Target Centermass

Author: Gunner

  • Non-Rita Quick Hits

    Defense says Lynndie England easily influenced by lover

    Army Pfc. Lynndie England’s attorneys, marshaling their defense for the first time Wednesday, laid blame for her participation in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal on her blind love for and trust of soldier Charles Graner Jr., whom the Army put in charge of part of the dangerous Iraqi facility.

    England, who attended special-education classes for much of her childhood, has learned to rely on strong authority figures, her lead attorney said, and that left her vulnerable to Graner in Abu Ghraib, where their unit took dozens of photos and videos of naked prisoners in humiliating positions in late 2003. Graner has already been convicted.

    “He’s older than I am. He’s been around. He’s experienced,” her attorney, Capt. Jonathan Crisp, said of England’s feelings. “He’s a corrections officer in the civilian world. He must know what’s going on. I love him; he loves me. Everybody looks up to him.”

    England, 22, a reservist from West Virginia, stands accused of two counts of conspiracy, four counts of mistreatment of prisoners and one count of indecent acts in connection with the photos. If convicted of all counts, she could face an 11-year prison sentence.

    I doubt strongly that this defense will stand up, as England, like every soldier, was well versed in the Universal Code of Military Justice. Peer pressure or love or stupidity ain’t an out. The poster child for the anti-war left’s (read New York Time’s) Abu Ghraib campaign has to pay her due.

    Pelosi willing to give up S.F. funds for recovery

    House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said Tuesday she was willing to return to the federal Treasury $70 million designated for San Francisco projects in the new highway and transportation bill and use the money to help pay for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.

    Well, obviously that portion of federal spending was expendable. If only we could find some other places to cut spending.

    Sheehan’s Anti-War Campaign Now in D.C.

    Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan pledged Wednesday to “force change to happen” during protest speeches outside the White House and Capitol.

    Sheehan arrived in Washington after a three-week cross-country bus tour that began near President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. She is expected to participate in an anti-Iraq war rally Saturday that organizers hope could draw tens of thousands of people.

    Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed last year in Iraq, wants Bush to explain why he sent the United States to war and say what steps he will take to end the conflict.

    “This is where we will force change to happen because we the people of America are the checks and balances on this government,” she said. “And we will end this war.”

    […]

    Sheehan’s one-woman protest in Texas this August re-energized the anti-war movement as well as supporters of the U.S.-led invasion and of American troops serving in Iraq. Rallies in opposition to the anti-war protesters also are set for this weekend in the capital.

    I’ve already given my thoughts on Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan. I’ll leave it to Confederate Yankee to nail what is missing from WaPo’s story:

    The AP, Washington Post, and other news sources gleefully mentioned Cindy Sheehan’s march on the White House this afternoon. With the exception of Reuters, however, they were all more than willing to forego this little tidbit of information:

    “Mrs Sheehan was joined by about 30 supporters in her march down Pennsylvania Avenue to deliver a letter to Bush urging him to pull the troops out of Iraq.”

    That’s all, folks. I count 29 people. This is her entire protest party. Including Cindy.

    Hamas chief hints at compromise

    THE militant Islamic group Hamas could one day accept the existence of the state of Israel and negotiate, one of its political leaders said yesterday in an unprecedented sign of compromise.

    For years, Hamas has criticised the ruling Fatah movement of the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, for allegedly selling out claims to all of historic Palestine by recognising Israel and confining the Palestinian struggle to the West Bank and Gaza Strip areas occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

    But Mohammed Ghazal, a respected figure within the movement from the West Bank city of Nablus, said yesterday: “The [Hamas] charter is not the Koran.

    “Historically, we believe all of Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, but we’re talking now about reality, about political solutions. The realities are different.”

    Hamas is about to join the Palestinian Authority’s political system by participating in January’s legislative elections.

    Analysts differed over whether Mr Ghazal’s comments suggested Hamas might take a more moderate approach.

    The movement has made it clear it will not disarm its military wing, responsible for dozens of suicide bombings against civilian and military targets, even after the election.

    Mr Ghazal’s remarks were described as “unusual” and “a new language” by Ziyad Abu Amr, a Palestinian MP who is also an expert on the movement. But they elicited cool reactions from other leading figures within Hamas and from Israel.

