This Blog is created to stress the importance of Peace as an environmental directive. “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” – Harry Truman
(I receive no compensation from any entry on this blog.)
...But he suggested one argument for premeditation when he told reporters that Hasan did not have any legitimate reason to be at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center last Thursday....
Nidal Hasan used his religion as a mask for an existence. He used it as an excuse for his life. He wasn't brave enough to confront life and accept his responsibility as a soldier in the USA Army. He was a coward in every measure of the word. It is the plague of a Lone Wolf and always will be. They have no validity to their 'empty' definition for breathing, except, to be a marter to their own pathetic values. He is no different than the gunman at the Holocaust Museum, except, he had access to a military instillation in a way that would be that of any officer.
Nidal Hasan was NOT a terrorist. Not even close. He was a man desperate to stay away from war and out of danger.
HE WAS A WOOSS. A CO and nothing more. Only cowards kill their peers while acting in violence. What he did that day was murder not terrorism.
What went through his mind that day at Fort Hood is still in question and I hope at first opportunity the USA Army finds out exactly what he was thinking when he pulled the trigger. It is 'that truth' that will faciliate expeditiously any change the Army needs to make to undo the infrastructure that nurtured him to that moment.
Nidal Hasan wouldn't have the guts to be a terrorist.
I am confident all the people at Fort Hood would agree, "Everyone, no matter their role that day were heroes."
When a military is functional, they move as one. That is what occurred at Fort Hood that day, they moved as one to secure their perimeter and defeat the gunman. They are tough as nails, INCLUDING, the ladies.
The 'dream' of finally rebuilding Lower Manhattan. Hard to do with chronic terrorist wars to pay for.
The best political outcomes to the elections of 2010 is to focus on the future and not the past.
The leadership of President Obama cannot be measured by only a domestic front still stuggling to repair the corrupted insults to it over the last eight years, but, an initiative that is more than well received globally by every leader of every country.
Placing Democratic leadership in the majority of the USA Legislature with a President dedicated to 'the truth' and bringing the USA back to global leadership with initiatives to peace and nuclear non-proliferation was NOT a mistake. No way was it a mistake.
We are witnessing enormous shifts in paradigms globally that will impact the USA domestically. A country, whether it be the USA, China or Russia, cannot mount the challenge of the future without 'relief' from the burdens of fighting terrorist networks and dedicating huge amounts of its nation's assets to war and military. Every country knows that and what occurred under Bush and Cheney was a 'return' to Cold War methodologies that set progress to the future of our children back at least five decades. There is no more going back and the immediate and welcomed response from the global community to President Obama's initiatives and challenges shows leadership that was ready to pounce on the opportunity.
Every leader in any country knows that economic opportunity lies in the expansion of opportunity to its people NOT the contraction to war economies. Who in their right minds would not want to be tourists to Russia to view the modern version of the country with such magnificent architecture to make any city envious?
That is the future that lies before us. A future of peace and cooperation with sovereign countries secured from the inside out. Not bad. Non-proliferation rules the day with the knowledge that Einstein's invention doomed the world and never secured it.
To build economies that 'consent' to cooperation and expansion means defeating those that would use those opportunities to defeat civilization. It is why Russia cooperates with the USA over Afghanistan and it is why NATO insists on being secure from terrorist networks or even their potential TO EXIST in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Changing paradigms isn't easy. But. It is necessary. And. The leadership has to be consistent.
They have decided to build this big thing, and named it Galaxy Building, in one of the areas of Moscow. Construction costs exceed $300 million, but there are plenty investors interested in participation.
It would be one of the weirdest buildings in modern Russia.
Medvedev tells Russia to get with the times (click title to entry - thank you)
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has used his annual state of the nation address to call on the country to modernise more quickly.
In a comment reminiscent of US President Barack Obama's presidential campaign, Mr Medvedev stressed the need for change.
He told his country, which was hit hard by the global financial crisis, that it is time to stop living off past achievements and modernise.
Before an audience of government and church leaders, including his predecessor and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Mr Medvedev outlined where he believes Russia has fallen behind - and what it needs to do to get ahead.
He says Russia has been too reliant on raw materials exports and should develop a smarter economy.
Mr Medvedev says infrastructure and key areas that the country was once renowned for, such as scientific research, need to be improved.
He also referred to corruption, saying intolerance of this must become part of Russian culture.
Mr Medvedev says Russia needs to modernise based on democratic principles so it can become a society of free, intelligent and responsible people.
This article was reported by ABC, an Australian non-Murdock news agency.
Clinton: U.S. concerned about Afghan corruption (click here) Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:50am EST By David Alexander MANILA (Reuters) - The United States is concerned about corruption and poor governance in Afghanistan and has raised those issues with the administration of President Hamid Karzai, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday....
