Because I largely ignore right-wing media, I was slow to get to this story. Apparently, the right-wing’s latest obsession is the fate of Shakil Afridi, a man who cooperated with the United States in their search for Usama bin-Laden by running a vaccination program in Abbottabad. He has since been arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to 33 years in prison, although ostensibly not for his role in the hunt for bin Laden.
He’s in a Pakistani prison, but Fox News correspondent Dominic Di-Natale claims to have interviewed him for 40 minutes. Whether he was really talking to Afridi is very much in doubt. In any case, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is taking the interview at face-value. During the interview, Afridi, or someone impersonating Afridi, claimed that he had been brutally tortured at the hands of the Inter-Service Intelligence agency (ISI), who he characterized as completely hostile to the United States. This added new fuel to Senator Paul’s campaign to cut off all aid to Pakistan until Mr. Afridi is released from prison.
Senator Paul started his campaign in June, when he tried to insert an amendment to that effect in the Farm Bill, of all places. This time, the bill is about creating jobs for veterans. It recently passed a cloture vote with 95 votes and a motion to proceed by 84 votes. Nevertheless, the Senate just agreed to shut down for five days in an effort to avoid voting on Paul’s amendment.
If you ask the American people if we should give large sums of foreign and military aid to a country that seemingly harbored Usama bin-Laden and which imprisoned and tortured someone who tried to help us find him, most people are going to say ‘no.’ It is for situations like this that the Founders created the Senate and had the senators selected by state legislatures instead of directly by the people. Yes, the House of Representatives will always be vulnerable to this kind of passion of the moment, but the Senate was supposed to be insulated enough that they could take the heat and make rational decisions even when public opinion was inflamed. We screwed that up when we decided that we had too much corruption in the state legislatures and too little accountability from our senators. It is a trade-off, and Rand Paul is showing us the downside right now. I am going to quote Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, because, in this case, he is completely correct:
“Pakistan is a country with nuclear weapons that is hanging by a thread. I think [the Paul Amendment] would be a very bad idea,” Graham said. “They’ve opened up the supply routes; they have been helpful in some areas.
“We live in dangerous times, and I am very worried about the possibility of a nuclear-armed Pakistan falling into extremist hands. So no, now is not the time to disengage from Pakistan,” Graham said, before noting that the funds should have “some conditions.”
Senator Graham is correct, but asking politicians to vote for continued aid to Pakistan under these conditions less than sixty days from an election when Muslims are assaulting our embassies and consulates is not a recipe for a rational result.
Senator Rand Paul is being supremely irresponsible. He should be castigated from the rooftops. The decision on how to treat Pakistan should be made by the administration, in consultation with Congress. Funding should not be cut off just because the junior senator from Kentucky has found an irresistible tool of demagoguery.
He should be in prison, and the people in our country who set that up should face consquences as well. That was one of the dumbest and most profoundly unethical things this country has done in Pakistan, and that’s saying something. It’s certain to kill more people than any drone strikes, that’s for sure.
A clever idea if kept secret. A destructive idea if it isn’t.
Astounding!!!
You really have lost it, haven’t you Booman?
Biological warfare at its “safest.”
For the purveyors.
Nice.
AG
Perhaps I woke up in a haze this morning, but your use of pronouns has left me a bit perplexed.
Who is the he that should be in prison? The doctor? The people behind the possibly fake interview?
What was set up that people should face consequences for? The scheme the doctor was involved in to get dna, or the interview?
And what was one of the dumbest and unethical things done in Pakistan, that is certain to kill more people than drone strikes?
He = the doctor.
The fake vaccination program set up by the CIA to try and catch OBL.
The fake vaccination program set up by the CIA to try and catch OBL.
I think, in context, it was the fake vaccination program. It was pretty thoroughly unethical to start with, and by getting caught, he made vaccinations look like a CIA plot. That’s the sort of thing that can, indeed, kill a lot more people than drone strikes
What he did was unambiguously deplorable and completely unethical from a medical point of view. He did not give people the three rounds of vaccinations they need to be inoculated against Hepatitis B. Even if they had done the vaccinations properly, it would have been a bad idea. But they didn’t. If he should be in prison it should be for being a bad doctor.
Man…think of the company he would have if that idea became common practice. Why…the prison population of the U.S. alone would double or triple!!! Especially if they included the Big Pharma criminals.
Great idea!!! Let’s do it.
Oh.
Wait a minute.
Big Pharma supports Obama.
So does the AMA.
Nevermind.
AG
Wait… What?!
Biological warfare, Big Pharma criminals?
You an AntiVaXor?
If so forget about me saying i like you.
You’re right. It is unambiguously deplorable and completely unethical. I had read about this doctor and the vaccination program months ago, and I either didn’t know all the details or had forgotten them.
