Halo Taliban Hunting

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2006/12/halo_taliban_hu.html

This video is so politically incorrect, but it is funny.

futureme.org message from a year ago

I just received an email I set to sent to myself a year ago using http://futureme.org . It reminds me how things were bad for me personally a year ago. Things are much better now but still bad. I guess I just learned to tolerate the attacks better. I'll send another message to myself set for a year from now. Hopefully things are even better by then. This website was a great idea.

Santa story, Iraqi style

Just wanted to remember this Santa story with an Iraqi flavor from http://www.theiraqiroulette.blogspot.com/ :

"The night before Christmas

I dedicate this story to F... ; a very special kid.

Santa was sitting, as he usually does at this time of the year checking , and making sure for the last time that everything was in order. He was sitting before an enormous fire place with his red and green laptop on his knees, scrolling through his data base, cross referencing, trying to catch and correct as many mistakes as he could afford to. Rudolph the old reindeer, Santa's faithful companion was fooling around hanging all sorts of colored ornaments and light bulbs on his horns.
- 'I have finished! , I give up, I can’t find anything wrong'. said Santa looking through his golden rimmed spectacles at Rudolph, who was in a great mess with all the wires tangled around him.
- You say that every darn year, then somehow we always end up breaking someone's heart. By the way , are you going to Iraq this year? .

Santa's face instantaneously turned red, even redder than his red jumper , for this was a provocative question Rudolph always rubbed into his face, to tease him every now and then.

- Why Iraq ?. You know how I feel about that country. You Rudolph out of all the creatures on earth know my feelings .
- Get over it already, that incident has become a joke long ago.

Santa put his laptop on the floor , gazed at the fireplace gloomily and started…
- It was 1985 …
- Oh, boy here we go again , that story is printed in my head. It is an old Iraqi joke, people have heard it so often , they don't even find it funny any more.
- 'I was trying to deliver presents in Al Bataween area' Digressed Santa . 'The war was still raging with Iran. Back then they had this thing called the "people’s army" . All young men from 18 to 40 were drafted , and as if that was not enough the people’s army used to catch older men from 45 to 70 and up, from the streets and cafés and transport them to the front after a stupid inefficient training course.They caught me accidentally, they dressed me in khaki, gave me a rifle and it was of to the north Santa!. I was posted on a mountain for 6 months , six months of shooting and bombing …
- I know it was harsh, but..
- I have not finished yet!.When they let us go "the ones who remained alive that is", cause most of the brigade died, not by enemy fires as you may think , No, many died from diabetes , high blood pressure, heart attacks, Alzheimer … we were all so old you see. When we were finally released . I bought a white Dishdasha to wear, in order to blend with the locals, and as I was wandering in the streets of Baghdad, the security force arrested me . I did not have an ID, so I just played mad, but that was no good for them. They tortured me for about three months for being a conspiring member in an Islamic group, because of my beard you see .
- 'I understand.' nodded Rudolph sympathetically.
- The security transferred me to the secret intelligence, the latter transferred me to the "I don’t know who or what ", at the end they put me in a terrifying mad house, from which I escaped and fled the country through the north, which I knew well by then. I came all the way back here. I arrived as you recall at the beginning of December, thank God, just in time for the next season. So, the answer to your question ; is no Rudolph, I am not going to Iraq this year ! .
- Come on, what about all those children .
- What children?, you know that is another reason for me not to go. After I was released and was trying to make my way back home the children of Baghdad gave me hell of a time. They used to run after me, whenever they caught sight of me, throwing stones at me and cheering, thinking I was a mad man. Which made me move exclusively after the fall of dark. They do not believe in me, they do not need me and that is that!.
- Why should they? You were never there for them, and besides; they seized to be children long ago', said Rudolph pensively .
- Don’t you think I know that?. After the first war came another war, then the embargo, then another war and now all this hullabaloo. Children had to hit the roads and work for survival and get killed paying for the stupidity of adults . I watch them through my magic glass ball selling gas and oil, polishing shoes, begging, being beaten up to half death by street creeps. I know ! .
- 'Where are you Mr. Charles Dickens!' sighed Rudolph .
- No one believes in me there, Papa Noel is dead!, as far as Iraqi kids are concerned .
- Please, let us just give one present to one child of our choice, be adventurous for God's sake.
Then Rudolph took Santa’s laptop and typed a few letters and said :
- 'I don’t recommend Basrah, cause Shia's Militias are ruling over there totally. They may kidnap you and ask for a ransom and since no one answers for you there, and most of the Christians have left town … no, it won't be a good idea at all . All the south is much theirs too . The west , let me see… nop , with your red coat you would be kidnapped and killed in a second, they won't even bother to film you . The north is ok , but it would not be much of a challenge …
Baghdad , Baghdad …hmmm' Rudolph kept scrolling up and down for 5 minutes , then he went over to Santa showing him something on the screen of the laptop.

- There you are , In Al Dora district, in the poor market place lives a little boy. He polishes shoes for a living. Age 7. He attended school for a couple of months last year, then dropped out after his father was killed. His Mom works in a local Kuba factory.
- Fine , why not , get ready , Santa approved finally .

At 10 o’clock PM, the 24th of December, Santa and his reindeers were flying over Baghdad. Rather lower than usual, so that the radars will not be able to detect them. Rudolph checked that out thoroughly .
The land beneath them was completely black; no lights, no decorations, no fire works no sign of Christmas at all. Every now and then they would hear bullets sounds and explosions . Rudolph gave instructions to the others to go a little lower, when they reached the local church. The church was closed; no chanting or bells could be heard, just a well locked mute building. The next second a deafening blast ripped the sky and faster than Santa and his reindeers could realize , they plunged down into a filthy water puddle . They lay there in the dark too shocked to move for a while . The first voice was uttered by Rudolph :
- Santa are you alive ? answer me .
- Arghhhh, ohhhhh, I am ok I think, were we hit ?
- I think so . I read that mortar missiles are in fashion now in Baghdad .
- Ah Rudi, I think the others were hurt.

They helped each other up. Santa got out his torch light and inspected the site , His sleigh was wrecked and the reindeers were lying dead .
- Oh Good Lord, it is a bloody reindeer massacre ! Now what are we going to do? .
- We'll have to Bury them , and get the hell out of here as quick as we can .
- 'Aren’t we going to take them back with us?' wept Santa, pointing to the deceased reindeers .
- 'No, When things normalize we can demand their remains, but now it is to risky for us .' said Rudolph sensibly .

They looked around, it was an empty muddy from rain piece of land. They grabbed a piece of metal from the sleigh's wreckage, and started to dig . Before they managed to dig one square foot, bullets came raining down on them, helicopters were flying above their heads, loud speakers were roaring with all sorts of curses and threats . They were surrounded by men in blue and camouflage .

- 'Rudolph, if this is going to be 1985 all over again, I personally will kill you and stuff you with raisons and nuts and eat you for my last Christmas dinner' , whispered Santa furiously .
- What the hell .. replied Rudolph with his front limps held up in sign of surrender , standing on his hinds .
They were pushed around and kicked everywhere. They could not distinguish much of what was being said , but one word kept recurring; Irhabi .
- What are they saying oh wise deer?, you are the polyglot here, aren't you ? said Santa wiping the blood of his nose.
- Emm,.. they think that we are burying 50 men we kidnapped earlier this morning in Baghdad. And I think they are going to kill us, after they beat the hell out of us of course.
- 'And a very Merry Christmas to you, you ridiculous moose.' Said Santa with his voice shacking .
- 'I am not a moose' grumbled Rudolph.
The men in blue took them away after talking to the men in camouflage .
They put them in some dingy sell . Shortly a man in uniforn came and whispered to them :
- Which group are you from guys, are you with ****** or ****** or ******?
- 'Ah , yes as you say exactly' they replied puzzled .
- Good I’ll get you out in no time, just wait.
He opened the sell door and pushed them in front of him till they reached the road
He shook their hands violently and said:
- Go, you heroes you ! . And don't forget to put a good word in for me to ***** , and be careful the guys at the end of the street are not ours, although the wear the same uniform , if they catch you it is the end .
- Certainly.
- 'Now we really must get out of here' Said Santa .
- What about the boy? asked Rudolph
- What ? , how on earth are we going to get there?, and look at you! one of your horns is broken.
- We are in the same area , we just have to run a few blocks and then you can fly back on my back , and oh, your beard is burned .

