History-like hindsight-is supposed to be 20:20, but the deliberate partisan, political divide regarding the invasion of Iraq makes that hard.

It’s not a new phenomenon. Long ago it was said that the true story of a war can’t be told until the last of its veterans has passed away, and only a few months ago did the last World War One veteran go to his great reward. For decades after the Civil War (and some would argue even today) the debate raged on, and the healing of Southern Reconstruction didn’t really start culturally until the unity of the Spanish-American War turned foes into brothers-in-arms.

Conspiracy theories-often fueled by politics-still rage over the 911 attacks, the invasion of Iraq, whether or not Roosevelt deliberately allowed the Pearl Harbor attack to happen, whether or not the U.S. Navy knew the U.S.S. Maine had a boiler explosion and wasn’t sunk by a mine. People still think that the Lusitania was set on a suicide mission to get the United States into World War One. These myths will always remain, and it’s good that they do because they spark investigation and a search for understanding of these world changing events. The relationship between the 911 attacks and the invasion of Iraq is interesting in that both have a long list of conspiracy theories attacked to each, and yet the abstract, more indirect relationship between the two events is dismissed out of hand. To that end, even if one believes the relationship between Iraq War and 911 attacks is a conspiracy theory, it’s worthwhile to examine if for no other reason than harvesting a better understanding. Read the rest of this entry »

Good grief:

“if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world”.

So says President Barack Obama. Or I should say: Barack Hussein Obama.

That’s right: Barack Hussein Obama. Say it proud. Say it out loud. The middle moniker that dared not speak its name during the election campaign is now front and centre of the US president’s attempt to woo the Muslim world, the theme of his visits to Riyadh on Wednesday and Cairo on Thursday.

Mike posted yesterday on how it wasn’t ok to point out Senator Obama’s Muslim roots when he was campaigning for president; but now that he is president, and when it suits him politically, it’s now ok to embrace his connection to Muslims?

Melanie Phillips substantiates President Obama’s claim that “if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world,” :
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200+ Years ago, a man was elected our first President after successfully fighting the first democratic revolution against the world’s greatest superpower at the time. President George Washington, the first American soldiers, sailors, Marines, Rangers, and people….
refused to bow down before the one they were told to serve. Once President, Washington never bowed or asked anyone to bow.

What was the point of the revolution if not to say,
‘no man needs to bow before another-especially a King’

UPDATE:
Rather than admit a simple mistake of protocol, or an err in judgement, the White House tells us that we did not see what we saw.

WOW! Great idea: spend your entire life posturing to run for President, then spend your Senate career being a professional Presidential candidate instead of a senator, and when you finally get the job…

THEN READ UP ON IT

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that Senator Obama is finally getting national security briefings, reading up on the dangers in the world by reading 4yr old books about 20yr old subjects. I’m really thrilled. I’d of course prefer he read MY BOOKS, but maybe he’ll get around to it. More than anything, I really would have loved-I MEAN LOVED(!!!!) to have been a fly on the wall at the first NatSec briefing of his cabinet appointees. Oh MAN that had to be a conundrum!

“We have to leave Iraq 18 months from now per the campaign pledge, but the DoD says they can’t do it logistically. Hillary Clinton at State says it’d ’cause chaos and force a third invasion of Iraq (OUCH, tough sell to the DNC base!). Intel guys are saying that 1) AQ was in Iraq before the invasion, 2) AQ chose to make Iraq the central front in the gwot (not Bush), 3) AQ is being decimated by Bush’s Surge so leaving now let’s AQ revive in an oil-rich/money rich country. They also tell me that Iran’s gonna be making 40+nukes a month starting in January, India is moving troops to border w Pakistan & both sides are on their bi-annual brink-of-nuclear-war escapade. Oh, and despite the speech in Germany…ain’t nobody in the world gonna stop the anarchy in Africa or SE Asia.”

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE!

Suggestion: Appoint Dennis Kucinich to form a Dept of Peace and abolish the DoD. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Poor Obama. He honestly had no clue & actually believed the leftist rhetoric. He followed Kos and Huffpo instead of the Milblogs and Flopping Aces. If he HAD been reading FA, then he wouldn’t need to be such a “voracious” reader of dated books. I’m only shocked he’s not skipping to the Cliff’s Notes.

Look who came to dinner …

Although the Taliban and al-Qaeda have consistently rejected overtures to make peace with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces until they leave Afghanistan, the latest initiative led by Saudi Arabia, and approved by Washington and London, is on track.

Reports emerged this week that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recently hosted high-level talks in Mecca between representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban. If a middle road is found, next year’s elections in Afghanistan could be held under the supervision of peacekeeping forces from Islamic countries, rather than those of NATO.

link

Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri? The salafi fundamentalists? Sufi Islam? Farrakhan and The Nation of Islam? Baha’ism? Sunni or Shi’a? The Ayatollahs who wish to bring about the end time and reign in the 2nd coming of the 12th Imam? Modern “reformers” like Sayyid Qutb and Mohammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the inspiration for al Qaeda and modern Islamic fundamentalism? What gives them the religious authority to define a religion that does not have priests? Is CAIR really the voice of “moderates”? Is Islam inflexible and incapable of embracing modernity and a divorce from the violence and hatred of political Islam and 7th, 12th century backwardness? Or, can it be reformed by those devout Muslims like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser?

