Yes, blatham. So where should they flee in this world?
FROM IBC DAILY COUNTS AS OF
JULY 20, 2006
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
01/01/2003 through 12/31/2005 = 36,859; 36,859 / 36 = 1,024 per month;
01/01/2003 through 05/31/2006 = 42,879;
01/01/2006 through 05/31/2006 = 42,879 - 36,859 = 6,020; 6,020 / 5 = 1,204 per month;
07/01/2006 through 07/
20/2006 =
719;
July 2006 = (719 /
20) x 31 = about
1115;
01/01/2003 through 07/
20/2006 =
44,451;
01/01/2003 through 06/30/2006 =
44,451 - 719 = 43,732;
June 2006 =
43,732 - 42,879 =
853.
ican711nm wrote: ICAN PREDICTIONS MADE IN JUNE 2006
1,050 
Iraqi civilians died violently in June 2006.
950 Iraqi civilians died violently in July 2006.
Fueled by moonshine whiskey, American soldiers raped and killed a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and shot her family to death, then went back to their post, where one of them grilled chicken wings, according to testimony Monday at a military hearing in Baghdad. A whistle-blower soldier said he heard former Pfc. Steven Green say before the killings, "I want to kill and hurt a lot of Iraqis."
The chilling new details threaten to provoke even greater emotions in a case that has prompted Iraqis to call for their own investigation and the right to prosecute U.S. soldiers in their courts.
Chilling testimony in Iraq
I believe that the new practice of letting in almost anyone in order to bolster the recruit problem plus the stress of being in such a unfriendly hopeless hostile environment for mulitple tours is mostly the blame for these horrible instances (alleged) committed by our troops.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/uncle_sam_wants.html
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/06/04/killing_of_civilians_in_iraq_highlights_stress_on_troops/
FROM IBC DAILY COUNTS AS OF
JULY 20, 2006
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
01/01/2003 through 12/31/2005 = 36,859; 36,859 / 36 = 1,024 per month;
01/01/2003 through 05/31/2006 = 42,879;
01/01/2003 through 06/30/2006 = 43,732;
01/01/2003 through 07/
23/2006 =
44,584;
01/01/2006 through 05/31/2006 = 42,879 - 36,859 = 6,020; 6,020 / 5 = 1,204 per month;
June 2006 = 43,732 - 42,879 = 853;
07/01/2006 through 07/
23/2006 =
44,584 - 43,732 = 852;
July 2006 = (852 /
23) x 31 = about 1149.
ican711nm wrote: ICAN PREDICTIONS MADE IN JUNE 2006
1,050 Iraqi civilians died violently in June 2006.
950 Iraqi civilians died violently in July 2006.
Walter and revel,
There seem to be many issues here. I read that these soldiers were left unsupervised for weeks at a dangerous checkpoint, that their superiors were on leave or were needed elsewhere. There is no excuse for their actions but there are things that must be looked at. Our troops are dangerously weak and spread thin on the ground.
I would not excuse their barbaric acts on any basis but I really do wonder what this awful war has done to the soldiers that are prosecuting it.
The rapes/murders are being followed up and the trial is beginning, which might help in some smallest way to show Iraqis that such acts by our soldiers are unacceptable and that they must pay for their crimes.
Some of the soldiers' acts that have been highlighted in the press (as well they should have been) become the stories that linger in a reader's mind, throughout our world and that of the middleEast, because they are the dramatically horrible stories that people want to read about. Do we feel pure because we read such things and know we are good and could never do such acts?
I am reading a book about Vietnam, called The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien. Another war, another time, and the unbelieveable patrols, killings, ways of removing oneself mentally from the awfulness, sound very familiar.
So, Joe Lieberman falls because of his support for the war and his closeness to BushCo.
Good.
Kara wrote:Yes, blatham. So where should they flee in this world?
I suppose, any of those jurisdictions or cultures where homosexuals are considered equal and worthy of liberty.
As regards your empathy with a soldier's plight (what does it do to the psyche to be ordered to do things to other humans which under any other circumstances are considered deeply pathological)...sure, it's a problem and it seems very cold-hearted to simply dismiss that. There is unavoidable stuff in here. But constraints upon the behavior of soldiers AND their superiors up through the civilian leadership demark a level of civilized conduct which we probably ought not to degrade.
McTag wrote:So, Joe Lieberman falls because of his support for the war and his closeness to BushCo.
Good.
So, Lieberman falls
among Democrat voters "because of his support for the war and his closeness to BushCo."
Good.
Real Good!
What would happen if Lieberman won as an independent? Good? Bad?
Indepenents are not so thrilled with the war either.
