Right-click on link at source site, click on "copy shortcut"
Come back here and open posting window
Type the title you want to use for the link into the posting window. Highlight it.
Click "link" at bottom of posting window
A dialog box will come up, right click on this box, a smaller dialog box will appear next to it, left click on "paste" in this smaller box and the url will appear on the text line of the larger box.
Click "OK" and the highlighted title in the posting window will convert to a clickable link.
#4
Thanks, AC, but my computer-challenged brain fried just reading those admittedly simple directions.
The good news is you're now in charge of making such links for me! ;-p
Seriously, I'd love to know more about that line. What was the reaction in theaters? Was it even noticed? Who wrote it, and why? The Dems were the majority party in 1940 - yet even then at least some people thought of them like we think of them now. I wish there were some way to find out more about it in the context of the times.
Ah, well - guess I'll just have to settle for laughing my a** off. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/23/2005 21:47 Comments ||
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A letter by one of the F.R.A. readers sent to the LA Times.
I would like to express my comments on Cindy Sheehan. My name is Cliff Newman. I was medically retired from the Army Special Forces after losing my leg in Vietnam after 10 years and 26 days. I would like to suggest your newspaper print an article about a lady I know. Her name is Betty Skeen. She is my girl friendâs mother. She, like Cindy Sheehan, is also a Gold Star Mother. Making my girl friend, and her sister, Gold Star Sisters. As it happens I met her and my girl friend through her son, Dale Dehnke. Dale was the One Zero of a MACV SOG Recon Team operating in Laos during the Vietnam conflict. He was a friend of mine. He is now buried in Oak Park Cemetery in Chatsworth next to his father who committed suicide over his grave when he was returned from Vietnam in a casket. Obviously he was a little distraught over his sonâs death also. But, unlike Cindy Sheehan, Betty Skeen has enough common sense, character and dignity to realize that the President of the United States has a few more important things to do than to meet with her and explain why her son, who was a professional soldier, was killed in combat, which was an assumed risk of his job. Bettyâs second husband, by the way, now gone also, was a veteran of the 101st Airborne Division in WWII. He was a motor officer with the LAPD.
Betty Skeen was, and still is, extremely proud of her son, would not denigrate his memory by making a spectacle of herself and insulting his memory and those of countless millions who have died in the name of our great freedom, as taken for granted by all too many. There is an adage, ironically, by a 19th Century British philosopher, John Stuart Mill that says, âWar is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks nothing is worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing, which he cares more about than is personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.â
Sadly, this poor woman who has now obviously been caught up in her celebrity and cause, is, along with those who are prodding her, one of those âmiserable creatures.â God bless her for producing a son who obviously was a better person than her, however, if you are going to publicize mothers who have suffered losses, I would suggest locating ladies like Betty Skeen. There are a lot of them out there.
Iraq:Does it matter if you call it a civil war?
Iraq's constitution could be seen as a draft 'peace pact' for warring parties.
From the August 22, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0822/p01s02-woiq.html
Articles a few days old, but it is very relevant and worth reading. Interesting take, and in my recent readings, the term Civil War has come up again and again.
By Dan Murphy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
BAGHDAD - Finding a way to head off civil war is at the heart of all the major initiatives - including the talks over a new constitution - in Iraq. But by most common political-science definitions of the term, "civil war" is already here.
"It's not a threat. It's not a potential. Civil war is a fact of life there now,'' says Pavel Baev, head of the Center for the Study of Civil War at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway. He argues that until the nature of the conflict is accurately seen, good solutions cannot be found. "What's happening in Iraq is a multidimensional conflict. There's international terrorism, banditry, the major foreign military presence. But the civil war is the central part of it - the violent contestation for power inside the country."
What this means in practical terms, is that an immediate US withdrawal isn't likely to bring peace to Iraq, say analysts. Nor is simply "staying the course," if it isn't matched by a political peace treaty among the warring parties - a role that a new constitution, facing a midnight tonight deadline, could fill.
The academic thumbnail definition of a civil war is a conflict with at least 1,000 battlefield casualties, involving a national government and one or more nonstate actors fighting for power.
