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go to originalBomber who Killed 7 CIA Employees at Afghan Base Was Apparently Being Courted as an Informant
(CBS/AP) Last updated at 6:47 p.m. EST
The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees and wounded six more at a remote outpost in southeastern Afghanistan had been invited onto the base and had not been searched, two former U.S. officials have told The Associated Press.
A former senior intelligence official says the man was being courted as an informant and that it was the first time he had been brought inside the camp.
The official says a senior and experienced CIA debriefer came from Kabul for the meeting, suggesting that the purpose of the session was to gain intelligence.
The former intelligence officials and another former official with knowledge of the attack spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The Central Intelligence Agency would not confirm the details, and said it was still gathering evidence.
"It's far too early to draw conclusions about something that happened just yesterday," said spokesman George Little.
A separate U.S. official suggested the bomber may have set off the explosives as he was about to be searched.
The bombing was expected to deal a major psychological blow to the spy agency, if not its ability to collect valuable intelligence on Taliban and al Qaeda forces operating along Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan. Officials credit the base with providing some of the intelligence which has enabled CIA drone strikes to eliminate much of al Qaeda's top leadership, reports CBS News correspondent David Marin.
The New York Times reports that the victims were responsible for collecting information about militant networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and plotting missions to kill the networks’ top leaders.
CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan
Martin reports Afghan soldiers and civilians are present at almost every American outpost since one of the chief principals of the U.S. strategy is to partner with the Afghans. According to Christine Fair of Georgetown University, some of them may actually be working for the Taliban.
"They have really become a vehicle of infiltration for the Taliban," Fair said. "This is most certainly a vulnerability in our strategy going forward in trying to hand over security to the Afghans," said Fair; "If we don't really have a way of figuring out who we can trust."
CIA Director Leon Panetta said in a message to agency staff that the casualties sustained in Wednesday's strike at Forward Operating Base Chapman were the result of a terrorist attack.
Initial reports indicated that eight American civilians had been killed. There was no explanation for the discrepancy in Panetta's message, which was released by the CIA in an unusual step a day after one of the deadliest attacks on the Central Intelligence Agency in its history.
"Those who fell yesterday were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism," Panetta said. "We owe them our deepest gratitude, and we pledge to them and their families that we will never cease fighting for the cause to which they dedicated their lives - a safer America."
"Yesterday's tragedy reminds us that the men and women of the CIA put their lives at risk every day to protect this nation," he said. "Throughout our history, the reality is that those who make a real difference often face real danger."
No further information about the victims would be released," the CIA director said, "due to the sensitivity of their mission and other ongoing operations."
President Barack Obama said the killed CIA employees come from a "long line of patriots" whose courageous service has helped to thwart terrorist plots and save lives.
In a letter to CIA employees released by the agency, Mr. Obama said the U.S. would not be able to maintain its freedom and security without their service. He also noted that the spy agency has been tested "as never before" since the Sept. 11 attacks.
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
go to originalGovt says deportation 'is for their own good'
* Published: 29/12/2009 at 12:00 AM
The Huay Nam Khao camp in Phetchabun has closed its doors after it was cleared Monday of nearly 4,000 ethnic Hmong.
Just over 100 Hmong were left Monday night awaiting deportation to Laos, said the Royal Thai Armed Force Headquarters' deputy chief of joint staff, Worapong Sanganetra.
Gen Worapong insisted all the Hmong had left for Laos voluntarily.
The deportations began at 4am.
About 110 trucks and buses joined together in convoys to carry the ethnic Hmong across the border to Laos.
The first vehicles arrived at the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge in Nong Khai about 5pm, while the last was expected to have arrived about 3am today, officials involved in the operation said.
Thailand and Laos will hold a joint press conference on the operation this morning at Paksan town in Laos.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said the deportations had gone smoothly and there had been no resistance from the Hmong.
People pray before they are sent back to Laos.
He stressed the need to send them all back to Laos given the peaceful situation along the Thai-Laos border.
The prime minister said that if the US wanted to offer the Hmong third-country resettlement, it could contact Laos directly.
Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said the government was confident Laos would keep its word to improve the Hmong's quality of life.
He rejected human rights groups' claims the deportation would do them more harm than good.
Thailand had not sent the Hmong to jail but set them on a path to a better life before they can be resettled in a third country, Mr Kasit said.
Rights groups and some countries have voiced concern that the Hmong could be persecuted after their return to Laos.
"Why not have trust in Laos?" Mr Kasit asked.
"Western countries do not trust in the cooperation between Thailand and Laos and between the peoples of the two countries.
"Don't look down on us.
"The Lao government has no intention whatsoever to kill its people."
The minister said it had been proved the 3,000 Hmong who had previously been deported to Laos now had a better life.He said Thailand was ready to provide financial support to improve the lives of the Hmong.
go to original Steve Brawn
Story Created: Dec 24, 2009 at 4:04 PM AKST
Story Updated: Dec 24, 2009 at 4:04 PM AKST
Cleanup has begun after a 136-foot tug doing an ice survey in Prince William Sound grounded on Bligh Reef - the same reef that played a big part in the Exxon Valdez oil tanker disaster in 1989.
The tug's fuel tanks contain an estimated 33,500 gallons, and some amount of that fuel has been spilled but the amount is not yet known.
The Coast Guard says the tugboat's crew deployed 200-feet of fuel containment booms around the vessel after clearing the reef and continuing to deeper waters Wednesday evening.
The Coast Guard says a fuel sheen has been observed that is about 3 miles long and 30 yards wide that drifted away from the vessel. There is no sheen visible around the tug.
The Coast Guard says an oil response vessel has arrived and is skimming the water near the diesel sheen.
go to originalBy PAUL GREENBERG
Published: December 15, 2009
“WHAT’S the deal with fish oil?”
If you are someone who catches and eats a lot of fish, as I am, you get adept at answering questions about which fish are safe, which are sustainable and which should be avoided altogether. But when this fish oil question arrived in my inbox recently, I was stumped. I knew that concerns about overfishing had prompted many consumers to choose supplements as a guilt-free way of getting their omega-3 fatty acids, which studies show lower triglycerides and the risk of heart attack. But I had never looked into the fish behind the oil and whether it was fit, morally or environmentally speaking, to be consumed.
The deal with fish oil, I found out, is that a considerable portion of it comes from a creature upon which the entire Atlantic coastal ecosystem relies, a big-headed, smelly, foot-long member of the herring family called menhaden, which a recent book identifies in its title as “The Most Important Fish in the Sea.”
The book’s author, H. Bruce Franklin, compares menhaden to the passenger pigeon and related to me recently how his research uncovered that populations were once so large that “the vanguard of the fish’s annual migration would reach Cape Cod while the rearguard was still in Maine.” Menhaden filter-feed nearly exclusively on algae, the most abundant forage in the world, and are prolifically good at converting that algae into omega-3 fatty acids and other important proteins and oils. They also form the basis of the Atlantic Coast’s marine food chain.
Nearly every fish a fish eater likes to eat eats menhaden. Bluefin tuna, striped bass, redfish and bluefish are just a few of the diners at the menhaden buffet. All of these fish are high in omega-3 fatty acids but are unable themselves to synthesize them. The omega-3s they have come from menhaden.
But menhaden are entering the final losing phases of a century-and-a-half fight for survival that began when humans started turning huge schools into fertilizer and lamp oil. Once petroleum-based oils replaced menhaden oil in lamps, trillions of menhaden were ground into feed for hogs, chickens and pets. Today, hundreds of billions of pounds of them are converted into lipstick, salmon feed, paint, “buttery spread,” salad dressing and, yes, some of those omega-3 supplements you have been forcing on your children. All of these products can be made with more environmentally benign substitutes, but menhaden are still used in great (though declining) numbers because they can be caught and processed cheaply.
For the last decade, one company, Omega Protein of Houston, has been catching 90 percent of the nation’s menhaden. The perniciousness of menhaden removals has been widely enough recognized that 13 of the 15 Atlantic states have banned Omega Protein’s boats from their waters. But the company’s toehold in North Carolina and Virginia (where it has its largest processing plant), and its continued right to fish in federal waters, means a half-billion menhaden are still taken from the ecosystem every year.
For fish guys like me, this egregious privatization of what is essentially a public resource is shocking. But even if you are not interested in fish, there is an important reason for concern about menhaden’s decline.
Quite simply, menhaden keep the water clean. The muddy brown color of the Long Island Sound and the growing dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay are the direct result of inadequate water filtration — a job that was once carried out by menhaden. An adult menhaden can rid four to six gallons of water of algae in a minute. Imagine then the water-cleaning capacity of the half-billion menhaden we “reduce” into oil every year.
So what is the seeker of omega-3 supplements to do? Bruce Franklin points out that there are 75 commercial products — including fish-oil pills made from fish discards — that don’t contribute directly to the depletion of a fishery. Flax oil also fits the bill and uses no fish at all.
