Abandoning Afghanistan a bad idea

U.S. Marines from the 3rd Battalion 8th Marines Regiment start their patrol in Helmand Province on June 27.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• White House aide suggested all U.S. troops could be withdrawn from Afghanistan


• Peter Bergen said the idea would be dangerous and send the wrong message


• He says U.S. has abandoned Afghanistan before and saw the rise of the Taliban


• Bergen: U.S. is seeking agreement that military will have immunity from prosecution

Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst and the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden, from 9/11 to Abbottabad."

(CNN) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai will meet with President Barack Obama on Friday to discuss the post-2014 American presence in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military has already given Obama options under which as few as 6,000 or as many as 20,000 soldiers would remain in Afghanistan after 2014. Those forces would work as advisers to the Afghan army and mount special operations raids against the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Read more: U.S. may remove all troops from Afghanistan after 2014

Peter Bergen

But on Tuesday, Ben Rhodes, the White House's deputy national security adviser, told reporters that the Obama administration is mulling the idea of removing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan after the NATO combat mission finishes at the end of 2014.

This may be a negotiating ploy by the Obama administration as it gets down to some hard bargaining with Karzai, who has long criticized many aspects of the U.S. military presence and who is likely to be reluctant to accede to a key American demand: That any U.S. soldiers who remain in Afghanistan after 2014 retain immunity from prosecution in the dysfunctional Afghan court system. It was this issue that led the U.S. to pull all its troops out of Iraq in December, 2011 after failing to negotiate an agreement with the Nuri al-Maliki government.

Read more: Defense officials to press Karzai on what he needs

Or this may represent the real views of those in the Obama administration who have long called for a much-reduced U.S. presence in Afghanistan, and it is also in keeping with the emerging Obama doctrine of attacking al Qaeda and its allies with drones but no American boots on the ground. And it certainly aligns with the view of most Americans, only around a quarter of whom now support the war in Afghanistan, according to a poll taken in September.

Security Clearance: Afghanistan options emerge

In any case, zeroing out U.S. troop levels in the post-2014 Afghanistan is a bad idea on its face -- and even raising this concept publicly is maladroit strategic messaging to Afghanistan and the region writ large.

Why so? Afghans well remember something that most Americans have forgotten.

After the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, something that was accomplished at the cost of more than a million Afghan lives and billions of dollars of U.S. aid, the United States closed its embassy in Afghanistan in 1989 during the George H. W. Bush administration and then zeroed out aid to one of the poorest countries in the world under the Clinton administration. It essentially turned its back on Afghans once they had served their purpose of dealing a deathblow to the Soviets.

As a result, the United States had virtually no understanding of the subsequent vacuum in Afghanistan into which eventually stepped the Taliban, who rose to power in the mid-1990s. The Taliban granted shelter to Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization from 1996 onward.

Read more: Court considers demand that U.S. release photos of bin Laden's body

After the overthrow of the Taliban, a form of this mistake was made again by the George W. Bush administration, which had an ideological disdain for nation building and was distracted by the Iraq War, so that in the first years after the fall of the Taliban, only a few thousand U.S. soldiers were stationed in Afghanistan.

The relatively small number of American boots on the ground in Afghanistan helped to create a vacuum of security in the country, which the Taliban would deftly exploit, so that by 2007, they once again posed a significant military threat in Afghanistan.

In 2009, Obama ordered a surge of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan to blunt the Taliban's gathering momentum, which it has certainly accomplished.

Read more: Inside the Taliban

But when Obama announced the new troops of the Afghan surge, most media accounts of the speech seized on the fact that the president also said that some of those troops would be coming home in July 2011.

This had the unintended effect of signaling to the Taliban that the U.S. was pulling out of Afghanistan reasonably soon and fit into the longstanding narrative that many Afghans have that the U.S. will abandon them again.

Similarly, the current public discussion of zero U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan after 2014 will encourage those hardliner elements of the Taliban who have no interest in a negotiated settlement and believe they can simply wait the Americans out.

It also discourages the many millions of Afghans who see a longtime U.S. presence as the best guarantor that the Taliban won't come back in any meaningful way and also an important element in dissuading powerful neighbors such as Pakistan from interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs.

Read related: Afghanistan vet finds a new way to serve

Instead of publicly discussing the zero option on troops in Afghanistan after 2014, a much smarter American messaging strategy for the country and the region would be to emphasize that the Strategic Partnership Agreement that the United States has already negotiated with Afghanistan last year guarantees that the U.S. will have some form of partnership with the Afghans until 2024.

In this messaging strategy, the point should be made that the exact size of the American troop presence after 2014 is less important than the fact that U.S. soldiers will stay in the country for many years, with Afghan consent, as a guarantor of Afghanistan's stability.

The United States continues to station thousands of troops in South Korea more than five decades after the end of the Korean War. Under this American security umbrella, South Korea has gone from being one of the poorest countries in the world to one of the richest.

It is this kind of model that most Afghans want and the U.S. needs to provide so Afghanistan doesn't revert to the kind of chaos that beset it in the mid-1990s and from which the Taliban first emerged.

Read more: What's at stake for Afghan women?

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter

Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion

Read More..

Chavez not in coma, responding well to treatment: brother

CARACAS Ailing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is not in a coma and is responding well to cancer treatment in Cuba, making daily progress, his brother said Saturday.

"Reports that the president is in a coma and that the family is discussing ending life support, are totally false," Adan Chavez, governor of the state of Barinas, said in a statement.

He "continues to respond well to his medical care and to make daily progress in his recovery."

Chavez has been out of public sight since undergoing surgery in Havana on December 11, the fourth such operation in the 18 months since his condition was made public.

Officials have said the fiery leftist leader is suffering from a severe pulmonary infection that has resulted in a "respiratory insufficiency," fueling speculation about his prospects for a full recovery -- and his political future.

The uncertainty surrounding Chavez's condition has rattled Venezuela, the nation with the world's largest proven oil reserves.

The government was forced to postpone the president's scheduled inauguration Thursday, as it became clear that he could not attend. Authorities insist the country's constitution allows Chavez to take the oath of office later on.

But the opposition has cried foul, calling for a medical board to review the absent leader's health -- a demand rejected by the Supreme Court, which said the delayed swearing-in was constitutional.

In Cuba on Saturday, President Raul Castro voiced his support for the Venezuelan leadership, his government's closest and most critical economic and political ally.

Castro made the comments during a meeting with Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro, who arrived in the Cuban capital late Friday to check on his ailing boss, who had a difficult fourth round of cancer surgery last month.

Raul Castro "expressed his confidence in the ability of the Venezuelan people and their institutions to address and overcome any challenge," a government statement said.

"Raul and Maduro shared their mutual satisfaction with the emotional demonstration of support for Venezuela and President Chavez on January 10 in Caracas," it added.

Two Chavez allies, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner and Peruvian President Ollanta Humala, also arrived in Havana on Friday.

"We all hope for a quick recovery," Humala said.

Kirchner refused to comment on Chavez's health when asked by reporters, saying it should be left to his family. She did, however, thank retired revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, 86, for hosting a luncheon for her in his home Friday.

Like Chavez, Castro has been sidelined by health problems and rarely appears in public since stepping aside as president of the communist country in 2006.

Throughout his illness, first detected in June 2011, Chavez -- in power for 14 years -- has refused to relinquish the powers of the presidency, even when leaving for Cuba for his latest surgery.

The Venezuelan constitution says new elections must be held within 30 days if the president-elect or president dies or is permanently incapacitated, either before he takes office or in the first four years of his six-year term.

-AFP/ac

Read More..

Making job stress worth enduring

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta swears in reenlisting troops in Turkey. A survey found that military jobs tend to be the most stressful.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Marci Alboher: Annual list of most stressful jobs drew attention


• She says the right issue is whether job rewards compensate for stress


• People who take on stressful jobs that help others report satisfaction, she says

Editor's note: Marci Alboher, is a Vice President of Encore.org, a nonprofit making it easier for people to pursue second acts for the greater good. Her latest book is, "The Encore Career Handbook: How to Make a Difference and a Living in the Second Half of Life" (Workman: January 2013).

