Tag: Docudharma Times

Spying On Those Who Are No Threat

And Calling Them Terrorists   The Paranoia Of The Bush Years Continues  

U.S. Plans a Shift to Focus Troops on Kabul Region



By KIRK SEMPLE

Published: December 6, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan – Most of the additional American troops arriving in Afghanistan early next year will be deployed near the capital, Kabul, American military commanders here say, in a measure of how precarious the war effort has become.

It will be the first time that American or coalition forces have been deployed in large numbers on the southern flank of the city, a decision that reflects the rising concerns among military officers, diplomats and government officials about the increasing vulnerability of the capital and the surrounding area.

Spying on pacifists, environmentalists and nuns

An undercover Maryland State Police trooper infiltrated nonviolent groups and labeled dozens of people as terrorists.

By Bob Drogin

December 7, 2008

Reporting from Takoma Park, Md. — To friends in the protest movement, Lucy was an eager 20-something who attended their events and sent encouraging e-mails to support their causes.

Only one thing seemed strange.

“At one demonstration, I remember her showing up with a laptop computer and typing away,” said Mike Stark, who helped lead the anti-death-penalty march in Baltimore that day. “We all thought that was odd.”

Not really. The woman was an undercover Maryland State Police trooper who between 2005 and 2007 infiltrated more than two dozen rallies and meetings of nonviolent groups.

Maryland officials now concede that, based on information gathered by “Lucy” and others, state police wrongly listed at least 53 Americans as terrorists in a criminal intelligence database — and shared some information about them with half a dozen state and federal agencies, including the National Security Agency.

USA

Obama Offers First Look at Massive Plan To Create Jobs

Project Would Be the Largest Since the Interstate System

By Michael D. Shear

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, December 7, 2008; Page A01

On the heels of more grim unemployment news, President-elect Barack Obama yesterday offered the first glimpse of what would be the largest public works program since President Dwight D. Eisenhower created the federal interstate system in the 1950s.

Obama said the massive government spending program he proposes to lift the country out of economic recession will include a renewed effort to make public buildings energy-efficient, rebuild the nation’s highways, renovate aging schools and install computers in classrooms, extend high-speed Internet to underserved areas and modernize hospitals by giving them access to electronic medical records.

Why Is It so Difficult

To Help Those Who Really Need It?    

Democrats Set to Offer Loans for Carmakers



By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and BILL VLASIC

Published: December 5, 2008

WASHINGTON – Faced with staggering new unemployment figures, Democratic Congressional leaders said on Friday that they were ready to provide a short-term rescue plan for American automakers, and that they expected to hold a vote on the legislation in a special session next week.

Seeking to end a weeks-long stalemate between the Bush administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, senior Congressional aides said that the money would most likely come from $25 billion in federally subsidized loans intended for developing fuel-efficient cars.

By breaking that impasse, the lawmakers could also clear the way for the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., to request the remaining $350 billion of the financial industry bailout fund knowing he will not get bogged down in a fight over aiding Detroit.

The schooling of a mountain jihadist

Former Lashkar-e-Toiba militants in Lahore tell Patrick Cockburn how students are indoctrinated by a ‘charity

Saturday, 6 December 2008

As the snow began to melt in the mountains, Abdul Rahman, a teacher from a school in Lahore, made his way from Pakistan into Indian-controlled Kashmir, moving slowly to avoid Indian army outposts. He lived on packets of cold rice he kept inside his coat. The young man was a member of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the militant Islamist group which India says trained and directed the 10 gunmen who killed at least 171 people in Mumbai last month.

Rahman’s military activities were directed against Indian forces in Kashmir. There, he contacted sympathisers and scouted the terrain so he could give a convincing account of himself when he was stopped by Indian security forces, as happened frequently.

USA

Feds OK rule allowing loaded weapons in national parks



By Rob Hotakainen | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON – Some visitors to the nation’s parks and wildlife refuges will be allowed to carry loaded weapons beginning in January under a plan given final approval Friday by the Bush administration.