While the US has lost 1,862 soldiers, getting an accurate casualty count beyond that is difficult. The Iraqi government and US military say they don't keep figures on Iraqi troops or civilians killed. According to www.iraqbodycount.net, a website run by academics and peace activists, 24,865 Iraqi civilians were killed between March 2003 and March 2005. The report said that US-led forces killed 37 percent of the total.
The spreadsheets in Dr. Faad Ameen Bakr's computer shed some light on the casualty rate. Baghdad's chief pathologist pulls down the death toll for Iraq's capital in July: 1,083 murders, a new record.
Under Saddam Hussein, Baghdad was a violent city. But the highest murder rate before the war was 250 in one month. (By comparison, New York City with about 2 million more residents, had 572 murders in 2004, and a peak of 2,245 in 1990).
The month of June, with 870 murders, was the previous record in Baghdad. In a weary monotone, Dr. Bakr explains that 680 of the victims were shot, the rest "strangled, electrocuted, stabbed, killed by blunt trauma or burned to death." The totals don't include residents killed by Baghdad's frequent car-bombings.
While he won't discuss the religious background of the victims - citing the vulnerability of himself and his staff - Bakr says a growing number of victims show signs of "extreme torture" and arrive at the morgue in handcuffs or bound with the plastic ties used by the Iraqi military and police. Badr Brigades no doubt. "I wouldn't call it a civil war, but I would call it chronic instability," he says.
The second part of the definition of a civil war is whether the national government is battling nonstate or other internal forces.
A year ago it was common to hear Iraqi politicians say most of the fighting was resistance to US occupation, and would subside with a US military withdrawal. Today, few voice that view.
"We are living in an undeclared civil war among Iraq's political groups,'' says Nabil Yunos, the head of political affairs for the Dignity Party, a Sunni party. "It's not just Sunnis that are the problem. It's the Shiites, the Kurds, it's everyone. The violence has gotten worse, and we're entering a very dangerous period."
In Baghdad, "soft cleansing" is taking place in a number of mixed neighborhoods, with targeted assassinations scaring Sunnis out of some, and Shiites out of others. In the south, Shiite militias, not the new army and police, are the major power. Badr Brigades again
While there is still hope that Iraq can avoid going all the way down the same tragic road that ripped apart Lebanon, a growing number of political leaders and analysts are acknowledging that a de facto state of civil war is already here. Welcome to reality
In the Sunni and Shiite neighborhood of Horriya, on the western edge of Baghdad, three Shiite barbers have been killed this month by Sunni religious extremists who think it's sinful to cut men's beards. After notes were slipped under their doors that they could be next, at least half a dozen barber shops have closed, and the rest have prominently posted signs that will no longer shave beards. Sharia, so the solution here is to kill anyone with a long beard?
In largely Sunni neighborhoods like Dora and Al Ghaziliya, Shiite residents have received written death threats to leave the area. Sunnis in Shiite neighborhoods say they've received similar threats from the Badr Brigade, a militia loyal to the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the two big Shiite parties that now dominate the government.
A Shiite doctor in Dora, who asked that his name not be used, says he's looking for a new home since a note was slipped under his door last month. "All the dirty Shiites out of Iraq, or face death!" it warned, which brought back memories of his brother, killed for political activity by the Hussein regime in the early 1990s.
He says at least 15 Shiites in Dora have been killed in the last month. "We wake up with hope every day, but when the sun goes down, things are worse for us. I walk with death just because I'm a Shiite."
A Sunni women in the Latifiyah neighborhood, whose husband was a government official under Hussein and was assassinated earlier this year, points to the cluster of bullet holes in her front gate and the front window of her living room. "We know the Badr Brigade has a list of Sunnis they want to kill and we're on it. They want us out of this house. And the police are working with them." They are the police dumbshit
Though the allegations are unproven, many Sunni Arabs make such comments. Similarly, there's a conviction among the Shiite Arab community that Sunni insurgents are seeking to reimpose a regime like Hussein's, which favored the Sunni minority and ruthlessly suppressed Shiite political activity. Both staements are probably true
Such breakdowns along confessional or ideological lines are the hallmarks of civil war and speak to why the drafters of Iraq's constitution have run up against so many problems.
