Heather Graham Sprints for the Public Option
By Maria Newman at New York Times
MoveOn.org has created a new ad in support of the public option that features a fit Heather Graham in running clothes, sprinting against overindulgent insurance company representatives.
The ad will appear on national cable television and on the Internet, although the organization says it does not know yet in what markets.
MoveOn says the ad is part of a week-long campaign to counter messages from insurance companies and its lobbying group, AHIP, against the public option. “It reinforces the message that the public option is the best way to lower costs for American families and keep private insurance companies honest,” MoveOn said in a statement.
In the Heather Graham ad, several insurance representatives are standing at a running track, one of them stuffing his face with a huge sandwich, and another one pouring champagne from a bottle into his mouth. Ms. Graham, the only one in running clothes, stretches at the starting line before twisting her body into what appear to be some serious yoga poses, and then she takes off running down the track, with the startled looking insurance people soon taking off after her.
A voiceover says about the public option:
Some in Washington say this is unfair competition. But competition is as American as apple pie.
MoveOn joins a list of other organizations taking to the airwaves on cable and the Internet to encourage more public support for the public option.
As Congress starts to pare down what will be in the final health bill, several groups have been creating ads that feature well-known people. One, by Brave New Films, features Robert Reich, secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, who says the public option plan is “not very scary or complicated.”
Explore War and Rethink Afghanistan
By Joel Epstein at Huffington Post
As anyone who knows me knows, I’ve always had at best an ambivalent relationship with the military. Coming of age as I did during the tail end of the war in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, like many of my generation I have always been highly skeptical of military speak and assertions by the American military leadership that its missions are noble and grand. And to miss the irony of President Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize as he pours more troops onto the fire in Afghanistan would be like missing the coverage of Michael Jackson’s funeral or Roman Polanski’s current digs in Switzerland.
Admittedly, I have lived a charmed life as far as military service goes. But as those who have driven with me know, I’m no pacifist and if called to serve, I would. The fact is, I’ve never been asked and now that my skin is wrinkled and my hair is turning gray I doubt I’d be much use on the battlefield anyhow, except perhaps behind the wheel of a tank.
While some may resent that I make no apologies for not volunteering for the armed forces it’s who I am and I sleep just fine in the bed I’ve made. When registration for the draft was reinstituted during my college years I reluctantly signed on, waiting until I’d received a thoughtful reminder from the boys at the Selective Service. If you looked at my lineage, I guess you could say it’s hereditary. The last male in my direct line to serve in the military was my maternal grandfather who proudly served his country in Brooklyn while attending engineering school at Pratt Institute. His honorable discharge sits framed in my home. Another ancestor cut off his trigger finger rather than serve in the Czar’s army, while legitimate medical dispensations kept my father and his father out of the service, though I suspect my grandmother would have found another way to keep her son out of harm’s way if she needed to.
FDL Movie Night: Rethink Afghanistan
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Robert Greenwald described his latest film, Rethink Afghanistan, as a way to ask “fundamental core questions:”
“The argument we make in the film is that there are a lot of unanswered questions about the war: How many troops? What’s the cost in lives and treasure?” says Greenwald. “In the film, we try to ask these fundamental core questions. It’s not just 10,000 troops there, or 12,000 there, it’s why troops at all?” He added, “Those are the questions we need to ask, and those are the questions you need to ask in a democracy.”
While the Journal got it right, the New York Times reviewer apparently wants no truck with either such questions – or with a film that reminds us that:
Military engagements, it seems, are messy and claim innocent lives.
In fact, she was upset that the film did not allow time for an opposing view – yet, as Greenwald shows us throughout Rethink Afghanistan, the messiness and loss of innocent lives is precisely at the core of this (or any) war and is the central reason we need to look more closely and ask our own questions about our government’s decision to continue into a 9th year in Afghanistan.
But the film also does much more.
Rethink Afghanistan combines footage from Greenwald’s own trip to Afghanistan earlier this year with interviews with key experts like Robert Grenier, former CIA station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, former CIA operative Robert Baer, Graham Fuller, the former CIA station chief in Kabul, Anand Gopal, the Afghanistan correspondent of The Wall Street Journal and Steve Coll, author of the Pulitzer winning book on Al Qaeda, Ghost Wars.
Such expertise provides us with important insights, insights lacking in the spotty coverage of this war in the standard media which rarely strays beyond the usual footage of American soldiers to ask the question why they are there and if it is the “right war” after all.
