This post is in honor of all those who serve in the armed forces to protect us and our values. THANK YOU!!
America
Strategic Communication with the Muslim Community
Strategic communication recently made the news because of a column Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chief of Staff wrote for the Joint Forces Quarterly. His basic point was that by making it an organizing item, strategic communication has become a goal in itself, rather than being a process to enable the larger objectives. Lacking credibility and trust, and by having double standards between words and actions, leaves the US in a position where it is not effective. As he states:
The Muslim community is a subtle world we don’t fully—and don’t always attempt to—understand.
In a similar vein, Beth Noveck, the Deputy Chief Technology Officer from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy gave the keynote address at a United States Institute of Peace event “Smart Tools for Smart Power.” She highlighted the Obama administration goal of renewing the US relationship with Muslim communities, and asked the question of how serious gaming or any other technologies can be used for achieving the purpose (and several others).
There seems to be a general and open acknowledgement in the Obama administration that actions speak louder than words, and the US needs new actions (and policy) to engage with Muslim communities. There also seems to be a void that needs to be filled regarding “what should we do about it?”
How can credibility be built without resorting to propaganda and patronizing? How will a culture of respect and dialogue (that includes listening!) be established when the recent harsh memories are those of arrogance and disregard for human life? Abu Ghraib, Haditha and Guantanamo are not just news stories but the reality for many. It will be a long uphill struggle for hearts and minds requiring a commitment that stretches beyond four year presidential terms.
Blackwater (Xe) Founder Officially Charged
The founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince was officially charged in court on Friday, Aug 29, 2009 with intent to kill .
The plaintiffs hold Erik Prince responsible for 20+ Iraqi deaths, and the defense wants the motion to be dismissed. The Judge, T.S. Ellis III has not issued a ruling yet, however as the Washington Post reports:
Judge T.S. Ellis III expressed deep skepticism about the claims. "Are you accusing Mr. Prince of saying ‘I want our boys to go out and shoot innocent civilians?’ ” he asked the attorneys."These are certainly allegations of not engaging in very nice conduct, but where are the elements that meet the elements of murder? I don’t have any doubt that you can infer malice. What you can’t infer, as far as I can tell, is intent to kill these people.”
It sounds like he has already made up his mind.
Blackwater (wiki link and official Xe website link) is the CIA contractor that was hired to assassinate al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan; and also transfer Guantanamo detainees to secret prisons in Asia for interrogations.
There is finally talk of charging Blackwater with war crimes by the Justice Department. Their subsidiaries and them are also currently charged with kidnapping, weapons smuggling, money laundering, tax evasion, child prostitution, illegal drug use and destruction of evidence in the Virginia Eastern Federal District Court under the Alien Tort Claims Act.
US Postal System Crisis
Did you know that the US Postal Service (USPS) is the second largest civilian employer in the country, after Wal-mart? It has also been running in the red and after cutting 25,000 jobs earlier this year it is offering to pay some 30,000 additional workers to leave.
Facing a $2.6 billion loss in the last quarter (projected to be $7billion by the end of the year), the USPS has been badly hit by the recession. Not only has the volume of regular mail gone down as more electronic options abound (email and electronic bill paying systems), the source of 25% of its revenue in the past has drastically been reduced: JUNK MAIL or as it is euphemistically called “standard mail”!! As all retailers have been hit by dwindling revenue streams they have been forced to cut marketing budgets, and make smarter choices about what fliers/catalogs that need to be sent, and to whom.
Trying to cut costs, USPS has also selected 677 post offices to be closed or merged, mail routes are changing and mail boxes are being reduced. Congress is holding hearings to review the changes that USPS is proposing, including changing their delivery schedule to 5 days a week (instead of the current 6).
On the positive side, at least there are no strikes yet as are being seen in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland protesting similar cost-cutting actions.
We are reaching a stage where the concept of mail needs to be re-examined and revamped to better meet the needs of today’s technology-savvy consumers.
Finally, a Check on the CIA!
The controversial CIA program for assassinating al-Qaeda leaders using Blackwater as a contractor is becoming an ever-increasing political problem for the CIA as more information gets revealed. Congress was not informed about the program’s existence when it was formed in 2004. The new CIA Director Leon Panetta (Obama’s appointee) cancelled the program this summer when he found out about it and then informed Congress. The CIA claims that it was in the planning stages only; since then it seems that it was past the planning stages, though it was not successful in it’s seven years.
Congress has launched an investigation into the matter and most importantly the mood is changing on the Hill regarding illegal activity by the CIA. The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration is currently evaluating if they should release:
newly declassified portions of a 2004 CIA report that questions the legality and effectiveness of the agency’s harsh interrogations at secret prisons. Additionally, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. may order a probe of possible criminal actions by CIA officers and contractors during those interrogations.
It is about time the legislative and judicial branches of the government actually started acting based on their mandates rather than giving a carte blanche to the executive branch as they did for the past 8 years under Bush. The separation of the various government branches is to ensure checks and balances within the system; however the more we find out about the inner working of the past administration, the more we realize that the judicial & legislative branch were made irrelevant by the ever-expanding power of the executive branch.
America needs to re-establish the rule of law for itself, and not just expect it from other countries. People in glass houses should not throw stones!
ObamaCare vs MackayCare
Health care reform is on the minds of everyone today (according to Gallup polls it is increasingly considered the most important issue) but there are mixed opinions on it.
