Sarah Palin draws a huge crowd at Fort Bragg November 23, 9:53 AMLA Military Headlines ExaminerMark Nero
Sarah Palin at the North Post Exchange at Fort Bragg, N.C. (Photo: Jim R. Bounds/AP)Over a thousand people have lined up at the Fort Bragg Army base in North Carolina to see former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who's there as part of a book signing tour.Palin did not make any statement after arriving around 11 a.m. today. She merely waved to the crowd then went inside the base exchange store, where she quickly started signing copies of her new memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life."Officials estimated as many as 1,500 waited for her arrival. About a dozen people camped out. Fort Bragg is the only scheduled North Carolina stop on Palin’s tour to promote her book, which was published last week.An Army spokesman says Palin will not make a speech, pose for photos, or personalize notes in the books she signs at the on-post store. The lack of a speech was because the Army had been worried the appearance would prompt political grandstanding against President Obama. That fear initially led commanders to limit news coverage, though the restrictions were later dropped.Palin is scheduled to appear at the signing until 2 p.m. local time.  

 A war on drugs? No, this is a war on the Mexican people29,000 dead, human rights leaders murdered, the constitution violated – the price of President Calderón's popularity bid Luis Hernandez Navarro guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 August 2010 Article historyVicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, began his administration in 2000 with a popular festival. Felipe Calderón, who took over in 2006, began his with a show of military force. His affinity for uniforms, army brass bands and public events with the armed forces makes an overt connection between the military and the executive that was unusual in Mexican politics before his presidency.In January 2007 in Apatzingán, Calderón had his picture taken in military uniform, with a five-star cap and the national emblem. In May, again in Apatzingán, another photo op: officers with armoured vehicles and grenade launchers confronted alleged drug traffickers. But this great publicity stunt worried some – drugs are supposed to be under police, not military, jurisdiction.After his 2006 victory was greeted by massive demonstrations over allegations of electoral fraud, Calderón needed to make up for his lack of popular legitimacy. The drug war soon became the central theme of his government. Taking on organised crime – leaning heavily on the army, which helped him into office in the first place, and with financial support from the US – has given Calderón a legitimacy that he did not receive in the voting booth, while militarising politics has given him the tools to run the country using emergency measures normally reserved for wartime. Here Calderón followed much the same script used by George Bush after 9/11, when the US president made war the constituent power of a neoconservative order. But, instead of sending troops to Iraq or Afghanistan, the Mexican president has ordered them into the streets of their own country.The army now virtually occupies communities throughout the country, carrying out functions that, under the constitution, are not the responsibility of the armed forces: it has set up checkpoints, de facto curfews and inspections. In what appears to be the pilot of a plan for the entire country, in several northern states there is a situation that resembles a state of siege – one never decreed by congress.In the short term, the politicisation of public security has worked for the president. Surveys show relatively high approval ratings, although they have been falling in recent months. Drug trafficking existed before Calderón took office, but his handling of it – while successful in terms of his popularity – has been a disaster for security. The president launched a war without a plan, and without assessing the consequences. Now he does not know where to go.Recently, Calderón announced that there was to be a debate on the legalisation of marijuana in Mexico, while adding that he himself is against legalisation. Many people, including the leader of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary party, warn that this is merely an attempt to distract attention from the main issue…

  Obama nominee touches a nerve       

  What Obama can do for Latin AmericaThe US president could do much to earn his Nobel peace prize by undoing George Bush's policies south of the borderComments (75)Ariel Dorfman guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 October 2009 19.30 BST Of all the regions in a dangerous and intractable world, forgotten Latin America might paradoxically offer Barack Obama the best opportunity to influence events so that the "hope for the future" embodied in his recent Nobel peace prize becomes a reality.Building upon his creative engagement with the continent after the Bush years of blindness and neglect, there is much the president can accomplish immediately. Lifting the senseless blockade against Cuba, followed by full diplomatic relations, would be a good beginning. Another sore spot is Honduras, where the US has not done enough to isolate and punish the de facto government, which stubbornly clings to power after having ousted the legally elected Manuel Zelaya. And Obama should rethink his approach to continental security (cancelling, for instance, Plan Colombia), as a way of defusing tensions in a Latin America threatened by a new arms race.The US, one of the largest Spanish-speaking countries in the world, could also send a signal of friendship to Latin America by legalising the situation of millions of undocumented Latino workers, tearing down walls instead of erecting them.On another front, presidents Álvaro Uribe and Felipe Calderón, seconded by Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have valiantly opened up a tentative conversation about the failed "war on drugs". If Obama were to encourage, and perhaps imitate, their efforts to decriminalise the use of marijuana, it would help alter an irrational policy that has generated a mafia of narcotraficantes across the Americas, filling jails and devastating the young.And, of course, there are the real wars to win in Latin America. Against poverty and tyranny, against ecological depredation and the marginalisation of the indigenous peoples and their wisdom. The president, with his immense heart and his inspirational words, could be a fundamental partner in our quest for a better future.Incredibly, the continent where I was born has only received five Nobel peace prizes in the 108 years since the award was instituted. If Obama were to carry out a truly enlightened policy towards the countries south of the border, I can envision how the citizens of Latin America might some day claim that in 2009, that prize was really, all appearances to the contrary, once again offered to one of our own. Maybe some day history will declare that Obama was, at least in spirit, the sixth Latin American to be given this honour.   

  From The Times of London
May 13, 2009 Crime lords 'running empires from jail using PlayStations'