In light of statistics that show staggering rates of sexual assault in the U.S. military, the Department of Defense announced on Tuesday two new policiesdesigned to help victims. But the policies do nothing to fix the source of the problem, human rights organizations charged Thursday.

Defense officials currently visit military academies, review sexual assault policies and hold focus groups with cadets and midshipmen in efforts to curb the incidence of rape. In addition, the DOD said, the retention periods for sexual assault records will now be standardized and the process of transferring victims to a new unit after they have been sexually assaulted will be expedited.

But according to two military-focused human rights groups, Protect Our Defenders and the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), the real barrier to justice for sexual assault victims in the military is the fact that one commander often has total discretion over how cases are handled, despite obvious conflicts of interest. For instance, the commander making decisions about a particular case may be responsible for both the victim and the perpetrator, making it difficult for him or her to make objective decisions about whether the case will go forward, who will prosecute, who will defend, and what disciplinary actions to take.

Women in the military are more likely to be raped by American soldiers than to be killed in combat,according to statistics released by the Pentagon. In 2010, approximately 19,000 sexual assaults are estimated to have occurred in the military, although only 13.5 percent were actually reported. And the problem begins for some service members when they are still cadets: A new DOD report shows nearly a 60 percent increase in reported sexual assaults at schools like West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy in 2011.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the two organizations called the DOD’s new policy changes “half-measures” and outlined their own suggestions for handling sexual assaults.

“We believe that DOD must take the prosecution, reporting, oversight, investigation, and victim care of sexual assaults out of the hands of the normal chain of command and place the jurisdiction in the hands of an impartial office staffed by experts – both military and civilian,” the groups wrote. “We also believe that the survivors of rape and sexual assault must be consulted to formulate a directive that effectively addresses this issue. These men and women know better than anyone the flaws that currently exist.”

The DOD has not responded to the letter. A spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

Congress is also taking steps to bring justice to military rape victims and reform the way cases are handled. In November, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) introduced H.R. 3435, the Sexual Assault Training Oversight and Prevention Act, which would take the reporting, oversight and investigation of sexual assaults out of the hands of the military’s normal chain of command and place it in an autonomous office of military experts. The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Armed Services.

“When sexual assaults and rape are hushed, or ignored, trust in a unit is compromised along with its collective readiness to engage the enemy,” Speier said in a statement. “We owe our brave women and men in the military a justice process that protects them, not punishes them when they become victims of sexual assaults and rape.”

As the world watched the last U.S. combat troops cross over the Iraqi border into Kuwait; one could easily be inclined to contemplate on what, by today’s standards, constitutes a failed presidency, since the Obama administration has been tagged with that label regularly. And this should come as no big surprise, because if you have ever listened to the Tea Party, the Republican Party, the Green Party, firedoglake.com, cable news, particularly Fox News; talk radio, Donald Trump, every presidential nominee for the 2012 GOP race—past and present, and even a few Democrats and a few liberals, you are more than aware of the ongoing, political narrative of the failed presidency of the Obama administration.

Despite the constant whining of conservatives who describe a lame-stream media that’s unashamedly in the tank for President Obama, outside of MSNBC there has been a strong, flowing current of political failure that has been attributed to President Obama, as many talking headed carnival barkers like Donald Trump have openly characterized him as the worst president in U.S. history. And this so-called lame stream media that’s supposed to be vying so heavily for Obama, along with politicians like Senator John McCain, have had no problems declaring Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the only successful star of the entire Obama administration. Some of the political pundits have also implied everything from Hillary Clinton forcing Obama’s hand to get involved in Libya to Obama enlisting the services of President Clinton to help sell his 2010 payroll tax credit.

Now to the conservative ideology, this is like pouring blood in the water with a GOP, shark fin circling in full view making Obama look like political tuna. So while the Dick Cheney’s of the political world use the media to try to egg on Hillary Clinton into running against Obama in 2012; suggesting that she would have been much better at working with Republicans to get more thingsdone, when it is clearly a fact that President Obama has gone above and beyond the call of duty to try to work with Republicans to get things done, it only works to reaffirm the political perception of President Obama as the Black President Carter who is just ripe for the pickings by all of the wannabe Reagan-like candidates of the 2012 GOP.