Ignoring Sarah Palin’s attention-seeking inflammatory hate-mongering (no version of the bill includes death panels for grandpa or evil directed at Down syndrome babies), there are only a few THOUGHTFUL/informed public naysayers about the plan as a whole. John Mackay, CEO of Whole Foods is one. He recently wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal outlining “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare.” Two days later President Obama published an op-ed in the New York Times defending his plan.
The response to Mackay’s op-ed has been astounding with several liberal-left-wingers-who-often-frequent-Whole Foods-stores vowing to boycott the company! There are anti-Whole Foods Facebook groups that actually have five time as many members (last count at 11pm, Aug 16 2009 was 10,003) than the pro-Whole Foods Facebook group (last count at 11pm, Aug 16 2009 was 1,944).
Fundamentally, Obama is pushing for maximizing the numbers of people who are insured, reducing costs and promoting a healthier lifestyle to reduce healthcare costs (more info on the ACTUAL reform options on this site). Mackay thinks that costs must be cut, healthcare is not a universal right that must be provided for all & that people should be more responsible about their health, not just their healthcare. So what exactly is MackayCare vs ObamaCare?
| Objective | ObamaCare | MackayCare |
| Reduce costs for employers | Cut subsidies for insurance companies
Cut out inefficiency & waste in Medicare and Medicaid |
Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts |
| Reduce costs for individuals | Channel money towards reducing prescription drug costs
Force insurance companies to cover routine checks and preventative tests |
Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits
Revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program |
| Promote competition | Create a public health alternative. Obama is now backing away from this as and might move towards non-profit co-ops | Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines |
| Reduce costs for insurance companies | Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover
Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year |
|
| Create awareness | Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost | |
| Prevent Medicare bankruptcy | Enact Medicare reform | Enact Medicare reform |
| Maximize numbers of people insured and ensure that people will not be refused or discriminated against | Ensure that people can have insurance whether they are employed or not, or have pre-existing conditions | This is something that Mackay does not consider to be a right |
Both sides have some valid points and a combination of both might be a good idea for America.
Should Liberty be the Price of Safety in Saudi Arabia?
Saudi Arabia takes national security very seriously. In 2003, after Al-Qaeda affiliates launched three successful attacks on expatriate compounds and several failed ones on Saudi government facilities, the country cracked down very hard on militants, suspected militants, political activists, dissidents, supporters and basically anyone it wanted to.
The Human Rights Watch recently issued a report claiming that 9000 people were detained, of which 2000-4000 are still in jail. Held without trial, sent to rehabilitation camps and in a few cases actually charged and tried in secret, the process has been mostly opaque and violated both Saudi law and also international law. 991 people had been indicted by October 2008 and a further 323 by July 2009. Sentences ranged from a few months to 30 years for those that were tried.
What is known through anecdotes is that soon after the 2003 attacks there were huge crackdowns on faculty at various Islamic universities in the Kingdom. Professors and students disappeared and the curriculum/language has changed to include “moderation”. Officially, “there is no place for extremism in Islamic University.” Additionally, all imams in mosques around the country have to be Saudi and approved by the government; they are monitored to ensure that they are not teaching hatred (some 3200 have been removed over the past 5 years).
Do national security concerns give nations the right to violate human rights? Clearly Saudi Arabia and USA are birds of a feather in this regard (let us not forget Guantanamo Bay). It is interesting that the American founding fathers certainly did not think so:
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, "Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor", November 11, 1755
Declunkerize- it’s time to clean out your garage
The US cash for clunkers program has been given new life by the approval of an additional $2 billion. Environmentalists are complaining that there is nothing in the legislature that encourages people to purchase fuel efficient vehicles (just better than what they previously had). However the objective was to give new life to the automobile industry with the environment being a distant secondary benefit.
That being said, similar programs previously enacted in UK and Germany have had their own problems. In UK, car sales have improved slightly however they are still more than 20% lower than last year. In Germany, the law is being abused as clunkers are being shipped to Africa and other European countries rather than being scrapped! Dealers are being reimbursed by the government and also getting money for selling the cars.
In the US now is exactly the right time if you want to get government money to buy a gas guzzler like an H3T with a combined gas mileage of 16mpg!
Martin Luther King, Jr Day
Yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr day in the US. It is the third Monday each January, commemorating the birth of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr on January 15, 1929. He was an iconic civil rights leader who would have been 80 years old this year if he had not been assassinated at a young 39 years of age.
America would have been a different place if the civil rights movement had not happened. In fact, much of the moral high ground that the US claims nowadays is because of what America became after the 60s because of leaders like MLK, Jr.
One year ago around this same time, we were participating in an MLK interfaith peace walk in Leesburg and talking to Obama supporters about voting for change. This year has been considerably less eventful in sunny Riyadh as we watch inauguration activities on television . Let’s see what next year will bring!
off-topic: Transit
We took off before the election results were declared however our pilot was good enough to keep us updated. He gave us the electoral count right after takeoff and about 30mins later when the results were declared. Nothing quite like staying connected.
Sitting at Heathrow Airport right now, it’s quite amazing to see the actual electoral spread. Obama didn’t just win, he really really WON!! The results were much better than anyone could possibly have imagined.
All the newspapers and TV channels (European ones too) only seem to be covering one news item: Obama! This immense interest in the politics of the US is a testament to the current strength of US and to globalization. The world is ready for change, not just America 
GOBAMA!!