(CNN) -- A recent study with a catchy headline about the most stressful jobs of 2013 found its way to the soft hour of news this week.

The annual study by careercast.com created some buzz in the online water cooler and I was asked to appear on the "Today" show to talk about it. Colleagues e-mailed me and posted on my Facebook page about where their chosen professions ranked. My media friends couldn't help noticing that public relations professionals, reporters and photojournalists all made it into the top 10 for stress.

The "study," referred to in quotes in some of the commentary, considered some logical criteria to come up with these rankings. Proximity to risk of death (yours or others'), travel, deadlines, working in the public eye and physical demands all racked up points on the stress scale. And there's no arguing that military personnel, firefighters and police officers -- all high-rankers on the most-stressed list -- are exposed to higher stakes than your typical seamstress (holder of the second-least stressful job slot).

Marci Alboher

The job that snagged the "least stressful" slot, according to the survey, was "university professor," a designation that caused outrage among people who actually hold that job. One commenter conceded that most academic jobs don't put you in personal danger (though you can argue that point), but anyone who's ever been around professors knows that faculty politics, difficult students and pressure to "publish or perish" can cause even the most calm character to crack.

We could debate whether these designations make any sense. And whether every police officer, firefighter and member of the military faces the same amount of stress.

But let's make sure we are having the right conversation. How many people choose a profession based on how high the stress level is? And how can you measure stress objectively? If you're prone to stress, perhaps you're just as likely to feel stressed out whether you work as a librarian, a massage therapist or a commercial airline pilot (No. 4 on the stress list).

People choose their line of work for a lot of reasons. For those who are committed to making our communities and the world safer and healthier for the rest of us, minimizing stress is probably not so high on their list of criteria. And it shouldn't be. Folks who choose helping jobs that may have a high level of stress are fueled by other motivators, like wanting their work to have meaning.

They aren't deterred by the fact that their job will likely come with stress. And some people are simply by their own nature and personalities drawn to work that may be to others, dauntingly stressful. How many FBI agents do you think would prefer a gig as an audiologist (sixth-least stressful job)?

When I talk to men and women in their 50s and 60s who've decided to take on encore careers as teachers, they tell me that the work is often exhausting and stressful. They are on their feet all day, often with inadequate resources, with kids who are themselves highly stressed; even those who come from leadership roles in other sectors say they've never worked harder. Yet they almost always tell me that doing something that matters to others -- and that puts them in touch with young people every day -- compensates for the added stress.

The same is true of those tackling some of the world's most intractable problems. When I talk to Stephen and Elizabeth Alderman, whose foundation trains health-care professionals around the world to work with victims of trauma, or Judith Broder, who founded The Soldiers Project, which works with returning veterans, they rarely talk about stress. Instead they talk about how they are compelled to do what they do, because moving the needle even a fraction is better than doing nothing.

Rather than discouraging people to take on jobs that might have a lot of stress, let's instead encourage those who are designed for those jobs to do them. And let's make sure to support our friends and family members who go down these paths.

It's hard to grab headlines in the crowded space of morning television, but a good survey with a catchy title will always do that. So let's use these kinds of surveys to have the right kinds of conversations. Like why so many jobs that keep us safe and healthy, and that care for our children and the environment rarely show up on lists of the most highly compensated jobs. Now there's a conversation I'd most like to be having.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Marci Alboher.

Read More..

Treasury: No $1 trillion coin

A Treasury Department spokesman announced today that the department will not mint a platinum coin to sidestep raising the federal government's borrowing limit, telling the Washington Post that "neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit."

The idea, which had gained traction among some congressional Democrats and political analysts as a way of defanging the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip, was that the Treasury Department could simply mint a platinum coin, declare the value at $1 trillion, and deposit it into the Federal Reserve to allow continued spending in the absence of a vote to raise the debt ceiling.

With the idea now buried by Treasury, the stage is set for a full-on fight about the debt ceiling. President Obama and congressional Democrats have signaled that they simply will not negotiate on a vote to raise the borrowing limit, saying that it is Congress's duty to pay bills it has already accrued.

But congressional Republicans have given every indication that they plan to use the debt limit as a bargaining chip to extract deep spending cuts from reluctant Democrats.

Read More..

Poisoned Lottery Winner's Kin Were Suspicious

Urooj Khan had just brought home his $425,000 lottery check when he unexpectedly died the following day. Now, certain members of Khan's family are speaking publicly about the mystery -- and his nephew told ABC News they knew something was not right.

"He was a healthy guy, you know?" said the nephew, Minhaj Khan. "He worked so hard. He was always going about his business and, the thing is: After he won the lottery and the next day later he passes away -- it's awkward. It raises some eyebrows."

The medical examiner initially ruled Urooj Khan, 46, an immigrant from India who owned dry-cleaning businesses in Chicago, died July 20, 2012, of natural causes. But after a family member demanded more tests, authorities in November found a lethal amount of cyanide in his blood, turning the case into a homicide investigation.

"When we found out there was cyanide in his blood after the extensive toxicology reports, we had to believe that ... somebody had to kill him," Minhaj Khan said. "It had to happen, because where can you get cyanide?"

In Photos: Biggest Lotto Jackpot Winners

Authorities could be one step closer to learning what happened to Urooj Khan. A judge Friday approved an order to exhume his body at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago as early as Thursday to perform further tests.

Lottery Winner Murdered: Widow Questioned By Police Watch Video

Moments after the court hearing, Urooj Khan's sister, Meraj Khan, remembered her brother as the kind of person who would've shared his jackpot with anyone. Speaking at the Cook County Courthouse, she hoped the exhumation would help the investigation.

"It's very hard because I wanted my brother to rest in peace, but then we have to have justice served," she said, according to ABC News station WLS in Chicago. "So if that's what it takes for him to bring justice and peace, then that's what needs to be done."

Khan reportedly did not have a will. With the investigation moving forward, his family is waging a legal fight against his widow, Shabana Ansari, 32, over more than $1 million, including Urooj Khan's lottery winnings, as well as his business and real estate holdings.

Khan's brother filed a petition Wednesday to a judge asking Citibank to release information about Khan's assets to "ultimately ensure" that [Khan's] minor daughter from a prior marriage "receives her proper share."

Ansari may have tried to cash the jackpot check after Khan's death, according to court documents, which also showed Urooj Khan's family is questioning if the couple was ever even legally married.

Ansari, Urooj Khan's second wife, who still works at the couple's dry cleaning business, has insisted they were married legally.

She has told reporters the night before her husband died, she cooked a traditional Indian meal for him and their family, including Khan's daughter and Ansari's father. Not feeling well, Khan retired early, Ansari told the Chicago Sun-Times, falling asleep in a chair, waking up in agony, then collapsing in the middle of the night. She said she called 911.

"It has been an incredibly hard time," she told ABC News earlier this week. "We went from being the happiest the day we got the check. It was the best sleep I've had. And then the next day, everything was gone.

"I am cooperating with the investigation," Ansari told ABC News. "I want the truth to come out."

Ansari has not been named a suspect, but her attorney, Steven Kozicki, said investigators did question her for more than four hours.

Read More..

Saudi execution: Brutal and illegal?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Saudi authorities beheaded Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan woman


• She was convicted of killing a baby of the family employing her as a housemaid


• This was despite Nafeek's claims that the baby died in a choking accident


• Becker says her fate "should spotlight the precarious existence of domestic workers"

Jo Becker is the Children's Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch and author of 'Campaigning for Justice: Human Rights Advocacy in Practice.' Follow Jo Becker on Twitter.

(CNN) -- Rizana Nafeek was a child herself -- 17 years old, according to her birth certificate -- when a four-month-old baby died in her care in Saudi Arabia. She had migrated from Sri Lanka only weeks earlier to be a domestic worker for a Saudi family.

Although Rizana said the baby died in a choking accident, Saudi courts convicted her of murder and sentenced her to death. On Wednesday, the Saudi government carried out the sentence in a gruesome fashion, by beheading Rizana.