As expected, the Interior Department decided to scrap its longtime ban on loaded weapons. Under the new regulation, individuals will be allowed to carry loaded, concealed weapons in parks or wildlife refuges if they have state permits to carry concealed weapons in the state in which the national park or refuge is located.

Under current regulations, firearms in the national parks must be unloaded and inoperable. That means they must have trigger locks or be stored in a car trunk or in a special case.

Bush Looks For A Legacy

Looks Under A Rock And In A Cave Finds Nothing  

Treasury Weighs Action on Mortgage Rates

Intervention Would Aim to Buoy the Housing Market by Forcing Down the Cost of Loans

By David Cho, Zachary A. Goldfarb and Dina ElBoghdady

Washington Post Staff Writers

Thursday, December 4, 2008; Page A01

The Treasury Department is strongly considering a plan to intervene directly in the mortgage industry to dramatically force down rates and stimulate the moribund housing market, according to sources familiar with the proposal.

Under the initiative, the Treasury would offer to buy securities that finance newly issued loans for home purchases, according to the sources. But to participate in the government’s program, mortgage lenders would have to set exceptionally low interest rates, for instance, no more than 4.5 percent for traditional, 30-year fixed-rate loans.

A toxic legacy

One of the first problems Barack Obama will have to address when he takes office is Guantánamo. What fate awaits its inmates – and how disastrous are the long-term effects of its very existence, asks Julian Borger

The Guardian, Thursday December 4 2008

Ever since January 11 2002, when the first 20 prisoners were flown in from Afghanistan in orange jumpsuits and shackles, the Guantánamo Bay detention camp has been a hefty burden around the Bush administration’s neck.

The defence secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, picked the Cuban enclave as the “least worst place” to hold captives accused of terrorism. But the effort to run a camp outside the reach of US or international law, so that “enemy combatants” could be held indefinitely without charge, steadily corroded America’s standing in the world. The images of the inmates languishing in small metal cages in Camp X-Ray, the rudimentary first phase of the complex, and the steady stream of reports of human rights abuses, have taken a daily toll. The camp’s existence has angered and embarrassed Washington’s closest allies, and become a recruitment tool for its enemies.

USA

U.A.W. Makes Concessions in Bid to Help Automakers



By BILL VLASIC

Published: December 3, 2008

WASHINGTON – The United Automobile Workers union said Wednesday that it would make major concessions in its contracts with the three Detroit auto companies to help them lobby Congress for $34 billion in federal aid.

The surprising move by the U.A.W. could be a critical factor in the automakers’ bid not only to get government assistance, but also to become competitive with the cost structure of nonunion plants operated by foreign automakers in the United States.

At a news conference in Detroit, the U.A.W.’s president, Ron Gettelfinger, said that his members were willing to sacrifice job security provisions and financing for retiree health care to keep the two most troubled car companies of the Big Three, General Motors and Chrysler, out of bankruptcy.

Told In 2006 That

Banks Were In Trouble

Bush Did What He Does Best

Ignored It  

Officials Vow to Act Amid Forecasts of Long Recession



By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Published: December 1, 2008

WASHINGTON – The United States economy officially sank into a recession last December, which means that the downturn is already longer than the average for all recessions since World War II, according to the committee of economists responsible for dating the nation’s business cycles.In declaring that the economy has been in a downturn for almost 12 months, the National Bureau of Economic Research confirmed what many Americans had already been feeling in their bones.

But private forecasters warned that this downturn was likely to set a new postwar record for length and likely to be more painful than any recession since 1980 and 1981.

Rice urges Pakistan to cooperate fully with investigation

US secretary of state adds to global pressure on Islamabad as India claims to have evidence of link to deadly attacks

Julian Borger and Vikram Dodd in Mumbai

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 2 2008 00.01 GMT

Condoleezza Rice yesterday called on full Pakistani cooperation with the investigation into the Mumbai attacks, saying they represented a “critical moment” in the new civilian government’s efforts to wrest control of Pakistan’s security services.

