Geert Wilders Trial a 21st Century Dreyfus Case

That's my take-away from Douglas Murray's blog coverage in The Telegraph (UK):

There is nothing hyperbolic in stating that a trial which has just started in Holland will have unparalleled significance for the future of Europe. It is not just about whether our culture will survive, but whether we are even allowed to state the fact that it is being threatened.

The trial of Geert Wilders has garnered hardly any attention in the mainstream press here. [NOTE: Also true in USA] Fortunately the blogosphere can correct some of this.

Wilders is a Dutch MP and leader of Holland’s fastest-growing party, the Party for Freedom. Just a few years ago he was the sole MP for his party. The latest polls show that his party could win the biggest number of seats of any party in Holland when the voters next go to the polls.

His stances have clearly chimed with the Dutch people. They include an end to the era of mass immigration, an end to cultural relativism, and an end to the perceived suborning of European values to Islamic ones. For saying this, and more, he has for many years had to live under round-the-clock security protection. Which you would have thought proves the point to some extent.

Now the latest attempt of the Dutch ruling class to keep Wilders from office has begun. Last week, apparently because of the number of complaints they have received (trial by vote anyone?) the trial of Wilders began.

The Dutch courts charge that Wilders ‘on multiple occasions, at least once, (each time) in public, orally, in writing or through images, intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion’.

I’m sorry? Whoa there, just a minute. The man’s on trial because he ‘offended a group of people’? I get offended by all sorts of people. I get offended by very fat people. I get offended by very thick people. I get offended by very sensitive people. I get offended by the crazy car-crash of vowels in Dutch verbs. But I don’t try to press charges.

Yet, crazily, this is exactly what is going on now in a Dutch courtroom. If found guilty of this Alice-in-Wonderland accusation of ‘offending a group of people’, Wilders faces up to two years in prison.

If anyone doubts the surreal nature of the proceedings now going on they should simply look through the summons which is available in an English translation here. It shows that Wilders is on trial for his film Fitna. And for various things he has said in articles and interviews in the Dutch press.

Now some people liked Fitna and some people didn’t. That’s a matter of choice. But by any previous interpretation it is not the job of courts in democratic countries to become film-critics. In fact it would create a very bad precedent. I thought the latest Alec Baldwin film stank. But I don’t think (though the temptation lingers) Baldwin should go to prison for it.

State of the Union: Obama Lays an Egg

Worst mistake, IMHO, the President's line about "unity in diversity." That's the national motto of Indonesia, not the United States of America. In future, the President might try to avoid reference to Americans as "they" or "them," and avoid saying concerns are "theirs." He's our President, he works for us, and that means our problems are his problems, too. His scolding, hectoring tone, his thin-skinned resentment of criticism, and his demand that people stop complaining reminded me of George Bush I & II. Seeing all those cutaways to a smiling Tim Geithner made me want to throw up.

Finally, anyone who talks about quitting in public, as the President did in the State of the Union, reminds me of Nixon's last public statement on Aug. 8, 1974: "I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President I must put the interests of America first . . . Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow."

And then, in my email this morning, I found this from President Obama:

Larry --

I just finished delivering my first State of the Union, and I wanted to send you a quick note.

We face big and difficult challenges. Change on the scale we seek does not come easily. But I will never accept second place for the United States of America.

That is why I called for a robust jobs bill without delay. It's why I proposed a small businesses tax credit, new investments in infrastructure, and pushed for climate legislation to create a clean energy economy.

It's why we're taking on big banks, reforming Wall Street, revitalizing our education system, increasing transparency -- and finishing the job on health insurance reform.

It's why I need your help -- because I am determined to fight to defend the middle class, and special interest lobbyists will go all out to fight us.

Help me show that the American people are ready to join this fight for the middle class -- add your name to a letter to Congress today:

http://my.barackobama.com/SOTU

We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But we don't quit. I don't quit.

Let's seize this moment -- to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more.

President Barack Obama

MEMO TO THE PRESIDENT: (1) Get some new speechwriters; (2) Get a new speech coach; (3) Fire Tim Geithner!

The iPad Has Landed...

Glad Spyker Bought Saab!

Bloomberg has this story with a happy ending. (Full disclosure: I drive a Saab).

Garry Apgar: Scandalous Exploitation of a Chinese Teacher in New Haven

From the New Haven Register:

I am deeply disturbed by the treatment of Haiyan Bai, a citizen of China hired to teach Chinese at Hamden High School who was wrongfully dismissed from the job.

I believe she was fired because she requested full payment of her compensation and, when that failed, demanded payment through her attorney.

Bai began teaching in August, yet she was not paid anything until Oct. 9, when she received $800 plus a $1,000 stipend for transportation.

The May 29 “letter of appointment” signed by Hamlet Hernandez, Hamden’s assistant school superintendent, promised a salary of $26,967 and a housing benefit of $8,500.

The schools deducted the housing benefit and a sizeable chunk of her salary from her paycheck. So far, she has received only $5,150, less than one-fifth of the promised salary.

Bai was arrested Dec. 20 based on an altercation in her apartment with her roommate, a Chinese teacher at Hamden Middle School, who, Bai says, filed a false complaint. The charges were summarily dismissed Jan. 8 in Superior Court.

The roommate, also paid a fraction of her salary, has not pursued the matter. She retains her job.

Less than a day after the arrest, and never seeking Bai’s side of the story, Hernandez gave the high school Chinese teacher position to a long-term substitute teacher.

The same day, Bai got an e-mail from Hanban, the Chinese agency that recruited her to teach in the United States, ordering her home.

Bai was called before her principal, department head and Hernandez Dec. 22. Although she is on leave as a university professor of American and English literature in China, English is not her first language. Yet, she was not given the benefit of a translator or the moral support of a colleague at the meeting, where she was asked to help find her own replacement, then effectively fired.

At that point, she and Hernandez already had been at odds for weeks over pay and other terms of her employment.

Hernandez was quoted in the Register, saying Bai’s “employment stopped because the College Board (which acts as an agent matching schools in the U.S. with teachers furnished by Hanban) released her, and she is no longer a member of the guest teacher program.”

That is a subterfuge.

On Jan. 8, an attorney for the College Board Chinese Guest Teachers Program, in a conversation with Bai’s attorney, Peter Ricciardi, “was very clear” that the College Board did not hire Bai and therefore “could not fire” her, but added that it had been asked by Hamden to fire her.

“College Board was quite confident that (the) arrest would provide everyone with sufficient cover for their actions,” said Ricciardi. The lawyer, Ricciardi said, “was quite concerned” when told there was a good chance the court would dismiss the case, which it did.

There were never any grounds for Bai’s firing.

Hamden school officials have not asserted, nor can they, that she was negligent or delinquent in her duties.
Students and parents made eloquent, respectful pleas to the Board of Education Jan. 12 to reinstate a teacher whose work has been universally hailed. The pleas fell on deaf ears.

Bai was dismissed for insisting on her rights. A Freedom of Information request has been filed with the Hamden schools and the College Board that can provide more proof to strengthen her case.

Bai’s visa, pulled as a result of the wrongful actions of the Hamden schools and the College Board, expires Friday. If her job is not restored before then, she is obliged to leave the country.

A week ago, when I expressed outrage to an administrator about Bai’s treatment, I was told she should be glad she’s not back in China, where things probably would be much worse. When I said that was no excuse to abuse her, I was told that Bai is not “one of us.”

Tragically, school administrators are trying to force Bai to China to face consequences, not of her making, that might lead to the end of her academic career there, and economic hardship. She appears to have fewer rights in America than Sept. 11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

I urge readers to demand that Hamden restore Bai to her job. Members of the school board should know they must answer to voters for their negligence, if they run again for office.
 
Garry Apgar teaches French at Hamden High School. Write to him at 40 Bennett St., Bridgeport 06605. E-mail: GarryApgar@gmail.com.

The Lancet Criticizes NGOs

Over their Haitian relief efforts...From the current issue [free, but registration required] (ht AidWatch):

Politicians and the media make easy targets for criticism. But there is another group involved in disaster relief, which has largely escaped public scrutiny—the aid sector, now undoubtedly an industry in its own right. Aid agencies and humanitarian organisations do exceptional work in difficult circumstances. But some large charities could make their good work even better. The Lancet has been observing aid agencies and NGOs for several years and has also spoken with staff members working for major charities. Several themes have emerged from these conversations. Large aid agencies and humanitarian organisations are often highly competitive with each other. Polluted by the internal power politics and the unsavoury characteristics seen in many big corporations, large aid agencies can be obsessed with raising money through their own appeal efforts. Media coverage as an end in itself is too often an aim of their activities. Marketing and branding have too high a profile. Perhaps worst of all, relief efforts in the field are sometimes competitive with little collaboration between agencies, including smaller, grass-roots charities that may have have better networks in affected counties and so are well placed to immediately implement emergency relief.

