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Doing the math then, the US effort in Afghanistan means that with the completion of Obama’s surge to 130,000 troops, Washington is currently deploying 1,300 soldiers and a billion dollars for each remaining member of al-Qaida.
The report then went on to suggest that “criminal prosecution” of anyone leaking classified information could “deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site.” The report also discussed ways to undermine Wikileaks’ credibility.
While the Wikipedia documents have predictably outraged Washington’s red, white and blue chicken-hawks, the House of Representatives dutifully ignored them and subsequently approved the Obama Administration’s $59 billion emergency funding bill to keep the war going by a 308-114 vote, with Congressional hawks disregardi...
It remains to be seen what impact the Wikileaks revelations will have beyond the Beltway, especially as Washington has already trotted out the hoary ‘national security’ clichés and the US citizenry has been bludgeoned by nearly a decade of ‘support the troops’ rhetoric.
What is much harder to gauge is their impact in Pakistan, much less Afghanistan, where the documents merely confirm that the US has installed a corrupt regime that only survives by being propped up by overwhelming foreign military force.
Those in Washington with a sense of history might remember that, beyond the failure of virtually every foreign invasion of Afghanistan over the last 2,300 years, the Taliban rose as a force combating the rampant corruption of the Northern Alliance government established in the wake of the 1992 fall of the Soviet puppet...
For the Taliban, undoubtedly the Wikileaks material of greatest interest concerns Task Force 373, a shadowy US Special Forces unit based in Kabul, Kandahar and Khost, whose existence has been rumored for quite some time. Their mission is to capture or kill Taliban and al-Qaida leaders without trial using a ‘kill or cap...
The Taliban promise both justice and security. The Wikileaks documents confirm that the regime of Hamid Karzai has failed to provide much of either, unless you believe that targeted assassination squads might, courtesy of the Pentagon.
Dr John CK Daly is a non-resident Fellow at John Hopkins Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington, DC.
← The Kabul Conference: A Fruitless Exercise?
The Hastings United ARK William Parker U19 academy will commence pre-season training at the William Parker site on Saturday July 4 from 10am.
The all-new team will compete in the Conference Youth Alliance League against clubs like Fulham, AFC Wimbledon, Gillingham and Dover Athletic during the coming season.
It is expected that the majority of the squad will be made up of William Parker students, however any players aged 18 on August 31, 2015 will be considered for selection for the squad.
Interested players should email r.eldridge@arkwilliamparker.org or call/text 07782282178 for further details. Regular updates will be provided on the team’s twitter feed @HUFCFA.
* THE Hastings United Supporters’ Club will also hold its AGM in The Pilot Field boardroom on Wednesday from 8pm.
A new secretary and treasurer are needed, and anyone interested in either position or in joining the committee should email dukenosey@sky.com or call 07805 085422.
All supporters are welcome to attend and speak, but only supporters’ club members can vote, so please bring your membership card.
Demi Lovato revealed shocking details of her recovery from self-injury and eating disorders in a new documentary — and said it has not all been smooth sailing.
Demi Lovato has made a remarkable recovery since her 2010 stint in rehab, but it has not been nearly as easy as she has made it look. To make sure her young fans understand exactly what she went through and how hard she is fighting to get her life back, the former Disney star agreed to let MTV cameras follow her throug...
In Stay Strong — a title derived from the tattoos that now adorn the star’s wrists — Lovato is shown at her first Thanksgiving dinner in recovery from self-injury and bulimia, and is seen obviously struggling with the cornucopia of food in front of her. With the help of multiple phone calls from her sponsor throughout ...
“And that’s something that I’m really proud of,” she said.
Lovato also revealed what led her down this destructive path in the first place.
It takes a lot of courage to air such intensely personal issues to the world, but Lovato said despite her discomfort, if her story helps one girl it’s worth it.
Plans to ban private landlords from evicting tenants at short notice have been hailed as a "positive step" by a Black Country MP.
Emma Reynolds said Government moves to scrap Section 21 notices, which allow landlords to evict renters without a reason after their fixed-term tenancy period ends, would give "additional security" to tenants.
Ministers say they want to protect renters from "unethical" landlords who exploit Section 21 notices, which are considered one of the biggest causes of family homelessness.
Wolverhampton North East Labour MP Ms Reynolds said: “This is a positive step forward for tenants’ rights and means landlords cannot force renters out of their homes without good reason.
"There are thousands of private renters in Wolverhampton, and this move will give additional security to people who rent a home.
“Tenants in private rented homes can be concerned about ‘revenge evictions’ for making complaints about their property, and there are concerning cases of tenants not reporting maintenance issues for fear of being evicted.