The outgoing US secretary of state said she did not want to “jump to conclusions”, but made it clear during a visit to London yesterday that she expected Islamabad would have to answer for the attacks which left nearly 200 people dead last week.

Rice, who is due to arrive in India tomorrow, urged its government to focus on the investigation of the attacks, and to avoid actions that might have “unintended consequences”, such as troop manoeuvres.

USA

A Pragmatic Pair Chosen to Confront Terrorism Threat



By Carrie Johnson and Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, December 2, 2008; Page A11

In nominating former federal prosecutors to lead the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, President-elect Barack Obama yesterday selected two Democrats with sterling law-and-order credentials but less experience in detecting threats and gathering intelligence in the age of international terrorism.

Eric H. Holder Jr., the candidate to lead the Justice Department, served as the law enforcement agency’s second in command during the waning years of the Clinton administration, overseeing pursuits of violent crime, drug cartels and public corruption offenses. Janet Napolitano, who will run the sprawling Homeland Security bureaucracy, has served since 2003 as governor of Arizona, a border state at the forefront of the nation’s immigration debate.

What Will Monday’s Announcements

Mean For The U.S. And The World?  

Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security



By Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson

Washington Post Staff Writers

Monday, December 1, 2008; Page A01

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department’s role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

At war level: India raises security status amid grief

Fallout from Mumbai attacks jeopardises south Asian peace process

Randeep Ramesh in Mumbai and Jason Burke in Islamabad

guardian.co.uk, Monday December 1 2008 00.01 GMT

The Indian government raised the country’s security to a “war level” yesterday saying it had certain proof of a Pakistani link to the Mumbai attacks.

The dramatic move prompted Pakistan to say it would end military operations against Islamist militants on the Afghan border, which are critical to the “war on terror”, for an “unwanted conflict” with Delhi.

With bodies being pulled from the Taj Mahal hotel, where gunmen had made their last stand after a rampage that left more than 170 dead, Sri Prakash Jaiswal, India’s minister of state for home affairs, said the country’s “intelligence will be increased to a war level, we are asking the state governments to increase security to a war level”. The Press Trust of India, India’s official news agency also reported that the government was considering suspending the four-year-old peace process with its neighbour.

USA

A wealth of ideas for Obama’s stimulus program

The next president has yet to offer details of his plan. Its size and scope, and how he’ll address housing and the auto industry, are up for debate.

By Michael A. Hiltzik

December 1, 2008

In three news conferences last week, President-elect Barack Obama began to outline an economic stimulus and recovery program involving public works, tax breaks and new federal funding for energy research.

The planned initiatives provided a spark of optimism amid the nation’s worsening financial outlook, but elements crucial for a sustained recovery are yet missing and many important details remain to be filled in, economists say. These include Obama’s approach to mortgage relief and the structure of a bailout of the automobile industry.

Some of the gaps may be deliberate, as insiders debate the size and scope of the package. Liberal economists in particular argue that to be effective, the program will have to be massive.

Never Accuse Hapazardly

As Peace Becomes Conflict    

India Faces Reckoning as Terror Toll Eclipses 170



By SOMINI SENGUPTA and KEITH BRADSHER

Published: November 29, 2008

MUMBAI, India – Death still hung over Mumbai on Sunday, as the Indian government reckoned with troubling questions about its ability to respond to escalating terror attacks.

The morning after the standoff ended at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel, the official death toll remained 172. But the police said they were still waiting for the final figures of dead bodies pulled from the wreckage from the hotel, a 105-year-old landmark. Funerals were scheduled to continue throughout Sunday, for the second day in a row.

As an investigation moved forward, there were questions about whether Indian authorities could have anticipated the attack and had better security in place, especially after a 2007 report to Parliament that the country’s shores were inadequately protected from infiltration by sea – which is how the attackers sneaked into Mumbai.