Given the ongoing crisis in Haiti, it may seem unpalatable to scrutinise and criticise the motives and activities of humanitarian organisations. But just like any other industry, the aid industry must be examined, not just financially as is current practice, but also in how it operates from headquarter level to field level. It seems increasingly obvious that many aid agencies sometimes act according to their own best interests rather than in the interests of individuals whom they claim to help. Although many aid agencies do important work, humanitarianism is no longer the ethos for many organisations within the aid industry. For the people of Haiti and those living in parallel situations of destruction, humanitarianism remains the most crucial motivation and means for intervention.

Serves Them Right!

The Guardian reports:

The Church of England has lost £40m from a disastrous investment in a buyout of two vast Manhattan housing complexes, Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, that collapsed into default after struggling under huge debts incurred at the peak of the US property bubble.

Home to 25,000 people, the two redbrick housing estates comprise 56 buildings along New York's East River. Completed shortly after the second world war, they are known as one of the few remaining bastions of affordable living among the multimillion-dollar tower blocks of lower Manhattan.

They were bought for $5.4bn (£2.86bn then) in 2006 by a consortium led by a New York investment firm, Tishman Speyer, and the fund management group BlackRock, in the biggest US residential property deal on record. But after struggling for months to keep up repayments on loans attached to the buyout, Tishman today handed over the entire estates to its creditors, making the deal a landmark victim of the plunge in property values.

Simon Johnson: Replace Bernanke with Krugman

From Baseline Scenario (ht Huffington Post):

The support for Bernanke in the Senate hangs by a thread – with Harry Reid providing a message of support, albeit lukewarm, after the markets close. The White House is telling people that if Bernanke is not reconfirmed there will be chaos in the markets and the economic recovery will be derailed. This is incorrect.

The danger here is uncertainty – the markets fear a prolonged policy vacuum. Fortunately, there is a way to address this. Ben Bernanke should withdraw and the president should nominate Paul Krugman to take his place.

Paul Krugman is an expert on monetary policy – he wrote the classic paper on balance of payments crises (and probably could have got the Nobel Prize just for that), his work on Japan in the 1990s shaped everyone’s thinking of how to handle potential deflation, and his assessment of the crisis and needed response in fall 2008 was right on the money.

Krugman is known to many academics as a trade theorist and as a pioneering modeler of growth with increasing returns. But just because Keynes wrote eloquently on Indian currency reform did not prevent him from also understanding what had gone wrong with the world economy – and how to substantially fix it.

Krugman also has exactly the paper trail that you would like to see from any potential Fed chair. He has written pointedly and with complete clarity about all the leading policy issues of the day.

There is no question where he stands, for example, on “too big to fail” financial institutions: he’s opposed and would push for fundamental financial reform and tough oversight.

Masterpiece Theatre's Emma

Watched it last night with someone I know, and we both enjoyed it thoroughly--especially Michael Gambon as Mr. Woodhouse and the rest of the supporting cast. The only discordant note was leading lady Romola Garai, as a poor man's Gwyneth Paltrow (and a pale imitation indeed). She was hard to watch, with her simpering, bug-eyed mugging, and botox-frozen, collagen-puffed expressions, along with a lot of eyebrow-wiggling and shoulder-hunching.

Still, the horse-drawn carriages, the clip-clop and jingling on the soundtrack, the attention to soup spoons being used the right way, the stately mansions, the sumptuous interiors, and the costumes (though some looked a little too off-the rack--for example, Michael Gambon's Pashmina) reminded one of Masterpiece Theatre's glory days. A blast from the past...except, unfortunately, Laura Linney is no Alistair Cooke.

He's Baaaaaaaack....on Al Jazeera

What Has Happened to Scientific American?

Saw this post on my university library blog, and couldn't believe what I was reading...

A Sad Farewell to Scientific American
Posted: January 18, 2010 at 9:00 am by Sue Vazakas in Online Resources |
Once upon a time (1845), there was a magazine called The Advocate of Industry and Enterprise, and Journal of Mechanical and Other Improvements. Soon, with the mercifully shorter title of Scientific American, this publication became the way that the country kept informed about progress and events in science and technology.

Written for the layperson, Scientific American is a chronicle of American innovation. The phonograph, the automobile, televisions, computers, rocket ships, the artificial heart - SA’s writers, including more than 160 Nobel laureates, explain it all. However, at the end of 2009, Eisenhower Library stopped receiving print copies, and at the end of May of this year, we will no longer have online access to issues from January 1, 1995 to May 31, 2010.

This sad circumstance is the result of the sale of the magazine to Nature Publishing Group. Nature tripled the prices and ignored all pleas to reconsider its treatment of America’s oldest continuously published magazine. Libraries across the US are refusing to continue subscribing under these conditions, and MSEL’s librarians made this same decision, with heavy hearts.

MSEL does own many years in various formats, including online (1845-1908; 1998-2003), print (1927-2009), and microfilm (1845-2007). (Or, read articles from 1846-1869 at Cornell University Library’s “Making of America” site.)

We don’t yet know whether Nature will allow any other vendors to carry current issues, but we’ll keep you informed.

I have a personal soft spot for the magazine, due to the articles below published by my father and my cousin in Scientific American:

1. Sci Am. 1964 Apr;210:29-37.
THE HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS.
BARRON F, JARVIK ME, BUNNELL S Jr.

2. Sci Am. 1981 Jan;244(1):74-80.
THE TOTAL ARTIFICIAL HEART
JARVIK RK.

Bye, Bye, Geithner...

Thank you, Senator-Elect Scott Brown! From The Washington Post:

For much of last year, Paul Volcker wandered the country arguing for tougher restraints on big banks while the Obama administration pursued a more moderate regulatory agenda driven by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.

Thursday morning at the White House, it seemed as if the two men had swapped places. A beaming Volcker stood at Obama's right as the president endorsed his proposal and branded it the "Volcker Rule." Geithner stood farther away, compelled to accommodate a stance he once considered less effective than his own.

The moment was the product of Volcker's persistence and a desire by the White House to impose sharper checks on the financial industry than Geithner had been advocating, according to some government sources and political analysts. It was Obama's most visible break yet from the reform philosophy that Geithner and his allies had been promoting earlier.

Senior administration officials say there is now broad consensus within the White House and the Treasury for the plan advanced by Volcker, who leads an outside economic advisory group for the president. At its heart, Volcker's plan restricts banks from making speculative investments that do not benefit their customers. He has argued that such speculative activity played a key role in the financial crisis. The administration also wants to limit the ability of the largest banks to use borrowed money to fund expansion plans.

The proposals, which require congressional approval, are the most explicit restrictions the administration has tried to impose on the banking industry. It will help to have Volcker, a legendary former Federal Reserve chairman who garners respect on both sides of the aisle, on Obama's side as the White House makes a final push for a financial reform bill on Capitol Hill, a senior official noted.

IMHO, Much of Obama's problem with health care legislation is due to lingering bad odor from the Paulson/Geithner "bailout" and "stimulus" packages. Having a confessed tax cheat as Secretary of the Treasury undermines confidence in the US Government as well as the Obama Administration.

Plus, in the American mind, big banks are like big insurance companies. Americans don't trust them, and so clearly can't trust legislation that puts them at the center of anything--much less mandates buying their services. Obama should be able to pass health care legislation, IMHO, but only after he cleans up the banking mess to the satisfaction of the electorate--and changes the legislation in order to favor the needs of the mass of American citizens over those of insurance companies or special-interest groups (such as Nebraskans, abortion advocates, or unions).

The Message of Scott Brown's Victory in Massachusetts

IMHO, "Throw the Bums Out"

Which means insiders are in danger, while outsiders have electoral potential, in 2010. Obama could survive this electoral setback, as did Clinton and Reagan in similar situations, by sacrificing insiders and bringing in some talented and credible outsiders.

Bye, bye Geithner...

Simon Johnson on What Obama Needs to Do Now

From BaselineScenario.com:

Think of it this way. If the Democrats lose badly in November – as seems likely, with their current weak and unconvincing narrative about the financial crisis and origins of our mass unemployment – then President Obama’s reelection campaign will be a long struggle to redefine the message, presumably towards finding something he has changed in a major way. In that context, strong attempted action against the power of big banks would appeal to the left, center, and even part of the right. Why wait for defeat in November before making this switch?

Run hard now, against the big banks. If they oppose the administration, this will make their power more blatant – and just strengthen the case for breaking them up. And if the biggest banks stay quiet, so much the better – go for even more sensible reform to constrain reckless risk-taking in the financial sector.

