Even A Caveman…

The list of Osama bin Laden’s greatest video hits continues this week with a new release. The invisible one appears to be able to get access to the latest news and current events and latest Muslim fashions. It is no longer shocking that he is able to film and release these tapes, what is shocking is that he is able to release these tapes on cue. You ever notice that whenever we are at a point when the Neo-Con agenda is being questioned or a report is due, that we are graced with the presence of the bearded one.

His last appearance was right before the 2004 election, giving Mr. Bush and company the final push in a close election. There are those who believe that these are more than coincidences and that possibly these tapes are the products of some nefarious secret body of government designed to silence any dissension in the “war on terror”. While I am not in a position to gauge the validity of this theory there are some troublesome signs in the latest offering as pointed out by the Independent.


In a banner ad for the video, the al-Qai'da leader, now aged 50, looked fit, with a full beard of dark black hair, rather than his usual grey-streaked beard. Instead of the customary combat jacket, he was wearing Arabic robes.

"It does look oddly as if he is wearing a false beard," Richard Clarke, a former White House counter-terrorism official, said. "If we go back to the tape three years ago, he had a very white beard. This looks like a phoney beard that has been passed on."

The al-Qai'da leader has not appeared in a video message in almost three years and has not put out a new audio message for more than a year. His last video broadcast was days before the 2004 presidential vote.[1]

So not only does bin Laden seem to be suddenly interested in liberal causes in America, he is also getting younger and dressing better. Living in caves does seem to have its advantages, which is strange since he is suppose to be the most hunted man on the planet. The sad truth about the theory is that we will never know; the same people who may have created the video are the ones who are authenticating the video. Isn’t it sad that there has been so much disillusionment with the government that these theories even seem plausible?

I wonder what will be next for bin Laden hyping the Super Bowl or maybe doing a halftime video with Paris Hilton. The sad truth is that the majority of people in America have allowed their fears and prejudices to be played upon by a highly organized group of people who want to keep us in war mode for the foreseeable future. As long as we are in war mode nothing the government does is too extreme, they are after all protecting you from the terrorists. What these people have learned is that if you can create a war without end (the war on drugs) suspension of liberties and habeas corpus rights will not be challenged.

Bush has so much as said that he has unlimited power under the War Powers Act. Not only does the war mentality stifle internal debate, it also allows for war profiteering to go unchallenged as well. I found it interesting that bin Laden was associated with every cause that the Neo-Cons have railed against for years. What they have done with this video is linked the head of terrorism with anyone who would espouse the ideas of freedom, global warming, and corporate criminal behavior. So basically anyone who is progressive is now also a minion of Al Qaeda and bin Laden. Talk about silencing the opposition, who in their right mind would want to be connected to terrorism?

Where is the skeptical media? Where are the questions of why with the 9/11 anniversary coming up this video mysteriously arrives? As usual there is silence from the MSM and they wonder why their public standing is so low. I would be curious to know why no one has questioned the authenticity of the video when the intelligence community got it before the Al Qaeda website could even post it. This seems strange to me, coupled with the fact of bin Laden’s appearance being markedly different one could wonder about its origin.

One thing is for sure though; even a man supposedly living in a cave in the middle of nowhere can recognize that the state of America is deteriorating.

The al-Qaeda leader's first video message for three years featured a bizarre rant against America, with references to global warming, "insane taxes", the US mortgage market meltdown and rising interest rates.[2]

[1] http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2941864.ece
[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/09/wladen109.xml

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Freedom And The War On Terror

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A top U.S. envoy praised President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government Wednesday and skirted the issue of his expulsion of a top political rival, taking some heat off the military leader as he struggles for election to a new term.

Soon after Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte's tribute to Pakistan's anti-terrorism efforts, the army reported killing up to 40 Islamic militants near the Afghan border.

Asked about Sharif's expulsion, Negroponte offered no criticism. He said it was as "an internal Pakistani political and legal matter and it's for the government and people of Pakistan to decide."

