Afghandyland

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WOT

Finnish Personal Information Act (523/1999) and other rules and regulations applicable to protection of privacy and personal information in force in Finland, as well as good practices of personal information usage.

Used to regulate the privacy laws for the Firefox add-on Web of Trust (WOT) which rates user experiences of web sites. It has settings to distinguish between users who need a net nanny and those who simply want advice while browsing. 

I LOVE THIS GUY

Isn't this stuff illegal yet?

Self-Proclaimed FBI Informant Claims He Spied on Mosques

In California, a judge has lifted a seal on court documents allegedly detailing how the FBI recruited an informant to spy on several mosques. The alleged spy, Craig Monteilh, is seeking $10 million in damages from the FBI, which he says never fully paid him for his work.

Human Ratios 1:100

a deal to exchange an abducted Israeli soldier for hundreds of Palestinian prisoner

Operation Cast Lead - 13 Israelis and est. 1,400 Palestinians dead.

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Israel defends settlement expansion

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Israel defends settlement expansion: "Barack Obama, the US president, warned on Wednesday that any settlement activity not only made harmed attempts to get negotiations going again, it could also threaten Israel's security.

'I think that additional settlement building does not contribute to Israel's security, I think it makes it harder for them to make peace with their neighbours,' he told Fox News."

When did Obama talk to Fox News? Isn't there an embargo by the White House?

GITMO ASIA

So we promise to close GITMO in a year (Jan 2009). Today, it's still open with only two months left until the deadline and just in time the New and Improved Baghram Prison is ready to open.

CHANGE. NO CHANGE.

a-part-heid

[uh-pahrt-heyt, -hahyt]
–noun
1. (in the Republic of South Africa) a rigid policy of segregation of the nonwhite population.
2. any system or practice that separates people according to race, caste, etc.
Origin: 1945–50; < Afrik, equiv. to apart apart + -heid -hood
Dictionary.com Unabridged

Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.

(ə-pärt'hīt', -hāt')
n.
1.An official policy of racial segregation formerly practiced in the Republic of South Africa, involving political, legal, and economic discrimination against nonwhites.
2.A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups.
3.The condition of being separated from others; segregation.
[Afrikaans : Dutch apart, separate (from French à part, apart; see apart) + Dutch -heid, -hood.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

I always thought this form of government necessarily meant a majority is being ruled by a minority?

Blackwater Said to Approve $1 Million in Iraqi Bribes After Shootings - NYTimes.com

Blackwater Said to Approve $1 Million in Iraqi Bribes After Shootings - NYTimes.com: "In agreeing to describe those conversations, the four officials said that they were troubled by a pattern of questionable conduct by Blackwater, which had led them to leave the company."

a pattern of questionable conduct by Blackwater.
a pattern of questionable conduct by Blackwater.
a pattern of questionable conduct by Blackwater.

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Iran accuses Americans of spying

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Iran accuses Americans of spying

Not a pleasant situation for the three...

Are they Americans on holiday in Iraq? Seems possible in the north but probably not wise. At the same time, it provides Iran with an additional chip at the nuclear bargaining table.

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Supporters urge Abbas to run again

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Supporters urge Abbas to run again: "Supporters urge Abbas to run again"

And a group of protesters from the prostitute alliance was heard to chant "Aha aha la'titanaha!"

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Abbas 'not to seek re-election'

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Abbas 'not to seek re-election': "Abbas 'not to seek re-election'"

I cannot believe that there is a president in the Middle East who is actually going to step down. Has it ever happened before? Is there any Middle Eastern president/king/despot who has ever left office except in a box?

Could this be a ploy by Abbas to put pressure on the US and Israel? His way of saying "deal with me or you will have to deal with Hamas?"

MUBARAK II

Is there still a question on Gamal's impending ascendency to the throan? Any discussion of alternative candidates should be saved for only those who we wish to see in tattered careers, or on proverbial bookshelf along with Mr. Moussa at the Arab League (the most dusty of bookshelves in today's political arena of relevance).

Mubarak has been in office long enough to ensure his heir his place as the first civilian president of Egypt since the 1952 coup (no, I don't think a group of 12 soldiers with their tanks constitutes a revolution - popular or otherwise). Mubarak Senior has worked with Gamal to co-opt the major families that provide the civilian facade to the Mubarak family fortune...serving as fronts, paying tribute in a manner that would make the greatest Don envious.

