Sunday, January 28, 2007

The Swamp - Chicago Tribune - Blogs.

The Swamp - Chicago Tribune - Blogs.: "Dear Fellow American,

I am 73 year old Corean vet. I know what it is to put my life on the line for my country. Shame to those who use influence to avoid being in the front line. Why are they so eager to put my soldier brother in harms way. I see this as pure insanity on their part. I have no idea how these yuys can sleep at night.

The crux of the mater rest in the reason for going to war in the first place. Everyone knowss by now, including those who voted for it at first, that this was a war of desire and not a war of reason. This is the mother of al shames.

The blattan disregard of a few for puting my brothers and sister in harms way, it is just plain sikening. I tell you truly, at my advance age I am willing to throw myself in harms way to defend my country, But to get in harms ways for a make-up war would be idiotic.
Posted by: felipe | Jan 27, 2007 10:59:55 AM"

Saturday, January 27, 2007

The Democrat

The democratic ticket needs a clearly in the lead leader who not only wants to be President but has an agenda for curing America of the disease of deficits and poverty on one hand and destroying the world environment with its greed and consumption with the other.

If Al Gore were to stop forward, would he win the ticket?

Why? Because people realize that he knows what to do, but his appeal is to the left wing. Hilary Clinton commands the centre and therefore is likely to get the nomination unless the wildcard, Al Gore, stops in - the president that was denied his election by the overreaching Right.

It is possible that a new renaissance will grip America. It depends on how cohesive the Democrats are, unless America wants John McCain and more of the same...

The decision-maker

MercuryNews.com | 01/27/2007 | `I'm the decision-maker' on troop strength, Bush says

That is really good. Making sure that there is only one decision maker so the military do not get confused. Shame that GW Bush has incorrectly assessed his credentials of war conduct as somehow successful and takes it upon himself to boost troop numbers in the face of Al Qaeda saying send the largest number of troops possible so they can all be killed.

If there is or is already a civil war in Iraq, which side will America be fighting on?

Does the Commander in Chief know?

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Political Jigsaw

The political jigsaw is now slowly forming, becoming mortal, tangible. A thing that you can discuss and more importantly, at this stage, before the Primaries, pundits can stake their repute upon predictions. Hey, its a grand lottery if millions of websites predict all sorts of possibilities, a certain percentage are right, and the media heroes of the moment can be automatically paid the grace of attention for a few eye flicks before they digg else where, but that's life on the Web 2.0 internet superhighway. New types of applications are appearing in the digital world, with each passing month a new fad erupts, is bought by google.com or Microsoft and becomes superbly self absorbed into its own new reality and method of doing things. Oddly, this specialisation will lead to a fracturing of talent into new streams, thus a very powerful force that is going to influence the next presidential election are profoundly not to do with the relatively simple story that is Iraq, but how to evolve a new world.

We have to, letting the current world continue means more boring news blogs about the fucking war. Excuse the "French". But, really, who has an actual stated intention in this war?

It seems that by making the military blunder of acting when one simply should not, has inveigled America into the matrix of threat. Iran was threatened by Sunni forces of Iraq, admittedly it was under Saddam Hussein, but the Shiites are also threatened by the Sunni fundamentalist suicide bombers. Some criminals are hard to reform. But punishment is as much a salve to stop retaliation. Suicide leaves little idea of target so it becomes generalised.

If a presidental candidate solves the Iraqi crisis enacted by George Bush so that American interests are protected (Saudi Arabia) from threat (Iran), it does not matter who they are, they will win.

America will wait for Israel to act against Iran in any kind of Nuclear fashion, unless George Bush has one final fatal stab at the map with his deadly pen. His belief in a foreign military "solution" to a local Iraq problem is supported by the troop "surge". The President is probably increasing rotations in Baghdad because his conscience got the better of him, watching 3000 Americans die for his own admitted miscalculation. He believes in the muscle of the most effective military, but he can not sustain an attack beyond something far more dangerous. Senator John McCain may well position himself to accept the mantle, and the Republican gamble could be to expand the war, and this is of great concern.

It would benefit the American people to impeach Bush before a war against Iran erupted from an increasingly fragile cage. Therefore it is not a prediction, but it is more likely to happen this year than any other so far.

If the war in Iraq were to be somehow "won" - well - somehow I find the concept hard to form. What does it mean? An end to death squad militia murdering civilians? If the American army were to follow a strategy that stopped that, there would be a point in their existence there. Just what is their strategy? What is their goal?

