shaped far more by an "insider v. outsider" dichotomy than by a "GOP v. Democrat" or "Left v. Right" split. The pillaging of America's economic security by financial elites, with the eager assistance of the government officials who they own and who serve them, is the prime example of such a conflict.

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[An]effort to defeat the Paul/Grayson amendment came from all of the typical Washington power centers using all of the establishment's typical manipulative tools .

[...]

effort to defeat the Paul/Grayson amendment came from all of the typical Washington power centers using all of the establishment's typical manipulative tools.

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Beyond the specifics, a genuine audit of the Fed would be a major blow to the way Washington typically works. The Fed is one of those permanent power centers in this country that exert great power with very little accountability and almost no transparency (like much of the intelligence and defense community). The power they exert has exploded within the last year as a result of the financial crisis, yet they continue to operate in a completely opaque manner and with virtually no limits.

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[The] In other words, the Fed is a typical Washington institution that operates un-democratically and in virtually total secrecy, and a Congressionally-mandated audit that they (and much of the DC establishment) desperately oppose would be a serious step towards changing the dynamic of how things function. At the very least, it would provide an important template for defeating the interests which, in Washington, almost never lose. At least yesterday, those interests did lose -- resoundingly -- and the importance of that should not be overlooked.

   Glenn Greenwald

Well, I hope so, but I’m a die-hard skeptic.

Some day I will finish reading this book on the Fed, which began in secrecy, with the sole purpose of destroying small bankers and returning (and keeping) all the power of the country’s money in the hands of a few already wealthy and powerful men.

If you want to learn more about the Fed, pick up a copy.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Ha!

THE HAGUE — A United States ambassador said Thursday that Washington was concerned about how aggression will be defined as an international crime.

"I would be remiss not to share with you my country's concerns about an issue ... to which we attach particular importance: the definition of the crime of aggression," US war crimes ambassador Stephen Rapp told a gathering in The Hague of the International Criminal Court's Assembly of State Parties (ASP).

  Raw Story

Do tell. Do tell.

Former president George W. Bush had fiercely opposed the ICC, fearing it could target Americans out of political bias considering US dominance around the world.

It wasn’t Americans he was worried about. It was his own war criminal ass.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.