The media campaign began over ten years ago with Gamal's picture being introduced initially as a member of the First Family then gradually his solo shots. Until today, when the average Egyptian sees him as a symbol of continuity (to be translated in their minds as stability). It's not new. Assad did it in Syria with time enough to swap children when his eldest died a martyr in his Italian sportscar.

Mubarak's position seems even more managable considering the father doesn't show any signs of leaving this world anytime soon. But how will it transpire? Will Hosni hand over the reigns to Gamal while there's still breath left in the old pharaoh? Or will he continue to cling to office like an Egyptian male to a pretty girl on a bus leaving Gamal to fight his way to power as the head of the National Democratic Party?

Pictures of President Abbas with big X’s across his face line the main avenue, sadly known as Unity Street.

Should Iran cease its nuclear research? A brief glance at a map illustrating the position of US troops in the region suggests that Iran's leadership would be remise.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

• Oct 28: Blast rocks a women's market in Peshawar, killing at least 80.
• Oct 23: A suicide bomber kills seven people close to an air force complex in northwestern Pakistan.
• Oct 22: Gunmen shoot and kill a senior army officer and a soldier in Islamabad.
• Oct 20: Two suicide bombers attack the International Islamic University in Islamabad, killing six people.
• Oct 16: Three suicide attackers hit a police station in Peshawar, killing 13.
• Oct 15: Teams of gunmen attack three security facilities in the eastern city of Lahore, leaving at least 28 people dead, while car bombs kill 11 people in northwestern Kohat district and a 6-year-old boy in Peshawar.
• Oct 12: A suicide car bomb explodes near a market in the northwestern Shangla district, killing 41.
• Oct 10: A raid on the army headquarters in Rawalpindi leads to a 22-hour standoff that leaves nine rebels and 14 others dead.
• Oct 9: A suicide car bomb in Peshawar kills 53 people.

Pakistan. The new Cambodia.

By now we're seeing almost daily attacks in Pakistan.



But these are cities we've known about for decades. Peshawar has long been connected with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Since at least the 1990s.

Dean Obeidallah: The Muslims Are Coming!

Dean Obeidallah: The Muslims Are Coming!: "Representatives John Shadegg (Ariz.), Paul Broun (Ga.), Trent Franks (Ariz.) and Sue Myrick (N.C.) are alarmed because they found Muslims trying to lobby Congress."

I tried to comment on this at the Huffington Post, but I guess my comments were concidered not relevent. 

I heard of this Muslim Mafia while walking through a local book store.  It has got to be the funniest concept since Monty Python. 

While you are forbidden from discussing anything remotely similar when it comes to the Jewish lobby in America, Islam is fair game. The MUSLIM mafia? You mean like Myer Lanskey? Or Bugsy Seigal?

Or does this publication refer to the modern Islamic Lobby in America.  People of power in America who support Islam like Rahm Emaneul? Or pehaps Ari Fletcher? Or Henry Kissenger?

Or is it referring to Muslims in the media such as Wolf Blitzer or Robert Iger?

James Zogby: Rahm Emanuel and Arab Perceptions

James Zogby: Rahm Emanuel and Arab Perceptions: "Some charged that Emanuel was an Israeli citizen or a dual U.S.-Israeli national (he is neither, he was born in Chicago in 1959); or, they alleged that he served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), losing his finger confronting a Syrian tank during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon (he did not serve in the IDF, and lost his finger in a freak accident while working as a teenager in an Arby's restaurant). A few accused Emanuel of skipping U.S. military service to join the IDF in 1991 (also not true -- in the midst of the 1991 Gulf War, while U.S. forces were manning Patriot missile batteries in Israel and the Arab Gulf, Emanuel volunteered for a few weeks, as a civilian, doing maintenance on Israeli vehicles). The most recent story alleges that Rahm Emanuel was fired from the White House in 1998 after being implicated by the FBI, together with Monica Lewinsky, in a Mossad plot to spy on then-President Clinton (a total fabrication, compliments of a shady character who claims to have been a U.S. intelligence official and is a purveyor of many bizarre tales)."

