Bombing Exposes Obama’s Secret Pakistan War

February 8, 2010

Times Online

By Daud Khattak

THE discovery of three American soldiers among the dead in a suicide bombing at the opening of a girls’ school in the northwestern Pakistan town of Dir last week reignited the fears of many Pakistanis that Washington was set on invading their country.

Barack Obama has banned the Bush-era term “war on terror” and dithered about sending extra troops to Afghanistan, but across the border in Pakistan, the US president has dramatically stepped up the covert war against Islamic extremists.

US airstrikes in Pakistan, launched from unmanned drones, are now averaging three a week, triple the number last year. “We’re quietly seeing a geographical shift,” an intelligence officer said.

For the past month drones have pounded the tribal region of North Waziristan in apparent retaliation for the murder of seven CIA officers in Afghanistan by a Jordanian suicide bomber working with the Pakistani Taliban.Last week America launched its first multiple drone attack, according to Pakistani security officials. Eighteen missiles were fired from eight unmanned aircraft in Dattakhel village, killing 16 people.

The discovery of the dead US soldiers revealed that America’s shadowy war in Pakistan not only involves drones but also small cadres of special operations soldiers.

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, insisted that US troops were in Pakistan only to provide counter-insurgency training for the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force operating in the tribal areas.

Other sources said there were about 200 US military inside the country. “I’m not sure you could just call it training,” one official said. “They are hardly behind the wire if they are on trips to schools in Dir.”

The three US soldiers, who have been described variously as special operations forces and civil affairs troops, were killed when their convoy was bombed as it travelled to the re-opening of the school. It had been rebuilt with US aid after being bombed by the Taliban last year.

Three schoolgirls, two villagers and a Pakistani soldier were also killed in the attack, for which the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility. More than 100 were wounded, mostly schoolgirls.

It was officially reported that the device was a remote-controlled bomb. It has now emerged that a suicide bomber rammed into the vehicle carrying the Americans. This suggests the bomber had inside information. “This attack was too perfect: they lay in wait for the convoy to pass and knew exactly which vehicle to hit,” a US military officer told the Long War Journal.

One of those killed was Sergeant Matthew Sluss-Tiller, 35, the father of a three-year-old daughter. His mother, Jane Blankenship, said her son had been in Pakistan on a civil affairs mission and had grown a beard for it.

One official suggested the “trainers” may be used to pick up intelligence on drone targets, particularly because the CIA did not trust its counterparts from the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service that has close links to the Taliban.

The Americans insist the drone attacks have been a success, picking off the second and third tier of Al-Qaeda’s leadership. In August they killed Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban. They recently claimed to have killed his successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, but Pakistan’s foreign minister said this had not been confirmed.

To the irritation of Washington, Islamabad has kept up a pretence that drone attacks are carried out without its approval, even though the aircraft are based in Pakistan.

Among the Pakistani public, there has been outcry at the attacks. Surveys constantly show that Pakistanis consider the US a greater threat than the Taliban, despite 3,021 Pakistani deaths in terrorist attacks last year.

If the drones are controversial, the presence of US soldiers on Pakistani soil is far more so. Despite a $1.5 billion (£959m) aid programme, Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, had to fly into Pakistan two weeks ago to reassure its military leadership. “Let me say definitively the US does not covet a single inch of Pakistani soil,” he told Pakistan’s National Defence University.

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20% of American Teens Have Unhealthy Cholesterol

January 22, 2010

Reuters

By Cynthia Osterman

One in five American teens has unhealthy cholesterol levels, a major risk factor for heart disease in adults, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

The heavier teens were, the more likely they were to have high cholesterol but even 14 percent of teens with normal body weight were found to have unhealthy cholesterol levels, the CDC said.

CDC researchers studied data on 3,125 teens collected from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 1999 through 2006.

They found that 20.3 percent of young people aged 12 to 19 and more boys than girls had unhealthy cholesterol levels.

The study found that, based on American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines, a third of teens would be eligible for cholesterol screening based solely on being overweight or obese.

The AAP also recommends screening for young people who have a family history of high cholesterol or premature heart disease.

The researchers analyzed measurements of low-density lipoprotein — LDL or so-called bad cholesterol; high-density lipoprotein, the HDL or “good,” cholesterol; and triglycerides.

Bad cholesterol can help clog arteries while good cholesterol carries away the bad stuff. People should aim for low LDL and triglycerides and high HDL.

Ashleigh May of the CDC, who led the study, said the results were “very concerning.”

“It’s a large proportion of the youth that have at least one abnormal lipid level. That is concerning given the long term implications for heart disease,” May said in a telephone interview.

Unhealthy cholesterol levels, which often begin during childhood and adolescence, are a big risk factor in heart disease, the No. 1 cause of death among adults in the United States.

“We really want to make sure that clinicians are aware of lipid screening guidelines and lifestyle interventions that are recommended, for youth, especially overweight and obese youth,” May said.

“For all youth, healthy eating habits and physical activity are good ways to reduce their risk for abnormal lipids and heart disease in the long term.”

