I've gotten to the point of rage.

Well meaning (and generally wonderful) democrats such as Kerry, Boxer (more here and here and here) support natural gas in their attempt to pass any kind of climate change initiative under the theory that one evil is better than another.  Democrats support swiftboater-Pickens' plan, and support the Dubai-based Halliburton process because we all know that natural gas burns a little cleaner than oil, so even if it causes incredible amounts of pollution and spews methane into the air, it must be okay.

And certainly we can trust Halliburton to do right by American.  Hasn't Pickens' always had America's best interests in mind?

That is why I am so glad that TPM is reporting state issues regarding the poll numbers in NY for a governor's race a year away, and on all kinds of great gossip concerning other governors and elected officials,but is not reporting anything regarding an issue that will affect:

The New York City Watershed

The Chesepeake Watershed (the one that reaches Philadelphia and Washington D.C. as well as entire states)

Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people in upstate New York and in rural areas of Pennsylvania

Millions of people living over shale deposits all over the country

Watersheds all over the country -- some of which are already weak.

 

I will give you the latest:

New York is on its way to welcoming the Natural Gas Industry, Halliburton and TBoon Pickens to bring its healthy money to the oh so healthy environs of Albany (known to be an incorruptable government of the best kind) so it can enact a policy that supports a methane based economy.

Millions of miles of pipeline will be dug.

(Pipes that leak.)

Billions upon billions of gallons of water will be used that can never be used for drinking water again.

Billions upon billions of poisonous water will be created.

Major air pollution associated with asmtha, lung-damage and (in this case, due to volitile chemicals) neurological disorders.

And, to top it off:

Radiation.

You have to read this ProPublica Article.

You won't hear about it in the progressive press.

Or in The New York Times

Or in TPM

Or anyplace that is supposed to impart major news stories because, apparently, massive pollution is not an important issue.

Anyway, I'm fed up.

I'll try to write more substantively on the issue in the next day or so, but if you do read this, for goodness sake, please do some reading.  I recommend reading the following:

Lawsuit (recent)

Democracy Now (recent developments)

Industry Pamphlet on Controlling Health Issues

NYS DEC deception (http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20091108/NEWS01/911080372/Natural-gas-quest--State-files-show-270-drilling-accidents-in-past-30-years)

Scientific American (an oldy, but a goody)

Latest in Congress (where the issue apparently matters)

Health study (cattle, immune system, air pollution from NGP)

Pickens

As I wrote, I will try to get back to writing more subtantively. Right now, I am just angry.

If this weren't so caustic it would be laughable.

 

If you live in New York, call Governor Paterson at 518-474-8390 and ask him to stop this fiasco. 

 

(This may have nothing to do with his poll numbers, and so is irrelevelent and rather unimportant.  My apologies.)

I have been blogging intermittently about the issue of hydraulic fracing.  For those new to my blog, this  unconventional form of drilling -- the high-pressure pumping system for which Halliburton holds a 30% interest, among this  huge companies larger interests in NG -- is now headed for New York. 

The DEC will be holding hearings in NYC on November 10 regarding the draft of the SGEIS -- the regulations that will allow drilling NY.  The regs are about 900 pages long, and from what I hear are unsatisfactory (e.g. calling for minimal concrete hardness for concrete well casings, little to no protection for NYC watershed, allowing open-pits in all other areas, many of which are prone to flooding/flash flooding, not looking at cumulative impacts when 2,000 wells are projected by industry, not requiring companies to state where they will dump/process millions of gallons of toxic "produced" water until after the company has already gotten a permit, etc.). 

I highly recommend that you find out more. Alarm has already been raised in NYC, though one would never know about the hearings, concerns, NYC DEP actions and studies if one listens to or reads anything in NY. (I'm a bit angry, forgive the snark, but this is absurd -- just absurd, particularly when one reads the following.)

As I told you, documented incidences of water conamination (and many more) and studies regarding air pollution  and toxins from air pollutions associated with this industry are not lacking.  Every day I get new reports -- it's not difficult.  They are in the newspapers in Colorado, Wyoming, Texas -- anywhere that shale gas is extracted.

Today I received this email.  I will post it in full. (As a side note, I asked the NYUniversity Scool of Enviromental Medicine's Outreach program for help and got NO answers from faculty, except from a very concerned, very nice gentlemen who had moved to Chicago.  The head of Outreach said I would have to pay for a literature review. Please note:  I am not a loon, and my letter was well-written and sources documented.)

