NO END IN SIGHT

Is Bill Kristol on Crack?! Just wondering.

Nothing prompts a stay-at-home mom to start blogging again than some idiotic article by William Kristol seen in today's Washington Post. Below is my response, sent to the Washington Post.

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Monday, July 16 at noon ET
Outlook: Bush Will Win
He's Succeeding Domestically and Abroad, and Is on the Path to Victory in Iraq

William Kristol
Editor, Weekly Standard
Monday, July 16, 2007; 12:00 PM

"Let's step back from the unnecessary mistakes and the self-inflicted wounds that have characterized the Bush administration. Let's look at the broad forest rather than the often unlovely trees. What do we see? First, no second terrorist attack on U.S. soil � not something we could have taken for granted. Second, a strong economy -- also something that wasn't inevitable. And third, and most important, a war in Iraq that has been very difficult, but where -- despite some confusion engendered by an almost meaningless 'benchmark' report last week -- we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome."

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William Kristol, you are completely out of touch with reality.

Regarding your first point, let's remember the almost nine year span between the 1993 World Trade Center bombings and 9/11? Who are we supposed to thank for that, Bill Clinton? Ha ha. No. Felling the American giant takes time, a.k.a. planning. And if it takes a decade to plan an attack with devasting results, Al Qaeda will take a decade. In their eyes, We are in a religious war (which is ironic because all forms of religious fundamentalism are really political). As learned in history class, the crusades spanned between the 11th and 13th centuries. That's 200 years! I know this doesn't fit into your tidy timeline of Bush's reign, eight years, but this will be a fight for decades to come. And Al Qaeda's cause has only been bolstered by the survival of Al Qaeda's mascot, Osama bin Laden, and the United State's naive decision to enter Iraq. (I think the evidence is clearly out that we didn't enter for the non-existent WMDs. In regards to Saddam and his violation of human rights and record of human atrocities, I have some one word answers for that -- SAUDI ARABIA! DARFUR!!)

Regarding your second point, the economy might be strong in your affluent neck of the woods, but I live in a blue collar/former navy town where close to 1,000 homes are on the market because of foreclosure, which has brought our real estate market to a halt. As an endangered middle class American with little debt, other than my mortgage, I am surrounded by friends, family and neighbors crippled by credit card debt and ever-increasing adjustable rate mortage payments. I have friends with credit card debt in excess of $100,000, an insurmountable debt when one's household income is $80,000/year. What the "rich folk" don't understand is that for many Americans -- living paycheck-to-paycheck -- having as little as $200 of liquid cash available after we feed our families and pay our bills (including the minimum payment on our credit cards) is a rarity.

As for the third point, it's nice to sit back and talk about how well the war is going when it's not your child facing death. As the mother of a son, every day I grieve for those mothers who have lost their sons and/or daughters. As of today 3,613 sons, daughters, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers and good friends have died, Because of a decision made by a handful of men who NEVER experienced war first hand. And these aren't numbers. These are human beings, loved ones! And the sad thing is, if Bush and his advisors would have ever read one ioda of historical text regarding Iraq and/or the Middle East, they would have foreseen the quagmire Iraq has become. We destabilized a country with fake borders and prompted a civil war, not only between tribes but religious factions, that has been simmering under the surface for centuries.

Most Americans don't think in political time frames or make decisions daily as Democrats or Republicans. Most Americans are too busy providing the basic necessities of life -- food and shelter -- for their families. After that, our concerns include quality of education, healthcare and safety. And if you've been to my town of Vallejo with our failing school system which has been taken over by the state and our over-crowded emergency rooms (filled with uninsured patients using the ER doctors as primary care physician), our citizenry is not exactly basking in the glow of Bush's domestic success. And safety? Well with approximately 1.5 million violent crimes and 17,000 murders committed in the United States every year, are we more in danger of being the victim of a terrorist or domestic crime?

Great Ed-Op piece from NY Times

Wednesday, January 31, 2007
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN: Not-So-Strange Bedfellow

Here’s a little foreign policy test. I am going to describe two countries — “Country A” and “Country B” — and you tell me which one is America’s ally and which one is not.

Let’s start: Country A actively helped the U.S. defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and replace it with a pro-U.S. elected alliance of moderate Muslims. Country A regularly holds sort-of-free elections. Country A’s women vote, hold office, are the majority of its university students and are fully integrated into the work force.

On 9/11, residents of Country A were among the very few in the Muslim world to hold spontaneous pro-U.S. demonstrations. Country A’s radical president recently held a conference about why the Holocaust never happened — to try to gain popularity. A month later, Country A held nationwide elections for local councils, and that same president saw his candidates get wiped out by voters who preferred more moderate conservatives. Country A has a strategic interest in the success of the pro-U.S., Shiite-led, elected Iraqi government. Although it’s a Muslim country right next to Iraq, Country A has never sent any suicide bombers to Iraq, and has long protected its Christians and Jews. Country A has more bloggers per capita than any country in the Muslim Middle East.

The brand of Islam practiced by Country A respects women, is open to reinterpretation in light of modernity and rejects Al Qaeda’s nihilism.

Now Country B: Country B gave us 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11. Country B does not allow its women to drive, vote or run for office. It is illegal in Country B to build a church, synagogue or Hindu temple. Country B helped finance the Taliban.

Country B’s private charities help sustain Al Qaeda. Young men from Country B’s mosques have been regularly recruited to carry out suicide bombings in Iraq. Mosques and charities in Country B raise funds to support the insurgency in Iraq. Country B does not want the elected, Shiite-led government in Iraq to succeed. While Country B’s leaders are pro-U.S., polls show many of its people are hostile to America — some of them celebrated on 9/11. The brand of Islam supported by Country B and exported by it to mosques around the world is the most hostile to modernity and other faiths.

