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The war in Iraq is well on its way to spawning terrorists faster than we're eliminating them.

Section 12.3 of the 9/11 Commission Report says:

"Support for the United States has plummeted. Polls taken in Islamic countries after 9/11 suggested that many or most people thought the United States was doing the right thing in its fight against terrorism; few people saw popular support for al Qaeda; half of those surveyed said that ordinary people had a favorable view of the United States. By 2003, polls showed that "the bottom has fallen out of support for America in most of the Muslim world. Negative views of the U.S. among Muslims, which had been largely limited to countries in the Middle East, have spread.. . . Since last summer, favorable ratings for the U.S. have fallen from 61% to 15% in Indonesia and from 71% to 38% among Muslims in Nigeria.""

80,000 Iraqi children are alive today because the Coalition Forces took Saddam Hussein from power.

Polls show 75% of Iraqis want a democracy.

51% of Iraqis say their country is going in the right direction

Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1. ..

... the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty

... over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.

... nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.

... the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.

... on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts-exceeding the pre-war average.

... all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.

... by October 1, Coalition forces had rehabbed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than their target.

... teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.

... all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.

... doctors' salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.

... pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.

... the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq's children.

... a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals.  They now irrigate tens of thousands of farms.  This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.

...we have restored over three-quarters of pre-war telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.

... there are 4,900 full-service connections.  We expect 50,000 by January first.

... the wheels of commerce are turning.  From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.

... 95 percent of all pre-war bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.

... Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.

... the central bank is fully independent.

... Iraq has one of the world's most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.

... Iraq (has) a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.

... satellite dishes are legal.

... foreign journalists aren't  on 10-day visas paying mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for "minders" and other government spies.

... there is no Ministry of Information.

... there are more than 170 newspapers.

... you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.

... foreign journalists and everyone else are free to come and go.

... a nation that had not one single element - legislative, judicial or  executive -- of a representative government, does.

... in Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils.   Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when

the city council elected its new chairman.

... today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.

... 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government.

... the Iraqi government regularly participates in international events.  Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in over two dozen international meetings, including those of the UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the Islamic Conference Summit.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.

... Shia religious festivals that were all but banned, aren't.

... for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.

... the Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of (a) strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.

... Uday and Queasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to his zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games...murdering critics.

... children aren't  imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.

... political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.

... millions of longsuffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror.

... Saudis will hold municipal elections.

... Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.

... Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.

... the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an Iranian -- a Muslim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights, for democracy and for peace.

Michael

Sulfurdolphin, you get "TWO"more Thumbs UP


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 What would you have done differently if you were the president - the day after 911. Don't forget, that that disgusting, cowardly act was not the first time terrorists had hit the Americans. The WTC was bombed prior to that, and many American, and allied targets were hit throughout the world.

 I've heard the criticism that Bush should have left Iraq alone and concentrated on Iran or N. Korea. If either one of those countries had have been hit, there would most certainly have been nuclear war - then the nay-sayers would really be screaming...literally!

 Bush was very coy in attacking Iraq. Now, the Americans have a base of operations right beside Iran, and are giving the Iraqi people an opportunity to break free from the chains of an evil dictator, who, according to every single U.N. member prior to the war, had weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons were used against the Iranians, as well as the Kurds. The scary part is wondering who has the technology, and weapons now. You don't want those folks coming to your home town do you?

Bronzesnake

can you show me where it says that every member said he had weapons of mass destruction?

oh and i heard somewhere that most of the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia, is this true? can you give me more info?

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umm you know nazism, communism and fascism still exist

and i would bet slavery does but i can't remember.... ???

Do they still exist where there were wars to stop them?  :)

ummm yes

If it weren't for war, communism would have a stronger hold and be more widespread than it is today. War has indeed stopped the spread of communism even though it has not stopped it completely.

Communism is again rearing it's ugly head. It is starting out as Socialism which is just one step away from communism.

Now we not only have that concern but we have others that wish to take our freedoms away.

