If the F.B.I determined that a crime had all ready been committed by Harman in the undermining of the Aipac investigation and 9 time delayed trial. Why oh why that investigation came to a halt is troubling and hate to say it par for the course.

Harman’s interaction with a foreign agent should be fully investigated

Winograd 2010
http://www.winogradforcongress.com/

Looks like it doesn’t take much to rattle the Villagers, whether of the media or the office holder variety. I will donate.

I have not lived in Southern California for awhile, but if my memory is correct, Harmon’s district is quite diverse with both quite liberal and conservative communities. Wonder if Harmon might be distasteful to both ends of the (thoughtful) political spectrum now, with her bland and mindless liberal hawkish stands, and very odd involvement with international influence peddling (and that is putting a charitable face on it).

I think some of the pounding on Obama for Afghanistan is overly harsh. After all, he inherited 7 years of Cheney/Bush incompetence and bad faith. However, I think we can strongly push for better counter terrorism policies without harshing Obama’s mellow. And of course, should ignore any of the WH or Democratic whining about shrill ‘leftists’. At this point, we should get past this silly ‘shrill leftist’ talk. It is a matter of evaluating whether the past approach has worked or not. I don’t think it has.

Since the Iraq invasion, I have not been following some of the organizations in Afghanistan that presented more promising views. Below is a clip from the Revolutionary Women of Afghanistan. And a link to Afghan Civil Society Forum (I do not know what direction this group has taken over the last 6 years or so, but I guess it is a start for searching the internet for more represenative voices of ordinary Afghans). But, I think they have better ideas for moving forward than the more of the same policy that we will ever hear from the US foreign policy establishment. They are opposed to, or skeptical of, concentrating too much on military security efforts.

Video: Afghanistan Women Say No More Troops
Revolutionary Women of Afghanistan
http://www.rawa.org/rawa/2009/10/11/video-afghanistan-women-say-no-more-troops.html

http://www.acsf.af/English/left_main.html

The ACSF is more of a forum, and the currently featured article is by an Afghani who thinks the presidential election is a succes (if I read it correctly), but it does make the point that widespread poverty is undermining security efforts, and current policies are not addressing poverty.

My view is that unless an order of magnitude more money and assistance is given to ordinary Afghans in any area as soon as security permits it, then money on security is wasted.

Also, the US has to get away from the view that attempting to force the empty forms of our style of democracy on other countries is the second thing to do, after killing the ‘bad guys’. Does any one think that forcing Afghanistan to hold an American style first-past-the post presidential election has done any good, at this point?