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Intervening her 2001 article \"Bystanders to Genocide,\" Pulitzer Be cognizant winning reporter Samantha Occupation recounts how President Clinton was knocked too outraged bygone an article written gone Philip Gourevitch recounting the horrors of the 1994 genocide mid Rwanda, prompting him to consign the article to his national bond advisor Sandy Berger with a civility scrawled medially the vanguard refinement \"Is what he's daffodil appropriate? How did that light?\" Next receipt department, President Bush reportedly render Quarter's article forward the Clinton rule's wreck to intervene amid the genocide. He more scrawled a message betwixt the leadership - \"NOT Uncertain MY WATCH.\" Yet we are due to faced with extra African genocide, this tide amid Darfur, moreover the United States more the hang out of the ball are responding exactly thanks to they did throughout Rwanda - with paralyzed inaction. Though there are sundry key differences at intervals what is earnings subsequent among Darfur together with what occurred tween Rwanda a decade ago, there are together with profuse similarities. Between 1993, the world watched \"Schindler's Information\" conjointly wondered how comparable horrors could unfold furthermore why they were not stopped. At intervals 2004, it watched \"Hotel Rwanda\" and asked the comparable issues. At intervals each register, those messs went unanswered. Vital as at intervals Rwanda, the international military arena on the ground centrally located Darfur is far and small, poorly equipped including operating under an scarcely ever lower mandate this does not allow them to protect civilians at risk. Entirely meanwhile centrally located Rwanda, the genocide is proceeds locate against a locale of \"civil war,\" leading the international community to zero in to boot credible establishing a cease-fire than protecting those seeing killed. Veracious due to amidst Rwanda, the afterlife prize is nearly impossible to credit. Right meanwhile inserted Rwanda, the United Nations is too or fewer paralyzed since peculiar nations seek to protect their unique national inspires rather than helpless squad, women too children. Precisely seeing enclosed by Rwanda, media coverage is around nonexistent, Congress is in toto but silent, along the character rights ensemble is having difficulty overhear the nation to net application to a genocide amidst last. Thoroughly until mid Rwanda, a genocide is sequel - but this stage it is stir onward our watch. We ask you to adjust the Coalition seeing Darfur meanwhile we devote to found awareness of the genocide among Darfur including cull expenditure Because the aware saving employ Unshackle the Children is doing there. Cheap Generic Viagra

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Ron Paul held a news conference today at the National Press Club. Sixty percent of the American people do not approve of either of the two major party candidates, in part because; We cannot expect withdrawal of troops from Iraq or the Middle East with either of the two major candidates. Expect continued involvement in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Georgia. Neither hints of a non-interventionist foreign policy. Do not expect to hear the rejection of the policy of supporting the American world empire. There will be no emphasis in protecting privacy and civil liberties and the constant surveillance of the American people. Do not expect any serious attempt to curtail the rapidly expanding national debt. And certainly, there will be no hint of addressing the Federal Reserve System and its cozy relationship with big banks and international corporations and the politicians. read more | digg story His advice? vote for a "third party" candidate. All of the candidates (except the major ones) agreed to the following four principles as part of being mentioned by name by Ron Paul in his speech; Foreign Policy: The Iraq War must end as quickly as possible with removal of all our soldiers from the region. We must initiate the return of our soldiers from around the world, including Korea, Japan, Europe and the entire Middle East. We must cease the war propaganda, threats of a blockade and plans for attacks on Iran, nor should we re-ignite the cold war with Russia over Georgia. We must be willing to talk to all countries and offer friendship and trade and travel to all who are willing. We must take off the table the threat of a nuclear first strike against all nations. Privacy: We must protect the privacy and civil liberties of all persons under US jurisdiction. We must repeal or radically change the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA legislation. We must reject the notion and practice of torture, eliminations of habeas corpus, secret tribunals, and secret prisons. We must deny immunity for corporations that spy willingly on the people for the benefit of the government. We must reject the unitary presidency, the illegal use of signing statements and excessive use of executive orders. The National Debt: We believe that there should be no increase in the national debt. The burden of debt placed on the next generation is unjust and already threatening our economy and the value of our dollar. We must pay our bills as we go along and not unfairly place this burden on a future generation. The Federal Reserve: We seek a thorough investigation, evaluation and audit of the Federal Reserve System and its cozy relationships with the banking, corporate, and other financial institutions. The arbitrary power to create money and credit out of thin air behind closed doors for the benefit of commercial interests must be ended. There should be no taxpayer bailouts of corporations and no corporate subsidies. Corporations should be aggressively prosecuted for their crimes and frauds. Reads like an essential list of principles to me. Based on this list, even I would vote for Ralph Nader. But I'm still pulling the lever marked "L" and voting for all the Libertarian candidates, just as I have done for the last 16 years. Here's Ron Paul on the Glenn Beck show discussing the substance of the news conference; He was also on Wolf Blitzer. You can watch that one on the Campaign for Liberty site, I'm not posting it here. I found Blitzer's wheedling of both Dr. Paul and Ralph Nader (trying to get them to admit they want to ruin the election for Obama) to be so transparent as to be disgusting. May the ghost of Edward R. Murrow haunt you for the remainder of your (limited) days, Mr Blitzer. Yellow journalism doesn't begin to describe your function in life. You are no more, and no less than a common propagandist; and of which you are nothing in comparison to Ol' Joey himself. It's being reported that C-Span will have the conference available on the website after it airs. I think it's a good sign that the so called "third parties" have come together to present a united opposition to the sham that is the US election cycle. If only one of them could be elected instead of one of the Mc-bamas . My money is still on the guy with the better teeth and hair. Not that I think he'll do a good job, I just think Americans are really that shallow when it comes right down to it. The Raw Story has a video clip from CNN of the News Conference. It is also available as a purchase from C-span, or you can watch it in 9 segments on the Campaign for Liberty Channel on YouTube. Here's the first segment: Cheap Generic Viagra

