Iraq's Maliki sees coalition with Shi'ite rivals
Sun Feb 28, 2010
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki acknowledged on Sunday that he would probably need partners to gain a majority after the election on March 7, and said he was ready to join with Kurdish or other Shi'ite groups.
"Alliances in forming the coming government are a must," he said in remarks carried by the state-owned National Media Center.
"Coalition with the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) and the Kurdish coalition is an important issue in building the country. These blocs enjoy historical relations that the political process and national unity need."
Maliki's comments were the clearest signal yet that his State of Law coalition hopes to join forces with rival blocs after the polls.
They might also constitute an acknowledgement that his own support may be less than anticipated -- although few political experts expected any single electoral bloc to form a majority on its own in a society as fractured as Iraq's.
Maliki, who has gathered strength and popularity since being selected as a relatively obscure compromise candidate in 2006, did well in provincial polls in early 2009, but his law-and-order message has taken a hit after a series of bomb attacks in Baghdad.
His current government is an alliance of majority Shi'ites with Kurds and Sunnis. After his strong performance in 2009, Maliki decided his ostensibly non-sectarian State of Law alliance would run against the other main Shi'ite groups.
Wheeling and dealing after next Sunday's election could mean it takes weeks or even months to form the next government.
The INA is Maliki's main rival for the Shi'ite vote, while the Kurdish coalition is dominated by the two parties that control Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region: the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Kurds are seen as kingmakers in the polls, as their support could give any bloc decisive weight in forming a government.
Maliki's broad-based alliance includes members of his Dawa party, a party founded in the 1950s to give Shi'ite Islam greater power in public life, and other groups including some Sunni tribal leaders, Shi'ite Kurds, Christians and independents.
Iraq to reinstate 20,000 Saddam-era army officers
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press Writer
Fri Feb 26, 2010
BAGHDAD – Iraq on Friday reinstated 20,000 former army officers dismissed after the U.S.-led invasion, a landmark gesture at reconciliation ahead of the March 7 elections.
Defense Ministry Spokesman Mohammed al-Askari denied Friday's announcement was linked to the election, insisting funding for the 20,000 positions is only now available.
"This measure has nothing to do with elections, rather it is related to budget allocations," said al-Askari, who did not provide a breakdown of the ranks of the officers being reinstated.
Critics, however, said the sudden return of their jobs might influence the votes of the reinstated officers.
"No doubt, this move is related to the elections and it aims at gaining votes," said Maysoun al-Damlouji, a candidate from a secular bloc led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a fierce critic of al-Maliki.
A Defense Ministry statement said the rehired personnel would be reinstated by Sunday, but a senior Iraqi military official said absorbing so many could take weeks or months to complete.
In recent years, thousands of officers from the disbanded army have trickled back to service in an ongoing process of reintegration. The official said a ministry committee has been screening officers for ties to Saddam's regime or involvement in atrocities or war crimes.
He said reinstatements were strictly based on the army's present requirements and mainly benefited officers from the rank of colonel down. U.S. commanders have in the past pointed out that Iraq's new army, which is at least 300,000-strong, desperately needed mid-ranking and experienced noncommissioned officers.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
The United States hopes a transparent and credible election will bolster national reconciliation efforts and pave the way for its combat forces to go home by the end of August and the rest by next year's end.
Regardless of the motive, reinstating the large group of officers would help reconciliation. Al-Maliki has raised Sunni resentment with his relentless denouncements of Baathists in Iraqi politics. But many were allowed to return to government service in 2008, and al-Maliki has also shown flexibility when it comes to the military.
Al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government has already reinstated many Sunni officers as top commanders in the new army. It also waived "de-Baathification" rules and reinstated generals — Sunnis and Shiites — who once held senior positions in Saddam's ruling party.
Leading Iraqi Sunni ends party's poll boycott
Feb 25, 2010
By Mohammed Abbas
BAGHDAD - The party of a prominent Sunni Muslim politician banned from taking part in Iraq's March election on Thursday decided not to boycott the poll, easing fears that other Sunni groups would also stay away.
Saleh al-Mutlaq said his National Dialogue Front party would take part in the March 7 vote as part of the Iraqiya election coalition, a cross-sectarian group expected to pose a challenge to Iraq's established Shi'ite Islamist parties.
His Sunni party said last week it would boycott the vote and urged others to do so too in protest at a ban on candidates with alleged ties to former dictator Saddam Hussein's Baath party. Mutlaq is among the most prominent of the banned candidates.
"There is great pressure from the Iraqi public which wants us to take part and we have great support," said Mutlaq.
A Sunni boycott of the poll would have threatened the legitimacy of the election and scotched hopes that greater Sunni participation in Iraqi politics would help reduce support for Sunni Islamist insurgent groups like al Qaeda.
A panel led by Shi'ite lawmakers last month banned more than 400 candidates accused of links to the Baath party, which brutally oppressed Iraq's majority Shi'ites and Kurds.
Although the ban affected more Shi'ite candidates, prominent Sunnis and Shi'ites working with them to form cross-sectarian alliances were hit hard, fanning Sunni accusations of Shi'ite attempts to marginalise them ahead of the election.
Iraq has only just emerged from years of sectarian bloodshed, and the country's minority Sunni Arabs hope the vote will give them a greater say in Iraqi politics.
"We don't want to prevent Iraqis from expressing their opinion, but at the same time, we have reservations about this election and its results even now, and we consider it lacking in legitimacy," Mutlaq told reporters at a news conference.
He declined to say how many candidates his party brings to the Iraqiya election coalition, which is headed by secular Shi'ite former prime minister Iyad Allawi.
The March election is Iraq's second full national vote since the 2003 U.S. invasion toppled Saddam, and is seen as crucial in solidifying Iraq's young democracy.
Theyr'e a lively bunch. Imagine them discussing politics in Iraq right now, at dinner tables, waiving their hands, granma chipping in with some odball comments, and the kids scream.
A discussion in a street corner have a tendency to swell to a sizeable crowd in a very small time.
Theyr'e extreemely passionate about things.
One thing for sure though....they are giving their country their choice of government.
They seem to play along in that game, in their own way of course, and even if their way may seem strange for a westerner on occasion, it doesn't matter, they are playing a winning game.
Islamic Freedom Fighters are those who do not wish to be oppressed by a tyrannical occupying force. In case you forget during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan the United States supplied and funded the Mujahideen and our government labled them "freedom fighters". Now, these same Mujahideen are opposing our tyrannical government in Afghanistan and no longer called "freedom fighters". Why this inconsistency?
Our foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan is a deplorable; we invade soveregin countries and use a egmatic concept as a "War on Terror". As I have said, George W. Bush and Barack Obama are war criminals much worse than Saddam Hussein. Each should be tried as such. Islamic freedom fighters will have to unite in order to free themselves from tyrrany imposed by imperial America.
Concerning my selling of my dinars I am not bitter or angry in doing so. The dinar is a weak currency pegged to a weak American Dollar. The CBI is following the same monetary policy as our FED; they have assumed debt while debasing its currency. Iraq is not the future. In my view, the future is China.
Let us hope that the Iraqi Elections are filled with disorganization and chaos; may the people revolt and a coup d'etat occur and successfully topple the regime of Al-Malaki. May Afghanistan continue to be the graveyard of empires.
Rebirth of a Nation Something that looks an awful lot like democracy is beginning to take hold in Iraq. It may not be 'mission accomplished'—but it's a start.
By Babak Dehghanpisheh, John Barry and Christopher Dickey | NEWSWEEK
Published Feb 26, 2010
From the magazine issue dated Mar 8, 2010
"Iraqi democracy will succeed," President George W. Bush declared in November 2003, "and that success will send forth the news from Damascus to Tehran that freedom can be the future of every nation." The audience at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington answered with hearty applause. Bush went on: "The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution."
... it has to be said and it should be understood—now, almost seven hellish years later—that something that looks mighty like democracy is emerging in Iraq. And while it may not be a beacon of inspiration to the region, it most certainly is a watershed event that could come to represent a whole new era in the history of the massively undemocratic Middle East.
The elections to be held in Iraq on March 7 feature 6,100 parliamentary candidates from all of the country's major sects and many different parties. They have wildly conflicting interests and ambitions. Yet in the past couple of years, these politicians have come to see themselves as part of the same club, where hardball political debate has supplanted civil war and legislation is hammered out, however slowly and painfully, through compromises—not dictatorial decrees or, for that matter, the executive fiats of U.S. occupiers. Although protected, encouraged, and sometimes tutored by Washington, Iraq's political class is now shaping its own system—what Gen. David Petraeus calls "Iraqracy." With luck, the politics will bolster the institutions through which true democracy thrives.
Of course, as U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad Christopher Hill says, "the real test of a democracy is not so much the behavior of the winners; it will be the behavior of the losers." Even if the vote comes off relatively peacefully, the maneuvering to form a government could go on for weeks or months. Elections in December 2005 did not produce a prime minister and cabinet until May 2006. And this time around the wrangling will be set against the background of withdrawing American troops. Their numbers have already dropped from a high of 170,000 to fewer than 100,000, and by August there should be no more than 50,000 U.S. soldiers left in the country. If political infighting turns to street fighting, the Americans may not be there to intervene.
Anxiety is high, not least in Washington, where Vice President Joe Biden now chairs a monthly cabinet-level meeting to monitor developments in Iraq. But a senior White House official says the group is now "cautiously optimistic" about developments there. "The big picture in Iraq is the emergence of politics," he notes. Indeed, what's most striking—and least commented upon—is that while Iraqi politicians have proved noisy, theatrical, inclined to storm off and push confrontations to the brink, in recent years they have always pulled back.
Think about what's happened just in the last month. After a Shiite--dominated government committee banned several candidates accused of ties to the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein, there were fears that sectarian strife could pick up again. Saleh al-Mutlaq, who heads one of the largest Sunni parties, was disqualified. He says he tried complaining to the head of the committee, Ahmad Chalabi, and even met with the Iranian ambassador, thinking Tehran had had a hand in what he called these "dirty tricks"—but to no avail.
Two weeks later Mutlaq nervously paced the garden of the massive Saddam--era Al-Rashid Hotel as he weighed his dwindling options. "I got a call from the American Embassy today," he said, grimly. "They said, 'Most of the doors are closed. There's nothing left for us to work.' " He shook his head. "The American position is very weak."
But what's most interesting is what did not happen. There was no call for violence, and Mutlaq soon retracted his call for a boycott. The elections remain on track. Only about 150 candidates were ultimately crossed off the electoral lists. No red-faced Sunni politicians appeared on television ranting about a Shiite witch hunt or Kurdish conspiracy. In fact, other prominent Sunni politicians have been conspicuous for their low profile. Ali Hatem al--Suleiman, a tough, flamboyant Sunni sheik who heads the powerful Dulaim tribe in Anbar province, is running for Parliament on a list with Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. He scoffs at effete urban pols like Mutlaq: "They represent nothing. Did they join us in the fight against terrorists? We are tribes and have nothing to do with them."
What outsiders tend to miss as they focus on the old rivalries among Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds is that sectarianism is giving way to other priorities. "The word 'compromise' in Arabic—mosawama—is a dirty word," says Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, who served for many years as Iraq's national--security adviser and is running for Parliament. "You don't compromise on your concept, your ideology, your religion—or if you do," he flicked his hand dismissively, "then you're a traitor." Rubaie leans in close to make his point. "But we learned this trick of compromise. So the Kurds are with the Shia on one piece of legislation. The Shia are with the Sunnis on another piece of legislation, and the Sunnis are with the Kurds on still another."
The turnaround has been dramatic. "The political process is very combative," says a senior U.S. adviser to the Iraqi government who is not authorized to speak on the record. "They fight—but they get sufficient support to pass legislation." Some very important bills have stalled, most notably the one that's meant to decide how the country's oil riches are divvied up. But as shouting replaces shooting, the Parliament managed to pass 50 bills in the last year alone, while vetoing only three. The new legislation included the 2010 budget and an amendment to the investment law, as well as a broad law, one of the most progressive in the region, defining the activities of nongovernmental organizations.
The Iraqis have surprised even themselves with their passion for democratic processes. In 2005, after decades living in Saddam Hussein's totalitarian "republic of fear," they flooded to the polls as soon as they got the chance. Today Baghdad is papered over with campaign posters and the printing shops on Saadoun Street seem to be open 24 hours a day, cranking out more. Political cliques can no longer rely on voters to rubber-stamp lists of sectarian candidates. Those that seem to think they still might, like the Iranian-influenced Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, have seen their support wane dramatically. Provincial elections a year ago were dominated by issues like the need for electricity, jobs, clean water, clinics, and especially security. Maliki has developed a reputation for delivering some of that, and his candidates won majorities in nine of 18 provinces. They lead current polls as well.
Ali Allawi, who was minister of finance and minister of defense early in the post-Saddam government, describes the current scene in Iraq as a "minimalist" democracy built around a "new class" of 500 to 600 politicians. The Middle East has seen this kind thing before, he says, in Egypt and Iraq under British tutelage in the first half of the last century. Then, the elites learned to play party politics, too, but not to meet the needs of the people. "That ended in tears," says Allawi.
In Iraq today, conditions seem more likely to reinforce than to undermine the gains so far. Iraqis have been hardened by a very tough past and now, coming out the other side of the infernal tunnel that is their recent history, many share a sense of solidarity as survivors. "Identities in Iraq are fluid, but there is more of a sense of an Iraqi national identity," says Middle East historian Phebe Marr, whose first research trip to the country was in 1956.
You notice this, for instance, at the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra, where conductor Karim Wasfi manages to extract harmony from Kurds, Christians, Sunnis, Shiites, and Bahais. Some of the women musicians wear the hijab, or headscarf; others do not. During the height of sectarian violence in 2006, almost half of the orchestra fled the country. Those who stayed behind got death threats, and one was killed. During one concert they had to play against the contrapuntal percussion of a firefight just outside the hall—but play they did. "It was about survival," says Wasfi.
Wasfi now says there are audiences asking for the symphony to perform even in conservative religious towns like Karbala, in southern Iraq. And bigger cities like Baghdad and Basra are regaining their old cosmopolitan airs. Abu Nawas Street along the Tigris River is once again lit up with lively restaurants serving broiled fish and beer. Liquor stores that had closed up shop during the height of the civil war now stack cases of Heineken and boxes of Johnny Walker Black in front of their doors. University students, once cowed by militias like the Mahdi Army, are feeling freer.
The changes are more than superficial. As economist Douglass North pointed out last year in his influential book Violence and Social Orders, the key to building stable societies is to create a web of institutions that people can fall back on when governments, or mere politics, fail. Iraq is beginning to do just that. The country not only has the freest press in the region, but the gutsiest. More than 800 newspapers and TV and radio stations have aggressively gone after politicians and sleazy businessmen. The country now has more than 1,200 trained judges, and courts have convicted senior officials on corruption charges, with more cases pending. Women's groups, too, have asserted themselves, pushing for 25 percent of provincial councils to be female and forcing the Education Ministry to roll back a proposal to separate boys and girls in school.
Perhaps the most encouraging sign is that Iraq's military has become one of the most respected institutions in the country. The remnants of Al Qaeda in Iraq continue to carry out horrendous suicide operations, and some analysts expect the terrorists to step up their activities if sectarian tensions increase, and as American troops withdraw. But they no longer seem to pose an existential threat to the central government, and have inspired near--universal revulsion among Iraqis. Nor do most close observers fear the opposite—that the Army might become too strong and mount a coup. "I think people mention this because it's been such a recurrent theme in Iraq's past," says Ambassador Hill. "But we're certainly not seeing signs that the military is interested in engaging in politics."
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. James Dubik, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military in 2007 and 2008, says the more relevant question is whether Iraq's political leaders might try to use the military for sectarian purposes. Prime Minister Maliki, who directly controls some counterterrorism forces, has been accused of targeting Sunni rivals using those troops. But, says Dubik, Iraqi commanders are "very much attuned" to the danger, and generally do not launch such missions without broader approval. "They are really trying to develop a mature process."
Neighboring Iran remains a concern. Tehran continues to compete for influence in Iraq using every means at its disposal, including trade, religious ties, diplomacy, and covert links to militias that target U.S. troops. But since Iran's own contested presidential elections last June, its influence has diminished. Seyyed Sadeq, the police chief in the Iraqi city of Al Amarah, is a Shiite who trained with the Iranian-supported Badr Brigades, and was based in Iran throughout the 1990s. Several of his Iraqi friends from those days remained on the Iranian payroll after 2003. Members of the Quds Force, the branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that runs its foreign operations, "used to come here every month or so," says Sadeq. "But recently it's been every six, seven months. I am hearing that Quds Force commanders are busy with the internal operations in Iran so they don't have much time to pay attention to Iraq."
Most important in the long term is the fact that whoever rules in Iraq should be able to take advantage of the country's enormous and largely untapped wealth of oil and natural gas. The Kurds in the north, the Shiites in the south, and now the Sunnis in the west of the country can all lay claim to enormous fields—and even without a hydrocarbon law on the books, the government is finding ways to work with foreign oil companies to exploit these resources. Industry analysts believe Iraq could raise its output from almost 2.5 million barrels a day to 10 million by the end of the decade. Even at current production rates, Iraq's revenues last year were $39 billion.
This is what truly scares Iraq's neighbors. Yes, even the country's fledgling democracy is more vibrant than anywhere else in the region, except perhaps Lebanon (and Iraqis love to point out that America's own system isn't exactly working in textbook fashion right now). But more important, the foundations of a regional power are emerging, one that is equally threatening to Saudi Arabia and to Iran. (Some analysts believe Tehran's nuclear program is meant to intimidate and deter a resurgent Baghdad, not just Washington and Tel Aviv.) Iraq, for better or worse, democratic or not, will be a power to be reckoned with.
with Hussam Ali and Salih Mehdi in Baghdad, and Maziar Bahari
Although this isn't Dinar related, I thought it worth noting, as I am sure the other side would do if the tables were turned:
===
Baby Survives 3 Days With Shot in Chest After Parents Commit Global Warming Suicide
Monday, March 1, 2010, 5:59 AM
Jim Hoft
A seven-month old baby girl survived a shot to the chest after her parents shot themselves and their two-year-old in a global warming murder-suicide pact.)
The New York Post reported:
A seven-month-old girl miraculously survived alone for three days after one of her parents shot her in the chest – apparently as part of a bizarre murder-suicide pact blamed on global warming.
The baby was discovered with a bullet casing in her chest and covered with blood by police in the Argentinean city of Goya, near the bodies of her parents and 2-year-old brother, the Latin American Herald reported Saturday.
Police broke into the home after neighbors complained of a stench coming from the house. The boy was found with a gunshot wound in his back, while his parents died from gunshot wounds to the chest.
The parents, 56-year-old Francisco Lotero and 23-year-old Miriam Coletti, are believed to have been spurred by their fears about global climate change, London’s Telegraph reported.
A letter was found on a table expressing the couple’s anger at the government for not responding to the environmental crisis.
Doctors said the baby’s condition has been improving every day, the Herald Tribune reported.
--end quote--
Someone needs to sue Al Gore.
Comments
1) Tammy
Thanks, Al Gore, for creating a non-existent hysteria across the world! Obviously, these people were unstable to begin with, but the loony global warming freaks gave them a push over the edge.
I hope the baby recovers.
Sick freaks.
2) olm
Someone does need to sue Al Gore. I realize the hoax was intended to enrich al and friends and deliver unlimited power but stories like this are proof that they went way too far for purely selfish reasons.
3) LilMissSunshiner
Perhaps an appropriate response to this tragedy would to issue an arrest warrant for Al Gore and prosecute him for inciting social unrest resulting in death.
4) Hotspur
To hear the rhetoric coming out of peoples’ mouths about “reducing” the human population, we already see what kinds of damage a cult can do.
Malaki have made a statement for the first time on the issue of Iraq Dinars, in where he said he is working with CBI to find a workable way get the iraqi Dinar revalued.
Mujaheedin and Taliban are two distinct different entities.
You're mixing, up shit the whole time, and throws it into a generality.
Responding to you with logic will not work. I have tried ....but there is no one home. Circuits in your mind are playing phrases for you the whole time, thats all there is left of you.
I really wish you would come out of your hard shell, and be a human being again, be yourself, but I can bet you a dime your too coward, and instead will continue to repeat all those circuits, over and over and over ...and over again.
Evil Empires, Marsians and enormous complex conspiracies are after you. are after us all, and there is nowhere to hide.
You have stupid explanations to everything with the snap of your fingers.
Those circuits are serving you well, they come out like a machinegun.
Have you ever asked yoursef ...who am I?
All those curcuits are telling you who you are, but deep inside you know that's not you.
All that shit that is talking to you....that's not you.
I wish you good luck in finding out who you really are.
Rob N. . . . . .one of my favorite posters for the longest time, I've been affected with terminal cancer, but all in all, I don't think it's as bad as yours. . . I don't know what has happened to you in the past 5 years,. . .but I know a great oncologist who will help you get out of your system whatever ails you. . .peace to you brother. . .send me an address, and I'll send you some of my mellow pills, cause God knows you really need them. . .sorry to sound like this. . . Panhandler
Iraq, Iran and the Premiership
Posted on: Mon, Mar 01, 2010
Leader of the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq (SICI) Ammar Al-Hakim and radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr are said to have received assurances that Iran will not prefer former Iraqi PM Ayad Allawi to any other Shiite candidate for the Iraqi Premiership. The following 380-word report sheds light on the subject and tells how the Sadr Movement reacted and what PM Nouri Al-Maliki is doing to block the way for Allawi to take over the Premiership.
Oil revenues optimization would solve Iraq’s problems – Maliki
February 28, 2010
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on Sunday that the optimization of Iraq’s oil revenues would solve all the country’s problems and repay all foreign debts.
“Contracts with global oil corporations and conglomerates can also help repay all compensations for some Arab and Gulf states and meet all reconstruction obligations,” Maliki said in response to questions through the National Information Center.
Since 2003, Iraq has been seeking to have its $120 billion worth of foreign debts accumulated during the former regime’s time written off. The war-ravaged country, however, managed to get nearly half of this sum - $55 billion owed to the Paris Club of creditor nations – dropped.
Still Iraq owes a sum of $21 billion to some Arab countries, including $21 billion to the Gulf states - $15 billion to Saudi Arabia and $6 billion to Kuwait, over which negotiations are underway.
France seeks to bring Iraq out of Chapter VII
March 1, 2010
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has welcomed the recent steps toward activating the Iraqi-French relations for the good of the two people, a presidential statement said on Monday.
“The president received at his residence in Kirkuk on Monday (March. 1) the French ambassador in Baghdad, Boris Bwalun, and the French Consul in Kurdistan, Fredric Tisso, with whom he discussed ways of boosting bilateral relations in various domains,” said the statement received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
“The French diplomat conveyed President Nicola Sarkozy’s greetings and his comfort regarding the outcome of the recent visit paid by the French industry minister to Iraq, noting that his country plans to expand its activity throughout Iraq,” the statement added.
The statement quoted the diplomat as saying that his country is doing its utmost to bring Iraq out of the Chapter VII.
Roger wrote: Malaki have made a statement for the first time on the issue of Iraq Dinars, in where he said he is working with CBI to find a workable way get the iraqi Dinar revalued.
I did look for it.. and I didn't find it.. anyone else have the article?
I think we all have become alarmed (and, perhaps, puzzled) with Rob N's sudden change from support for the United States to hatred of and jihadist sentiments against it. In seeking to understand what might make a person change into such hateful sentiments, I cannot believe it is merely political preference. I believe it must go deeper. To side with those who wish your death and actively desire them to win (and thus extinquish your own life) is not only suicidal and irrational but brainwashed and not sane. Here is one plausible explanation for such a phenomenon:
=== The mysterious power of hate David Kupelian explains how innocent children become murderers and rapists
Posted: February 28, 2010
By David Kupelian
Editor's note: The following is excerpted from WND Managing Editor David Kupelian's latest book, "HOW EVIL WORKS: Understanding and Overcoming the Destructive Forces That Are Transforming America."
Growing up in a family of genocide survivors as I did, I got to hear stories – lots of stories – about just how depraved human beings can get.
Although my father and grandmother passed down these often-vivid recollections to us in the comfort of a warm suburban family room, worlds apart from the nightmares of their youth, their painful psychological scars remained ever fresh. And to a young boy like me, those stories – of cruel soldiers and bandits hell-bent on mayhem, as well as their intended victims' resourcefulness and sometimes even heroism – provided a glimpse into a scary, alien dimension of evil.