When you are running against opponents with bottomless resources, great hubris, and a profoundly anti-democratic bent, get them to speak early and often in as public a manner as possible. Dig up and publish everything there is to know about them. Review and forward the details of how JP Morgan was humbled over Northern Securities and how John D. Rockefeller was finally brought to account.

FDR’s favorite president was Andrew Jackson. The White House might like to read up on why – Jackson confronted, ran against, and ultimately defeated, the specter of concentrated financial power. President Obama needs to do the same.

Gary Anderson on the US Military Mission in Haiti

From Small Wars Journal (ht Tom Ricks, NPR website):

For military personnel assigned to conduct humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations (HA/DR) in Haiti who might be looking to the Small Wars Journal for some help, I’ll offer some thoughts from someone who has done a few of these things and studied them extensively.

Let the Assessment Drive the Operation. HA/DR should be a “recon pull” operation; it is maneuver welfare. If you get the assessment wrong, you will end up clogging scarce airport ramps and offloading piers with unneeded supplies while the things you really need will wait in line. And remember that assessment is continuous. You will find yourself in different stages of the operations in different places. Don’t be afraid to use non- traditional sources such as reporters, NGOs, and missionaries in the ongoing assessment. That angry reporter or Non Governmental Organization (NGO) worker, who wants to know why nothing has been done for village X, has just given you a piece of your assessment puzzle.

Remember the Little Things. As soon as possible, get permission to fly non Department of Defense personnel in military aircraft. This should be SOP, but somehow it always gets overlooked until some overly officious Air Force Master Sergeant won’t let a desperately needed civilian doctor on an airplane.

Sea Base the Operation as Much as Possible. Every American who spends the night on shore is one less Haitian that will get food or water that day. Ruthlessly weed out uniformed “tourists” who don’t have a real function.

Wherever Possible, Use Local Security Forces to Secure Distribution Sites. The last thing you need to have on CNN is American troops clubbing desperate villagers like baby seals at a relief distribution site. If needed, put Haitian police on the first helicopter into a relief landing zone; then bring in the relief supplies.

The Best Thing the American Military can Supply is Transportation and Communications.

The NGOs and International Organizations (IOs) are pros at this. However, their normal means of transportation and communications will be down initially. They will get supplies to the major cities and will have some supplies in warehouses - but they will need help with retail distribution. Your helicopters, air cushioned landing craft, and radios are what you can really bring to the fight. Whatever you do, don’t do air drops - you are likely to kill more people than you help by crushing them with pallets or by starting riots.

Keep Your Relations with NGOs and IOs Professional. Most of these people are more likely to join the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps, but they are professionals in their own fields and will be as results oriented as you are in their own way. Some have never dealt with the military before and may have an attitude when you first meet them. The best way to confront that is head on. Tell them, “We are both here to get a job done. Let’s leave our personal feelings at the door, you may even find that I’m not a war criminal.”

Don’t Get Involved With the Disposal of Human Remains. Think how you’d feel watching your grandmother shoved into a ditch by a Russian bulldozer. CARE and some of the other major NGOs are funded and know how to stand up ad hoc mortuary companies to bury people in ways acceptable to the local culture. This will also get some needed money pumped into the economy. They are also smart enough to keep an eye on the local entrepreneurs. At some point in the operation, they will start to run short of bodies. Gruesome as it sounds, some of these people in past disasters have dug up bodies to get paid for burying them multiple times. You would never have thought of that; leave that sort of thing to the pros. While we are on the subject, the NGOs and IOs are pretty good at deciding when it is time to stop delivering prepackaged emergency rations and start providing things like raw rice and cooking oil.

Avoid Going High Tech. Mobile surgical field hospitals and reverse water treatment purification units (ROWPUs) are wonderful things, but you stand the risk of raising local expectations so high that they won’t want to part with them, and they wouldn’t be able to maintain them, even if you could leave them. Simple tube wells, where the water table allows, run by a small generator and a simple pump is something that they can keep and probably maintain. The same holds true with chlorine tablets. From a medical perspective, trauma units will not be much in demand. Sadly, those who will die from immediate injuries sustained in the earthquake will likely have done so by the time you get there. What will really be needed are internists with qualified interpreters who can treat the invariable gastrointestinal diseases that will follow from drinking bad water.

Beware of Mission Creep. Your job is to try to get Haiti back to something approaching the way it was seconds before the quake struck. If the President wants you to do nation-building, he’ll let you know. Identify the things that only you as the American military can do and for how long you will need to do them. When the roads are open, they will not need helicopters anymore; stop flying helicopters. If you need to run a hospital until Doctors Without Borders get there, you should stop running it when they arrive. Your best people are the ones who will get you into mission creep situations the fastest. Doctors and engineers always want to make things better, and in these kinds of operations, better is the enemy of good enough.
Americans excel at these types of ad hoc operations. We are poor strategists, but excellent tacticians. Successfully completing this operation (and you will succeed) will be one of the best memories that you will have of your military career.

Colonel Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps officer. He was the J-3 (Operations Officer) for operation SEA ANGEL in Bangladesh and has done several published studies on HA/DR.

At Last, A Pentagon Decision I Support

From today's New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has told his military aides not to wear combat fatigues to work at the Pentagon anymore, reversing a symbolic change of protocol ordered in the harrowing days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

There was no formal announcement about Mr. Gates directing his military staff to shed their fatigues in favor of business uniforms — the smartly pressed ones bedecked with combat medals and service ribbons that are the military equivalent of a civilian coat and tie, worn with dress shoes and not combat boots.

But throughout the Defense Department, where every action by the civilian boss is parsed by officers with a care akin to old-school Kremlinology, Mr. Gates’s decision is likely to prompt deliberations across the armed services on whether to have personnel working in the Pentagon follow his example.

The defense secretary’s instructions took effect with the start of the new year and were directed at only some of the 23,000 employees at the Pentagon. Even so, the change has been noticed by recent visitors to Mr. Gates’s third-floor suite of offices and has become a topic of conversation along the Pentagon’s 17.5 miles of corridors.

The switch to camouflage and flight suits became the norm in the days after Sept. 11, and it made a statement: The building itself was a terrorist target, the nation was on a war footing, and it was thought important that even military personnel on the home front should dress for combat.

IMHO, the only people who should wear camouflage are soldiers who need to do so in order not to be seen by the enemy while fighting. The manifest "symbolism" of wearing combat fatigues elsewhere is that the military is so incompetent that it doesn't even know where the battlefield is...plus, it looks sloppy and undisciplined, at least to my eye...so, my hat's off to the Secretary of Defense on his decision!

NEXT STEP FOR SECRETARY GATES: Please move Central Command HQ from Tampa, Florida to Kabul, Afghanistan, ASAP.

Togo West-Vernon Clark Report: "DoD Independent Review Related to Fort Hood"