I think Leiberman should run as an independent. My party has become so ideologically stifled.
blatham, I agree totally with what you say. We must mete out justice to those who commit barbarous acts. I was just pondering on what war does to people, which thinking causes profound sadness.
revel wrote:ican711nm wrote:McTag wrote:So, Joe Lieberman falls because of his support for the war and his closeness to BushCo.
Good.
So, Lieberman falls
among Democrat voters "because of his support for the war and his closeness to BushCo."
Good.
Real Good!
What would happen if Lieberman won as an independent? Good? Bad?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_080606.htm
washingtonpost wrote:Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president? Do you approve/disapprove strongly or somewhat?
-------- Approve -------- ------- Disapprove ------ No
NET Strongly Somewhat NET Somewhat Strongly opin.
8/6/06 40 23 17 58 12 46 2
6/25/06 38 20 18 60 12 48 2
...
According to your link, net 40% approve of Bush's "handling his job as president" and net 58% disapprove.
I disapprove of Bush's "handling his job as president." I know a great many Republicans as well as Democrats who disapprove of Bush's "handling his job as president." Almost all of these Republicans and about a third of these Democrats also say they will vote for Republicans rather than turn the country over to the "anti-american-hate-Bush" Democrats currently in office.
So I would like to see an honest survey of how many, of those who currently intend to vote, intend to vote for Repuiblicans and how many intend to vote for Democrats.
CNN wrote:Democrats lead in generic ballot
By Mark Preston
CNN Political Editor
Thursday, August 10, 2006; Posted: 10:36 a.m. EDT (14:36 GMT)
...
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A majority of Americans say they will vote for Democratic candidates in the midterm elections, but the same number say things are going "well" in the country today, according to a new CNN poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation.
The poll is the latest sign that Democrats are within striking distance of taking back control of the House and perhaps the Senate in November. Such a scenario would all but neutralize President Bush in his final two years in office.
Fifty-three percent of Americans said they favored Democrats in November compared to 40 percent for Republicans. And only 40 percent of Americans believe that the Republican led Congress has been a success since taking control in 1995. In 1998, when asked this same question, 58 percent of Americans said they believed the GOP was successful in leading the House and Senate.
Still, 55 percent of Americans believe that things are going "well" compared to 44 percent who said things are going "poorly." And Democrats need to do a better job convincing voters they are better equipped than Republicans to lead the Congress. Only 41 percent of Americans believe that Democratic leaders in Congress "would move the country in the right direction." As for the GOP, 43 percent of Americans believe that Republican leaders in Congress "would move the country in the right direction."
...
The poll was conducted August 2 and 3 and surveyed 1,047 adult Americans.
The last 48 hours
To say the political world has been shaken up in the last 48 hours would be an understatement. Three incumbents go down in defeat to members of their own party. The biggest story, of course, is Sen. Joe Lieberman's (D-Connecticut) loss and his decision to seek an independent bid for re-election, much to his party leadership's chagrin. The most overlooked race was Rep. Joe Schwarz's (R-Michigan) loss to a challenger from his right. Should centrist Republicans be concerned? Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Georgia) loses for the second time in six years, but her defeat was the result of her own doing.
...
Today is August 10, 2006.
If the American voter votes in November as this poll predicts, then the USA will begin flushing itself
down the toilet faster than currently.
Who and what and why is our enemy?
BERNARD LEWIS wrote:
August 8, 2006 Wall Street Journal
During the Cold War, both sides possessed weapons of mass destruction, but neither side used them, deterred by what was known as MAD, mutual assured destruction. Similar constraints have no doubt prevented their use in the confrontation between India and Pakistan. In our own day a new such confrontation seems to be looming between a nuclear-armed Iran and its favorite enemies, named by the late Ayatollah Khomeini as the Great Satan and the Little Satan, i.e., the United States and Israel. Against the U.S. the bombs might be delivered by terrorists, a method having the advantage of bearing no return address. Against Israel, the target is small enough to attempt obliteration by direct bombardment.
It seems increasingly likely that the Iranians either have or very soon will have nuclear weapons at their disposal, thanks to their own researches (which began some 15 years ago), to some of their obliging neighbors, and to the ever-helpful rulers of North Korea. The language used by Iranian President Ahmadinejad would seem to indicate the reality and indeed the imminence of this threat.
Would the same constraints, the same fear of mutual assured destruction, restrain a nuclear-armed Iran from using such weapons against the U.S. or against Israel?
* * *
There is a radical difference between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons. This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers. This worldview and expectation, vividly expressed in speeches, articles and even schoolbooks, clearly shape the perception and therefore the policies of Ahmadinejad and his disciples.
Even in the past it was clear that terrorists claiming to act in the name of Islam had no compunction in slaughtering large numbers of fellow Muslims. A notable example was the blowing up of the American embassies in East Africa in 1998, killing a few American diplomats and a much larger number of uninvolved local passersby, many of them Muslims. There were numerous other Muslim victims in the various terrorist attacks of the last 15 years.
