Political Frenzy

Photo: Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Has anyone else noticed the tension between the US and Russia? It’s so thick you can cut it with a knife.

Today Russian president Vladamir Putin, while visiting Tehran, warned the US against attacking Iran. Saying “…no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third powers for use of force or military aggression against any Caspian state.” It has been said that the US would use the Caspian region to launch attacks on Iran.

The fact that Russia is building Iran a nuclear plant in Russia does worry me a bit. But not as much as what Putin said next, “Threatening someone, in this case the Iranian leadership and Iranian people, will lead nowhere, they are not afraid, believe me.” Wow, do I feel the rumblings of World War III?

If Russia is now in bed with Iran I suppose they don’t like threats, they like action…well covert, deniable action.

With Russia as their new ally, Iran does not need nuclear weapons. Russia has plenty!

What does Russia see in Iran anyways? Maybe Putin likes the ‘death to America’ chants, or perhaps he has a love for secretly building bombs that kill Americans without any repercussions.

Nah, it’s probably just the food.

Source: VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press

A column by Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times today brings up some interesting points. He argues that any presidential candidate running on the 9/11 platform should not be doing so. He says we don’t need a president of 9/11, we need a president of 9/12.

Has our government been harping on 9/11 too much? Friedman says we have become the “United States of Fighting Terrorism.” He wants our next president to know who our enemies are and also who WE are.

This is a tough issue to tackle.

Since 9/11 we have all been looking in one direction, the direction of avoiding future terrorism attacks. Have we forgotten about other priorities? Have we given up freedoms? We have, and the only reason why is because we feel like we have to choose between staying alive and universal health care.

This is not true.

We need to balance our priorities as a nation. Terrorism has been around for centuries and unfortunately will most likely be around for my children’s children to deal with. An act of terrorism is so easy to carry out by cowards, and because it is, we are constantly in fear of it.

The two things that terrorists need in order to succeed are: fear and media attention. The media will continue to give terrorists media attention. But we do not have to give them our fear.

We shouldn’t be as fearful as we are in the first place. In the past few years with the majority of our resources focused on preventing terrorism, we have had zero attacks on US soil. We have made it very difficult to do so. There are so many things going on behind the scenes to protect YOU that it would bewilder you if the curtain were lifted.

I’m not saying that we don’t have to worry, but you can’t worry about everything. You never know when your time is up.

With our new found effectiveness in preventing terrorism I would like to see our government shift some focus to domestic issues. There are too many people without healthcare, too many people living in poverty, and too many school children without textbooks.

Terrorists think that we are in fear of them, we shouldn’t be, we can’t be.

I won’t let a group of cowardly smelly cave dwellers have my fear.

We are the greatest nation in the world; we need to start acting like it.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, feeling heat from every corner of the political world, resigned today. Democrats were very happy saying that they have been calling for his resignation for months.

Gonzales is blamed for approving illegal wiretapping of Americans, the firing of US Attorneys, and approving torture on enemy combatants (among other things). President Bush said that Gonzales was being “dragged through mud for political reasons.”

It is very easy for any Attorney General to be criticized because the job, much like the presidency, entails making decisions that are so tough that they are brought up the ladder to him. When a decision reaches this place in the political system whatever decision is made is bound to make one group of people mad, and the other happy.

We never hear from the group of people who are happy, it doesn’t sell newspapers.

At an “Ask Mitt Anything” forum today a woman asked presidential candidate Mitt Romney of his 5 sons, “If none of them are (in the military), how do they plan to support this war on terrorism by enlisting in our U.S. military?”

First of all this question is horribly phrased and backs Romney into a corner. But like a true politician he waltzed his way out by discussing how his niece’s husband, who is in the National Guard, was called up, how his sons chose different career paths and are supporting the military by campaigning for him to be president.

It is a dumb question, but I feel that it needs to be addressed. Must someone be enlisted (or an officer) in the military to be a supporter? What do you think?