APPENDIX C

Summary of Findings and Recommendations
Finding 2.1
DoD programs, policies, processes, and procedures that address identification of indicators for violence are outdated, incomplete, and fail to include key indicators of potentially violent behaviors .
Recommendation 2.1
• Update training and education programs to help DoD personnel identify contributing factors and behavioral indicators of potentially violent actors .
• Coordinate with the FBI Behavioral Science Unit’s Military Violence unit to identify behavioral indicators that are specific to DoD personnel .
• Develop a risk assessment tool for commanders, supervisors, and professional support service providers to determine whether and when DoD personnel present risks for various types of violent behavior .
• Develop programs to educate DoD personnel about indicators that signal when individuals may commit violent acts or become radicalized .
Finding 2.2
Background checks on personnel entering the DoD workforce or gaining access to installations may be incomplete, too limited in scope, or not conducted at all .
Recommendation 2.2
• Evaluate background check policies and issue appropriate updates . • Review the appropriateness of the depth and scope of the National Agency Check with Local Agency
and Credit Check as minimum background investigation for DoD SECRET clearance .
• Educate commanders, supervisors, and legal advisors on how to detect and act on potentially adverse behaviors that could pose internal threats .
• Review current expedited processes for citizenship and clearances to ensure risk is sufficiently mitigated .
Finding 2.3
DoD standards for denying requests for recognition as an ecclesiastical endorser of chaplains may be inadequate .
Recommendation 2.3
Review the limitations on denying requests for recognition as ecclesiastical endorsers of chaplains .
Finding 2.4
The Department of Defense has limited ability to investigate Foreign National DoD military and civilian personnel who require access to DoD information systems and facilities in the U .S . and abroad .
C-1
Recommendation 2.4
Coordinate with the Department of State and Office of Personnel Management to establish and implement more rigorous standards and procedures for investigating Foreign National DoD personnel .
Finding 2.5
The policies and procedures governing assessment for pre- and post-deployment medical risks do not provide a comprehensive assessment of violence indicators .
Recommendation 2.5
• Assess whether pre- and post-deployment behavioral screening should include a comprehensive violence risk assessment .
• Review the need for additional post-deployment screening to assess long-term behavioral indicators that may point to progressive indicators of violence .
• Revise pre- and post-deployment behavioral screening to include behavioral indicators that a person may commit violent acts or become radicalized .
• Review policies governing sharing healthcare assessments with commanders and supervisors to allow information regarding individuals who may commit violent acts to become available to appropriate authorities .
Finding 2.6
The Services have programs and policies to address prevention and intervention for suicide, sexual assault, and family violence, but guidance concerning workplace violence and the potential for self- radicalization is insufficient .
Recommendation 2.6
• Revise current policies and procedures to address preventing violence toward others in the workplace .
• Integrate existing programs such as suicide, sexual assault, and family violence prevention with information on violence and self-radicalization to provide a comprehensive prevention and response program .
Finding 2.7
DoD policy regarding religious accommodation lacks the clarity necessary to help commanders distinguish appropriate religious practices from those that might indicate a potential for violence or self- radicalization .
Recommendation 2.7
Promptly establish standards and reporting procedures that clarify guidelines for religious accommodation .
C-2
Appendix C
Summary of Findings and Recommendations
Finding 2.8
DoD Instruction 5240 .6, Counterintelligence (CI) Awareness, Briefing, and Reporting Programs, does not thoroughly address emerging threats, including self-radicalization, which may contribute to an individual’s potential to commit violence .
Recommendation 2.8
Update DoD Instruction 5240 .6 to provide specific guidance to the Services, Combatant Commands, and appropriate agencies for counterintelligence awareness of the full spectrum of threat information particularly as it applies to behavioral indicators that could identify self-radicalization .
Finding 2.9
DoD and Service guidance does not provide for maintaining and transferring all relevant information about contributing factors and behavioral indicators throughout Service members’ careers .
Recommendation 2.9
• Review what additional information (e .g ., information about accession waivers, substance abuse, minor law enforcement infractions, conduct waivers) should be maintained throughout Service members’ careers as they change duty locations, deploy, and re-enlist .
• Develop supporting policies and procedures for commanders and supervisors to access this information .
Finding 2.10
There is no consolidated criminal investigation database available to all DoD law enforcement and criminal investigation organizations .
Recommendation 2.10
Establish a consolidated criminal investigation and law enforcement database such as the Defense Law Enforcement Exchange .
Finding 2.11
DoD guidance on establishing information sharing agreements with Federal, State, and local law enforcement and criminal investigation organizations does not mandate action or provide clear standards .
Recommendation 2.11
Require the Military Departments and Defense Agencies to establish formal information sharing agreements with allied and partner agencies; Federal, State, and local law enforcement; and criminal investigation agencies, with clearly established standards regarding scope and timeliness .
C-3
Finding 2.12
Policies governing communicating protected health information to other persons or agencies are adequate at the DoD-level, though they currently exist only as interim guidance . The Services, however, have not updated their policies to reflect this guidance .
Recommendation 2.12
Ensure Services update policies to reflect current DoD-level guidance on the release of protected health information .
Finding 2.13
Commanders and military healthcare providers do not have visibility on risk indicators of Service members who seek care from civilian medical entities .
Recommendation 2.13
Consider seeking adoption of policies and procedures to ensure thorough and timely dissemination of relevant Service member violence risk indicators from civilian entities to command and military medical personnel .
Finding 2.14
The Department of Defense does not have a comprehensive and coordinated policy for counterintelligence activities in cyberspace . There are numerous DoD and interagency organizations and offices involved in defense cyber activities .
Recommendation 2.14
Publish policy to ensure timely counterintelligence collection, investigations, and operations in cyberspace for identifying potential threats to DoD personnel, information, and facilities .
Finding 2.15
DoD policy governing prohibited activities is unclear and does not provide commanders and supervisors the guidance and authority to act on potential threats to good order and discipline .
Recommendation 2.15
Review prohibited activities and recommend necessary policy changes .
Finding 2.16
Authorities governing civilian personnel are insufficient to support commanders and supervisors as they attempt to identify indicators of violence or take actions to prevent violence .
C-4
Appendix C Summary of Findings and Recommendations
Recommendation 2.16
Review civilian personnel policies to determine whether additional authorities or policies would enhance visibility on indicators of possible violence and provide greater flexibility to address behaviors of concern .
Finding 3.1
• The Department of Defense has not issued an integrating force protection policy . • Senior DoD officials have issued DoD policy in several force protection-related subject areas such as
antiterrorism but these policies are not well integrated .
Recommendation 3.1
• Assign a senior DoD official responsibility for integrating force protection policy throughout the Department .
• Clarify geographic combatant commander and military department responsibilities for force protection . • Review force protection command and control relationships to ensure they are clear .
Finding 3.2
DoD force protection programs and policies are not focused on internal threats .
Recommendation 3.2
• Develop policy and procedures to integrate the currently disparate efforts to defend DoD resources and people against internal threats .
• Commission a multidisciplinary group to examine and evaluate existing threat assessment programs; examine other branches of government for successful programs and best practices to establish standards, training, reporting requirements /mechanisms, and procedures for assessing predictive indicators relating to pending violence .
• Provide commanders with a multidisciplinary capability, based on best practices such as the Navy’s Threat Management Unit, the Postal Service’s “Going Postal Program,” and Stanford University’s workplace violence program, focused on predicting and preventing insider attacks .
Finding 3.3
The Department of Defense’s commitment to support JTTFs is inadequate .
Recommendation 3.3
• Identify a single point of contact for functional management of the Department of Defense’s commitment to the JTTF program .
• Evaluate and revise, as appropriate, the governing memoranda of understanding between the FBI and different DoD entities involved with the JTTF to ensure consistent outcomes .
• Review the commitment of resources to the JTTFs and align the commitment based on priorities and requirements .
C-5
Finding 3.4
There is no formal guidance standardizing how to share Force Protection threat information across the Services or the Combatant Commands .
Recommendation 3.4
Direct the development of standard guidance regarding how military criminal investigative organizations and counterintelligence organizations will inform the operational chain of command .
Finding 3.5
The Department of Defense does not have direct access to a force protection threat reporting system for suspicious incident activity reports .
Recommendation 3.5
• Adopt a common force protection threat reporting system for documenting, storing, and exchanging threat information related to DoD personnel, facilities, and forces in transit .
• Appoint a single Executive Agent to implement, manage, and oversee this force protection threat reporting system .
Finding 3.6
There are no force protection processes or procedures to share real-time event information among commands, installations, and components .
Recommendation 3.6
Evaluate the requirement for creating systems, processes, policy, and tools to share near real-time, unclassified force protection information among military installations in CONUS to increase situational awareness and security response .
Finding 3.7
DoD installation access control systems and processes do not incorporate behavioral screening strategies and capabilities, and are not configured to detect an insider threat .
Recommendation 3.7
• Review best practices, including programs outside the U .S . Government, to determine whether elements of those programs could be adopted to augment access control protocols to detect persons who pose a threat .
• Review leading edge tools and technologies that augment physical inspection for protecting the force .
C-6
Appendix C Summary of Findings and Recommendations
Finding 3.8
The Department of Defense does not have a policy governing privately owned weapons .
Recommendation 3.8
Review the need for DoD privately owned weapons policy .
Finding 3.9
Services cannot share information on personnel and vehicles registered on installations, installation debarment lists, and other relevant information required to screen personnel and vehicles, and grant access .
Recommendation 3.9
• Develop timely information sharing capabilities among components including vehicle registration, installation debarment lists, and other access control information .
• Accelerate efforts to automate access control that will authenticate various identification media (e .g ., passports, CAC, drivers’ licenses, license plates) against authoritative databases .
• Obtain sufficient access to appropriate threat databases and disseminate information to local commanders to enable screening at CONUS and overseas installation access control points .
Finding 4.1
Services are not fully interoperable with all military and civilian emergency management stakeholders .
Recommendation 4.1
• Establish milestones for reaching full compliance with the Installation Emergency Management program .
• Assess the potential for accelerating the timeline for compliance with the Installation Emergency Management program .
Finding 4.2
There is no DoD policy implementing public law for a 911 capability on DoD installations . Failure to implement policy will deny the military community the same level of emergency response as those communities off base .
Recommendation 4.2
Develop policy that provides implementation guidance for Enhanced 911 services in accordance with applicable laws .
C-7
Finding 4.3
DoD policy does not currently take advantage of successful models for active shooter response for civilian and military law enforcement on DoD installations and facilities .
Recommendation 4.3
• Identify and incorporate civilian law enforcement best practices, to include response to the active shooter threat, into training certifications for civilian police and security guards .
• Include military law enforcement in the development of minimum training standards to ensure standard law enforcement practices throughout the Department of Defense .
• Incorporate the Department of Homeland Security best practices regarding workplace violence and active shooter awareness training into existing personal security awareness training contained in current Level 1 Antiterrorism Awareness training .
• Develop a case study based on the Fort Hood incident to be used in installation commander development and on-scene commander response programs .
Finding 4.4
Based on Joint Staff Integrated Vulnerability Assessments, many DoD installations lack mass notification capabilities .
Recommendation 4.4
Examine the feasibility of advancing the procurement and deployment of state-of-the-art mass warning systems and incorporate these technologies into emergency response plans .
Finding 4.5
Services have not widely deployed or integrated a Common Operational Picture capability into Installation Emergency Operations Centers per DoD direction .
Recommendation 4.5
• Examine the feasibility of accelerating the deployment of a state-of-the-art Common Operational Picture to support installation Emergency Operations Centers .
• Develop an operational approach that raises the Force Protection Condition in response to a scenario appropriately and returns to normal while considering both the nature of the threat and the implications for force recovery and healthcare readiness in the aftermath of the incident .
Finding 4.6
• Stakeholders in the DoD Installation Emergency Management program, including the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness; Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics; Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs; and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks
C-8
Appendix C Summary of Findings and Recommendations
and Information Integration/Chief Information Officer, have not yet synchronized their applicable programs, policies, processes, and procedures .
• Better synchronization and coordination would remove redundant planning requirements, identify seams in policy, focus programmed resources, and streamline procedures to achieve unity of effort in installation emergency management .
Recommendation 4.6
• Review responsibilities for synchronizing Office of the Secretary Defense programs, policies, and procedures related to installation emergency management .
• Establish policy requiring internal synchronizing of installation programs, plans, and response for emergency management .
Finding 4.7
Mutual Aid Agreements (MAAs) between DoD and civilian support agencies across the Services are not current .
Recommendation 4.7
Review Installation Emergency Management programs to ensure correct guidance on integrating tracking, exercising, and inspections of MAAs .
Finding 4.8
The Department of Defense has not produced guidance to develop family assistance plans for mass casualty and crisis response . As a result, Service-level planning lacks consistency and specificity, which leads to variation in the delivery of victim and family care .
Recommendation 4.8
• Develop guidance incorporating the core service elements of a Family Assistance Center as identified in the Pentagon AAR .
• Develop implementation guidance to establish requirements for a Family Assistance Center crisis and mass casualty response as integral components of Installation Emergency Management plans .
• Consider the Air Force’s Emergency Family Assistance Control Center and the Fort Hood Behavioral Health Campaign Plan as possible best practices when developing policy .
Finding 4.9
The lack of published guidance for religious support in mass casualty incidents hampers integration of religious support to installation emergency management plans .
Recommendation 4.9
• Consider modifying DoD and Service programs designed to promote, maintain, or restore health and well-being to offer each person the services of a chaplain or religious ministry professional .
• Develop policy for religious support in response to mass casualty incidents and integrate guidance with the Installation Emergency Management Program .
C-9
Finding 4.10
Inconsistencies among Service entry level chaplain training programs can result in inadequate preparation of new chaplains to provide religious support during a mass casualty incident .
Recommendation 4.10
Review mass casualty incident response training in the Chaplain Basic Officer Courses .
Finding 4.11
The Department of Defense has not yet published guidance regarding installation or unit memorial service entitlements based on the new Congressional authorization to ensure uniform application throughout the Department .
Recommendation 4.11
Develop standardized policy guidance on memorial service entitlements .
Finding 4.12
• DoD casualty affairs policy, Federal law, and DoD mortuary affairs guidance do not exist regarding injury or death of a private citizen with no DoD affiliation on a military installation within CONUS .
• There is no prescribed process to identify lead agencies for casualty notification and assistance or to provide care for the deceased, resulting in each case being handled in an ad-hoc manner .
Recommendation 4.12
• Review current policies regarding casualty reporting and assistance to the survivors of a private citizen with no DoD affiliation, who is injured or dies on a military installation within CONUS .
• Review current mortuary affairs policies relating to mortuary services for private citizens who become fatalities on a military installation within CONUS .
Finding 5.1
• DoD installations are not consistent in adequately planning for mental health support for domestic mass casualty incidents to meet needs of victims and families .
• At Fort Hood, advanced treatment protocols developed at our universities and centers were not available to the commander prior to the incident .
• Fort Hood developed a Behavioral Health plan that incorporated current practices including a “whole of community” approach, and a strategy for long-term behavioral healthcare not reflected in any DoD policy .
C-10
Appendix C Summary of Findings and Recommendations
Recommendation 5.1
• Update Mental Health Care clinical practice guidelines that address both combat and domestic incidents to ensure current and consistent preventive care .
• Review best practices inside and outside the Department of Defense to develop policies, programs, processes, and procedures to provide commanders tools required to protect the force in the aftermath of combat or mass casualty incidents .
• Consider the Air Force Instruction and the Fort Hood Behavioral Health Campaign Plan as possible sources for developing appropriate guidance .
Finding 5.2
• The Department of Defense does not have comprehensive policies that recognize, define, integrate, and synchronize monitoring and intervention efforts to assess and build healthcare provider readiness .
• The Department of Defense does not have readiness sustainment models, with requisite resources, for the health provider force that are similar to readiness sustainment models for combat and combat support forces .
• The demand for support from caregivers in general, and from mental healthcare providers in particular, is increasing and appears likely to continue to increase due to the stress on military personnel and their families from our high operational tempo and repeated assignments in combat areas .
Recommendation 5.2
Create a body of policies that:
• recognizes, defines, and synchronizes efforts to support and measure healthcare provider readiness in garrison and deployed settings;
• addresses individual assessment, fatigue prevention, non-retribution, and reduced stigma for those seeking care, and appropriate procedures for supporting clinical practice during healthcare provider recovery;
• requires DoD and Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences curricula, training materials, and personnel performance management systems to incorporate healthcare provider self-care skills and readiness concepts;
• develop mechanisms for collaborating with civilian resiliency resources . Finding 5.3
The lack of a readiness sustainment model for the health provider force, the unique stressors that healthcare providers experience, and the increasing demand for support combine to undermine force readiness—care for both warriors and healthcare providers .
Recommendation 5.3
• Develop integrated policies, processes, procedures, and properly resourced programs to sustain high quality care .
C-11
• Develop a deployment model that provides recovery and sustainment for healthcare providers comparable to that provided to the combat and combat support components of the force .
• Review the requirement for the Department of Defense to de-stigmatize healthcare providers who seek treatment for stress .
Finding 5.4
Senior caregivers are not consistently functioning as clinical peers and mentors to junior caregivers .
Recommendation 5.4
Review Senior Medical Corps Officer requirements to determine optimal roles, utilization, and assignments

