Iraq visits by congressmen and Senators Staged events

It seems now that rather than a briefing on what is going on in Iraq congressmen and Senators have been receiving what amounts to Pr campaign orchastrated by the Miltary and the Bush adm to convince them that surge was working.

The congressmen and Senators were set up with pr officers. The senators and congressmen's bios were plastered all over the green zone. Spin City," Rep. Moran said of the incident. "The Iraqis and the Americans were all singing from the same song sheet, and it was deliberately manipulated."

They are restrict from who they are meeting with and are only given access to what amounts to specfic officals and soilders that were prescreen to talk to them. On several occasion people that tried to talk to them were cut off, block as when they started trying to tell them what was really going on.

This brings into question what is really going on in iraq and if we are really being given a the picture or this is simply another con game by this adm to keep the war going. Is the surge really working or not I now question if what the congress member are coming back with is the truth or is simply a well orchastraed fraud by the adm to convince them and us it is. I don't think the adm would be going to this level of restricted access if it was. They seem to be so desperate to keep the war going they will resort to even staged events for congress to convince them things are going well even if they aren't.

Bush pushing towards invasion of Iran

It's quite clear that George Bush intends to try to convince the American people that's a good idea to invade Iran. We are hearing the same language that lead up to his unilateralist invasion of Iraq, plus the increased craziness of a Nuclear Holocaust. It's quite clear that they have decided that the best way to deal with our problems in Iraq is to start a war with Iran. This is Bush's desperate last ditch effort to keep the Iraq war going,to distract the failure of Iraq with a New enemy a new war someething and i'm going to get attacked for this that is worthy of Nazis propagandist Joseph Goebbels. The idea that keeping people in fear will keep their support no matter how bad things are going. I honestly have now lost what little respect I had for this President that he would resort to this, and am will lose what respect I have for the American public if they fall for it.

Today proves we need to Pressure the Iraqi government So Mr Maliki Shut up.

It seems that the only time that makes the Iraqi government do anything is the threat that the American troops will actually leave. Mr. Maliki spent the past 3 days cursing and screaming at US elected officials mostly Democrats. Who wanted him removed, that they were undemocratic. Telling us if we don't want to be their (his) friend he can find someone else. That this is their government that we should mind our own business, screaming and yelling and having a fit on Television like a lunatic. Telling us compromise takes time progress takes time. Well, Mr. Maliki it seems the only way we can get you and the Iraqi government to show progress in Iraq is a threaten your power. That someone actually lit a fire under you and your government. That have had months and years to do thing and only do them now that if you don't the troops will pull out. That all of a suddenly only today moved to meet the US benchmarks because Democrats and some republicans put pressure on you.

This simply proves that the only thing that will speed up progress in Iraq is continued pressure and threats of leaving by American officials. That unless we put up a real threat of leaving or your removal nothing will happen. It proves Democrats were right to put the screws to the iraqi government. We will continue to spill our blood for nothing, infiniteum. So Mr. Maliki Shut up I'm almost as sick of listening to your bs as our President's rants about Vietnam.

How stupid does Bush think the American People are Vietnam,Japan,Korea

Bush must really think the American People are stupid. Bush is goin to try and conflate Japan,Korea and Vietnam into the same frame work.

We did not go into Japan and try to beat the people into submission, nor did we create a government before the war was over. We had already won there were no insurgence in Japan and there was a true leader to negotiate with.

We won in Japan and were able to set up a democracy because we had nuked the country and destroyed their will to fight.

Second Korea, exists and continues to exist in the way it does because of outside infulences between the Soviets, China and the Us and other allies.

But again this was a fight between two groups and even though we standed thousands died and even though we were there South Korea had a coup d'etat lead by General Park Chung-hee 1961, and who was replace in a coup d'etat by General Chun Doo-hwan 1979 There was also a masacre in 1980 of Democracy groups and then a revolt in 1988.All this happened while we were there.

In Vietnam we didn't lose because we left we lost because we destablize the rest of the region and didn't understand the culture of vietnam. We have incompitent allies and that no matter how much we trained them couldn't get anything done. The invation of Cambodia and the Kent State mascare in the us ended the war. Congress only cut off the Money because it had no choice, and it was the only way to end the war. Bush is continuing to point to Domino theory which didn't happen. The simple fact is that reguardless of what the Vietnam apologist say we could not have won in Vietnam no matter how long we stayed. The government was courpt and incomptient and based on the pentagon papers the Johnson and Nixon adm had been lying to the American people about what was going on in Vietnam for years. The simple fact is the Johnson adm tried to paint the tet offensive as a victory that it wasn't. Which is where the war started to go down hill. We simply couldn't control vietnam without ourselves and neither can we control Iraq.