The phrase "Allah will know his own" is usually used to explain such apparently callous unconcern; it means that while infidel, i.e., non-Muslim, victims will go to a well-deserved punishment in hell, Muslims will be sent straight to heaven. According to this view, the bombers are in fact doing their Muslim victims a favor by giving them a quick pass to heaven and its delights -- the rewards without the struggles of martyrdom. School textbooks tell young Iranians to be ready for a final global struggle against an evil enemy, named as the U.S., and to prepare themselves for the privileges of martyrdom.
A direct attack on the U.S., though possible, is less likely in the immediate future. Israel is a nearer and easier target, and Mr. Ahmadinejad has given indication of thinking along these lines. The Western observer would immediately think of two possible deterrents. The first is that an attack that wipes out Israel would almost certainly wipe out the Palestinians too. The second is that such an attack would evoke a devastating reprisal from Israel against Iran, since one may surely assume that the Israelis have made the necessary arrangements for a counterstrike even after a nuclear holocaust in Israel.
The first of these possible deterrents might well be of concern to the Palestinians -- but not apparently to their fanatical champions in the Iranian government. The second deterrent -- the threat of direct retaliation on Iran -- is, as noted, already weakened by the suicide or martyrdom complex that plagues parts of the Islamic world today, without parallel in other religions, or for that matter in the Islamic past. This complex has become even more important at the present day, because of this new apocalyptic vision.
In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time -- Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined. Mr. Ahmadinejad and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced. It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the U.S. about nuclear development by Aug. 22. This was at first reported as "by the end of August," but Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement was more precise.
What is the significance of Aug. 22? This year, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to "the farthest mosque," usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.
A passage from the Ayatollah Khomeini, quoted in an 11th-grade Iranian schoolbook, is revealing. "I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [i.e., the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours."
In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning. At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead -- hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement.
How then can one confront such an enemy, with such a view of life and death? Some immediate precautions are obviously possible and necessary. In the long term, it would seem that the best, perhaps the only hope is to appeal to those Muslims, Iranians, Arabs and others who do not share these apocalyptic perceptions and aspirations, and feel as much threatened, indeed even more threatened, than we are. There must be many such, probably even a majority in the lands of Islam. Now is the time for them to save their countries, their societies and their religion from the madness of MAD.
[Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, is the author, most recently, of "From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East"]
Shiites Press for a Partition of Iraq
Shiites Press for a Partition of Iraq
By Borzou Daragahi
The Los Angeles Times
Wednesday 09 August 2006
Creating federal regions would curb the violence, backers say. Others see it as a grab at oil wealth.
Baghdad - They have a new constitution, a new government and a new military. But faced with incessant sectarian bloodshed, Iraqis for the first time have begun openly discussing whether the only way to stop the violence is to remake the country they have just built.
Leaders of Iraq's powerful Shiite Muslim political bloc have begun aggressively promoting a radical plan to partition the country as a way of separating the warring sects. Some Iraqis are even talking about dividing the capital, with the Tigris River as a kind of Berlin Wall.
Shiites have long advocated some sort of autonomy in the south, similar to the Kurds' 15-year-old enclave in the north, with its own defense forces and control over oil exploration. And the new constitution does allow provinces to team up into federal regions. But the latest effort, promulgated by Cabinet ministers, clerics and columnists, marks the first time they have advocated regional partition as a way of stemming violence.
"Federalism will cut off all parts of the country that are incubating terrorism from those that are upgrading and improving," said Khudair Khuzai, the Shiite education minister. "We will do it just like Kurdistan. We will put soldiers along the frontiers."
The growing clamor for partition illustrates how dire the country's security, economic and political problems have come to seem to many Iraqis: Until recently, the idea of redrawing the 8 1/2 -decade-old map of Iraq was considered seditious.
Some of the advocates of partitioning the country are circumspect, arguing that federalism is only one of the tools under consideration for reducing violence.
But others push a plan by Abdelaziz Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a political party. Hakim advocates the creation of a nine-province district in the largely peaceful south, home to 60% of the country's proven oil reserves.
Sunni leaders see nothing but greed in the new push - the Shiites, they say, are taking advantage of the escalating violence to make an oil grab.
Iraq's oil is concentrated in the north and south; much of the Sunni-dominated west and northwest is desolate desert, devoid of oil and gas.
"Controlling these areas will create a grand fortune that they can exploit," said Adnan Dulaimi, a leading Sunni Arab politician. "Their motive is that they are thirsty for control and power."
Still, even nationalists who favor a united Iraq acknowledge that sectarian warfare has gotten so out of hand that even the possibility of splitting the capital along the Tigris, which roughly divides the city between a mostly Shiite east and a mostly Sunni west, is being openly discussed.