    The new language is a reaction to a possible line in the sand by Israel about Hamas’ role in upcoming PA elections. Israel, which has already willingly and unilaterally withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, has certainly earned a little cooperation from the Palestinian side, though I have no faith in Hamas actually making any serious steps toward a mutually beneficial future. I expect this development to be little more than a reactive twitch on the face of a terrorist organization that once claimed it was politically ready to rule Palestine but currently sees the Palestinians as ungovernable.

  • Rita Grows into Monster Cat 5 Hurricane

    Well, this certainly isn’t good news for my hometown of Angleton, Texas.

    Gaining strength with frightening speed, Hurricane Rita swirled toward the Gulf Coast a Category 5, 175-mph monster today as more than 1.3 million people in Texas and Louisiana were sent packing on orders from authorities who learned a bitter lesson from Katrina.

    “It’s scary. It’s really scary,” Shalonda Dunn said as she and her 5- and 9-year-old daughters waited to board a bus arranged by emergency authorities in Galveston. “I’m glad we’ve got the opportunity to leave. … You never know what can happen.”

    With Rita projected to hit Texas by Saturday, Gov. Rick Perry urged residents along the state’s entire coast to begin evacuating. And New Orleans braced for the possibility that the storm could swamp the misery-stricken city all over again.

    Galveston, low-lying parts of Corpus Christi and Houston, and mostly emptied-out New Orleans were under mandatory evacuation orders as Rita sideswiped the Florida Keys and began drawing energy with terrifying efficiency from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Between 2 a.m. and 10 p.m., it went from a 115-mph Category 2 to a 175-mph Category 5.

    Forecasters said Rita could be the most intense hurricane on record ever to hit Texas, and easily one of the most powerful ever to plow into the U.S. mainland. Category 5 is the highest on the scale, and only three Category 5 hurricanes are known to have hit the U.S. mainland — most recently, Andrew, which smashed South Florida in 1992.

    Government officials eager to show they had learned their lessons from the sluggish response to Katrina sent in hundreds of buses to evacuate the poor, moved out hospital and nursing home patients, dispatched truckloads of water, ice and ready-made meals, and put rescue and medical teams on standby. An Army general in Texas was told to be ready to assume control of a military task force in Rita’s wake.

    “We hope and pray that Hurricane Rita will not be a devastating storm, but we got to be ready for the worst,” President Bush said in Washington.

    By this evening, Rita was centered about 575 miles east-southeast of Galveston and about 670 miles east-southeast of Corpus Christi. Forecasters predicted it would come ashore along the central Texas coast between Galveston and Corpus Christi.

    I’ve just found out that Angleton is under mandatory evacuation.

    Angleton Mayor Matt Sebesta has ordered a mandatory evacuation for the city at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

    “People need to be out of town no later than noon Thursday,” Sebesta said.

    Angleton Police Lt. Mike Jones, the city’s emergency management coordinator, said people do not need to wait until the evacuation goes into effect. County officials said trailers will not be restricted on evacuation routes.

    Hey, Russ, Hollis, et al., head my way if you need digs to ride out the storm. The fiancee and I have you covered. Sure, we’re expected to get some major wind and rain in north Dallas on Saturday night, but I just bought season one of Battlestar Galactica. We’ll make the best of it. And, after all, as Phil points out at Shades of Gray, hotel space is already problematic for much of Texas thanks to Katrina.

  • Rita Forces Texas A&M to Move Game

    Hurricane Rita is still in the Gulf of Mexico and already its effects are being felt at my alma mater.

    Texas A&M has moved Saturday’s football game with Texas State to tomorrow night at Kyle Field.

    Fox Sports Net will televise the game.

    A&M President Robert Gates says fans not living in the College Station area should not try to attend the game — because no hotels will be available.

    A number of hurricane evacuees are expected to be staying in the area.

    Ah, but this certainly brings to mind memories of the “Hurricane Bowl” in 1988 during my undergrad days. I still believe Bama was scared of a team that was about to rebound from a rough start.

  • Hurricane Rita and my Hometown

    Run away!

    ANGLETON — Texas’ first mandatory hurricane evacuation goes into effect at 6 p.m. today as officials urge residents to get out of the path of Hurricane Rita.

