NewsBling - Your Iraq News Source

robert l asked:


Condoleeza Rice recently said that the war in Iraq was worth the investment. Since she is a potential Commander in Chief after the next election I want to know what Yahoo users think how many of our kids have to die before Iraq is no longer worth it. It seems that as long as the little rich white kids arent getting drafted the Feds feel free to send the rest of our kids into harms way.

Earl

C. Read asked:


Regardless of your original view of the invasion of Iraq – a just, moral and necessary war according to us paleo-knuckle dragging, tooth sucking, unibrow conservatives – one has to admit that it is over. Done. Finished. Iraq is more peaceful than a typical summer in Chicago, a year in the slums of Toronto, or 9 months in the less savoury parts of New York. More die in a Chicago summer-fest of violence than US soldiers perish in a 2 year period in Iraq. Time to pull out of the Obama-Messiah’s spiritual center ? [Blessed be Obama the prophet]. Or should we just say that we won in Iraq and that the Iraqi’s and indeed the Muslim world, are better off for that remarkable feat ? We already stated in June 08 that this war was over - it is now more obvious than ever. June 08 - it is over

It is a fact that Muslims who live in the West – though they might hate the idea – are better off than those who don’t. Iraq has a stable confederation, with a Western styled constitution which guarantees Islamic law and observance. It is a country with an educated workforce, oil, millions of entrepreneurs, a transparent legal system, and it is a society which is not degenerating into civil war, or partition – contrary to many and sundry geniuses who stated the opposite for 4 years. Iraq 2009 will be generations ahead of Iraq pre-2003 without American intervention, including the hundred’s of thousands of lives saved from the barbarity of a fascist regime – one which murdered 1 million Iraqi’s over 20 years, or 25 times the current kill rate per annum in Iraq.

Not a bad legacy.

The West has an ally in the worst region in the world. We have secured a military victory over Al Qaeda and the Islamic fascists killing over 70.000 terrorists. Islamic fascist elements will never recover from this defeat. We now have military bases in 2 countries bordering Iran. We control the Gulf. We can put pressure on other countries including the corrupt Saudi royal family, to reform. We can protect Israel. In short we now control and are allied with a central state, in a central region and we have sent a very clear message to the Islamic world. You want violence – you will get it.

So where are the media reports of celebration? Where are the myriad stories of Iraqi economic and social development? Where are the interviews with politicians from across Iraq on the progress being made there? Where is the detailed story of the Shia militia defeat and the marginalisation of the demagogue and religious zealot and political idiot Sadr? Where are the stories of the Iraqi diaspora returning to all regions of Iraq to invest, rebuild and renew? Where is the over-arching strategic discussion of having military bases in the heart of the Islamic world and the benefits derived therein?

No where to be found.

The Western media is corrupt. It is a group of elitist trained self-loathing left-ocratic boors. Every bomb, every death of an Iraqi or Westerner, was reported ad infinitum over 5 years. But the pacification of a country engaged in various civil wars – almost exclusively intra-Muslim – since 656 A.D. and which is now being policed by US soldiers without body armour and without headgear does not even get a passing mention in the so-called ‘independent media’. Independent? Ha ha. How absurd and how immature is the thought. It reminds one of the hagiographies which were developed by this same media about Herr Hitler, Nazism and the benefices and great appeal of Communism. Morons.

As one syndicated columnist wrote recently and quite well:

“Americans tend to forget that, in the Middle East, most political disagreements are settled with assassinations such as the murder of Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and, more recently, the killing of Benezir Bhutto in Pakistan. In Lebanon, the Syrians assassinated a whole raft of politicians whom they found irksome. Several efforts have been made to kill Hamid Karzi of Afghanistan. In Gaza, Fatah was forced out by Hamas at gunpoint. Having achieved zero cooperation for decades, world leaders keep insisting that the Israelis negotiate with Fatah, giving them land and lollypops.”

Negotiating with the Arabs and with the fascistic elements of Islam is a waste of time. You simply wage war and kill them. You secure the lands, build bases, and impose your will. Historically that is what Islam and Arab culture understand – blood and steel and power.

This is why Iraq is such a momumental victory. It sends a very clear and compelling message.

For those who have been to Iraq, the war is obviously finished. Arabs killing innocents has been going on since the family of Muhammed were slaughtered by rivals claiming power over the early caliphates. Asking Muslims and Arabs to stop killing each other, or anyone else, is like asking Blacks to acknowledge Black slave trading and ownership. It will never happen. And yet that is the fault of the Americans or more specifically Bushitler.