So for a failed presidency that Ron Paul just stood on a stage in Iowa during the last debate and laughed about how he believed that any of the current, Republican nominees could beat Obama easily because his incompetence has already defeated his presidential chances, there have been some monumental successes during this so-called failed presidency; the kind of political successes that successful presidents hope to have and unsuccessful presidents fail to have. But to a person who is easily brainwashed, it would be very understandable to see how one could be led to believe that Obama’s presidency is a serious downgrade from President Bush 43’s eight-year-term in office, just based on the political rhetoric of 2011 alone.

Nevertheless, one should always keep in mind that quite often the only difference between the perceptions of political success and political failure is the identity of the recipient and the identity and the motives of the designator! For example, if President Bush 43 and Dick Cheney had found a way to capture and or kill Osama Bin Laden, there is a very good chance that their administration would not have been labeled as a failure, regardless of what happened after that, but poor President Obama is just not that lucky. In all honesty, President Obama could have accompanied the Navy Seals into Pakistan and taken the kill shot that put down Osama bin Laden himself, and he would have still been handed the label of a failed presidency fraught with accusations of a weak foreign policy built around bowing to dictators and apologizing to any country that will listen.

So, think about this for a moment. What if President Obama followed President Bush 43’s lead and decided to land on an aircraft carrier tomorrow to have his big “Mission Accomplished” moment to celebrate the end of the Iraq War? How do you think that would go over—probably like theHindenburg? If Obama did that, it just might cost him the election in 2012, as his opponents would be politically unmerciful in their criticisms of it, despite the fact that, unlike Bush 43, he actually has a tangible accomplishment that’s worth celebrating!

Withstanding the political aura of being labeled as a failure by the political opposition is an extremely tough job, but the successful case for President Obama can be made, from the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” to staving off another Great Depression, to lowering taxes, to helping revitalize the American auto industry, to continuing to keep America safe from attacks by thwarting the many underwear bombers of the world, to providing the backbone to coalition forces in Libya, to finally drawing the Iraq War to a close.

With public support for the Iraq War waning over the years, it was only a matter of time until someone was going to have to be courageous enough to go ahead and pull the plug on this economically and emotionally draining black hole. While politicians like John McCain seriously joked about staying militarily in Iraq for 100 years, the Obama administration deserves credit for setting a reasonable timeline and untiringly working towards the execution of it, and back in the good, old days, that used to be called a success.

As many of us watched the U.S., personnel trucks driving through the gates into Kuwait, it was hard not to look over to the other side of that gate towards Iraq wondering if more insurgents were going to appear at any moment out of the sand to launch an attack with those famed, mythical weapons of mass destruction rising from the ashes of Saddam Hussein to fire at U.S. troops one last time, but thankfully it did not happen. Instead, if you looked closely you could see what looked like an American service person and what appeared to be an Arabic service person closing the gate after the last of the convoy had passed through, as they stood face to face shaking hands in a congratulatory manner, which under normal circumstances would be considered a political success for any presidency.

In the end, the presidency is what it is, whether it’s President Obama today or someone else in 2013. Either way, no one can please everyone. And if that is the political criteria by which a successful presidency is now measured during the Obama era, then there are no successful presidencies.

This was not written to be a proponent for President Obama’s re-election campaign, nor is it an opponent against President Obama’s re-election campaign. Your vote belongs to you, and it is your responsibility to decide, but anyone who would try to tell you that things have not improved since the Bush 43 era or that the Obama administration is politically identical to the  shortcomings of the Carter administration thinks that you are either a fool or a Republican or both!

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq on Sunday, ending nearly nine years of war that cost almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and left a country grappling with political uncertainty.

By Wendy Gittleson

I wish I could feel good about the National Defense Authorization Act which is heading to the President’s desk. I can’t. On the other hand, there is a whole lot of hyperbole swirling around the internet, even from typically reasonable sources.

