Investigators from the Colombian attorney general’s office have talked with employees of the hotel where the Secret Service agents were staying and have also questioned the taxi driver who drove home the woman whose complaint about not being adequately paid triggered the scandal, the official said. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation and asked not to be indentified by name.

Police also went to at least one of the adult entertainment clubs linked to the scandal to verify the ages of the women who worked there, a club employee said.

Two Secret Service supervisors have been forced to retire since the scandal broke and a third is expected to be fired. The 10 members of the military face disciplinary action. The men were in Cartagena as an advance team preparing for President Barack Obama’s attendance at a summit of Western Hemisphere leaders last week.

Neither the club employee nor the attorney general’s office would comment on the record about the investigation or the police operation at the Pleyclub, one of the late-night clubs linked to the scandal.

“Prostitution that involves adults is not a crime in Colombia, but inducing minors to engage in prostitution is a crime and this is the reason why the government is trying to verify whether underage women participated in this,” the official said.

So far, she added, officials have not found any evidence of any minors involved in the incident. One of the ways investigators have verified the women’s ages was by examining information the hotel gathered from their identification cards, which women staying overnight at the hotel are required to leave at the reception desk.

The scandal began in the early morning of Thursday, April 12, when a woman, identified as Dania Suarez, complained loudly in a hallway of the Caribe Hotel that the man who had hired her for sex had not paid her the agreed price of $800.

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney rejected criticism from Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin that the scandal showed poor management. The two Republicans had said the prostitution scandal was part of a pattern that included other recent scandals, including the recent controversy over a General Services Administration conference in Las Vegas and loans to the now-bankrupt company Solyndra. In responding to the question, Carney also mentioned photographs of American soldiers abusing corpses in Afghanistan.

“It is preposterous to politicize the Secret Service; to politicize the terrible conduct of some soldiers in Afghanistan in a war that’s been going on for 10 years,” Carney said. “It’s a ridiculous assertion that trivializes both the very serious nature of the endeavor that our military is engaged in in Afghanistan and the very serious nature … of the work that the Secret Service does.”

Carney has said the White House has confidence in Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan to conduct the investigation and said Friday that Obama “wants the investigation that the Secret Service is leading to come to a completion. Once that completion is reached, if _ if the result is that the allegations that have been broadly reported turn out to be true, he will be angry about it.”

A judge denied Daniela Pelaez’s request for relief from deportation on Monday. Her attorney is planning an appeal.

Pelaez came to the United States from Colombia with her family when she was 4. She considers herself American and has applied to several Ivy League universities and wants to become a heart surgeon.

“I just want to pursue the American dream like any other child,” Pelaez said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not take any action against Pelaez while she pursues her legal options, said spokesman Nestor Yglesias. He added that the agency prioritizes the removal of criminals, those who have crossed the border recently, and those who have previously been removed from the United States.

“Upon conclusion of their appeal, ICE will review this matter to determine whether an exercise of discretion is warranted,” Yglesias said.

The Obama administration announced in August that it would indefinitely delay deporting many illegal immigrants who do not have a criminal record and offer them a chance to apply for a work permit. Earlier last year, they also sent out a memo to agents offering guidance on when and how to use discretion. That document also covered those who could potentially benefit from the proposed DREAM Act, which would offer young unauthorized immigrants who go to college or serve in the military a chance at legal status.

illegal immigrants are generally productive members of the labor force, and make relatively little use of taxpayer-funded programs, such as Medicaid and other welfare programs. On the other hand, they pay little in taxes since they are frequently paid in cash and often do not pay either social security taxes or income taxes. In effect, they largely receive as take home pay what they add to the output of the country.

“Illegal immigration already costs American taxpayers billions each year, and these increased regulations force them to keep an open tab for illegal immigrants.”

Figures provided by ICE claim that the cost of deporting an illegal immigrant runs an average of $10,043. But like most government reports, these figures are far from being accurate as they don’t consider the costs incurred by other agencies involved in the arrest and deportation process. When all of the costs are added up, we find that taxpayers are paying between $23,000 and $30,000 per illegal.

.