They went off like crazy; limping, hopping, skipping and even crawling, when they had to avoid being seen .
They finally reached the broke poor area, where the boy lived. It was about twelve thirty Baghdad time. The whole lane was immersed in darkness. So was the house, except for one room, which was lit with a cheap kerosene lantern . Santa peeked from the window and saw a beautiful young woman praying alone. A statue of the virgin marry on a small table in front of her was illuminated by the orange light of a candle. The wooden table at one end of the room had dishes on it with remains of Kuba from the factory , bones of once a malnourished chicken, orange peels and candy paper . A small gaunt Christmas tree was standing at the center of the room with paper ornaments hanging helplessly from it's branches . Santa and Rudolph went to the other side of the house . They peeked from another window. There was a little boy sleeping with a small kerosene heater near his bed to keep him warm. Santa pushed the window open carefully, he and Rudolph managed to squeeze in . Santa lost his sack on the way of course , but he had a spider man toy stuffed in his pocket ,which he had grabbed the last minute before he left the north pole . Rudolph took off the cookie sack , which was hanging around his neck. They put the toy and the sack on the bed near the boy's feet. As they were sneaking out they nearly tripped on a box . Santa looked at it closely , it was the shoe polishing box . The boy must have cleaned it and left it there .
Santa and Rudolph watched the boy sleeping for a while from the window. His mother came in to turn off the heater and went out not noticing the presents on the bed .
- By the way Rudolph, what is the boy’s name? you never told me.
- 'Fadi' said Rudolph.
- Ah , a beautiful name it means "He who sacrifices himself for others ", it is another name of Jesus in Arabic isn’t it?
- Yes .
The mother actually saw them , she was standing paralyzed with fear, where they could not see her. She saw a reindeer with one horn, and a scruffy old man in a red shredded coat with a messy sooty beard, and white hair sticking out in all directions. She saw they did not harm her child . She watched them as they walked away not knowing what to make of all this. Next morning Fadi came screaming with joy into the front room. He kissed his Mom so hard she could hardly breathe, for getting him spider man, who was his hero .
- Mom I’ll go and polish a few shoes in the market, and I’ll come back as fast as I can, to play with him .

He polished shoes whistling, humming and singing for a few hours , and when his friend came with two cigarettes he nicked for them to smoke secretly, as they do everyday , Fadi refused. He just wanted to go home and play with his toy .

As for Santa and Rudolph, they decided to visit other kids in Baghdad next year. For they worked up an appetite for adventure .

IR"

Deployed Soldiers Family Foundation

There are end on end of places to support our troops. Just thought I would mention the main one I contribute to is the Deployed Soldiers Family Foundation at http://www.dsffusa.org/ because if I was a soldier in wartime, I would find most peace and least distraction from my duties if my family was being taken care of in their need.

World's Smallest Political Quiz

I just took the World's Smallest Political Quiz at:

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

It categorized me as a conservative leaning centrist which is surprising since I thought of myself as a centrist leaning conservative. However, the quiz is too simple. Some of the questions were worded so they didn't offer an answer I wanted to give.

Real improvements that would improve situation

High level strategies are political footballs. What really would improve the situation in Iraq is far more fundamental. It means attacking the faceless bureaucracy. One of the major complaints is the slow processing of people being held in limbo. If the processing of such people could be sped up and access to the status of people held in custody could be accessible far more easily than now, it would instill far more confidence in the security and occupation forces. Laws need to be improved so that thugs who are caught aren't released the following day which is happening all too often now. The Iraqi security forces need internal affairs sections to perform continual oversight and improvement. Corruption and infiltration is too common in the Iraqi security forces, and it's going to take continual vigilance to gradually weed these elements out. Although attacks to kill or injure are a serious problem, kidnappings actually affect far more people. The military's specialty isn't in handling kidnappings. The police needs resources to concentrate on strategies to address kidnappings to handle the bulk of the security problem. As for the deaths and violence, there are enough people knocking their heads together to solve this problem, and it will eventually decrease. What must be considered is gradually increasing the priority of decreasing property damage. Many sources of information for raids turn out to misdirection on innocent people and unnecessary property damage only compounds the decrease in confidence of the security forces from such raids. Half of the battle for security is public relations. You could do everything else right, but if people don't have confidence in you, they will not think or treat you as part of the security solution. Increased efforts to communicate with the people is necessary. Easier access to information about suspects in custody is one major way to do this. Education of how the security forces work and its limitations and real acceptance and answer of input and questions from the people would bring people's expectations in line with what the security forces can realistically do. These and so many other improvements to break down the bureaucracy barrier are needed to move towards real improvement in security even if the death and violence by Sadr's militias and Al Quaida and its Sunni allies of convenience continue.

List of Iraq successes

BDE3TACP on AOL posted this:

"Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...

... The first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.
... Over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.
... Nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.
... The Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
.. On Monday, October 6, power generation hit 4,518 megawatts, exceeding the prewar average.
... All 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
... By October 1, Coalition forces had rehab-ed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than scheduled.
... Teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
... All 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
... Doctor's salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
... Pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
... The Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq's children.
... A Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.
... We have restored over three-quarters of prewar telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.
... There are 4,900 full-service telephone connections. We expect 50,000 by year-end.
... The wheels of commerce are turning. From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.
... 95 percent of all prewar bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.
... Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.
... The central bank is fully independent.
... Iraq has one of the world's most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.
... Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.
... Satellite TV dishes are legal.
... Foreign journalists aren't on 10-day visas paying mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for minders and other government spies.
... There is no Ministry of Information.
... There are more than 170 newspapers.
... You can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.
... Foreign journalists (and everyone else) are free to come and go.
... A nation that had not one single element -- legislative, judicial or executive -- of a representative government now does.
... In Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils. Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when the city council elected its new chairman.
... Today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.
... 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government.
... The Iraqi government regularly participates in international events. Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in over two dozen international meetings, including those of the UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the Islamic Conference Summit. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.
... Shiva religious festivals that were all but banned, aren't anymore.
... For the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.
... The Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.
... Uday and Queasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to the zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or murdering critics.
... Children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.
... Political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.
... Millions of long-suffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror.
... Saudis will hold municipal elections.
... Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.
... Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.
... The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an Iranian
-- A Muslim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights, for democracy and for peace.
.. Saddam is gone.
... Iraq is free.
….Terrorists are being drawn to an arena in which our military can kill or capture them
Sovereignty is restored to Iraq"

Large and Growing Numbers of Muslims Reject Terrorism, Bin Laden

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/221.php?nid=&id=&pnt=221&lb=brme

"Strong opposition to terrorism was found among Muslims in seven out of ten countries polled by Pew. This is especially true in the Muslim populations of Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey, where six in ten or more say that “suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilian targets” are “never justified.” The TFT poll of Indonesia and Pakistan found even bigger numbers rejecting all attacks on civilians. Pew also found complete rejection of terrorism among very large majorities of Muslims living in Germany, Britain, Spain and France. Trend line data available for some countries also show a significant increase in those taking this position in Indonesia and a remarkable 23 point increase in Pakistan. Only Turkey showed a slight downward movement.

In two countries complete opposition to terrorism was just under half—Jordan and Egypt. However in Jordan—the country for which trend line data is available—there was a very large increase of 32 points among those saying terrorism is never justifiable. Only in Nigeria did less than a third fully reject terrorism, though an additional quarter said that it could rarely be justified.

On bin Laden, Pew found that majorities in eight of the ten countries said they had little or no confidence in the al Qaeda leader. In Jordan, the proportion of respondents saying they lack confidence in bin Laden has nearly doubled over the past year. The two exceptions are Nigeria and Pakistan, where only about a third say they lack confidence. In Europe, most Muslims say they have no confidence at all in bin Laden: eight out of ten in Germany and France; six out of ten in Great Britain and Spain."

The military after all is a federal agency

Today's headline about the military needing to increase in size brings up a sore point I have which is that federal agencies are inherently inefficient and bureaucratic. I support the military, but to be honest, they aren't using all the people and resources they have anywhere close to optimal efficiency. If we really had a shooting war that threatened the mainland USA, the military would all of a sudden have resources available that were thought to be unavailable in times when personal empires and red tape were considered of higher priority. But that's the nature of federal agencies and until we get fiscal conservatives in congress or some crisis occurs similar to the effect of hurricane Andrew or Katrina, nothing is going to even begin to force federal agencies to get better.

Iraq's economy is booming

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16241340/site/newsweek/page/2/

Blood and Money
In what might be called the mother of all surprises, Iraq's economy is growing strong, even booming in places.

