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?
BAGHDAD — Insurgents struck at the heart of the Iraqi government on Wednesday in huge and coordinated bombings that exposed a new vulnerability after Americans ceded control for security here on June 30. Nearby American soldiers stood by helplessly — despite the needs of hundreds of wounded — waiting for a request for help from Iraqi officials that apparently never came.
A wave of bombings targeted symbols of government, the Foreign and Finance Ministries in central Baghdad, lending an air of siege to the capital. Dozens were killed and hundreds were wounded in the apparently coordinated attacks.
“As much as we want to come, we have to wait to be asked now,” said an American officer who arrived at one blast site almost three hours later and who spoke in return for anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters. At one blast site, American soldiers snapped pictures of the devastation before ducking out of the streets.
After weeks of escalating violence in Iraq, powerful truck bombs killed at least 95 people and wounded nearly 600 people at the Foreign and Finance Ministries in central Baghdad, assaults on symbols of government that lent an air of siege to the capital. The bombs crippled the downtown area, closed highways and two main bridges over the Tigris River and clogged hospitals with wounded.
The bombings, the worst since American forces handed over security responsibilities to Iraq at the end of June, shook the Iraqi government’s confidence that it was ready and able to secure the nation.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki called for a reassessment of his security measures, calling the attacks “a vengeful response” to his recent, optimistic order to remove blast walls from the streets of Baghdad.
A Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari, was quoted by Reuters as telling American and Iraqi military officers: “We must face the facts. We must admit our mistakes, just as we celebrate our victories.”
And Baghdad’s security spokesman, Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, told Iraqiya state television, according to Reuters, that attacks were “a security breach for which Iraqi forces must take most of the blame.”
The explosions, one close to the heavily fortified Green Zone and the other less than three miles away, sent plumes of smoke billowing over the capital, ripped a gaping hole in a compound wall and set cars ablaze, trapping drivers inside.
“The whole thing is just so disgusting,” the United States ambassador, Christopher R. Hill, said as he read reports from his staff about the extent of the damage while on an official visit to the northern city of Kirkuk. “They’re just psychopathic.”
Around 11 a.m., the two truck bombs struck the Foreign Ministry and the Finance Ministry within three minutes, officials said, sending white smoke into the sky. The second, more powerful blast was so intense that parts of a main highway near the Finance Ministry collapsed, the rubble littered with shrapnel and splotches of blood. It shattered windows inside the nearby Green Zone and shook houses in many parts of the city. At least 60 people were killed at the Foreign Ministry and at least 35 at the Finance Ministry.
At roughly the same time, attacks in other parts of the city, including three roadside bombs and some mortar and rocket fire, left 13 people wounded, Iraqi officials said.
Of course, the Liberal New York Times had to make sure that this quote was in there; Seeing they are the Anti-Military Paper that they are:
Though no one took credit for the attacks, Iraqis doled out blame both to their government, now fully responsible for security, and to the United States for coming to Iraq in the first place.
“This country is finished,” said one resident, Jamil Jaber, 45, whose five-room home behind the Foreign Ministry had been flattened, crushing a 4-month-old infant. “It’s just robbery and killing.” He cursed the United States and former President George W. Bush.
Oh, Of course, It is Bush’s fault because some idiot rag-head terrorist sets off a fucking bomb in the city of Baghdad. What a fucking ingrate! we should have just nuked that fucking Country into the damned stone age, instead of sending 4000+ of our troops into the Country to basically die; and for what? So some asshole Iraqi can blame us for their problems? What an asshole! That is if it is not a fake quote, which would not surprise me at all.
Here’s the deal folks; War is fucking hell, shit happens, people die. Get used to it! Saddam’s not in power anymore, and the people there are free. That idiot Iraqi sounds like most African-American Liberals; they want to blame someone else, namely White People, for their own damn problems. I suppose some Liberal might try and say that this is happening because we are in that Country in the first place. That is bullshit and most liberals know it.; We have all but left the damn country and the Iraqi Government is now running the show. Hence the Government taking forever to get on the scene.