It should be obvious where this is going. Paying a fine and “meeting other requirements” are actions not required of legal residents, but, if the poll’s amnesty program were initiated, they would be required of illegal immigrants. This satisfies the terms of the right’s own rhetoric: it treats illegal people as if they were illegal. Of course, we already do that. In most places, for instance, illegal immigrants can’t get driver’s licenses or other government-issued IDs, can’t open checking accounts, etc. Some people think the punishment for being an illegal immigrant should be more harsh. But conservatives often seem to take for granted that the mere fact of illegality necessitates a particular punishment: immediate deportation. They present no argument. For them, “what don’t you get about ‘illegal’?” suffices to establish their rightness on all questions regarding immigration. They are wrong, and, if this poll is close to right, they’re in the minority

The Three Markets: Contract, Spot and Futures

Both oil and gas are traded on three markets: the contract market, the spot market, and the futures market. Each is influenced by different factors and impacts the price of gas at different stages of production. Unlike the futures market, the contract and spot markets are not the kind of markets found on Wall Street; they are informal networks of businesspeople.

The Contract Market
Though it seems like oil companies spend most of their time ruining your day by raising the price of gas, their primary business is exploration. Once an oil company finds a field and coaxes it into producing crude, it takes that unrefined oil and sells to refiners. The vast majority of oil is sold by contracts. A veritable orgy of contracts signed between oil companies and dealers, oil companies and refiners, refiners and independent dealers predetermine the fate of most oil and gas.

Refiners plan their purchasing and refining activity to ensure that these contracts are fulfilled. In exchanged for this privileged standing, refiners charge contract customers a premium.

The Spot Market

Need some extra oil? Got a spare barrel you need to sell today? The spot market is for you. The spot market fills the gap left by the contracts market. When a refiner needs extra oil to meet its contracts, they find people with surplus oil on the spot market. Unlike the contract and futures markets, which trade pieces of paper, the spot market involves the trade of actual barrels.

The best deals are often found on the spot market. Since neither the buyer or seller is locked into a prearranged deal, the laws of supply, demand, and free market are mostly in effect.

The Futures Market
Crude oil is the bees knees of the American Mercantile Exchange. A futures contract might stand for 1,000 barrels of West Texas Intermediate to be delivered at Cushing, Oklahoma. The futures market represents that collective state of the oil market at any particular moment. When you hear reporters talk about the price of oil reaching $100 per barrel, they’re talking about the futures market. Because fluctuations on the futures market are driven by information, its prices guide the contract and spot markets.

The people buying and selling futures rarely, if ever, collect on their contracts; a seven year period saw 5 billion barrels traded, of which only 31,000 were ever delivered.

Refineries

Refineries are the temples where crude oil gets Bar Mitzvah’d into gas. Shifts in the refining world over the past two decades have helped ratchet up the price of gas. In the early 80′s, there were over 350 refineries, mostly owned by the oil companies. The oil companies didn’t see refining as a place to generate profit, but as an integral part of a larger operation.

If a refiner’s rack price is consistently too high, dealers will take their business elsewhere when their contracts expire. If the rack price is too low, buyers might swamp the refiner, leaving it unable to meet its contractual obligations.

To ensure pricing continuity, refiners used to call each other and share pricing information. Activist judges on the Supreme Court called this “collusion.” The refiners, unfazed by the justices, came up with a crafty alternative: publicly posting their rack prices. Somehow, the Ninth Circuit Court found this to be illegal, too. Nobody knows how refiners discuss their pricing arrangements nowadays, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it involved a members-only group on Facebook.

Despite multiple warnings, the American political system is so dysfunctional that very little has changed since a president named Jimmy Carter tried to get us to get serious about reducing our dependence on gasoline. Oh, cars and trucks get better gas mileage than they did back then. But the nation still lacks a coherent policy for radically reducing consumption.

The frustration over prices at the pump is likely a major contributor to Obama’s sagging approval ratings.

Earlier this month, Gallup’s daily tracking poll showed that the president’s favorability rating had slipped to 41 percent, tied with his lowest ever. Voters tend to blame the person in the Oval Office when gas prices soar.