By Silvia Spring
Newsweek International

Dec. 25, 2006 - Jan. 1, 2007 issue - It may sound unreal, given the daily images of carnage and chaos. But for a certain plucky breed of businessmen, there's good money to be made in Iraq. Consider Iraqna, the leading mobile-phone company. For sure, its quarterly reports seldom make for dull reading. Despite employees kidnapped, cell-phone towers bombed, storefronts shot up and a huge security budget—up to four guards for each employee—the company posted revenues of $333 million in 2005. This year, it's on track to take in $520 million. The U.S. State Department reports that there are now 7.1 million mobile-phone subscribers in Iraq, up from just 1.4 million two years ago. Says Wael Ziada, an analyst in Cairo who tracks Iraqna: "There will always be pockets of money and wealth, no matter how bad the situation gets."

Civil war or not, Iraq has an economy, and—mother of all surprises—it's doing remarkably well. Real estate is booming. Construction, retail and wholesale trade sectors are healthy, too, according to a report by Global Insight in London. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports 34,000 registered companies in Iraq, up from 8,000 three years ago. Sales of secondhand cars, televisions and mobile phones have all risen sharply. Estimates vary, but one from Global Insight puts GDP growth at 17 percent last year and projects 13 percent for 2006. The World Bank has it lower: at 4 percent this year. But, given all the attention paid to deteriorating security, the startling fact is that Iraq is growing at all.

How? Iraq is a crippled nation growing on the financial equivalent of steroids, with money pouring in from abroad. National oil revenues and foreign grants look set to total $41 billion this year, according to the IMF. With security improving in one key spot—the southern oilfields—that figure could go up.

Not too shabby, all things considered. Yes, Iraq's problems are daunting, to say the least. Unemployment runs between 30 and 50 percent. Many former state industries have all but ceased to function. As for all that money flowing in, much of it has gone to things that do little to advance the country's future. Security, for instance, gobbles up as much as a third of most companies' operating budgets, whereas what Iraq really needs are hospitals, highways and power-generating plants.

Even so, there's a vibrancy at the grass roots that is invisible in most international coverage of Iraq. Partly it's the trickle-down effect. However it's spent, whether on security or something else, money circulates. Nor are ordinary Iraqis themselves short on cash. After so many years of living under sanctions, with little to consume, many built up considerable nest eggs—which they are now spending. That's boosted economic activity, particularly in retail. Imported goods have grown increasingly affordable, thanks to the elimination of tariffs and trade barriers. Salaries have gone up more than 100 percent since the fall of Saddam, and income-tax cuts (from 45 percent to just 15 percent) have put more cash in Iraqi pockets. "The U.S. wanted to create the conditions in which small-scale private enterprise could blossom," says Jan Randolph, head of sovereign risk at Global Insight. "In a sense, they've succeeded."

Consider some less formal indicators. Perhaps the most pervasive is the horrendous Iraqi traffic jams. Roadside bombs account for fewer backups than the sheer number of secondhand cars that have crowded onto the nation's roads—five times as many in Baghdad as before the war. Cheap Chinese goods overflow from shop shelves, and store owners report quick turnover. Real-estate prices have risen several hundred percent, suggesting that Iraqis are more optimistic about the future than most Americans are.

There's even a positive spin to be put on corruption. Money stolen from government coffers or siphoned from U.S. aid projects does not just disappear. Again, says Farid Abolfathi, a Global Insight analyst, it's the "trickledown" effect. Such "underground activity" is the most dynamic part of Iraq's economy, he says. "It might not be viewed as respectable. But in reality, that's what puts money in the hands of the little people."

Meanwhile, Iraq's official economic institutions are making progress, improbable as that might sound in the context of savage sectarian violence and a seemingly complete breakdown of leadership and law. Yet it's a fact. A government often accused of being no government at all has somehow managed to take its first steps to liberalize the highly centralized economy of the Saddam era. Iraq has a debt-relief deal with the IMF that requires Baghdad to end subsidies and open up its gas-import market. Earlier this year the government made the first hesitant steps, axing fuel subsidies—and sending prices from a few cents a liter to around 14. "This has become one important way of institutionally engaging with Iraq," says economist Colin Rowat at the University of Birmingham. "If you lose that engagement, then that means a lot more people have given up on Iraq."

It goes without saying: real progress won't be seen until the security situation clears up. Iraq still lacks a functioning banking system. Though there's an increasing awareness of Iraq as a potential emerging market, foreign investors won't make serious commitments until they are assured a measure of stability. Local moneymen are scarcely more bullish on the long term. In Iraq's nascent bond market, buyers have so far been willing to invest in local-currency Treasury bills with terms up to six months, max.

Iraqna isn't the only success story. There is also Nipal, a money-transfer service that is the backbone of Iraq's cash economy, as well as a slew of successful construction firms in Kurdistan. Such companies are not waiting for Iraq's political crisis to resolve itself. Yet imagine how they would prosper if it did, and how quickly they would be joined by others. As things stand, Iraqna faces extraordinary difficulties. It builds towers but lives in constant fear that they will be blown up. It has to be careful about whom it hires, or where it assigns people to work. Whether Sunni or Shia, it doesn't matter; criminal gangs and militias regularly try to kidnap employees to hold them hostage for ransom, regardless of ethnicity. As for long-range planning? Forget it, says Ziada, the Cairo analyst. "It's a terrible situation for any company."

But again, that's the remarkable thing. In a business climate that is inhospitable, to say the least, companies like Iraqna are thriving. The withdrawal of a certain great power could drastically reduce the foreign money flow, and knock the crippled economy flat.

With Michael Hastings in Baghdad
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

Why are so many black men in prison?

Here is commentary straight from the black men:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/interactives/blackmen/blackmen.html

Fear and hope

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2699/is_0001/ai_2699000131


Fear is one of the primary emotions, together with joy, anger, and grief. Fear generally refers to feelings elicited by tangible, realistic dangers, as opposed to anxiety, which often arises out of proportion to the actual threat or danger involved. Fear may be provoked by exposure to traumatic situations, observations of other people exhibiting fear, or the receipt of frightening information. Repeated or prolonged exposure to fear can lead to disorders such as combat fatigue, which is characterized by long-term anxiety and other emotional disturbances.

http://www.guidetopsychology.com/fear.htm

Hope

Before I started studying psychology, I worked as a woodcarver and cabinetmaker. One day I brought home a pile of dirty, moldy pieces of wood. My father looked at it and said if it were up to him he would throw it all in the garbage. But I patiently cleaned, sanded, filled, reglued, refinished, assembled, and polished the pieces. In the end I had a beautiful antique oak dining table.

So let that be a psychological lesson. No life, however dirty and broken, is beyond redemption. Or beyond hope.

Now, my father was a good man and he never abused me in any way. And he never told me that I was garbage. But imagine how it feels to be a child whose parents are abusive, critical, neglectful, and manipulative. These parents not only break down their child into a pile of sticks, but also, when the child stands there covered in guilt and shame, they tell the child, “Look at you! You’re just a piece of garbage.”

And why are there so many lives headed for the garbage dump? Fear. Fear of the hard work of going to psychotherapy to clean themselves off. Fear of letting go of the dirt, because it’s all they know, for, even if it’s dirt, at least it’s comfortable.

So you choose: a polished oak table, or a pile of broken sticks for the garbage. It’s your life.

In a sea of negatives, the most profound positive

Headline news feeds on the negative events in Iraq, and it takes a large amount of effort to dig up the positives, but I believe the most profound positive is this:

http://baghdadtreasure.blogspot.com/

'There was one advantage I learned from this war, I told Omar. He looked at me and asked, “which war?” The latest one, I replied. I learned how to differentiate between the term “Zionist” and “Jew”.

He looked at me in daze! “Yes, it’s only in 2003 that I learned what the difference between these two words is.” There were so many questions in his mind. I didn’t wait for him to ask them. I explained why it’s just recently that I learned that difference.

At home, we never discussed politics, NEVER, period. My parents were so cautious about these things. Any mistake would take all of us, if not all of my tribe, to jail or execution by Saddam’s people. One of the things we did not discuss at home was who the Jews and the Zionists are. It was only once I recall my mother and grandmother talking about their Jewish Iraqi neighbors and friends whom they missed. I was 12 or 13 at that time. I asked both of them about it. My mother sighed and said that the Iraqi Jews were very nice and lovely people. That was it. She never mentioned anything after that neither did my grandmother.

I was like most teenagers whose main source of news was Saddam’s regime’s media outlets and school curricula. They all denounced the “Jews”. None of them clarified what the difference was. Like most of those in my age, I was brain washed. I was taught to hate the “Jews”, all of them, not only the “Zionists”.