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The following treatise is lengthy and detailed, but it is well worth the time and effort to read and digest it's shocking assertions. Full documentation can be found at the end of the article. Mr. Vidino has done the world a valuable service in providing this thorough expose' of the ultimate goals of Islam, the centerpiece of which is to usher in Sharia law. I sincerely hope you will take the time to read this article in its entirety. The future of the world may be at stake. At the very least, liberty as we have grown to cherish it hangs in the balance. I invite your comments on this article. These issues MUST be discussed, and the time is growing short. Note that while more 'moderate' Muslims may not employ violent means to reach their goals, their goals are nonetheless the same as the Jihadists. In fact, they do not rule out violence as an option. So there go your so-called 'peace-loving' Muslims. Aims and Methods of Europe's Muslim Brotherhood by Lorenzo Vidino Published on Wednesday, November 01, 2006 ARTICLES Current Trends in Islamist Ideology vol. 4 In 1990 Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an influential Sunni scholar and the unofficial theological leader of the international Muslim Brotherhood (al Ikhwan al Muslimoun), published a book called Priorities of the Islamic Movement in the Coming Phase. [1] This 186-page treatise can be considered the most recent manifesto of the Islamist revivalist movement. As Qaradawi explains in the introduction, the “Islamic Movement” is meant to be the “organized, collective work, undertaken by the people, to restore Islam to the leadership of society” and to reinstate “the Islamic caliphate system to the leadership anew as required by sharia.” Qaradawi’s treatise introduces a new agenda and modus operandi for the movement, signaling a clear break with many salafi groups and even with some past ideological elements of the Muslim Brotherhood. While the book does not rule out the use of violence to defend Muslim lands, it generally advocates the use of dawa, dialogue, and other peaceful means to achieve the movement’s goals. This doctrine is commonly referred to as “wassatiyya,” a sort of “middle way” between violent extremism and secularism, and Qaradawi is one of its key proponents. [2] After examining the situation of the “Islamic Movement” throughout the Muslim world, the dissertation devotes significant attention to the situation of Muslims living in the West. Qaradawi explains how Muslim expatriates living in Europe, Australia and North America “are no longer few in numbers,” and that their presence is both permanent and destined to grow with new waves of immigration. While Qaradawi says that their presence is “necessary” for several reasons—such as spreading the word of Allah globally and defending the Muslim Nation “against the antagonism and misinformation of anti- Islamic forces and trends”—it is also problematic. Because the Muslim Nation, and therefore Muslim minorities “scattered throughout the world,” do not have a centralized leadership, “melting” poses a serious risk. Qaradawi warns, in other words, that a Muslim minority could lose its Islamic identity and be absorbed by the non-Muslim majority. Qaradawi sees the lack of Muslim leadership not only as a problem, however. He also views it as an unprecedented opportunity for the Islamist movement to “play the role of the missing leadership of the Muslim Nation with all its trends and groups.” While the revivalist movement can exercise only limited influence in Muslim countries, where hostile regimes keep it in check, Qaradawi realizes that it is able to operate freely in the democratic West. Muslim expatriates disoriented by life in non-Muslim communities and often lacking the most basic knowledge about Islam, moreover, represent an ideally receptive audience for the movement’s propaganda. Qaradawi asserts that revivalists need to take on an activist role in the West, claiming that “it is the duty of [the] Islamic Movement not to leave these expatriates to be swept by the whirlpool of the materialistic trend that prevails in the West.” Having affirmed the necessity of the Islamist movement in the West, Qaradawi proceeds to present a plan of operation. The Egyptian-born scholar openly calls for the creation of a separate society for Muslims within the West. While he highlights the importance of keeping open a dialogue with non-Muslims, he advocates the establishment of Muslim communities with “their own religious, educational and recreational establishments.” He urges his fellow revivalists to try “to have your small society within the larger society” and “your own ‘Muslim ghetto.’” Qaradawi clearly sees the Islamist movement playing a crucial role in creating these separated Muslim communities and thereby providing it with an unprecedented opportunity to implement its vision, at least partially. Its local affiliates will run the mosques, schools, and civic organizations that shape the daily life of the desired “Muslim ghettoes.” And Qaradawi’s ambitions go further still. Without saying so openly, he suggests that sharia law should govern the relations among inhabitants of these Muslim islands; Muslim minorities “should also have amongst them their own ulema and men of religion to answer their questions when they ask them, guide them when they lose the way and reconcile them when they differ among themselves.” What Qaradawi outlines in his treatise might, at first glance, appear to be nothing more than a fantasy. In reality, it corresponds to what the international network of the Muslim Brotherhood has been doing in the West for the past fifty years. Since the end of World War II, in fact, members of al Ikhwan al Muslimoun have settled in Europe and worked relentlessly to implement the goals stated by Qaradawi. In almost every European country, they founded student organizations that, having evolved into nationwide umbrella organizations, have become—thanks to their activism and to the financial support from Arab Gulf countries—the most prominent representatives of local Muslim communities. They established a web of mosques, research centers, think tanks, charities and schools that has been successful in spreading their heavily politicized interpretation of Islam. Finally, today, with the creation of a supranational jurisprudential body called the European Council for Fatwa and Research, the Ikhwan is taking its first, cautious steps toward Qaradawi’s final goal: the introduction of sharia law within the Muslim communities of Europe. Having been the focus of attention of authorities since its early days, the Muslim Brotherhood tends to be extremely secretive, and only if circumstances are favorable do its members reveal their affiliation. While most of the first Islamic activists in Europe were official members of the Brotherhood, moreover, formal links between the group’s Middle Eastern base and its European followers have waned over time for various reasons. But the issue of formal affiliation to the Ikhwan is moot because the Muslim Brotherhood is more than a group; it is now better defined as a movement whose organization is far from monolithic and whose members are kept together mostly by ideological affinity. Mohammed Akif, the current General Guide and supreme leader of the Brotherhood and a former head of its Islamic Center of Munich, explained the Ikhwan’s transcendence of formalities in an interview with Xavier Ternisien, a French expert on religion. [3] He said, We do not have an international organization; we have an organization through our perception of things. We are present in every country. Everywhere there are people who believe in the message of the Muslim Brothers. In France, the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF) does not belong to the organization of the Brothers. They follow their own laws and rules. There are many organizations that do not belong to the Muslim Brothers. For example, Shaykh al-Qaradawi. He is not a Muslim Brother, but he was formed according to the doctrine of the Brothers. The doctrine of the Brothers is a written doctrine that has been translated in all languages. In a 2005 interview Akif elaborated further. European Ikhwan organizations have no direct link to the Egyptian branch, he insisted, but they nevertheless coordinate actions with them. He concluded the interview saying, tellingly, that “we [the Ikhwan] have the tendency not to make distinctions among us.” [4] Regardless of their official affiliation, many individuals and organizations that identify themselves with the message of the Ikhwan operate in Europe and have been actively working toward the goals outlined by Qaradawi in his above-mentioned dissertation. Driven by their firm belief in the superiority of Islam to any other religion or system of life, the European Brothers fight daily to achieve their goal, using all possible tools, including painful but necessary compromises with European authorities. “Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor, after being expelled from it twice,” Qaradawi says. But he adds, “I maintain that the conquest this time will not be by the sword but by preaching and ideology.” [5] The European Ikhwan network, under the cover of various civil rights groups and Islamic organizations, is the vanguard of this peaceful conquest. Putting Down Roots in Europe According to Mohammed Akif, “the Brotherhood established itself in Europe” in the 1950s. [6] At that time Nasser and other pan-Arabist regimes were cracking down on the organization, and many of its members had to flee their homelands. For various reasons most of the Muslim Brothers leaving the persecution of Middle Eastern regimes chose West Germany as their destination. Some had reportedly established links with Germany during World War II when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al Husseini, moved to Berlin and aided the Nazi regime in its anti-Jewish propaganda. [7] Others benefited from the fact that the West German government, implementing what came to be known as the Hallstein doctrine, had opened its doors to dissidents persecuted by regimes that had recognized East Germany, which included Egypt and Syria. [8] Many were attracted, moreover, by the prestige of the country’s technical faculties and decided to further their studies in Germany’s engineering, architecture, and medical schools. Among this group of pioneers of revivalist Islam in Europe, Said Ramadan stands out. Born in 1926 in a village north of Cairo, Ramadan joined the Muslim Brotherhood at age 14 after attending a lecture by the organization’s founder, Hassan al-Banna. [9] In 1946, upon obtaining his law license from the University of Cairo, Ramadan became al-Banna’s personal secretary and began the publication of Al Shihab, the organization’s official magazine. In 1948 he fought in Palestine among Arab volunteers and was briefly appointed the head of Jerusalem’s military corps by King Abdallah of Jordan. He then traveled to the newly established state of Pakistan where, despite his young age, he competed for the chair of secretary general of the World Muslim Congress. By December 1948 the Egyptian government had outlawed the Brotherhood, and the following year Egyptian police assassinated al-Banna. Given these developments, Ramadan decided to remain in Pakistan, where he worked as a “cultural ambassador” of the country to the Arab world. In 1950, as the ban on the Brotherhood was lifted, he returned to Egypt and began to publish Al Muslimoon, one of the most important magazines of revivalist thought. Nasser’s sudden rise to power in 1953 shook Egyptian political life and—after a short period of peaceful coexistence among the Brothers and Nasser’s Free Officers government—another clampdown on the Brotherhood ensued.” Realizing he could not continue his activities in Egypt, Ramadan left the country after his release. Following short sojourns in various Middle Eastern countries, he moved to Europe permanently with his wife Wafa, al-Banna’s eldest daughter. They settled in Geneva, Switzerland, and Ramadan enrolled at the University of Cologne, where he obtained a graduate degree in law with a dissertation on Islamic law. In 1961 Ramadan founded the Islamic Center of Geneva, located first in a villa donated by an Arabian prince and then in an odd white and green building a stone’s throw from Lake Leman. Other eminent Islamic scholars sat on the founding board of the center, including the Indian scholars Mohammed Hamidullah and Maulana Abdul Hassan Ali al Nadwi. It became one of the main headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, and was the first of a score that Ramadan worked to set up throughout Europe with the financial support of Saudi Arabia. The next year Ramadan was also instrumental in the Saudi kingdom’s establishment of the Muslim World League, a government funded transnational organization created to spread the Saudi interpretation of Islam. Ramadan was one of its main founders and even wrote its constitution. With the ample financial backing of the Saudis, Ramadan began to establish the Brotherhood in other European countries. An early opportunity arose when a group of Arab students in Munich contacted him for help with the construction of a mosque in that city. The Arab students were competing for control of the Mosque Construction Commission, a body that was trying to raise funds for the new Munich mosque. [10] Their adversaries were a group of Muslim ex-soldiers who had fought with the Nazis during World War II and had stayed in Munich after the conflict. Originating from Central Asia and the Caucasus, these ex-soldiers embraced a moderate interpretation of Islam that clashed with the more militant views of the Arabs. By 1960 Ramadan, thanks to his Saudi funding, secured for himself the position of chairman of the commission, and by 1973, when the mosque was completed, the Brotherhood had completely overshadowed other influences over the mosque. As Geneva was the launching pad for the European operations of the Brotherhood, Munich became its main headquarters in Germany. The Ramadan-dominated Mosque Construction Commission became a permanent organization, which later changed its name to the Islamic Society of Germany (IGD). Ramadan headed the organization for ten years until 1973, when one of the students who had originally contacted him, Syrian born Ghaleb Himmat, took over at the helm. [11] Himmat, who kept his position until 2002, is a prominent member of the European Ikhwan network and co-founder of Bank al-Taqwa, a financial institution widely believed to have served as the Brotherhood’s clearinghouse in the West. According to European and American authorities, Himmat and Youssef Nada, one of the Brother hood’s top financial minds, used al-Taqwa and an extensive network of companies to finance the construction and activities of dozens of Brotherhood-related projects throughout the West. Both men, whom the U.S. Treasury Department also accuses of having financed Hamas and al Qaeda, [12] have been designated terrorism financiers by various Western countries and by the United Nations. After Himmat’s retirement, the chairmanship of the IGD passed to Ibrahim El Zayat, a younger, German-born activist with a phenomenal talent for both public relations and, like his predecessor, murky financial transactions. In 2002 El Zayat, as a director of the Saudi-based NGO World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) that spreads Wahhabi literature worldwide, came under investigation in Germany for having funneled more than two million dollars to an al-Qaeda-linked charity and for his involvement in other money-laundering activities. [13] Yet thanks to its activism and good finances, the IGD is now Germany’s most important Muslim organization, representing more than sixty Islamic centers nationwide. Together with Milli G Cheap Generic Viagra

