Go Watch/Read This: Rachel Maddow on The Afghanistan War

Some months ago, I tried to say why it is I think Women Can End the Afganistan War.

Now the brilliant Rachel Maddow has managed to lay out, based on facts gathered during her recent visit and live broadcasts from Afghanistan, what's at stake for America if we stay and why there are strong moral imperatives for us to leave. (The transcript to her opinion piece is here.)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Nation-building, or its more modest cousin, development aid, is not nor should it be a military objective. Why? Because the inevitable loss of life among our soldiers in pursuit of building a nation other than our own is too high a price to pay, and the inevitable loss of life among their civilians directly undermines the building of a peaceful civil society.

1,000 Americans Dead in the Afghanistan War

It's a terrible milestone to have reached. So much sacrificed by military families; so many deaths of Afghan civilians. How many years is too long? How many dead is too much to bear?

Set aside the corruption at Blackwater/Xe, or that the defense budget grows at the expense of spending at home. Let the pain of lost loved ones among Americans and the civilians who bear the brunt of the war in Afghanistan unite us in resolving to end this war.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k. 

Maternal health crisis worsening in U.S.

Yesterday the Lancet released a major study highlighting maternal morbidity and mortality in 181 countries from 1990-2008.

The United States ranks 39th with 16.7 deaths per 100,000. We're behind most of the OECD -- behind Canada, tiny Malta, Croatia, Serbia, and the United Arab Emirates. Instead of declining is accordance with Millennium Development Goal 5 -- the target is a 75% reduction in the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) from 1990 to 2015 -- the U.S. saw a 2% increase in MMR from 1990-2008.

I want you to gaze upon these picture for a few minutes:

I know this is hard to read but bear with me: Countries in blue, from very dark to light, have seen a decline in maternal mortality. Notice that the U.S. is in red. That's because instead of declining, our rate has increased. Our company in seeing at least a 1% increase, in descending order: Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, South Africa, Namibia, Côte d'Ivoire, Mozambique, Malawi, [United States], Cameroon, Denmark, Singapore, Georgia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Slovenia and Chad.

Women Can End the War in Afghanistan: We Know the Cost of War

If it was Bush-Cheney who led us into misbegotten wars in oil country, it's my deepest wish that women will lead us out. I'd like to mark International Women's Day, Women's History Month, and recent debate in the House of Representatives regarding HR 248 (A Resolution to End the War in Afghanistan) by highlighting the ways we women know the cost of war, in intimate and everyday ways. And I am convinced that we can end these wars, and not only that, we have the growing political will, the know-how, and the collective might to bring about peace.

International Women's Day: Celebrate Women

It's International Women's Day. A day to honor women's impact on world history, further the cause of equal rights for women everywhere, and appreciate the women in our own families and communities who make important contributions to our daily lives.

So what are you doing to celebrate?

If you're still looking for something to do, you could hold a dinner party on behalf of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood to raise awareness about the need to improve pregnant women's access to medical care. You could attend a local Join Women on the Bridge event on behalf of Women for Women, an non-profit organization that helps women in war-torn countries escape and recover from the cycle of violence.

You could watch influential women speakers discuss their world-changing work over at the TED blog, or visit WomenCount to read profiles of women running for public office. You could sign Change.org's petition to persuade Congress to pass the International Violence Against Women Act, a bill that would integrate U.N.-recommended measures to prevent violence against women into all U.S. foreign aid missions.

You could donate to organizations that work to empoyer impoverished women and girls, like CARE or Barefoot College. You could send your favorite women International Women's Day ecards through Care2 (and earn credits toward charitable donations that you can later direct to charities that assist women).

If you would like to join a group writing blog posts in honor of International Women's Day, you could join these events hosted by Gender Across Borders and Bloggers Unite.  

Or, you could tell us about the great International Women's Day events you've attended or read about, or point us toward great posts about International Women's Day here in our comment section.

Is Canada a Utopian Escape from American Politics & Conservatism? What One Canadian Says.

By MOMocrats Guest Writer, Ann Bibby

It’s been a difficult week for Democrats and centrist minded Independents in the United States. Martha Coakley lost Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat to Republican Scott Brown. The Supreme Court overturned rules established by Congress to regulate campaign financing. 

Democrats are telling the Health Care Reform Bill that “we need to take a break,” and the President’s call for a return to common sense banking regulation was greeted on Wall Street by a collective panic attack.

 

Has Canada ever looked so inviting?

 

Whenever life in the land of the free and home of the brave seems constricting and scary, many of my Democratic and Independent friends remind me of how lucky I am to have achieved the dream. Canadian Permanent Residency.

 

“Look at you,” they say. “Basking in the last frontier in northern Alberta with your provincial health care and your government that has a firm exit date from Afghanistan.”