"Sunnis and Shiites are both starting to feel that dividing Baghdad will be the solution," said Ammar Wajuih, a Sunni politician.
Critics scoff at the idea that any geographical partitioning of Sunnis and Shiites will make the country safer. Some observers warn that cutting up the country's Arab provinces into separate religious cantons would be as cataclysmic as the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947.
Although growing numbers of Iraqis acknowledge that their country is in an undeclared civil war, a partition would "actually lead to increasing violence and sectarian displacement," said Hussein Athab, a political scientist and former lawmaker in Basra.
Critics of partitioning note that rival Shiite militias with ties to political parties in government appear to be responsible for as much of Iraq's violence as Sunni insurgents are, and have been known to turn their guns on one another.
"They're always talking about reconciliation and rejecting violence, but in truth they're not serious," Wajuih said. "Whenever there is a security escalation or violence, they bring the issue of federalism up again."
One Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested that the Shiites were using the prospect of a southern ministate to gain political concessions from Sunnis - "a threat that they wouldn't want to have to exercise" because tearing the country asunder would be so traumatic.
A U.S. Embassy spokesperson declined to comment publicly on such a volatile issue. But U.S. policymakers also have begun to warm to the idea. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, one of the Democratic Party's leading voices on foreign policy, began openly advocating such a move this year.
"I think it's the only way out," says Ivan Eland, a former House Foreign Affairs Committee staffer who is now an analyst at the Independent Institute, an Oakland think tank. "Iraq is already partitioned. Kurds don't want to be part of it. And any central government controlled by one group, the other groups are going to be afraid of being oppressed by it."
The prospect of a decentralized Iraq drove opposition groups for decades; Shiites and Kurds were brutally suppressed under Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime, and once they came to power they wanted to weaken the central government. In a referendum last year, a constitution including the option of devolution was approved despite nearly uniform Sunni opposition.
Under the constitution, any of Iraq's 18 provinces, or a group of provinces, may hold a referendum to form a federal region. But the charter was vague on the definition of "federal." In Kurdistan it in effect has meant grouping three provinces into an autonomous enclave that has its own military, intelligence apparatus, prime minister and oil ministry.
The Kurdish experiment has inspired many Shiite leaders, especially Hakim. Clerics loyal to him already have begun using street demonstrations as well as Friday sermons to advance to desperate and war-weary Shiite masses the idea that an autonomous southern region will stem the bloodshed and bring prosperity.
"Those afraid of federalism in the south and middle are afraid that we will get our rights back," Shiite cleric Sadruddin Qubanchi told the faithful gathered for Friday prayers in Najaf last month.
"Why not now?" said a July 30 column in Al Adala, a Shiite daily newspaper. "We are in a race against time to establish federalism in Iraq."
Hakim's advisors have already begun drawing up proposals for the rights and territorial boundaries of such a region, said Haithem Hussein, one of his deputies. In one plan, the Shiite militias now considered part of Iraq's cycle of violence could serve as a regional security force, just as the Kurdish peshmerga militias form the core of Kurdistan's regional security forces.
"We don't want to establish a Shiite state or a state within a state," said Mukhlis Zamel, a Shiite lawmaker from the southern city of Nasiriya. "But we want to manage ourselves by ourselves."
In the halls of parliament, Sunni politicians say their Shiite colleagues try to strong-arm them to go along with their plan.
"They try to convince you that federalism is the only solution, whether you like it or not," said Salim Abdullah Jabouri, a former law professor now serving in parliament as a member of the main Sunni coalition.
Most agree that a partitioning of Iraq along the geographical lines advocated by Shiites would be an agonizing and traumatic process.
Almost all of Iraq's major tribes include both Shiite and Sunni branches, and cross-sectarian marriages abound.
Baghdad, Diyala, northern Babil and southern Salahuddin provinces are thoroughly mixed, often patchworks of Shiite and Sunni villages. Basra in the south includes a significant Sunni minority, while Mosul in the north includes significant numbers of Shiite Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens.
But all of these complications can be worked out, said analyst Eland.
"They could work out an oil-sharing agreement," he said. "It's a fallacy that you have to have contiguous borders. You could have deterrence: We won't hurt your minority if you don't hurt ours."
Sheik Diyadhin Fayadh, a Shiite politician, offered another solution to the sectarian patchwork stemming from a partition: "If people don't like the system in one region," he said, "they can go to another region."
---------------------------------------------
Times staff writer Saif Rasheed in Baghdad and special correspondent Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf contributed to this report.
BBB, I think partition is the only answer to this nightmare of Iraq. It might not fix it, but it's the only the solution that I can see that has a chance.