In any case, they are drilling out in Texas, where they've already had two studies showing air pollution to be a horrible problem both in volume and for health, and where they'd had earthquakes (yes, earthquakes are associated with drilling -- not to mention mud volanoes).  (As an aside, a scientist from a very reputable institution talked to to me about concerns that New York has a fault line that has not released pressure in some time, and that drilling in and around this fault-line could cause a major earthquake.  He wanted to study the matter, and, as I reported here, did not want to raise alarms, as he did not know this for certain as he had not been able to scientifically study the matter.)

In any case, the mayor of Dish Texas, an area where they are drilling as they hope to in New York, is asking for help. 

Here's his email in full.  If TPM doesn't start investigating this (especially in light of the Kerry bill that supports the natural gas industry which the blog is reporting on, and the Frac Act, which imposes some minimal but necessary regulation on the industry that the blog has failed to mention) I will be sad.  (Sorry, TPM -- I'm just damned scared, damned scared.)

Here's the letter:

The news that I continually get makes this nightmare worse and worse. I have yet another twenty something young lady who has undiagnosed neurological problems that started when she moved here. She has been shipped out of state for testing on a number of occasions, and they have been unable to diagnose the problems she is having. I am having difficult time in know what the next move should be. I wonder if there is a medical doctor out there who may come to help us here? Maybe there would be someone who could perform toxicology tests on the citizens. Please give me any input you may have, and if you know of anyone who may be willing to help, please let us know. Maybe you could post something on your websites or blogs soliciting help. Together I know you reach thousands of people. Thanks.

Calvin Tillman
Mayor, DISH, TX

 

NY is one step closer to unconventional natural gas production with the help of Halliburton. 

I start with that dramatic line, for Halliburton is a major player in this industry.  The salient point is:  there is a major environmental and health issue impacting people nationwide, that is now set to change the economic, environmental and political landscape of New York and no one is covering it.

Michelle Obama's garden is getting more coverage, even on these pages, than this issue.

NPR's morning edition devoted three days to it last week.  However, strangely, their fine reporter (a well-respected author, by the way - not a dummy) did not fully investigate the issue and cited industry groups and environmental groups, and left all criticism of the industry out of his report until concerned folk contacted NPR, and he began to investigate.  To do this reporter credit, he went on-air to discuss the issues that he had not reported originally on the final day of coverage.

(This is a common issue with reporters nowadays:  We don't know what we don't know until we know we don't know it. 

If you want to get the story right, you have to look at what you don't know - at the places the light does not shine. 

However, if you are accustomed to talking to groups - and familiar groups at that, groups you know and trust - and if you do not investigate facts as they stand, unfiltered by groups, then you get a very skewed view of reality.  You report agendas, not events or facts.)

In any case, the NPR ombudsman did answer her phone personally, and I commend her for that. 

The big news today:

The NY Department of Environmental Conservation came out with its draft of the SGEIS yesterday.  We have only sixty days to comment on this document of over 800 pages.

Obviously, I have not read the document, though I have read reports on it - based, it seems, on a briefing. 

I can't comment on the regulations - some seem wise, others not so much.  Obviously, this demands study and the 60 day comment period offered by the DEC doesn't seem adequate. 

However, one fact seems important: 

The new regulations do not include any buffer zone whatsoever for the watersheds that supply about 20,000,000 people with water - of course, the entire NYC region is included.  .  This means that a well can be drilled right next to the reservoirs and rivers.  Drilling in this case means pumping about 5,000,000 gallons of water laced with thousands of pounds of a toxic chemical mix into the ground.

(Of course, I'm once again not mentioning the hundreds of thousands of us who live in the area set to be drilled, but my assumption is no one really cares about the Southern Tier of New York or most of Pennsylvania.)

The assumption of industry analysts is that the toxins will not migrate.  However, they have not proven that it does not and substantial evidence nationwide indicates it does.

I have written previously about the possibility of unconventional drilling in New York.  Unconventional natural gas drilling, as you probably don't know because it is not reported about anywhere, has had an appalling reputation nationwide: increasing ozone, polluting water (with 1,000's of incidences of aquifer contamination and EPA acknowledgment), concurrent with illnesses (as Theo Colbourn testified before congress) such as rare cancers, brain damage, nerve damage and reproductive disorders), and generally, as Douglass Adams might put it, being very nasty, indeed.

Last week, there were three separate spills nearby - within a few miles from my in-laws - forcing the PA DEP to close the site temporarily.  And it doesn't do this often.  There have been problems throughout the state, not the least in the Pittsburg area.

