In response to the ongoing propaganda war against human rights NGOs by the Netanyahu government and its outriders here in the U.S. — especially the recent criticism of Human Rights Watch from HRW founder Robert Bernstein — a couple of Canadian social scientists did a statistical analysis of both HRW’s and Amnesty International’s reporting. Here’s what they found:

There is no anti-Israel or anti-democratic conspiracy at work. Like Pakistan or Afghanistan today, Israel is, and has been for many years, a tremendously newsworthy place. This is true for many reasons, but much of the interest must be driven by Israel’s very large claim on America’s overseas assistance envelope and foreign policy resources.

Global watchdogs, like western reporters and politicians, are keen to be heard, seen, and make an impact. As a result, they join the public debate wherever it takes place, prompting them to devote more resources and attention to Israel than to North Korea, Niger, or Burkina Faso.

Note also, however, that Israel’s security forces regularly commit violations against Palestinians and southern Lebanese, and since the statistical models show that actual abuse is also a significant factor, Israeli behaviour — along with other factors — is also driving the coverage.

Careful analysis, in other words, is a calming remedy in times of emotion, allegation, and counter-allegation. Statistics, disdained as boring by so many university students, can, occasionally, offer useful insights not found elsewhere.

For the most committed Likudniks, of course, the fact that their charges of anti-Israel bias are not borne out by a careful analysis of NGO reporting will only be taken as proof that the authors of that analysis themselves — indeed perhaps even the entire social science discipline — suffers from an anti-Israel bias. Certainly that fact that the authors even suggest — and actually assert straight out — that “Israel’s security forces regularly commit violations against Palestinians and southern Lebanese” (a claim that is uncontroversial in any country other than the U.S.) is quite enough to get them tarred as Israel-bashers in some circles. But for those seriously interested in interrogating recent claims made against human rights NGOs, this analysis should be very useful.

There’s no question that Israel has to deal with a precarious security situation, however this does not exonerate the country from its own commitment to uphold certain human rights standards, nor immunize it from criticism when it fails to meet those standards. It’s really unfortunate that, rather than cooperate with an American president who has made it a priority to improve that security situation, Israel’s current government has chosen instead to thumb him in the eye while organizing a smear campaign against its human rights critics.

Calling President Obama’s “compulsion to attack” the previous administration “unseemly,” Charles Krauthammer seems to have invented an alternate history of the U.S. in Afghanistan:

It’s as if Obama’s presidency hasn’t really started. He’s still taking inventory of the Bush years. Just this Monday, he referred to “long years of drift” in Afghanistan in order to, I suppose, explain away his own, well, yearlong drift on Afghanistan. [...]

The history of both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is a considered readjustment of policies that have failed. In each war, quick initial low-casualty campaigns toppled enemy governments. In the subsequent occupation stage, two policy choices presented themselves: the light or heavy “footprint.”

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we initially chose the light footprint. For obvious reasons: less risk and fewer losses for our troops, while reducing the intrusiveness of the occupation and thus the chances of creating an anti-foreigner backlash that would fan an insurgency. [...]

It was a perfectly reasonable assumption, but it proved wrong. The strategy failed. Not just because the enemy proved highly resilient but because the allegiance of the population turned out to hinge far less on resentment of foreign intrusiveness (in fact the locals came to hate the insurgents — al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan — far more than us) than on physical insecurity, which made them side with the insurgents out of sheer fear. [...]

In both places, the deterioration of the military situation was not the result of “drift,” but of considered policies that seemed reasonable, cautious and culturally sensitive at the time but that ultimately turned out to be wrong.

What happened in Afghanistan wasn’t that the Bush administration tried a strategy and it failed; rather, it was that the Bush administration tried a strategy, committed itself to resourcing it, and then lost interest as it refocused attention and resources to the showpiece invasion of Iraq — and then promptly screwed that up, requiring years of further attention and resources, and resulting in further disregard of Afghanistan. The strategic misjudgment of going into Iraq, which Krauthammer vigorously advocated, is, more than anything else, what led to the current crisis over which President Obama is deliberating.

And it’s not just Obama who speaks of “drift” in U.S. Afghanistan policy, but also the current Chairman of the Join Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee in September that the U.S. had “very badly under-resourced Afghanistan for the better part of five years.” Speaking to the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative in March, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) said “we have under-resourced Afghanistan for too long, we took our eye off the ball when we went into Iraq. All of our resources were devoted to that effort.” An international aid worker in Afghanistan told the New York Times’ Dexter Filkins that “the tragedy” is “the $70 billion that would have given you enough police and army to stabilize this place all went to Iraq.”