But rather than tell any more family stories here – and most Armenian families have them, just as Jewish Holocaust survivors and their kin have their stories – I'll quote the U.S. ambassador to Turkey at the time, Henry Morgenthau, whose published memoirs exposed the horrors he witnessed firsthand during the 20th century's first genocide. Incredibly, he described how Turkish officials bragged to him about their nightly meetings where they would enthusiastically share the latest torture techniques to use on the Armenians:
Each new method of inflicting pain was hailed as a splendid discovery, and the regular attendants were constantly ransacking their brains in the effort to devise some new torment. He told me that they even delved into the records of the Spanish Inquisition and other historic institutions of torture and adopted all the suggestions found there ...
I'll spare you the details, except to say that Morgenthau, father of FDR's treasury secretary of the same name, summed up the "sadistic orgies" of the Armenian genocide by declaring: "Whatever crimes the most perverted instincts of the human mind can devise, and whatever refinements of persecution and injustice the most debased imagination can conceive, became the daily misfortunes of this devoted people. I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this."
Unfortunately, more such "horrible episodes" followed apace throughout the 20th century. In the 1930s, Stalin ordered his military to confiscate all of Ukraine's food and then sealed her borders to prevent any outside sustenance from getting in, thereby intentionally starving 7 million men, women and children to death. This was followed soon by Japan's demonic "rape of Nanking," during which 300,000 Chinese were butchered in their nation's capital, including up to 80,000 women and little girls gang-raped by Japanese soldiers and then stabbed to death with bayonets. The Nazi Holocaust in the '30s and '40s, of course, tops most people's list of genocidal horrors, with its death-camp crematoria, extermination of 6 million Jews and unspeakable "medical experiments." For sheer numbers of dead – tens of millions during the '60s and '70s – China's Mao Ze-Dong has been called history's worst mass murderer. Pol Pot's maniacal communist purge of Cambodia in the late 1970s led to the deaths of 2 million of his own people, while Rwanda's tribal genocide in the 1990s resulted in the club-and-machete massacring of 800,000. Today's ongoing Sudanese genocide, backed by the Islamist government in Khartoum, has resulted in at least 400,000 dead.
We frequently ask ourselves how human beings can sink to this level of cruelty. There's no precedent for it among even the most fearsome predators in the animal kingdom. What, then, makes us capable of such extreme evil?
Genocidal madness can't be blamed on a particular philosophy or religion. Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were atheistic communists. Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany were in the grip of quasi-religious personality cults that deified their leaders. And today's genocide in Sudan, like the Turkish military which tortured Armenians for sport a century earlier, is heavily motivated by Islamic jihadist fervor.
So what turns people into monsters? Since they obviously didn't start out that way, let's rewind back to the beginning of the story and see what causes an innocent child to morph into an instrument of great evil.
Children's songs that celebrate murder
There's nothing more beautiful than a young child. Nothing. The brightness of spirit, the spontaneity, the natural intelligence – which Einstein called "the holy curiosity of inquiry" – are breathtaking.
What, then, possesses a smart, handsome young 5- or 6-year-old boy to go on Palestinian television and sing, "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber"? Or a group of children, both boys and girls, to sing together, "How pleasant is the smell of martyrs, how pleasant the smell of land, the land enriched by the blood, the blood pouring out of a fresh body."
What? How does the horror and stench of death magically transform into the "pleasant smell" of life and glory for these kids? What happens to them in their earliest, most vulnerable years to induce some to later strap on explosive belts and vaporize themselves while murdering dozens of unsuspecting innocents?
Why, growing up in a "normal home" with a mom, dad, siblings, school and friends, does a young man suddenly feel compelled to stab his own sister to death – knifing her not just once or twice, but over and over again in a murderous frenzy – just because somebody said she was walking down the street with a male who wasn't a relative?
Clearly, as these young people's indoctrination progresses from singing songs about atrocities to actually committing them, we're witnessing not only a toxic philosophy at work, but also the magic ingredient that makes that philosophy come to life – namely, hatred. Underneath all the smiles, underneath the "devout" faith, underneath whatever persona is masking the overwhelming fear, confusion, and jihadist programming that have been cultivated in them since birth, lies the nuclear reactor core of their being – a smoldering fireball of suppressed rage.
Intense hatred has a way of morphing inexorably into full-blown, epic madness. Indeed, hate is like spiritual plutonium, possessing bizarre, explosive and transformative qualities of which we are largely unaware. It is the means by which evil itself blooms on this earth, especially when rage is focused and magnified by a malignant worldview. If you think this is overstated, just contemplate with me the following news items:
- Popular Middle East television programming for children that features jihadist clones of Mickey Mouse, Sesame Street characters and other kids' favorites, in which the lovable, cuddly stars teach children vicious lies and the virtues of mass murder.
- Rape victims being flogged and imprisoned, as when a Saudi court in early 2009 sentenced a 23-year-old female who had been gang-raped by five men to 100 lashes and a year in jail. Her crime? Accepting a lift from a man who drove her against her will to his house and took turns, with four of his friends, raping her.
- An epidemic of "honor killings" – at least 5,000 per year according to the U.N., but many more that go unreported – in which fathers, brothers or mothers brutally murder their own daughter/sister merely for being seen in public with a male or similar "offense." For example, two Jordanian brothers used axes to murder their two sisters, aged 20 and 27, after the older sister left home to marry a man without her family's permission and the younger one ran away to join her. After someone tipped off the brothers as to their sisters' whereabouts, the men went into their home with axes and hacked them to death. "It was a brutal scene," one government official told the Jordan Times. "One victim's head was nearly cut clean off."
- Maniacal, zombie-like "religious police," such as those in Saudi Arabia who on March 11, 2002, allowed 15 young girls to die horrible deaths when a fire broke out in their school in Mecca. The religious police, or Mutaween, literally blocked firefighters from saving the girls because they weren't dressed in the proper Islamic way for girls and women to be seen outdoors. With helpless firemen watching, the religious police literally beat the girls – those who were not wearing their headscarves or abayas – back into the inferno.
What we're looking at here is criminally insane behavior – no less insane or criminal than that exhibited by severely deranged people we routinely lock up in maximum-security psychiatric hospitals or prisons in the United States.
Of course, by now we've all heard more than we care to know about radical jihad culture, with its pathological blame of Jews for everything, its condemnation of Western Civilization and its "die-while-killing-infidels-and-Allah-will-give-you-virgins" recruitment pitch. But distilling this "martyrdom" obsession down to its essence, common sense tells us no one murders innocent people or forces schoolgirls back into a burning building unless they're insanely angry. So, where exactly does this hate come from?
Let's understand, even a violent philosophy like that of radical Islam isn't necessarily sufficient, by itself, to create a rage-fueled jihadist. No, you become full of hate and driven to violate others only when someone else first violates you – when a parent, older sibling, teacher, cleric or other authority figure intimidates, frightens, degrades, bullies, humiliates or perhaps sexually abuses you. And such cruelty and degradation are, unfortunately, endemic in much of the Islamic world. Its rigid, authoritarian religious system, the near-slave status and abuse of women, the suffocating sexual repression, the widespread incidence of what can only be called the world's most flagrant child abuse (where even toddlers are groomed for future "martyrdom operations"), and the pervasive fear of flogging, amputation or stoning if one runs afoul of the ultra-strict Sharia legal code – all this creates an environment reeking of quiet terror. No wonder its victims take to terrorism so readily.
So, once these parents and other authorities, full of the madness and confusion injected into them during their own youth, succeed in passing it on to the next generation of youngsters by intimidating and indoctrinating them, it's child's play to focus the newly created jihadists' zeal onto the appropriate "hate object" – Jews, Americans, "infidels" and so on.
This dynamic is not unique to radical Islam. In fact, believe it or not, it's the hidden fabric of all too much of our own lives – albeit usually in a far less extreme form. In a perverse mirror reflection of the Golden Rule, we all tend compulsively to do unto others what was done unto us. We effortlessly internalize the cruelty of others.
This is because, aside from the obvious effects being angry and upset have on us – making us emotional, clouding our judgment and so on – it also throws us into "program mode." That's right: When we get upset at the intimidating words or actions of other people, their cruelty "infects" us in a very real way. So, for instance, if our parents angrily yelled at us all the time when we were children, we would tend to angrily yell at those smaller and weaker than us. A little bit of the bully gets inside of us, and we then bully others, in one form or another. We've all seen this, and we know that our prisons are full of molesters and abusers who were molested and abused as children.
Thus, maniacal imams and jihadist teachers find it relatively easy convert innocent children into suicide bombers. The first step is to indoctrinate them from birth with a poisonous belief system demonizing "infidels," a process explained by Israeli counter-terrorism expert Itamar Marcus in "The Genocide Mechanism":
Common to the framing of all genocide is a very specific kind of demonization. In Rwanda, the Hutus taught that the Tutsis were cockroaches and snakes. Tutsi women were portrayed as cunning seductresses who used beauty and sexual power to conquer the Hutus. … Radio Rwanda repeatedly broadcast a warning that Hutus were about to be attacked by Tutsis, to convince the Hutus that they needed to attack first to protect themselves.
This demonization included two specific components. First, the victims had to be perceived as a clear and present threat, so that the killers were convinced they were acting in self-defense. Second, the victims were dehumanized, so that the killers convinced themselves that they were not destroying real human beings.
Teaching children virtually from birth that Jews are subhuman, evil oppressors of Muslims – fiends who grind up Arab youngsters to use as ingredients in their Passover matzoh – is epidemic in the Islamic world. A typical example: The Saudi satellite television station Iqraa broadcast an interview with a 3-year-old Egyptian girl named Basmallah, who answered a question about Jews by declaring: "They are apes and pigs."
But this little girl is not about to murder anyone. She's just repeating statements fed to her by adults for the sake of winning their love and approval. Dehumanizing indoctrination isn't quite enough to launch a genocide. There must also be hate, and lots of it – not merely to fuel the atrocity machine, but to allow the indoctrination to fully take root.
In other words, whatever the toxic programming may be – Hutus demonizing Tutsis as "cockroaches and snakes," Turks accusing Armenians of being "enemy collaborators," Nazis likening Jews to "vermin" – for such outrageous and counter-intuitive falsehoods to be both believed and acted upon, those being indoctrinated must be kept in a very emotional state.
Recall that Hitler always kept his audiences super-emotional; that's how he programmed them and guarded against their naturally coming back to their senses. He was always stirring up their emotions, and by so doing, his thoughts became their thoughts, his feelings became their feelings. It's brainwashing 101: Cause your intended victims to become upset, angry, emotionally riled up, and you have your hands on the control levers of their mind.
Children are so vulnerable, like spiritual sponges, that if they're treated with cruelty, if they're degraded sexually, if they're constantly confused and intimidated – and at the same time are indoctrinated with lies denying their neighbors' humanity, and also showered with promises of glory, reward and brotherhood for believing and acting a certain way – well, it's not long before you've got yourself a newly minted jihadist, communist, or Nazi.
QUOTE: Intense hatred has a way of morphing inexorably into full-blown, epic madness. Indeed, hate is like spiritual plutonium, possessing bizarre, explosive and transformative qualities of which we are largely unaware. It is the means by which evil itself blooms on this earth, especially when rage is focused and magnified by a malignant worldview. ... whatever the toxic programming may be – Hutus demonizing Tutsis as "cockroaches and snakes," Turks accusing Armenians of being "enemy collaborators," Nazis likening Jews to "vermin" – for such outrageous and counter-intuitive falsehoods to be both believed and acted upon, those being indoctrinated must be kept in a very emotional state. (END QUOTE)
I have noted that when Roger engages RobN in rational debate, RobN does not answer those rational arguments or engage those valid, logical and factual points. This has been a source of constant frustration and puzzlement by Roger as well as others including myself. Instead, RobN comes back invariably with emotional statements and apocalyptic language, damning America and wishing evil on everyone, from the Office of the President to the entirety of the Western Nations, in great fits of hatred and temper. Somehow, his views keep him locked into a state of emotional termoil, and it acts upon him like Hitler did those under him where, He was always stirring up their emotions, and by so doing, his thoughts became their thoughts, his feelings became their feelings. It's brainwashing 101: Cause your intended victims to become upset, angry, emotionally riled up, and you have your hands on the control levers of their mind.
I can only suggest, in light of this understanding, that the Board act patiently and remain rational, not engaging in emotional reply. That will only feed his irrational and bizarre self-destructive, anti-US fever and rantings.
I can assure you that I am neither a Jihadist nor do I hate the America of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson; I love and long for that America. That America was a bastian of self-reliance and self-determination. The AmeriKa I abhor is the Amerika of Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama. These men are guilty of implementing a neo-con fascist agenda at the behest of the banking elite. This Amerika bears no resemblance to the America that one its independence from Great Britian and defended herself with honor against Great Britain a second time in the war of 1812.
The hysteria the media reports concerning Iran and its nuclear ambition is state run propaganda in attempt to scare the Amerikan people to justify continuing perpetual war against an enigmatic enemy without definition. Since Iran is a soveregin nation it has a fundamental right to pursue nuclear weapons in an effort to protect itself from an agressive imperialistic Amerika currently occupying Iraq. It is well documented that Amerikan troops are guilty of raping Iraqi women; the occupiers have looted and stripped Iraq of its gold and artifacts which recently Amerika has promised to return archelogical artifacts it took illegally.
I believe the neo-con fascist agenda being implemented now in the middle east will ultimately fail in part because the Iranians are descendants of the great Persian Empire; I can assure you they are not going anywhere. Next, our monetary and fiscal policy in this country is as broken as our foreign policy. We can for so long export our debt to Asia in order to fund these aimless adventures into War. Once Asia turns off the money the boys will be coming home. Victory in Iraq has not occured and victory in Afghanistan is not any closer. Pakistan is distancing itself from the United States; all of this will will spell defeat the Amerikan imperialist.
You say I am mixing up the mujahideen and taliban and I am apparently confused. According to wikipedia, in post soviet international fighters "At present the term "mujahideen" is sometimes used to describe insurgents groups (including Taliban and al-Qaeda) who are fighting NATO troops and the Military of Afghanistan and Pakistan."
I get the impression your definition is the one skewed. The mujahideen were freedom fighters when fighting the Soviets but now are classified as terrorist fighting against being occupied by AmeriKa. I submit you perspective is as broken as our foreign policy.
I have not posted an article in a while so I thought I would post this gem from December 14, 2009 concerning the war in Afghanistan:
Afghanistan Another Vietnam? You Bet Your Administration It Is, Obama!
Brian Doherty | December 14, 2009
So says Foreign Policy mag, in this piece by Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason. Here's why:
Let's start with the obvious: There isn't the slightest possibility that the course laid out by Barack Obama in his Dec. 1 speech will halt or even slow the downward spiral toward defeat in Afghanistan. None. The U.S. president and his advisors labored for three months and brought forth old wine in bigger bottles. The speech contained not one single new idea or approach, nor offered any hint of new thinking about a conflict that everyone now agrees the United States is losing. Instead, the administration deliberated for 94 days to deliver essentially "more men, more money, try harder." It sounded ominously similar to Mikhail Gorbachev's "bloody wound" speech that led to a similar-sized, temporary Soviet troop surge in Afghanistan in 1986.....
The president offered three reasons why [Afghanistan now and Vietnam then] are different. And all are dead wrong. First, Obama noted that Afghanistan is being conducted by a "coalition" of 43 countries -- as if war by committee would magically change the outcome (a throwback to former President George W. Bush's "Iraq coalition" mathematics). The truth is, outside of a handful of countries, it's basically a coalition of pacifists. In fact, more foreign troops fought alongside the United States in Vietnam than are now actually fighting with Americans today. Only nine countries in today's 43-country coalition have more than 1,000 personnel there; nine others have 10 (yes, not even a dozen people) -- or fewer. And although Australia and New Zealand have sent a handful of excellent special operations troops to Afghanistan, only Britain, Canada, and France are providing significant forces willing to conduct conventional offensive military operations. That brings the coalition's combat-troop contribution to approximately 17,000. Most of the other 38 "partners" have strict rules prohibiting them from ever doing anything actually dangerous....
The president went on to assert that the Taliban are not popular in Afghanistan, whereas the Viet Cong represented a broadly popular nationalist movement with the support of a majority of the Vietnamese. But this is also wrong. Neither the Viet Cong then, nor the Taliban now, have ever enjoyed the popular support of more than 15 percent of the population....
The reality on the ground is that Afghanistan is Vietnam redux. Afghan President Hamid Karzai's regime is an utterly illegitimate, incompetent kleptocracy. The Afghan National Army (ANA) -- slotted to take over the conflict when the coalition pulls out -- will not even be able to feed itself in five years, much less turn back the mounting Taliban tide....
Most critically of all, Pakistan's reaction to Obama's speech was to order its top military intelligence service, the ISI, to immediately begin rebuilding and strengthening covert ties to the Afghan Taliban in anticipation of their eventual return to power, according to a highly placed Pakistani official. There will be no more genuine cooperation from Pakistan (if there ever was)....
Nice to see rational argumentation from you, RobN. Your words in italics below.
Rob N wrote:
I can assure you that I am neither a Jihadist nor do I hate the America of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson; I love and long for that America. That America was a bastian of self-reliance and self-determination. The AmeriKa I abhor is the Amerika of Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama.
When you say, "God Damn America" you are damning BOTH Americas, RobN. The first has not ceased to exist, and when you damn America, you lump the baby in with the bathwater, both of which you would throw out. STOP IT!
These men are guilty of implementing a neo-con fascist agenda at the behest of the banking elite. This Amerika bears no resemblance to the America that one its independence from Great Britian and defended herself with honor against Great Britain a second time in the war of 1812.
What you are saying is you believe each of these men to be Progressives, moving the country from being a center right country and instead moving it toward the left, and into Communism, government control and perhaps control by special interests/rich elites, instead of the people. This appears to be the concerns of the tea party movement, who do not take to ranting against America, but are mobilizing the grassroots of America to support the country from this internal attack against the sovereignty of her people and acting to defend the freedoms given to the country by its founders in the Supreme Law of the Land, The Constitution. I suggest you stop your inflammatory rhetoric and take up with them instead of acting anarchist and agreeing America should be destroyed.
The hysteria the media reports concerning Iran and its nuclear ambition is state run propaganda in attempt to scare the Amerikan people to justify continuing perpetual war against an enigmatic enemy without definition. Since Iran is a soveregin nation it has a fundamental right to pursue nuclear weapons in an effort to protect itself from an agressive imperialistic Amerika currently occupying Iraq.
Do you agree that the sovereign nation of Israel also has a right to use its nuclear weapons in its self defense against a hostile power.. such as Iran? The nuclear ambitions of Iran are in conflict with those rights of its earthly neighbors to exist. Iran has also threatened to destroy not only Israel, but America. Those threats are not propaganda by the West, they are statements from Iran. To ignore them and minimize them as innoculous is foolish when you are dealing with a power with nuclear weapons. It is not America which is "scaring" the American people with Iran's nuclear ambitions, it is Iran intentionally saying these powers (the US, Israel) will soon "be annhilated", be "wiped off the map" and no longer exist. Those are fighting words, and not to be taken lightly when spoken by a head of state seeking nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are powerful and in the right hands, distributed to suicide bombers in the USA, could cause havoc of unimaginable proportions. If they find a way to smuggle and cloak those devices from scrutiny (heroine and cocaine shipments manage to move across the borders all the time, could bomb making materials?), the US could indeed have its safety threatened. It is NOT an idle threat or state run propaganda as you allege. It is not an enigmatic enemy without definition either.. these are the same people supplying IEDs to kill US soldiers.. if they had the tools and ability to hit Israel or the US they would they not use it? The US is fully justified in defending itself.
It is well documented that Amerikan troops are guilty of raping Iraqi women; the occupiers have looted and stripped Iraq of its gold and artifacts which recently Amerika has promised to return archelogical artifacts it took illegally.
I did cover this at length in the last thread, however, rather than reiterating those arguments at length here, I would simply state that it is not now - nor ever has been in history - a policy of the US government to rape women or loot treasures. To impute to the current military service as a whole that character smear is fundamentally a flawed argument and goes against even SOME of your ravings about the government killing the troops "uselessly" - why care for the troops if they are all a bunch of wicked evil plundering lootists and rapists? Your arguments are so irrational they do not hold up. Within your area of living, be it urban or rural, you have within your community those who are offenders against law and order. Does that mean the entire community is wicked and should be punished and destroyed as you are calling for the destruction of the US and repudiation of its entire contingent of defending troops? No. It is irrational to say all men are wicked because of the sins of some. We weed out the offenders, and you should note who gave the archeological artifacts BACK.. AMERICA.. by your own statement. How can America be totally wicked looters and also giving the archeological artifacts back? Isn't that inconsistent? If America were of the character you say it possesses, they would be the looters and would not be seeking to find the plunder and give it back to its rightful owners. They are giving it back simply because it was ILLEGAL activity, not endorsed by the American government, and they are seeking to rectify the mistake. Same with the rape charges. You should rectify your mistakes as well and cease attacking the United States as though all that are within it are wicked Americans and none who are good. "Those that hate the righteous will be desolate".. (Ps 34:21) - you are indeed hating many who are righteous by your statements.
I believe the neo-con fascist agenda being implemented now in the middle east will ultimately fail in part because the Iranians are descendants of the great Persian Empire; I can assure you they are not going anywhere.
I believe if the Progressive Agenda for America and the world fails, it will be because of the mercy and help of God, and His using AMERICANS to rise up from within and replace those in government with people believing in the Old America and the Supreme Law of the Land, The Constitution, not due to some despotic and crazed dictator who is slaughtering his own people in another country, and claiming to do it in the name of God.
Next, our monetary and fiscal policy in this country is as broken as our foreign policy. We can for so long export our debt to Asia in order to fund these aimless adventures into War. Once Asia turns off the money the boys will be coming home.
Unsustainable spending has occurred under Obama. If we had continued on with Bush's policies, we would not have hit the debt wall for 200 more years. Not that it was not coming eventually, but it would not have been our generation facing it. The incredible increase in exporting the debt is a calculated strategy to rapidly collapse the system which is now in place and was outlined by two leftist economists, Cloward and Piven. The point is to take over the government of the US and impose a "fundamental transformation" upon America. This agenda must be stopped by Americans, outside forces cannot do so, including Iran.
Victory in Iraq has not occured and victory in Afghanistan is not any closer. Pakistan is distancing itself from the United States; all of this will will spell defeat the Amerikan imperialist.
I disagree with your assessment that Iraq has not been a victory. Even Obama has tried to paint the victory there as due to himself and his Administration instead of President Bush. The fact that the victory remains elusive in Afghanistan is not because the US forces are unable to win. It is because they are not given the ability to win, nor do they have someone directing them who is aiming at winning. Obama said he does not think of the goal in Afghanistan as winning. So victory is not possible under such a mentality. I pray for the American Forces for their safety and protection from such folly in policy and betrayal of the aims of war in fact.
===
Obama: Victory Not Goal in Afghanistan
From ABC News (via YouTube) and Fox News:
Obama: ‘Victory’ Not Necessarily Goal in Afghanistan
President Obama has put securing Afghanistan near the top of his foreign policy agenda, but "victory" in the war-torn country isn’t necessarily the United States’ goal, he said Thursday in a TV interview.
"I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory,’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur," Obama told ABC News.
The enemy facing U.S. and Afghan forces isn’t so clearly defined, he explained.
"We’re not dealing with nation states at this point. We’re concerned with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, Al Qaeda’s allies," he said. "So when you have a non-state actor, a shadowy operation like Al Qaeda, our goal is to make sure they can’t attack the United States." …
"We are confident that if we are assisting the Afghan people and improving their security situation, stabilizing their government, providing help on economic development … those things will continue to contract the ability of Al Qaeda to operate. And that is absolutely critical," Obama told ABC News…
Pressure from the public and opposition politicians is growing as soldiers’ bodies return home, and a poll released Thursday shows majorities in Britain, Germany and Canada oppose increasing their own troop levels in Afghanistan.
Europeans and Canadians are growing weary of the war — or at least their involvement in combat operations — even as Obama is shifting military resources to Afghanistan away from Iraq.
The United States, which runs the NATO-led force, has about 59,000 troops in Afghanistan — nearly double the number a year ago — and thousands more are on the way. There are about 32,000 other international troops in the country…
The leaders of the largest contributors to the coalition find themselves having to justify both their reasons for deploying troops and their management of the war effort…
===
And yet, as we noted at the time, almost exactly a year ago Mr. Obama was singing a very different tune.
From the Associated Press:
===
Obama says Afghanistan ‘a war that we have to win’
By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
July 15, 2008
WASHINGTON – Contending that the U.S. is not pursuing a sound strategy for keeping Americans safe, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Tuesday that fighting al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan would be his top priority after ending the war in Iraq.
"This is a war that we have to win," Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery at the International Trade Center in Washington…
===
Of course Mr. Obama was campaigning for the Presidency back in July.
Also remember how the Democrats, including of course Mr. Obama, always claimed that we should be concentrating on Afghanistan. And, just as importantly, we should have more of our allies fighting alongside us in the war.