I understand the frustration. Families struggling in the post-recession economic landscape — some still jobless, many earning less than they used to — are hard-pressed to fork over more and more money at the gas pump.

And for many of those families, driving has become a necessity. They’re not taking leisurely spring-break road trips. They’re trying to get to work, to the doctor’s office, to the grocery store.

Over the last 30 years, suburban and exurban development, especially in fast-growing Sunbelt cities, have produced sprawling mega-lopolises, wherein workers may live an hour’s drive (or more) from the workplace. Those suburbs aren’t exclusive enclaves of the affluent, either. Many suburbs are economically and racially diverse, so more families of modest means live far from work. A dime a gallon can break the budget.
]]> http://my-complaint.com/gas-prices-never-down/feed/ 1 http://my-complaint.com/life-and-kidnapping-colombia/ http://my-complaint.com/life-and-kidnapping-colombia/#comments Thu, 08 Dec 2011 02:37:35 +0000 admin http://my-complaint.com/?p=15792 Continue reading →]]> We could say that the guerrillas in Colombia has more than half a century, I still remember my years, I thought in the revolution of ideas and in which, the only viable option was the guerrillas, who had ideology, fighting for slogan for the people, their rights, decent social life, a better distribution of wealth, land, the end of landlordism and the right to life and land.

But all this has changed over the course of the years, and only left us one more story of violence, a violence that seems never ending and Colombian society which got used, but if you have to say is that after the abduction of the military for more than 15 years in the jungle rot, waiting for more than a decade, has an agreement or negotiation, or are not expected not too long, I think is the longest sentence for any crime you can know, but the prison would be better, it would have more comfortable and could see your family at each visit, but they only live in the jungle chained to a tree, like animals, living in the worst conditions, without food, health, some will be free to dream and see their families again, but that for many of them it was not possible and many have died in captivity, hoping someday to be released.

But if you have achieved something besides the usual speeches and in Colombia, there are a lot of armed groups to fight the guerrillas as well as hundreds of political parties is no longer see the soldier, or police as the enemy the people, that he had a gun in his possession and the law into their hand and committed atrocities, today there are hundreds of justifying their fight, kill kill whole villages whole families, orphaned children left without until We have not killed his parents in their own eyes, that this war without mercy does not end and continues to have children of war.

We are all children of a conflict that has not improved but worsened the social condition of thousands of Colombians who had to leave their land and leave only with the clothes, to go do some of that new class called displaced, a conflict that if I can expropriate the land, and generate wealth but only those who can pay for your monitor and you can pay to kill others and have more land.

During this time we have seen the news have the best novel, with the respect that many of the hostages they deserve, but it was the best novel in ratings, but selling not only entertainment, but if the pain of others, that feeling that when these outside and free, without the shackles of abduction can not imagine the horrors of war, and why not respect the dignity of people, because the world allows prisoners of war are protected life, and only see Nazi period films, and think as it could be possible, as could happen for so many years, and nobody did anything.

We always hope the story and see them off, hope to see with his family, then change the channel with a sigh, but nothing more. But many still being held hostage until another chapter begins and is the front-page news, without having an end. But how much longer I take it.

Looking at the comments people are always the division of opinion between the government should negotiate and not redeemed, if you were in the jungle with them beyond would think so, or my question why those who have been released, only decided to continue with their lives and do nothing for their classmates who were there, return to freedom. until when? Until when? They live in Colombia with the idea of ​​the government does not act, it does nothing, when the people who one day felt it was his guerrilla army of liberation, act and demand that violence must end that although we have no weapons and hundreds of armed groups, are more and have ideas and want a new country, that that one day get that poverty is not an incurable disease and work together to get something better.

The slain officer notebook to let her daughter

“As a tribute of love I’ll hopefully keep this book as a treasure of love that makes you remember every time you see your father distant and diffuse, confined to a jungle serving a whim that men invented but not yet distance and time can make me forget the little angel of love begotten. “

That first paragraph on page 91 Viviana Duarte helped him to meet his father, who was fired after 2 years and never seen alive again. He had to settle for survival tests in which he always saw a being without libertad.Hoy, the object came in a package with everything that one of the world’s oldest abducted saved as their treasure, through letters of love, portraits and a chess

He was one of the 4 officers who were killed by shots in the head, by the guerrillas to be near the army. They were killed in captivity after waiting many years for his release.

