The Deadly Wages of Free Trade

"Failed Everywhere It's Been Tried"
by DANIEL KOVALIK


Back in the mid-1990’s, the signatories to the North American Free Trade Agreement promised that the border town of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico would become the model city for the new “free trade” pact. Indeed, it has become a model city for NAFTA, but not in the way its architects had intended. Thus, rather than becoming a showcase for economic development and prosperity which “free trade” promised to usher in, Ciudad Juarez instead has become a city plagued by murder rates equivalent to nations at war, and has witnessed the bizarre phenomenon of “femicide” which has violently claimed the lives of around 400 girls and young women since the passage of NAFTA. [1]

In a similar vein, the port town of Buenaventura has become the poster child for the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Even before the FTA was finally ratified by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in October of 2011, violence began to plague Buenaventura as armed paramilitary groups vied for control of the new ports being built in preparation for the influx of trade which the FTA was to bring. Thus, in September of 2011, acclaimed human rights advocate, Father Javier Giraldo, S.J., wrote to U.S. Ambassador P. Michael McKinley of

the permanent genocide that is being carried out in Buenaventura, where the neighborhoods and the Community Councils around the port are being invaded by paramilitaries supported or tolerated by the armed forces. They cut people in pieces with horrifying cruelty throwing the body parts in to the sea, if any of them dare to resist the megaproject for the new port. This included the expulsion of people living in the poorest areas and it includes the expropriation of the plots of garbage dumps where these people, in the midst of their misery, have over decades tried to survive. [2]

Since the passage of the Colombia FTA, the violence in Buenaventura has only increased, and sadly bears resemblances to the violence in Ciudad Juarez after the passage of NAFTA. Thus, as explained by a recent report on the growing post-FTA violence in Colombia by two top Democrats on the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce (“Committee report”):

three illegal post paramilitary demobilization groups or re-grouped paramilitaries (La Empresa, Los Urabeňos and Los Rastrojos) are engaged in a violent battle for control of the neighborhoods in the port areas [of Buenaventura]. These groups utilize brutal terror tactics to exert control and dominate the population. The Member and his staff were told about the use of chainsaws to dismember persons in broad daylight or in “torture houses” where residents can hear the screams. Among the victims were a large number of women who were first raped or sexually tortured before being killed in a sadistic manner and their body parts displayed publicly to set an example to others. Local groups estimate that at least eight Afro-Colombian women have been assassinated in this fashion in 2013 alone. This situation unfolds in areas where the public and security armed forces (police and military) are either present or very close by. [3]

The Committee report further explains that, “[w]hile Buenaventura is a strategic hub for international commerce, the riches of this growing global economy fomented by the U.S.-Colombia FTA mainly pass through Buenaventura and do not integrate or benefit the local Afro-Colombian population.” Thus, “[s]ixty-three percent of Buenaventura’s residents who are Afro-Colombian live under the poverty line, and unemployment is 64 percent.”

Mass displacements from Buenaventura, caused by violence and the threat of violence by the paramilitary groups fighting for control of the ports, are also a growing problem. As the Committee report explains, relying upon figures from the UN High Commissioner of Refugees, an estimated 9,000 persons became internally displaced in 11 massive displacements in Buenaventura. In 2013, four displacements totaling some 1,600 persons have taken place thus far.”

And sadly, just after this Committee report was released, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on but another incident of mass displacement in Buenaventura. As the OCHA explained,

at least 2,516 people from 629 families from comunes 3 and 4 in the Pacific port city of Buenaventura, Valle, have displaced from their neighborhoods to the local headquarters of Caritas Colombia following threats by Post-demobilization Armed Groups (PDAGs) and pressure caused by repeated armed confrontations between these groups. The displacements began early in the morning on Wednesday 6 November [2013] and affected the areas of La Playita, Alfonso López, Calle El Ramiro and Viento Libre. [4]

Of course, Buenaventura is but a microcosm of the havoc being wrought as a direct consequence of the FTA. Thus, the FTA, which is accelerating the land grab by multi-national agribusiness and mining interests, has helped to make Colombia the number one country in the world for internal displacements, with nearly 5 million internally displaced peoples (IDPs) and growing, and with indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians disproportionate victims of this displacement. [5] Again, this displacement mirrors that of Mexico after NAFTA when nearly 2 million small farmers were displaced as a direct consequence of the agricultural provisions of that arrangement.

I leave you with the words of the founding father of the modern “free trade” treaty, former President Bill Clinton, who in testimony before the Senate in 2010 admitted this has “failed everywhere it’s been tried.” Sadly, Colombia, as Mexico, proves these words of Mr. Clinton to be all too true. [6]

Notes:
[1] For a very good description of the connection between NAFTA and the “femicide” in Ciduad Juarez, read, “Capitalism, A Structural Genocide” by Garry Leech.  See, http://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Structural-Genocide-Garry-Leech/dp/1780321996
[2] http://www.javiergiraldo.org/spip.php?article212
[3]http://democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/sites/democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/files/documents/Colombia%20trip%20report%20-%2010.29.13%20-%20formatted%20-%20FINAL.pdf
[4] http://reliefweb.int/report/colombia/flash-update-no-1-–-mass-intra-urban-displacement-buenaventura-valle-del-cauca
[5] http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/17/colombia-victims-face-reprisals-reclaiming-land
[6] See, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/1/clinton_rice Bill Clinton was speaking of the free trade agricultural policies in Haiti which undermined that country’s ability to feed itself.  These are the very same policies which undermined the livelihoods of the approximately 2 million small farmers in Mexico who were displaced as a consequence, and which are devastating the Colombian country side now.

What Isn't Being Said About Soldier Suicides

by ALYSSA ROHRICHT - CounterPunch


On March 21, 2013 at around 11 p.m., a tragedy occurred as a U.S. Marine shot and killed two co-workers at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia and then committed suicide. While this instance is a tragedy in itself, it marks an alarming trend among U.S. active-duty soldiers and veterans.

Suicides in the U.S. military have been climbing, reaching a record high in 2012 when 349 soldiers took their own lives, about one every 25 hours. By comparison, 301 U.S. soldiers died in active combat in 2012, marking the third time in four years that the number of military suicides has surpassed the number of deaths in combat of U.S. soldiers. The figures also do not include the 110 “pending” reported suicides that are still under investigation by medical examiners. In veterans, the numbers are far worse: about one veteran every 65 minutes takes his or her own life, according to a new investigation by the Department of Veterans Affairs which examined suicide data from 1999 to 2010.