Jo Becker

Read more: Outrage over beheading of Sri Lankan woman by Saudi Arabia

Rizana's case was rife with problems from the beginning. A recruitment agency in Sri Lanka knew she was legally too young to migrate, but she had falsified papers to say she was 23. After the baby died, Rizana gave a confession that she said was made under duress -- she later retracted it. She had no lawyer to defend her until after she was sentenced to death and no competent interpreter during her trial. Her sentence violated international law, which prohibits the death penalty for crimes committed before age 18.

Rizana's fate should arouse international outrage. But it should also spotlight the precarious existence of other domestic workers. At least 1.5 million work in Saudi Arabia alone and more than 50 million -- mainly women and girls -- are employed worldwide according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Read more: Indonesian maid escapes execution in Saudi Arabia

Again according to the ILO, the number of domestic workers worldwide has grown by more than 50% since the mid-1990s. Many, like Rizana, seek employment in foreign countries where they may be unfamiliar with the language and legal system and have few rights.

When Rizana traveled to Saudi Arabia, for example, she may not have known that many Saudi employers confiscate domestic workers' passports and confine them inside their home, cutting them off from the outside world and sources of help.

It is unlikely that anyone ever told her about Saudi Arabia's flawed criminal justice system or that while many domestic workers find kind employers who treat them well, others are forced to work for months or even years without pay and subjected to physical or sexual abuse.

Passport photo of Rizana Nafeek

Read more: Saudi woman beheaded for 'witchcraft and sorcery'

Conditions for migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia are among some of the worst, but domestic workers in other countries rarely enjoy the same rights as other workers. In a new report this week, the International Labour Organization says that nearly 30% of the world's domestic workers are completely excluded from national labor laws. They typically earn only 40% of the average wage of other workers. Forty-five percent aren't even entitled by law to a weekly day off.

Last year, I interviewed young girls in Morocco who worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for a fraction of the minimum wage. One girl began working at age 12 and told me: "I don't mind working, but to be beaten and not to have enough food, this is the hardest part."

Many governments have finally begun to recognize the risks and exploitation domestic workers face. During 2012, dozens of countries took action to strengthen protections for domestic workers. Thailand, and Singapore approved measures to give domestic workers a weekly day off, while Venezuela and the Philippines adopted broad laws for domestic workers ensuring a minimum wage, paid holidays, and limits to their working hours. Brazil is amending its constitution to state that domestic workers have all the same rights as other workers. Bahrain codified access to mediation of labor disputes.

Read more: Convicted killer beheaded, put on display in Saudi Arabia

Perhaps most significantly, eight countries acted in 2012 to ratify -- and therefore be legally bound by -- the Domestic Workers Convention, with more poised to follow suit this year. The convention is a groundbreaking treaty adopted in 2011 to guarantee domestic workers the same protections available to other workers, including weekly days off, effective complaints procedures and protection from violence.

The Convention also has specific protections for domestic workers under the age of 18 and provisions for regulating and monitoring recruitment agencies. All governments should ratify the convention.

Many reforms are needed to prevent another tragic case like that of Rizana Nafeek. The obvious one is for Saudi Arabia to stop its use of the death penalty and end its outlier status as one of only three countries worldwide to execute people for crimes committed while a child.

Labor reforms are also critically important. They may have prevented the recruitment of a 17 year old for migration abroad in the first place. And they can protect millions of other domestic workers who labor with precariously few guarantees for their safety and rights.

Read more: Malala, others on front lines in fight for women

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jo Becker.

Read More..

Euro adds more gains on dollar

NEW YORK: The euro surged for a second day Friday, adding 0.7 US cents to Thursday's two cent gain, pushed by what one analyst said was short covering and sustained by poor US trade data.

The European currency traded roughly around the break-even line of $1.3261 but then took a leap to the $1.3350 levels the morning opening -- just 15 minutes before US trade data for November showed a wider-than-expected deficit that implied slower growth.

"While a rise in the euro isn't out of the ordinary lately, particularly after yesterday's European Central Bank monetary policy decision and press conference, many euro crosses had settled in to a range in the 18 hours before the spike occurred," said Neal Gilbert of GFT.

He said a Goldman Sachs recommendation with a target for $1.37 could have been the force, but also a squeeze on short sellers.

"Since the market had turned sideways in the Asian and European sessions, many investors were likely assuming a profit taking drop was about to take place."

Now that trade has been flushed out, he added, "the profit taking is more likely to take place."

At 2200 GMT, the euro was at $1.3341, off the day's high of $1.3366.

The yen sagged to its lowest level in more than 30 months, hitting 89.18 yen to the dollar from 88.64 late Thursday.

Against the euro, it hit 119.00 yen, compared to 117.53 Thursday; it was the yens lowest level in 20 months against the euro.

The pound slipped to $1.6129 from $1.6158, and the dollar moved to 0.9135 Swiss francs from 0.9145 francs.

The Chinese currency continued its push higher, to 6.2180 yuan per dollar from 6.2256 a day earlier and 6.2316 a week ago.

-AFP/ac

Read More..

Why death comes sooner in America

A report finds that Americans have "shorter lives and poorer health," coming in last in key areas behind 16 other rich nations

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Aaron Carroll: New study shows U.S. health and lifespan worst of 17 rich countries


• He says it's because of personal choices, systemic woes. Poverty high, health care uneven


• He says this particularly affects youth, plagued by sickness, violence, high mortality


• Carroll: Don't make it political. The richest country in the world must improve public health

Editor's note: Dr. Aaron E. Carroll is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine and the director of the university's Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research. He blogs about health policy at The Incidental Economist and tweets at @aaronecarroll.

(CNN) -- A just-released report from the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council is making news by clearly illustrating that Americans have "shorter lives and poorer health." This is somewhat shocking, given how much we spend on health care each year — more than any of the 16 other rich countries surveyed in the study. What's even more upsetting is that this report focused quite heavily on people who are young. In the United States, even that group fared poorly.

Aaron Carroll

Why is this?

Some of the reasons involve choices make at a personal level. We eat too much, abuse drugs too often, wear seat belts too rarely and commit violence against each other to often.

Systemic issues are also to blame. We have higher levels of poverty than comparable countries, and our safety net programs are less capable of catching people when they fall. And too many also have too much trouble accessing the health care system, resulting in inefficient, ineffective and often absent care.

It's far too easy to let these dreadful statistics become obscured in a politically charged argument. Let's avoid that. This report is so stark that it's going to take a concerted effort on the part of the government, the media, the health care system and everyday citizens to turn things around. Our personal choices are bad. Our safety nets are bad. Our health care system is bad. It's all bad. How bad?

When compared with peer countries, the United States was the absolute worst with respect to still births, infant mortality and low birth weight. Some have tried to blame this on "coding" differences. In other words, they will claim that other countries will refuse to define a premature birth as we do, resulting in artificially high numbers in the United States. But when this report recalculated the rates to exclude such births equally in all countries, we still ranked last.

Things don't get better after birth. The chance that a child in the United States will die before age 5 is higher than in any of the other 16 peer countries. Injuries are the most common cause of death, but the United States also has the highest rate of deaths caused by negligence or abuse.

And violence is decidedly an American problem. Homicide is the third most common cause of death in children age 1-4.

From age 5-19, the trend continues. Kids this age in the United States have the worst health ranking of the 17 studied countries. More than one-third of U.S. children age 5-17 are obese or overweight, the highest of any peer country. The adolescent pregnancy rate in the United States is about 3.5 times the average of others. Additionally, the rates of sexually transmitted infections, including syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia are the worst compared to peer countries.

Nor are these children exempt from death. Injury deaths are more common in 15- to 19-year-olds in the United States than in any other studied country. Homicide claims the second highest number of lives in 15- to -24-year-olds, and 4 in 5 of those deaths involve guns. Males between the ages of 15 and 19 are five times as likely to die from violence in the United States than in other countries.

Even as young adults, ages 25-34, mortality remains consistently upsetting and preventable. Unintentional injuries remain the No. 1 cause of death. The risk of dying by violence remains seven times higher for males in the United States ages 20-24 than in other countries.

We have to work together to make these numbers better. Some of them can be improved with public health measures. We need to help Americans be less obese, to have fewer accidents and to commit less violence. There are lots of local studies and initiatives that propose ways to fix these things, but our public health system is woefully underfunded, and translating any promising findings to meaningful societal change poses a huge challenge.