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The following is an opinion piece published by the Wall Street Journal. The article is a composite of a recent speech Victor Davis Hanson delivered in honor of Sir Winston Churchill at the Claremont Institute. This is absolutely the most detailed and eloquent description of our present crisis in the West in the face of the march of Islamic Jihadists. Losing the Enlightenment A civilization that has lost confidence in itself cannot confront the Islamists. BY VICTOR DAVIS HANSON Wednesday, November 29, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST Our current crisis is not yet a catastrophe, but a real loss of confidence of the spirit. The hard-won effort of the Western Enlightenment of some 2,500 years that, along with Judeo-Christian benevolence, is the foundation of our material progress, common decency, and scientific excellence, is at risk in this new millennium. But our newest foes of Reason are not the enraged Athenian democrats who tried and executed Socrates. And they are not the Christian zealots of the medieval church who persecuted philosophers of heliocentricity. Nor are they Nazis who burned books and turned Western science against its own to murder millions en masse. No, the culprits are now more often us. In the most affluent, and leisured age in the history of Western civilization--never more powerful in its military reach, never more prosperous in our material bounty--we have become complacent, and then scared of the most recent face of barbarism from the primordial extremists of the Middle East. What would a beleaguered Socrates, a Galileo, a Descartes, or Locke believe, for example, of the moral paralysis in Europe? Was all their bold and courageous thinking--won at such a great personal cost--to allow their successors a cheap surrender to religious fanaticism and the megaphones of state-sponsored fascism? Just imagine in our present year, 2006: plan an opera in today's Germany, and then shut it down. Again, this surrender was not done last month by the Nazis, the Communists, or kings, but by the producers themselves in simple fear of Islamic fanatics who objected to purported bad taste. Or write a novel deemed unflattering to the Prophet Mohammed. That is what did Salman Rushdie did, and for his daring, he faced years of solitude, ostracism, and death threats--and in the heart of Europe no less. Or compose a documentary film, as did the often obnoxious Theo Van Gogh, and you may well have your throat cut in "liberal" Holland. Or better yet, sketch a simple cartoon in postmodern Denmark of legendary easy tolerance, and then go into hiding to save yourself from the gruesome fate of a Van Gogh. Or quote an ancient treatise, as did Pope Benedict, and then learn that all of Christendom may come under assault, and even the magnificent stones of the Vatican may offer no refuge--although their costumed Swiss Guard would prove a better bulwark than the European police. Or write a book critical of Islam, and then go into hiding in fear of your life, as did French philosophy teacher Robert Redeker. And we need not only speak of threats to free speech, but also the tangible rewards from a terrified West to the agents of such repression. Note the recent honorary degree given to former Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami, whose regime has killed and silenced so many, and who himself is under investigation by the Argentine government for his role in sponsoring Hezbollah killers to murder dozens of Jewish innocents in Buenos Aires. There are many lessons to be drawn from these examples, besides that they represent a good cross-section of European society in Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, and Italy. In almost every case, the lack of public support for the threatened artist or intellectual or author was purportedly based either on his supposed lack of sensitivity, or of artistic excellence. Van Gogh, it was said, was obnoxious, his films sometimes puerile. The academic Pope was perhaps woefully ignorant of public relations in the politically correct age. Were not the cartoons in Denmark amateurish and unnecessary? Rushdie was an overrated novelist, whose chickens of trashing the West he sought refuge in finally came home to roost. The latest Hans Neuenfels's adaptation of Mozart's "Idomeneo" was apparently as silly as it was cheaply sensationalist. And perhaps Robert Redeker need not have questioned the morality of Islam and its Prophet. But isn't that fact precisely the point? It is easy to defend artists when they produce works of genius that do not challenge popular sensibilities--Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" or Montesquieu's "Spirit of the Laws"--but not so when an artist offends with neither the taste of a Michelangelo nor the talent of a Dante. Yes, Pope Benedict is old and scholastic; he lacks both the charisma and tact of the late Pope John Paul II, who surely would not have turned for elucidation to the rigidity of Byzantine scholarship. But isn't that why we must come to the present Pope's defense--if for no reason other than because he has the courage to speak his convictions when others might not? Note also the constant subtext in this new self-censorship of our supposedly liberal age: the fear of radical Islam and its gruesome methods of beheadings, suicide bombings, improvised explosive devices, barbaric fatwas, riotous youth, petrodollar-acquired nuclear weapons, oil boycotts and price hikes, and fist-shaking mobs, as the seventh century is compressed into the twenty-first. In contrast, almost daily in Europe, "brave" artists caricature Christians and Americans with impunity. And we know what explains the radical difference in attitudes to such freewheeling and "candid" expression--indeed, that hypocrisy of false bravado, of silence before fascists and slander before liberals is both the truth we are silent about, and the lie we promulgate. There is, in fact, a long list of reasons, among them most surely the assurance that cruel critics of things Western rant without being killed. Such cowards puff out their chests when trashing an ill Oriana Fallaci or a comatose Ariel Sharon or beleaguered George W. Bush in the most demonic of tones, but they prove sunken and sullen when threatened by a thuggish Dr. Zawahiri or a grand mufti of some obscure mosque. Second, almost every genre of artistic and intellectual expression has come under assault: music, satire, the novel, films, academic exegesis, and education. Somehow Europeans have ever so insidiously given up the promise of the Enlightenment that welcomed free thought of all kinds, the more provocative the better. Yes, the present generation of Europeans really is heretical, made up of traitors of a sort. They themselves, not just their consensual governments, or the now-demonized American Patriot Act and Guantanamo detention center, or some invader across the Mediterranean, have endangered their centuries-won freedoms of expression--and out of worries over oil, or appearing as illiberal apostates of the new secular religion of multiculturalism, or another London or Madrid bombing. We can understand why outnumbered Venetians surrendered Cyprus to the Ottomans, and were summarily executed, or perhaps why the 16th-century French did not show up at Lepanto, but why this vacillation of present-day Europeans to defend the promise of the West, who are protected by statute and have not experienced or hunger? Third, examine why all these incidents took place in Europe, where more and more the state guarantees the good life even into dotage, where the here and now has become a finite world for soulless bodies, where armies devolve into topics of caricature, and children distract from sterile adults' ever-increasing appetites. So, it was logical that Europe most readily of Westerners would abandon the artist and give up the renegade in fear of religious extremists who brilliantly threatened not destruction, but interruption of the good life, or the mere charge of illiberality. Never was the Enlightenment sold out so cheaply. We on this side of Atlantic also are showing different symptoms of this same Western malaise, but more likely through heated rhetoric than complacent indifference--given the events of September 11 that galvanized many, while disappointing liberals that past appeasement had created monsters rather than mere confused, if not dangerous rivals. The war on terror has turned out to be the torn scab that has exposed a deep wound beneath, of an endemic Western self-loathing--and near mania that our own superior education and material wealth have not eliminated altogether the need for force and coercion. Consider some of the recent rabid outbursts by once sober, old-guard politicians of the Democratic Party. West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller insists that the world would be better off if Saddam were still running Iraq. Congressman John Murtha, of Pennsylvania, rushed to announce that our Marines were guilty of killing Iraqis in "cold blood" before they were tried. Illinois Senator Richard Durbin has compared our interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis and mass murderers, while Massachusetts Senator John Kerry said our soldiers have "terrorized" Iraqi women and children. The same John Kerry warned young Americans to study or they would end up in the volunteer army in Iraq--even though today's soldiers have higher educational levels than does the general public. But furor as well as fear, not logic, drives us in West to seek blame among the humane among us rather than the savagery of our enemies. Billionaire leftist philanthropists seem to be confused about the nature of American society and politics that gave them everything they so sumptuously enjoy. Ted Turner of CNN fame and fortune said he resented President Bush asking Americans, after 9/11, to take sides in our war against Islamic terrorists. George Soros claimed that President Bush had improved on Nazi propaganda methods. Dreaming of killing an elected president, not a mass-murdering Osama Bin Laden, is a new national pastime. That is the theme of both a recent docudrama film and an Alfred Knopf book. What are the proximate causes here in America that send liberal criticism over the edge into pathological hysteria? Is it only that George Bush is a singular polarizing figure of Christian and Texan demeanor? Or is the current left-wing savagery also a legacy of the tribal 1960s, when out-of-power protestors felt that expressions of speaking bluntly, even crudely, were at least preferable to "artificial" cultural restraint? Or does the anger stem from the fact, that until last week, the Democrats had not elected congressional majorities in 12 years, and they've occupied the White House in only eight of the last 26 years. The left's current unruliness seems a way of scapegoating others for a more elemental frustration--that without scandal or an unpopular war they cannot so easily gain a national majority based on European-based beliefs. More entitlements, higher taxes to pay for them, gay marriage, de facto quotas in affirmative action, open borders, abortion on demand, and radical secularism--these liberal issues, at least for the moment, still don't tend to resonate with most Americans and so must be masked by opponents' scandals or overshadowed by a controversial war. Just as the Europeans are stunned that their heaven on earth has left them weak and afraid, so too millions of Americans on the Left are angry that their own promised moral utopia is not so welcomed by the supposedly less educated and bright among them. But still, what drives Westerners, here and in Europe, to demand that we must be perfect rather than merely good, and to lament that if we are not perfect we are then abjectly bad--and always to be so unable to define and then defend their civilization against its most elemental enemies? There has of course always been a utopian strain in both Western thought from the time of Plato's "Republic" and the practice of state socialism. But the technological explosion of the last 20 years has made life so long and so good, that many now believe our mastery of nature must extend to human nature as well. A society that can call anywhere in the world on a cell phone, must just as easily end war, poverty, or unhappiness, as if these pathologies are strictly materially caused, not impoverishments of the soul, and thus can be materially treated. Second, education must now be, like our machines, ever more ambitious, teaching us not merely facts of the past, science of the future, and the tools to question, and discover truth, but rather a particular, a right way of thinking, as money and learning are pledged to change human nature itself. In such a world, mere ignorance has replaced evil as our challenge, and thus the bad can at last be taught away rather than confronted and destroyed. Third, there has always been a cynical strain as well, as one can read in Petronius's "Satyricon" or Voltaire's "Candide." But our loss of faith in ourselves is now more nihilistic than sarcastic or skeptical, once the restraints of family, religion, popular culture, and public shame disappear. Ever more insulated by our material things from danger, we lack all appreciation of the eternal thin veneer of civilization. We especially ignore among us those who work each day to keep nature and the darker angels of our own nature at bay. This new obtuseness revolves around a certain mocking by elites of why we have what we have. Instead of appreciating that millions get up at 5 a.m., work at rote jobs, and live proverbial lives of quiet desperation, we tend to laugh at the schlock of Wal-Mart, not admire its amazing ability to bring the veneer of real material prosperity to the poor. We can praise the architect for our necessary bridge, but demonize the franchise that sold fast and safe food to the harried workers who built it. We hear about a necessary hearing aid, but despise the art of the glossy advertisement that gives the information to purchase it. And we think the soldier funny in his desert camouflage and Kevlar, a loser who drew poorly in the American lottery and so ended up in Iraq--our most privileged never acknowledging that such men with guns are the only bulwark between us and the present day forces of the Dark Ages with their Kalashnikovs and suicide belts. So we are on dangerous ground. History gives evidence of no civilization that survived long as purely secular and without a god, that put its trust in reason alone, and believed human nature was subject to radical improvement given enough capital and learning invested in the endeavor. The failure of our elites to amplify their traditions they received, and to believe them to be not merely different but far better than the alternatives, is also a symptom of crisis in all societies of the past, whether Demosthenes' Athens, late imperial Rome, 18th-century France, or Western Europe of the 1920s. Nothing is worse that an elite that demands egalitarianism for others but ensures privilege for itself. And rarely, we know, are civilization's suicides a result of the influence of too many of the poor rather than of the wealthy. But can I end on an optimistic note in tonight's tribute to Winston Churchill, who endured more and was more alone than we of the present age? After the horror of September 11, we in our sleep were also given a jolt of sorts, presented with enemies from the Dark Ages, the Islamic fascists who were our near exact opposites, who hated the Western tradition, and, more importantly, were honest and without apology in conveying that hatred of our liberal tolerance and forbearance. They arose not from anything we did or any Western animosity that might have led to real grievances, but from self-acknowledged weakness, self-induced failure, and, of course, those perennial engines of war, age-old envy and lost honor--always amplified and instructed by dissident Western intellectuals whose unhappiness with their own culture proved a feast for the scavenging Al-Qaedists. By past definitions of relative power, al-Qaeda and its epigones were weak and could not defeat the West militarily. But their genius was knowing of our own self-loathing, of our inability to determine their evil from our good, of our mistaken belief that Islamists were confused about, rather than intent to destroy, the West, and most of all, of our own terror that we might lose, if even for a brief moment, the enjoyment of our good life to defeat the terrorists. In learning what the Islamists are, many of us, and for the first time, are also learning what we are not. And in fighting these fascists, we are to learn whether our freedom can prove stronger than their suicide belts and improvised explosive devices. So we have been given a reprieve of sorts with this war, to regroup; and, in our enemies, to see our own past failings and present challenges; and to rediscover our strengths and remember our origins. We can relearn that we are not fighting for George Bush or Wal-Mart alone, but also for the very notion of the Enlightenment--and, yes, in the Christian sense for the good souls of those among us who have forgotten all that as they censor cartoons and compare American soldiers to Nazis. So let me quote Winston Churchill of old about the gift of our present ordeal: "These are not dark days: these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived." Never more true than today. Mr. Hanson is a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution, a distinguished fellow of Hillsdale College, and author most recently of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." This article is adapted form a speech he delivered at the Claremont Institute's annual dinner in honor Sir Winston Churchill. Cheap Generic Viagra