Since this data has been released, a new crisis line and website have been created for veterans contemplating suicide to reach out and access information on various resources for family and friends. Additionally, President Obama signed an executive order in 2012 authorizing the VA to hire and train additional staff, and according to a press release by the VA, the Veteran Crisis Line has already saved approximately 26,000 suicidal veterans thus far. But the 1,600 new clinical staff, 300 new administrative staff, and 800 new peer-to-peer specialists to work on mental health teams that the VA has hired or is in the process of hiring will only treat the symptoms of this crisis, not the cause.

That there are 26,000 veterans that need saving from suicidal thoughts and behaviors should be evidence enough that something is wrong. The cause shouldn’t be too hard to discern either. Yet coverage in the corporate mainstream media is severely lacking. An article in Forbes detailed the rise in veteran suicide, questioning why the numbers could be so high but offering no real answers as to why.

“It’s still pretty shocking that veterans make up such a high proportion of suicides in this country. Veterans affairs experts explain this by saying that veterans fall into high-risk groups for suicide, which include being male, having access to guns, and living in a rural area, but those factors don’t seem to come close to accounting for such a high rate.”

And that’s where the author’s analysis ends. Well, the author is certainly correct about one thing. That veterans have higher risk factors associated with suicide – things like maleness, gun ownership, and living in a rural area – is NOT sufficient to explain such high rates of suicide. Yet the author completely ignores all obvious answers to her pondering.

Perhaps we could examine the incredibly long and repeated deployments by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. During World War II, The Christian Science Monitor reports, the average infantryman in the South Pacific spent about 40 days in combat over four years. That’s compared to today when about 107,000 Army soldiers, or 20% of the active-duty force, have been deployed three or more times since 2001. Over 50,000 have done four or more tours. That’s four or more tours of watching your fellow soldiers die, four more tours of being under the constant stresses of war-time of fearing for your own life and the lives of those around you, and four more tours of having to take the lives of others because such is the game of war.

Or perhaps it is our strange and schizophrenic way of rallying behind the troops with our patriotic chants and our “Support our Troops” bumper stickers, yet when our troops come home, we leave them homeless, jobless, penniless, and without healthcare to nurse their physical wounds, and worse yet, their psychological ones. 

According to the 2012 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, an estimated 62,619 veterans were homeless on a single night in 2012. In another study by the Urban Institute, about one in ten veterans lack health insurance, that’s 1.3 million veterans without benefits. Of the lucky veterans that do get treatment by the VA, an estimated 30% have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. In a report released by the VA in 2012, it was revealed that 247,243 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been diagnosed with the disorder. According to an article on the Daily Beast, “Troops who’ve been deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan are more than three times as likely as soldiers with no previous deployments to screen positive for PTSD and major depression, according to a 2010 study published by the American Journal for Public Health.”

Or perhaps, as we have just passed the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war, we should consider how this country has been so deeply drenched in wars throughout the world for so many years. Operation Enduring Freedom had its 11th anniversary last October, marking more than a decade of involvement in Afghanistan. It has been close to six years since the U.S. revamped its efforts to fight terror in Somalia; nine since we began our drone campaign in Pakistan. Our War on Drugs in Latin America has been waged for decades in a seemingly ever-expanding initiative and costing the United States billions upon billions of dollars. And those are just the wars most people know about. Our special operations forces work in an estimated 120 countries around the world, including throughout Central Africa, across Latin America, and in the Philippines. Our global hegemonic empire works in about 60% of the world’s nations.

With that in mind, how could anyone be surprised at our high rate of suicide among our active-duty soldiers and our veterans who are forced to fight in deployment after deployment, in wars spanning the globe meant only to increase our dominance and global sovereignty, and who come home to joblessness, homelessness, and no one to help them with their internal and external wounds. The wrong questions are being asked in this country. The question is not, how can we better help our wounded vets and soldiers combat depression and suicide? The question is: how can we cut ourselves off from our incessant need for war and conflict and global domination to stop this terrifying trend of murders and suicides. This country has an addiction to war and violence. That is the source of our problem. It is time we changed the conversation.

++++++++

And even this writer talks about ignoring the obvious then ignores the obvious: in addition to long deployments, it's what these soldiers are being ordered to do - killing civilians, women and children. If you've ever seen an interview with a veteran, they will tell you openly and honestly about how hard it is to go on living after having killed a child. Most civilian deaths are collateral damage, but don't be naive and think they aren't often ordered to kill everyone in a building, regardless if civilians are present or not. The only way to support our troops is to bring them the fuck home. Nothing good has or will ever come from these empire expanding wars. We are the bad guys and that must be a terrible thing for a brave soldier to live with once his deployment is over, and he comes home and looks himself in the mirror while the things he was ordered to do, the violent images of death, blood, body parts and dead children race through his mind. And he has to live with those images in his mind for the rest of his life. I can understand how that prospect would seem unbearable. I hear too often from uninformed people that suicide is a coward's way out, and not for one minute do I believe that any of these soldier suicides were cowards. They were suffering in such horrible ways that seemed impossible ever to heal. And that is the fault of a federal government run by sociopathic corporate oligarchs who consider profit to be more important than the lives of the soldiers carrying out their "plan." -- jef

The Weekly Not-So-Funnies

 

"Epithet": a short film starring Patrick Stewart

Inspired by the Young Vic theatre's recent production of Edward Bond's play Bingo, Epithet – starring Patrick Stewart, directed by Angus Jackson and written by Mark O'Rowe – tells the story of a contemporary poet with a dubious background. Filmed near the site of Paris Gardens in Southwark, where bears were baited in Shakespeare's era, it is intended for a mature audience.

Warning: contains violent imagery and language

Who’s Really Violent? Tips for Controlling the Narrative

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 by Waging Nonviolence
by George Lakey

Occupy Wall Street is similar to many movements in contending that its opponent—for Occupy, the 1 percent—is maintaining a system whose structural, systematic violence far exceeds any violence exhibited by the movement itself.

For example, movements will say that class oppression or sexism or racism hurt people in the daily course of life, pointing to statistics like each percentage point of unemployment resulting in increased suicide, homicide and domestic abuse. However, especially when the movement is still young and only beginning to get its message out, the powers that be in politics and the media will often succeed in dismissing such charges and in blaming every appearance of violence on the campaigners. Reversing this narrative in the public perception is one of a growing movement’s most important challenges.

