Archive for the ‘Iraq’ Category
By Warner Todd Huston 
On the 25th, the Washington Post served up a lament for Hollywood’s dismal box office returns for the many Iraq war pictures it has churned out over the last several years, wondering why they have all failed so spectacularly? The whole article amounts to the Post just not understanding why moviegoers have stayed away in droves from these dark and dismal movies. But with the anti-Military, anti-American point of view depicted in every single one of these movies, it is no surprise that Americans have ignored these self-denigrating flicks. After all, with soldiers really taking casualties on the battlefield, who wants to see a film that tells us all it’s OUR fault?
Still, the Washington Post is mystified.
After five years of conflict in Iraq, Hollywood seems to have learned a sobering lesson: The only things less popular than the war itself are dramatic films and television shows about the conflict… A spate of Iraq-themed movies and TV shows haven’t just failed at the box office. They’ve usually failed spectacularly, despite big stars, big budgets and serious intentions.
The Post then goes on to wonder if audiences are “turned off by the war, or are they simply voting against the way filmmakers have depicted it?” As the post asks that question, you’d think they are on the verge of understanding. But, this question is dropped right away as the story details one flop after another. Ridiculously, the Post seems puzzled by the fact that audiences have not just mindlessly followed into the theater the “big stars, big budgets and serious intentions” of these failed flicks and no further attempt is made in this story to explore the public’s disinterest.
The Post quotes TV legend Steven Bochco who imagines that his TV series “Over There,” which failed after only 13 episodes, was not well received because Americans felt “a certain sense of powerlessness” about the war. The Post also quotes film historian Jonathan Kuntz of UCLA that the whole thing is just a “bummer.”
By Warner Todd Huston
The newest update to a study published in the British medical journal, the Lancet, claims that 655,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invaded Iraq. This absurd claim has been hailed around the world as evidence of the evil American empire’s murderous reign in the Mid East. But it turns out that the entire study is not only filled with lies, the creators of the study even tried to hide the fact that George Soros funded the thing.
MSM sources like the AP and the Washington Post, among many others, highlighted the report lending it credence when it came out last month but few of those news outlets revealed the source of the study’s funding. While most did reveal that the study was "controversial," few went into just how far off from the truth the details of this study are.
The real facts, however, are beginning to come out.
Michael Fumento has penned a great expose on how many lies fill the famed Lancet Study on Iraqi war deaths and the UK’s Timesonline also revealed the connection with Soros.
The Times tells of the Soros involvement.
Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.
"The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research," said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.
And Michael Fumento has a great run down on all the spurious mathematics promulgated by the study. When comparing the numbers offered by the Iraq Family Health Survey study to that of the study in the Lancet, some startling differences are seen.
So for that last period, while the IFHS daily figure was 2.3 times higher than that of Iraq Body Count, the Lancet 2006 daily figure was a stunning 7.3 times higher than that of the IFHS and 17 times higher than that of Iraq Body Count.
By Alan Caruba
Americans have historically been reluctant to go to war. When we do, we are generally pretty good at it. In the last century, after electing Woodrow Wilson who promised to keep us out of the European war, we joined our traditional allies, England and France, to stop the Germans. We did it again about twenty years later, but only after a sneak attack by Japan ignited our righteous anger, plunging us into the existing war in Europe and, for us, the new one in the Pacific.
Truman committed troops to Korea when the Communist North Koreans attempted to overrun the south. Yes, it’s been called a stalemate for a half century, but the South is a thriving economic power while the North can barely supply itself with electric power or feed its people.
The Vietnam War is generally seen as a failure of American military power. What prolonged the war was the refusal of President Lyndon B. Johnson to listen to advice given him by his Joint Chiefs of Staff in a private meeting they had requested in November 1965. One suspects that President Bush has not been listening to his generals either.
by Jim Kouri, CPP
Former Vice President Al Gore scours the countryside looking for support for a possible presidential run and attempts to emulate bible-thumping preachers while preaching a message of the need for "big government" to save the planet. Meanwhile, Gore hobnobs with the Hollywood elite many of whom wouldn't know a Bible from a Cecil B. DeMille script for the movie "Samson and Delilah."
Senator Hillary Clinton, who's husband used a Bible as a prop during his impeachment days, hires a consultant in order to find a way to "get over on evangelicals" without changing her positions on killing unborn children and changing the definition of marriage.
Democrat Party strategists hold brainstorming meetings in order to find the means to hoodwink Christian voters without forsaking their socialist beliefs and plans.
On Wednesday, January 17, The Church Report revealed that a group of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh leaders have a new "faith agenda" that they will hold the 110th Congress to. This new agenda will shift the emphasis away from opposing abortion and "same-sex marriage" to issues liberal denominations and interfaith groups are associated with, according to the Church Report's Jennifer Morehouse.
The lobby Faith in Public Life and other interfaith groups are advocating increasing the minimum wage, economic and social justice in regard to immigration reform, ending the war in Iraq, and "creation care," a euphemism for child care.
Paul Sherry, national coordinator of the "Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign," said most Americans are "morally outraged" by low pay. The organization lobbied successfully for minimum wage increases in several states, according to Morehouse's report.
Church Report then quotes the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Sam Rodriguez said, "There is a strong faith ethos in the Hispanic community of the issues of immigration, poverty and economic and social justice." He advocates for secure borders and stopping illegal immigration, but he supports amnesty and a guest worker program.