Mr. Baev, at the Oslo peace institute, is skeptical that a solution will be found to Iraq's current violence in any constitution that could be completed soon.
"If you have major actors in a civil war who control a large part of the violence who sit down and negotiate power sharing, then you can hope that violence might subside,'' he says. "But it's very much a question of to what degree the negotiating parties control the armed formations. And in these processes, you can always have spoilers. It looks as if the Sunnis are increasingly being excluded from power-sharing arrangements." Interesting point, and this should be taken to heart, are we just negotiating with powerless idiots?
At the moment, the major powers in much of Iraq are Shiite militias like the Badr Brigade, and the Peshmerga militias of the Kurds in the North. While Kurdish areas are much more peaceful than the rest of the country, residents of Kirkuk - an oil rich and ethnically mixed city that the Kurd's are claiming as a future capitol, allege they've been involved in systematically driving Arabs from their homes.
"I'm amazed Kirkuk hasn't flared up yet,'' says a Western diplomat in Baghdad. "I hate to say this - but the only solution might be to simply let the people of Iraq fight it out and get so fatigued from the fighting, that they eventually reach some sort of compromise." Did someone say popcorn was ready?
Kurdish leaders, who see the current constitutional debate as a potential stepping stone to autonomy, occasionally threaten pulling out of Iraq entirely if they're not satisfied by negotiations soon. "If the constitution doesn't settle the issue of Kirkuk, we could just back up and go back to the north. We know these other parties, they're just stalling until they get stronger than us in the future,'' says says Faraj al-Haydari, a senior official in the Baghdad offices of the Kurdish Democratic Party. IMHO Kurds are waiting to see what happens before succession, but they do obviously want to keep it as an open option.
Saleh Mutlak, a leading Sunni on the drafting committee, says it looks to him like Shiites and Kurds are looking to cut a deal among themselves on the constitution that will leave areas they dominate with the lion's share of Iraq's resources, "something we will never allow to happen." They did worse to the Shiia, and now they expect them to play nice, Not Gonna Happen. Mr. Mutlak dismisses the dominant Shiite parties, Sciri and Dawa, as "Iranian Shiites,'' whose first loyalties aren't to Iraq Probably also a true statement . Many Sciri and Dawa activists were exiled to Iran, a Shiite theocracy, until Saddam fell.
But that's not his only worry. As with many modern civil wars, its contestants have multiple enemies. Mutlak says he fears reprisals not only from Shiite militias, but from the wing of the Sunni insurgency led by the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant behind many of Iraq's most devastating attacks on civilians.
Mr. Zarqawi and his followers reject all participation in the political process, and are suspected to be behind the murder last week of three activists from the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni group that Mutlak is close to, in the northern city of Mosul. The three were canvassing for Sunni participation in upcoming elections. The question is, does Zarq control the largest militant armsd of the Sunnis or is he just another small player?
Though there has been extensive training and equipment programs for the new Iraqi army and police, few Iraqis seem to be putting much faith in them. While Sunnis complain that new forces are infiltrated by the militias of the major Shiite parties, even many Shiites prefer to rely on sectarian militias for their own protection. They don't screw with Shiia, just Sunnis
Majid Jabr Faihod, for example, sits in his family's spare home in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, and describes how the death of his father in May turned into a family tragedy. He stayed behind as eight family members - including three of his four brothers - took their father to be buried near the holy Shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, a centuries-old Shiite practice.
On the way there, the minibus transporting them was waylaid in Latifiyah, a Sunni insurgent stronghold. The eight men were separated from the women in the bus, and driven away, along with their father's coffin. Mr. Faihod says that all of the men were mutilated, then killed and dragged through the streets of Latifiyah, along with their father's body.
"This is entirely because we're Shiite, and they hate us," says Faihod. "The armed forces are weak and can't protect us. Here in Sadr City, thank God, we can rely on the Mahdi Army."
The Mahdi Army is the militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and while it's been out of the headlines since fighting pitched battles with US forces last year for control of Najaf, it appears as strong as ever in Sadr City, an almost completely Shiite section of Baghdad with 2 million people.
In recent weeks, Islamic vigilantes believed to be aligned with the Mahdi Army have killed a number of Sadr City residents for the crime of "immorality." In Faihod's case, the Mahdi Army paid for the family's mass funeral and provided security on the second trip to Najaf.