It gets tiresome to have to keep repeating all of this, but not as tiresome as reading Krauthammer’s ever more baroque efforts to avoid owning up to his massive errors in judgment. Like the rest of his neocon brethren, Krauthammer has expended an enormous amount of energy to distract from the fact that his ideas about the transformative potential of American military force have been utterly discredited. It’s a bit comical that the best advice Krauthammer can come up with for the president who has to deal with the consequences of those ideas is: “Needs more force!”

This past Wednesday, The Daily Show aired an interview with Anna Baltzer, a Jewish American peace activist and author of Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories, and Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a leading figure in the Palestinian democratic and nonviolent movement for peace.

At the beginning of the interview, Barghouti told Stewart that he thinks the “Jewish people have been in the avante garde of struggling for justice…and democracy,” and concluded that it was “natural” for Palestinians like himself and Jewish activitists like Baltzer to work together for a just resolution of the conflict.

Barghouti explained his experience as a Palestinian growing up under occupation. “It’s Palestinians who have been subjected to the longest occupation in modern history and a system of segregation that is totally unjust,” he said. This prompted a heckler from the crowd to yell, “Liar!” — the first heckling in The Daily Show’s 11-year existence. Stewart responded by joking, “Apparently Joe Wilson is with us tonight.” Watch it:

Following their joint appearance, Baltzer revealed in an open letter that “the show was overwhelmed with angry emails and phone calls prior to the appearance, and up until the last minute it seemed like they might cancel. … The entire staff were very nervous and may come to regret the monumental decision (and not make it again) as they will surely be inundated now that the show has aired.”

While some may feel that views like those of Barghouti should not be aired, the truth is Barghouti represents a Palestinian voice for nonviolence and democracy that is valuable to voice on U.S. airwaves. Despite the suffering he has endured living under occupation — he has been imprisoned and beaten several times for taking part in demonstrations and sit-ins — he has been a leading voice for nonviolent resistance and democratic reform, crafting his philosophy after that of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Barghouti’s many accomplishments include founding a leading health relief NGO, removing anti-Semitic programs from the Palestinian airwaves, and running as an independent presidential candidate offering a “democratic and independent ‘third way’ for the large majority of silent and unrepresented Palestinian voters, who favour neither the autocracy and corruption of the governing Fatah party, nor the fundamentalism of Hamas.”

Baltzer is urging viewers who appreciate Stewart’s fortitude in bringing them on to thank him and the producers of The Daily Show by using the show’s contact form here.

Last week, Vice President Dick Cheney attacked President Obama, saying he is “afraid to make a decision” on the war in Afghanistan and that he’s “dithering.” A number of conservatives, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and columnist George Will, disagreed with Cheney’s language. “I would never want to call my president ‘dithering,’” Hatch said.

But many on the right have failed to mention the more substantive point, namely that Cheney and the Bush administration itself “dithered” on Afghanistan and diverted valuable resources to invade Iraq. But last night on Fox News, former Republican senator Rick Santorum stepped up to the plate:

SANTORUM: My sense is that we have an obligation to support our generals in the field, to give them the resources they need to accomplish the mission. That was not done by the prior administration. Let’s be very clear about that. They put their own political imprint on the Afghan strategy.

Watch it:

Of course, Santorum is right. In 2008, Gen. David McKiernan, then the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, asked the Bush administration for more troops, a request that was denied.

Indeed, as McClatchy’s Jonathan Landay — one of the few Washington journalists whose reporting matched the facts in the run-up to the Iraq war — asked of Cheney’s recent attacks: “Do we smell a campaign of historic revisionism by those widely seen as primarily responsible for the disaster in Afghanistan that has prompted Army Gen. Stanley A. McCrystal’s request for up to 80,000 more soldiers?”:

As late as December 2005, despite official warnings about the Taliban resurgence and a lack of U.S. resources for critical reconstruction programs, the Bush administration planned to reduce the 19,000 U.S. troops then in Afghanistan by 2,500 soldiers in order to bolster hard-pressed U.S. forces in Iraq.

And even after seven years of war _ and the deaths of 630 U.S. service members, more than 400 other coalition soldiers and thousands of Afghans _ the Bush administration lacked strategies for dealing with the al Qaida and Taliban safe haven in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where it backed a military dictatorship, or building Afghan security forces, according to the Government Accountability Office.

It’s nice to see Santorum recognize reality.

Yesterday, on Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) proclaimed that Democrats are trying to prevent him from submitting an amendment that would prevent “illegals” from accessing jobless benefits. Sessions is upset that the Senate has denied his amendment to the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act requiring new unemployment benefit applicants to have their citizenship status checked using E-Verify — a controversial and error-ridden web-based employment verification system.

