WaPo: Did Obama Really Find Support For Iraq Withdrawal Plan?

THE INITIAL MEDIA coverage of Barack Obama's visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable. So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama's own account, neither U.S. commanders nor Iraq's principal political leaders actually support his strategy.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of the dramatic turnaround in U.S. fortunes, "does not want a timetable," Mr. Obama reported in a news conference yesterday. He explained that "there are deep concerns about . . . a timetable that doesn't take into account what [American commanders] anticipate might be some sort of change in conditions."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that his timetable, already extending seven months past Obama's, would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks.

Other Iraqi leaders were more directly critical. As Mr. Obama acknowledged, Sunni leaders in Anbar province told him that American troops are essential to maintaining the peace among Iraq's rival sects and said they were worried about a rapid drawdown.

Yet Obama insists that Afghanistan is "the central front". But there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered. While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country's strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves.

If Mr. Obama's antiwar stance has blinded him to those realities, that could prove far more debilitating to him as president than any particular timetable.

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American Heroism Goes Unreported in Iraq

[HT:MG]
American heroism has been ignored and overlooked by networks at home and overseas for the duration of the Iraq war, while insurgents and terrorists have used willing media outlets to score public relations wins... [snip]

“You can’t name one hero from this war but there’s got to be a thousand or more. Did anyone know who was in charge of the American soldiers in Iraq until [Gen. David] Petraeus took over?"... "But we all knew who al Zaraqawi was,”

“The reality is they [the insurgents] could never stage a massive attack against any of our bases, even the smaller ones, but anytime there was more than one rocket launched, you would read about how Baghdad is under attack, and I would just have to say to myself, ‘What are they talking about?’”

“We are bound as a country and as a military to the stubborn thing called truth and accuracy, and because we are bound to these very stubborn things called truth and accuracy, we are not as agile as somebody who is not bound by truth and accuracy,”

A collection of graphs and charts made available through the public affairs office of the Multi-National Corps in Iraq indicates that the media has pulled back on its coverage, now that U.S. casualty figures have declined and Al Qaeda is in retreat. (See related story)

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Not in My Backyard, Say an Increasing Number of Germans

The planned construction of over 180 mosques in Germany is mobilizing right-wing xenophobes but also an increasing number of leftist critics. They fear the Muslim places of worship will facilitate the establishment of a completely parallel society...

[no bias in this lead in {hey, it's der Spiegel}]

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Council refuses to back charity event for wounded British soldiers - in case it offends ethnic minorities

A council refused to back a military charity event for fear of offending minority groups. Richard Chamberlain had applied for a £500 grant to help him raise cash for Help for Heroes, which cares for wounded soldiers. But Portsmouth City Council turned down the 57-year-old, saying in a letter: 'The event could cause offence to ethnic minority groups living in the community who may also have experience of injury/violence due to the war.'

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Iran vows no concessions in nuclear dispute

Tehran, Iran - Iran will not ''retreat one iota'' over its disputed nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday. (Snip) ''The Iranian nation has chosen its path,'' Ahmadinejad said.

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NATO’s Long-Term Relevance Hinges on Afghanistan, Mullen Says

NATO’s long-term relevance will be tied directly to success in Afghanistan, and the slower NATO moves to ensure that success, the longer it will take to achieve, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said June 26. [snip]

Afghanistan, where NATO leads the ISAF effort, is “at the heart of NATO right now,” he said. “And I believe that whether NATO is going to be relevant in the future is tied directly to a positive outcome in Afghanistan. And we’ve got a lot of work to do there, [and] some significant challenges. [snip]

Mullen is expected to continue pressing NATO members to step up their contributions in Afghanistan at a NATO Military Committee chiefs of staff session in Brussels, and Belgium...

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EUROPE's ECONOMICS LESSONS

The Europe that Obama is visiting this week is quite different from the one Americans often hear about, says Henry Olson, vice president of the American Enterprise Institute and director of its National Research Initiative.

Over the last decade, much of Europe has very quietly embraced market-based reforms that draw inspiration from American successes. In recent years, many European countries, including Germany, Spain and Britain, have reduced their countries' top corporate tax rates. Center-right governments in Greece, Denmark, Ireland and Eastern Europe have also dramatically reduced corporate tax rates.

European politicians now recognize that the energy and innovation of market actors can better produce wealth than traditional social democratic government-run 'solutions',

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New Hope for Global Warming Skeptics

But the most fascinating and encouraging news for the skeptics is from Australian astrophysicists I.R.G. Wilson, B.D. Carter, and I.A. Waite.

The Sun wobbles a bit around the center of the Solar System. Sometimes the center of the Solar System lies outside the surface of the Sun, only 1,000 times heavier than Jupiter and 3,000 times heavier than Saturn. All that wobbling seems to affect the behavior of the Sun.

It supports the contention that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 - 30 years. On each occasion that the Sun has done this in the past the World's mean temperature has dropped by ~ 1 - 2 C.

Wilson and Co. should talk to the Germans who think that the cooling will only last for 10-15 years and try to come up with a cooling consensus.

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Reality Check

For decades now, Democrats have supported the policies of extremists who have systematically sought to shut down every major energy source for our economy. We can't drill for oil offshore, we can't drill in the frozen tundra of north Alaska, we can't even develop oil shale on the mainland. Liberals are even opposing the development of new oil discoveries in the Plains states.