It does seem that the truth about this bill, while still a stab to basic civil liberties, and possibly unconstitutional, is that the version that the President is going to sign is better than the version he was going to veto. From Mother Jones magazine:

It (the revised bill) says that the president has to hold a foreign Al Qaeda suspect captured on US soil in military detention—except it leaves enough procedural loopholes that someone like convicted underwear bomber and Nigerian citizen Umar Abdulmutallab could actually go from capture to trial without ever being held by the military. It does not, contrary to what many media outlets have reported, authorize the president to indefinitely detain without trial an American citizen suspected of terrorism who is captured in the US. A last minute compromise amendment adopted in the Senate, whose language was retained in the final bill, leaves it up to the courts to decide if the president has that power, should a future president try to exercise it. But if a future president does try to assert the authority to detain an American citizen without charge or trial, it won’t be based on the authority in this bill.

So it’s simply not true, as the Guardian wrote yesterday, that the bill “allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay.” When the New York Times editorial page writes that the bill would “strip the F.B.I., federal prosecutors and federal courts of all or most of their power to arrest and prosecute terrorists and hand it off to the military,” or that the “legislation could also give future presidents the authority to throw American citizens into prison for life without charges or a trial,” they’re simply wrong.

I know that progressives don’t like politics. Really, who does? Politics are an ugly, messy, often deceitful game. It almost always means choosing one bad option over a worse option (no, I’m not saying ‘lesser of two evils,’ because the word ‘evil’ assumes nefarious intentions, and I believe that is usually not the case).

In some ways a benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government. A dictator doesn’t have to worry about reelection. (S)he doesn’t have to worry about the election of predecessors or of the election of others within the government. (S)he doesn’t have to worry about obstructionist Congresses or about dysfunctional Supreme Courts. But, our founding fathers, wise as they were, realized that few dictators are benevolent and even fewer stay benevolent, so they gave us an elected government. They also gave us checks and balances. As much as we like to believe that the President has superior power, he does not.

With an elected government comes elections. With elections comes the necessity to please the masses, and unfortunately, most of the masses, on both sides of the aisle, are, let’s just say, low-information. I’ll be lucky if most people read beyond this headline before forming an opinion.

The NDAA is not just a bill that theoretically grants authority. It is, first and foremost, the military budget. Out of the NDAA comes VA benefits, soldier pay and needed armor for the troops. So, let’s imagine for a moment that Obama vetoed the NDAA. Progressives would be thrilled, for a few days. Then, Congress would most likely override his veto. The bill would become law, even without the support of the White House. Then, campaign season would kick in. There would be commercials showing hypothetical soldiers losing their homes to foreclosures, but not because of the foreclosure crisis, because the President didn’t want them to pay their mortgage or even eat. He didn’t want to pay their salaries. There would be commercials of hypothetical soldiers with traumatic brain injuries, or worse, not because of the horrors of war, not because the Bush administration didn’t provide them with necessary equipment, but because President Obama didn’t want them to have the equipment…all so he could make a political statement to please his progressive base…us. Pretty freakin’ ugly, huh?

Why do we always get the short end of the stick, you ask? Why does he listen to his corporate masters over us? It’s because our electoral system sucks. In order for anyone to achieve national political office in this country, they need millions and millions of dollars. Imagine this. Mitt Romney has half a billion dollars as his net worth. If he bankrupted himself, he still would likely lose the Presidency for being outspent. It is estimated that the winner of the Presidency in 2012 will need to spend $1 billion or more. I don’t know about you, but I’m a victim of this economy. I’m in no position to significantly help a candidate raise $1 billion, no matter how great they are.

Citizen’s United was, in my opinion, the worst thing to come out of Washington, perhaps since Dred Scott. With Citizen’s United, the Supreme Court gift wrapped our democracy in the finest gold leaf and gleefully handed our government over to multinational corporations…corporations with no real allegiance to our country. Without equal time requirements in the media, third-party candidates would fade into obscurity for all but the best informed voters. A poorly financed second party candidate would lose the media war, and the hearts and minds of low-information voters.

