The governor-turned-reality-TV-star’s new book dives into feminist history—distorting and misunderstanding it every step of the way.
In some ways, it’s a good thing that Sarah Palin calls herself a feminist. It means that, even among conservatives, women’s equality has become a normative position, the starting point for debate. It means that feminism has gone from something that the right wants to destroy to something it wants to appropriate. That’s progress, of a sort.
But reading Palin’s new book, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag, it’s clear that in order to claim feminism as her own, she’s had to radically distort its history. In a chapter on feminism that’s sure to be widely discussed, she mischaracterizes the views of nearly every historical feminist she mentions.
Sometimes she does it to defame them, other times to make it seem as if they shared her ideology. As so often with Palin, it’s hard to tell whether ignorance or dishonesty is at work. Perhaps neither she nor her ghostwriter had time to read up on women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, presented here as a pious Christian conservative. But couldn’t one of them at least have perused her Wikipedia entry?
In typically Manichean fashion, Palin divides the feminist movement into the hardy, maternalist foremothers who fought, justly, for the right to the vote, and the whining, anti-family radicals who came along in the 1960s and '70s. With a rather stunning lack of self-awareness, she rehashes Dan Quayle’s attack on the TV show Murphy Brown for glorifying single motherhood. She takes a swipe at what she calls Hillary Clinton’s former appearance of “1960s-era bra-burning militancy.”
Against such viragos, she sets earlier feminist heroines, who she seems to imagine were a lot like Sarah Palin. “What is hardest to take about liberals calling the emerging conservative feminist identity anti-feminist or even anti-woman is that this new crop of female leaders represents a return to what the women’s movement originally was,” she writes.
The historical revisionism here recalls that of Christian conservatives who try to paint our deistic Founding Fathers as devout evangelicals. At one point, Palin refers to Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments,” which came out of the historic 1848 women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York. Stanton deliberately echoed the language of the Declaration of Independence, referring to the rights that women are entitled to “by the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” To Palin, this mention of God proves that Stanton shared her faith: “Can you imagine a contemporary feminist invoking ‘the laws of nature and of nature’s God?’ These courageous women spoke of our God-given rights because they believed they were given equally, by God, to men and women.”
Not really. Stanton was a famous freethinker, eventually shunned by more conservative elements of the women’s movement for her attacks on religion. In one 1885 speech, she declared, “You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded women.”
Ten years later, she published the first volume of The Woman’s Bible, her mammoth dissection of biblical misogyny. Stanton was particularly scathing on the notion of the virgin birth: “Out of this doctrine, and that which is akin to it, have sprung all the monasteries and nunneries of the world, which have disgraced and distorted and demoralized manhood and womanhood for a thousand years.”
America by Heart packs a lot of deceit into a small package. Indeed, it’s an object lesson in the power of right-wing propaganda to create imaginary histories.
Palin also tries to claim Susan B. Anthony for her side. The idea that Anthony was anti-abortion is a cherished one on the right; one anti-abortion political action committee calls itself the “Susan B. Anthony List.” “Susan B. Anthony saw the fight for the rights of the unborn as part of the broader fight for women’s rights,” writes Palin.
Again, not really. As Ann Gordon, the editor of Anthony’s papers, and Lynn Sherr, one of her biographers, wrote earlier this year, “We have read every single word that this very voluble—and endlessly political—woman left behind. Our conclusion: Anthony spent no time on the politics of abortion. It was of no interest to her, despite living in a society (and a family) where women aborted unwanted pregnancies. “
Those who claim that that Anthony was anti-abortion usually cite an article published in a newspaper that she owned deploring “the horrible crime of child-murder.” There’s no evidence that Anthony wrote it—it’s simply signed “A,” which is not a shorthand Anthony was known to use. But if she did write it, it’s actually evidence that she didn’t share Palin’s politics.
The article in Anthony’s newspaper was a response to an article published elsewhere that called for abortion to be criminalized. While agreeing that abortion is horrible, A. opposed “a law for its suppression,” which the writer said would not “have the desired effect.” What women needed, said A., was the power to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies: “Women are educated to think that with marriage their individuality ceases or is transferred to their husbands.
The wife has thenceforth no right over her own body. This is also the husband’s belief, and upon which he acts.” The one thing we know definitively about Anthony and abortion is that she published an article opposing the sort of ban that Palin supports.
America by Heart is as wrong about the feminists Palin despises as it is about those she admires. She relies on the historical expertise of Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism for her attack on Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. Paraphrasing Goldberg, she writes that Sanger was an advocate of “Nazi-style eugenics” who advocated birth control “to keep the ‘unfit’ from reproducing—particularly blacks.”
Sanger was a flawed woman who transcended some of the prejudices of her time and not others. There is no doubt that she said things that sound abhorrent to modern ears. (As did Stanton and Anthony.) She operated at a time when eugenic arguments were very much in vogue, harnessed by both sides of the birth-control debate. (Opponents of contraception claimed it would lead to a dangerous drop in the white birth rate). But Sanger, who got her last name from her Jewish husband, was no racist; she believed that intelligence and ability differed among individuals, not ethnic groups.
The name of Sanger’s attempt to bring birth control to poor communities in the black South—“The Negro Project”—has a hideous ring today. But it really was a humanitarian effort rather than a racist scheme; the project’s advisory board included W.E.B. DuBois, Harlem pastor Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of the National Council of Negro Women.
Indeed, upon accepting Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Award in 1966, Martin Luther King lauded her work among the poor. His speech, which his wife delivered on his behalf, said, “There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger's early efforts… Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her.”
One could go on and on parsing America by Heart like this; it packs a lot of deceit into a small package. Indeed, it’s an object lesson in the power of right-wing propaganda to create imaginary histories. Palin’s book shows that while she calls herself a feminist, feminism is just another subject she knows almost nothing about.
To point that out, of course, will only strengthen her sense of being persecuted by supercilious elites. When Palin complains about a cult of victimhood in modern feminism, she is wholly unaware of the irony.
