kath.A.rine

Foreign Policy: Wasted

Moisés Naím, editor in chief of Foreign Policy Magazine, wrote this article. REJOICE!

Excerpts:

The American prohibition on thinking smart in the drug war

The Washington consensus on drugs rests on two widely shared beliefs. The first is that the war on drugs is a failure. The second is that it cannot be changed.

Americans are a can-do people. They tend to believe that if something does not work, it needs to be fixed. Unless, that is, they are talking about the war on drugs…

…As a result of this utter failure to think, the United States today is both the world’s largest importer of illicit drugs and the world’s largest exporter of bad drug policy. The U.S. government expects, indeed demands, that its allies adopt its goals and methods and actively collaborate with U.S. drug-fighting agencies. This expectation is one of the few areas of rigorous continuity in U.S. foreign policy over the last three decades.

A second, and more damaging, effect comes from the U.S. emphasis on curtailing the supply abroad rather than lowering the demand at home. The consequence: a transfer of power from governments to criminals in a growing number of countries. In many places, narcotraffickers are the major source of jobs, economic opportunity, and money for elections.

The global economic crisis will only intensify these trends as battered economies shrink and illicit trade becomes the only way for millions of people to make a living…

…Fortunately, there are some signs that the blind support for prohibition is beginning to wane among key Washington elites. One surprising new convert? The Pentagon. Senior U.S. military officers know both that the war on drugs is bankrupt and that it is undermining their ability to succeed in other important missions, such as winning the war in Afghanistan. When Gen. James L. Jones, a former Marine Corps commandant and supreme allied commander in Europe, was asked last November why the United States was losing in Afghanistan, he answered: “The top of my list is the drugs and narcotics, which are, without question, the economic engine that fuels the resurgent Taliban, and the crime and corruption in the country… . We couldn’t even talk about that in 2006 when I was there. That was not a topic that anybody wanted to talk about, including the U.S.” Jones is now U.S. President Barack Obama’s national security advisor…

…The opinions of these drug warriors are immune to data: After decades of eradication efforts around the world, neither the acreage of land used to grow drugs nor the tonnage produced has shrunk.

But prohibition at any cost is becoming increasingly hard to defend. As the drug-fueled escalation of violence in Mexico spills across the border into the United States, the American public’s willingness to ignore or tolerate policies that don’t work is bound to decline…

…The addiction to a failed policy has long been fueled by the self-interest of a relatively small prohibitionist community—and enabled by the distraction of the American public.

In Prisoners’ Wake, a Tide of Troubled Kids - NYTimes.com

Excerpt, added bolding mine:

Among those born in 1990, one in four black children, compared with one in 25 white children, had a father in prison by age 14. Risk is concentrated among black children whose parents are high-school dropouts; half of those children had a father in prison, compared with one in 14 white children with dropout parents, according to a report by Dr. Wildeman recently published in the journal Demography.

For both blacks and whites, the chances of parental incarceration were far higher than they were for children born just 12 years earlier, in 1978.

Scholars agree that in some cases children may benefit from a parent’s forced removal, especially when a father is a sexual predator or violent at home. But more often, the harm outweighs any benefits, studies have found.

HuffPo Statement On the Deleted Huffington Post Story « Daily Dose

Obama's Huffington Post: "Palin Will Run in '12 on More Retardation Platform"

You know, Sarah Palin is pretty foul, but so is the Huffington Post. I pretty much gave up on it months ago. I don’t think it’s fair of the Free Republic to cite it as “an official arm of the Obama administration,” give me a break, but that doesn’t change the fact that this disgusting article somehow got posted on HuffPo, and has (duh) of course since been taken down. (How long did they really think it was going to last?)

The Huffington Post, an official arm of the Obama administration, published an article a few minutes ago on the resignation of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin with the following headline: Palin Will Run in ‘12 on More Retardation Platform

To make sure that the article’s reference to Gov. Palin’s infant son Trig who was born with Down Syndrome last year, the article is keyword tagged by the Huffington Post: …Sarah Palin Trig; Trig; Comedy News

The article is authored by Erik Sean Nelson was posted at the Huffington Post at 6 p.m. EDT.