Sessions said, unequivocally, that undocumented immigrants are currently receiving unemployment benefits and are being “rewarded” for their “illegal behavior” by applying with their Social Security Numbers (SSN):

SESSIONS: What we want them to do is, like we’re asking businesses to do, is check with E-verify to see if the person who seeks unemployment insurance and compensation is actually lawfully in the country. That can be done, but they do not want to do that for reasons that baffle me and frankly have said that nothing is going to be voted on…

CAVUTO: So, are illegals presently getting jobless benefits, you can say that unequivocally?

SESSIONS: Yeah, uh, and they file using their Social Security Numbers and they get the benefits and if you check those numbers you would identify some of the people who shouldn’t be getting it. One of the more simple things you should do is simply not reward this illegal behavior.

Watch it:

To begin with, only US citizens individuals who are authorized to work are issued SSNs. Undocumented immigrants may possess stolen or fake SSNs, but if they try to apply for public benefits, the likelihood of them getting caught is very high. Phony SSNs immediately raise a red flag and stolen ones are easily identifiable in states that cross-match SSNs against the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) database and in all cases in which the theft has been reported.

Ultimately, most undocumented immigrants wouldn’t touch federal unemployment insurance with a ten foot pole. They’re in the US to work, not to collect public benefits. Chances are if they lose their job, they’ll just keep looking for another one before risking deportation and possible jail time. “It’s such a red herring — undocumented workers are too scared to apply for these kinds of benefits — they know the consequences of getting caught,” Jodi Conti of the National Employment Law Project tells Wonk Room.

Millions of US citizens are unemployed and they do qualify for and depend on unemployment benefits. However, if E-verify were instituted a 4% error rate could be devastating. In other words, for every million citizens that are unemployed, unemployment benefits for 40,000 American families could be denied or delayed due to errors in the SSA and Department of Homeland Security databases. The current number of total unemployed persons is currently at 15.1 million.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) pushed back hard today on former Vice-President Dick Cheney’s recent charge that President Obama was “dithering” on making a decision on Afghanistan strategy.

Speaking at a RAND conference on Afghanistan on Capitol Hill, Levin defended the Obama administration’s ongoing strategic review, and condemned those who were “willing to toss cheap and easy lines about presidential ‘dithering,’ or alleging the president is ‘afraid’ to reach a decision, in an effort to push him to immediately, indeed automatically, endorse recommendations from a general who is highly capable, but whose focus is understandably more narrow than that of Secretary Gates or President Obama”:

This pressure on the president goes beyond mistaken. It creates a political environment that is not just poisonous; it is dangerous — it creates growing pressure for decisions before the president has considered all the options, when what the nation needs and the troops deserve is careful, thoughtful deliberation. The wrong decisions could endanger far more lives than taking the time needed to deliberate and reach the right decisions.

Reaching for an historical analogy, Levin said “If we could go back in time, don’t you think President Kennedy would tell us that he wished he would’ve taken the time for his own deliberations, rather than immediately accepting his military advisers recommendations to undertake the Bay of Pigs invasion?”

This Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Israel for her first official visit since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was sworn in. Her visit comes at a time when the Middle East peace dialogue appears to have stalled. Clinton “aims to push forward the discussions with Israel and the Palestinians about agreeing to a framework for negotiations.”

In an interview with ThinkProgress today, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair — who previously served as a Middle East envoy — said, “I just think the essential thing is to get the negotiations underway. You’ll never get the most optimal context. … It’ll never be perfect, so let’s get it going.” Blair also emphasized the need to show “real changes on the ground.”

Rather than embrace final-status negotiations for a two-state solution in the Middle East, Netanyahu has recently suggested the idea of forging an “economic peace” with Palestinians. Blair told us this idea isn’t practical because economic issues must be coupled with political progress:

You’ve got to have the political and the economic and the security. But however, having said that, the economics — provided it’s not separated out from the politics or the security — the economics can play a part. The West Bank economy at the moment is growing pretty strongly. … So it’s not all bad news, but you need the political context.

Watch it:

The Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo asked Blair about the UK experience with community schools. Blair, who was at the Center for American Progress today to discuss how to improve student outcomes, emphasized that the longer hours and valuable services provided by community schools could mean they are “the wave of the future.”

Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate for New York’s traditionally Republican 23rd District, has just won the right-wing support of the Minuteman Political Action Committee — the political action arm of a “nativist extremist” armed vigilante group. The Minuteman PAC is currently running Independent Expenditure radio spots and predicts that Hoffman is “positioned to win a landslide victory” over Republican Party nominee Dede Scozzafava.

The Minuteman PAC’s Hoffman ad claims Scozzafava and Democratic candidate Bill Owens are tied directly to “the left-wing social agenda”:

You already know about ACORN — the corrupt organization scamming your tax dollars to promote a radical left agenda. And you’ve seen videos where Acorn officials offer to help a teenage prostitution ring involving illegal aliens. Now blogger Michele Malkin exposes yet another Acorn scandal: subsidized mortgages for illegal aliens. Acorn must be stopped, but how?