Michelle Goldberg is a journalist and author based in New York. Her book, New York Times bestseller Kingdom Coming:
The Rise of Christian Nationalism, was a finalist for the 2007 New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
A Topric of little notice by public - BUT it should be a concern beyond just military families.
Civilian soldiers' suicide rate alarming
Members of the Iowa Army National Guard who will be deployed to Iraq march in front of family and friends this week at a sendoff ceremony.
National Guard soldiers who are not on active duty killed themselves this year at nearly twice the rate of 2009, marring a year when suicides among Army soldiers on active duty appear to be leveling off, new Army statistics show.
Eighty-six non-active-duty Guard soldiers have killed themselves in the first 10 months of 2010, compared with 48 such suicides in all of 2009.
The reason for the rise in suicides among these "citizen soldiers" is not known. It may be linked to the recession, says Army Col. Chris Philbrick, deputy commander of an Army task force working to reduce suicides.
Philbrick said investigations into the suicides of soldiers not on full-time-active status have found that some were facing stressful situations such as home foreclosures, debt and the loss of a job.
Other factors have played a role in the suicides, including relationship problems, depression, substance abuse, combat stress and mild brain injuries, Philbrick says.
The rise comes as the rate of suicides leveled among full-time active-duty Army soldiers, National Guard members and reservists following years of increases, Philbrick says. Among that group, there were 132 confirmed or suspected suicides in the first 10 months of this year compared with 140 such suicides for the same period in 2009.
That positive trend among active-duty troops was more than offset by the rise in suicides among non-active-duty National Guard members.
There were 252 confirmed or suspected suicides among active and non-active Army members through October of this year. There were 242 such deaths in all of 2009.
Active-duty soldiers have greater access to programs and mental health resources, Philbrick says. New efforts aimed at reducing suicides among that group may be beginning to have an effect. "We do whatever we can to drive down these numbers," Philbrick says. "But it doesn't happen overnight."
The Army has launched a series of programs aimed at breaking down a stigma among soldiers against seeking mental health treatment. It has also initiated two studies — a $50 million, five-year investigation by the National Institute of Mental Health in 2009 and this year, a $17 million research consortium — aimed at understanding why the suicides are happening and how to stop them.
Army suicides have been climbing since 2007, bringing the rate to 22 per 100,000 soldiers. The rate among civilians within the same age group is 20 per 100,000. The Marine Corps has seen an increase since 2008 and its rate is 24 per 100,000. But there, too, the trend may be downward.
There were 45 confirmed or suspected cases of suicides among Marines through October of this year compared with 53 suicides for the same period last year, Marine Corps statistics show.
Members of the Iowa Army National Guard who will be deployed to Iraq march in front of family and friends this week at a sendoff ceremony.
National Guard soldiers who are not on active duty killed themselves this year at nearly twice the rate of 2009, marring a year when suicides among Army soldiers on active duty appear to be leveling off, new Army statistics show.
Eighty-six non-active-duty Guard soldiers have killed themselves in the first 10 months of 2010, compared with 48 such suicides in all of 2009.
The reason for the rise in suicides among these "citizen soldiers" is not known. It may be linked to the recession, says Army Col. Chris Philbrick, deputy commander of an Army task force working to reduce suicides.
Philbrick said investigations into the suicides of soldiers not on full-time-active status have found that some were facing stressful situations such as home foreclosures, debt and the loss of a job.
Other factors have played a role in the suicides, including relationship problems, depression, substance abuse, combat stress and mild brain injuries, Philbrick says.
The rise comes as the rate of suicides leveled among full-time active-duty Army soldiers, National Guard members and reservists following years of increases, Philbrick says. Among that group, there were 132 confirmed or suspected suicides in the first 10 months of this year compared with 140 such suicides for the same period in 2009.
That positive trend among active-duty troops was more than offset by the rise in suicides among non-active-duty National Guard members.
There were 252 confirmed or suspected suicides among active and non-active Army members through October of this year. There were 242 such deaths in all of 2009.
Active-duty soldiers have greater access to programs and mental health resources, Philbrick says. New efforts aimed at reducing suicides among that group may be beginning to have an effect. "We do whatever we can to drive down these numbers," Philbrick says. "But it doesn't happen overnight."
The Army has launched a series of programs aimed at breaking down a stigma among soldiers against seeking mental health treatment. It has also initiated two studies — a $50 million, five-year investigation by the National Institute of Mental Health in 2009 and this year, a $17 million research consortium — aimed at understanding why the suicides are happening and how to stop them.
Army suicides have been climbing since 2007, bringing the rate to 22 per 100,000 soldiers. The rate among civilians within the same age group is 20 per 100,000. The Marine Corps has seen an increase since 2008 and its rate is 24 per 100,000. But there, too, the trend may be downward.
There were 45 confirmed or suspected cases of suicides among Marines through October of this year compared with 53 suicides for the same period last year, Marine Corps statistics show.
STUPID WATCH!
SC Man Planned to Assassinate Obama
A nurse at a Veterans Affairs clinic tipped off authorities that Michael Stephen Bowden, 78, of Woodruff, South Carolina, told her he was thinking of killing the president. Secret Service agents found three handguns and a rifle under his bed and over a dozen more guns in the house.
Bowden served four years in the Navy and was formerly a New York City police officer. He was arrested earlier this month and will be given a psychiatric evaluation.
A nurse at a Veterans Affairs clinic tipped off authorities that Michael Stephen Bowden, 78, of Woodruff, South Carolina, told her he was thinking of killing the president. Secret Service agents found three handguns and a rifle under his bed and over a dozen more guns in the house.
Bowden served four years in the Navy and was formerly a New York City police officer. He was arrested earlier this month and will be given a psychiatric evaluation.
STUPID WATCH: FOX NEWS? CHANNEL - Stupid is as stupid does!!
Apparently Fox Nation Doesn't Know The Onion Is Fake News
And neither do their commenters.