“In August 2011 we documented at least 243 short-term arrests (some for more than a week) and nine acts of censure organized by the numerous and ubiquitous secret political police,” the commission said in a document released to the foreign press in Havana.

The outlawed but tolerated rights panel said that in the first eight months of this year at least 2,221 arrests were made for political reasons, 1,091 more than in the same period in 2010.

It said that the victims of last month’s repression were mainly women engaged in “non-violent activities,” chiefly in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba.

The commission added that “it has no doubt that the order for that brutal repression was decreed or approved by the highest ranks of the neo-Stalinist regime that has ruled Cuba for more than half a century.”

The Catholic Church in Cuba said Monday that the government of President Raul Castro told prelates that actions targeting peaceful protesters were not authorized by national officials.

Human rights groups and international organizations believe that these articles subordinate the exercise of freedom of expression to the state. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights assess that: “It is evident that the exercise of the right to freedom of expression under this article of the Constitution is governed by two fundamental determinants: on the one hand, the preservation and strengthening of the communist State; on the other, the need to muzzle any criticism of the group in power.” Human rights group Amnesty International assert that the universal state ownership of the media means that freedom of expression is restricted. Thus the exercise of the right to freedom of expression is restricted by the lack of means of mass communication falling outside state control. Human Rights Watch states: “Refusing to recognize human rights monitoring as a legitimate activity, the government denies legal status to local human rights groups. Individuals who belong to these groups face systematic harassment, with the government putting up obstacles to impede them from documenting human rights conditions. In addition, international human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are barred from sending fact-finding missions to Cuba. It remains one of the few countries in the world to deny the International Committee of the Red Cross access to its prisons.”

A Reporters Without Borders report finds that Internet use is very restricted and under tight surveillance. Access is only possible with government permission and equipment is rationed. E-mail is monitored.

First Things First

•Give the merchant the first chance to solve the problem. Contact the salesperson, retailer or business when you have a complaint about any goods or services you bought. When there is a complaints department, use it. When there isn’t, talk to someone in authority, such as a manager. A face-to-face discussion is best. Be firm and businesslike, but polite. Calmly and accurately describe the problem and what you want the company to do to resolve it.

•

If the problem is not resolved that way, ask for the telephone number of the company headquarters and contact the customer service department. Request specifics about how and when something will be done, and get the company representative’s name in case you have to refer to the conversation later. Write down any details of your complaint and keep them in a file. Make sure to date your notes.

•

If your call doesn’t produce satisfactory results, write a letter to someone higher up, such as the general manager or owner (see sample letter). Provide all the details of the problem and explain your efforts to resolve it. Ask for action. In the case of products, send a copy of your letter to the manufacturer, and be sure to keep a copy of it yourself.

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If none of these steps work to your satisfaction, consult the key consumer contacts of this Handbook for government offices and consumer organizations that apply to your situation. If you don’t know where to start, call the federal-provincial-territorial government consumer affairs office where you live. Someone there will direct you to the right organization. Or, use the Complaint Courier to file your complaint online.

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Taking legal action should be your last choice. If you decide to sue, remember that there are often time limitations on filing lawsuits. You may wish to check with a lawyer about the legal process and any limitations that may apply to your case in your province or territory.

Strategies for Success

•

Do not be afraid to complain. Good businesses will be pleased to correct any mistake on their part. They know that customer goodwill is the best form of advertising.

•Always keep a file of important information related to your purchase, include the sales receipts, repair orders, warranties, cancelled cheques, contracts and any letters you have written to or received from the company concerned.
•

Do not procrastinate. When a product is defective or unsatisfactory, it is important that you return it quickly so that you do not lose the right to get your money back or to collect damages in some cases. Always check the return policy before you buy.

What to Do When You Have Complained Without Any Results?

