“Madame Clinton is a good friend of Afghanistan, a close friend of ours,” Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta said. “But if somebody believes that our government, the government of President (Hamid) Karzai is involved as a government entity in the production of drugs, this is absolutely wrong.”

Clinton also descibed the Afghan government as highly “corrupt,” which did not charm her Afghan counterpart either.

The real problem, Spanta told the Associated Press, is that the Afghan government is not in control of Helmand province. This province is one of the most violent of the country. The Taliban are still strong in Helmand where they encourage farmers to produce opium. Part of the opium money is used by the Taliban to buy weapons and influence.

“The main production center of drugs is Helmand, and we are not in charge. Helmand (is) not under control of my government,” Spanta said. “If the international community is serious about fighting drug production and drug trafficking, they have to bring Helmand under our control.”

He added that Kabul only controls the province’s capital and some “islands” of territory around the rest of the region.

There are two sides to Clinton’s remarks; firstly, Afghanistan is a narco-state because the far majority of the world’s opium is produced in this war-torn country. Secondly, the other side of the story is that the Afghan government is no promoting opium production. It has in the past been willing to destroy opium farms but it simply lacks the strength and means to a sizeable part of the country’s opium farms.

Clinton and Spanta should both also keep in mind that opium is the only product farmers in Afghanistan can grow and make a profit. The country is nearly unfriendly to human life. Farmers are not growing poppy because they want to but because they have no alternative.

Rather than destroying these farms and taking their livelihood away from Afghan farmers, Kabul and Washington have to use Afghanistan’s opium for medical purposes. World opium and medicine organizations and businesses have long complained that they cannot get their hands on enough opium for medicinal purposes. Using Afghanistan’s opium for these purposes would help the world and Afghanistan itself.

Lastly, although Afghanistan is the world’s number one opium producing country, Clinton should express herself more carefully. She is no longer campaigning; she will be America’s secretary of state, which means that she will have to improve the country’s relationship with enemies and friends. Insulting them is not helpful.

©2009 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

“I think you look at each item and see what is a violation of the law and do we even have a right to ignore it,” she told Fox’s Chris Wallace. “And other things that are maybe time that is spent better looking to the future rather than to the past.”

Pelosi’s remarks come shortly after Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he wants to look into whether the Bush administration broke the law by taking the nation to war against Iraq and instituting aggressive anti-terror initiatives.

Conyers called for an “independent criminal probe into whether any laws were broken in connection with these activities.”

President-Elect Barack Obama told ABC News a week ago that he believes that Washington should look towards the future rather than the past. “I don’t believe that anybody is above the law,” he told ABC News a week ago. “On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

Pelosi explained that Obama and Conyers are not “that far apart. There are different subjects and you treat them differently.

“We cannot let the politicizing of, for example, the Justice Department to go unreviewed,” she added. “I want to see the truth come forth.”

Although it was an unpopular decision, President Gerald Ford was right not to press charges against President Richard Nixon. Prosecution would have damaged the American people’s faith in government and it would undoubtedly have torn the country apart. Prosecuting top Bush adminstration officials will have the same effect. If Pelosi and Obama are serious about bringing the country together they have to let byones be bygones and focus on the future.

Pelosi and Obama are not the same kind of politician, however. Where Obama ran as a moderate last year, Pelosi is known as an ideoligical liberal partisan hack who detests compromise. If one Democrat is indeed likely to prosecute Bush officials just to get even it is her.

Moderates and conservatives can only hope that Obama will have tremendous influence over the speaker, and that he will curb her desire for revenge.

©2009 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Bloggers from around the world chime in to catch up on the action after Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris were arrested and charged by the FBI of corruption in the selection of Obama's successor for the empty Senate seat.

From Egypt, Zeinobia, who writes at Egyptian Chronicles, notes:

of course this political scandal is the talk of the media in the States now. It is a political corruption scandal beside of course the attractive Obama factor.

The blogger also reminds us of another scandal earlier in the year, concerning another Democrat Governor:

Of course this is the second big major Governor scandal in 2008 in America after the Spitzer scandal

Zeinobia draws parallels between governors in the US and in her own country, saying:

Why am I interested in all this ?? Well because it is good to see governors getting arrested while they are still in their position !! It is good see that the Governors are well monitored !!??

I spoke before about our governors, I do not want to accuse most of them but I will be modest and say some of them profited from their position in a way or another.

Will the day come in Egypt and we will find that the Administrative control authority presented enough evidence to General prosecutor to issue a warrant against Governor “X” for taking bribes from Company “Y” to pass their pollutant project or from businessman “Z” to give him the permission on building in an agricultural land !!??