The Fox Nation editors were apparently so enamored with an Onion piece from today entitled “Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail” that they reposted the first two paragraphs in their culture section with nary a sign as to its fictional nature.
The only clue that this wasn’t real (besides a quick peek at your inbox to confirm that Barack Obama hasn’t been emailing you) was a link at the bottom instructing readers to go to TheOnion.com for the real story. This tiny link was, unfortunately, not enough for the vast majority of FN readers.
They've since tweaked the headline to say "The Onion: Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail" but nothing has been added to the excerpt to clue non-Onion readers into the fact the story is fake.
From Mediaite
And neither do their commenters.
The Fox Nation editors were apparently so enamored with an Onion piece from today entitled “Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail” that they reposted the first two paragraphs in their culture section with nary a sign as to its fictional nature.
The only clue that this wasn’t real (besides a quick peek at your inbox to confirm that Barack Obama hasn’t been emailing you) was a link at the bottom instructing readers to go to TheOnion.com for the real story. This tiny link was, unfortunately, not enough for the vast majority of FN readers.
They've since tweaked the headline to say "The Onion: Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail" but nothing has been added to the excerpt to clue non-Onion readers into the fact the story is fake.
From Mediaite
Little SARAH uses a three old child excuse for her stupidity!! BoooWoooooLittle Girly!
Sarah Palin Refudiates Press Over North Korea Gaffe, Obama Says Dumb Things Too!
Happy Thanksgiving from Sarah Palin! Palin left a scathing Thanksgiving note on her Facebook page yesterday in response to the furor over Wednesday's North Korean flub pointing out that President Obama has uttered many a stupid statement too.
And then she lists them (and tacks on a Shep Smith shoutout for good measure).
Of course, the paragraph above is based on a series of misstatements and verbal gaffes made by Barack Obama (I didn’t have enough time to do one for Joe Biden). YouTube links are provided just in case you doubt the accuracy of these all too human slips-of-the-tongue. If you can’t remember hearing about them, that’s because for the most part the media didn’t consider them newsworthy. I have no complaint about that. Everybody makes the occasional verbal gaffe – even news anchors.
Get out your hanky.
Obviously, I would have been even more impressed if the media showed some consistency on this issue. Unfortunately, it seems they couldn’t resist the temptation to turn a simple one word slip-of-the-tongue of mine into a major political headline. [ed note: imagine!] The one word slip occurred yesterday during one of my seven back-to-back interviews wherein I was privileged to speak to the American public about the important, world-changing issues before us.
If the media had bothered to actually listen to all of my remarks on Glenn Beck’s radio show, they would have noticed that I refer to South Korea as our ally throughout, that I corrected myself seconds after my slip-of-the-tongue, and that I made it abundantly clear that pressure should be put on China to restrict energy exports to the North Korean regime.
Sarah Palin, foreign policy expert. She also notes that rumors she has been stumping for Christine O'Donnell to appear on DWTS are (alas) untrue. So yeah, Palin was tired and said something dumb, everyone has been there. The problem with Sarah Palin in this case, however, is twofold. On the one hand she has turned herself into such a compelling circus act that practically anything she says is guaranteed to be clicked on (after which the story often takes on a life of its own).
On the other, she has, since quitting her governorship, made herself entirely unavailable to the press except in the most controlled situations. So when she slams the press (or in this case, essentially the blogosphere) for not letting the facts "get in the way of a good story?" one has to wonder how Palin expects the press to fact-check someone who fundamentally refuses to engage with them. Answer: she doesn't. Facebook rants are far more self-serving.
Happy Thanksgiving from Sarah Palin! Palin left a scathing Thanksgiving note on her Facebook page yesterday in response to the furor over Wednesday's North Korean flub pointing out that President Obama has uttered many a stupid statement too.
And then she lists them (and tacks on a Shep Smith shoutout for good measure).
Of course, the paragraph above is based on a series of misstatements and verbal gaffes made by Barack Obama (I didn’t have enough time to do one for Joe Biden). YouTube links are provided just in case you doubt the accuracy of these all too human slips-of-the-tongue. If you can’t remember hearing about them, that’s because for the most part the media didn’t consider them newsworthy. I have no complaint about that. Everybody makes the occasional verbal gaffe – even news anchors.
Get out your hanky.
Obviously, I would have been even more impressed if the media showed some consistency on this issue. Unfortunately, it seems they couldn’t resist the temptation to turn a simple one word slip-of-the-tongue of mine into a major political headline. [ed note: imagine!] The one word slip occurred yesterday during one of my seven back-to-back interviews wherein I was privileged to speak to the American public about the important, world-changing issues before us.
If the media had bothered to actually listen to all of my remarks on Glenn Beck’s radio show, they would have noticed that I refer to South Korea as our ally throughout, that I corrected myself seconds after my slip-of-the-tongue, and that I made it abundantly clear that pressure should be put on China to restrict energy exports to the North Korean regime.
Sarah Palin, foreign policy expert. She also notes that rumors she has been stumping for Christine O'Donnell to appear on DWTS are (alas) untrue. So yeah, Palin was tired and said something dumb, everyone has been there. The problem with Sarah Palin in this case, however, is twofold. On the one hand she has turned herself into such a compelling circus act that practically anything she says is guaranteed to be clicked on (after which the story often takes on a life of its own).
On the other, she has, since quitting her governorship, made herself entirely unavailable to the press except in the most controlled situations. So when she slams the press (or in this case, essentially the blogosphere) for not letting the facts "get in the way of a good story?" one has to wonder how Palin expects the press to fact-check someone who fundamentally refuses to engage with them. Answer: she doesn't. Facebook rants are far more self-serving.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
The War in Afghanistan s going NOWHERE!!
U.S. Afghan Presence Reaches Dubious Milestone
American-Led Coalition Now Fighting in Afghanistan For as Long as Soviets' Ill-Fated Slog: 9 Years, 50 Days
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The Soviet Union couldn't win in Afghanistan, and now the United States is about to have something in common with that futile campaign: nine years, 50 days.