If you feel you have given the company enough time and that your problem has not been resolved, send a copy of your complaint letter and copies of supporting documents (not originals) to, or file a consumer complaint with, your provincial or territorial consumer affairs office or Better Business Bureau. If you use the Complaint Courier it will give you the option to automatically forward your complaint to the appropriate government office.

Small Claims Court

Small claims court can be an informal and relatively inexpensive way to resolve disputes when the amount involved is less than $3,000 or, in some provinces, up to $25,000. However, you will have to pay a fee to file a claim. Once the suit is launched, you may have costs for such things as serving orders, payments to witnesses and travel expenses.

You do not need a lawyer to go to small claims court, although in most provinces and territories the help of a lawyer is allowed. The court staff is experienced in helping consumers prepare the necessary forms, and the judges have the power to settle disputes. This court allows each side to explain its story and does not expect consumers to know legal technicalities.

For information on how to proceed, contact the small claims or provincial or territorial court nearest you (look in the government listings in your phone book). The websites of these courts also often list the procedures to follow and have copies of the forms you will need to complete.

Who’s to blame for the recession we’re in? It’s a hotly debated topic, and there really is no single right answer. The economic recession didn’t stem from a single group or a lone action. But to help you understand how the current economic situation came about, let’s look at three groups that had a hand in it:

The Federal Reserve – For years, the Fed kept interest rates low. Low interest rates help to grow the economy–they make borrowing (and therefore spending based on that borrowing) more attractive to consumers. Low interest rates also benefit banks making loans, because it’s easier for them to attract new customers as they advertise that low interest. The problem is that low interest leading to growth is good when the economy needs a boost; not so much when it’s already booming. That can lead to rapid inflation like we saw for years with the skyrocketing housing prices around the country.

Banks - You would probably be hard-pressed to find any American who didn’t hold banks at least partly to blame for the credit crunch-turned-recession. The fact that their tax dollars then went to bail out the banks with little oversight certainly didn’t help matters. And they would be right. Banks played a major role in the current crisis–a role stemming from greed.

To explain it as simply as possible, banks knowingly loaned money (through mortgages for over-inflated housing prices) to people who couldn’t afford it. They did it for the sole purpose of earning more money–they can charge much higher interest on sub-prime loans to people at the most risk of not paying them back.

Consumers – Yes, even consumers just like you played a role in the current economic recession. Let’s be honest about it. If people lived within their means without a sense of entitlement to more, they wouldn’t have racked up debt they couldn’t afford.

In their defense, the average consumer is somewhat easily sucked in by promises of low interest and great deals (if the marketing messages and sales pitches didn’t work on many, people wouldn’t use them across most sales-oriented industries). Banks basically promised high-risk consumers something they never thought they’d have–a house of their own. People who otherwise would have stayed in their smaller homes or continued to rent strove for something better, but something they ultimately knew they couldn’t afford.

No single person, or even a single industry, led to the collapse of the housing market or our overall economic recession. While it may be easy to place blame on whoever the media or government is targeting on any given day, when you really think about the situation critically you see that there’s plenty of blame to go around. While you can’t say any one person caused the recession, you can be sure of one thing–the economy will rebound. It may not happen as quickly as we’d like, but it always does. Following every boom there comes a bust. And after every bust we rebuild.

According to a 2010 Bigresearch.com study, home owners are throwing their home improvements plans out the window like burnt toast. Over 20% of those surveyed said they were putting-off all forms of home improvement indefinitely. Interestingly, this percentage ranked second highest among all survey questions, with only “vacation travel” showing a higher figure (25%).

With cash reserves at a premium, many home owners have simply decided to wait on making improvements, and understandably so. Faced with record unemployment, higher costs of living, rising taxes and a dim view of any short term changes for the better, who could blame them?

Worse yet, home improvements have historically yielded very low returns when compared to their actual cost. In fact, Remodeling Magazine’s 2009-10 “cost vs. value” report reveals that home owners, on average, recoup less than of 65% of the money they invest in their home improvement projects.

But before you conclude that your home improvement plans should be scraped, let’s take a step back.