For nearly a year, for example, the Syrian government has been sending its tanks to kill demonstrators while claiming that the violence mainly comes from the pro-democracy forces. The Russian government publicly agrees. The reason why defenders of oppression the world over charge activists with violence—even if they have to make it up—is because it’s a potent accusation. The oppressor doesn’t want the “violence” label to stick to its own side. Those who presently are undecided or passive might move to support the campaigners because they don’t want to support “violence.”

In some circumstances, although not all, who wins the struggle depends on who most believably asserts that the other side is violent. Occupy Wall Street got a tremendous boost in the early days when mainstream media were largely ignoring them, thanks to the blatant violence committed by New York City police. Many influential and uncommitted people swung immediately to the side of Occupy and gave it extraordinary momentum.

Those in power, however, are at an advantage in this contest with campaigners. They usually control or hugely influence the media coverage. They start out with some legitimacy won through elections or asserted through authoritarian cultural institutions—often religious ones. In the Global Nonviolent Action Database, we recount dozens of cases in which oppressive regimes have persisted against activist challenge for years, even decades, before the campaigners’ charge of “violence” finally stuck and key middle groups swung over.

After Martin Luther King, Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize, there was a swell of indignation in many Southern towns and cities. “Our town was peaceful until King came here,” people would say, “and then we had all kinds of trouble and violence, and then he gets the Peace Prize?”

King’s response was to say that those towns had been violent all along. Racism is violence, he said; just look at comparative statistics between whites and blacks of life expectancy, and infant mortality rates, and death in childbirth. He said that the town newspaper didn’t put those statistics in headlines, so (white) people didn’t see clearly the violence of racism. It took an activist campaign that brought out the Ku Klux Klan and police dogs, and blood running in the streets, for people to see that racism equals violence, because racism is a system that, when challenged, must be defended by violence. As we know, once the white people in the middle saw where the violence was actually coming from, large enough portions of them changed sides so that the activists could gain concrete victories.

How, then, did an oppressed people succeed in showing that the violence was actually in white racism, rather than in themselves?

They did it by creating brilliant dramas in which they contrasted their own behavior with that of their opponents. Part of the brilliance was in forcing their opponent into a dilemma in which either choice would put the demonstrators ahead of the game. The story-line for a lunch-counter sit-in, for instance, was: “I want coffee at this whites-only lunch counter. If you serve me, fine. I win. If you don’t serve me but instead beat me or arrest me, fine. I win because I show where the violence is coming from.” (I was privileged to learn this lesson firsthand; my first arrest was in a civil rights sit-in.)

In other words, at their best, the young people avoided doing what could be perceived as mere provocation—like walking into the streets to stop traffic or hassling shoppers. The students were much cagier than that. They carefully set up no-win situations for their opponents, and therefore, against all odds—including the KKK terrorists—they usually won.

Furthermore, because they knew the stakes were high, the students took steps to heightenthe contrast as much as possible. They showed up at the lunch counter with ironed dresses and white shirts and ties and polished shoes, with a textbook in hand.

The danger of such contrast is known well to people whose job is to defend an unjust status quo. When activist behavior reveals so clearly the injustice of the state, it results in a loss of the state’s legitimacy.

Dozens of dictators have learned this to their sorrow. Smart managers of repression have therefore come up with a counter-strategy: reduce the contrast in behavior between the activists and those charged with repression. Here are some of their tactics:

• Pay or persuade people to pretend to be activists and do something that can be called violence. This might be property destruction (since a lot of people believe property destruction is violence), but it could also mean attacking police or others on the side of the status quo.

• Accuse the activists of violence whether or not there’s any evidence of it.

• Plant the evidence. In Philadelphia during the 1960s, a young, largely-white anti-racist group couldn’t reach consensus to state publicly that they were nonviolent, even though they hadn’t yet planned any acts of violence. They were increasingly effective in their nonviolent campaign, so the police staged a raid on the communal house where some of them lived, herded everyone into the living room, searched the rest of the house and “discovered” explosives in the refrigerator. With that planted evidence they were able to pretty much destroy the group, and the young people were powerless to defend themselves.

Variations of the repressors’ “minimize the contrast” approach have been employed all over the world-- provocateurs used in India by the British Empire, in Serbia to hurt the student opponents of the dictatorship, and on and on. There are steps that activists can take, however, to prevent this kind of manipulation:

• Deliberately heighten the contrast. In France in the late 1950s, the anti-imperialist movement did a lot of demonstrations against the Algerian War, and were faced with notoriously violent police who were quartered in barracks to stay “battle ready.” While working in France in 1960, I was told that many of the French activists knew that the smartest way to reduce their casualties was to remain nonviolent—police in so many countries increase their violence when they experience fighting back—and they wanted to win over more of the French public to their side. They therefore adopted the tactic ofwhen in doubt, sit down. They found not only that they sustained fewer injuries, but also that observers (including media) of the confrontations spread the word about the drama: police standing over activists with upraised sticks; activists sitting on the ground creating the largest possible contrast. Their campaign grew as a result.
• Boldly declare that you are nonviolent, as some Occupy groups have done, and by doing so move to the “moral high ground” in the perception of most people. If critics claim that with certain tactics—say, locking arms—activists can challenge such claims on their own terms.
• Start again if there has been an activist lapse into defensive violence. Researcher Kira Kern tells us that when the Omanis jumped into the Arab Awakening on February 27 of last year, their protest immediately turned into a clash with the police, with violence on both sides. The movement pressed the reset button and began a nonviolent campaign, taking care this time to heighten the contrast with the police who used arrests, tear gas and rubber bullets. The assessment of the Omani activist leadership was that the sultan was too well-embedded to replace with democracy in one campaign, so they set for themselves concrete goals that looked achievable: better wages, more jobs, an elected parliament and a new constitution. They used a variety of methods: occupation, obstruction, picketing, limited strikes, graduating to a general strike. In a little over a month, they won most of what they demanded.

The student sit-inners, French war protesters and heroic Omanis remind us that, while enjoying our own creativity, we needn’t re-invent every wheel. We can also learn from sisters and brothers that went before us some ways to heighten the contrast and reveal the violent face of injustice.