Citizen Journalists Provide Glimpses Into Attacks



By BRIAN STELTER and NOAM COHEN

Published: November 29, 2008

From his terrace on Colaba Causeway in south Mumbai, Arun Shanbhag saw the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel burn. He saw ambulances leave the Nariman House. And he recorded every move on the Internet.

Mr. Shanbhag, who lives in Boston but happened to be in Mumbai when the attacks began on Wednesday, described the gunfire on his Twitter feed – the “thud, thud, thud” of shotguns and the short bursts of automatic weapons – and uploaded photos to his personal blog.

Mr. Shanbhag, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, said he had not heard the term citizen journalism until Thursday, but now he knows that is exactly what he was doing. “I felt I had a responsibility to share my view with the outside world,” Mr. Shanbhag said in an e-mail message on Saturday morning.

USA

Joint Chiefs Chairman ‘Very Positive’ After Meeting With Obama



By Karen DeYoung

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, November 30, 2008; Page A01

Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went unarmed into his first meeting with the new commander in chief — no aides, no PowerPoint presentation, no briefing books. Summoned nine days ago to President-elect Barack Obama’s Chicago transition office, Mullen showed up with just a pad, a pen and a desire to take the measure of his incoming boss.

There was little talk of exiting Iraq or beefing up the U.S. force in Afghanistan; the one-on-one, 45-minute conversation ranged from the personal to the philosophical. Mullen came away with what he wanted: a view of the next president as a non-ideological pragmatist who was willing to both listen and lead.

Could The Good Old Days Return?

Let’s Hope Not

The Times OF India

Battle for Mumbai ends, death toll rises to 195



29 Nov 2008, 1304 hrs IST, AGENCIES

MUMBAI: Security forces freed the landmark Taj hotel here after an intense night-long firing amid a series of explosions, with three terrorists gunned down by the commandos, authorities said this morning. “Three terrorists have been killed but we are still continuing our operations,” Director General of NSG, J K Dutt, told reporters outside the hotel.

Mumbai disaster official R Jadhav told that 195 people had been killed and nearly 300 injured in the battle, which began when the dozen or so militants split into groups to attack multiple targets across the city, including the main railway station and a hospital.  

The operation to flush out terrorists from Taj Hotel is over, signalling an end to the 62-hour siege by terrorists three of whom were killed this morning in an assault by the elite commandos of National Security Guards (NSG).

Security chiefs fear revamped version of 70s-style violence

Head-on attacks on soft targets by small, well-trained gangs will be harder to detect and to stop, say intelligence officials

Richard Norton-Taylor

guardian.co.uk, Saturday November 29 2008 00.01 GMT

Western intelligence officials yesterday expressed concern about the security implications of the Mumbai attacks for their own cities as they confronted the prospect of new tactics being adopted by highly trained and motivated terrorists.

They contrasted the Mumbai attacks with suicide and car bombers who have plotted outrages in London. The latter have been mainly self-radicalised, self-selected groups of individuals, slowly gathering bomb-making equipment and vulnerable to surveillance by the security services, counter-terrorist officials said.

In contrast, they said, the group who attacked Mumbai were armed with rifles and grenades and stormed their targets in the city head-on.

USA

National Security Pick: From a Marine to a Mediator



By HELENE COOPER

Published: November 28, 2008

WASHINGTON – James L. Jones, a retired four-star general, was among a mostly Republican crowd watching a presidential debate in October when Barack Obama casually mentioned that he got a lot of his advice on foreign policy from General Jones.

“Explain yourself!” some of the Republicans demanded, as General Jones later recalled it.

He did not. A 6-foot-5 Marine Corps commandant with the looks of John Wayne, General Jones is not given to talking about his political bent, be it Republican or Democrat. And yet, he is Mr. Obama’s choice for national security adviser, a job that will make him the main foreign policy sounding board and sage to a president with relatively little foreign policy experience.

Black Friday?