Hot Flash
By Ralph R. Reiland

Kerry and The Global Con Artists

The big news is that the UN has flunked "the global test." And as big as it is, it's a story that isn't likely to find its way onto the front page of the newspaper that trumpets "All the news that's fit to print" in the upper left corner every day. To find that "the global community" is made up of a bunch of crooks, that "the global test" is a racket, and that John Kerry is either utterly naïve or in cahoots with these global con artists is something that's just too unfit to think about, let alone broadcast to the masses, especially right before election day.

The whole shady story is in the Duelfer report. And while the Old Gray Lady in Manhattan tried valiantly to blur the real news under the headline "U.S. Report Finds Iraqis Eliminated Illicit Arms in 90's," what the report from the CIA's Iraq Survey Group shows is that Saddam Hussein played the United Nations like a fiddle.  

Highlighted in the first line of its "Key Findings," the Duelfer report states that Saddam "wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction when sanctions were lifted."  To get there, Saddam set up an epic bribery scheme that put three of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in his pocket.

"It's pretty clear that the Iraqi strategy and tactics of dividing the Security Council were having a fair amount of success," said Charles Duelfer, the chief of the Iraq Survey Group, in public testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime."

Saddam got within striking distance by corrupting the Oil-for-Food Program. With the UN in the role of overseer, Saddam was given a green light to sell oil in order to get funds to import "humanitarian goods." Instead, as Duelfer told Congress, Saddam exploited the program to pile up billions in illicit money, import military items expressly banned by UN sanctions, and develop a massive kickback scheme to buy the votes and influence of strategic individuals and countries.

Especially targeted by Saddam were three veto-wielding members of the Security Council --- Russia, France and China. The bait was cut-rate oil vouchers which could be offloaded on the world markets at the going rate or surreptitiously swapped for cash. The alleged beneficiaries identified by the Survey Group included individuals with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and French President Jacques Chirac, i.e., Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, retired UN Oil-for-Food director Benon Sevan, and former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua.

In a shrewd tactic to rake in millions for himself, Saddam ordered voucher recipients to pay kickbacks. Duelfer reports that recipients made the payments by carrying bags of cash to Iraqi embassies in Moscow, Geneva, Ankara, Amman, Beirut and Hanoi, among other places.

By the time it was over, 45 percent of Saddam's cut-rate vouchers had found their way into pockets in France and Russia, with Russia and France subsequently becoming the two most vociferous opponents of military action against Iraq. France went further, assuring Saddam that it would use its veto in the Security Council to prevent any invasion.

Having successfully corrupted and divided the international community, Saddam was a step away from celebrating the end of sanctions and reconstituting his WMD programs. As described by New York Times columnist David Brooks: "With sanctions weakening and money flowing, Saddam rebuilt his strength. He contacted WMD scientists in Russia, Belargus, Bulgaria and elsewhere to enhance his technical knowledge base. He increased the funds for his nuclear scientists. He increased his military-industrial-complex's budget 40-fold between 1996 and 2002. He increased the number of technical research projects to 3,200 from 40."

Iraqi nuclear scientist Mahdi Obeidi, writing in the New York Times on September 26, stated that "our nuclear program could have been reinstituted at the snap of Saddam Hussein's fingers. Iraqi scientists had the knowledge and the designs needed to jumpstart the program if necessary." Additionally, Duelfer reports that Saddam "clearly intended to reconstitute long-range delivery systems" for missiles with strike capacities in excess of 600 miles.

The problem for John Kerry?  It seems increasingly far-fetched to say that Saddam wasn't a threat, or that we're the ones running a "coalition of the bribed," or that U.S. moves should pass a "global test."

Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise at Robert Morris University and a columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Bronzesnake

Sure, resolution 1441 was adopted unanimously by the U.N. security council.
 Here's a link where you can read the entire resolution if you wish...

 http://wikisource.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_1441 (http://wikisource.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_1441)

 Yes, I believe 15 of the 19 terrorists were Saudi. That's not what distinguishes them as terrorists though - they were all Al-Qaeda - Al-Qaeda have been, and are currently attempting to overthrow the Saudi monarchy. Also, remember, there are even American Al-Qaeda members - they are a worldwide terrorist organization that must be hunted and eliminated wherever they are.

