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Monday, November 8, 2010

Palin tells Bernanke "cease and desist": report

  By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin on Monday weighed in on the global debate over the Federal Reserve's $600 billion plan to buy up government debt, suggesting Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke should "cease and desist."
"We shouldn't be playing around with inflation," Palin, who is widely seen as a prospective 2012 Republican presidential candidate, said in remarks prepared for a Monday speech in Phoenix.
"We don't want temporary, artificial economic growth bought at the expense of permanently higher inflation, which will erode the value of our incomes and our savings. We want a stable dollar combined with real economic reform. It's the only way we can get our economy back on the right track."
Excerpts of the remarks were published online by the conservative National Review magazine. Palin's staff was not immediately available for comment. The report said the remarks would be delivered in a keynote address at a trade association convention.
Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, is a top Republican Party figure and leader of the Tea Party movement, which helped Republicans recapture control of the House of Representatives last week.

FED AUDITS, ABOLITION?


The loosely organized political network includes conservatives and libertarians, some of whom would like to abolish the Federal Reserve system, which operates independent of the federal government.
Voter outrage over Fed bailouts and other actions helped propel many Republican candidates on Election Day, including Kentucky Senator-elect Rand Paul, who has favored abolition of the agency.
His father, House Republican Ron Paul, another Tea Party favorite who has run for president twice, intends to push to audit Fed monetary policy decisions next year if -- as expected -- he wins control of a congressional subcommittee that oversees
the central banks.
Representative Paul Ryan, expected to become chairman of the House Budget Committee when Republicans take control of the chamber in January, said on Sunday the advantages of the central bank's move to inject more money into the U.S. economy "are very low."
"I think it's going to give us a big inflation problem down the road," Ryan said.
President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials defend the Fed's decision to buy $600 billion in U.S. Treasury debt as a means to stimulate the economy and maintain global stability.
Palin's remarks add her to a growing list of critics, including officials from China, Germany and Brazil, who are concerned that the Fed plan could bring instability instead.
"If it doesn't work, what do we do then? Print even more money? What's the end game here?," she asked. "All this pump priming will come at a serious price."
She appeared to align herself with recent criticism from German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
"The German finance minister called the Fed's proposals 'clueless.' When Germany, a country that knows a thing or two about the dangers of inflation, warns us to think again, maybe it's time for Chairman Bernanke to cease and desist," Palin said.
Palin has not said whether she will make a White House bid in 2012. But she has been using public appearances to build up her political and policy credentials for the job.
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

In Indonesia, Obama visits unusual democracy

Booming economy, newly won freedoms contrast with alleged abuse by the military, police 

Indonesian soldiers patrol Istiqlal Mosque ahead of the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama in Jakarta, Indonesia on Monday. Obama is expected to arrive on Tuesday.
                              By ROBIN McDOWELL
The Associated Press
updated 1 hour 35 minutes ago

President Barack Obama's next stop on a tour of Asian democracies is an emerging economic power but also a country where U.S.-backed military and police still stifle dissent.
Just ask Anggen Pugu Kiwo, who became a symbol of ongoing abuses in far-flung regions when a video appeared on the Internet showing him being tortured by men who were allegedly soldiers.
The 50-year-old was shown lying naked on the gravel as one of his interrogators stood roughly on his chest and another placing burning stick to his genitals.
"I thought I was going to die," Kiwo said softly, his voice shaking. "At one point I prayed they would just shoot me."
Obama bypasses India's outsourcing capital When Obama arrives in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, on Tuesday he will find a country almost unrecognizable from the one he knew as a child.
Since emerging from decades of dictatorship under Gen. Suharto in 1998, the nation of 237 million people has made tremendous strides toward democracy, scrapping repressive laws, freeing the media and allowing citizens to directly pick their own leaders.
Allegations of abuse It also has one of the fastest growing economies in the region, thanks to a booming stock market, abundant natural resources, and consumers who are eager to spend.
But while its military has made tentative steps toward reforms, it continues to be accused of abusing citizenry in the sprawling nation's separatist-torn regions, like Papua.
Activists are regularly given lengthy prison terms for peacefully expressing their views, organizing rallies or for simply raising pro-independence flags.

Foreign journalists, human rights workers and academics are denied access to the region, making allegations of abuse almost impossible to verify.
But increasingly videos, like that of Kiwo are surfacing online.
In August, footage emerged of another prisoner, Yawen Wayeni, lying in a jungle clearing moments after troops allegedly sliced open his abdomen with a bayonet, sending intestines tumbling from his stomach.
Using the little life he has left in him, he lifts his arm into the air, and says weakly, "Freedom! Papua ... Freedom!"
In both cases, the government has denied security forces were involved but promised to investigate.
The United States agreed under the George W. Bush administration to lift a trade embargo imposed over concerns about military human rights violations under Suharto — partially to reward the country's efforts to fight terrorism.
Ban on military help lifted And in July, Obama decided to lift a decadelong ban on military assistance to a notoriously violent commando unit, known as Kopassus, as the administration sought to shore up influence in the region amid increasing challenges from China.
That has incensed rights workers and victims of abuse.
"Obama is rewarding Kopassus without requiring accountability," said Suciwati, the widow of slain human rights activist, Munir Thalib, who documented atrocities carried by the military.
He was poisoned to death in 2004 on a flight between Jakarta and Amsterdam. Though intelligence agents were brought to trial, no one has ever been held accountable.
"I fear that the Indonesian security services will again get away with murder," said Suciwati.
U.S.-trained forces at the core of Indonesia's anti-terror fight, Detachment 88, have also been accused of torturing pro-independence activists from the Moluccan islands in 2007 after they unfurled their flag at a ceremony attended by the president.

