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POPSNZ sheltered Saddam loyalist - cable US cables obtained by WikiLeaks reveal that the Wellington embassy had warned Foreign Affairs and Trade six months earlier about Mr Al-Omar, including reports of his militant activities in the Bangladesh capital "The information we had passed along in October ... noted that Al-Omar was an unreconstructed Baathist who had tried to organise Islamic extremists to foment violence against US facilities in Dhaka ..." "The incident raises real questions about New Zealand's border controls and co-ordination among ministries involved with immigration. MFAT has admitted to us that despite their and SIS's repeated prodding, Immigration failed to look into Al-Omar until Peters' threat." The cable refers to an MFAT official asking whether the information that had been passed on about Mr Al-Omar could be made public by the government. At the time, Mr Swain admitted that the Immigration post in Bangkok that approved Mr Al-Omar's visa knew of his diplomatic past, ?
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POPSThey Took a Desert and Made it Peace Chris Gibson, for example, can say of the aftermath of the socialist experiment, “I have seen this future and it failed.” Men and women who have seen the end state of societies that were not built on free men and free markets and free pulpits will not be quick to embrace centralized, one-size-fits-all solutions imposed from on-high. They will fight for tax cuts so that people and businesses can decide how to spend their own money. They will fight to ease the endless, meaningless Harrison Bergeron regulatory impediments imposed on small business. They will fight the kind of unthinking, bureaucratic, empire building centralization that the Army traditionally (and memorably) characterizes as “chickensh-t.” They have read our Constitution and understand that our federal government is one of limited powers, if supreme in that limited scope. They understand that, in many cases, instead of the cry being, “There ought to be a law,” it should be...
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POPSIraqi Commandos Arrest Baathist & Terror Commander in Tikrit, Iraq Commandos with the Golden Brigade entered the Al Ujayli's residence, arrested him and searched the residence without incident. "Tonight's operation was conducted in a professional manner and continues to build upon the great abilities of the Soldiers of the 8th RCB ," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Mitchell Franks. "The detention of Al Ujayli will deal a significant blow to terrorist activities in not only the Salah al-Din province, but throughout the northern part of Iraq as well," Franks added.
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POPSBig Hush-Hush Secret: U.S. Plotted To Kill AQ Leaders
In fact, when the U.S. military blew up Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the CIA started lobbing Hellfires into Yemen and Waziristan, I thought that was the basic idea. Kill al-Qaeda leaders. It’s not like they’re the legitimate vile dictators of a legitimate vile enemy state like, I dunno, Nazi Germany, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Islamic Republic Iran or Baathist Iraq … where you’ll recall the United States specifically did try to drop missiles on Saddam’s head. Something’s not right here. Better read on … The official noted that Congress had long been briefed on the finding, and that the CIA effort wasn’t so much a program as “many ideas suggested over the course of years.” It hadn’t come close to fruition, he added. Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said little had been spent on the efforts " closer to $1 million than $50 million. “The idea for this kind of program was tossed around in fits and starts,” he said.
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POPS Ha Ha Now all he has to do is rehabilitate Churchill from that ghastly slur that Churchill wouldn’t do just about anything to save his people and even western civilization from imminent peril. Powerline. Because in a moralism born of utter naivete, Obama may not yet have figured out that in the heat of battle, in mortal combat, ugly things sometimes happen. Obama Veers Into The Daily Ditch -- Powerline Even if you are an intelligent man, reading Andrew Sullivan can make you stupid. It happened to President Obama this week. At his 100-day press conference, President Obama invoked Churchill rejecting the use of torture for interrogation in the days of the Blitz during World War II. Obama instructed the assembled multitude: I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees.
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POPS Rejectionism Is The New Dead-ending Damn, that sounds awful familiar. Sounds kind of like the role reversal has them a little confused. I hope they can figure out that 2006 Democratic strategic thinking is not the right answer post-2007/08 surge success. While the violence is far below the worst levels in 2006, 18 major attacks this month have kindled fears that Baathist and jihadist elements could be reconstituting themselves into a smaller, but still deadly, insurgency that will exploit the withdrawal of American troops between now and 2011. Translation: rejectionism could be a problem for Obama’s de-surge.
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POPSOne Surge Does Not Fit All producing the forces necessary to help hold difficult neighborhoods against the enemy. By 2007, the surge, for most Iraqis, could have an Iraqi face. And the political scene in Iraq had shifted. Moktada al-Sadr, the firebrand cleric, declared a cease-fire in February 2007. The best indication that timing is everything may be that there had been earlier surges without the same effect as the 2007 surge. In 2005, troop levels in Iraq were increased to numbers nearly equal to the 2007 surge — twice. But the effects were not as durable because large segments of the Sunni population were still providing sanctuary to insurgents, and Iraq’s security forces were not sufficiently capable or large enough. During my last weeks in office, I recommended to President Bush that he consider Gen. David Petraeus as commander of coalition forces in Iraq, as General Casey’s tour was coming to an end.