We also need to improve our safety nets to help children at the lowest end of the socioeconomic ladder do better, even before they are born. Pregnant women, babies and children suffer from hunger and malnutrition far too often in the richest country in the world. Yet we still debate the merits of the federally funded WIC (Womens, Infants and Children) program, school lunches and food assistance to needy families.

Finally, we need to find a way to improve access to the health care system. The Medicaid program covers one in every three births and one in every three children in the United States, and it's still not enough. As some states balk at expanding Medicaid to cover many of the poorest uninsured, some are still talking about reducing funding to the already stretched program. There's no question that we have the capability, the knowledge and the resources to care for people. It's just a matter of doing it better.

There will be some who deny these results. Others will try to use them for political gain. That would be a mistake. We have to accept these findings and begin to work holistically to improve them. Being last just isn't the American way.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Aaron Carroll.

Read More..

CDC: Flu grips 47 states; vaccine found 62% effective

Flu activity continues to rise in the U.S., according to new surveillance statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday.

Forty-seven states have now reported widespread influenza activity, according to the CDC's latest FluView report, three more states than officials estimated Wednesday. Two more children have died since last week's report, raising the total to 20 kids who have succumbed to the virus. It is still too soon to predict the severity of this flu season compared to previous ones, CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden told reporters during a conference call Thursday.

"The only thing predictable about flu is that it's unpredictable," said Frieden.

9 Photos

Flu season in U.S. strikes early

The report covers the week of Dec. 30 through Jan. 5, and the CDC releases a revision every Friday. Widespread flu activity means more than 50 percent of counties or sub-regions within a particular state are reporting flu cases, according to CDC.

Twenty-four states and New York City have experienced high activity of influenza-like illness, with 16 states reporting moderate activity. Last week's report showed high activity in 29 states. The CDC hopes this reduction suggests that some states have already seen flu peaks and cases are waning, however, Frieden said that trends are harder to predict during the holiday season, when people may be less likely to see a doctor. Data in coming weeks may provide a clearer picture that some states are over the worst.

CDC officials however did note that the West coast has not shown high flu activity and may be on the upswing, and in the South and Southeast -- where flu activity was reported early -- the disease may have already peaked and data now show declines in case counts. A complete look at how your state stacks up can be found on the CDC's website.

From Oct. 1 of 2012 through the report, an estimated 13.3 per 100,000 people were hospitalized with flu. The hardest hit group were adults ages 65 and older. Adults with underlying conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity and lung disease (excluding asthma) were more likely to be hospitalized.

Underlying conditions like asthma, neurological disorders or diseases that weaken the immune system were commonly reported in hospitalized kids; however, more than 40 percent of them did not have an underlying medical condition.

Play Video

Flu outbreak swamps hospitals nationwide

Hospitals around the country have reported influxes of flu patients. In Chicago, several hospitals had to divert ambulances while one Pennsylvania hospital had to set up tents to deal with the extra patients.

Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, told CBSNews.com Friday that his hospital set up additional treatment areas for flu patients.

"Many patients seem to have more severe illness this year as opposed to last year," Glatter said in an email. "In fact, a number of patients have required mechanical ventilation (respirator) due to difficulty breathing. We have also seen a number of children under the age of 5 with severe symptoms including muscle aches along with vomiting."

Play Video

Mass. hospital nearing full capacity with flu patients

The CDC does not track adult death rates -- state health departments do -- but about 24,000 die each year from influenza.

The CDC said the predominant virus causing flu nationwide is influenza A (H3N2), followed by influenza B viruses. Cases of H1N1, or "swine flu," -- the virus behind a 2009 pandemic -- have rarely been seen.

The CDC also released a new study Jan. 11 in its journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, that found this year's flu vaccine is about 62 percent effective. That means a person who takes the shot is 62 percent less likely to have to go to a doctor to get treated for flu. That's based on test results collected from 1,155 children and adults who reported to doctors with respiratory infections.

The agency still says this year's vaccine matches well to 90 percent of the strains that are out there, and recommends everyone over the age of 6 months gets a flu shot.

"Today, the flu vaccine is still by far the best prevention we have," said Frieden.

"However, these early [vaccine effectiveness] estimates underscore that some vaccinated persons will become infected with influenza," wrote the CDC researchers. "Therefore, antiviral medications should be used as recommended for treatment in patients, regardless of vaccination status."

Prescription drugs such as Tamiflu (generic name oseltamivir) and Relenza (generic name zanamivir) are usually prescribed for about five days, although people who are hospitalized may need to take the medicine longer. The drugs can reduce symptoms and shorten the time people are sick by one to two days, in addition to helping prevent more serious flu complications like pneumonia, according to the CDC.

Read More..

Obama Promises Faster Transition in Afghanistan

President Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai said today that most U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan would end this spring, signaling a quickening troop drawdown that will bring the decade-long war to a close at the end of 2014.

"Our troops will continue to fight alongside Afghans when needed, but let me say it as plainly as I can: Starting this spring, our troops will have a different mission -- training, advising, assisting Afghan forces," Obama announced at an East Room news conference in Washington.

"It will be a historic moment and another step toward full Afghan sovereignty, something I know that President Karzai cares deeply about, as do the Afghan people," he said.

Administration officials said Afghan forces were "exceeding initial expectations" in their capabilities. Afghan security forces are expected to lead 90 percent of security operations across the country in February.

"By the end of next year -- 2014 -- the transition will be complete," Obama said. "Afghans will have full responsibility for their security, and this war will come to a responsible end."

The rosy assessments belied the serious political, economic and security challenges that remain.

Left unanswered by Obama and Karzai: How many U.S. troops might stay after 2014; what their mission would be and whether they could be effective; and whether the forces would have immunity from prosecution in Afghan courts.

Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

New York Governor Calls for Assault Weapons Ban Watch Video

White House Won't Kill 'Trillion Dollar Coin' Speculation Watch Video

Obama said he was still reviewing recommendations from the Pentagon and will make an announcement in the coming weeks after penning an anticipated bilateral security agreement with Afghanistan. Karzai said the exact number would be up to the United States to decide.

Both leaders confirmed in a statement that the United States "does not seek permanent bases in Afghanistan."

They also agreed today to turn over battlefield combatants held by the U.S. military in Afghanistan to Afghan government control, which has been long-sought by Karzai.

Roughly 66,000 U.S. troops are serving in Afghanistan. The military has proposed keeping several thousand troops in the country after 2014 as advisers, trainers and logistical support for Afghan forces; the White House has said it remains open to pulling out all troops entirely.

Obama's visit with Karzai was the first face-to-face encounter since the November election and since last year's dramatic increase in so-called green-on-blue attacks, when U.S. and NATO soldiers have been killed by the Afghans they are training or working alongside.

There were 45 insider attacks in 2012 that resulted in 62 deaths among coalition forces, including 35 Americans. There has been one attack already in the first 11 days of 2013.

The White House summit included a private Oval Office meeting between Obama, Karzai and Vice President Joe Biden. The trio also attended a private lunch in the Old Family Dining Room.

Karzai Thursday attended meetings with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and top military brass at the Pentagon, where he was afforded all the pomp and circumstance accorded a head of state: a 21-gun salute, and marching bands and honor guards from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.

Karzai's relationship with the United States has at times been a rocky one as he has sometimes made critical statements about the allied troop presence in his country. U.S. officials believe he has made those comments out of political expediency to improve his standing with Afghans and show his independence.

Read More..

American Express cuts 5,400 jobs

American Express said Thursday it would lay off 8.5 per cent of its workforce in 2013, in an effort to contain operating expenses and adapt to customers moving to online and mobile platforms.

The bank said it would eliminate 5,400 jobs, though some of those will be offset by new positions, for a net cut of 4-6 per cent of the 63,500-strong workforce.

The layoffs will span different staff groups and businesses, both in the United States and its international operations, the company said.

The largest reductions will be in AmEx's travel businesses "which operate in an industry that is being fundamentally reinvented as a result of the digital revolution."