The were beaten, forced to crawl on their stomachs over hot asphalt, whipped with an electric cable and hit on the head with rifle butts until their ears bled, according to Amnesty International.
That wouldn't surprise Kiwo, who appeared on a video made available Monday by Human Rights Watch, explaining the harrowing three days he spent with his torturers.
He said when soldiers initially stopped him at a checkpoint in Puncak Jaya last May and told him to get off his motorbike, he thought they were just going to ask for cigarettes.
Instead he was pulled behind their tiny shack, accused of being a separatist fighter.
The abuse didn't stop with the burning of his genitals, he said. Barbed wire was wrapped around his legs, cigarettes were stubbed out in his face, and he was beaten in the neck and back with a wooden stick until it broke in half.
When they finally let him go, he dragged himself to his family.
"They were afraid to approach me, shake my hands because they'd heard I'd been killed by the military," Kiwo trembled.
"They thought it was just my shadow."
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.           

Elizabeth Smart on abduction:

'I thought I was having a nightmare'

Takes stand on first day of testimony in street preacher's kidnapping trial                     



                              By JENNIFER DOBNER
The Associated Press
updated 1 hour 10 minutes ago

Elizabeth Smart remembers not being able to make out the threat, only the feel of cold knife at her neck.
As the then-14-year-old lay in bed alongside her baby sister, the man repeated: "Don't make a sound. Get out of bed and come with me, or I will kill you and your family." She was his hostage, he told her.
"I was shocked. I thought I was having a nightmare. It was just indescribable fear," Smart, now 23, told jurors Monday on the first day of testimony in the trial of Brian David Mitchell, the man accused of kidnapping her in June 2002.
That night, they fled up the hills above her home, with Smart in her red pajamas and tennis shoes, and the knife to her back.
Her younger sister — a baby blanket wrapped around her head and neck — rushed to their mother, telling of the kidnapping.
"It was utter terror," their mother, Lois Smart, testified earlier Monday. "It was the worst feeling, knowing that I didn't know where my child was. I was helpless."
Nine months later, motorists spotted Elizabeth Smart walking in a Salt Lake City suburb with Mitchell.
His attorneys did not dispute the facts of the abduction. But during opening statements, they said the prosecution's allegation that he was a calculating person who planned the kidnapping was wrong.
Image: Ed Smart, Lois Smart
Steve C Wilson  /  AP
Elizabeth Smart's parents, Lois and Ed Smart, arrive at the courthouse Monday.
Known as a homeless street preacher named "Immanuel," Mitchell was influenced by a worsening mental illness and religious beliefs that made him think he was doing what God wanted, his attorneys said.
Mitchell, who has a long graying beard to the middle of his chest and hair to the middle of his back, was again removed from the courtroom Monday for singing hymns, so he's watching and listening from a holding cell.
Smart's mother testified that she and her children ran into Mitchell downtown and that she offered him a job doing handyman work at the family's home. One of her sons encouraged her to give him money, she said.
"He looked like a clean-cut, well-kept man that was down on his luck," she said. "I gave him $5."
Later, the family hired Mitchell to help fix a leaky roof, Lois Smart said. It was the only job he did for the family.
"I do remember having a conversation with him, hoping that he would do more work. He seemed fine," she said.

Elizabeth Smart described how Mitchell came into her bedroom. She had left a kitchen window open because her mother had burned potatoes for dinner.
"I remember him saying that I have a knife to your neck, don't make a sound, get out of bed and come with me or I will kill you and your family," she said.
Smart said she got up and he grabbed her arm, and took her into a closet. He stopped her when she reached for slippers and told her to wear tennis shoes.
After leaving the house, Smart said, they hiked three to five hours up a hill to a campsite where Mitchell's now-estranged wife, Wanda Eileen Barzee, took her in a tent, sat her down on a bucket and washed her feet.
Barzee also told her to take off her pajamas and underwear and put on a robe or "she would have the defendant come in and rip them off," she said.
Smart said Mitchell entered the tent wearing a similar robe and married them by pulling a sentence from the traditional Mormon marriage ceremony, called a sealing.
"He said, 'What I seal on this earth will be sealed to me in the hereafter and I take you to be my wife,'" she said, adding that she screamed and he threatened to put duct tape across her mouth.
"He proceeded to fight me to the ground and force the robes up," Smart said quietly, pausing, "where he raped me."
"I begged him not to. I did everything I could to stop him. I pleaded with him not to touch me, but it didn't work."
Mitchell chained her to a table, making it impossible for her to flee, she said.
Lois Smart said she was awakened by daughter Mary Katherine, who was 9 at the time and slept with Elizabeth. With the baby blanket wrapped around her head, she looked like "a scared rabbit," her mother said.
"She said a man has taken Elizabeth with a gun and that we won't find her. He took her either for ransom or hostage," Lois Smart recalled Mary Katherine, now 18, saying.
Lois Smart said she went to the kitchen and immediately noticed the window was open and the screen was cut in a U-shape.
"My heart sank," she said. Then, she yelled to her husband, Ed: "Call 911. She's gone.'"
Elizabeth Smart is serving on a French mission trip for the Mormon church but plans to resume her music studies at Brigham Young University next year.
Mitchell, 57, faces life in prison if he is convicted of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Killer of mom, 2 daughters gets death sentence


Unsettling crime became an issue in Conn. governor's race  

This June 2007 photo shows William Petit with his daughters Michaela (front) and Hayley, and his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, on Cape Cod, Mass.