"We look forward to democratic elections being held in Pakistan quite shortly. We think it's important there be a smooth and democratic political transition," Negroponte said.[1]

This is the response of the US concerning the deteriorating situation in Pakistan. The political situation in Pakistan is about to reach critical mass and the Bush administration continues to placate General Musharraf and his assault on democracy. If anyone ever needed an example of why our position in the world is less than stellar, Pakistan would be a good place to start. On the one hand we talk of freedom and democracy and yet we continue to support leaders who eradicate those very things.

The administration of General Musharraf has continually scoffed at the courts, the opposition, and the people as they pave the way for his continued rein of undemocratic authority. The General has refused to relinquish his hold on the military as head of the army while serving as President. The Supreme Court in Pakistan has ruled this unconstitutional, but the General has chosen to ignore them so far.

Granted the political system in Pakistan has left a lot to be desired, with both opposition leaders being the target of corruption charges and scandals. However, we cannot enunciate democracy for some and not democracy for all. We must advocate a peaceful return to democracy for Pakistan. It appears that because General Musharraf is an ally in the war on terror, he is immune to the criticism we bestow so readily to others. We are presenting a hypocritical approach to our foreign policy and it is only fueling the impression that we only attack those who refuse to go along with our views. This administration has been the biggest recruiter for terrorist through its policy of benign neglect and its refusal to call our so-called allies on their crap. General Musharraf has continued to selectively prosecute the war on terror and yet we continue to heap praise on this man.

The following is a quote from General Musharraf in Great Britain on December 6, 2004, when asked if the war on terror had made the world less safe.

In an interview for the Newsnight programme, it was suggested to Gen Pervez Musharraf the world was less safe - in part because of the campaign.

"Absolutely," he said, adding that the social grievances that helped recruit terrorists were not being addressed.[2]

General Musharraf has always had to walk a fine line in the war on terror because of the fundamentalist in his own country. Because he has tried to fight the war against terrorism and indulge the religious extremists inside Pakistan, he has placed himself in a very tenuous position. Already he has been the target of four assassination attempts by the religious extremists he has tried to pacify.

He came to power some four years back after staging a coup against a weak and corrupt civilian government. The world reacted with disdain then and considered him a pariah. His fortunes snowballed dramatically after September 11 when he decided to back the United States in its war on terrorism. To the dismay of democratic Pakistanis, the United States quickly co-opted the general and bestowed legitimacy upon him. Past dictators in Pakistan and elsewhere in the Third World have been propped up by the United States, which has allowed them to either stifle or postpone democracy.[3]

We can no longer afford the luxury of supporting tyranny while at the same time talking democracy. The world is no longer accepting the do as I say not as I do argument. We must not let our zeal to prosecute the war on terror cloud our judgment of what are values are. If we do that, if we allow are support of democracy to be corrupted then the terrorists have in fact won without blowing up a building or firing a single shot. Freedom and dictatorship can never be package together, either we support democracy for all or we do not. Let’s be clear about where the US stands.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/12/AR2007091200204.html
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4071103.stm
[3] http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/iisite/media/01-07-04-DetroitNews-Nazir-Musharraf.htm

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If Someone Dies In Iraq Are They Really Dead?

There seems to be some discussion as to what the meaning of death is in Iraq. It seems that the military has one definition and the media and the intelligence community has another. Because of these differing opinions progress in Iraq will be hard to gauge and for good reason, it provides cover for those Republicans and chickens**t Democrats who want to continue to feed the beast that is Iraq. According to many “experts” (I use the term loosely) the drop in violence in Iraq is not accurate, it reflects the military’s use of only positive data to create their trends. The military and the Bush administration fudging figures to build support for the Iraq war, I don’t believe it. I’m shocked! Just because they lied leading up to this war doesn’t mean they’ll continue to lie does it?

Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory. "Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree," Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.[1]

Whatever happened to the good ole body count figures? You know you drop some napalm in the jungle and then guesstimate how many enemy soldiers were there and claim progress. Life was so much simpler then, we knew the military was lying and responded appropriately. Today things aren’t quite as simple, we have a White House that has politicized every government department designed to watch it, a military command structure that will only tell the truth after they retire, and we have a Democratic Congress that is content to allow this war to continue to gain political hay in 2008. If there are never any accurate figures concerning the war, then there can be no honest debate concerning progress. This is the mission of those who want to keep us confused and bewildered, knowing that because of our empire mentality there are enough Americans who will “stay the course” with the slightest report of progress, so it doesn’t appear as a defeat. The more confusing the picture, the better the status quo appears to be.