The simple fact is the comparison between Iraq and the other wars is a load of dung. Iraq is more closely related to Vietnam because there is some ethnic strugle and we are bogged down. We were told over and over again in Vietnam we were winning there is a light at the end of the tunnel unforuntaely the light at the end of the tunnel was the light from an on coming train. That is what is happening in Iraq we make a little progress to make it look like we are getting somewhere just enough to keep us there then all hell breaks loose again. This is what happened in Vietnam except by the end Congress had had it and cut it off. It doesn't matter how long we stay or if we stay there will be continued violence and in the end there will be a civil war if not this year next year or 10 years from now.

Has the Us Miltary Become an Evangelical Cult

It seems there is a continued attempt to evangialize Miltary recruits still reguardless of what is going on. If you are wondering why the Us Miltary is having such a hard time recruiting to the numbers it sets and keeping people. On every level evangical chrisitans have invaded the us miltary and are using the insitution to harrass recruits into converting to Evangical christianity reguardless if they are any other type of Christianity.

The Miltary has because so bad that the recruits are being commanded to go to Evangical events. The miltary is being run on faith based action what is going on in Iraq is no longer a war but a crusade, it believes that Iraq is a battle of Revelations. That is doesn't matter what the truth is they will lie, distort, and alter to keep the war going. This is part of why we are really not winning because the Us miltary and the people running it are just as intollerant as the people we are fighting. They blame those who are not evangical christians for their failures and most specifically non-christians. That we are losing not because of their actions but because they have lost the support of god because they haven't converted enough people.

It is a highly disturbing situation and everything that comes out of the us miltary should be taken in the Light that they view this as a religious crusade and not what is in the Best interest of the american people.

Here we go again the National Press and American Public is Conned by the Bush adm again

It seems that the Much touted anti-war scholar Michael O'Hanlon aggressive critics of the Bush administration's handling of the war" or as "critics of the war by his own admission is not a war critic at all but a whole hearted supporter of the war from word one.

It's quite clear from the quote below that what we have been hearing is alot of happy happy nonsense from a staged trip by the Dod. There is no real evidence what was reported with O'hanlon and Pollack was true nor that there is any real progress in Iraq at all or that what is being Shown as said by sen Webb was nothing more than a Horse and Pony show.

Greenwald: OK, but once George Bush is primed to invade in March of 2003, the strategy is known, on balance did you believe that with the strategy that Bush was going to use, that the war on balance was a good idea rather than a bad idea? You favored it, right?


O'Hanlon: Yes, yes I did.



Greenwald: As far as the Surge is concerned, the policy that President Bush announced in January 2007, you were a supporter of that strategy on balance, right?


O'Hanlon: Correct, yes.


Greenwald: OK. And in terms of the reasons that you favored it, you say that you obviously got Weapons of Mass Destruction wrong - you wrote a Washington Times February 2003 column where you said: “the President was still convincing on his central point that the time for war is near.” And then you went on to say that "It is now time for multilateralists to support the President." Weapons of Mass Destruction was a very significant part of the case that you made for invading Iraq. Would you agree with that?


O'Hanlon: Yes, I would.


Greenwald: Why did you need the permission of the U.S. military in order to go? Why couldn't you just go yourself?




O'Hanlon: I suppose I could have, but I was hopeful that someone could help take care of my security, for one thing. I'm not going to try to sound more heroic than I am. And also I wanted to talk to a lot of military personnel and get their impressions.


And also I'm not a long-standing enough specialist on Iraqi politics. I'm more of a defense scholar. So I don't have the kinds of contacts in Iraq that some of my friends who are first and foremost Iraq specialists have. And therefore in order to have a useful trip, I need to sort of tag along with somebody. So this was a great benefit to me that not only the U.S. military would help arrange the trip, but also that Ken Pollack and Tony Cordesman -- who were two long-standing Iraq experts, two of our nation's best Iraq experts -- would be on the trip as well. So for all these reasons, that was why I took the chance to go on that trip.


Greenwald: The first line of your Op-Ed said:"viewed from Iraq where we just spent the last eight days interviewing American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel..."



How did you arrange the meetings with the Iraqi military and civilian personnel?



O'Hanlon: Well, a number of those -- and most of those were arranged by the U.S. military. So I'll be transparent about that as well. These were to some extent contacts of Ken and Tony, but that was a lesser number of people. The predominant majority were people who we came into contact with through the itinerary the D.O.D. developed.

