Reuters Lines Up Iraqis Who Hate Bush, Pine for President Hillary

The Reuters wire service has scoured the countryside of Iraq for opinions about who should be elected to the U.S. presidency. Apparently, either Iraq or the Reuters template offered only two options: (a) "change" from the hasty and stubborn Bush team, or (b) and apathy over how America will never change from its ruinous policy. But isn't there anyone in Iraq who is grateful for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, or grateful for the American commitment to stay and help build a civil society? Reuters interviewers couldn't seem to find a one. Reporter Aseel Kami began by underlining the need for change:

Iraqis are avidly watching the 2008 U.S. election race, searching for signs of policy change under a new president and prospects for U.S. troop withdrawals from their country.

"I do not care if the president is a man or a woman, what really matters is the change of American policy towards Iraq," said Muhenad Sahib, a university professor from the southern oil hub of Basra, Iraq's second largest city.

The story reads like a lineup of Iraqis voting rhetorically for Democrats...

[This is despicable. I've been 'harvesting' half a dozen Iraq stories a day (to forward one or two) for years now, and I can tell you from those living there that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are worried about just the opposite: our leaving too early, and essentially throwing them to the wolves. Leaving the American people with the impression that the majority of Iraqis want us out runs the real risk of becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy - and risks potentially millions of Iraqi lives. Then what? Reuters apologizes {if that}? Dangerous irresponsibility and truly despicable.]

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Iraqi cannot understand why we discuss leaving Iraq

NOT LONG AGO, I finally succeeded in arranging for my Iraqi cultural adviser to move to the safety of the United States. My adviser -- whom I'll call by his tribal name, al-Dulaimi -- helped me navigate the thickets of local culture and politics when I served in Iraq during the first year of the war.

As we drove from the airport down an Oklahoma highway in the darkness, Dulaimi told me that he'd watched the Democratic presidential debates while waiting for his flight out west.

"They all talked about leaving Iraq," he said of the candidates. "They're just saying that to get votes, aren't they? They would never do that, would they?"

His plaintive question gave me pause. Of course, Dulaimi wouldn't understand American politics, or the way some Americans would view this war. After all, he had known American soldiers who were selfless and dedicated. Who cherished Army values. Who had committed their lives to each other and this cause.

So it would seem impossible to Dulaimi that the United States might give up. The Americans he knew, the ones he had risked his life (and the lives of his family members) to support, would never "cut and run."

[snip]

When I turned to answer Dulaimi's question about the heart of America, I didn't duck the obvious. Yes, we could pull out of Iraq. As bizarre as it sounds to anyone who has given a piece of themselves to this effort, retreat is possible. However, it is unnecessary...

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Face of Defense: Soldier Makes Positive Impact in Iraqi Community

BAGHDAD – Making a visible, positive impact during a tour in Iraq is something to which every deployed servicemember aspires. For an Army staff sergeant deployed to Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq, the quest to make his impact took him to Iraqi neighborhoods and schools.
[snip]

“Every time we come back, I love each and every one of those kids,” Dietzman, the Rough Riders first sergeant, said. “I have a blast with them.”

[snip]
Escuza and Dietzman are planning more trips to the school to deliver supplies and see what else is needed. They rely mostly on supplies sent from the United States, they said.

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Al-Qaeda Commander in Northern Iraq: We Are in Dire Straits

On February 12, 2008, the Qatari daily Al-'Arab published an interview with Al-Qaeda commander in northern Iraq Abu-Turab Al-Jaza'iri. The interview, at an Al-Qaeda hideout in northern Iraq, was conducted according to Al-Qaeda's stipulations - including no disclosure of the region where it took place and no communications or recording equipment of any kind brought to the site. The following are excerpts from the interview: [1]

We Have Been Forced to Withdraw from Several Cities

"It is true that we have lost several cities and have been forced to withdraw from others, after a large number of [Sunni] tribal leaders betrayed Islam and when their tribe members joined forces against us. However, we are still fighting, and the 'paralysis' mentioned by the Crusaders is true only for some of the regions. [Besides,] it is common knowledge that any war always involves advance and retreat, so that [even] in those regions I wouldn't call our position 'paralysis,' but rather 'the [changing] conditions of the war.'"

Al-Jaza'iri added: "…I do not want to paint a false picture: Our position is very difficult, but we are fighting, and will continue to do so…"

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Can Germany muster the courage to commit to fighting in southern Afghanistan?

Munich - When someone asks Hans-Ulrich Klose if he is the only member among the Bundestag's 614 parliamentarians willing to openly call for a move by German troops into the fighting and dying of Afghanistan's south, he provides this gracious sidestep: ''We are six who believe things must change.'' But the others remain in the closet, right? Right, Klose answers. (Snip) the idea persists that Germany can go on providing materiel and a kind of uniformed alternative service at a noncombatant's distance from the battlefield.

[translation: 'no']

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How to commit national suicide

And I thought Berkeley was bad. The UK goes one step beyond.

The Queen was deeply concerned to learn that RAF servicemen and women had been banned from wearing their uniforms in Cambridgeshire after months of verbal abuse in the streets, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

As head of the Armed Forces, the Queen backed the Prime Minister's decision yesterday to speak out against RAF Wittering for ordering its personnel to keep a low profile in Peterborough.

Gordon Brown insisted that members of the Armed Forces should wear their uniforms with pride in public.

Buckingham Palace would not comment publicly, but one source said: "Naturally the Queen was concerned to hear about the uniforms.

"Her two sons were in the Forces and so are two of her grandsons. It is very sad."