I tried to know more about what is happening in Palestine but all of what I learned was how the “Jews” occupied Palestine and established their illegal state. I asked my parents a lot about it. I got nothing. They always told me not to be indulged in such conversation with anyone, even inside the house. My father’s attitude was if you say it here, you’d say it outside and that would lead to the execution of the family if not the whole tribe if Saddam’s men discover that we were questioning this issue. “Always be away from politics and such issues,” I remember him saying.

Before 2003, the term “Jews” among most Iraqis in my age meant the Zionists. I even recall how a rumor was spread in my undergrad school when one of my classmates said that a member of the “Backstreet Boys” band is Jewish. Most of the classmates told her that “this was untrue. It seems there was someone trying to distort the reputation of the band in Iraq”. She swore she read that in an American magazine smuggled through Jordan. No one believed her. Eventually, she stopped talking about it.

It is also ironic that one of the text books I had in my undergrad school was written by Noam Chomsky. It was about Linguistics. I recall my professor saying that Chomsky was a Jew who is against the State of Israel! He did not elaborate and none of the students asked him more about it. No one wanted to be in trouble. I kept wondering how come he is Jewish and he’s against the State of Israel which we called the “Zionist Entity” at the time. I found no answer till after the 2003 war.

Finally, the confusion I had and the decades of misinformation have come to end. After the invasion, I was able to start the investigation by myself. Saddam was gone. It was time to ask without being fearful.'

Two visions of Iraq

http://thecsquare.blogspot.com/

'Two visions of Iraq



Charette reflected on two visions of war-torn Iraq: the violent one that left him bleeding on the deck of a boat, and another - one not often heard about.

His unit was stationed next to a large lake in the Al Anbar Province, Lake Qadisiyah. The lake made the news recently when a helicopter crashed into it.

"The lake was crystal clear. [There were] palm trees, yellow sand. In the early morning, you hear from the city ... the prayers. It comes out of nowhere. Sometimes they are singing, sometimes they are talking. But it's kind of peaceful, looking out over the water - the sun just coming up."

The soldier could see a kind of hope in the area's natural beauty. Since being home, he has stopped watching the news because of the constant barrage of negative images from Iraq.

"What I see on TV is not what I saw in Iraq. I saw a lot of positive stuff in Iraq." Schools are being built, he said, and police are being trained.

"There are so many people over there trying to make a difference, trying to help people out," he said. "Luckily, in Iraq, we didn't hear all the politics. We just do our thing.

"All the news shows is the body count."'

China's stupidity with pegging to the US dollar

By tacking onto the dollar, China is keeping a competitive edge over other countries selling to the USA whose currencies are rising against the dollar. To the USA, it really is no significant deal except it does add an additional barrier to getting market share in China. However, it has passed the point where it is beneficial to China. Along with tacking onto the US dollar, China experiences the increased cost of external resources like oil as other currencies rise against the dollar. This is the main barrier to continued growth in China's economy which is starting to show signs of stuttering as the effects of the dramatic increase in fuel costs are having their effect. China is strong enough to be able to deal with freeing itself from the US dollar especially when offset by cheaper oil, but as an economy controlled by its government, it suffers from the inefficient and slow decisions that governments make compared to the private sector. The greatest barrier to China's growth is its government.

Intolerance downfall for Palestinians

Intolerance is the downfall for Palestinians, and I'm not even talking about current events. When the area was still the British Mandate of Palestine, it was the fear and intolerance of Palestine arabs which caused them to be hostile to the jews who were driven there by Hitler. History would have been very different if they found a way to live together instead of choosing to side with external arabs who wanted to push the jews to the sea.

Why the Iranian vote for the Assembly of Experts is a farce

The Assembly of Experts is considered the most powerful clerical body in Iran primarily because it elects and dismisses the Supreme Leader who is the true power over all branches of government in Iran. The president is just a facade to give the people a fake belief that they have some say in the government. What the news fails to mention is that the eligibility of candidates who can run for the Assembly of Experts is determined by the Council of Guardians whose members in turn are chosen by the Supreme Leader and the head of the judiciary who in turn is chosen by the Supreme Leader. Everything is controlled by the Supreme Leader, and there is nobody who is allowed into these powerful positions who the Supreme Leader doesn't want. Iran has nothing close to a democracy. It is an authoritarian theocracy pure and although not so simple.

Videos from soldier and chaplain

Just wanted to remember these videos from Badgers Forward showing what it's like clearing IEDs and from a chaplain showing a montage of his experience in Iraq:

http://s127.photobucket.com/albums/p154/Badger_6/?action=view&current=PathfinderRC.flv


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJhBrkedSAE&eurl=

Iraqi youth

This is a journalist's documentary on the youth of Iraq today. It isn't objective, but it is good to look at to get a picture of the environment in Iraq for some people. For those fighting against the death dealers, it is good to look at for more important reasons like how IEDs are planned and planted and their motivations:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6277982867673096457&hl=en

Iraq united

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO341651.htm

'Soccer-mad Iraqis, Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs and ethnic Kurds alike, are enjoying rare moments of joy as their team charges through to the final of the Asian Games. Moments after the final whistle saw Iraq knock out favourites South Korea on Tuesday to enter the final, jubilant crowds across Iraq took to the streets dancing to patriotic songs, waving their national flag, firing celebratory shots into the air and honking horns. State TV played music for hours. Iraqis struggling in their daily lives to survive bombs and sectarian death squads have been glued to television sets watching their team defying the difficulties crippling a country many fear is slipping into civil war or partition. "I'm extremely happy at this win. These victories give us a deep sense of pride and unity," said Ayad al-Saadi, a die-hard fan in Baghdad who followed the match on the edge of his seat. "I hope we will win the tournament because we deserve as many happy moments as we can get. The team is a thorn in the eye of the terrorists who want to ruin our country." The team's performance has captured the hearts of Iraqis, much as the soccer team of the 2004 Olympic Games did, which upset the odds to finish in fourth. Sunni and Shi'ite media unite in praise of a team straddling, in apparent harmony, the sectarian divides. "Iraq's heroes close to gold after great victory over Korea," read a headline in Al Sabah newspaper, controlled by the Shi'ite-led goverment. The Sunni-owned Al Mashriq daily proclaimed: "Our heroes in competition for gold medal." A U.S. military spokesman, by background possibly not a soccer fanatic himself, found time in a weekly news briefing usually focused on military operations to praise the team as "a true inspiration to all of us". "It shows what can be done when people put their differences aside."'

Improve legal immigration

The talk from politicians have been to either stop the flow of illegal immigrants or to add another layer of bureaucracy to allow them to stay. These are actually symptoms of a more fundamental problem in our legal immigration system. It is a bureaucratic nightmare. The laws and processes for it need to be streamlined, and the limits need to be increased since it is obvious our country can handle 12 million illegal aliens without breaking a sweat. Legal immigration should be the desirable way to enter our country. Not only does it track who enters our country but also allows us to tax them.

Security vs privacy

The line between security and privacy has always been a moving boundary. Privacy suffers in times of crisis, and security loses ground in times of peace. Unlike WWII, only 0.7% of Americans experience directly the commitment and cost of fighting the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As a result, most Americans don't really know the effects of the wars like our predecessors did. 9/11 moved our nation similarly like the attack on Pearl Harbor did, but without the direct commitment of the general populace to the fight, the feelings of unity fell apart quickly. As a result, the line between security and privacy favors privacy as if we are in times of peace.

The real North Korea

Here is the real North Korea that Kim Jong Il hides from reporters visiting his country:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=KA6livwPnGI

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ITBqRSMBWaM

If there are truly Iraqis who miss Saddam because of the security inherent in his authoritarianism due to lack of freedom, they are in luck. They can move to North Korea and experience it in its full glory.

Iraqi soccer win celebration shows Iraqis the way to success

On December 9, 2006, Iraq beat Uzbekistan to make it to the Asian Games semifinals. In Iraq, there was at least an hour and a half of celebratory gun fire all across the country as people took to the streets in joy. The Iraqi soccer team is diverse in its makeup. It isn't a Shiite or Sunni team, so the Iraqis who were celebrating didn't care as well. If only these Iraqis would be just as willing to take to the streets to take them back from the minority of extremists. What is needed is a leader who can incite the same passion that the Iraqi soccer team can incite in the majority of Iraqis to move their country forward.

Animosities of his opponents

"I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents."

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

"It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time."

"One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half."

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."

"The price of greatness is responsibility."

"When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."

"We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire...Give us the tools and we will finish the job."

"Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

"For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else."