Zogby is correct in warning of conspiracy theories and slander but I wonder if he had to take an educated guess, would he conclude that Emanuel is a Zionist supporter or not? While I can sympathize with Zogby's situation - after all, his ability to generate an income is dependent on access to these people - and understand why he would have to write an article dismissing claims of Emanuel's allegience to Israel before even hinting in the last quarter of the article that maybe Emanuel could possibly be perceived by the Arabs (American or otherwise) as an obstacle to Arab-American relations; I have to point out that Zogby admits his ignorance of the American political system in the article's opening paragraph when he congratulates Obama's victory as a representing a historic transformation.

Not once did I assume Obama would solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Only because I believe there is no solution. Israel wants the land. The Palestinians are in the way and are, in the meantime, represented by one of the most corrupt leaderships. Therefore, the Palestinians lose regardless of who is in the White House.

But now, nine months into his presidency, it doesn't look like anything else will change either. Iraq? Don't listen to anyone who says we are leaving anytime soon. Again, I don't have to be invited to high level security meetings or even rub elbows with policy-makers to know we are not leaving a country where we are building the largest foreign embassy in the world. You simply do not dump over one billion dollars into a piece of real estate and then walk out after five, 10, 20 or even 40 years.

Afghanistan? More troops on the way thanks to Obama.

Torture, extraordinary rendition (kidnapping)? Still on the menu.

GITMO? The day he signed the order to close within a year, he raised the budget for Baghram prison.

The economy? We continued Bush's policy of corporate welfare while leaving families to fend for themselves.

Health care? Do I even need to describe the state of the legislative process on this?

America

"Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?"

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - UN agrees to 'Goldstone session'

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - UN agrees to 'Goldstone session': "The UN Human Rights Council will hold a special session in Geneva, as requested by the Palestinian Authority, in which the Goldstone report is expected to be addressed, Al Jazeera has learnt."

Is Al Jazeera or the Palestinian Authority or both trying to rewrite history? Or is this a "I voted for before I voted against" nonsense? What happened to the video of Abbas begging Israel to launch military strikes against Hamas in Gaza?

Peshwar Pakistan

More than 40 people have been killed and scores wounded after a bomb exploded near a market in Pakistan's northwest city of Peshawar.


This city has been a center of radical Islamic groups for decades.  I remember a fax (yes...that far back) that came to the US Embassy in Cairo addressing the government of Hosni Mubarak which I read in translation. 
 
"You dogs at the ministry of Interior," I remember the phrase translated sounded funny, "the long arm of Allah will reach you in your beds while you sleep..." or something along that vein.
 

On Al Jazeera English homepage:

"Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize US president gets top honour for global peace and nuclear disarmament efforts.
Doubts voiced over Obama peace win
Does Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?
Nobel committee's high praise
Obama urges 'era of engagement'
Obama calls for nuclear-free world
Can Obama heal the rifts?"

Obama makes the flowers bloom...

Goldstone Report

On the information available to it, the Mission finds that the attacks on these buildings constituted deliberate attacks on civilian objects in violation of the rule of customary international humanitarian law whereby
attacks must be strictly limited to military objectives. These facts further indicate the commission of the grave breach of extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.

No surprises there...To question this after over half a century of conflict is not possible. 


The Mission finds that, while a great number of the Gaza policemen were recruited among Hamas supporters or members of Palestinian armed groups, the Gaza police were a civilian law-enforcement agency.

This seems to indicate that the Mission does not understand the fundementals of the Israeli Palestinian conflict.  To the Israeli side of the equation, Hamas is a terrorist organization.  Therefore, the Gaza police status as a civilian law-enforcement agency is moot. In fact the report later states:

The circumstances of the attacks and the Government of Israel July 2009 report on the military operations clarify that the policemen were deliberately targeted and killed on the ground that the police as an institution, or a large part of the policemen individually, are in the Government of Israel’s view part of the Palestinian
military forces in Gaza.

So Israel's own July 2009 report on the Operation states that "policemen were deliberately targeted and killed".  Seems like the logical approach to a group viewed by the Israeli government (and many other nations) as a terrorist organization.

The Mission received replies from the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza authorities but not from Israel.

Again, no surprise there.

The Mission holds the view that Israel continues to be duty-bound under the Fourth Geneva Convention and to the full extent of the means available to it to ensure the supply of foodstuff, medical and hospital items and others to meet the humanitarian needs of the population of the Gaza Strip without qualification.

Israel believes it is in compliance with the Geneva Convention.