A Connecticut man was condemned to death Monday for a night of terror inside a suburban home in which a woman was strangled and her two daughters tied to their beds and left to die in a gasoline-fueled fire.
Jurors in New Haven Superior Court voted unanimously to send Steven Hayes to death row after deliberating over the span of four days. Judge Jon Blue will impose the sentence on Dec. 2.
"You have been exposed to images of depravity and horror that no human being should have to see," Blue said in thanking the jurors for their service.

Dr. William Petit, the husband and father of the victims, said the verdict was not about revenge.

"Vengeance belongs to the Lord," Petit said. "This is about justice. We need to have some rules in a civilized society."   

He also said it wouldn't bring closure, saying whoever came up with the concept was "an imbecile."

"It's a hole with jagged edges," he said. "Over time the edges may smooth out a little bit, but the hole in your heart, the hole in your soul is always there."

Hayes' attorneys had tried to persuade jurors to spare him the death penalty by portraying him as a clumsy, drug-addicted thief who never committed violence until the 2007 home invasion with a fellow paroled burglar. They called the co-defendant, Joshua Komisarjevsky, the mastermind and said he escalated the violence. They also said Hayes was remorseful and actually wanted a death sentence.
But prosecutors said both men were equally responsible and that the crime cried out for the death penalty, saying the family was tormented for seven hours before they were killed.
Video: Case is poster child for death penalty, attorney says (on this page) Defense attorney Tom Ullmann said Hayes, who had attempted suicide while incarcerated, smiled at the verdict.
"He is thrilled with the verdict. That's what he wanted all along," Ullmann said.
Hayes will join nine other men on Connecticut's death row. The state has only executed one man since 1960, so Hayes will likely spend years, if not decades, in prison.
Komisarjevsky will be tried next year.

Authorities said Hayes and Komisarjevsky broke into the house, beat William Petit, and forced his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, to withdraw money from a bank while the rest of her family remained under hostage at home. Hayes then sexually assaulted and strangled her, authorities said. Komisarjevsky, who will be tried next year, is charged with sexually assaulting their 11-year-old daughter, Michaela.

Michaela and her 17-year-old sister, Hayley, were tied to their beds and doused in gasoline before the men set the house on fire, according to testimony. The girls died of smoke inhalation.
The crime, which drew comparisons to the 1959 killings portrayed in Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood," was so unsettling that it became a key issue in the death penalty debate in the governor's race and led to tougher Connecticut laws for repeat offenders and home invasions. Gov. M. Jodi Rell cited the case when she vetoed a bill that would have abolished the death penalty.
The jurors were individually polled after the verdict Monday. One woman was crying and confirmed her verdict in a hoarse voice while a male juror said "yes" loudly and with conviction when asked to confirm his. Hayes was alternately looking straight ahead and to the opposite side of the courtroom from the jury. His attorney, Tom Ullmann, sat somewhat slumped in his chair.

Petit said he cried at the verdict, "thinking of the tremendous loss."

"Michaela was an 11-year-old little girl tortured and killed in her own bedroom, surrounded by stuffed animals," he said, his voice cracking. He said his older daughter, Hayley, had a great future, and his wife, a nurse, had helped many children at the hospitals where she worked.    

To determine Hayes' punishment, the jury weighed so-called aggravating factors cited by prosecutors, including the heinous and cruel nature of the deaths, against mitigating factors argued by Hayes' attorneys.
Dolores Carter, one of the jurors, told The Associated Press on Monday that she was tired and mentally exhausted.
"It was a very hard decision. It's not easy to put someone's life on the line," Carter said.
Ullmann had suggested prison would be more harsh than death for Hayes. Hayes told a psychiatrist he had repeatedly tried to kill himself after the crime because he felt guilty and remorseful and feared isolation in prison the rest of his life.
Hayes' attorneys focused heavily on Komisarjevsky, even calling a witness who said his "completely dead eyes" made him look like the devil.
Prosecutors said it was Hayes who initiated the crime, citing his confession to police in which he said he called Komisarjevsky shortly before the crime because he was financially desperate. They also noted that Hayes took Hawke-Petit to the bank to withdraw money, raped and strangled her, bought the gasoline and poured it in the house.

During the trial, jurors heard eight days of gruesome testimony, saw photos of the victims, charred beds, rope, ripped clothing and ransacked rooms.

Johanna Petit Chapman, William Petit's sister, said the family sympathized with the jurors for the emotional pain the case inflicted on them as they viewed pictures of the crime scene and heard details of the deaths.
"I was crying on the inside knowing what they were looking at," she said. "I can't say enough how badly I feel for them that they got thrust into this because of two people's decision to go in and just destroy life like that."
Hayes was convicted of six capital felony charges, three murder counts and two charges of sexually assaulting Hawke-Petit. The capital offenses were for killing two or more people, the killing of a person under 16, murder in the course of a sexual assault and three counts of intentionally causing a death during a kidnapping. He was sentenced to death for all six.
Ullmann and co-counsel Patrick Culligan said the case was treated differently because the victims were white and from the suburbs, and that crimes just as horrific involving minorities haven't garnered the same media and public attention.
"To my way of thinking, that's all that these verdicts prove today, that is just how arbitrary and capricious the death penalty is — it varies from case to case and person to person and jury to jury," Culligan said.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.            