Hearings regarding the NYC watershed have been held to no avail.  I recommend reading the testimony of OGAP lawyer, Bruce Baizel, who is well-respected and down-to-earth, and who has been called in as a consultant by state governments to help with drafting appropriate regulation. 

Note: NYC is famed for its clean water which does not have to be filtered.  A filtering facility is estimated to cost ten billion dollars. 

My suggestion:

If you live in NY this is your issue.  Really, if you live near any shale-play, you will be impacted (if you haven't been already.)  Investigate it.

If you are a journalist, consider (just consider, for a moment) that it may be worthy of coverage and that it is better to cover environmental debacles before significant damage so you can prevent such damage, than to write beautiful muckraking pieces in which you dramatically reveal the horrors that have occurred after the fact.

Be a Jonah.  He didn't get much credit, but he did save Nineveh.  (By the way, Nineveh is a small town that sits over the Marcellus shale.)

Just five miles from where my husbands' folks live, there is an environmental catastrophe in the making.  The natural gas industry, which has been drilling nationwide with substantial reported problems, has started drilling the Marcellus Shale in NE PA, and is on its way to NY.

A few months ago, folks lost their water.  Last week 6,000-8,000 gallons of chemicals found their way into wetlands, and fish are dying.

This catastrophe comes with the advent of a new kind of natural gas drilling called hydraulic fracturing.  With the help of lobbyist Tom West, New York State passed a law last year that will allow this fracturing horizontally, breaking up the shale structure underneath hundreds of miles of land, using about five million gallons of water per each frac, about ten fracs per well, for of each of the two-thousand wells projected for New York state.  The water is rendered poisonous by a chemical fluid; much of the fluid and equipment is supplied by Halliburton.

(To give Governor Patterson much credit, he put drilling on hold until the DEC could create new statewide regulations.  The scope has already been completed, and the draft SGEIS is due out in late September.  From what I know of the scope, the draft will be lacking key components.  I love Obama, but he voted for Cheney's energy bill back in 2005 that exempted this process from virtually all federal regulation.) 

The fracing fluid is exempt from right-to-know. We don't what is in it.  Independent scientists, like the renowned Theo Colbourn has found toxic and carcinogenic substances.

The process is exempt from the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, storm protection, and the superfund.

Oil companies using Halliburton equipment and know-how have been drilling throughout the country, and we already have 1000's of cases of water contamination.  Under the Bush administration, these were not studied, but officials in Wyoming have found benzene in the aquifer and a toxic plume of 28 miles.  Just this year, the EPA finally got involved and has directly connected natural gas production with water contamination.

Scientific American gave it a very thorough treatment last November, and so did, of all magazines, Business Week.  However the progressive press has been silent on this issue.  Nothing on the Daily Kos, from what I know.  The Huffington Post has been featuring articles by T. Boon Pickens telling us of green natural gas and national security.  I wrote TPM about it, but haven't seen anything here - and darned I wish someone would pay attention.

I will seem to be exaggerating, but this process is akin to having ten Love Canals in thousands of communities all around the country many affecting major watersheds. 

The lack of attention is, to say the least, bizarre. 

Part of the problem is the Sierra Club national (much to the chagrin of many chapters) along with other national environmental organizations decided last year to endorse natural gas as a "transition" fuel because it burns about 23% cleaner than oil. 

My guess is that Pickens was successfully able to pitch his idea, and so, garnering the names of well-respected environmental organizations, basically refashioned himself as a clean-green progressive.

Sadly, the environmental organizations seem to have endorsed Pickens' plan when we were still ignorant about the process used to obtain this gas, which (as stated) uses billions of gallons of water that is never returned to the ecosystem but which is contaminated with carcinogens and toxins associated with reproductive disorders, brain damage, nerve damage and cancer -- among other health problems.

The process also involves the creation of ozone and methane, greenhouse gasses more dangerous than CO2.  A scientific study has found that the pollution caused by the process causes twice as much pollution in the Fort Worth area than all traffic in that area combined, and Fort Worth has already been facing pollution remediation due to pollution from traffic.

As a bonus, the drilling also brings radon and heavy metals to the surface (like lead and mercury) and radon has already found its way into the air and food chain in Texas as is reported in the Denton Record Chronicle.

To say this stuff is deadly is an understatement.  A nurse in Durango spent ten minutes with a rig worker who was doused in the fracing fluid.  She did not touch him, but still ended up in intensive care for days. The company would not tell doctors what chemical she had been exposed to for days, either, and even then swore the doctor to confidentiality. 