But I’ve come to realize that, as with many issues surrounding fish, more powerful fulcrums than consumer choice need to be put in motion to fix things. President Obama and the Congressional leadership have repeatedly stressed their commitment to wresting the wealth of the nation from the hands of a few. A demonstration of this commitment would be to ban the fishing of menhaden in federal waters. The Virginia Legislature could enact a similar moratorium in the Chesapeake Bay (the largest menhaden nursery in the world).
The menhaden is a small fish that in its multitudes plays such a big role in our economy and environment that its fate shouldn’t be effectively controlled by a single company and its bottles of fish oil supplements. If our government is serious about standing up for the little guy, it should start by giving a little, but crucial, fish a fair deal.
Paul Greenberg is the author of the forthcoming “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food.”
» A version of this article appeared in print on December 16, 2009, on page A43 of the New York edition.
go to originalBy BRAD STONE
Published: December 13, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO — It used to be that computer viruses attacked only your hard drive. Now they attack your dignity.
Jodi Chapman clicked on a Twitter message last month to take an online intelligence test, causing her own account to be hijacked.
Matt Marquess’s Twitter account sent out messages for days.
Malicious programs are rampaging through Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, spreading themselves by taking over people’s accounts and sending out messages to all of their friends and followers. The result is that people are inadvertently telling their co-workers and loved ones how to raise their I.Q.’s or make money instantly, or urging them to watch an awesome new video in which they star.
“I wonder what people are thinking of me right now?” said Matt Marquess, an employee at a public relations firm in San Francisco whose Twitter account was recently hijacked, showering his followers with messages that appeared to offer a $500 gift card to Victoria’s Secret.
Mr. Marquess was clueless about the offers until a professional acquaintance asked him about them via e-mail. Confused, he logged in to his account and noticed he had been promoting lingerie for five days.
“No one had said anything to me,” he said. “I thought, how long have I been Twittering about underwear?”
The humiliation sown by these attacks is just collateral damage. In most cases, the perpetrators are hoping to profit from the referral fees they get for directing people to sketchy e-commerce sites.
In other words, even the crooks are on social networks now — because millions of tightly connected potential victims are just waiting for them there.
Often the victims lose control of their accounts after clicking on a link “sent” by a friend. In other cases, the bad guys apparently scan for accounts with easily guessable passwords. (Mr. Marquess gamely concedes that his password at the time was “abc123.”)
After discovering their accounts have been seized, victims typically renounce the unauthorized messages publicly, apologizing for inadvertently bombarding their friends. These messages — one might call them Tweets of shame — convey a distinct mix of guilt, regret and embarrassment.
“I have been hacked; taking evasive maneuvers. Much apology, my friends,” wrote Rocky Barbanica, a producer for Rackspace Hosting, an Internet storage firm, in one such note.
Mr. Barbanica sent that out last month after realizing he had sent messages to 250 Twitter followers with a link and the sentence, “Are you in this picture?” If they clicked, their Twitter accounts were similarly commandeered.
“I took it personally, which I shouldn’t have, but that’s the natural feeling. It’s insulting,” he said.
Earlier malicious programs could also cause a similar measure of embarrassment if they spread themselves through a person’s e-mail address book.
But those messages, traveling from computer to computer, were more likely to be stopped by antivirus or firewall software. On the Web, such measures offer little protection. (Although they are popularly referred to as viruses or worms, the new forms of Web-based malicious programs do not technically fall into those categories, as they are not self-contained programs.)
Getting tangled up in a virus on a social network is also more painfully, and instantaneously, public. “Once it’s delivered to everyone in three seconds, the cat is out of the bag,” said Chet Wisniewski of Sophos, a Web security firm. “When people got viruses on their computers, or fell for scams at home, they were generally the only ones that knew about it and they cleaned it up themselves. It wasn’t broadcast to the whole world.”
Social networks have become prime targets of such programs’ creators for good reason, security experts say. People implicitly trust the messages they receive from friends, and are inclined to overlook the fact that, say, their cousin from Ohio is extremely unlikely to have caught them on a hidden webcam.
Sophos says that 21 percent of Web users report that they have been a target of malicious programs on social networks. Kaspersky Labs, a Russian security firm, says that on some days, one in 500 links on Twitter point to bad sites that can infect an inadequately protected computer with typical viruses that jam hard drives. Kaspersky says many more links are purely spam, frequently leading to dating sites that pay referral fees for traffic.
A worm that spread around Facebook recently featured a photo of a sparsely dressed woman and offered a link to “see more.” Adi Av, a computer developer in Ashkelon, Israel, encountered the image on the Facebook page of a friend he considered to be a reliable source of amusing Internet content.
A couple of clicks later, the image was posted on Mr. Av’s Facebook profile and sent to the “news feed” of his 350 friends.
“It’s an honest mistake,” he said. “The main embarrassment was from the possibility of other people getting into the same trouble from my profile page.”
Others confess to experiencing a more serious discomfiture.
“You feel like a total idiot,” said Jodi Chapman, who last month unwisely clicked on a Twitter message from a fellow vegan, suggesting that she take an online intelligence test.
Ms. Chapman, who sells environmentally friendly gifts with her husband, uses her Twitter account to communicate with thousands of her company’s customers. The hijacking “filled me with a sense of panic,” she said. “I was so worried that I had somehow tainted our company name by asking people to check their I.Q. scores.”
Social networking attacks do not spare the experts. Two weeks ago, Lee Rainey, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a nonprofit research group, accidentally sent messages to dozens of his Twitter followers with a link and the line, “Hi, is this you? LOL.” He said a few people actually clicked.
“I’m worried that people will think I communicate this way,” Mr. Rainey said. “ ‘LOL,’ as my children would tell you, is not the style that I want to engage the world with.”
A version of this article appeared in print on December 14, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.
go to originalSoaring rates to bring unprecedented medical, economic burdens, study predicts
By Jennifer Thomas
HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, Nov. 27 (HealthDay News) -- The number of people with diabetes in the United States is expected to double over the next 25 years, a new study predicts.
That would bring the total by 2034 to about 44.1 million people with the disease, up from 23.7 million today.
At the same time, the cost of treating people with diabetes will triple, the study also warns, rising from an estimated $113 billion in 2009 to $336 billion in 2034.
One factor driving the soaring costs: the number of people living with diabetes for lengthy periods, the researchers said. Over time, the cost of caring for someone with diabetes tends to rise along with their risk for developing complications, such as end-stage renal disease, which requires dialysis.
"We believe our model provides a more precise estimate of what the population size will look like and what it will cost the country and government programs like Medicare," said study author Dr. Elbert Huang, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.
Prior forecasts, including the ones currently used by the federal government's budget analysts, have underestimated the burden, the researchers said. A 1991 study, for example, predicted that 11.6 million people would have diabetes in 2030. In 2009, there were already more than twice that many living with diabetes.
"In a similar way, we may be underestimating what's happening, which is actually very disturbing," Huang said.
Among Medicare beneficiaries, the number with diabetes is expected to rise from 8.2 million to 14.6 million in 2034, with an accompanying rise in spending from $45 billion to $171 billion.
"That essentially means that in 2034, half of all direct spending on diabetes care will be coming from the Medicare population," Huang said.
The study is published in the December issue of Diabetes Care.
The high cost of chronic disease is one of the most pressing issues facing the United States as legislators grapple with financial strains on Medicare and the larger issue of health-care reform, the researchers say.
Factors driving the increase in diabetes cases include the aging population and continued high rates of obesity, both of which are risk factors for type 2 diabetes, in which the body does not produce enough insulin or the cells don't use it correctly. In the study, the researchers assumed that the obesity rate would remain relatively stable, topping out at about 30 percent in the next decade and then declining slightly to about 27 percent in 2033.
Dr. David Kendall, chief scientific and medical officer for the American Diabetes Association, said the study is one of several recent papers predicting a dramatic rise in the incidence of diabetes. And though which methodology provides the most accurate predictions is open to debate, he said, the overarching message is that steps need to be taken to prevent diabetes from overwhelming an already overburdened health-care system.
"This is, in a sense, evidence of an iceberg," Kendall said. "What we are seeing currently is only a fraction of the potential future risk."
In making their estimates, the researchers used data on people 24 to 85 years old who took part in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the National Health Interview Study.
"This is clearly a very pressing problem," said study co-author Michael O'Grady, a senior fellow at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. "It's one of the few chronic illnesses we have that is growing, and the cost of doing nothing is going to be quite high."
Matt Peterson, director of information resources at the American Diabetes Association, said that community-based intervention programs that include dietary counseling and exercise, such as walking for 30 minutes most days of the week, can help combat the trend.
"We're not talking about massive weight loss or for everyone to become marathon runners," Peterson said. "We are talking about modest weight loss of 10 to 15 pounds. It's a challenge, but it's an achievable goal."
For those with diabetes, the American Diabetes Association recommends modest weight loss, increased physical activity, maintaining A1C (blood sugar) levels below 7, cholesterol control and blood pressure control to prevent complications.
More information
The American Diabetes Association has more on living with diabetes.
