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| Well for some of us it say's it all! For you who don't get it! |
How Did Things Get So Screwed Up?
Here is another REMINDER of who Mitt Romney is for those who don't seem to get it!
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
10/27/12
Sometimes a picture say's it all!
How Did Things Get So Screwed Up?
Here is another REMINDER of who Mitt Romney is for those who don't seem to get it!
8/31/10
Obama: 'Operation Iraqi Freedom is over'
Friend --
Tonight marks the end of the American combat mission in Iraq.
8/19/10
Teabiggots have the balz to complain about a Mosque
Murdoch, Saudi prince team up to launch ‘Arabic Fox News’ Friday, July 9th, 2010 -- 5:06 pm
Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch has partnered with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to launch a new 24-hour news network for the Arab world, a move that has drawn mockery from Murdoch's critics and questions from media experts.
First and foremost among those questions is whether a news service linked to the famously pro-Israeli Fox News will resonate among Arab viewers.
"Fox News, famous for its uncomplicated, gung-ho and pro-Israel stance whilst maintaining a mocking notion of neutrality, does not seem like a likely partner" for the Middle Eastern news network, writes David Roberts at the Gulf Blog. "Their coverage of Middle Eastern issues is far from renowned or competent."
The new channel, based in Saudi Arabia, "will focus on development in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world on the political, economic and social fronts," Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the world's 19th-wealthiest person according to Forbes, said in a statement.
The network will be competing with the two principal international Arabic news services, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, and "is going to become an addition and an alternative for viewers," bin Talal said.
His statement gave no name for the new channel, and it only said the launch would be in the "near future."The deal comes four months after Murdoch bought a nine-percent stake in bin Talal's Rotana Group. Bin Talal owns seven percent of Murdoch's News Corp, making him the largest shareholder after Murdoch himself.
As RAW STORY reported last year, the Saudi prince is known for his financial ties to the Bush family and the defense industry-oriented Carlyle Group and for owning a fair-sized stake in Disney and in Citigroup.
At times, the growing partnership between Murdoch and bin Talal has proven embarrassing for Murdoch's network, whose commentators and guests often take stridently anti-Arab positions.
Earlier this year, Fox host Glenn Beck appeared to blame the 9/11 attacks on bin Talal, when he paraphrased Giuliani as saying to bin Talal, "I don't think we want your help. You already sent us help, and you flew that help into the plane-- into the trade centers."
Following the 9/11 attacks, then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani refused a $10 million aid offer from bin Talal, because the Saudi prince had suggested that US policies may have contributed to the attacks. At the time, Fox News praised Giuliani's decision.
It's these sorts of tensions that make media observers wonder whether an alliance between the owner of Fox News and an Arabic news network can work.
"Just because it’ll have News Corp. backing doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be friendly to the Western interests, if only because the network won’t be incredibly profitable if it’s all pro-West, all the time," writes Michael Merritt at the Atlantic Right blog. "But I’ll take a bet that it will be less biased against the West than, say, Al-Jazeera."
Merritt speculates that the network may also incur the wrath of Saudi censors if it takes its pro-Western attitude too far for the country's conservative ruling class.
Max Fisher at the Atlantic Wire suggests it may be a good idea for the new news network not to rely too heavily on Fox News as a source of information. He points to a map that Fox recently ran, showing Iraq labeled as "Egypt."
Find more news and stories at The raw Story
11/1/08
Odd Man Out
Chuck Hagel's Republican Exileby Connie Bruck
11-1-08
Could Hagel have a role in an Obama Administration?
In early June, Senators Chuck Hagel and John McCain met in Hagel’s office on Capitol Hill. McCain, the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, considered Hagel—a fellow-Republican and the senior senator from Nebraska—among his closest friends in Congress. Six months earlier, in December, 2007, McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, had asked Hagel to endorse McCain and campaign with him in the upcoming primaries. Hagel had demurred. Even after McCain became the presumptive nominee, in March, Hagel, asked repeatedly on the Sunday-morning talk shows whether he was going to endorse him, remained noncommittal.
10/27/08
Scott Ritter On McCain
More interesting news about McCain that came out this evening that goes along with McCain's attitude about something so serious.-Mem
Nicholas Graham -October 26, 2008 08:44 PM
During a rally in Northern Iowa University this morning, John McCain made a strange remark that only serves to cement the notion that he does not respect Barack Obama:
When I'm elected president We're going to stop spending $700 billion to buy oil from countries that don't like us very much," John McCain said at Northern Iowa University this morning.