    Brazoria County Judge John Willy called for the evacuation Tuesday afternoon after a series of conference calls with state emergency management officials and meetings with local officials. By 5 p.m. Tuesday, the county had plans to evacuate people without their own transportation, schools planned to close for the rest of the week and the emergency operations center opened.

    As of 5 p.m., the National Hurricane Center projected Rita to make landfall late Friday night or early Saturday morning in Matagorda County as at least a Category 3. That would put Brazoria County on the “dirty” side of the storm, as the counterclockwise rotation sucks moisture up from the Gulf of Mexico, dropping it on Brazoria County. Willy is holding out hope the county’s preparations will be in vain and the storm will dodge the county.

    “If it does miss us, we can all smile,” Willy said. “If it doesn’t, we’re in good shape.”

    A mandatory evacuation for health-care facilities, including nursing homes, hospices and hospitals, goes into effect at 6 a.m. today.

    “None of us have been through anything like this,” said Rick Perry, the county’s emergency management coordinator. “I think we’ve got a good plan in place.”

    Here’s hoping for the best for dear ol’ Angleton and the surrounding communities.

    A map with suggested evacuation routes can be found here, courtesy the Houston Chronicle.

  • On the Passing of the Great Nazi Hunter

    Simon Wiesenthal
    1908-2005

    The voice of 6 million

    That Simon Wiesenthal, the famed Nazi hunter who died Tuesday, lived to age 96 is an amazing testament to human endurance. Eighty-nine of his relatives perished in the Holocaust. As he was moved from concentration camp to concentration camp — 12 in all — he tried to kill himself twice. He was lined up three times to be shot, but the gunmen missed. When liberated, he weighed less than 100 pounds.

    Wiesenthal’s miraculous survival spurred the obsessive mission that consumed two-thirds of his life. “The realization that I had remained alive while so many others — better ones, cleverer ones, more decent ones — had died … almost seemed to me an offense against justice,” he wrote. “I could restore the balance only by ensuring that the dead received justice.”

    His mission should have been straightforward, given the enormity of the Holocaust: the systematic extermination of 6 million Jews in World War II, along with millions of others, in ways that almost defy imagination. But it wasn’t.

    Read.

    Wiesenthal’s war

    Simon Wiesenthal’s death is not just the Jewish people’s loss. He should be sincerely mourned by the entire civilized world – by anyone still dedicated to justice, unafraid to acknowledge humanity’s dark past and determined to learn its lessons.

    Today, 60 years after history’s single greatest premeditated crime, it’s not only the inexorable march of time that dims universal memories but concerted efforts to diminish or altogether deny the Holocaust. Even immediately after the wholesale industrialized slaughter, the world wasn’t in a mood to remember, much less punish. Indeed the great powers, embroiled in their Cold War, facilitated the escape of prominent henchmen.

    It was this indifference that Wiesenthal took on, almost quixotically. He was alone, without money or power, himself the surviving inmate of several concentration camps, who lost 89 members of his own family. The Galician-born architect could have understandably, like many survivors, devoted his energies to rebuilding his personal life.

    Instead Wiesenthal appointed himself advocate of the tortured, the starved, the degraded and the slain. He vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice and not allow the world to forget.

    Seriously, read.

    If, after those two reads you think any diminishing of the Holocaust would be improbable, I would like to point you toward Raven at And Rightly So! and her look at a recent development in England. Simon Wiesenthal built a deserved legacy from the Holocaust and its perpetrators — it is now up to others to protect the history of that tragedy. Such protection is the only wall against another reoccurrence, whatever group may be the target.

  • Cindy Sheehan: Fighting for a Sixteenth Minute

    My last blogging on Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan ended with a look at the time remaining for her relevance:

    Tick … tick … tick … tick …

    Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan, the very publicly grieving and liberally financed mother of fallen Casey Sheehan, is on the verge of wrapping up a 25-state tour against American involvement in the Iraqi theater. Haven’t heard much about it? Well, that’s because August is over and the media has a new flavor-of-the-month by the name of Katrina, in turn now on the clock.

    Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan, however, refuses to go softly into that good night of anonymity. After a failed NYC rally, Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan has decided to go whining into that good night with a claim of injury.

    Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan said Tuesday she was hurt slightly in a scuffle that erupted when police broke up a rally as she was at the microphone.