Two candidates for Congress, Dede Scozzafava and Bill Owens, are tied directly to Acorn and their far left-wing socialist agenda. That’s why voters all over Central New York and the North country are backing Doug Hoffman for Congress. Doug Hoffman is a CPA — a solid conservative and the only candidate for Congress opposed to amnesty and government handouts for illegal aliens. And only Hoffman will stand up to Acorn and the liberals. The choice is clear: Doug Hoffman for Congress — the wake-up call politicians in both parties need now.

Listen here:

The Minuteman PAC proclaims that it’s “THE ONE Political Action Committee that the open-borders, pro-amnesty lobby fears most,” but has been widely criticized for hoarding money and spending only a small fraction of its funds on political candidates.

However, Hoffman’s website indicates that he’s actually opposed to putting up a wall to “stop all immigration.” “The answer is to create an easier path for immigrants to enter the United States – and to work here,” says his immigration platform. Agriculture is one of central New York’s main industries and many farmers depend on migrant labor. The New York Farm Bureau has expressed “deep disappointment” in “the failure of Congress…to come up with an immigration reform measure that addresses the pressing labor needs of agriculture in New York and across the nation.”

Cross-posted at Think Progress.

Today the House Committee on Foreign Affairs is marking up H.R. 2194, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009. Rep. Steny Hoyer has “committed to moving the bill quickly to a vote once it is passed out of the committee.”

The American Enterprise Institute’s Iran Tracker website looked at the potential impact of the gas sanctions, and concluded that “the imposition of sanctions might generate no significant change in Iranian policy in the short term.” It also notes that “the group that should be the target of strengthened sanctions, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is least likely to be affected”:

Some analysts have argued that the IRGC actually benefits from a more economically isolated Iran because it no longer has to compete with foreign companies for government contracts. For example, one of the main engineering companies under IRGC control, Khatam al-Anbiya, has secured at least $7 billion in government oil, gas, and transportation contracts. Although IRGC companies do not always have the necessary technical expertise for some projects, they still generate revenue by acting as an intermediary between the government and international companies. IRGC members may continue to receive government contracts and subsidy money even if the government adjusted domestic economic policies.

So even the high church of U.S. aggression recognizes that not only would gas sanctions likely not have any effect on Iran’s nuclear policy, they could also end up empowering the very faction whose increased control over Iranian policy has resulted in Iran more aggressively pursuing its nuclear program. And that’s the upside. The downside is that the U.S. Congress moving forward with unilateral sanctions — with all the inevitable hawkish posturing that that entails — at an especially sensitive juncture in negotiations will provide opponents of a deal within the Iranian regime with precisely the demonstration of American bad faith — and thus a convenient excuse to walk away — that they’re looking for.

The AFL-CIO, American Rights at Work and the National Employment Law Project (NELP) released a joint paper today which shows that Bush-era immigration enforcement tactics created a “perverse economic incentive for employers to employ undocumented workers.” In other words, employers systematically deny undocumented workers “the most basic workplace protections” and escape responsibility “by simply calling for an immigration inspection.” While clueless anti-immigrant groups like the Center for Immigration Studies ignorantly claim that disruptive immigration raids actually help native-born workers, the report, “Iced Out: How Immigration Enforcement Has Interfered with Workers’ Rights,” affirms that “threats to call immigration authorities deprive workers in nearly every industry of their right to a voice at work.”

In 1998, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) forged between the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS, now ICE) and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) sought to create a balance between immigration and labor law enforcement. The MOU established that the two agencies would work together to increase employers’ compliance with minimum labor standards and clearly stated that immigration enforcement would not trump labor law enforcement. Ten years later, ICE’s preoccupation with immigration enforcement was blatantly undermining the work of those trying to enforce labor laws. The report lists several examples of disruptive ICE actions, including massive immigration raids conducted in the middle of major labor disputes and organizing campaigns, stating:

“ICE actions have created incentives for shady employers to continue hiring and abusing undocumented workers, since the deportation of their employees may excuse those employers from complying with labor laws…ICE has been too quick to embrace workplace enforcement actions at the behest of employers and other individuals, including law enforcement, acting directly and transparently on behalf of employers, where a labor dispute was in progress or where some level of due diligence would have uncovered the pending dispute. When enforcement is focused on immigration status without regard to the implications for upholding workplace standards, our country’s workers — immigrant and non-immigrant alike — are trapped in abusive jobs at the mercy of abusive employers.“

Two GAO reports released over the past couple years found that the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division hasn’t been doing its job either. The most recent, released this past March, showed that five of ten labor complaints reported by undercover agents were neither recorded in its database or investigated. Meanwhile, immigration prosecutions have risen 110% since 2004.