Reality: China is now producing oil from wells in Cuban waters off the coast of Florida, selling and reaping enormous profits...

Nuclear power? Can't have that. The last U.S. nuclear projects was the Shoreham plant begun in 1973. After 16 years of ridiculous 'regulatory delays', the plant was shut down in 1989 - Long Island Lighting went bankrupt as a result. Those delays were/are due to laws and policies adopted by Democrats, who are willing to let extremists use them to shut down any such construction

Reality: France and Japan are now competing to sell nuclear plant development to China and India...

Now they're opposing the development and even the maintenance of coal fired electric plants. The energy policy statement on Barack Obama's website says, "Obama believes that the imperative to confront climate change requires that we prevent a new wave of traditional coal facilities in the U.S." In Georgia, a state judge denied a permit for a new coal electricity plant on the grounds of... global warming.

Reality: China opens a new coal plant every week on its way to eventually pass the U.S. as the number one economy in the world...

Remember Obama's famous quote:

"We can't just keep driving our SUVs, eating whatever we want, keeping our homes at 72 degrees..."

What he means by this is that our current standard of living is unfair. It represents massive inequality in comparison to the rest of the world. So we'll have to reduce it.

Reality: Their 'energy plan' will do just that.

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Majority of economists see McCain better for stocks

WASHINGTON - The U.S. stock market would fare better in the first year after a victory by Republican presidential candidate John McCain than by his Democratic rival Barack Obama, according to a majority of economists at U.S. banks and research groups polled by Reuters.

[have a 401k?]

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CALIFORNIA AS NO. 1

California faces a $15 billion budget deficit and Democrats who rule the state Legislature have proposed closing the gap with a $9.7 billion tax hike on business and "the rich." This is a very bad idea, says the Wall Street Journal. The plan would:

• Raise the top marginal income tax rate to 12 percent from 10.3 percent; that would be the highest in the nation and twice the national average.
• Increase the corporate income tax rate to 9.3 percent from 8.4 percent.

This latest tax gambit was unveiled, ironically enough, within days of two very large California employers announcing they will be leaving the state because the costs of doing business in California are too great:

• First, the AAA auto club declared it will close its call centers in California, meaning that 900 jobs will move to other states.
• Then last week Toyota announced it would be moving about 1,000 jobs to Mississippi.

The liberal fairy tale is that the rich "don't pay their fair share." In fact, those with incomes of more than $100,000 pay 83 percent of the state's income taxes, and the richest 6,000 of the 38 million Californians pay $9 billion in taxes, says the Journal.

What the politicians in California refuse to address is their own overspending:

• State outlays were up 44 percent over the past five years, meaning that California is spending at a faster pace than even Congress.
• Even in the face of the giant deficit, Schwarzenegger and the Democrats want to pass a new $9 billion water bond, a $14 billion state-run health insurance program, and the most expensive climate-change program in the country.

[it's who we elect]

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Demographic Trends

California

[estimates of which states will gain and lose House seats and electoral votes based on extrapolations from the 2007 Census Bureau population estimates.- not very exciting - it's the note at the bottom...]

Note: Polidata projects California to lose one congressional seat. This may or may not happen. But if it does, or if California just stays even, this will represent a stark reversal of a very long trend: California has gained House seats in every Census-dictated reapportionment since it was admitted to the Union in 1850. Immigrants are still streaming into California, but the domestic outflow is balancing that off.

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Governor, lawmakers rate low in Field Poll

California

"I don't know if the governor or the Legislature is worse. It's a little like the chicken and the egg"

A Field Poll released Tuesday reported that more Californians (46 percent) disapprove of the job Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing than approve (40 percent.

And the governor looks like an over-achiever compared with the Legislature. More than twice as many poll respondents (57 percent) hold the collective performance of legislators in disrepute than think they are doing OK (27 percent).

"We can't keep blaming the guy at the top for having his hands tied by the Legislature we vote in," King said. "The only thing that is going to do any good is to get some informed voters out there at the polls."

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An American 'Honor Killing'
Police say a Pakistani named Chaudhry Rashid strangled his 25-year-old daughter San- deela Kanwal with a Bungee cord in her bedroom because she wanted to end her arranged marriage. This "honor killing" came not in Pakistan, but in Jonesboro, Ga. (Snip) At his arraignment, Rashid said through an Urdu interpreter stated ''I have done nothing wrong.''
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Measure would tie teacher pay to student performance

SALEM, Ore. -- An initiative measure that would tie teacher pay and job security to student performance has won a spot on Oregon's November ballot. The secretary of state's office says the measure drew enough valid petition signatures to qualify for the statewide ballot.

It would make all teacher raises dependent on "classroom performance," instead of on experience or seniority levels.

Teachers unions are expected to wage a major fight to try to defeat the measure.

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Gas Prices Cause Louisiana Women to Resort to 'Pole Dancing'?

WAFB TV Channel 9, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana pulled out all the stops for this ridiculous report claiming that "some women" in the Pelican State are resorting to working in strip clubs because gasoline is so expensive. To prove it, WAFB found one woman that said so. I'd say that clinches this as "fact," then.

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