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Food Reform Changes Suggested

January 15, 2010

Natural News

By David Gutierrez

Health care reform in the United States is impossible without tackling the country’s obesity epidemic, author and food activist Michael Pollan has warned.

“Even the most efficient health care system that the administration could hope to devise would still confront a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet,” Pollan wrote recently in The New York Times.

“That’s why our success in bringing health care costs under control ultimately depends on whether Washington can summon the political will to take on and reform a second, even more powerful industry: the food industry.”

Pollan notes that it costs the U.S. health care system $147 billion every year to treat obesity. It costs another $116 billion each year to treat diabetes, “and hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular disease and the many types of cancer that have been linked to the so-called Western diet.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 75 percent of U.S. health care spending goes to treat “preventable chronic diseases,” including those linked to diet. A recent study found that obesity is responsible for 30 percent of the increase in health care costs in the last 20 years.

“But so far, food system reform has not figured in the national conversation about health care reform,” Pollan writes. “To put it … bluntly, the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup.”

According to Pollan, widespread food reform is an essential part of health care reform, “everything from farm policy to food marketing to school lunches.” He notes that a recent study from M.I.T. and Columbia University concluded that the best way to reduce rates of childhood obesity would be to develop a diverse, regional food economy and move away from globalized agriculture.

“Passing a health care reform bill, no matter how ambitious, is only the first step in solving our health care crisis,” Pollan says. “To keep from bankrupting ourselves, we will then have to get to work on improving our health — which means going to work on the American way of eating.”

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Most Americans Unhappy At Work

January 5, 2010

Dallas Business Journal

Americans of all ages and at all pay levels are increasingly unhappy at their jobs, according to a new report by The Conference Board, an independent economic and business forecasting organization .

Researchers interviewed 5,000 households across the United States and found that only 45 percent of those surveyed are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61.1 percent back in 1987 when the annual survey was launched.

The Conference Board says the numbers are overwhelming negative and could spell trouble for the nation’s overall productivity.

Younger workers — those under the age of 25 — are the most dissatisfied. Older workers also are hurting, which may cost the nation valuable training of future generations, the report suggested.

“These numbers do not bode well given the multigenerational dynamics of the labor force,” says Linda Barrington, managing director of human capital for The Conference Board. “The newest federal statistics show that baby boomers will compose a quarter of the U.S. workforce in eight years, and since 1987 we’ve watched them increasingly losing faith in the workplace. Twenty years ago, some 60 percent of that generation was satisfied with their jobs. Today, that figure is roughly 46 percent.

Barrington adds: “The growing dissatisfaction across and between generations is important to address because it can directly impact the quality of multigenerational knowledge transfer, which is increasingly critical to effective workplace functioning.”

Michele Wahlde, a career and life coach with Dallas-based Life Possibilities, says she is not surprised by the results.

Wahlder said the economic situation that Americans find themselves in today is only exacerbating their job fears and dissatisfaction.

“Because of the economic downturn … and with so many people getting laid off … no one is finding work-life balance,” she said. “They are having three jobs put on (their) shoulders. They are working nights and weekends.”

Wahlder said the stress is impacting many workers lives, but employees also are afraid to move from their current positions because they see many laid-off workers who are still unemployed.

In some cases, the dissatisfaction can spark a positive result, Wahlder says.

“One (client) left a large company and became an entrepreneur opening her own design firm,” she said. Another left a financial institution to write a book and eventually landed a job in communications that better fits his interests and talents, Wahlder added.

Matching talents with jobs is a task employers may need to focus on more, according to the The Conference Board survey, which shows job satisfaction down 18.9 percentage points when measuring the employees’ level of engagement in the jobs that they are currently doing.

“(Companies) are not identifying people’s strengths and carving out work that helps that person succeeds at what they’re naturally good at,” Wahlder says.

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Personal Bankruptcy Filings Rising Fast

January 5, 2010

The Wall Street Journal

By Sara Murray & Conor Dougherty

The number of Americans filing for personal bankruptcy rose by nearly a third in 2009, a surge largely driven by foreclosures and job losses.

And more people are filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which liquidates assets to pay off some debts and absolves the filers of others. That is significant because a 2005 overhaul of federal bankruptcy laws aimed to encourage Chapter 13 filings, which force consumers to sign onto debt-repayment plans in exchange for keeping certain assets.

The changes were designed to make it more difficult for people to shed their debt, particularly in a Chapter 7 filling. A “means” test, for example, was introduced to separate those who could afford to repay their debt from those who couldn’t. A Chapter 7 filing is off the table if the means test determines a person is able to pay back at least a portion of the debt after it is restructured.

The worst U.S. recession in a generation is testing the effectiveness of these laws. The economic downturn also has prompted more middle-class Americans to file for bankruptcy protection.

Overall, personal bankruptcy filings hit 1.41 million last year, up 32% from 2008, according to the National Bankruptcy Research Center, which compiles and analyzes bankruptcy data. It is the highest level of consumer-bankruptcy fillings since 2005. Consumers rushed to file in 2005 before the new bankruptcy laws took effect in October of that year.

