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January 26th, 2009:

A Second Look: Consortiumnews.com

via Consortiumnews.com.

Europe Hopes Obama Shifts on ‘Terror’
By Don Ediger
January 26, 2009

Obama's positive rhetoric lessens terrorism

President Barack Obama can make great strides in combating al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups if he abandons George W. Bush’s heated rhetoric and unrealistic view of how terrorism is structured, says Rik Coolsaet, a top European expert on terrorism.

Obama’s image can do just as much damage to al-Qaeda’s recruitment than a brigade of infantry. The more he is seen as one who wishes to listen instead of challenge, the less hatred he will sow.

Coolsaet, director of the Security and Global Governance Department at the Royal Institute of International Relations in Brussels, said in an interview that the U.S. and Europe are already working behind the scenes on new ways to reduce terrorist threats, in part by steering away from Bush’s approach.

Terrorist activity in Iraq rose significantly under Bush.

“The comparative absence of terrorism on American soil, together with the dramatic nature of 9/11″ go a long way in explaining why some Americans have exaggerated the threat, said Coolsaet, who is a member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Violent Radicalization. The low-profile group advises the commission on policy issues.

President Bush often employed alarmist rhetoric, such as warning of “a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.”

But Coolsaet said today’s terrorists are nearly always a patchwork of “self-radicalizing local groups with international contacts” but without a global command structure. “Today it’s a bottom-up structure with groups of friends, and sometimes families, who become radicalized and then search for a larger, international network,” he said.

Coolsaet said the threat of terrorism can even be exacerbated through exaggeration. Overreaction, like the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, can stimulate terrorism instead of reducing it, he said.

Today’s terrorist structure requires counter-strategies that are very different from those pursued by the Bush administration, according to Coolsaet. He said the most effective strategy for combating terrorism has these components:

–International cooperation among local and national law-enforcement agencies as well as intelligence services. The Bush administration pursued this strategy to some extent but was handicapped by its misperception of the terrorist structure. Coolsaet said the Obama administration has an opportunity to pursue cooperation much more vigorously, which would be especially important, given the bottom-up structure of most terrorist organizations.

–Forging links between local governments and communities targeted by terrorists. All too often, members of these communities harbor a shared sense of injustice, exclusion and humiliation (real or perceived). The U.S. has an advantage in this area because of its history of assimilating immigrants.

Coolsaet has outlined a smart and effective strategy. Something must be done at the local level, down where the citizens turn radical. Jobs would help. The U.S. Army saw this same need in Anbar province and began negotiations with local tribal leaders and thus started the “Anbar Awakening”.

No one can deny the success of that effort even though the negotiations the Army employed were about money. Someone from the government must be willing to go into the tribal areas and engage these local leaders in Afghanistan.

The right wing, John McCain and others, have saide that there needed to be a “surge” in Afghanistan similar to the one in Iraq without adding that the element of the surge most lauded as a success was the Anbar Awakening. This is the strategy that could be useful elsewhere.

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A Second Look: Obama Shifts Gears On U.S. Energy Policy, Will Allow States To Enact Tougher Emission Restrictions; Moves Government On Fuel-Efficiency – CBS News

via Obama Shifts Gears On U.S. Energy Policy, Will Allow States To Enact Tougher Emission Restrictions; Moves Government On Fuel-Efficiency – CBS News.

President Barack Obama is expected to announce plans to change course on U.S. energy policy.

(CBS/AP) President Barack Obama is expected continue the trend of reversing Bush administration policy Monday as he plunges into the nation’s energy policy.

Mr. Obama will announce plans to give states a freer hand in curbing emissions from cars, and to get his government moving on fuel-efficiency standards that could remake the auto industry, according to officials familiar with the details who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the president.

The attention on energy comes as Mr. Obama heads into his first full week as president, with an agenda dominated by economic woes and a push to get a huge stimulus plan through Congress.

In one key move, Mr. Obama is aiming toward letting California and other states set their own tailpipe emission standards, a tool for reducing the gases that contribute to global warming.

The perception here from the right is that tougher emission standards hurt business. Never mind the fact that business hurts citizens when standards are low and they are allowed to produce and dispose of dangerous pollutants in any manner they choose. Corporations are killing us slowly, like tobacco.

According to a study from Cornell University published in 2007, 40% of deaths worldwide are cause by pollution.

Air pollution from smoke and various chemicals kills 3 million people a year, according to a new Cornell study.

ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2007) — About 40 percent of deaths worldwide are caused by water, air and soil pollution, concludes a Cornell researcher. Such environmental degradation, coupled with the growth in world population, are major causes behind the rapid increase in human diseases, which the World Health Organization has recently reported. Both factors contribute to the malnourishment and disease susceptibility of 3.7 billion people, he says.

David Pimentel, Cornell professor of ecology and agricultural sciences, and a team of Cornell graduate students examined data from more than 120 published papers on the effects of population growth, malnutrition and various kinds of environmental degradation on human diseases. Their report is published in the online version of the journal Human Ecology and will be published in the December print issue.

“We have serious environmental resource problems of water, land and energy, and these are now coming to bear on food production, malnutrition and the incidence of diseases,” said Pimentel.

Four out of every ten deaths in the world are somehow related to pollution. Bush and his flunkies wanted this to continue by doing things like loosening restrictions on carbon emissions and allowing illegal dumping of coal slag into our streams. This is how Republicans perform as caretakers of our water and food; this is how they care for the citizens of the United States.

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A Second Look: For Caroline Kennedy, what’s next? – Politics- msnbc.com

via For Caroline Kennedy, what’s next? – Politics- msnbc.com.

updated 2:38 a.m. PT, Sun., Jan. 25, 2009

Caroline Kennedy

NEW YORK – Following a brief, torturous foray into the public spotlight, Caroline Kennedy has retreated back into privacy. And if there’s one thing on which political spectators agree, it’s that she is unlikely to rush to repeat the experience.

“After the beating that she took, a sane person would not want to subject themselves to that,” said Doug Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College.

He is referring to the Fox News-ance constant commentary on Kennedy. When are editors, especially at MSNBC going to learn that Fox and the AP aren’t reporting the news, they are reporting sensational make-believe?

They are Kennedy haters anyway so this stuff is to be expected.

Fox News-ance reported this last month:

Even so, some political analysts say Kennedy should release her financial data.

“It would be a smart idea to release the information now because ever since Obama has campaigned on the theme of change, he’s been campaigning as the anti-politician,” Republican strategist Ron Bonjean told FOX News.

“And for Caroline Kennedy to be part of that, she needs to release her records. She needs to show the people of New York what she doesn’t have to hide,” he continued.

People need to realize that these FOX and AP “experts” are kool-aid drinking bottom-feeders just like Hannity no matter what kind of degree they have. When they open their mouths they are spewing out opinion which is almost never based on fact. When this Republican strategist says “it would be a smart idea” for Kennedy “to release the information now” he is stating opinion, not fact.

The academic degree a person holds sometimes is waved like a flag in order to lend credence to otherwise ignorant and untrue statements. When a person like Doug Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College says this about Caroline Kennedy, “after the beating that she took” we must pause and reflect that this is just his personal opinion and not an intellectual analysis. Too many folks mix up those two things.

The truth is Caroline Kennedy can do as she damn well pleases and that she has just as good of a shot at the New York Senate sweat in 2010 as anyone in the political arena.

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