Perhaps Its The Wrong Kind Of

Black Friday  

Live feed from IBN=CNN India

Indian Commandos Storm Jewish Center



By KEITH BRADSHER and SOMINI SENGUPTA

Published: November 28, 2008

MUMBAI, India – Indian commandos slid down ropes from a hovering army helicopter Friday morning as security forces stormed a Jewish center that had been seized by terrorists during a coordinated series of attacks on Mumbai, India’s commercial and entertainment capital.

The blue-uniformed commandos landed on the roof and soon made their way inside Nariman House, home to the Orthodox Jewish group Chabad-Lubavitch. A gunbattle then broke out inside the building, with hundreds of shots being fired over the next four hours.

Elsewhere in the city, Indian Army and paramilitary commandos made their way through two charred luxury hotels, searching for survivors of the bands of gunmen who unleashed two days of chaos beginning Wednesday night.

Home-grown militants are prime suspects

Raid involving the taking of hostages suggests only marginal link to al-Qaida

Jason Burke

guardian.co.uk, Friday November 28 2008 00.01 GMT

The Mumbai attacks are unique in the history of recent violent militancy, Islamist or otherwise. As Indian security agencies race to work out who was behind them they will be negotiating a maze of conflicting clues.

A group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed the operation. The name indicates a local group – the Deccan is the central Indian plateau – and a probable link to the Indian Mujahideen who started a bloody bombing campaign a year ago.

It is this group, too, that threatened the people of Mumbai with “deadly attacks” two months ago and has credibly claimed responsibility for the series of attacks in recent months.

USA

Cyber-attack on Defense Department computers raises concerns

The ‘malware’ strike, thought to be from inside Russia, hit combat zone computers and the U.S. Central Command overseeing Iraq and Afghanistan. The attack underscores concerns about computer warfare.

By Julian E. Barnes

November 28, 2008

Reporting from Washington — Senior military leaders took the exceptional step of briefing President Bush this week on a severe and widespread electronic attack on Defense Department computers that may have originated in Russia — an incursion that posed unusual concern among commanders and raised potential implications for national security.

Defense officials would not describe the extent of damage inflicted on military networks. But they said that the attack struck hard at networks within U.S. Central Command, the headquarters that oversees U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and affected computers in combat zones. The attack also penetrated at least one highly protected classified network.

Military computers are regularly beset by outside hackers, computer viruses and worms. But defense officials said the most recent attack involved an intrusive piece of malicious software, or “malware,” apparently designed specifically to target military networks.

Happy  

Thanksgiving

At Least 100 Dead in India Terror Attacks



By SOMINI SENGUPTA

Published: November 26, 2008

MUMBAI, India – Coordinated terrorist attacks struck the heart of Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, on Wednesday night, killing dozens in machine-gun and grenade assaults on at least two five-star hotels, the city’s largest train station, a Jewish center, a movie theater and a hospital.

Even by the standards of terrorism in India, which has suffered a rising number of attacks this year, the assaults were particularly brazen in scale and execution. The attackers used boats to reach the urban peninsula where they hit, and their targets were sites popular with tourists.

Robert Fisk: ‘Nobody supports the Taliban, but people hate the government’

As he leaves Afghanistan, our correspondent reflects on a failed state cursed by brutal fundamentalism and rampant corruption

Thursday, 27 November 2008

The collapse of Afghanistan is closer than the world believes. Kandahar is in Taliban hands – all but a square mile at the centre of the city – and the first Taliban checkpoints are scarcely 15 miles from Kabul. Hamid Karzai’s deeply corrupted government is almost as powerless as the Iraqi cabinet in Baghdad’s “Green Zone”; lorry drivers in the country now carry business permits issued by the Taliban which operate their own courts in remote areas of the country.

The Red Cross has already warned that humanitarian operations are being drastically curtailed in ever larger areas of Afghanistan; more than 4,000 people, at least a third of them civilians, have been killed in the past 11 months, along with scores of Nato troops and about 30 aid workers.