Rethinking Afghanistan
By Jack Neworth at Santa Monica Daily Press
Last week I debated writing about serious local, state, national and international world issues, but frankly they were too depressing. Take California for instance (before the state goes in a big garage sale). Since Arnold has been Governator, we’ve slowly gone bankrupt. Actually, not so slowly.
Given that I couldn’t solve any world problems, I wrote about a possible Dodgers-Angels Freeway World Series. (I know, I’m just too deep.)
Today’s column will be the exact opposite. I’m not going to elaborate but for the first time in 47 years the Dodgers and Angels are in their respective league championships. Both swept playoff opponents that had previously tormented them (to quote Jackie Gleason, “How sweet it is!”).
But last week also marked the eighth anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. This means that we’ve spent 50 percent more time there than in all of WWI and WWII combined! According to Pentagon figures, in the last three months 136 GI’s died and 771 were injured. And conditions appear more unstable now than ever.
Seemingly the reaction in the U.S. to this inglorious anniversary was a collective yawn. But not so for filmmaker Robert Greenwald, whose powerful documentary “Rethink Afghanistan” is free online. (After viewing it, I couldn’t bring myself to write about baseball this week.)
Eight years ago I was in favor of the invasion. Having provided al-Qaida a stronghold, clearly we had to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan and capture Osama Bin Laden in the process.
On Nov. 12, 2001, we apparently had Bin Laden surrounded at Tora Bora. But, for some inexplicable reason, Bush and Co. delegated his capture to Afghani warlords. Predictably they were promptly bribed by Bin Laden, allowing him to escape into Pakistan. How convenient.
Then, in 2003, instead of securing Afghanistan, once and for all, we pretty much dropped everything and invaded Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. Then, after first threatening Bin Laden with “wanted dead or alive,” Bush would soon be saying, “I really don’t think about him that much anymore.” (Bush certainly had a unique way with words, like “Mission Accomplished.”)
Today I no longer believe in the Afghan war. And neither does archconservative George Will (also an avid baseball fan). On Sept. 1, Will’s column in the Washington Post was entitled, “Time to Get Out of Afghanistan.”
Will makes the comparison between Afghanistan and Vietnam and there are undeniable similarities. In Vietnam, the “Gulf of Tonkin” incident was the motivation to escalate from 16,000 “advisors” to 536,000 troops.
But there was one slight problem. The Gulf of Tonkin, a supposed attack on U.S. warships by North Vietnam, never happened. At best it was incompetence (misinterpreting radar signals) and at worst, a blatant manipulation of the intelligence. The same could be said for invading Iraq. The motivating force was WMDs, which were also non-existent.
Rush Limbaugh, the Rams and My Reader Outrage
By Stuart Fischoff, Ph.D. at Psychology Today
Many of you have submitted heart- (and spleen-) felt comments that chided me for my education, my profession, my liberal-minded desecration of the hallowed character and reputation of Rush Limbaugh, and for not providing verifiable references to the few quotes and allegations contained in my previous blog on the tempest called Rush and the Rams.
Admittedly, most quotes and charges I included came from secondary sources; that can be a problem when criticizing political icons like Rush. And probably some lazy journalism on my part. I went with the sources I found and blew off the absences of sources when I couldn’t find them. My bad.
To be totally truthful, though, it’s not all that easy to get properly referenced or vetted quotes of Rush. He is not a columnist; he talks rather that writes. Worse, many YouTube videos of his radio talk show and of appearances in other venues have been removed from YouTube ostensibly because of ownership or copyright violation — except for those which he apparently finds in sync with his desired public image preferences.
The trouble with what people say vs. what they write is that spoken words are more subjectively “interpretable” and frequently are in a context that, if fully presented, is too long or expansive to be fully included in a direct quote, such as Rush repeatedly playing the song Barack the Magic Negro, regardless of who first used it. As a result, much that is said about people like Rush, who speak electronically rather than in print, is often open to the charge of being taken out of context, misrepresented, inaccurate, or just plain lies. To the bargain, accessing transcriptions of radio shows involve more tedious and complex enterprises than accessing videotapes of talk radio or TV talk shows like, say, Glenn Beck’s on FoxyNews.
As an example, rarely do you get self-contractions and denials of charges of racism like you had with clips of Glenn Beck on his FoxNews show clearly calling Obama a racist. But then, a scarce few minutes later in the same clip, Beck denies that he said it. Ordinarily, documenting such Beckian lounge lizarding in lying, or swimming the river Denial is not easy. Thank you, Glenn.