Greenwald: Were you concerned that you were getting an unrepresentative view of the situation in Iraq because the Iraqis with whom you spoke were ones hand-picked by the U.S. military?


O'Hanlon: If someone wanted to argue that we were not getting a representative view of Iraqis because the ones we spoke with were provided by the military, I would agree that this would be a genuine concern. Certainly that might have influenced the impressions that we were presented, though by no means did all of the Iraqis agree with the view of progress in Iraq.

Greenwald: Given that some of the claims in your Op-Ed are based upon your conversations with Iraqis, and that the Iraqis with whom you spoke were largely if not exclusively ones provided to you by the U.S. military, shouldn't that fact have been included in your Op-Ed?



O'Hanlon: If the suggestion is that in a 1,400 word Op-Ed, we ought to have mentioned that, I can understand that criticism, and if we should have included that, I apologize for not having done so.


But I want to stress that the focus here was on the perspective of the U.S. military, and I did a lot of probing of what I was told, and remain confident in the conclusions that we reached about the military successes which we highlighted. But if you're suggesting that some of our impressions might have been shaped by the military's selection of Iraqis, and that we might have disclosed that, that is, I think, fair enough.


Greenwald: So were all of the people with whom you spoke in Iraq ones you encountered as a result of planning by the U.S. military?


O'Hanlon: Well, other than the ones we encountered in passing in the Green Zone or whatever. And I’m not going to claim that there was a huge amount of back-and-forth. There was a little bit. But for the most part, the conversations were ones arranged by D.O.D., yes

But I've often not been in agreement with them on how they interpreted things, I’ve often done thing to try to get details on the tactics.

You know, there's always obviously a danger of being a little bit wowed by the group you're with, but I have been involved in this debate long enough and been involved critically long enough that I feel from the D.O.D. point of view, I have a very good interaction with our leadership and our personnel.



We also saw C.I.A personnel, we saw A.I.D personnel, we met with people from senior CENTCOM positions who were not on General Petreus' staff. We had a lot of interaction with civilian officials there – including the ambassador, a number of people in his office. We had ample opportunity to probe at and assess the U.S. take - I am not worried about that.


However I will take your point and I would agree with your point that we were certainly not getting a representative view of Iraqi opinion. And nor would I claim that we got a representative view, or at least got a widespread sampling of, American enlisted military personnel thinking. We had a couple dozen of enlisted personnel we come in contact with, but as you can probably surmise -- unless you are totally out of earshot - which I was sometimes - the ability to get a totally independent take was difficult. I would go out of my way to get that independent take when I could, but I would admit to you that in the space of seven and a half days I only had probably a few independent opinions in private settings from enlisted personnel. So, that's a limited sampling. And that's part of why we said we felt morale was high, but we didn't go and use more superlatives. Frankly, the people we talked to I thought morale was outstanding, but I didn't want to get carried away in a situation where there was a limitation on our ability to do a full sampling.



So in regard to the military we had a lot of access, conversations with a lot of people we had professional relationships with for years, and I feel that I have an accurate sense of how they view the mission. I do not claim to have near as detailed a sense of how Iraqis think about our role there at the moment.


Greenwald: But even in terms of what’s going on in the various cities, and how ready the Iraqi troops are, and whether their divisions really are as ready as the Op-Ed suggested – Isn’t it fair to say that the great bulk of your information about those matters came from statements made to you either by the U.S. military officials or the Iraqi officials selected for you by the U.S. military?



O'Hanlon: Yes. But I would actually challenge what you just said. We do not in the Op-Ed give an overall glowing assessment of the Iraqi security forces. We do say there has been progress with some of them. But we do not --



Greenwald: I understand. But with the ones where you said there was progress -- that was based largely on, if not exclusively on, the claims of the U.S. military and the Iraqi military officials they picked for you, right?



O'Hanlon: No, it's more than that because it's also looking at data on what they've been doing on the battlefield and who they're led by. And in fact Ken Pollack and I are now doing a longer trip report in which you'll see, I think, if you're interested in some of the detail in our thinking about the progress, but also the limitations on Iraqi security forces. And one thing I had decided to tell General Petreus and General Odierno and others in my visit and subsequently is that I don't think we have yet a very compelling transition strategy for how we can ultimately pass off security in some of the most tense, inter-ethnic neighborhoods to Iraqi forces, because I am not yet confident that we are seeing a large enough number of them become non-sectarian and dependable in their nature.