One important distinction to be made between the NDAA and Citizen’s United, is that there will be a brand new NDAA in 2013 and again in 2014. A new Congress could give us a significantly different bill for 2014 (we’ll still have the same Congress for 2013′s bill). Even the current Congress can do something about 2012′s version. Dianne Feinstein has proposed a bill guaranteeing every Citizen the right to due process. You thought our Constitution already did that? It does, and a non-activist Supreme Court would surely agree.

How do we fix our system? How do we ensure that 2014′s NDAA gives us more civil liberties, not fewer? How do we get a President and a Congress who will listen to progressive causes? It’s time to get the fu&%ing corporations out of our democracy! The first step is to change election law and legislatively overturn Citizens United. As progressives, we are passionate about a lot of issues. We are passionate about the underdog. We are passionate about civil rights. We are passionate about fairness. We are passionate about the environment. But, for this election, we need to have laser focus on a single issue, Citizen’s United. It’s so much easier to have real power with lesser offices. Support candidates who are committed to amending the Constitution to allow for fairer elections. Somemembers of Congress are already trying to do something about it. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a Senate that allowed Sanders’ amendment to be debated? Wouldn’t it be nice if John Boehner didn’t lead the House?

Actually, getting corporations out of our democracy might not even involve Congress. There’s a pretty damn good chance that within the next two to three years, the SCOTUS will rehear Citizen’s United. The City of Los Angeles has voted to overturn it. It will likely next be heard by the California Supreme Court, who will probably side with Los Angeles. Then, it will eventually make its way, once again, to the US Supreme Court. We must get a more balanced Supreme Court. Use that laser focus when you enter the voting booth next November. Go to the voting booth next November. Yes, there’s a lot to be pissed off at Obama about…a whole lot, although frankly, he’s accomplished a hell of a lot more than we give him credit for. But he has a good track record in Supreme Court nominations, and in this political climate, that is a President’s true power. You can absolutely guarantee that a Romney or Gingrich Supreme Court nominee will make things a thousand times worse, if that’s possible. The only way to get back our democracy is with Obama’s help…like it or not.

MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of people held the largest anti-government protests that post-Soviet Russia has ever seen on Saturday to criticize electoral fraud and demand an end to Vladimir Putin’s rule. Police showed surprising restraint and state-controlled TV gave the nationwide demonstrations unexpected airtime, but there is no indication the opposition is strong enough to push for real change from the prime minister or his ruling party.

Nonetheless, the prime minister seems to be in a weaker position than he was a week ago, before Russians voted in parliamentary elections. His United Party lost a substantial share of its seats, although it retains a majority.

The independent Russian election-observer group Golos said Saturday that “it achieved the majority mandate by falsification,” international observers reported widespread irregularities, and the outpouring of Russians publicly denouncing him throughout the country undermines Putin’s carefully nurtured image of a strong and beloved leader.

Putin “has stopped being the national leader – in the eyes of his team, the ruling political class and society,” analyst Alexei Malachenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center wrote on his blog.

Putin, who was the president of Russia in 2000-2008 before stepping aside because of term limits, will seek a new term in the Kremlin in the March presidential elections. The protests have tarnished his campaign, but there is not yet any obvious strong challenger.

The most dramatic of Saturday’s protests saw a vast crowd jam an expansive Moscow square and adjacent streets, packed so tight that some demonstrators stood on others’ toes. Although police estimated the crowd at 30,000, aerial photographs suggested far more, and protest organizers made claims ranging from 40,000 to 100,000 or more.

Elsewhere in Russia, some 7,000 protesters assembled in St. Petersburg, and demonstrations ranging from a few hundred people to a thousand took place in more than 60 other cities. Police reported only about 100 arrests nationwide, a notably low number for a force that characteristically quick and harsh action against opposition gatherings.

The police restraint was one of several signs that conditions may be easing for the beleaguered opposition, at least in the short term. Although city authorities generally refuse opposition forces permission to rally or limit the gatherings to small attendance, most the protests Saturday were sanctioned. In a surprise move, Moscow gave permission for up to 30,000 people to rally and police took no action when the crowd appeared to far exceed that. Just as striking, police allowed a separate unauthorized protest to take place in Revolution Square.