The drilling set to come to New York will most certainly take place near the watershed, though I imagine that a sacrificial two mile buffer may be put in place. However, given the little we know about substrata migration (particularly in New York where there are frequent fissures in sub-strata rock that is blown to pieces using a new, largely unstudied process) I would not consider the watershed safe. 

Could someone please cover this issue?  ProPublica's website has outstanding reporting. 

I am bewildered, shocked, and amazed at what is happening, and in front of our eyes.

 

A short post.  Bulldog Manifesto has posted a diary that Obama wrote back in 2005 for Kos.  It's interesting as Obama articulates his reasons for not filibustering the Robert's appointment to the Supreme Court. 

Should he have filibustered?  Perhaps. Perhaps if he had done so we would not be in the mess we are in.  However, I have to credit Obama for at least having the courage to write to the progressive community about his stance, and to articulate his reasoning. 

Today, what he writes seems to apply to his stance in regards to the FISA fiasco, a stance that has made me cringe repetedly for days. 

The diary helped me to understand Obama a bit better.  It is worth reading.

You may hate it; you may like it; you may not think it applies to this situation.  However, I pretty much guarantee you'll learn a bit more about our nominee's rationale. 

I know this kind request is not usual for TPM; however, please indulge me.

I ask for help from anyone who cares about water and the land.

Central New York and Northern Pennsylvania sit on the Marcellus Shale Formation.  Beneath this is a huge deposit of natural gas.  Right now companies are pushing landowners in this area to sign over leases allowing companies (one, I hear, may be a Halliburton affiliate) to drill in this area.   People here are poor.  They have family farms and have been hit hard by the economic mess we are in.  They will sell. 

What we need is to slow the process down.  Right now, it is being called “a rush.”  Indeed, the New York State assembly will be voting this week on legislation (Horizontal Drilling A-10526) that will exempt companies from required variances – variances that would allow for investigation, fact-finding and public hearings. 

This drilling is extremely intrusive.  The companies will need hundreds of millions of gallons of water for what is called hydraulic fracturing.  They inject chemicals into this water.  Because of the Cheney energy legislation, we are not allowed to find out what chemicals are being used, but they may include biocides, diesel fuel, acids, metals, etheylene glycol, corrosion inhibitors and other chemicals.  We don’t know how long these will remain in the water table.  We don’t even know what we will do with the millions of gallons of toxic wastewater once it is created.

If you live in New York City, bear in mind we are just about two hundred miles up-river from you, and your water comes from our area. 

Please Help!!

What can you do?

Call your New York Assemblymembers and ask them to vote No on Horizontal Drilling A-10526. Ask that a thorough environmental impact study be done before any action is taken.

If you wish, ask them to vote YES on A11527:  This is a bill by Assemblymember James F. Brennan of Brooklyn which would place a two year moratorium on new permits for new gas drilling, and would direct the DEC to study the effects of drilling. 

Ask that the assembly also investigate ways to help farmers who cannot afford to live right now.  They see this money as their only means of support.  (Rationale:  Now is not the time to pit environmental interests against individual's economic interests – as soon as we do this, the gas companies win.  We need to work with people in this area who need money.)

Call Governor Patterson at 518-474-8390 and ask him to veto Horizontal Drilling A-10526.  Suggest that an impact study be done. 

Spread the word.  Copy this post to other blogs. 

 
Thanks.  If you want to see the horror that may be unleashed on our area, check out these.

I very much appreciate your help.

 

 

 

This morning, two men drove by my house diplaying a large Confederate flag in a kind of surreal parade.  Strangely, I chose to write to Paul Krugman about the event.  This is what I wrote:

Dear Paul,

I had written you earlier about my concerns pertaining to racism in this campaign.

Frankly, your tone of late has saddened me, I suppose because I so respect you.  If you can't see the problem of racism, who will?

So let me share what happened about twenty minutes ago.  I live upstate, on the boarder New York and Pennsylvania (one of those areas full of "hardworking Americans, white Americans").  Two men just drove by on tractors, one in front of the other, between them suspended taught (not hanging, but in full display) a large Confederate Flag.  There was no other way of describing this than a kind of surreal parade – the flag was so obviously the point. 

Racism is still alive here, Paul.  You can pretend it's not, but it is.  So is sexism, of course. However, I have to hold Clinton to account when she says, "hardworking Americans, white Americans" and does little to apologize, let alone use the momentary gaff as a way to sway people away from racism.  I'm not taking her remarks out of context; up here, I'm living them, at least as a witness. 