Israel deployed its navy, air force and army in the operation it codenamed “Operation Cast Lead”. The military operations in the Gaza Strip included two main phases, the air phase and the air-land phase, and lasted from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009. The Israeli offensive began with a week-long air attack, from 27 December until 3 January 2009. The air force continued to play an important role in assisting and covering the ground forces from 3 January to 18 January 2009. The army was responsible for the ground invasion, which began on 3 January 2009 when ground troops entered Gaza from the north and from the east. The available information indicates that the Golani, Givati and Paratrooper Brigades and five Armoured Corps Brigades were involved. The navy was used in part to shell the Gaza coast during the operations.

The Israeli military - army, navy, and airforce is attacking:

Statements by Israeli Government and armed forces representatives justified the attacks arguing that political and administrative institutions in Gaza are part of the “Hamas terrorist infrastructure”. The Mission rejects this position. It finds that there is no evidence that the Legislative Council building and the Gaza main prison made an effective contribution to military action. On the information available to it, the Mission finds that the attacks on these buildings constituted deliberate attacks on civilian objects in violation of the rule of customary international humanitarian law whereby attacks must be strictly limited to military objectives.

Again - the Mission does not understand the perspective from which Israel views Hamas.  They are not a legitimate government as far as Israel is concerned.

The Mission was faced with a certain reluctance by the persons it interviewed in Gaza to discuss the activities of the armed groups. 

It would be interesting to know if this reluctance stems from fear or solidarity? In any case, the resulting environment supports Israel's approach of viewing civilians with suspicion.

Palestinian armed groups, where they launched attacks close to civilian or protected buildings, unnecessarily exposed the civilian population of Gaza to danger.

Nothing new there.

The Mission acknowledges the significant efforts made by Israel to issue warnings through telephone calls, leaflets and radio broadcasts and accepts that in some cases, particularly when the warnings were sufficiently

specific, they encouraged residents to leave an area and get out of harms way.

Let's look at the map again, here's one in miles:

Where are these people supposed to go when they are warned of an attach by the Israeli Army, Navy and Air Force? They cannot enter Egypt.  They cannot enter Israel.

On 15 January 2009, the UNRWA field office compound in Gaza City came under shelling with high explosive and white phosphorous munitions. The Mission notes that the attack was extremely dangerous, as the compound offered shelter to between 600 and 700 civilians and contained a huge fuel depot. The Israeli forces continued the attack over several hours in spite of having been fully alerted to the risks they created. The Mission concludes that Israeli armed forces violated the customary international law requirement to take

all feasible precautions in the choice of means and method of attack with a view to avoiding and in any event minimizing incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.

This is also nothing new in the conflict.  It even extends to Israeli operations in Lebanon. It should also be noted that the use of phosphorous munitions is also something the international community has generally come to regard as acceptable practice from Israel.

The Mission also finds that, on the same day, the Israeli forces directly and intentionally attacked the Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City and the adjacent ambulance depot with white phosphorous shells. The attack caused fires which took a whole day to extinguish and caused panic among the sick and wounded who had to be evacuated. The Mission finds that no warning was given at any point of an imminent strike. On the basis of its investigation, the Mission rejects the allegation that fire was directed at Israeli forces from within the hospital.

1. Again, the use of phosphorous shells by Israel is no longer an issue. The international community was shown this back in the Jenin invasion and has since given it's explicit or implicit (depending on the country) acceptance.
2. Again, warnings are a non-issue considering this is all taking place in a strip of land described by the CIA's World Fact Book as "slighty twice the size of Washington DC," but with Maryland and Virginia borders closed.
That the Mission accepts or rejects allegations of attacks from within a hospital is not a basis for courts generally reserved for cases like Rwanda or Bosnia. 

The Mission also examined the intense artillery attacks, again including white phosphorous munitions, on Al Wafa hospital in eastern Gaza City, a facility for patients receiving long-term care and suffering from particularly serious injuries. On the basis of the information gathered, the Mission found a violation of the prohibition of attacks on civilian hospitals in the cases of both hospitals. The Mission also highlights that the warnings given by leaflets and pre-recorded phone messages in the case of Al Wafa hospital demonstrate the complete ineffectiveness of certain kinds of routine and generic warnings.