Actually, though, truth has never been one of Beck’s strong suits. He feels encumbered by it. We understand, Glenn. That’s why your tears are so important. Here, Beck’s own patriotism has brought him to tears.
The Anti-War Left’s Big Gun
By Benjamin Sarlin at The Daily Beast
If you think Alan Grayson was tough on Republicans over health care, wait until you hear him talk about Afghanistan.
The freshman Florida congressman, who represents a moderate district that includes parts of Orlando, rode into office on Barack Obama’s coattails last year—and has generally supported the president’s domestic agenda. But his loyalty does not extend to military matters—on which he’s shown a fiercely independent streak. Grayson is one of 51 House Democrats who have voted against funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—and favors withdrawing all troops from the latter theater, as soon as possible.
“There is no need to occupy other countries against their will,” Grayson told The Daily Beast in an interview. “The British gave up on that 60 years ago. The Soviet Union gave up on that 20 years ago. What are we waiting for?”
“Grayson has been very strong from Day One on this issue, when there were very few of us talking about it,” says filmmaker Robert Greenwald. “First of all, he’s got a huge amount of relevant knowledge. Second of all, he’s fearless.”
Grayson, who became a Democratic hero overnight for his bare-knuckled assault on the GOP’s health-care opposition, is rapidly emerging as one of the leading voices of the anti-war left. He brings a certain authority to the cause; a defense lawyer in his previous life, he hauled Iraq War defense contractors into court, and racked up huge settlements—giving him both a substantive expertise and the kind of financial cushion that allows him to speak his mind with impunity.
He’s arriving at a crucial juncture in the Afghanistan debate. From his right, the president faces pressure to ramp up troop strength, as recommended by Gen. Stanley McChrystal and endorsed by lawmakers like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). From the left, Obama has been lobbied to leave the force size alone or even begin drawing it down in favor of devoting more resources to chasing al Qaeda in Pakistan. The debate threatens to split Obama’s progressive base and undercut whatever boost the president might receive from a health-care victory.
Grayson is hardly alone. Recently, online juggernaut MoveOn.org, one of the most important players in the health-care debate on the left, began lending its weight to the anti-war effort, pushing for an exit strategy in Afghanistan. Activist filmmaker Robert Greenwald, who built a liberal following by taking on Fox News in years past, has been steadily promoting his antiwar film, Rethink Afghanistan. This month, Grayson attended a screening of Rethink Afghanistan, then delivered a speech to the audience warning that aid to that country was “the fig leaf to try and make Congress and the American people feel better about war and about killing”—arguing that any nation-building efforts there are “fatally flawed.”
According to Greenwald, Grayson has helped galvanize the burgeoning movement.
“Grayson has been very strong from Day One on this issue, when there were very few of us talking about it,” Greenwald told The Daily Beast. “First of all, he’s got a huge amount of relevant knowledge. Second of all, he’s fearless to say it like it is: [The war] doesn’t make any sense and it’s not going to make us more secure.”
Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) is another anti-war freshman joining Grayson on the barricades. She made headlines this year by voting against funding for the war to protest what she said was a lack of strategy in the region. According to Edwards, who visited Afghanistan before her vote, the war needs significant civilian aid rather than more combat troops—as well as a much clearer long-term strategy.
Why Joe Biden Should Resign
By Arianna Huffington at Huffington Post
Joe Biden met with CENTCOM chief Gen. David Petraeus this morning to talk about Afghanistan — an issue that has pushed the vice president into the spotlight, landing him on the cover of the latest Newsweek.
I have an idea for how he can capitalize on all the attention, and do what generations to come will always be grateful for: resign.
The centerpiece of Newsweek’s story is how Biden has become the chief White House skeptic on escalating the war in Afghanistan, specifically arguing against Gen. McChrystal’s request for 40,000 more troops to pursue a counterinsurgency strategy there.
The piece, by Holly Bailey and Evan Thomas, opens with details of a September 13th national security meeting at the White House. Biden speaks up:
“Can I just clarify a factual point? How much will we spend this year on Afghanistan?” Someone provided the figure: $65 billion. “And how much will we spend on Pakistan?” Another figure was supplied: $2.25 billion. “Well, by my calculations that’s a 30-to-1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. So I have a question. Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we’re spending in Pakistan, we’re spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?” The White House Situation Room fell silent.