Ana Avendaño, assistant to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, and a report co-author, points out that “the ultimate solution” is immigration reform which creates a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants and strips employers of their power to exploit and threaten workers who stand up for their rights. Earlier this year, the AFL-CIO, along with Change to Win, “agreed for the first time to join forces” and support comprehensive immigration reform based on a “joint framework.”

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) gave an address at the Center for American Progress Action Fund today, calling on Congress and the Obama administration to revisit and reform key provisions of the PATRIOT Act through a full and open debate.

Afterward, Rep. Harman sat down with ThinkProgress to discuss other issues relating to U.S. national security, such as the war in Afghanistan. Harman recently made news when she told an audience at the Brookings Institution that any further troop increases in Afghanistan “wouldn’t be well received” on Capitol Hill. Asked if she could elaborate on this, Rep. Harman said “I have been focused on this issue, and I am not one who is enthusiastic about adding U.S. troops. I don’t think that is going to fix the problem.”

HARMAN: I think what’s going to fix the problem is a massive effort by us, when we have leverage, which is right now, to fix the corruption problem in the government. It’s the corruption, stupid. If we just let Karzai operate going forward with a system of cronies I think that is a guarantee that the population of Afghanistan won’t support its own government and will move increasingly to the Taliban. So, that’s against our interest. So, we ought to eliminate the corruption there and set up a system where Afghans want to fight for their own country over time.

Watch it:

U.S. Army Spc. Jack Barrios served bravely in Iraq only to come back to the US with a debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder and learn that his wife, who he refers to as his “everything,” might be deported back to Guatemala.

Frances Barrios was illegally brought to the US by her mother when she was only 6-years-old and wasn’t even aware of her immigration status until high school. Nonetheless, she would have to return to her home country and stay there for 10 years before being able to apply for a US green card to be with her husband and two children. The Los Angeles Times points out that Frances has no criminal record and speaks better English than Spanish.

Frances is not alone. Lt. Col. Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney who helped establish the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s Military Assistance Program, claims she receives one call a day related to immigration problems. New America Media reports that one commander was almost deployed not knowing if her husband would still be there when she got back. The army ended up being more understanding than federal immigration agents and agreed to let her command her unit from a station in the US. If her husband is deported, she will have to quit the army and move with her family to either Mexico or El Salvador.

Last year, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced legislation — co-sponsored by two Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee — that would give servicemembers’ spouses a path to citizenship. Yet the legislation has its critics. Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies, describes the bill as a “get-out-of-jail-free card.” Rep. Steve King (R-IA) also offers little sympathy, stating “Our soldiers fight and, in some cases, give their lives to preserve the rule of law. It seems ironic indeed that some would propose to disregard the rule of law just as another reward or inducement to serve our country.”

Several widows and widowers of deceased soldiers have also been affected by a draconian policy which allows immigration officials to annul spouses’ permanent residency applications when their US citizen husbands or wives die before the marriage is two years old. A bill that overturned what is often referred to as the “widow’s penalty” passed Congress this month and is awaiting President Obama’s signature.

For weeks, former Bush administration officials have been attacking President Obama for “dithering” on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, with Vice President Cheney saying that “signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries.” But these Bush officials are also facing criticisms for largely neglecting Afghanistan in order to invade Iraq. In response, they have been citing an Afghanistan strategy report they handed off to the Obama administration that clearly laid out recommendations for moving forward. From Cheney’s recent remarks to the Center for Security Policy:

In the fall of 2008, fully aware of the need to meet new challenges being posed by the Taliban, we dug into every aspect of Afghanistan policy, assembling a team that repeatedly went into the country, reviewing options and recommendations, and briefing President-elect Obama’s team. They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt.

Today on ABC’s This Week, Center for American Progress President and CEO John Podesta revealed that the Bush administration spent just one hour on that report:

PODESTA: [T]hey did present him with a report at the very end of the Bush administration, but I have it from reliable sources that the principals in the Bush administration spent one hour on that report before they handed it off to Obama.

Watch it:

Recently, Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-DE) — a former top aide to Biden and co-chair of the Vice President’s transition team — said that the Bush administration basically just “threw” the report “to the transition team as they were going out the door”:

KAUFMAN: So for him [Cheney] to come in at the end and say, “Well, we did it wrong for eight years. But then, in the end, we gave them a plan which really is what they should have used.” Let me tell you something: This administration came in. Rahm Emanuel was there. I was on the transition team on this. They started from scratch on Afghanistan. They took a blank piece of paper out and said, “What are we going to do to get this thing done?” … It was absolutely the perfect time to take a hard look at what we’re doing.

Also on This Week, conservative pundit George Will praised Obama’s process on Afghanistan, stating, “Well, also, a bit of dithering might have been in order before we went into Iraq in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction. So for a representative of the Bush administration to accuse someone of taking too much time is missing the point.”