SOURCES: Elbert Huang, M.D., assistant professor, medicine, University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago; Michael O'Grady, Ph.D., senior fellow, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago; Matt Peterson, director, information resources, American Diabetes Association, Alexandria, Va.; David Kendall, M.D., chief scientific and medical officer, American Diabetes Association, Alexandria, Va.; December 2009 Diabetes Care
Last Updated: Nov. 27, 2009
go to originalBy SHAWN POGATCHNIK
The Associated Press
Thursday, November 26, 2009; 6:12 PM
DUBLIN -- Roman Catholic Church leaders in Dublin spent decades sheltering child-abusing priests from the law and most fellow clerics turned a blind eye, an investigation ordered by Ireland's government concluded Thursday.
Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who handed over more than 60,000 previously secret church files to the three-year investigation, said he felt deep shame and sorrow for how previous archbishops presided over endemic child abuse - yet claimed afterward not to understand the gravity of their sins.
Martin said his four predecessors in Ireland's capital, including retired Cardinal Desmond Connell, must have understood that priests' molestation and rape of boys and girls "was a crime in both civil and canon law. For some reason or another they felt they could deal with all this in little worlds of their own.
"They were wrong, and children were left to suffer."
There was a similarly shocking investigation into decades of unchecked child abuse in Irish schools, workhouses and orphanages run nationwide by 19 Catholic orders of nuns, priests and brothers.
That report in May sought to document the scale of abuse as well as the reasons why church and state authorities didn't stop it, whereas Thursday's 720-page report focused on why church leaders in the Dublin Archdiocese - home to a quarter of Ireland's 4 million Catholics - did not tell police about a single abuse complaint against a priest until 1995.
By then, the investigators found, successive archbishops and their senior deputies - among them qualified lawyers - already had compiled confidential files on more than 100 parish priests who had sexually abused children since 1940. Those files had remained locked in the Dublin archbishop's private vault.
The investigators also dug up a paper trail documenting the church's long-secret insurance policy, taken out in 1987, to cover potential lawsuits and compensation demands. Dublin church leaders publicly denied the existence of the problem for a decade afterward - but since the mid-1990s have paid out more than euro10 million ($15 million) in settlements and legal bills.
The report cited documents showing how church officials learned about some cases only when devoutly Catholic police received complaints from children or their parents - but handed responsibility back to church leaders to sort out the problems themselves.
Thursday's report detailed "sample" cases of 46 priests who faced 320 documented complaints, although the investigators said they were confident that the priests had abused many more children than that. They cited testimony from one priest who admitted abusing more than 100 children, and another priest who said he abused a child approximately every two weeks for 25 years.
Just 11 of the 46 ultimately were convicted of abusing children - typically decades after church leaders learned of their crimes - while two others are scheduled to face Dublin criminal court actions within months. Fourteen are dead and most of the rest have been defrocked or barred from parish duties. Just six are still active priests.
Three Dublin archbishops - John Charles McQuaid (1940-72), Dermot Ryan (1972-84) and Kevin McNamara (1985-87) - did not tell police about clerical abuse cases, instead opting to avoid public scandals by shuttling offenders from parish to parish and even overseas to U.S. churches, the commission found.
It was not until 1995 that then-Archbishop Connell allowed police to see church files on 17 clerical abuse cases. At that time, Connell actually held records of complaints against at least 29 priests, the report found. Connell later pursued a lawsuit against the investigators in an abandoned bid to keep them from seeing more than 5,500 files documenting the church's knowledge of abusive priests.
The report said all four archbishops sought "the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities."
The investigators lauded a handful of priests and mostly low-ranking police who pursued complaints and prosecutions, almost always unsuccessfully, from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Senior police officers "clearly regarded priests as being outside their remit" and handed "complaints to the archdiocese instead of investigating them," the report said.
"A few (priests) were courageous and brought complaints to the attention of their superiors. The vast majority simply chose to turn a blind eye," it said.
Ireland's police commander, Commissioner Fachtna Murphy, said he was "deeply sorry" to read that his force failed to provide victims of abusive priests "the level of response or protection which any citizen in trouble is entitled to expect."
The government also apologized for the state's failure to pursue Dublin priests accused of child abuse until recent years.
Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, who received the Dublin Archdiocese report in July but delayed its publication for legal vetting, vowed that the state would never again treat the Catholic Church with deference.
"A priest's collar will protect no criminal," he said.
But pressure groups representing more than 15,000 documented victims of abuse by Irish Catholic officials said the government was not doing enough to end the danger of Catholic child abuse - in part because the law still stops short of requiring bishops to report abuse complaints to police.
Maeve Lewis, executive director of an Irish abuse counseling service called One in Four, noted that not a single person in Ireland has been convicted for "recklessly endangering" children, a crime created in 2006 legislation.
Lewis said the archbishops, bishops, monsignors, police and government health officials who suppressed abuse complaints for decades had never faced criminal investigations "even though they are every bit as guilty as the priests who committed the abuse."
And she forecast that, because abused children often do not seek justice until they reach adulthood, children today were still being abused by priests. "It's very likely in 10 or 15 years' time that the children who are being abused today will bring forward allegations," she said.
"As Irish people we like to think we live in a civilized society," she said, "but we need to hang our heads in shame."
---
On the Net:
Report,http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504
go to original Tue Nov 24, 3:57 pm ET
Ten members of the Republican National Committee are proposing a resolution demanding candidates embrace at least eight of 10 conservative principles if they hope to receive financial support and an official endorsement from the RNC. The "Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates," is designed to force candidates to prove that they support "conservative principles" while opposing "Obama's socialist agenda," according to The New York Times' Caucus blog. The proposal highlights the ongoing tug-of-war for the ideological soul of the Republican party, and has been met with skepticism both inside and outside of the party.
Some are speculating that the move was inspired by the GOP’s recent loss in New York's 23rd House race, a seat the party had held since the 1800s. That contest saw Dede Scozzafava, a moderate Republican endorsed by the RNC, driven out of the race in favor of Doug Hoffman, a more conservative candidate backed by the likes of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. After Scozzafava dropped out of the race, the RNC endorsed Hoffman, who went on to lose to the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens.
James Bopp Jr., an Indiana attorney, initiated the resolution, saying that "conservatives have lost trust in the Republican party." Bopp Jr., who floated a failed proposal earlier this year demanding that Democrats rename their party the "Democrat Socialist Party," was joined by 10 RNC co-sponsors. The group says they cited Ronald Reagan in naming the resolution because the former president said that "someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent." The ten guidelines, distributed to RNC members in recent weeks, are as follows:
(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;
(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and
(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership;
Predictably, the proposed resolution has elicited derision from all corners of the political spectrum, including the right wing. In criticizing the proposal, conservative blogger Erick Erickson says that Republicans "risk giving liberal candidates easy opportunities to get conservative endorsements simply by checking the box without ever meaning it," adding that the measure is essentially hollow because the "GOP cannot live up to its own platform adopted at a national convention, it sure as heck won’t live up to any pledge put forward by a group of RNC committeemen."
Meanwhile, liberal blogger Steve Benen wonders if Reagan himself would even pass the 80% threshold mandated by the resolution bearing his name, noting that Reagan "voted for several tax increases, began the modern era of massive federal debt, ran huge deficits, and approved an immigration measure the far-right still resents."
However, not everyone finds fault with it. A Republican strategist and former Bush White House official, who asked to remain anonymous, told Yahoo! News that the resolution "bodes well" because "Republicans are continuing to discuss policy positions and principles," adding "this should not be treated as a purge document - as the media is portraying it - but more of a document for discussion as Republicans attempt to rebuild the party in 2010."
Despite the debate that it’s already inspired, whether or not the resolution even gets voted on by the RNC's membership remains up in the air. A spokeswoman for RNC Chairman Michael Steele told The Wall Street Journal that until the deadline for submitting resolutions for the party's winter meeting is reached, "we do not know what resolutions will be submitted, nor what the final language of any resolution ultimately submitted may be."
-- Brett Michael Dykes is a contributor to the Yahoo! News Blog
go to originalBy Gretchen Reynolds
For some time, researchers have been finding that people who exercise don’t necessarily lose weight. A study published online in September in The British Journal of Sports Medicine was the latest to report apparently disappointing slimming results. In the study, 58 obese people completed 12 weeks of supervised aerobic training without changing their diets. The group lost an average of a little more than seven pounds, and many lost barely half that.
How can that be? Exercise, it seems, should make you thin. Activity burns calories. No one doubts that.
“Walking, even at a very easy pace, you’ll probably burn three or four calories a minute,” beyond what you would use quietly sitting in a chair, said Dan Carey, Ph.D., an assistant professor of exercise physiology at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, who studies exercise and metabolism.
But few people, an overwhelming body of research shows, achieve significant weight loss with exercise alone, not without changing their eating habits. A new study from scientists at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver offers some reasons why. For the study, the researchers recruited several groups of people. Some were lean endurance athletes; some sedentary and lean; some sedentary and obese. Each of the subjects agreed to spend, over the course of the experiment, several 24-hour periods in a special laboratory room (a walk-in calorimeter) that measures the number of calories a person burns. Using various calculations, the researchers could also tell whether the calories expended were in the form of fat or carbohydrates, the body’s two main fuel sources. Burning more fat than carbohydrates is obviously desirable for weight loss, since the fat being burned comes primarily from body fat stores, and we all, even the leanest among us, have plenty of those.
