Dropping like it's hot...

Yeah, late again. One file is taking forever to translate, and I goofed one or two things up here.

Be on at ~ 10:15...

Ahmadinejad and the perpetual state of war.

The Iranian president has been doing some political maneuvering and public relations games. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad decided to make a trip to NYC to lay a wreath at the former W.T.C and than to make a speech at Columbia University. The N.Y police department and City officials denied him the clearance to the W.T.C to do this obviously politically motivated photo-op opportunity. He will still speak at Columbia and appear at the U.N. Local N.Y politicians also condemned him and said a visit to the site of the 2001 terror attacks would violate sacred ground. This was the exact reaction Ahmadinejad was looking for, a knee jerk reaction of panic. Local politicians are playing on the Holocaust denial and Anti-Israel sentiment he has expressed in the past, to create the negative sentiment which resulted in Anti-Ahmadinejad rally which was held on Sunday Now certain NY politicians are now calling (post speech at Columbia0 for the defunding of the university!! All knee jerk reactions!
Ahmadinejad most likely planned these events to see how America would react and we played right into his game, we over reacted and continued to paint him as the "next Hitler", this only makes him more popular in the Middle East, where he can turn around and point out to the Arab world how "hostile" we were to him on his diplomatic trip.
To top it off on 60 minutes Ahmadinejad declared that the US and Iran and the US are not headed for war and that the nuclear bomb is not a solution to the issues, the Washington Post reported. All political moves to bolster his standing in Iran and Middle East. Iran is interested most in having a friendly relationship with Iraq, which they are more likely to have with the current Shite government. Remember these two countries were involved in a bloody conflict that lasted 8 years, when the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini responded to an Iraqi invasion of Iran. Saddam Hussein declared war initially on Iran. The desire of Ahmadinejad to have a friendly Shite Iraq is the most important reason why we are going to have to deal with Ahmadinejad in heavy diplomacy. We created this opportunity by overthrowing Saddam Hussein after all....

Ray Takeyh wrote an op-ed which appeared in the L.A Times late last year which puts Ahmadinejad's actions into perspective.
On Iran and Iraq he writes:

Iran is intervening in Iraq and arming various Shiite militias—but such conduct is designed not to export Iran’s model of governance but to prevent the rise of a state dominated by Sunni elites whose pan-Arab aspirations have in the past led to tense relations, and even war, with Iran. Tehran has no delusions that the Shiites of Iraq will subordinate their communal interest to Iran’s national ambitions, but it does hope that a Shiite-dominated regime will provide it with a suitable interlocutor.

Another interesting point Takeya brings up is the Anti-Israel sentiment and Holocaust denial.

Why has Ahmadinejad persisted in his contemptible denials of the Holocaust and his repeated calls for the eradication of Israel if, in fact, they are more bluster than anything else? As a cagey politician, Ahmadinejad appreciates that his incendiary denunciations actually enhance his popularity in the Middle East. The carnage in Iraq, the failure to broker a peace between Israel and the Palestinians and the Arab rulers’ inability to stand up to Washington have generated a popular clamor for a politician willing to defy the U.S. and Israel. Ahmadinejad has taken on that role, successfully capturing the imagination of a region prone to rely on conspiracies to explain its predicament. In this context, his persistent religious exhortations are designed not to prepare the path for the return of the Hidden Imam—the Messiah-like figure of Shiite Islam who some believe will reappear in a period of global war, chaos and bloodshed—but to advance himself and the cause of Iranian influence.

His "wipe Israel off the face off the map" rhetoric is more political posturing than reality,
and on Nuclear capability and the threat to Israel, he writes

Iran’s pursuit of the bomb has less to do with the destruction of Israel than with deterring a United States that has invaded two states that border Iran in the last five years. This is a moment of heightened tension between the U.S. and Iran, with the Bush administration routinely calling for a change of regime in Tehran, so perhaps it’s not so surprising that the Islamic Republic feels it requires a deterrent capability to ensure
both regime survival and territorial integrity.

In other words Ahmadinejad's possible attempt to build a nuclear weaopon is more a self-defense mechanism against the United States than it is an effort to destroy Isreal. What do you expect when Bush, right after September 11th put Iran into the "Axis of Evil"? The plan from the start was to create this friction between the US and Iran. Our Invasion of Iraq contributed to the nuclear weapons coming into play obviously. Still the nuclear threat may indeed by exaggerated. Recently the head of the IAEA Mohamed ElBaradei

is quoted at a conference by BBC news in Vienna as saying:

There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that the country has nuclear weapons," he said.
"I do not believe at this stage that we are facing a clear and present danger that requires we go beyond diplomacy," he added.

The Bush crime family and the Neo-con's want Iran and this has very little to do with Israel or even Iran having nukes, it is all about the oil. We are looking for an excuse to start the bombing, and according to reports from News week magazine as covered by Haaretz, Dick Cheney considered pushing Israel to actually initiate the bombing of Iran!

Anything for the endless war, and anything for oil. Ahmadinejad and Bush need each other, Ahmadinejad needs Bush and the knee-jerk reactions by the US to bolster his popularity in Iran and The Middle East and Bush needs Ahmadinejad's threats as an excuse to start the bombing. In reality it is really all about the oil. One has to only look recently at the way the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates, which than decreased the value of the USA dollar to a 15 year low, resulting in Saudi Arabia becoming nervous about continuing to deal with the American dollar and possibly switching to Euros, telegraph UK reports. Are the neo-cons counting on a continued war in the Middle East in Iraq and Iran, with the ultimate goal of privatizing both countries oil wells for the future economic stability of the United States??