On Friday, the U.S.-led coalition will have been fighting in this South Asian country for as long as the Soviets did in their humbling attempt to build up a socialist state. The two invasions had different goals - and dramatically different body counts - but whether they have significantly different outcomes remains to be seen.
What started out as a quick war on Oct. 7, 2001, by the U.S. and its allies to wipe out al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the Taliban has instead turned into a long and slogging campaign. Now about 100,000 NATO troops are fighting a burgeoning insurgency while trying to support and cultivate a nascent democracy.
A Pentagon-led assessment released earlier this week described the progress made since the United States injected 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan earlier this year as fragile.
The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, has said NATO's core objective is to ensure that Afghanistan "is never again a sanctuary to al Qaeda or other transnational extremists that it was prior to 9/11."
He said the only way to achieve that goal is "to help Afghanistan develop the ability to secure and govern itself. Now not to the levels of Switzerland in 10 years or less, but to a level that is good enough for Afghanistan."
To reach that, there is an ongoing effort to get the Taliban to the negotiating table. President Hamid Karzai has set up a committee to try to make peace, and the military hopes its campaign will help force the insurgents to seek a deal.
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on Dec. 27, 1979, its stated goal was to transform Afghanistan into a modern socialist state. The Soviets sought to prop up a communist regime that was facing a popular uprising, but left largely defeated on Feb. 15, 1989.
In 1992, the pro-Moscow government of Mohammad Najibullah collapsed and U.S.-backed rebels took power. The Taliban eventually seized Kabul after a violent civil war that killed thousands more. It ruled with a strict interpretation of Islamic law until it was ousted by the U.S.-led invasion.
Nader Nadery, an Afghan analyst who has studied the Soviet and U.S. invasions, said "the time may be the same" for the two conflicts, "but conditions are not similar."
More than a million civilians died as Soviet forces propping up the government of Babrak Karmal waged a massive war against anti-communist mujahedeen forces.
"There was indiscriminate mass bombardment of villages for the eviction of mujahedeen," Nadery said. "Civilian casualties are not at all comparable."
Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank and Afghanistan expert, said NATO forces have killed fewer than 10,000 civilians and a comparable number of insurgents.
The allied military presence has also been far smaller and more targeted. Even now, nearly all operations are restricted to the south and east of the country where the insurgency is most active. O'Hanlon points out that at the height of the resistance, there were 250,000 mujahedeen representing all Afghan ethnic groups fighting the Soviets, while "the current insurgency is perhaps one-eighth as large and is only Pashtun."
"We do have big problems. But there is no comparison between this war and what the Soviets wrought," he said.
"The Soviet war set Afghanistan back dramatically from what had been a weak but functioning state. NATO has, by contrast, helped Afghanistan to a 10 percent annual economic growth rate, 7 million kids are now in school, and most people have access to basic health care within a two-hour walk," O'Hanlon said.
He also points out that although Karzai was hand-picked by the United States after the invasion "he has since been elected twice by his own people."
The United States and its allies, however, have made strategic mistakes, including taking their eyes off Afghanistan and shifting their attention to the war in Iraq. In those crucial years, the Taliban and their allies surged back and took control of many parts of the Afghan countryside and some regions in the south - especially parts of Kandahar and Helmand.
Wadir Safi, a professor at Kabul University who served as civil aviation minister under the Najibullah government, said risks surround the U.S. effort because "the Americans never reached the goal for which they came."
"If they don't change their policy, if they don't reach their goals, if they don't reach agreement with the armed opposition and with the government, then it is not a far time that the Afghan people will be fed up with the presence of these foreign forces," Safi said.
The United States has pledged that its commitment to Afghanistan will run past the 2014 date when NATO forces are supposed to transition to a noncombat role.
A Russian analyst said the Soviet Union tried to do something similar when it left Afghanistan. It backed Najibullah with money and weapons, and left behind a trained and heavily armed Afghan military. But it all crumbled and the mujahedeen took over Kabul in 1992. Najibullah stayed in the city's U.N. compound until Kabul fell to the Taliban in 1996, and he was hung from the main square.
"The Soviet Union tried to leave its protege alone to run the country, but that ended in the Taliban victory," said Alexander Konovalov, the head of the Moscow-based Institute of Strategic Assessment, an independent think-tank.
"The U.S. now wants to create a self-sufficient structure behind backed by some support forces," he said. "It remains to be seen how successful it could be in Afghanistan."
American-Led Coalition Now Fighting in Afghanistan For as Long as Soviets' Ill-Fated Slog: 9 Years, 50 Days
Font size PrintE-mailShare39 Comments .Like this Story? Share it:
Share On Facebook ..
The Soviet Union couldn't win in Afghanistan, and now the United States is about to have something in common with that futile campaign: nine years, 50 days.
On Friday, the U.S.-led coalition will have been fighting in this South Asian country for as long as the Soviets did in their humbling attempt to build up a socialist state. The two invasions had different goals - and dramatically different body counts - but whether they have significantly different outcomes remains to be seen.
What started out as a quick war on Oct. 7, 2001, by the U.S. and its allies to wipe out al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the Taliban has instead turned into a long and slogging campaign. Now about 100,000 NATO troops are fighting a burgeoning insurgency while trying to support and cultivate a nascent democracy.
A Pentagon-led assessment released earlier this week described the progress made since the United States injected 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan earlier this year as fragile.
The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, has said NATO's core objective is to ensure that Afghanistan "is never again a sanctuary to al Qaeda or other transnational extremists that it was prior to 9/11."
He said the only way to achieve that goal is "to help Afghanistan develop the ability to secure and govern itself. Now not to the levels of Switzerland in 10 years or less, but to a level that is good enough for Afghanistan."
To reach that, there is an ongoing effort to get the Taliban to the negotiating table. President Hamid Karzai has set up a committee to try to make peace, and the military hopes its campaign will help force the insurgents to seek a deal.
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on Dec. 27, 1979, its stated goal was to transform Afghanistan into a modern socialist state. The Soviets sought to prop up a communist regime that was facing a popular uprising, but left largely defeated on Feb. 15, 1989.