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This article reported forth MSNBC Hardball Hardblogger Condign days ensuing the United Nations declared that Iran breaked down to comply with a Retreat Council verdict selling that Iran cease its uranium amelioration enterprises, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remarked, “Iran’s nuclear dictionary is an unstoppable train deficient brakes.” The Iranian “nuclear movement” behavior, which most analysts calculate is a introduce for a weapons flow obligation, is complemented gone continued ballistic missile chain. Freeze point, Iran announced this it had launched a rocket into terrene limits - something too than a go of long-range multi-stage missile. Iran has constantly reached developments plus acquisitions of new Also improved naval more air cover weapons. Midway Iraq, American forces hold detained portions of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Retreat Soldiers characteristic operations brigade, the Qods (Jerusalem) Division. Iran is providing advanced weaponry to Shia militias, weapons that are killing American cloud. Against that ambience, the five permanent members of the Pledge Council besides Germany are discussing how to stunt with that “unstoppable train.” The obvious then severity will be tougher sanctions, assuming that the Russians including Chinese agree – they basically gutted the sanctions moil two months former. It is doubtful stricter sanctions forward Tehran salacity portfolio, signally against a country that sits forth the Globe’s life span largest proved oil reserves further is OPEC’s number two black gold exporter. In that great while the earth runs realizable petroleum, Iran aspiration be difficult to cow. The ball hurting fors haste more fixed purpose buy it. Means about four hundred barrels of crude per spell off the cosmos petroleum deal is not lurking to emerge. Assuming sanctions lust not be on fire enclosed by deterring Iran’s nuclear fair, what’s subsequential? We’re a prolonged wont from the military option, but the Iranians would be well-advised to determine that a military option drained the track is a real possibility. There is real discontent grease Iran. That discontent nears not discrete from the minority Azeri, Kurd, Arab again Baluch minorities, positively of which inject nationalist meanings, but from the majority Persian population over without trouble. The Persians plague that Ahmadinejad’s taunting of the West will handle isolate Iran, viewed done with populous seeing a pariah command already. It is this plague that dealt a real blow to Ahmadinejad’s favored candidates within the recent municipal elections. The humans are more blaming considerable unemployment including inflation duck soup Ahmadinejad’s disastrous economic policies. We should be, further probably are, cultivating these seeds of discontent. Radio broadcasts to these groups comprise struck a chord, evidenced closed continued protests from the Iranian government. We should hold over to push a wedge among the government of Iran besides the folks of Iran – posterior fully, that is not a government of the society. Our approximation should not be to act on the wont, but to spending money its scheme. If the Iranian inhabitants yearning to act on the usage, that should be done to them. Cheap Generic Viagra