It said it took a US$400 million restructuring charge in its fourth quarter to December 31 to cover some of the severance costs of the layoffs.

The restructuring is "designed to contain future operating expenses, adapt parts of the business as more customers transact online or through mobile channels, and provide the resources for additional growth initiatives in the US and internationally," AmEx said.

Excluding the restructuring costs and other special items, the bank said its fourth-quarter net earnings came in at US$1.2 billion, the same as the year-earlier figure.

After the extra costs, net income was at US$637 million, or 56 cents a share, compared with US$1.01 a share for the fourth quarter of 2011.

"Maintaining our momentum in this environment will require us to evolve our business, embrace new technologies, become more efficient and generate resources to invest in the many growth opportunities we've identified," said chief executive Kenneth Chenault.

"For the next two years, our aim is to hold annual operating expense increases to less than three per cent.

"The overall restructuring program will put us in a better position as we seek to deliver strong results for shareholders and to maintain marketing and promotion investments at about nine per cent of revenues."

- AFP/jc

Read More..

Beheading exposes exploitation

(File photo) Sri Lankan women protest outside the Saudi Arabia embassy in Colombo on November 9, 2010.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Saudi authorities beheaded Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan woman


• She was convicted of killing a baby of the family employing her as a housemaid


• This was despite Nafeek's claims that the baby died in a choking accident


• Becker says her fate "should spotlight the precarious existence of domestic workers"

Jo Becker is the Children's Rights Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch and author of 'Campaigning for Justice: Human Rights Advocacy in Practice.' Follow Jo Becker on Twitter.

(CNN) -- Rizana Nafeek was a child herself -- 17 years old according to her birth certificate -- when a four-month-old baby died in her care in Saudi Arabia. She had migrated from Sri Lanka only weeks earlier to be a domestic worker for a Saudi family.

Although Rizana said the baby died in a choking accident, Saudi courts convicted her of murder and sentenced her to death. On Wednesday, the Saudi government carried out the sentence in a gruesome fashion, by beheading Rizana.

Jo Becker

Read more: Outrage over beheading of Sri Lankan woman by Saudi Arabia

Rizana's case was rife with problems from the beginning. A recruitment agency in Sri Lanka knew she was legally too young to migrate, but she had falsified papers to say she was 23. After the baby died, Rizana gave a confession that she said was made under duress -- she later retracted it. She had no lawyer to defend her until after she was sentenced to death and no competent interpreter during her trial. Her sentence violated international law, which prohibits the death penalty for crimes committed before age 18.

Rizana's fate should arouse international outrage. But it should also spotlight the precarious existence of other domestic workers. At least 1.5 million work in Saudi Arabia alone and more than 50 million -- mainly women and girls -- are employed worldwide according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Read more: Indonesian maid escapes execution in Saudi Arabia

Again according to the ILO, the number of domestic workers worldwide has grown by more than 50% since the mid-1990s. Many, like Rizana, seek employment in foreign countries where they may be unfamiliar with the language and legal system, and have few rights.

When Rizana traveled to Saudi Arabia, for example, she may not have known that many Saudi employers confiscate domestic workers' passports and confine them inside their home, cutting them off from the outside world and sources of help.

It is unlikely that anyone ever told her about Saudi Arabia's flawed criminal justice system, or that while many domestic workers find kind employers who treat them well, others are forced to work for months or even years without pay, and subjected to physical or sexual abuse.

Passport photo of Rizana Nafeek

Read more: Saudi woman beheaded for 'witchcraft and sorcery'

Conditions for migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia are among some of the worst, but domestic workers in other countries rarely enjoy the same rights as other workers. In a new report this week, the International Labour Organization says that nearly 30% of the world's domestic workers are completely excluded from national labor laws. They typically earn only 40% of the average wage of other workers. Forty-five percent aren't even entitled by law to a weekly day off.

Last year, I interviewed young girls in Morocco who worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for a fraction of the minimum wage. One girl began working at age 12 and told me: "I don't mind working, but to be beaten and not to have enough food, this is the hardest part."

Many governments have finally begun to recognize the risks and exploitation domestic workers face. During 2012, dozens of countries took action to strengthen protections for domestic workers. Thailand, and Singapore approved measures to give domestic workers a weekly day off, while Venezuela and the Philippines adopted broad laws for domestic workers ensuring a minimum wage, paid holidays, and limits to their working hours. Brazil is amending its constitution to state that domestic workers have all the same rights as other workers. Bahrain codified access to mediation of labor disputes.

Read more: Convicted killer beheaded, put on display in Saudi Arabia

Perhaps most significantly, eight countries acted in 2012 to ratify -- and therefore be legally bound by -- the Domestic Workers Convention, with more poised to follow suit this year. The convention is a groundbreaking treaty adopted in 2011 to guarantee domestic workers the same protections available to other workers, including weekly days off, effective complaints procedures and protection from violence.

The Convention also has specific protections for domestic workers under the age of 18 and provisions for regulating and monitoring recruitment agencies. All governments should ratify the convention.

Many reforms are needed to prevent another tragic case like that of Rizana Nafeek. The obvious one is for Saudi Arabia to stop its use of the death penalty and end its outlier status as one of only three countries worldwide to execute people for crimes committed while a child.

Labor reforms are also critically important. They may have prevented the recruitment of a 17 year old for migration abroad in the first place. And they can protect millions of other domestic workers who labor with precariously few guarantees for their safety and rights.

Read more: Malala, others on front lines in fight for women

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jo Becker.

Read More..

Student shot at Calif. high school by classmate

Updated at 5:48 p.m. ET

TAFT, Calif. A 16-year-old student armed with a shotgun walked into class in a rural California high school on Thursday and shot one student, fired at another but missed, and then was talked into surrendering by a teacher and another staff member, officials said.

The teen victim was in critical but stable condition, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told a press conference. The sheriff said the teacher suffered a minor pellet wound to the head but declined treatment.

The gunman had as many as 20 rounds of ammunition in his pocket, the sheriff said.

When the shots were fired, the teacher tried to get the more than two dozen students out a back door and also engaged the shooter in conversation to distract him, Youngblood said. A campus supervisor responding to a call of shots fired also began talking to the gunman.

"They talked him into putting that shotgun down. He in fact told the teacher, `I don't want to shoot you,' and named the person that he wanted to shoot," Youngblood said.

"The heroics of these two people goes without saying. ... They could have just as easily ... tried to get out of the classroom and left students and they didn't," the sheriff said. "They knew not to let him leave the classroom with that shotgun."

The shooter didn't show up for first period then interrupted the class of 28 students.

Investigators had not yet had a chance to interview the student and so had no immediate word on a motive or whether the attacker had a previous disciplinary record. Nor did they know where he got the shotgun.

The wounded student was flown to a hospital in Bakersfield. Officials said a female student was hospitalized with possible hearing damage because the shotgun was fired close to her ear, and another girl received minor injuries during the scramble to flee when she fell over a table.

Officials said there's usually an armed officer on campus but the person wasn't there because he was snowed in. Taft police officers arrived within 60 seconds of first reports.

The shooting happened on the second floor of the school's science building around 9 a.m., according to CBS affiliate KBAK in Bakersfield.

As word spread, Dayna Hopper rushed to the school to pick up her son Joseph Sorensen, 16, and daughter, Cheryle Pryor, 15, who had called from Cheryle's cellphone.

"I panicked. I wanted to puke and just get here," Dayna Hopper told The Bakersfield Californian.

KERO-TV Bakersfield reported that the station received phone calls from people inside the school who hid in closets.

The bell had just rung at a nearby school when teachers began shouting for students to get inside buildings, and the principal used an intercom to tell students to stay inside, Felicity Reich, 13, a student at Lincoln Junior High School, told the newspaper.

Shaken, she held the hand of her mother, Ellie Reich, as she spoke.

About 900 students are enrolled at the high school, which includes 9th through 12th grades. Authorities went room by room through the school and expected to spend the day checking backpacks to make sure no other weapons were on campus.

Masses of parents headed to the school football field to find their children, and officials at other schools took action to protect their students as well, the newspaper said.

Wilhelmina Reum, whose daughter Alexis Singleton is a fourth-grader at a nearby elementary school, got word of the attack while she was about 35 miles away in Bakersfield and immediately sped back to Taft.