BP Oil Spill Preliminary Conclusions

Preliminary Conclusions –Technical

  • Flow path was exclusively through shoe track and up through casing.
  • Cement (potentially contaminated or displaced by other materials) in shoe track and in some portion of annular space failed to isolate hydrocarbons.
  • Pre-job laboratory data should have prompted redesign of cement slurry. 
  • Cement evaluation tools might have identified cementing failure, but most operators would not have run tools at that time. They would have relied on the negative pressure test. 
  • Negative pressure test repeatedly showed that primary cement job had not isolated hydrocarbons.
  • Despite those results, BP and TO personnel treated negative pressure test as a complete success.
  • BP’s temporary abandonment procedures introduced additional risk
  • Number of simultaneous activities and nature of flow monitoring equipment made kick detection more difficult during riser displacement.
  • Nevertheless, kick indications were clear enough that if observed would have allowed the rig crew to have responded earlier.
  • Once the rig crew recognized the influx, there were several options that might have prevented or delayed the explosion and/or shut in the well. 
  • Diverting overboard might have prevented or delayed the explosion. Triggering the EDS prior to the explosion might have shut in the well and limited the impact of any explosion and/or the blowout.
  • Technical conclusions regarding BOP should await results of forensic BOP examination and testing. 
  • No evidence at this time to suggest that there was a conscious decision to sacrifice safety concerns to save money.

Spill panel questions risks, judgment before rig blast

Preliminary findings focus on BP decisions and how rig crews interpreted, reacted to data
Saul Loeb  /  AFP - Getty Images
Fred Bartlit, chief counsel of the National Oil Spill Commission, holds a model of the BP well bore hole on Monday as he presents preliminary findings on the blowout and resulting spill at a public hearing in Washington, D.C.
msnbc.com staff and news service reports msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 2 hours 18 minutes ago

No evidence was found that a conscious decision was made to sacrifice safety in order to save money, the presidential Gulf oil spill panel said in preliminary findings released Monday, but BP incurred "additional risk" and teams of workers — both BP and contractors — made poor judgments ahead of the April 20 well blowout and rig explosion.
Issued as 13 bullet points, the findings focus on the cement work done to seal the well once it was drilled, the tests done to check on the cement, the choices made by BP on how to plug the well until it was to be started up later, and how crew reacted in the last few hours before the blowout.
Panel staff were elaborating on the findings during presentations Monday to start a two-day hearing that will include reaction from BP and its main contractors, Halliburton, which did the cement job, and Transocean, which owned the Deepwater Horizon rig.

Fred Bartlit, Jr., the panel's chief investigator, said in his presentation to the seven-member oil spill commission that he agreed with about 90 percent of BP's findings, although the company left out some critical details and there were other areas where the panel's probe will conflict. A final report is due by Jan. 11.
The "additional risk" cited by Bartlit and his staff included the timing of BP decisions to remove heavy mud and plugs that provided barriers against any blowout.
Bartlit also challenged a narrative that has dominated the headlines and Democratic probes in Congress since the April 20 incident killed 11 and unleashed more than 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico: that BP made perilous choices to save money.
"We see no instance where a decision-making person or group of people sat there aware of safety risks, aware of costs and opted to give up safety for costs," Bartlit said. "We do not say everything done was perfectly safe. ... We studied the hell out of this. We welcome anybody who gives us something we missed."
Daniel Becnel, a Louisiana lawyer suing BP and others over the oil spill, called the commission's findings about money not jeopardizing safety "absolutely absurd." He also took issue with Bartlit's endorsement of BP's view of events.
"They are pasting over because they know the government is going to be a defendant sooner or later in this litigation," Becnel said.
According to testimony before the government's joint investigative panel, the Macondo well project was nearly $60 million over budget days before the explosion. That panel has been paying particular attention to the issue of whether money was put ahead of safety.
BP's internal investigation found flaws with contractor Halliburton's cement job and the maintenance performed by rig owner Transocean on critical pieces of equipment. The company also questioned how its own employees misread a critical pressure test before the blowout.
Story: Dead, dying coral found near BP spill called 'smoking gun' Democrats in Congress have focused on BP's well design, saying the company made decisions that sacrificed safety to save millions of dollars. Those choices included running a single piece of pipe from the seafloor to the bottom of the well, something called a "long string." BP also chose to use fewer centralizers, devices that hold the pipe down the center of the well for cementing.

In a June letter to then-BP CEO Tony Hayward, Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., questioned at least five decisions BP made in the days leading up to the explosion.
"The common feature of these five decisions is that they posed a trade-off between cost and well safety," said Waxman and Stupak.
"Time after time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense," the lawmakers wrote.
In a statement to The Associated Press on Monday, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a member of Waxman's energy panel that is investigating the spill, stood by those claims.
"When the culture of a company favors risk-taking and cutting corners above other concerns, systemic failures like this oil spill disaster result without direct decisions being made or tradeoffs being considered," Markey said. "What is fully evident, from BP's pipeline spill in Alaska and the Texas city refinery disaster, to the Deepwater Horizon well failure, is that BP has a long and sordid history of cutting costs and pushing the limits in search of higher profits."
After months of hearings, investigations and finger-pointing, there is still disagreement over what and whose mistakes triggered the deadly and polluting explosion.
The president's commission is the first independent body to weigh in. Like BP, it found that the oil and gas traveled up the center of the pipe in the well, rather than up the sides. They also questioned, like BP, the interpretation of a critical test used to determine if the well was stable before the company abandoned it. The investigators said that some procedures BP decided to use in that process, where a well is plugged until a company is ready to harvest oil and gas, introduced additional risk.
But its probe also left out critical elements, including why the blowout preventer — the last defense against a runaway well — failed to block the flow of oil and gas. Bartlit said the team would await a forensic analysis before drawing conclusions. The blowout preventer is now protected evidence in a federal court case into the disaster.