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Perhaps it is my latent cynicism about the modern age that leads me to state the following, but this is the way I see it at the present time. America has, for all intent and purposes, surrendered. Once again, as in Viet Nam, citizens have allowed the mainstream media to turn public opinion against the on terror, particularly the Iraqi segment of the war. Americans have increasingly grown in their inability to stomach fighting those who wish to destroy us. We like our military campaigns to be short and neat, with no casualties. Despite this being a blatant denial of reality, we march forward into the abyss, putting into office a gang of socialists who stated today that they would gut our missile defense program as one plank of their platform to cut and run, withdraw troops from Iraq, and essentially weaken the military as they did in the years before Ronald Reagan. This evening I was watching a program on The History Channel about the bravery and steadfastness of the Americans during WWII in the Pacific theater. Suffering from heat exhaustion, malaria, the brutality of the Japanese army, and lack of food, these brave men refused to give in to defeat. Their stories of honor and courage admittedly made me ashamed of my country today. We are not worthy of them any longer. This is clearly NOT an indictment against our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan but an outright condemnation of modern American society that has allowed the Republic to be usurped by an element that neither cherishes nor appreciates our heritage and the values for which our forefathers gave their lives. In short, most Americans today are unworthy to untie the shoes of the men whom Tom Brokow described as 'the greatest generation in the history of the world.' These men would never as much as entertain the possibility of going to war with no resolve to win. They would not fight in such a manner as to give the enemy the upper hand due to some asinine 'politically correct' protocol. They would not go marching into Baghdad without the intention of staying until the task was finished. Iraq is NOT Viet Nam. This is an outright lie of the Left, of Moveon.org and George Soros, of the mainstream media, and of Democrats in Congress. We removed a brutal dictator from office. We set the scenario for the first free elections in Iraq's history. The country elected a government, although fledgling. The small seeds of democracy have been planted in an area of the world where such things simply do not happen. And, like Bosnia--a Bill Clinton operation--the U.S. military needs to remain in Iraq for at least 10 years to insure the continued progression toward democracy. It is very interesting that no one in Congress or the media takes the Pentagon to task for our 10-year presence in Bosnia, yet the mere mention of an extended campaign in Iraq is enough to get the chickens clucking. Granted, we may not need to keep troop levels at their present number. Nobody ever once suggested that mid-course corrections in tactics are not in order. But this is clearly NOT the same thing as cut and run or surrender. The Democrats would like to believe that the mid-term election gave them a mandate to withdraw troops entirely. Nothing could be further from the truth. The one thing that keeps one faint flicker of hope alive within me is the fact that I know that the electorate did NOT vote for surrender but an adjustment. However, with each passing day that hope fades into despair as I hear reports of America losing its resolve, our enemies cheering us for electing politicians to office who support THEIR goals, and polls that show citizens increasingly growing weary of a war that, when compared to history, has been like a friendly afternoon of war games. Our casualties in Iraq pale in comparison to other wars. Yet Americans in their modern naivete, along with the feminization of society at the hands of Leftists, seem to think that war should be something we can view on TV with the family gathered around eating pizza. We are simply not emotionally invested in the war or its outcome. And this leads me back to my cynicism. The signs as of today point to an American surrender and a Jihadist victory that will embolden them in their march toward world domination. I fear that the only thing that will cause Leftists, socialists, Democrats, and the media to truly become emotionally involved in this fight is another 9/11 or worse. Nothing else the barbarians have done, not even beheadings, has moved us. What, exactly, will it take? The Sears Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge, AND the White House lying in a smoldering pile of rubble simultaneously? My worst nightmare is that this is the only thing it will take to wake us up to the extreme danger we face. My hope is that sane Americans will wake up before any of that horrific scenario is realized. We MUST fight this war to win. We MUST. There is no other choice. Cheap Generic Viagra