Transcript: Read more

The Dallas Morning News reports that Ernestina Mondragon, a native Spanish-speaker who is still learning English, was wrongfully issued a ticket by an officer in training for not speaking English. Non-English speakers aren’t allowed to operate taxis or commercial vehicles in Texas, however Mondragon has every right to be on the road in her private car according to state and local law.

A local Dallas news station explains that the new police officer may have been confused. “Rookie” Officer Gary Bromley also issued Mondragon a citation for a wrongful U-turn and driving without a license. Mondragon was running late taking her 11-year-old daughter to school and had left her driver’s license at home. The error went inexplicably unnoticed by his supervising officer, who was with him the morning he issued Mondragon the ticket.

Throughout the years, English-only bills have been considered by the Texas state legislature — including one that sought to designate English as the official language of the State of Texas. Yet so far, non-English speakers in Texas are still allowed to drive.

Watch the local news report:

At an American Enterprise Institute event today — “Should Israel Attack Iran?” (yes, they’re obviously trying to get peoples’ attention) — former Ambassador Martin Indyk revealed an interesting wrinkle to the story of Eastern European missile defense system, which the Obama administration canceled last month, a move conservatives have heavily criticized as — what else? — appeasement.

Recounting recent meetings with Israeli national security officials, Indyk said that “the Israelis were upset at the way that Bush had offended Russia with missile defense” in Eastern Europe. The Israelis, like many Americans and most of the rest of the world, saw the deployment of untested missile defense technology in Poland and the Czech Republic as needlessly provocative of Russia, whose support is seen as necessary for any effort to bring Iran’s nuclear program under control.

Speaking about President Obama’s engagement policy, Indyk said “The key to this strategy has always been Russia,” because of their close relationship with the Iranians, and Obama “is bringing them [the Russians] around.” After the administration announced the canceling of the missile defense system, Indyk said, the Russians told the Iranians “if you do not go along with the proposal to ship out low enriched uranium” to Russia for reprocessing, “then you will be on your own.”

President Obama’s diplomacy “is about trying to concert the international community into a solid block against the Iranian nuclear program such that the Iranians would see that it is not in their interest to pursue nuclear weapons.” Indyk said “That is what is happening now.”

Amb. John Bolton, who was one of the biggest critics of the administration’s canceling of the missile defense system, was dismissive. “The Iranians are never going to be talked out of that effort” to obtain nuclear weapons, he said. As to the question of whether Israel should attack, Bolton said only that he believed “the use of force is necessary.” Bolton did, however, say that he did not think Israel “need[ed] to, or should” use tactical nuclear weapons against Iran.

AEI analyst Michael Rubin, who has been pretty clear-eyed about the costs of military action, said that in the event of an attack either by the U.S. or Israel, “Iranians will rally around the flag.” As for the idea that the Iranian people would rise up against the regime after such an attack, Rubin said “it’s wishful thinking. The best thing that ever happened to Islamic revolution was Saddam Hussein’s invasion” in September 1980, which allowed the still-wobbly regime of Ayatollah Khomeini to unify the country and consolidate power.

Our guest blogger is Richard Parker, Executive Director of the American Foreign Policy Project*.

Today’s news that Iran has changed its mind and rejected a deal to send three-quarters of its low-enriched uranium stockpile to Russia no doubt will be heralded by opponents of engagement as proof that Iran is just stalling for time while it builds a nuclear weapon, so let the sanctions and bombs fly.

A much more plausible explanation, however, is that Tehran may have regarded the deal as a little too good (for the West) to be true. Think about it for just a moment from Tehran’s perspective, a feat of imagination that eludes most neocons. Under this deal, Iran would give away three-quarters of its biggest bargaining chip in the nuclear talks (its LEU stockpile) at the outset of talks. What Iran would get in return would be a status-quo negative: a tacit agreement that the West would not try to bomb or cripple Iran with sanctions for at least a few more months, during which time the West of course would demand further concessions.

I’ve never bargained with Tehran. But I did work as a trade negotiator at the Office of the US Trade Representative and remember well the mantra we practically lived and breathed by in trade talks: “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” The deal that Tehran just walked away from would have been a major departure from that rule, in the West’s favor. From public reports, what has not yet been agreed — or even seriously discussed — is the ultimate question of whether Iran, at the end of the day, will be allowed to enrich uranium to low levels under comprehensive IAEA safeguards, as Iran has maintained for six years that it has the right to do, and is determined to do.

With that huge issue still out there, unresolved, why should Iran make major concessions now? Is it really so totally incomprehensible that Iran might regard (a) a tacit western promise not to club Iran for a few more months as a less-than-adequate quid pro quo for (b) a very tangible concession on the disposition of Iran’s uranium stockpile? The promise will be much easier to reverse than the stockpile will be to replace.