The Denver researchers were especially interested in how the athletes’ bodies would apportion and use calories. It has been well documented that regular endurance training increases the ability of the body to use fat as a fuel during exercise. They wondered, though, if the athletes — or any of the other subjects — would burn extra fat calories after exercising, a phenomenon that some exercisers (and even more diet and fitness books) call “afterburn.”
“Many people believe that you rev up” your metabolism after an exercise session “so that you burn additional body fat throughout the day,” said Edward Melanson, Ph.D., an associate professor in the division of endocrinology at the School of Medicine and the lead author of the study. If afterburn were found to exist, it would suggest that even if you replaced the calories you used during an exercise session, you should lose weight, without gaining weight — the proverbial free lunch.
Each of Melanson’s subjects spent 24 quiet hours in the calorimeter, followed later by another 24 hours that included an hourlong bout of stationary bicycling. The cycling was deliberately performed at a relatively easy intensity (about 55 percent of each person’s predetermined aerobic capacity). It is well known physiologically that, while high-intensity exercise demands mostly carbohydrate calories (since carbohydrates can quickly reach the bloodstream and, from there, laboring muscles), low-intensity exercise prompts the body to burn at least some stored fat. All of the subjects ate three meals a day.
To their surprise, the researchers found that none of the groups, including the athletes, experienced “afterburn.” They did not use additional body fat on the day when they exercised. In fact, most of the subjects burned slightly less fat over the 24-hour study period when they exercised than when they did not.
“The message of our work is really simple,” although not agreeable to hear, Melanson said. “It all comes down to energy balance,” or, as you might have guessed, calories in and calories out. People “are only burning 200 or 300 calories” in a typical 30-minute exercise session, Melanson points out. “You replace that with one bottle of Gatorade.”
Related
This does not mean that exercise has no impact on body weight, or that you can’t calibrate your workouts to maximize the amount of body fat that you burn, if that’s your goal.
“If you work out at an easy intensity, you will burn a higher percentage of fat calories” than if you work out a higher intensity, Carey says, so you should draw down some of the padding you’ve accumulated on the hips or elsewhere — if you don’t replace all of the calories afterward. To help those hoping to reduce their body fat, he published formulas in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research last month that detailed the heart rates at which a person could maximize fat burning. “Heart rates of between 105 and 134” beats per minute, Carey said, represent the fat-burning zone. “It’s probably best to work out near the top of that zone,” he says, “so that you burn more calories over all” than at the extremely leisurely lower end.
Perhaps just as important, bear in mind that exercise has benefits beyond weight reduction. In the study of obese people who took up exercise, most became notably healthier, increasing their aerobic capacity, decreasing their blood pressure and resting heart rates, and, the authors write, achieving “an acute exercise-induced increase in positive mood,” leading the authors to conclude that, “significant and meaningful health benefits can be achieved even in the presence of lower than expected exercise-induced weight loss.”
Finally and thankfully, exercise seems to aid, physiologically, in the battle to keep off body fat once it has been, through resolute calorie reduction, chiseled away. In other work by Melanson’s group, published in September, laboratory rats that had been overfed and then slimmed through calorie reduction were able to “defend” their lower weight more effectively if they ran on a treadmill and ate at will than if they had no access to a treadmill. The exercise seemed to reset certain metabolic pathways within the rats, Melanson says, that blunted their body’s drive to replace the lost fat. Similar mechanisms, he adds, probably operate within the bodies of humans, providing scientific justification for signing up for that Thanksgiving Day 5K.
go to original By Mike Soraghan - 11/01/09 01:27 PM ET
Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday it's worth defeating a healthcare overhaul in order to prevent the creation of a government-run health insurance program.
Interviewed on CBS's "Face the Nation," the independent member of the Democratic Caucus said doing "nothing" is better than a so-called public option.
"'Nothing' is better than getting that," Lieberman said. "We ought to follow the doctors' oath and say, 'First, let's do no harm.'"
The Connecticut lawmaker said fixing the economy and creating jobs is a higher priority than healthcare, and a government-run insurance plan would damage the economy by hiking premiums, raising taxes or increasing the national debt.
Supporters of the public option say that it would help drive down premiums and lower healthcare costs by competing with private insurance companies who often dominate their markets.
The House bill to be debated next week in the House has a public option. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has indicated that he will include a public option in the Senate version, despite doubts about whether it can get enough votes to pass.
Those doubts grew last week when Lieberman announced he would join a Republican filibuster to prevent a public option. Lieberman is one of the 60 votes that Senate leaders count on to get the 60 votes they need to end Republican filibusters.
"I'm not going to filibuster to stop the debate on healthcare reform from beginning because I want to have that debate," Lieberman said Sunday. "I want to have healthcare reform. ...But I feel so strongly about the creation of another government health insurance entitlement, the government going into the health insurance business, I think it's such a mistake that I would use the power I have as a single senator to stop a final vote."
Supporters lashed out at Lieberman's announcement last week, saying he was catering to the insurance companies headquartered in his state. One liberal Democrat, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), tied it to the campaign contributions Lieberman has received from the industry.
Lieberman has gotten $2.6 million from the health sector during his time in the Senate, according to Opensecrets.com, ranking him 15th highest in Congress.
Lieberman rejected that idea Sunday, saying he filed anti-trust cases against companies when he was Connecticut attorney general and supports ending the industry's anti-trust exemption.
"I have never hesitated to get tough on insurance companies when I thought they were wrong," Lieberman said.
He said it was his critics who insist on a public option who threaten the prospects for passing a bill.
"By having a litmus test, they're stopping us from getting anything done," Lieberman said.
Also Sunday, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) outlined how he plans to offer an alternative healthcare proposal in the House. He has previously said he will have an alternative and Democratic leaders have said they will allow a vote on it.
Boehner said the Congressional Budget Office is currently "scoring," or drafting a cost estimate, for a bill that takes "eight or nine" of the principles Republicans have espoused.
"We do not increase taxes, we do not cut Medicaid or Medicare, and do not have mandates on individuals or businesses," Boehner said on CNN's "State of the Union."
"I'm hopeful that Speaker Pelosi will allow us to offer an alternative."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has indicated she may not allow amendments by Republicans or her fellow Democrats. But House Democratic leaders have said Republicans will get a vote on their proposal. Asked last week if the Republican proposal will be available to the public for three days prior to the vote, as he and others have demanded for Pelosi's bill, Boehner was noncommittal.
go to originalWorld's largest cruise ship narrowly clears Danish bridge on maiden voyage to Florida
By JAN M. OLSEN Associated Press Writer
KORSOER, Denmark October 31, 2009 (AP)
The Associated Press
The world's largest cruise ship cleared a crucial obstacle Sunday, lowering its smokestacks to squeeze under a bridge in Denmark.
This Oct. 30, 2009 photo released by Royal Caribbean shows Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas... Expand
This Oct. 30, 2009 photo released by Royal Caribbean shows Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas departing a ship yard in Finland. The Oasis of the Seas, the largest passenger vessel ever built, is set to be handed over to Royal Caribbean International on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009. (AP Photo/ Royal Caribbean) NO SALES Collapse
(AP)
The Oasis of the Seas — which rises about 20 stories high — passed below the Great Belt Fixed Link with a slim margin as it left the Baltic Sea on its maiden voyage to Florida.
Bridge operators said that even after lowering its telescopic smokestacks the giant ship had less than a 2-foot (half-meter) gap.
Hundreds of people gathered on beaches at both ends of the bridge, waiting for hours to watch the brightly lit behemoth sail by shortly after midnight (2300GMT; 7 p.m. EDT).
"It was fantastic to see it glide under the bridge. Boy, it was big," said Kurt Hal, 56.
Company officials are banking that its novelty will help guarantee its success. Five times larger than the Titanic, the $1.5 billion ship has seven neighborhoods, an ice rink, a small golf course and a 750-seat outdoor amphitheater. It has 2,700 cabins and can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew members.
Accommodations include loft cabins, with floor-to-ceiling windows, and 1,600-square-foot (487-meter) luxury suites with balconies overlooking the sea or promenades.
The liner also has four swimming pools, volleyball and basketball courts, and a youth zone with theme parks and nurseries for children.
Oasis of the Sea, nearly 40 percent larger than the industry's next-biggest ship, was conceived years before the economic downturn caused desperate cruise lines to slash prices to fill vacant berths.
It was built by STX Finland for Royal Caribbean International and left the shipyard in Finland on Friday. Officials hadn't expected any problems in passing the Great Belt bridge, but traffic was stopped for about 15 minutes as a precaution when the ship approached, Danish navy spokesman Joergen Brand said.
Aboard the Oasis of the Seas, project manager Toivo Ilvonen of STX Finland confirmed that the ship had passed under the bridge without any incidents."Nothing fell off," he said.
The enormous ship features various "neighborhoods" — parks, squares and arenas with special themes. One of them will be a tropical environment, including palm trees and vines among the total 12,000 plants on board. They will be planted after the ship arrives in Fort Lauderdale.