Z, a friend of mine, had an opportunity to listen to Dr. Jasser speak; Read the rest of this entry »

“911, 911, 911” It’s been seven years, and it’s amazing to think of how many times each of us has heard, “911” or “September 11th”? How many people still happen to notice 9:11 on their clocks? How many tens or hundreds of millions of people have seen that hole in New York City, or the one in a Pennsylvania field? We all want to forget some of that day, but we all know there are people and lessons to remember. Meanwhile the referencing continues unabated, and in a heated political season we’re going to hear a lot more about that date than in non-political years.

…but September 11th wasn’t just an awful day seven years ago. It’s a historical date that interestingly enough proves that the past is prologue. Religion, Liberty, and American history all collide on that fateful date again and again throughout history.
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We’ve all engaged in the speculation wars as to the reason for oil prices’ astronomical rise in such a short time.  The four most common arguments are:

1:  questionable speculators activity
2:  decreasing supply and increasing demand – and peak oil theories
3:  Iraq or Middle East conflicts and terrorism
4: falling value of US dollar

I’m neither an accomplished economist, nor an oil expert.  But I’m one curious individual, so I set out to see if I could shed some light how just what to believe.  There’s considerable amount of data here (meaning long! a week’s worth!) but I’ll share my research on the four issues mentioned above… and my attempt to put it all into perspective…. sans politics. (the “gasps” abound, no doubt…)

To agree on a solution, we need to know the cause of the problem. 

The article that sparked my increased motivation and quest came from Australia’s Herald Sun yesterday, Speculators to blame, says OPEC”.

The monarch, who said Saudi Arabia would give $US1.5 billion ($1.57bn) to efforts to ease energy shortages in poor nations, told the 36-nation summit his country was “very concerned” about consumers worldwide.

He blamed increased oil consumption and taxes on fuel, but said: “Among other factors behind this unjust increase in oil prices is the abhorrent act of speculators acting for their own selfish interests”.

The most common thought on the speculators is that the buying frenzy is creating a positive feedback look, driving the prices artificially high and creating an economic bubble – much as was done with the housing prices in both the UK and USA. Along that line of thought, Congress is busy crafting legislation aimed at regulating speculators, while McCain has called for “thorough and complete investigation of speculators” to see if they’ve driven up oil prices.

Alan Reynolds termed this knee jerk reaction as a “witch hunt that’s clearly about oil” in an article that ran in the NY Sun June 20th, titled “Scapegoating the Speculators”, and was reproduced on the Cato Institute site.Reynold’s debates OPEC’s accusation. Speculators, purchase the contracts and sell those before their expiration date, in the hopes of making profits. Sometimes this entails betting the prices goes down instead of up. Or as he puts it, Guess wrong on the direction, and you lose money. Read the rest of this entry »

Black GOLD

Yes, as oil prices are now past $120 a barrel, market watchers are now looking foward to $200 barrel oil, it’s causes and effects.

LINK

Maybe it’s because of all the Bush Derangement Syndrome rantings that have left my eyes in a near-permanent rolling motion, but I have to wonder:

If the Iraq War was all about oil [can I get a "NO BLOOD FOR OIL"?], then what will have the more devastating effect on oil prices next year: staying in Iraq and stabilizing the place, or retreating and letting it collapse?

Lord help me, but…I don’t see “Iraq” anywhere in this article.  Could it be [COULD IT BE?!] that the war in Iraq isn’t about oil?  Could Operation Iraqi Freedom be about Freedom?  I know, it’s crazy talk, but the coffee’s strong this morning, so I wonder, while the candidates are whining and pandering and bribing their way to nomination (abomination?), what idea addresses the cost of oil in 2009 best:

• a gas tax holiday
• a windfall profits tax on any company that makes too much money (oil companies to start with, computers to follow?)
• staying in Iraq to stabilize it
• retreating from Iraq and gambling on its collapse (if it does collapse post withdrawal, there is no doubt at all that a subsequent third invasion would be infinitely more costly in blood, treasure, and duration)
• Or perhaps something else?

What’s the best thing the next President can do to keep oil from reaching $200 barrel next year, and what’s the best course in Iraq given the prospect of $200barrel oil?

Additionally, what should the next President do in terms of Iran given the prospect of $200 barrel oil next year?

Not everyone is a political junkie, and even few political junkies even like reading the government reports on this or that.  However, when it comes to war, shouldn’t we all have some sort of documented list of reasons for war as well as periodic updates?  I don’t just mean members of Congress (the body that declares and authorizes war) or the President (the man who gets several detailed, classified updates throughout every day).  I mean every American.   I’d like to see us all get copies of it in the mail with the checks the Democrats’ Congress is sending us for economic stimulus. Read the rest of this entry »

What a sad story, but in this instance the sentence fit the crime:

Saudi Arabia on Wednesday beheaded a couple convicted of torturing to death a nine-year-old girl, including burning her with a red-hot spoon and beating her with a metal pipe, the interior ministry said.

Saudi Nashat Haji, 32, was beheaded by the sword for murdering his daughter, Khosoun, said a ministry statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

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While political pundits, politicians, hundreds of millions of Americans, and millions more around the world watched Super Tuesday results with confused and bated breath yesterday, a bigger and more important story went almost completely unreported. The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) presented Congress with yet another National Intelligence Estimate (a summary of opinions presented by a committee of representatives from all 17 American intelligence entities).

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Bush holds the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit — a token from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, right, whose family exercises almost absolute rule. Among ordinary Saudis, Bush is less popular, largely because of the Iraq war and U.S. support for Israel.
Kevin Lamarque – Reuters

Interesting new poll:

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