It is important to remember that whoever develops the question frames the debate. Depending on the questions you ask, you determine the answers. Our government and media are experts at asking the wrong questions. Do you support America or terrorists? The question should be do you support equality and fairness. However, by limiting the question to such a specific response you are able to filter out all responsible dissent.

Finally, it’s bad enough that they hide the dead bodies of American service personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Depriving our nation of the opportunity to witness the real cost of war, the flag draped coffins are unloaded under the cover of secrecy. Now because the American people “can’t handle” the truth, the military has stopped releasing the number of civilian casualties. I feel so secure with such a benevolent government looking out for my well-being. The thought of seeing all those dead soldiers is enough to change me from a chickenhawk to a peacenik.

The military stopped releasing statistics on civilian deaths in late 2005, saying the news media were taking them out of context. In an e-mailed response to questions last weekend, an MNF-I spokesman said that while trends were favorable, "exact monthly figures cannot be provided" for attacks against civilians or other categories of violence in 2006 or 2007, either in Baghdad or for the country overall. "MNF-I makes every attempt to ensure it captures the most comprehensive, accurate, and valid data on civilian and sectarian deaths," the spokesman wrote. "However, there is not one central place for data or information. . . . This means there can be variations when different organizations examine this information."[2]

Of course this makes it hard to track the number and level of civilian attacks, but using the military’s accounting system they aren’t counted anyway. Why let something as insignificant as facts stand in the way of a perfectly good strategy. The surge is working because we say it’s working. Who are you going to trust the Bush administration and the military or some Iraqis and your lying eyes? There has been significant progress to continue this policy.

The sad part is that the Dems will continue to behave as jellyfish believing that Bush is handing them the White House and a Congressional majority in 2008. They harbor the false belief that these things are theirs to lose and if they don’t do anything stupid they will win. The only problem with doing nothing in the presence of wrongdoing is that you did nothing. We stand up to tyranny not because it is popular or safe, but because it is the right thing to do.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/05/AR2007090502466.html?hpid=topnews
[2] Ibid.

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Shall We Dance?

It seems that after every financial fiasco, the heads of government departments dealing with the financial markets parade in front of Congress with the same ole song and dance. Yes, there needs to more oversight, but no we should not create any new legislation.

The current mortgage fiasco is the latest in a long list of financial malfeasance by corporate America that will be swept under the rug with little more than an asterisk. The average American will once again be made the scapegoat for the greed and excesses of capitalism gone wild. Why is it that only after the raiders have made their money we recognize there is a problem?

Robert Steel Treasury's undersecretary of domestic finance in written testimony stated the following:

"The regulatory structure that we have, through our view, could use a fresh re-look. And that's what we at Treasury plan to do," Steel said. "I can't tell you where that will go. Let's do the work before we have the conclusions."

Steel added that innovation has outpaced regulation, meaning current regulation "is just not attuned as it should be."

Regulation is at the heart of today's financial turmoil. Despite a wide array of federal bank regulators, the standards used by mortgage lenders weakened considerably after 2004. For example, New Century Financial Corp., which wasn't federally regulated and is now bankrupt, underwrote millions of dubious home loans, many with adjustable-rate mortgages to so-called subprime borrowers — those with the weakest credit histories.[1]

Is it just me or are these guys the masters of the obvious? Why do we believe that the greediest people will do the greediest of things to help the most people, it is illogical. We allow these corporations to go unchecked with the false belief that given the opportunity they will do the right thing and every time they prove that they will not. The pie must begin to be shared on a more equitable basis. The American worker must be allowed to organize to offset the growing influence of corporations on our economy and our politics.

The people entrusted to oversee the corporations are many times former members of the very companies they are regulating. There is a revolving door between government and corporations that must be closed. We can no longer afford to have our laws written by the people they are supposed to control. Thanks in large part to the Republicans, we barely have any regulatory powers as it is now and if we allow the few we have to be controlled by the corporations this is a recipe for the types of disasters we are seeing with China and other loosely regulated industries.