Thousands @OccupyOakland #J28 Protest, Police respond with Kettling & Tear Gas; 300 Arrested

January 29, 2012 - theCORPORATIONblog
By Jennifer Slattery

(image via Twitter credited to GlennShootsPeople's Flicker account)

Violent police clashes again rocked the city of Oakland January 28th (#J28) as Occupy Oakland protestors attempted to occupy a vacant building. Their announcement, via a letter to the Mayor referring to the action as Move-In Day, declares their intent to use the building:

“As a social center, convergence center, headquarters, free kitchen, and place of housing for Occupy Oakland. Like so many other people, Occupy Oakland is homeless while buildings remain vacant and unused. For Occupy this is in large part because of yourselves, having evicted us twice from public space that was rightfully ours. For others it is because of the housing bubble, predatory lending, the perpetual crises of capitalism, and far reaching histories of imperialism and systemic violence.”

By the end of a long day of marches and failed occupation attempts, three hundred people, from a crowd that swelled at times to 2,000, were arrested. Much of the corporate media reporting on the start of the violence points the finger squarely at the protestors who are alleged to have begun the violence by pelting officers with rocks, bottles and even Improvised Explosive Devices. The claim that peaceful protestors used IEDs is on it’s face false and inflammatory, as first hand accounts and live streaming video footage of the event seems to show that protestors only threw some debris as a reaction to being pelted with explosive percussion grenades, rubber bullets, and tear gas canisters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sFaviIoy4rg

Via Occupy Oakland’s twitter feed:
#OccupyOakland #OO OPD claim they ordered us to disperse, after blocking us in & arresting us. Chanting "this is a hostage situation."

"For their first attempt at a kettle, the cops charged the group with police lines from the front and back. They ran towards us aggressively. Us being 1000+ peaceful marching protesters. The group was forced to move up a side street. The police moved quickly to surround the entire area; they formed a line on every street that the side street connected to. Police state status: very efficient. They kettled almost the entire protest in the park near the Fox theater. AFTERWARDS, as in after they surrounded everyone, they declared it to be an unlawful assembly BUT OFFERED NO EXIT ROUTE. Gas was used, could of been tear or smoke gas."

Similar claims that law enforcement "had to deploy gas in order to stop the crowd and people from pelting us with bottles and rocks." after the violentclearing of the original Occupy Oakland camp had to be walked back, because there was no evidence that any such violence by Occupy had occurred:

“Oakland PD's Chief of Staff, Sgt. Chris Bolton conceded that the department was unable, at this time, to substantiate claims made by Jordan that gas was deployed in order to protect law enforcement personnel from violent demonstrators, despite the Chief's unqualified claim that evening that "the deployment of gas was necessary to protect our officers and protect property around the area and to protect injuries to others as well."
Instead, Bolton softened Jordan's initial claim. The sergeant described it as "the Chief's preliminary belief.”

The claims of the Oakland PD are especially hard to swallow after internal emails show that interim police chief Johnson lied to paint Occupy Oakland as a crime problem in order to garner support for their actions:

“In the days leading up to the Nov. 2 march on the Port of Oakland, city leaders warned about the drain on police resources.

When Jordan received an update that crime was actually down 19 percent in the last week of October, he wrote an email to one of Mayor Jean Quan's advisers.

"Not sure how you want to share this good news," he wrote. "It may be counter to our statement that the Occupy movement is negatively impacting crime in Oakland."

Police and the city said Occupy has had an ongoing impact on their ability to respond to crime.
In all of the emails there was not a single one written by Quan.”

Indeed it seems that the Interim Police Chief is not the man to solve the problems plaguing the Oakland Police Department. The Oakland PD is now facing a Federal Receivership in March. While several cities have had to have Federal Monitors installed, this would be the first time in United States history that a department has been completely turned over to Federal control. The Federal Judge ruling in the case expressed his astonishment that the OPD is continuing using controversial and violent tactics in the face of reforms demanded almost a decade ago that still have not been implemented:

"The court remains in disbelief that Defendants have yet - nine years later - to achieve what they themselves agreed was doable in no more than five years," U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson wrote.”

This may be the only way to correct the course of a police department that has long since gone off the rails and has not found the leadership from the Police Chief or the Mayor to make the badly needed reforms.  As the San Francisco chronicle noted:  

“It's a step away from surrendering responsibility for the city's police to federal management. If the city doesn't clean up its act - which doesn't look likely given all the other crises Oakland now faces - the judge made it clear that receivership will be the next step.”

I lived in Oakland during the time of the  Oscar Grant murder and subsequent protests, and personally throw my support behind this action to get the department functioning for the people again. Even in basic everyday interactions, the civility required by the men and women on the force is lacking. This is creating a gap between the police and citizens that endangers all, and the department has had more than enough time to right it's own ship.

Occupiers across the country are mounting solidarity actions today (#J29) to show support for Oakland. The Rise Up Festival announced in the Move in Day letter is confirmed to still be on for today, according to Occupy Oakland’s twitter feed. The group is also asking for supporters to donate as much as they can to the Occupy Oakland bail fund.

Infiltrating the Protests

Fascist Little American Twats

by JOE GIAMBRONE

 

I’m not entirely sure what makes some people tick. This little cretin Patrick Howley, assistant editor of the American Spectator, joins a sizable group of right wing rabid troublemakers who seem more concerned with slinging shit than with any notion of morality, practicality or even common sense.

Howley “infiltrated” the Occupy DC movement last weekend in order to act as a sort of self-styled agent provocateur. In his own words:

“I deserved to get a face full of high-grade pepper, and the guards who sprayed me acted with more courage than I saw from any of the protesters. If you’re looking for something to commend these days in America, start with those guards.”

Howley admits he was the first through the doors of the national Air and Space Museum, leading a charge inside past the security guards. His own actions provoked these same guards into spraying numerous activists and tourists, arguably an overreaction to citizens exercising their protected First Amendment rights to speak publicly.

The museum was hosting an homage to unmanned drones. This worship of push-button murder machines inspired the protest there this weekend.

Howley spent a whole day jotting down snippets to use against the movement. In typical right wing fanatical fashion his agenda is up front and center, the facts assembled around it in mocking fashion, something he prizes.
I like a couple of his twisted admissions, however, which merit some elaboration.
Howley:

” The fastest-running protesters charged up the steps of Washington’s National Air and Space Museum Saturday afternoon to infiltrate the building and hang banners on the ‘shameful’ exhibits promoting AmeriCan imperialism.”

Note: He takes the time to quote “shameful,” seeming to dispute this assessment. He does not place American imperialism in quotes however, an interesting oversight? Imperialism is now undisputed on the right? That’s good news. Now we can talk about it. It exists. It’s unchallenged. The American empire is a valid concept for us to discuss, as American citizens.

Howley does not do so, of course.