One other thing I notice is, that most other Bloggers, Conservative and liberal are just not talking about this anymore. I think it is because of the healthcare debate; most people just are not thinking about Iraq. I am not one of these and I hope like hell, that President Obama does not pull us out, before the mission is over. We, as a Nation, cannot afford to make the mistake that we made in Vietnam. We made it before and had a black mark on us for years. We cannot do it again, it will be our shame, if we do.
Countdown to screechy liberals screaming at Obama for us to leave in 5…..4…..3….2…
This is seriously screwed up. Now The Obama Administration wants people to snitch on this who are opposed to the Public Healthcare opinion.
If you see anybody publicly opposing President Obama’s plan to implement a government-centric overhaul of the health care system, the White House wants you to report that person (or persons) ASAP.
From the White House website:
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
Emphasis added. Of course, as we’ve seen in the health care debate to date, the term “disinformation” is used by the Obama White House as a catchall to describe any opposition to the President’s push for single-payer, government-run health care — meaning the White House wants to be informed of any forwarded emails or blog posts or any “casual conversations” that could be taken as opposition to their health care overhaul plan.
The White House has, as yet, offered no explanation of what it is they plan to do with the tips on policy opposition they hope to receive from citizen informers.
Interestingly, as Jake Tapper pointed out on Twitter this morning, the title of that post on the White House is a quote from John Adams’ 1770 “Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials.”
That is what I would like to know, what does the White House plan on doing to these people, who decide to oppose the White House plan? Have us all killed? It is to wonder.
This is nothing short of Communist Russia man, or even worse Nazi Germany. Snitch on those who oppose. Get ready folks, because this is going to get ugly, I believe.
I will be the first to admit; I have not always agreed with Michelle Malkin in the past. But I am totally in agreement with her on the Obama Administration and on Matters of the Military; and most importantly on the subject of the war on terror.
Michelle has released a new book on the Obama Administration. It is called:
Here the video of Michelle on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News Channel: (H/T and Thanks to the guys at HotAir.com)
I might even buy me a copy of this book, but really, I have blogged about most of it; so, for me, it would be a huge review.
You can get Michelle Malkin’s Book right here or by clicking the link on the picture of the book above:
Reporting from Washington — Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Secret Service asking about visits from 18 executives representing health insurers, drug makers, doctors and other players in the debate. The group wants the material in order to gauge the influence of those executives in crafting a new healthcare policy.
The Secret Service sent a reply stating that documents revealing the frequency of such visits were considered presidential records exempt from public disclosure laws. The agency also said it was advised by the Justice Department that the Secret Service was within its rights to withhold the information because of the “presidential communications privilege.”
Just another lying Politician, like the rest of them. No Change, at all.
Updated to Add: I did not want to say too much here. Because my shoulder was hurting me pretty bad. It is a little batter and plus, I do want people to come to my blog. This whole thing stinks to high heaven, and even the Liberals are pissed about it; and rightly so. Barack Obama and the other Democratic Party candidates railed against the Bush Administration for this same very thing during the 2008 election. So, what does Obama do, once he is in the White House? The very same damned thing. President Barack Obama promised total transparency when he was elected and what does he do? Lies out his rather large ass, that’s what! I tend to believe that Obama is going to face a very large backlash here and this one might be his undoing come 2012.
The recent unemployment numbers have undermined confidence that we might be nearing the bottom of the recession. What we can see on the surface is disconcerting enough, but the inside numbers are just as bad.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary estimate for job losses for June is 467,000, which means 7.2 million people have lost their jobs since the start of the recession. The cumulative job losses over the last six months have been greater than for any other half year period since World War II, including the military demobilization after the war. The job losses are also now equal to the net job gains over the previous nine years, making this the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all job growth from the previous expansion.