I agree that the fake vaccination program was a bad idea on many levels, but why do you think the doctor should be in prison?
Because he administered it. He should have said “abolutely not”. Of course, that’s not why he’s there, and I don’t know ths specifics of why Pakistan thinks he committed treason because of his associations. But on the merits of the vaccination crap, he should have faced prison time. That’s a serious breach of ethics in the modern world of medicine, especially in that part of the world. It’s hard enough to get countries like Pakistan and Africa to vaccinate because they’re paranoid that it’s the government trying to get them, and that vaccines are unhelpful. And here this moron just confirmed their worst fears, setting back any progress that has been made in the region.
countries should read “regions”. Not trying to pull a Palin now.
Pakistan has never been a true ally. We cozied up to Pakistan during the Cold War because they were the enemy of India and India was perceived as pro-Communist because they took aid from the Soviet Union. Pakistan gladly took the dumb Americans’ money while laughing up their sleeves.
Why we pump billions that could do so much in own country to this enemy is beyond me and most non-Muslim Americans (which you have acknowledged).
Problem is that as of now Pakistan is to the US what the teabaggers/racists/fundies are to the GOP. Over thirty years of the most short-sighted and stupid geo-politics played by DC’s “best and brightest” created this conundrum with no exit plan that’s better than the status quo.
Why? So they don’t start shipping nukes wholesale to other Muslims who hate us. That’s the long and short of it.
My sense is that if Senators were still elected by legislatures, we would be in a worse situation.
I no longer believe that.
I did for a long time. And in different times, we’d be better off like this. But the Senate is now indistinguishable from the House except for two things.
The first part was by design. The second part could be fixed. But the fact that it now resembles the House is a problem without a solution.
Todd Akin would be the next Senator from MO if we changed it. So would George Allen here in VA. Ted Cruz will probably win anyway, but there’s another certainty in your situation.
you don’t know that.
You’re joking Booman, right?
The state Lege of Mo is perfectly consistent with Akins. They overrode a Republican governor’s veto with a two-thirds majority. MoLege would be salivating at the prospect of electing Akins.
If the state legislatures elected senators, we’d already have a National Personhood Amendment in process, needing only 34 states to approve. Note that is the LEGISLATURES that generally approve the amendments. In that case, here is a map of the first 26 states approval (the red states, of course) … about 3 days after it passes the Senate and House.
Missouri has a Democratic governor.
I am not basing my decision on the wisdom of directly-elected senators on what the partisan advantage or disadvantage would be of changing it back to the way it was intended to be.
Part of my reasoning is that the Senate has become a party-dominated partisan fun house that is no different in type or tone than the House. It did not used to be this way. And it cannot function this way. Not only is it a mere redundancy, but it an undemocratic one. If it cannot even serve to calm the nerves of the nation, it really has no function at all.
The way senators are selected in no longer any different than how House members are selected. They no longer behave any differently. They show no independence. They shift with every wind in the 24 hour news cycle. They are worse than pointless. The only ballast I can still see is the staggered terms, which prevented a takeover of the Senate by the GOP two years ago. But all that did was give us gridlock instead of insanity.
Over time, the Senate’s culture would become less coupled to the news cycle, less dominated by campaign messaging, since there would be no real campaigns in the traditional sense. The Party’s influence on them would decline.
About the only place in the country where you can still find cross-party cooperation in on the state or local level.
Changing the rules wouldn’t fix anything immediately, and it would restore all the problems that led to the reform in the first place.
There is no magic solution here.
But what we have isn’t working. I would rather abolish the Senate than keep it the way it is.
Is this proof the senate is broken because the brave senators are uneasy about going on record affirming their (prior) decision to send significant aid to Pak or because a loose cannon tea party bombthrower is doing exactly what he promised he would do when the fine voters of KY elected him instead of an actual serious public servant? Who promised that he would be the replacement for the obstructionist Kentuckian Bunning?
You know, one has to wonder just how stupid most Americans are. If even Repub Lindsay Graham can see that cutting off all aid to Pak is foolish since it’s the only overland supply route into Afghan and we don’t need to aid destabilization of the most volatile nuclear power on earth, well maybe the senate needs to have a bunch of senators (of both parties!) say that on the floor. You know, act like “senators” or something. And just deal with the fact that the noble voters in several Red States thought that more irresponsible bomb-throwing tea party demagogues were just what the senate needed in 2008. Is there really a “procedural” route around Paul’s amendment? I know there’s a “just vote him down” 95-5 route.
And if Paul wasn’t the loose Repub cannon pulling this irresponsible shit wouldn’t fellow nuts DuhMint or Lee or Sessions or Blount pull it? Paul is the eager lightning rod for rightwing populism, but there are several others who would be delighted to perform his role in the dysfunctional senate, right?
What evidence do you have that his story is false?