And this is a point I made repeatedly with Petreus and Odierno and a point that we are going to make in our trip report. The Op-Ed said -- listen, there is momentum at one level. There are some Iraqi security forces that are looking better, and on top of that there's a volunteer phenomenon -- where they want to work places like al Anbar Province and some other places to go against our common enemies -- that's also impressive. But it's by no means a resolution of the sectarian conflict. I remain quite concerned that we need an end-game for that.



In fact, if you'll permit me - one last thing I've done in the last two months is to write a paper on the “soft partition” option for Iraq, because I think that in the end it would be much easier to actually figure out a transition strategy out of Iraq for us if Iraqis would agree to essentially create three autonomous regions – with one of them being Kurdistan and the other two being predominantly Sunni and predominately Shia. I think it would be easier to build security forces around protecting those sorts of zones.



So that has been an enduring concern of mine. And it's true that in this Op-Ed we tried to emphasize where we saw momentum; we focused more on some of the good news, and I suppose we could be criticized for that. But, we did acknowledge the sectarian problem is far from addressed, and that's something that's very much on our minds still today.



Greenwald: Your partner in this Op-Ed, Ken Pollack, spoke with George Packer of The New Yorker, who afterwards wrote: Pollack "spoke with very few Iraqis and could independently confirm very little of what he heard from American officials." Is that your experience as well? Do you agree with that characterization?


O'Hanlon: Well, I just told you my fuller view on that, which is that I don't claim any great sense of what the Iraqi public or Iraqi leadership is thinking. We did actually have a number of meetings with some top Iraqi politicians, but a small enough number that I'm not going to make undue claims about it.



Now you could say in one sense all this data ultimately, all this information ultimately is coming from the U.S. military. Yes, but there's an opportunity for a lot of probing, a lot of debate, a lot of conversations back and forth and so I think Packer is slightly too strong in his criticism on that point.



Greenwald: Well, I think he's quoting, or purporting to describe, what Pollack told him. But I take your point and it is fair enough to say that just because you're getting your information from military sources doesn't mean you are just gullibly swallowing what they say, because you're a professional and you're making assessments about what their credibility is. That's fair enough and I understand that point. And I guess you've said in the past you felt like you had less faith than what they where telling you this time, and that's all fine.



But what I'm trying to get at is if they told you, for instance, that there were certain army divisions in Mosul where the bad commanders were being weeded out and they were now capable of holding neighborhoods better, you wouldn't actually go to the neighborhoods and inspect whether or not what you were told was true. Your claims in that regard in the Op-Ed were based upon your belief that what the U.S. military commanders were telling you was accurate. Is that true?


O'Hanlon: Yes, that’s true. Based on that example, on that type of example, you're right.


quote from interview by Glenn Greenwald
http://utdocuments.blogspot.com/2007/08/interview-with-michael-ohanlon.html

So Mr President Who are we going to invade Next Bush's Middle East Jihad

Bush more or less said today that we need to invade countries all over the middle east and install democracies. So that we can remove the atmosphere that makes people hate us. Bush more or less said today that we need to go all over the middle east and Depose governments. So where are we going to invade Next Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Barain,Kuwait most of our allies in the middle east are dicatorships or Monarchies.I mean there are only 3 true free democracies in the Middle east {i really can't called Iraq a Democracy) Israel, Iran and Turkey,. One of which we can't stand so how in the world can we say democracy works. The places were Democracy exists in Arab countries in the middle east they elect the head of their sects or tribal leaders or some religious leader that tells them to vote for them. They more or less elect the lunatic fringe in the country.

53 Lehigh valley still in use bridges found deficient or with ratings close to it

It was kinda disturbing looking at this list realizing that over the past yr I had driven over a number of these bridges sometimes several times a day. Especially the Highly Dangerous Gen Thos R Morgan brige in Slatington. A councilwoman in Slatington had told me how dangerous the bridge was but and the state kept refusing to fund replacing it but now I feel lucky the bride didn't fall out from under me looking at this rating.

It seems that most of the deficient bridges are in Western and Northwestern Lehigh County mostly in the old industrial boros that have been left to rot by both the county and the state and the new suburbs build around aging and rotting infrastructure. This is a disaster waiting to happen, do not forget Lehigh county is geologically active as a result of mining and the Limestone base of our soil, that is being undercut by water insursion, sinkholes, etc.