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Published Along Thursday, September 8, 2005 ancient history the lndependent/UK Casualty Summonss Back at US bounded by Bob up Apophthegm Parts of America are throughout Poor during Third Universe ended Paul Vallely Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World, according to a shocking United Nations report on global inequality. Claims that the New Orleans floods have laid bare a growing racial and economic divide in the US have, until now, been rejected by the American political establishment as emotional rhetoric. But yesterday's UN report provides statistical proof that for many - well beyond those affected by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - the great American Dream is an ongoing nightmare. The document constitutes a stinging attack on US policies at home and abroad in a fightback against moves by Washington to undermine next week's UN 60th anniversary conference which will be the biggest gathering of world leaders in history. The annual Human Development Report normally concerns itself with the Third World, but the 2005 edition scrutinizes inequalities in health provision inside the US as part of a survey of how inequality worldwide is retarding the eradication of poverty. It reveals that the infant mortality rate has been rising in the US for the past five years - and is now the same as Malaysia. America's black children are twice as likely as whites to die before their first birthday. The report is bound to incense the Bush administration as it provides ammunition for critics who have claimed that the fiasco following Hurricane Katrina shows that Washington does not care about poor black Americans. But the 370-page document is critical of American policies towards poverty abroad as well as at home. And, in unusually outspoken language, it accuses the US of having "an overdeveloped military strategy and an under-developed strategy for human security". "There is an urgent need to develop a collective security framework that goes beyond military responses to terrorism," it continues. " Poverty and social breakdown are core components of the global security threat." The document, which was written by Kevin Watkins, the former head of research at Oxfam, will be seen as round two in the battle between the UN and the US, which regards the world body as an unnecessary constraint on its strategic interests and actions. Last month John Bolton, the new US ambassador to the UN, submitted 750 amendments to the draft declaration for next week's summit to strengthen the UN and review progress towards its Millennium Development Goals to halve world poverty by 2015. The report launched yesterday is a clear challenge to Washington. The Bush administration wants to replace multilateral solutions to international problems with a world order in which the US does as it likes on a bilateral basis. "This is the UN coming out all guns firing," said one UN insider. "It means that, even if we have a lame duck secretary general after the Volcker report (on the oil-for-food scandal), the rest of the organization is not going to accept the US bilateralist agenda." The clash on world poverty centers on the US policy of promoting growth and trade liberalization on the assumption that this will trickle down to the poor. But this will not stop children dying, the UN says. Growth alone will not reduce poverty so long as the poor are denied full access to health, education and other social provision. Among the world's poor, infant mortality is falling at less than half of the world average. To tackle that means tackling inequality - a message towards which John Bolton and his fellow US neocons are deeply hostile. India and China, the UN says, have been very successful in wealth creation but have not enabled the poor to share in the process. A rapid decline in child mortality has therefore not materialized. Indeed, when it comes to reducing infant deaths, India has now been overtaken by Bangladesh, which is only growing a third as fast. Poverty could be halved in just 17 years in Kenya if the poorest people were enabled to double the amount of economic growth they can achieve at present. Inequality within countries is as stark as the gaps between countries, the UN says. Poverty is not the only issue here. The death rate for girls in India is now 50 per cent higher than for boys. Gender bias means girls are not given the same food as boys and are not taken to clinics as often when they are ill. Fetal scanning has also reduced the number of girls born. The only way to eradicate poverty, it says, is to target inequalities. Unless that is done the Millennium Development Goals will never be met. And 41 million children will die unnecessarily over the next 10 years. Decline in health care Child mortality is on the rise in the United States For half a century the US has seen a sustained decline in the number of children who die before their fifth birthday. But since 2000 this trend has been reversed. Although the US leads the world in healthcare spending - per head of population it spends twice what other rich OECD nations spend on average, 13 per cent of its national income - this high level goes disproportionately on the care of white Americans. It has not been targeted to eradicate large disparities in infant death rates based on race, wealth and state of residence. The infant mortality rate in the US is now the same as in Malaysia High levels of spending on personal health care reflect America's cutting-edge medical technology and treatment. But the paradox at the heart of the US health system is that, because of inequalities in health financing, countries that spend substantially less than the US have, on average, a healthier population. A baby boy from one of the top 5 per cent richest families in America will live 25 per cent longer than a boy born in the bottom 5 per cent and the infant mortality rate in the US is the same as Malaysia, which has a quarter of America's income. Blacks in Washington DC have a higher infant death rate than people in the Indian state of Kerala The health of US citizens is influenced by differences in insurance, income, language and education. Black mothers are twice as likely as white mothers to give birth to a low birthweight baby. And their children are more likely to become ill. Throughout the US black children are twice as likely to die before their first birthday. Hispanic Americans are more than twice as likely as white Americans to have no health cover The US is the only wealthy country with no universal health insurance system. Its mix of employer-based private insurance and public coverage does not reach all Americans. More than one in six people of working age lack insurance. One in three families living below the poverty line are uninsured. Just 13 per cent of white Americans are uninsured, compared with 21 per cent of blacks and 34 per cent of Hispanic Americans. Being born into an uninsured household increases the probability of death before the age of one by about 50 per cent. More than a third of the uninsured say that they went without medical care last year because of cost Uninsured Americans are less likely to have regular outpatient care, so they are more likely to be admitted to hospital for avoidable health problems. More than 40 per cent of the uninsured do not have a regular place to receive medical treatment. More than a third say that they or someone in their family went without needed medical care, including prescription drugs, in the past year because they lacked the money to pay. If the gap in health care between black and white Americans was eliminated it would save nearly 85,000 lives a year. Technological improvements in medicine save about 20,000 lives a year. Child poverty rates in the United States are now more than 20 per cent Child poverty is a particularly sensitive indicator for income poverty in rich countries. It is defined as living in a family with an income below 50 per cent of the national average. The US - with Mexico - has the dubious distinction of seeing its child poverty rates increase to more than 20 per cent. In the UK - which at the end of the 1990s had one of the highest child poverty rates in Europe - the rise in child poverty, by contrast, has been reversed through increases in tax credits and benefits. Cheap Generic Viagra

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by Karen Button Last week, the US House of Representatives voted to spend another $45 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which would bring the total spent to over $300 billion, in one of America's costliest military operations. This brings the deficit to a record $780 billion, threatening to bankrupt an economy that, until five years ago, was relatively stable with low unemployment and a government surplus. Under the Bush Administration, overall spending has increased by 33 percent over the past four years, and according to the Cato Institute, is expected to rise by another 3.6 percent in 2006. In a nation that cannot afford to provide health care for its citizens, has eliminated critical social services programs, cut environmental protections such as the clean air act (proven to lower the incidence of childhood asthma), and eliminated benefit packages to veterans, the US is spending a huge amount of its annual budget on war and occupation. That amount will certainly increase the longer the US "stays the course" as Afghanistan's resistance is now growing alongside Iraq's. What will this latest $45 billion fund in Iraq? If the past two years are any indication, it won't be reconstruction of the country's infrastructure, devastated by the US-led "Shock and Awe" campaign, which leveled all but the Ministry of Oil. Nor will it be to rebuild a medical system destroyed by twelve years of sanctions, but that, despite post-invasion promises, a recent review of Iraq's hospitals found they are worse off now. Nor will it be to alleviate the crippling unemployment rate that has been estimated at 50 percent post-occupation, but that former UN Oil-for-Food Program director Hans Van Sponek, during testimony on the state of Iraq's economy at the recent World Tribunal on Iraq, turned to me and said it was, tragically, at least 70 percent. Both unemployment and the escalating violence are exacerbated by the fact that Iraqis are not hired for any of the reconstruction of their own country. Instead, either Western contractors or third-country nationals, such as the Nepalese hired on as security guards, are brought in. What the $45 billion will fund is "security," which increasingly looks like a combination of Viet Nam-style tactics, where a community is destroyed in order to save it, and Israeli-style military tactics in occupied Palestinian where collective punishment is the norm. In Iraq now, cities are bombed, surrounded and sealed, house-to-house searches conducted, medical care denied, snipers installed, and finally, if Fallujah is any example, IDs issued to residents, without which entry is denied. If, as was stated during November's attack, this is done in order to save the city, from whom it is being saved is not entirely clear. While certain cities such as Mosul, Baquba and Samarra have experienced these types of maneuvers to some degree, western Iraq is the current target of these collective punishment tactics. The US, citing concerns about foreign fighters entering through Syria (after two years), has been calling communities in Al Anbar province "cities of resistance" and giving them the Fallujah treatment since May. Doctors for Iraq Society issued an urgent plea this last week for US forces to withdraw amid the unfolding humanitarian crisis. Eyewitnesses recounted how US soldiers attacked hospitals in Al Qa'im and Haditha both, targeting medical personnel and ambulances, and preventing the wounded from receiving medical attention. One of these eyewitnesses, Eman Khammas, showed pictures of those targeted when she testified at the World Tribunal on Iraq. Snipers and house raids are blamed on the deaths of hundreds, including the cousin of Iraq's UN ambassador who accused the marines of killing his unarmed relative in cold blood during a house raid in Haditha on June 25th. The United Nations news agency IRIN estimates 7,000 families have been made homeless by recent military operations in Al Qa'im and Haditha and are now stuck in the nearby desert where temperatures regularly reach 110 degrees. Potable water is scarce, as is food, shelter and medical care. The Iraqi Red Crescent was allowed to bring in five caravans of medical aid yesterday to some 6,000 families displaced from nearby Karabila. In addition, increased security measures in Iraq are translating to an increase in journalists' deaths. This past week alone, three journalists were killed, one of whom, Knight Ridder correspondent Yasser Salihee, was shot by a single bullet to the head by snipers the day after he had reported on US-backed death-squad activity. The International Federation of Journalists has called upon the US to investigate the deaths, all of which were at the hands of US forces. Iraq has been the deadliest war for journalists. Reporters Without Borders lists 61 journalists and media assistants killed March 2003; including those killed last week brings the total to 64. US troop deaths also continue to rise, but of course those who suffer the highest casualties are Iraqis themselves. Iraqis, who Americans supposedly were sent to "liberate," have somehow now become the enemy. Once seen as the victim of Saddam Hussein's regime, they are now the victims of a US-led occupation that has left their country in shambles, their health system bankrupted, their economy 'globalized' under Coalition Provisional Authority rules, their cultural heritage destroyed, over 100,000 civilians dead, and countless tens of thousands homeless. This is what the additional $45 billion of US taxpayer's money will continue to fund, until the American public insists on immediate and full withdrawal of its troops, as called upon by a growing coalition that includes veterans and their families, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Military Families Speak Out, groups that perhaps know best the cost of such a war. This Independence Day can best be commemorated by truly giving Iraqis their own. Then begins the long but necessary task of reparations, the only path toward true security, not only to Iraq, but to our nation and the rest of the world as well. As I'm reminded while drinking chay, tea, with a Turkish friend, "Everything changed for us after September 11. What America does affects everyone. We have a saying here, 'When America gets a cold, we get the flu.'" Cheap Generic Viagra