Bartlit said his job was not to assign blame, but to deliver a report about what happened aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig.
He started his presentation with a moment of silence for the blowout's victims.
"We will honor them if we can get to a root cause without a lot of bickering and self-serving statements," Bartlit said.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.   

Pakistan, and Obama's, 'unwinnable war'

'You cannot win by killing and shooting people without going for the reasons that have given rise to this militancy'                     



By Carol Grisanti and Mushtaq Yusufzai
NBC News NBC News
updated 11/8/2010 1:04:21 PM ET




Armed Pakistani Taliban gather at a hideout in the semi-autonomous tribal district of Orakzai on April 22, 2009.

As President Barack Obama was feted in India, his message to neighboring Pakistan — do more to shut down terrorist safe havens — was sure to irk the Islamabad government, which insists it’s doing more than ever to help the U.S. battle against the Taliban.
“We will continue to insist to Pakistan's leaders that terrorist safe havens within their borders are unacceptable," Obama said in a speech to India's parliament .
India is the first stop of a 4-nation Asia tour by the U.S. president. Not only is his longest stop in India, but Obama has noticeably skipped a visit to Pakistan.
Story: Obama backs India for U.N. Security Council seat It’s all salt in the wounds for Pakistan, which feels its sacrifices in an unpopular war remain unappreciated.
With 150,000 troops hunting down the Taliban in the virtually ungovernable tribal regions, Pakistan’s causality figures are rising – over 2,000 soldiers have been killed and more than 6,000 wounded in the 9-year “war on terror.” That doesn’t count civilian casualties, estimated at around 21,000 slain and injured.
Yet, discussions with military leaders suggest that the gains that may have been made may not be enough, that it may be an “unwinnable” war for Pakistan.
Way out of unpopular war In public, Pakistan’s generals claim they have broken the back of the local militants, that their leaders are in hiding and the groups are in disarray.
The latest success is in Orakzai, where Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud had established complete control and set up headquarters for the Pakistani Taliban.
“Orakzai was the center of gravity from where they would move and that free movement is no longer there,” said Major General Nadir Zeb, commander of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, during a recent visit to Kalaya in lower Orakzai. A full 90 percent of Orakzai has been cleared of insurgents, he added.
Surrounded by mountains, some reaching as high as 7,000 feet, Orakzai is the only one of the seven semi-autonomous tribal agencies or regions that does not border Afghanistan. Before being ousted by the Pakistani army, militants planned attacks on the Pakistani state from Orakzai, and moved freely into neighboring Peshawar and other main cities.
Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, left, with his comrade Waliur Rehman during a meeting with the media in Sararogha, South Waziristan, in October, 2009.
The Taliban often bragged that Orakzai was far away, and therefore safe, from the U.S. predator drones and NATO forces in Afghanistan. It was relatively easy for them to move southwest into the Khyber and Kurram agencies and use Bilandkhel, a tiny village that links Orakzai with North Waziristan, the heart of the insurgency, and sneak across the border to fight coalition forces.
The easy movement of insurgents largely came to an end when the army sealed off routes connecting in November, 2009, to try and prevent the militants fleeing the offensive in South Waziristan from seeking a safe haven in Orakzai.
But that wasn’t the success that it seemed – officials now acknowledge that Taliban leaders like Hakimullah Mehsud are still alive because they rarely stay and fight and instead leave at the beginning of an operation. In this way, they are able to organize new recruits and drift back into areas after the army withdraws.
Indeed, even though the army launched its first offensive in Orakzai three years ago, the fighting is ongoing and thousands of people have fled their homes and villages.
Social worker Rahat Orakzai left the area in 2008 during an army offensive around his village, along with other members of his family and tribe. Months later, after the army had declared his area cleared of militants, he returned home only to find the Taliban still in control.
“We had to leave our homes twice due to the bombings and the brutality of the Taliban,” he said from a makeshift home in the town of Hangu, across the border from Orakzai in Pakistan proper. “Now we will stay put and not go back until we are absolutely sure the Taliban can never come back.”
‘Unwinnable war’ The military has announced that combat operations in Orakzai were over on several occasions. Last June, generals again declared victory only to find themselves engaged in fierce battle the very next day.
“This is an unwinnable war for (the Pakistan army),” said retired General Talat Masood, a military analyst. “You cannot win by killing and shooting people without going for the reasons that have given rise to this militancy.”
The government must address the lack of education, infrastructure and security for the people living in the tribal areas, as well as integrate the frontier into Pakistan proper, he said. And it also needs to abolish archaic land laws left over from the British Raj by which the tribal areas are governed, Masood added.
Also weighing heavily on the minds of Pakistan’s senior commanders and government officials are the 400,000 displaced people who were forced to flee their homes during the army’s offensive in South Waziristan last year. Military officials are anxious to move them back to their homes but had to delay the repatriation because the army was tied up in the rescue and rehabilitation operations of last summer’s flood victims.
Privately, some security officials say that the majority of the displaced families are too frightened of the Taliban to return back to their villages. An imminent operation in North Waziristan would create another torrent of hundreds of thousands of refugees and a backlash that the country can neither cope with nor afford, many believe.
‘How can the army claim victory?’ The military commanders freely admit that they are stretched.
The army is still bogged down in areas where they’ve wrapped up combat operations, like Swat, Bajaur, South Waziristan and Mohmand. The generals are only too well aware that if they withdraw too soon, the Taliban will move right back in.
When asked how long it would take before Orakzai is completely secured, Zeb said he needed more time.
"It could be months," he said.
For Israr Mahmud, a retired schoolteacher living in Orakzai, the Taliban are still very much around.
“They continue to kidnap people, run their own prisons and distribute their own harsh justice,” he told NBC News angrily. “They blow up army vehicles and kill soldiers almost every day, so how can the army claim victory?”
Still, the U.S. wants Pakistan to do more and is pushing hard for an offensive to clean up North Waziristan right next to Orakzai.
Branded the epicenter of terrorism, U.S. officials believe North Waziristan is the logistical headquarters for al-Qaida and a witches brew of terrorists planning attacks not only across the border in Afghanistan but also on the U.S. and Europe.
‘Follow the tribal ways’ 