The old lie that the marketplace will be the final arbitrator rings hollow when there is not a level playing field. As long as we have the industries writing the regulations that govern the industries we will continue to have economic and political injustice. The economic fallout from the mortgage crisis will be small in comparison, as more and more corporations cut corners in an effort to maximize profits. There are those who argue since the industry insiders know the industries best they should be allowed to write the regulations. This is foolishness, just because the burglar knows how to break into my house doesn’t mean I am going to let him write the code for protecting my house. I believe that there are many conscientious federal employees who want to do a good job, but are not being allowed to do so by corporate interference and political cronyism.

It is time for the politicians to step up to the plate and begin to put some teeth in legislation and regulations that will protect not only our physical wellbeing, but our economic wellbeing as well. It is an abdication of their responsibility as fiduciary agents to continue to sign off on industry written regulations or industry assurances that they will perform better in the future. No longer can we afford to let the financial markets dance without paying the band.

[1] http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/19484.html

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Send Us Your Tired…

Will we ever get the truth about Iraq?

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 — The number of detainees held by the American-led military coalition in Iraq has swelled by 50 percent under the troop increase ordered by President Bush, with the inmate population growing from 16,000 in February to 24,500 today, according to American military officers in Iraq.

Nearly 85 percent of the detainees in custody are Sunni Arabs, the minority faction in Iraq that ruled the country under the government of Saddam Hussein, with the other detainees being Shiite Muslims, the officers say.

Of the Sunni detainees, about 1,800 claim allegiance to a group that calls itself Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, military officers said. Another 6,000 identify themselves as takfiris, meaning Muslims who believe some other Muslims are not true believers. Such extremists view Shiite Muslims as heretics.[1]

It looks like our solution to the insurgency is to lock everybody up, as the number of detainees’ increase I think that the warm welcome we have received so far from the Iraqi people will dissipate rather quickly with this news. I find it hard to believe that the only people fighting our troops are the Sunnis, yet they are the majority of the detainee population.

If I didn’t know any better I would make the assumption that we are being the pawns of the Shia majority in rounding up those Sunni troublemakers. While I have no doubt that many of those incarcerated are who they are reported to be, it has been my experience that there are many who are not. Whenever you have military personnel doing policing maneuvers there is always the potential of innocents being included in the roundups. The reason this is important is that there is no true civil court system in place in Iraq and I believe many of those rounded up are turned over to the Iraqi police, who we have documented are rife with sectarianism. This will inevitably lead to torture and abuse for a lot of innocent Sunnis, which in turn will fuel more sectarian violence. It is easy to see how this civil war will continue to feed itself regardless of if we are in the middle or not.

There’s one other thing this administration has neglected to disclose. The majority of detainees’ are not al Qaeda foreign fighters, but in fact Iraqis.

“Interestingly, we’ve found that the vast majority are not inspired by jihad or hate for the coalition or Iraqi government — the vast majority are inspired by money,” said Capt. John Fleming of the Navy, who is spokesman for coalition detainee operations in Iraq.

“The primary motivator is economic — they’re angry men because they don’t have jobs,” he said. “The detainee population is overwhelmingly illiterate and unemployed. Extremists have been very successful at spreading their ideology to economically strapped Iraqis with little to no formal education.”[2]

Not only are they Iraqis, but they are resisting the occupation not on philosophical grounds, nationalist principles, or killing the infidels although I am sure these things play a role. The main reason is money. The majority of insurgents are just poor Iraqis trying to make a buck and their best option, to try and kill Americans. This free the Iraqis from oppression gets better by the day, you couldn’t make this stuff up. We have created the conditions where the best source of some quick cash is planting roadside devices targeted at US troops, is capitalism great or what?

How can we expect our military to combat this? We have placed them in an untenable position that we cannot get them out of, I guess no one in this administration has ever heard of the Powell Doctrine. The more people we detain, the more insurgents we create, the more insurgents we create, the more people we have to detain. This can go on to infinity. No matter how you process this war, it does not end well. There will be no clean break; there will be no victory parades. We just keep digging a bigger and bigger hole. And the best rationale we have for continuing is we don’t want another Vietnam?