Download complete PDF file here:http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/DOD-ProtectingTheForce-Web_Security_HR_13Jan10.pdf.

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

AKA Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service...

President Woodrow Wilson's Intervention in Haiti

From Digital History (University of Houston):

Intervention in Haiti
Period: 1890-1920

In July 1915, a mob murdered Haiti's seventh president in seven years. Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was dragged out of the French legation and hacked to death. The mob then paraded his mutilated body through the streets of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. During the preceding 72 years, Haiti had experience 102 revolts, wars, or coups; only one of the country's 22 presidents had served a complete term, and merely four died of natural causes.

With the European powers engaged in World War I, President Woodrow Wilson feared that Germany might occupy Haiti and threaten the sea route to the Panama Canal. To protect U.S. interests and to restore order, the president sent 330 marines and sailors to Haiti.

This was not the first time that Wilson had sent marines into Latin America. Determined to "teach Latin Americans to elect good men," he had sent American naval forces into Mexico in 1913 during the Mexican Revolution. American Marines seized the city of Veracruz and imposed martial law.

The last marines did not leave Haiti until 1934. To ensure repayment of Haiti's debts, the United States took over the collection of customs duties. Americans also arbitrated disputes, distributed food and medicine, censored the press, and ran military courts. In addition, the United States helped build about a thousand miles of unpaved roads and a number of agricultural and vocational schools, and trained the Haitian army and police. It also helped to replace a government led by blacks with a government headed by mulattoes. The U.S. forced the Haitians to adopt a new constitution which gave American businessmen the right to own land in Haiti. While campaigning for vice president in 1920, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had served as assistant secretary of the Navy in the Wilson Administration, later boasted, "I wrote Haiti's Constitution myself, and if I do say it, it was a pretty good little Constitution."