Sir Winston Churchill

Corruption

The main inhibitor in Iraq to security and prosperity in Iraq is the same inhibitor we have in the USA to even greater prosperity which is corruption. And unfortunately, corruption is only dealt with by the voters because politicians can't seem to do anything about it themselves. That is the problem with Maliki whose ties with Al Capone Sadr prevents him from cracking down on Sadr's militias who are causing the bulk of the deaths. It took the voters to clean the Republican's house in 2006, but they unfortunately left the Democrats with their trash (Jefferson, Waters, Murtha being the most blatent ones). That's another story. Short of the silent majority of Iraqis who believe in a single Iraq for all Iraqis actually taking to the streets in a mass that would put the million man march to a shame, it will take iterations of elections to clean up the Iraqi government enough to get one that does more good than harm.

New Diplomatic Offensive

The first 15 recommendations made by the Iraq Study Group was what they call the "New Diplomatic Offensive" which basically is a fancy way of saying that Iraq's neighbors should be asked to help improve security in Iraq. It is obvious to everybody that they really mean Iran and Syria although they try to touch on other countries. There is one flaw in this train of thought, and that is the thought that Iran and Syria want a peaceful Iraq. Iran and Syria's primary goal is to take over Iraq. It is evident by Syria's action during the Lebanese Civil War and by Khomenei's attempt to spread his revolution when he beat back Saddam during their war. What these countries want is the removal of the US military, which is the only obstacle to their pursuit, so that they can expand their influence overtly in Iraq instead of behind the curtains as they are doing now.

Iraq Study Group Report

I just read through up to the executive summary of the Iraq Study Group Report:

http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/index.html

It really doesn't say anything new. It basically says that US people should be united in a consensus that we are going to be in Iraq for the long haul. The details are ones that already have been considered are are being considered. In the end, it relies on the Iraqis to fix their own country.

Depleted uranium

I am covering the topic of depleted uranium (DU) because you will see this brought up by those extremely against the US occupation of Iraq especially in Iraq because of the greater psychological impact it has on Iraqis who may be concerned about their exposure during the Iraqi invasion.

Major Doug Rokke will be quoted as an expert on DU, but frankly, Rokke has an agenda. His statements aren't backed up with any rigorous research. The symptoms he encountered anecdotally could have been caused by so many other factors. The WHO has a more comprehensive study at:

http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/pub_meet/en/Report_WHO_depleted_uranium_Eng.pdf

"Aerosols route
Depleted uranium particles or aerosols formed following impact and ignition on a hard target will be dispersed and deposited on the ground. It is reported that most of the depleted uranium dust will be deposited within a distance of 100m from the target (US Army Corps of Engineers 1997). People, most likely soldiers, close to an impact could therefore be exposed to dust by inhalation. UNEP (2000) has estimated that the inhalation and ingestion of depleted uranium contaminated dust, even under extreme conditions, and shortly after the impact of projectiles, as determined by the amount of dust that can be inhaled, would be less than about 10 millisieverts (mSv). This represents about half the annual dose limit for radiation workers. The exposure of civilians to dust and smoke at the time of an attack is less likely. Deposited uranium dust might slowly be transformed through environmental weathering processes into more mobile and soluble forms (discussed elsewhere in this section) and dispersed in the environment by air currents.

Fragments
During the Gulf War, soldiers were exposed to depleted uranium by ‘friendly fire’. Fragments from penetrating depleted uranium rounds are embedded in the bodies of several soldiers and others inhaled depleted uranium aerosols generated by the impact of the depleted uranium munitions penetrating the target. Thirty-three US veterans seriously injured in friendly fire incidents have been monitored by the Baltimore Veteran Administration Medical Center since 1993. About half of them have depleted uranium fragments in their bodies. A subsequent study considered 29 veterans from the original 33. Though these veterans have higher concentrations of uranium in their urine, indicating that depleted uranium is being oxidized by body fluids, no adverse kidney effects have been observed (McDiarmid 1998 and 2000; US Department of Defense 2000).

External contact route
Picking up a penetrator and keeping it in a pocket is the only realistic way of a long period of exposure to external (beta) radiation from depleted uranium. Snihs & Åkerblom (2000) stated that by keeping it in the same position for several weeks, it might be possible that the dose administered to the skin would exceed the skin dose limit for the general population, though not that of radiation workers. The effect of such exposure would be localized and the delivered dose would not be sufficient to cause any deterministic effect.

Agricultural route
The possibility was mentioned to the mission that uranium dust might become incorporated in vegetables and crops. The mission was advised by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) that in the published literature there are no known plants that preferentially accumulate uranium and the normal amounts of uranium taken up in plants would not be expected to be dangerous to humans, birds or other animals (communications between the mission team and FAO in January and February 2001).

Drinking water route
The final plausible route of exposure of the population is through drinking water contaminated by migration of soluble depleted uranium compounds in ground or surface water. In particular, possible contamination of wells or spring protection tanks close to an attack site from pieces of depleted uranium might be an isolated occurrence and its relevance should be considered further.

Absorption of depleted uranium
If or when a person comes into contact with depleted uranium from a penetrator, there is no known immediate or acute risk to life. Furthermore, the radio-medicine literature provides no evidence to assume that a person having contact (either externally or internally) with depleted uranium will develop an illness. The onset of any illness argued to be due to depleted uranium has to be related to the amount of radiation dose or amount of toxic chemical to which a person has been exposed (US Department of Defense 2000). Absorption of depleted uranium in the body following inhalation or ingestion is very limited. Mean absorption following inhalation exposure is about 0.8 to 0.9%, with less soluble compounds as uranium oxides remaining in the lungs. Absorption following ingestion also depends on the solubility of the uranium compounds, but is also limited at between 1 to 2% of the ingested amount with the remainder passed out in faeces (UNEP/UNCHS Balkans Task Force 1999).
Most of the small amount of uranium that is absorbed in the body (about 70%) will be filtered out by the kidneys and excreted in urine within 24 hours. The remaining part will be distributed to the skeleton, liver and kidneys. The time to excrete half of this remaining uranium is in the range of six months to one year.

Health effects
The radiological toxicity of depleted uranium is primarily confined to body cells that are susceptible to the effects of alpha and beta radiation. It is therefore thought that inhaled depleted uranium particles may lead to damage of lung cells and might increase the possibility of lung cancer.
Epidemiological studies provide consistent and convincing evidence of excess lung cancer, but not of leukaemia, related to alpha particle exposure among uranium miners (IARC1988; US NAS 1999). However, this effect is attributed to be related to exposure to gaseous decay products (radon). The risk of lung cancer appears to be proportional to the radiation dose received. Indeed, among nuclear workers involved in uranium processing (whose exposures to alpha particles from uranium are less than those of miners), no consistent excess of lung cancer has been found (NCRP 1978; NRC 1988; NIH 1994; Cardis & Richardson 2000; IARC 2001). Kidney dysfunction is considered the main chemically induced toxic effect of depleted uranium in humans, though this is thought to be reversible (Priest 2001). Until now, a study of 29 Gulf War veterans with embedded fragments of depleted uranium in their bodies has not shown adverse kidney effects (McDiarmid et al. 1998 & 2000). The risk of kidney effects following ingestion of depleted uranium depends on the amount of soluble uranium compounds present (effects increase with higher solubility). Information on the presence of soluble uranium compounds following the use or degradation of depleted uranium penetrators is therefore essential to evaluate the potential risk of developing kidney dysfunction."

A followup was performed 2 years later to verify if leukemia or cancer was occurring at a higher rate:

http://enrin.grida.no/htmls/kosovo/SoE/dueffect.htm

"In 2001 WHO and the (then) Department of Health and Public Welfare have looked into the incidence of leukemia in Kosovo. Records at Pristina Hospital for the past four years were examined and doctors from district hospitals have been interviewed. The initial survey indicated that the incidence of leukemia in Kosovo has not increased. WHO and the Department of Health and Social Welfare point out that, although record are not perfect, any significant increase in cancers such as leukemia would have been noticed. Doctors state that it takes a minimum of two to three years for the symptoms of leukemia to be detected."

25% of 10% world's wealthiest are in USA

http://www.wider.unu.edu/research/2006-2007/2006-2007-1/wider-wdhw-launch-5-12-2006/wider-wdhw-press-release-5-12-2006.pdf

Just want to remember this link to the United Nations study of distribution of household wealth in the world. It opens a whole bunch of questions, but I just wanted to get the basic data down for now.

