Month: August 2009

Iraq Update: Update on the attacks in Iraq and Government crackdown

Here is the latest on the insurgent attacks in Iraq, that I wrote about the other day.

These reports come from a Blog called “Iraq The Model” which is a great blog that is written and owned by two fine gents in Iraq.

First who was behind it:

Special Groups acting on orders from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were behind Wednesday’s indirect fire attacks against government targets, Azzaman reports.

The newspaper says security sources in Baghdad revealed that a Special Group led by a person named Haji Mehdi al-Kinani was responsible for firing rockets and mortars at the Green Zone and other government targets yesterday. The group reportedly operates from the Hay Ur district in northeastern Baghdad.

Now this does not surprise me at all. Iran has always wanted to see disunity in Iraq. They have much to gain from it.  It would not surprise me to see a invasion of that Country from Iran, once our forces leave. Although, considering what is happening in Iran right now internally, I do not think that it will be anytime soon.

Second, the fallout:

Prime Minister Nourai al-Maliki announced that there would be new measures to improve security following last Wednesday’s tragic bombings. “We defeated the terrorists, and Ramadan is a great chance to eliminate them once and for all”, Maliki said. He described the purpose behind the attacks as “They target the government which represents the political process and national unity, which they hate”. Here Maliki is clearly referring to some Shiite parties that attacked him over his active non-sectarian approach and increasingly stronger relations with Sunni Arab powers.

It can be seen from Maliki’s words that he is determined to move forward with building his diverse political alliance and ignoring the calls for rebuilding the Shiite alliance (UIA). There has been pressure from Iran and Najaf to reconstitute the UIA to enter the elections as one great mass.

[…..]

In tandem, Baghdad is exploring the possibility of signing regional security protocols with its neighbors. MP Abbas Bayati, member of the parliament’s defense and security committee said Iraq seeks to establish protocols that enable the sharing of intelligence and mutual tracking of terror cells. Bayati named Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Jordan and Turkey as the countries with which Iraq seeks to establish security protocols. Through these protocols, the government will most likely try to facilitate the exchange of wanted individuals suspected of leading or financing militant groups in Iraq.

Meanwhile, foreign minister Hoshyar Zibari was a little more pessimistic about the situation and expected “greater security breaches in the future”. However, he echoed Maliki’s call for strict measures to contain the security breach.

“We must all refrain from making useless statements. We must expose the facts that stand behind the setbacks in security. This was a clear and dangerous setback, and so security preparations must match the magnitude of challenges” Zibari told reporters. Another source quoted him as saying that he does not “rule out the possibility of collusion between security forces and terrorists to deliver the car bombs to those sensitive locations.”

Some would dismiss this as political posturing, but one must realize, that there is a bitter struggle for one group to be the majority in Iraq. It will be a long hard battle for equality. This is well beyond the scope of the American forces; this is something the Iraqi’s must do themselves. One cannot establish a true Government at the end of a gun. It most be done by diplomacy.

What I do know is this;  that it will be a long hard process, there will be failures; but the Iraqi’s must not lose faith. I wish them well. May God be with them.

Video: THE RULES OF THE GAME: Just War Doctrine

Synopsis:

Thou Shalt Not Kill—perhaps the most famous moral commandment in the western world. And yet Judeo-Christian religious leaders have also created a doctrine that can justify killing—commonly known as Just War Doctrine. What sort of military action does Just War Doctrine permit and what sort does it proscribe? Is America’s campaign against terrorism a just war?

The Hoover Institute’s Website.

Sorry, No Pity Here

What follows is a Story in the New York Times about the Housing Crises and the effect that it is having in a small neighborhood in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California.

I could quite a great deal of this, but I will just outline it for you. It is basically a sob story of how people bought houses and went over their heads, getting equity out and then the Market crashed and they were left without their homes. Boo Hoo. 🙄 How could I be so mean, nasty and have such a cold heart, you ask?

Because of this part of the story:

Via NYT:

Equity soon became irresistible.