Finally the Democrats have now gotten both of their purported wishes. The right war in the right place – with plenty of other Western countries helping us.
And yet, look at how poorly things are going. Any minute now our ‘allies’ will turn tail and pull out. Which will give Mr. Obama an excuse to do the same.
Which, come to think of it, was surely the Democrat plan all along.
Since you are a Bush supporter I will lump you in with the rest of the neo-con fascist running this country. I ran accross the following quote from then President George W. Bush concerning the Patriot Act that as a supporter I am sure you can defend. I am sure you remember the Patriot Act that strips American citizens of their right to privacy amongst other viloations.
Capitol Hill Blue: “I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
Still not confused or am I mixing entities. My point is Roger in American Foreign Policy labels change in an effort to fit an Amerikan imperalistic agenda. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the spin doctors latched upon the name Mujahideen and called them freedom fighters and funded them against communist agression; eventually the Soviets withdrew.
Now, that we are in Afghanistan as the agressor our media in their often inconsistent manner does not use the term Mujahideen to describe those that fight against the U.S. they use the term Taliban. My argument and supported in part by wikipedia in the post Soviet era inside Afghanistan the difference between Mujahideen and Taliban is non-existent. In my view, if these Afghan rebels were freedom fighters during the Soviet invasion of their country I consider them freedom fighters during the Amerikan invasion and occupation.
The people of Afghanistan do not want the neo-con fascist U.S. military inside their country and they do not want the puppet Karzai as their prime minister. Call the resistence Mujahideen or Taliban the name does not matter they are fighting for the liberation and freedom of Afghanistan.
You really hate America. Or as you prefer to write it Amerika...with a K.
Why don't you move away from this supressing country, and get the freedoms you are looking for?
If this place is such a Nazi place, then go somewhere else, go somewhere where the US will not bother you.
There are a lot of wonderful places just waiting for you, Zimbabwe, Kamerun, Laos, Kahzakstan, N.Korea, Wenezuela, or you can probably do it on a budget and just go down to Mexico, there are a lot of options out there that will make you happy.
You're not solving anything sitting here in this supressing country, and bitching how bad it is.
I do hate this AmeriKa with its neo-con fascist agenda as it invades and loots Iraq and Afghanistan. Watching the passage of the Patriot Act, in my view, has resulted in a Constitutional crisis that has not been dealt with. We have a government that supports a monetary and fiscal policy not good for the country. Injecting to much liquidity into our systen (this liquidity printed out of thin air) will cause massive inflation and a devaluation of the U.S. Dollar. Both Bush and Obama have violated the constitution by going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan without a formal decleration and they both have violated the Wars Power Act.
Solutions to these and other problems are not solved by leaving. If I chose at somepoint to leave the country I already have that place in mind. For now, I choose to stay in this AmeriKa and make my cause for a return to the American pinciples of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. In the meantime, I will continue to fly my flag upside down in order to call attention to the distress this country is in.
RobN, President Bush is not the issue here. It doesn't do any good rehashing someone's views who is no longer in office. It is beating a dead horse. What we need to see is the ISSUES we are facing. As Glenn Beck said, if we don't see the issues, if history is lost, then we will repeat it. If you take just fifteen minutes of your time and watch these two segments, it will change your outlook completely.
It would be best if you watched the entire five segments from 03-02-10, of which these two are a part, for context, but these two should give you the most basic understanding that we are not dealing with Left versus Right, but UP versus DOWN. And you are right, we need LIMITED government as the Constitution dictates. The Democrats who were worried about the trampling of Constitutional rights under Bush were right.. and the tea partiers today who are equally worried about the growth of government and trashing of the Constitution today are right. Beck brings out that the Patriot Act had SUNSETS placed into it so they would EXPIRE. But the Progressive Democrats just now have removed them, trampling forever those rights that the Progressive Republicans took "for a little while" and while in crisis . The answer is NOT to wish for the destruction of the United States as that fellow in clip one (at the end) does. He is a Communist and calling for the death of America.. and Communist Totalitarian takeover.. and I think you are following that reasoning instead of trying to help bring the US back to America's real base. All I am saying is don't be a destructive force against America, don't join the enemies and try and work to destroy her. What will you REPLACE her with? Roger is right.. go live there if you think you are going to "win" by doing that. You won't. You will bequeath to the next generation totalitarianism, either under a religious fascist regime like Iran (in the past Hitler) or a Communist regime and their "utopia" of "workers of the world unite" (go live in Russia, China, Cuba, etc). It doesn't much matter which horse gets to the endgame of total government control first, Communist or Fascist. It is still total government control. That is where your road is heading. Listen to the segments, all five if you can. This is history you have to get in order to see the real enemy. It isn't your fellow American citizens, at least not those for the Constitution and LIMITED government, as most Americans are. It's the Communists, the Fascists and the Progressives shoving America toward total government and trampling the rights set out in the Constitution of we the people.
PM: Iraqi dinar re-evaluation has to do with economic conditions
February 28, 2010
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on Sunday that the process to re-evaluate the Iraqi dinar has to do with economic conditions that have to be strengthened.
“The Iraqi dinar has all the reasons to grow stronger thanks to an increase in revenues and development of the economy,” Maliki said in response to some questions through the National Information Center.
“The government would not rush matters but would rather work on finding all the guarantees to render this measure a success. The Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) is currently entrusted with drawing up a study on the whole issue and would give its decision soon,” said the Iraqi premier.
The Iraqi dinar’s exchange rate is suffering from low value against foreign currencies as a result of decades of wars and economic embargo that brought the local currency’s exchange rate to the rock bottom from three dinars per dollar in the late 1970s and 1980s to 3,000 dinars per dollar after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, followed by a 13-year crippling sanctions regime.
The exchange rate fell even more after 2003 to reach 1170 dinars per dollar due to the CBI’s policy of daily auction, in effect for more than five years now.
The policy was lambasted by several economists on the grounds that these auctions do not give the real value of the country’s local currency.
It is my understanding that Mr. Maliki could have RVed the currency and given a real value to it for a long time now. He is fundamentally and ideologically opposed to the measure, and this is his merely pretending publicly that he might be open to it because he knows it will benefit the PEOPLE of his country and they would like it, so he must feign that he will do something that helps them and meets their goals. If he gets re-elected, he will keep a tight fist over the people, not RVing the currency, and keeping them in poverty. Then he can bypass the use of the currency and exchange oil for the goods "Iraq" needs. This bypasses prosperity to the people, and keeps a tight government control over prosperity which he and those with him currently hold. They remain rich, the people remain poor, simple enough. He HAS NOT and WILL NOT revalue. He could have and has refused to do so for many years. If the Iraqi people believe his statements, above, that he is in the least open to the suggestion of a REAL VALUE for the currency, they will get more of what they have had all along economically. As he says, above, "The government would not rush matters"... they will put the idea of a RV into the deep freeze if Maliki wins. Maliki has learned from Obama.. promise the people anything they want.. then give them what you want them to have instead. It used to be called lying, and was frowned upon. Politics as usual?
If I were Iraqi and were to vote, I would vote for Allawi.
Iraq, Iran and the Premiership
Posted on: Mon, Mar 01, 2010
Leader of the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq (SICI) Ammar Al-Hakim and radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr are said to have received assurances that Iran will not prefer former Iraqi PM Ayad Allawi to any other Shiite candidate for the Iraqi Premiership. The following 380-word report sheds light on the subject and tells how the Sadr Movement reacted and what PM Nouri Al-Maliki is doing to block the way for Allawi to take over the Premiership.
Born in 1945, Allawi was born into a well-to-do Shia Muslim merchant family. Shiite Muslims make up two-thirds of Iraq; the remaining third are predominately Sunnis, although a small number of Kurds also occupy the country. Allawi came by his interest in politics through his family, particularly his grandfather, who helped with the negotiations to release Iraq from British control, and his father, a member of the Iraqi parliament. During his college years, while studying medicine in Iraq, Allawi met Saddam Hussein and the two joined the Ba'ath party, which gained prominence in the mid-1960s through its advocacy of secular rather than Muslim governments. Allawi rose quickly in the party's ranks, and was an active supporter of Ba'athist activities even when the new party was banned. Although the initial goals of the Ba'ath party focused on setting up socialist, secular governments in the Middle East, those aims soon changed, particularly after Hussein took control in the early 1970s.
In 1971 Allawi moved to Great Britain, where he continued his medical education. While in school in London, he remained active in Iraqi politics, and was president of the Iraqi Student Union in Europe. Returning to Iraq following graduation, he established a career as a neurologist and also resumed a prominent place in the Ba'ath party. He soon became disillusioned with the party, however, due to the direction in which Hussein was taking it, and he resigned from the party in 1975. Although Hussein pressured Allawi to rejoin the Ba'ath party, Allawi refused and left the country in self-imposed exile. Returning to London, he became a Ba'athist target, and in February of 1978 he was attacked in his home by an assassin Hussein presumably sent after him. Attacking Allawi with an ax in the dead of night while the former Ba'athist was in bed, the assassin then left, believing Allawi to be dead. Although wounded critically in the head, right leg, and chest, Allawi survived the attack and spent almost a year in the hospital recovering.
Dedicated to Toppling Hussein Regime
Even before his release from the hospital following the attack, Allawi started a movement to organize other exiles from the Ba'athist regime into the Iraqi National Accord (INA), his ultimate aim to remove Hussein from power. While primary supporters of the INA were the British government, the organization was also covertly supported by Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the CIA. Allawi's group was made up primarily of former military personnel who had defected from Hussein's dictatorship. The INA gained in power, and in 1996 the group's leadership believed the organization was strong enough to mount a coup against Hussein. Unfortunately, the attempt proved unsuccessful, and the INA leadership was forced to rethink its approach.
Before the INA could initiate a second coup attempt, the United States initiated its War on Terror in response to the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001. Eventually focusing its efforts on the potential threat posed by Hussein due to his link with terrorist organizations, in March of 2003 the Unites States managed to topple Hussein's dictatorship. The U.S. government then set up a Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to work with the Iraqi people to establish an interim government in preparation for bringing about democratic elections. Allawi was invited to sit on the CPA council charged with the selection of an interim prime minister scheduled to take power on June 30, 2004. In May of 2004 the council chose Allawi to be the interim leader. "Even though he is a secular Shiite, Allawi won the tacit approval of the top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani," Alissa J. Rubin and Maggie Farley reported in the Houston Chronicle Online. The journalists deemed this "a crucial step since Shiites are a majority of the population," and noted that the choice of Allawi was also due to the fact that his organization, the INA, "has also worked closely with Kurds and Sunni Muslims."
"Our reporting has shown..That in fact there is a level of stability...We did fight a war in Iraq, which virtually has not been discussed, and what General Petraeus did and what President Bush came to, does seem to have worked.. What the reporting shows is that enough people got tired of an insurgency in which there was no way out, even for the insurgency"
Since you worship President Bush as non-fallible on Iraq I thought you might find those comments he made about our beloved Constitution. These comments also cements my view that Bush and Obama are both neo-con fascist.
The MSM pushed President Bush, HARD, on everything. That he snapped at them is likely inevitable, and I would never have wished his place for the incredible religious persecution he had to endure at their atheistic and non-godfearing hands. I have never seen such disrespect shown to any President, and so undeserved. That he stuck to his principles and did not waver in spite of their hatred and false accusations will be rewarded by God another time. As I posted, the MSM is finally admitting the victory in Iraq. Reality will eventually win out.. in this world and the next, may the chips fall where they may. However, the fact was, he did go beyond the Constitution.. with the Patriot Act, to keep America safe. It was intended to be temporary, a fix until the crisis was over. The Democrats have now cemented it forever as permanent and it is against the Constitution and its provisions for the people, I admit. I still believe President Bush did well, and is not a fascist as you allege. Fascism is total government control by religious zealots, like in Iran or was under Hitler's fascist (and religious) ideology of "survival of the fittest" taken to the extreme of being a Master Race (Hitler's race, of course). No true fascist could ever give up power. That Bush did, in accordance with the dictates of the Constitution, shows he never was what you allege he was. You never understood him, nor have you understood the Armed Forces which protect you from tyranny every day. You bought into a charicature those on the left wanted you to believe, in order that they might seize more power and shove their radical agenda of more government control down all of America's throats. President Bush was not a threat to America, he loved it and tried his best to defend it. Was he perfect? No. But he was a lot more for America and for Americans and their interests than the current direction the blind hatred whipped up toward President Bush has resulted in. Would this video have been necessary to make under President Bush?
Yet this is where America has gone due to the blind hatred and false rantings of such as espouse your "fascist" lies against this God-fearing man whose hope was to serve honorably and keep the America he loved safe from terrorism. An aim, I might point out, that he managed to accomplish.
Obviously, I take exception to your saying I "worship" any man. I worship the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a Christian (follower of Christ).
As for your fascist pejorative, I found this on wikipedia and think it appropriate:
Fascist as epithet
Main article: Fascist (epithet)
In political discourse, the term "fascist" is commonly used to denote authoritarian tendencies, but is often used as a pejorative epithet by adherents to both left-wing and right-wing politics to denigrate those with opposing viewpoints. George Orwell wrote in 1944 that "the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless ... almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’". Richard Griffiths argued in 2005 that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times".
(end quote)
I agree with this and think you are using the word only as a term of denigration and a pejorative, perhaps synonymous with bully, but not in any substantive intellectual sense. I also note on the page this statement, "No common and concise definition exists for fascism and historians and political scientists disagree on what should be in any such definition.[27]"
So, while I have seen your use of the term as a disparaging remark against President Bush as though a) he were a dictator trying to seize power or b) a "bully" because he made a stand against terrorism and tried to do what he felt was right in light of 911.. or c) a person with religious convictions many felt would be imposed upon them as Iran does its citizens, yet it has not been with any substance that these accusations have been levelled at President Bush.
Obviously, a dictator would not cede power, and Bush has. Bush's implementing the Patriot Act was with sunsets and as only a temporary measure, so as far as Bush was concerned and actually came to pass under his Administration, was not doing a permanent change or violation of the US Constitution. His making a strong stand against terrorism and taking the fight to those most likely to strike again has justification.. The Saddam tapes, remember.. Saddam was saying he would use WMD against America as soon as he could get his hands on them and the experts say he was one year from a nuclear bomb.
QUOTE:
Additionally, concerning the 36 million captured pages of documentation, when it was put on the net for public translation, it was removed after they found quote, "detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb." As The New York Times confirmed in their issue November 3, 2006, Saddam had complete plans for a nuclear weapon and was in the process of procuring parts when the US removed him. Quote: "nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away." [63]
Additionally, tapes with Saddam speaking on them also surfaced and certain sinister remarks Saddam made on the tapes were translated which showed that he threatened to use WMD on Washington, DC. In the article , "Saddam Translator: ABC Reinterpreted Tapes" dated Feb. 17th 2006, the FBI translator who supplied the 12 hours of Saddam Hussein audiotapes excerpted by ABC's "Nightline" says the network discarded his translations and went with a less threatening version of the Iraqi dictator's comments. In the "Nightline" version of the 1996 recording, Saddam predicts that Washington, D.C., would be hit by terrorists. But he adds that Iraq would have nothing to do with the attack. Tierney says, however, that what Saddam actually said was much more sinister. "He was discussing his intent to use chemical weapons against the United States and use proxies so it could not be traced back to Iraq," he told Hannity. In a passage not used by "Nightline," Tierney says Saddam declares: "Terrorism is coming. ... In the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. What if we consider this technique, with smuggling?" [64]
Concerning additional tapes uncovered where Saddam is being briefed by his Son-in-law, Lieutenant General Hussein, ABC News reports his words to Saddam Hussein: "Sir, I would not be speaking so openly if it were not for your excellency's and Mr. Tariq's clarification and statement that we produced biological weapons. We did not reveal all that we have. Secondly, they don't know about our work in the domain of missiles. With regard to the issue of the chemical, sir, ... In the chemical, sir, they have a problem far bigger than the biological, bigger than the biological. Not the type of the weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct. They don't know any of this. We did not reveal the volume of the chemical weapons that we had produced. We did not reveal the type of the chemical weapons. We did not reveal the truth about the volume of the imported materials. In the nuclear, sir, in the biological, we also disagree with them. As for the nuclear, we say we have disclosed everything but no. We have undeclared problems in nuclear as well, and I believe that they know. There are teams working with no one knowing about some of them. I go back to the question of whether we should reveal everything or continue to be silent... I would say it is in our interest not to reveal. Not just out of fear of disclosing the technology we achieved, or to hide it for future work... [65]
Another of the documents show that Saddam ordered suicide attacks on the US, which then, within a year, could have become nuclear. In the article "Saddam Ordered Suicide Attacks on U.S. Targets" dated April 6th 2006, it states, "A newly translated document from Saddam Hussein's intelligence files indicates that the Iraqi dictator ordered suicide attacks against U.S. targets six months before the 9/11 attacks." [66]
Also, there was another document discovered proving that Saddam was intending to attack London in this article "Saddam was training terrorists for attacks in London" dated March 27th 2006...
Though Bush was seen as a "bully" for not sitting back and letting the terrorists continue unhampered in their goals, I believe history will prove that his was the right decision.
As for the last point, the imposition of religious views on others, all law is the imposion of someone's views for the collective good. We think stealing and killing are wrong, and so we make laws to punish and prevent those issues. They are both in the Ten Commandments and religious laws have served mankind well in keeping safe and sane societies. It is merely WHICH set of "religious" laws are to be enforced. Would those advocating against any "religious" laws repeal those against murder and stealing because the Bible says "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not steal"?? The issue here is not the standing of religion in law, it is the imposition of wrong ideology from any source, such as was so under Hitler with his views of "survival of the fittest" and that meaning there was a "Master Race" - his. President Bush was a God-fearing man, imperfect, for sure, but definitely not pretending and claiming to believe in God while actually being an agnostic in practice. His obvious and real faith concerned those with no religious affiliation, but Bush never used power to bring about crushing totalitarian religious rule over them such as you find in Iran. So, as far as I can see, he was not a fascist as you say he was.
I had posted this earlier.. but I repost it again to support the idea I put forwad that if Maliki gets in, he will just use OIL REVENUE to "solve" the problems.. not RV the currency. That bypasses any prosperity for the endentured servants of Iraq, who will continue to be in poverty under his economic vision. Only RV puts the money directly into the people's hands and allows them to buy anything from out of the country with a truly valued Dinar.
===
Oil revenues optimization would solve Iraq’s problems – Maliki
February 28, 2010
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on Sunday that the optimization of Iraq’s oil revenues would solve all the country’s problems and repay all foreign debts.
“Contracts with global oil corporations and conglomerates can also help repay all compensations for some Arab and Gulf states and meet all reconstruction obligations,” Maliki said in response to questions through the National Information Center.
Since 2003, Iraq has been seeking to have its $120 billion worth of foreign debts accumulated during the former regime’s time written off. The war-ravaged country, however, managed to get nearly half of this sum - $55 billion owed to the Paris Club of creditor nations – dropped.
Still Iraq owes a sum of $21 billion to some Arab countries, including $21 billion to the Gulf states - $15 billion to Saudi Arabia and $6 billion to Kuwait, over which negotiations are underway.
NOTE no mention of RV here.. it is all using oil to pay for things.
The contracts are not with revalued Dinar currency in mind, but using oil to pay for things directly, bypassing the Dinar/people issue entirely.
This is how it is done NOW at this day... this same policy continuing on for the Iraqi people.
It means they don't get to use the proper value of their Dinar to buy outside goods.
Without proper trade using the true valuation of the Dinar, the people will remain unable to afford anything their country does not produce.
And Iraq does not produce a lot for their own people.
Instead, the prosperity and power remain in few hands.. and Maliki would remain king over them through it.
As for Rob N. Reason and logic will not work. Fixed ideas, and self serving circuits in his mind have overpowered his persona, thus any logic. You will never see a reflection, after thought, or self criticism.
I have seen a gallant effort from your side, directing Rob N. to where he can get info, where to look, where to find stuff, but he is completely unable to observe.
You do all the effort of giving him long pages with info, and your own reasoning.
The only response back is a one or two liner from him, repeating his old regurgitated "Neo Con Faschist AmeriKa" crap.
You put in all this effort, he doesn't look at it, at best he scan's it, he doesn't have more attention units than that, he doesn't comprehend it, have no will, ambition or desire to do so either. He is all set, how the world works.
His response to you, is an affair that is a matter of seconds.
Rob N. is living in his own dark universe.
To turn that guy into a responding individual, would involve an effort that would include his whole person, an issue that is beyond this blog.
His political and economic view is only a small part of his spectrum, going beyond that, and you will find a horror story.
He is an expert of trying to suck you in, but his reasoning reminds me very much about the Monthy Python scetch, about the guy that bought an argument.
(Its probably on You Tube, it is hillarious, check it out)
Its an endless:
-"Yes it is"
-"No it isn't"
Rob N. probbly have been this way the whole time, but at the time he was into Dinars, he was "with us" , and supressed his way of being, once out of the Dinars, he probably feel that he can let lose.
Hi creativity is very impaired, and he goes by routine and circuits.
Once out of the Dinar, he still are into the Dinars. The old circuits are controlling this guy, and he is unable to move on. He lives in a hypnotic state. He's been clicking on the T&B for years, and even after he sold out his Dinars, the old circuit of clicking onto T&B is as real as ever before.
Sara, you are doing a gallantly effort, but this guy will not respond to anything.
The help he needs, is of a different kind.
As of the Dinars in general.
Waiting game as usually, but with some exciting stuff coming up Mars the 7th.
Lot of specualtion on this issue.
Will the Iraqis be a happy community now, or will it lead to civil war, as some have predicted.
I doubt the civil war scenario, it's just not in the cards.
One thing though that have happened that is a positive thing for Iraq is the political scene have moved from sectarien to political. There are a lot of alliances forming between Sunni and Shiite parties.
I think even if there is a lot of speculation in what parties or government will form now, after the election, the main issue is that the population is expecting a big change, and whoever gets into power, better pay the piper.
Usually after an election, there is a bit of euphoria in the new administration, and some excitement of taking over the rudder, (usually lasts about a couple of months....judging from past elections here in the US).
That is usually the time when the winning pary are consolidating the victory, and are busy appointing persons in key positions.
If there is an agenda that the new powers have been pushing , they especially use this time to get a head start on it ( Obama pushing health care reform almost before he took the oath of office)
The election will be a very interesting event, but as interesting, will be to see what powers will emerge after the winning party (or parties) have done all their appointments to the different offices.
From the election to a functional government ( hopefully....it is Iraq after all) the month after will be very interesting to watch.
Thanks, Roger. You are, of course, correct. And I did like that Monty Python one.. you know, the guy taking his bird back for a refund.. "Yes it is." "No, its not."
As for Iraq, it is very exciting the elections and all.. I also do not think that they will have problems with forming the government or governing. It is just whether they will do it with a RV or without, from our perspective. If Maliki gets in, I think the prospect of an RV is very remote. Changes will be small and Iraqis will not share in the prosperity for some time to come.
Today between 600 and 700 thousand of the security personnel turned out for early voting, and there were some attacks, killing some of them.
===
Iraq blasts kill 17 as early voting begins
Baghdad, Mar 4, AP:
A string of blasts across the Iraqi capital targeting voters killed 17 people Thursday, authorities said, ratcheting up fear in an already tense city as many Iraqis cast early ballots ahead of Sunday’s nationwide parliamentary elections.
Insurgents have repeatedly threatened to use violence to disrupt the elections, which will help determine who will oversee the country as US forces go home and whether the country can overcome its deep sectarian divides. Two of Thursday’s blasts hit voters outside polling stations.
“Terrorists wanted to hamper the polls, thus they started to blow themselves up in the streets,” said Deputy Interior Minister Ayden Khalid Qader.
Many of the victims were believed to be security personnel — the main group to cast their ballots during early voting since they will be working on election day.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are expected to take part in Thursday’s early voting, a one-day session designed for those who might not be able to get to the polls on Sunday, when the rest of the country votes.
The United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq estimated that between 600,000 and 700,000 people could vote Thursday. About 19 million of Iraq’s estimated 28 million people are eligible to vote in the elections, which will see Iraqi expatriates cast ballots in 16 countries around the world.
Three deadly blasts in Baghdad rattled those taking part in early voting.
In the first, a rocket killed seven people in Hurriya. The second attack took place in the Mansour when a bomber detonated an explosive vest near a group of soldiers lining up to vote. In the third blast, another suicide bomber blew himself up near policemen waiting to vote.
Drawdown from Iraq on schedule, U.S. says
Published: March. 4, 2010
WASHINGTON, March 4 (UPI) -- Pre-election violence in Iraq will not derail U.S. military plans to start pulling combat forces out of the country this year, Pentagon officials said.