Being Greek, I’m partial to Biden’s classic use of the Socratic method — skillfully eliciting facts in a way that lets people connect the dots that show how misguided our involvement in Afghanistan has become.
It’s been known for a while that Biden has been on the other side of McChrystal’s desire for a big escalation of our forces there — the New York Times reported last month that he has “deep reservations” about it. So if the president does decide to escalate, Biden, for the good of the country, should escalate his willingness to act on those reservations.
What he must not do is follow the same weak and worn-out pattern of “opposition” we’ve become all-too-accustomed to, first with Vietnam and then with Iraq. You know the drill: after the dust settles, and the country begins to look back and not-so-charitably wonder, “what were they thinking?” the mea-culpa-laden books start to come out. On page after regret-filled page, we suddenly hear how forceful this or that official was behind closed doors, arguing against the war, taking a principled stand, expressing “strong concern” and, yes, “deep reservations” to the president, and then going home each night distraught at the unnecessary loss of life.
Well, how about making the mea culpa unnecessary? Instead of saving it for the book, how about future author Biden unfetter his conscience in real time — when it can actually do some good? If Biden truly believes that what we’re doing in Afghanistan is not in the best interests of our national security — and what issue is more important than that? — it’s simply not enough to claim retroactive righteousness in his memoirs.
Though it would be a crowning moment in a distinguished career, such an act of courage would likely be only the beginning. Biden would then become the natural leader of the movement to wind down this disastrous war and focus on the real dangers in Pakistan.
The number of those on both sides of the political spectrum who share Biden’s skepticism is growing. In August, George Will called for the U.S. to pull out of Afghanistan and “do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units.”
Former Bush State Department official and current head of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haas argued in the New York Times that Afghanistan is not, as Obama insists, a war of necessity. “If Afghanistan were a war of necessity, it would justify any level of effort,” writes Haas. “It is not and does not. It is not certain that doing more will achieve more. And no one should forget that doing more in Afghanistan lessens our ability to act elsewhere.”
In Rethink Afghanistan, Robert Greenwald’s powerful look at the war (and a film Joe Biden should see right away), Robert Baer, a former CIA field operative says, “The notion that we’re in Afghanistan to make our country safer is just complete bullshit… what it’s doing is causing us greater danger, no question about it. Because the more we fight in Afghanistan, the more the conflict is pushed across the border into Pakistan, the more we destabilize Pakistan, the more likely it is that a fundamentalist government will take over the army — and we’ll have Al-Qaeda like groups with nuclear weapons.”
And Senator Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam vet and Biden confidant, told Newsweek that, while “there are a lot of differences” between Vietnam and Afghanistan, “one of the similarities is how easily and quickly a nation can get bogged down in a very dangerous part of the world. It’s easy to get into but not easy to get out. The more troops you throw in places, the more difficult it is to work it out because you have an investment to protect.”
And doing so, as we’ve seen, usually means losing more and more of that “investment”: each of the last six years of the Afghanistan war has been more deadly than the one before.
Robert Greenwald Talking about Rush Limbaugh on The Ed Show
Sign the petition at http://rushisaracist.com
Who Decides About War? What About the People?
By John Nichols at The Nation
The U.S. occupation of Afghanistan has reached its “sell-by…” date.
A majority of Americans now tell pollsters the mission was a mistake. Ninety-eight members of the House – including liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans – have cosponsored Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern’s resolution asking the Pentagon to develop an exit strategy.
Unfortunately, the generals who run wars, and the defense contractors who profit from them, want to keep U.S. troops on the ground in that distant land. And President Obama is under pressure to surge tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops into “the graveyard of empires.”
The people have wisely turned against an occupation that has cost the United States too many lives and too many hundreds of billions of dollars while only making a bad situation worse for the Afghan people — especially, according to feminists in Kabul, women.
Unfortunately, the people do not have the power to end wars that they know have gone awry.
So it falls to Congress to demand an exit strategy.
We’ll explore the efforts to do that on Friday night in Manhattan, when Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel and I join Congressman McGovern for a forum and film screening with filmmaker Robert Greenwald, director of Rethink Afghanistan.
Ramping up support for McGovern’s resolution is Job 1 in the struggle to bring the troops home and cede responsibility for Afghanistan to the people who live there – perhaps with an assist from an international entity, such as the United Nations, that can offer peacekeeping and development aid.
The deeper questions raised by the Afghan imbroglio will be explored Friday and Saturday in Washington, where the “Who Decides About War?” conference on war powers, law and democracy is being held at the Georgetown Law School.