Ms. Sanchez and Mr. Winkler, the couple with two daughters, wanted a new car. So they pulled $15,000 out of the house. Mr. Godfrey and Ms. Saldamando, the schoolteachers, dipped into their equity to landscape their back yard. Mr. Blanco, the electrician, used it to invest in a lot in the desert, and Mr. Soto, the landscaper, picked up a rental home in the Central Valley, an agricultural area northwest of here.

The block’s first residents, Ms Hernandez and her husband, bought a shiny commercial truck, with dreams of expanding his trucking business. He pulled money out of the house nearly annually. And the couple from South Los Angeles used their house — bought for $152,500 in 1997 — as a veritable cash machine, refinancing three times before selling it in 2006 for $440,000.

But one by one, the strings began to come apart.

The new buyer of the Los Angeles couple’s home was quickly in over his head; he lost the house in less than a year, with $375,273 still owed.

Title records show that Ms. Hernandez and her husband bought their home in 1997 for $123,000, using nearly 100 percent borrowed money. They refinanced first in 2003, at 11.1 percent interest on $129,000. The equity loans kept coming: the balance rose to $230,000 in 2004; $323,00 in 2005; $374,000 in 2006; then, finally, $415,000, at 8.12 percent, in 2007.

“For a while things were going really, really good,” Ms. Hernandez said. “Then the truck broke down, and things went down from there. One day I came home and there was a note on the door that said call this number.”

It was only then, Ms. Hernandez said, that her husband told her about the equity loans and that “we were in foreclosure and needed to get out.” Last fall, the bank offered them $1,000 to leave the house quietly.

“I was a nervous wreck,” she said, her shoulders tensing with the memory. She tried to shield her children, ages 18, 16 and 14, from the news. “I would pray every night and drive around every day looking for something new.”

Moving day came in October, and friends on the block stood by as Ms. Hernandez carefully pulled the last bags out of the house and cleaned up — her home was known for being spotless — before moving to a rental house a few miles away.

“I mopped, I swept, I wiped down the counters,” Ms. Hernandez said. “It was my home. I was still proud of it.”

Ms. Hernandez’s struggles quickly reverberated around Beth Court. If the block’s longest-term residents could lose their home, who might be next?

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, her husband is always working,’ ” said Mr. Blanco, now unemployed. “I felt scared. I figured he’s working and I’m not working, so maybe we’re going to lose our house, too.”

Now am I supposed to pity these people? I do not think so. These people bought houses with money that they did not have, then on top of that, they kept taking equity out of their houses to buy stuff with; again with money that they did not even have. So, as far as I am concerned, they got what was coming to them. You do not buy products with money that you do not even have, and expect me to pity you. Of course, the best thing that the stupid liberals can say, is that this is all Bush’s fault. Which is complete bullcrap, because it was Bill Clinton’s idea of floating high risk loans to those who would not be able to normally afford them, is what caused this damned mess in the first place. Basically this caused an artificial inflation of the housing market.  All of this was built around a faulty assumption that the economy was going to be okay and never crash. Well, it did, due to the toxic mortgages that Bill Clinton just had to have; and these people, who bought houses with money that they did not have, ended up losing them. Two words for them; Tough Shit. That what they get for buying a house with money that they did not have, and then on top of that getting equity out; which of course, meant a higher house note. Too bad, so sad, you do the stupid, you pay for it.

Not only this, but now, they are bitter. Hey, I thought only we Conservatives were the bitter ones??

Check out this hilarious quote:

“Welcome, and congrats on your house,” she said in Spanish as she made her way home.

“I feel happy for him,” Ms. Sanchez said later.

One person who is not happy is Ms. Hernandez, who still visits her best friend and her former neighborhood.

“She told me she just hated to see the new people at her house,” Ms. Sanchez wrote in a recent e-mail message.

Lessons Learned

As the foreclosure crisis continues to touch Beth Court, there are those who feel blessed for what is left and for what has been learned, others who feel victimized and bitter, and those who feel that they failed the system and vice versa, but who also believe that misfortune is transitory.