Geoff Morrell, a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department, said U.S. military plans in Iraq were on schedule despite the violence.
"Neither this attack nor any of the previous attempts to derail the electoral process and to destabilize the government have been or will be successful, nor do we anticipate that it will derail our responsible drawdown of forces in Iraq," said Morrell.
The U.S. military has around 96,000 soldiers in Iraq who will stay on duty in the weeks after March 7 elections. Once the post-election situation is stabilized, Washington will move to bring the troop level to 50,000 by Sept. 1.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Nearly seven years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the US Senate approved Thursday a symbolic bill vowing to help make the country's upcoming parliamentary elections a success.
In the non-binding measure, the Senate also "reaffirms the United States' strong commitment to building a robust, long-term partnership with Iraq that strengthens Iraq's security, stability, economy, and democracy."
And it "recognizes the United States' clear and enduring interest in partnering with the people of Iraq in building a stable, representative, successful, democratic state."
Democratic Senator John Kerry and Republican Senator John McCain co-wrote the resolution, which passed unanimously.
The measure urges US President Barack Obama's administration to make Iraq's March parliamentary elections a success and calls on Iraqi political parties not to cast doubt on the vote's legitimacy or fan sectarian flames.
In a thinly-veiled message to Iran, it urges Iraq's neighbors "to refrain from exercising malign and destabilizing interference in Iraq's internal affairs; and to allow the people of Iraq to determine their own future."
The resolution also praises Iraq's people for "the courage they have shown; the sacrifices they have endured and the hard-won gains they have made in fighting terrorism, finding peace and building democracy."
Sunni Arabs were expected to turn out in force to cast their ballots, in stark contrast to the last general election in 2005 which they mostly boycotted in protest at the rise to power of the nation's long-oppressed Shiite majority.
That boycott deepened the sectarian divide and heightened violence which has only eased in the past two years.
A Shiite is almost certain to take the top job of prime minister.
Shiites were united in the 2005 polls but this time round are divided, a development hailed by some as a move away from rigid sectarian politics.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the Shiite head of the State of Law Alliance, a religious coalition with a secular outlook that includes Sunni tribal sheikhs, said on Wednesday he was "certain" of poll victory.
His rivals include former premier Iyad Allawi, who heads the Iraqiya list, a secular coalition which has strong support in Sunni areas.
Also seeking the top job are Ahmed Chalabi, a former deputy premier once favoured but now loathed by Washington; Adel Abdel Mahdi, the country's Shiite vice president, and Baqer Jaber Solagh, the finance minister.
Chalabi, Mahdi and Solagh all represent the Iraq National Alliance, the main Shiite religious list.
Under the Iraqi electoral system no one party will emerge with the 163 seats needed to form a government on its own and the ensuing horse-trading to form a governing coalition could be protracted.
Under the Iraqi electoral system no one party will emerge with the 163 seats needed to form a government on its own and the ensuing horse-trading to form a governing coalition could be protracted.
Chances are, the process will take some time to consolidate after the electoral process.. likely longer than over here.
Another of those conspiracy theories bites the dust..
The Iraq war really wasn't planned from all eternity.. but was a result of perceived threat to the nation.
It wasn't lying at all.. and the MSM was complicit in perpetrating and perpetuating these false accusations.
They will have a lot to answer for.
Sara.
===
Rove on Iraq: Without W.M.D. Threat, Bush Wouldn’t Have Gone to War
By PETER BAKER
March 3, 2010
Karl Rove, the chief political adviser to President George W. Bush and architect of his two successful campaigns for the White House, says in a new memoir that his former boss probably would not have invaded Iraq had he known there were no weapons of mass destruction there.
Mr. Rove adamantly rejects allegations that the administration deliberately lied about the presence of weapons in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. But he acknowledges that the failure to find them badly damaged Mr. Bush’s presidency, and he blames himself for not countering the narrative that “Bush lied,” calling it “one of the biggest mistakes of the Bush years.”
The new book by Mr. Rove, who served as senior adviser and deputy chief of staff in the White House, offers the most expansive account yet of the Bush presidency by one of the people most responsible for it. Addressing some of the most controversial and consequential moments of Mr. Bush’s eight years in power, Mr. Rove takes responsibility for the widely criticized Air Force One flyover after Hurricane Katrina and writes of his secret fear of being indicted in the C.I.A. leak case.
For the most part, his book, “Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight,” is an unapologetic defense of Mr. Bush and his presidency, and takes aim at Democrats, the news media and others for what he describes as hypocrisy, deceit and vanity.
What many historians may focus on is his description of the war in Iraq, its origins and consequences. While many have accused the administration of drumming up a case for war on the back of false intelligence about Mr. Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, or W.M.D., Mr. Rove maintains that the White House genuinely believed the reports, and pointed to Democrats who accepted them as valid as well.
Most intriguing is his rumination on what would have happened had Mr. Bush known the truth. While the opportunity to bring democracy to the Middle East as a bulwark against Islamic extremism “justified the decision to remove Saddam Hussein,” Mr. Rove makes clear that from the start, at least, the suspected weapons and their perceived threat were the primary justification for war.
“Would the Iraq War have occurred without W.M.D.? I doubt it,” he writes. “Congress was very unlikely to have supported the use-of-force resolution without the W.M.D. threat. The Bush administration itself would probably have sought other ways to constrain Saddam, bring about regime change, and deal with Iraq’s horrendous human rights violations.”
He adds: “So, then, did Bush lie us into war? Absolutely not.” But Mr. Rove said the White House had only a “weak response” to the harmful allegation, which became “a poison-tipped dagger aimed at the heart of the Bush presidency.”
“So who was responsible for the failure to respond?” he writes. “I was. I should have stepped forward, rung the warning bell and pressed for full-scale response. I didn’t. Preoccupied with the coming campaign and the pressure of the daily schedule in the West Wing, I did not see how damaging this assault was.”
hello im new to this discussion i purchased dinars awhile ago and was wondering if anyone could tell me what is exactly going on with it. i go to a currency converter often and i saw that the iraq government will be taking three zeros off of there current currency but it will not change anything? hope some one can help thanks
-Alex A
One of the first things you shoul do in orer to get the official exchange rate is to go to the Central Banks of Iraq,s official site and check the rate there.
All other rates wherever you see them, stem from the CBI's exchange rate settings.
If you are looking at a Midle Easts Bank in a country close by, you are getting just that, THAT banks exchange rate, an that rate can differ more or less from the official rate, this is normal bank practice though, the bank get the profit in spread between the CBIs quoted price, and the Midle East banks quoted price.
If you check how much you will have to squeese out of your wallet to get a million or so here in the US, you need to go to Dinar dealers, and they have their own quotes, and of course, keep the spread.
So Alex A, you can go to a number of sources to get a quote on the Iraqi Dinar, this has in some instances led to some confusion, but if you remember that the CBI is the only offical institution that can set the Iraqi Dinar, then you know where all the other sources are coming from.
All the other sources are not necessarily illegit, they have to get a spread in order to make business, and survive, but you know now that it is just not the offical source.
As a newbie you should know that the zero lop have been up over and over again, but never materialized. It may of course be a possibillity, but the latest hoopla about it sems to have die down, but don't worry, the zero lop argument will come up in a periodic and predictable 5.83 months interval.
By some reason or the other the zero loop argument have got the same name as what the old cowboy had named his fart. He was living on beans and bacon only, and at every sunset he had to pass this enormous amount of methane gas.
He always smiled and said the same thing everyday when it came:
-"Yeap, yeap, aaaaalways on time, ..the ooooool faithful"
Although I rarely post on this forum, I have been a regular reader since its inception. It would seem to me that you no longer have an interest or stake in the "Dinar game". All I see is conspiracy rants about "Amerika" and dialogue about everything that you view wrong with our country. Do us all a favor and go find another forum where you can debate the merits of our form of government and its leaders. I came to this site primarily for Dinar discussion and viewpoints. I grow weary of your incessant negativity. While I support your constitutional right to free speech, I suggest you find a different venue more suitable for you. That would be the courteous thing to do.
You are in a neo-con haze and you are impaired from making a right judgement about an imperalistic foreign policy. Our government criticized the Soviets for their imperialistic invasion of Afghanistan and now we are attempting to do what the Soviets did 25 years ago. The U.S. is horrible at imperialistic conquest. Iraq and Afghanistan are total failures regardless of the nazi like propaganda you cut and paste.
Malaki and Karzai are both puppets of the United States and should they choose to cast off the strings of the puppeteer they will suffer the same fate as Saddam Hussein. Concerning Saddam's WMDs; On June 18, 2004 an article appeared entitled; Reagan's WMD Connection to Saddam Hussein. If Saddam had WMDs it is the United States that supplied them to him. How hypocritical is it we invaded Iraq for having the very weapons we supplied him?
The United States foreign policy is such that we would rather support a dictator like Musharraf in Pakistan who camne to power through a coup overthrowing a democratically elected government. The United States installed the Shah in Iran. When the people of Iran had enough they overthrew the puppet. These events prove how broken our foreign policy is. Eventually, a coup against Al-Malaki and Karzai will occur. The United States will experience failure again.
Sara, there is nothing our military industrial complex is protecting me from by being in Iraq or Afghanistan. The war on terror is an enigmatic boogey man that does not exist. The War on Terror is more propaganda in an effort to implement a police state. George W. Bush threw away the constitution (it is just a piece of paper, right?)and proceeded to violate privacy laws, wire tapping laws etc. by the Patriot Act. Obama is following the same policies.
Sadly, the men and women in our military are mindless pawns obeying orders that should not be obeyed. The American Soldier in concert should have refused to deploy to Iran and Afghanistan. George W. Bush failed in linking Iraq with the World Trade Center Bombings of 9/11. Speaking of 9/11 how did building 7 fall when it was not hit at all? This is for another discussion.
The fact is we cannot even finance our own wars. The trillions of dollars spent in Iraq nad the trillions of dollars spent in Afghanistan is paid for because China and Japan agree to finance this debt. These two nations in Asia are creditors while the United States and the Europeans are debtors. This is also evidence that our foreign policy is broken and in disarray. The final act in this farce is a bankrupt America defeated in the middle east owing the Chinese and the Japanese the very souls of the 300,000,000 million people who are citizens of the United States. If I were you Sara I would begin learning Mandarin. This will be beneficial in the near future.
Reagan’s WMD Connection to Saddam Hussein
by Jacob G. Hornberger, June 18, 2004
Given all the indignant neoconservative “outrage” over the financial misdeeds arising from the UN’s socialist oil-for-food program during the 1990s, when the UN embargo was killing untold numbers of Iraqi children, one would think that there would be an equal amount of outrage over a much more disgraceful scandal — the U.S. delivery of weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussein during the Reagan administration in the 1980s.
After all, as everyone knows, it was those WMDs that U.S. officials, from President Bush and Vice-President Cheney on down, ultimately used to terrify the American people into supporting the invasion and war of aggression against Iraq, a war that has killed or maimed thousands of innocent people — that is, people who had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington.
In an October 1, 2002, article entitled “Iraq Got Germs for Weapons Program from U.S. in ’80s,” Associated Press writer Matt Kelly wrote,
[The] Iraqi bioweapons program that President Bush wants to eradicate got its start with help from Uncle Sam two decades ago, according to government records that are getting new scrutiny in light of the discussion of war against Iraq.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent samples directly to several Iraqi sites that U.N. weapons inspectors determined were part of Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons program, CDC and congressional records from the early 1990s show. Iraq had ordered the samples, saying it needed them for legitimate medical research.
The CDC and a biological-sample company, the American Type Culture Collection, sent strains of all the germs Iraq used to make weapons, including anthrax, the bacteria that make botulinum toxin, and the germs that cause gas gangrene, the records show. Iraq also got samples of other deadly pathogens, including West Nile virus.
The transfers came in the 1980s, when the United States backed Iraq in its war against Iran.
In a December 17, 2002, article entitled “Iraq Used Many Suppliers for Nuke Program,” the Associated Press stated,
Dozens of suppliers, most in Europe, the United States and Japan, provided the components and know-how Saddam Hussein needed to build an atomic bomb, according to Iraq’s 1996 accounting of its nuclear program....
Iraq’s report says the equipment was either sold or made by more than 30 German companies, 10 American companies, 11 British companies and a handful of Swiss, Japanese, Italian, French, Swedish and Brazilian firms. It says more than 30 countries supplied its nuclear program.
It details nuclear efforts from the early 1980s to the Gulf War and contains diagrams, plans and test results in uranium enrichment, detonation, implosion testing and warhead construction....
Most of the sales were legal and often made with the knowledge of governments. In 1985–90, the U.S. Commerce Department, for example, licensed $1.5 billion in sales to Iraq of American technology with potential military uses. Iraq was then getting Western support for its war against Iran, which at the time was regarded as the main threat to stability in the oil-rich Gulf region.
In a September 26, 2002, article entitled “Following Iraq's Bioweapons Trail,” columnist Robert Novak wrote,
An eight-year-old Senate report confirms that disease-producing and poisonous materials were exported, under U.S. government license, to Iraq from 1985 to 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war. Furthermore, the report adds, the American-exported materials were identical to microorganisms destroyed by United Nations inspectors after the Gulf War. The shipments were approved despite allegations that Saddam used biological weapons against Kurdish rebels and (according to the current official U.S. position) initiated war with Iran.
In a September 18, 2002, ABC article entitled “A Tortured Relationship,” reporter Chris Bury wrote,
Indeed, even as President Bush castigates Saddam’s regime as “a grave and gathering danger,” it’s important to remember that the United States helped arm Iraq with the very weapons that administration officials are now citing as justification for Saddam’s forcible removal from power.
In a March 16, 2003, article entitled “How Iraq Built Its Weapons Program,” in the St. Petersburg Times, staff writer Tom Drury wrote,
Yet here we are, on the eve of what could turn into a $100-billion war to disarm and dismantle the Iraqi dictatorship. U.N. inspectors are working against the clock to figure out if Iraq retains chemical and biological weapons, the systems to deliver them, and the capacity to manufacture them.
And here’s the strange part, easily forgotten in the barrage of recent rhetoric: It was Western governments and businesses that helped build that capacity in the first place. From anthrax to high-speed computers to artillery ammunition cases, the militarily useful products of a long list of Western democracies flowed into Iraq in the decade before its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Unfortunately, the U.S.-WMD connection to Saddam Hussein involved more than just delivering those WMDs to him. In an August 18, 2002, New York Times article entitled “Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq in War Despite Use of Gas,” Patrick E. Tyler wrote,
A covert American program during the Reagan administration provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war, according to senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program.
Those officers, most of whom agreed to speak on the condition that they not be identified, spoke in response to a reporter’s questions about the nature of gas warfare on both sides of the conflict between Iran and Iraq from 1981 to 1988. Iraq’s use of gas in that conflict is repeatedly cited by President Bush and, this week, by his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, as justification for regime change in Iraq.
As writer Norm Dixon put it in his June 17, 2004, article “How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons,”
While the August 18 NYT article added new details about the extent of US military collaboration with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during Iraq's 1980-88 war with Iran, it omitted the most outrageous aspect of the scandal: not only did Ronald Reagan's Washington turn a blind-eye to the Hussein regime's repeated use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and Iraq's Kurdish minority, but the US helped Iraq develop its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
Immediately prior to the US invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein delivered a WMD declarations report to the United Nations in an attempt to avert a U.S. invasion. Do you recall that U.S. officials intercepted the report and removed special sections of it, based on claims of “national security”? Well, it turned out that the removed sections involved the delivery of those WMDs by the United States and other Western countries to Saddam Hussein, information that obviously caused U.S. officials a bit of discomfort on the eve of their invasion.
In a February 3, 2003, Sunday Morning Herald article entitled, “Reaping the Grim Harvest We Have Sown,” writer Anne Summers wrote,
What is known is that the 10 non-permanent members had to be content with an edited, scaled-down version. According to the German news agency DPA, instead of the 12,000 pages, these nations — including Germany, which this month became president of the Security Council — were given only 3,000 pages.
So what was missing?
The Guardian reported that the nine-page table of contents included chapters on “procurements” in Iraq’s nuclear program and “relations with companies, representatives and individuals” for its chemical weapons program. This information was not included in the edited version.
In a June 9, 2004, article “Reagan Played a Decisive Role in Saddam Hussein’s Survival in Iran-Iraq War,” Agence France Presse points out,
In February 1982, the State Department dropped Baghdad from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, clearing the way for aid and trade.
A month later, Reagan ordered a review of US policy in the Middle East which resulted in a marked shift in favor of Iraq over the next year.
“Soon thereafter, Washington began passing high-value military intelligence to Iraq to help it fight the war, including information from US satellites that helped fix key flaws in the fortifications protecting al-Basrah that proved important in Iran’s defeat in the next month,” wrote Kenneth Pollack in his recently published book “The Threatening Storm.” ...
By March 1985, the United States was issuing Baghdad export permits for high tech equipment crucial for its weapons of mass destruction programs, according to Pollack.
In his June 8, 2004, article “Reagan and Saddam: The Unholy Alliance,” Alex Dawoody states,
By 1982, Iraq was removed from the list of terrorist sponsoring nations. By 1984, America was actively sharing military intelligence with Saddam’s army. This aid included arming Iraq with potent weapons, providing satellite imagery of Iranian troops deployments and tactical planning for battles, assisting with air strikes, and assessing damage after bombing campaigns.
One of the most fascinating parts of this entire sordid U.S. foreign-policy episode is that none other than Donald Rumsfeld played a key role in it. Yes, the same Donald Rumsfeld who, as U.S. Secretary of Defense, scared the American people to death with the thought that Saddam Hussein was about to employ the WMDs (which the U.S. had delivered to him) against them.
A December 31, 2002, CBS story entitled “U.S. and Iraq Go Way Back,” put it this way:
Newly released documents show that U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, played a leading role in building up Iraq's military in the 1980s when Iraq was using chemical weapons, a newspaper reports.
It was Rumsfeld, now defense secretary and then a special presidential envoy, whose December 1983 meeting with Saddam Hussein led to the normalization of ties between Washington and Baghdad, according to the Washington Post.
In an August 18, 2002, MSNBC article entitled “Rumsfeld Key Player in Iraq Policy Shift,” Robert Windrem wrote,
State Department cables and court records reveal a wealth of information on how U.S. foreign policy shifted in the 1980s to help Iraq. Virtually all of the information is in the words of key participants, including Donald Rumsfeld, now secretary of defense.
The new information on the policy shift toward Iraq, and Rumsfeld’s role in it, comes as The New York Times reported Sunday that the United States gave Iraq vital battle-planning help during its war with Iran as part of a secret program under President Reagan — even though U.S. intelligence agencies knew the Iraqis would unleash chemical weapons.
In a February 24, 2003, article entitled “Who Armed Saddam?” writer Stephen Green wrote,
And he’d probably read the front page Washington Post story (“U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup,” 12/30/02) based upon recently declassified documents, which revealed that it was Rumsfeld himself who, as President Reagan’s Middle East Envoy, had traveled to the Region to meet with Saddam Hussein in December 1983 to normalize, particularly, security relations.
In her article “Reaping the Grim Harvest We Have Sown,” Anne Summers reinforced this point:
In December 1983, Rumsfeld, then a special envoy to the Middle East appointed by President Reagan, travelled to Baghdad to inform Saddam Hussein that the United States was ready to resume full diplomatic relations with Iraq. A lengthy report in the Washington Post on December 30, 2002 — based on analysing thousands of pages of declassified government documents and interviews with former policy-makers — said that “US intelligence and logistical support played a crucial role in shoring up Iraqi defences” following Rumsfeld’s visit.
So, what is Rumsfeld’s response to all this? Unfortunately, he suffers a malady that commonly afflicts Washington officials when a whiff of scandal is in the air: selective memory lapse. According to Matt Kelly’s article (cited above),
The disclosures put the United States in the position of possibly having provided key ingredients of the weapons it is considering waging war to destroy, said Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D., W.Va.), who entered the documents into the Congressional Record last month.
Byrd asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about the germ transfers at a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. Byrd noted that Rumsfeld met Saddam Hussein in 1983, when Rumsfeld was President Ronald Reagan’s Middle East envoy.
“Are we, in fact, now facing the possibility of reaping what we have sown?” Byrd asked Rumsfeld after reading parts of a Newsweek article on the transfers.
“I have never heard anything like what you’ve read, I have no knowledge of it whatsoever, and I doubt it,” Rumsfeld said. He later said he would ask the Defense Department and other agencies to search their records for evidence of the transfers.
Or as Robert Novak put it in his column (cited above),
Sen. Robert Byrd, a master at hectoring executive branch witnesses, asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a provocative question last week: Did the United States help Saddam Hussein produce weapons of biological warfare? Rumsfeld brushed off the Senate’s 84-year-old president pro tem like a Pentagon reporter. But a paper trail indicates Rumsfeld should have answered yes.
According to the article by Anne Summers (cited above),
These days Rumsfeld likes to downplay or even deny his role in helping arm Iraq with the makings of weapons of mass destruction. He has been quoted as saying he had “nothing to do” with helping Iraq fight Iran in the ’80s. However, the Washington Post says, “The documents show that his visits to Baghdad led to closer US-Iraqi cooperation on a wide variety of fronts.”
Given that the WMDs that were used to justify the invasion and war against Iraq never materialized, one would think that the neoconservatives who pushed and misled America into the war, and those members of Congress who complacently rubber-stamped the president’s actions, and those members of the press who served as the administration’s cheerleaders would be at least mildly outraged over how Saddam Hussein acquired his WMDs in the first place — from the United States and other countries during the Reagan administration. Unfortunately, the response has been the standard ho-hum one hears whenever the rot at the center of the empire surfaces: “It was just a policy mistake; it happened a long time ago; we need to put it behind us; and it’s now time to move on.”
It is that mindset of denial, however, that is certain to doom our nation to increasing conflicts, crises, and turmoil. To restore political, moral, and economic health to our country, it is necessary to excise the cancer associated with the unrestrained — and oftentimes secret — exercise of government power. In order to excise such a cancer, however, it is first necessary to acknowledge and confront its existence.
Hi Roger.. thanks, will look for it when I get a minute on youtube.
Been busy looking at the news, Iraq and everywhere else, just a catchup on what is happening.
I was concerned and interested in the story on the Pentagon security people shot by the "anti-Bush nut case and 911 Truther":
=== Pentagon Shooter: Anti-Bush Nut Case and 9/11 Truther
3/4/2010
There was a shooting just outside the Pentagon today, at a security checkpoint. Two cops were injured; breaking reports say the suspect, J. Patrick Bedell, has died.
QUOTE:
The suspect, believed to be a U.S. citizen, walked up to a security checkpoint at the Pentagon in an apparent attempt to get inside the massively fortified Defense Department headquarters, at about 6:40 p.m. local time. “He just reached in his pocket, pulled out a gun and started shooting” at point-blank range, Keevill said. “He walked up very cool. He had no real emotion on his face.” The Pentagon officers returned fire with semiautomatic weapons.
===end quote===
And Internet research shows that the guy was a 9/11 Truther and an anti-Bush nut case.
There is also plenty of creepily nerdy/calm ranting about government control of the economy. As a correspondent wrote to me: “If he thought Bush was out to get private property, just imagine what he thought after Obama’s first year.”
Save this link when Big Media tries to portray him as a Tea Partier or right-winger.
UPDATE: More 9/11 Truther evidence against this guy here. And a full transcript of the rant excerpted above, here.
Interesting how it is those from the LEFT who tend to be violent, not the right.
I guess the right takes up arms, until they can lay them down without worrying someone else will kill them.
The real goal for the right is pacifism (the principle or policy that all differences among nations should be adjusted without recourse to war - Dictionary.com), IMHO, but only under the constraints of reality.
That day surely hasn't happened yet.
I will go back and read RobN's stuff now, and then maybe post some of the interesting stuff I read on Iraq and the elections today, as I get time.
I would say your main point was summarized by saying:
The response has been the standard ho-hum - “It was just a policy mistake; it happened a long time ago; we need to put it behind us; and it’s now time to move on.” It is that mindset of denial, however, that is certain to doom our nation to increasing conflicts, crises, and turmoil. To restore political, moral, and economic health to our country, it is necessary to excise the cancer associated with the unrestrained — and oftentimes secret — exercise of government power. In order to excise such a cancer, however, it is first necessary to acknowledge and confront its existence.
==end quote==
The fact of it being a mistake and also a long time ago by an Administration which no longer exists, and Reagan is now dead does not seem to deter these detractors. It WAS a policy mistake, it WAS a long time ago and done by dead people, and we do have to put it behind us.. since we cannot change it by talking about it. IF he/you wish to discuss TODAY's "unrestrained — and oftentimes secret — exercise of government power" as the crux of the matter.. it cannot be by continual harkening back and harping on some dead guy's mistake, except to say that we shouldn't do that again.. agreed. Ok, no more selling WMD to dictators, sounds like a good policy to me.