Israeli use of phosphorous is generally accepted by the international community. Even the committee resigns itself:

Based on its investigation of incidents involving the use of certain weapons such as white phosphorous and flechette missiles, the Mission, while accepting that white phosphorous is not at this stage proscribed under international law,
 
They do go onto criticize Israel for its use of the weapon in "built-up areas."  As for the leaflets and warnings, these are an excersize in futility considering this is a real life version of shooting fish in a barrel. It's ironically reminiscent of the Arab rallying cry of the 50s and 60s promising to "drive the Jews into the sea."   
 
Additional munitions examined by the committee include the use of flechettes and dense inert metal explosives (DIME) which are both, according to the report, not currently banned.  In fact for the latter, the committee admits it:

is not in a position to state with certainty that so-called dense inert metal explosive (DIME) munitions were used by the Israeli armed forces
But then site local and international doctors who report a high percentage of patients with injuries compatible with DIMEs. And while the committee also received allegations of depleted and non-depleted uranium weapons were used "These allegations were not further investigated"

In drawing its legal conclusions on the attack against al-Fakhura junction, the Mission recognizes that for all armies proportionality decisions, weighing the military advantage to be gained against the risk of killing civilians, will present very genuine dilemmas in certain cases. The Mission does not consider this to be such a case. The firing of at least four mortar shells to attempt to kill a small number of specified individuals in a setting where large numbers of civilians were going about their daily business and 1,368 people were sheltering nearby cannot meet the test of what a reasonable commander would have determined to be an acceptable loss of civilian life for the military advantage sought. The Mission considers thus the attack to have
been indiscriminate in violation of international law, and to have violated the right to life of the Palestinian civilians killed in these incidents.

At what point does it become not ok for an Israeli soldier to shoot a Palestinian? What would an IDF soldier have to do to get reprimanded for inappropriate actions, either by the Israeli government or international law?  There have been instances of Israeli government officials avoiding certain countries (most recently the United Kingdom). And there have been instances of reprimand by the Israeli government of their own high ranking officials for misconduct (financial, political and military).

A concept known as the Dahiya doctrine emerged then, involving the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to
civilian populations.
 
It sounds much like the German lightening strikes of WWII and the Allied attacks on German cities, both designed to target civilians in order to break the will of the population.  A lot like the objectives of Operation Shock and Awe. So again, nothing new here. 
 
 
 
 

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - PA's Goldstone block linked to tape

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - PA's Goldstone block linked to tape: "The video reportedly showed Abbas trying to convince Barak to continue the war on Gaza, while Barak looked hesitant, although Livni appeared to be in support of the plan,"

Pretty much sums up the Palestinian leadership scene.

in a nutshell

I think the point that I'm trying to make and I think ought to be made is that the real, at least to me - I say this elsewhere in the book [American Power and the New Mandarins] what seems to me a very, in a sense, terrifying aspect of our society and other societies is the equanimity and the detachment with which sane, reasonable, sensible people can observe such events. I think that's more terrifying than the occasional Hitler or LeMay or other that crops up. These people would not be able to operate were it not for this apathy and equanimity, and therefore I think that it's in some sense the sane and reasonable and tolerant people who should - who share a very serious burden of guilt that they very easily throw on the shoulders of others who seem more extreme and more violent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEIrZO069Kg&feature=related

FAIR & BALANCED

Monday September 28 -
New York Times: JERUSALEM — Clashes broke out Sunday between Palestinians and the Israeli police at a holy site in Jerusalem revered by both Muslims and Jews, after Muslim worshipers threw stones at a group of foreign tourists, apparently mistaking them for Jewish activists.

DN! - In Israel and the Occupied Territories, four Palestinians were wounded Sunday near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at Palestinians who were trying to block a group of militant Israeli settlers from entering the mosque compound. Another seven Palestinians were arrested.

AJE - Jordanian and Palestinian officials have condemned the Israeli security forces for storming Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque on Sunday during clashes that left many Palestinian worshippers wounded.

CNN - JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police in east Jerusalem stretched into Sunday evening after a visit by a Jewish group to one of the city's holiest sites.

No mention in BBC or Washington Post at least up to their respective on line "Middle East" page. No mention in Haaretz.

Oddly - it was the Jerusalem Post that answered the question in my mind "What REALLY happened" (Chris Penn).

Twelve policemen and 15 rioters were wounded Sunday in riots on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and later in the Old City.  Then in a telling next paragraph goes on to say "Approximately 150 Muslim worshipers participated in the disturbance on the Temple Mount, which began when a group of Jewish visitors was admitted into the compound."

