President Obama insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops, senior administration and military officials said Monday.
In revealing additional details about planning for the mission, senior officials also said that two teams of specialists were on standby: One to bury Bin Laden if he was killed, and a second composed of lawyers, interrogators and translators in case he was captured alive. That team was set to meet aboard a Navy ship, most likely the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.
Mr. Obama’s decision to increase the size of the force sent into Pakistan shows that he was willing to risk a military confrontation with a close ally in order to capture or kill the leader of Al Qaeda.
Such a fight would have set off an even larger breach with the Pakistanis than has taken place since officials in Islamabad learned that helicopters filled with members of a Navy Seals team had flown undetected into one of their cities, and burst into a compound where Bin Laden was hiding.
One senior Obama administration official, pressed on the rules of engagement for one of the riskiest clandestine operations attempted by the C.I.A. and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command in many years, said: “Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorized to do it.”
About 10 days before the raid, Mr. Obama reviewed the plans and pressed his commanders as to whether they were taking along enough forces to fight their way out if the Pakistanis arrived on the scene and tried to interfere with the operation.
That resulted in the decision to send two more helicopters carrying additional troops. These followed the two lead Black Hawk helicopters that carried the actual assault team. While there was no confrontation with the Pakistanis, one of those backup helicopters was ultimately brought in to the scene of the raid when a Black Hawk was damaged while making a hard landing.
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Here is the prime theological question. The one whose answer affects all others. And yet, one that is almost never asked:
Is there moral or logical justification for a creator to wield capricious power of life and death over his creations … and is there any fundamental moral reason why those creations should have to obey?
Humanity long ago replied with a resounding “no!”… at least when talking about parents and their offspring. (There have been a few exceptions, such as the principle of pater familias in Roman law, which permitted a father to kill even adult offspring, if they offended him.) In most cultures, the created—our kids—eventually get full authority and a right to make their own way. In some societies, they are even welcome to argue with their creators along the way.
And yet, without noticing any irony, we have implicitly answered the same question “yes” when it came to God! The Creator, it seemed, was owed unquestioning servitude, just because this creator made us.
It is the ghost at the banquet, the underlying assumption of all religions, taken for granted for far too long. Is it puzzling that—after more than four millennia of theological wrangling, and the investment of millions of hours of thought to religious matters—this question only comes up now? - David Brin
When I was in eighth grade, one of the best teachers I ever had taught me geometry. Mr Anderson was fat; he sweated excessively. He always wore baggy slacks and a white short-sleeved shirt, and he had a crew cut. And he was ferocious. He would yell at bad students and tell them to work harder, and if he caught you being inattentive in class he'd throw an eraser at you. Those students mocked him mercilessly, behind his back. He was also passionate about the subject — I can still see him in my mind's eye excitedly making that chalk fly across the board, talking excitedly about a proof, giggling at how cool a result was.
Every year he rewarded the best of his students with an invitation to his house for a formal party, with snacks and Nehi soda. He was single and weird, but there was no worry about impropriety — there'd be a score of us there, who would all be treated politely as adults, which was mind-blowing right there. He'd play music for us: opera and show tunes.
Show tunes. He adored Ethel Merman, and sometimes even in class he'd start humming something from his beloved musicals.
He made the adults uncomfortable, and you can guess what kinds of rumors the school jocks spread about him. The people who didn't care that he was a fantastic, enthusiastic math teacher who taught students self-respect and to love math only saw a strange man who didn't fit in, who was odd, who fit certain stereotypes, and who obviously could not be trusted.
So one year, poof, he was gone. Dismissed. The best damned math teacher they had, sent away on the heels of a sordid campaign of bigoted whispers.
Even now, it stirs a little outrage in me, that teachers get judged not by the quality of their work and their positive effects on their students, but how well they fit the conventions of the most closed-minded members of the community, by people, even, who despise good educations that raise kids to think independently.
When Japan finally surrendered at the end of World War Two, patriotic, cheering crowds thronged the streets to celebrate — including, most famously, in New York's Times Square.
When news broke on Sunday that U.S. forces had finally killed Osama bin Laden, chanting, cheering crowds figured they'd follow suit.
But that's where the similarity ends.
Americans made real sacrifices in the Second World War. Millions served under arms. Most families had soldiers in harm's way, and many lost them. Even those in civilian work at home bore direct burdens. They accepted rationing and lowered standards of living to help the war. They accepted high taxes. While the Federal Government ran up huge deficits, these were largely financed here by private sector savings here at home.
Now consider the legacy of the past 10 years and our "war on terror."
Few served under arms. We do not have the draft. And perhaps we don't need one for this war.
But what other sacrifices has the population made? ...