The issue here isn't really what Reagan did, or even Bush and Saddam.. their time is long ago now, it is past. It is TODAY'S exercise of power you are objecting to.. and in that context, your view of Iraq (victory, freedom, democracy) and Afghanistan (still unsettled) is a subject of opinion. The question concerning Aghanistan is.. Is it a national security issue to the USA? The majority of people in the US feel that it is, because a Rasmussen poll late last year had these numbers concerning the public's outlook on the question, QUOTE:
Eighty-four percent (84%) of voters say Afghanistan is at least somewhat important to the national security of the United States. Thirty-eight percent (38%) rate it as very important. Only 12% say it’s not very or not at all important.
Republicans are more likely to view Afghanistan as very important to U.S. national security, but in general there is little partisan disagreement on the question.
In light of these statistics, I would say that your views are definitely in the minority and do not reflect the on-the-ground reality of what the country has to face in the real world and what it feels is important over there, and to US national security aims.
As for your speaking about how the US sometimes uses clandestine operations (the drone attacks comes to mind) - that is a fact I doubt heartily your objections will finish. In an ideal world, such secret government exercise of power would be unnecessary, because mankind would not be attacking one another but living together in peace and harmony. That world is not upon us as yet. Until it is, I suggest that those in power are making use of whatever means they feel necessary to bolster their effectiveness and keep the country of America safe. If they fail or abuse their powers, they have God to answer to (since it is secret and we likely won't know about it until Judgement Day when all secrets of men are laid bare and open for all to see).. but for myself, I do not malign their motives based on inconclusive evidence and imputing ill intent upon them, when it is the government's role (Biblically speaking) to keep the peace and protect the people. As for their failures which do come to light, I think many times that Americans think it justifiable in the real world due to being faced with such enemies as America has. For instance, the majority believes that the intelligence gathering concerning waterboarding is justifiable, in spite of it being a horrible thing no one would really wish mankind had to do. Necessity drives mankind to all kinds of strange extremes.. life is truly a proving ground for how to work out good principles amongst the real world jungle. Here is that survey result discussion:
===
A waterboarding majority?
December 31, 2009
Posted by Ben Smith
Rasmussen's latest finds 58% saying "yes," after a bit of context, to: "Should waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques be used to gain information from the suspected bomber?"
The poll is just one more indication of what had become clear by last summer: The clichéd rule of politics under which Democrats must tread carefully on national security remains very much in effect.
All I am trying to say is.. I think your view comes from an ivory tower, with no connection to reality, wishing things were better. I cannot see that your "solutions" work in the real world and I think the American public has agreed with this course and direction, not because they are wicked or will evil in the world, but for good reasons having to do with national security.
I have to agree with Rob J.. it does seem a pointless endeavor to continue to discuss with you when you are not EVER on topic.. because you have no dinar or interest in our forum's main aim, to discuss Iraq and the Dinar.
Next post from me.. back to Dinar and talking about the upcoming elections..
You again are completely wrong. The misdirected choices made by previous administrations have contributed to our present foreign policy; so, what Regan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush are pertinent.
Concerning the Pentagon shooter I would bet it is a false flag attack in a similar fashion as the Autin, Tx plane crash into the IRS building there. The agenda here is to convert America into a police state under the guise of security.
I am open to discuss the misguided policies of the CBI related to the Dinar. A three zero lop will occur this year as has been stated numerous of times. Once the lop occurs the Dinar will be reassigned a value of 1 to 1 parity with the USD. A 25000 dinar note will be worth $25.00. Expecting a 1000% revaluation is dead; holding onto this notion is naive.
Do you feel better now that I mentioned the Dinar in my post? Perhaps I will comment further upon the Dinar in response to your own post.
Maliki set to struggle for second term as Iraq PM
Mar 5, 2010
A year ago, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki looked unstoppable as a dramatic security turnaround and slowly improving services proved a formidable weapon for winning votes in January 2009 local polls.
Now, people are asking if Maliki has turned that weapon on himself, as persistent violence, lingering sectarian tensions and growing impatience for public services and growth sow doubts about the Shi'ite leader's chances of winning a second term.
Whether Maliki's State of Law coalition gets enough votes to lead Iraq's next government -- no party is expected to win an outright majority -- will shape Iraq's future as it seeks to solidify security gains ahead of the U.S. withdrawal and end the political bickering that undermines stability.
His recent campaign speeches returned to well-worn themes: fighting terrorism, stamping out Saddam Hussein's Baath party and nationalism prevailing over post-2003 sectarian conflict.
Dour, formal, and rarely seen cracking a smile, Maliki has more recently added a new theme: seeking to discredit rivals by casting himself as the candidate who gets things done.
But things will not be as easy for Maliki, 59, as in 2006, when he emerged in lengthy government formation talks as a compromise pick who was not well known enough to be objected to.
As incumbent, he is fending off attacks from former partners looking to recapture Shi'ite support and from the secularist Iraqiya List, which may grab the anti-establishment vote.
Even if Maliki can return to the premier's office, his power will depend on the size and nature of the coalition he leads.
RECONCILIATION
There is great debate about how willing Maliki, who was sentenced to death by Saddam in absentia and is said to have a deep hatred for Baathists, is to truly embrace minority Sunnis. Many Sunnis, dominant under Saddam, say the answer is not very.
That perception was strengthened when judges, bowing to apparent government pressure, recently upheld a ban of candidates linked to Baathists, including top Sunni contenders.
"We haven't seen anything but dismissal, marginalisation and revenge, which will bring nothing good to Iraq," said Mohammed Shakir, an engineer in Ramadi, capital of Sunni Anbar province.
Another minority who may oppose another Maliki term are the Kurds, whose aspirations to take control of the disputed oil city of Kirkuk have been thwarted in part by the prime minister.
But mindful perhaps that Kurds may prove kingmakers in post-election manoeuvring, Maliki hinted in a recent interview that the question of Kirkuk's future should be put to Iraq's presidency council, headed by President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd.
While initially sceptical, American officials appear to have become Maliki converts, and his return would likely preclude hiccups in the U.S.-Iraqi relationship as Washington prepares to quickly reduce its troop level this summer and withdraw by 2012.
With neighbouring Iran, there are more questions. Maliki took heat last year for keeping a long silence after Iranian troops seized an oil well Baghdad claims belongs to Iraq.
Maliki, like all Iraqis, has condemned foreign meddling. But he is mindful of Iraq's deep ties with the fellow Shi'ite nation and appears determined to keep the relationship on an even keel.
For foreign investors, continuity may be a positive -- Maliki has lobbied hard to secure global business for Iraq.
But oil executives, fresh from signing major oil deals with the government, signal that none of the potential replacements for Maliki are likely to pose a threat to their work in Iraq.
RobN said, Do you feel better now that I mentioned the Dinar in my post?
Yes, I do, thanks. :)
You said, "I am open to discuss the misguided policies of the CBI related to the Dinar. A three zero lop will occur this year as has been stated numerous of times. Once the lop occurs the Dinar will be reassigned a value of 1 to 1 parity with the USD. A 25000 dinar note will be worth $25.00. Expecting a 1000% revaluation is dead; holding onto this notion is naive."
Yours is the worst case scenerio, and what you have stated here is about a 14% upward valuation for anyone holding the Dinar using today's exchange rate (which I just calculated). Why did you sell your Dinar if you know you will (by the end of the year) get a 14% return on your money as the worst case scenerio?
As for the possibility this is not the reality but merely disinformation put out to discourage people from holding Dinar so that the Iraqis do not have to give out a lot of return to those who do hold Dinar.. that is also a possibility and one I cannot discount. If the best case scenerio which we have speculated upon were the real deal, then you would indeed EXPECT that close to such a RV there would be a disinformation campaign to get people to sell their Dinar. It is simple math.. less people who will have to be paid out by the Iraqi government. With the Kuwaiti revaluation which made a few people very rich, I have no doubt that the very authorities involved in that RV would have denied it to your face the very day before they did that revaluation, wouldn't they? Quick review for the recent newbie: After the first Gulf War, the value of the Kuwaiti Dinar plunged. When that country was successfully liberated, and the oil was up and running again, their currency regained it's original value. I remember reading that an investor had spent $10 thousand dollars, on Kuwaiti currency, and a few years later, it was worth $3 million. This is a matter of public record, and can be easily found by googling the history of the Kuwaiti currency.
Since your "worst case scenerio" gives me a far greater return on my money than I can get in many investments (14% is not a shabby return) and the better case scenerio is far more as you have noted (1000%) - I am more than willing to wait and watch to see how this will work out. That this ongoing saga of the Dinar will likely work out THIS YEAR.. and not drag on for more, is seen by the report given on wikipedia which mirrors your view and gives it a timetable, saying, by the end of 2010.. QUOTE:
According to a report on that was shown on 6 February 2010 on Al Iraqiya TV channel, the Central Bank of Iraq considered a plan to redenominate the Iraqi dinar in order to increase the stength level of the Iraqi currency, which will allow people to carry less paper money. Mudhhir Muhammad Salih, a member of a Central Bank advisory panel, told RFI that the plan is to remove the zeros from the currency and phase out the current banknotes late this year. Salih said by the end of 2010 the current banknotes, e.g. 10000 dinars will turn to 10 dinars. This will be while the old banknotes will be gradually removed from circulation. He did not specify when the new notes would be issued. Both will be legal tender in Iraq until the old notes are completely withdrawn.”
We will soon see if this view is the correct one, and not part of a campaign of disinformation.. If this view is correct, we Dinar investors who have remained in the Dinar will gain "only" 14%. If it is incorrect in this "pessimistic" viewpoint, we will gain up to 1000%. Either way, I still see the Iraqi Dinar as an investment where I and the other Dinar investors on this Board stand to gain.
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: There are no plans to make the exchange rate of ID1,000 equal to $1, Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) said on Wednesday.
“Iraq’s currency policies are far from such decisions,” the CBI said in a release received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
The CBI said that the current exchange rate, ID1,170 = $1, is balanced, stable, and can be preserved through Iraq’s foreign currency reservoir of $43 billion.
It is more likely to remain this way, as I said, with Maliki making the profits off of oil directly and paying for things with oil rather than a REAL VALUE for an exchange rate, as has been so for some time. He is ideologically opposed to RVing and if he gets in, there will be no RV of the Dinar or prosperity for the PEOPLE of Iraq.
Taking note of all the misdeeds and secretive actions taken by previous administrations, I find no fault with any President who has the best interest of the USA at heart. There is no question in my mind that Reagan's every action was to put the USA in a better position. The first Bush, I do not question his motivations at all, he was kind-hearted and left Iraq to soon with the Iraqi people expecting more from us.
I think Clinton wanted the USA to be succcessful and make good decisions but primarily so that he would look good. The second Bush was totally patriotic but wanted to avenge his fathers' failure to free the Iraqi people so he was hell-bent on toppling the Saddam regime. Now getting to Obama, I do not believe that his top priority is the welfare of the USA, I believe that he has some strange agenda such as social equality or global government or universal harmony-who knows?
I stated the above to say this, I will go along with most any devious or diabolical plan by our government so long as I believe that their sole purpose is help the USA.
I would go along with a war with Iraq with the sole purpose to get their oil, or Iran or Kuwait so long as the action was to insure the survival of America. We became great when everyone was ruthless and determined to keep America on top when dealing with other countries.
I have to agree with much of what RobN says about the direction this country is headed in but I do not think that our actions are that of a nation trying to take something like oil from some other nations but that we are a bunch of good-hearted dumb asses who want to help every other country with borrowed money. This country is headed down the drain in a sea of red ink and is still trying to borrow more to influence some other country. We have got wise up.
This is a piece of info I got today regarding Malaki versus Allawi.
I talked to day with an Iraqi native, he is working for the US military as a translator.
My question to him was what he thought of the chances of the current PM Malaki to stay, or the one that is knocking on the door, Allawi to replace Malaki.
In his opinion, Malaki is not popular at all in Iraq, he is not a "strong man", but a whealer and dealer. Malaki had once a certain respect and following but in the Iraqi mans strong opinion, he thinks Malakis days are numbered, as Allawi is far more popular with the Iraq population.
Allawi was PM during the early days when he had to ask permission for everything from the US, when the country was still under occupation. Still Allawi was able to get things done that Malaki have failed to do.
The man I met today knows where the pendulum is right now, and as far as he is concerned, Malakis chances for political survival is very slim.
Reportedly Allawi's popularity is on a broad base, and are crossing Kurds, Shiite an Sunni lines.
We will see, upsets have been made in numerous other elections, so we will not know until the score is settled.
I just thought of sharing this particular part of my discussion I had with this Iraq man today, with you all.
Roger - THANK YOU!! That is GREAT news, so far as I am concerned. With the vote "split" by so many people running, the only concern I have had is if the split will cause a lot to vote machine gun fashion - a smattering of votes at each of the runners - so that Maliki, as the incumbent and with name recognition, will get in. But your note gives me hope the Iraqis see it as a fight between the two - Allawi (who will ALLOW the Iraqis prosperity, I hope.. and Dinar RV) and Maliki (who will not). If this is the view they truly have and the Iraqi people go to the polls not wishing to throw away their vote, they will vote for one or the other of these two. Hopefully it means Allawi will win, with all the positive news that will mean for Iraqi prosperity and Dinar RV. :)
Neil - I agree. It is almost like people expect the US to be so caring and Christian for other nations.. to the neglecting of her own interests. And if she does take her own interests in hand, they accuse the US of being "arrogant" and a "bully" or facist. It is like the world thinks the US should graciously give all the borrowed money in the world to others, and not care they are giving away their own ability to stay afloat financially or prosper. Crazy. As for the past Presidents, as you say, I agree that so long as the US was first in their hearts and agenda, they did not do too badly for the nation.. in spite of their differing human failings. It is apparent that God kept the nation safe from George Washington to George W. Bush.. but this is something new - a hopey changey CHANGE which is not for the better and 180 degrees away from that tradition of "US first." That policy change of direction spells disaster for the people of America and unless the ship can be righted it will sink the US like the Titanic from fiscal irresponsibility and neglect of taking care of the nation on so many fronts which a caring person for America would naturally and normally do.
Case in point:
The Modest Failure of Obama's Iran Policy
Judah Grunstein | Bio | 05 Mar 2010
As the push for a new round of sanctions against Iran falters, it's becoming increasingly apparent that the Obama administration's game plan on Iran policy was long on tactics and short on strategy. We've heard a bit about how U.N sanctions are up against a "bad UNSC," which currently includes Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon as non-permanent members. But that should come as no surprise, and the same goes for those three countries' predictable resistance to getting vocally on board for stiff sanctions.
Now comes word that the administration is trying to carve out an exemption for China in unilateral U.S. sanctions making their way through Congress. Japan and South Korea, on the other hand get no such special attention, with the inescapable message being that friendship and solidarity don't pay quite as well as obstructionism and a pile of U.S. debt.
This is a consequence of the administration's failure of nerve -- or lack of imagination -- at the outset, when either a bold engagement with Iran or a bold engagement with Russia would have more likely delivered better long-term strategic results. Instead, we saw a tepid outstretched hand combined with a tepid reset, neither of which seems to have paid off. Instead of a shift in the underlying strategic logic of how to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Obama administration essentially tried to pass off a "new & improved" version of the Bush administration's carrot and stick approach, or what Dennis Ross called "better carrot & better stick."
Admittedly, the domestic politics of true engagement on either front would have been costly for President Barack Obama. There's also no guarantee that either would have delivered better results, especially in light of Iran's post-election turmoil. And as I have argued previously, even the administration's lukewarm Iran engagement has made it clear that it is now the Iranians who are unwilling to take yes for an answer. But that's little consolation if it comes up short of the desired strategic payoff.
As Bobby Z put it, "There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all." In trying to avoid a spectacular failure, Obama has come away with a modest one instead.
In trying to avoid a spectacular failure, Obama has come away with a modest one instead.
When it was US interests first.. seen as arrogant or not, America won. When it is "a tepid outstretched hand" all America gets is a modest failure. America First as a policy worked, this has not. I hope America takes note of it for the future and has the guts to choose to win instead of "lose for compassion's sake".. finally getting the true message and choosing to take the accusation of being the "arrogant American" who works in America's best interests first, again. You cannot please all of the people all of the time, so I hope America will choose to please America and its interests first in the future, for America's sake. I hope America takes note and makes up its collective mind to be willing to take that ridicule and do the hard thing for America's sake - for a double-minded nation, like a double-minded man, is UNSTABLE in all its ways. (James 1:8)
It does appear CBI intends to redenominate the dinar by dropping three 000's by the end of 2010.
This is up on the XE.com website:
The Central Bank of Iraq has announced their plans to redenominate the Iraqi Dinar to ease cash transactions. By the end of 2010, they intend to drop three zeros from the nominal value of bank notes. It should be noted that the actual value of the dinar will remain unchanged. That means that 1,000 IQD (pre-redenomination) and 1 dinar (post-redenomination) will both be worth the same amount in US Dollars. As stated by the Central Bank of Iraq, their mandate is to "ensure domestic price stability and foster a stable competitive market based financial system." For more information about the redenomination, read "Iraq plans to slice three zeros off currency notes."
I guess this means I have a lot of Dinars that I'm going to need to exchange for the new denominations when they come out? If this is the case, how do I do this?
Anybody know?
SULAIMANIYAH, Mar 07, 2010 (AFP) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Sunday after casting his ballot in the country's general election that he had been asked by several blocs to continue on in the post.
"I have been asked by many many Iraqi groups and lists to re-candidate myself," he told reporters in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, 270 kilometres (170 miles) north of Baghdad.
They just denied that old information you just quoted. As of so March 3rd they say that is not so.. that is old info you quoted.
---
No plans to make ID1000 = $1 – CBI March 3, 2010
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: There are no plans to make the exchange rate of ID1,000 equal to $1, Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) said on Wednesday.
“Iraq’s currency policies are far from such decisions,” the CBI said in a release received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
The CBI said that the current exchange rate, ID1,170 = $1, is balanced, stable, and can be preserved through Iraq’s foreign currency reservoir of $43 billion.
Statement by Dr. Ayad Allawi, former Prime Minister of Iraq and Leader of the Iraqiya List, at the close of polling for the Iraq
BAGHDAD, March 7, 2010 /PRNewswire/ --
"The Iraqi people have spoken, and it is vital for our country's future that the integrity of the democratic process is respected. As the votes are counted, the great number of Iraqis who risked their safety to take part in these elections are watching."
Gates: Surprisingly little violence in Iraq vote
AP - Sun Mar 7th, 2010
ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he sees surprisingly little violence associated with the Iraq elections and that security improvements have forced al Qaida-linked militants to change tactics.
Gates told reporters Sunday that he's been briefed on the voting by the top U.S. general in Iraq , Ray Odierno (oh-dee-EHR'-noh). He said turnout is as high or higher than expectations.
He said, "All in all, a good day for the Iraqis and for all of us."
Gates said he was told about "a handful" of militant attacks that caused injuries. But Gates said there's been no confirmed mortar or indirect fire attacks on Baghdad. He said that in the South, in eight of nine provinces there were no security incidents at all during the voting.
Polls close in Iraq after deadly day
Ben Knight, Kim Landers and staff, ABC March 8, 2010
Polls have closed in the Iraqi elections, after an election day that saw 35 people killed by insurgents.
Insurgents had threatened to do all they could to disrupt this election.
There were long queues of voters at polling stations in a number of cities.
Many voters said they were happy to be taking part and hoped their country would soon leave the religious violence of the past permanently behind.
As the party leaders voted, there was no clear front runner to win.
Forming a new government could take weeks, or months, of negotiations.
But there is a positive mood in Iraq and a sense that this vote was a repudiation of the religious militants who almost destroyed the country after the last parliamentary election four years ago.
It was Iraq's second national election since the US led invasion in 2003.
Iraq Election: World leaders praise bravery of Iraqi voters after election Iraqis defied bombings and a wave of mortar attacks to complete the most fiercely competitive election in the nation's history.
By Richard Spencer in Baghdad
Published: 07 Mar 2010
Polling stations reported a strong turnout of voters on Sunday despite 38 deaths across the country and a security presence which included 200,000 police and soldiers in the capital alone.
Voters from across the Sunni-Shia sectarian divide said the level of violence was far lower than in the last general election, in 2005.
"We are Iraqis. We have had it much worse than this," said Kamal Fadil, in charge of a polling station in Salhiya, in central Baghdad, to the backdrop of explosions in either direction.
"I care more about changing the country than about this intimidation," said Mahir Jamil, 49, outside a station in the al-Mansur neighbourhood, a few yards from where a mortar had landed shortly before.
Once mixed, al-Mansur is now almost entirely Sunni following a wave of ethnic cleansing led by al-Qaeda fighters, the evidence of which is still visible in the walls pock-marked by bullets.
There are few polls and no-one expects any of the four principal blocks to win a clear-cut victory.
Western diplomats applauded the conduct of the campaign, with television stations devoting hours to debates and interviews with candidates and the streets plastered with posters.
One diplomat said it was a mistake to assume the worst would happen. "In the last three years, the pessimists have always been proved wrong," he said. "In a week's time, there is a good chance we will have taken a big step forward."
Rival contenders for power could yet cry foul. The anti-sectarian opposition leader Ayad Allawi claims that he lost the last election because of ballot stuffing and vote rigging.
Another factor muddying the outcome is the mixed fortunes of the third main contender - an alliance of Shia parties grouping that comprised Islamists with strong ties to Iran and the fiercely anti-American Sadrists, whose Mahdi militia have fought vicious sectarian and anti-western battles.
The campaign drew a diverse range of candidates. The most attention-grabbing have been those of the many women candidates, in many cases unveiled. One prompted an onlooker to joke that he knew the candidate and she was ten years older when the picture was taken. He said: "See - these politicians are already lying to us."
A provisional result is due to be declared by the end of the week, but the haggling to form a coalition is likely to last until at least the summer.
Vote count begins in Iraq election
Mar, 07, 2010 Aljazeera.net (Qatar)
Election officials in Iraq have begun counting the votes following the country's second full parliamentary election since the 2003 US-led invasion.
Authorities imposed a curfew in the capital, Baghdad, after the polls closed on Sunday to ensure the safe transportation of the ballots from election centres to the election commission's main counting offices.
Millions of people turned out to cast their ballots across the country, choosing from more than 6,000 candidates from 86 political groups looking to gain seats in the 325-member assembly.
Al Jazeera's Mike Hanna, reporting from Baghdad, said the series of mortar attacks and blasts from improvised explosive devices overshadowed the start of voting.
"The apparent target were polling stations though none was directly damaged in any of the attacks. After that very dangerous start, voting proceeded fairly smoothly," he said.
"At this point it's still unclear exactly how large the turnout was, but reports from most areas indicate that the turnout was very satisfactory as far as those who want to see a successful poll process go are concerned."
Elsewhere, Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Sulaymaniyah, said "Today we are seeing a lot of Arabs turning up at the polling stations who want to be part of the political process, from which they have been away for many years, which has weakened them and given Kurds more clout in the Iraqi parliament."
The election was supervised by as many as 120 international monitors, with a number of foreign embassies providing staff to act as observers.
The European Union, France, the UK and the US all congratulated the people of Iraq after the vote.
Barack Obama, the US president, also commended voters and Iraqi security forces for their efforts to participate in the election despite the violence.
Voters were choosing between a broad range of parties and coalitions and no bloc is expected to win a majority.
After the last national election in 2005, it took the various political parties about five months to agree on a prime minister and for a cabinet to be approved.
Our correspondent, Mike Hanna, said: "In the past, people have tended to vote along sectarian lines. But now, no governing coalition can come to power unless it has the widest possible breadth of support.
"So political parties and coalitions have been fighting a campaign not on sectarian issues, but on the wider issues of Iraqi nationalism."
The Iraqi electoral commission is to announce preliminary results on March 10-11, based on votes from about 30 per cent of the polling stations.
The supreme court would then certify the poll results, after hearing appeals, within about a month of the election.
Iraq Election: The main parties The major coalitions in the Iraq elections range from narrow religious groups to broad cross-sectarian coalitions.
by Richard Spencer in Baghdad
Published: 07 Mar 2010
State of Law: Led by Nuri al-Maliki, the prime minister. The grouping was formed when Mr Maliki decided to rule without the support of the more radical Islamist parts of his Shia Muslim coalition.
It now claims to be cross-sectarian, with support from some Sunni tribal leaders, but is still reliant on its massive Shia base in the south.
Iraqiya: Led by Ayad Allawi, Iraq's former leader.
Mr Allawi is an English-speaking Shia with good ties in the Sunni Arab world. Popular with both the urban, educated classes, Mr Allawi represents the ideal that politics can be cross sectarian. He has strong from Sunnis and people who back a secular state. His fierce criticism of Mr Maliki means they are unlikely to be able to form a government together.