Most if not all our Governors conspired and will continue to conspire with the NDP [ruling party in Egypt - National Democratic Party] in the Parliamentary elections. Well they are' appointed by the head of the NDP ,so they know the rules of the game. If they go along with the orders ,they won’t continue in their position.

Writing at Dutch blog PoliGazette, Jason says this latest scandal is “a stunning blow to Democratic Party claims to represent a reversal of years of Republican corruption.” He further reminds us:

This event serves also to highlight Illinois’ famously corrupt Democratic Party political machine, where personal favors are traded for political action in scenes reminiscent Tamany Hall. During the 2006 and 2008 elections, Democrats reveled in pointing fingers at Republican corruption from Mississippi to California to Alaska. But with Blagojevich coming after the William Jefferson bibery scandal in Louisiana, Democrats may nee to tend to their own garden.

Andrea Mann, writing for England for Obama, says the whole scandal reminds her of a Chicago gangster movie. She further adds:

According to the New York Times, Barack Obama “placed the call” which led to Rod Blagojevich’s downfall. And then he turned around in his swivel chair, and stubbed out his cigarette.

Actually, Barack’s call only indirectly led to it. And he made it three months before Blagojevich’s “downfall”. But, y’know, I have a Chicago gangster movie to script here.

Richard Silverstein, a Jewish blogger who blogs at Tikum Olam, notes:

The brazenness of his corruption is simply staggering.  Most corrupt politicians attempt to devise a slick scheme to conceal their venality.  But Blagojevich was hardly hiding anything.  The senate seat was for sale to the highest bidder, plain and simple:

“I’ve got this thing,” Mr. Blagojevich said on one recording, according to the affidavit, “and it’s f***ing golden. And I’m just not giving it up for f***ing nothing. I’m not going to do it. And I can always use it. I can parachute me there.”

Crian P, at A Political Glimpse from Ireland exclaims “Holy Cow” at the news and further adds:

Governors have been indicted before, but it’s pretty amazing to see one hauled out of his house before dawn in handcuffs. But if the charges are true, it was warranted. He needed to be taken down before he could make the appointment.

The indictment and the statements so far are very carefully worded. They do not impute any blame to the President-Elect Of The United States–but they don’t rule out that He or His aides had any knowledge of the plot, either. That wording leaves open the possibility that Blagojevich might point to Obama to get a deal. But I suspect this prosecutor would have to have some seriously good evidence beyond just the governor’s word before he would proceed against anyone in the the President-Elect Of The United States’ camp.

From what I have seen so far, the President-Elect Of The United States came out of the slimy Illinois machine with remarkably little clinging to Him. If this latest chapter in the dismal history of the Illinois’ chief executive doesn’t seriously damage Him, it would be more confirmation of His remarkable political skills.

Another day, and yet another scandal in Obama's long road to the White House.

The Governor has been arrested along his Chief of Staff , of course this political scandal is the talk of the media in the States now. It is a political corruption scandal beside of course the attractive Obama factor.

Of course this is the second big major Governor scandal in 2008 in America after the Spitzer scandal “Strangely Spitzer for the first time came out publicly and is writing now a financial column in Slate Magazine” .

Why am I interested in all this ?? Well because it is good to see governors getting arrested while they are still in their position !! It is good see that the Governors are well monitored !!??

I spoke before about our governors, I do not want to accuse most of them but I will be modest and say some of them profited from their position in a way or another.

Will the day come in Egypt and we will find that the Administrative control authority presented enough evidence to General prosecutor to issue a warrant against Governor “X” for taking bribes from Company “Y” to pass their pollutant project or from businessman “Z” to give him the permission on building in an agricultural land !!??

Most if not all our Governors conspired and will continue to conspire with the NDP in the Parliamentary elections. Well they are' appointed by the head of the NDP ,so they know the rules of the game. If they go along with the orders ,they won’t continue in their position.

I know that this day will come but I do not know when , I just hope it will be very soon “I am an optimistic person”

On early Sunday morning Jose Sucuzhanay from Ecuador and his hermano Romel Sucuzhanay, were walking arm in arm in Bushwick, Brooklyn, just a block away from home, when a carload of men pulled up nearby. A man who got out of the car yelled anti-gay and anti-Latino epithets at the brothers, then broke a bottle over the 31-year-old man’s head.
His brother ran, and at least three other men who were in the car set upon the 31-year-old, beating him with a baseball bat and kicking him. The beating stopped when the brother returned, holding his cellphone, and told the attackers he had just called the police, the official said.