Abu Deraa, driller of Baghdad, may he rot in hell

http://baghdadtreasure.blogspot.com/

'The new Abu Tubar had unique and different nom de guerre, Abu Deraa, Father of the Armor, a reference to his penchant for attacking U.S. armored vehicles. He is known of having a big amusement in torturing his victims who most of them are Sunni civilians. One of his signature techniques is running a drill into the skull of his live victim, according to a recent Time article. His appetite for mayhem is so vast that some Iraqis call him the "Shiite Zarqawi"'

'After going far in his crimes, Abu Deraa became hated even by some of his cleric leaders. Iraq for All, an Iraqi local news website reported that Muqtada al-Sadr himself dismissed 60 members, including Abu Deraa, from the Mahdi Army militia. However, the man was still considered a hero, especially by Shiite members in the parliament.

Falah Shansal, a member of parliament from the al-Sadr bloc, told Time last week that Abu Deraa was still "a fighter in the Mahdi Army."

Like most of the “wanted” insurgents, Abu Deraa was hard to be caught. He managed to escape several times until he was killed few days ago by a Sunni insurgent group. Azzaman newspaper reported that the Islamic Army, one of the insurgent armed groups, killed Abu Deraa.'

What the US can do

With the drive to get the US military out of Iraq as fast as possible, what the US military really should do to allay the violence may be the most unpopular option. US commanders on the ground have been the roadblock to handing over more of the trained Iraqi security forces to the Iraqi central government, and it is for good reason. Those few units turned over so far have had Sadr lackies assigned as the leading generals who then used the units to, at least, round up Sunnis, especially those known to be friendly which not only fuels the violence but also causes desertion of good men from those units. The tougher US action that is most likely needed is to hold onto the command and training of the Iraqi security forces until an Iraqi central government is formed which won't use the security forces as an enforcement arm of just one side.

John Bolton

Bolton is given short shrift for his successful work in the UN. He actually made it more than a glorified chat room. Under Bolton, he was able to block Chavez from getting a security council seat proving that the US isn't as hated as some critics assume. Bolton was able to get China and Russia to agree on sanctions against North Korea which was thought impossible with or without a nuclear North Korea. He was able to have the UN agree on how to react to Hamas' takeover of the Palestinian government. Bolton was able to get the UN to agree to send in a real peacekeeping force into Lebanon after the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. These are all things that detractors of Bolton said would never happen if he was sent to the UN. Bolton deserves to stay because he has proven to make positive things happen in the UN, but he will be a casualty because his bluntness and his party affiliation has earned him political enemies in the USA.

He is scum, but he is their scum

Many of us in the USA are wondering how William Jefferson of Louisiana could get the most votes against all other candidates in 2006 after being caught on video accepting a bribe and then having the bulk of that bribe found hidden in his freezer. Those same people are wondering how Venezuela can reelect Chavez whose socialist pet projects have done nothing to resolve the long term problems of crime and poverty and have piled onto the country's recurring costs which will come back to haunt them when the volatile oil commodity market fluctuates against them. This is because, although they are scum, the people who vote for them choose them because these leaders are their scum. To turn their backs on these scum now would mean that they are turning their backs on themselves and admitting the "man" is right. For people like this, it is harder to fight the counter culture against perceptions of authority and face reality than to go with the flow like lemmings.

Iraqi Civil War?

There are opinions about whether the violence in Iraq can be called a civil war or not. From the Iraqi perspective on the street, it is moot. It is violence and death, pure and simple, that is happening on their streets and to people they know. From a geopolitical perspective, it is important to define whether it is truly civil war occurring in Iraq or not because if it is civil war, the USA will be pushed by the Democrats to assume the war is lost and a pullout will occur of US forces. If you are one of Al Quaida and its Shura council or Sadr's militias, this is what you want because it opens the greatest opportunity for you to take over Iraq not caring that all of you would turn Iraq into a smoldering cinder fighting among yourselves. For the bulk of the Iraqis, regardless of your sentiments about foreign occupation, this will be a change for the worse.

For comparison, the Lebanese Civil War, almost next door, can be used as a benchmark. In that war, about 150,000 people died, multiples of that injured, multiples of that displaced. Even without the ratio of less than 4 million compared to over 26 million in Iraq taken into account, the level of violence in Iraq still pales to what happens in a real civil war. You had Black Saturday in which 600 people died in a single day, and that wasn't the worst of the Lebanese War. You had two known massacres of 1,000 people each not to mention the 2,000 Palestinians dead when Syria decided to invade on the side of the Maronites. When civil war occurs in Iraq, you will have refugee displacement in the tens to hundreds of times of what is happening now. You will have armies fighting to take territory from each other with the USA being unable to stop them even in face-to-face combat. When a civil war truly occurs in Iraq, there will be no debate or doubt from anybody. So, from a geopolitical sense, there isn't a civil war yet in Iraq. The potential is there as Iran continues to supply Sadr's militias and Syria continues to supply Al Quaida and its Sunni allies of convenience. But in order to keep the far left seeking to dominate the Democrats at bay, we can't say that a civil war is truly occurring now.

What Iran could do to help and what it really means by "help"

What Iran could do to help the situation in Iraq is to stop funneling supplies and money to Sadr's militias. The reason they most likely won't do this is because they don't want to lose the support of their most open backer in Iraq. What Iran most likely means by "help" can be seen by looking back at Syria's involvement in the Lebanese Civil War. Syria sent in their military to support their interests, and this is most likely Iran's plan as soon as they can get the USA to withdraw.

What history will say

What history will see is 9/11 as being the catalyst for the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq as the USA faces the islamic radicalism it has been ignoring until 9/11. Realizing that past failed strategies of lobbing bombs from afar was only strengthening muslim popular support for the extremists and giving them the initiative to perform attacks like 9/11, the USA took the offensive to the middle east where their people became deeply entwined with the fate of the middle east unlike the past. As expected, there were significant setbacks as Iraq felt its way towards democracy and islamic extremists from neighboring countries did their best to defeat the USA. In the long run, the perseverence paid off and both Afghanistan and Iraq are shining examples of what is possible if the people are allowed to determine the fate of their country.

After the Thanksgiving bombings of Sadr City

High profile bombings like the one on Thursday, especially on Sadr City, are simplified as from "Sunni insurgents", but they are almost always from Al Quaida and its small group of Sunni allies of convenience. Their purpose is to incite the volatile militias of Sadr in taking out their frustration on Sunnis in general which, unfortuately they are happy to do. The bulk of the Sunni insurgents are defending their neighborhoods and wish to live to fight another day. Maliki is continuing to show to be a dancing monkey of Sadr, but the Iraqi people, even Shiites, are tired of his hypocrisy of talking tough against militias but doing the opposite when Sadr is involved. http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/ shows the general chatter of the militias on both sides, conveniently translated into english. Although there is foreboding, except for Sadr's militias, everybody else is pretty much taking defensive positions which means full scale civil war is still on hold. Another positive is that this is a sign that normal people are not turning their heads which was the prevalent sentiment not too long ago. It is up to the Iraqi people, but it is obvious that a prime minister that has no ties with Sadr is needed to reign in the Shiite militias doing the bulk of the killing. As for Al Quaida and its "Shura council" that continues to provoke the Shiites, that is going to be a long term fight that eventually the Iraqis will have to take over completely from the USA. They need a cleaner security force instead of one that currently has the appearance of being infiltrated by Sadr's gangs. All is not lost. Pessimism will seem to be the standard mood, but the atmosphere is ripe for changes for the positive. The bulk of the Iraqi people still don't believe in sectarianism. If those people can take charge and link together, the minority who are looking for a fight can be beaten back.

Worrying about terrorist recruitment

http://www.slate.com/id/2078162/

"Recruitment"Will an Iraq war make our al-Qaida problem worse? Not likely.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2003, at 12:02 PM ET

There is a parody of the old Uncle Sam "I Want YOU" recruiting poster in circulation. It shows Osama Bin Laden in the Uncle Sam finger-pointing pose, proclaiming that he wants us to invade Iraq and thus generate massive infusions of young and eager talent to his ranks. In different verbal and cartoon forms, this thought has become part of the standard repertoire of those who take the regime-preservation or regime-prolongation view of Iraq.

Before examining the argument—if it is an argument—one might observe that these are often the same people who scoff at any connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, and who furthermore are the most critical of the war on al-Qaida and the Taliban. So, it might be noted that for this purpose at least, they take as a given what they otherwise doubt. Perhaps this is progress, even if unacknowledged. (When they say that Iraq is a "distraction," do please remember to ask them: "Distraction from what?" Then ask how keen they are on the battle against Bin Laden.)