The notion that you must be IN the military to be a supporter, is ridiculous. I support the military with all my heart, but I’m not heading off to basic training any time soon. However, if we ever have a draft I will be the first guy at MEPS with my head shaved. The United States is the greatest nation on earth because of sacrifices Americans have made while serving in the military. We would be nowhere without them today.

Military service is not for everybody, just like all careers. Some of the most successful people I know are in the military, but it is not for everybody. To support your country in a time of war you should be doing the things that you are best at, not what someone else is best at. The guy who makes M-16s might not be the best to shoot them, and vice versa.

It is naive for someone to think that to support the military you must be in it, and it is even stupider to try to trap a professional politician by asking such pointed questions.

President Bush (remember him?) met with the President of Afghanistan today. They debated the conditions in Afghanistan and the role of Iran in the current wars.

President Bush is playing defense (just like our troops) on these issues. When the US invaded Afghanistan is seemed that al-Qaeda and the Taliban were defeated and Osama would be captured. Fast-forward 6 years, the Taliban has rebuilt and Osama is wasting perfectly good oxygen in some dark cave (what a hero). On top of that we have an unstable Iraq, and a hostile nation, Iran, building nuclear weapons. Are we back at square one?

No, we are back at square -5.

Karzai, the Afghani President, says that Iran has played a “helpful role” in Afghanistan. Considering that Iran is providing the IEDs that are killing our troops daily in Iraq, I would say that Iran is being “less than helpful.”

President Bush said, it was up to Iran ‘to prove it is not a “destabilizing force” in the region.’ I agree with this, Iran is secretive and blatantly hostile towards the US. Iran needs to show that it is being helpful, and President Bush needs to find out why President Karzai thinks that Iran is.

It is always nice to know if you are in bed with the enemy.

Source: BarackObama.com

Barack Obama’s views on the use of military have been making headlines lately. He made a comment about how, as president there would be no use of nuclear weapons…on civilian targets. Which was criticized by the other candidates including John Edwards who said, “A candidate for president should, in general, avoid talking about the potential use of nuclear weapons.”

Now other campaigns are giving campaign advice?

Obama then made a comment about attacking al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan, which caused everyone within a 10,000-mile radius to try to spin it to harm his campaign…ahh yes good old politics.

Obama’s comments also caused President Bush to call the President of Pakistan and discuss how the comments, “were unsavory and often prompted by political considerations in an environment of electioneering.” A presidential candidate has that much pull? I’m impressed.

The Obama campaign has been ratcheting up its display of a ‘tough’ Obama who will fight terrorism. An update email to supporters displayed the image above of an angry Obama and talked about the pressing need to deal with Taliban and al Qaeda and how the Bush Administration missed its chance to take them out. All other update emails have been about ending war, then highlighting his views on domestic issues…there must have been a poll that suggested he would gain points if he took a tough terrorism stance.

I like the move because every other Democratic candidate is preaching the same things. Obama realizes that he must beat the other candidates to get the nomination, to do so he must separate himself from them.

It is good to see the anti-war candidate talking about something other than a pullout. A pullout will only cause the strife in the Middle East to fester.

Senator Clinton plans to introduce an amendment repealing the Congressional authorization for the war; it would require President Bush to seek Congressional authorization to extend the war past October 11, 2007.

One word: VETO

Why would President Bush even consider signing this? He seems hell bent on staying in Iraq, and will veto anything that comes within a 5-mile radius of his desk that has to do with pulling out of Iraq. Congress has tried the timetables and it didn’t work. They tried the timetables again, didn’t work. They are currently trying the timetables again (sneak preview…didn’t work).

Now Senator Clinton is trying to slip this in as if the president and will not realize it’s there and accidentally sign it. This isn’t a mortage application! Sorry Hillary, he WILL see it.

Barack Obama has even said that Clinton’s approach is ”a convoluted approach to the problem.” Obama went on to reiterate that he was against the war from the start and if elected he would meet with military leaders to determine an exit strategy.

Obama also said the he believes the U.S. has a ”humanitarian obligation and national security interest in ensuring there’s not a complete collapse in Iraq.”