In that case we need Ahmadinejad to continue our perpetual state of war in the Middle East.

BlackWater Shootings, furthur damaging U.S relations with Iraqi government

The American security contracting firm Black Water has been involved with at least 6 violent incidents that left 21 Iraqis dead. The Iraqi government has frequently complained to the US about Backwater's tactics, but received no response until 11 Iraqi civilians were unjustifiably shot last weekend, The Washington Post reports. Secratary of State Condi Rice was sent to Iraq to cool things off with Prime Minister Maliki, but the shootings were not a topic and they kept their distance from each other, the N.Y Times reported The Iraqi government has pledged to file criminal charges against Blackwater as a result of the killings., The NY Times reported on Sunday. CNN interviews Iraqi civilians who survived the BlackWater attacks and covers the current issues at hand, in decent fashion.

In addition to their troubles in Iraq, Blackwater may face Federal charges in America regarding their role in gun smuggling to terrorists in Iraq!

This can only harm Iraq in the long run. The government is basically forced to keep Black Water in Iraq because of the vast amount of power they have established regarding the security situation in Iraq. BlackWater gets millions and millions worth of contracts from the Bush crime regime and the Iraq government is basically held hostage with BlackWater. The Times points out the Iraqi government is not ready to ban Blackwater from their country because it might create a major security problemin Bagdhad. It is a no win situation for the Iraqi govenment who has to depend on an American company that has murdered Iraqi civilians as their main security force! I suppose the Iraqi government better learn to deal with BlackWater or expect a coup d'état and a new Sunni dictaorhip replacing the Shite government courtesy of their liberators, US!!!

Republican Drama Queens: The attack on Move on...

What started off as a cheap political trick by the freak of New York Rudy Giuliani; the Republican orchestrated attack on move on.org over their critical ad of Genral Petraeus has escalated to the point where the GOP wasted time in the Senate on an amendment by Senator Cornyn (Republican-Tx) to defend the "honor and integrity" of the General and all members of the military. This act of pure political theatre states:

"To express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and
all members of the United States Armed Forces.

It is quite interesting that the half of the democrats voted for this amendment. At first I was agitated by their decision, but after weighing it all out one can conclude that the Dems who went along with this were kind of "squashing the talking point". Knowing the way Republicans love to question the patriotism of others, they figured this would be a way to avoid a dramatic "the democrats voted against ending personal attacks on our troops" rhetoric. From a political perspective I understand why they did it, but the argument that this amendment
is an direct attack on free speech is quite valid.
Keep in mind this was political theatre, which was started by a presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani designed to link Hillary Clinton to Move on. That whiny little drama queen of a right wing hack, MarkLevin, came up with this initial political stunt, when Levin and Rudy met at a Sean Hannity "freedom concert". Before you knew it John McCain was talking about move on being "thrown out of the country", Cheney joined in on the fun, and Rep Davis (R-Va) suggested to open an investigation into the NY Times charging a discount rate to "liberal groups", such as move on. This is a false charge as we previously discussed. Even the president was handed a softball question about move on at the end of his recent press conference!!!
What a bunch of drama queens.

The original criticism by move on, in the N.Y Times focused on the methodology used by the General for counting counting deaths in Iraq. Originally the Times and the Washington post pointed out the methodology; through anonymous sources; to be "bizarre"and that questionable methods were used to determine if a death was sectarian or not. The Move on ad quoted those articles and it turns out the articles were correct. The methodology used to come to the conclusion of "decreased violence" are indeed designed to discount a lot of deaths, to lower the number for the great presentation by General Petraeus. In the presentation he touted the drop in sectarian violence but the methodology was designed to discount sectarian violence! By a freedom of information act request TPM Muckracker reporter Spencer Ackerman got to examine the actual methodology the Pentagon and the General used for the report! We learn all the criticism by move on and others is indeed extremely valid.
Highlights of the methodology used:

A. Attacks against "same-sect civilians," U.S. forces, the Iraqi government or Iraqi security forces "are excluded and not defined as sectarian attacks.
Note: attacks on the Iraqi government and security forces can indeed be sectarian

B. The methodology identifies a number of factors, necessarily subjective, that help analysts determine whether an attack or a death should be considered sectarian. Ethno-sectarian violence is defined as violence "conducted by one ethnic/religious group against another ethnic/religious group, where the primary motivation for the event is based on ethnic or religious reasons." MNF-I analysts consider the location of the attack -- whether it took place in a mixed area or a homogeneous one -- and the type of attack in order to
determine ethnic or sectarian violence.
Note: The Articles that move on. referenced, described that the report took into account the way a victim was shot (whether in the front or back of the head to determine if the killing was sectarian) . So these articles were correct.
You can read the entire document in detail here thanks to TPM muckraker.

The attack on Move on is nothing cheap political stunt, typical of the drama queens in the Republican party. As we can see the criticism of the methodology used to determine sectarian deaths is totally valid. With all this selling of the "progress" and the Generals report, the American people are not buying it. CNN reports on a recent CBS poll which showed that after the Bush speech and the Petreus report report only 31% of the people feel we are making things better in Iraq. The executive director of move on, explains the obvious here.