Jose is now on life support at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens and it looks like the family has had to make the heartbreaking choice of not letting Jose suffer anymore.

Post extendido - Leer más 'And the Hate Keeps on Coming : Hate Crime Against Latinos in Brooklyn'...

This event serves also to highlight Illinois’ famously corrupt Democratic Party political machine, where personal favors are traded for political action in scenes reminiscent Tamany Hall.  During the 2006 and 2008 elections, Democrats reveled in pointing fingers at Republican corruption from Mississippi to California to Alaska.  But with Blagojevich coming after the William Jefferson bibery scandal in Louisiana, Democrats may nee to tend to their own garden.

Naturally, the old “the Republicans are corrupt too!” subject-shifting dodge is already prominent among Democrat-leaning bloggers.  Don’t expect a sudden outbreak of self-criticism from the left.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Maybe while he is inside for 9 to 33 years, he can keep searching for Nicole’s killer also!

Before he killed Nicole, OJ was not just a big sports star, but almost in a large of his own. Almost every American knew who OJ was, without the Simpson. He truly has fallen a long way.

75 years ago the 21st amendment to the Constitution was passed, becoming the only amendment specifically created to annul another amendment. The wildly unsuccessful attempt to legislate morality ended. Though Roosevelt is better known for replacing a deeply unpopular and incompetent president that had overseen the biggest financial disaster in American history, he is less well known for being anti-Prohibition, whereas Hoover was pro-Prohibition.

With another incompetent president and another (though mercifully not as bad) financial disaster looming, I believe the time is ripe to end Prohibition one more time. We don’t even need to touch the Constitution to do it.

I am talking of course of ending a war so disastrous, so costly, ineffective and destructive, that it makes the Iraq war seem like a mild argument at a tea party. The Drug War has cost thousands of lives, billions of dollars, and given rise to massive and vicious mafias that have laid waste to entire countries, sometimes, like in the case of the poppy fields of Afghanistan, contributing to causes that have undermined our country’s very security. And for what? I don’t know anyone who can honestly say that it’s hard to find drugs if you want them, nor do I know very many young people who avoid drugs (especially marijuana) based especially on the fact that they are not legal.

Prohibition of drugs (especially “soft” drugs like marijuana and hashis) makes as much sense as prohibiton of alcohol, which is to say none at all. In times of great economic woes, this failed policy is also an especially expensive one. The money being spent fighting the failed war, keeping the millions of drug offenders (a great many non-violent) in jail, not to mention the missed opportunity of tax revenue that could be obtained if we taxed drugs instead of pretended they didn’t exist, is becoming unforgivable.

I’ll leave the final word to Ethan Nadelmann, whose article in the Wall Street Journal deserves to be read in full:

Supporters of prohibition blamed the consumers, and some went so far as to argue that those who violated the laws deserved whatever ills befell them. But by 1933, most Americans blamed prohibition itself.

When repeal came, it was not just with the support of those with a taste for alcohol, but also those who disliked and even hated it but could no longer ignore the dreadful consequences of a failed prohibition. They saw what most Americans still fail to see today: That a failed drug prohibition can cause greater harm than the drug it was intended to banish.

I’ll drink to that.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Donklephant has cobbled together a fairly definitive list of all the ways in which these theories have been debunked and even Obama’s strongest critics at Hot Air don’t want any part of this nonsense.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: All comments which spew “Obama is a Muslim” nonsense are automatically deleted.  Don’t even bother.)

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

The five Algerians were joined for most of their stay at Guantanamo by Al Jazeera camerman Sami Al-Haj, who was abducted in 2001 while attempting to enter Afghanistan to cover the war there for Al Jazeera, imprisoned at Guantanamo without ever being charged with any acts of terrorism, questioned almost exclusively not about Al Qaeda, but about the work of Al Jazeera, and then, after more than six years, unceremoniously released with no charges or findings of any wrongdoing whatsoever. As Reporters Without Borders summarized:

Regularly tortured and subjected to close to 200 interrogation sessions by his jailers, Sami Al-Haj began a hunger strike on January 7, 2007, in protest against his detention and to demand that his rights be respected. In retaliation, his jailers force-fed him on several occasions. His lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, who visited him in July last year, said he had lost about 40 pounds and was suffering from serious intestinal problems. He was also subject to bouts of paranoia and was finding it increasingly difficult to communicate normally.