The foreign policy wonks still don’t understand how much economics fuel the wars we are prosecuting. Whether it is the poor farmers in Afghanistan harvesting opium or in Columbia harvesting coca in our drug war or the poor Iraqi insurgents trying to survive in our war on terrorism, economics is a driving force. Of course to acknowledge such a fact would remove the smoke screen used to continue these unpopular and ineffective policies. It’s a war of cultures sells better than, it’s a war of the haves versus the have nots.

So send us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free and we will imprison them and label them terrorists. Once they’ve been labeled, then we can do what we want to them; they’re terrorists stupid.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/24/world/middleeast/24cnd-detain.html?hp
[2] Ibid.

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Is This Racism?

LOGAN, W.Va., Sept. 11 — A 20-year-old woman was held captive for more than a week in a mobile home, where she was raped, stabbed and tortured by at least a half-dozen people, the police said. Sheriff’s deputies rescued her on Saturday, and she remained hospitalized Tuesday in stable condition.

“I’ve been in law enforcement for more than 30 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen anything of this nature,” the Logan County sheriff, Eddie Hunter, said.

Six people, including a mother and her son and a mother and her daughter, have been charged in the case.[1]

The internet is abuzz with this story and how it represents the state of racism in America. While it is easy to draw that conclusion from the early evidence, I think it would be an oversimplification of the situation. It is alleged that some of the suspects used racial epithets to taunt the victim during her ordeal. While I believe that race was a factor in this case, the overriding factor is the dehumanization of another human being, regardless of race. I believe that as the evidence unfolds in this case the suspects will have a history of cruelty to all humans they have encountered.

For instance, Mr. Bobby Brewster the son of the owner of the trailer supposedly shot and killed his stepfather at the tender age of 12 and spent time in a juvenile facility. Race in this case would be a convenient place to hang your hat if that is your agenda. God knows there is plenty of evidence to do so, but in doing so you will miss the far greater issue in this case. For these sick individuals it would not have mattered if the victim were man, woman, child or animal. It would not have mattered if the victim were black, white, red, or green and it certainly wouldn’t have mattered if the victim were straight or gay. I mentioned these because they reflect the current extenuating circumstances for hate crime enhancement of sentences.

If charging these people with a hate crime will increase the likelihood that they will never see the light of day, so be it. But let’s not turn this into a cause célèbre about race, if we do we cheapen the true nature of racism and cover up the truth of how it permeates our society. There will be those who will show up at the bedside of the victim pontificating on how this represents American race relations, but they will only be trying to exploit this incident for their own personal agendas. We must be wary of those who will try to limit this to some personal crusade for justice.

If the suspects were black or the victim white would it make this act any less heinous? I would venture to say no. This says more about the state of American cruelty and how our society is becoming more savage with the passing of time. That there are people who would take advantage of this young woman because of her mental capacity speaks volumes about how we dehumanize each other to the point of this being acceptable to anyone. It is similar to the phenomenon we have seen in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the fact that the victims were Arab was secondary to the fact that those who perpetrated the crimes were able to exert power over another human. I have no doubt that those who are guilty of these types of crimes would commit them regardless of the racial makeup of their environment. Much like the crime of rape it is not so much about the victim as it is about the ability to project power over another human being.

I hate to say it, but this is more than racism. This is the embodiment of evil in our society and we must confront that fact as much as we must confront the racial aspects of this case. To ignore that fact is to ignore who and what we are becoming. To me that would be a greater injustice to the victim than whether this is a hate crime or not. It is definitely a hate crime, but it is a hate crime against all of humanity. So I end as I began, “Is this racism?”

Karen Burton – charged with malicious wounding, battery, assault during the commission of a felony.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Logan County, she pulled the victim’s hair, choked the victim, cut her ankles and told her “that’s what we do to niggers around here.”

Bobby R. Brewster – charged with kidnapping, first-degree sexual assault, malicious wounding, assault during commission of a felony.
According to the criminal complaint, Brewster forced to victim to have sex with him, threatened to kill her, stabbed the victim and forced her to eat rat and dog feces and drink from a toilet bowl.

Danny J Combs – charged with first-degree sexual assault and malicious wounding.
According to the criminal complaint, he forced the victim to have sex with him at knife point.