There are very few home owners who wouldn’t admit to needing some measure of improvement to their home. Whether it’s as simple as repairing the leaky faucet gasket that drives you crazy with its relentless dripping, or an unreliable front porch light fixture that leaves you fumbling around in the dark when you return home from a long day at work. Every house has its deficiencies.

But with a recession in full bloom, and statistics showing little to no hope of ever getting your money back, why would anyone bother with a home improvement project?

Though at first it may seem like a lost cause or verging on lunacy, there are simple solutions that many consumers are using to solve this problem.

First, let’s address the big one. The statistics from Remodeling Magazine and other similar resources, assume that a building contractor is being paid to perform all the labor and to supply all the materials. And if you assume, on average, approximately 50% of the total costs of most home improvement projects will be attributable to labor and fees, you can literally transform the investment returns by performing the majority of the work yourself. What was once a 35% loss becomes a 30% gain by simply providing your own labor force. Not a bad return in any economy.

Latin America has a set of features very own from its formation until the present , therefore , many novelist fiction boom Latinamerican has been baptized as REAL WONDERFUL O MAGIC , THERE MANY OF THEM DESCRIBED exotic landscapes , dictators who rule until death as the “General in His Labyrinth “by Gabriel García Márquez, ” Yo el Supremo ” de Roa Bastos many more writers wrote about dictatorship with its peculiarities own of this continent. were the first, to describe and explore this reality, people themselves have not understood , nor explained this phenomenon own from our history.

Now we also see something similar to what is happening in Venezuela, a very peculiar emerged from the quarries Latin America , made in the barracks, but in this case with another additional ingredient , a dictator waving the flags of the Bolivarian revolution , socialism , justice social and democracy to his style. He is a extranbótico very peculiar.Look singing Ernesto chegavara , one of the guerrillas emblematic romantic history Latinaomericana. beside by some and is considered demigod by many generations.

Another feature , is also joining unconditionally, to the principles of Fidel Castro , who appears in many passages of his vida.Hugo Chavez. Also using the same strategies of dictators traditional of the right cavernous American , wanting to remain in power , using it , the whole state apparatus, but it is unfortunate that this is going on in Venezuela , a country with a long democratic tradition in Latin America.

They also had the guilt previous rulers nieter that did not solve the problems most urgent Mayari of the Venezuelan population , they as usual always followed to the letter the recommendations of the Fund Monetrio Internacional.No were able to innovate and be more realistic the needs of the population.No forget the famous custom themes , featuring the Venezuelan people against these rulers unable were expelled from the government

Juan Velasco Alvardo , another military in the seventies of last century has surprised Latin America with his ideas entirely new, never expected that these ideas of revolution , of change had emerged from the barracks , this character was a soldier just as the earlier , took over the government of Peru through a coup, overthrew a democratic government , but his speech surprised everyone and his reforms were also a time again misunderstood in Latin America, no one could explain what was it occur, it was evident its duration was brief, because we were living the period of dictatorship fiercest and sanguenarias of Pinochet, Alfredo Stroessner , Rafael Videla, Anastasio Somoza, Hugo dance, Jean -Claude Duvalier call Bébé Doc, is one of the stages darkest democracy Latinoanericana.The politicians were unable to resolve for themselves the internal problems of their countries , many of them contributed to these governments bloodthirsty .

But before you have insurance, leaving her heir to power is none other than his own brother Raul Castro , opened another option the heritage government’s family and interpreted by Fidel Castro as his property the kingdom of Cuba, is the typical ideal of Latin American dictators , to perpetuate themselves in power, longing for the life is for them eternal.

The second Alberto Fujimori left office fleeing their own scandals that have shaped their own advisors and supporters who have created a dark power and parallel with more power, have made the diversion of public funds on a regular basis to the accounts of people who have collaborated with them.Now is sitting there in the courts awaiting a sentence for the crimes has made. Calling himself INONCENTE of the charges.

In recent years, democratic governments are not addressing the needs most urgent of the majority of the population, always are dreaming of assumptions outdated of nenoliberalism and the schemes rewritten IMF Internacional. Even that these assumptions are no longer viable countries where the 80 was a real boom in theories economic .