Michael Yon, an embedded journalist wrote this in July 2008 in a syndicated column:

“’The war in Iraq is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won.’ When I wrote this on my Web site a few days ago, I set off a mini-firestorm. Perhaps because I have spent more time embedded with combat troops in Iraq than any journalist I know - and have interviewed countless Iraqis and members of the coalition military……

So I will be very clear what I mean when I say we have won the war. A counterinsurgency is won when the government’s legitimacy is no longer threatened by the insurgents, the government is able to protect its own people and the people are participating in the government. In Iraq, all three conditions apply.”

Indeed they do. That piece was written 6 months ago – and things have gotten a lot better since then. If Yon can write in July 2008 that the war is finished – a war he saw, smelled and felt – than 6 months later we should be having a general discussion of post-victory Iraq. What do we want there? What are the conditions we will give to the Iraqis and their politicians for our victory? How will the Iraqis help us repay the costs of the war through future oil revenues ? After all 4200 American dead, and 29000 American wounded were sacrificed in part, and only in part, to secure the freedom of Iraq.

In any event we won in Iraq – but the bells will never be rung. That says a lot about the state of the so-called ‘West’.



Tim

zakkcartur asked:


Im supposed to have a protest for a project because of the Tinker vs. Des Moines case. I chose the Iraq War for my topic and i don’t know how i could protest it. Could i wear something or anything? im going shopping tomorrow so i could possibly buy it.

Stephen

<3 asked:


Does anyone here have a lot of knowledge on the Iraq War?

I need to find some of the effects that the Iraq War had on the United States, and the world as a whole.

I’d appreciate it if you tell me a few or give me the links to webistes that could help me out.

Thanks in advance!!

Jo

modu asked:


The war is not justified, but necessary!

The first impression that resonate in the minds of most Americans on the war in Iraq, is why the war in the first place? They do not see any reason, neither has anyone suggested or given vivid clue for the war. All we hear is that the late Saddam Hussein was a bad leader who mercilessly killed his people, or had links with terrorist activities and possessed some “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD). The purpose for the war is not clear to common reasoning, and the current alarming scenario is the hard driven pursuit by the present administration to continue with the war, and now with the adventure of fostering democratic values there with our precious human and material resources, even when there are lots to deal with here at home. Most troubling are young men and women who have lost their dear lives in this “war venture,” others mentally and physically maimed for life. Before going further, we salute the brave military men and women at crossfire, and those, who have lost their lives and left families behind. We honor their bravery and say they are true heroes of this generation. To their dear families, we express our heart-felt prayers and strength into their good hearts in carrying on the good baton their loves ones have left behind.

Let us respectfully continue… There is another view and very large one that believes the war is about oil business, which is to serve the pockets of few political and economic “cabal” within the system. What a costly assumption to make! The following question to this line of thought would be, the oil owners, are they not going to sell their oil? The country, Iraq is sustained from sale of her oil at an internationally regulated standard and price. Therefore, why would people assume to waste lives and great financial resources would be the best option to get or manage the oil from Iraq? This thought process is too ordinary to hold any substantive conclusion. As fact, there is an organization called OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) that regulates oil quotas (supplies) and prices based on prevailing market indices. Meaning, there is a well-established market structure that controls oil production, sale and prices with prospective buyers, and not go there, “grab the country’s oil” mentality as some assume it to be.

Brothers and sisters of this great territorial space called, United States of America. The necessity for the war, which those in power and few have seen through, but have not been clearly brought to the open for all to have better understanding, but are counting on the judgment of history to prove the present unpopular political cum military option as right to the overall future of this country and Western civilization in general cannot be over-emphasized.

Here is the picture and very direct to the point.

After the 911 attack, the message became very clear that the texture of open dialogue within the Middle East part of the world was too narrow or possibly none existent to be over looked any more by those concerned with the existence of humanity in free, cordial, and positively agreeable and disagreeable complexities of the world. What this means was that the composition of open society, which is not totally embraced in that part of the world was no longer a comfortable atmosphere to live with. The clear message from 911 was the frightening realization that action needs to be taken now to address this critical issue or neglect it and pay the price of annihilation in future. Hmm! It should be stated clearly that not the entire Arab world supported the 911 attack. However, that incidence was a clear message, which was the silent but primarily an attack on the values of Western civilization, which our democratic principles such as freedom of expression, to live, to practice your religion, to pursue happiness, to empower oneself financially, socially and others within civil constituted laws. The prime perpetrators of that act only gave insight of the danger and claim held by others against the Western democratic values. That is, the pursuit to impose their will on all by the use of force. Therefore, the planes into the twin towers were instruments of fear, an attack on the fabric of our common course to live free within civilized laws that breeds on respect of individual rights. Given the fear factor was allowed to settle in, the next would have been loss of confidence in the social/economic composure of this great country, which eventually would have shaken everyone’s livelihood and led to the gradual strangulation of the values we all cherish, the sustaining power of Western civilization. The fear factor or intimidation runs contrary to the brave and open values of this country. Thus, it was repelled or fought back with love for the innocent lives lost and faith in our objectively accommodating, workable and fair system to all human legal pursuit.

