And the Big News Down Here...

Houston has elected a lesbian as mayor.

Indeed, the world is on its head.

Added: Or as Jon Stewart said, Hell has frozen over; so much for global warming.

Or maybe Houston isn't as hopeless as I thought.

There's still a lot more of Texas, but I'll take this one as a major plus for the Houston area.

Molly Ivins would be pleased as punch.

Annise Parker scored a 53-47 victory over her opponent, Gene Locke. The City Controller stressed her budget experience and fiscal competence, and never planned to make her sexuality an issue. The election was significant in other ways because Parker was the first Houston Mayor in a generation not handpicked by the business community. But Parker’s status as a lesbian played a role and galvanized the LGBT community, after she became subject to hateful anti-gay attacks by Republican operatives. And her opponent, an African-American Democrat, never repudiated such support.

[...]

It has become gospel among social conservatives – such as the National Organization for Marriage – that this largely white, Republican movement can expand its base by working with the African-American community. [...] [They] hope to exploit homophobia by driving a wedge in the progressive community. And the Houston mayoral run-off between two Democrats – a black man and a white lesbian – offered them a chance to try it out.

Beyond Chron

FAIL.

More Dithering? Saber Rattling? Serious Discussion?

Okay, what’s going on here? Are we about to call down Armageddon or aren’t we?

I think I need more information.

Senior US officials are pushing to expand CIA drone attacks into a major Pakistani city in an attempt to pressure the Islamabad government to pursue Taliban leaders based in the city of Quetta, The Los Angeles Times reported.

  Google

Senior U.S. officials are pushing to expand CIA drone strikes beyond Pakistan's tribal region and into a major city in an attempt to pressure the Pakistani government to pursue Taliban leaders based in Quetta.

The proposal has opened a contentious new front in the clandestine war. The prospect of Predator aircraft strikes in Quetta, a sprawling city, signals a new U.S. resolve to decapitate the Taliban. But it also risks rupturing Washington's relationship with Islamabad.

"If we don't do this -- at least have a real discussion of it -- Pakistan might not think we are serious," said a senior U.S. official involved in war planning.

[...]

Obama has endorsed an expansion of CIA operations in the country, approving the deployment of more spies and resources in a clandestine counterpart to the 30,000 additional U.S. troops being sent into Afghanistan.

But the push to expand drone strikes underscores the limits of the Obama offensive. The administration has given itself 18 months to show evidence of a turnaround in Afghanistan. But progress in Pakistan depends almost entirely on drone strikes and prodding a sometimes reluctant ally, which provides much of the intelligence to conduct the strikes, to do more.

[...]

Pakistan is not expected to hand over Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader and longtime ally of Osama bin Laden who fled Afghanistan when U.S. forces invaded after the Sept. 11 attacks. Omar is believed to have used Quetta as a base from which to orchestrate insurgent attacks in Afghanistan.

[...]

"We keep hearing that there is a shadow government in Quetta, but we have never been given actionable intelligence," the Pakistani official said.

Pakistan is prepared to pursue Taliban leaders, including Omar, even when the intelligence is imprecise, the official said. "Even if a compound 1 kilometer by 1 kilometer is identified, we will go find him." But, he added, "for the past two years we haven't heard anything more."

  LA Times

Washington, Dec. 14 (ANI): Tension prevails among Obama administration officials over whether an unmanned aircraft strike in a city of 850,000 is a realistic option. Those in favour, including some military leaders, argue that attacking the Taliban in Quetta -- or at least threatening to do so-is critical to the success of the revised war strategy President Obama unveiled last week.

But others, including high-ranking U.S. intelligence officials, are more sceptical of employing drone attacks in a place that Pakistanis see as part of their country's core.

Pakistani officials, however, have warned that the fallout could be severe.

"We are not a banana republic. If the United States follows through, this might be the end of the road," a senior Pakistani official was quoted as saying on condition of anonymity.