In the stern, a 750-seat outdoor theater — modeled on an ancient Greek amphitheater — doubles as a swimming pool by day and an ocean front theater by night. The pool has a diving tower with spring boards and two 33-foot (10-meter) high-dive platforms. An indoor theater seats 1,300 guests.
One of the "neighborhoods," named Central Park, features a square with boutiques, restaurants and bars, including a bar that moves up and down three decks, allowing customers to get on and off at different levels.
Once home, the $1.5 billion floating extravaganza will have more, if less visible, obstacles to duck: a sagging U.S. economy, questions about the consumer appetite for luxury cruises and criticism that such sailing behemoths are damaging to the environment and diminish the experience of traveling.
It is due to make its U.S. debut on Nov. 20 at its home port, Port Everglades in Florida.
go to originalThere has been a flurry of diplomatic activity in the Afghan capital ahead of the announcement of the results of the presidential poll, the BBC has learned.
Senior sources say top international figures have been working to persuade President Hamid Karzai that he may have to face a second round of voting.
A fraud investigation is expected to bring Mr Karzai's vote tally below the 50% needed to avoid a run-off.
Officials say Mr Karzai is furious over the prospect of facing a second round.
The fraud allegations which have surfaced in the two months since the 20 August poll have generated huge political uncertainty, reports the BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul.
It comes at a time when Washington is debating whether to send more troops.
Fraud findings
Mr Karzai was initially awarded 55% of votes in the poll, with his nearest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, getting 28%.
AFGHAN FRAUD ALLEGATIONS
13 Oct: Karzai casts doubt on fair functioning of ECC, but his opponents accuse him of manufacturing his concerns
30 Sep: UN recalls envoy Peter Galbraith following row over the vote recount process
15 Sep: ECC chief says 10% of votes need to be recounted
8 Sep: IEC says votes from 600 polling stations "quarantined"
3 Sep: Claims 30,000 fraudulent votes cast for Karzai in Kandahar
30 Aug: 2,000 fraud allegations are probed; 600 deemed serious
20 Aug: Election day and claims 80,000 ballots were filled out fraudulently for Karzai in Ghazni
18 Aug: Ballot cards sold openly and voter bribes offered
Election: Main fraud allegations
But the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) is due to report its findings into fraud allegations this weekend.
It will report to the Independent Election Commission (IEC), which could adjust the final tally based on the report - bringing Mr Karzai's vote total below 50%, and triggering a run-off.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown telephoned the candidates on Friday.
Senior sources told our correspondent they had urged Mr Karzai to accept the findings of the ECC's fraud investigations.
The French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and US Senator John Kerry - chair of the US Senate's foreign relations committee - are also in Kabul meeting Mr Karzai and Mr Abdullah.
Karzai 'fury'
Mrs Clinton told CNN: "It is likely that they will find that President Karzai got very close to the 50-plus-1" (50% of votes, plus one vote) threshold for a second round of voting.
She added: "I think one can conclude that the likelihood of him winning a second round is probably pretty high."
But officials told our correspondent that Mr Karzai is furious at the turn of events, and is threatening to delay - or even block - attempts to hold a second round.
His position appears to have been strengthened by the IEC. Its spokesman said that not all the findings of the investigation may be implemented - despite the fact that the IEC is constitutionally bound to obey the orders of the ECC.
Their reported confrontation may delay the official announcement of results - providing a breathing space for the frenzied diplomatic efforts, unnamed diplomats have told news agencies.
Strategy review
A run-off between Mr Karzai and Mr Abdullah would be due within two weeks, although security concerns and winter snows could hamper efforts.
The US is reviewing its strategy in Afghanistan.
Three American soldiers were killed in bomb attacks in the country as Nato-led forces fought Taliban militants.
Two of them died in eastern Afghanistan on Friday and one in southern Afghanistan, officials said.
go to originalAs the UN climate summit in Copenhagen approaches, BBC News environment correspondent Richard Black traces key milestones, scientific discoveries, technical innovations and political action.
Schematic of the Newcomen Engine
The Newcomen Engine foreshadowed industrial scale use of coal
1712 - British ironmonger Thomas Newcomen invents the first widely used steam engine, paving the way for the Industrial Revolution and industrial scale use of coal.
1800 - world population reaches one billion.
1824 - French physicist Joseph Fourier describes the Earth's natural "greenhouse effect". He writes: "The temperature [of the Earth] can be augmented by the interposition of the atmosphere, because heat in the state of light finds less resistance in penetrating the air, than in re-passing into the air when converted into non-luminous heat."
1861 - Irish physicist John Tyndall shows that water vapour and certain other gases create the greenhouse effect. "This aqueous vapour is a blanket more necessary to the vegetable life of England than clothing is to man," he concludes. More than a century later, he is honoured by having a prominent UK climate research organisation - the Tyndall Centre - named after him.
1886 - Karl Benz unveils the Motorwagen, often regarded as the first true automobile.
1896 - Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius concludes that industrial-age coal burning will enhance the natural greenhouse effect. He suggests this might be beneficial for future generations. His conclusions on the likely size of the "man-made greenhouse" are in the same ballpark - a few degrees Celsius for a doubling of CO2 - as modern-day climate models.
Svante Arrhenius in his lab
Svante Arrhenius unlocked the man-made greenhouse a century ago
1900 - another Swede, Knut Angstrom, discovers that even at the tiny concentrations found in the atmosphere, CO2 strongly absorbs parts of the infrared spectrum. Although he does not realise the significance, Angstrom has shown that a trace gas can produce greenhouse warming.
1927 - carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach one billion tonnes per year.
1930 - human population reaches two billion.
1938 - using records from 147 weather stations around the world, British engineer Guy Callendar shows that temperatures had risen over the previous century. He also shows that CO2 concentrations had increased over the same period, and suggests this caused the warming. The "Callendar effect" is widely dismissed by meteorologists.
1955 - using a new generation of equipment including early computers, US researcher Gilbert Plass analyses in detail the infrared absorption of various gases. He concludes that doubling CO2 concentrations would increase temperatures by 3-4C.
1957 - US oceanographer Roger Revelle and chemist Hans Suess show that seawater will not absorb all the additional CO2 entering the atmosphere, as many had assumed. Revelle writes: "Human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment..."
1958 - using equipment he had developed himself, Charles David (Dave) Keeling begins systematic measurements of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa in Hawaii and in Antarctica. Within four years, the project - which continues today - provides the first unequivocal proof that CO2 concentrations are rising.
Margaret Thatcher
Change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto
Margaret Thatcher
1960 - human population reaches three billion.
1965 - a US President's Advisory Committee panel warns that the greenhouse effect is a matter of "real concern".
1972 - first UN environment conference, in Stockholm. Climate change hardly registers on the agenda, which centres on issues such as chemical pollution, atomic bomb testing and whaling. The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) is formed as a result.
1975 - human population reaches four billion.
1975 - US scientist Wallace Broecker puts the term "global warming" into the public domain in the title of a scientific paper.
1987 - human population reaches five billion
1987 - Montreal Protocol agreed, restricting chemicals that damage the ozone layer. Although not established with climate change in mind, it has had a greater impact on greenhouse gas emissions than the Kyoto Protocol.
1988 - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formed to collate and assess evidence on climate change.
1989 - UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - possessor of a chemistry degree - warns in a speech to the UN that "We are seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere... The result is that change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto." She calls for a global treaty on climate change.
1989 - carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach six billion tonnes per year.
Graph of CO2 concentration
The CO2 concentration, as measured at Mauna Loa, has risen steadily
1990 - IPCC produces First Assessment Report. It concludes that temperatures have risen by 0.3-0.6C over the last century, that humanity's emissions are adding to the atmosphere's natural complement of greenhouse gases, and that the addition would be expected to result in warming.
1992 - at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, governments agree the United Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its key objective is "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system". Developed countries agree to return their emissions to 1990 levels.
1995 - IPCC Second Assessment Report concludes that the balance of evidence suggests "a discernible human influence" on the Earth's climate. This has been called the first definitive statement that humans are responsible for climate change.
1997 - Kyoto Protocol agreed. Developed nations pledge to reduce emissions by an average of 5% by the period 2008-2012, with wide variations on targets for individual countries. US Senate immediately declares it will not ratify the treaty.
1998 - strong El Nino conditions combine with global warming to produce the warmest year on record. The average global temperature reached 0.52C above the mean for the period 1961-1990 (a commonly-used baseline).
1998 - publication of the controversial "hockey stick" graph indicating that modern-day temperature rise in the northern hemisphere is unusual compared with the last 1,000 years. The work would later be the subject of two enquiries instigated by the US Congress.
Rajendra Pachauri
Rajendra Pachauri's IPCC netted the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007
1999 - human population reaches six billion.
2001 - President George W Bush removes the US from the Kyoto process.
2001 - IPCC Third Assessment Report finds "new and stronger evidence" that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause of the warming seen in the second half of the 20th Century.
2005 - the Kyoto Protocol becomes international law for those countries still inside it.