“Socialist indoctrination methods are surprisingly effective. It’s hard not to get swept up in the Movement when you’re among a hundred foot soldiers — most of them attractive 20-year old girls — marching down E Street toward Freedom Plaza chanting, ‘How do we end the deficit? End the war and tax the rich!’”

Translation: The protesters have a point that is pretty indisputable. They have momentum, and even fanatical fascistic pinheads can’t seem to counter the main message in any meaningful way, so they resort to the good old “socialist” smear to mock their opponents, whose logic is otherwiseunassailable.
Howley:

“Whenever the protesters would pass a group of tourists they’d implore them to join, and when a few smiling college kids would hesitantly jump in everyone would applAud wildly.”

Translation: The protests are popular and growing. The message is not off-putting, and the crowds are made up of regular people who have the guts to stand up and demand a change in governance. Such heroic acts inspire others.

“But just as the lefties couldn’t figure out how to run their assembly meeting (many process points, I’m afraid to report, were left un-twinkled), so too do they lack the nerve to confront authority.”

Translation: Most had enough sense not to bust into the Air and Space Museum like Howley did, and they avoided the pepper spraying, the probable beating and the arrests that awaited the foolhardy. Howley takes this restraint as an opportunity to mock their timidity, ignoring that the entire protest is itself a confrontation with authority, and those in attendance have plenty of “nerve” to do so.

“From estimates within the protest, only ten people were pepper-sprayed, and as far as I could tell I was the only one who got inside the museum.”

Translation and Correction: A peaceful constitutionally protected protest outside the museum garnered no overreaction from guards or police. Those that stormed their way in past the security guards, like Howley, were sprayed. Here, though, Howley tells a deMonstrable lie. He was not the only one inside, as a group of a few dozen went in and hung a banner.

“In the absence of ideological uniformity, these protesters have no political power.”

Translation: There are more issues than “No new taxes!!!” The fascists have made great strides with their strategy of coddling of the super-rich pay daddies at the expense of the rest of us. Their entrenched corruption has created so many dire crises that it is impossible to have a “uniform” response to their blitzkrieg against the working classes and environment. The common people have no one neat response to the thousand affronts and back door abominations currently derailing the world. So their best shot is to band together and shout: “Enough.”
A movement needs to gain power before it gets to decide on specific plans and policies.

“Their only chance, as I saw it, was to push the envelope and go bold. But, if today’s demonstration was any indicator, they don’t have what it takes to even do that.”

Translation: Howley, after a whole day’s immersion in the movement against mega-corruption sees no choice but to lead them into “bold” actions in the service of his column at a right wing magazine and hope for a violent crackdown by authorities. But, as he admits, most people have more common sensE than to follow idiots like himself, or other irrational troublemakers. Because they display such restraint and wisdom Howley finds it fitting to try and mock them for possessing the maturity he clearly lacks.

Police Brutality at Occupy Wall Street--Disgusting

(This is police brutality. This is what happens when we protest in a Police State. This is why people have called police "pigs" for years. The brutality is extremely unjust, uncalled for and crossed a line because they did it for enjoyment--those people weren't breaking any laws, it's our right to protest. The brutality won't stop the protests, it will only bring out more people. The police work for the people we're protesting. We'll see what happens on Oct. 6. I'll be there.--jef)

Larence O'Donnell's The Last Word

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Seriously? Taking a cop's picture is reason to be pepper sprayed? This asshole needs to find himself on the unemployment line, if not himself thrown in jail. 

London Riots - Day 4: Vigilantes Take to the Streets

Reclaiming the streets: Sikhs defend their temple and locals protect their pubs as ordinary Britons defy the rioters

• Met Police warn public against use of vigilante justice as crowds of football fans patrol roads intent on 'protecting the streets'
• Warning comes as murder probe launched in Birmingham after deaths of three men 'killed while protecting community from looters'
• Hundreds launch public patrols following claims riot police teams were told to 'stand and observe' looters rather than confront yobs

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 11:31 AM on 10th August 2011

Some armed with swords, some carrying hockey sticks, defiant Sikhs stood guard outside their temples last night.

More then 700 men, some in their 80s, took to the streets to protect the homes, businesses and places of worship in Southall, West London.

The residents rallied together in a show of unity against looters echoed in other parts of the country as ordinary Britons attempted to reclaim the streets.

Resistance: Dozens of Sikhs stage a display of defiance against 

the rioters outside London's largest temple in Southall yesterday

'Protection': A large group gathers on the streets of Eltham as crowds form intent on warding off looters in London

On patrol: The Met Police have been forced to warn people 

against forms of vigilante justice following the crowds of 

people forming intent on 'protecting the streets'

Pictures of the crowds emerged as the Met Police today urged the public against forming groups intent on vigilante justice.

Many of those who gathered in the late night public patrols had done so after becoming frustrated by the lack of police response to the riots.

 

It was only on Monday night that police tactics changed and armoured vehicles called Jankels were used to disperse the crowds.

ONE IN THREE BRITONS SAY 'SHOOT THE RIOTERS'

A survey of British adults has revealed that one in three would support the police's use of live ammunition on rioters.


The poll of over 2,500 adults also showed that nine out of ten Britons believe police should be able to use water cannons to deal with the growing unrest.


The YouGov survey for the Sun showed widespread support for the various police tactics available.


Over three quarters 77 per cent) of those surveyed also support using the army ho help deal with the situation.


And worryingly for the government, over half (57 per cent) think David Cameron has handled the riots badly.


A massive 85 per cent are also convinced that the majority of rioters will go unpunished.
 

Large groups gathered in Enfield, north London, and Eltham, south east London, last night and joined police in patrolling the streets.

One video filmed in Enfield shows a huge crowd surge through the streets near the London suburb's Southbury Road station.

But while many pictures this week have shown crowds clashing with police in destructive stand-offs, the video clearly shows officers and crowds running in the same direction in a bid to ward off looters.

However, Met Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Kavanagh told Sky News: 'What I don't need is these so-called vigilantes, who appeared to have been drinking too much and taking policing resources away from what they should have been doing - which is preventing the looting.

'These are small pockets of people. They're frustrated, they're angry, and that's totally understandable.

'The sadness of those images through the night and the night before last will affect everyone.

'But the support that we need is to allow those officers to prevent looting and prevent crime.

'Ironically, when you see those images with no police available, the police are now having to go and do the vigilantes as well as the other problems that they've got. That needs to stop.'

One of those involved in the Enfield patrol, Nick Davidson, told Sky News: 'We've had enough of the police just standing there... while people are looting and ruining the whole area.