"I just kept thinking this can't be happening in my little town," she told The Associated Press.

"I was afraid I was going to get hurt," Alexis said. "I just wanted my mom to get here so I could go home."

The Taft shooting came less than a month after a gunman massacred 20 children and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., then killed himself.

That shooting prompted President Barack Obama to promise new efforts to curb gun violence. Vice President Joe Biden, who was placed in charge of the initiative, said he would deliver new policy proposals to the president by next week.

At the state Capitol, Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, said the thoughts and prayers of legislators were with the people at the Taft school.

"It really is just another very sad moment as we deal with the ongoing reality of gun violence that has captured so much of our attention this last year," Perez said.

Read More..

Jodi Arias: 'No Jury Will Convict Me' for Murder

The jury in the Jodi Arias murder trial watched a television interview today in which Arias said "no jury will convict me" for killing her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander.

Arias added that she could never imagine committing such a violent act as killing Alexander.

"I understand all the evidence is really compelling," she said in the interview. "In a nutshell, two people came in and killed Travis. I've never even shot a gun. That's heinous. I can't imagine slitting anyone's throat."

She went on to tell the interviewer, "No jury will convict me and you can mark my words on that. ... I am innocent."

Arias made the statements to the television show "Inside Edition" after she was indicted for murdering Alexander. Months later, she would confess to killing him in his Mesa, Ariz., home and say it was in self-defense.

Jodi Arias Trial: Watch Live

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Full Coverage

Photos of Key Players and Evidence in the Jodi Arias Murder Trial

The tape was played on the fifth day of testimony in Arias' trial, in which police allege that she carried out the murder with such brutal force that she stabbed Alexander 27 times, slashed his throat from ear to ear, and shot him in the head.

Arias, now 32, has claimed Alexander was a controlling and abusive "sexual deviant" who she was forced to kill in self-defense.

She could face the death penalty if convicted of Alexander's murder.

Jodi Arias Trial: Jurors See Photos of Bloody Handprint Watch Video

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Who Is the Alleged Killer? Watch Video

Jodi Arias Trial: Defense Claims Victim Was Sex Deviant Watch Video

The defense petitioned the court to declare a mistrial at the end of testimony today, but the request was denied by Judge Sherry Stephens. Arias' attorneys claimed that testimony presented by Det. Esteban Flores about whether Arias shot Alexander first or at the end of the attack was different from his earlier testimony and, therefore, affected whether Arias was "especially cruel" during the killing -- but Stephens denied that it had any effect.

The jury also watched as dozens of photos of blood-spattered walls, flooring, stained carpets and blood smeared sink were explained in detail by a forensic analyst from the Mesa Police Department, who noted that on many of the stains water had been mixed with the blood and diluted it.

The prosecution has alleged that Arias tried to wash away the evidence of the killing with water.

Prosecutors spent much of today and Wednesday using Arias' recorded statements and other testimony to prove that she lied about her relationship with Alexander, where she was when Alexander was killed, and even where she worked as a bartender.

The testimony today suggested that Arias lied to her new boyfriend Ryan Burns about working at a bar called Margaritaville in her hometown of Yreka, Calif.

"Is there any restaurant in Yreka called Margaritaville? Has there ever been?" prosecutor Juan Martinez asked Nathaniel Mendes, a former detective with the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office in California.

"No, sir," Mendes replied.

Mendes testified that Arias worked at a restaurant called Casa Ramos in Yreka, not a bar called Margaritaville, as she told Burns.

Mendes also went over receipts showing that Arias rented a car the day before she killed Alexander, and noted that she went to a rental outfit 90 miles from her hometown despite two businesses that rented cars in Yreka.

Arias told friends and investigators that she rented a car to go on a road trip to visit Burns, in West Jordan, Utah, on June 3, 2008. She showed up at Burns' house a day late with cuts on her hands, but told Burns that she got lost driving and that the cuts were from broken glass at her Margaritaville bartending job, according to Burns' testimony Wednesday.

The trail of receipts showed that Arias drove from California to Alexander's hometown of Mesa, Ariz., on Tuesday, June 4, 2008.

There, the pair had sex and took sexually graphic photos of one another, according to photographs and the opening statement of Arias' lawyer. Shortly after the tryst, Arias killed Alexander, both sides agree.

Burns testified that Arias never mentioned going to Alexander's house when she arrived at his home in Utah. He said he did not know that Arias and Alexander were still sexually involved, and that she told him they had broken up.

When she arrived at his home 24 hours after killing Alexander, she seemed "normal," he said. The pair kissed and cuddled, and went out with Burns' friends, where she laughed and made conversation.

Prosecutors have played recorded phone conversations between detectives and Arias in the weeks after Alexander's body was found. She could be heard apparently lying multiple times to investigators as they asked about the last time she spoke with Alexander and her trip to Utah.

Read More..

Karzai's U.S. visit a time for tough talk

The last time Presidents Obama and Karzai met was in May in Kabul, when they signed a pact regarding U.S. troop withdrawal.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Afghan President Karzai meeting with President Obama in Washington this week


• Felbab-Brown: Afghan politics are corrupt; army not ready for 2014 troop pullout


• She says Taliban, insurgents, splintered army, corrupt officials are all jockeying for power


• U.S. needs to commit to helping Afghan security, she says, and insist corruption be wiped out

Editor's note: Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. Her latest book is "Aspiration and Ambivalence: Strategies and Realities of Counterinsurgency and State-Building in Afghanistan."

(CNN) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai is meeting this week with President Obama in Washington amid increasing ambivalence in the United States about what to do about the war in Afghanistan.

Americans are tired of the war. Too much blood and treasure has been spent. The White House is grappling with troop numbers for 2013 and with the nature and scope of any U.S. mission after 2014. With the persisting corruption and poor governance of the Afghan government and Karzai's fear that the United States is preparing to abandon him, the relationship between Kabul and Washington has steadily deteriorated.

As the United States radically reduces its mission in Afghanistan, it will leave behind a stalled and perilous security situation and a likely severe economic downturn. Many Afghans expect a collapse into civil war, and few see their political system as legitimate.

Karzai and Obama face thorny issues such as the stalled negotiations with the Taliban. Recently, Kabul has persuaded Pakistan to release some Taliban prisoners to jump-start the negotiations, relegating the United States to the back seat. Much to the displeasure of the International Security Assistance Force, the Afghan government also plans to release several hundred Taliban-linked prisoners, although any real momentum in the negotiations is yet to take place.

U.S. may remove all triips from Afghanistan after 2014

Vanda Felbab-Brown

Washington needs to be careful that negotiations are structured in a way that enhances Afghanistan's stability and is not merely a fig leaf for U.S. and NATO troop departure. Countering terrorism will be an important U.S. interest after 2014. The Taliban may have soured on al Qaeda, but fully breaking with the terror group is not in the Taliban's best interest. If negotiations give the insurgents de facto control of parts of the country, the Taliban will at best play it both ways: with the jihadists and with the United States.

Negotiations of a status-of-forces agreement after 2014 will also be on the table between Karzai and Obama. Immunity of U.S. soldiers from Afghan prosecution and control over detainees previously have been major sticking points, and any Afghan release of Taliban-linked prisoners will complicate that discussion.

Karzai has seemed determined to secure commitments from Washington to deliver military enablers until Afghan support forces have built up. The Afghan National Security Forces have improved but cannot function without international enablers -- in areas such as air support, medevac, intelligence and logistical assets and maintenance -- for several years to come. But Washington has signaled that it is contemplating very small troop levels after 2014, as low as 3,000. CNN reports that withdrawing all troops might even be considered.

Everyone is hedging their bets in light of the transition uncertainties and the real possibility of a major security meltdown after 2014. Afghan army commanders are leaking intelligence and weapons to insurgents; Afghan families are sending one son to join the army, one to the Taliban and one to the local warlord's militia.

