SWAT

Recently the LAPD SWAT team suffered its first loss in its forty-one year history. The article intrigued me, probably because I recognized SWAT from many films and I wanted to know what it was truly like.

I found that in that 41 years, SWAT has been involved in many extreme cases with more at stake than this. Their first publicized mission, so to speak, was when they carried out search warrants in the Black Panther headquarters in 1996. Eight years later, they had a shootout with a self-proclaimed guerrilla group, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and in 1997, they engaged in a shootout with bank robbers in North Hollywood, which was one of the most publicized police situations in recent history. Through all this, even though some SWAT team members got injured, none got hurt. So why did their luck change, especially in a fight with just one man?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/109329

This house gets sick when someone sneezes

The global economy is deeply interconnected. At present it seems that there is one country with such a powerful and influential economy that a small fault in that economy will cause the economy of the rest of the world to fall into recession. That one country is now falling into an economic recession of its own. That country is the United States.

Now many countries fear the effects of the US’s recession. Even small countries in Southeast Asia worry about its effects. Economists think that, since the US is a major exporter of goods from Asia, China and other major exporters will have to cut prices to gain access to the US markets, out-competing smaller businesses. http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/2008/01/24/140402/U.S.-recession.htm

At a World Economic Forum meet, the focus was the fear of the US’s recession. However, some of the economists there believe that the growing economies of China, India, and some other countries will help keep the world from falling into the major recession others are predicting.

http://www.huliq.com/48151/fears-us-recession-dominates-wef-meet

Barak's International Influence

These two articles remind me of a comment I heard at school about how Obama would have more influence in international politics than Hilary because of of his race and because he is male, rather than female and will be regarded with more respect in areas in the Middle East where women are actively discriminated against. These two articles have different takes on the matter.
In this articles, the focus was on the color of his skin rather than his gender. The author states that, for people in the third world, most of whom are colored, Obama will be the first president of the United States, and one of the few big players in international politics, who looks like themselves, the "good guys" not some other leader whose policies will most likely add more strife to their lives. http://www.newsweek.com/id/91621

This article describes Obama's current image in Kenya. because his father was born in Kenya and because he himself pays attention to whatever is going on there, he is widely regarded as a hero.

http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/ov/archive/2008/01/14/for-kenyans-barack-is-a-hero.aspx

His ties to Kenya give him a lot of power in that country, which is especially important now with regards to the current political turmoil in Kenya.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/01/17/kenyaprotests.ap/index.html

Peace for Palestine and Israel

Israel and Palestine are war-torn and ravaged places. A CNN reporter recorded many of the horrors he saw there. Gaza is now a “wasteland” ruled by Hamas, and because of the Hamas rule, the Israeli government has made it difficult for the people living there to travel or even trade or receive more than is absolutely necessary for life. “No one is staving, but the economy has come to a stand still” and there are severe shortages of other necessary resources, such as fuel for energy, which results in things like hospitals being routinely cut off from energy in order to conserve it. Similar conditions can be seen in the West Bank.

All across both these areas resentment of the ones who let this continue is high. That includes every one from Hamas to the Israeli government to the US, and many fear a third insurgence, far more devastating than the previous two.

Furthermore, there have been and still are many instances of damaging attacks on Israel from Hamas and other anti-Israeli factions.

With this as a backdrop, George Bush has arrived in Tel Aviv declaring his visit “a new opportunity for peace in the Holy Land,” which indicates a good deal of hubris on his part. Rob Malley, an experienced negotiator, believes that there is not a good chance of success in this venture. The constant violence and the need to negotiate between three different groups (Israel, Fatah, and Hamas) in many different sub-conflicts, combined with the fact that a single bomb could at this point launch all three groups into war contribute to this low chance of success. However, Malley says that it is not impossible for some form of treaty to be made, because “all three actors see real merits [in reaching an agreement] because of their relative weaknesses.” There is still a chance for peace in this decades–old war ground.

Drought in the Southeast

The Southeast right now is experiencing a record-breaking drought, and because of its severity and length, the states are beginning to work together to apportion their current limited water supplies. They are also looking for a long-term solution, but neither of the articles I read said that the senators were willing to go to the heart of the problem – and push to take steps that counter global warming.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/16/southern.drought/index.html?iref=newssearch

http://www.newsweek.com/id/80824

Politicians are still willing to blind themselves to the fact that in order to best keep our country safe from intense natural disasters, like the fires in Southern California, storms like Hurricane Katrina, and this drought, decisive action has to be taken to fix the Earth’s climate, not just the immediate problem. In the southeast, they say “real progress has been made” – well I say that this progress is only a patch to cover the true problem, the roots of this problem, and the US as a whole can’t continue to rely on these patches. Sooner or later the whole thing is going to fall apart if no one admits that the issue needs to be addressed and nothing is done to help.

The Second Iraq

The official reason we went into Iraq was that Iraq may have had nuclear weapons, and yet, we found none. Now, even with evidence against this, we are trying to convict Iran of having nuclear weapons or of trying to make them (http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/06/iran.nie/index.html)

Recently, the NIE disclosed a report saying that Iran had canceled its nuclear program four years ago, in 2003. This makes calling for intervention against nuclear weapons in Iran seem like warmongering.

This article (http://www.newsweek.com/id/73904) points out that there is more depth to this however. It discussed the fact that the government decided to release this information in the first place. This was a random and complete u-turn from the attempt to keep everything classified before, and the article explores the reasons why this happened. The official reason was that this report expressed new information, and thus the public had a right to know it. They also said that keeping it classified would make it look like a major cover-up if the info ever leaked.

In the end, we don’t know the exact reason or reasons why this information was released, but now that it’s out, President Bush is finding it more difficult to stir up anti-Iranian sentiment, and I believe that that is how it should be.

Hillary's New Security Threat

Today, in Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters in New Hampshire, some of the staff who worked there were held hostage by a middle-aged man, Lee Eisenberg, who was complaining that his insurance didn’t help him treat his mental problems. One of the hostages with an infant was released early, and she said that he had a bomb strapped to his chest. Later, it was found that he only had some flares strapped to his chest. This article is a more complete version of the story. [http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/30/clinton.office/index.html]

This is pretty shocking because I’ve never heard of an incident quite like this before. It’s strange to think that even the offices of our presidents-to-be are not free from the risk of something dramatic and potentially dangerous, like this incident. It made me wonder what the security around our presidential candidates was like now and how this incident would change it. This article gave me the answers to some of those questions [http://www.newsweek.com/id/73188/page/1]. In this interview with J. J. Funk, Funk said that this incident necessarily means that security will be or needs to be stepped up because this kind of incident was mostly a personal issue by a man who used Hillary’s absence and a public place to make a big statement and get some attention without directly endangering a political figure.