Question: Which country is America’s natural ally: A or B?

Country A is, of course. Country A is Iran. Country B is Saudi Arabia.

Don’t worry. I know that Iran has also engaged in terrorism against the U.S. and that the Saudis have supported America at key times in some areas. The point I’m trying to make, though, is that the hostility between Iran and the U.S. since the overthrow of the shah in 1979 is not organic. By dint of culture, history and geography, we actually have a lot of interests in common with Iran’s people. And I am not the only one to notice that.

Because the U.S. has destroyed Iran’s two biggest enemies — the Taliban and Saddam — “there is now a debate in Iran as to whether we should continue to act so harshly against the Americans,” Mohammad Hossein Adeli, Iran’s former ambassador to London, told me at Davos. “There is now more readiness for dialogue with the United States.”

More important, when people say, “The most important thing America could do today to stabilize the Middle East is solve the Israel-Palestine conflict,” they are wrong. It’s second. The most important thing would be to resolve the Iran-U.S. conflict.

That would change the whole Middle East and open up the way to solving the Israel-Palestine conflict, because Iran is the key backer of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Syria. Iran’s active help could also be critical for stabilizing Iraq.

This is why I oppose war with Iran. I favor negotiations. Isolating Iran like Castro’s Cuba has produced only the same result as in Cuba: strengthening Iran’s Castros. But for talks with Iran to bear fruit, we have to negotiate with Iran with leverage.

How do we get leverage? Make it clear that Iran can’t push us out of the gulf militarily; bring down the price of oil, which is key to the cockiness of Iran’s hard-line leadership; squeeze the hard-liners financially. But all this has to be accompanied with a clear declaration that the U.S. is not seeking regime change in Iran, but a change of behavior, that the U.S. wants to immediately restore its embassy in Tehran and that the first thing it will do is grant 50,000 student visas for young Iranians to study at U.S. universities.

Just do that — and then sit back and watch the most amazing debate explode inside Iran. You can bet the farm on it.

Saving Embryos while Taking Lives

The picture on the left is a magnified picture of a five day embryo sitting in the eye of a needle. These are the embryos used to extract stem cells; The embryos that are destroyed by fertility clinics if not used.

The picture on the right is Army Spc. Casey Sheehan. Once a living breathing human being, full of life and laughter. Casey was 24 years old when he was killed in Iraq.

George Bush is fighting tooth and nail, using his first veto, to save the embryo on the left, which has the potential to save the lives of people with Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Diabetes, and other life threatening diseases, and again which is destined to be literally trashed.

George Bush, not wanting to admit any deception or errors in judgment, is fighting tooth and nail to send more young men like Casey Sheehan off to die in Iraq.

Under the guise of his "moral Christian values," Bush continues to forge ahead making decisions based on self-admitted ignorance, selfishness and stubborness. In this blogger's opinion, his decisions are often anything but Christ-like.

Read Bush to stem cell community: Drop dead.

The Devil came out on 6-6-6

Well 6-6-6 went by without much hoo-hah. What's so funny, is I woke up worrying not about the appearance of Satan but what the crazy Christian right might do (i.e. bomb the Temple Mount to jumpstart Armageddon). But although uneventful, the devil herself did make an appearance. Yes, Ann Coulter, the hate-filled, venom-spewing, rhetoric-spieling beast, was splashed all over the TV yesterday promoting her latest hate filled book, which will remain unnamed on this website. So amazingly appropriate that her latest diatribe would come out on June 6th. Too funny.

With her reference to the 9/11 widows as the "McWidows" and her openly racists and fascists statements in regards to Muslims, North Koreans and Democrats, she's truly the anti-christ poster girl. (I don't know how this "hater" considers herself a Christian.)

Yes folks, she's the devil, and her ugly head rose for Satan's Rapture. Now hopefully, she'll descend back into hell where she belongs.

Project for the New American Century

So what happens when all the rich scary white guys graduate from Harvard and Yale and can't go to their secret society (i.e. Skull and Bones) meetings anymore? They form the Project for the New American Century -- a group with an ominous membership -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz... These are the architects of the war in Iraq or as they like to call it the "re-designing of the Middle East." Statements from their website include:

"American leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle."

"We need to increase defense spending significantly."

"We need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values."

"We need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles."

So, exactly whose interests and whose values are they talking about? And what does the rest of the world think about THEIR country needing OUR [American] leadership??

It's not just about money and oil, my friends. It's about world domination. It's about controlling the middle of the Middle East -- and therefore controlling the oil output to the world.

Vietnam War in the News

It was recently released that in 1972 behind closed doors, Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State to Nixon, was making deals with communist China in regards to Vietnam. It was June 22, 1972, and Kissinger was meeting with then Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai. It was during this meeting that he stated, "If we can live with a communist government in China, we ought to be able to accept it in Indochina."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601926.html

Although troop levels were starting to decrease by that time, 600 American lives were lost from June of 1972 to end of the war. 600 lives!

Well, as we know, history repeats itself. The parallels between the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq are

1. We were lied to! Americans were led to believe that Russia was behind the invasion of North Korea. It has now been revealed in the Pentagon Papers that there was no proof of Russian involvement preceding the war. Sounds familiar right? Americans were told the same story about al Qaeda's supposed involvement in Iraq. But instead, we've only opened Iraq to al Qaeda, which had no presence in Iraq pre-war.

2.