With Afghan president's visit, nations' post-2014 future takes shape

Patronage networks pervade the Afghan forces, and a crucial question is whether they can avoid splintering along ethnic and patronage lines after 2014. If security forces do fall apart, the chances of Taliban control of large portions of the country and a civil war are much greater. Obama can use the summit to announce concrete measures -- such as providing enablers -- to demonstrate U.S. commitment to heading off a security meltdown. The United States and international security forces also need to strongly focus on countering the rifts within the Afghan army.

Assisting the Afghan army after 2014 is important. But even with better security, it is doubtful that Afghanistan can be stable without improvements in its government.

Afghanistan's political system is preoccupied with the 2014 elections. Corruption, serious crime, land theft and other usurpation of resources, nepotism, a lack of rule of law and exclusionary patronage networks afflict governance. Afghans crave accountability and justice and resent the current mafia-like rule. Whether the 2014 elections will usher in better leaders or trigger violent conflict is another huge question mark.

Emphasizing good governance, not sacrificing it to short-term military expediencies by embracing thuggish government officials, is as important as leaving Afghanistan in a measured and unrushed way -- one that doesn't jeopardize the fledgling institutional and security capacity that the country has managed to build up.

U.S. likely to keep thousands of troops in Afghanistan after NATO forces leave

Karzai has been deaf and blind to the reality that reducing corruption, improving governance and allowing for a more pluralistic political system are essential for Afghanistan's stability. His visit provides an opportunity to deliver the message again -- and strongly.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion

The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Vanda Felbab-Brown.

Read More..

US plays tough with Karzai on Afghan troops

WASHINGTON: US officials plan a mix of hardball negotiating and flattery during a visit by Afghan President Hamid Karzai as President Barack Obama decides how deeply to cut forces in America's longest war.

Karzai will be Obama's first foreign visitor of 2013, with a White House meeting on Friday and State Department dinner on Thursday. The Afghan leader met Wednesday with senators including Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

The talks come as the freshly re-elected Obama charts out plans to pull most of the 68,000 US troops out of Afghanistan. The United States and its allies have already agreed to withdraw combat troops by the end of 2014 but questions remain on a US training and security role after that.

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, told reporters Tuesday that Obama sought to prevent Al-Qaeda's return to Afghanistan but would not rule out any ideas including the so-called zero option -- leaving no US troops at all.

Afghanistan watchers in Washington largely saw the hints as a strategy aimed at Karzai, who has had a tumultuous relationship with the Obama administration and is seen as wanting US troops to stay as long as possible.

James Dobbins, a former US diplomat involved in the establishment of Karzai's government in 2001, called the airing of the zero option "a tactical move designed to indicate to Karzai that he has less leverage in this negotiation than he might otherwise."

Dobbins, who considered a Taliban return to power in post-2014 Afghanistan to be possible but unlikely, said troop levels would be determined by how much the United States was willing to spend after more than 11 years of war.

"My view is it's a straight cost/risk ratio. The more you're prepared to pay, the lower your risk; the higher your risk tolerance, the less you can get away with," Dobbins, now an expert at the Rand Corp., said at the Atlantic Council think tank.

News reports have said that some administration officials favour as few as several thousand troops in Afghanistan. Obama's nominees as his next secretary of state and defence secretary, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, are both seen as supportive of a wide-scale military drawdown.

Marvin Weinbaum of the Middle East Institute said he expected Karzai to press hardest during the White House meetings over what equipment, including air power, the United States would leave or provide Afghan forces.

"He doesn't want the US to pull out completely and he doesn't think the US wants to pull out completely. So that's the meeting point, but he wants to use that as leverage to extract as much as possible," Weinbaum said of Karzai.

Weinbaum said the visit was also aimed at preserving a friendly atmosphere with Karzai, who "is so thin-skinned, if you look at him the wrong way, he thinks you're plotting his demise."

"A lot of these meetings are just to try to keep the chemistry from getting too ugly," said Weinbaum, who believed the plentiful events for Karzai "improve the chances that maybe you can convince him that he's loved."

Tensions rose between the United States and Afghanistan after Karzai won presidential elections in 2009 despite widespread charges of irregularities.

The Obama administration has also pressed Karzai to curb corruption, considered by some US officials to be a major impediment to increasing the government's legitimacy in Afghan eyes.

Opinion polls for several years have shown that the US public is tired of the human and financial cost of the Afghanistan war, initially launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. US forces killed Osama bin Laden, the attack's mastermind, in Pakistan in 2011.

But neoconservative analysts Fred and Kimberly Kagan, writing in The Wall Street Journal, said that leaving only a tiny US military presence would impede operations against Al-Qaeda and risk a renewal of ethnic civil war.

"Those who say that Afghanistan can't get any worse than it is today lack both imagination and any knowledge of the country's recent history," they wrote.

- AFP/jc

Read More..

Latino should have played lead in 'Argo'

Ben Affleck plays the lead role of Tony Mendez in "Argo," which he also directed.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Oscar nominations on Thursday, and Ben Affleck expected to get one for "Argo"


• Affleck plays real-life Latino who helped diplomats escape in Iran hostage crisis


• Ruben Navarrette: Affleck should have used a Latino actor to play role


• He says it cheats actor out of a job, and the Latino community out of a hero's story

San Diego, California (CNN) -- The upcoming Oscars are no stranger to causes or controversy. And this year, there is a strong dose of both surrounding the film "Argo" -- and its star and director, Ben Affleck.

This controversy bubbled up when the buzz started that Affleck could get an Academy Award nomination for best director when the announcements are made Thursday.

"Argo" tells how an ingenious and daring CIA agent helped orchestrate the rescue of six U.S. diplomats from Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1980. In November 1979, about 300 Islamic students stormed the U.S. Embassy and 66 Americans were taken hostage. But six U.S. diplomats escaped and were hidden at the Canadian Embassy by the Canadian ambassador and his wife.

Ruben Navarrette Jr.

The CIA agent -- Antonio "Tony" Mendez, played by Affleck -- successfully led the mission to evacuate the Americans, which involved Mendez and his associates posing as a Canadian film crew that was eager to make a movie in Iran.

The real Tony Mendez was awarded the Intelligence Star for Valor, and other honors, for leading the rescue. He later wrote a memoir, detailing the events in Tehran.

"Argo" is loosely based on Mendez's book. Better make that, very loosely based. As movie critics and others have pointed out since the movie opened a few months ago, the filmmakers took lots of dramatic license with the story. Mendez's role is played up, while that of the Canadians who helped hide and protect the Americans is played down. Some scenes depicted in the film never happened. Some characters are composites of several real people.

In other words, it's what you would expect from a Hollywood feature film based on a historical event. It's not a documentary. It's meant to be taken with a grain of salt, and to be entertaining.

Still, there are some Latinos -- in and out of Hollywood -- who think that, in this case, the filmmakers, and especially Affleck, pushed the concept of creativity too far. They say Affleck missed an opportunity to put more Latinos on screen. Moreover, they say, Affleck improperly claimed, for himself, the choice role of Mendez when he should have cast a Latino actor instead. They insist that the director didn't just cheat a Latino out of an acting job but the Latino community out of a feel-good story about one of their own who won acclaim for a heroic deed.

The critics are right, and their cause is just. Affleck should have tried to cast a Latino to play Mendez. That's common sense, and it would have made "Argo" a better movie. Affleck also didn't do himself any favors by trying to dismiss the criticism with a glib remark that essentially said that it really doesn't matter that the actor playing Mendez isn't Latino since Mendez himself isn't, shall we say, overtly Latino.

At a recent forum intended to publicize the film, Affleck responded to a question from the audience about the controversy by noting that "Tony does not have, I don't know what you would say, a Latin/Spanish accent" and that "You wouldn't necessarily select him out of a line of 10 people and go 'This guy's Latino.' "

Ouch. At least Affleck didn't slip and say "line up."

"So I didn't feel as though I was violating something," he said, "where, here's this guy who's clearly ethnic in some way and it's sort of being whitewashed by Ben Affleck the actor."

Johnny Depp set a better example. Several months ago, Depp turned down the role of Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa in another film. He said that the role should go to a Latino. I praised Depp at the time for showing that, besides being a great actor, he is also a person of character.