Iraqi National Alliance: A wide-ranging religious front closely tied to Iran.
The Shia grouping is dominated by Islamic Supreme Conference of Iraq (ISCI) and Sadrists, who are loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. ISCI, was once dominant in the faction but has lost popularity due to perceived closeness to Iran. If Sadrists do well, the rump ISCI could defect to support Mr Allawi despite differences over the role of religion in Iraqi state.
Unity Coalition: Led by Jawad al-Bolani, the interior minister.
Another cross-sectarian grouping, now largely a vehicle for Mr Bolani. Like Mr Allawi, he is a Shia presiding over a coalition that has support from Sunnis. It is unlikely to win a large number of seats but will be a useful coalition partner.
Kurdistan Alliance: Led by Massoud Barzani.
The autonomous region of Kurdistan has its own politics, dominated by the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Their role after the election is simple - to fight for as many concessions over boundaries and oil concessions as possible from whichever party seeks to gain power with their help. It is likely to secure the election of President Jalal Talabani for a second term.
Iraq Election: Democracy takes root in the Middle East
by Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Published: 07 Mar 2010
If Iraq's second democratic general election was viewed on its merits, it would be seen as an astonishing and important event.
Nobody in Iraq would have voted yesterday if Saddam Hussein's regime or one led by his odious sons, was still in power.
The clamourous competition of a handful of electoral blocs that boast a nationwide following would not be possible in a Baath Party dictatorship.
With a successful election it is almost certain that American troops will leave ahead of schedule.
The voting also appeared to have avoided its greatest potential pitfall as observers reported much diminished Iranian efforts to rig the voting.
Manipulation of the outcome by Tehran and its allies remains a real danger that will only be apparent after the results are known at the end of the week.
No matter who finishes first, the next government will have to include Iran's allies as a coalition partner. There is no putative combination of parties that would result in Tehran being driven into the cold.
But Iran and Saudi Arabia, the two regional powers that border Iraq, have a short-term interest in a stable buffer zone.
In this sense it does not matter which of the competing factions wins. Iraqi politicians have demonstrated their ability to work across ideological, sectarian and ethnic lines for six years.
The political scene is highly fractured but it does function. That too is a virtue when there are many warnings that democratic gains could be reversed by the rise of a future strongman.
Therefore the most likely outcome is the advent of a mature democracy in a region that is crippled by a dozen shades of dictatorship.
Iraqis voted in huge numbers yesterday to an accompanying drumbeat of bombs and bullets. The world should acknowledge the momentuous impact of that singularly impressive development.
I post this to contrast with the brave 38 Iraqis killed during the Iraqi elections:
===
60 Islamists Killed as Rival Terror Gangs Battle in Afghanistan
Sunday, March 7, 2010, 12:59 PM
Jim Hoft
Pity. Up to 60 Islamists were killed today in Afghanistan as rival militant groups, the Taliban and Hesb-i-Islami, battled in northern Afghanistan.
The fighting in Baghlan province erupted on Saturday morning. (BBC)
The Pakistani Nation reported:
Up to 60 militants and 19 civilians may have been killed in bloody clashes between rival Islamist militant groups in northern Afghanistan, a police official said Sunday. The fighting between Taliban rebels and militants loyal to the Hezb-i-Islami insurgent group erupted early Saturday in Baghlan province where both factions are active, said provincial police chief Mohammad Kabir Andarabi. Citing local sources in the region, police officials said the battles continued on Sunday in the Jangal Bagh area. The interior ministry on Saturday confirmed the clashes, but was not able to give casualty figures. “We have intelligence reports that 60 fighters — 40 (from) Hezb-i-Islami and 20 Taliban — have died so far. Our reports indicate that up to 19 civilians were also killed,” Andarabi told a foreign news agency. The Taliban are the main militant group behind an increasingly deadly insurgency aimed at toppling the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai and forcing out about 121,000 US and NATO troops stationed in Afghanistan.
The Iraqi elcetion will be very interesting in that sense that the Iraqis have clearly left the religious parties and swung over to political parties.
However, as this is a development, and at the same time a first, exactly how the political scene will turn out is an unknown until the ballots are counted.
It's like taking a photo with a camera that uses film, not seeing what you took a photo of, and you go into the darkroom and develop the film, and will be surprised at what emerged on the negative.
The Iraqis voted, but what did they vote on???
Speculations about future political possibilities in Iraq must be base on facts, and until the film is developed we can only guess at best.
A very good indicator is the reported voting participation, it seems to be very high, meaning that this is something that concerns the Iraqi citizen and he take a deep interest and involvement in the governing of his country.
That alone is a victory for Iraq.
All this is good for the Iraqi stabilization, it did prove itself during the voting process.
It only take a small handfull of insurgent to do the damage they did, very small consiering that most of the voting districts did not have any probelms at all.
The perspective here is a small handful of insurgents managed to get SOME headlines, but it seems like even the MSM have acknowledged the fact that this is very minor, and in fac, it didn't change anything, the population are very used to hear explosons, seeing tracers, and hear gunfire, so they just stood above all that and voted anyway.
So the bottom line is a small handful, versus a whole nation of 27 million people. The people won.
This election will have pretty big ramification of the future development of Iraq, the population wants real and tangeable change, and of tha is what they voed for , then they will get change. This will of course affect Iraq as a whole, including the currency.
Re: Afghanistan... two insurgent groups are having a battle with each other, ...the score, 60 terrorists killed.....
I am absolutely not against it, .......in fact I approve.
Fiat currencies, a currency in where the value is pre-determined by a Central bank a Monarch or Caesar himself.
Old time currencies and currencies in either hard controlled countries, or in undeveloped countries are in many cases FIAT currencies.
Rome had it, the early Americas had it, long before we had our revoution, and the most blatant failure is the German Weimar republic in the years follwing WW1.
A free floating currency, have ONE value, and it is only as valuable as someone else think it is worth when buying or selling the currency.
Therefore a free floating currency have true exchange value.
A FIAT currency is prone to failure of the very reason that the currency have one value but a political force is setting another value. One "offical value, and one true value.
Thise two values are sometimes very far apart, Chinas currency is much stronger than the artificial value, so the Chinese can't even afford to buy many of the products they produce themselves. We have roughly the same scenario with the Iraqi Dinar.
The weaknes with FIAT currency is not that it loses its value, it can't it is set,( so is the thinking anyway, but it will lose it's value in a very intricate way) but as a set and fixed currency can be printed in as much as the print can manage to print out, and still have the same value,....but.... inflation will kick in instead.
It's easy to understand the forces by examining the Weimar republics currency. Fixed currency, ok that sounds good, meaning it will not go down in value ( thats the thinking) . Inflation kicks in, and you can't buy what you want or need, so pressure on increasing wages in tune with increased inflation will then be the next step. That will not decrease inflation, so prices are still racing out of reach, so more wages, more ( compensation packages as Obama would put it), more money is pushed on the market, the money prints are spinning and the downward wheel is quickly spiraling
out of control.
It is the normal natural economic forces that adjusts, to a forceful set currency.
If the money is worth the same, but the prices are skyrocketing, or if prices stay the same, but the money is losing value is merely a matter of viewpoint. It is the same force that is acting upon the currency.
Iraq is experencing a high inflation, and it is a direct effect of a FIAT currrency. Now, it could be stemmed and controlled somewhat by high base interest rate, they have a decent handle on it, but the cure is not in putting a band aid on it.
The ultimate scenario for the Dinar would be a free floating currency.
The second best solution , would the powers in charge decide to continue to control the exchange rate, would be to revalue the Iraqi Dinar and hope it will be spot on, or very cose in proximity to it's real value.
What was the point of this previous post. It appears your presuppisition that fiat currency cannot loose value is wrong. All fiat currencies looses value; especially when governments (like the U.S.) borrow excessive amounts of money from abroad, finance imperalistic wars spending the trillion of dollar borrowed from Asia, concurrent deficit spending, and monetizing debt by expanding the money supply. Our urrent American Dollar is worth a paltry $.04. Inflation is the loss of purchasing power by the people. The citizenry uses these devalued dollars to buy higher priced milk, eggs, and beef. The grocery bill continues to increase with less and less items in the bag.
Iraq is following the same policies as our Federal Reserve assuming debt with an ever increasing money supply; which results in the loss of purchasing power for the Iraqi people. If Iraq contracts the money supply through a zero lop and does not access the money borrowed from the IMF then I would concede the possibility of Iraq having a healthy currency. Only through a 3 zero lop can Iraq sufficiently reign in the money supply. If 25000 dinar note becomes a 25 dinar note 1 to 1 parity to the dollar is likely; making the 25 dinar note equal to $25.00 usd.
I”ve got a question on this revaluation. Say I’ve got 10 – 25,000 dinar notes equaling 250,000 dinars. According to this revaluation, when I go to exchange my dinars, would they give me back 250,000 dinars worth of 25 dinar notes or will they give me back 10 – 25 dinar notes?
You read each three words, didn't understand it, and what you didnt unerstand you filled in with your own interpretation of what you think I said here, and you are saying that I didn't say something that I said.
You're not too bright, and honestly I think you are living a life dependant on some chemical of some sort, may it be prescribed pills, alcohol or whatever.
Why don't you go and do something you really do understand instead.
If you are not doing Dinars, sold out, and still here, your only contribution will be to try to prove yourself right.
Your presence means only a negative to the Dinar issue.
If you can make rain on our parade, you gladly do.
I honestly believe that if you can make rain on anyone elses parade too, you gladly do that also.
If you would call around and invite guests to a spontaneous party, that you will hold, how many people can you call???
You don't have many friends, isn't it so?
This blogsite is a poor substitute for a trashed social life Rob N.
You are describing a possible zero lop scenario, where you will get back a 25 Dinar bill for evry 25000 Dinar bill you now posess.
That is not an RV, and RV is short for revaluation and has nothing to do with changing face of the currency.
Revaluation is the phenomenon in where an exchange value is changed to a higher value.
For example, 100 Credits is the same as 1 Dollar. Now we revalue the Credits to 1 Credit is equal to 1 Dollar.
Devaluation would then ( of course) be the opposite, if you have a Credit valued the same as a Dollar, and you now decide to make the Credit have a value of only 100 Credits to 1 Dollar you have now devalued the Credit.
Usually devaluation is a slower natural process.
Zero lop, is not a revaluation or a devaluation, the currency value stays the same, except that a face change is taking place, in where a bigger number of a curency is lumped together into one unit.
This is a system that have been used in many currencies that have a lot of units in their currency, if you need three million Credits to buy a loaf of bread, you need to haul so much paper with you that it becomes impractical, so if we would then do a zero lop and take off all the zeros, we could exchange the 3 million credits, with a new bill that we can call "The New Credit" .
You would in this case shave off six zeroes, and you will now have three Credits to pay for your loaf of bread instead.
Still there is no difference in exchange rate betwen 3 million Credits or 3 "New Credits" , same thing, different wrapping.
Now,.... a part revaluaton, and part zero lop could of course take place at the same time.
An example of that would be if for example we have our famous Credits, they are valued to 100 Credits to 1 Dollar.
We could then print up a new currency, in where we have shaved off ONE zero, and exchange the new Credits for the old one, for every TEN old Credits, you get ONE new credit.
As we stand right now after this transaction, we have an exchange value of 10 Credits for every Dollar you would exchange.
Ok if we at the same time as we exchange the old Credit for the New Credit , we simply declare that the exchange value of the New Credit is 1 to 1 with the Dollar.
In this example we revalued the currency 10 times.
When it comes to the Dinar.....who knows what way it will go, what we do know though, is that the currency (Iraqi Dinar) is almost criminaly undervalued, and the pressure to change it is increasing the more Iraq is developing.
Iraq is a specially interesting curcumstance, where holding Dinars have a potential to either pay off somewhat, (Zero lop, and a small Revaluation) or the other extreme, pay off handsomely, (Full revaluation.)
Even if there will be a compromize between the two extreme scenarios, it will be a very good payoff.
It is like a lottery ticket where the odds are much better than Lotto, because if anyone decides to back out of it, and sell out, you will get your money back.
Ad onto the whole scenario a whole culture of dealers trying to push more Dinars, rumormongers, bashers, pessimists, and people that take it as a religion that it will zero lop, trying to get you into "their camp", and sell out.
Bashers sitting on the sideline, not involved with Dinars, ( we've got one here on this blog, Rob N) that have nothing else to do, other than trying to make you see the hopelesness in the Dinar situation.
You have a lot of people that spend a lot of time, on the internet, sharing news, or other research on the subject, there are a few "Dinarholics" that have got at least a Ph D's worth of education in the subject by now.
Don't panic when you hear any explosive news, that wants you to sell off.
Just snug up close to your open fire, and enjoy your favorite brandy, and have no hurry, and the Dinar will eventually resolve into something you will really like.
In the first gulf war, when the coalition of the willing kicked Saddam out of Kuwait, and that country stabilized, it still took 4 years before the economy was rebuilt and the the oil started flowing big time and they revalued their Kuwaiti dinar. Iraq is just getting stable now, so if you people think the Iraqi Dinar will RV tomorow you all are dreaming. Hate to rain on your parade but why should a country that is still a mess and zero economy have an expensive currency?
Well it was a bit of generality,...."if you people think".
So with other words, everybody thinks in one way, but you are the only one that thinks in another way.
The common guess when it will happen is about as spread out as a shotgun pattern 150 yards away.
Currencys are never expensive, the only thing that is cheap or expensive is what you buy with them.
The currency is undervalued, that's what this is about.
Iraq have come very far from its former clusterf..k, or true mess if you would, and a "zero economy"... well, you will have a lot of good arguments from a lot of people that this is not a stagnant place. The dynamics of change has gone through a lot of phases, in most all areas of life over there.
Iraq with it's culture have it's own idiosynchrasys, so don't expect our way of life there, but in it's own culture, and way of doing things, they have come far.
In order to get to the point where they will RV, they have to go through whatever level they are now.
If this is a good or bad level, we can have as much opinions abot that as we like, but it is a meaningless discussion, because the Iraqis will determine when an RV will happen, based on their own viewpoint of where they are at the time.
They may se it differently and do it in a couple of hours....or a few years from now...who knows, I think though that the advancment in progress they have made, will in the Iraqis eyes, be closer to the RV than many pessimists here think.
It's easy to sit an ocean away and kick out a generality, -"those people over there will never...." and so on.
The Iraqis have lived their own past, you don't, so they know where they have been, and where they are now, and that difference is much greater for them, than it is for you.
Much will also hang on the outcome of this election.
Something we are all curious about, so far we have only reports of the elections succesful conclution, and that they will tally the ballots, but we have no clear indication of how the up and coming government will look.
We have not even a report of, in what direction the results will be leaning towards.
Iraq Postpones Announcing Initial Election Results
By VOA News 03/09/10
Iraq’s election commission has postponed announcing initial results from Sunday’s parliamentary election because it says it has not finished counting enough votes.
A spokesman for Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission said Tuesday they would make an announcement once they had tabulated 30 percent of the votes. Election officials say they should reach that threshold to present the initial results on Wednesday or Thursday.
The Iraqi Dinar will not revalue instead it will lop a 25000 note will be lopped to a 25 dinar note. The GoI and the CBI will eventually bring the Dinar 1 to 1 parity with the usd making the 25 dinar note worth $25.00 usd. It is naive by many on this board and those invested in the Dinar that it will revalue making the 25000 dinar note worth $25,000 usd.
Officials from the CBI have repeatedly stated their intent to lop the notes. It is only through a lop can the CBI address Iraq's excessive monetary supply. I would suggest dumping those dinars immediately. Nothing to see here.
They just denied that old information you just quoted. As of so March 3rd they say that is not so.. that is old info you quoted.
---
No plans to make ID1000 = $1 – CBI March 3, 2010
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: There are no plans to make the exchange rate of ID1,000 equal to $1, Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) said on Wednesday.
“Iraq’s currency policies are far from such decisions,” the CBI said in a release received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
The CBI said that the current exchange rate, ID1,170 = $1, is balanced, stable, and can be preserved through Iraq’s foreign currency reservoir of $43 billion.
EDITORIAL: Inspiration, vindication as democratic Iraq tallies votes
Mar, 09, 2010 04:51 PM - Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City)
Mar. 9--Final official results in Iraq's parliamentary elections won't be known for days, but the real winners are the Iraqi people and the young democracy endorsed by their votes Sunday.
Election officials said 62 percent of the country's eligible voters cast ballots amid a smattering of explosions that killed at least 38 in Baghdad. Even so, a number of reports said Iraqis shrugged off insurgent attempts to spoil the election, turning out in numbers greater than in provisional voting last year.
"The Iraqi people have seen much worse than this," Ibtihal Khaled told The Wall Street Journal in Baghdad. "A few bombs won't keep them away from the polls." Another woman, 76, told The Washington Post: "This is our right. We came to take it." Inspiring, to say the least.
Also confirming -- confirming the vision a few had for what might be possible in a post-Saddam Iraq.
President George W. Bush made many mistakes with the war and building a new regime. But he was right not to give up when prospects looked bleak, when critics said retreat from Iraq was the only viable option.
When Bush surged U.S. troops into Iraq in 2007 to stabilize the country, he was opposed by then-Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden, now the chief political beneficiaries of Iraq's progress. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the war was lost just weeks into that campaign. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi regularly called for America's withdrawal.
All of them were wrong; their lack of faith in the U.S. military, the Iraqi people and the exceptionalism of democracy, in its transforming power, was exposed.
That power is at work in Iraq, and while there's still far to go, the change is remarkable. Iraqi blogger Nibras Kazimi wrote that the greatest thing about Sunday's voting was "how normal it felt; elections have become a ho-hum, commonplace occurrence."
A democratic Iraq now counts its votes. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi were expected to be in a tight race that featured full Sunni participation. No one group was expected to win a majority in parliament.
The next test will be sorting out a governing coalition and the response of Sunday's losers. All of this will play out with U.S. combat troops schedule. Then the Iraqi people and their government surely will face a final exam: standing on their own.
With all that the Iraqis have been through to this point, it would hard to bet against them.
Iraq Holds Largest Democratic Election in History
Sunday, March 7, 2010, 9:51 AM
Jim Hoft
Thank you, George W. Bush. Thank you, US Military. Thank you, Republicans in Congress.
PIC: Iraqi men wave thir national flag as they ride at the back of a truck during an election campaign rally in Baghdad. Iraq’s politicians, fearing that voters have wearied of speech-making that often proves to be little more than hot air, have hired a slew of singers to woo them. (AFP/Ahmad al-Rubaye)
Iraq just held its largest democratic election in history today.
Aswat Aliraq reported:
Voting centers closed their doors at 05:00 p.m. on Sunday, capping the largest election ever in the history of Iraq, where nearly 19 million voters from the nation’s 18 provinces picked their favorites amongst 6200 candidates to occupy the new parliament’s 325 seats.
Nearly 10,000 voting centers comprising 52,000 stations closed their doors amidst acts of violence that claimed the lives of more than 24 Iraqis and wounded 10 others who have been casting their votes since 07:00 a.m. today (March 7).
The new parliament is comprised of 325 seats: 68 from Baghdad, 31 from Ninewa, 24 Basra, 18 Thi-Qar, 17 Sulaimaniya, 16 Babel, 14 Arbil, 14 Anbar, 13 Diala and 12 seats for each of Kirkuk, Salah al-Din and Najaf and 11 for Wassit and Diwaniya while Missan, Duhuk, Karbala and Missan will get 10 seats and Muthanna only 7.
==
Iraqi Police officers in Tikrit show their ink-stained index fingers after an early-voting session for election support personnel, March 4, 2010. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Petty Officer Michael Heckman)
Comments:
1) Reaganite Republican
If we had listened to Biden and Obama in 2006, Iraq would be an Al Qaida caliphate by now.
Of course, Iraqi freedom has stoked the flames of democracy in Iran, too… just like George W Bush told you it would.
2) bg
ht Winston in another thread..
A Vote of Thanks
[Democracy has transformed most Iraqis from people who either voted scared or were apathetic to Saddam’s fake election, into people who are driven to vote by a sense of ownership of their country.
Iraqis realize that their democracy is not the best, but they also know that practice makes perfect.
Since 2002 Iraqi elections have been evolving. While still not perfect, democracy is striking root.
Meanwhile, what Iraqis like me have learned is that transformation from autocracy to democracy would not have been possible without the 4,700 brave American and allied servicemen and women who lost their lives, and the many others who were wounded, for the sake of Iraq’s freedom.
Families of these heroes should know that many of us are grateful to their sons and daughters, and to the United States and its allies at large, even if they do not hear thank you often from Iraq or its leaders.
It is on days like Sunday that these sacrifices
most strongly comes to Iraqi minds.]
It Has Always Been The Soldier
It is the soldier,
not the President who gives us democracy.
It is the soldier,
not the Congress who takes care of us.
It is the soldier,
not the Reporter who has given us Freedom of Press.
It is the soldier,
not the Poet who has given us Freedom of Speech.
It is the soldier,
not the campus [community] Organizer who
has given us the Freedom to Demonstrate.
It is the soldier,
who salutes the flag;
who serves beneath the flag,
and whose coffin is draped by the flag,
that allows the protester to burn the flag.
~ Father Dennis O’Brien, US Marine Corp. Chaplain
Thank You GWB!
Thank You US/COTW!
God Bless Soldiers everywhere for putting THEIR
lives on the line to protect us ALL from terrorism!
Was Bush (indirectly) right about Iraq?
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
TWN, The China Post news staff
It's a question that is almost paramount to heresy for members aligned with the U.S.'s political left, but recent developments in Iraq may indicate that the much-maligned former U.S. president may have been correct in his claims that the American-led invasion of Iraq planted a seed of democracy in the Middle East.
Former U.S. President George W. Bush was wrong about many things. But could it be that when historians sit down to debate the Bush presidency decades from now, their main focus will be to praise the former president for ordering an invasion that indirectly transformed the entire Middle East?
Regardless of the debate, one less debatable fact is emerging: Iraq is ever so slowly becoming a democratic country. This is not to claim that Iraq has blossomed into a paradise of freedom where rights are respected and people no longer live in fear. Today the situation is still quite tumultuous. But despite all the negatives, shoots of democratic growth are being seen.
Speaking to CNN last week, best-selling author and CNN host Fareed Zakaria argued that the Iraqi parliamentary elections that took place last Sunday mark a watershed for the new Iraq for two reasons. “First, if Iraq is able to achieve some degree of consolidation in terms of its democracy, it will add dramatically to its political stability,” said Zakaria. “And the second is, if Iraq is able to consolidate as a democracy, it will mean there will have been some success in Iraq that we can point to for the vast investment and the vast expenditure of blood and treasure that the United States has put in. I'm not saying that you can make an easy statement that this justifies the invasion, I'm simply saying that there will be a very strong positive outcome in Iraq that will at least be set against the cost.”
There's no way of estimating when Iraq might become a full and genuine democracy on par with say, Germany or Japan. It could take half a century or perhaps even a full century. But ever more it is looking as if the “shock and awe” of invasion was required for progress towards democracy. This logic is of course anathema to many liberal Americans, many of whom believe it is impossible to export democracy and who condemn the United States for its sometimes self-righteous belief that it alone represents “true” democracy. But regardless of one's political philosophy it's hard to argue with results on the ground. In Iraq today, political parties are forming bonds and hashing out a kind of democracy that works for them. It's not perfect — it's not even pretty — but it is the beginnings of a modern democracy.
Those who loathed former President George W. Bush found little about his career to praise. Bush's time in office was marked by stumbling, both domestically and overseas. But could it be that George W. Bush will be remembered more for Iraqi democracy than his stumblings?
Over 4,000 military personnel from the US, UK and other nations have lost their lives since operation Iraqi Freedom began in 2003. It's heartening to see indications that history will view these brave fighting men and women as those who made the ultimate sacrifice to bring freedom to Iraq and perhaps eventually the entire region.
Sara posted one article stating the position you agree with; in contrast, there were numerous articles in 2008 and 2009 stating the position of the lop. There have been more articles circulated in favor of my position than the position you hold. The Dinar will lop and your 25000 note will be a 25 note. I am right and you are wrong and by the end of the year I will be proved right.
YOU'RE NOT GETTING APPLES FOR ORANGES, YOU'RE GETTING POUND FOR POUND. . . LOP THE ZEROS, THEY ARE NOT DEVALUING THE DINAR. . .P.H.. . .GOT SOME NEW MEDS ROB. . .
Secularist list ahead in two Iraqi provinces
BAGHDAD
Thu Mar 11, 2010
Officials count parliamentary election ballots at the tally centre in Baghdad March 10, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Thaier al-Sudani
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A cross-sectarian, secularist alliance headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is ahead in two Iraqi provinces north of Baghdad, early results from the country's electoral commission showed Thursday.