Most of the problems in Northampton county simply seem to be the result of a population that is simply growing too fast for the infrastructure to keep up.
Lehigh county

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20099121#LEHIGH
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20099121#NORTHAMPTON
(was requested to remove the data and put up links)

Finding the proper balance between: Taxation, Regulation and Business interest,the Free market,Personal Wealth

We as a country seem to have a severe problem with moderation and balance,in general but most explictly in the area of taxation and regulation. Government in the Us tends to either do too much or do too little. This was most explictly shown this week in the collapse of the credit market for the second time in 7 years, and the collapse of the 35w bridge in minn and the realization that 13% of american bridges are on the same condition. As,well as the realization of a week by week erosion of civil liberties and privacy of Americans as came out in House hearings this week, and continued willingness to use tax dollars in ways that most americans don't agree with and are probally not in the countries best interest.

The first credit crunch in 2000 happened because Allen Greenspan quickly lowered the us prime interest rates during the 90's and as a result numberous businesses incured enmorous amounts of debt that could only be prepetuated by more debt. So when the debt (loans) was cut off by increasing the prime interest rate. The whole house of cards collapsed under it. This was caused by a failure to regulate the credit industry so many non doc un-secured loans were created. Collapsing the stockmarket and send the economy into recession. I thought we had learned from this but it seems we have not.
In 2002 and several other times over the past 5 years the republicans cut taxes several times to excessly low levels while the interest rates were lowering interest rates to the point of almost zero by 2006, with no real increase in workers pay. Thereby creating an enviroment that both corporations and individual were living well beyond their means. Crediting the current situation were both corporations and individual are over leveraged, and the finanical institutions that made the loans and organization and investment firms that bought the paper on the loans are having them default on them. Thereby creating a credit crunch and making it hard for even good credit risk individuals and businesses to, great credit, and creating a 8 trillion dollar debt whose interest is hardly being covered by the addition revenues that were created from the cuts, so the increases are simply paying for the interest on the cuts.

Beyond this to cut this the tax cut also resulted in funding cuts such as highway funding and unfunded mandates like no child left behind. Thereby shifting large amounts of extra expreses on the state and local governments. That has resulted in increases of property taxes to fill the gap and states to fill the road funding gap resulting in 13% of bridges and thousands of miles of roads in desperate need of repair and an event like the 35w bridge collapsing because the Minn governor refused to increase taxes to pay for the repairs to the bridge.

As well while this was going on the money that inspite of this could have been shift to these projects was shifted to unnecessary activities like invading and then more or less dumping billions of dollars into iraq. That went to fund the people who were attack us. As well there is unneccary regulation of freedoms in this country as Ben Franklin said people who give up a little freedom for a little security will soon have neither and now we have neither. It is not his or any other government's responiblity to try and protect us from everything nor can they and the amount of freedom we have given up over the past years is much greater than the security we are reciving in return.

We now are probally at more risk from the government than we are from the people who attacked us on 9/11. The point of the constitution and the laws that were created by the founders were not to make us 100% safe but to ensure that there was a balance between security and freedom which has now shift dangerously towards the prior.This is too much government interferance in our lives and much more than the founders would have allowed.

But as i said we need balance too much taxation would not be good either, nor is too much spending nor is too little security. It was ok to cut corp taxes but not to continue the cuts once the economy was capable of funding itself. If you do that the only thing you do is overheat the economy and create a dependence by the corporation on the extra funding. This goes the same for lowering interest rates it's ok to stimulate the economy but if you keep them too low for too long it creates a money glut and bad loans to people and corporations that shouldn't have had them that can collapse the economy. As we are seeing today because there are too many bad loans that are drying up the credit market on it's own by in a much harsher way than if the central bank had raised rates back in feb and slowly raised them. It would have beena shock to the system it could have absorbed but this is now a meltdown.

That is the problem the government doesn't seem to understand when to start and when to stop doing things. It either over does or under does thing that only it can do and simply can not be done by the private sector. The Free market is incapable of completely regulating itself, or has the willingness or ability to regulate, or handle certain thngs. Nor should the government so restrict it that it can't function. The governement always needs to be there to steady the scale but it should be with a light touch not a heavy hand. The Free market will take things to the extreme and the government needs to stop it from doing so, such as the enviroment or ensuring fair treament of workers. But the Government must also not go in the exstreme opposite direct.

The basic point of this whole dicussion is that when there is a balance between the free market, the government, the rights and freedoms and protection of the governed, and security and the public good there is harmony, and no one knows if they are doing anything thing at all. When there is an inbalance between these forces the side that inbalanced is shifted towards fights tooth and nail to keep that inbalance and the other side fights to get it back to balance. Right now the imbalance is shifted towards the freemarket,the government, partually for and against the public good and against Freedoms and protection of the governed. That is why the country is in the state it is now and will be until either Bush is out of office or until congress reins him in.


When there is Balance