"You know, the other night in the debate with Senator Obama, I said his eloquence is admirable, but pay attention to his words. We talk about offshore drilling and he said he would quote, consider, offshore drilling. We talked about nuclear power, well it has to be safe, environment, blah, blah, blah."
While McCain is targeting Obama's eloquence as empty words with his "blah, blah, blah" comment, it's curious why he would use safeguards for nuclear power as the vehicle for this attack. The line makes McCain seem not only callous but also dismissive of a very real concern regarding nuclear power. It recalls the moment during the third presidential debate when McCain used air quotes while discussing a woman's health as a factor in her having an abortion.
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McCain continues to say that he is different then Bush and that he will make changes but his records prove different and his actions show a person who goes from one view to another during this election. John McCain doesn't even know what he stands for. Why would the American people? What frightens me is the division he and his poor choice for VP, Sarah Palin has promoted since this campaign. This country needs to be strong and united more then ever now.-Mem
10/16/08
Obama's Iraq plans vindicated as US agrees to pull out by 2011
The Independent
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Iraq and the United States have finally agreed on a security pact which would mean that US forces would withdraw from Iraq by 2011, American and Iraqi officials said yesterday.
The accord became a major test of strength between the Iraqi government and Washington since negotiations began in March with the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, pictured below, demanding US concessions on the date of the troop withdrawal and immunity for US troops. The pact replaces the UN Security Council resolution enacted after the American invasion of 2003.
The agreement still needs to be approved by the council of Iraqi leaders, the cabinet and the Iraqi parliament. Mr Maliki saw the highly influential Shia religious leader, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, last week and was assured that he would not stand in the way of the pact if approved by parliament.
The accord has been on the verge of being signed several times in the past only for fresh objections to be made by the Iraqi government, which has become increasingly confident of its own strength. A compromise has been reached on whether or not US troops can be tried by an Iraqi court if they commit crimes while not engaged in operations. US troops are to withdraw from Iraqi towns and villages by the middle of next year and from Iraq entirely by the middle of 2011 said the government's spokesman, Ali Dabbagh.
He said: "The withdrawal is to be achieved in three years. In 2011, the government at that time will determine whether it needs a new pact or not, and what type of pact will depend on the challenges it faces."
The US administration will present the pact as a sign of its success in Iraq but in fact the accord is very different from originally envisaged by Washington which would largely have continued the occupation as before.
President Bush was opposed to timelines or dates for an American withdrawal and the US is still stressing that this is conditional on improved security in Iraq. But it is unlikely that the Shia majority will want to share power with the US.
Iraqi politicians have always assumed that Washington's insistence on signing a new accord before the presidential election was motivated by the White House's hope that the accord would be seen as a sign that its Iraq policy had at last produced a success. The Republican contender, Senator John McCain, started off his campaign by saying that US troops might stay for 100 years and there should be no date for their withdrawal. The Democratic candidate, Senator Barack Obama, wants combat troops home by the middle of 2010, which was also the date originally proposed by Mr Maliki.
Iraq has faded as an issue in the presidential election as the financial crisis worsened. However, claims that the Republicans had won a victory in Iraq looked increasingly unreal as it became clear that a withdrawal date would be determined by Mr Maliki, and not by the US.
The US has given ground on crucial issues. On the legal immunity of American troops Mr Dabbagh said: "Inside their bases, they will be under American law. Iraqi judicial law will be implemented in case these forces commit a serious and deliberate felony outside their military bases and when off duty." Contractors, who have more men in Iraq than the US army, will no longer have immunity.
10/15/08
THE WAR WE WERE NEVER SUPPOSE TO BE IN AND THE COVER-UP?
Friendly fire in Iraq -- and a cover up-Salon
The Army says no, but a graphic video and eyewitness testimony indicate that a U.S. tank killed two American soldiers. The mother of one soldier demands answers.
The Army says no, but a graphic video and eyewitness testimony indicate that a U.S. tank killed two American soldiers. The mother of one soldier demands answers.
Oct. 14, 2008 | PHILADELPHIA -- Once a cop, always a cop. Asked if she wanted to see a graphic battle video showing her son Albert bleeding to death, Jean Feggins, retired from the Philadelphia Police Department, said yes.
9/26/08
Mission Accomplished?