  NewsTrackIndia

Pakistan might not be a banana republic, but we are.

Washington, Dec. 14 (ANI): US President Barack Obama has opposed drone strikes in Pakistan’s Quetta city, saying that a surge in strikes in this region would only result in huge mass causalities, a US magazine has reported.

During an advisory committee meeting over the extension of drone strikes from the tribal areas to provincial capital, Obama favoured the opinion that this decision will be folly, unwise and will jeopardize civilian lives, The News reports.

[...]

Sources said the administration mulled over the surge in drone strike on Pakistan but no final decision could be reached. (ANI)

  Trak.in

He may be opposing the attacks, but he sure laid it on thick in his Afghanistan speech that Pakistan is in our sights.

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

News Flash

The vast majority of an estimated $352 billion in proceeds of organized crime, mostly from the drug trade, was funneled through the global banking system during the financial crisis of the past two years, and in some cases, the money rescued banks from collapse, says the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Antonio Maria Costa told the UK Observer that intelligence agencies and prosecutors alerted him 18 months ago to evidence that drug money was being "absorbed into the financial system."

  Raw Story

That’s news to Mr. Costa? Shoot, drug money is a staple for U.S. “cash necessities.”

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

Look Out

Here comes Jesse.

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has seen some stuff that will blow your mind.

Or, at least that's the tagline to "Conspiracy Theory," his new show on US cable station TruTV. In episode two, the one-time wrestler and movie star goes after one of America's greatest sacred cows: the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

It is, as far as this reporter can tell, the first time a syndicated program on U.S. cable has given a serious look at arguments made by members of the 9/11 truth movement.

  Raw Story

And I predict this will become the most watched TV show in the world. (As long as they don’t put it opposite Real Housewives.)

And that’s okay by me.

In the show, Ventura speaks to key 9/11 truth figures such as former BYU professor Steven Jones and William Rodriguez, a nationally-acclaimed hero credited with saving dozens as he tried to escape from the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11

National Security

Speaking of Andrew Bacevich…

”Al Qaeda operatives, hunkered down in their caves, pose no more than a modest threat. As for the Taliban, unless they manage to establish enclaves in places like New Jersey or Miami, the danger they pose to the United States falls several notches below the threat posed by Cuba, which is no threat at all.”

  The Vigil

Song from the Platte River
Brewer & Shipley

I was freezing on the banks of Platte River
And I was thinking of General Custer and his last stand
And I bowed my head, what has he done
He’s got my freedom on the run

[...]

I was thinking of the measure of my weakness
Like so many I condemn and do not know
And I bowed my head, what have we done
We've got our freedom on the run

The Vigil post has more of Bacevich’s thoughts. It's a good read. (I could have sworn that I did a post on an interview Bill Moyers did with Andrew Bacevich - someone I posted was a rare rational voice - actually both of them - but I cannot find it.)

Of course, the threat to our national security is the pretense under which we will (and have) forever interfere in worlds that are better left alone. In a very real way, of course, Afghanistan does hold that threat – so we're not really being lied to. They’re just admitting partial truth.

Honestly, I don’t understand why they don’t just tell the whole truth. In fact, I think the American people would rally behind the whole truth much better than we are backing this partial truth – which so many see as false. They see it as false because they are only looking at the idea that a backward country with nothing (unless – and this is a big deal – UNLESS it has our monetary/black ops/military backing) could pose any (military/political) threat to our nation.

No, that’s not the threat. The threat is that posed if we don’t control the world’s oil supply. If a country with the possibility of mounting a bigger, more powerful, military apparatus should get that control, should be able to deny us the oil we need to support our own military, our national security is dead in the water.

Americans would rally around the loss of military supremacy. We don’t really care about anyone else’s “freedom”. Hell, we’re not even that concerned with our own. What we want is to know that we have the most powerful military on the planet and all the things that require a constant and large oil supply. Transportation, trucking of goods, to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We must remember to read into the phrase “national security” our way of life. And while I’m on this tack…I honestly believe that when the oil is finally used up, our corporations will pull out the alternative energies they already have patented.