Now, how do you think any African Americans on my street may have felt today?  (There aren't any, but maybe this display was meant as a warning to someone who is daring to move in.) How do you think African Americans in Pennsylvania and West Virginia felt as a Democratic presidential candidate coded words that at the very least excluded them, but potentially could chill the blood?  And how do you think they felt when pundits like yourself and like most out there went on and on about the need to court this racist vote, instead about the need to curb racism?

I've been raped, Paul, I've worked for women's rights, I've marched in "Take Back the Night Marches."  Sexism is real, and it affects black women, too.  (However, I don't recall you ever writing columns about sexism before it became an issue for Senator Clinton.) 

But what should that matter?  The point is that sexism is only an issue for white women running for president, a glass ceiling issue, not an issue lived on the street, in the confines of the house, woven into racism (as racism weaves itself into sexism), so that one cannot function without the other.

No, let's make sexism one more point to score in an election against those horrible progressives, those activists who (among others) actually study and work hard to address these things. 

No, let's instead pander to the Confederate Flag vote.  Let's not talk to the men on the tractors, mind you; let's not try to find out what is really troubling them and try to work to change their views, mind you, no, let's just recognize their rage as a legitimate viewpoint (like taxes and global warming) to be addressed by our presidential candidates. 

I’m angry this morning, so excuse the vituperative nature of this email.  I’m Jewish, too, so a little shaken by this Confederate display, as there aren’t many of us in my small town.

As I find myself periodically doing these days, I plead to you:

You are an important person who has done much to help our society; you have been one of my “heroes.”  Consider considering that racism is an issue; consider considering that the first black presidential candidate for president deserves more than derisive respect; consider considering that progressives are not as ignorant as you seem to think, even though some progressives (like members of every group, like liberals, for example) can make mistakes. 

Consider, considering that there is a different kind of ignorance we need to fight, for as the economic times get worse up here (and up here, where one has to drive everywhere, where farmers need gas to survive, a kind of economic panic has already struck – I met one trucker who didn’t receive a paycheck because his small company can’t afford to give it to him) African Americans are going to become a mighty convenient target.

Consider, considering that we can change the rhetoric, if we start listening to each other. 

Once again, thanks.

All the best,

Laura

 

A short post.  I just finished reading "The Insanity of Guantanamo," an article written by two staffmembers of Human Rights Watch. It highlights the conditions at Guantanimo -- the soulless void in which men are kept (even those already cleared to go home, but who may never go home).

Men already deemed innocent are kept in solitary confinement, 22 hours a day, with only a Koran.  No daylight.  No words.  Nothing.  They are going insane, as anyone would. 

My reaction right now is emotional, visceral, so forgive the poetics.  I just don't know how to breath knowing that we make others suffer so, suffer for no reason.

A good reason to act.  To, at the very least, call senators and congressmen.  Do something to recognize the humanity of those whose being is being denied. 

It may be the only way to maintain our own humanity.

Peace,

Laura

Whites are sick of racism.  We hear this all the time – the constant whining is incessant.  Partially, I think white people (and here I speak of middle class whites like myself) tend to get defensive about race precisely because race is still a problem in this country.  It is human nature that we become defensive when we are being confronted with an actual truth.  Our defensiveness serves to make us feel as we – and not the person suffering – is the victim.  Dare I say it, we are also just plain ignorant, perhaps willfully so. 

Whites are sick of racism.  We hear this all the time – the constant whining is incessant.  Partially, I think white people (and here I speak of middle class whites like myself) tend to get defensive about race precisely because race is still a problem in this country.  It is human nature that we become defensive when we are being confronted with an actual truth.  Our defensiveness serves to make us feel as we – and not the person suffering – is the victim.  Dare I say it, we are also just plain ignorant, perhaps willfully so. 

Please forgive this rather short post.  However, I am thrilled that my governor, David Paterson, has stated that New York will recognize same sex marriages from other states.  To quote the ACLU (in its new and rather wonderful blog):

After the New York Civil Liberties Union’s victory in the same-sex marriage case Martinez v. Monroe County, New York Governor David Paterson has urged state agencies to change its policies to recognize the unions of gay and lesbian couples who are married out-of-state. Any agencies that do not honor these marriages will be in violation of the state’s human rights laws, according to the governor’s counsel, David Nocenti.

I am thrilled and amazed that my governor has taken this firm stand for human rights and dignity, and against the forces of hate.  If you are a New York resident, you can give your feedback to the governor's office.  The office is looking for feedback.  Call (518) 474-8390 and be sure to give your zip code.