Rachel Maddow: Oil Mission Accomplished? And Maliki Says U.S. Not Withdrawing Troops Due To Domestic Politics-Sept. 23, 2008
9/12/08
Palin Links Iraq to Sept. 11 In Talk to Troops in Alaska
By Anne E. Kornblut Washington Post Staff WriterFriday, September 12, 2008; Page A01
FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska, Sept. 11 -- Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."
The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. But it is widely agreed that militants allied with al-Qaeda have taken root in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.
"America can never go back to that false sense of security that came before September 11, 2001," she said at the deployment ceremony, which drew hundreds of military families who walked from their homes on the sprawling post to the airstrip where the service was held.
Palin's return to Alaska coincided with her first extensive interview since she became the Republican vice presidential nominee. In the interview, with ABC News correspondent Charles Gibson, she was confronted with questions about the U.S. relationship with Russia and her fitness for office, and she appeared to struggle when asked to define the "Bush doctrine" on foreign policy. Palin drew repeated follow-up questions from Gibson about whether she believed in the right to "anticipatory self-defense" and crossing other nations' borders to take action against threats.
"I believe that America has to exercise all options in order to stop the terrorists who are hellbent on destroying America and our allies," she said after several questions on the topic. "We have got to have all options out there on the table."
That response put her in line with a view expressed by Sen. Barack Obama, now the Democratic presidential nominee, in August 2007, when he stirred controversy by saying that if he were elected president, he would be willing to attack inside Pakistan with or without approval from the Pakistani government. "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Obama said. At the time, McCain called Obama's comments "naive."
Palin continued to take a hard line on national security issues when asked whether war with Russia could be necessary if Georgia were to join NATO and Russia crossed its borders again. Palin replied, "Perhaps so."
"I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help," she said.
In the interview, Palin said "I'm ready" when asked whether she had sufficient experience to serve as vice president. She added that she did not hesitate when McCain offered her the No. 2 spot on the ticket.
"I answered yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can't blink," she told Gibson.
The event Thursday, held on a barren Army post on the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, provided a powerful visual backdrop for Palin's first solo appearance after weeks of traveling alongside McCain and reading from a carefully prepared script.
McCain aides were adamant that the ceremony had not been coordinated with the campaign, and officers at the installation said the Alaska governor had agreed to attend months before she was chosen for the GOP ticket. Palin's son Track, 19, will deploy to Iraq with his unit later this month. McCain's son Jimmy is with his Marine Corps unit in Iraq, but the senator from Arizona has taken pains to keep him out of the campaign spotlight.
As she has been since McCain plucked her from relative obscurity two weeks ago, Palin continues to be surrounded by senior McCain advisers even here; the senator's top strategist, Steve Schmidt, and several others accompanied her to Alaska. The group is guiding Palin through a crash course on policy issues and is revising the campaign's original plan to send her on fundraising missions separately from McCain.
Instead, seeking to seize on the outpouring of enthusiasm for Palin, McCain advisers are "seriously considering" having McCain and Palin campaign together on the road. It would be an unusual arrangement -- running mates traditionally split up to cover as much ground as possible -- but aides believe it would help brand McCain and Palin as a single unit. It would also prevent Palin from having to contend with her own dedicated press contingent as she works to become more comfortable with an array of national and international issues. The campaign is also cognizant of the fact that McCain has consistently drawn bigger crowds since adding Palin to the ticket.
"It is under serious consideration that they will spend more time together than not, and more time together than is traditional," said a senior McCain adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "They are a great duo together, from the perspective of delivering a message." The adviser added: "Sometimes these vice presidential selections, the pairings work in a magical way; they click."
Other campaign formalities have also been taken care of in recent days. Aides confirmed that Palin and her husband, Todd, have been assigned Secret Service names: hers is Denali, after the Alaska national park and wildlife preserve that includes Mount McKinley; his is Driller, a nod to his work as an oilman on the state's North Slope.
On the Army post outside Fairbanks early Thursday afternoon, thousands of soldiers stood in formation as a low sun beamed on the chilly tarmac. One officer who said he had come to know Track Palin said that the ceremony would have taken place in the same way had the governor not been tapped to run for higher office, and that her son was determined to remain as anonymous as possible.
Pvt. 1st Class Palin is being sent to Iraq with the Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division. Palin, 19, will be deployed to northern Iraq and will be primarily tasked with protecting and helping transport the deputy commander of his unit, Lt. Col. Michael W. Smith. His position is one of dismounted infantryman.