WHERE does anyone in the USA ever get the 'idea' that wars to defeat al Qaeda are supposed to last longer than it took defeat Hitler? The stupidity of diluting the Afghanistan War to fight an oil war in a disarmed country cannot be understated. I mean, STUPID. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I guess 'bailing out' Halliburton and satisfying Wall Street started long before October 2008.
Wilmington pair arrested in major heroin bust (click here) Published: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 7:14 p.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 7:14 p.m. Wilmington Two Wilmington men were arrested and 230 bags of heroin stamped “death wish” were seized Monday, concluding a five-month investigation by the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office, according to a news release from the office. The arrest by detectives from the sheriff’s office Vice and Narcotics Division occurred as a search warrant was executed at 5010 McClelland Drive, Apt. 202, the release from Deputy Charles Smith said. The seized heroin, which was packaged for sale, has a street value of more than $8,000 Smith said....
Postmortem Afghanistan: The iron law of a world-class election farce (click here) Innocent Afghanis will, as usual, pay the heaviest price by the hundreds By Chibli Mallat Daily Star staffThursday, November 12, 2009 It is time for a postmortem analysis in Afghanistan. With all the misery that has befallen the wretched peoples of Afghanistan over 40 years of invasions and civil wars, the mess is far from over. By all accounts, the elections were heavily rigged by the president....
US envoy warns against troop surge in Afghanistan (click title to entry - thank you) James Meikle, Ewen MacAskill in Washington guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 November 2009 07.56 GMT Eikenberry claims extra US troops 'not a good idea' until Karzai government shows willingness to tackle corruption, says reports. The US ambassador in Kabul has warned against plans to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan, until President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption. Karl Eikenberry sent two classified cables to Washington in the past week expressing his concern over proposals to deploy as many as 40,000 extra troops while the Karzai government remains dogged by accusations of incompetence and corruption, according to reports from Washington. The existence of the memos was revealed as Barack Obama held a war council at the White House to discuss the final four options for deployment of extra US troops in an effort to stave off defeat at the hands of the Taliban. Eikenberry is a former US commander in Afghanistan and his caution over a further troop build-up puts him at odd with senior generals in the Pentagon.... McCrystal's War Strategy is to 'pair' Coalition Forces with Afghanistan Forces
Part of the 'issue' at hand is that General McCrystal is seeing a deteriorating country with insufficient troops for his effort, while President Obama sees a prolonged encounter that will prove to be unwinnable, regardless, of General McCrystal's best effort. General McCrystal is needless to say 'frustrated.'
...Last week, General Stanley McChrystal (click here) shocked political leaders with a blunt speech in London on the war. Gen McCrystal, who heads the 68,000 U.S. troops as well as the 10,000 Nato forces in Afghanistan, rejected proposals for a strategy more reliant on special forces operations against al-Qaeda. 'Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support,' he said in London....
General McCrystal's strategy is to bring Coalition Troops in 'partnership' with Afghan Troops to bring consistency in the power of the 'entire' of the country's military. As a result and in response to the increased violence during the elections, General McCrystal has removed troops from 'distant' and 'sparcely populated' areas to areas of larger populations to bring greater impact of the Coalition efforts.
The change in priorities within Afghanistan is NOT to fight a prolonged war but to 'empower' a strong affiliation with the people to the Coalition and Afghan forces to remove support from the 'infrastructure' of the Taliban. All this is complicated by the insurgency of the Taliban in Pakistan and that country's determination to remove their influence and violence from the Pakistani people.
The entire region is unstable and it is due to this chronic 'allowable' fluidity of violence by the Taliban and demanded by al Qaeda. If General McCrystal is successful, the Afghan forces will begin to 'push back' against the Taliban and find a 'core' of resistance between Pakistan and Afghanistan to end the war entirely while the two countries enforce 'rule of law' and end the corruption of the Taliban to bring more viable economies that benefit civilization rather than barbarism.
The tape above shows a Coalition base in a distant hamlet where I doubt sincerely the troops were welcome visitors, but, that is somewhat true of anywhere USA troops have fought before, including, South Korea. Military presence among the people where guns and munitons are at the 'ready' is not a 'reasonably friendly' environment.
The bunker was a place where troops were stationed to 'hold' a place in the 'stretched' fabric of coalition war front. The munitions probably should have been destroyed, but, that might have cost more coalition lives.
No doubt the 'donkey' is being dispatched to people that will become suicide bombers. It is that 'dynamic' that is simply a 'high priority methodology' to the Taliban and al Qaeda. They can't do it any other way and it is part of what needs to be defeated in order to stop the 'influence' and 'ability to exist' of al Qaeda compliments of the Taliban.
The Taliban are drug lords.
They are the Afghan Mafia.
Karzai has been a 'figure head.'
Primarily.