It is a cause that in many countries Latin American the majority of the population requires urgent reforms in the whole structure of society, since the international crisis in this part of Latin America will not only create protests but phenomenon social uncontrollable in recent 20 years and we have had a inestibilidad policy in the region. we were witnesses and the people to expelled democratic governments unable , as in Venezuela , Bolivia , Argentina and Ecuador also no are strangers to the armed groups fighting to implement republics style socialist Cuba in Latin America, we have the cases of Colombia , Peru, Gatemala , El Salvador and Mexico.

Today, all eyes have shifted from Iraq’s unnecessary war to Afghanistan, the war that 9/11 begat a decade ago. Canada sat out the Iraq invasion, but answered the call for help in Afghanistan, a war that Obama has made his own. Canadian troops, like American soldiers, have paid a heavy price in the Kandahar region. The U.S. President stressed that Afghanistan is a war America and its allies, including Canada, cannot win alone. Outside forces can help rebuild and stabilize, but they cannot determine the outcome.

The lesson of Iraq, if there is any to be learned, is that Iraqis must ultimately determine their own future, solve their own squabbles, and fight their own battles.

It is little different in Afghanistan. Now, Obama’s exit strategy in Iraq is being applied to Afghanistan, but with a difference. One trillion dollars and 4,400 soldiers combat deaths later in Iraq, the U.S. has learned again the limits to military power and the importance of diplomatic influence, economic strength and collective action. America and the world cannot do for Iraqis, or for Afghans, what they alone must do for themselves.

“They are not weak or ineffective forces. Now they are there both to serve as a deterrent to any kind of outside interference in Iraq and serve as a potential reinforcement to an Iraqi government if it needs it.”

The brigades’ advisory-and-assistance role means they will help provide both Iraq’s civilian and military agencies with intelligence and equipment support for counterinsurgency operations. In fact, that continues a role they already switched to months ago, well before Obama’s formal August 31 deadline.

“What we have seen since really June is that it is Iraqi forces which basically lead and take over virtually all of the missions,” Cordesman says. “That was when U.S. forces left the cities and populated areas in Iraq and that in many ways was a de facto withdrawal from active combat that occurred months ago, not in terms of this formal deadline.”

]]> http://my-complaint.com/live-after-left-irak/feed/ 0 http://my-complaint.com/g20-related-police-complaints-on-the-rise/ http://my-complaint.com/g20-related-police-complaints-on-the-rise/#comments Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:56:26 +0000 admin http://my-complaint.com/?p=15672 Continue reading →]]> Complaints filed against police for their actions during the G20 summit are mounting — but the number is still not as high as expected after a weekend in which more than 1,000 people were arrested.

Between June 27 and July 3, the provincial Office of the Independent Police Review Director received 164 complaints, compared with an average 80 per week, said spokeswoman Rosemary Parker.

The arm’s-length agency created last year to deal with complaints against police doesn’t have “enough resources” to determine what portion of those are related to the G20, Parker said.

However, some people who may be intimidated by the process of lodging a complaint with the provincial office are turning to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. It has received more than 75 complaints from people caught up in mass arrests.

“We are finding that people may be intimidated by the process, by the amount of information they need to provide to make a complaint, and some are worried that if they file a complaint the police will get mad at them,” said Des Rosiers. The group helps individuals file a complaint or get legal advice, she said.

Most complaints lodged with CCLA came after a meeting last Tuesday at Christie Pits Park, where people were urged to take action through legal avenues.

Natalie Logan, 21, was among those attending. She said she was arrested while taking photos at The Esplanade on Saturday evening and detained for 14 hours.

Logan plans to send her complaint to both the complaints office and the civil liberties group. She delayed doing so, she said, because she wanted to ensure her account was as neutral and accurate as possible. “I want to keep this issue upfront and not let it fizzle away with time.”

In the mean time, she urges people to speak out: “It’s important for people to stand up and denounce police misconduct, and filing a complaint is the best way to do so. It’s a service to your community to do so.”