Asif Wants US to Suck Up, Europol and Child Porn, More Free Clinics Please

Asif Ali Zardari
Rami Khouri
Dana Milbank

"The good news is that Israelis and Arabs wish to achieve a negotiated, peaceful end to their conflict." - Rami Khouri

"The bad news is that this inclination to negotiate peace and coexistence is not being translated into a lasting agreement because of Israel’s refusal to come to grips with the core issue that matters for the Palestinians, which is their status as refugees. " - Rami Khouri

The opinion piece linked above by Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari suggests ways that the relations between his country and the US can be mended for the better. If McChrystal's Afghan surge works, many Pashtun Taliban will be spilling across the border into Pakistan seeking a safe haven. The Pakistani town of Quetta is where the Mulla Omar, nominal head to the Taliban, has lived for years, crossing back and forth across the border without any trouble.

The Taliban in Pakistan is a different group entirely, more in alignment with al Qaeda in trying to attack the Pakistani police and society directly, using bombs to create chaos and lack of confidence in their civilian government. But there is an increasing alienation between the two groups, as al Qaeda has no problems blowing up Pakistani mosques and killing local mullahs, which pisses off the local Talibans. They may yet join with the Pakistan military and help kick the bums out of their country. It will be interesting to see if Osama is alive and if he joins the diaspora. He can't go back to Afghanistan because the Taliban there will use him as a bargaining chip, to hand him over for some territory and an official representation in the government, end of war, and the US will be their new best friends instead of their current enemy...

child sex ring arrested...
One of the dirty secrets with the rise of the Internet has been the proliferation of sites that cater to child sex. I'm not talking about the so called teen sites, but ones where you must have a special password to get in and show pictures and films of people having sex with pre-adolescent children. It's a world-wide problem, and there have been pedophile rings busted in places like Los Angeles, Russia, Japan, Korea, Eastern Europe, Thailand, Britain, and Portugal. The rings often involved government officials, police officials, management of major corporations, local politicians, and television celebrities. I have a book, written by a former US Congressman, that chronicles taking orphans from places like Boystown in Nebraska, and using them as prostitutes at local parties where police, businessmen, and politicians are said to have attended. At one party it's rumored that H W Bush attended...

Anyway, Europol: "... says it has arrested 115 alleged child sex offenders in raids across 18 EU nations and Canada. It says its two-year Operation Typhoon - targeting child sex offenders on the internet - has now been concluded. The suspects had different professional backgrounds, some of them being teachers or caretakers in close contact with children. It says it identified five children - aged between four and 12 - who had been victims of sexual crimes."

Europol, which I assume is the new name of Interpol, has had over 23 operations against these sex rings and child porn sites. I'm so glad that someone has been doing something about this: "The suspects were detained during house searches in Austria, Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland.


"Child sexual abuse is one of the most horrific crimes so I am extremely pleased that Europol together with our partners have been successful in having these offenders identified and arrested," Europol Director Rob Wainwright said in a statement. "But most of all I am glad to see that vulnerable children have been identified and saved from further harm."

To date, there is no cure for pedophiles, and lord knows the medical establishment has tried. It's the reason your local police department keeps a register of local sex offenders and any citizen can access it to find out how many are living in their neighborhood... My local newspaper doesn't link to this register, but it does link to a homicide map, the police blotter, and internal investigations reports.

how health care reform should have gone...

I've been trying to keep away from the health care debate because the newspapers and television stations tell us each minute twist in the evolving legislation. It primarily shows the convoluted process that goes into making a law, and how cut-off from reality our Congressmen really are. It also shows how political partisianship weakens and waters down any good intentions, and why all bills passed should be written in plain English, and have a sunset clause on them of 20 years.

I think Obama went wrong on relying on Congress to craft the reforms he wanted. A better way is to have supported the National Association of Free Clinics, put some money into sponsoring free clinics in all states, along with similar goodwill programs for the first year. Not only would this have demonstrated in a visceral way the need for providing better health care, but it would be doing something constructive about it before any debates occurred. More help at food banks, buying foreclosed homes for resale or rent, having dental and eye clinics, opening up the VA hospitals for regular folks, all kinds of programs that demonstrate some humanitarian gesture for the millions of people who are having hard times and going without, be they middle class Americans in between jobs, people working at minimum wage jobs, and yes, even the children of illegal immigrants, who are human beings first...

Then, we try crafting a health care bill and taking on the medical and insurance industries, who appear to have won the current battle, screwing us all. And to the staunch conservatives, who shout to the sky, warning us about big government and using the same weary socialist warning for over the past 40 years, I say grow up or get out. Our major problem is not limiting government, but creating a responsive and responsible government. In Colorado Springs, the home of the Libertarian Party and dominated by conservative, evangelical Republicans, we have the same fiscal problems, and problems with corrupt officials as anywhere else. We are not living in a conservative utopia, the idealogues are proving to be lousy at governing, just as the Bush administration proved it on the national level... Despite their co-opting by national groups, the tea party movement haas more in common with anarchists than any current political party, I expect them to join in the Greecian  street protests any day now...