In 1992, the pro-Moscow government of Mohammad Najibullah collapsed and U.S.-backed rebels took power. The Taliban eventually seized Kabul after a violent civil war that killed thousands more. It ruled with a strict interpretation of Islamic law until it was ousted by the U.S.-led invasion.
Nader Nadery, an Afghan analyst who has studied the Soviet and U.S. invasions, said "the time may be the same" for the two conflicts, "but conditions are not similar."
More than a million civilians died as Soviet forces propping up the government of Babrak Karmal waged a massive war against anti-communist mujahedeen forces.
"There was indiscriminate mass bombardment of villages for the eviction of mujahedeen," Nadery said. "Civilian casualties are not at all comparable."
Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank and Afghanistan expert, said NATO forces have killed fewer than 10,000 civilians and a comparable number of insurgents.
The allied military presence has also been far smaller and more targeted. Even now, nearly all operations are restricted to the south and east of the country where the insurgency is most active. O'Hanlon points out that at the height of the resistance, there were 250,000 mujahedeen representing all Afghan ethnic groups fighting the Soviets, while "the current insurgency is perhaps one-eighth as large and is only Pashtun."
"We do have big problems. But there is no comparison between this war and what the Soviets wrought," he said.
"The Soviet war set Afghanistan back dramatically from what had been a weak but functioning state. NATO has, by contrast, helped Afghanistan to a 10 percent annual economic growth rate, 7 million kids are now in school, and most people have access to basic health care within a two-hour walk," O'Hanlon said.
He also points out that although Karzai was hand-picked by the United States after the invasion "he has since been elected twice by his own people."
The United States and its allies, however, have made strategic mistakes, including taking their eyes off Afghanistan and shifting their attention to the war in Iraq. In those crucial years, the Taliban and their allies surged back and took control of many parts of the Afghan countryside and some regions in the south - especially parts of Kandahar and Helmand.
Wadir Safi, a professor at Kabul University who served as civil aviation minister under the Najibullah government, said risks surround the U.S. effort because "the Americans never reached the goal for which they came."
"If they don't change their policy, if they don't reach their goals, if they don't reach agreement with the armed opposition and with the government, then it is not a far time that the Afghan people will be fed up with the presence of these foreign forces," Safi said.
The United States has pledged that its commitment to Afghanistan will run past the 2014 date when NATO forces are supposed to transition to a noncombat role.
A Russian analyst said the Soviet Union tried to do something similar when it left Afghanistan. It backed Najibullah with money and weapons, and left behind a trained and heavily armed Afghan military. But it all crumbled and the mujahedeen took over Kabul in 1992. Najibullah stayed in the city's U.N. compound until Kabul fell to the Taliban in 1996, and he was hung from the main square.
"The Soviet Union tried to leave its protege alone to run the country, but that ended in the Taliban victory," said Alexander Konovalov, the head of the Moscow-based Institute of Strategic Assessment, an independent think-tank.
"The U.S. now wants to create a self-sufficient structure behind backed by some support forces," he said. "It remains to be seen how successful it could be in Afghanistan."
aerobics and resistance training may provide health benefits for diabetics
The one-two punch of aerobics and resistance training may provide the most health benefits for diabetics
Yet more support for the combination of aerobic and resistance training exercise: A new study released Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. finds that combining the two was good for blood sugar levels in people with Type 2 diabetes, more than those who did not exercise or who did just aerobics or resistance training.
The study participants were made up of 262 sedentary men and women who had Type 2 diabetes and hemoglobin A1C levels of at least 6.5%. A1C levels are a measure of blood glucose over a two- to three-month period, and 4% to 6% is considered a normal range.
The men and women, average age about 56, were divided into three groups for the nine-month study: one that did resistance training, one that did aerobic training, one that did both, and a control group that did not do any exercise. Those in the exercise groups worked out for about 140 minutes per week.
The combination exercise group lowered its hemoglobin A1C levels minus 0.34% compared with the control group. The resistance and aerobic training groups showed less significant change; minus 0.16% and minus 0.24% respectively, compared with controls. Those in the combination group also lowered their hypoglycemic medications more than the other groups. Even small decreases in A1C levels may result in health risk reductions.
The participants in the combination exercise group showed even more improvements: They had the greatest increases in peak oxygen intake (a measure of fitness) and lost the most weight, compared with controls.
"Despite a population with many medical concerns," wrote the authors, "we obtained good exercise adherence and a low dropout rate. Furthermore, the exercise prescriptions performed are easily obtainable and well tolerated by individuals with diabetes, which has important implications for refining future physical activity recommendations."
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times
Yet more support for the combination of aerobic and resistance training exercise: A new study released Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. finds that combining the two was good for blood sugar levels in people with Type 2 diabetes, more than those who did not exercise or who did just aerobics or resistance training.
The study participants were made up of 262 sedentary men and women who had Type 2 diabetes and hemoglobin A1C levels of at least 6.5%. A1C levels are a measure of blood glucose over a two- to three-month period, and 4% to 6% is considered a normal range.
The men and women, average age about 56, were divided into three groups for the nine-month study: one that did resistance training, one that did aerobic training, one that did both, and a control group that did not do any exercise. Those in the exercise groups worked out for about 140 minutes per week.
The combination exercise group lowered its hemoglobin A1C levels minus 0.34% compared with the control group. The resistance and aerobic training groups showed less significant change; minus 0.16% and minus 0.24% respectively, compared with controls. Those in the combination group also lowered their hypoglycemic medications more than the other groups. Even small decreases in A1C levels may result in health risk reductions.
The participants in the combination exercise group showed even more improvements: They had the greatest increases in peak oxygen intake (a measure of fitness) and lost the most weight, compared with controls.
"Despite a population with many medical concerns," wrote the authors, "we obtained good exercise adherence and a low dropout rate. Furthermore, the exercise prescriptions performed are easily obtainable and well tolerated by individuals with diabetes, which has important implications for refining future physical activity recommendations."