This is the first time I have heard an anti-war candidate say something about Iraq other than PULL OUT. Obama realizes that our troops are currently needed in Iraq, he (like most people now) just disagrees with the reason why we invaded in 2003.

If we only had a crystal ball.

Today GOP Senators blocked an Amendment that would allow our troops to actually have breaks between tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Amendment, sponsored by Senator Webb, a Vietnam veteran who wore his son’s combat boots during his entire campaign, fell 4 votes shy of being voted on, you read that correctly. They had a vote to vote, very productive. As much as I love Congress sometimes they just makes me shake my head and say ‘what?’

The Amendment states, “No unit or member of the Armed Forces…be redeployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom unless the period between the deployment…is equal to or longer than the period of such previous deployment.”

The Amendment was supported by the Military Officers Association of America saying in a letter to Senator Jim Webb, “MOAA is very concerned that steps must be taken to protect our most precious military asset – the all-volunteer force – from having to bear such a disproportionate share of national wartime sacrifice.”

Seven Republicans voted for the Amendment, six of which are up for re-election in 2008… big surprise.

An editorial in the Army Times discussed how the current deployment strategy doesn’t work. “It means more mental health problems for soldiers, more stress on families and less support for the mission at home….This is a bad policy.” Longer tours, they discuss, threaten the very strength of the Army. It was found that, “…mental health issues increase in direct relation to the length and frequency of deployments and the amount of combat experience soldiers endure.” The Army Times realized that the Amendment would not pass but said it “would force a debate on how to answer the call in Iraq without destroying the Army in the process.”

The current re-deployment policy states that soldiers may have 12 months at home for every 15 months in a war zone. This is not true. I have friends who are currently in war zones in the Middle East. I can guarantee you that after their 15 month tours they got nowhere close to 12 months at home before they were sent back to the sand.

I always like to see Senators voting against their party, it shows that they are thinking for themselves. Re-evaluating the redeployment policy is a great idea. Our soldiers are needed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we cannot overuse them.

For the first time in many long years, there is finally a chance for peace in Northern Ireland. “Dr. No” Presbyterian leader Reverend Ian Paisley, famous for his refusal to co-operate in any manner with the Catholic minority of the British domain, has become the new First Minister of Northern Ireland, with former Irish Republican Army commander/terrorist organizer (depending on who you ask) and Sein Finn leader Martin McGuinness taking the position of Deputy First Minister.

Paisley and McGuinness, traditionally bitter enemies, were surprisingly warm with each other. The photo for this article shows the young McGuiness aiding the now elderly Paisley through the door like a young man aiding his grandfather, not like two men who threw bitter words at each other and threatened violence against each other in the past. As Paisley said, “Yesterday was yesterday, today is today, and tomorrow will be tomorrow.”

In a world ripped apart by violence and hate, where people dehumanize their enemies and commit unconscionable attacks on each other, the religious and political divide in Northern Ireland is quite amazing to see healing. It brings tears to my eyes to view the beautiful photo, and realize that only two decades ago these men would have taken the opportunity to slit each other’s throats, and now they can touch each other like old friends and speak like family.

I hope the world can follow this heartwarming example, and that both sides of Northern Ireland’s political and spiritual divide can maintain the paths for set by these two brave leaders for generations to come.

Sein Finn, Ian Paisley, Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland

Due to the lack of internet at my newly moved-into house, I am updating from an internet cafe .Thanks, Online Coffee Company! Mmm, Chai and Lemon Cake…

Now I’m coming off as a liberal stereotype. Um… GIT ‘R’ DONE!

There, now all is even.

First off, I would like to apologize for the delay in putting Maz Jobrani’s interview on this site. Due to technical problems, the video is taking a very long time to get transferred to a computer. Instead, I will devote a portion of tomorrow to creating a full transcript, and hopefully post that by that night.

Well, I was flipping through “Amazing Spider-Man 536″, released late 2006, and I realized that there is a super-secret code in Peter Parker’s words. If you replace the words “cape” with “turban”, and “registration” with “patriot”, something entirely else is spelled out! And by that I mean, it’s totally blatantly obvious.

