Never Be Silent

(via apsies)

From the NY Times, excerpt:

KANEOHE, Hawaii — The attempted bombing of an American passenger plane on Christmas Day could greatly complicate President Obama’s efforts to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as lawmakers in both parties call on the administration to rethink its approach.

The task of determining what to do with the detainees held at Guantánamo has already proved so daunting that Mr. Obama is poised to miss his self-imposed one-year deadline for shuttering the prison by Jan. 22. But evidence that Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen was behind last week’s failed plane attack will make closing the center even harder since nearly half the remaining detainees are from Yemen.

“The current threats emanating from Yemen dramatically increase the political costs of closing Guantánamo,” said Matthew Waxman, a former top Pentagon official who handled detainee issues and supports trying to close the detention center. “To close it anytime soon, the Obama administration either has to send many detainees back to Yemen — widely viewed as a major terrorist haven — or it brings many of them into the U.S. for continued detention without trial.”

The possible impact on Guantánamo represents just one ramification of the Christmas Day plot. The administration is already reviewing changes in intelligence analysis and aviation screening to address what the president on Tuesday called “human and systemic failures” that allowed a 23-year-old Nigerian with known radical views to board a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit with explosives in his underwear.

Vanity Fair editorial by Brett Berk, in its entirety:

What does it mean that Houston just elected a lesbian as mayor, making it the largest American city to have a gay at its helm? Some pundits say it indicates that bigger and more recognizably liberal cities such as New York are behind the times, since they don’t have homo heads of their own. Obviously this is silly, as New Yorkers have had gayish mayors in the past, and anyway sexuality has nothing to do with getting elected to run N.Y.C. right now; what you need is $80 billion dollars and a willingness to spend it. Others see it as a sign that fast-growing localities in the South and Southwest—places like Charlotte and Vegas—are leaving identity politics, and the creaky old Northwestern and Rust Belt political rules they spawned, behind. This is a Gladwellian argument, in my opinion: taking a result and reverse-engineering it into a trend. How does this explain the fact that my post-industrial hometown of Detroit just elected a gay, African-American Fox News anchor to head its city council? Or the fact that the dying tire capitol of Akron, Ohio, just voted a homosexual rights activist onto its governing board? Or the fact that there are more than 450 openly gay and lesbian politicos in the Northeast and West Coast, versus about 100 in the entire South and Southwest?

No, what Annise Parker’s win in Texas demonstrates is not some silly regional pet theory or fundamental failing of liberal bastions. What it demonstrates is rather obvious: in an increasing way, in every part of the country, and across all demographic cuts (except among insane religious bigots), people have less and less of an issue with the gays. So if you’re a qualified candidate, or splashy and well-known, or able to rise above the other nine losers competing for approval from the 13 percent of registered voters who actually turn out for local elections, a growing number of constituents don’t actually give a shit who shares your bedroom, how you raise your kids, or even whether or not you attend exclusive leather-ware events.

The culture wars aren’t over, and there’s definitely plenty of opposition out there. But the slow and steady march of intelligence continues, even in alleged bastions of intolerance. This doesn’t underscore the shifting superiority or importance of any specific regions, as much as it demonstrates how fundamentally behind the curve our national debate is. The question isn’t, Why does Birmingham, Alabama, or Salt Lake City, Utah, or Boise, Idaho, have a lesbian in the state house? It’s, Why doesn’t our liberal U.S. president have a proper gay-and-lesbian-rights policy? What these races and wins suggest is that people are ready to be guided toward a more rational understanding of these issues. But guidance, by definition, requires leadership. I’m no military strategist, and I don’t know anything about sports, but my general sense is, when you see your opposition failing in its strongholds, it probably signals an opportunity. Instead of standing back and waiting, shouldn’t we exploit it?

From Human Rights Watch, follow the link to urge the US to join the 1997 treaty banning interpersonal landmines.

Landmines claim thousands of casualties every year and inhibit socio-economic development in countries recovering from conflict. As Commander in Chief, President Obama has an opportunity to get US landmine policy back on the right track by acceding to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, an international agreement that 156 governments have joined.

The US participated in the “Ottawa Process” that created this international treaty, but the Clinton administration decided at the last moment against signing and instead set 2006 as the objective for the US to join. In February 2004, the Bush administration reversed course and announced that it did not ever intend to join the Mine Ban Treaty.

The United States is already compliant with the key provisions of the Mine Ban Treaty. It has not used antipersonnel mines since 1991, has had an export ban in place since 1992, and has not produced since 1997. The US is already the world’s largest contributor to global mine clearance and victim assistance programs. Acceding to the treaty would reinforce President Obama’s stated commitment to international humanitarian law, protection of civilians, arms control and disarmament, and multilateralism.

Tell President Obama that you support the landmine ban and want to see the United States join the Mine Ban Treaty without delay.

From CARE, follow the link to send President Obama a quick message.

It is critical that the United States take action to mitigate the effects of climate change now, and ensure that vulnerable populations have access to resources that can help them adapt to changing conditions.

Please contact President Obama today. Urge him to go to Copenhagen and show that the United States is — and will continue to be — a global leader in the fight against climate change!