2005 - UK Prime Minister Tony Blair selects climate change as a priority for his terms as chair of the G8 and president of the EU.
2006 - the Stern Review concludes that climate change could damage global GDP by up to 20% if left unchecked - but curbing it would cost about 1% of global GDP.
2006 - carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach eight billion tonnes per year.
2007 - the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report concludes it is more than 90% likely that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases are responsible for modern-day climate change.
2007 - the IPCC and former US vice-president Al Gore receive the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".
2007 - at UN negotiations in Bali, governments agree the two-year "Bali roadmap" aimed at hammering out a new global treaty by the end of 2009.
2008 - half a century after beginning observations at Mauna Loa, the Keeling project shows that CO2 concentrations have risen from 315 parts per million (ppm) in 1958 to 380ppm in 2008.
2008 - two months before taking office, incoming US president Barack Obama pledges to "engage vigorously" with the rest of the world on climate change.
2009 - China overtakes the US as the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter - although the US remains well ahead on a per-capita basis.
2009 - 192 governments convene for the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
go to originalBy THOM SHANKER
Published: October 2, 2009
WASHINGTON — The paratroopers of Chosen Company had plenty to worry about as they began digging in at their new outpost on the fringe of a hostile frontier village in eastern Afghanistan.
Intelligence reports were warning of militants massing in the area. As the paratroopers looked around, the only villagers they could see were men of fighting age idling in the bazaar. There were no women and children, and some houses looked abandoned. Through their night scopes they could see furtive figures on the surrounding mountainsides.
A few days later, they were almost overrun by 200 insurgents.
That firefight, a debacle that cost nine American lives in July 2008, has become the new template for how not to win in Afghanistan. The calamity and its roots have been described in bitter, painstaking detail in an unreleased Army history, a devastating narrative that has begun to circulate in an initial form even as the military opened a formal review this week of decisions made up and down the chain of command.
The 248-page draft history, obtained by The New York Times, helps explain why the new commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is pressing so hard for a full-fledged commitment to a style of counterinsurgency that rests on winning over the people of Afghanistan even more than killing militants. The military has already incorporated lessons from the battle in the new doctrine for war in Afghanistan.
The history offers stark examples of shortcomings in the unit’s preparation, the style of combat it adopted, its access to intelligence, its disdain for the locals — in short, plenty of blame to go around.
Before the soldiers arrived, commanders negotiated for months with Afghan officials of dubious loyalty over where they could dig in, giving militants plenty of time to prepare for an assault.
Despite the suspicion that the militants were nearby, there were not enough surveillance aircraft over the lonely outpost — a chronic shortage in Afghanistan that frustrated Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates at the time. Commanders may have been distracted from the risky operation by the bureaucratic complexities of handing over responsibility at the brigade level to replacements — and by their urgent investigation of an episode that had enraged the local population, the killing a week earlier in an airstrike of a local medical clinic’s staff as it fled nearby fighting in two pickup trucks.
Above all, the unit and its commanders had an increasingly tense and untrusting relationship with the Afghan people.
The history cited the “absence of cultural awareness and understanding of the specific tribal and governance situation” and the emphasis on combat operations over the development of the local economy and other civil affairs, a reversal of the practices of the unit that had just left the area.
The battle of Wanat is being described as the “Black Hawk Down” of Afghanistan, with the 48 American soldiers and 24 Afghan soldiers outnumbered three to one in a four-hour firefight that left nine Americans dead and 27 wounded in one of the bloodiest days of the eight-year war.
Soldiers who survived the battle described how their automatic weapons turned white hot and jammed from nonstop firing. Mortally wounded troops continued to hand bullet belts to those still able to fire.
The ammunition stockpile was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, igniting a stack of 120-millimeter mortar rounds — and the resulting fireball flung the unit’s antitank missiles into the command post. One insurgent got inside the concertina wire and is believed to have killed three soldiers at close range, including the platoon commander, Lt. Jonathan P. Brostrom.
The description of the battle at Wanat — the heroism, the violence and the missteps that may have contributed to the deaths — ends with a judgment that the fight was “as remarkable as any small-unit action in American military history.”
The author, the military historian Douglas R. Cubbison, also included a series of criticisms in his review, sponsored by the Army’s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., that laid blame on a series of decisions made before the battle.
The draft report criticized the “lack of adequate preparation time” before arriving in Afghanistan, which meant there was little training geared specifically for Afghanistan, and not even a detailed operational plan for the year of combat that lay ahead.
Pentagon and military officials say those initial criticisms are being revised to reflect subsequent interviews with other soldiers and officers who were at Wanat or who served in higher-level command positions. After a round of revisions, the study will go through a formal peer-review process and be published.
The battle stands as proof that the United States is facing off against a sophisticated adversary in Afghanistan today, one that can fight anonymously with roadside bombs or stealthily with kidnappings — but also can operate like a disciplined armed force using well-rehearsed small-unit tactics to challenge the American military for dominance on the conventional battlefield.
Official judgment on whether errors were made by the unit on the ground or by any leaders up the chain of command will be determined by a new investigation opened this week by Gen. David H. Petraeus of United States Central Command at the urging of Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The call for such an independent review came from family members of the fallen, including David P. Brostrom, father of the slain platoon commander and himself a retired Army colonel, as well as from a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia.
The history is replete with wrong turns at every point of the unit’s mission, starting with the day it was reassigned to Afghanistan from training for Iraq.
After having served for more than a year in other hot zones of eastern Afghanistan, the platoon arrived in the village at dark on July 8, 2008, just two weeks from the day it was supposed to go home to its base in Italy.
The men wore their adopted unit emblem — skull patches fashioned after Marvel Comics’ antihero, the Punisher. They unloaded their Humvees, packed with weapons, water and the single rucksack each had kept when the rest of his kit was shipped home. They had plenty of ammunition.
But at the end of an intense tour of combat, they had run out of good relations with an increasingly distrustful population.
They named it Outpost Kahler, after a popular sergeant who had been killed by one of their own Afghan guards early that year. His last words as he moved ahead of his comrades to check whether their Afghan partners were asleep while on duty had been, “This might be dangerous.” (The shooting was ruled an accident, but relations between skeptical American troops and Afghan forces deteriorated.)
Although the 173rd Airborne Brigade had been scheduled to return to Iraq from its base in Italy, the need for forces to counter a resurgence of militant violence in eastern Afghanistan prompted new orders for the brigade to switch immediately to preparations for mountain warfare — many of the outposts were linked only by narrow, rutted trails, and some could be reached only be helicopter — and a wholly different culture and language. “Unfortunately, the comparatively late change of mission for the 173rd Airborne B.C.T. from Iraq to Afghanistan did not permit the brigade sufficient time to prepare any form of campaign plan,” the history reports.
The unit arrived at Wanat ill prepared for the hot work of building an outpost in the mountains in July; troops were thirsty from a lack of fresh water, and their one construction vehicle ran out of gas, so the unit was unable to complete basic fortifications. The soldiers had no local currency to buy favor by investing in the village economy, the history makes clear. The soldiers also said they complained up the chain of command about the lack of air surveillance over their dangerous corner of Afghanistan, but no more was provided.
Even as they settled into their spartan command post, the unit’s commanders were insulted to learn that local leaders were meeting together in a “shura,” or council, to which they were not invited — and which might even have been a session used to coordinate the assault on the Americans that began before dawn the very next morning.
The four-hour firefight finally ended when American warplanes and attack helicopters strafed insurgent positions. The paratroopers drove back the insurgents, but ended up abandoning the village 48 hours later
» A version of this article appeared in print on October 3, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.
go to originalBy JAD MOUAWAD and KATE GALBRAITH
Published: September 19, 2009
With two laptop-loving children and a Jack Russell terrier hemmed in by an electric fence, Peter Troast figured his household used a lot of power. Just how much power did not really hit him until the night the family turned off the overhead lights at their home in Maine and began hunting gadgets that glowed in the dark.
“It was amazing to see all these lights blinking,” Mr. Troast said.
As goes the Troast household, so goes the planet.
Electricity use from power-hungry gadgets is rising fast all over the world. The fancy new flat-panel televisions everyone has been buying in recent years have turned out to be bigger power hogs than some refrigerators.
The proliferation of personal computers, iPods, cellphones, game consoles and all the rest amounts to the fastest-growing source of power demand in the world. Americans now have about 25 consumer electronic products in every household, compared with just three in 1980.
Worldwide, consumer electronics now represent 15 percent of household power demand, and that is expected to triple over the next two decades, according to the International Energy Agency, making it more difficult to tackle the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming.
To satisfy the demand from gadgets will require building the equivalent of 560 coal-fired power plants, or 230 nuclear plants, according to the agency.
Most energy experts see only one solution: mandatory efficiency rules specifying how much power devices may use.
Appliances like refrigerators are covered by such rules in the United States. But efforts to cover consumer electronics like televisions and game consoles have been repeatedly derailed by manufacturers worried about the higher cost of meeting the standards. That has become a problem as the spread of such gadgets counters efficiency gains made in recent years in appliances.