Here are 10 reasons we are in even more trouble than the 9.5% unemployment rate indicates:
– June’s total assumed 185,000 people at work who probably were not. The government could not identify them; it made an assumption about trends. But many of the mythical jobs are in industries that have absolutely no job creation, e.g., finance. When the official numbers are adjusted over the next several months, June will look worse.
– More companies are asking employees to take unpaid leave. These people don’t count on the unemployment roll.
– No fewer than 1.4 million people wanted or were available for work in the last 12 months but were not counted. Why? Because they hadn’t searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.
– The number of workers taking part-time jobs due to the slack economy, a kind of stealth underemployment, has doubled in this recession to about nine million, or 5.8% of the work force. Add those whose hours have been cut to those who cannot find a full-time job and the total unemployed rises to 16.5%, putting the number of involuntarily idle in the range of 25 million.
– The average work week for rank-and-file employees in the private sector, roughly 80% of the work force, slipped to 33 hours. That’s 48 minutes a week less than before the recession began, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data 45 years ago. Full-time workers are being downgraded to part time as businesses slash labor costs to remain above water, and factories are operating at only 65% of capacity. If Americans were still clocking those extra 48 minutes a week now, the same aggregate amount of work would get done with 3.3 million fewer employees, which means that if it were not for the shorter work week the jobless rate would be 11.7%, not 9.5% (which far exceeds the 8% rate projected by the Obama administration).
– The average length of official unemployment increased to 24.5 weeks, the longest since government began tracking this data in 1948. The number of long-term unemployed (i.e., for 27 weeks or more) has now jumped to 4.4 million, an all-time high.
– The average worker saw no wage gains in June, with average compensation running flat at $18.53 an hour.
– The goods producing sector is losing the most jobs — 223,000 in the last report alone.
– The prospects for job creation are equally distressing. The likelihood is that when economic activity picks up, employers will first choose to increase hours for existing workers and bring part-time workers back to full time. Many unemployed workers looking for jobs once the recovery begins will discover that jobs as good as the ones they lost are almost impossible to find because many layoffs have been permanent. Instead of shrinking operations, companies have shut down whole business units or made sweeping structural changes in the way they conduct business. General Motors and Chrysler, closed hundreds of dealerships and reduced brands. Citigroup and Bank of America cut tens of thousands of positions and exited many parts of the world of finance.
Job losses may last well into 2010 to hit an unemployment peak close to 11%. That unemployment rate may be sustained for an extended period.
So much for “The One” fixing the economy. Oh, right; he misread it. Looks like this Blogging gig get might be my only job for a long time to come. The Left is now spinning saying it will never recover.
Five months after Congress approved a massive package of spending and tax cuts aimed at reviving an ailing economy, the jobless rate is still climbing and the White House is scrambling to reassure an anxious public that President Obama’s prescription for economic recovery is on the right track.
Yesterday, Obama took time out of his first presidential trip to Moscow to defend the $787 billion stimulus package, arguing that the measure was the right medicine at the right time. “There’s nothing that we would have done differently,” he told ABC News
So, beings the Democratic Party’s proverbial teeth chattering session, where they realize, “Uh-Oh, we messed up! Now how do we fix it?”
Back in Washington, senior Democrats on Capitol Hill were nervously contemplating whether additional government stimulus spending may be needed to pull the nation out of the worst recession since the 1930s. Senior administration officials acknowledged that the effects of the stimulus package have been overshadowed by an unexpectedly sharp drop-off in employment since the measure passed in February. But they reported that only about $100 billion has so far been spent and that as increasingly large sums flow out of Washington, the program is on pace to save or create 600,000 jobs over the next 100 days.
“It is clear from the data that there needs to be more fiscal stimulus in the second half of the year than there was in the first half of the year,” White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers said. “Fortunately, the stimulus program designed by the president and passed by Congress provides exactly that.”
Leading economists agree that the most powerful effects of the stimulus package have yet to be felt. But even if the measure lives up to Obama’s expectations, it would barely offset the 433,000 jobs the nation lost last month alone, and the resulting employment would represent a drop in the bucket compared with the 6.5 million jobs lost since the recession began in December 2007.