Linda Bilmes, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School and one of the leading experts on the topic, says the direct costs of "war on terror" have so far exceeded $2 trillion. She believes that when the full tab is compiled, including the costs of a lifetime of medical care for the wounded, the costs will come to $5 trillion to $6 trillion.
How much of this burden have the rest of us actually paid?
None of it. On the eve of 9/11, U.S. gross federal debt stood at $5.5 trillion. Today it's around $14 trillion. In other words, over the past 10 years we've put more than $8 trillion on the national credit card. That's maybe four times the total direct costs of the "war on terror" to date, and more than the total likely bill.
And of course, unlike in World War Two, our government has been forced to borrow most of this money from abroad, because during the same period American businesses and households also went on a debt orgy. ...
In other words, not only have we not made material sacrifices for this war — we've taken it as an excuse to party.
Perhaps this is why no "relief rally" turned up on Wall Street on Monday, to the consternation of the commentators. Relief from what? Compare this infantile behavior to the discipline, maturity, dedication and sacrifice of those under arms who are actually fighting the war on Al Quaida.
The Pentagon says that 4,704 American servicemen and women have been killed in action in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (Leave aside, please, the dispute about whether Iraq was necessary. The troops served heroically). Another 43,184 have been wounded. Many of those have been wounded grievously, coming home without eyes, or limbs, or with head traumas, or with other terrible injuries, to pick up the pieces they can of their shattered lives.
The numbers don't even scratch at the cost. For each serviceman or woman killed or wounded, think of all the loved ones whose lives, too, will never be the same. The heartache will last as long as they live. - Brett Arends
[Donald] Trump is every trend in Republican politics over the past 35 years taken to its logical conclusion. He is the Republican id, finally entirely unleashed from all restraint and all reality.
The first trend is towards naked imperialism. On Libya, he says: "I would go in and take the oil... I would take the oil and stop this baby stuff." On Iraq, he says: "We stay there, and we take the oil... In the old days, when you have a war and you win, that nation's yours." It is a view that the world is essentially America's property, inconveniently inhabited by foreigners squatting over oil-fields. ...
The second trend is towards dog-whistle prejudice – pitched just high enough for frightened white Republicans to hear it. ... The Republican primary voters heard the message right: the black guy is foreign. He's not one of us. Trump answered these charges by saying: "I've always had a great relationship with the blacks."
The third trend is towards raw worship of wealth as an end in itself – and exempting them from all social responsibility. Trump is wealthy because his father left him a large business, and since then companies with his name on them have crashed into bankruptcy four times. ...
Yet for the Republican Party, the accumulation of money is proof in itself of virtue, however it was acquired. The richest 1 per cent pay for the party's campaigns, and the party in turn serves their interests entirely. ...
How are these tax exemptions for the super-rich paid for? Here's one example. The Republican budget that just passed through the Senate slashed funding to help premature babies to survive. The rich riot while the poor shrivel. Trump offers the ultimate symbol of this: he won't even shake hands with any ordinary Americans out on the stump, because "you catch all sorts of things" from them. Yes: the Republican front-runner is a billionaire who literally won't touch the poor or middle class.
The fourth trend is to insist that any fact inconvenient to your world view simply doesn't exist, or can be overcome by pure willpower. Soon, the US will have to extend its debt ceiling – the amount of money the government is allowed to borrow – or it will default on its debt. Virtually every economist in the world says this would cause another global economic crash. Trump snaps back: "What do economists know? Most of them aren't very smart." Confront the Republicans with any long-term social or economic problem, and they have one response: it would go away if only we insisted on our assumptions more aggressively. ...
Trump probably won't become the Republican nominee, but not because most Republicans reject his premisses. No: it will be because he states these arguments too crudely for mass public consumption. He takes the whispered dogmas of the Reagan, Bush and Tea Party years and shrieks them through a megaphone. The nominee will share similar ideas, but express them more subtly. In case you think these ideas are marginal to the party, remember - it has united behind the budget plan of Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan. It's simple: it halves taxes on the richest 1 percent and ends all taxes on corporate income, dividends, and inheritance. It pays for it by slashing spending on food stamps, healthcare for the poor and the elderly, and basic services. It aims to return the US to the spending levels of the 1920s – and while Ryan frames it as a response to the deficit, it would actually increase it according to the independent Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. ...
The Republican Party today isn't even dominated by market fundamentalism. This is a crude Nietzscheanism, dedicated to exalting the rich as an overclass and dismissing the rest. So who should be the Republican nominee? I hear the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were considering running – but they are facing primary challenges from the Tea Party for being way too mild-mannered. - Johann Hari
In response to the worst state budget crisis since World War II, the Texas House has proposed slashing $27 billion from the budget, including huge cuts to education, nursing homes, and health care for the poor. Yet last Friday, the Texas House Ways and Means Committee approved a tax break for those who want to buy yachts costing $250,000 or more. ...