Monday, January 15, 2007

'The jihad now is against the Shias, not the Americans'

'The jihad now is against the Shias, not the Americans' | Iraq | Guardian Unlimited - from the point of view of the now besieged Sunni Baghdad neighbourhoods it is Shiite forces of the Government that are now the targets of Jihad. These were the dispossessed - who used to be in power under Saddam.

The executions of Sunni Muslims are being carried out by Shiite death squads - are these Government sponsored? Shiite militia are murdering dozens of Sunni each day and the Sunni fight back with guns. Will the surge in US forces to battle the Shiite - going to battle the Shiite government forces?

There is corruption in the American installed army - soldiers can sell Government munitions to the Sunni street militia and become wealthy.

Security?

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Sadrist welcomes the troops

'New troops may leave Iraq in coffins' | Herald Sun: "Now we know that the occupation forces the supporters of terrorism. They don't want stability of this country, they want to divide it, Increasing the number of foreign troops is a stab in the heart for the sovereignty of the elected government," said a spokesman for radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

If that is the official Shiite line - that they want a united Iraq makes one wonder why we keeping hearing about Shiite dead squads, who probably in retaliation for the crimes of the fathers of Sunni ex-establishment, seem to take a daily toll of lives without explanation. If sectarian death squads are not finished as a strategy, how can the country hope to be independent and united?

Of course Iraq has every conceivable right of independence. The Iraqi government can ask the American forces to depart any day. The murders leave the government themselves highly exposed, so they are not going to ask the Americans to leave. So we have a Shiite government essentially opposed to Shiite vigilantes who hunt down those they blame for the deaths of their parents, brothers and sisters.

The solution is to partition the countries of Iraq into separate productive provinces, and a common space around Baghdad under UN military protection backed by the US and UK if the Iraqi Government want to maintain it. Of course all Iraq belongs to the Iraqi - with the exception of those who are enacting this dreadful sectarian murder. It is in the interests of a civilization for it to protect itself from this cancer. If Sadrist concerns are that it is American presence causing Shiite death squads, I think they need to prove it as the target seems to be Sunni Iraqis, not just Americans.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

American Treason

Official Attacks Top Law Firms Over Detainees - New York Times - a senior Pentagon official in charge of military detainees suspected of terrorism expressed dismay that top shelf lawyers should represent prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that the firms’ corporate clients should consider ending their business ties.

This is nothing less than fascism and the official must immediately be sacked by President Bush.

The military attempting to prevent lawyers from doing their job is erratic and insane. It is the road to doom. Lawyers must prosecute cases without threat.

To suggest in this way that corporate business clients should show prejudice to law firms based on the say so of a defense establishment wheeze-bag is a declaration of war by this official on the US Justice system and means that he is playing a role above the President and the Judiciary, setting policy and in the process undermining the ability of the legal system to operate. This can not stand.

President Bush - you have got to sack this caustic individual who is abusing your power.
It is nothing short of treason to usurp the presidency.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Iran and Syria

The US moves to confront Iran and Syria | csmonitor.com reports that US Forces have, simultaneously with President Bush's speech, "raided an Iranian consulate in northern Iraq, arresting five diplomats and staff and taking computers and files...The raid, and a buildup of US warships in the Persian Gulf..."

This reads like a dangerous precursor to American forces waging an undeclared war with Iran.

Where the Iraq Study Group recommended that America talk with Iran and Syria, President Bush appears to have heard appeasement. Bush's reaction reveals he thinks Iran has already taken acts of war by essentially sending troops into Iraq. The diplomatic seizures appear extraordinary but Bush is desperate to prove Iran Government involvement or at least complicity in acts of war against America. As they are computers, it is inconclusive as evidence, but far too useful as intelligence for Iran to shrug about it.

This action indicates a very disturbing trend. Bush has made a Shiite country out of Iraq, now he wants to inflame the war against the Shiite/Sadrist forces of the South that support the seat of power by executing Sunni's, probably the ones they think were in power previously.

He how sees this and is taking his war to the forces of stability rather the the culprits who are the Sunni dominated Baathists army that scattered into the suburbs about the time George Bush was theatrically declaring US victory all those dark years ago.

George Bush has abused democracy before. This time it could be very dangerous to the US economy if his gamble does not pay off. If he does restore democracy to Iraq by sending in another 22000 young men to face "the enemy", what will he have to do next? As Commander in Chief he would have to take more emergency action. Action against Iran seems premature. Of course they are complicit in supporting the Shiite resistance to the 40 years of American supported domination by a Sunni minority. They were doing the right thing, by anyone's standards. To stop the Sadrist death squads requires an act of grace that makes the entire country agree to the rule of law. Continued genocidal war is not solving it. It is worse than partitioning the country to enable peaceful communities to thrive.