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times
What Murkowski's write-in win says about the electorate David S. Broder
If you have any doubts about the real meaning of this month's midterm elections, let me refer you to the most notable winner in those contests. I am talking about Lisa Murkowski, the reelected senator from Alaska.
The distinctive feature of the 2010 election was the energy generated among the voters by the combination of a severe economic recession and the widespread disillusionment with Washington and national politics as practiced by Barack Obama and both parties.
Murkowski was the most notable winner of the whole cycle because she was first a victim and then a victor. She is also the first person elected to the Senate as an independent write-in candidate since Strom Thurmond harnessed the racist forces in South Carolina in 1954 to win his seat.
The Murkowski saga began in the summer when she was upset in the Alaska Republican primary by Joe Miller, an attorney who had campaigned as the endorsed choice of the Tea Party and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate.
Palin has conducted a vendetta against the Murkowski family, and she became governor four years ago by upsetting Lisa's father, Frank Murkowski, in another low-turnout GOP primary.
Before he left office, Frank Murkowski appointed Lisa to a vacant Republican Senate seat only to see her lose the nomination this year.
When she lost the primary, that was expected to be the end of her. Miller settled in for an easy race against a little-known Democrat in his Republican-leaning state. But Murkowski, with some notable help from anti-Palin elements and parts of the energy industry, decided to try a long-shot write-in campaign.
It is difficult under any circumstances. With the state's rather restrictive voter-identification system and the requirement of a 13-letter, five-syllable name to be correctly spelled, the chances of success seemed small.
When Murkowski was asked recently by reporter Judy Woodruff on the PBS "NewsHour" how she had overcome Palin's endorsement of Miller to win, this is what she said:
"It is historic. It feels great." She exulted that more than 100,000 Alaskans had written in her name and that her 10,000-vote margin over Miller was so large that even if all the votes he has challenged were thrown out, she would still win by more than 2,000 votes. Under the circumstances, Miller's delay in conceding has no purpose, she said.
Then Woodruff asked what explained the outcome. Murkowski said, "Well, in an election, it's all about what that candidate has to offer. Joe Miller was clearly appealing to that more conservative element. But, in our state, we have got over 54 percent of the electorate that chooses not to align themselves with any party at all, not Republican, not Democratic, not green, not anything.
"And, so, it was important to make sure that all Alaskans, regardless of your political stripe, felt that they had somebody who's going to represent their best interests. I think that's what this election was about. They wanted somebody who was going to be a consensus-builder, someone that was going to work to bring people together to really work to effectively govern."
The demographics required that Murkowski seek support from Democrats and independents, as well as Republicans. But she said their expectations did not differ from group to group. "I think what they are looking for is the same thing that any Alaskan is looking for: Represent our state. Work together with people that have opposing viewpoints to build good policy that allows our state and our nation to go in a positive direction.
"I think that's what voters are looking for. I don't think that most are looking for somebody that is going to follow the litmus test of one party or another, and never deviate from it. I think they want us to think, and I think they want us to work cooperatively together. So, that's my pledge to all Alaskans, regardless of whether you are the most conservative Republican or the most liberal Democrat, I'm going to try to find a way that we can find common ground to help the state and to help our country."
Want to know what the election was about? That's an authoritative answer.
The distinctive feature of the 2010 election was the energy generated among the voters by the combination of a severe economic recession and the widespread disillusionment with Washington and national politics as practiced by Barack Obama and both parties.
Murkowski was the most notable winner of the whole cycle because she was first a victim and then a victor. She is also the first person elected to the Senate as an independent write-in candidate since Strom Thurmond harnessed the racist forces in South Carolina in 1954 to win his seat.
The Murkowski saga began in the summer when she was upset in the Alaska Republican primary by Joe Miller, an attorney who had campaigned as the endorsed choice of the Tea Party and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate.
Palin has conducted a vendetta against the Murkowski family, and she became governor four years ago by upsetting Lisa's father, Frank Murkowski, in another low-turnout GOP primary.
Before he left office, Frank Murkowski appointed Lisa to a vacant Republican Senate seat only to see her lose the nomination this year.
When she lost the primary, that was expected to be the end of her. Miller settled in for an easy race against a little-known Democrat in his Republican-leaning state. But Murkowski, with some notable help from anti-Palin elements and parts of the energy industry, decided to try a long-shot write-in campaign.
It is difficult under any circumstances. With the state's rather restrictive voter-identification system and the requirement of a 13-letter, five-syllable name to be correctly spelled, the chances of success seemed small.
When Murkowski was asked recently by reporter Judy Woodruff on the PBS "NewsHour" how she had overcome Palin's endorsement of Miller to win, this is what she said:
"It is historic. It feels great." She exulted that more than 100,000 Alaskans had written in her name and that her 10,000-vote margin over Miller was so large that even if all the votes he has challenged were thrown out, she would still win by more than 2,000 votes. Under the circumstances, Miller's delay in conceding has no purpose, she said.
Then Woodruff asked what explained the outcome. Murkowski said, "Well, in an election, it's all about what that candidate has to offer. Joe Miller was clearly appealing to that more conservative element. But, in our state, we have got over 54 percent of the electorate that chooses not to align themselves with any party at all, not Republican, not Democratic, not green, not anything.
"And, so, it was important to make sure that all Alaskans, regardless of your political stripe, felt that they had somebody who's going to represent their best interests. I think that's what this election was about. They wanted somebody who was going to be a consensus-builder, someone that was going to work to bring people together to really work to effectively govern."
The demographics required that Murkowski seek support from Democrats and independents, as well as Republicans. But she said their expectations did not differ from group to group. "I think what they are looking for is the same thing that any Alaskan is looking for: Represent our state. Work together with people that have opposing viewpoints to build good policy that allows our state and our nation to go in a positive direction.