Pakistani soldiers carry coffins of their colleagues during a funeral ceremony in Peshawar on Oct. 22 after bomb blast in the Yakh Kandaw area of Orakzai
Pakistani security insiders are resisting U.S. demands for an aggressive and immediate push in the area, however, saying its national priorities must come first and now is not the right time.
“We cannot just go (for a full-blown operation) into North Waziristan,” said a senior Pakistani security official who requested anonymity when speaking of the military’s strategy. “We have to follow the tribal ways and work with the tribes or else it won’t work.”
And that probably means doing deals with the elders who can convince the rest of the tribes to expel the foreigners in their area, usually in return for some financial reward. After elders agree to a deal, according to the tribal code of honor, anyone who breaks it will bring collective punishment on the entire tribe
Lt. General Asif Yasin Malik, the main military commander in Pakistan’s northwest, echoed that sentiment when he said that it would still take months before ongoing operations and talks in other tribal areas completely cleared out the militants.
“What we have to do, we have to stabilize the whole area. I have a very large area in my command so I must stabilize the other areas and then maybe look at North Waziristan,” Malik said.
Such talk is likely to upset U.S. officials. Equally alarming for the American government is Pakistan’s assertion that it will not go after the al-Qaida linked Haqqani network in North Waziristan. Washington has pointed to eliminating the group as key to stabilizing Afghanistan.
Pakistani doubts expressed both privately and publicly haven’t stopped the rumors in North Waziristan that the army will strike simply because the U.S. is demanding they do. Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a prominent Taliban commander in North Waziristan, recently offered to raise two billion dollars for the army so the government could be strong enough to refuse U.S. money and not attack the tribes of North Waziristan.
Masood, the military analyst, described the current state of U.S.- Pakistan relations as unfortunate.
“Pakistan is in a trap," he said. “The U.S. is so hard on Pakistan and pushes Pakistan so much that we have lost our ability to find our own solutions.”
© 2010 msnbc.com  Reprints

Could Wall Street's Favorite Dem Head Obama's Consumer Bureau?


Not only is rumored CFPB candidate Melissa Bean as industry-friendly as they come, but her ex-chief of staff has lobbied for finance reform's biggest enemies.

The Senior Vote

— By Kevin Drum

| Mon Nov. 8, 2010 11:53 AM PST
Speaking of senior citizens and how they voted this year, why did they suddenly decide to vote en masse for Republicans? Part of the reason is that everyone voted in masse for Republicans this year. Still, seniors switched in even higher numbers than most groups, despite the fact that the economic turndown actually affects them less than most other age groups. Here's one explanation:
“I’ve been saying since August 2009, that there was a tsunami — in this case a senior citizen tsunami — headed towards Capitol Hill,” said Jim Martin, chairman of the 60 Plus Association, a conservative campaign group targeted toward older voters. “That tsunami came ashore.”
....“I think that there is a level of fear that has grown with seniors vis-à-vis the Obama health care plan,” said Republican pollster Steve Lombardo. “Anytime that there’s change, I think seniors are going to be more concerned that that change is going to affect them in a negative way.”
Well, yeah. Seniors might very well be more concerned that Medicare changes are going to affect them in a negative way. But there's that pesky passive voice again. Why were seniors concerned about this? No fancy political science is needed here: the answer is tens of millions of dollars spent on demagogic advertising like this. There's no need to get any more complicated about it.

A Climate Science Headache

| Mon Nov. 8, 2010 11:21 AM PST
I have a piece up on the main site today about the coming climate science witch hunt now that Republicans will be back in control of the House next year.
In what I took as a sign of hope, the Los Angeles Times reported this morning that the American Geophysical Union plans to launch a coordinated effort to push back against climate change deniers. But now AGU says that story is "inaccurate." While the group says it is planning to re-launch a climate science Q&A program it started last year for journalists covering the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen, there is no wider program to defend the science in the works:
"In contrast to what has been reported in the LA Times and elsewhere, there is no campaign by AGU against climate skeptics or congressional conservatives,” says Christine McEntee, Executive Director and CEO of the American Geophysical Union. “AGU will continue to provide accurate scientific information on Earth and space topics to inform the general public and to support sound public policy development."
AGU is the world's largest, not-for-profit, professional society of Earth and space scientists, with more than 58,000 members in over 135 countries. "AGU is a scientific society, not an advocacy organization,” says climate scientist and AGU President Michael J. McPhaden. "The organization is committed to promoting scientific discovery and to disseminating to the scientific community, policy makers, the media, and the public, peer-reviewed scientific findings across a broad range of Earth and space sciences.&quote
I'm disappointed that the leading scientific professional group for climate scientists isn't taking up the effort outlined in the Times. But more importantly, I'm troubled by the idea that AGU set up in this press release by creating a delineation between "a scientific society" and "an advocacy organization." This statement makes it appear that any effort to fight skeptics on climate science would by nature be "advocacy" work, and that a scientific group, by extension, should not then participate in it.
This only serves to affirm the talking point of climate change deniers that scientists who take the time to explain the science and refute lies and misinformation are engaging in "activism." The repetition of this false association by such an esteemed scientific group is problematic.
UPDATE: The Guardian gets the story right. AGU is relaunching its climate Q&A program, and a separate group of climate scientists is planning the rapid response effort. More here. Glad this other effort I underway, though I still think that the wording in the AGU release is troubling. That said, both this outside effort by climate science titans like Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University, and the AGU work are invaluable tools in the communication battle over climate science.