The exclusion of Latinos from Hollywood is an old story. This is still a black and white world, where Latinos rarely get cast in the leading role. We're the gardeners and housekeepers, the gang leader and drug dealers, the nannies and farm workers. That's it. There has been some progress, of course. But not enough -- not when you have a Latina in the Supreme Court, three Latinos in the U.S. Senate, and Latinos heading Fortune 500 companies.

I could blame the environment of Southern California, in which most Hollywood writers, producers and directors live and spend most of their time. When they get up in the morning and drive to work, most Latinos they encounter are subservient. We clean their homes, cook their breakfast, trim their hedges, park their cars and otherwise help them get through the day.

Still, you can push this argument too far, and wind up going down a dangerous path -- one that ultimately sets back the greater cause of trying to get television networks and film studios to create a broader range of meatier roles for Latino actors and actresses.

After all, it's a short walk from saying that a director should have cast a Latino to play a Latino to arguing that only Latinos can play Latinos. And, if that's the argument, then on what moral high ground do Latinos stand to also push -- as we should -- for Latino actors and actresses to be considered for generic and mainstream roles that could have gone to white actors? We can't have it both ways.

Even if Latinos succeed in making their point about this one director and this one movie, it could backfire. We could win this battle, and still lose the war.

But before Latinos can be fully integrated into America and not considered outsiders, we have to take every opportunity to push for inclusion and fairness. And acknowledging that Latinos have the skills to play themselves is a good start.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion

The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Ruben Navarrette.

Read More..

Hilda Solis stepping down as labor secretary

Hilda Solis announced that she is stepping down from her post as labor secretary, CBS News has confirmed. She sent a letter to President Obama today notifying him of her retirement.

Solis was nominated to the position the same day the president was inaugurated in 2009, serving through the president's entire first term. She ran the Labor Department during the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. The department, which calculates unemployment statistics, came under criticism during the presidential campaign for a steep drop in the jobless numbers from above 8 percent to below 8 percent right before Election Day.

President Obama called her "a critical member" of his economic team who has helped put "millions" of people back to work. "Hilda Solis has been a tireless champion for working families," the president wrote in a statement.

Before her current position, she was a member of Congress, representing California since 2001 but left that job to be the first Hispanic woman to run the agency.

The president must now name a replacement that must go through the Senate confirmation process. CBS News learned today that the president intends to nominate his chief of staff, Jack Lew, to run the Treasury Department.

Solis joins Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, CIA Director David Petraeus and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in stepping down from their cabinet-level posts.

A White House official says Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki and Attorney General Eric Holder plan to remain in their positions.

Read More..

White House Won't Rule Out $1 Trillion Coin

(United States Mint/Wikimedia Commons)

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney today flatly ruled out any negotiations with Congress over raising the debt ceiling, but there’s one odd-ball solution he would not rule out:  minting trillion dollars coins to pay off the debt.

“There is no Plan B. There is no backup plan. There is Congress’s responsibility to pay the bills of the United States,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters at the daily White House briefing.

READ: $1-Trillion Coins: The Ultimate Debt Ceiling End-Around?

Asked if the administration would rule out minting trillion dollars coins if Congress fails to act, Carney deflected saying “you could speculate about a lot of things.”

“Nothing needs to come to these kinds of… speculative notions about how to deal with a problem that is easily resolved by Congress doing its job, very simply,” he added.

Pressed further on why they won’t offer a clear yes-or-no answer to the question, Carney referred questions to the Treasury Department.

“I answered it thoroughly,” he later joked. “And I have no coins in my pocket.”

Some have suggested the President could invoke the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution – which states, “the validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned” – and ignore the debt ceiling altogether.  On that question, Carney has offered a straight answer:  the 14 Amendment does not apply to the debt ceiling.

“We just don’t believe that it provides the authority that some believe it does,” Carney said.

The trillion-dollar-coin idea has been floated by, among others, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute.

Here’s our full Q and A:

KARL: I heard you unequivocally rule out using the 14th Amendment on the debt ceiling. I heard you unequivocally rule out negotiating with Congress. But you did not rule out this trillion-dollar coin idea. So can I ask you just a yes-or-no question? Does the White House rule out the idea of minting trillion-dollar coins as a way of dealing with the debt ceiling?

CARNEY: I would refer you to Treasury for the specifics of this question. I can tell you that the president does not believe that there is a backup plan or a plan B or an off-ramp. The only viable option here is Congress to fulfill its — that Congress fulfills its responsibility and ensures that the United States of America pays its bills, as it has always paid its bills throughout its history.

KARL: But why have we ruled out the 14th Amendment and not ruled out the trillion-dollar coin idea?

CARNEY: Again, I can tell you that there are no back-up plans. There are no plan B’s. I’d refer you to the Treasury.

–

KARL: Jay, the speaker of the House has made it perfectly clear that he is willing to increase the debt ceiling, but the principle is for every dollar the debt ceiling is increased, a dollar of spending must be cut. Given that you’re saying that the White House will not negotiate on raising the debt ceiling, are you willing to accept that principle from the speaker, a dollar in cuts for every dollar increase?

MR. CARNEY: I think the president’s been very clear that his absolute principle is that we need to reduce our deficit in a balanced way that does not shift all the burden, through cuts exclusively, on senior citizens, on families who have disabled children, on families who are trying to send their kids to school. That’s just unacceptable.

You know, one of the things we learned in the process that we just went through late in — late last year is that when it comes to specificity, we never saw any specificity from Republicans in terms of how exactly they would achieve the kind of sweeping cuts that they say they want and out of whose — you know, from whom would they demand that payment.

And what the president has been very clear about is he will not negotiate on Congress’ responsibility to pay its bills. He will negotiate and is willing to compromise, as he has demonstrated repeatedly, when it comes to moving forward in a balanced way to reduce our deficit. We have to deal with the sequester. We have to deal with a variety of budgetary and economic and fiscal challenges.

But he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling. And the threat itself is a problem, as we saw in the summer of 2011. The binary choice that Republicans seem to want to present to the American public is either we gut Medicare and Social Security or we tank the global economy. I’m not a communications director for the speaker of the House or the Senate minority leader, but I would think selling that would be very hard.

KARL: But help me understand how this works. You say you will not negotiate on this issue. They’ve put out a principle, so they produce something — and they say they will — that cuts a dollar for every dollar increase. And you’re saying you won’t negotiate on that?

MR. CARNEY: Have you seen that?

KARL: Well, this is what they say they are going to go forward.

MR. CARNEY: Well, I mean, you know –

KARL: So either –

MR. CARNEY: — words are not actions, and there has been, at — to this date, very little specificity, you know, since we — since the Ryan plan, which itself was lacking in specifics. And if their — if their position is we’re going to voucherize Medicare or tank the global economy, they should say so. That is unacceptable to the American people. It’s certainly unacceptable to the president.

Look, here’s the thing. Congress has the authority to authorize money, right, not the president. Congress racked up these bills. Congress has to pay these bills. We are very interested in a discussion and negotiation about getting our fiscal house in order. This president has already signed into law over $2 trillion in deficit reduction. He is eager to do more in a balanced way.

But it is not appropriate to — in this president’s view — to say that if I don’t get what I want, I’m not going to raise the debt limit. That is basically saying, I will abandon the history of the United States maintaining the full faith and credit of its currency and its — and its treasury by refusing to pay bills because I didn’t get what I want politically.

And that’s just not acceptable to the president.

KARL:  I’m not sure I understand how that works — you’re not going to negotiate at all? –

MR. CARNEY: We’re not going to negotiate. Congress has a — if Congress wants to give the president the responsibility to raise the debt ceiling, he would take it, as we saw when — in 2010 or — I forget, there have been so many of these confrontations — in — when — in 2011 when the so-called McConnell plan was adopted, you know. But they assigned themselves this responsibility. They need to be — the fact that they, you know, assigned it to them is something that they have to deal with. They assigned it to themselves, they need to act, and they need to, without drama or delay, raise the debt ceiling. We still have — there is plenty of opportunity outside of threatening the full faith and credit of the United States to debate fundamental differences over our economic and fiscal policy proposals, but it is not wise to do that around raising the debt ceiling, not wise to do it around the simple principle that we, the United States of America, pay our debts.

Read More..