Whether we use it or not, we have to have control of the oil, so that another country which might possibly amass a more powerful military arsenal, is prevented from doing so.

”The conquest of Afghanistan had been planned since at least 12 February 1998”

Despite concerns about the Taliban, Unocal continued to develop the project from 1996 through 1998. Taliban representatives reportedly met with Unocal representatives in February 1997 in Washington D.C. and in November 1997 in Houston, Texas. Unocal later described these meetings as efforts "to educate them about the benefits such a pipeline could bring" to their "poor and war-torn country."

  footnote Fahrenheit

And natural gas.

December, 2002: An agreement has been signed in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, paving the way for construction of a gas pipeline from the Central Asian republic through Afghanistan to Pakistan.

[...]

Turkmenistan has some of the world's greatest reserves of natural gas, but still relies on tightly controlled Russian pipelines to export it.

[...]

But investors will be very cautious about putting serious money into Afghanistan when the central government in Kabul still has only limited influence in the regions the pipeline would cross.

[...]

The building of the trans-Afghanistan pipeline has been under discussion for some years but plans have been held up by Afghanistan's unstable political situation.

  BBC

And so it goes.

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

CIA Director Leon Panetta has canceled a contract with the former Blackwater security firm that allowed the company's operatives to load missiles on Predator drones in Pakistan.

  NYT

Oh wow. That’ll show ‘em.

Panetta canceled the contract earlier this year and the work is being shifted to government personnel, a person familiar with the contract said Friday.

[...]

Separately, CIA spokesman George Little said Friday that ''at this time, Blackwater is not involved in any CIA operations other than in a security or support role.''

Riiiiiiight. I think the carefully chosen word here is 'support'.

Recall that Blackwater was the instigation for the Falluja horror.

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

Better Said

…so let’s bring out some of that ol’ Obama inspirational magic: “So let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. Somewhere today, in the here and now, a soldier sees he’s outgunned but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, who believes that a cruel world still has a place for his dreams.”

And then the soldier who sees he’s outgunned calls in an air strike and blows her and her child to pieces.

  WIIIAI

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

We've Located Your Problem

To attract more Afghans into the security forces, the government last month increased salaries for police and soldiers by at least 33 percent, although the Taliban can still pay up to 100 US dollars more per head.

  Raw Story

Oh, and one more thing before you go.

President Hamid Karzai warned Gates on Tuesday that the international community would need to help fund Afghanistan's security forces for the next 15 to 20 years.

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

Meanwhile in Iraq

Five massive vehicle-borne bombs rocked Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 127 people, including women and students, and wounding hundreds in the third co-ordinated massacre to devastate the city since August.

  Raw Story

And Don't Forget KBR

If Lt. Col. Jim Gentry and his doctors were right about the cause of his cancer, the Indiana National Guard officer didn't die for his country -- he died for defense contractor KBR.

[...]

In a lawsuit filed last year, Gentry and 15 other plaintiffs said KBR, at the time a subsidiary of Halliburton, was aware that soldiers and civilian contractors were being exposed to hexavalent chromium months before they told the people working at the site.

  Raw Story

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

ACORN May Have the Last Laugh

Seems the video that was supposed to slam them was doctored.

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

Go!

Had they been waiting on hold for the speech? Like the troops whose commanders were chomping at the bit to enter Falluja but were told they had to wait until after the 2004 election?

Operation "Cobra's Anger," which involves 900 U.S. Marines and sailors, British troops and 150 Afghan soldiers and police, pushed into the Now Zad district of southern Helmand province, an insurgent stronghold depopulated after years of heavy fighting.

  Yahoo

Cobra’s Anger. No we’re not trying to take over anybody’s anything. We’re peace-loving.

Depopulated.