Many Haitians resisted the American occupation. In the fall of 1918, Charlemagne Peralte, a former Haitian army officer, launched a guerrilla war against the U.S. Marines to protest a system of forced labor imposed by the United States to build roads in Haiti. In 1919, he was captured and killed by U.S. Marines, and his body was photographed against a door with a crucifix and a Haitian flag as a lesson to others. During the first five years of the occupation, American forces killed about 2,250 Haitians. In December 1929, U.S. Marines fired on a crowd of protesters armed with rocks and machetes, killing 12 and wounding 23. The incident stirred international condemnation and ultimately led to the end of the American occupation.

By that time, Roosevelt had changed his mind. In 1928, he had criticized the Republican administrations for relying on the Marines and "gunboat diplomacy." "Single-handed intervention by us in the internal affairs of other nations in this hemisphere must end," he wrote. After he became president in 1933, Roosevelt proclaimed a new policy toward Latin America. Under the Good Neighbor policy, he removed American Marines from Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua.

Haitian Earthquake Relief Situation Reports

From Relief Web (ht Charles Crawford & chrismcdowell).

Higher Education = Lower Salary?

From Gabriella Montell's article in The Chronicle of Higher Education...

Click here for Mike Mandell's original blog post.

Center for International Disaster Information Relief Guidelines

Monetary Contributions to Established Relief Agencies are Always the Most Useful Response to Disasters

Financial contributions allow professional relief organizations to purchase exactly what is most urgently needed by disaster victims and to pay for the transportation necessary to distribute those supplies. Unlike in-kind donations, cash donations entail no transportation cost. In addition, cash donations allow relief supplies to be purchased at locations as near to the disaster site as possible. Supplies, particularly food, can almost always be purchased locally - even in famine situations. This approach has the triple advantage of stimulating local economies (providing employment, generating cash flow), ensuring that supplies arrive as quickly as possible and reducing transport and storage costs. Cash contributions to established legitimate relief agencies are always considerably more beneficial than the donation of commodities.


Confirm There is a Need for All Items Being Collected.

Do not make assumptions about the needs of disaster victims. Exactly what is needed can be confirmed by checking with an established relief organization that has personnel working on-site. Do not send what is not needed; unneeded commodities compete with priority relief items for transportation and storage. Organizations that receive in-kind relief donations can help this process by clearly communicating what items are required (in what size, type, etc.) as well as clearly stating what items or services are NOT needed. Please remember, certain foods, particularly in famine situations, can make victims ill. In most cases, donations of canned goods are not appropriate. The collection of bottled water is highly inefficient. It is important to have an accurate analysis of need before determining response.


Deliver Items Only to Organizations having Local Distribution Capacity

Distributing relief supplies requires personnel and financial resources within the affected country. To efficiently distribute relief commodities, staff, warehouses, trucks and communications equipment are required. It is not enough to gather supplies and send them to an affected region; a sound partnership with a reliable local agency having transport and management capacity is mandatory.


Donate Only to Organizations having the Ability to Transport Collected Items to the Affected Region

Immediately after a disaster, many local organizations will spontaneously begin collecting miscellaneous items for use in disaster relief. However, at the time that these collections are begun, agency officials will not have thought about to whom, or how, the items will be sent. It is not unusual for community and civic groups to have collected several thousands of pounds of relief supplies only to find that they do not know whom to send the supplies to and that they do not have viable transportation options for shipping the goods. At this juncture, it is often advisable for those collecting the goods to auction them off locally, converting commodities into cash to be applied to the relief effort.


Never Assume the U.S. Government or any Relief Agency Will Transport Unsolicited Relief Items Free of Charge

It is important to make arrangements for the transportation before collecting any kind of material donations. Never assume that the government or any relief agency will transport donations free of charge (or even for a fee). In the majority of cases, the collecting agency will be responsible for paying commercial rates for the transportation and warehousing of items gathered.


Volunteer Opportunities for Disaster Relief are Extremely Limited

Volunteers without prior disaster relief experience are generally not selected for relief assignments. Candidates with the greatest chance of being selected have fluency in the language of the disaster-stricken area, prior disaster relief experience, and expertise in technical fields such as medicine, communications logistics, water/sanitation engineering. In many cases, these professionals are already available in-country. Most agencies will require at least ten years of experience, as well as several years of experience working overseas. It is not unusual to request that volunteers make a commitment to spend at least three months working on a particular disaster. Most offers of another body to drive trucks, set up tents, and feed children are not accepted. Keep in mind that once a relief agency accepts a volunteer, they are responsible for the volunteer's well-being -i.e., food, shelter, health and security. Resources are strained during a disaster, and another person without the necessary technical skills and experience can often be a considerable burden to an ongoing relief effort.

SOURCE: http://www.cidi.org/guidelines/guide_ln.htm

Who You Going To Call? ADRg Ambassadors!

Just in time for the New Year...Maybe they're not really Ghostbusters, but Diplomatic Blogoir Charles Crawford has set up an alternative dispute resolution company staffed by former British ambassadors and other diplomats, called ADRg Ambassadors, to help you negotiate yourself out of a jam in business or personal life, and maybe get out of those pesky New Year's Resolutions, too...

Here's a link to the website: http://www.adrgambassadors.com/contact.asp.

President Obama's Statement on the Haitian Earthquake

My 2009 Man of the Year: Flight 253 Hero Jasper Schuringa

My runner-up: Capt. Chesley Sullenberger...

BTW, according to this AP story in The Baltimore Sun, Schuringa is a Dutch screenwriter and filmmaker.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Dutch traveler who has been hailed as a hero for stopping a suspected bomber on a U.S.-bound flight says the whole thing felt like a movie script — his own.

Jasper Schuringa, a video producer who leapt onto the Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, says he wrote a script eight years ago about a failed suicide attack on Amsterdam's airport, the same place from which the Christmas Day flight took off.

"It is about a suicide bomber who wants to murder a politician at Schiphol. But at the crucial moment the bomb doesn't go off," Schuringa said in an interview in Miami published in the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad on Thursday.

"That's what happened with Umar. He thought he was already in heaven and then he saw me coming toward him." Schuringa did not say what became of the script.

Schuringa jumped on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab after the 23-year-old student allegedly tried to detonate explosives he had concealed in his underwear as Northwest Airlines Flight 253, with 289 passengers and crew, was descending toward Detroit.

Schuringa said he reacted instinctively when he saw Abdulmutallab sitting in his seat with flames rising around him.

Helped by other passengers, he patted down the flames with his bare hands and then dragged Abdulmutallab to the front of the aircraft and ripped off his clothes to remove the small package filled with the explosive pentrite.

"How did I know what I should do? I don't know, I just did," he said. "Maybe I've watched too many American movies."

Schuringa said his ordeal wasn't over when he landed safely in Detroit. American federal agents questioned him and took his clothing to test it for explosives, visiting a golf store at the airport to hastily buy him new clothes.

"I looked like a clown," he said. "The trousers were so big I had to hold them up."

I hope someone in Hollywood buys his story and makes it into a major motion picture, asap...we need some real heroes as role models for 2010.

BTW, here's what Wikipedia has to say about him:

Jasper Schuringa
Schuringa stopped the attack, and got burned in the process. He is resident in Amsterdam and was born in 1971. Schuringa is a graduate of Leiden University, Leiden. He is a film director of low-budget Dutch films for an Amsterdam-based media company, and was the assistant director for National Lampoon's Teed Off Too.[135][136]

Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Wouter Bos phoned Schuringa on behalf of the Dutch government on the day after the attack, and conveyed the government's compliments and gratitude for Schuringa's part in overpowering the suspect.[137][138] Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders[139] called Schuringa "a national hero" who "deserves a royal honor", which Wilders said he would ask the Dutch government to award.[140][141] [142]. According to the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, even Queen Beatrix expressed her feelings of gratitude towards Schuringa though it wasn't made public how she had done this. [143]

Why doesn't President Obama given this Dutchman the Medal of Freedom in 2010--since nothing better could express the true spirit of America? And Hollywood might give him the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at this year's Oscar ceremony. What could be more humanitarian than a filmmaker saving the lives of everyone on Flight 253?

Happy New Year!

All the best in 2010!

Scandal Rocks Gulf Coast Arts World

Carlton Proctor reports in today's Pensacola News Journal:

Funding for the Arts Council of Northwest Florida may be terminated in 2010 if Escambia County commissioners follow a recommendation contained in a scathing audit of the organization.

In the 11-page report, Patty Sheldon, financial services administrator for the Escambia Clerk of the Circuit Court's Office, revealed the full extent of the Arts Council's fiscal woes.

The organization's 2009 budget was $520,400, but its actual revenues were $364,821.98, a deficit of $155,578.02.

In addition, Sheldon's report cited the Arts Council for the following:

• Failure to properly record purchases made by credit card.

• Failure to properly account for grant payments from granting agencies.

• A lack of internal accounting controls.

n Inconsistencies in the handling of records and policies and procedures.