Using a scanner and Microsoft Paint, I bring to you the TRUTH of Marvel Civil War!

[CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE]

Eerie, ain’t it?

The Republican party is, as usual, inconsistent. Shashank Bengali of the Ledger-Enquirer reported today that plans for a wall in Baghdad, which troops have nicknamed the “Great Wall of Adhemiya”, is in jeopardy of falling to pieces now that Iraqis have come together to stop what some have called a “racist wall”. The wall would be constructed to section off Sunni areas from Shiia-controlled neighborhoods.

That this wall would even be considered is evidence that Baghdad is not safe. Unless, of course, Tim Walberg wants to propose plans to carve up Ann Arbor in Detroit’s West Side to keep the West Side Gang, Latin Kings, and West Willow Crips from each other. Obviously the rivalry between the Crips and Latin Kings, who are notorious for their violent shoot-outs, is still not as bad as the Sunni and Shiia problem in Iraq. I guess Baghdad isn’t as safe as Detroit, which Walberg assessed last month.

These assessments of “safety” are based on gut feelings and wishful thinking, not on empirical evidence. Last Wednesday a car bomb killed 82 people in Baghdad. Even if that had been an isolated incident, it is still staggering. But it is not an isolated event. People are dying by the dozens in Baghdad every day, to say nothing of the rest of the country. The death toll in Baghdad blows away anything we have here in the US.

Though I hate to jump on the bandwagon, it is totally insane that when McCain assessed that Baghdad was so safe, he was wearing a massive flak jacket and surrounded by dozens of troops. I have never needed a flak jacket, let alone armed escort, to walk through any US city.

As for the troop surge “working”, we have here the classic Socratic problem of definition. What does it mean for the troop surge to be working? Working at what?

*In March it was reported that for four straight months the US was suffering 80 fatalities per month.
*I also must reiterate the 82 deaths in Baghdad last week.
*Commander General David Petraeus said “We got down at the people level and are staying. Once the people know that we are going to be around, then all kinds of things start to happen.” No word on what kind of things will start to happen.
*A military report last month contained this: “Iraq, USAF F-16s dropped GBU-12s and GBU-38s on enemy buildings near Baghdad. Large secondary explosions were noted after the initial strike, indicating the destruction of explosive material within the structure.” Blowing up stuff that was dangerous because it could blow up. Excellent.

Look, I have a good idea of how to stop an Iraqi civil war. Make them different countries. Iraq is a constructed entity anyway, carved up in the Middle East by British and American interests, incorporating Arabs, Persians, and Kurds. So give the Kurds their Kurdistan, the Persian Iraqis a Persistan, and the Arab Iraqis an Arabstan or something (just don’t put me on the naming committee)

There can’t be sectarian violence if there are no sects. They’re all pissed off because they don’t want people with conflicting interests running their country. So don’t let it happen! Give them separate nations and let them run themselves. It worked, for the most part, with India and Pakistan (with Kashmir being the exception), so why couldn’t it work here?

Americans desperately want a victory, but we wouldn’t know a victory in Iraq if it came up and bit us in the rear. We have no idea what victory in Iraq looks like, so how in the world do we expect to reach it? If we want a path to victory, we need to know where we’re going first.

If we want peace, let’s give the Iraqi partisans their piece.

The White House is now seeking a “war czar” to take over administration of the Iraqi and Afghani wars, in order to co-ordinate efforts between traditionally rival organizations in the United States war machine, such as the CIA, NSA, and Armed Forces.

First of all, the US should never have an anything “czar”. That’s just weird. But we do. (Google “drug czar”)

Second of all… good idea! If only we had had such a position earlier, we might have caught Osama!

When the CIA had Osama trapped, they didn’t receive the military back up they wanted because Donald Rumsfeld thought that the CIA was incompetent, and refused to endorse their action. When the military needed help and had Osama just in their grasp, the CIA failed them because Cheney thought that CIA efforts would be better placed elsewhere. If only we had, like, one guy running the whole thing.