Fighting Back on Climate:

 Don't Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight

| Mon Nov. 8, 2010 9:02 AM PST
As my colleagues Kevin Drum and Kate Sheppard have noted, a group of 700 climate scientists plans to start pushing back harder and more publicly against climate change skeptics. Kevin offers a few words of warning:
I hope these guys are well trained. They need to know the science cold, they need to be aware of the standard denialist talking points, they need to stick to the facts religiously, and they need to have good media training. They won't be going up against amateurs and the rules of the game won't be set by the Marquess of Queensberry.
Unfortunately, I doubt any of the preparations that Kevin suggests will actually be made. People who don't have backgrounds in politics regularly underestimate how difficult it actually is. Climate skepticism is serious business, and it's well-funded by some of the richest and most powerful corporations and individuals in the world. There's real money at stake here, and the skeptics are not going to mess around or play nice. In fact, they're probably thanking their lucky stars that this is happening, because there's a very real chance that this will backfire on climate scientists. It will be easy for skeptics to simply point to the climate scientists' "coming out" as proof of the conspiracy that they've long alleged. And there's a good chance that some climate scientist will make a rookie mistake. You can bet that at least one of them will say something silly at a conference or on cable television that will be taken out of context, replayed on YouTube, and and which will continue to fuel the fires of denialism for the next decade and a half.
I understand why the scientists are doing this. What they were doing before (trying to focus on the science, and having faith the truth would out) wasn't working, and they see a moral imperative to warn the world of impending disaster. It may be too little, too late.
UPDATE: Now Kate reports that the original Los Angeles Times story that launched all this was wrong: the group of 700 climate climate scientists planning to push back isn't actually planning to push back. She also explains why that's troubling.

More eggs recalled after salmonella found at Ohio farm

Cal-Maine Foods recalls 288,000 eggs; no illnesses reported

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By MARY CLARE JALONICK
The Associated Press
updated 11/8/2010 12:36:27 PM ET


Evidence of salmonella has been found at an Ohio egg farm that's received financing from the owner of an Iowa egg farm that was behind a massive recall earlier this year.
Cal-Maine Foods Inc., the nation's biggest egg seller and distributor, said it is recalling 288,000 eggs the company had purchased from supplier Ohio Fresh Eggs after a test showed salmonella at the Ohio farm.
No illnesses have been reported. According to Cal-Maine Foods, the Ohio Fresh eggs were distributed to food wholesalers and retailers in Arkansas, California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.
In a statement from company officials, Ohio Fresh Eggs said the farm had held back eggs from the Croton, Ohio, barn where the salmonella was found. However, through discussions with the FDA, the company discovered that some eggs from that barn were mistakenly sent to a distributor.
Story: Costco: Cheese sold in 5 states linked to E. coli
"Ohio Fresh Eggs sincerely regrets the error made on our farm, and we apologize to our customer and to consumers who may have purchased the eggs," the officials said. "We are redoubling our efforts to ensure thorough and ongoing training of our workers so that this situation is not repeated."
Cal-Maine Foods said the FDA told them about the positive sample.
Earlier this year, salmonella was found on two Iowa egg farms, Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms. The two companies recalled 550 million eggs in August when the products were linked to as many as 1,600 illnesses.
Austin "Jack" DeCoster owns Wright County Egg and has lent money to Ohio Fresh Eggs.
Ohio officials said DeCoster hid behind other farmers to get permits for the company in 2004. The permits listed two men who had put up just $10,000 apiece while DeCoster had pumped $126 million into the four farms, according to testimony in an administrative proceeding there. At the time, DeCoster had already been labeled a "habitual violator" of environmental laws in Iowa.
Ohio officials yanked the permits after learning about that, but an environmental appeals panel overturned that decision.
DeCoster has often tangled with the government. He has paid millions of dollars in state and federal fines over at least two decades for health, safety, immigration and environmental violations at his farms.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Pallone Urges Action on Food Safety Plan

CONGRESSMAN FRANK PALLONE, JR.
Sixth District of New Jersey
 
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Richard McGrath/Erin Bzymek
August 27, 2010 (202) 225-4671
                                                                                                                                      
Pallone Urges Action on Food Safety Plan
 
Salmonella-Tainted Eggs Underscores Need For Safety Standards

New Brunswick - In the wake of the latest case of contaminated food forcing the recall of more than half a billion eggs U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone on Friday joined with an array of food scientists and consumer advocates in New Jersey to press for action on the Food Safety Enhancement Act. Approved by the House more than a year ago, the congressional plan to protect the America food supply from contaminants is still awaiting action by the U.S. Senate.