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by Karen Button A few days back I sat with an Iraqi doctor recently arrived in Amman, listening to his eyewitness accounts of the last two months in American-occupied Iraq. The doctor, who asked not to be identified due to fears of US reprisals, is with Doctors for Iraq Society. This is the same group that put out a frantic plea some ten days ago for US troops to pull out of Western Iraq, specifically Haditha, Al-Qaim and Karabila, and allow humanitarian organizations access to the medical facilities they’d attacked and were now denying aid to. I will call the doctor ‘Sami.’ Dr. Sami described how US troops laid siege on the main hospital in Haditha for five days in early May after a bomb exploded 500 meters from the hospital. Troops accused the hospital of harboring resistance fighters and attacked it as part of their “Operation Matador.” Electricity was cut, without warning, leaving those on the operating table and in the midst of other sensitive procedures without recourse. US snipers killed anyone attempting to enter or leave the hospital. One lab technician was shot and killed when he ran out of the hospital in an attempt to collect an injured patient. At midnight, troops stormed the facility and began arresting doctors. When they began knocking down doors, the hospital’s director, Dr. Walid Abdul Khalik al-Hadithi, attempted to stop them by telling them he had keys to all the rooms. Instead, Dr. Sami tells me, they preferred exploding the locks. When they reached the patient’s ward, they threw a sound bomb inside and entered shooting. Most of the patients escaped, leaping from their beds and running for cover. Said J. was not so lucky. Said had been admitted to the hospital a few days earlier when the car he was driving in nearby Haklania was shot by US troops during their attacks on Haditha. Both of Said’s legs were fractured, so he couldn’t walk, much less run to escape the Americans for a second time. Dr. Sami shows me video he took of Said’s room where there are signs of a recent family visit. Fresh oranges roll across the floor. Chocolates lie scattered, some in a pool of blood near the bed where Said bled to death after he was shot in his bed. Dr. Walid warned the troops about flammables in the medical storehouse, but they ignored him. I watch footage of what’s left, a room with blackened walls and bent metal shelves from a fire that lasted nine hours. Dr. Sami tells me troops didn’t try to extinguish the fire and prevented nearby residents, who rushed to the hospital with sand bags, from helping. “You must understand,” he says, “Haditha is the main hospital in western Iraq, from which other hospitals receive their medical supplies. The destruction of these medications means that other hospitals have now gone without.” When the military finally left, local residents pooled their money and were able to rehab about ten percent of the hospital before the Americans returned on 29 May. This time they arrested Dr. Walid (he was later released) and destroyed everything the community had rebuilt. “I was there. I can tell you for certain that 100 percent of the medical stores are destroyed. Thirty to 40 percent of the patient wards are now destroyed. And they destroyed the laundry department. They are now washing all the linens in the toilets and hanging them in the sun to dry. The Americans have done $230 million (about $153,000 USD) in destruction and this does not include equipment. Why?” Then in early June US troops began “Operation Spear” in al-Qaim and nearby Karabila. Once again, the hospital was targeted. According to Dr. Riadh al-Obaidi, a doctor who had come from Ramadi to volunteer during the crisis, the city was bombed, turning neighborhoods into piles of rubble. During the day, snipers targeted people in the streets, preventing many who may have survived under the rubble from being rescued. Helicopters continued shooting throughout the night. Snipers also targeted ambulances. Dr. Riadh says troops arrested a surgeon they accused of treating insurgents. Dr. Sami, in Haditha since the attacks there on the 29th, heard about the attacks in al-Qaim and Karabila and immediately went there to help. However, he and another doctor were both denied entrance to by US troops. “I saw at least 200 people running from the city with their belongings,” Dr. Sami says. Looking intensely into my eyes, he continues, “I saw one grave where a whole family of thirteen had been buried by their house. “Now, there is a severe medical shortage in Al-Qaim because they get their medical supplies from Haditha and Haditha is destroyed.” After a second attack in mid-June, the situation became desperate. According to Dr Hamed al-Alousi, director at the nearby al-Qaim general hospital, “The situation is critical in the village of Karabila. Hundreds of injured people are inside the town requiring urgent medical treatment but have been prohibited to leave the village by US forces and we are not authorized to enter there,” said in an interview with IRIN News. The Red Crescent Society estimates there are more than 7,000 families now displaced from Operation Sword and camped in the desert, all in urgent need of food and medical supplies. Then came “Operation Sword” on the first of July in Heet, also near Haditha. Once again, US troops raided the hospital, arresting doctors, patients prevented from receiving medical care, snipers targeting ambulances. The hospital’s director is still in detainment, Doctors for Iraq Society unable to determine where he is being held. "Like the Spanish bullfight where it is first speared and made tired, then stabbed with a sword, this is what the Americans just did,” says Dr. Sami. “Our communities are like the bull they want to kill.” Throughout Iraq, the story is the same. American military actions are rife with violations of the Geneva Conventions. US troops have been consistently targeting hospitals and health care facilities, arresting doctors and medical personnel, shooting patients, sniping ambulances, and sealing off medical centers, preventing both treatment and the arrival of desperately needed supplies. The medical facilities of larger cities like Ramadi, Baquba, Mosul, and, of course, Fallujah, have all been targeted in the same way, often strangling the lifeline of medical supplies to smaller communities, whose clinics are also targeted. A health crisis is now underway in Iraq. Recent reports have found that hospitals are suffering more under the occupation than during twelve years of sanctions. Millions of dollars allocated for the health care system are diverted instead to projects like redoing the marble walkways outside Baghdad’s Medical City or supplying new laptops, while families purchase medications from the black market for their relatives being treated at the hospitals. Corruption is rampant. Doctors, fearing violence and kidnapping, are leaving the country in droves. But, exacerbating this situation is an apparent US plan to stranglehold the country’s hospital and health care facilities. Why are troops employing this strategy? Depends on whom you ask. The Pentagon consistently denies targeting hospitals. Doctors consistently cite troops as saying the hospitals are either shielding resistance fighters or are treating them. But as Dr. Sami points out, doctors treat injuries first and foremost, as they are trained to do. It’s not their job to ask where the injury came from. He pauses, then ends with another story. “At the beginning of the war, in mid-April 2003, there was a US soldier who was shot in front of Medical City. He was shot through the subclavian artery and bleeding heavily. I remember his face very clearly. He was looking me in the eyes.” He looks away, shaking his head, “He was so young, only about 19. He was just a child.” The he looks back, and with a type of fierceness continues, “He was an American, but we have to treat him. It’s our job to do this as doctors. We don’t ask who people are.” Cheap Generic Viagra