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Canada expected to back out of UN racism conference

UNITED NATIONS -- Canada is poised to become the first country to significantly distance itself from a major anti-racism conference the United Nations is planning. Insiders say the government feels the new conference is shaping up to be like the anti-West and anti-Israel free-for-all that critics said the initial gathering quickly turned into.

"At the moment, much of the planning for the conference suggests it will focus little on denouncing racism wherever it occurs, and a lot on advancing some countries' agendas against Israel and the West," said one insider familiar with the new policy. "The government feels that taking a stand against the gathering will do more in the long run for combating racism than joining in."

Arab- and Muslim-led verbal attacks on Israel at the 2001 conference were so dominant the United States and Israel walked out in protest. Canada, then under a Liberal administration, stayed, but its senior delegate told the assembly it did so "only ... to ... decry the attempts ... to de-legitimize the State of Israel and to dishonor the history and suffering of the Jewish people."

The UN gave planning oversight to its Human Rights Council, which since its launch less than two years ago has targeted Israel in 14 of its 15 resolutions charging human rights violations. States sitting on the Council then placed Iran, which has called for Israel's destruction, on an executive planning committee. Libya is the chair.

"Make no mistake, Durban II is on track to be even worse than Durban I," said Anne Bayefsky, a Canadian academic who edits the New York-based monitoring Web site EyeontheUN.org. "Canada, if it drops out, would be exhibiting moral clarity and courage after making the mistake at Durban I of staying despite serious reservations."

Canada was among 41 countries that last month opposed allocating US$6.8-million in UN funding to help pay for preparatory meetings for Durban II. The measure carried in the 192-member General Assembly.

"No one can stop Durban II because countries that are classified as less than democratic hold a majority in the General Assembly, and they are for it,"

["because countries that are classified as less than democratic hold a majority in the "general assembly" - where they exercise what they don't grant others, to our perpetual detriment. The organization has morphed into a gaming mechanism for despots - which we finance - it needs to go (or we from it)]

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Female Muslim medics 'disobey hygiene rules'

Muslim medical students are refusing to obey hygiene rules brought in to stop the spread of deadly superbugs, because they say it is against their religion. Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam.

[if we let government run our healthcare, it will become subject to any & all the political correctness that infests every other facet of government]

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Islam's Animal Gulag

...there are ten things that are essentially unclean for Shi'ite
Muslims. These are urine, feces, semen, dead bodies, blood, pigs,
alcoholic liquors, the sweat of an animal that habitually eats unclean
things, unbelievers, and - dogs.

Thus a man who walks his dog in a public place, where people might come
in contact with it, is liable to render them unclean. That's why the
Iranian authorities have come down so hard on this man: he is
compromising the ritual purity of the populace...

[WHAT?!! -more seriously, how long will it be before dog owners face
restrictions in the name of tolerance of Islam? Silly? Read preceding piece...]

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THE WAGES OF HILLARYCARE

Hillary Clinton's "individual mandate" for health care, is being exposed for its inevitable government coercion. Under HillaryCare II, everyone would be required to buy health insurance, along with more insurance regulation, a government insurance option for everyone and tax hikes. HillaryCare II isn't about "choice,

"but would require financial penalties for people to comply, including garnishing wages. To put it more accurately, the individual mandate is really a government mandate that requires brute force plus huge subsidies to get anywhere near its goal of universal coverage."

Consider: Mitt Romney's mandate program in Massachusetts is already expected to reach $1.35 billion in annual costs by 2011, up from $158 million today. And that's with only half of the previously uninsured currently enrolled.

Most experts calculate that a national mandate with subsidies like Clinton's would enroll about half to two-thirds of the uninsured - but such guesswork is pointless without the basic enforcement assumptions, which Clinton refuses to provide.

The political lesson that Clinton learned in 1994 wasn't about compromise or market forces. It was that a government health-care takeover can only be achieved gradually and by stealth. Her individual mandate is an attempt to force everyone to buy into a highly regulated and price-controlled system where government redistributes income and dictates coverage.

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Economists See US Avoiding Recession

The U.S. economy will suffer as the slumping housing market eats away at job creation and consumer spending, but the nation should avoid slipping into a recession this year, according to a new economic report. A recession could still happen though, if the credit crisis that has stifled the housing market deepens, preventing consumers from buying big-ticket items (Snip) The forecast anticipates job growth remaining sluggish in 2008, with the U.S. unemployment rate rising to
5.5 percent by the end of the year

[who knows - point: no one really]

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Depression Coverage

Economists "don't even agree that we're in a recession yet," Gainor said. "But then if you watch the network news shows, we're already up to eight times this year - that's once a week where they've made a comparison to the Great Depression."

Gainor was referring to new research from the Business & Media Institute showing the media's tendency to compare current economic conditions to the Great Depression. Network news shows have made the comparison eight times in 2008, and made the comparison 18 times in 2007.

"[P]art of the problem is [they don't] put it in context," Gainor said of the media's coverage of potentially negative economic news. "And when you don't put it in context you forget - yes, housing is down, nobody is saying that it's not gloomy right now, but then put it context and say we had several record years before this."

The incessant focus on "recession" and now "depression" poses the threat of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy - and that's according to journalists, Gainor explained. "I got an e-mail today from the Poynter Institute, one of the foremost journalistic authorities in the country," he said. "They're warning also about how the media may be over-hyping recession so much that they're making this basically a fait accompli."

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Moses was high on drugs: Israeli researcher

Jerusalem - High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week. Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

[now a cynical person might quip that that explained a lot]

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gEOpkeLopJixolK1-9AQ_zNeWe5g

A Husband's Nightmare

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