Deviations From the Mean

The sad truth about the Iraq war is reason enough to explain why the American people have grown weary of even hearing of news from Iraq.

The war has taken on a sad destructive life of its on for almost five years now with all of the reasons given by the Bush neocons for going to war having long ago been found to be fabrications and outright lies.

But still the American troops suffer in Iraq. With no end in sight. The sad history of how the United States got into the Iraq mess is set forth in this video.

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In an interview with Wall Street Journal reporters yesterday that mostly was about trade issues President Bush deplores American opinions. According to President Bush the reasons the public is so skeptical of his policies is easy to explain. The problem is not with the policies — it’s with the American public’s opinions.

“We have lost sight of what it means to be a nation willing to be aggressive in the world and spread freedom or deal with disease. And we have lost our confidence in the ability to compete internationally,” Bush said yesterday in the interview.

Once again Rep. Ron Paul demonstrates that he is the only Republican candidate for President who even vaguely knows how far the United States is slipping in its standing as a world power and that to reverse the slide the US must change many of its policies.

The other Republican macho men candidates prove once again that they are out to prove to all that they are all for the “war on terror” and that basically the US has to right to attack any country that we think may in some way be a threat, if not now, at sometime in the future.

Ron Paul is a Republican Congressmen from Texas who is an old fashioned kind of guy. He is realistic in his assessment of the unintended consequences of the war in Iraq and to the cost to American of staying the course with a failed policy.

Rep. Ron Paul still believes in honesty, integrity, the preservation of constitutional rights, and the right and duty of concerned citizens to speak out when they think that the government has gotten off course with its policies.

The turmoil in Burma gives President Bush the perfect opportunity to put his “democracy and freedom” rhetoric into positive action. But will he act in a forceful effective way? One can’t count on it, especially if you are a long suffering Burmese dissident.

The ruling military junta in Burma is one of the most secretive, repressive, brutal, and plain weird regimes in the world. They are so strange that they almost make North Korea’s “great leader”, Kim Jong Il, look normal. Over the protests of the international community the junta has ruled Burma for the past 19 years.

I have not once heard that affinity credit cards are designed in such a way as to attract customers that would never apply for them otherwise. That is, affinity credit card deals offer programs that are of particular interest to certain categories of the customer base.

In other words they target individual attitudes and preferences of potential cardholders, influencing their state of mind and thus winning their recognition and love. At the same time, however, affinity credit cards, cannot boast of competitive interest rates and fees, and very often they can be rather costly for certain credit consumer type.

The new premier league season is at a good start. We can still see the same faces but what excites most football fans are the new faces on the league. Most of the teams have new additions to the force. This makes everyone think about the outcome of the matches with these new players on the team.

The new season makes me think, who among the season’s players will make it big this time around? Let us first forget about the “already big” names like Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba and the others. Let us focus on the new faces. There are players who are totally new on the premier league while some are merely new transfers. So who has the potential to establish a big name of this new premier league season?

Chuck Hagel, Nebraska’s senior U.S. Senator, is serving his second term in the United States Senate. Senator Hagel’s duties include membership on four Senate committees: Foreign Relations; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; Intelligence and Rules.

Senator Hagel knows a thing or two about military affairs. Hagel served in Vietnam with his brother Tom in 1968. They served side by side as infantry squad leaders with the U.S. Army’s 9th Infantry Division. Hagel earned many military decorations and honors, including two Purple Hearts.

Hagel is one member of the Republican Party who is willing to stick up for the military. This is from last Friday’s Real Time TV appearance with Bill Maher.

It’s very clear from this exchange between President Bush and President Vladimir Putin of Russia that Putin has lost all respect for Bush and for the Bush administration’s policies.

No world leader likes to be lectured to about how to run their country. Especially by a clumsy lecturer like Bush. Based on Bush’s performance, especially in Iraq, Putin and other world leaders will no longer remain silent when President Bush continues to try and market his program of democratization and to lecture them on how they should be governing their own countries.

There is one Congressman in Washington D.C. who has maintained his integrity while working in Washington, D.C. He is concerned about the sea of recklessness, lack of discipline, corruption, and abuse of power that has engulfed our nation.

That lonely Congressman is Dr. Ron Paul, a US House of Representatives member from the 14th District of Texas. Paul’s freedom principals are as follows:

Russia is restarting air patrols and working hard to beef up its military while the powers that be in Washington, DC assure us that there is no danger of reentering a cold war. Do these geniuses really expect Russia and other nations to stand quietly by as the US spends as much annually on its military as the rest of the world combined?

From the Russian point of view the United States has been pretty darn aggressive with its military over the past six years. Not only have we moved to grab Iraq and to build permanent bases in the Middle East we plan to build missile systems close to Russian borders.

The following excerpt is from The Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience in Iraq, A Trip Report, by Anthony H. Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Mr Cordesman made a trip to Iraq prior to publishing his report. To see the full report in PFD format go here.

“The US intervention in Iraq has driven more than two million Iraqis out of the country, including much of its most educated and professional citizens. It has displaced over two million more Iraqis inside Iraq, many of which have lost their homes and their businesses and jobs. Estimates of the total percent of underemployment and unemployment exceed 50% in virtually all of the country.