In 1990, refrigerator efficiency standards went into effect in the United States. Today, new refrigerators are fancier than ever, but their power consumption has been slashed by about 45 percent since the standards took effect. Likewise, thanks in part to standards, the average power consumption of a new washer is nearly 70 percent lower than a new unit in 1990.
“Standards are one of the few ways to cheaply go after big chunks of energy savings,” said Chris Calwell, a founder and senior researcher at Ecos, a consulting firm that specializes in energy efficiency.
Part of the problem is that many modern gadgets cannot entirely be turned off; even when not in use, they draw electricity while they await a signal from a remote control or wait to record a television program.
“We have entered this new era where essentially everything is on all the time,” said Alan Meier, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a leading expert on energy efficiency.
People can, of course, reduce this waste — but to do so takes a single-minded person.
Mr. Troast, of South Freeport, Me., is just the kind of motivated homeowner willing to tackle such a project. His day job is selling energy efficiency equipment through an online business. He was not put off by the idea of hunting behind cabinets to locate every power supply and gadget, like those cable boxes, Web routers or computers that glowed in the dark.
The Troasts cut their monthly energy use by around 16 percent, partly by plugging their computers and entertainment devices into smart power strips. The strips turn off when the electronics are not in use, cutting power consumption to zero.
While Mr. Troast’s experience demonstrates that consumers can limit the power wasted by inactive devices, another problem is not as easily solved: many products now require large amounts of power to run.
The biggest offender is the flat-screen television. As liquid crystal displays and plasma technologies replace the old cathode ray tubes, and as screen sizes increase, the new televisions need more power than older models do. And with all those gorgeous new televisions in their living rooms, Americans are spending more time than ever watching TV, averaging five hours a day.
The result is a surge in electricity use by TVs, which can draw more power in a year than some refrigerators now on the market. Energy experts say that manufacturers have paid too little attention to the power consumption of televisions, in part because of the absence of federal regulation.
Another power drain is the video game console, which is found in 40 percent of American households. Energy experts — and many frustrated parents — say that since saving games is difficult, children often keep the consoles switched on so they can pick up where they left off.
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Noah Horowitz, at the Natural Resources Defense Council, calculated that the nation’s gaming consoles, like the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and the Sony PlayStation 3, now use about the same amount of electricity each year as San Diego, the ninth-largest city in country.
Mandatory efficiency standards for electronic devices would force manufacturers to redesign their products, or spend money adding components that better control power use. Many manufacturers fight such mandates because they would increase costs, and they also claim the mandates would stifle innovation in a fast-changing industry.
The government has never aggressively tackled the television issue because of opposition from the consumer electronics lobby in Washington, experts say. In 1987, before televisions had swelled into such power hogs, Congress gave the Energy Department — which generally carries out the standards — the option of setting efficiency rules for TVs.
But industry opposition derailed an effort in the 1990s to use that authority, according to Steve Nadel of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. A more recent attempt to require home electronics to use no more than one watt of power in standby mode met the same fate.
The federal government has moved forward on two standards for electronics, covering battery chargers and external power supplies, and those were authorized by Congress only in the last few years.
In the absence of federal action, a few states have moved on their own. The California Energy Commission just proposed new standards for televisions that would cut their power consumption in half by 2013. But that effort has set off a storm of protest from manufacturers and their trade group, the Consumer Electronics Association. (It is still expected to pass, in November.)
A spokesman for the industry said that government regulations could not keep up with the pace of technological change.
“Mandates ignore the fundamental nature of the industry that innovates due to consumer demand and technological developments, not regulations,” said Douglas Johnson, the senior director of technology policy at the association.
Mr. Johnson said that California’s limits on manufacturers, which he called arbitrary, might delay or even prohibit some features of new devices. Instead, he praised the government’s voluntary Energy Star program, which he says encourages efficiency without sacrificing innovation.
“Mandatory limits, such as we see in California, threaten to raise prices for consumers and reduce consumer choice,” he said.
Estimates vary regarding how much a mandatory efficiency program for gadgets would cost consumers. For some changes, like making sure devices draw minimal power in standby mode, experts say the cost may be only a few extra cents. At the other extreme, the most energy-efficient of today’s televisions can cost $100 more than the least energy-efficient. (That expense would be partly offset over time, of course, by lower power needs.)
Some types of home electronics are rated under Energy Star, a program that classifies products in more than 60 categories according to their energy consumption. But that program, while a boon to conscientious consumers who buy only the most efficient products, does not prevent the sale of wasteful devices and has not succeeded in driving them off the market.
The lack of regulation of gadgets is a notable contrast to the situation with appliances.
Congress adopted the nation’s first electrical efficiency standards in the 1980s, focusing initially on kitchen and other large appliances. That effort made some steep gains, particularly for refrigerators, which were once among the biggest power hogs in a typical home.
The federal effort lagged during the administration of George W. Bush, and the Energy Department missed a string of deadlines set by Congress. But the Obama administration has vowed to make maximum use of existing law, speeding up the adoption of 26 standards on a host of products that include microwave ovens and clothes dryers. Tougher lighting standards, embraced by both the Bush and Obama administrations, are due to take effect in coming years.
But Congress has never granted any administration the authority to set standards for power-hogging electronic gadgets like game consoles and set-top boxes. Even now, when both the administration and Congress are focused on the nation’s energy problems, no legislation is moving forward to tackle the issue.
Experts like Dan W. Reicher, who directs Google’s energy efforts, argue that the United States must do better, setting an example for the rest of the world.
“If we can’t improve the efficiency of simple appliances and get them into greater use,” Mr. Reicher said, “it’s hard to believe that we’ll succeed with difficult things like cleaning up coal-fired power plants.”
go to original Thu Sep 3, 3:11 pm ET
On September 8, in what the Department of Education is touting as a "historic" speech, President Obama will be talking directly to students across the U.S., live on the White House website. But some parents and conservatives are blasting the president, calling the speech an excuse to brainwash American children.
Last month, in an interview with 11-year-old student reporter Damon Weaver, the president announced his big back-to-school plan:
"I'm going to be making a big speech to young people all across the country about the importance of education; about the importance of staying in school; how we want to improve our education system and why it’s so important for the country. So I hope everybody tunes in."
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter to the nation's principals, inviting schools to watch the speech and included suggested classroom activities. But Jim Greer, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, came out swinging against the planned speech. An excerpt from his statement:
"The address scheduled for September 8, 2009, does not allow for healthy debate on the President's agenda, but rather obligates the youngest children in our public school system to agree with our President's initiatives or be ostracized by their teachers and classmates."
NBC spoke with Katie Gordon, a spokeswoman for the Florida Republican Party, who said the party's "beef" is with the accompanying lesson plans. The guide for pre-K through grade 6 suggests questions students think about during the speech, such as "What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do?"
The plan for grades 7-12 includes a "guided discussion," with suggested topics: "What resonated with you from President Obama's speech? What is President Obama inspiring you to do?"
The Cato Institute, a public-policy research foundation, issued a press release entitled "Hey Obama, Leave Those Kids Alone," criticizing the "troubling buzzwords" in the lesson plans:
"It's one thing for a president to encourage all kids to work hard and stay in school – that's a reasonable use of the bully pulpit. It's another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to public schools nationwide on how to glorify the president and the presidency, and push them to drive social change."
Across the blogosphere, comments covered the spectrum, from critical to supportive, and from one student, a little anger:
"I sent my children to school to be educated NOT indoctrinated." — justamom
"The fact that people want to keep their kids from hearing the President of the United States encourage them to do well in school shows a true level of ignorance." — Firefey
"As an [sic] 9th grade student, I'd like to say that 1. I'm not sure why everyone is so scared that we'll all be brainwashed by the President ... 2. My school is one that is not allowing us to watch the speech, and quite frankly, I'm pissed." — Willbw
Both Presidents George Bush and Ronald Reagan both gave speeches aimed specifically at students that were nationally televised. In 1989, Bush delivered a televised anti-drug speech, and Reagan's 1986 commencement speech and Q&A session was "beamed over public television into 171 school districts," according to the L.A. Times.
It's worth noting that schools are, encouraged, not required, to air the speech. The Houston Chronicle reports that one Dallas school district is leaving the decision to individual teachers. Susan Dacus, spokeswoman for the Wylie school district, says parents who don't want their children to see it can opt out.
In an ironic twist, one Missouri school won't be airing the speech because of a lack of funding. Michelle Baumstark, spokeswoman for Columbia public schools, told the Columbia Daily Tribune, "We don’t have the funding or the equipment to support that type of broadcasting.”
— Lili Ladaga
Yahoo! News bloggers compile the best news content from our providers and scour the Web for the most interesting news stories so you don't have to.
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By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland – Wed Sep 2, 8:36 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will seek to boost flagging support for health care reform next week with a rare speech to Congress after a rocky summer raised questions both about his leadership and legislative program.
Obama, who has staked significant political capital on a broad plan to overhaul the $2.5 trillion healthcare industry, will make his speech to a joint session of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on September 9, an administration official said.
The address comes as falling poll numbers and rising opposition to his reform plans have prodded the president to develop a new strategy for striking a deal.