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Congress and the Surge

Congress Should Vote on Troop Surge in Iraq, Kennedy Says - New York Times: "Troop escalation “would be a policy of desperation built on denial and fantasy,” Kennedy said. “It would compound the original misguided decision to invade Iraq.”"

Senator Edward Kennedy is American democracy's Great Uncle in Chief inheriting the Mana of the Kennedy clan. Bring the Iraq war into the light of day, he says, discuss openly the merits of troop escalation or disengagement and do not continue to form grand errors of judgment into history.

He is right to question the wisdom of current plans which can not bear the light of day in discussion without jeopardising the hidden goal it appears to have of installing American ownership in Iraq. If at the end of this war, Halliburton owns oil fields in Iraq I am sure the people of Iraq will benefit from employment. Someone has to own that which the Saddam regime assimilated as it executed its piracy of Iraqi capital.

In Aotearoa (Land of the Long White Cloud), New Zealand, 1840 - a treaty was entered into between the Maori population and the Crown. Legally, the land is owned by the Crown and yet the Waitangi tribunal changed that - and has granted back large parts of the Crown owned lands to Tribal ownership - and that benefits and returns Mana to the decendants of the owner of the land. Gradually, a sense of justice is being returned to the custodians of the land in the role they envisioned taking in the Maori language version of the Treaty. The fact that New Zealand has a Treaty, and not a Constitution as its basis, maintains a legal position for Maori as equals to the Crown in regard to the custody of the natural environment of New Zealand.

The justice accorded to Maori has seen an evolution of all things Maori and added something fierce and exciting to the world. Just go to an All Black rugby match to see Te Reo at work in the haka.

Maori evolved an extraordinary series of cultures in their 1000 year civilisation before the colonial industrial revolution sequestered them into permanent poverty.

Through extraordinary diplomacy, two cultures were merged but it was through the extraordinary politics of our MMP system of proportional representation that has seen Maori arise as a potent and viable political force with its own identity and sense of maturity.

If the British has run away from Aotearoa due to the Maori Wars, the Maori civilisation would have flourished and survived. British forces were to discover the superiority of a force that was in tune with its environment

If the British had invaded and wiped out many Maori due to far greater power (as happened in Australia), then racial dominance would ensue.

Iraq is a different kind of tinder box but presents a similar problem. American forces are there to economically colonise the Iraqi Oil Fields - let's assume that is the raw truth - and if it is - the the American voter must be aware that is a choice they are making - before the government lurches into it. The acts of George Bush have proven themselves directed by concerns that do not benefit the US people. They should impeach their president - but that is rather hard when he is at war. Let's get this straight - George Bush invaded Iraq on false pretexts and as a direct result of his interference a trump card was given to the probably constructed "Isalmo-facsist warrior" - he provided a battlefield for the Shia / Sunni war were the pretext given to the Muslim world is "insurgency against foreign invasion" but in fact they run around doing the ethnic cleansing under the American's noses. What is wrong with sending in more soldiers? Nobody has discussed what they are going in to achieve, will they make even more terrorists out of the poisoned minds of young men who see America as Satan? Or will they just kill these young men and allow their surviving widows to bring up their children to continue the cycle of hate?

There is something wrong with war. But it is better than the alternative.

There is something very wrong with war when it was not required and creates new problems.

There is no choice. The people will have to impeach their president - it is a lose-lose war they way it is being fought. The goal being achieved is a worsening future. Way past time for a rethink.

Monday, January 8, 2007

Democrats War Wind Down

Democrats may deny funds for Iraq surge | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

The dichotomy on offer is scale down or scale up. President Bush was smart enough to up the stakes of the debate before it slid into impeach the president or let him complete a lame duck term. But still his motives are those of a leader in trouble and his decisions are following a course of political survival that may not be the ideal prescription for Iraq or indeed for America, itself.

Bold transformation is required now. Bold and decisive. What options has Bush left for a brilliant strategy to save the day?

Here is a plan that could have a long term future for Iraq:

1. Make Bagdhad into an international protectorate and seat of federal government. Divide Iraq into North and South provinces that are commonly taxed and share in the wealth. Allow sectarian divisions to guide people where it may be safer to live.

2. Issue fatwa against sectarian killing or any killing of an Iraqi by an Iraqi as a crime against God.

3. The US Army maintains, for a period of up to ten years, a safe zone around Bagdhad 20 kilometers each direction. Bagdhad is policed rigorously and the rest of the country is given to the Iraq army and military.

Can George Bush not see that he needs to stop hitting his head against the ancient conflict between Arab and Persian - and stand strong between them while teaching them how to get along with each other?