• Failure to distribute in a timely manner program activity checks to local arts organizations.

n Using available cash that was supposed to go to local arts groups to pay salary and benefits for its two employees and other office operating costs.

n Budgeting far more revenue that it actually received in fiscal 2009.

• Retroactively altering accounting records to qualify the Arts Council for the City of Pensacola's fiscal year 2010 allocation of $40,000.

No Comment

As a result of the audit's findings, Sheldon recommends "no fiscal 2010 appropriations to the Arts Council be made ... since it may be requested to repay the county those payments from fiscal 2009 that were represented as being paid to the arts organizations and were not, in fact, actually paid."

But help is apparently on the way, according to Proctor's account...from dedicated volunteers willing to do the work:

Meanwhile, a volunteer group calling itself ACE (Arts, Culture and Entertainment) has formed under the leadership of arts patron David Bear, former president of the Arts Council and former member of the Florida Arts Council.

ACE is being formed, Bear said, to take over distribution of now-frozen city and county funds to local cultural groups should the city and county permanently terminate funding to the Arts Council.

The new arts group would be based on an all-volunteer model similar to Pensacola's IMPACT 100, where 100 percent of the money awarded by the city and county would be passed through to the arts, Bear said.

IMPACT 100 Pensacola Bay Area is an all-volunteer organization of women who contribute $1,000 each to fund $100,000 grants to nonprofit organizations. The nonprofits apply for the grants, and the women vote on the recipients.

Most local arts organizations have expressed initial support for ACE should the Arts Council be relieved permanently of its role as the single distributor of city and county arts grants.

UPDATE: Probe into Arts Council finances deepens:
State attorney looks for signs of embezzlement

Leon Aron on the Death of Yegor Gaidar, 53

From The American:

Egor Gaidar, the man to whom Boris Yeltsin entrusted Russia’s free-market revolution, died yesterday. He was 53.

Every time we had dinner in D.C. or Moscow in the past seven years, he looked worse and worse. He took bad care of himself. He drank more and more. Last time I saw him in his favorite D.C. restaurant, Morton’s, he looked like an old man and, formerly a hearty eater and a gourmand, barely touched his steak.

He was deeply depressed—by the direction Russia was taking; by his inability to do anything about it; and by the vicious calumny spread by the Kremlin about Russia’s freest years, the 1990s, and about his reforms, which literally saved the country from the famine everyone expected in 1992. It will take decades to clear out the Augean stables of the monstrously irrational and wasteful Soviet economy, but the first few, heaviest shovelfuls were Egor’s.

Throughout it all, he continued to write complicated and important books that only a brilliant economist and economic historian could have conceived and produced, and that future generations of Russians will enjoy and appreciate. (We were fortunate to publish excerpts from his last book, The Death of an Empire, as an AEI paper.)

Following Yeltsin’s death less than three years before and that of the “godfather of glasnost,” Alexander Yakovlev, in 2005, it is almost like nature itself has conspired to make the Gorbachev-Yeltsin-Gaidar revolution an aberration and Putinism Russia’s norm. As if Dostoevsky’s Great Inquisitor was right when he told the imaginary Christ: you have come to make people free, but they don’t want to be free.

I know that this is not so, and I know, too, that deep down, Egor did not believe this. But it must have been so hard to keep faith. The last eight years have gradually killed him. He died of a broken heart.

Happy Chanukah, Christmas, & New Year!

Will be on vacation a while longer...

Hope to have some new posts in 2010.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We're going on vacation ourselves, so will be offline for a while...

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Calls for Peter Galbraith Investigation

Media silence regarding allegations concerning former US Ambassador Peter Galbraith's "sleaze factor" has been deafening, in the wake of the New York Times' front-page expose. Very little follow-up, until this item in TPM Muckracker:

A good government group is calling on the State Department to investigate the role of former ambassador Peter Galbraith in drafting Iraq's constitution in 2005 while he held a lucrative stake in a Kurdish oil field.

The letter from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington to the State Dept. Inspector General asks whether State approved Galbraith's activities, and cites a recent New York Times exposé that built off work of the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv.

Text of the letter posted on the TPM website at this link. More background on the Galbraith scandal by Reidar Visser at Historiae.org.

Memo to President Obama: Fire Secretary of Defense Robert Gates...

His press conference dealing with the Ft. Hood Massacre failed the "red face test," IMHO. Obviously, General Casey isn't the only one at fault. After hearing this on C-Span radio yesterday, it's pretty clear that Admiral Mullen and Secretary Gates were on the same page. And setting up a yet another commission to conduct yet another investigation is a Bush-era move...From the weak response to the Ft. Hood massacre, his failure to take responsibility and his discussion of meeting with the Saudis, the official press conference transcript seems to cast an Islamist pall over Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen:

Q There is one detail of the investigation that, since it's already on the record, I'll ask you about. Yesterday, Attorney General Holder said he was disturbed by information that Hasan had e-mail communications with Anwar al-Awlaki. And I wonder if you were also disturbed by that.

SEC. GATES: I'm going to wait before I draw -- it's -- yes, it's disturbing. But before I draw any conclusions about it, I want to find out all the facts.

Q Sir, what is your advice to, say, an Army family right now, going in and out of Fort Hood or another base, that is now perhaps looking at their neighbors with suspicion? What are you telling them? What should they be watching for?

SEC. GATES: Well, I think that -- you know, I remember being on the outside of the government after 9/11, and the cautions that President Bush and others in the government exercised against identifying certain categories of people as -- as potentially suspicious.

And the thrust of their remarks was that, in a nation as diverse as the United States, the last thing we need to do is start pointing fingers at each other, particularly when there's no basis in fact for it. So until all the evidence is in, I think that the comments about how we treat each other still ought to apply. And I know this is an issue that's of concern to the services.

ADM. MULLEN: I would add to that, Kim, that it doesn't take this kind of direction to have leaders recognize the challenges that are associated with this. Every base, every unit, literally leaders have I think immediately grabbed this to look within, to kind of see where they are, and to look at what -- whether there's potential or not, and to reassure members and families that not only do we take it extremely seriously, we are looking at it, and to really come together in what is, you know, what was certainly a tragic, tragic incident, and a reminder of the times in which we live, and that leaders are in fact taking action, literally, before this guidance to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

SEC. GATES: Joe --

Q What is your message to the Muslim community in uniform? Because they're very -- they're caught by this incident.

ADM. MULLEN: My message to all those in uniform, including Muslims in uniform, is how much we appreciate their service, the difference that they make; that the -- I have, for my entire career, the diversity of our force is one of its greatest strengths; and that, not unlike what the secretary said, that no one should -- should draw any rapid conclusions. And we need to ensure that we treat everybody fairly -- I mean, before this incident and after this incident -- everybody fairly. And there are procedures that exist in all the services to look at our people and our programs, and evaluate ourselves routinely. And I am sure that leaders are doing that.

SEC. GATES: Joe.

Q Will this review look specifically at the mental health ranks within the Army, where, you know, the allegation has been made that a shortage of mental-health professionals may have let unqualified people continue on rather than being drummed out. How specific to the case before us will this be versus a general look at personnel policy?

SEC. GATES: Well, I think they're going to -- as I've indicated here, they are going to look at how we deal with stress of our healthcare providers. And I would say that it shouldn't be limited only to mental healthcare providers.

You know, you talk to the -- you go to the hospitals, and you talk to the nurses and the doctors and those who care for these grievously wounded young men and women, and, I mean, their level of commitment -- and I can't imagine the burden on them of doing that all day, every day. And so I think one of the things, for their own benefit, if nothing else, is for us to take a look at how are we helping them deal with stress, given the circumstances that they face.

ADM. MULLEN: Can I -- I'd just add to that that clearly there is a shortfall, and it's across the department. It's about 20 percent or so. It's a little more significant in the Army, in terms of the statistics. And that is represented -- representative of the shortfall that we actually have.

In the country, we've recruited significant numbers in the last several years. We've increased the mental health providers for both members and families in the last several years, but we certainly haven't closed that gap.

SEC. GATES: And it gets harder as you get to more rural areas, in terms of finding the -- an adequate number of mental healthcare providers.

One of the things that we're looking at, for example, is whether the military medical education system can expand beyond -- how much it could expand beyond doctors and try and provide opportunities for the training of psychologists and counselors and so on. To -- in -- and we would pay for that in exchange for a period of commitment to serve and then go into the communities. Because one of the things that -- as the chairman has just implied, one of the things we're discovering as we go around trying to hire people all over the country is that there really is a national shortage of these folks.

Q Mr. Secretary, based on the facts that you have now, about Hasan and what happened that day, is it fair to characterize the shooting as a terrorist attack?