So a group of foreign Jews were brought into the mosque and the Arabs reacted with violence and the police engaged.

Peace

What, exactly, are we talking about?

Iran would be wreckless if it scraps its nuclear program

Iranian political rhetoric still includes classics we’ve been hearing since 1979 – death to America, the great satan. We are all familiar with them from the days of the embassy hostages. Since then, US/Iranian relations became the acrimonious hate-fest we take for granted. (Before that it was peaches and cream with the Shah).

Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a theocracy that – despite decades of economic and political isolation – remains hostile to what it perceives as US intervention in its affairs (the original charges that sparked the hostage incident). Iran is generally considered to back Hezballah in Lebanon which makes it a mortal enemy to Israel with the infamous Katusha rockets used by militants in Gaza to attack Israeli cities. To add to the tension, the US invasion of Iraq has given Iran a boost of power in the region as it fills part of the vacuum left by the fall of the Saddam regime through its influence on Iraqi Shias.

All the while, Iran finds the US military footprint in the region surrounding it growing and growing.

In 1990, US presence in the region was limited to Turkey, on Iran’s northwestern border, through its membership in NATO. This and the Sixth Fleet, constantly patrolling Iran’s southern coastal border, which the Iranians knew well from their experience in their 10 year war with Saddam. Then at the end of the first Gulf War, Iran finds new US bases established across the Gulf in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. These bases were eventually closed and one central command established in the tiny peninsula nation Qatar. By the end of the decade, the newly independent muslim nations of the former Soviet Union became home to minor US military bases. Karshi-Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan Manas Air Base in Kyrgyztan have been used to supply US forces on Iran’s eastern border in Afghanistan. Finally, on Iran’s western border is the US occupation force in Iraq.

Iran must be well aware of the bombing of Iraq's nuclear facilities by Israel in the early 80s and the more recent Israeli Air Force attacks in Syria (against which Syria was completely impotent). They had front row seats to the US invasion of Iraq which means they are well aware of what can happen if a current or future US administration wages another pre-emptive war.

But Iran must be equally aware that these fates befell non-nuclear powers. Nuclear powers are not held to the same standards. Are not dealt with in military terms.  What actions are then available to a country facing Iran's current geopolitical situation?

Won't Get Fooled Again

While discussion of American politics continues to be presented in the media - and by extension public discourse - as either democrat or republican, left wing or right wing, blue states or red states, liberal or conservative, little actual change can be seen by the United States government in either domestic or foreign policy regardless of which party controls the legislative or executive branch. If the media alone were to be believed, the situation has reached the relevance level of sport fans arguing over favorite teams; one a group of religious zealots hell bent on destruction of the planet as we know it through corporate greed and the other a band of tree hugging bleeding hearts who simply hate America first. But even when we remove the media lens and take the words directly from the mouths of our own politicians in their speeches (whether campaigning or incumbent) the argument inevitably reverts to democrat or republican and sometimes even degenerates into name calling (“girlie men” as Arnold put it).

In Obama's latest health care speech, he admits he's not the first president to address this issue. But in fact, ever since Theodore Roosevelt [1901 – 1909] called for health care reform nearly every president and congress has made an attempt. And after a brief background and few anecdotes the framework for discussion was set with “There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single payer system, like Canada,” before his speech had reached the 10 minute mark. “On the right,” he continues, “there are those who would argue we should end employer based systems and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.”

This approach however assumes that our two party system falls on the proverbial spectrum in a left/right manner; while the reality is a center-left/right leaving our mainstream (and Main Streets) embedded in the right.

So while the conservative right is generally represented by the republicans, and the left is supposedly represented by the democrats, the reality is that there is a right wing and a center-left wing with a disenfranchised left.

But more significantly is the idea that any two factions, groups, parties (whatever you want to call the grouping) could represent an immigrant nation of 300,000 million. Such a shallow approach assumes that we are two-dimensional beings on issues as diverse and far ranging as school prayer to health care or more recently gay marriage; not to mention foreign policy issues such as use of the military or sales of weapons. When it comes to the individual voter, you cannot, for example, support environmentally friendly candidates while also electing candidates who do not believe in big government spending.

Nonetheless it remains a popular framework, with major think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute or the Council on Foreign Relations using it to produce their many publications and working papers intended to guide public policy whether domestic or foreign.

Ya been took.  Ya been hoodwinked.  Bamboozled.  Led astray.