The same neocons who orchestrated the war in Iraq and undermined US efforts in Afghanistan the first time around are at it again, determined to sink us deeper into the costly Afghan quagmire. They have resurfaced in the form of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a Washington think tank headed by Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, and Dan Senor. As Sam Stein reported last week on The Huffington Post, the FPI will hold a summit today titled "Afghanistan: Planning for Success." And slated to attend the event are powerful Republicans and Democrats like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Rep. John M. McHugh (R-NY), and Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA). What's particularly troubling about McCain and a think tank like the FPI is that they are trying to manipulate President Obama's plans for military escalation into a massive, limitless war of Iraq proportions.
We already know where McCain stands on Afghanistan. He and fellow warmonger Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) celebrated the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war by urging the Obama administration to support an all-out military commitment in Afghanistan, regardless of cost. McCain clearly shares the FPI's warped notion of "success" in Afghanistan, which he has discussed everywhere from the Op-Ed pages of the Washington Post to his recent speech at the American Enterprise Institute. He envisions a Utopian outcome to this war, one in which our military engages in a broad-based, long-term counterinsurgency to create "a stable, secure, self-governing Afghanistan that is not a terrorist sanctuary." Compounding that highly improbable scenario is the fact that McCain and the FPI are getting away with defining "success" in Afghanistan because not enough mainstream journalists or members of Congress are contesting their views.
Eating Liberally Food For Thought
by Kerry Trueman The secret to Jim Hightower's success lies in a style of political commentary best described as "pleasantly apoplectic;" he's mad as hell, but in an ultra-affable way. Who else could stoke a fire in the belly with so many belly laughs?
In our climate change crisis, Hightower's a natural source of alternative energy. He's got his own brand of windpower, fueled by blowhards and gasbags, of which the right seems to have an endless supply.
And then there's the wave power he's helping to generate with his new book, Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow. Swim Against the Current, co-authored by Susan DeMarco, provides heartening proof that citizen activists are turning the tide against the Powers That Be who've dragged our democracy through the muck.
If you subscribe to the "Yes-Things-Are-Awful-But-What-Can-I- Do-I'm-Just-One-Person" school of thought, I'm giving you an "F" for fatalism. I'll change it to an "A" for attitude adjustment after you read this book and get off your apathetic ass and join the ranks of the grassroots greenies and grannies who are the heroes of Hightower's book.
Hightower profiles people from every region in our country who are working to better our communities and our country. There are success stories about cooperatives formed by everyone from organic dairy farmers to cabbies and strippers, and benign bankers (yes, you read that right) willing to give low-income folks a leg up. Whether urban or rural, religious or secular, these people all share a devout faith in the power of democracy.
The book also highlights the rise of eco-conscious Christians, who've helped grow grassroots groups like the Coal River Mountain Watch, a coalition of Appalachian residents who took on the coal mining industry. The industry's embrace of a practice called mountaintop removal has flattened their mountains, poisoned their water, and flooded their "hollers" with toxic coal slurry, an environmental catastrophe one coal industry official characterized as an "act of God."