Other than Bush, of course.

What a buttload of silliness.

White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino spoke critically of Iran lack of compliance with the UN’s nuclear resolution. In order to get her point across, Perino talked down to the Iranian people:

We hope the Iranian people would see that the hard-line policies and the rhetoric that is coming out of its leaders such as President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad is not helpful to the country

They elected him and they see him on television all the time. The breeze from the east is that Ahmadinejad is indeed an unpopular president because he is focusing on external affairs more than the domestic problems he promised to address in his election campaign. But it’s offensive that she would attempt to tell Iranians what’s good for them. “I know what’s best for you even though you don’t”.

The UN placed sanctions on Iran in response: financial and arms. Arms sanctions. Who was selling to Iran before? And why did they think that could possibly be a good idea? Oh wait, yea. That was us. And by us, I mean the US.

But the UK has been much more upset at Iran recently. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard captured several British sailors, and sent out a warning against attacking the Islamic Republic. Tony Blair and his cabinet have been working hard through diplomatic channels to have the sailors returned, but it has had little to yield as of yet.

Although this may inspire a conflict between Iran and the UK, the White House has made it very clear that it does not want to go to war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is painfully clear that if the US attempted an attack on Iran, it would lose. But Iran has an axe to grind with both the US and the UK after Operation Ajax. I urge all my readers to read the Wikipedia article here, and to go out to their local bookstore and pick up All the Shah’s Men : An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer to understand exactly why this is happening.

Dana Perino, Tony Blair, Operation Ajax, Iran, White House

According to Reuters, in a military court in Guantanamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed admitted to being the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, the bombing of an Indonesian nightclub, and attempted shoe bombings. In fact, the terrorist admitted to over 30 attacks or attempted attacks, including an attempt on Pope John Paul II, launching a Russian missile at a Jewish airliner from Mombasa, and an assassination attempt on then-President Bill Clinton.

The hearing was to judge whether or not he will be classified as an enemy combatant by military standards. It’s very unlikely he will be determined not to be an enemy combatant, but if he were he would be sent back to Pakistan, his nation of origin.

Afterwards the transcript of the hearing was released to the public (available here: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/transcript_ISN10024.pdf), but was highly censored. Among the censored material was one of Mohammed’s offenses, which I personally found disturbing. Also, I found this very odd excerpt on Page 8:

RECORDER: Sir, would you hold one moment?
PRESIDENT: Yes.
RECORDER: Ah, before the Detainee makes a statement, ah, I’d like to ah.
PRESIDENT: Question of the oath?
RECORDER: Ah, no sir.
RECORDER: Concerning classified evidence.
PRESIDENT: Very well.

The evidence’s appearance in court is never described in the transcript. Why?

I am confused by this, and I wonder at what our government is hiding from us.

Middle East, United States, al-Qaida, Guantanamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 9/11, Military Court

In predominantly Shiia Iran, a rebel sect of Sunnis have begun violent attacks. In February, the Iranian Sunni terrorist group known as Jundollah (or “God’s Soldiers”) took credit for a bomb put on a military bus that killed 18 citizens in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan, and now has released a video of their most recent kidnapping: four members of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

Iran’s theocratic government is Shiia, but Jundollah is Sunni - the same sect that al-Qaida claims to represent. This has led some to speculate that the two are linked, but so little is known about Jundollah that it is impossible to tell for sure. Sunnis make up the minority population in Iraq and Iran, but the majority of every other Muslim nation.

The part that interests me the most is the American media’s complete refusal to call Jundollah a terrorist group, preferring to call them “rebels”. My friends, the founding fathers were rebels. The Ramones were rebels. These are terrorists. Is it just impossible for these jingoistic reporters to imagine someone terrorizing Muslims? Is their ethnocentrism that deep?

Why don’t US forces help Iran out and fight this front of the War on Terror? Oh, right, because we’re only fighting people who terrorize us.

Iran, Middle East, United States, Islam, al-Qaida, Jundollah