For more information, you can turn to these links:

ACLU

Daily Kos (with video)

I hope Patterson's good sense and courage are contagious.

I have not read all of the current information regarding intervention in Mynamar.  However, the situation does make me think of our larger role in the global community at this time.  For this reason, I would like to offer this response to Josh’s thoughtful piece on the question.  Josh states:

It's not simply a matter of having our hands full. More than this, it's an obliviousness to the reality of the downsides of our proposing to invade or actually invading countries more or less for the hell of it -- both in the sense of creating a more dangerous global political environment and the squandering of material resources and global political capital in advance of actual threats to our security we will likely face in coming decades.

I completely agree with Josh that we should not intervene in other nations “more or less for the hell of it.”  However, there are times when intervention is necessary.  Raphael Lemkin spent most of his life trying to advocate for such intervention.  Tragically, no one listened to him when as early as 1933, he began advocating that the world intervene to stop acts of genocide, when this Jewish man became horrified by the fate of the Christian Armenian Turks, or when he began asking for intervention to stop the Holocaust only seven years later.

Because no one listened, millions died.  Simple policies – a bombing of rail lines, a refugee program – could have saved many of them.  After the war, Lemken  labored to have the UN ratify The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.  Simply put, the convention offered the world a way to act together to stop crimes against humanity, hopefully before they have started.

Susan Power’s book, “A Problem from Hell” America and the Age of Genocide, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a must-read for those of us facing the consequences of our nation’s actions over the past seven years, offers us a sober but in its way enriching history of genocide in this century.  It is sober because Power shows in instance after instance how we as a nation did not intervene even in simple ways to prevent genocide.  We basically closed our borders to Jews during World War II, we did not bomb rail lines to concentration camps.  Much later, in Rwanda, we did not even take the simple measure of jamming radio lines that were instrumental in coordinating and inciting the travesty that occurred there.   

For full disclosure, let me note that I am in the midst of reading Power’s book.  However, I can clearly see that “nonintervention” is not, as a stand, necessarily moral, ethical or even in our best interests.  Thoughtful, coordinated intervention may be.

Here, I don’t think of Mynamar, but of the Middle East and its eerie semblance to South East Asia in the 1970’s. Here I only speculate.

After Vietnam, the United States was tired of war in Asia, and the Left was suspicious of all anti-Communist rhetoric.  During the war, our country had propped up a figure head in Cambodia and basically carpet-bombed the country, not surprisingly creating an anti-American animus that lead to the ascension of the Khmer Rouge.  During the next five years, we ignored reports of genocide and chose not to intervene in what became the killing fields of Cambodia.

As Americans, like it or not, we chose to invade Iraq, if not with our votes, then perhaps (if I may be so bold as to judge people like me) with our general lack of action to stop the war.

Given this fact, we have to address the situation in the current region carefully.  It is very easy to call for a complete withdrawal of troops; however, we may be forgetting the lessons of history.  We have created the perfect storm for genocide in the Middle East.  As in Vietnam, we have already killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis ourselves, and have created an unsurprising anti-American animus in the region.  Our actions may lead the most extreme groups to come to power, either those favored by our government, or those our government and the Right will dub our enemies.

Those of us on the Left may be tempted to disregard the dangers of such a regime.  We have been misled, as our parents were during the Vietnam era.  However, genocide is not an issue of “Right” or “Left” wing – nor, I would argue, is war.  Conservatives who kept their eyes open opposed the war, even though such opposition was associated with the “Left.”  The obvious name that comes to mind is Ron Paul.  We on the Left must be similarly willing to look at the issue of withdrawal with fresh eyes.  We cannot simply “walk away.”

Does this mean US intervention or, in the case of Iraq, keeping our troops there forever?  No.  Let’s not conflate US intervention with a different kind: US participation in action by the United Nations. 

I have not learned enough to offer an opinion in regards to Mynamar – a situation that does not seem to fit the definition of genocide at this time, but which certainly is creating horrible suffering and many deaths.  I would argue, that we need to look at the subject carefully, and advocate working with the international community to find solutions.  (Note:  Power shows that walking on egg-shells to avoid offending extremist regimes does not necessarily do any good.)  We need to keep our eyes open, and learn as much as we can (reading Power’s book is a start). 

However, to return to my former speculation about the Middle East, my fear has been that if the pattern of genocide holds, we may see something truly horrible come down the pike in the next years.  As I said, the conditions – war, extremism, desperation, and prejudice on all sides – seem a perfect storm to create a storm even more terrible.