USA

As Loan Rates Fall, Borrowers Seek ‘Taste of the Bailout Pie’

Consumers Flock to Cheaper Mortgages After Federal Action

By Dina ElBoghdady

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, November 27, 2008; Page A01

Would-be mortgage borrowers have rushed to refinance their loans and even weighed plans to buy homes following the government’s move this week to loosen consumer lending.

With interest rates suddenly plummeting, “the phone is ringing, the e-mails keep coming,” said Jennifer Du Plessis, a mortgage adviser at Prosperity Mortgage, the lending arm of Long & Foster. “Real estate agents are hovering outside our office saying: ‘I’ve got another client who wants to refinance.’ ”

“Our loan officers were here well past midnight,” Bob Walters of Internet lender Quicken Loans said regarding Tuesday, when the government announced its plan. Quicken received $400 million worth of mortgage applications that day, more than quadrupling the number of loans from the day before, he said. It was on track to meet that number yesterday, too.

Who Needs Oversight

Over $700 Billion?

It’s Only Money Right?  

Never Mind!  

Obama and Bush Working to Calm Volatile Market



By JEFF ZELENY

Published: November 24, 2008

CHICAGO – President-elect Barack Obama sought to seize the reins of the economic crisis Monday as he and his new economic team worked closely with President Bush to inject confidence into the trembling financial markets, which rallied and erased most of last week’s losses.The coordination between Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush was taking place among aides, as well as in direct talks about the rescue plan for Citigroup and unresolved details of the overall Treasury bailout plan. The president said his successor would be informed of every “big decision” that was made, adding, “It’s important for the American people to know that there is close cooperation.”

Hamdan To Be Sent To Yemen

Bin Laden Driver Spent 7 Years at Guantanamo

By Josh White and William Branigin

Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, November 25, 2008; Page A01

The U.S. military has decided to transfer Osama bin Laden’s former driver from custody at Guantanamo Bay to his home in Yemen, ending the seven-year saga of a man the Bush administration considered a dangerous terrorist but whom a military jury found to be a low-level aide.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan is expected to arrive within 48 hours in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, where he will serve out the rest of his military commission sentence, which is set to expire Dec. 27, two government officials said. The Pentagon’s decision to send Hamdan home narrowly avoids what could have been a sticky diplomatic situation, as Bush administration officials had long contended they could hold Hamdan indefinitely.

USA

Injured veterans engaged in new combat

n a little-noticed regulation change, the Pentagon’s definition of combat-related disabilities is narrowed, costing some wounded veterans thousands of dollars in lost benefits.

By David Zucchino

November 25, 2008

Marine Cpl. James Dixon was wounded twice in Iraq — by a roadside bomb and a land mine. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, a concussion, a dislocated hip and hearing loss. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Army Sgt. Lori Meshell shattered a hip and crushed her back and knees while diving for cover during a mortar attack in Iraq. She has undergone a hip replacement and knee reconstruction and needs at least three more surgeries.

In each case, the Pentagon ruled that their disabilities were not combat-related.

In a little-noticed regulation change in March, the military’s definition of combat-related disabilities was narrowed, costing some injured veterans thousands of dollars in lost benefits — and triggering outrage from veterans’ advocacy groups.

Give It away Give It Away

Give It Away Now

To Citi Bank    

U.S. Approves Plan to Help Citigroup Weather Losses



By ERIC DASH

Published: November 23, 2008

Federal regulators approved a radical plan to stabilize Citigroup in an arrangement in which the government could soak up billions of dollars in losses at the struggling bank, the government announced late Sunday night.The complex plan calls for the government to back about $306 billion in loans and securities and directly invest about $20 billion in the company. The plan, emerging after a harrowing week in the financial markets, is the government’s third effort in three months to contain the deepening economic crisis and may set the precedent for other multibillion-dollar financial rescues.