"I think that's what voters are looking for. I don't think that most are looking for somebody that is going to follow the litmus test of one party or another, and never deviate from it. I think they want us to think, and I think they want us to work cooperatively together. So, that's my pledge to all Alaskans, regardless of whether you are the most conservative Republican or the most liberal Democrat, I'm going to try to find a way that we can find common ground to help the state and to help our country."
Want to know what the election was about? That's an authoritative answer.
Another GOP RIGHT WING WACKO SCARE HYPE BS fizzzzzzlez!!!
Pat-Down Protests Fizzle
Hope you didn’t cancel your Thanksgiving travel plans because of the TSA pat-down protest. Holiday travelers reported late Wednesday that travel had mostly gone off without a hitch, with few protests despite the earlier hype about a shutdown.
In fact, one of the biggest travel delays on the East Coast was not at the airport, but at Interstate 95 in Delaware, where construction at a toll plaza backed up traffic so much the state stopped collecting tolls. At airports, passengers reported delays similar to regular work days.
There was, however, one protester at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.—a 27-year-old college student who said he was “probably going to put on some terrorist watch list now” after his protest.
Hope you didn’t cancel your Thanksgiving travel plans because of the TSA pat-down protest. Holiday travelers reported late Wednesday that travel had mostly gone off without a hitch, with few protests despite the earlier hype about a shutdown.
In fact, one of the biggest travel delays on the East Coast was not at the airport, but at Interstate 95 in Delaware, where construction at a toll plaza backed up traffic so much the state stopped collecting tolls. At airports, passengers reported delays similar to regular work days.
There was, however, one protester at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.—a 27-year-old college student who said he was “probably going to put on some terrorist watch list now” after his protest.
Study Finds No Progress in Safety at Hospitals (USA health care is for the Wealthy & Healthy)
Efforts to make hospitals safer for patients are falling short, researchers report in the first large study in a decade to analyze harm from medical care and to track it over time.
The study, conducted from 2002 to 2007 in 10 North Carolina hospitals, found that harm to patients was common and that the number of incidents did not decrease over time. The most common problems were complications from procedures or drugs and hospital-acquired infections.
“It is unlikely that other regions of the country have fared better,” said Dr. Christopher P. Landrigan, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. The study is being published on Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.
It is one of the most rigorous efforts to collect data about patient safety since a landmark report in 1999 found that medical mistakes caused as many as 98,000 deaths and more than one million injuries a year in the United States. That report, by the Institute of Medicine, an independent group that advises the government on health matters, led to a national movement to reduce errors and make hospital stays less hazardous to patients’ health.
Among the preventable problems that Dr. Landrigan’s team identified were severe bleeding during an operation, serious breathing trouble caused by a procedure that was performed incorrectly, a fall that dislocated a patient’s hip and damaged a nerve, and vaginal cuts caused by a vacuum device used to help deliver a baby.
Dr. Landrigan’s team focused on North Carolina because its hospitals, compared with those in most states, have been more involved in programs to improve patient safety.
But instead of improvements, the researchers found a high rate of problems. About 18 percent of patients were harmed by medical care, some more than once, and 63.1 percent of the injuries were judged to be preventable. Most of the problems were temporary and treatable, but some were serious, and a few — 2.4 percent — caused or contributed to a patient’s death, the study found.
The findings were a disappointment but not a surprise, Dr. Landrigan said. Many of the problems were caused by the hospitals’ failure to use measures that had been proved to avert mistakes and to prevent infections from devices like urinary catheters, ventilators and lines inserted into veins and arteries.
“Until there is a more coordinated effort to implement those strategies proven beneficial, I think that progress in patient safety will be very slow,” he said.
An expert on hospital safety who was not associated with the study said the findings were a warning for the patient-safety movement. “We need to do more, and to do it more quickly,” said the expert, Dr. Robert M. Wachter, the chief of hospital medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
A recent government report found similar results, saying that in October 2008, 13.5 percent of Medicare beneficiaries — 134,000 patients — experienced “adverse events” during hospital stays. The report said the extra treatment required as a result of the injuries could cost Medicare several billion dollars a year. And in 1.5 percent of the patients — 15,000 in the month studied — medical mistakes contributed to their deaths. That report, issued this month by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, was based on a sample of Medicare records from patients discharged from hospitals.
Dr. Landrigan’s study reviewed the records of 2,341 patients admitted to 10 hospitals — in both urban and rural areas and involving large and small medical centers. (The hospitals were not named.) The researchers used a “trigger tool,” a list of 54 red flags that indicated something could have gone wrong. They included drugs used only to reverse an overdose, the presence of bedsores or the patient’s readmission to the hospital within 30 days.
The researchers found 588 instances in which a patient was harmed by medical care, or 25.1 injuries per 100 admissions.
Not all the problems were serious. Most were temporary and treatable, like a bout with severe low blood sugar from receiving too much insulin or a urinary infection caused by a catheter. But 42.7 percent of them required extra time in the hospital for treatment of problems like an infected surgical incision.
In 2.9 percent of the cases, patients suffered a permanent injury — brain damage from a stroke that could have been prevented after an operation, for example. A little more than 8 percent of the problems were life-threatening, like severe bleeding during surgery. And 2.4 percent of them caused or contributed to a patient’s death — like bleeding and organ failure after surgery.
Medication errors caused problems in 162 cases. Computerized systems for ordering drugs can cut such mistakes by up to 80 percent, Dr. Landrigan said. But only 17 percent of hospitals have such systems.
For the most part, the reporting of medical errors or harm to patients is voluntary, and that “vastly underestimates the frequency of errors and injuries that occur,” Dr. Landrigan said.
“We need a monitoring system that is mandatory,” he said. “There has to be some mechanism for federal-level reporting, where hospitals across the country are held to it.”
Dr. Mark R. Chassin, president of the Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals, cautioned that the study was limited by its list of “triggers.” If a hospital had performed a completely unnecessary operation, but had done it well, the study would not have uncovered it, he said. Similarly, he said, the study would not have found areas where many hospitals have made progress, such as in making sure that patients who had heart attacks or heart failure were sent home with the right medicines.