    An organizer was arrested for using amplification without a permit.

    “I was speaking and someone grabbed my backpack and pulled me back pretty roughly,” Sheehan said in a telephone interview Tuesday, referring to the rally Monday in Union Square.

    “I think their use of force was pretty excessive for someone that didn’t have a permit,” said Sheehan, who said she was not roughed up directly by police but was jostled when officers broke up the rally and arrested organizer Paul Zulkowitz.

    “I was shoved around,” said Sheehan, the grieving mother whose 26-day vigil near President Bush’s Texas ranch sparked anti-war protests around the country.

    Zulkowitz was released after being given a summons for charges of unauthorized use of a sound device and disorderly conduct.

    Paul Browne, the chief police spokesman, said Sheehan had finished speaking when officers arrested Zulkowitz, who had been repeatedly warned that he didn’t have a permit.

    Meanwhile, Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee has decided to try to slam the door on the legend of Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan with a one-two combination.

    First, the left hook, a potentially premature look at the rally in question and its ramifications:

    Do not be overly surprised if history decides that September 19, 2005, was the day that the anti-war movement died in the United States.

    In a true-blue New York Metropolitan area of 22 million people, the anti-war movement’s greatest star, a woman with “absolute” moral authority according to the NY Times own Maureen Dowd and branded the “Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement” by hopeful liberals, Cindy Sheehan managed to draw just 150 supporters, or 0.00068-percent of the tri-state metro area, to her well-advertised speech in Hyde Park.

    Then the right cross, an actual comparison of Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan to Rosa Parks:

    Rosa Parks… was the figurehead of a cause that fought to free an entire race who were being oppressed in their own country.
    Cindy Sheehan… was the figurehead of a cause that fights to defeat one man.

    Rosa Parks… fought the system to obtain constitutional rights.
    Cindy Sheehan… says our constitution isn’t worth fighting for.

    Rosa Parks… was “tired of giving in.”
    Cindy Sheehan… wants for nothing more than for the United States to give in.

    Mr. Owens has more, so go give him a gander. Meanwhile, my lingering question about Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan is this: Is there some sort of methadone equivalent for limelight addiction?

    Tick … tick … tick … tick …

    Related — Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan blogging:

  • Carnival of Liberty XII

    Let’s make it an even dozen.

    This week’s installment of the Life, Liberty, Property community‘s Carnival of Liberty is up over at Sunni and the Conspirators. As a twist, Sunni asked for contributors to adhere to a theme of personal liberty; some did, while others exercised their personal liberty to not do so. Go read another fine collection of posts from a libertarian slant.

  • Bishops Suggest Apology for War

    A group of bishops from the Church of England have issued a report suggesting the need for a chorus of mea culpas and heart-tugging regrets over the Iraqi theater in the war against Islamist terror. They also want to top that off with a possible group hug.

    Church of England bishops have suggested Christian leaders apologise to Muslim leaders for the war in Iraq.

    A report from a working group of bishops says the war was one of a “long litany of errors” relating to Iraq.

    As the government is unlikely to offer an apology, a meeting of religious leaders would provide a “public act of institutional repentance”, it said.

    It urges a “truth and reconciliation” meeting, but acknowledges that arranging it could be difficult.

    The report, entitled Countering Terrorism: Power, Violence and Democracy Post 9/11, was written by a working group of the Church of England’s House of Bishops.

    It suggests the meeting would be an opportunity to apologise for the way the West has contributed to the situation in Iraq, including the war.

    The Church of England has criticised the war, saying it was not a “just war”.

    But a dilemma now exists for those within the Church – to pull out of Iraq without a stable democracy in place would be irresponsible, but to stay suggests collusion with a “gravely mistaken” war, the bishops said.

    But if collusion was a necessary evil, the report says, there needs to be a degree of public recognition of the West’s responsibility for the present situation.

    “It might be possible for there to be a public gathering…at which Christian leaders meet with religious leaders of other, mainly Muslim, traditions, on the basis of truth and reconciliation, at which there would be a public recognition of at least some of the factors mentioned [in the report].”