State-controlled television, which generally ignores or disparages opposition groups, broadcast footage not only of the Moscow protest – which was so big it would have been hard not to report – but in several other cities as well.

United Russia official Andrei Isayev on Saturday acknowledged that the opposition “point of view is extremely important and will be heard in the mass media, society and the state.”

Yet the concessions may be only a way of buying time in hope the protests will wither away. The opposition says the next large Moscow protest will be on Dec. 24. What it will do in the interim to keep morale high is unclear. In addition, the social media that nourished Saturday’s protests may be coming under pressure. A top official of the Russian Facebook analog Vkontakte said this week his company has been pressured by the Federal Security Service to block opposition supporters from posting. On Friday, he was summoned by the service for questioning.

Meanwhile, though United Russia may be shaken by the last week’s events, it still can count on a large cadre of supporters. The head of its youth wing, Timur Prokopenko, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying he had nearly 170,000 activists “who are ready at moment to go to rallies” in support of the government.

Saturday’s Moscow protest was notable not only for its size, but also for attracting political forces from across the spectrum – from liberals to communists to extreme nationalists.

“United Russia made a miracle, prompting all of us to unite against it,” nationalist leader Konstantin Krylov told the rally.

Thousands of protesters also were allowed to march from a gathering place near the Kremlin across downtown to a square where the main rally was held. Police were out in force, blocking all side lanes to prevent the demonstrators from approaching government buildings.

“Russia will be free!” “Russia without Putin!” “United Russia is a Party of Crooks and Thieves!” protesters chanted.

“We will fight to the end, to the cancellation of this shameful, false election,” said Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal Yabloko party that failed to make it to parliament in last Sunday’s vote. “We are launching a campaign to drive Putin from power.”

The organizers sought to send a message of unity, urging the crowd to respect the diversity of speakers’ views. At one point, the audience booed a military veteran when he called for the restoration of the Soviet Union, but chanted slogans of support when he denounced the vote-rigging and said the army was with people.

“The army is with us, 80 percent of officers hate the defense minister,” retired Maj.-Gen. Yevgeny Kopyshev shouted.

The organizers also praised police for helping maintain order, as demonstrators chanted “Police with people!”

The rally demanded the cancellation of the election results, the punishment for officials responsible for vote-rigging, registration of the opposition parties that were denied it, liberalization of the electoral law and holding new elections. The organizers urged protesters to brace for another rally in two weeks.

“We’ll come again!” the crowd chanted.

The Moscow organizers appeared to realize they are facing a tough challenge of keeping protest momentum.

“Nothing will change it if it remains a single rally,” said Sergei Parkhomenko, the editor of Vokrug Sveta monthly magazine who was one of the demonstration’s organizers. “It must be the first in a long series of protests.”

Vladimir Milov, a former energy minister who is now an opposition activist, also acknowledged that the organizers need to plan their strategy to preserve the protests’ energy. “Otherwise people will just grow tired and stop attending the rallies,” he said, adding that the opposition must focus on next year’s presidential election.

Yevgeniya Albats, editor of the liberal New Times weekly, said the opposition must gather signatures for the cancellation of the vote results and for Putin to step down. “This is only the beginning of a long and difficult struggle,” she said. “This is our land, and we must get it back.”

Oleg Orlov, the head of Memorial rights group, said the rally turned a new page in history.

“We are now changing the nation’s history to the better,” Orlov said. “We will force the government to realize that they will have to pay a price for rigging the vote, and the price is their legitimacy.”

Orlov said the protests must focus on challenging Putin’s re-election bid. “We can deal a blow on this rule of thieves next March and show the real price to that “national leader,’” he said.

The organizers read a letter from Ilya Yashin, an opposition leader jailed for taking part in a protest earlier this week. “Even behind bars we are feeling free, unlike those who are hiding from the people in the Kremlin,” Orlov said.

___

Gary Peach and Sofia Javed in Moscow contributed to this story.