The newcomers — the Schneiders, the Cortezes and the Giulianis — have sympathy for those who lost their homes, but feel they have been rewarded for saving, waiting and buying in a conventional manner. The falling home prices were “the answer to our prayers,” Ms. Giuliani said. “We would not have been able to get a house this size elsewhere.”

Hey Lady, here is your solution to your problem:

1suck
Here is the solution to the Houses Crisis!

Stupid liberal morons, act foolishly and then want me to pity them. Not on your best day!

Others: The Big Picture

Quote of the Day

Your tweets are bizarre and unoriginal. – Source

This is what he said… click here.

Here’s proof that he said it. It was a direct message…. click on thumbnail to make it bigger:

marcambinder

Tea Party Protest in Birmingham, Michigan

Seems that there was a Tea Party Protest in Birmingham, Michigan.

MoonBattery has the pictures and the story.

Of Course, the liberals are already dismissing it as “Rich White Racists.” However anyone with a half of a brain knows that these protests are not about skin color at all. It is about the Government wanting to run Healthcare and ruin our Country.

Anyone that says anything other than this; is distorting the facts.

Update: The BlogProf has this video:

InstaPundit also has coverage as well, as does Gateway Pundit.

WOW! – President Obama called a Fascist on Air America Radio

Now this is a real shocker…. 😮

This comes via HotAir.com and it really makes you wonder.

They do have a point, he did make all of those promises, and now they have turned on them.  I said it long ago on this blog, within 6 months time; Barack Obama would go from being the hero to Public Enemy number one.  Sadly, Mr. President, you have proven me right 10 times over.

The sad thing about this is the following; Bush was in office for eight years.  Until the start of the Iraq War on March 20, 2003, President Bush’s poll numbers were favorably high.  The nation was coming off the horror of September 11, 2001.  It was not until the war turned ugly in 2006; that Bush’s poll numbers started the serious drop.  With the current President, it has taken six months.  That very fact my friend is very astounding.

The interesting part is what is turning against him.  First off, the far right has always not liked him; 46% of which voted for John McCain, the rest voted for either Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin or wrote in Ron Paul.  (This is not to mention the votes that went to Ralph Nader and the other third Parties.)  Therefore, that takes care of the far right, The Republicans and the independent Conservatives, like me.  (…and Yes, that does include the “Birther” crowd…)  What is really shocking is this; the very people that worked to elect Barack Obama are the very ones that are now turning on him; The Far Left!  This video is a perfect example of that fact.  Not to mention the many self-proclaimed “Independent’s” that voted for him as well.  They are in full out retreat mode away from this President.  I have a belief as to why, it can be summed up in one word; Overreach.

President Barack Obama during the 2008 election made some of the most outlandish statements that I have ever heard during an election. Of the good majority of them; anyone that is dealing with half of a deck, (So to speak) knew that The President had no intention of fulfilling these promises.  I would literally laugh aloud at times, when this President would say the stuff that He did.  The real troubling part is; people actually lapped it up like dogs.  Especially those on the far left, they were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this person was the second coming of the liberal Messiah.  It seems now, that the Far Left has awoken to the fact that Obama is not the “Hope and Change” prophet, that he said he was during the Campaign and before he took office.

It has been a personal political observation of mine that when a President starts slipping in the polls and the Country begins to turn away from him; it usually happens among the fringes or the grassroots; or what we refer to day as the “Netroots.” The slipping never starts among the Democratic or Republican establishments.  The people revolt first, not the establishment.  This goes along with that whole idea that Government is “Of the people, by the people” and not the other way around.

One would think that Obama would have known something like this; tragically I believe that this was overlooked, something that I believe will come back to haunt this Administration.  I also believe that if this Administration and this Congress attempts to ram though this Healthcare bill; that there will a massive revolt among moderate Democrats and Independents and the election cycle of 2010 will be a day of reckoning.  On the other side of the coin, if they drop the public option or the bill dies entirely there could be a collapse of the entire base of the Democratic Party.  Either way this will be nothing but good for the Republican Party, provided that they run some true Conservatives and not a bunch of indecisive idiots that want to play paddy cake with the other side.

Either way, this coming political season in September is going to be quite interesting.