White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Obama will address Congress because the health care debate has entered a new phase.
"Now we have to pull the final strands together and get this done," Axelrod told reporters. "We at a different stage in this debate and he'll be discussing where we are and what we have to do to get those final 10 yards to get this done."
Democratic and Republican lawmakers return next week from a monthlong recess punctuated by widely publicized town hall meetings that saw bitter shouting matches over health care.
Obama has broad goals of reducing health care costs and bringing medical insurance to the some 46 million Americans who do not have it. But opposition has focused on the "public option" -- a proposed government-run health insurance plan that Obama supports as an alternative option to private insurance.
The White House, stung by coordinated resistance by Republicans and tepid support from some Democrats -- some of whom wanted the White House to be more involved in the legislative battle -- signaled a sharper tone as a push toward passage of a bill intensifies.
"Congress is coming back from recess and over the last few days key Republicans have made it abundantly clear that they are not seriously interested in a bipartisan solution," said Dan Pfeiffer, White House deputy communications director.
Republicans, sensing a possible Democratic soft spot ahead of next year's mid-term elections, said a big new public speech was not the answer.
"Obviously, we want to hear what the President has to say, but the American people don't want a new speech, they want a new plan," said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Republican Leader John Boehner.
"We need to scrap the Democrats' government takeover of health care and start over on a real, bipartisan plan for reform," he said.
SEEKING COMPROMISE
A senior Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the "new phase" was driven in part by negative comments from two Republican senators, Charles Grassley and Mike Enzi, who have been part of a bipartisan Senate "Gang of Six" group seeking a compromise.
The official said Obama felt it was time to pull together various strands from several bills that have been debated on Capitol Hill as well as other proposals.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has set a September 15 deadline for his Gang of Six to come up with a bipartisan plan, saying that otherwise he is ready to push a bill through the committee with only Democratic support.
The "gang" is meeting via teleconference Friday.
"Attacks by political operatives in the White House undermine bipartisan efforts and drive senators away from the table," Grassley spokeswoman Jill Kozeny said.
In the past month, Americans surveyed in polls have shown increasing concern about Obama's handling of health care and his popularity with voters has declined.
A CBS News poll Tuesday said most Americans found health care proposals discussed in Congress confusing and thought Obama had not clearly explained his plans to overhaul the system, his top legislative priority.
"The Democrats lost control of the debate on health care and they need to seize the initiative and show people what they are going to do," said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
Obama still wants the "public option" on health insurance, which is favored by his liberal base. But it is strongly opposed by the insurance industry, and many lawmakers doubt such an option could pass in the Senate, already unnerved by its nearly $1 trillion pricetag.
As a result, Obama and his aides have put less emphasis on the public option in recent weeks, stressing instead that he wants to increase choice and competition through the most acceptable means possible.
(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Thomas Ferraro, Donna Smith and Ross Colvin; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
go to originalAugust 20, 2009 | 5:18 pm
Now this is really it.
Aiming to create a cinematic happening out of the theatrical release of its newly acquired Michael Jackson movie, Sony announced today that “Michael Jackson: This Is It” will arrive in theaters for a limited two-week run on Oct. 28 — two days earlier than its original release date.
And in an attempt to stoke fan anticipation for the film — which includes more than 80 hours of behind-the-scenes and rehearsal footage shot in the lead-up to Jackson’s sold-out London comeback concerts — the studio is taking the unusual step of putting tickets on sale Sept. 27, more than a month before the film arrives at multiplexes.
“As we began assembling the footage for the motion picture we realized we captured something extraordinary, unique and very special,” said the film’s director, Kenny Ortega, in a statement. Ortega, the director-choreographer behind Disney’s lucrative “High School Musical” TV-movie franchise and the movie “Dirty Dancing,” as well as Jackson’s creative partner on his Dangerous and HIStory tours, worked closely with the performer up until his death as director of Jackson’s This Is It concerts.
“For the first time ever, fans will see Michael as they have never seen him before — this great artist at work. It is raw, emotional, moving and powerful footage that captures his interactions with the ‘This Is It’ collaborators that he had personally assembled for this once in a lifetime project,” said Ortega.
Disney made successful use of a similarly unorthodox release strategy for its 3-D concert movie “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds.” That film’s limited two-week engagement in February 2008 drove attendance in its opening weekend, resulting in “Best of Both Worlds” becoming a surprise No. 1 hit.
Moving “This Is It’s” release date to Oct. 28 from Oct. 30 also makes solid tactical sense for Sony.
Halloween, which falls this year on a Saturday, typically the biggest day of the week for movie attendance, is one of the toughest weekends of the year at the U.S. box office, although the date finds a natural correlation with one of the songs included in “This Is It”: Jackson’s ghoulishly themed smash hit “Thriller.”
Contrary to earlier reports, the filmmakers confirmed that “This Is It” will not contain sequences shot in 3-D.
— Chris Lee
Photo: Michael Jackson. Credit: Kevin Mazur/AEG Getty Images
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By ANNE GEARAN, AP National Security Writer Anne Gearan, Ap National Security Writer – 2 hrs 4 mins ago
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's national security adviser did not rule out adding more U.S. forces in Afghanistan to help turn around a war that he said on Sunday is not now in crisis.
James Jones, a retired Marine general with experience in Afghanistan, said the United States will know "by the end of next year" whether the revamped war plan Obama announced in March is taking hold.
The administration is redefining how it will measure progress, with new benchmarks that reflect a redrawn strategy. An outline is expected next month.
Making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows, Jones did little to dispel the growing expectation that Obama soon will be asked to supplement the 21,000 additional forces he already approved for Afghanistan this year.
"We won't rule anything out," but the new strategy is too fresh for a full evaluation, Jones said.
"If things come up where we need to adjust one way or the other, and it involves troops or it involves more incentives ... for economic development or better assistance to help the Afghan government function, we'll do that."
The Obama plan is supposed to combine a more vigorous military campaign against the Taliban with a commitment to protect Afghan civilians and starve the insurgents of sanctuary and popular support. It envisions a large development effort led by civilians, which has not fully happened, and a rapid expansion of the Afghan armed forces to eventually take over responsibility for security.
"If we can get that done ... we will know that fairly quickly," Jones said.
The New York Times reported Sunday that the Pentagon has created a target list of Afghan drug traffickers to be captured or killed. Citing interviews with two U.S. generals in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report to be released this week, the Times said the strategy is aimed at disrupting the flow of drug money used to finance Taliban insurgents.
The system to measure progress in Afghanistan is several weeks from completion. It reflects creeping congressional skepticism about the war and its costs. The United States has spent more than $220 billion since the U.S.-led invasion of 2001, plus billions for more toward aid and development projects. By the United States' own admission, much of the aid money was wasted.
Members of the House Appropriations Committee wrote recently that they are worried about "the prospects for an open-ended U.S. commitment to bring stability to a country that has a decades-long history of successfully rebuffing foreign military intervention and attempts to influence internal politics."
The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Sunday he does not know how Congress would react to a new request for additional troops.
"It depends on what the facts and the arguments are," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "It depends what our commanders in the field say. It depends also I think in part what our NATO allies are willing to do."
Appearing with him, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., warned against repeating what he called the mistake of committing too few troops to Iraq at the start of the war.
"My message to my Democratic colleagues is that we made mistakes in Iraq. Let's not 'Rumsfeld' Afghanistan," Graham said, referring to former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld resisted sending a very large U.S. force at the outset of the Iraq war in 2003.
"Let's don't do this thing on the cheap," Graham said. He said he will "be shocked if more troops are not requested by our commanders."
Violence has spiked this year, with roadside bombs the militants' weapon of choice. There are relatively few direct firefights. There are signs the Taliban is pursuing a classic tactic of a smaller, weaker enemy waiting out a larger, militarily superior one.
Deaths among U.S. and other NATO troops have soared. With 74 foreign troops killed — including 43 Americans — July was the deadliest month for international forces since the start of the war in 2001.
There are currently 62,000 U.S. troops and 39,000 allied forced in Afghanistan, on top of about 175,000 Afghan soldiers and police. Some NATO countries plan to withdraw their troops in the next couple of years, even as the U.S. ramps up its presence.
The newly installed top U.S. general in Afghanistan is preparing an interim assessment that is expected to be a sober accounting of the difficulties of fighting an entrenched and technically capable insurgency eight years into the war. Gen. Stanley McChrystal is expected to identify shortfalls that should be filled by more forces — perhaps a mix of Afghan, NATO and U.S.
His report had been expected this week but is now delayed at least until after the Afghan national elections on Aug. 20.
U.S. officials have said they are neutral on the election's outcome so long as voting comes off smoothly and with a minimum of irregularities. Jones cited the elections as evidence of progress. He rejected the idea that a secret, hastily arranged gathering of the top U.S. defense officials in Europe last weekend carried a whiff of desperation.
"No, I don't think we're at a crisis level ... or that there's going to be any movement on the ground by the Taliban that's going to overthrow the government. We're going to have, I think, a good election," Jones said.
Jones appeared on "Fox News Sunday," NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS' "Face the Nation." Levin and Graham were on CBS.