"He wants to pave his own route in life. He wants to do his own thing," Maj. Chris Hyde said. "He doesn't want to just be known as Governor Palin's son."
Hyde said Col. Burt Thompson had arranged the deployment ceremony to coincide with the Sept. 11 anniversary as a symbol of the importance of the military. "That was intentional," Hyde said, describing the effort as a "theatrical" one but adding quickly that it had nothing to do with the Palins. "I talked to Track Palin last week, and he's still just an all-American kid," Hyde said.
The governor did not address her son by name in her remarks but spoke broadly on behalf of the troops' families. "Don't mind us -- your parents, your friends, your family -- if we allow for a few tears or if we hold you just a little closer once more before you're gone," she said. "We're going to miss you. We can't help it, we're going to miss you."
She continued: "You may not need our protection anymore. In fact, you're the ones who will now be protecting us, protecting America."
9/8/08
McCain You Can Shut Up Now Because It Wasn't Just the Surge.
By Bob Woodward Washington Post Staff WriterMonday, September 8, 2008; Page A09
Throughout the summer of 2007, as the troop surge in Iraq reached full strength, Gen. David H. Petraeus kept waiting for the tide to turn. By summer's end, the U.S. commander in Iraq got his wish. The high of 1,550 attacks a week fell below 800 -- nearly a 50 percent reduction. It has continued to fall over the past year.
Why did the violence drop so dramatically?
On one level, the surge was beginning to have its intended effect. Doubling the U.S. forces in and around Baghdad from 17,000 to nearly 40,000, coupled with Petraeus's counterinsurgency game plan, had helped quell some of the sectarian and other violence that had defined the previous year and a half. About 30 joint security stations had been established around Baghdad; security along the borders with Iran and Syria had improved; and the Iraqi army was performing better.
In Washington, conventional wisdom translated these events into a simple view: The surge had worked. But the full story was more complicated. At least three other factors were as important as, or even more important than, the surge. These factors either have not been reported publicly or have received less attention than the influx of troops.
Beginning in the late spring of 2007, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies launched a series of top-secret operations that enabled them to locate, target and kill key individuals in groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias, or so-called special groups. The operations incorporated some of the most highly classified techniques and information in the U.S. government.
Senior military officers and officials at the White House urged against publishing details or code names associated with the groundbreaking programs, arguing that publication of the names alone might harm the operations that have been so beneficial in Iraq. As a result, specific operational details have been omitted in this report and in "The War Within."
But a number of authoritative sources say the covert activities had a far-reaching effect on the violence and were very possibly the biggest factor in reducing it. Several said that 85 to 90 percent of the successful operations and "actionable intelligence" had come from the new sources, methods and operations. Several others said that figure was exaggerated but acknowledged their significance.
Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) responsible for hunting al-Qaeda in Iraq, employed what he called "collaborative warfare," using every tool available simultaneously, from signal intercepts to human intelligence and other methods, that allowed lightning-quick and sometimes concurrent operations.
Asked in an interview about the intelligence breakthroughs in Iraq, President Bush offered a simple answer: "JSOC is awesome."
A second important factor in the lessening of violence was the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and signed up with U.S. forces. Al-Qaeda in Iraq had made a strategic mistake in the province, overplaying its hand. Its members had performed forced marriages with women from local tribes, taken over hospitals, used mosques for beheading operations, mortared playgrounds and executed citizens, leaving headless bodies with signs that read, "Don't remove this body or the same thing will happen to you." The sheer brutality eroded much of the local support for al-Qaeda in Iraq.
For months, U.S. forces worked with tribal leaders, who had once fought the Americans, to build local security forces throughout Anbar. "We are the ones who saved our country," Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, whose slain younger brother first allied himself with U.S. forces and who now serves as president of the Iraqi Awakening Council, said in an interview. "We were able to fight al-Qaeda."
The U.S. military also began setting up groups of thousands of what Petraeus called "Concerned Local Citizens" (later known as "Sons of Iraq") -- essentially armed neighborhood watch groups that would patrol their communities and provide intelligence to U.S. and Iraqi forces.
A third significant break came Aug. 29, when militant Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his powerful Mahdi Army to suspend operations, including attacks against U.S. troops. Petraeus and others knew it was not an act of charity. The order followed a gunfight between the Mahdi Army and Iraqi forces in the holy city of Karbala, during which more than 50 Shia pilgrims gathering for an annual festival had been killed and another 275 wounded. Sadr's order marked an unexpected stroke of good luck, another in a series for the Americans.