The bill was originally estimated to cost Texas $1.4 million annually in lost revenue. It will now move on to be considered by the full House, where several top Republicans have expressed confidence it will pass. ...
Texas faces one of the worst budget outlooks in the country, and amazingly, only about a third of it was caused by the economic downturn. The state has had a chronic shortage of revenue after years of slashing property and business taxes and creating numerous tax breaks and exemptions, just like the proposed one for yacht owners. Yet Republicans still insist on not raising taxes, and as a result have had to rely on draconian cuts to balance the budget.
Under the current proposal, $7.8 billion will be cut from Texas public schools, four community colleges will close, 60,000 students will lose college financial aid, as many as 97,000 teachers and school employees will be laid off, 9,300 government jobs will be eliminated, Medicaid will be shortchanged by nearly $14 billion, and health and human services funding will plummet by a quarter.
After nine years of battling Barton's lies, the first three or four of which were spent writing my book, Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History, I'm at a point of utter frustration as I watch this Christian nationalist liar get more and more influential. Jon Stewart's interview was the tipping point. If Jon couldn't nail this shameless and obvious history revisionist to the wall, I don't know who can.
A lie can be told in a few words. Debunking that lie can take pages. That is why my book, (which is only the first volume of what will be a three volume series), is five hundred pages long. Nobody is going to be able to adequately prove to any audience that Barton's lies are lies in an interview like Jon Stewart did last night, and David Barton is never going to agree to debate anyone that he knows can defeat him.
KENOSHA — Paul Ryan, the smooth-if-not-always-substantive congressman, is the darling of the D.C. talk shows. The House Budget Committee chair, chosen by GOP House leaders to respond to President Obama’s State of the Union Address, is the prime pitchman for the Wall Street lobbying agenda on everything from privatization of Social Security to tax cuts for the rich. During Congress’ spring break, he took his show on the road. ...
Outside the cloistered confines of Capitol Hill and the few blocks of southern Manhattan where he is a hero, the congressman had a hard time peddling his fiscal snake oil.
And in Kenosha, Ryan bombed.
When he claimed that he was serious about balancing the budget, someone in the crowd shouted: “That’s not what the Congressional Budget Office says.” And the room erupted with cheers for the correction of the congressman’s attempted deception.
When Ryan claimed his Republican budget plan would save Medicare and Medicaid, the packed room erupted with shouts of “Liar!”
When Ryan claimed that he didn’t want to replace Medicare with a voucher system but rather with “choices,” a woman piped up: “You can call it what you want, but don’t tell us that it’s still Medicare.”
When Ryan claimed that taxes needed to be cut for corporations and the wealthy in order to create jobs, he was greeted with a collective groan from hundreds of workers in a town that recently lost a major auto factory. One man yelled: “We’ve been cutting their taxes for 30 years and what did it get us? Outsourcing and layoff notices.” ...
So it went for Paul Ryan, the salesman for the Republican plan that may be selling in Washington — at least to Republicans — but is earning a thumbs down from his constituents in Wisconsin. Likewise, voters in other states have also been rejecting the plan at increasingly contentious town hall meetings of Republican members of Congress.
It may be true that congressmen can fool some of the people some of the time. But, for Ryan, the further he gets from Washington — where he has spent almost half his life as a congressional aide, conservative “think tank” staffer and member of the House — the harder it has been for the budget committee chairman to find buyers for his schemes. Not only does he want to restructure Medicare and Medicaid in order to shift money away from patient care and into the coffers of insurance companies, he also wants to gamble the retirement security of Americans with his campaign donors on Wall Street and to give more tax cuts to the rich, more tax breaks to the corporations, and more goodies to the bankers he served when he led the charge to get GOP votes for the 2008 bailout.
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One of the more interesting documents published by the IRS — I know, I know, not the hardest criterion in the world — is its report on the income and taxes of the top 400 taxpayers (pdf). A lot of attention gets focused, rightly, on the remarkably low average tax rate these people pay — less than 17 percent in 2007, the lowest on record.
But I was struck by something else: in several years during the last decade the top 400 accounted for more than 10 percent of all capital gains income in America. Just 400 people!
Conservatives often try to sell the notion that reducing the capital gains tax is about helping small business people. But you really want to think of the fact that a significant chunk of that tax break is going to just 400 people.*
And when you think about financial regulation, you similarly want to bear in mind that when asset prices rise, a tiny handful of people get a large chunk of the gains; I don’t know this for sure, but I’d bet that they somehow end up bearing a much smaller share of the losses when the bubble bursts. - Paul Krugman
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