Here’s a classic Arab shouting match that degenerates into a pretty humorous cursing session, with a dentally-challenged old cleric confronting a liberal Syrian author on Al Jazeera’s unsanitized Arabic version. (Courtesy of MEMRI TV.)
October 13, 2007
Iraq for most Americans is now a toxic subject -- best either ignored or largely evoked to blame someone for something in the past.
Any visitor to Iraq can see that the American military cannot be defeated there, but also is puzzled over exactly how we could win -- victory being defined as fostering a stable Iraqi constitutional state analogous to, say, Turkey.
But war is never static. Over the last 90 days, there has been newfound optimism, as Iraqis are at last stepping forward to help Americans secure their country.
I spent last week touring outlying areas of Baghdad and American forward operating bases in Anbar and Diyala provinces, talking to Army and Marine combat teams and listening to Iraqi provincial and security officials.
Whether in various suburbs of Baghdad, or in Baqubah, Ramadi or Taji, there is a familiar narrative of vastly reduced violence. Until recently, the Americans could not find enough interpreters, were rarely warned about landmines and had little support from Iraqi security forces.
But now they are being asked by Iraqis in the "Sunni Triangle" to join them to defeat the very terrorists the locals once championed. Anbar, a province that just months ago was deemed lost by a U.S. military intelligence report, is now in open revolt against al-Qaida.
Why the change?
Officers offered a number of theories. The surge of American troops, and Gen. David Petraeus' risky tactics of going after the terrorists within their enclaves, have put al-Qaida on the run. Likewise, in the past four years, the U.S. military has killed thousands of these terrorists and depleted their ranks.
Sunnis -- angry over their loss of power to the historically discriminated-against Shiites -- discovered their al-Qaida allies to be worse than their Shiite rivals. We forget that jihadists drew in not merely religious fanatics but also repulsive common criminals and psychopaths who extort, butcher and mutilate innocents.
Iraqis of all tribes and sects are also growing tired of the nihilistic violence that is squandering the opportunity for something better than Saddam's rule. The astronomical spike in oil prices has resulted in windfall profits of billions of dollars for the Iraqi government -- and with it the realization that Iraq could someday become a wealthy advanced state.
Iraqis told me that their widely held fear that Americans are going to leave soon has galvanized Sunnis to finally step up to secure their country or face even worse chaos in our absence.
The result is that ordinary Iraqis are increasingly willing to participate in local government and civil defense. Such popular engagement from the bottom up offers more hope than the old 2003 idea that a democratically elected government could simply mandate reform top down from their enclaves in the Green Zone.
So we are at yet another turning point in the constantly changing saga of Iraq. On this recent trip to Iraq, I rode on highways that just a few months ago were nearly impossible to navigate without being blown up by improvised explosive devices. Soldiers now train Iraqi security forces as often as they fight terrorists.
But there is also a new sense of urgency on the part of the military that Iraqis must seize this new opportunity before it fades. Unless the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government steps up to reconcile with the Sunni provinces and begins funding social services, the insurgency will only rekindle.
The Iraqi army must be freed up to police its porous borders with Iran and Syria. That's impossible without a national police force inside Iraq's cities that is both competent and law-abiding. So far the police are not quite either.
The Shiite community must appreciate that it has won the political struggle and finally achieved political power commensurate with its numbers. This majority must now take on Shiite death squads and their sympathizers inside the Iraqi government. Otherwise, an intolerant Shiite-run Iraq will either become a pawn of Iran or fight a perpetual war with the country's Sunni provinces.
Meanwhile, the American military, after four years of hard fighting in Iraq, is strained, its equipment wearing out. America's finest citizens, fighting for an idealistic cause that has still not been well explained to the American people, continue to be killed by horrific murderers.
If the unexpectedly good news about the surge has given Gen. Petraeus another six months to improve further the situation, the political debate at home has changed only from "Get out now!" to "Victory still isn't worth the cost in blood and treasure."
Lost in all this confusion over Iraq is the fact that about 160,000 gifted American soldiers are trying to help rebuild an entire civilization socially, politically and economically -- and defeat killers in their midst who will murder far beyond Iraq if not stopped.
9. Its Support of a State Sponsor of Terrorism -- Iran
A Taiwan zoo has become the laughing stock for having mistaken a female elephant for a male for 28 years, a newspaper said on Sunday.
The Shoushan Zoo in Kaohsiung, south Taiwan, received two baby African elephants from a US zoo in 1979, believing they were a male and a female, the Taipei Times reported.
Since then, the Shoushan Zoo raised the two elephants, Ali and Annie, as a couple and even held a much-publicized wedding for them in 2002. Annie died in 2003.
Although Annie never gave birth, zookeepers apparently never suspected both animals were females because Ali, now 33 and weighing five tons, was larger, stronger and more violent than Annie.
The truth about Ali’s sexual identity came out after a crocodile at the Shoushan Zoo bit off the arm of a vet who was giving the animal anaesthesia shots in order to treat its illness.
As the public attention focused on that incident, some animal experts pointed out that the culprit was a Saltwater crocodile, not a Nile crocodile as the zoo had described.
Then on April 20, the United Daily News reported the Shoushan Zoo’s mistaking Ali for a boy.
The Shoushan Zoo apologized for the mistake and said it would check the sex of its 683 animals so that the public would not be misinformed again.
Those are all liberal positions. How many of them do you hold?
HOUSE # 2:
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.
HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.
HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as "the Texas White House," it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.
"The Apotheosis of Washington" fresco on the ceiling of the Capitol Rotunda is considered Brumidi's masterpiece.
Shown is a segment of the "Frieze of American History" by Brumidi, part of a panorama along the base of the Capitol Rotunda depicting important events in American History (this one showing the landing of the pilgrims).
A conservator restores Brumidi's artwork on a corridor of the Capitol building.