 Bronzesnake

The wars against communism are kind of double edged. You could argue that is helped weaken communism's hold in certain areas of the world. But I mean look at how The US funded Osama to fight the USSR when it was invading Afghanistan...fighting against one problem only inflamed another.

Also, the Socialist ideals of today's European countries and Canada aren't the same as the present or past communist regimes. It's Democratic Socialism a hybrid of the two: they still hold civil rights, democracy, and the individual in high regard...it just distributes the wealth and gives more economic equity, etc. By no means is it a perfect system, but hey, neither is ours.

To answer the question of the thread tital, the price of gas is the highest ever, terrorism has increased by 100 percent every year since the invasion and America is hated by more people than ever in our history.

Perhaps someone will give an example of a material benefit to the US brought about by this war?

 That is a myth that America is hated more than ever we have always been hated equal with Israel by terriost.There hatred is still the same hatred it hasn't increased or decreased against USA or Israel. Also we are not totally Dependent of Iraqi oil. The United States hardly get oil from Iraqi anymore Texas and other Eastern states in the United states has signed a 2 year contract with Israel so we can get oil from Israel. War has little effect on the gas prices i would say all the hurricanes and disasters in Florida and other islands has caused the price of oil to sky rocketed. I read somewhere i dont remeber where where we only get 43% or 45% of oil from Iraq that is not much oil. We are still dependent on our own country and possibly Russia.


http://www.zionoil.org/sitemap.htm

 ???

Thanks for the info.  :)

I agree with your comments on hatred of the U.S. and oil from Iraq. We get less than 1% of our oil from Iraq.

However the contract that you speak of with Israel is not true. Israel has an oil shortage due to an oil embargo by the oil-rich Arab states of the middle-east. Some 80% of Israels oil is bought from Russia, the rest on the market from Rotterdam and from Egypt. In Aug 2003 they were exploring the re-opening of a pipeline from Iraq to Israel to help alleviate this problem.

My Opinion

Teddy Roosevelt had the correct idea.  Walk softly but carry a big stick.  He had been known to use the big stick.  We need to follow his lead a bit stonger than we have.

Maybe like taking one of the hot spot cities (Fallujah (sp??)) and starting at the top right and work down to the bottom left and when done, NOT LEAVE ONE BLACKENED STONE STANDING ON ANOTHER.

Well, that sounds very Christian. Let's kill a quarter million women and children to prove we've "liberated" Iraq. Then the entire Mideast will stop fighting against us.

The US was attacked b/c it supports Israel.

Our being in Iraq is about Israel.

 Actually Pastor Rogers i read this summer that Israel found some new oil discovered. Gave 2 websites at the end of this post.

Zion Oil & Gas Inc. plans to go public.

 
On July 15, the energy company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of stock.

Zion's U.S. headquarters are in Dallas. The company is based in Herzliya, Israel.

According to the filing, Zion's common stock will be priced at $5 per share on the Nasdaq market. Zion hopes to sell between 1.2 million and 5 million shares, worth between $6 million and $25 million.

Zion's registration statement described its stock offering as "very risky."

"We plan to spend most of the money raised to prepare for and drill one or more 'wildcat' oil and gas exploratory wells in the state of Israel," the registration statement said. "Your investment will be subject to a combination of the highest risks associated with new ventures, oil and gas exploration and political uncertainty."

Zion plans to drill at least one well for oil and gas in the Joseph Reef area of Israel bordering the West Bank between Haifa and Tel Aviv.

Zion recorded total audited capitalization $490,846 as of Dec. 31, 2002.

The company listed 72 shareholders of record as of July 11. Chairman and CEO John M. Brown currently owns 69.5% of Zion; director Ralph DeVore owns 18.1%.


http://dallasgotcha100journals.com/dallas/stories/2003/07/14/daily28.html

ISRAEL OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY UPDATE

http://www.zionoil.org/update.htm

I had heard that they were looking there but didn't know that any oil was found. Thanks for the info.

 Your welcome Pastor Rogers  :)

Michael