'Everybody here pays tax and we've all had enough of it. We're sickened by the police doing absolutely nothing.

'They're not policing our streets, we have to police them.'

One man in his 20s, who would not give his name said: 'We won't stand for it. If anyone wants to come down here and start looting tonight, let them try - we'll be ready for them.

'We're here to protect the town. What went on last night was a disgrace. It shouldn't be allowed.'

In Southall, the locals rallied to keep the rioters at bay following reports of a planned attack on the area. It is just a few miles from Ealing, which was targeted on Monday night. Each of the Sikh temples was guarded by around 200 men.

Not in our town: Large groups of people run through Enfield, 

north London intent on 'protecting the streets' from rioters

Reclaiming the streets: The group made their way through 

Enfield flanked by police officers during the late night patrol

Amarjit Singh Klair from nearby Hounslow, who helped rally the men, said: ‘We are working along side the police, they’re doing what they can but they are stretched. 

 

‘Why shouldn’t we defend our homes, businesses and places of worship? This is our area. There’s lots of talk about it kicking off here. But we’re ready for them.’

Hooded youths could be seen scouting the area but appear to be have frightened off. Only a handful of police could be seen patrolling the area. 

The Sikh community were running a military style operation to protect themselves after almost 100 rioters tried to attack the heart of the area early on Tuesday. 

With few police around, elders at London’s largest Sikh temple in Havelock Road resorted to telephoning male worshippers for help. 

Last night groups of Sikh men stood guard at different parts of the town, keeping in touch via their mobiles. 

One man in his 20s said: ‘They caught us off guard last night but we still managed to get people together to protect the area. We saw them putting on their balaclavas preparing to jump out of three cars but we charged at them and managed to chase them off.’

On guard: Groups of Sikh men stood around different parts of the town,

keeping in touch via mobile phone to crush any potential trouble

Turkish shopkeepers who stood guard outside their businesses and chased off looters on Monday night have been hailed as heroes. 

When the gangs of youngsters arrived to wreak havoc in Dalston, East London, on Monday night, the men, armed with baseball bats, snooker cues and even chair legs, sent them packing.

Trouble started about 8.30pm when a group of 15 youths set fire to a bus. Later another mob of around 20 arrived. Kebab shop owner Omer Asili, 29, said: ‘The police were telling us not to chase them, but it was only down to us that they went away.’

2 Days of Northern London Riots

The reflexive call for fewer liberties

By Glenn Greenwald - SALON.com
Wednesday, Jan 12, 2011
 

 

William Galston -- former Clinton adviser and current Brookings Institution Senior Fellow -- has a column in The New Republic about the Gabrielle Giffords shooting that illustrates the mentality endlessly eroding basic American liberty:  namely, the belief that every tragedy must lead to new government powers and new restrictions on core liberties.  The lesson of the Arizona tragedy, he argues, is that it's too difficult to force citizens into mental institutions against their will.  This, he says, is the fault of "civil libertarians," who began working in the 1970s on legal reforms to require a higher burden of proof for involuntary commitment (generally: it must be proven that the person is a danger to himself or to others).  As a result, Galston wants strict new laws imposing a litany of legal obligations on the mentally ill, their friends and family, and even acquaintances, as well as dramatically expanded powers to lock away those with mental illness (with broader definitions of what that means).

Listen to what he proposes:  "first, those who acquire credible evidence of an individual’s mental disturbance should be required to report it to both law enforcement authorities and the courts, and the legal jeopardy for failing to do so should be tough enough to ensure compliance"; those reporting obligations should apply not only to family and friends, but extend to "school authorities and other involved parties."  And "second, the law should no longer require, as a condition of involuntary incarceration, that seriously disturbed individuals constitute a danger to themselves or others"; instead, involuntary commitment should be imposed whenever there is "delusional loss of contact with reality."  He concludes on this melodramatic note:  'How many more mass murders and assassinations do we need before we understand that the rights-based hyper-individualism of our laws governing mental illness is endangering the security of our community and the functioning of our democracy?"

There's so much warped reasoning embedded in this argument that it's hard to know where to begin.  Galston seems to be unaware of this, but what motivated the reforms in this area were the decades of severe, horrifying abuses which those with mental illnesses -- and even those who had none -- suffered as a result of permissive involuntary commitment standards and prolonged forced incarceration.  Those who suffered mental illnesses were locked away for years and sometimes decades despite having done nothing wrong and despite not being a threat to anyone, while countless people who simply exhibited strange or out-of-the-ordinary behavior were deemed mentally ill and similarly consigned.  The psychitaric social worker Alicia Curtis provided just one example:  "There is also a large history of the forced treatment of homosexuality as mental 'illness'."  Indeed, involuntarily committing people in mental hospitals is a time-honored way for stifling any individuality and dissent; see this 2010 New York Times article on how China uses that repressive tactic.

Then there are the factually incoherent claims Galston makes.  He harkens back to some sort of Golden Age of the 1960s when thousands of people were incarcerated against their will who did nothing wrong -- as though that era were relatively free of political assassinations because all the "crazies" were where locked up where they belonged.  Of course, the opposite is true:  there were far more violent attacks on political figures back then (MLK, JFK, RFK, George Wallace, Malcolm X, etc.) than there have been during the relatively peaceful time beginning in the 1980s when involuntary commitment became much more difficult.

Worse, Galston assumes, without offering any evidence, that there is a significant correlation between mental illness and violence, but the reality is the opposite:  the vast, vast majority of people with mental illnesses never hurt anyone.  Writing two days ago in Slate, Vaughn Bell decried "the fact that mental illness is so often used to explain violent acts despite the evidence to the contrary," and documented:

Of course, like the rest of the population, some people with mental illness do become violent, and some may be riskier when they're experiencing delusions and hallucinations. But these infrequent cases do not make "schizophrenia" or "bipolar" a helpful general-purpose explanation for criminal behavior. . . . your chance of being murdered by a stranger with schizophrenia is so vanishingly small that a recent study of four Western countries put the figure at one in 14.3 million. To put it in perspective, statistics show you are about three times more likely to be killed by a lightning strike.

Yet Galston, pointing to Arizona, wants to lock all of them away.  The harm that would come from forcibly consigning thousands and thousands of people have done nothing wrong is so much greater than the harm from the once-every-20-years attack on a political official that the excessiveness of his solution is self-evident.