Again, the 911 incident was a wake up call to the consciousness of Western civilization to boldly take action not only in stopping such from happening again, but to use all necessary civilized, but firm resolve to push the agenda of fear back and keep its soul disjointed, which would help to douse its evil plots. It became imperative for both systems to frame out a workable atmosphere where more accommodation of values would exist, even within the differences, rather than the extremist dagger-sword approach. Hence, the Iraqi equation was given birth to as the most viable, broad based, integral solution between the belief systems of the Middle East and West. This means, it became the best possibility with the most rewarding result into the future to all parties. The Iraq equation is like any regular conference or seminar, where all participants may not necessarily agree, but the meeting gives all the opportunity to serve their varying interest in a civilized forum. As a result, those who could play this workable arrangements with the West, has always been the moderates whose views in their systems are either sidelined or driven so far to the background and out of fear of severe consequence can not share their opinions in the open. The calculation was arrived at and firmly too, that this was the right time to aggressively embark on the fence-mending divide between our social, cultural and political textures before it became too costly to handle. The big picture was to steam roll dialogue, accommodation and civil regulations in a central location within the Middle East cultural system. Thereby, sowing the seed that would broaden decision-making process. As this in the long haul, empowers individuals to reason out based on their perceptions and having the capacity to express their views freely within civil legal coverage or provisions and not the stereo-structured arrangement only to one common aggregate based on worship.

Again, the country Iraq, with its multi-cultural background and location found itself as the perfect fit for this open and fine tuning agenda. Now, the reasons wiped up for the war venture by our political leaders were not justified. They were not conclusive enough to justify for war and largely were wrong, period. Notwithstanding, going after one individual who master-minded the 911 attack, was not the solution, because the issue was more of an institutional composure and painfully doing nothing after the fruitless pursuit, would not have been the best bargain to the future generation of this beloved country to handle. That would have spelt weakness into the minds of our children. As fact, most people who are against the war today would have screamed weakness to the same political leaders here for doing nothing after the unsuccessful pursuit. Therefore, the necessity for action that is broad base, far-reaching and result prone could not be compromised. The clear message to anyone who harbors or tries to cause undue harm to innocent Americans was that, there would always be with great repercussion. As a result, the war became a necessary option to satisfy this long-term goal of pursuing common values, where peace, accommodation and stability of all interests from the West with the Middle East would be reasonably maintained. What we have on our hands is more than conventional war but a reform agenda. This is because, the success of a democratic Iraq with good influence of Western democratic values would gradually spread around that part of the world and encourage other moderates to clamor for open dialogue into their political communities, which would then act as internal check on extremist approach within their systems against the West. Some would ask, if that is our business? Partly yes, because peace is a global commodity and the present world is a community with lots of critical issues that requires well-grounded resolve to move all towards good coordinating level despite the differences in our historical, cultural, religious and economic backgrounds. Peace must be aggressively pursued if peace must be sustained or else, we all wallow in anarchy, which may eventually choke everywhere, including your proposed “isolated enclave” that is, if we follow the narrow suggestion to remain aloof. Peace needs to be enforced if we really love peace and progress in the world. This means, for true peaceful agenda to reign, we must infuse some measure of equitable firmness and not coercion or else we run the risk of been weak. This is because, the line between peace and weakness is very thin and if we cannot distinguish both clearly, then; we may live one for the other, and wrongly contending to be doing the right thing.

Presently, most people only see the war from the negative and they have every right to, because nobody likes loss of lives and properties as we witness from news out from the war. The fact remains that the young men and women who have died and those still in battle, are staking their lives for the freedom and peace of the world. Some may not agree, but that is exactly what these brave military men and women are current engaged in Iraq. This is because, they have taken the challenge into the “heart of the storm,” which needs every considerable attention and modification. Therefore, they deserve all moral, financial and logistic support necessary to win the war, despite some of our reservations to the defense policy approach currently been applied. The message we should all understand is that this is a very long term investment and attempts by major political players to back off, means we have backed down and mortgage the future for a higher price. The current issue should be viewed by all above politics, because we are dealing with our survival as progressives and the befitting legacy to our dear children, which is freedom and prosperity. The progress in Iraq will become comfortable to all, 15 to 20 years from now. As I told a group sometime ago, it is more than a 100 years project. That center is strategic for all things good to that area, to the West and World peace in general. Emotion has nothing to do with this course. It is realization checkpoint. The checkpoint is this, whether we like to hear it or not, there is a silent war on staged and marked by another against Western civilization. Turning your back or being friendly is not and will never be the solution. What we have on our hands cannot and must not be handled with kid’s glove. Rather, we must stand firm, to not only resist, but also be decently aggressive in saying no to fear and repression with the power of our collective resolve, which means, though with respect to their values, we should relentlessly influence our democratic ideals into that region and not imposition. We must wake up to our call or loose all we cherish unknowingly by taking the side of weakness. Peace is always for strength. We must now chart the corrective course that respects the values for others to live and live with us in progress and mutual kindness without compromising an iota of our National Security values. This is because, the stronger the United States remains, the better for peace and stability in the world. If we confuse peace for silence or withdrawal and allow our emotions instead of reality to determine the future, then that is the beginning of the end to all that we dearly hold…our torch of liberty.