Initial results reflecting 17 percent of votes counted from Diyala, an ethnically mixed region northeast of Baghdad, and from largely Sunni Salahuddin province north of the capital showed the Iraqiya list solidly ahead of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's bloc and another largely Shi'ite group after national polls Sunday.
Maliki Holds Edge in Iraq, but Results Are Challenged
Saad Shalash/Reuters By MARC SANTORA
Published: March 11, 2010
BAGHDAD — Early results in Iraq’s parliamentary elections on Thursday indicated that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s coalition was likely to win a plurality in an exceedingly close race, according to Western and Iraqi officials.
Fierce protests by his opponents, however, appeared to delay an imminent official announcement of the preliminary results and threatened to undermine public acceptance of the outcome.
The initial results, the officials said, suggested a race between Mr. Maliki’s coalition; Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite and the leader of the Iraqiya coalition; and a Shiite coalition known as the Iraqi National Alliance. The Kurds, though divided, appeared poised to finish strongly as well, leaving the country’s political landscaped as fractured as ever.
Even as the results were about to be broadcast, one of the Iraqi National Alliance’s leaders, the former exile Ahmed Chalabi, called the vote-counting process itself into question, challenging both the transparency of the ballot counting and the computerized system being used to tabulate the votes.
On Thursday evening, as Mr. Allawi he was meeting with various ambassadors about the election crisis. representatives of his party held a news conference in Baghdad in which they alleged wide-ranging fraud in the voting process. They came armed with visual aids, including pictures and ballots that indicated votes for Iraqiya that they said were found abandoned in a schoolyard in Kirkuk.
“Votes for the Iraqiya list are in the garbage,” said Adnan al-Janabi, a candidate on the Iraqiya list from Baghdad.
Mr. Janabi said he did not know the extent of the alleged fraud. “One or one million, we don’t know.”
The accusations threw into chaos a carefully planned process — overseen by the United Nations — for counting and announcing the tallies from Sunday’s vote. The election of a new 325-member Parliament has been widely considered a major milestone for Iraq. The early indications of an exceedingly close contest made the formation of a new government even more complicated and potentially volatile.
“Whatever the end results, we know it will be a fierce struggle to form a government,” a Western official who had seen the early results said, speaking on condition of anonymity since only the electoral commission was authorized to announce any official results.
“It is a very close race,” the official said.
It was not immediately clear how long the challenges would delay the release of early results or what effect it might have on public acceptance of the eventual results. The chairman of the country’s election commission, Faraj al-Haidari, said in televised remarks that the initial results might take four or five more days to compile and announce, well behind the schedule worked out in consultation with the United Nations.
Even before the vote, there were accusations of intimidation and electoral irregularities, but there have not yet been claims of massive fraud on the scale that tainted Afghanistan’s election last year. Foreign election observers and American officials said that Sunday’s election was carried out with minimal problems or irregularities.
On Thursday, however, Mr. Chalabi swept into a meeting at the election commission’s headquarters to demand that candidates be allowed to review the votes and the computerized system for compiling them.
Mr. Chalabi, who campaigned heavily in Washington for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, holds no elected position but has already profoundly influenced the country’s election. In January he oversaw the process of disqualifying hundreds of candidates on charges they once belonged to Mr. Hussein’s Baath Party, a murky process that raised early doubts about transparency and maturity of the country’s democratic institutions.
As he spoke, election officials looked on with beleaguered and weary expressions and then adjourned, putting off what had been planned as an announcement of the first results.
Mr. Allawi’s coalition said it had filed dozens of complaints with the commission.
At the evening news conference, Iraqiya members struck at the heart of Iraq’s election process, claiming that workers at the state election commission, who have been entering data in to computer systems, were caught fiddling with Iraqiya’s tally. Mr. Janabi said that United Nations monitors caught the tampering, and notified Iraqiya.
Three workers, they said, were caught excising a zero from the end Iraqiya vote tallies for certain areas.
The officials also alleged that Hayder al-Ebadi, a candidate from Mr. Maliki’s list, improperly visited the state election commission offices on Tuesday at 1:30 in the afternoon, and spent an hour-and-a-half.
Whatever the outcome of the challenges, the election appeared to leave the main coalitions in a virtual deadlock, with Mr. Maliki holding a lead, but not a commanding one.
He or a challenger will have to knit together a majority of seats into a coalition with enough of a majority to elect a new prime minister.
The Kurds, who have seen their political front fractured in recent months by internal divisions, seemed poised to hold onto a sizeable bloc of seats in the new, larger Parliament. They could emerge as the decisive faction if they can assemble a united front, according to one Western observer.
Already there have been signs that the coalitions that campaign together were fraying. Most of Iraq’s most powerful political parties joined them as a matter of convenience, and they could easily shift their loyalties.
“The coalitions never really coalesced,” the Western official said. “They are more like gatherings.”
Some of Iraq’s leading politicians signaled that they were open to new alliances, even with bitter opponents during the campaign.
“The State of Law coalition has drawn no red lines against any alliance,” said Ali al-Musawi, a media adviser to Mr. Maliki, referring to the prime minister’s coalition. “We stand equal distance from all of them. Everything is possible.”
Soon to be ON PAR with Saudi Arabia.. ?? Hmmm...
QUOTE:
"Iraq's deals call for foreign firms to boost output potential to 12 million bpd in seven years, which would leave it snapping at the heels of Saudi Arabia's capacity of 12.5 million bpd."
And it, "could challenge Saudi Arabia's position as dominant producer with the flexibility to influence output significantly."
Making Iraq a "tsunami" yet to be grappled with in the future. But one which, if all plays out well, could benefit and not hurt the world OR oil exporters, quote, "If the market is very tight, with demand rising and non-OPEC supply continuing to disappoint, then Iraq could be accommodated quite well ... "
Hoping for a good outcome, for all, as we all know, quote, "The first test will be how the new government that emerges from Sunday's elections will handle contracts signed by oil firms. But assuming the deals survive intact and work can go ahead, Iraq's huge oilfields present little technical challenge to oil majors that have had to push into regions such as deep water and the Arctic to access oil reserves. There is nowhere else on earth where international oil firms have access to such cheap to produce, abundant reserves.". :)
There is nowhere else on earth where international oil firms have access to such cheap to produce, abundant reserves.
Sounds very good for Iraq, the world.. and the Iraqi Dinar's future, all things going well.
Sara.
===
ANALYSIS - OPEC may face Iraq challenge sooner than expected
Simon Webb and Jo Winterbottom | 2010-03-11 20:00:00
/LONDON (Reuters) - The storm brewing on OPEC's horizon over future Iraqi oil output could engulf the producer group sooner than it would like.
OPEC was unlikely to discuss Iraq at its meeting on March 17 but it may need to do so within a couple of years.
"There's only one issue, but it's a big one. It's a tsunami. Iraq," said Leo Drollas at the Centre for Global Energy Studies.
After years of sanctions and war, Iraq is exempt from the output targets OPEC uses to set supply levels.
But as Baghdad embarks on an unprecedented oil industry development, OPEC will at some point need to bring Iraq back into the fold to prevent millions of barrels of new oil supply undoing its work to balance markets.
OPEC officials and analysts have said the issue is not urgent, as it could be years before Iraq makes significant increases to current output of around 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd). Baghdad's failure to reach past ambitious targets has fed the scepticism.
The consensus among analysts is that it would take around 5 years for Iraq to boost output by between 1 million bpd and 1.5 million bpd.
But output gains could surprise OPEC in their speed.
"You could be looking at 1.5 million barrels in two years," said a senior executive at one of the oil firms involved in Iraq. "That could make a huge difference to the supply and demand balance. Is there going to be that kind of demand pick up in that timeframe?"
Iraq's deals call for foreign firms to boost output potential to 12 million bpd in seven years, which would leave it snapping at the heels of Saudi Arabia's capacity of 12.5 million bpd.
Iraq faces huge political, security and logistical challenges in reaching that target. The first test will be how the new government that emerges from Sunday's elections will handle contracts signed by oil firms.
But assuming the deals survive intact and work can go ahead, Iraq's huge oilfields present little technical challenge to oil majors that have had to push into regions such as deep water and the Arctic to access oil reserves. There is nowhere else on earth where international oil firms have access to such cheap to produce, abundant reserves.
Reaching 12 million bpd in seven years appears improbable, but oil firms believe early gains will be easy.
The terms of the contracts Iraq has signed encourage firms to boost output quickly to recover costs. Once firms boost output from producing fields by 10 percent, they start getting paid.
"The way the contract is structured is to incentivise swift progress," said Bill Farren-Price of consultancy Petroleum Policy Intelligence. "I'm fairly optimistic that we'll see Iraqi oil output rising over the next 12 months as Rumaila and other projects get underway."
Iraq has said it expects another 200,000 bpd of oil from fields leased under the new contracts this year. Its biggest producing field, Rumaila, should rise 100,000 bpd by July. BP and CNPC won the contract to boost output at Rumaila, the workhorse of Iraq's oil industry to 2.85 million bpd from 1.07 million bpd.
WHAT CAN OPEC TOLERATE?
OPEC, which has weathered many difficulties in its 50-year history including a bitter war between members Iran and Iraq, will likely put off thorny negotiations on how to accommodate a resurgent Iraq as long as possible.
"It's the last thing they want to do (tackle this issue), the want to sweep it under the carpet," said Drollas of the CGES.
When the group calls on Iraq to rejoin the depends on how quickly oil demand rebounds after two years of contraction due to the global economic downturn.
"If the market is very tight, with demand rising and non-OPEC supply continuing to disappoint, then Iraq could be accommodated quite well ... But if demand falls then it would be a very big challenge for OPEC," said Bassam Fattouh at Oxford Energy.
Even if the market could absorb the extra production, other OPEC producers would have to maintain curbs on supply in place since late 2008, while Iraq pumped more.
This would create tensions within the group as other members effectively give up market share and billions of dollars of potential revenues to Iraq.
Baghdad has said that it believes OPEC should allow it to pump more without imposing a quota as it has lost market share and revenues to other members of the group as years of sanctions and war prevented Iraq from achieving its production potential.
OPEC officials have said they would need to think about quotas once Iraq showed it can consistently pump 3 million to 3.5 million bpd.
Some say the group would have to address the issue if Iraq's output approached 5 million bpd -- putting it ahead of Iran and making Baghdad the second largest OPEC producer after Riyadh.
That could challenge Saudi Arabia's position as dominant producer with the flexibility to influence output significantly.
"As Iraq substantially exceeds Iran's production level it will raise significant political problems for OPEC as a whole and for Saudi Arabia in particular," said Edward Morse, head of global commodities research at Credit Suisse.
Iraq has strengthened its hand for future negotiations with the oil deals. Previous production targets have been based on reserves. Iraq's reserves are a little smaller than Iran's, so a renewed quota might be similar to that of its neighbour. Iran's target is around 3.34 million bpd, although Tehran disputes that and is pumping around 3.75 million bpd.
But Iraq would likely refuse to be saddled with that comparison, as the deals it has signed would put it on a par with Saudi capacity, regardless of its reserves. It would likely use that as a starting point for negotiations, analysts say.
Early Iraq results: PM battling secular challenger
By LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writer
Mar 11 2010
BAGHDAD – Partial vote results in Iraq's historic election released Thursday showed a tight contest between the nation's prime minister, who had the lead in two provinces in the mainly Shiite south, and a secular challenger who appeared to be drawing on Sunni support north of Baghdad.
The preliminary tallies from five of Iraq's 18 provinces were a setback to hard-line religious Shiite political leaders who have close ties to Iran. But results for the big prize — Baghdad — have yet to be released.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's bloc was ahead with over a third of the votes counted in the mainly Shiite provinces of Babil and Najaf where his rival Shiite religious coalition had hoped to make gains. The Iraqiya list, which is led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, took the lead in the former Sunni insurgent strongholds of Diyala and Salahuddin.
Results from a fifth province, Irbil, were also released showing the Kurdish Alliance, which joins the two main Kurdish parties, beating out the upstart Kurdish party, Gorran, in the self-rule territory.
In Babil province, al-Maliki's political bloc won about 42 percent of the estimated 160,870 votes that have been counted so far, according to the data released by the election commission. In neighboring Najaf province, al-Maliki's win was even stronger — about 47 percent of the ballot count of 116,600 votes.
But al-Maliki appeared to be lagging far behind Allawi's list in the central provinces of Salahuddin, which is mostly Sunni, and Diyala, which has a mixed population of Sunnis, Shiites and Turkomen.
With only 17 percent of the ballots counted — far below the 30 percent threshhold that election officials had said would be the standard for releasing results — Iraqiya had about 55 percent of the vote in Diyala and 60 percent in Salahuddin.
At the election headquarters in Baghdad, scores of journalists jostled for a view of the vote counts as they were posted on big-screen TVs. Election officials appeared overwhelmed by the task of counting and reporting the vote, and seemed to have underestimated how long it would take. The election commission did not post the results on a Web site or make them otherwise accessible to the public, although the state-run TV channel reported the tallies Thursday evening.
Election officials said they had received about 1,000 complaints about the election process so far, although gave no indication as to what the complaints were about.
The Iraqi National Alliance, which is Iraq's top Shiite religious coalition, came in second in both of the southern provinces. The INA is made up of two main political parties — the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and the political party led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
A win in Babil and Najaf provinces would represent an improvement for al-Maliki's coalition over last year's provincial election.
The election news came as al-Maliki's office Thursday announced that the prime minister underwent surgery the day before for what an aide described Thursday as a "simple" procedure. The prime minister has already been released from the hospital and is back at work, the statement said.
The beginning of the end of oil as a valuable commodity:
From Greentech Media:
"Green Kingpins Part 2: Craig Venter of Synthetic Genomics
“We are at the early stages of seeing what biology can do.”
By the time they are done, J. Craig Venter of Synthetic Genomics and KR Sridhar of Bloom Energy will have raised more than a billion dollars of venture investment between the two of them. Both of these men are world-class entrepreneurs with world-class investor backing.
They spoke at the Wall Street Journal ECO:nomics event last week. The men are in very different markets and deal with very different sciences. But both are both taking on enormous technical and societal challenges and huge markets while armed with big war chests -- and big egos.
Craig Venter is a visionary who led the effort to sequence the human genome and now he's working on an equally world-changing project: Using algae to go directly from CO2 to hydrocarbons.
In July of last year, Synthetic Genomics announced a $300 million agreement with Exxon to research and develop next generation biofuels using photosynthetic algae. That investment will occur over a number of years -- but that's still a lot of cash. It's more than the total amount of venture capital invested in algae startups since 2005. A drop in the bucket for Exxon but still, big money.
Here's what Venter had to say: "We are at the early stages of seeing what biology can do."
Venter has come up an idea to trick algae into pumping more lipids out. He also claims to have "engineered algae to continuously pump out hydrocarbons," which eliminates much of the cost and energy-intensity of conventional algae oil farming. If that can be done, economically and at scale -- it is absolutely disruptive.
Venter understands the challenge confronting him (and every other algae oil aspirant), saying, "The real bugaboo is scale." Exxon is ready to invest $600 million but "the next phase will require billions."
Venter speaks in a matter-of-fact manner about his activities but beneath that calm tone are mind-bending ideas straight out of science-fiction novels. Venter has already created the first cell with a synthetic DNA gene. If not exactly creating life, Venter is bending the genetic code to do his bidding. He said that he is "going from the four-letter genetic code of A, C, G and T to the binary codes of ones and zeros."
He is "amassing a genetic database...continually learning to write the genetic code" and "treating the genetic code as a raw material." By "changing the DNA software in the cell, the cell converts to a new species." In Venter's words, "The concept of life is changing." He's looking to "design a new algae from scratch with two to three times more efficiency."
Venter is still determining what types of algae to use and whether it is more efficient to grow them in open ponds or in closed containers called bioreactors -- and that's telling. If these are still questions at Synthetic Genomics and Exxon (i.e., how to grow the algae and which species or strain to use), then these firms have betrayed that we are still very early in the research portion of the program; we are not yet at the development part of the R&D equation.
In Venter's "optimistic" estimation, it will take roughly a decade to get to scale on CO2 to fuel. But "once the proof of concept is done, this will move rapidly."
There remain many problems with algae -- it's not just a matter of tricking the algae to pump more lipids out or to secrete hydrocarbons. There's an entire process chain in algae farming that needs to be optimized -- algae growth, water issues, nutrient issues and more.
But Venter is a man of action and it's not a good bet to wager against him"
Conclusion: The Arabs better get their act together. They have a couple of decades at most, to live off oil. Then it's all over, and they have to work for a living, like the rest of us. 20 years is not a long time. Soon no one will want their oil. No one will be willing to fight over it. It will be worthless.
Iraq PM in tight contest with ex-premier for poll lead
AFP - Friday, March 12
BAGHDAD (AFP) - – Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was in a tight contest to keep his job as he vied with ex-premier Iyad Allawi, initial election results from four of the country's 18 provinces showed Thursday.
Four days after the election, Maliki and Allawi, both Shiite, have emerged nationally as the main candidates for the post of prime minister, with their blocs appearing to have fared best in Sunday's polls.
Complete results are expected to be announced on March 18 and the final ones -- after any appeals are dealt with -- will come at the end of the month.
Analysts have predicted protracted coalition building, as no single grouping is expected to win the 163 seats necessary to form a government on its own.
Several blocs called on Thursday for individual polling station tally sheets to be published online, expressing concerns the nationwide vote would not be in line with the total from individual stations.
Were the polling station tally sheets posted online, political blocs could check to see if their sum corresponded with the nationwide results tabulated by the election commission.
"I am not saying there has been fraud but we fear that the results could have been modified," said Maysun Damaluji, spokeswoman for the Iraqiya bloc and a candidate for parliament.
"The count is not being conducted in a proper fashion," Damaluji said, claiming that some party observers had been evicted from counting rooms. No election official was immediately available to comment on the allegations.
The INA added in its own statement that it was concerned over "signs of intentions to change the election results."
"We call on the commission to put the tally sheets of each province on the commission's website so that candidates and political entities will be able to count their votes manually," it said.
Electoral authorities have received around 1,000 complaints, according to Hamdiyah al-Husseini, an election official.
Quote: .. " in Brussels, the point-man for European Parliament relations with Iraq accused top Iraqi electoral commission figures of rigging the election at Iran's behest. "
=== Iraq PM in tight contest with ex-premier Iyad Allawi for poll lead
AFP, Mar 12, 2010
BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was in a tight contest to keep his job as he vied with ex-premier Iyad Allawi, initial election results from four of the country's 18 provinces showed Thursday.
Four days after the election, Maliki and Allawi, both Shiite, have emerged nationally as the main candidates for the post of prime minister, with their blocs appearing to have fared best in Sunday's polls.
In the autonomous region of Kurdistan, meanwhile, Kinaani said the Kurdistania alliance, made up of the region's two long-dominant parties, was in the lead in Arbil province with 27 percent of votes counted.
Kurdistania is made up of regional president Massud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
In second place was the opposition Goran bloc ("Change" in Kurdish), which surprised observers by snaring nearly a quarter of the vote in Kurdish regional elections last year.
Complete results are expected to be announced on March 18 and the final ones -- after any appeals are dealt with -- will come at the end of the month.
Analysts have predicted protracted coalition building, as no single grouping is expected to win the 163 seats necessary to form a government on its own.
Several blocs called on Thursday for individual polling station tally sheets to be published online, expressing concerns the nationwide vote would not be in line with the total from individual stations.
Were the polling station tally sheets posted online, political blocs could check to see if their sum corresponded with the nationwide results tabulated by the election commission.
The INA added in its own statement that it was concerned over "signs of intentions to change the election results."
"We call on the commission to put the tally sheets of each province on the commission's website so that candidates and political entities will be able to count their votes manually," it said.
Electoral authorities have received around 1,000 complaints, according to Hamdiyah al-Husseini, an election official.
And in Brussels, the point-man for European Parliament relations with Iraq accused top Iraqi electoral commission figures of rigging the election at Iran's behest.
"I understand that very high officials from the Iraqi Electoral Commission have been caught cheating by entering false data on the election computer," said British conservative MEP Struan Stevenson in a statement.
Election still unknown, some small indicators start to show up, but it is one of those early bird indicators that has discussion valye only.
Iraq oil output of 12 mill barrels....pretty high goals, will lead to a lot of changes in the worlds oil market.
That is an emergence of Iraq as the Gulf strongman, Saui Arabia will not be able to sustain it's production level, and in the long run they will be over taken by Iraq.
Yes one day the oil will be either used up, or substituted, as one blogger so frankly stated here, but the statement that this is only 20 years away, that is too soon to change around , but I will give it 50 years perhaps.
Roger posted: Yes one day the oil will be either used up, or substituted, as one blogger so frankly stated here, but the statement that this is only 20 years away, that is too soon to change around , but I will give it 50 years perhaps.
I agree, Roger. One day there will be demand for an alternate when we are almost out of oil and then "miraculously" someone will find the answer, an alternative. But oil is cheap now and not likely to be taken by storm overnite. Until then, say.. 50 years or so from now.. the idea of alternates is still just a "pipe dream." I don't mind it when individuals believe in some pipe dream and put their money into one as a private venture. More power to em.. hope they find an alternate and make it rich. I only object when it is the Government doing it with the people's tax revenues.. they are not supposed to be in business. That is not the role of government, to make a buck. Government competition with the private sector, whether it be in energy or car sales is a breach of trust with the public and a conflict of interest. Which is what Toyota said recently, including this comment, "As an American citizen, it is tough on my part to pay tax dollars to an entity that can turn around and use those tax dollars to get my fellow American citizens to not do business with me,":
===
Toyota Dealers Fight Back Against "Predatory Tactics" by GM say they're upset that their tax money is being used to lure away their customers
By Jim Forsyth
Monday, March 8, 2010
The head of the Toyota National Dealer Council today blasted the federal government for using 'taxpayer dollars' to fund incentive campaigns to lure customers away from Toyota, and accused GM of using ‘fear’ in an attempt to lure away its customers, 1200 WOAI news reports.
"As an American citizen, it is tough on my part to pay tax dollars to an entity that can turn around and use those tax dollars to get my fellow American citizens to not do business with me," Paul Atkinson, who owns Atkinson Toyota in Bryan Texas, and is President of the dealer council, tells 1200 WOAI news.
Atkinson says when General Motors was going through bankruptcy last Spring, Toyota behaved in a 'compassionate way,' and did not use GM's uncertain future as a 'lever to steal its customers.' But he says now that GM has been strengthened with taxpayer money, it is using 'low blow tactics' to hurt his business.
"The government owns 60% of General Motors, and these American tax dollars are funding business activity for one company, with the express goal of negatively impacting another company," Atkinson said today.
Atkinson specifically cited GM dealer mailings which he says have been targeted at existing Toyota owners. He called it ‘a nationwide predatory advertising campaign that uses fear in an attempt to lure customers away from Toyota and Lexus dealers.’
"There are some mailing lists which have been given to dealers, and there have been some mailers, in fact, I've seen several of them," he said. "On the outside of the envelope it says 'important Toyota recall information enclosed.' But when you open up that envelope, it is nothing more than an advertisement trying to get you to come trade your Toyota in at a GM store."
Atkinson calls those 'predatory incentives,' which he says should not be allowed to be employed by a company which is majority owned by US taxpayers against another company which employs hundreds of thousands of Americans.
"We will be sending letters out to Senators and Congressmen, as well as (Transportation) Secretary (Ray) LaHood," Atkinson said. "It's really unfair that American citizens have to fund this."
Atkinson also suggested that the recent Congressional hearings and federal government concern over Toyota's accelerator problems may have been sparked less by a desire to protect the public, and more by a desire to protect the federal government's investment in GM.
"There is a list of twenty manufacturers on these recall lists, and Toyota is number 17," he quoted several members of Congress and telling him privately. "If we're having hearings on number 17, what are they doing about numbers 1 through 16?"
Atkinson said business at Toyota dealerships was down 10% in January and down 8% in February, but the dealerships are standing behind Toyota products.
"Despite all of this, we outsold all of the other manufacturers in February except for one," he said. "Let's get these numbers in perspective. Sure, our sales are down, but we are outselling a lot of other brands."
Sara said: "the idea of alternates is still just a "pipe dream."
Sara: How do you know the idea of alternatives is just a pipe dream? Do you know more than Exxon, who are investing hundreds of millions, and soon to be billions, in a "pipe dream"? People who run oil companies are making these decisions, to invest in research, looking for alternatives, and these are hard nosed business people who know energy, know what it costs, and are making educated guesses as to what might be practical, with a bit more research. Do you really think you know so much about energy that you can pre-ordain what another decade of research by dedicated scientists into energy alternatives will bring? Especially when they don't fully know themselves? You think you know more than them? Your statement would indicate you think you do....Sara, Your arrogance is only exceeded by your idiocy. Your comments are completely idiotic, Sara. You should apologize to common sense for that remark.