Frankie Lee Brewster - charged with giving false information, second-degree sexual assault, kidnapping, malicious wounding.
According to the criminal complaint, Brewster forced the victim to have oral sex with her, threatened to kill the victim and withheld information from police when they arrived at her residence to investigate a missing person report.

Alisha Burton - charged with assault during the commission of a felony, battery.
According to the criminal complaint, Burton beat and choked the victim.[2]

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/us/12captive.html
[2] http://www.statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=28706

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General Petraeus Pulls A Freidman

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 — The top American commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, has recommended that decisions on the contentious issue of reducing the main body of the American troops in Iraq be put off for six months, American officials said Sunday.

General Petraeus, whose long-awaited testimony before Congress is to begin today at about 12:30 p.m. Eastern time, has informed President Bush that troop cuts may begin in mid-December, with the withdrawal of one of the 20 American combat brigades in Iraq, about 4,000 troops. By August 2008, the American force in Iraq would be down to 15 combat brigades, the force level before Mr. Bush’s troop reinforcement plan.[1]

The strategy for Iraq for the remainder of President Bush’s term is clear, delay, delay, delay. Taking a page from the syndicated columnist Thomas Freidman, the administration is going to prolong this surge six months at a time. Reminding us of the infamous Freidman timetables for Iraq, on fourteen different occasions Mr. Freidman predicted that the next six months were paramount to our success in Iraq and with every passing deadline a new one was inserted. This of course went on for two and half years, I wonder how many Freidman’s the General has planned for us?

Mr. Freidman was able to pull it off for over two years, the Bushies unfortunately have got only eighteen months. The refrain however is clear, we just need to stay the course another six months and progress is at hand. I don’t know how many of these “reports” it is going to take to get the message through, President Bush is not going to heed any advice but his own. To listen to others in his mind, is weakness. Forget the fact that this administration has been wrong in every major area of this conflict, forget the fact that all objective, bi-partisan observers have refuted his reasoning, he is right and everyone else is wrong.

The saddest part though is not Mr. Bush and the General; they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing. For anyone to expect Mr. Bush to change course now after all these years of seeing him in action is foolishness. It is the Democrats that have no excuse, by their inaction in my mind they have lost any legitimate claim to govern. Governing by polls is not leadership. In this country’s darkest times when we have needed an actual opposition party, we have been left with a party of “do nothings”. It should be noted that when this administration was using torture, curbing our democratic freedoms, and instituting the “Bush Doctrine” these guys stood silently by acquiescing to a President that had no clear majority or mandate. Imagine how bad it would had been had Bush actually won an election?

There are many who believe that the Dems should just wait and let George Bush continue to create a majority in the next election cycle. They argue, if the Dems just don’t do anything stupid the White House and Congress is theirs for the taking. I however do not accept such a strategy, if the Democrats continue to politicize these issues that are tearing our country apart at the seams, what makes them any different from the Republicans? At least the Republicans are willing to take stands on issues even if they are unpopular. It used to be that the Democrats stood for certain values, now it appears that those values have been compromised by fear and inactivity.

The best we can get from them today is a lot of self-righteous howling and indignation, but very little action. It appears that they have abdicated their role as the opposition party in favor of a don’t rock the boat mentality. Rather than challenging the status quo they have chosen the path of least resistance. It’s no wonder this President has no fear of them and continues to push his un-mandated conservative agenda.

Who speaks for the dead and dying in Iraq, who speaks for the uninsured, who speaks for the working poor? It certainly isn’t these Democrats, they are too afraid. The current strategy appears to be that the election is theirs to lose, so don’t do anything stupid. The sad thing is that they also won’t do anything brave and heroic either. The thing about living in fear is that it may keep you safe, but it also keeps you from displaying any courage. Courage is not that I am never afraid; it is that I am afraid but I do what is required anyway. I do not expect to see any courage in the coming eighteen months and it will say a lot about those who will want to govern this country.

So, we only have 3 more Freidman’s to go. I wonder how many US troops and Iraqis will not live to see the end of the Freidman’s.

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/washington/10cnd-Petraeus.html?hp

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