Orange County Vietnamese American returns to her homeland

Her family had fled the country, but Tiffany Nguyen saw opportunity there for professional advancement — and an adventure.

By My-Thuan Tran

November 24, 2008

Reporting from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam — Tiffany Nguyen sauntered down Dong Khoi street, swatting mosquitoes in the sticky heat. Wearing 3-inch black heels, she plunged through a crush of motorbikes spewing smoke and blasting horns, dashing toward a nearby restaurant to meet a friend.

Nguyen, 28, grew up 7,800 miles from here in an Orange County suburb. But for the last year, she has worked along this boulevard known as the Fifth Avenue of Vietnam, where boutiques crowd against old Parisian hotels.For years entrepreneurs stayed away from Vietnam, a poor country with scant business prospects, where visas were hard to get.

USA

Clinton’s potential pitfalls seen in FDR’s secretary of State

Like Cordell Hull, she could find herself marginalized because she hasn’t been close to the president she would serve. Her future ambitions could also complicate her job.

By Paul Richter

November 24, 2008

Reporting from Washington — Cordell Hull was a veteran lawmaker with a worldwide reputation when Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him secretary of State in 1933, in part to win needed support from Hull’s army of Democratic admirers.

But the dignified Tennessean was never close to FDR. As time passed, he was “muscled out by others in the administration,” said Michael Hunt, a diplomatic historian at the University of North Carolina.

Barack Obama’s election as president has drawn other comparisons with Roosevelt’s, especially for the economic crisis he inherits. But the example of Hull, a marginal figure despite the fact that he served into the 1940s and later won the Nobel Peace Prize, may point to potential pitfalls for Hillary Rodham Clinton if she takes the top diplomatic post, as seems increasingly likely.

Clinton would come to the role with global star power, a first-name relationship with world leaders, and a long familiarity with foreign policy.

More Drama Than A

Soap Opera A Clinton Nomination    

Obama Vows Swift Action on Vast Economic Stimulus Plan



By JACKIE CALMES and JEFF ZELENY

Published: November 22, 2008

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama signaled on Saturday that he would pursue a far more ambitious plan of spending and tax cuts than anything he outlined on the campaign trail, setting the tone for a recovery effort that could absorb and define much of his term.

In the Democrats’ weekly radio address, Mr. Obama said he would direct his economic team to craft a two-year stimulus plan with the goal of saving or creating 2.5 million jobs. He said it would be “a plan big enough to meet the challenges we face.”

Mr. Obama said he hoped to sign the stimulus package into law soon after taking office on Jan. 20. He is already coordinating efforts with Democratic leaders in Congress, who have said they will begin work next month.

Militants and military brace for a winter of war in Afghanistan

Normally the fighting slows when the harsh weather sets in, but this year it is likely to be different.

By Laura King

November 23, 2008

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan — In recent years, the first snow falling on the jagged mountain peaks of Afghanistan has ushered in a seasonal slowdown in fighting between insurgents and the Western forces that overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

This winter looks to be different. Snow and icy terrain aside, both sides have made it clear that they plan to keep fighting, each contending that the harsh conditions favor them more than their enemy.

“We’ll be pursuing them, and pursuing them aggressively, whatever the conditions, and they know this,” said Canadian Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, chief spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, a vow amplified by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, in a speech in Washington on Tuesday.

USA

Banking Regulator Played Advocate Over Enforcer

Agency Let Lenders Grow Out of Control, Then Fail

By Binyamin Appelbaum and Ellen Nakashima

Washington Post Staff Writers

Sunday, November 23, 2008; Page A01

When Countrywide Financial felt pressured by federal agencies charged with overseeing it, executives at the giant mortgage lender simply switched regulators in the spring of 2007.

The benefits were clear: Countrywide’s new regulator, the Office of Thrift Supervision, promised more flexible oversight of issues related to the bank’s mortgage lending. For OTS, which depends on fees paid by banks it regulates and competes with other regulators to land the largest financial firms, Countrywide was a lucrative catch.