Whichever side you belong, the God we trust is that of hope and love, and will always triumph.

Imoudu Iziokhai

MA 02145

info@vmodu.com



Luis

Mr. Smartypants™ asked:


She voted for the Iraq war that even regular people like myself knew what a total lie, so does that make her just as criminally negligent as BushFruad? What’s even worse is that she’s flip flopping and now saying she’ll bring the troops home.

Doesn’t this mean that the only electable presidential candidates would be one that was smart enough to know that the Iraq war was a total farce?

Javier

mylo asked:


Are they on positive or negative terms with Iraq? Can you name some situations proving these terms?

What is Tunisia doing in the Iraq War? Are they clearly against it?

Most of Tunisia’s information on this subject is very scarce.
Thank you.

Marvin

Andrew Gibson asked:


A country that was known worldwide for the rich petroleum and crude oil resources is also where war ruled through the year. A small country in Western Asia, Iraq’s history dates way back to Mesopotamia.

The majority of this country is covered by deserts, except for the two main rivers, Tigris and Euphrates. Since the land is dry, weather here is quite hot most of the time, though the mountains up north do see cold winters and snow falls, sometimes so severe, it leads to flooding.

Babylon is one of the places that is famous worldwide and is situated right here in Iraq. An ancient site, that was once prominent, is covered with high walls, and palaces apart from the magnificent temples. Even though the place has been eroded by rain and time, it still stands tall. To get to this monument, one can either take the boat or a water taxi from Baghdad.

One of the most famous ancient sites in Iraq is the Ur of Chaldees, which was even mentioned in the Bible. It is said to be the birth place of Abraham and built around 4000 BC. It remained the capital of Sumeria for decades, and the tombs and ziggurats in Ur have remained well preserved.

What remains of the city of Ctesiphon is this huge Arch, which was part of a banquet hall built during the early century by Persians who ruled the place. It has survived the severe flooding that happened in the Tigris River and is still open to tourists to feast their eyes on.

The hands of Victory were a monument that was built by Saddam Hussain, to celebrate his victory. This used to dominate the Baghdad skyline ever since the Iran and Iraq war took place. It basically marks the entrance of new parade grounds in the central region of Baghdad. It looks like two swords crossing each other at the top as if to symbolise the war that happened. At the base of this monument, lie nearly 5000 helmets belonging to Iranian soldiers who were slain in the war. The hands that hold the swords are a replica of Saddam Hussein’s, in fact created from a photograph given to the sculpture. This was torn down and destroyed during the recent war.

Yet another tourist attraction in Iraq is the Shaheed Monument, which was open to public in 1983. This is again a place that symbolises all the Iraqi soldiers who died during the war with Iran. A huge dome, which has been split in the middle, with the two halves offset, has the domes are sheltering a flame. Around this area, a playground for children, walkways, bridges, ample car park, and even a lake can be found.



Alan

Gilbert W asked:


More people are preoccupied with the inciendiary remarks by Pastor Wright rather than the War in Iraq.

The key is to discredit Senator Obama by his association to Pastor Wright and elevate Senator John McCain who supports American occupation in Iraq for 100 years.

Are Americans gullible to get sidetrack by lesser issues that have not affected the lives of Americans and our economy like the War in Iraq?

Allen

My vote counted. Outstanding! asked:


I often hear the remark that if there were a draft today, there would be more young people speaking out against the war, and this would bring the war to an end. But we had a draft for over 10 years during the Viet Nam war. I believe that it was the returning combat veterans who shared their stories publicly, which turned the tide and helped end that war.
Each service member who has spoken out has been followed by more war resisters who have come forward to oppose the war. They need the support of the peace movement. Their stories of conscience and war experiences shed light on the horror and illegality of the Iraq war. Their stories are similar to accounts from other wars, and will continue to be repeated unless we keep working to end the Iraq war and prevent future wars.
It wasn’t Jane Fonda who stopped the Vietnam war.

Ricardo