Does this mean we can be confident that Iran is bargaining in good faith and has no weapons program? Of course not. But if we don’t trust Iran, the thing to do is not to fuss and fume over Iran’s open-safeguarded enrichment to low levels and Natanz. What we need to do is get into place, as rapidly as possible, a comprehensive safeguards agreement that applies nationwide and gives us the maximum chance of making sure there aren’t more clandestine facilities out there. Yet right now, while all eyes focus on Natanz, we have little or no reliable means of knowing or verifying what is going on across the rest of Iran.

Read more

Last night in a speech to the Center for Security Policy, Vice President Cheney attacked President Obama for “dithering” on whether to add more troops to Afghanistan. “[T]he success of our mission in Afghanistan is not only essential, it is entirely achievable with enough troops and enough political courage,” said Cheney.

As ThinkProgress has pointed out, in 2008, the Bush administration rejected the request for 30,000 more troops from Gen. David D. McKiernan, then the top U.S. commander in Kabul. “There was a saying when I got there: If you’re in Iraq and you need something, you ask for it,” McKiernan said in an interview after he was fired. “If you’re in Afghanistan and you need it, you figure out how to do without it.”

In today’s White House press briefing, Gibbs referenced McKiernan’s troop request to hit back on the emptiness of Cheney’s accusations:

GARRETT: So that was a specific reference to McKiernan’s request that said that specific troop request was not taken seriously.

GIBBS: It wasn’t — Whether it was taken seriously or not, it wasn’t filled. I assume since it wasn’t filled, it was not taken seriously. Maybe they filled unserious ones and didn’t fill serious ones. That’s a fabulous question for the Vice President, who seems to have forgotten his role in the last seven years of Afghanistan.

When Fox News reporter Major Garrett then asked whether it was “proof of unseriousness to not necessarily agree with a request for troops submitted by a commander in the field,” Gibbs replied:

GIBBS: No. I’m simply saying, I think it’s interesting what the Vice President is suggesting the President isn’t acting on is what the previous administration didn’t act on, right? [...]

Help me understand the rationale how one goes from half as many troops as are now in Afghanistan under his watch, to 68,000, to now wanting an additional 40 [thousand], when you didn’t want the additional troops that President Obama approved. I mean, how do you go from 68-plus, when you didn’t want 34-plus? How — Do you — It defies some modicum of logic to get “I didn’t want to go from 35,000 to 65,000, but I want to go from 65,000 to 100,000.” Fuzzy math.

Watch it:

Transcript: Read more

The upcoming conference of the pro-Israel, pro-peace group J Street has unhinged a faction of hawkish pro-Likud types, who see J Street’s pro-peace message as a threat to their particular conception of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Yesterday I posted on Lenny Ben-David, the former AIPAC researcher, Netanyahu adviser, and current West Bank settler who launched a racist attack on J Street, accusing them of consorting with Arabs.

Today the Weekly Standard’s Mike Goldfarb carries on the effort, going after journalist Helena Cobban, who is participating in a discussion panel next week to which I’ll also be contributing. The panel is neither endorsed by nor connected with J Street, but this doesn’t matter to Goldfarb, who is fairly desperate to smear the organization with anything at hand.

Goldfarb accuses Cobban of using “Holocaust metaphors when talking about Israel.” Cobban’s offense was pointing out that the watchtowers, walls and barbed-wire of Israel’s separation barrier reminded her of a concentration camp. Goldfarb is also outraged that Cobban noted the rather uncontroversial — though inconvenient for a Muslim-baiter like Goldfarb — fact that Hamas’ program includes a strong social work component, and that defining them solely as a “terrorist organization” fails to understand the nature of their appeal to many Palestinians under Israeli occupation.

But Goldfarb’s limited knowledge of these issues is really beside the point. Cobban has studied the Arab-Israeli conflict for decades, and has spent a career working to build bridges of understanding between the various sides. Helena is a friend of mine, and her deep commitment to a peaceful and just solution to the conflict speaks for itself. In fact, she’s so well regarded that Mike Goldfarb himself has cited her work.

Goldfarb, on the other hand, has written in favor of killing Palestinian children in order to deter attacks on Israel.

It’s understandable that pro-Likud hawks like Ben David and Goldfarb (who is also a friend of mine) are freaking out about J Street, whose pro-Israel, pro-peace message threatens their deeply held view that the Arabs — or, depending on the day, Iranians — are the problem, and Israeli violence is the solution. Being targeted by wild, slanderous attacks like theirs is, unfortunately, the price one often pays for engaging in the public debate on this issue.

And here’s a new target for them: Former Israeli Foreign Minister and current Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni. Steve Clemons posted a letter from Livni congratulating J Street on its inaugural conference, noting that J Street shares her vision of “ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by realizing the vision of two nation state living side by side in peace and security is in the best interests of Israel, the United States, the Palestinians and the region as a whole.”

