published in Commondreams.org on April 6, 2009

The proposed new Afghan law requiring (among other things), women to have sex with their husbands on demand and not leave home unescorted, has shocked the West. But for women in Afghanistan whose rights have always been bargaining chips to be given or taken away for political gain, it comes as no surprise. Despite the rhetoric from the Bush Administration in 2001 that “to fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women (Laura Bush),” Bush’s own military strategy set the stage for the new Taliban-like law today. In hiring the fundamentalist warlords of the Northern Alliance to defeat the Taliban, the US knowingly sacrificed women’s rights for political gain.

The Northern Alliance warlords were notorious misogynists, criticized harshly by women’s rights groups like the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). In statement made days after the fall …

Two Montreal-based radio hosts pulled a prank so obvious on Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin that I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

The Masked Avengers, comprising comedians Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel convinced the gullible governor that she was being graced by a personal call from the French premier Nicolas Sarkozy. Not several seconds until after they revealed their prank openly to her did she realize what had happened.

The fake French accent didn’t give it away. Neither did the joke about Sarkozy being able to see Belgium from France, like she can see Russia.

Palin did not realize she was the butt of a joke when “Sarkozy” said he could see her as president. She replied, giggling, “maybe in 8 years.” God help us.

She didn’t get it when he joked about liking hunting and enjoying killing animals – instead she responded by wanting to join him on …

A nice piece of reporting in USA Today exposes yet another aspect of Republican hypocrisy: with all of McCain’s talk of “reigning in spending,” “cutting taxes,” and “eliminating pork barrel legislation,” it appears as though his running mate has done exactly the opposite during her tenures as mayor of Wasilla and governor of Alaska.

Apparently John McCain lied about Palin not seeking earmarks as governor. In fact Palin “asked Washington for $197 million in earmarks this year, down from $254 million the year before.” As mayor of Wasilla, Palin acquired $27 million in earmarked federal funding – Wasilla had a whopping 5000 residents when Palin was mayor!

On the issue of spending, Palin’s list of expenses make for entertaining reading. According to reporter Ken Dilanian:

As governor, Palin has signed off on $402,000 to study the arctic fox; $154,000 for renovations to three gun clubs and $125,000 …

Someone needs to remind Sarah Palin that chief on the Republican talking points memo are the words: “reigning in spending.” By now everyone who pays any attention to the news has heard of Palin’s outrageous $150,000 fashion tab at the RNC’s expense (read the sickening breakdown of expenses here). It seems as though her smugness at recent campaign rallies may be tempered with a serious dose of reality: most Americans are not so stupid to see past this one. There are so many angles to this story that I hardly know where to begin…

First, the obvious one: with all the talk of Joe-six packs, and Walmart hockey-moms, Palin’s splurges are hardly becoming of the “every-woman” or “girl-next-door” image the McCain campaign has cultivated. How much can one actually buy at a single spree for $75,000???? The LA Times blog attempted to load …

Barack Obama has a cult of celebrity but Sarah Palin’s popularity is legitimate because she’s just “one of us.”

Barack Obama “pals around with terrorists, but John McCain, who has links to a group that supported terrorist death squads in Central America, is above board.

Barack Obama is a “Chicago politician,” with implied ties to the mob, while Sarah Palin’s questionable conduct as Governor, under an ethics investigation for improper abuse of authority, is not relevant.

Barack Obama is not being “forthright” with voters, even though he has written books and has had years of public scrutiny, while Sarah Palin, who burst onto the public scene less than 2 months ago, is completely transparent and trust-worthy.

Barack Obama would be bad for the economy, even though he’s proposing tax cuts to the middle class, while John McCain, who pushed and continues to push deregulation, would …

I had the pleasure this morning of interviewing Stefan Forbes on my radio program, Uprising, about his new documentary, Boogieman: The Lee Atwater Story. I had only heard vague mentions of the name Lee Atwater but really had no idea how influential to American political campaigning he was, until I watched the film. This young Republican upstart from South Carolina, wrote the script-book for today’s GOP election tactics. Not surprisingly he was Karl Rove’s mentor.

Coming of political age in the College Republicans, Atwater learned early in life that he enjoyed engineering political wins rather than winning himself. He compared politics to war and decided that winning at all costs was worth it. In that spirit, Atwater spread rumors about people’s personal lives, played to the racism of white working-class Americans, manipulated the media, and even planted lies. All, in order …

When Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama said last year that air strikes against Pakistan were a viable option, much controversy was made of it. The Senator was called naive and inexperienced in foreign policy. But Obama’s mistake was not the strategy he proposed, but expressing that strategy out loud.

That’s what his rival John McCain said during last Friday’s Presidential debate: “[Obama] said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan. Now, you don’t do that. You don’t say that out loud.”

Apparently McCain’s problem is that when you bomb an ally, you do it on the sly. Like his fellow Republican, President Bush is already doing.

Yes, we are already bombing Pakistan. But the foreign policy advisers of both candidates apparently failed to inform them.

Not only are we dropping bombs into Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province from unmanned drones, but …

The newest indie film, Take Out, about an undocumented Chinese worker and his struggle to make ends meet, is proof positive that telling a good story is far more crucial to the success of a film than props, set design, or even quality of film used. Shot entirely on a digital hand-held camera, writers and directors Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou have made Take Out‘ a winning combination of perfectly sparse writing and powerful acting.

Relatively new to the US, Ming Ding, a delivery boy for a divey New York Chinese restaurant, owes a loan shark a lot of money. He borrowed it to send back home to the family he left behind so they could pay back the debt they incurred in paying his way to the US. The shark deploys thugs to demand $800 toward the debt by nightfall or else …

Much attention has been paid to the numbers of US troops being killed in Afghanistan this year – surpassing the numbers killed in Iraq despite there being about a third as many troops in Afghanistan as in Iraq. But what of the Afghans killed?

The Taliban and the US/NATO forces were competing with one another this year for who could kill more civilians. Members of the Taliban use suicide bombers as weapons, while US/NATO forces use bombs, and in some cases, snipers and grenades. Wikipedia, using a variety of reliable sources (Associated Press, United Nations, Human Rights Watch, etc), has tallied that since the start of the war, “insurgent actions” have resulted in 2,016 – 2,449 direct deaths, while “US-led military actions” have led to 3,922 – 4,841 direct deaths.

As analyst and Afghanistan expert Conn Hallinan pointed out in an interview I did with him this morning on …

A suspected Afghan druglord went on trial this week in New York for attempting to smuggle tens of millions of dollars worth of heroin from Afghanistan into the US. Afghanistan is currently the world’s most prolific producer of heroin. Not coincidentally, Afghanistan’s drug trade has gone hand-in-hand with US policy in that country.

In the 1980s, the US backed and financed, along with its Saudi allies, a massive holy war on Afghan soil against the Soviet occupation. It was at that time that heroin production in Afghanistan peaked globally. Narcotics were the untraceable currency which paid for weapons on the black market. These weapons eventually ended the Soviet occupation and helped the US win the Cold War. Nearly two decades later, under a US/NATO occupation, Afghanistan has earned the distinction of world’s greatest heroin producer for the second time.

Ironically heroin production under the Taliban slowed …