Administration officials say the White House has become more concerned in recent months about the situation in Afghanistan, where grinding poverty, rampant corruption, poor infrastructure and the growing challenge from the Taliban are hindering U.S. stabilization efforts. Senior administration officials now believe Afghanistan may pose a greater longer-term challenge than Iraq.and this:
A new White House emphasis on Afghanistan would probably expose Bush to even more criticism from Democrats, who have long accused him of taking his eye off the hunt for Osama bin Laden with the invasion of Iraq.The moral to the story seems to be to pursue one war at a time and make sure you win it before heading on to the next.
Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.
We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America — the religion of secularism. They are wrong.It seems to me what Mr. Romney is aiming for is a Christian Democracy and that the form of Christianity would be dictated by the religious right in this country. I for one am not interested in that.
In the Republican race, Huckabee's surge in Iowa, where he has overtaken longtime front-runner Romney in recent polls, has begun to translate to the national stage, further shaking up a race that has been volatile from the outset.
Among all Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, Giuliani's national lead is as low as it has been since the campaign began. And among likely Republican voters, 25 percent now back Giuliani, while 19 percent back Huckabee, whose support jumped from 9 percent last month. Romney ranks third at 17 percent, with Thompson at 14 percent and McCain at 12 percent. In the new poll, Giuliani is at his lowest level to date among conservatives, down nine points over the past month to 19 percent.
In a memo summing up their findings, the three scholars wrote: "Voters across the board respond most favorably to a message that dispels the negative stereotypes about Mormons (such as learning that the church banned polygamy about 100 years ago, the LDS Church stresses traditional family values, and that the LDS Church's policy is to be politically neutral). But what does NOT work is a simple appeal to religious tolerance."
Demystifying the Mormon religion will be one of Romney's key challenges, if not in the speech on Thursday then possibly as the campaign progresses. Romney may be the best salesman for this, in part because the scholars found that among those who know he is a Mormon, the issue of his religion becomes less of a political problem.
A major U.S. intelligence review has concluded that Iran stopped work on a suspected nuclear weapons program more than four years ago, a stark reversal of previous intelligence assessments that Iran was actively moving toward a bomb.
Even if Iran were to restart its program now, the country probably could not produce enough highly enriched uranium for a single weapon before the middle of the next decade, the assessment stated. It also expressed doubt about whether Iran "currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."It also seems the administration was well aware of this when Bush gave his speech at the recent Mideast Summit. A large part of that speech focused on the threat that Iran posed to the region.
It was neck-snapping spin even by Bush standards. He intentionally misread the report's central point, failed to acknowledge a huge change in his argument for why Iran is dangerous and exhibited pure bullheaded stubbornness.
Paul Rieckhoff is agitated. I've just recounted Lambert's story, and as a U.S. Army veteran and founder of the nonprofit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), Rieckhoff has heard and seen it all before.I think the above paragraph really sums up one of the many problems with this "war" or I guess I should say these "wars" if you remember to include Afghanistan. To me this is the one problem, the way soldiers either in Iraq and Afghanistan or here at home are treated, that pisses me off more than anything.
"Stories like that just piss me off," says Rieckhoff, a former first lieutenant who led an infantry platoon on more than 1,000 combat patrols in Baghdad. "The reality is that mental-health issues are probably one of the greatest threats facing Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. But our country is not ready to care for them. Contrary to what our president keeps telling us, we're not a country at war. Less than 1 percent of this country is at war. Our military is at war. Our military families are at war. Everyone else is shopping or watching American Idol."
George Orwell said, "We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
Fred Lambert, Chris Sipe, and Ricky Mayer are such men. So what do we owe them in return?
TSA Administrator Kip Hawley minimized the threat posed by the GAO’s homemade bombs, which were developed with a national laboratory and a Washington area law enforcement agency and videotaped blowing open a car trunk and door in a test. He said the TSA is oriented toward defeating attacks powerful enough to down airliners.
“We can’t be squeamish and say, ‘Oh, my goodness, they brought some firecrackers through and put it in the trunk of a car.’ We need to stop all things, but we have to focus on what truly does us harm,” Hawley said. “I mean, my pen can do ‘severe damage,’ “ he added.
At the end of his own opening statement, Krongard responded to Waxman with an off-the-cuff complaint. “One thing just came up that really does bother me, and that was an allegation concerning my brother,” Cookie protested. “I specifically asked him. I do not believe it is true that he is a member of the advisory board.”
[Rep. Elijah] Cummings distributed two documents that the committee had uncovered: a July 26 letter from Blackwater founder Erik Prince inviting Buzzy “to become a member of the Blackwater Worldwide Advisory Board,” and a Sept. 5 e-mail to “thank you for accepting the invitation to be a member.”
“Sir, I dispute that,” Cookie replied with indignation. He argued that “there is nothing in here that suggests that my brother accepted this July 26 invitation.”
Evidently, Cookie overlooked the “thank you for accepting” part.
In the case of Blackwater, the Justice Department told the committee that Krongard had resisted helping with a probe of possible gun smuggling by Blackwater into Iraq and had taken steps that had “certainly impacted the investigation.”
The investigators discovered that some of those who died were attempting to flee and found no evidence supporting Blackwater’s contention that the contractors were fired on and shot back in self-defense. The incident occurred as the guards tried to stop traffic at Baghdad’s Nisoor Square to allow an expected U.S. diplomatic convoy to pass.
The war didn't just seem to be taking place in another country; it seemed to be taking place in another universe. There I was, in desert camouflage, wondering how all the intensity, the violence, the tears and the killing of Iraq could really be happening at the same time that all these people were hurrying to catch their flights to Las Vegas or Los Angeles or wherever.
Six years later, 9/11 doesn't seem to have had much of an effect on most people's lives. But it has had an enormous effect on mine.He ends the article by saying this:
I'm proud to be a student at Georgetown. Though I find some aspects of campus culture discouraging, I have a lot of respect for my professors and peers. But there are still days when I think about what it must be like back in Baghdad -- and wonder whether that's where I should be.This points out the huge disconnect between those people fighting the war and everyone else in the country. When you get right down to it, the only people feeling the effects of this "war" are the soldiers in the military, their family and friends. Otherwise I cannot for the life of me figure out how the average American is impacted by this conflict at all.