It is certainly curious, also, to notice that whether or not Saddam has given succor to al-Qaida, the Bin Ladenist forces around the world have identified his cause with their own. In Kurdistan they fight, at least "objectively" on Saddam's side. In their propaganda, they speak absurdly of an intervention against Saddam as "an attack on a Muslim country," as if regime change could alter the confessional makeup of the country (which incidentally has many non-Muslims and Christians and used to have an immense Jewish population). But why should one suppose that Saddam's defeat would increase the appeal of al-Qaida and, even if we knew this to be true in advance, why should it make any difference?

Let me cite two of Bin Laden's recent pronouncements. After the slaughter of Australian holiday-makers in Bali a few months ago, a statement was issued by al-Qaida that justified the mass murder on the grounds that Australian troops had assisted in East Timor's transition to independence. Bin Laden had many times venomously criticized this Australian involvement before Sept. 11, so whether he is dead or alive the point is made: The Aussies brought this on themselves by helping a mainly Christian minority regain its independence from a mainly Muslim state. No doubt this same thought helped to swell the ranks of al-Qaida in Indonesia itself, where Islam sometimes makes a good fit with local chauvinism. The conclusion would appear to be this: The wise course would have been to leave the East Timorese to the tender mercies of the Indonesian oligarchy, since to involve oneself on their side was to risk Bin Laden's ire. Is this what the recruiting-poster peddlers really want us to conclude?

In a sermon to his troops before Sept. 11, and on many other occasions that we have on tape, Bin Laden told them that beating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan had been the hard part. The destruction of the other superpower, he asserted, would be easy. America was soft and corrupt and sunk in luxury, controlled by venal Jews. It was so weak and decadent that it had run away from Somalia. It would not risk its own forces and could not face the idea of taking casualties. If you care for the evidence then, you might note that Bin Laden recruits on the basis that the United States will not fight. (Admittedly he contradicts himself on this, sometimes referring to it as an unsleeping aggressor. But then, so do those who claim to interpret his wishes.) Still, if the administration were suddenly to decide that the risk of intervention in Iraq was too great, after all this preparation, then we could be sure that Bin Laden's recruiting sergeants would make this cowardice and weakness a central point in their propaganda appeal.

In the early stages of the fighting in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, I remember reading many peacenik arguments that the United States was playing into Bin Laden's hands and doing exactly what he wanted. (Noam Chomsky made a particular point of this; others added that to kill Bin Laden would cause thousands of new Bin Ladens to spring up in his stead.) I have never seen it argued since that al-Qaida got what it wanted out of the Afghan operation. It lost its only host government, it had to abandon its safe houses in Kabul and Kandahar, it took an enormous number of casualties and had to flee ignominiously, it saw hundreds more of its cadres taken to Guantanamo Bay, and it may very well have left its charismatic leader somewhere under a rock. If this was all part of God's design, then he may well not be on their side. Moreover, it strikes me that Osama Bin Laden himself is a one-of-a-kind sort of guy, unlikely to clone widely.

But what if he was able to reproduce himself in this way? Would this alchemy make him less of an enemy? Would it remove the obligation to defend civil society from theocratic nihilism? The proponents of the "recruitment" hypothesis are unclear on this point but then—they are unclear on the whole point to begin with.

It seems obvious that there are those in the Muslim world who dislike or suspect the United States for what it does or does not do, and those who hate it for its very existence. The task of statecraft is to make this distinction and also to work hard and intelligently to make it wider. But to argue that nothing can be done lest it incur the displeasure of the second group is to surrender without a fight, and then to get a fight anyway. American support for elections and for women's rights would infuriate the second group just as much as American action against Saddam. There is, to put it very mildly, no pleasing some people. Nor should there be. Self-respect as well as sound strategy demands that we make the enemy worry what we will do, and not waste away worrying what he may think of us.

Olson Scott Card

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004435


The Campaign of Hate and Fear
Some of my fellow Democrats are unpatriotic.

BY ORSON SCOTT CARD
Tuesday, December 16, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST

In one of Patrick O'Brian's novels about the British navy during the Napoleonic wars, he dismisses a particularly foolish politician by saying that his political platform was "death to the Whigs." Watching the primary campaigns among this year's pathetic crop of Democratic candidates, I can't help but think that their campaigns would be vastly improved if they would only rise to the level of "Death to the Republicans."

Instead, their platforms range from Howard Dean's "Bush is the devil" to everybody else's "I'll make you rich, and Bush is quite similar to the devil." Since President Bush is quite plainly not the devil, one wonders why anyone in the Democratic Party thinks this ploy will play with the general public.

There are Democrats, like me, who think it will not play, and should not play, and who are waiting in the wings until after the coming electoral debacle in order to try to remake the party into something more resembling America.

But then I watch the steady campaign of the national news media to try to win this for the Democrats, and I wonder. Could this insane, self-destructive, extremist-dominated party actually win the presidency? It might--because the media are trying as hard as they can to pound home the message that the Bush presidency is a failure--even though by every rational measure it is not.

And the most vile part of this campaign against Mr. Bush is that the terrorist war is being used as a tool to try to defeat him--which means that if Mr. Bush does not win, we will certainly lose the war. Indeed, the anti-Bush campaign threatens to undermine our war effort, give encouragement to our enemies, and cost American lives during the long year of campaigning that lies ahead of us.

Osama bin Laden's military strategy is: If you make a war cost enough, Americans will give up and go home. Now, bin Laden isn't actually all that bright; his campaign to make us go home is in fact what brought us into Afghanistan and Iraq. But he's still telling his followers: Keep killing Americans and eventually, antigovernment factions within the United States will choose to give up the struggle.

It's what happened in Somalia, isn't it? And it's what happened in Vietnam, too.

Reuters recently ran a feature that trumpeted the "fact" that U.S. casualties in Iraq have now surpassed U.S. casualties in the first three years of the Vietnam War. Never mind that this is a specious distortion of the facts, which depends on the ignorance of American readers. The fact is that during the first three years of the war in Vietnam, dating from the official "beginning" of the war in 1961, American casualties were low because (a) we had fewer than 20,000 soldiers there, (b) most of them were advisers, deliberately trying to avoid a direct combat role, (c) our few combat troops were special forces, who generally get to pick and choose the time and place of their combat, and (d) because our presence was so much smaller, there were fewer American targets than in Iraq today.

Compare our casualties in Iraq with our casualties in Vietnam when we had a comparable number of troops, and by every rational measure--casualties per thousand troops, casualties per year, or absolute number of casualties--you'll find that the Iraq campaign is far, far less costly than Vietnam. But the media want Americans to think that Iraq is like Vietnam--or rather, that Iraq is like the story that the Left likes to tell about Vietnam.

Vietnam was a quagmire only because we fought it that way. If we had closed North Vietnam's ports and carried the war to the enemy, victory could have been relatively quick. However, the risk of Chinese involvement was too great. Memories of Korea were fresh in everyone's minds, and so Vietnam was fought in such a way as to avoid "another Korea." That's why Vietnam became, well, Vietnam.

But Iraq is not Vietnam. Nor is the Iraq campaign even the whole war. Of course there's still fighting going on. Our war is against terrorist-sponsoring states, and just because we toppled the governments of two of them doesn't mean that the others aren't still sponsoring terrorism. Also, there is a substantial region in Iraq where Saddam's forces are still finding support for a diehard guerrilla campaign.

In other words, the Iraq campaign isn't over--and President Bush has explicitly said so all along. So the continuation of combat and casualties isn't a "failure" or a "quagmire," it's a "war." And during a war, patriotic Americans don't blame the deaths on our government. We blame them on the enemy that persists in trying to kill our soldiers.

Am I saying that critics of the war aren't patriotic?

Not at all--I'm a critic of some aspects of the war. What I'm saying is that those who try to paint the bleakest, most anti-American, and most anti-Bush picture of the war, whose purpose is not criticism but deception in order to gain temporary political advantage, those people are indeed not patriotic. They have placed their own or their party's political gain ahead of the national struggle to destroy the power base of the terrorists who attacked Americans abroad and on American soil.

Patriots place their loyalty to their country in time of war ahead of their personal and party ambitions. And they can wrap themselves in the flag and say they "support our troops" all they like--but it doesn't change the fact that their program is to promote our defeat at the hands of our enemies for their temporary political advantage.

Think what it will mean if we elect a Democratic candidate who has committed himself to an antiwar posture in order to get his party's nomination.

Our enemies will be certain that they are winning the war on the battleground that matters--American public opinion. So they will continue to kill Americans wherever and whenever they can, because it works.

Our soldiers will lose heart, because they will know that their commander in chief is a man who is not committed to winning the war they have risked death in order to fight. When the commander in chief is willing to call victory defeat in order to win an election, his soldiers can only assume that their lives will be thrown away for nothing. That's when an army, filled with despair, becomes beatable even by inferior forces.