"Removing Section 21 notices gives tenants more security against neglectful landlords and letting agencies."
Housing Secretary James Brokenshire said the changes would offer more "stability" to the growing number of families renting.
He added that people would no longer be afraid to make a complaint "because they may be concerned through a no-fault eviction that they may be thrown out".
A Citizens Advice survey of 2,001 private renters suggested that tenants who made a formal complaint had a 46 per cent chance of being evicted within the next six months.
The week of April 7-13 is National Volunteer Week and we at Senior Services would like to thank our over 500 volunteers who make a world of difference to the older adults of Midland County. Our mission is to promote and enrich the quality of life for older adults and those who care for them by collaboratively providing...
Our volunteers make a world of difference by delivering almost 122,000 Meals on Wheels, driving almost 200,000 miles taking clients to appointments all over Midland County and making homes safer for almost 330 seniors. They make a world of difference in the individual lives of the people we serve. Why do they volunteer...
I am overwhelmed every day at the dedication of our volunteers at Senior Services. Day after day, week after week, year after year they choose to make a difference in the lives of the older adults of Midland County.
On behalf of all of our staff and clients, I say thank you to this amazing group of people who have chosen to work alongside us at Senior Services.
Thousands of Labour members have had their party membership suspended as part of a bid by the right to steal the leadership election.
Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell said party officials were carrying out a “rigged purge of Jeremy Corbyn supporters”.
His comments came after several Labour Party members complained about receiving letters telling them that they had been suspended.
Many have been singled out for comments made on Twitter or for previously supporting other parties.
One member was told their application was rejected because “you declared your support for the Green Party on social media in June 2015”.
Surely the Labour Party ought to welcome those who have previously backed another party but now want to back Corbyn?
Another member was told they had made “inappropriate comments on Twitter on 13 January 2013”.
Labour has even suspended Ronnie Draper, general secretary of the Labour-affiliated Bfawu union.
Draper, who has been in the party for 40 years, was suspended last Thursday due to comments he made on Twitter. He said he planned to “challenge my suspension robustly”.
He added, “I am extremely concerned that suspensions and bans are being imposed in a politically motivated way.
Other suspended members include Theresa Rollinson, who helped lead the 90-day Care UK strike in 2014. Former miner John Dunn, who is part of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign, has also been suspended.
McDonnell described Draper’s suspension “by Labour Party officials” as “shocking”.
Corbyn has written to the party’s general secretary Iain McNicol to raise “concerns about whether members are being treated in a consistent and proportionate manner”.
The Labour right hope the clean-out of members will narrow the gap between Corbyn and his challenger Owen Smith.
Some Labour MPs last week released figures from their own private polling, which they claim shows Smith is catching up.
But Corbyn’s election campaign rolled on with large rallies last week.
They included places such as traditionally Tory-supporting Chelmsford, and Dundee where Labour lost support to the Scottish National Party after the independence referendum in 2014.
The Labour right are fearful of the party’s membership, which still backs Corbyn.
Their solution is to carve their own members out of the party.
Labour leadership challenger Owen Smith attacked left wing leader Jeremy Corbyn over the result of the European Union (EU) referendum at a leadership hustings last week.
He claimed that Corbyn was “happy” about the result of the referendum and suggested he may have secretly voted Leave.
Corbyn had been a long-standing opponent of the EU—and a large part of the Leave vote represented a desire to give the establishment a kicking.
Yet Corbyn officially campaigned to Remain in the EU in a bid to compromise with the Labour right.
Many of his supporters see the EU as a defender of migrants’ and workers’ rights. Smith has tried to undercut Corbyn by pitching left in a bid to sap away some of his supporters. His attack over the EU referendum was part of that.
But Smith also has to prove to the Labour right that he can be a “credible” leader—which means “listening” to people’s “concerns” over immigration.
He used a TV interview last week to claim that schools in his area were under pressure from “significant numbers into South Wales of people fleeing the Middle East”.
Yet figures show that the idea that migrants are putting pressure on schools in Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) is nonsense.
There were more than 700 surplus places in RCT secondary schools and more than 400 in primaries.
Just two percent of people living in RCT were born outside Britain—a figure which is falling.
Can Jeremy Corbyn’s plans work?
The Arctic's increased vulnerability to climate change is not limited to higher temperatures and melting permafrost.
New research from the University of Alaska Fairbanks suggests Arctic oceans are particularly susceptible to acidification, with potentially dire consequences to Alaska's rich crab and salmon fisheries.
"Everything is acting in unison on the environment - it's not just the ice loss or the warming or the acidification," said UAF chemical oceanographer Jeremy Mathis. "The Arctic is taking a multilateral hit."