 

“I need to find me a Canadian boyfriend,” a single friend has remarked. “Escape from the Teabag mentality and the Sarah Palin worship.”

 

Normally, I have nothing to say. I read. I know. I am glad that I am here and that my daughter will grow up in a country that prizes individual liberties in a way that my native land never really seemed to. It would surprise people in the lower 48 a great deal to know that the provinces are fiercely independent and resent any attempt of over-reach from the central government in Ottawa. They run their own health care systems. They set school curriculums for the students residing within their borders. And though they like the fact that our popular vote gives us a say in choosing our President, whereas they have only indirect influence on who becomes Prime Minister, they find our presidential election process an endless nightmare from which nothing much good ever comes.

 

But my American friends who harbor dreams of emigrating to a Canadian Utopia need to stop and consider a few facts.

Go Read: US-China Tussles Over Currency Exchange

You may have heard that next week President Obama will be visiting Asia, and significantly, the People's Republic of China. One big bone of contention is the way China pegs its Yuan (or RenMinBi) to the US Dollar. For a long time, it was at 8Y : $1USD. Currently it seems to be running 7:1. The US has been trying to get China to change the practice, and this post from Campaign for America's Future explains why.

Would prices go up at Walmart if China changed its currency to reflect the dollar's relative weakening worldwide? Probably. But maybe, as even Treasury Secretary Geithner has said, American workers would have a fighting chance if the RMB were to stop being manipulated to China's unilateral self-interest.

In the next week, it'll be interesting to see if the initial softening of China's Central Bank to the more flexible policy Geithner called for will continue after President Obama and President Hu Jintao meet.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k. Her retired parents, like many in the Chinese diaspora, spend part of the year living in Shanghai and maintain a connection to the country of their birth. It was her dad, a lifelong basketball fan, who told her Le Bron James' nickname in China is "Lao3 Bei2 Jing4" or "Old Beijing."

Breaking: President Barack Obama Wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

Congratulations on the honor, President Obama!

UPDATED TO ADD:

From the Nobel Prize website's official press release:

...awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

We'll have more on the international and domestic response to the world's most significant humanitarian award to President Obama as it develops.

Must-See TV for understanding U.S. role in recent Iranian history

On Monday June 22 at 9 p.m, Eastern, the National Geographic Channel will air a new documentary, Iran and the West. About the relationship between Iran and the United States since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the film features interviews with several key players from some of the most significant interactions between the U.S. and Iran over the past thirty years, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, U.S. officials from the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, U.N. diplomats, European negotiators, and even one of the Iranian students who once held American citizens hostage at the American Embassy in Iran.

Why Obama is right not to openly pick a side in the Iranian election conflict

Women protest Iranian election results - Photo by Farhad Rajabali. Creative Commons license. Source: Flickr.

When protests erupted across Iran over the weekend in response to disputed Presidential election results, the Obama administration issued some very delicate statements.

On Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "We obviously hope that the outcome reflects the genuine will and desire of the Iranian people."

On Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden said, "There's an awful lot of question about how this election was run. And we'll see. I mean, we're just waiting to see. We don't have, we don't have enough facts to note— to make a firm judgment."

And President Obama himself issued no official statement until today, when he said:

Obviously all of us have been watching the news from Iran.  And I want to start off by being very clear that it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be; that we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran, which sometimes the United States can be a handy political football— or discussions with the United States.

Having said all that, I am deeply troubled by the violence that I've been seeing on television.  I think that the democratic process— free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent— all those are universal values and need to be respected.  And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they're, rightfully, troubled.

Iran's current president, conservative hardliner Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's claims to have won the election in a landslide— despite pre-election polls that showed him in a neck-and-neck race with his more moderate opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi; despite widespread reports of voting irregularities on election day, and despite anecdotal reports from several communities that their own records from election day do not match the officially released national results— beggars credibility.

And the current regime's iron-fisted reaction to the post-election protests— expelling international journalists from the country, blocking foreign television and radio broadcasts, blocking text messaging and access to certain websites across Iran to disrupt communications, and arresting and shooting at protesters— totally undermines whatever credibility the Iranian government had as a supposedly democratic state. 

Not to mention the fact that, given our country's recent history of turbulent and frustrating relations with Ahmedinejad, our own government leaders almost certainly expect U.S. interests would be better served if Mousavi were declared the true winner.

So why the careful wording? Why hasn't the administration denounced Ahmedinejad and come out in loud, open support of Mousavi's backers, who are currently battling fierce government opposition to demand their right to free and fair elections?

Because if Obama wants Mousavi's supporters to succeed, the last thing he should do is explicitly declare his support for them.