     "The Salmonella outbreak is more evidence of the vulnerability of the food supply to contamination," said Pallone, a key author of the bill. "It should also serve as a catalyst for action by the Senate. The need for improved safety standards and procedures assumes greater urgency in light of the Salmonella-tainted eggs and subsequent recall."

     Each year, 76 million people get sick from unsafe food, 325,000 people are hospitalized and 5,000 people die. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates a financial cost of food borne illnesses of $6.9 billion annually.

     In the past few years, the food industry has been seriously scarred by the spread of E. coli, Salmonella and melamine in mainstay items of the food supply, outbreaks that caused widespread illness and deaths. During a recent public hearing, Pallone heard about a three-year-old who suffered kidney failure from contaminated spinach.

     Joining with Pallone were Professor Donald Schaffner, Director of the Center for Advanced Food Technology at Rutgers University, Surur Fatima Sajanlal, of NJ PIRG, Jim Walsh, from Food & Water Watch, and Michael Hansen, the Senior Staff Scientist with Consumers Union.

     "We must do more to improve the food safety system, we have to do a better job of keeping our food products free of contamination, said Pallone. "We get more food from the farm to the dinner table faster and cheaper than ever. But when the safety system comes up short, consumers are exposed to illness and even death. We have the knowledge and ability to make the food system safer, this bill will provide the resources and the standards to get the job done."

     The initiative would emphasize prevention and give producers more responsibility to keep food clean at the source, Pallone noted.

     The plan would create an updated registry of food facilities, require safety plans, add food inspectors, increase inspections and dramatically improve "traceability," allowing for the quick identification of the source of any contamination. It would also bring more accountability and oversight to imported foods that often originate in countries with less stringent standards.

     It would be funded by the food industry.     

     "It is in everyone's interest - especially the food industry - to maintain confidence in the Nation's food supply," Pallone said. "Parents need to know the food they feed their families is safe and the food industry needs to have the public's trust." 
 
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Most-Pesticide-Laden Fruits and Veggies List Under Attack

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The Left vs. Jon Stewart?

— By Nick Baumann

| Mon Nov. 8, 2010 8:06 AM PST
On Friday, Bill Maher finally said what needed to be said about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's "Rally to Restore Sanity":
The message of the rally, as I heard it, was that if the media stopped giving voice to the crazies on both sides, then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side forgetting that Obama tried that and found out...there are no moderates on the other side. When Jon announced his rally, he said the national conversation was dominated by people on the Right who believe Obama's a Socialist and people on the Left who believe 9/11's an inside job, but I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11's an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama's a Socialist? All of them.
Here's the video of Maher's full comments:
Maher has great instincts (most of the time), but he doesn't always do the work to make sure he's fully informed about certain issues. As a commenter points out here, Maher's rarely prepared to counter the misinformation that's so often spouted by his conservative guests. Still, when he's right, he's right. At the rally, Stewart set up a false equivalence between the right and the left, and liberals gave him a pass on it because they like him and they like his show.
I'd love to see Stewart respond to Maher's criticism—but not to Maher, who Stewart probably won't take seriously. A debate between Stewart and Ta-Nehisi Coates, who agrees with Maher, would be awesome. But Ta-Nehisi doesn't have a television show. So I think it's up to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. She's a Stewart fan, she's been on Stewart's show before, and he owes her an appearance. Like Stewart, she prepares and does her homework. Her channel, MSNBC, was among the targets of Stewart's ire. And best of all, she's (respectfully) sparred with Stewart on this issue before. In January, Stewart criticised her reporting about Haiti, suggesting it was too political and putting her in the same boat with Rush Limbaugh, of all people. Here's what she said in response:
I love me some Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. I'm a big fan. But no apologies for reporting which agency is the lead in our national effort to respond to Haiti, whether or not that agency is well resourced, whether it has been subject to partisan attacks, how much the current administration values and prioritizes and indeed brags on that agency. We all as Americans are counting on our government to do a good job in responding to this catastrophe. This is what it looks like to report on our government's capacity to do just that.
When President Obama gave USAID the lead role in coordinating this response to the disaster in Haiti he handed that agency its biggest humanitarian mission in years. Six days before the earthquake in Haiti Sec. of State Hillary Clinton had just given a major speech about how the Obama administration was going to elevate USAID to a primary position in the government.
[…]
Six days later the earthquake in Haiti and USAID gets put in charge of America’s response to it. They report that as of today USAID is fifty five million dollars into that response. They’re the ones coordinating America’s search and rescue efforts, water and emergency food aid, the way that supplies get into the country, shelter and sanitation and hygiene. At this point the road to being the world’s premier development agency runs through Haiti and we’ll keep reporting it.
I think I get why Stewart does what he does. He's a nice guy, and he wants to be able to interact reasonably with people on the Right—without shouting or name-calling. But being polite, reasonable, and fair to conservative guests doesn't require putting Rush Limbaugh and Rachel Maddow in the same segment, or comparing anyone on MSNBC to Glenn Beck.
Every night, Maddow proves that you can be painstakingly polite and reasonable to conservatives—and still be tough and critical and super-liberal. Ultimately, her way of dealing with conservatives is better than Stewart's. She should have him on and prove it.

We're Still at War:

 Photo of the Day for November 8, 2010

Mon Nov. 8, 2010 1:00 AM PST

Task Force White Currahee Soldiers from E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, take a break from walking up the side of a mountain in Charbaran District here during the early morning hours Oct. 27. The Soldiers were part of the largest combined air assault mission 4th Brigade Combat Team has conducted this year in the province. (Photo by U.S. Army Spc. Luther L. Boothe Jr., Task Force Currahee Public Affairs Office)