Iraq through Iraqis' eyes

Oh. I didn't think she was talking about Frank.

Yeah...you people. The selectively blind!





One...it is not an analogy.

Two...tell me about the parts of Iraq that are not in conflict.

Where would you feel safe to take a walk?




I have no idea of why you think I...or any of the rest of us...want "America to fail"...or why we would "gloat about it"...but I know goddam well I do not want my country to fail...and I sure as hell would not gloat about it.

That is one of the reasons I voted against George Bush and this incredibly inept administration of his...because I did not want my country to fail.

Unfortunately...your side won....and I suspect the price of that victory will give new meaning to the term "Pyrrhic Victory." I do, as DrewDad noted, hope that I am wrong.

But for people like you to suggest…for no reason that I can even conceive of…that we want our county to fail…and that we would exhibit glee over such an eventuality…is such self-serving bullshyt, I do little more than laugh at it.

It is desperation at its grossest.

HEY DREWDAD!

You seem to be writhing all over the place, trying to avoid this. Well? Put up or shut up.

Will the US get involved in Sudan where humanitarian cause really means something?
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Sudan 'plans huge Darfur attack'

More refugees arrive at camps every few minutes
The Sudanese government is preparing a huge offensive in war-torn Darfur, the head of the African observer team says.
Following a "build-up of forces in the past two weeks", Darfur is a "time-bomb which could explode at any moment," said General Festus Okonkwo.

Peace talks between the government and rebels have broken down after the rebels accused the army of breaking a ceasefire agreed in April.

About 70,000 people have died in the "world's worst humanitarian crisis".

More than 1.5 million have fled their homes, mostly black Africans being targeted by pro-government Arab militias.

'Astronomical'

The BBC's Jonah Fisher in the Kalma refugee camp in South Darfur says that every few minutes another horse and cart roles in, piled high with wooden chairs, metal beds, pots and pans.

They say they are fleeing attacks jointly carried out by the army and Arab Janjaweed militias.


Q&A: Darfur crisis
The government has consistently denied arming or working alongside the Janjaweed.

Gen Okonkwo, who heads an African Union mission of 834 ceasefire monitors in Darfur, says both sides are amassing troops and weapons in South Darfur.

"The quantity of arms and ammunition brought into Darfur to meet the present build-up of troops in the region is [so] astronomical that the issue is no longer whether there will be fighting or not, but when fighting will start," he said.

He also blamed the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) for the killing of two aid-workers in South Darfur.

"SLA was involved in the attack as two Land Rovers belonging to Save the Children (UK) were recovered from SLA camp in Jurof," Gen Okonkwo said.

The killing prompted Save the Children to suspend its aid operations in parts of Darfur.

On Wednesday, the Sudanese government said it would end attacks in Darfur if rebels did, raising hopes that talks in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, could resume.

Rebels left the negotiations, accusing the government of breaking a truce.

The peace talks are aimed at ending a conflict that has raged since February 2003, when rebels began attacking government targets, claiming that the region was being neglected by Khartoum.

Human rights groups and the US say that a genocide is being carried out against Darfur's non-Arab groups.

In the latest signs of strains on the military from the war in Iraq, the Army National Guard announced on Thursday that it had fallen 30 percent below its recruiting goals in the last two months and would offer new incentives, including enlistment bonuses of up to $15,000.
In addition, the head of the National Guard Bureau, Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, said on Thursday that he needed $20 billion to replace arms and equipment destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan or left there for other Army and Air Guard units to use, so that returning reservists will have enough equipment to deal with emergencies at home.
Over the last 30 years, General Blum said, the Guard has counted on these soldiers with prior military service for about half of its recruits. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, however, many of these soldiers have been hesitant to join the Guard because of the increasing likelihood that America's citizen-soldiers will be activated and sent to Iraq or Afghanistan for up to 12 months. Indeed, many of the active-duty soldiers the Army would like to enlist in the Reserves have recently fought in Afghanistan or Iraq, and some have no inclination to do so again.
In an effort to halt the slide, the Army National Guard this week approved recruiting incentives that triple the enlistment bonuses to $15,000 for soldiers with prior military experience who sign up for six years (tax-free if soldiers enlist overseas), Guard officials said. Bonuses for new enlistees will increased to $10,000 from $6,000.
For the first two months of the fiscal year 2005, which started Oct. 1, the Army Reserve has also stumbled, falling 315 recruits short of its goal of 3,170 soldiers, a drop of 10 percent.
In November, the Guard recruited 2,902 enlistees, about 26 percent below its target of 3,925 recruits. In October and November combined, the Guard recruited 5,448 enlistees, nearly 30 percent below its goal of 7,600. At full strength, the Guard has 350,000 soldiers.
In the 2004 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, the Guard missed its overall recruiting target of 56,000 soldiers by more than 5,000, the first time it had missed its yearly goal since 1994. The active-duty branches of the armed services all met their recruiting goals last year

Give us time C.I., give us time. We're stretched too thin to voluntarily take on another front. However, some thinking liberals (as testified in the New Republic) and some thinking liberal Democrats on capital hill (Dick Gebhardt's statement that it is the U.S.'s responsibility to carry democracy to the world) are beginning to see the necessity of taking out Islamic terrorists wherever they exist and operate.

