October 2007 archive

I just read a comment in Buhdy’s diary from my good friend CD.

I’m done…

This is an OPEN THREAD. Here are four stories in the news at 4 o’clock to get you started.

1. Another day, another report on how the Bush administration is helping al Qaeda. Reuters reports Report says war on terror is fueling al Qaeda. “The ‘war on terror’ is failing and instead fueling an increase in support for extremist Islamist movements” according to a report by the Oxford Research Group (ORG).

   If the al Qaeda movement is to be countered, then the roots of its support must be understood and systematically undercut,” said Paul Rogers, the report’s author and professor of global peace studies at Bradford University in northern England.

   “Combined with conventional policing and security measures, al Qaeda can be contained and minimized but this will require a change in policy at every level.”

   He described the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as a “disastrous mistake” which had helped establish a “most valued jihadist combat training zone” for al Qaeda supporters.

   The report recommends immediate redeployment from Iraq and intensifying diplomacy in the region, including with Iran and Syria. Rogers said it will take “at least 10 years to make up for the mistakes made since 9/11.

   “Going to war with Iran”, he said, “will make matters far worse, playing directly into the hands of extreme elements and adding greatly to the violence across the region. Whatever the problems with Iran, war should be avoided at all costs.”

   I suspect no one will pay any attention to this study because the author is a professor of peace studies and thinks “war should be avoided at all costs”. BBC News reports on the ORG study as well, covering the same ground, but adds the “report said al-Qaeda had benefited from the removal of the Taleban regime in Afghanistan by coalition forces. The terror network got a propaganda boost from the extraordinary rendition and detention of terrorism suspects, it said.” Any bets on if we’ll see any mention of this report from the traditional media in America?

2. Some Iraqi leaders have given up trying to reconcile their difference. Joshua Partlow reports for the Washington Post that Top Iraqis pull back from key U.S. goal.

   Iraqi leaders argue that sectarian animosity is entrenched in the structure of their government. Instead of reconciliation, they now stress alternative and perhaps more attainable goals: streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services…

   Legislation to manage the oil sector, the country’s most valuable natural resource, and to bring former Baath Party members back into the government have not made it through the divided parliament. The U.S. military’s latest hope for grass-roots reconciliation, the recruitment of Sunni tribesmen into the Iraqi police force, was denounced last week in stark terms by Iraq’s leading coalition of Shiite lawmakers.

   Oh, and no one could have predicted the following when the U.S. military began arming locals to “fight” “al Qaeda in Iraq”.

   Some potential progress toward reconciliation has run into recent trouble. The U.S. effort to recruit Sunni tribesmen to join the police force and fight the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq was strongly opposed last week by Shiite officials, who asserted that the Sunni recruits were killing innocent people under the guise of fighting insurgents.

   “We demand that the American administration stop this adventure, which is rejected by all the sons of the people and its national political powers,” the leading Shiite political coalition said in a statement. “Their elements are criminals who cannot be trusted or relied upon.”

Four at Four continues below the fold with stories on:

3. Today’s “Guns of Greed” starring Blackwater CEO Erik Prince as Bruce Wayne, er Batman.

4. Ocean wave energy generation in the Pacific Northwest.

Plus a bonus story about Mad Max’s Wind Farm in Australia. So jump below the fold, the Bat-Signal is on.

This is not about anything in particular, it’s just a story.

Years ago, I got mice in my house. It was a cold, wet winter, and I live by a stream, and they discovered a place that was warm and dry. They invited themselves in. They sometimes left tiny packages for me to clean up. I sometimes spied them scurrying around, at night. One startled a woman I was getting to know. She was pretty cute. The mice were becoming annoying.

Light Emitting Pickle here to bring you the most recent open thread. First, a few words about Pickle Pony Parties:

Please do not recommend a Pony Party when you see one.  There will be another along in a few hours.

I received a sneaked phone call yesterday from a person really in need.  He is one of my daughter’s friends.  He is gay.  He will be eighteen in January and has been under house arrest since he came out to his parents two years ago meaning no use of HIS car, no seeing friends outside of school, no cell phone and no unsupervised phone use.  He graduated high school when he was a junior and he is starting at the junior college in January but he’s really university material.  His grandfather is a fundy minister here 🙁