What evidence do you have…besides idle surmise…that the interviewer was not talking to Afridi?
What evidence do you have that control of Pakistan is not already in the hands of an anti-U.S., Islamic fundamentalist cabal? (There is plenty of evidence to back that anti-U. S. one up, y’know. Loads of it.)
What evidence do you have…oh…wait a minute!!!
I just finished reading your post.
It’s really about someone with the last name of “Paul.”
Oh.
I understand now.
Nevermind.
Yore freind,
Emily Litella
P.S. What a sad Dem talking point hack you have become. Shame on you, Booman. However, as you mention in your recent post about that vile Markos boyo. (Italics mine.):
Oh.
It’s now all about “career” and positive or negative impacts upon it.
Oh.
Nevermind.
Yer doin’ real good.
Keep it up.
P.P.S. Have you considered what will happen if the country fails before you truly get to that Dem hack career and its rewards?
Hmmmmm???
I have.
First the truth.
Then partisanship.
You be bettah off in the long run.
Bet on it.
As will we all.
Being insulted by you never gets old.
It’s your responsibility to follow links if you have doubts about my sources. I shouldn’t have to do that work for you.
But I will this time:
What I said was that there were serious doubts, not that it was definitely not Afridi.
And the rest of your post?
Let me ask you a question, Booman. Had it been…oh, say Harry Reid “taking the interview at face-value” instead of Rand Paul…would your post have even appeared? It most certainly wouldn’t have appeared in the same form except for a name change. How about if the whole thing was on that equal-but-opposite partisan hynpmedia source, MSNBC instead of Faux Newsz?
I am sorry, man…I really am…but you are turning into a Democratic shill. If you find that to be an insult…what can I say? Stop doing it.
AG
P.S. I find your frog-march-the-culprits logo an “insult” on a blog that has for four years found every excuse possible to explain why President Obama hasn’t gone after the real criminals who have been and remain responsible for the ongoing collapse of the United States. Maybe you should change the logo.
Here’s one. Try it on for size.
P.P.S. And…read my sig.
Please.
I think you saw a criticism of Rand Paul and just decided to defend him without pausing to think about what Rand Paul is doing and what it means.
To answer your question, Harry Reid has his faults, but using rank demagoguery that threatens our national security and sensitive foreign relations is not one of them.
I’m not sure why you are focused so much on the authenticity of the video, since I only mentioned it to be thorough. The video really is ancillary to the real points of this post.
Sorry, not video, but the interview.
Right after I wrote this, I remembered a case of Harry Reid engaging in rank demagoguery that hurt our foreign relations, if not our security. Yes, i contradicted his demagoguery, just like you said I wouldn’t.
Sorry, Booman. 4 years ago doesn’t count. 4 years ago you were much more even-handed.
Much more.
AG
that was 6 and a half years ago.
Like I said…long ago and far away in the context of this site.
AG
No, Booman. I read the first part and first thought to myself “Hmmm. I wonder which side…if not both sides…of this story are disinfo from the PermaGov.”
“BBC News?” You actually pay attention to that totally controlled tripe from the same network that brings us “MI5,” about 7 or 8 male and female models running around a totally technologally surveilled and controlled London daily saving civilization from ruin by the brownish hordes by means of a camera system and unerring aim of their little pistols and pistolas?
Please.
Then I noticed the “Rand Paul” part. For your own private information…shhhhh, please don’t tell Rand this…I am by no means a Rand Paul fan. It appears to me that the apple fell well on the other side of the orchard this time. He’s got a lot of proving to do before I trust him. Like…having one original thought that isn’t totally politically motivated.
AG
The BBC is better than any news source we have in the States, including PBS, but of course they serve the elite powers of the West. Fox News does, too, in their own way, although their programming is not for their consumption, but for the lower echelon of the aggrieved white race.
I don’t trust FOX or the BBC and certainly not any Pakistani source.
But I also don’t care. Whether the interview was real or staged is immaterial to any of the points I wanted to make.
Even if the story about Afridi is 100% true, the bill should still be passed without the amendment.
Actually, no one in the 18th Century could have anticipated “situations like this.”
What they did anticipate was a situation in which somebody might try to end slavery.
And I can’t believe you’ve gone totally and firmly over to the dark side, on this.
You want to fix the senate?
Abolish it.
That would be my second choice.
Rand Paul isn’t irresponsible, he’s stupid. He’s proven it time and again. And, being stupid, he 1) doesn’t realize he’s stupid, and 2) thinks everyone else in the world is dumber than he is.
That’s Rand Paul in a nutshell.
Regardless of the vaccination crime and regardless of what you think about the method of OBL’s death, we should not let our friends rot in prison in this situation. Rand Paul is not justified in holding up senate business for this (even if it weren’t just a typical GOP stunt) but neither is he wrong.