Democratic Iraq
January 31st, 2009
Shiites, Kurds, Christians and, most importantly, the Sunnis who boycotted the 2005 elections turned out in mass to participate in Iraq’s provincial elections today. Faced with threats of violence thousands or Iraqi security forces sealed the country’s borders, shut airports and banned vehicles in polling areas. Iraqi election officials gained accolades of U.N. and other foreign observers sent to monitor the election process. While the event was marred by mortar shells falling in Takrit, Saddam’s former home town, and a car bombing in Tuz Kharmatu where ethnic strife continues between rival Kurds and Turkman factions, proud Iraqis, men and women alike, crowded polling places, often with children in tow, to express their belief in their emerging democracy. Read the rest of this entry »
Christians represent a dwindling minority of the Iraqi population. But those that remain were able to celebrate Christmas as an official holiday for the first time this year. While estimates vary greatly it is believed there are still a few hundred thousand Christians remaining in the country. Christian leaders in Iraq have stated the number has declined by two-thirds since the U.S. invasion of 2003. But this Christmas has come without the extreme levels of violence that drove so many out of Iraq during the same period in 2004 and subsequent years. 
Whenever I talk to Obama supporters, with little exception, they seem to impart their hopes and wishes upon the the vision of the candidate with little or no regard for what he has said or done. But then, he has made promises in his speeches that cover nearly every possible scenario. Whether it be NAFTA, health care, taxation, energy, the war in Iraq, his associations with shady characters, anti-American pastors, unrepentant terrorists or the bailout bill, he has constantly changed his story to cater to the feedback of the polls; move over Bill Clinton, there is a new master of chamillion politics. 
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, Democrat from California, began dragging Wall Street titans from failed institutions in front of his committee on Monday to answer for the world wide credit crisis that has devastated markets around the globe. There is no doubt, as confirmed by their own testimony, that greed in these institutions ran rampant with generous bonuses being dolled out to parting executives even as those institutions became insolvent and headed toward bankruptcy. These true confessions make for great theater and give those affected by the rapidly declining economy a target for their disgust and frustration but ignore the fact that the primary cause of the failures were the non-performing portfolios dominated by sub-prime mortgages generated in staggering dollar amounts under guidelines set by the quasi-government mortgage institutions of Fannie Mae [FNME] and Freddie Mack [FMAC]. 
Campaign politics came to a halt yesterday as Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama both attended ceremonies at the pit where the World Trade Center proudly stood as a symbol of the American free enterprise system prior to September 11, 2001. Families of victims and dignitaries gathered in Arlington, Virginia in the morning to dedicate a memorial to those who perished in the attack on the Pentagon that day. Others visited the temporary memorial at the crash site of United Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania where valiant Americans charged armed hijackers and thwarted their attack on the United States Capitol. Nearly all Americans regardless of political persuasions honored those who died on that horrible day seven years ago. 
All the glorious rhetoric about the achievements of the socialist revolution won’t put a Russian can opener on the shelves of Wal-Mart. Any hopes the former core of the Soviet Union and one time beacon of the world wide communist revolution would join the world economy with the reforms of Gorbachev and Yelstin have been dashed by the regressive rule of Vladimir Putin. For all practical purposes Russia is a resource rich third world country with nuclear weapons intent on reviving it’s expansionist aspirations using it’s energy resources to subdue Europe and expand it’s control of those resources by reasserting political control of any former republic that could supply energy to the West on it’s own. 
As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated his threat to shut down the straight of Hormuz on Monday it becomes apparent that development of domestic oil supplies is as much a matter of national security as it is a solution for skyrocketing gasoline prices and all other petroleum related products. After dragging oil executives into hearings time and again [ 
Barack Obama warned us on Wednesday that his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain, will try to scare us saying Obama “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.” Anyone who rides a bus in a major metropolitan area from time to time is quite aware of, and comfortable with, the ethnic diversity we encounter. None of us would deny the trepidation we experience with the occasional presence of gang bangers, skinheads or mischievous teens we encounter regardless of our own ethnic composition. But I doubt our elected representatives have been inclined to take advantage of the experience in the districts or states they represent. Nor has the press that covers them. 
Barack Obama launched a vigorous ad campaign coupled with stops across the country presenting an image contrary to stands he has taken in the past on a variety of issues including campaign finance, gun control, free trade, welfare reform, FISA legislation, faith based initiatives and Iraq, supported by a series of statements that are contrary to reality. Denying his own image, the new Barack Obama may be a better representation of a third term for George Bush than John McCain. The “Change” Obama constantly preaches appears to be about changing his position on issues to mirror public opinion and altering the facts to support them betting that most of his supporters never paid much attention to them in the first place. 
Oil company executives are dragged before Congress time and again suffering indignities at the hands of elected officials who are more to blame for the current oil prices and pending shortages than the industry titans that have consistently delivered this complex product for more than a hundred years with the exception of 1973 when the Arab Oil Embargo sent a delicate delivery system into disarray. Exxon-Mobil, British Petroleum, Shell Oil and others are threatened by the legislators with excess profits taxes on profits that, while staggering by their numbers, are hardly excessive representing eleven percent or less on investment over the last five years. They are more than willing to invest these profits developing new domestic supplies and refineries to process petroleum products were it not for the restrictions imposed by the pompous interrogators who cast a shadow of wrong doing but never issue an indictment for their acts.