But that's the key point.  What Galston is doing here is what the American political class reflexively does in the wake of every tragedy:  it immediately seeks to exploit the resulting trauma and emotion to justify all-new restrictions on basic liberties (such as the right not to be locked away against one's will in the absence of a crime or a serious threat to others) and all-new government powers.  Every traumatic event -- in the immediate, emotionally consuming aftermath --  leads to these sorts of knee-jerk responses.  The 9/11 attack immediately gave rise to the Patriot Act, warrantless eavesdropping, a torture regime, due-process-free imprisonment, and ultimately an attack on Iraq.  High-profile, brutal criminal acts have led to repressive measures such as three-strikes-and-out laws and minimum sentencing guidelines, causing the U.S. to maintain the largest Prison State in the world.

And when the so-called Underwear Bomber unsuccessfully attempted to detonate a bomb in an airplane over Detroit at the end of 2009, there were immediate calls -- including from the DOJ -- for loosening Miranda requirements and the right to be brought before a judge, and even a bipartisan bill to deny legal rights even to U.S. citizens arrested on U.S. soil and accused of Terrorism:  all because of that one episode.  In response to that reaction, I wrote:

"Even now, every new attempted attack causes the Government to devise a new proposal for increasing its own powers still further and reducing rights even more, while the media cheer it on.  It never goes in the other direction. . . . every new incident becomes a pretext for a fresh wave of fear-mongering and still new ways to erode core Constitutional protections even further. . . . We never reach the point where we decide that we have already retracted enough rights."  

It's Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine applied to non-economic matters.

What lies at the core of this mindset is desperate pursuit of a total illusion:  Absolute Safety.  People like William Galston believe that every time there is a violent or tragic act, it means that the Government should have done something -- or should have had more powers -- in order to stop it.  But that is the reasoning process of a child.  Even if we were to create an absolute Police State -- the most extreme Police State we could conjure -- acts like the Arizona shooting would still happen.  There are more than 300 million people in the U.S. and, inevitably, some of them are going to do very bad and very violent things.  Thus has it always been and always will be.  The mere existence of bad events is not evidence that the Government needs to be more empowered and liberties further restricted.  Just as there are serious costs to things like the Arizona shootings, there are serious costs to enacting the kinds of repressive systems Galston envisions, yet people like him never weigh those costs.

Having people do bad things is the price we pay for freedom.  There is a cost to all liberty.  Having to hear upsetting or toxic views is the price we pay for free speech; having propaganada spewed by large media outlets is the price we pay for a free press; and having some horrible, dangerous criminals go free is the price we pay for banning the Police from searching our homes without a warrant (the Fourth Amendment) and mandating due process before people can be imprisoned (the Fifth Amendment).  The whole American political system is predicated on the idea that we are unwilling to accept large-scale abridgments of freedom in the name of safety, and that Absolute Safety is a dangerous illusion.  There is a new report today that a police officer in Tuscon stopped Jared Loughner's car for speeding shortly before his rampage, but was unable to search his car because he lacked probable cause to do so.  Obviously, that's regrettable -- if you're a family member of one of his victims, it's horrifying -- but the alternative (allowing Police the power to search whomever they want without cause) is worse:  that's the judgment we made in the Bill of Rights.

It may very well be that it's too difficult in some states to have a person involuntarily committed even when they're a threat to themselves or others.  That's a fair debate to have.  But that's not the case Galston is making.  Instead, he's just drowning in his own TV-generated emotions -- or trying to exploit those who are -- to usher in an amazingly oppressive scheme whereby citizens are required to inform on one another if they suspect someone is a bit mentally off, and the Government is empowered to put them away for a long time even in the absence of any threat they pose.  That's neither rational nor sober; it's hysterical fear-mongering of the kind we see after every incident like this.  It's why American liberties have inexorably eroded.  At the very least, there ought to be a voluntary moratorium on calling for new government powers in the wake of tragedies like this until the emotional intensity dies down and rational discourse can prevail.

UPDATE:  Several people made the point in comments that even had the police been able to search Loughner's car, that would likely not have changed anything, since the firearm he was carrying was legal.

Republican congressional candidate says violent overthrow of government is 'on the table'

(We make stupid bigger in Texas! Notice, he's a pastor. Jesus' message of peace doesn't seem to be getting through some of these thick as hell skulls, I reckon!--jef)

***

By MELANIE MASON / The Dallas Morning News
mmason@dallasnews.com - Friday, October 22, 2010

WASHINGTON – Republican congressional candidate Stephen Broden stunned his party Thursday, saying he would not rule out violent overthrow of the government if elections did not produce a change in leadership.

In a rambling exchange during a TV interview, Broden, a South Dallas pastor, said a violent uprising "is not the first option," but it is "on the table." That drew a quick denunciation from the head of the Dallas County GOP, who called the remarks "inappropriate."

Broden, a first-time candidate, is challenging veteran incumbent Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson in Dallas' heavily Democratic 30th Congressional District. Johnson's campaign declined to comment on Broden.

In the interview, Brad Watson, political reporter for WFAA-TV (Channel 8), asked Broden about a tea party event last year in Fort Worth in which he described the nation's government as tyrannical.

"We have a constitutional remedy," Broden said then. "And the Framers say if that don't work, revolution."

Watson asked if his definition of revolution included violent overthrow of the government. In a prolonged back-and-forth, Broden at first declined to explicitly address insurrection, saying the first way to deal with a repressive government is to "alter it or abolish it."

"If the government is not producing the results or has become destructive to the ends of our liberties, we have a right to get rid of that government and to get rid of it by any means necessary," Broden said, adding the nation was founded on a violent revolt against Britain's King George III.

Watson asked if violence would be in option in 2010, under the current government.

"The option is on the table. I don't think that we should remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms," Broden said, without elaborating. "However, it is not the first option."

Reactions
Jonathan Neerman, head of the Dallas County Republican Party, said he's never heard Broden or other local Republican candidates advocate violence against the government.

"It is a disappointing, isolated incident," Neerman said. He said he plans to discuss the matter with Broden's campaign.

Ken Emanuelson, a Broden supporter and leading tea party organizer in Dallas, said he did not disagree with the "philosophical point" that people had the right to resist a tyrannical government.

But, he said, "Do I see our government today anywhere close to that point? No, I don't."

Emanuelson said he's occasionally heard people call for direct action against the government, but that they typically do not get involved in electoral politics.

That Broden is "engaged in the election and running for office shows he's got faith in the system as it is," Emanuelson said.

Other statements
Also in the interview, Broden backed away from other controversial statements he has made at rallies and on cable news appearances.