Power argues that even minimal intervention can make a difference.  Let’s not be blind to what we can do.

Greetings!  I have appreciate the posts of TPM regulars who are working to create a more constructive dialogue regarding this election.  Obama supporters and Clinton supporters have stated that they will work to offer criticism without attack. 

As a new person to the site, I am grateful for this. 

I have been an Obama supporter, but would like to support Clinton should she win the nomination.

However, I have one chilling fear that remains in my mind.  I cannot seem to get over Clinton's statement that she would "obliterate" Iran.  She made a similar statement back in January (if memory serves).

My fear is that Clinton is not staying in the race out of self interest. I believe her to be an honorable person.  I believe we deride her when we assume she might stay in this race without a clear policy purpose that to her, and certain groups that support her, is worth the present caustic environment. 

Many Clinton supporters have voiced reasons on this site: a distrust of Senator Obama, a fear he is unelectable, her superior health care initiative, etc. 

My concern is that she represents a slightly different foreign policy lobby.  Obama's foreign policy group is not made up of saints (excepting the wonderful Samantha Powers). 

Back in February, Pepe Escobar, a TRNN analyst speaking on the substantive but certainly progressive news site The Real News offered an interesting analysis.  He categorically states that McCain would serve neo-con war interests much more clearly than either Democrat.  Moreover, in his analysis of each team, he clearly shows that both have strengths.

The difference, to my mind, is their overall Middle East agenda.  Here is what he says of Clinton (I have added paragraphing to make the reading easier):

On the Democratic side, things are much more complicated and diverse and nuanced. Starting with the Clinton side, one of her main advisers for foreign policy is in fact Madeleine Albright. Madeleine Albright adds a little bit of more of the same on the Clinton side. Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state, is infamous for saying on the record during the '90s that more than 500,000 Iraqi children who were victims of the UN sanctions imposed by the West--their sacrifice was worth it, in terms of undermining the regime of Saddam Hussein.

We have Sandy Berger, former national security adviser, as well. And especially Richard Holbrooke, who is going to be probably the next secretary of state under a Clinton government. It's very important to remember that Richard Holbrooke, when he was assistant secretary of state for East Asia, he was propping up Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator of the Philippines when he was alive, and also dictator Suharto in Indonesia in terms of repression of East Timor. Richard Holbrooke is kind of a hawk, actually. He says that Iran is a threat, and Ahmadinejad is Hitler, which would easily put him in the neocon column for that matter.

Basically, most of the Clinton advisers were pro-war on Iraq, while Obama's advisers, most of them were against. Clinton also has ties with very well-known centrists like General Wesley Clark, who was against the war in Iraq from the beginning, and former US Ambassador, Joseph Wilson, whose wife Valerie was outed as a CIA agent by the Bush administration. Of course, her [inaudible] story is becoming a Hollywood movie.

This (without a gap in text) is what he says of Obama.  Note that it is not universally laudatory:

On the Obama side, his main adviser for foreign policy is Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser under Jimmy Carter. You may all remember that Brzezinski wrote The Grand Chess Board, his book where he outlines the fact in his mind that the US has to control Eurasia, and if US doesn't control Eurasia, it won't control the rest of the world. So this is not exactly neocon. It was recuperated later by the neocons. But this is basically US world domination, and it has to be armed if, obviously, the countries of Eurasia do not abide.

We also have Anthony Lake, a former national security adviser. Former Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice. Former counter-terrorist czar Richard Clarke, who wrote a very, very good book on his efforts to fight al-Qaeda, all of them undermined by the Bush administration in 2001.

We have human rights scholar Samantha Power. That's very good, because basically she's been talking a lot and writing a lot about US manipulation of the United Nations.

But we also have some very, very disturbing characters as well. We have a retired General Merill McPeak who supported; he always backed the occupation and repression of East Timor. And Dennis Ross, who was a Clinton special envoy to the Middle East-- he supports the illegal, bloody, and in fact absolutely horrendous Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

So even if Obama's people are, you know, more inclined to finish off the war in Iraq and, okay, try to find a graceful exit from Afghanistan, there's one fact of the matter: no matter what any one of these advisers think or no matter what we have with a Clinton presidency or an Obama presidency, the ultimate deciders for what's going to happen in Iraq are going to be the US national security establishment. And for them, obviously, they will be much more comfortable with a guy like John “a century of war” McCain.

http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=970&thisview=item

My fear is the following:  In light of her vote for the war, for Kyle-Lieberman, and her statement that we would “obliterate” Iran, as well as her recent indication that we would do so not only if Israel were attacked, but also to defend our other “friends” in the region: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, is she staying in the race to make sure that such an agenda enters the White House? 