“Just 130 days out on the adoption of a very, very major effort to get the economy moving, certainly I don’t think we can make a determination as to whether or not that’s been successful,” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said yesterday. But, he said, “I think we need to be open to whether or not we need additional action.”
Oh Yes! We just poured a couple generation’s worth of money into a Economic system that is basically; on it’s face, is broken and does not work. This did not work, so, we’re going to basically pour money into that same broken system and see if we can make the economy recover.
If anything this ought be a lesson for the Democratic Party that Keynesian Pump Priming, just does not work. But you think that the Democrats would learn that lesson? No. Because they’re dumb!
Of course, the Republicans are a bit more smarter about this:
Republicans, meanwhile, pounced on news that the unemployment rate increased to 9.5 percent in June and accused the Democrats of sinking the nation deeper into debt to finance an economic recovery package that has failed to save American jobs. Noting that the Obama administration predicted earlier this year that stimulus spending would keep the unemployment rate under 8 percent, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the No. 2 Republican in the House, said, “I think any objective measure would indicate there’s a failure when you have a commitment of nearly $800 billion in taxpayer funds and you have the type of job loss we’re experiencing.”
With many economists forecasting that the jobless rate will continue to climb — and is likely to stay above 10 percent through much of next year — Republicans vowed to make the 2010 midterm election a referendum on Obama’s stewardship of the economy. “I think they’re going to have some significant problems,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), who leads the GOP campaign operation in the Senate, “and I view those as opportunities for us.”
Hopefully, the Republicans will frame these opportunities properly. Of course, their track record here as of late, has not been too good.
Meanwhile, in the reality sector:
Despite the deepening pain of the recession, many Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill yesterday counseled patience. They said it would be extraordinarily difficult to win approval for more spending on the economy when Obama is pursuing a host of other expensive initiatives, including a $1 trillion expansion of the nation’s health-care system. And they argued that the current stimulus package should be given a chance to work.
The stimulus was designed to deliver a gradually stronger push to the economy through the end of next year. It contains about $499 billion in new spending and about $288 billion in tax cuts for working families, businesses, college students and first-time home buyers.
When the measure passed, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that about a quarter of the money would be spent by year’s end, and that about 75 percent would flow by the end of 2010. So far, economists said, spending appears to be on track.
According to administration estimates, about $158 billion in new spending had been committed to specific projects by the end of June, but just a fraction of that money — about $56 billion — had been delivered to struggling state governments, unemployed workers and other recipients. An additional $43 billion had been left in the pockets of individuals and businesses through uncollected taxes, much of it the result of Obama’s signature Making Work Pay tax credit for working families.
Those figures track closely with estimates by Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com, who calculates that the government made $242 billion in stimulus funds available for various purposes through the end of June and paid out about $110 billion. In a recent analysis, Zandi predicted that “the maximum contribution from the stimulus should occur in the second and third quarters of this year,” when it will add more than three percentage points to overall economic growth.
“It’s pretty much according to plan in terms of the payout and in terms of its economic impact. This is in the script,” Zandi said. The problem, he said, is that “the economy has been measurably worse than anyone expected,” with a surprisingly sharp “collapse in employment and surge in unemployment” that caught most economists off guard.
“That’s why the administration’s forecasts have been so wrong,” he said.
None of this surprises me in the least. I warned on this blog long ago that this would happen. But, of course, you have the Democrats spinning this, and very hard too:
The White House continues to predict that the stimulus package will save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year. Zandi predicts it will fall short of that, producing about 2.5 million jobs — still a significant impact.
Whatever the number, Democrats are hoping it will be enough to convince voters that Obama is leading them out of the economic wilderness.
“I think the president was very clear that things were going to take a long time to turn around,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in charge of electing Democrats to the House. Republicans “are making the argument to the American people that doing nothing would have been the best policy. And I don’t think people will buy that. . . .
“The measures we have taken have certainly prevented things from getting much worse.”