The same bipartisan political class which endorsed all of this and which -- to this day -- wants to deny detainees in U.S. custody any rights to challenge their detention in a court of law, now all agree in perfect unison that it's time to let bygones be bygones; that any high U.S. officials who broke the law in spawning these injustices should be immunized; and that the crimes that were committed by government officials over the last eight years should be ignored.

Holder is defense lawyer for Chiquita Brands international in a case in which Colombian plaintiffs seek damages for the murders carried out by the AUC paramilitaries - a designated terrorist organization. Chiquita has already admitted in a criminal case that it paid the AUC around $1.7 million in a 7-year period and that it further provided the AUC with a cache of machine guns as well.

Post extendido - Leer más 'Obama's Attorney General Pick, Holder, Has a Latin American Problem'...

Via / Crooks and Liars

“The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.”

This revelation came out of the recently released, seven-part Newsweek report (I haven’t made it to that part yet) and has been picked up by a few news outlets, including our own Daily Telegraph above.

Somehow, I think it should have been picked up by a few more.

Sod John McCain’s gracious concession speech. Sod Sarah tryin’ to be all cute, bein’ filmed bakin’ and talkin’ about huntin’ back in her kitchen’ at home in’ Alaska. She and that campaign tried to instill blatent hatred and fear about Barack Obama - and, not suprisingly, The Angry Mob took up that baton and ran with it… to its logical conclusion. To mix my metaphors somewhat.

Oh, and one more thing? Sarah Palin is still giving her stump speech. Still.

I knew when she said she “didn’t blink” that this woman had no self-awareness - because she was just about the only person in the country to think that her lack of experience, intellectual curiosity and gravitas were not a problem when deciding to run for the second highest office in the land (well, her and John McCain and his advisors).

And in that sense, Palin is absolutely a product of the Right (a lack of self-awareness and truth about a situation being their MO).

But her continuation as if she did nothing wrong; the talk among Republicans of her being a candidate in 2012… Both of these things are signs that the GOP just doesn’t get it - still - and continues to be filled with people who think that it’s perfectly acceptable to campaign and talk this way.

GOP: don’t you dare, dare choose this woman to be your candidate in 2012. Keep her in Alaska. And far away from all of us*.

*Except Russians, who she can see from her house

I'm all about speaking intelligently, making coherent arguments and putting things in context, but Marcelo Lucero was MURDERED simply b/c he was Latino, and the New York Times keeps ignoring the (in)humanity of it all.

Their article on the 10th at least starts with the statement the group of SEVEN made: "Let’s go find some Mexicans." The details known at the time were mentioned, which is good, but then they end with:

It is not yet clear how closely connected Mr. Lucero’s murder is to this broad wave of xenophobia.

Um. It seems pretty freakin' clear to me that there is a strong connection between the "fuck all the immigrants, kick them out of the country, all Latinos are immigrants and don't deserve to be here" and a case of SEVEN teens who declare "Let's go find some Mexicans," and consequently beat and stab a man to death because he fits their profile (all Latinos are the same, after all).

There will be a vigil tonight--if you're in New York, please stop by and show support:

JOIN THE PATCHOGUE COMMUNITY’S CALL TO
STOP THE HATE AGAINST LATINOS
WHAT: CANDLE LIGHT VIGIL
WHEN: FRIDAY. NOVEMBER 14, 2008
TIME : 7:PM
PLACE: RAILROAD AVE. AND SEPHTON
STREET, PATCHOGUE NY, 11772 / nearTRAIN STATION

So then, my wish list.

1. All grandpas and grandmas that are still in office will go to their ranch or wherever else that can be called a retirement home, and take a good rest. Enjoy watching the beauty of the sun setting. If they must, they can also get up early and savour the rising of the sun. By all means keep off meddling into affairs of a country.

2. Issues. Anyone that aspires leadership should dwell on issues of the day. Like making the lives of ordinary people better. Building schools and hospitals and other good things.

3.Anyone that tells people to burn peoples property, maim and kill others so that he/she can become a ‘leader’, should lie still in their bed, never to rise again. Such a species does not deserve a single sniff of oxygen.

4. If you are not eloquent, or have tendencies to forget what you meant to say, or you tend to say the wrong thing, please go home and look after your goats. They need you more.

5. If you cannot sprint up the podium with your sleeves rolled up, please do as 4 above. Thank you.

6. If you are not good looking, that’s ok, for now anyway. But try to be well groomed. Brush your teeth and put on a clean shirt.

7. Once Obama has done his term or two, can he please come and do 2 terms for Kenya. I that heard he comes from Kenya, and he will only be 55 then. A lovely age to become a president especially in an African country!

That’s all for now.