Charles Krauthammer’s rather horrifying piece in The Washington Post, beautifully castigated by Glenn Greenwald today (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/25/terrorists/index.html) seems to indicate a neo-conservative preference for Senator Clinton.  This group could not support the generally progressive senator’s social agenda, so I am left wondering if it is her foreign policy that they support. 

That, of course, states the obvious.  My concern as a citizen of the planet is this:  to what degree does Clinton mean what she says?  Would she involve us in a war in Iran or bomb the region? (Images of children wandering with skin burned beyond recognition by a so-called ‘clean bomb’ stay in my mind.)

Even if she does not intend such action, or means her statements only as threats to maintain safety in the region, her administration’s policies in the 1990’s did lead to hunger and malnutrition in Iraq as well as the consolidation of Hussein’s power.

What then is one to do?  I will vote for Clinton be she the nominee, but I have to say, I believe there are real reasons to fear her.  Certainly, I don’t want to cause another Republican win, and I will vote for Clinton. 

I am curious about what others may have to say on these matters.  What do you think? 

I sent this letter to Paul Krugman, but I suppose it could apply to me (an Obama supporter) as well.

Dear Mr. Krugman,

My guess is that you are expecting letters of reaction today.  Why else would you write a column attacking a fellow Democrat during a vital election year?

I very much admire you, but of late I wonder if you have become stuck in the Rovian trap that many of us have been caught in – the  "Obama vs. Clinton" trap.

As a liberal, you must know what rides on the elections in November.  The presidency is not enough.  The Democratic Party needs a strong majority in Congress; indeed, one that can override filibusters.

Whatever you may think of Senator Obama, he offers a grassroots mode of organization that has galvanized millions of voters.  He has brought young people and African Americans back into the process. He has also offered a style of rhetoric that seems to have backbone. (In other words, he does not assume the Republic discourse to be right and echo pseudo-patriotic tropes when he errs or is criticized.)

Whether you support Obama or not, he offers much to the Democratic Party.  Whether Obama supporter support Clinton or not, she has much to offer through strong political networks, an outstanding knowledge of policy, and a loyal following. 

(Of course, both candidates offer much in terms of policy, your concerns about healthcare notwithstanding.)

Think of what a different election this would look like if you consistently directed your columns towards unifying the Democratic Party and pointing out a very dangerous John McCain -- dangerous in that he once he held fairly rational beliefs, and now is courting the most right wing extremism this nation has ever seen.  (If you like graphs, check out the Yahoo/AP poll from earlier this week.  Moderates are moving towards McCain.) 

You can still advocate for Clinton, but you could lead us to unification at the same time, and begin to point us towards a turn around in November. 

The fact is, we are in crisis right now.   Our nation is torturing people.  We are overextended in a war that has killed thousands of our young men and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.  Our government has been surveillng its own people for years.  The Justice Department is working as a political arm of the executive branch.  We are in a recession and on the verge of perhaps much worse.  And that is a truncated list. 

Frankly, I’ve gotten rather horrified that a man who has a conscience as you do could get so caught up in the need to be right about Obama being wrong, that he stops acting for the benefit of his country.

Please, I beg you, stop this.  We need you to be our conscience, not the devil on our shoulder calling us to anger and division while Karl Rove laughs.

And believe me, Karl Rove loved your column today, of that I have no doubt. 

Forgive me if I am stating the obvious. 

Senator Clinton praised McCain once again today -- this time on global warming. 

Is she purposefully trying to drive McCain's numbers up by making him seem "safe" for independents?  The Yahoo/AP poll indicates he is making progress among independents.

To quote from USA Today:

'Republicans are no longer underdogs in the race for the White House,' the Associated Press and Yahoo News report this morning. 'To pull that off,' they say, 'John McCain has attracted disgruntled GOP voters, independents and even some moderate Democrats who shunned his party last fall.'

If Clinton can drive independents to McCain, she can make it seem as if Obama cannot win against him, and so make her case to superdelegates. 

Of course, the MSM has been serving McCain donuts and sending his daughter flowers, so Clinton's praise may not be a factor at all.  However, her undermining of Obama and consistent praise for McCain have a purpose that seems to speak for itself.

Again, this may be pretty obvious, but I thought I'd offer the supposition for what it is worth.