But where is this all-wise, all-necessary U.N. that liberals are so fond of assigning authority to? Why are they sitting on their hands. They must have all these troops at their disposal.....all those troops that Bush failed to enlist? Why aren't they taking care of things in the Sudan?

This would be my response as well.

This article explains everything, but only the non-conservatives will understand it's meaning.
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I am afraid that "faith" means "Christian" and "family" means "conformist."
- Jon Carroll
Thursday, December 16, 2004

We are so very boring. We are so very predictable. George Bush has won a second election almost fair and square, so the mood of the country is against us, and our nattering is just counterproductive and we should get with the program. Nobody cares anymore.

I do notice that a lot of media have taken the hint. Disparaging the Bush administration is so very last year, so very John Kerry. Better to, as they say, give the benefit of the doubt. Better to reassess our priorities. Better to understand that faith and family are important.

It's bewildering. I mean that. Here is an administration that so terribly botched the invasion of another country that this nation is now caught in a deadly quagmire with no anti-quagmire weapons. Soldiers are dying because of Pentagon incompetence. And yet the Pentagon is more powerful now than it was a year ago. The war is getting less attention even as it gets more deadly. Why? Because the media failed to understand that faith and family are important.

I think most people who voted for Bush would agree that he's not very good at being president. Polls show that most people understand that the war has been terribly managed, even as they also think that al Qaeda controlled Iraq. But still, they trust George Bush to get us out of the war that he got us into. Why? Because he understands that faith and family are important.

I am afraid that we have a definition problem. I am afraid that my definition of "faith and family" is no longer the dominant definition. I am afraid that "faith" means "Christian" and "family" means "conformist." I am afraid that "small-town values" is code for a whole bunch of stuff, including prudery, insularity and bigotry.

Note how fashionable anti-Semitism has become. Pat Buchanan and other conservative commentators have made it clear that their attacks on "Hollywood" are really just attacks on Jews, who are once again degrading our Christian culture with their filthy cosmopolitan ways.

I think the failure to distinguish between kinds of Islam comes from willful ignorance. Moderate Muslims trying to prevent the dawn of a new Dark Ages are constantly being undercut by American attitudes. "See, they just want to kill us," say the jihadists, basing their remarks on the fact that we are killing them.

And so we create new enemies. They may not have been against us in 1999, but all that has changed now. It's amazing how touchy people get when they are detained at airports. And when you start bombing a country in order to save it, people are so quick to take it the wrong way. And when you describe the bombing as a "crusade," people get all nervous and excited.

Yes, I know, George Bush apparently did not understand the origin of the word "crusade." He was using it as a sports-page term, like "Auburn is on a crusade to defeat the University of Alabama." I think it would be nice to have a president who did understand the meaning of "crusade" without having to be told, but that is apparently because I do not understand that faith and family are important.

We are being lied to more or less constantly by our government. That's not a secret or anything; indeed, commissions appointed by the government reach that conclusion almost weekly. And yet that's OK, because at least faith and family are being defended.

See, there's the Defense of Marriage Act. Don't you want your marriage defended? Of course, I've never met a gay person who wanted to attack my marriage. And it's exactly that sort of smart-ass remark that proves how little I understand about faith and family. Because, well, there's no "because" in faith. That's why it's faith.

I am going to put my faith in the self-correcting mechanisms built into the Constitution. I am going to wait it out and pray that my friends do not get injured. And I may build a little room in the basement.
In the meantime, cut up little pieces of paper and throw them into the air. It keeps the elephants away. It's worked so far: no elephants.

If asked, I will deny that I have ever been [email protected].

©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ

Here

What exactly do you suggest that the UN should do?

Funny, but sad.

http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi

http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi

That's great JW

And FreeDuck, I think the U.N.should have some balls and stop genocide. I think they should have done that in Afghanistan and in Iraq and should dol that in Nigeria. They didn't, haven't, and won't. So the U.S. may have to deal with the Sudan sooner or later too. And the liberals will probably condemn the U.S. again for it unless the president who orders it happens to be Democrat at the time.

Yeah, but how?

Start be revoking the countries charter from the UN. Halting all foreign aid, creating trade embargos and forcing the countries government to stop it's activities or to halt whatever organization is at fault.

UN Forces will be made available to assist.

That's pretty much it.

Does nothing to stop genocide.



...and the tricky part. How do you force them to halt? What and who do you attack? You say UN Forces will be made available to assist -- are you going to order them deployed? Where do they come from?

Freeduck, what would you suggest?