“In my view,” Livni writes, “the discussion [in] the pro-Israel community of what best advances Israel’s cause should be inclusive and broad enough to encompass a variety of views, provided it is conducted in a respectful and legitimate manner.” I anxiously await Goldfarb’s explanation of how Livni isn’t really pro-Israel.

A local Phoenix news station reports that Sheriff Joe Arpaio admitted last Saturday that his deputies are suspicious of people “who look like they just came from Mexico.” Arpaio has adamantly denied racial profiling allegations, but at a press conference yesterday morning, Arpaio refused to provide a straight-forward comment on the remarks he made this past weekend. In fact, he became confrontational with the reporter who asked him what someone who “just came from Mexico” looks like:

REPORTER: What does someone who just came from Mexico look like? What are the characteristics? You said it over the weekend.

ARPAIO: I never said the characteristics. Don’t mislead me. Hold on — no — I said we are using the protocol and the indicators that ICE has taught my deputies.

REPORTER: What are the indicators?

ARPAIO: No, I’m not going to talk about this anymore. I said we’re doing this legally. Put that in your camera and just say I said we’re doing it legally.

Watch it:

Arpaio later sent the news station a list of “indicators” his deputies use to determine if someone is an undocumented immigrants. Those indicators include a “thick accent” and riding in an “overcrowded” automobile. On CNN a couple weeks ago, Arpaio cited a nonexistent law which he claimed allowed his deputies to determine if someone is “illegal” by looking at their “clothing, speech, and conduct.” The “law” was actually an anti-immigrant designated hate group’s “legal analysis” of a federal statute that says nothing of the such.

Immigration authorities recently took away Arpaio’s authority to enforce immigration laws on the streets of Maricopa County. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is conducting an investigation into widespread allegations of racial profiling and civil rights abuses on behalf of Arpaio’s deputies. However, Arpaio has vowed to continue his immigration “crime sweeps” and is now calling on the county attorney, a “close political ally,” to give him an “official opinion” as to whether he can continue to enforce federal immigration laws. Arpaio’s other friend, Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce (R) has introduced local legislation to support the Sheriff’s activities. The “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” would allow Arpaio’s deputies to arrest undocumented immigrants under the state’s trespassing statute and bar cities from enacting policies that would prevent them from enforcing federal immigration laws.

Yesterday, Vice President Cheney spoke at the Center for Security Policy, run by former Reagan official and prominent neoconservative Frank Gaffney. Cheney used the opportunity to aggressively attack President Obama, accusing him of “giving in to the angry left” and “dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.” He added that because Obama “seems afraid to make a decision” on whether to add more troops to Afghanistan, he should just emulate the Bush administration’s strategy since it was so successful:

We should all be concerned as well with the direction of policy on Afghanistan. For quite a while, the cause of our military in that country went pretty much unquestioned, even on the left. The effort was routinely praised by way of contrast to Iraq, which many wrote off as a failure until the surge proved them wrong. Now suddenly – and despite our success in Iraq – we’re hearing a drumbeat of defeatism over Afghanistan. These criticisms carry the same air of hopelessness, they offer the same short-sighted arguments for walking away, and they should be summarily rejected for the same reasons of national security.

Watch the speech here:

With his criticisms, Cheney joins former White House adviser Karl Rove, who has been using his on-air and print outlets to blast Obama’s Afghanistan policies and rewrite history of President Bush’s legacy.

Many Americans — both on the left and commanders in the military — were critical of the Bush administration’s policies in Afghanistan. As early as 2005, the Center for American Progress called for a strategic redeployment from Iraq, urging more troops for Afghanistan where greater resources were “urgently needed to beat back the resurging Taliban forces and to maintain security throughout the country.” Additionally, in 2008, Gen. David D. McKiernan, then the top U.S. commander in Kabul, specifically asked the Bush administration for more troops for Afghanistan, but was rebuffed:

“There was a saying when I got there: If you’re in Iraq and you need something, you ask for it,” McKiernan said in his first interview since being fired. “If you’re in Afghanistan and you need it, you figure out how to do without it.” By late last summer, he decided to tell George W. Bush’s White House what he knew it did not want to hear: He needed 30,000 more troops. He wanted to send some to the country’s east to bolster other U.S. forces, and some to the south to assist overwhelmed British and Canadian units in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

The Bush administration opted not to act on McKiernan’s request and instead set out to persuade NATO allies to contribute more troops.

Cheney also claimed, “Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.” What endangered U.S. troops in Afghanistan was Bush and Cheney’s shift of focus to the Iraq war. Military officials have said that the Taliban was pretty much defeated in 2002, but regrouped when the Bush administration decided invade Iraq.