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POPSIranian Trade With Iraq But since Saddam's ouster, there has been deluge of Iranian goods into the country, particularly in the strip from Baghdad to Basra, said anthropologist Hosham Dawod from the French national center for scientific research. "Some sources quote figures such as $8 billion," for the value of Iranian imports in 2008, he said, but added there were no official figures on import levels. 'Iranian products are not truly political tools' - shoppers in the Shiite district of Kadhimiyya in northwest Baghdad snatch up not only Iranian-made cookers, fridges, air conditioning units and generators, but also toys, rugs and medicines.
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POPSwhat our leaders should be discussing...America's responsibility We must pursue a utilitarian government and substance over symbolism. The primary focus of any act of a governing body should always be the realistic result of that act. When analyzing a proposed policy, do not be swayed by emotional promises of an idealistic nature. Only consider whether it will logically result in a solution to a problem, while simultaneously not causing worse problems in the process.
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POPSThe Burdens of General Petraeus MORE FROM THE ARTICLE= "..............it is hard to recall of any war in our history — the Vietnam hysteria aside — that a sitting Senate majority leader declared it lost in the middle of hostilities. We have not previously witnessed senior opposition senators alleging that their own American servicemen were analogous to Nazis, Stalinists, Cambodian mass murders, Saddam’s Baathist killers, or engaging in habitual terrorizing and killing of innocent civilians." ".......This is the first extended American ground war in the era of instantaneous global communications.The result is that U.S. military officials recognize that any possible strike on the Syria border would be broadcast worldwide as carpet bombing of a wedding party or tribal reunion, while the enemy’s mass beheadings and torture will often go unreported."
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POPSHistory of How the Bushes Brought Bedlam to Iraq, permanently?!
That despite the strong warnings of his own Cabinet against such reckless policies, and a 1989 report by the CIA that Iraq had greatly accelerated its nuclear program, and was now the world's largest maker of chemical weapons. Bush also used the global criminal network of the Bank of Credit and BCCI to secretly funnel cash and weaponry to Saddam – then intervened to quash federal investigations of the scam. What was BCCI? Only "one of the largest criminal enterprises in history," according to the Senate. What did BCCI do? "It engaged in pandemic bribery of officials in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas," says journalist Christopher Bryon, who first exposed the operation. "It laundered money on a global scale, intimidated witnesses and law officers, engaged in extortion and blackmail. It supplied the financing for illegal arms trafficking and global terrorism. It financed and facilitated income tax evasion, smuggling and prostitution." An early version of the Bush Regim
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POPS10 Reasons Why Russia Can’t Trust Uncle Sam It failed to recognize that the Soviet Union is gone and that Russia is, of course, not our enemy." Putin called the move "a mistake." 9. "Mission Accomplished" - On March 20, 2003, the United States - without a mandate from the United Nations, and against the heated objections of France, Germany and Russia - invaded Iraq on the pretext that the secular Baathist state of Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was a proud sponsor of terrorism. Both accusations were proven wrong. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the BBC in an interview that the attack was a violation of international law. "From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it was illegal."
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POPSHow the left betrayed my country: Iraq It's interesting when you listen to what the Iraqis have to say about all this. But of course, people like Cindy Sheehan won't answer the question "what will happen to the Iraqis when we leave?"
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POPSRemember: Saddam Was Our Man NY Times OpEd from March 14, 2003. The United States also sent arms to the new regime, weapons later used against the same Kurdish insurgents the United States had backed against Kassem and then abandoned. Soon, Western corporations like Mobil, Bechtel and British Petroleum were doing business with Baghdad -- for American firms, their first major involvement in Iraq. This history is known to many in the Middle East and Europe, though few Americans are acquainted with it, much less understand it. Yet these interventions help explain why United States policy is viewed with some cynicism abroad. George W. Bush is not the first American president to seek regime change in Iraq. Mr. Bush and his advisers are following a familiar pattern.
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POPSIsrael gives up on disarming Hizbullah Michael Totten adds: Those inside and outside Israel who believed disarming Hezbollah by force was possible in a short time frame were supremely delusional. It’s not 1967 anymore, when Israel could defeat three Arab armies in six days. Hezbollah is a guerilla army, as well as a terrorist army, and assymetrical warfare is hard. Look at how much longer it is taking the US to put down a Baathist insurgency in Iraq compared with the Baathist army in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was in power.
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