[On Thursday, a Washington Post news story on "The War Within" reported the existence of the covert operations and stated that it was the most important of four factors in reducing the violence in Iraq.]
[On Friday, Stephen J. Hadley, the president's national security adviser, issued a statement about the news report, asserting that the surge of troops was the most important because it "enabled" the other three. Hadley wrote, "It was the surge that provided more resources and a security context to support newly developed techniques and operations."]
[On Saturday, a Washington Post report by Joby Warrick and Robin Wright provided a more detailed look at U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq. They reported that "fusion cells" of special forces and intelligence officers, using spycraft with sensors and cameras that can track targets, have captured or killed hundreds of suspected terrorists and their supporters in recent months.]
8/21/08
Moms, young people, Americans a vote for John McCain=DRAFT
Veterans React to McCain's Admission That He'll Need a Military DraftBy VoteVets.org Press Release
PUBLISHED: August 20, 2008
WASHINGTON – Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans today reacted to John McCain’s statement that he doesn’t disagree that we would need a military draft to do everything he wants. At a town hall in Las Cruces, NM, a woman said she could not see doing everything McCain wanted, and would not have the troops under his plan to follow Osama bin Laden to the “gates of hell” without a draft. In response, McCain said, “I don’t disagree with anything you said.” The video of that can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRMFwXGBMfI
Jon Soltz, Iraq War Veteran and Chairman of VoteVets.org said, “At least Senator McCain is being honest. A vote for him is a vote for the draft. Period. Unless Senator McCain radically changes his worldview, there would be a draft to implement his plans.”
Soltz added, “When you take into account his indefinite military commitment to Iraq, his desire to send more troops to Afghanistan, record lows in recruiting and retention, and possibly more wars he is looking to get into, like “Bomb Bomb Bomb” Iran, his numbers don’t add up without a draft. Whether America likes it or not isn’t relevant – a draft is the only way to do everything Senator McCain wants to do. I give him points for being honest and upfront, though, that we’re going to need a draft if he is elected.”
This isn’t the first time that Senator McCain has hinted at a reinstitution of the draft if he is elected. Asked on September 29, 2007 in New Hampshire about the draft, McCain said he would, “consider it.”6/11/08
McCain: Bringing Troops Home From Iraq "Not Too Important"
The Huffington Post June 11, 2008 09:24 AMSen. John McCain appeared on the Today Show this morning and continued to promote his idea of a long occupation in Iraq. But whatever merits there may be for his message, his delivery is once again promising to get him into trouble.
When asked if he knew when American troops could start to return home, McCain responded: "No, but that's not too important. What's important is the casualties in Iraq."
UPDATE: Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid has responded:
"McCain's statement today that withdrawing troops doesn't matter is a crystal clear indicator that he just doesn't get the grave national-security consequences of staying the course - Osama bin Laden is freely plotting attacks, our efforts in Afghanistan are undermanned, and our military readiness has been dangerously diminished. We need a smart change in strategy to make America more secure, not a commitment to indefinitely keep our troops in an intractable civil war."
UPDATE (11:00 AM): The responses are coming fast and furious from both parties, as the McCain hits back for his comments this morning:
McCain camp:
Sen. McCain has consistently opposed a time line for withdrawing our troops from Iraq. And our friends on the opposite side of the aisle have a long history of attempting to twist Sen. McCain's words on Iraq. The fact that Sen. McCain opposes a timeline for withdrawal and is principally concerned about the safety of American troops and the security of Iraq is pretty much "dog bites man."
Meanwhile, the Dems are beginning to pile on. Obama has a conference call slated to discuss the comments soon. And here's Biden's response:
"Senator McCain's comment is evidence that he is totally out of touch with the needs of our troops and the national security needs of our nation. I think many of our brave soldiers and their families would disagree that it's 'not too important' when they come home."Knowing when our troops can come home from Iraq is vitally important, because the costs of staying with 140,000 or more troops are getting steeper every day: the continued loss of the lives and limbs of our soldiers; the strain on our troops and their families due to repeated, extended tours; the drain on our Treasury - $3 billion every week; the impact on the readiness of our armed forces; and the inability to send enough soldiers to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the people who actually attacked us on 9-11 have regrouped and are plotting new attacks. It is long past time to refocus our foreign policy on the many challenges we face, not just Iraq."
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