In June 2009, he described the economic crash in the housing, banking and automotive industries as "contrived" and a "set up" by the Obama administration.

Asked Thursday about the validity of these, Broden said they were "authentic crises facing this nation."

Broden also retreated from other remarks last year that chided Americans for not being more outraged over government intrusion, comparing them to Jews "walking into the furnaces" under the Nazi regime in Germany.

"They are our enemies, and we must resist them," he said of government leaders.

Broden said Thursday that he wasn't trying to compare President Barack Obama to Hitler and he mistakenly linked the U.S. in 2010 to Nazi Germany.

In the uphill campaign against Johnson, Broden has sought to capitalize on her misuse of scholarship funds from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, a nonprofit entity.

In late August, The Dallas Morning News reported that Johnson provided 23 scholarships over five years to two of her grandsons, two children of her nephew, and two children of her top aide in Dallas. None of those recipients were eligible under the foundation's anti-nepotism rules or residency requirements. She has repaid the foundation more than $31,000.

The War on Drugs Is Doomed

Strong demand and the high profits that are the result of prohibition make illegal trafficking unstoppable.
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

They say that the first step in dealing with a problem is acknowledging that you have one. It is therefore good news that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will lead a delegation to Mexico tomorrow to talk with officials there about efforts to fight the mob violence that is being generated in Mexico by the war on drugs. U.S. recognition of this shared problem is healthy.

But that's where the good news is likely to end.

Violence along the border has skyrocketed ever since Mexican President Felipe Calderón decided to confront the illegal drug cartels that operate there. Some 7,000 troops now patrol Juárez, a city of roughly one million. Yet even militarization has not delivered the peace. The reason is simple enough: The source of the problem is not Mexican supply. It is American demand coupled with prohibition.

It is doubtful that this will be acknowledged at tomorrow's meeting. The drug-warrior industry, which includes both the private-sector and a massive government bureaucracy devoted to "enforcement," has an enormous economic incentive to keep the war raging. In Washington politics both groups have substantial influence. So it is likely that we are going to get further plans to turn Juárez into a police state with the promise that more guns, tanks, helicopters and informants can stop Mexican gangsters from shoving drugs up American noses.

Last week's gangland-style slaying of an unborn baby and three adults who had ties to the U.S. Consulate in Juárez has drawn attention to Mrs. Clinton's trip. The incident stunned Americans. Yet tragic as they were, statistically those four deaths don't create even a blip on the body-count chart. The running tally of drug-trafficking linked deaths in Juárez since December 2006 is more than 5,350. There has also been a high cost to the city's economy as investors and tourists have turned away.

Even with low odds of a productive outcome, though, Mexico can't afford to write off tomorrow's meeting. It is an opportunity that, handled correctly, could provide for a teachable moment. I suggest that one or two of Mexico's very fine economists trained at the University of Chicago by Milton Friedman sit down with President Obama's team to explain a few things about how markets work. They could begin by outlining the path that a worthless weed travels to become the funding for the cartel's firepower. In this Econ 101 lesson, students will learn how the lion's share of the profit is in getting the stuff over the U.S. border to the American consumer. In football terms, Juárez is first and goal.

Mexico hasn't always been an important playing field for drug cartels. For many years cocaine traffickers used the Caribbean to get their product to their customers in the largest and richest market in the hemisphere. But when the U.S. redoubled its efforts to block shipments traveling by sea, the entrepreneurs shifted to land routes through Central America and Mexico.

Mexican traffickers now handle cocaine but traditional marijuana smuggling is their cash cow, despite competition from stateside growers. In a February 2009 interview, then-Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told me that half of the cartel's annual income was derived from marijuana.

This is especially troubling for Mexican law enforcement because marijuana use, through medical marijuana outlets and general social acceptance, has become de facto legal in the U.S., and demand is robust. The upshot is that consumption is cool while production, trafficking and distribution are organized-crime activities. This is what I called in a previous column, "a stimulus plan for Mexican gangsters."

In much of the world, where institutions are weak and folks are poor, the high value that prohibition puts into drugs means that the thugs rule. Mr. Medina Mora told me in the same 2009 interview that Mexico estimated the annual cash flow from U.S. drug consumers to Mexico at around $10 billion, which of course explains why the cartels are so well armed and also able to grease the system. It also explains why Juárez is today a killing field.

Supply warriors might have a better argument if the billions of dollars spent defoliating the Colombian jungle, chasing fast boats and shooting down airplanes for the past four decades had reduced drug use. Yet despite passing victories like taking out 1980s kingpin Pablo Escobar and countless other drug lords since then, narcotics are still widely available in the U.S. and some segment of American society remains enthusiastic about using them. In some places terrorist organizations like Colombia's FARC rebels and al Qaeda have replaced traditional cartels.

There is one ray of hope for innocent victims of the war on drugs. Last week the Journal reported that Drug Enforcement Administration agents were questioning members of an El Paso gang about their possible involvement in the recent killings in Juárez. If the escalation is now spilling over into the U.S., Americans may finally have to face their role in the mess. Mrs. Clinton's mission will only add value if it reflects awareness of that reality.

Seven Years In, Iraq’s Future as Uncertain as Ever
By Jason Ditz On March 19, 2010

Another year of war in Iraq has come and gone, and with devastating violence still virtually a daily reality in the nation, the seventh anniversary of the US invasion looks to come and go with considerably less discussion than in years past.

The repeated escalations of the war in Afghanistan have turned Iraq into a comparatively forgotten war. This, coupled with President Obama’s repeated pledges to end the war have led many Americans to conclude that the conflict is, if not entirely so, virtually over.

Yet nearly 100,000 American troops remain on the ground in Iraq, increasingly held hostage by what looks to be a virtual deadlock in this month’s parliamentary election. US officials still insist further cuts are “on the horizon,” but the Obama Administration’s pledge to have all combat troops out by August, which was itself a considerable retreat from his campaign pledges to end the war entirely in 16 months, looks like it will not come to pass.

There is open talk about a “plan B” in Iraq, which is to slow or even entirely stop the withdrawal of troops from the nation. Officials had said last year that the bulk of America’s combat force would not leave until after the election was resolved, but this is now expected to take several months.

In a way, the situation has become even less certain than it was a year ago. At this time last year officials were presenting the then-upcoming parliamentary election as a stabilizing event. With that election dividing the nation’s polity more than ever, there seems to be no hypothetical future event for the administration to hang its hopes on.