Tag Archives: PBS

Nuclear Playground

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The United States and Poland signed an agreement Wednesday in Poland to locate part of a controversial U.S. missile defense system in that country.  

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to Warsaw for the signing ceremony with Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, the BBC reported.

The agreement calls for 10 interceptor missiles to be located in an unused military base near Poland’s Baltic Coast to protest Europe against possible long-range attacks. The United States signed an agreement to place a radar tracking system on Czech Republic soil last month.

The deals with the two former Soviet satellites angered Russia, which says its national security is threatened by the missile defense system.

Poland will receive short-range Patriot missiles and a guarantee of U.S. assistance if Poland is attacked, the British broadcaster reported.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski said Wednesday the missile shield was a defense system, not a threat, so “no one who has good intentions toward us and toward the Western world should be afraid of it.”

here ya go

If Canada signed a pact with Russia allowing them to build a “defensive” missile site in Ontario, what do you think the US would say:

BTW, Patriot Missiles can’t hit anything coming from Iran.  They’re short range missiles.  Iran can’t “send” anything anyway.  And on Lehrer Newshour, Fred Kagan just said the “invasion” of Georgia helped speed up the deal.  That rather gives the lie to it being a “defense” system.  Then he said the idea that this defense system is directed at Russia is “laughable”.  “The Russian reaction is insane.  The Russian reaction is itself a provocation.”  Say what?  No wonder the Russians are upset.

There is no justification for the Bush administration’s ratcheting up of the rhetoric.  Fred Kagan says:  “They started it.”  ZOMG, are we in a nuclear playground?  Macho is all Bush knows.

Women Cops in Iraq

Posted on by elizabeth
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Via the Women’s Media Center, from UPI:

An unprecedented number of Iraqi women have started training to become police officers at the Kirkuk Police Academy, officials say. 

The 37 female recruits who began their training Saturday are the first women at the academy in a year and their numbers are unprecedented, the American Forces Press Service reported Monday.

An academy officer said female officers are badly needed because Muslim customs do not allow men to touch women. The female officers will allow searches of women at checkpoints and government buildings, he said.

In addition, the academy officer said, “women think differently than men. They will bring fresh ideas to how we conduct business.”

For the recruits, becoming a police officer is both a chance to earn a good wage and to serve their country. They hold no truck with terrorists.

“Terrorists are not welcome in the province of Kirkuk,” said one 29-year-old recruit who goes by the name Intesar. “They are not Iraqis; they are not Muslim. It is not our way. They are mad.”

An Iraqi police recruit earns about 185,000 Iraqi dinars monthly — about $81 in U.S. currency — and after graduating will make 500,000 dinar — about $360.

The female recruits must meet the same standards as men to graduate.

I’m trying to figure out whether this is a “good” story or a “bad” story.

The amount of money being paid to these cops is paltry, male or female.  Better than nothing I suppose.  But paltry, considering the risks involved.  But yup, you can get people to work for very little when there are no options.

And speaking of options, what options do these women have?  Aaron Brown’s excellent documentary on Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan played on PBS tonight and he noted that many Iraqi women and girls have been virtually forced into prostitution and other forms of sex trade work in Syria and Jordan because they have either lost husbands and fathers to death or kidnapping in Iraq or because they’ve been abandoned after having been raped.  Hard to believe that some of those female cops aren’t in similar positions and have just as little choice about taking on this equally high-risk work.

I’d hate to think that some of these women could end up doing prostitution work themselves someday.  To say nothing of what it does to women (and men) to do work that puts them in a position of having to harass their fellow Iraqis on behalf of the Bush administration.

Inequality in America

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Part I

 

 

Part II

Bill Moyers and Barbara Ehrenreich on rising economic inequality in America

Economic inequality is growing in America (and in Western capitalist democracies in general).  In my view, this is the great unchallenged issue in the 2008 US elections.

Moyers’ Memorial Day

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How to Honour US War Dead on Memorial Day Weekend

Bill Moyer’s Journal

From NYT:

In every way, this president has tried to hide the war. The press chafes because photos of flag-draped coffins are forbidden. But that’s nothing compared to how this administration is trying to turn the public’s eyes away from the pain of the people who feel it most directly, the soldiers and their families.

Suicide rates among returning veterans are soaring. And the administration’s response? Cover up the data. An e-mail titled “Shh!” surfaced earlier this month from Dr. Ira Katz, a top official at the V.A. The note indicated that far more veterans were trying to kill themselves than the administration had let on. It speaks for itself.

“Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see,” Katz wrote, in a note not meant for the general public. “Is this something we should address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles upon it?”

Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat of Washington, who has made veterans affairs her specialty, was furious. “They lied about these numbers,” Murray told me. “It breaks my heart. Soldiers tell us that they were taught how to go to war, but not how to come home. You hear about divorces, binge-drinking, post-traumatic stress, suicide. And the reaction from the president is part of a pattern from the very beginning to show that this war is not costly or consequential.”

And from Salon:

A February report by the Army’s Mental Health Advisory Team said that nearly a third of married enlisted men and more than a fifth of married noncommissioned officers were planning to get a divorce by the end of their 15-month deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. The divorce rate among enlisted soldiers has risen from 2.3 percent in 2001 to 3.5 percent today.