Mathis' newest data from the Gulf of Alaska shows acidity levels far higher than expected are already having an impact. In several sites the increasing acidity has changed ocean chemistry so significantly that organisms are unable to pull crucial minerals out of the water to build shells, he said.
Ocean acidification, often called the sister problem to climate change, refers to the rising acidity of the world's seas as seawater absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
By some accounts the oceans have absorbed 30 percent of the carbon dioxide humans have pumped into the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial age, buffering the atmosphere from the harm posed by that greenhouse gas.
But that storage comes with a price. The ocean's pH has dropped nearly 30 percent* over the past 250 years to levels not seen in the last 800,000 years; if emissions continue unchecked, the oceans could be more acidic than anything experienced in the past 12 million years. Scientists increasingly consider this change i...
"When people talk about ocean acidification, it's a whole suite of changes in the chemical system," said Joanie Kleypas, an oceanographer with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "There's all sorts of stuff going on, and it's hard to piece it all together."
But one of the most noticeable impacts is hampered shell formation: As ocean pH drops (and acidity rises), organisms such as corals, oysters, clams and crabs have trouble pulling minerals necessary for their shells out of the seawater.
It's too soon to say whether an acidifying Arctic means curtains for Alaska's lucrative king crab fishery, Mathis said.
The impact is already being felt by a tiny creature at the base of the food web supporting the state's legendary salmon runs - the pteropod, or swimming sea snail. Accounting for up to half the diet of pink salmon, pteropods have trouble building shells - and hence surviving - at the Gulf of Alaska's current acidity, M...
Mathis, talking with commercial salmon fishermen in Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, said many have reported that fish this year weighed 20 percent less than those from past runs. The change could be significant for all Americans: Alaska in 2007 accounted 62 percent of the United States' commercial seafood catch, according to...
"The increasing acidification of Alaska waters could have a destructive effect on all of our commercial fisheries," Mathis said. "This is a problem that we have to think about in terms of the next decade instead of the next century."
But others are more cautious about stating that Arctic ecosystems are any more at risk by acidification than tropical ones.
Cold water holds more gas than warmer water - the reason why a refrigerated can of cola fizzes less aggressively when opened than a warm one. While this means frigid waters off Alaska's coasts can absorb more carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, it also means the waters were naturally more acidic and that species ...
"It won't necessarily have a more severe impact," said Oceana marine scientist Ellycia Harrould-Kolieb. "It's having an earlier impact."
"As more and more carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans, it's going to spread from the poles to the tropics."
There's also question whether Arctic organisms are more vulnerable than their tropical counterparts, Kleypas said.
Northern critters might be able to adapt more successfully to changing ocean chemistry than tropical coral reefs, which Kleypas compared to "spoiled brats" that have existed for eons in comfortably stable, higher pH waters.
Indeed, the situation in the Arctic could be akin to adding a few degrees to the summertime highs in Phoenix, she said: the typical resident, well-adapted to the heat, wouldn't have to do much to adjust.
But force that same increase upon someone living in Hawaii, where temperatures stay comfortably constant, and the change is unbearable.
"If they're already used to (stress), they've figured out a way to deal with it," she said.
"Not that people are wrong," she added. But "we're assuming things we shouldn't assume yet."
Still, both Kleypas and Harrould-Kolieb cautioned that acidification's consequences are profound and need to be taken seriously, whether in the tropics or at the poles.
Mathis, who agreed that the full range of acidification's effects remains uncertain, said it's clear at this point that the changing oceans pose a threat to Alaska's commercial fisheries and subsistence communities today.
"Ecosystems in Alaska are going to take a hit from ocean acidification," said Mathis.
"Right now, we don't know how they are going to respond."
* *Note (8/28/09): Scientists estimate that seawater's average pH is 8.1 today versus 8.2 in preindustrial times. Given the logarithmic pH scale, that represents a 30 percent increase in acidity.
Stick a fork in cold crab omelette — the fake Indian is all done now.
No confusion anywhere. You are an utter fraud. Fake Indian, you will have many moons to reflect on your serial lies. Never will you be great white father.
Never live-um in white tee-pee. Heap big fraud since buffalo roam the plain, blue-eyed squaw lie about DNA, to make-um more wampum.
So the Boston Globe story last fall claiming she’d never tried to pass as an honest injun, was as phony as a Kevin Cullen column. But hey, it’s the Globe — right, Mike Barnicle? Jason Blair? Patricia X. Smith? Why do you think the fake Indian went to a fake news rag to print her buffalo excrement?
Ugh. And that’s not the only bad news. The incredible bunko artist is busted on this morning. In an unrelated develop, Sen. Elizabeth Warren may be getting sued over some more of her despicable lies.

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