And then Sara said: "One day there will be demand for an alternate when we are almost out of oil and then "miraculously" someone will find the answer, an alternative"....oh, I see, Sara, some magic fairy appears, waves her wand, clicks her ruby slippers three times, tells everyone they are not in Kansas anymore, sprinkles some Jesus dust around, and "miraculously" an alternative appears...no need for Exxon to spend hundreds of billions in research and development....all that thinking is just too hard, when magic will do!....grow up Sara, life doesn't work like that. How old are you anyhow? Six?
You're just a naive suckup for the status quo. And Obama is running the show now, not John McSenile, so governmental money, and lots of it, will be spent looking for alternatives. There's nothing you can do about it. You are powerless. And after nearing wrecking the economy, those loser Republicans were kicked out, on their ass, and won't get back for 20 years, 30 if we're lucky. They too are powerless. So you can go on harping all you want, but YOUR TAX DOLLARS will continue to be used to fund energy research, and there is nothing you can do about it. Ha, ha, so there....Think about that next time you open your purse. Think about it and suffer. Learn to live with it.... You seem to think elections are God's will...ok...If elections are God's will, then God must think Republicans are now losers, and not fit to govern. I sure think so, and I guess God agrees with me!....stick that in your pipe and smoke it!!
If now, our Gov owns 60% of GM, the mental picture I just got, is how a Gov employee will conduct himself when he is selling these Gov vehicles.
Big square pattern jacket and white shoes, that is a given, and the sales technique thorougly examined by the Gov better business advisory council.
This might be a prelude to the Soviet era car production, and sales distribution, where the citizen had to line up ten years before they get their car.
R. Reagan told that joke to Gorby, when the Soviet citizen desperately needed to know if the car was delivered before or after lunch.
"-Why does that matter, its ten years from now?"....-"Well, I need to know, my plumber comes after lunch"
About energy, well I'm with you, we have fossile fuel for now, and it seems like the awareness of getting a different fuel is pretty high right now, some call it the green movement, I call it common sense.
Most probbly a pretty long development will take place in where they make the combustion engine more efficient, or it is used in combination with batteries and the electric motor.
It's pretty obvious that the quickest way to save gas, or as the modern word is now, "leave a lesser carbon footprint" (wow that sounds really on top of things), is to favor smaller vehicles.
In that respect, the technology and production is ready in place, both in Europe, Japan and Korea.
Here in the US, the trend has only started, but I se much smaller cars on the street today, than I did only five years ago, plus the SUV craze where you have to have an SUV with a rope ladder to reach the door, and basketboll court inside, is gone now. That is a great sign, there is for sure a need for a few of those here and there, but all in all, regular Joe, don't need it to commute bumper to bumper.
The car in itself IS freedom, and if you would ask regular Joe, to either stop using gas or take the commute train, he will for sure find a tird alternative that will involve keeping his car.
He would most probably go with a smaller car, if the other option is the communal commute.
He would most probably smile when he remember his 350 small block, but will do everything to continue to drive his car, even if it is now driven by propane, hydroxy fuel cell, hybrid double ram transducer engine with zero slip transmission, and emission comparable with what a bat will breath out in a full years lifespan...
He will choose the car over anything.
That is also the field where most pressure on oil is excerted.
That is also the field where emission laws are most stringient.
Plus, lets not forget, that is also the field that will hit the consumer in the pocket in a straight and visible way.
So even if oil consumption itself is a wide area to cover, one of the best indicators in new technology is in the automotive field.
The 70's had a false start when it came to inovative designs that would help lessening the oil dependancy, but the electronic development was not up to par in those days, and most projects ended up as a frontpage in Popular Mechanics, and then, never to be seen again.
Today, the development for a more efficient ride have truly taken off, the needed electronics is today up to par, and this time all the big car manufacturers are on board.
Europe have been running clean diesel technology for some time, and over half of the cars over there are diesels. Hard to picture it, but small economy cars with maybe a 12 to 1400 cc engine with fuel mileage in the 50 to 70 mpg range have been buzzing around there for a long time.
It's consumer expectancy, over here a small car, is considered a mid size in Europe.
But, the consumer expectancy is built on what you push.
Mid to late 1990's the car commercials were full of big, bigger and biggest SUV's, (ours is bigger than theirs) that was pushed, and of course, that's what sells.
A sales campaign here pushing small cars will do the trick.
Suddenly, having a small car is "cool" and having a battleship is sooooo wrong.
A complete independence from oil will probably take quite some time, as even if the cars are gettng more efficient, and uses much less gas, the volume of them will keep the world thirsty for oil.
Emerging markets will keep the oil flowing for quite some time. In many of those countries, the evolution in efficiency or pollution control, have not even started.
A big town in India or China (or Baghdad, your pick) is a smog producer of big magnitude.
The prospective oil from Iraq, will easily find markets, so from the perspective of a sudden worldly disinterest in oil overnight....with the result that Iraq and all the other oil producing nations will do maintenace on their oil installations... like....keep the rodents away...and keep the cobwebs from the office building....and chase away nesting birds from the pipes....and the Iraqi Dinar will plumet, because of no oil sale.....well, as I say I will probably have to wait for another 50 years before I will asess the situation again.
That is not to say I don't welcome new ways to use energy. I really welcome any new approach.
I think technology is changing far faster than in the past, including green energy technology. In the past, it might have taken 50 years to get off oil. But now, there are more scientists alive today, than the rest of human history combined. and many of them are interested in getting off oil. This means a lot more will happen, quicker than people expect. And then Americans can continue to drive big cars, but do it cleanly. This guy agrees with me:
Vinod Khosla: In energy, ignore the experts
by Martin LaMonica
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.--Monkeys throwing darts have the same predictive powers as experts forecasting the price of oil or when grandmas will surf the Web with mobile phones, says Vinod Khosla.
The high-profile investor, who raised over $1 billion for a green-technology fund last year, argued here Wednesday that technology change in energy will happen faster than most expect because energy has now become a focus on technical innovation.
Khosla spoke at the ARPA-E Summit, a conference dedicated to showcasing breakthrough clean-energy technologies, where he challenged attendees to think big.
As an example of missed forecasts, he cited McKinsey's 1980 prediction that there would be fewer than 1 million mobile phones sold in 2000 when the actual number was over 100 million. Handicapping the price of oil, too, is often off-target because experts' assumptions are wrong.
"It's technology change that people miss and fail to forecast and I see that happening all over again in energy," he said. "A better way to forecast the future is to invent it because it's been proven that extrapolating the past doesn't work."
Not surprisingly, Khosla cited examples of companies that he is funding to demonstrate how technology can tackle the primary challenges in energy, which he said are coal, oil, materials, and efficiency.
Calera, for example, is a company that uses carbon dioxide as a feedstock to make building materials, such as concrete. Another is Kior, which is making gasoline and diesel replacements from wood.
His investment philosophy is to seek companies that can create technologies that compete with fossil fuels on price and can be scaled. Making biodiesel from restaurant grease, for example, is not "relevant scale" and selling hybrids to consumers in India and China is unlikely to happen because the price tag is so much higher than that on gasoline cars, he said.
Regarding policy, Khosla said the transformation of the energy industry will happen even if the U.S. does not put a price on carbon as a way of lowering total emissions. "A carbon price will definitely help...The right policies will definitely accelerate innovation and likely make the U.S. more competitive," he said.
More important is that energy has become a focus for innovation, particularly among young people and start-up companies.
"I think we're doing all the right things," he said. "The most important thing we did is make energy an interesting area for Ph.D. students over the last five years."
I just want to propose a perspective here, when it comes to oil dependency.
Go to YouTube, and pull up a couple of street scenes from Mumbai, Jakarta or China.
Think that is packed, just look at any rat race in the Americas, may it be Mexico, US or Canada. Europe is packed with cars, any continent is smack dang packed with them.
If new and more efficent resources are developed, that is nice and ducky, but when those are developed to cover the sheer VOLUME needed, then and only then do we have an alternative.
If you throw a couple of millions into a research project, for that money you will get a couple of cisterns, some pumps, pipes and other hardware, some office buildings, (usually prefabs) gravel yard, porta johns and a break room with a fridge, with a lot of notes on it telling you to not leave food, and where they will never fix the A/C.
They will get a fence, and a low wage guard that never knows anything and have to be woken up if you want to ask a question. He's darn good in pushing the button that raises and lower the boom.
The research team is not a government team, it is a corporate team, they are just using he govt money ( our money)
to do the research, but as it is initiated by a corporation the research result will have many years time lag before they can be seen by public, propriarity knowledge is governed very heavily.
This to ensure that if the reserch is showing good results, the corporation that initiated the research with our tax money , will get the very first investment opportunity into it.
That corporation will then develop the technology further, and that part will stay with the corporation.
If the results are not too good, or it shows that it is not feasable to develop, a shut down is then logical. The point of shut down will however depend on how long time the gov will pay for the research. So all the corporation need to show is "progress" and the money will keep coming.
Research money is just that, the entity the government finance, will exist as long as the government will feed it.
Last known illness that was actually cured, was Polio.
Late -40's early 50's.
60 years ago....again, 60 years ago.
Since then we have invested billions and billions in research for Cancer, Aids, Flu, you name it.
There will not be a cure for Cancer, Aids or Flu, because a cure means that the entity financed (fed) by the government will die.
So that's what government research are doing.
They don't cure anything, and they don't come up with anything that makes them say.....-"We're done"
But they are darn good researcher, so THAT is what they do. They research....Nothing else.
The Government have an idea that they wanto to solve something, so they throw money at it.
They've done it over and over again, and will most probably continue to write checks to solve their political agendas.
Right now the key words are "Energy, grenhouse gasses, oil dependency, global warming and organic food"
Say those words and the politicians of today, being in a hypnotic trance, will write you a check with our money.
Yes technology will develp faster today then in the past, that I agree with, as we have been able to computerize research into gigantic equations that can be solved in a flash. Earlier research was done by hand, pen and paper.
The knowledge of running stuff on Hydrogen, doing fuel from algae, or corn or whatever is already known.
We can of course still develop it further, but the basic knowledge needed to take a decision is already here. We can even go back to steam engines, or develop Stirling engines, all that stuff have been around for very long time.
It's not the knowledge that you can run a car on cornoil, algea or whatever, it is the whole distribution network all around the world that needs to be built up.
I have been running my diesel on old restaurant grease, and have built a couple of hydrogen cells. So I know it can be done.
But, it's not the knowledge that it can be done.
Take Hydrogen for example, exhaust, pure water.
Fuel...oceans....water.
Can't get any better than that.
It's the ....do it.
Build up a world wide distribution system, fully in par with all the oil pumps in oilfields, oilrefineries, pipelines, oil rigs, tanker boats, harbors, and gas stations all around the world.
Powerplants generating Hydrogen, delivery, storage, fuelingstations etc...and not much from the oil infrastructure is compatiable, and it has to be big enough to fuel ALL of the worlds vehicles.
Do THAT.
It will not happen as long as there is a system already in place, like oil or not. Like new technology or not.
I hope it will happen, but it will take an investment of such a magnitude that this world have never seen before.
Tell that to a congress that are already up in debt over their ears. And that is only in this country. We (the world) have to invest in the new fuel delivery system all over the world.
No... the politicians will, as usually, take the cheap way out and toss money to research projects, that will be payed by you and me, and never come up with a product... a five years study in algaes, corn, pickles or whatever, then and only then, can the guys in Washinton sleep.
They always take the cheap way out.... constantly.
Here comes Santa Claus!
Here comes Santa Claus!
Right down Santa Claus Lane!
He's got a bag that is filled with toys
for the boys and girls again.
Hear those sleigh bells jingle jangle,
What a beautiful sight.
Jump in bed, cover up your head,
'Cause Santa Claus comes tonight.
Roger, Bloom Boxes have a hydrogen storage unit, for the home, for the car, etc, that will be a commercial product in 10 years. All hydrogen will be produced in the home, so there is less of a need for a distribution system for hydrogen. You Tube has some good videos on it.
Research will bring many surprises. It always does. Who would have predicted the invention of the light bulb? The airplane? Very few. Keep throwing lots of money into research, and surprising and very cheap answers will eventually emerge. A hundred years ago, the world you and I know didn't exist. A hundred years from now, our world will disappear and a better world, with technology undreamed of today will appear. But only if people have vision and put money into basic research.
My guess is, the problem of electrical energy storage will be solved, and the world will run on electricity, not hydrogen. That will likely be far cheaper than hydrogen, is my guess. But we'll see.
Where will the answers come from? Private enterprise won't do this. Its the role of government to fund the future. And the role of inventors is to invent the future. Private enterprise is run by practical people who are not dreamers. Business people make the existing world work, but can't create a new world. They don't have it in them. A new world will be created by the dreamers and tinkerers, not by most business people, and not by corporate suck-ups like Sara, who have no imagination.
Once the future is created, and it's cheap, then even your average gutless, stupid politician will go along with it.
Hey, I said they would find an alternate.. and they will. Pretty obviously there are big players involved in this, as you pointed out. And they will wait.. until the oil runs out to "miraculously" introduce their new product. But they are developing them now, so it isn't pixie dust. Your invectives and pejoratives notwithstanding, you proved my points. It is no fairy tale making this work, it is hard nosed business sense. And they won't introduce their alternates until they use up what they are already selling. That is the way business works. You don't leave yourself with a bunch of dead stock (oil). How dare you bring Jesus' name into your discourse against me just because I am a Christian, calling it "Jesus dust". What disrespect you show toward my God. It is you who has a lot of growing up to do and ability to learn tolerance and respect for other points of view than your own. As you said, "Obama is running the show now, not John Mc, so governmental money, and lots of it, will be spent looking for alternatives." EXACTLY, that was my point. Instead of the private sector you said was looking into a proper business model and how to find and then bring it market.. the government will do the work.. and we all know how great government bureaucracy works in getting and delivering private sector services. As for your juvenile rant about, "YOUR TAX DOLLARS will continue to be used to fund energy research, and there is nothing you can do about it. Ha, ha, so there....Think about that next time you open your purse. Think about it and suffer. Learn to live with it...." That is below despicable. I only hope Americans wake up to their choices and private sector being taken over by big government and won't take it and continue to SUFFER under such insidious stupidity. As for God giving people what they deserve.. it was listening to the likes of you which put America into the mess she is in now.. maybe one day, very soon, we will see these same Americans regretting that mistake enough to make the right choice - God never forces His will on any people. They missed His choice last time, hopefully they will look for His will and choose it this time around. Otherwise they can live with the consequences of putting people in power like you.. and just "suffer" while such folks as you laugh with their "ha, ha, so there.. learn to live with it" mentality.
Roger - well said. When you state about how backward the government would be selling cars. Also I note you stated, "The 70's had a false start when it came to inovative designs that would help lessening the oil dependancy, most projects ended up as a frontpage in Popular Mechanics, and then, never to be seen again." I feel that will most likely be the fate of the government trying its hand at the energy sector. No different than the jokes of cars coming from the soviet union, they just won't get a model which works. And they will keep on funding and funding and funding it. There is no "fail" with a government product. So whatever loser project they make up will be on the cover of Popular Mechanics for years as the taxpayer funds a losing enterprise and all the government lobbyists will tell those in power what a great product they have so they keep on pumping the tax dollars their way. Meanwhile, people with any common sense will know and believe otherwise and not buy their failed policies (a new cash for clunkers, anyone?). The government sees PRIVATE enterprise doing a great job and working great innovation so they say, "We want a piece of that action" and jump in. It is like they look at third world dictators and say enviously to themselves how wonderful it would be to have Saddam's palace and all the oil production to themselves and be seen as "rock stars" in their own nation. That is their goals, not the proper use of governmental powers. They want rock stardom and cash.. the Michael Jacksons of government enterprise. But just wait until the government gets into competition with the private sector in energy and then watch a debacle like America has never seen. We all know how well Communism works for supplying the needs of the people in the past. And America lets her out of control Congress and executive branches take her resources and take over her industry, aping the colosus of Rome, which rightly fell from its own internal corruption.
As you said, "I welcome new ways to use energy. I really welcome any new approach." But, you point out, that won't affect the investment in the Dinar which is based on oil being found and developed in Iraq. It will take a lot more time than our generation to exhaust the oil reserves and only AFTER that happens will the alternates be viable and worth pursuing.. for anyone with a brain in their heads.. of which you cannot count a government bureaucracy. AFTER the government fails miserably, and misspends HUGE amounts of taxpayer cash.. only then will they give up their knight in shining armor mentality of trying to save the world from bogus Global Warming and a bogus "need" to make alternates work while we have cheap oil on hand. Then rationality will kick in.. if they don't go bankrupt attempting this stupidity first.
Doc Doom/Greenie Machine - The title of your article says an awful lot, "In energy, ignore the experts". Like, this is really the best way to go. After all, they are only EXPERTS because.. why?
What a travesty this young rich man has for a mentality when he says, quote, "Regarding policy, Khosla said the transformation of the energy industry will happen even if the U.S. does not put a price on carbon as a way of lowering total emissions. "A carbon price will definitely help...The right policies will definitely accelerate innovation and likely make the U.S. more competitive," he said.
The RIGHT policies? The reason he wants cap and trade is to make it so that instead of CHEAP oil, we have EXPENSIVE oil, using this TAX on carbon emissions as an excuse. THEN the much more expensive "alternate" technologies will come into play. Currently, the alternate technologies cannot compete in a free market against such a CHEAP commodity as oil, so they must use government to FORCE their much more expensive solution by the use of a carbon TAX which makes cheap oil more expensive. As Obama said, his policies will "NECESSARILY" bankrupt the coal industry.. in favor of these far more expensive alternates. It is not viable in the real world of the free market, so they must FORCE this change.. for our good, you understand. Only when government (who knows so much better than you) forces you to buy the five times more expensive alternate which you would never have bought before, will the world be saved and made clean. And the way to do it is to stop that oil from being so cheap by making them pay a fine, or tariff.. through these bogus carbon credits to "offset" non-existent Global Warming. It is all contrived and will cost so much it will hamper industry. When you have to pay five times the amount for fuel, you will drive less, but also, the price of goods at the grocery store which have to be trucked in (using alternate or very expensive fuel) will be much more expensive. It would never be a choice the private sector would choose! But it will be rammed down the public's throat, as Obamacare is being now, and as Greenie Doom here says, there is nothing you can do about it. Ha, ha, so there....Think about that next time you open your purse. Think about it and suffer. Learn to live with it...." And all the while these alternatative fuel barons will get rich on their very expensive alternates, because instead of oil, you are FORCED by the government to buy their much more expensive alternate. It is all powered by their greed and love of money, not the desire to see "clean" alternatives, they are just playing the government for cheap tricks like a prostitute, prostituting governmental power and using the government to enrich themselves. Ignore the experts, indeed.. and give young rich men like this the ability to compete with the big players.. who got big finding CHEAP ways to deliver fuel and run American enterprise. In the end, the American people will suffer from such folly of governmental interference in the free market, because, as history shows us.. it never works.
As Roger said, "If the results are not too good, or it shows that it is not feasable to develop, a shut down is then logical. The point of shut down will however depends on how long a time the gov will pay for the research. So all the corporation needs to show is "progress" and the money will keep coming. Research money is just that, the entity the government finance, will exist as long as the government will feed it." That is the problem in a nutshell. Government in business means funding business models which don't work and should fail.. until we get a collapse like Fannie and Freddie, who loaned when the government told them to instead of when the risk was worth taking. By loaning to people who could not repay, they made a bubble which eventually burst. This will be just another government made bubble. Your sentence "the politicians will, as usual, toss money to research projects, that will be payed by you and me, and never come up with a product... is so TRUE. It won't be a cheap way this time, it will be making the expensive alternates able to compete with cheap oil. By making things so much more expensive in every area of the economy, they will slow the economy and kill industry. That is the reality of where their cap and trade taxing of oil will lead - to the downsizing and destruction of the private sector. The people will indeed suffer as these shmucks laugh in glee as Greenie here did and say, "there is nothing you can do about it. Ha, ha, so there....Think about that next time you open your purse. Think about it and suffer. Learn to live with it...." That is the way reality will go, unless America wakes up and removes the shmucks from ever holding power.
As for the cool Dinar news.. got a link on that? Goin lookin for it now, but a link would be good, please, Roger? :)
Research will bring many surprises. It always does. Who would have predicted the invention of the light bulb? The airplane? Very few.
But that was NOT the government inventing these products, it was private enterprise.
Where will the answers come from? Private enterprise won't do this. Its the role of government to fund the future. And the role of inventors is to invent the future. Private enterprise is run by practical people who are not dreamers.
Oh, private enterprise is run by people who are not dreamers? Who invented the airplane and light bulb? The government?
Business people make the existing world work, but can't create a new world. They don't have it in them. A new world will be created by the dreamers and tinkerers, not by most business people, and not by corporate suck-ups like Sara, who have no imagination.
At least I am in good company if I am with the inventors of the light bulb and airplane, you know, the "unimaginative' people who brought you light, computers, technology.. hey, was Bill Gates a government employee? Suprisingly.. not.
Once the future is created, and it's cheap, then even your average gutless, stupid politician will go along with it.
Yep, keep on bashing the "stupid" politicians.. your type only plays them for laughs and whatever cash you can bleed out of them for their insane and costly failures of projects anyway.
Roger said: "Since then we have invested billions and billions in research for Cancer, Aids, Flu, you name it.
There will not be a cure for Cancer, Aids or Flu, because a cure means that the entity financed (fed) by the government will die."
Roger, you are looking at Cancer and Aids and Flu in the wrong way. People already have a cure: it's called prevention. The average American diet, I wouldn't feed to a pig, unless I didn't like the pig. Cancer is caused by Big Macs and most of what is on supermarket shelves and 7-11s. Most Americans don't know how to eat, or even live. Healthcare in the U.S. is a joke. The human body needs to be looked after for 90 years, if you want to live that long. There are "Blue Zones" around the world where people live longer than other people. All they do is eat a vegetable based diet, walk a lot, ride your bicycle, have a garden and work in it, and have a lot of friends, and be spiritual. Then you won't get cancer and will die in your bed at 90.
And the cure for AIDS is to stop screwing around. People are so idiotic they think they can screw everything in sight, and some magical cure will appear, to take away their disease. It's magical thinking, like Sara thinking a magical solution to energy problems will appear in the nick of time.
The cure for the flu is to have a strong immune system by a healthy lifestyle. Then your body will be able to fight it off naturally.
Idiotic Republicans and Stupid Democrats will tell you that you need to spend money on more healthcare technology to make you well. That's plain stupid, whether it's private or public healthcare. Healthcare comes from how you live your life. Technology won't save you, but if you are smart enough, you'll avoid a lot of diseases in the first place. All the idiots arguing over healthcare don't have a clue. Americans don't even live as long as most countries because our lifestyle is so horrible. We are fat, eat too much, don't move around enough. Private healthcare, or public healthcare wont' fix that.
Sara said: "Yep, keep on bashing the "stupid" politicians.."
OK,... here goes: the reason I bash politicians, is that most of them are so stupid, they need 2 hands, a map and a flashlight, just to find their rectum!
GM said, "the reason I bash politicians, is that most of them are so stupid, they need 2 hands, a map and a flashlight, just to find their rectum!
Yet, these are the saints who will save us all by finding us all alternate fuels.. the ones with vision and imagination.. the ones who are the way of the future!
You are inconsistent. Politicians ARE the government. Read what you said in italics, then go back and read what you said about them leading the brave new way into the future for industry and energy technology instead of the private sector.
Sara said: "And they won't introduce their alternates until they use up what they are already selling. That is the way business works."
No, Sara, that is NOT the way business works. Oil companies don't need to use up all the oil in the world before they start selling alternatives. They could care less if the oil sits in the ground for the next million years and all the Arabs starve, as long as they can make money. As soon as an alternative appears, and it's cheaper than oil, to produce and sell, and they can make more money that way, they will drop oil faster than George W Bush can mispronounce a word.
Sara said: "GM said, "the reason I bash politicians, is that most of them are so stupid, they need 2 hands, a map and a flashlight, just to find their rectum!
Yet, these are the saints who will save us all by finding us all alternate fuels.. the ones with vision and imagination.. the ones who are the way of the future!
You are inconsistent. Politicians ARE the government. Read what you said in italics, then go back and read what you said about them leading the brave new way into the future for industry and energy technology instead of the private sector."
No....There is no inconsistency. Most politicians are idiots. Some are useful idiots. Others are useless idiots. I prefer to vote for useful idiots, and dislike useless idiots. Useful idiots at least know who to listen to, even if they couldn't come up with an idea themselves. Useless idiots fight good ideas and listen to other stupid people.
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