The text of the article:

In Sarah Palin’s resignation announcement she complained about the treatment of her son Trig who always teaches her life lessons. She said that the “world needs more Trigs, not fewer.” That’s a presidential campaign promise we can all get behind. She will be the first politician to actually try to increase the population of retarded people. To me, it’s kinda like saying the world needs more cancer patients because they teach us such personal lessons.

Her first act as President: To introduce a Pre-K lunch buffet that includes lead paint chips. Sort of a Large HEAD-START Program.

She will then encourage women to hold off on pregnancies until their 40’s just to mix up some chromosomes.

She now is in favor of abortion only in case of diploid birth.

Her policies will increase jobs because Wal-Mart is building new stores each day and someone has to be the greeter.

This will lead to smaller government because fewer Americans will have the cognitive ability to hold a government job.

Look, she says she’s resigning as governor because people are making attacks on her and Trig. If she ever did become president, all Osama bin Laden would have to do to defeat the United States is Photoshop a picture of Trig and she’d surrender the country that night. As she said, “That’s not politics as usual.” It isn’t. Politicians don’t usually quit for so stupid of reasons.

Nelson’s HuffPo bio: Erik Nelson has written for several comedy websites and published short fiction while living in the deep South. He has studied the local culture of his Red State and feels confident that they have accepted him as one of their own. Big mistake.

Join him behind enemy lines, deep in the Red Zone. Or email him at erikseannelson@gmail.com.

The Associated Press: Palin resigning as Alaska governor

Action Alert: Help Educate the World's Drug Czar

I received the following e-mail from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP):

Dear Katharine,

On page 1 of the just-released World Drug Report 2009, the world’s Drug Czar, Antonio Maria Costa, admits that the public is increasingly aware the “war on drugs” isn’t working.

But outrageously, even while acknowledging the unintended consequences of the current policy, like the rise in international organized crime, the infiltration of our financial institutes and the waste of scarce resources, the report continues to defend prohibition, claiming that it is an effective drug “control” policy. After 100 years of international prohibition, starting with opium in 1909, “Czar” Costa is calling for more of the same. Page after page, the report struggles to find a measure of success for the greatest policy failure the world has ever known.

Clearly, Mr. Costa, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, doesn’t understand that prohibition is the opposite of drug control. The preface - on page 1 - attempts to refute the arguments of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and others who know that the solution is to legalize and regulate drugs.

Costa needs to know what legalization really means and we need your help to educate him.

Please visit http://www.DrugWarDebate.com to contact Mr. Costa. A sample letter that you can edit (if you want) has been provided, so you can let the “czar” know that people calling for the legalization of drugs are endorsing more effective “control” over drugs than we have now, not less.

We can’t do it without your help!

Sincerely,

Peter Christ
Vice-Director, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
Retired Police Captain

P.S. The fact that our opponents are so prominently attacking us at the very beginning of their report is a real sign of how far our movement has come in such a short time, especially since last year’s report didn’t even mention legalization at all!

P.P.S. If you’d like to help support this work, your generous donation is tax deductible and can be made at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com/give

Action Alert: Stand Against President Obama's Proposed Indefinite Detention Regime

Recently, reports surfaced that President Obama is drafting an executive order that would authorize a regime of indefinite detention without charge. Indefinite detention without charge is one of the most egregious of all human rights violations and is a hallmark of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes the world over. A handful of White House lawyers are now attempting to erase a bedrock principle of American justice by the stroke of a pen, without even the fig leaf of congressional approval. There’s a clear alternative, and that is standard American justice: either charge detainees and give them a fair trial in US federal court, or release them. We need you to help change President Obama’s mind–he needs to hear that millions of Americans care enough about this issue to speak out. Send the email below or—even better—use our sample letter to write your own. » Background Information