The bottom line, he said, “is that preventable complications are way too frequent in American health care, and “it’s not a problem we’re going to get rid of in six months or a year.”
Dr. Wachter said the study made clear the difficulty in improving patients’ safety.
“Process changes, like a new computer system or the use of a checklist, may help a bit,” he said, “but if they are not embedded in a system in which the providers are engaged in safety efforts, educated about how to identify safety hazards and fix them, and have a culture of strong communication and teamwork, progress may be painfully slow.”
Leah Binder, the chief executive officer of the Leapfrog Group, a patient safety organization whose members include large employers trying to improve health care, said it was essential that hospitals be more open about reporting problems.
“What we know works in a general sense is a competitive open market where consumers can compare providers and services,” she said. “Right now you ought to be able to know the infection rate of every hospital in your community.”
For hospitals with poor scores, there should be consequences, Ms. Binder said: “And the consequences need to be the feet of the American public.”
The study, conducted from 2002 to 2007 in 10 North Carolina hospitals, found that harm to patients was common and that the number of incidents did not decrease over time. The most common problems were complications from procedures or drugs and hospital-acquired infections.
“It is unlikely that other regions of the country have fared better,” said Dr. Christopher P. Landrigan, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. The study is being published on Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.
It is one of the most rigorous efforts to collect data about patient safety since a landmark report in 1999 found that medical mistakes caused as many as 98,000 deaths and more than one million injuries a year in the United States. That report, by the Institute of Medicine, an independent group that advises the government on health matters, led to a national movement to reduce errors and make hospital stays less hazardous to patients’ health.
Among the preventable problems that Dr. Landrigan’s team identified were severe bleeding during an operation, serious breathing trouble caused by a procedure that was performed incorrectly, a fall that dislocated a patient’s hip and damaged a nerve, and vaginal cuts caused by a vacuum device used to help deliver a baby.
Dr. Landrigan’s team focused on North Carolina because its hospitals, compared with those in most states, have been more involved in programs to improve patient safety.
But instead of improvements, the researchers found a high rate of problems. About 18 percent of patients were harmed by medical care, some more than once, and 63.1 percent of the injuries were judged to be preventable. Most of the problems were temporary and treatable, but some were serious, and a few — 2.4 percent — caused or contributed to a patient’s death, the study found.
The findings were a disappointment but not a surprise, Dr. Landrigan said. Many of the problems were caused by the hospitals’ failure to use measures that had been proved to avert mistakes and to prevent infections from devices like urinary catheters, ventilators and lines inserted into veins and arteries.
“Until there is a more coordinated effort to implement those strategies proven beneficial, I think that progress in patient safety will be very slow,” he said.
An expert on hospital safety who was not associated with the study said the findings were a warning for the patient-safety movement. “We need to do more, and to do it more quickly,” said the expert, Dr. Robert M. Wachter, the chief of hospital medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
A recent government report found similar results, saying that in October 2008, 13.5 percent of Medicare beneficiaries — 134,000 patients — experienced “adverse events” during hospital stays. The report said the extra treatment required as a result of the injuries could cost Medicare several billion dollars a year. And in 1.5 percent of the patients — 15,000 in the month studied — medical mistakes contributed to their deaths. That report, issued this month by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, was based on a sample of Medicare records from patients discharged from hospitals.
Dr. Landrigan’s study reviewed the records of 2,341 patients admitted to 10 hospitals — in both urban and rural areas and involving large and small medical centers. (The hospitals were not named.) The researchers used a “trigger tool,” a list of 54 red flags that indicated something could have gone wrong. They included drugs used only to reverse an overdose, the presence of bedsores or the patient’s readmission to the hospital within 30 days.
The researchers found 588 instances in which a patient was harmed by medical care, or 25.1 injuries per 100 admissions.
Not all the problems were serious. Most were temporary and treatable, like a bout with severe low blood sugar from receiving too much insulin or a urinary infection caused by a catheter. But 42.7 percent of them required extra time in the hospital for treatment of problems like an infected surgical incision.
In 2.9 percent of the cases, patients suffered a permanent injury — brain damage from a stroke that could have been prevented after an operation, for example. A little more than 8 percent of the problems were life-threatening, like severe bleeding during surgery. And 2.4 percent of them caused or contributed to a patient’s death — like bleeding and organ failure after surgery.
Medication errors caused problems in 162 cases. Computerized systems for ordering drugs can cut such mistakes by up to 80 percent, Dr. Landrigan said. But only 17 percent of hospitals have such systems.
For the most part, the reporting of medical errors or harm to patients is voluntary, and that “vastly underestimates the frequency of errors and injuries that occur,” Dr. Landrigan said.
“We need a monitoring system that is mandatory,” he said. “There has to be some mechanism for federal-level reporting, where hospitals across the country are held to it.”
Dr. Mark R. Chassin, president of the Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals, cautioned that the study was limited by its list of “triggers.” If a hospital had performed a completely unnecessary operation, but had done it well, the study would not have uncovered it, he said. Similarly, he said, the study would not have found areas where many hospitals have made progress, such as in making sure that patients who had heart attacks or heart failure were sent home with the right medicines.
The bottom line, he said, “is that preventable complications are way too frequent in American health care, and “it’s not a problem we’re going to get rid of in six months or a year.”
Dr. Wachter said the study made clear the difficulty in improving patients’ safety.
“Process changes, like a new computer system or the use of a checklist, may help a bit,” he said, “but if they are not embedded in a system in which the providers are engaged in safety efforts, educated about how to identify safety hazards and fix them, and have a culture of strong communication and teamwork, progress may be painfully slow.”
Leah Binder, the chief executive officer of the Leapfrog Group, a patient safety organization whose members include large employers trying to improve health care, said it was essential that hospitals be more open about reporting problems.
“What we know works in a general sense is a competitive open market where consumers can compare providers and services,” she said. “Right now you ought to be able to know the infection rate of every hospital in your community.”
For hospitals with poor scores, there should be consequences, Ms. Binder said: “And the consequences need to be the feet of the American public.”
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