General McCrystal is literally 'starting over' in Afghanistan and he is a 'lone voice' to the effort while so many other advisors to the President are an opposition to the initiative, including the people of the USA. The USA has been exploited by the Republicans to result in illegal wars that saw General and Commander one after the other resign from service into retirement, with a General at the onset to Iraq that decried any initiative without sufficient forces. That General was proven time and again TO BE CORRECT.
To add insult to injury to the people of the USA, the fiscal exploitation of 2008 was just the frosting on the cake. NATO on the other hand is receiving General McCrystal's strategy well because they want and need to fight this war as Pakistan and Afghanistan are in their backyards and they have received 'wrath' from al Qaeda attacks in their cities.
To say General McCrystal's strategy is unpopular among Americans is to realize his own 'officers' mess' is a point of frustration for him. He seeks discipline to 'war' and 'effort' and not 'resignation' to the reality of 'corruption.' President Obama and Secretary Clinton have an ally in their concerns of corruption with McCrystal. If they can bring him 'justice' in his strategy we might actually get somewhere with this mess.
For as much as Americans 'want out' of Afghanistan and Iraq, reflection on their reality should center around the REAL corruption within their own political system that brought them Bush and Cheney and not around accepting defeat in a strategy NATO is investing more of their own troops to fight.
The sincerest of realities is that President Obama is receiving pressure from within his own party to 'end it' in Afghanistan as well as Iraq to stop 'bleeding' from their electorate to possible political losses in 2010 elections that will 'put the country right back where it came from.' What Stanley McCrystal has to realize is that his Commander and Chief is fighting a war in the USA as well as Afghanistan. The USA was exploited for eight long years and HIS profound reality with his President is to come to terms with the reality he wouldn't even be required to have a strategy if HIS military wasn't USED for FISCAL exploitation by The Republican Party within his own country.
The "World According to Obama" isn't laced with faux images of 'a world in control' to faciliate a political party in the USA to corrupted by greed to insure profiteers and wealth merchants on Wall Street.
The "World According to Obama" is to solve the problems as they exist in transparency. The 'reality' President Obama INHERITED on Inauguration Day was a far different picture than any Republican wants to admit!
Government infrastructure 'costs.' The law enforcement authorities in the USA received a 'boost' from the Obama Stimulus that saved jobs in order to 'do their part' that they do so well. Don't talk to me about this man, don't even try.
A Mexican soldier stands guard as seized marijuana and cocaine are incinerated in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico Mexico leaders call for UN help in Ciudad Juarez (click here) (AFP) – 10 hours ago WASHINGTON — Local leaders in Ciudad Juarez have asked for UN peacekeepers to help stem the alarming bloodshed in their city that is chasing business across the border to Texas, their representatives have said. Despite the deployment of 8,500 troops since February, more than 2,000 people have been killed so far this year in drug-related crimes, making Ciudad Juarez one of the world's most violent urban areas, business leaders told a press briefing Wednesday. The city's Association of Maquiladoras (assembly plants) said it had requested "the intervention of United Nations blue helmets (peacekeepers) to control" the crime wave, said association president Soledad Maynez. She said the failure of federal and local authorities in staunching the bloodshed prompted local business leaders to approach the United Nations for help. "We must allow military police from the United Nations and the United States to tackle crime here, since in addition to murders there's also a lot of kidnapping and blackmail," which have led to some 6,000 business closings in the city, said National Chamber of Commerce regional president Daniel Murguia. He said the violence has prompted business leaders to live and invest across the US border in El Paso, Texas, where they enjoy greater safety....
Police say 'La Familia' drug gang crippled (click title to entry - thank you) BY MANDY LOCKE - Staff Writer GREENVILLE -- North Carolina law enforcement officials say they have curtailed a major Mexican drug cartel, arresting about 50 foreign nationals since 2007. The announcement comes two weeks after federal agents disclosed an operation said to have crippled the "La Familia" network, one of the major drug cartels vying for dominance in the United States. State officials say the arrests over the past two years have taken 200 kilograms of cocaine, 15 pounds of methamphetamine, 200 pounds of marijuana and 22 weapons off the streets. Officers also seized $1.7 million in cash from the dealers....
Mexican drug baron makes Forbes power list (click here) Foreign 2009-11-12 18:09 WASHINGTON, Nov 12 (AFP) - The leader of a Mexican drug cartel made Forbes' magazines list of the world's most powerful people, well ahead of France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, head of the feared Sinaloa cartel, was number 41 on the Forbes list, published Thursday on the business magazine's website. The magazine said he was believed to have shipped between six and 19 billion dollars worth of cocaine to the United States over the last eight years, using elaborate tunnels to evade border controls. "Diminutive nickname 'El Chapo,' or Shorty, belies fearsome behavior: as power behind struggle with government forces to control transport corridors to US, responsible for thousands of deaths," the magazine said. Guzman was arrested in 1993 on homicide and drug charges, but escaped in 2001....