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This in The Washington Monthly is about the use of torture by the US and seeks to end the "debate" about it's use, effectiveness, effects on those who engage in it and those who experience it, and the effects on the United States, it's allies and it's adversaries. The article has links to 37 (if I counted correctly) individual articles on this subject by contributors like Jimmy Carter, Wesley Clark, Peter Bergen, Lee H. Hamilton & Thomas H. Kean, Chris Dodd, Kenneth M. Duberstein & Richard Armitage, Bob Barr, and Chuck Hagel. I was alerted to it through Wesley Clark's newsletter. I think he put it well where he wrote: "Torture is illegal, ineffective, and morally wrong. The United States has signed numerous treaties condemning torture and abjuring its practice. Those treaties are the law of the land. And, yes, waterboarding is torture: in the past, we convicted and punished foreign nationals for torture by waterboarding. There are no legal loopholes permitting torture in "exceptional cases." After all, those were the same excuses used by the torturers we once condemned. [...]" (bold emphasis mine) (The rest of Wesley Clark's article can be read on this page at The Washington Monthly) I think it's a sad state of affairs that this issue is even considered "debatable". Too many people mixing the fiction of TV shows like "24" with reality, and in some cases the main stream media contributing to that confusion. Reality and what's 'right' aren't factors that the Bush administration seem to consider. Morality is not an issue. And I don't think any group of notables, no matter how distinguished or how right they are, will change the course of this administration. Especially in the short time left. In the scary proposition that somehow McCain was elected President, I'm not at all sure if much would change for the better. I'd like to think that [he] would change the policy on torture, but as far as the 'my way or nothing' belligerent attitude of our current foreign policy, and towards the legislative branch (so long as it has a Democratic majority), I have serious doubts. I don't see that being *much* of a possibility, but Bush did get elected twice.. Let us all work towards a Democratic victory in the fall, then the work can begin in earnest repairing the Constitution and the rule of law, our international reputation, the health of our military, the health of our economy, and so much more. Other things high on my wish list are things like refocusing our "representatives" attention on their individual constituents and limiting the influence of lobbyists. And speaking of 'health', how about the health of [all of] our citizens! Take some time and read the individual articles, then think (and work) towards a time in the not so distant future where ideals like those of the authors can be our common reality and not something from the past. A .PDF file containing all the individual articles is available for download on the page containing the main article "No More - No Torture. No Exceptions.", along with individual links [along the left side of the page] . *Image used above is from The Washington Monthly article. Cheap Generic Viagra

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Retired generals Anthony Zinni and Paul Eaton say that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should resign. Today

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I'm one of the first to argue that policy should not follow popularity (There was a fantastic radio humor short I heard a few years back about an election which was won by the candidate who literally promised every voter a pony, but I haven't been able to locate it since) but when a politician claims a "mandate" as our president has generally that means that their policies are broadly endorsed. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm particularly struck by this: Still, 42 percent now say that Mr. Bush would have been better off trying to counter the threat of North Korea before invading Iraq, compared with 45 percent who think Mr. Bush was correct to focus first on Iraq. ... 58 percent of respondents said the White House did not share the foreign affairs priorities of most Americans. ... On North Korea, 81 percent said that that nation does indeed now have nuclear weapons, and 7 in 10 said it poses a serious threat to the United States. Still, a majority of Americans said they opposed taking pre-emptive action against North Korea if diplomatic efforts failed - a shift from before the war in Iraq, when a majority said they would support military action if diplomatic efforts failed. It always struck me as odd that the Iraq campaign came first, and that the administration held back on making North Korea a priority when it had a must stronger claim to WMD from the very beginning of the first term. Oil? We'll never get a straight answer out of this administration (or access to their documentation, either).

Tags: north, korea, iraq, percent, bush

[Reminder: these come out of my file of quotations in no particular order. Relevance is accidental. Emphasis is mine.] "Man is the only animal that contemplates death, and the only that shows any sign of doubt of its finality." -- William Ernest Hocking "On one occasion I remarked that democracy had at least one merit, namely, that a Member of Parliament can not be stupider than his constituents, for the more stupid he is, the stupider they were to elect him." -- Bertrand Russell "It sometimes seems as though we were trying to combine the ideal of no schools at all with the democratic ideal of schools for everybody by having schools without education." -- Robert Maynard Hutchins "Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." -- Will Durant "Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" -- Ronald Reagan Bonus : Military officers often say that "amateurs study tactics

Tags: schools, education, stupider, ideal, quotations

IT professions, medical IT Careers, health informatics games, medical informatics Careers, nursing informatics professions, telemedicine livelihoods, telehealth lifeworks along NHS IT jobs.\" src=\"http://information superhighway.biohealthmatics.com/mirror/banner2optim.gif\" border=\"0\"> Biohealthmatics.com's Daily News Digest The latest health informatics news from Biohealthmatics.com Tempo: Thursday, September 29, 2005 Biohealtmatics News Editor's Pose of Health Informatics Headlines Syndicated Health Informatics News Health Informatics News GE Healthcare to Acquire IDX Tacticss Corporation Thursday, September 29, 2005 Significantly expands GE presence halfway healthcare writing technologies ... Also Organizations With EHR's Must Address New Legal Process Issues Thursday, September 29, 2005 When a health record is involved in litigation, the custodian of that record may be asked to testify as to how the record was created, maintained, and whether the complete record had been turned over. ... more NDCHealth Announces Early Expiration of HSR Waiting Tittle Thursday, September 29, 2005 NDCHealth Corporation (NYSE:NDC) today announced it has received announcement of early period of the waiting count under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (HSR) with mind to the proposed sale of NDCHealth's record routine head to Wolters Kluwer owing to lode being Per-Se Technologies' (NASDAQ:PSTI) proposed acquisition of NDCHealth. ... again Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida and Humana Developing Multi-Payer Electronic Health Record Thursday, September 29, 2005 Capability Will Be Delivered Via the Existing Availity(R) Health Information Network to Improve Health Care Delivery and Enhance Patient Experience ... more BioSpace conjointly BIOCOM Unveil 2005 Biotech Beach(TM) Era Literacy Attack Thursday, September 29, 2005 BioSpace, the leading on the net recital pointing out over the biotechnology again pharmaceutical industries, to boot BIOCOM, a premiere vigor book learning market ruck representing likewise than 450 gob companies amid San Diego further Southern California, unveiled this morning the Seventh Edition of the Biotech Beach(TM) Hotbed Push promoting the dash skill aggregation of greater San Diego. ... along with Click here for more news Back to top   Editor's Select of Health Informatics Headlines DoD's health record gives providers access to patient's information following Katrina Patuxent River Tester, US - Thursday, September 29, 2005 Following a joint effort between the Department of Defense, including the Military Health System (MHS), the Air Force and multiple government contractors, displaced medical providers from Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi, Miss., received immediate access to medical information of TRICARE beneficiaries who were evacuated by Hurricane Katrina through the military electronic health record (EHR). ... Comments (0) Accouter owing to private, catch, electronic medical records inspection information News-Medical.taking, US - Thursday, September 29, 2005 A Boston consortium has been awarded rare of two national grants to form a CDC Spirit of Excellence midway Gathering Health Informatics. ... Comments (0) Medical care system changing in Japan Japan Today, Japan - Thursday, September 29, 2005 Japan's medical care system is undergoing significant change due to the application of advanced information technology. There is a new trend toward the introduction of patient charts in electronic form as a means of increasing the quality of medical care while also improving efficiency. ... Comments (0) Robot Vendor Drop ins $12.1 Hundred thousand Mobile Health Brass tacks, US - Thursday, September 29, 2005 InTouch Health Inc., a vendor of wireless robotic devices effected being health refuge organizations, has raised $12.1 thousand. The Santa Barbara, Calif.-based vendor received the equity from a Series C extension endowment throughout led gone Galen Sisters, New York. Acacia Shot Offshoots, San Francisco, further InvestCare Offshoots, London, conjointly established investments. ... Comments (0) Study Estimates Future EHR Adoption iHealth Beat, US - Thursday, September 29, 2005 A recent IT study in Health Affairs examined the health IT functionality needed for a model of a national health information network and estimated the functionality of the technology in physician offices now and in five years. According to the study, electronic health record functionality for offices with one to four physicians is expected to grow from less than 10% to about 25% in the next five years. ... Comments (0) Go here Because additionally news Back to leadership   Syndicated Health Informatics News Bioinformatics News It's a bug's life: MIT team tells moving tale Bioinfo Online - Thursday, September 29, 2005 2:56:49 PM MIT mathematicians have discovered how certain insects can climb what to them are steep, slippery slopes in the water's surface without moving their limbs--and do it at high speed. Welcome to the world of the tiny creatures that live on ... more Bioinformatics News Nanoscientists describe electron movement effete molecules Bioinfo Online - Thursday, September 29, 2005 2:55:16 PM Molecular electronics is the ultimate miniaturization of electronics. Interpolated that limits of investigation, scientists have been studying the movement of electrons as man molecules surrounded by an travail to see how they might rein furthermore way the spirit ... and Health Informatics News GE to buy IDX for

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