    One of the co-authors of the report, Bishop Richard Harries, explains his thoughts on the report in this column. Sifting through, I found the following gem:

    Our report deals not only with the threat of terrorism but with American power, perceived by many Muslims and others to be the major threat to world order today. While US power is a reality that has to be frankly faced, its mixture of deluded self-righteousness and genuine altruism make it ambiguous.

    As is well known, President Bush gets much of his support from a particular Christian constituency with a distinctive slant on what’s happening in the world today, based on biblical prophecy.

    I support President Bush in our anti-Islamist efforts. I am also an atheist with strong libertarian leanings who did not vote for Bush in 2000. I wonder what broad brush the dear bishop would choose to paint over my stance of the Iraqi theater, as I’m obviously harboring no hopes for Crusade or Judgement Day.

    Normally, I would love to fisk this piece and the article on the bishops’ report. Bishop Harries’ thoughts on Just War and wars of intervention are just ripe for the picking. However, in this particular case, I’ll leave it to the Brits themselves. First, here’s a Daily Telegraph editorial.

    A sorry body of bishops

    Western Christians should show “institutional repentance” – should apologise – for the Iraq war, according to a working group of Church of England bishops led by the Rt Rev Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford. Just to make it clear what they mean, the bishops suggest a public meeting where Christian leaders would acknowledge, in front of “mainly Muslim” leaders, the wrongs done by the West.

    The bishops predict that such an event will be “dismissed as a cheap gesture”. In reality it would be a very expensive gesture, for a reason that seems to have escaped the bishops in their 101-page document, called without conscious irony Countering Terrorism. First, no one – a zero percentage in statistical terms – in the Muslim world is going to read the 101 pages of nuanced, Englishly civilised, but mostly political rumination. So that would leave Muslims with the impression conveyed by a public act of apology.

    The impression given to the Islamic world by such an act, or even its proposal, is that the bishops of England had confirmed that the war against Iraq was a Christian crusade against Muslims. That is not what the bishops mean to say. They opposed the war. They think it was mostly about oil and American power. The inflammatory consequences of reinforcing the erroneous notion of a war against Islam could be far more horrific than anything yet seen, even in Iraq.

    Meanwhile, Stephen Pollard comes out with guns blazing in defense of Americans.

    Sorry we liberated you guys

    Forget all the sophistic arguments about the war acting as a recruiting ground for terror or concern about the terrorists’ victims. The real problem is the very fact of “deeply flawed” Western democracies (as they put it) taking action against tyranny.

    Worse still — yes, you knew it was coming, and here it is — it was America that led the way. So consumed are they with hatred for America that they consider Saddam to be preferable to democracy, if it has been facilitated by America. In a passage of breathtakingly blinkered bigotry, we are told that “what distinguishes it (the US) from many other empires in history is its strong sense of moral righteousness”.

    No. What distinguishes America is that when it fights it does so not to impose tyranny but to promote freedom and the stable democracy of which the bishops are so contemptuous. Without America sending its sons to fight for liberty, we would be speaking German.

    While I like the gist of Pollard’s column, I don’t want anyone to think I support the American government in any attempt to spread or defend democracy from a purely altruistic position. In fact, I don’t want the U.S. government ever doing anything out of altruism — that is not its role. The actions of the U.S. government and military should always be directly or indirectly of benefit to the people of the United States. Let private entities, such as religious bodies, caring groups or heartfelt individuals, act out of selflessness. I do not support our military’s efforts in Iraq for the sheer good of the Iraqi people and the hope for their self-determination. Rather, I view those as aims that may eventually contribute towards the security of my own civilization. Bully for them, bully for us. But I won’t lie, it’s the “bully for us” portion that matters first and foremost to me.

  • Last of the Few See Memorial Unveiled

    The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

    —Winston Churchill

    It is truly sad to hear just how few of Sir Winston’s famed Few remain. It is, however, heartening to see them honored as they should be.

    They were known as the Few but, to recall Winston Churchill’s phrase, they became heroes to many. Yesterday, 65 years after they fought the Luftwaffe to a standstill, repulsing the threat of a Nazi invasion, 70 veterans of the Battle of Britain gathered on Victoria Embankment in central London to see Prince Charles unveil a memorial in their honour.