Chapter 7 filings were up more than 42% as of November 2009, compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the research center. November is the most recent month with analyzed data available. Chapter 13 filings rose by 12% and made up less than a third of 2009 filings as of November.

“That suggests it was largely ineffective,” Ronald Mann, a law professor at Columbia University, said of the 2005 overhaul. “I don’t think anybody who’s knowledgeable about the bankruptcy system thought the statute was well crafted.”

During this recession, the housing crisis and high unemployment rate have prompted more people to file for bankruptcy who may never have considered the option before, experts said. Filings from 2008 showed more people with high income and high education levels resorting to bankruptcy petitions, according to an annual survey of consumer-bankruptcy filers’ demographics by the Institute for Financial Literacy, a nonprofit that provides bankruptcy-related counseling and education services. Those demographic trends appeared to continue last year.

Mr. Mann said he believes bankruptcies reached their peak sometime last year, but bankruptcy attorneys from across the country said there was no sign that business was slowing. The 113,274 filings in December alone were a third higher than the same month a year earlier.

“I can’t see over the top of the files on my desk,” said Cathleen Moran, a bankruptcy attorney at Moran Law Group in Mountain View, Calif., likening it to the rush of clients before the revised law went into effect. In a three-month period before those rules changed in 2005, her firm filed five times as many cases as usual.

Ms. Moran’s clients in 2008 typically were people who earned between $40,000 and $80,000. That changed last year when a rash of people who earned $100,000 to $300,000 began filing as well, she said.

“Expenditures that were rational when these people were working at the peak of their salary just are no longer sustainable when they lose jobs or take jobs at a third or a half of what they were making before,” Ms. Moran said.

Craig W. Andresen, a Bloomington, Minn., bankruptcy attorney, handles between 20 and 30 cases a month, but said that in most years that slows to between five and 10 in December, as people use the holidays to divert themselves from their financial problems. This year he had a full load of cases through year’s end.

“Everyone has said, ‘Wow, I stayed busy all month.’ I’ve never heard [bankruptcy lawyers] in December say that they’re busy and don’t want to take time away from their office,” he said. “People are committed to filing because they don’t think their finances are going to turn around.”

The glut of homes and falling real-estate prices ultimately sent Kendy and Joyce Parker over the edge and to Mr. Andresen on the last day of 2009. They expect to file for bankruptcy early this year. “One way or the other we’re going to have to,” Mr. Parker said.

Three years ago the Parkers, who live in Minneapolis and have been married for 29 years, were living well off of Mr. Parker’s contracting business. They moved into a new home in 2004 and two years later, when Mr. Parker made roughly $50,000 at his contracting company, they bought an investment property in hopes of renting it out. As the housing economy cratered, Mr. Parker saw his remodeling business shrivel.

He kept the business afloat with a $70,000 line of credit and an additional $70,000 in credit cards. Two years ago, he walked away from the business for a truck-driving job. Despite the steady income from Mr. Parker’s job, bankruptcy is the only way to get out of debt. They are debating whether to file a Chapter 7 or 13 petition.

“It’s not like I want to rip anybody off. We’ve made mistakes that didn’t work and we’re starting over,” Mr. Parker said. “You can blame the government or you can blame banks, but…humans take risks and they make mistakes.”

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Government Wants Tax To Help Cover Cost for Bribing Taliban

November 20, 2009

Prison Planet.com

By Paul Joseph Watson

Not content with savaging American taxpayers with two huge new financial burdens during an economic recession, in the form of health care reform and cap and trade, close allies of Barack Obama have proposed a new war surtax that will force Americans to foot the bill for the cost of protecting opium fields in Afghanistan, paying off drug lords, and bribing the Taliban.

Warning that the cost of occupying Afghanistan is a threat to the Democrats’ plan to overhaul health care, lawmakers have announced their plan to make Americans pay an additional war tax that will be taken directly from their income, never mind the fact that around 36 per cent of federal taxes already go to paying for national defense.

“Regardless of whether one favors the war or not, if it is to be fought, it ought to be paid for,” the lawmakers, all prominent Democratic allies of Obama, said in a joint statement on the “Share The Sacrifice Act of 2010 ( PDF),” reports AFP.

The move is being led by the appropriately named House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey, Representative John Murtha, who chairs that panel’s defense subcommittee; and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank.

The tax would apply to anyone earning as little as $22,600 per year in 2011.

The proposal is described as “heavily symbolic” with little chance of passing, but it once again illustrates the hypocrisy of an administration that swept to power on the promise of “change” to the Neo-Con imperial agenda and a resolve to reduce U.S. military involvement overseas. In reality, there are more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan now under Obama that at any time during the Bush administration.

At the height of the Bush administration’s 2007 “surge” in Iraq, there were 26,000 US troops in Afghanistan and 160,000 in Iraq, a total of 186,000.

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