When did we lose the Vietnam War? Not in 1968, when we held an election that hinged on the war. None of the three candidates (Humphrey, Nixon, Wallace) were committed to unilateral withdrawal. Not during Nixon's "Vietnamization" program, in which more and more of the war effort was turned over to Vietnamese troops. In fact, Vietnamization, by all measures I know about, worked.

We lost the war when the Democrat-controlled Congress specifically banned all military aid to South Vietnam, and a beleaguered Republican president signed it into law. With Russia and China massively supplying North Vietnam, and Saigon forced to buy pathetic quantities of ammunition and spare parts on the open market because America had cut off all aid, the imbalance doomed them, and they knew it.

The South Vietnamese people were subjected to a murderous totalitarian government (and the Hmong people of the Vietnamese mountains were victims of near-genocide) because the U.S. Congress deliberately cut off military aid--even after almost all our soldiers were home and the Vietnamese were doing the fighting themselves.

That wasn't about "peace," that was about political posturing and an indecent lack of honor. Is that where we're headed again?

This time an enemy attacked civilian targets on our soil. The enemy--a conspiracy of terrorists sponsored by a dozen or so nations and unable to function without their aid--was hard to attack directly; so the only feasible strategy was to remove, by force if necessary, the governments that sheltered and sponsored terrorism.

I would not have chosen Afghanistan and Iraq to start with; Syria, Iran, Sudan and Libya were much more culpable and militarily more important to neutralize as sponsors of terror. (They say that Libya and Sudan have changed their tune lately, but I have my doubts.)

But once we chose Afghanistan and Iraq, once we began a serious campaign, we must continue the war until we achieve our objective, which is to remove all the governments that sponsor terror, or convince the remaining sponsors of terror to absolutely, thoroughly, and completely reverse their policy and actively seek out and destroy all terrorists that once had safe harbor within their borders. Anything less, and all our effort--all those American lives--were wasted.

And in the midst of this global struggle, when both parties should have united, disagreeing at times about methods and priorities, but never about the steadfast will of the American people to see the war through to a successful conclusion, we find that the candidates of the party out of power are attacking the president for fighting the war at all, and are calling the war itself a "failure" even though there is no rational measure by which it can be said to have failed--especially since we're still fighting it.

In a war, the enemy probes for weaknesses, and always finds some. When they find a weakness in your positions, they teach you where it is by attacking there; then you learn, and strengthen that point or avoid that mistake. Meanwhile, you constantly probe the enemy for weakness. The result is that even when you are overwhelmingly victorious, the enemy still finds ways to inflict damage along the way.

The goal of our troops in Iraq is not to protect themselves so completely that none of our soldiers die. The goal of our troops is to destroy the enemy, some of whom you do not find except when they emerge to attack our forces and, yes, sometimes inflict casualties.

Our national media are covering this war as if we were "losing the peace"--even though we are not at peace and we are not losing. Why are they doing this? Because they are desperate to spin the world situation in such a way as to bring down President Bush.

It's not just the war, of course. Notice that even though our recent recession began under President Clinton, the media invariably refer to it as if Mr. Bush had caused it; and even though by every measure, the recession is over, they still cover it as if the American economy were in desperate shape.

This is the same trick they played on the first President Bush, for his recession was also over before the election--but the media worked very hard to conceal it from the American public. They did it as they're doing it now, with yes-but coverage: Yes, the economy is growing again, but there aren't any new jobs. Yes, there are new jobs now, but they're not good jobs.

And that's how they're covering the war. Yes, the Taliban were toppled, but there are still guerrillas fighting against us in various regions of Afghanistan. (As if anyone ever expected anything else.) Yes, Saddam was driven out of power incredibly quickly and with scant loss of life on either side, but our forces were not adequately prepared to do all the nonmilitary jobs that devolved on them as an occupying army.

Ultimately, the outcome of this war is going to depend more on the American people than anything that happens on the battlefield. Are we going to be suckered again the way we were in 1992, when we allowed ourselves to be deceived about our own recent history and current events?

We are being lied to and "spun," and not in a trivial way. The kind of dishonest vitriolic hate campaign that in 2000 was conducted only before black audiences is now being played on the national stage; and the national media, instead of holding the liars' and haters' feet to the fire (as they do when the liars and haters are Republicans or conservatives), are cooperating in building up a false image of a failing economy and a lost war, when the truth is more nearly the exact opposite.

And in all the campaign rhetoric, I keep looking, as a Democrat, for a single candidate who is actually offering a significant improvement over the Republican policies that in fact don't work, while supporting or improving upon the American policies that will help make us and our children secure against terrorists.

We have enemies that have earned our hatred, and whom we should fear. They are fanatical terrorists who seek opportunities to kill American civilians here and Israeli civilians in Israel. But right now, our national media and the Democratic Party are trying to get us to believe that the people we should hate and fear are George W. Bush and the Republicans.

I can think of many, many reasons why the Republicans should not control both houses of Congress and the White House. But right now, if the alternative is the Democratic Party as led in Congress and as exemplified by the current candidates for the Democratic nomination, then I can't be the only Democrat who will, with great reluctance, vote not just for George W. Bush, but also for every other candidate of the only party that seems committed to fighting abroad to destroy the enemies that seek to kill us and our friends at home.

And if we elect a government that subverts or weakens or ends our war against terrorism, we can count on this: We will soon face enemies that will make 9/11 look like stubbing our toe, and they will attack us with the confidence and determination that come from knowing that we don't have the will to sustain a war all the way to the end.

Mr. Card is a science fiction writer. This article first appeared in the Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, N.C.

The future of Iraq

Let me tell you about a country devastated by war, occupied by the USA, set up with a failed democracy, set up with a security force by the USA used to enforce the will of the failed democracy, and beset by insurgents fueled by a neighboring enemy country. That country was South Korea. The Korean War left the country devastated. Iraq is a the garden of Eden compared to what South Korea was after its war. The USA made huge mistakes during its occupation. Look up the bridge at No Gun-Ri for one of the most well known one. It's "democracy" was actually a dictatorship who used the security forces to enforce its will, kill protesters, and make people "disappear". North Korea was supporting insurgents who numbers approximately 35,000 in 1950. The price in lives they extracted was high including that of the US 24th Infantry Division. And yet through decades of trial and error, a real working democracy was formed by the South Korean people, and now South Korea is one of the world's biggest economic and political powers. This is on a piece of land starved of natural resources and less than 1/4 the size of Iraq. Iraq too has the real possibility of succeeding like South Korea. With its wealth of oil, it should be able to surpass South korea. However, those who expect anything close to it to happen in a few years are unrealistic, at the least. It will most likely take decades for the Iraqi people to form a viable democracy. All the USA can do is provide what support it can, but in the end, it is the Iraqi people, as it was the South Korean people, who will determine their fate.

What our soldiers pray for

http://kjirstinbentson.wordpress.com/

"However, back to my original point. Our chapel is (probably deliberately) the exact opposite of this. It’s a trailer placed apart from the Palace as a whole, hardened and blast-wall shielded. I suppose that if it were to announce its presence in all the typical “churchy” ways (steeple, stained glass, bells, etc.), it would just be ASKING to be a target . . .

So you go into this nondescript space, and everyone is crammed in at odd angles into uncomfortable folding chairs. Others have commented on how odd it is that everyone in there is carrying a weapon into church–I don’t even think about it, due to my rather odd tendency of forgetting that I’m wearing a weapon. I think of it as a nuisance addition to my uniform, because it perpetually swings down into my way and clunks into things. So having the nuisance addition to my uniform in church just means that it clunks into things when I’m kneeling and standing up, which is pretty much what it does as I move around in the office.

As the service proceeds, you can hear helicopters overhead, which is very odd. Sometimes they’re loud enough that everyone has to pause and wait for them to clear out of the area before proceeding. And you can hear the odd bang or boom from outside, though so far there hasn’t been anything too remarkable during my times in there.

What really struck me both times in the service, though, was that we took time in the petitions to pray for all the families and loved ones that we’ve left behind at home–that God will keep them safe and protect them. It just was an interesting thought, because back home, all those people are praying for the safety of the troops–and here we are praying for them. It’s like this overarching network of prayers for each other that embraces the globe . . . it’s cool! I saw that very clearly both times I was in there. Additionally, in our petitions we pray for our enemies here, that they’ll change their minds and want to work with us peacefully, and that their hearts will be changed to enable the furtherance of peace. Isn’t that a strange thing to think of–all these various warriors there praying that their job will become unnecessary? It struck me yesterday . . ."