"We believe in the old law, blood for blood,'' says Raad Faihod, the other surviving brother. "The truth has to come out, and the truth is that all of these terrorists are Sunnis and their political parties. They have to be dealt with." I believe this is the dominant opinion in both Kurdish and Shiite Iraq, and it will mean that the war will continue and expand until one group or another is destroyed. Probably the Sunnis will go the way of the dodo if things get much thicker. You reap what you sow fellas!
#1
Just remember Saddam was a Sunni. He also passed up many opportunities to still be in power or living a comfortable life in exile. It must run in the blood.
Tuesday August 23 the "You don't speak for me, Cindy" rally procedes from Bakersfield to Los Angeles to San Diego. Please, join supporters of the of the WOT and of our Commander in Chief by attending this rally as it winds and thunders its way from San Francisco to Crawford.
We voted for our President George W Bush and he won. Now the loony left losers are trying to undermine our President and the war on terrorism. Let's tell the President and this nation that we want to continue to fight this WOT on their soil, not ours, until OBL, Zarqawi and all their sympathizers are dead.
We are fighting for the children who have to grow up without a father or a mother because some terrorists wants to take them from the love of the Father. We are not fighting for a mother who was never able to be weaned from her child. Wake up, open your eyes and see America.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/23/2005 9:55 Comments ||
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#4
The fact that not one single Democrat politician has shown up at the peace camp shows you exactly where Cindy stands with them. The also must realize that once they show up there they get all the baggage from MoveOn and the LLL that are camped there in Crawford. God speed.
#6
Angie, can we talk you in to going over to Camp Casey and giving us on-the-scene coverage of the Auntie-war crowd? Something on the order of the coverage Raphael provided of the other train plane wreck.
#8
Not Suprised Shelia J. Lee (Communist-Houston) decided to drop in on mommy sheehan, but she had already left. Again the moon battery is in full swing since before Joan Bayez showed up. Any repestful Democrat (with Presidential abitions) wouldn't touch that mess with a 10-foot pole.
#2
âCould it be that Sharon is calling the bluff of Western governments and the Arab states?"
To question motives shouldnât automatically be dismissed as a conspiracy theory. It is fair to debate whether an Islamist squat in Gaza is a far greater threat to the Mubarak regime than it is to Israel. However, over the years Sharon has been labeled with many attributes, benevolence is not one of them.
#5
The only viable option Israel ever had was to win the war, kick out the Paleos (nothing seems wrong with ethnic cleansing when Muslims do it), build the fence on your newly declared border, and tell the Euros to piss off, that Gaza was Egypt's problem and what was left of the West Bank was still Jordan's problem.
#6
Some people are talking like this is a rollover on Sharon's part, but I don't think so. Sharon used to be General Sharon before he was Prime Minister. Steyn's got it right. This is a pullback from hard to defend positions. Back behind the wall, he can watch the Paleos stew in their own juices and the IDF can go to town when needed.
My bet is Gaza breaks down fast. Pass the popcorn, please.
Q: What is the Arabic word for radar directed counter-battery fire?
#7
Sharon had three choices: expel all of the Paleos in Gaza somewhere else (Lebanon? Egypt? Jordan? The West Bank?); spend a fortune protecting a tiny group of fanatical expansionists not satisfied with modern, civilized Israel, but who instead crave empty desert at the expense of hated Arabs, or to become martyrs to that same empty desert; or three, to evacuate the Strip and to hell with it.
His choice was a good one. Before 1967, it was an Egyptian protectorate, and the Egyptians kept it reasonably orderly. Now it will become so again. It will also be locally run by Hamas, who despite their frothing, are still better than Hizbullah Shiites, sponsored by Iran. It keeps it out of the hands of Fatah's Al-Asqa MB and probably even Islamic Jihad. And being horribly crowded, all the Paleos there will end up doing is living in a international welfare-state with a density greater than Hong Kong, but with none of the amenities--right now, one of their big priorities is to build apartment buildings to house their profligate numbers. Yecch. They can have it.
The big question is what is planned on the West Bank. That is where all eyes should turn.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