According to what figures? Because the charts I have seen, say otherwise:
What this chart shows is that unemployment was far higher with the stimulus plan, than it would have been, if Team Teleprompter would have just left well enough alone.
What this means to me personally is this; I will most likely be unemployed until like 2010 or longer. Thereby making myself impossible to he hired anywhere, because I haven’t worked in so long. Which is just wonderful.
Thank you President Bambi Teleprompter for ruining America, you feckless idiot!
With the news of Michael Jackson and the news of Sarah Palin this story is being ignored by the American Media. This causes a part of me to wonder; was it done intentionally?
North Korea fired three short-range missiles toward the Sea of Japan, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported Saturday.
Quoting a South Korean government official, the agency said the missiles were apparently Scud-type missiles, estimated to have a range of about 500 km (310 miles). South Korean intelligence estimates that North Korea has about 700 such missiles in its arsenal.
Pyongyang test-fired four such missiles off the east coast on Thursday, Yonhap reported.
North Korea had issued a warning to mariners to avoid an area in the Sea of Japan at certain times between June 24 and July 9 because of a "military firing exercise," according to a U.S. military communication about the warning provided to CNN.
The recent firings come amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula. North Korea conducted a nuclear test in May, fired test rockets and threatened U.S. and South Korean ships near its territorial waters.
Earlier this week analyst Daniel Pinkston said the reported test might be training for a future test but it could also just be a routine military exercise.
"It is worrisome to some degree, but it is different from a ballistic missile launch," said Pinkston, of the International Crisis Group in Seoul, South Korea.
It’s part of military training, but there seem to be no movements of troops or anything that would suggest preparations for military operations.
"So yes, people are watching it, the military is watching it here, but I don’t think it’s related to any plans or operations to attack anyone."
Russia had a low-key reaction to the tests. Russian military experts are carefully studying the reports but the launches will not change the political situation, a spokesman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.
This should be a clear cut message to the Obama Administration that the sort of “Carrot and Stick” approach to North Korea is not working. It is time for action President Obama, what will you do? Of course, seeing what we are dealing with for President; I do not expect much of a change.
This is no big surprise; however it is news worthy:
A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration’s public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations.
The administration’s discussion of Wilson’s link to the CIA was meant to undermine criticism by her husband of administration allegations that Iraq attempted to acquire uranium, a matter that her husband had probed for the CIA, according to testimony presented in a 2007 trial.
A list of at least seven related conversations involving Cheney appears in a new court filing approved by Obama appointees at the Justice Department. In the filing, the officials argue that the substance of what Cheney told special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald in 2004 must remain secret.
I would suppose that there are those will be shocked to the learn this or excuse it saying that we were at war. This writer is not among them. I have long argued on this Blog and in my previous incarnation as a “Left of center” Blogger the following; that the Bush Administration knew that they were over their hands, that there were no weapons of mass destruction.
My political criticism is not limited by party lines nor by any sort of partisanship. Just as much as I criticize President Barack Obama for his socialist polices and lefty liberal nonsense; I also criticized George W. Bush’s Wilsonian, Neo-Conservative and quite frankly, Christian Theocratic Foreign Policy. Unlike other bloggers in the Conservative Blogsophere; my criticism is not limited by party loyalty or blinded by partisanship. That is a different between a Independent Conservative, like myself and the Republican establishment Bloggers and those taking their talking points from Irving Kristol and John Podhoretz.
The real knee slapper is this here:
The Obama administration has since agreed that the material should not be disclosed. A Justice Department lawyer at one point last month argued that vice presidents and other White House officials will decline to be interviewed in the future if they know their remarks might “get on ‘The Daily Show’ ” or be used as fodder for political enemies.
Ha! Forget National Security, we cannot let John Stewart get ahold of the stuff; Them Liberals might laugh at us! 😆 Now that is funny. 😀
(Update: Corrected rather silly grammar error… “We might laugh at us?” Good Lord; Must learn to not blog until I’ve drank my lot of coffee.)
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