    For the defence secretary, John Reid, who joined the prince and the Conservative leader, Michael Howard, at a Battle of Britain thanksgiving service in Westminster Abbey, yesterday, it was not a moment too soon. “It is a sad and inevitable fact that today the Few are even fewer,” he told the veterans and next of kin. “But that does not diminish the feeling of pride and international recognition that they won by their heroism.”

    Prince Charles, as patron of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association, praised Bill Bond, founder of the Battle of Britain Historical Society, whose idea it was to erect a memorial to the pilots, ground crew and munitions workers who, between July and October 1940, prevented a Nazi invasion. “We shall never forget that if the Few had failed … the consequences for this nation would have been unforgettable.”

    More details of the memorial can be found in this article.

    The £1.65 million memorial was commissioned by the Battle of Britain Historical Society and funded by public subscription. It is made up of two bronze friezes set in an 82ft-long granite structure, originally designed as a smoke outlet for underground trains when they were powered by steam engines.

    One frieze depicts all the achievements of Fighter Command, while the other focuses on the people of London, featuring St Paul’s and an Anderson shelter. Accompanying them is a plaque inscribed with the names of the 2,936 pilots and crew from 14 countries who flew in the battle.

    The plinth beneath the relief is engraved with Sir Winston Churchill’s famous phrase: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

    Here is the story of the battle, a very important one of many that turned history toward our world of today.

  • War on Terror Update, 18 SEP 05

    I just wanted to take a moment to highlight three stories from today that deserve far more attention than they are receiving from our wonderful media.

    First, there was an absolutely gigantic story in the Afghani theater, as terrorists and Taliban holdouts again failed to keep the Afghan people from the polls.

    Polls close in Afghanistan parliament elections

    Polls closed in Afghanistan’s first parliament elections in more than 30 years, with millions of people casting their ballots in defiance of last-ditch attempts by Taliban rebels to derail the vote.

    Violence marred the start of polling, with nine people killed including a French soldier, while rockets were fired on a UN warehouse in Kabul and two would-be suicide bombers were wounded as they tried to attack a voting centre.

    But as the polls closed officials said a high proportion of the nearly 12.5 mln eligible voters had cast their ballots, signaling another step on a difficult path to democracy launched after the Taliban regime fell in 2001.

    ‘The voting started relatively slowly but after the morning it has seriously picked up all over Afghanistan,’ Peter Erben of the UN-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Board told reporters.

    ‘I believe a high number of Afghans have turned out to vote.’

    I wish I could tell you why this monumental occurrence isn’t being trumpeted as loudly as any single car bomb in Baghdad.

    Speaking of Iraq, I’m certain my readers know of the troubled writing of the proposed constitution. Did you know that the version to be voted on had been finalized? Probably not, especially if you relied on the televised media to bring you the goings-on of the world.

    Iraq approves definitive draft of new constitution

    Iraq’s parliament approved a final draft of a new constitution on Sunday and submitted it to the United Nations, which will print five million copies and distribute it around the country.

    Hussain al-Shahristani, the deputy speaker of parliament, told reporters it was an absolute final draft of the constitution before it is put to a referendum on Oct. 15.

    The document has been held up repeatedly in recent weeks by several last-minute amendments, mainly due to objections by the country’s Sunni Arab minority.

    “There is no way there will be any changes now,” Shahristani said. “The draft is being submitted to the United Nations and will be presented to the Iraqi people soon.”

    Speaking of Iraq, it’s nice to know that some allies aren’t willing to cut and run. In fact, some even express a willingness to prolong or increase missions as needed. Developments don’t quite gather the number of international headlines as announced withdrawals, but such is the media our military and diplomatic efforts must overcome.

    UK says to boost troop numbers in Iraq if needed

    Britain said on Sunday it would if necessary increase the number of troops in Iraq as fears mount that the country is sliding toward civil war.

    Britain, the main ally of the United States in Iraq, has about 8,500 soldiers deployed there and has frequently said its soldiers will stay until the Iraqi government asks them to leave.

    “We don’t need them (more troops) at the moment, if that’s necessary, of course we would do that,” British Defense Minister John Reid told ITV’s Jonathan Dimbleby’s show.

    “There’s no quitting and running, we’re there until the job is done.

    I first started blogging because of my life-long love of journalism and my disgust with today’s media. I may be enduring a little bit of “hobby burnout” lately, but at least the latter motivation is still there, constant and appalling.