SEC. GATES: I'm just not going to go there. I -- as I said in the very first paragraph, I am first of all -- as the senior person in the departmental chain of command, I am the least able to render opinions on these kinds of issues. I'm going to wait until the facts are in. And we'll let the military justice system take care of it.

Q Do you think it's possible they'll draw a conclusion, to that end, as a result of the criminal investigation?

SEC. GATES: I have no idea.

Q One of the threats that's obviously being looked at is the issue of whether the intercepted e-mails should have been shared with the Pentagon earlier. Given your background in the intelligence world, how much of a concern is it, do you think? I mean, is that relationship -- as far as intelligence-sharing between civilian intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, is that what it should be?

SEC. GATES: Well, without reference to this case, I will tell you that the sharing of information, between the intelligence community and the Department of Defense and I would say law enforcement, is so far superior to what it was when I left government in 1993.

It's dramatically different and dramatically better. And so you know, one of the things everybody is looking at and, after all, the purpose of the president's requirement, in terms of looking at who had what intelligence when and shared it with whom, is to answer your question. And we won't know the answer to that until it's over.

Barbara.

Q Short of someone in the U.S. military making a direct, specific, public threat, when you're in the military, what is allowed and not allowed for someone who might be described as becoming self- radicalized? What are they allowed to do, in terms of making Internet or e-mail contact with people known to the U.S. government to be of a radical bent, to belong to certain groups which are not in line with U.S. government policy? What is allowed here?

ADM. MULLEN: Well, I think -- I mean, we all have private lives. And basically in any command, you typically are not overly involved unless -- in private -- in the private lives of people that serve, in the command, unless circumstances surface that there are some difficulties and challenges.

And leaders, mid-level NCOs in particular, are intimately -- oftentimes intimately involved with challenges that young -- that actually any people would have, across a wide spectrum of areas. And the expectation that leaders engage so is very much there.

So, as leaders become aware of something like this over time, you know, my -- not -- or something else -- my expectation is that that gets surfaced in the chain of command. And commanders, whether they're squad leaders right up through battalion commanders or ship commanding officers, are -- they routinely deal with these kind of things when they are -- when they are made known. The question is, how are they made known? And that varies depending on the kind of situation you're talking about.

Q So, Admiral, if you had a young sailor in your command making statements of a radical nature, what -- what would -- what would be the appropriate course of action?

ADM. MULLEN: My -- without trying to map it to the -- to the current incident, you know, my expectation is for -- you know, for any commander to -- certainly to be aware of those kinds of things, and then to take appropriate action; to certainly not sit idly by, but to address it. And there are a lot of different ways to address it. And you know, a single -- a single proclamation, if you will, doesn't, in and of itself, necessarily mean anything. You got to put it into the circumstances.

Q Let me ask you, what's your expectation of any sharing of information between the criminal investigation and this broad review you've laid out in terms of any patterns or any shortfalls they saw in the Hasan case that might not bear on the criminality aspect, but might show a systemic problem that your -- that your larger review should take a look at?

SEC. GATES: Well, clearly we are going to have to be careful as we put together the terms of reference and as we go forward to ensure that we don't do anything to complicate or jeopardize the criminal prosecution. And so we will have some very clear guidelines in terms of the information that we're seeking. But the information that we're seeking in this shorter review really is -- really can, I think, be almost entirely isolated from the criminal investigation because we're really looking at the whole rest of the country in terms of what are our security capabilities, what are our capabilities for responding to a mass casualty event. And that might not be -- that might not be an act of murder; it may -- it might be a natural disaster of some kind. How -- what are our policies and procedures? Going back to the first question, what are our policies and procedures in certain of these areas on how we deal with these certain kinds of problems.

So I think -- I think we can deal effectively with the questions that are being posed without creating difficulties for the criminal prosecution. But at the same time, there'll be some very clear guidelines.

Q Can I ask you -- we haven't talked to you since the -- this horrendous event, but what was your initial reaction when you heard this -- the -- heard of the shooting? And what are one or two of the unresolved questions in your mind as a citizen you'd like answers to?

SEC. GATES: Well, I mean, my reaction was, I'm sure, the same as almost everybody in the country. It was one of horror. And I would just answer the second part by saying the most important thing for us now is to find out what actually happened, put all the facts together and figure out a way where we can do everything possible so that nothing like this ever happens again.

Q Sir, I would like to ask you about your meeting on Tuesday with the Saudi Prince bin Sultan. Could you give us an update about that meeting? Did the prince deliver any request, any message? And what are your views about the conflict -- the current conflict in Yemen?

SEC. GATES: Well, we have a -- we obviously have a very close -- (coughs) -- excuse me – military to military relationship with the Saudis and an ongoing arms sales program with them. And I would just leave it at the fact that we reviewed the programs that are -- for which there are outstanding requests and those that the Saudis may be thinking about. We did discuss the situation in Yemen, and he -- the assistant secretary -- basically outlined for me the Saudi view of the situation there. I'd just leave it at that.

Yeah.

President Obama, It's time for some new blood, and new approaches, at the Department of Defense. Someone who can say "Yes, we can!" with confidence, clean house, and purge Islamist influence from the US military. Obviously, given the failures at Ft. Hood, their slowness to react, and their reversion to Bush-era scripts for "damage control," Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen are not up to the job.

Stop University of California Tuition Hikes!

I'm with the student protesters on this one. The middle of a recession with high unemployment is no time to pull up the ladder of education for those unable to afford college tuition. State universities were not intended to be run like a business--that's for private universities like USC and Stanford. What made the UC system great was its commitment to providing at first a free education, later a modestly-priced education, for California state residents. The very last thing that should be done is to hike tuition.

I'd suggest that before any tuition hike, administrators try very hard to cut from administrative overhead, conference travel, and other non-instructional expenditures--before gouging their students any further.

Here's a link to Breitbart.com's account of UCLA protests (full disclosure, this blogger is a lifetime member of both the UC Berkeley and UCLA Alumni association):

About 30 to 50 protesters staged a takeover of Campbell Hall, a building across campus that houses ethnic studies, said UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton.

They chained the doors shut but were peaceful and there were no immediate plans to remove them, Hampton said.

No arrests had been made, although 14 demonstrators were arrested on Wednesday and cited for failure to disperse or disturbing the peace.

Demonstrations also were held at other UC campuses.

UC President Mark Yudof told reporters Wednesday he couldn't rule out raising student fees again if the state is unable to meet his request for an additional $913 million next year for the 10-campus system.

"I can't make any ... promises," he said.

After a series of deep cuts in state aid, and with state government facing a nearly $21 billion budget gap over the next year and a half, Board of Regents members said there was no option to higher fees.

"When you have no choice, you have no choice," Yudof said after a Regents' committee endorsed the fee plan Wednesday. "I'm sorry."

The Los Angeles meeting was repeatedly interrupted by outbursts from students and union members, who accused the board of turning its back on the next generation.

NPR: Walter Reed Psychiatrists Didn't Miss Hasan Warning Signs

With NPR's release of this memo from his personnel file (ht Huffington Post), the Nidal Malik Hasan case begins to come into focus:

On May 17, 2007, Hasan's supervisor at Walter Reed sent the memo to the Walter Reed credentials committee. It reads, "Memorandum for: Credentials Committee. Subject: CPT Nidal Hasan." More than a page long, the document warns that: "The Faculty has serious concerns about CPT Hasan's professionalism and work ethic. ... He demonstrates a pattern of poor judgment and a lack of professionalism." It is signed by the chief of psychiatric residents at Walter Reed, Maj. Scott Moran.

When shown the memo, two leading psychiatrists said it was so damning, it might have sunk Hasan's career if he had applied for a job outside the Army.

"Even if we were desperate for a psychiatrist, we would not even get him to the point where we would invite him for an interview," says Dr. Steven Sharfstein, who runs Sheppard Pratt's psychiatric medical center, based just outside Baltimore.

Sharfstein says it's a little hard to read the evaluation now and pretend that he doesn't know that Hasan is accused of shooting dozens of people. But he says if he had seen a memo like this about an applicant, Sharfstein would have avoided him like the plague.

The memo ticks off numerous problems over the course of Hasan's training, including proselytizing to his patients. It says he mistreated a homicidal patient and allowed her to escape from the emergency room, and that he blew off an important exam.

According to the memo, Hasan hardly did any work: He saw only 30 patients in 38 weeks. Sources at Walter Reed say most psychiatrists see at least 10 times that many patients. When Hasan was supposed to be on call for emergencies, he didn't even answer the phone.

Sharfstein says the memo doesn't suggest that Hasan would end up shooting people, but it warns that Hasan was "somebody who could potentially put patients in danger."

Link to PDF facsimile of memo on NPR website, here. One interesting item:

He failed his HGT/WGT screening and was found to be out of standards with body fat % and was counseled on that.