"God specifically made humans responsible [for creation] as His image, and as His representatives on earth," Paul de Vries, a board member with the National Association of Evangelicals and president of New York Divinity School said. "How we treat His creation He takes personally," de Vries continued. "We’re people lovers, but we can be tree lovers at the same time. We’re people huggers and tree huggers."
Rick Ufford Chase, who leads the organization Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, said his group intends to remind Congress that it has a "clear moral imperative to end the war" and bring US military forces home, according to Morehouse. But Chase's organization has no plan on how to protect millions of Americans from terrorist attacks.
Faith in Public Life said Congress should heed the power of religious voters who "rejected a go-it-alone strategy in Iraq and politicians that put power ahead of policies that promote the common good."
The Church Report is a national business news magazine that is distributed to over 40,000 senior pastors and Christian leaders from across the United States. Published by Christy Media, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona and founded by Jason T. Christy, CEO of Christy Media, The Church Report is the leading magazine Christians turn to for news and information on a range of topics from theology, politics, business, books, music, education and much more!
Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he's a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and
trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He's a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com and PHXnews.com. He's also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he's syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He's appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline
News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri's own website is located at http://jimkouri.us
by Bob Parks
The following a citizen's response to the President's State of the Union address and the Democrat response. This response is to the Men and Women of the United States Armed Forces.
With all the political events of the past week, I was going to issue you an apology. Seeing how the people of whom I would be apologizing for are self-centered, self-righteous, better-than-anyone citizens of our great nation, let it suffice to say I am more disgusted than anything else.
I can't even come close to knowing what you must be going through in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the mid-to-late eighties, I served onboard the USS Midway, at that time the only forward-deployed carrier in the fleet. Her nickname was the "USS Never Dock." Our average deployment was nine months out of the year.
by Robert E. Meyer
Unless you are Rip Van Winkle, you now know that President Bush wants to send more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq. Personally, I would have felt better if the president had come to this conclusion a bit sooner. However his rational for doing this makes sense to me: there wasn't enough troops to secure the areas that were cleaned out by our soldiers, so terrorists moved back in once the soldiers moved on to another area. Now we will secure those areas.
Alright, count me in as a supporter of the plan.
The Democrats now say that we should begin a phased withdrawal in order to force the Iraqis to get serious about training their own troops and taking responsibility for their own security. They don't want us to be a participating referee in a religious civil war.
by Thomas E. Brewton
If voters are well enough informed to make the complex decision about pulling out of Iraq, why do we need liberal-socialist-progressive government to tell them how to live their daily lives?
Liberal Republicans and liberal Democrats say that the American people voted in the latest Congressional elections to pull our troops out of Iraq, sooner rather than later. Is that the whole story, and is it a valid basis for forming life-or-death foreign policy?
On the one hand, liberals are, in effect, adopting Ross Perot's idea that all voters should have computers and internet connections that would permit continuous referenda on every policy matter before Congress.
On the other hand, liberals' stock-in-trade is the firm conviction that voters need to be protected from their follies and must be coddled and comforted by government, from cradle to grave. Why does government have to keep such purportedly well informed voters from eating the wrong things, driving the wrong automobiles, and borrowing money on terms they can't meet?
by Jim Kouri, CPP
As the United States reviews its plans to secure, stabilize, and rebuild Iraq, the Government Accountability Office submitted several reports forCongressional consideration in developing its oversight agenda for the 110th Congress and analyzing the President's revised strategy for Iraq. On Wednesday night, President George W. Bush is expected to reveal his new strategy in a televised speech to the American people.
These reports and papers are based on the continuing work of the GAO and the 67 Iraq-related reports and testimonies they've provided to the US Congress since May 2003.
Iraq has had three successful elections, adopted a constitution, and installed its first elected government. At the same time, since the initial ground offensive ended in 2003, the costs to secure and stabilize Iraq have grown substantially, as has the level of violence that afflicts Iraqi society.
by Jeff Lukens
Imagine a Super Bowl football team quitting the game in the third quarter simply because they were behind. The premise is so absurd it is inconceivable. So too would be our quitting a war to protect our way of life simply because battlefield conditions are not going perfectly.
Football teams continually adjust their tactics and strategy during a game based on playing conditions on the field. And so does a nation at war. Seldom does any country enter a war with a perfect strategy in which to win it. Almost always, shortcomings are found that require a new approach. A victorious nation modifies what needs to be modified, and they go on.
That's what we've done in almost every war since the American Revolution. It did not happen in the first Iraq war in 1991 because it was over so quickly, but it's what we must do now in the second Iraq war. No one ever said things would go perfectly this time. Unlike football, no one knows for sure when a war will end. But we do know that if we don't play to win, we are sure we lose.
By Alan Caruba
There’s a reason why political power was taken from the Republicans and given to the Democrat Party. Voters in the political center had concluded that the Iraq invasion has been a failure. They may be wrong, but the Middle East has a long history of befuddling the best efforts to reform it.
At the heart of the election was the conclusion that, given America’s famed managerial and military skills, what had occurred in Iraq was a failure of competency at the highest levels of government. The blame cannot be placed on our soldiers, airmen, and Marines. It was not a failure of the valor of our fighting forces.
It is now widely understood that the White House and Pentagon failed to provide either sufficient manpower or planning for the postwar period.