Iraq

Iraq‏
Barack Obama

September 1, 2010 12:21:43 AM
Fred
Tonight marks the end of the American combat mission in Iraq.As a candidate for this office, I pledged to end this war responsibly. And, as President, that is what I am doing.Since I became Commander-in-Chief, we've brought home nearly 100,000 U.S. troops. We've closed or turned over to Iraq hundreds of our bases.As Operation Iraqi Freedom ends, our commitment to a sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq continues.

Under Operation New Dawn, a transitional force of U.S. troops will remain to advise and assist Iraqi forces, protect our civilians on the ground, and pursue targeted counter terrorism efforts.By the end of next year, consistent with our agreement with the Iraqi government, these men and women, too, will come home.Ending this war is not only in Iraq's interest -- it is in our own. Our nation has paid a huge price to put Iraq's future in the hands of its people.

We have sent our men and women in uniform to make enormous sacrifices. We have spent vast resources abroad in the face of several years of recession at home.We have met our responsibility through the courage and resolve of our women and men in uniform.

In seven years, they confronted a mission as challenging and as complex as any our military has ever been asked to face.Nearly 1.5 million Americans put their lives on the line. Many returned for multiple tours of duty, far from their loved ones who bore a heroic burden of their own. And most painfully, more than 4,400 Americans have given their lives, fighting for people they never knew, for values that have defined our people for more than two centuries.What their country asked of them was not small. And what they sacrificed was not easy.For that, each and every American owes them our heartfelt thanks.Our promise to them -- to each woman or man who has donned our colors -- is that our country will serve them as faithfully as they have served us. We have already made the largest increase in funding for veterans in decades.

So long as I am President, I will do whatever it takes to fulfill that sacred trust.Tonight, we mark a milestone in our nation's history. Even at a time of great uncertainty for so many Americans, this day and our brave troops remind us that our future is in our own hands and that our best days lie ahead.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

USA, midterm circus

Housing sales down, unemployment up...but why are we so unfair with this fellow Obama.
He is probably the best man for the job and on the job since Woodrow Wilson.
It will take years to repair what this last yokel screwed up and or allowed to happen.
Had McCain been elected things would be even worse.

Give the man a chance, he's on the right track.

floods..hunger..famine..asia..pakistan...perspective

The recent G8 G20 conference in Toronto cost about 1.2 Billion Dollars to run and police. That is 1,000 million and 200 million, total, 1.2 billion.

In contrast, Canada so far has come up with the support of 32 million dollars for the catastrophe assistance in Pakistan. Combined with all the efforts and support from Europe, about 800 million dollars have been pledged for the support in Pakistan. Compare that with the G policing cost in Toronto and it tells you how much we (humanity) are prepared to spend for useless efforts as compared to true human urgent needs.

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more...on the Israel scene...

Since its founding in 1897, the Zionist Organization of America has been fighting for the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. Under the leadership of such illustrious presidents as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, and current National President Morton A. Klein, the ZOA has been on the front lines of Jewish activism.

With a national membership of over 30,000, and chapters throughout the United States (including Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, North Jersey, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, South Jersey and Washington D.C.), the ZOA today works to strengthen US-Israeli relations, through educational activities, public affairs programs, working every day on Capitol Hill, and by combating anti-Israel bias in the media, textbooks, and on campuses.

the boatpeople have arrived

....about 500 passengers and crew arrived this morning at the west coast, boat people from Somalia. Tigers.Smugglers. Who knows. This has happened before and no doubt the scene is being watched  for more of the same. They will be processed...takes about a year and a half and going by recent history about 80% will receive refuge status and be allowed to remain here. Most will probably end up in Toronto...apply to bring a bunch of other family members over within the next fife years and on the Summer weekends they all end up here uptown at the Cobourg beach.

What's wrong with that? Nothing.\It will give our government departments something to do...
Anyway that is what's in the news today and after being crammed up in a small ship for over three months on the pacific journey, these folks need a break, no matter what or why they find themselves in this situation.

why more time?

Standing meekly aside while Karzai's cadre rips-off the country; blissfully ignoring the total ineffectiveness of COIN; and, shelving our real strategic advantage--our commitment to self-government, an independent judiciary, and the rule of law - is a formula for self-defeat. Hawk Ann Marlowe thinks that's exactly what America is doing. And more time, of more of the same, will give the same result. Google Anne Marlowe, writer.

Israel....

I remember...way back when...1949..50..51..etc I used to feel sorry for the poor, displaced people of Palestine who were forced into UN camps to make room for the new Israeli settlements..such horror, such injustice.
War is hell and Israel has bravely fought several wars for their conquered space, territory and Independence.
And then...they end up giving part of it  back, only to be sniped at and attacked from these areas.

I can not think of any  wars or conflicts in the world since Hitlers Army crossed Poland to take on the Soviet Union that have resulted in permanent territorial gain for the aggressors...Israel is about the only nation  I know of  which has been formed, exists as a country ( and the only democracy in the region).

Just how many wars does Israel have to win to be able to build the kind of country they deserve. Enough is enough ...next time fight for , keep and defend  the conquered lands for good...
This may include part or all of Lebanon,Saudi Arabia...parts of Egypt if need be, and a host of other neighboring Territories. Iraq, Iran, Syria,as well as Jordan which already is home to many Palestinians. There, I finally said it...

billions of dollars...wasted

Well, ...this week pictures the cover of Time as a young woman, a girl from Afghanistan with her nose and ears cut off by the Taliban. That's why we're there to stop this outrageous nonsense.

...and this picture is of a woman, pregnant widow, being executed with three rifle shots to the head...I don't think we can leave this horrible and corrupt place until some kind of humanity has come to it to protect women and children.

Dear Fred:
I want to thank you for signing my birthday card.
Michelle told me that she was planning something a little different this year, and I was overwhelmed by the kind words I received from so many supporters like you.

This job has a way of offering humbling moments. And the support you have shown me, time and time again, has sustained me through any number of difficult days. It is more than any president deserves, and I could not be more grateful.

On my birthday, I spent some time considering what the year ahead will bring -- a new set of challenges and opportunities, some that we can foresee and some that we cannot.

If we continue to stand together, I know we will continue to move America forward and win these fights for change.
Thank you again for taking a moment to sign my card. As far as birthdays go, it is hard to imagine topping this one. But then again, Michelle always has a way of surprising me.

Sincerely,
Barack

Mr.Obama is probably one of the finest men and best choice to occupy the white house since Woodrow Wilson. I signed his Birthday Card along with another million or more others and above is the nicely worded response.

a billion dollars...waste

It's difficult to get my head around this billion dollar thing. The Germans call it Milliards...instead of Billion. I believe a billion is is 1,000 Millions.
The recent in Toronto Canada G8 &  G20 event  apparently cost over a billion dollars to police. Including local ,provincial, federal RCMP...army?...all together a billion dollars cost to police this event.
Unless I'm out a decimal point...that's the equivalent of the cost of building 4,000 homes at $250,000 each or over 20,000 seniors residences at $50,000 each. What a waste.
Other billion dollar efforts with little or nothing to show for are:

The long rifle gun registry efforts, money wasted by the last federal liberal government ...

The E-Health registry attempt, Ontario Provincial government waste by the current Ontario Liberal government.

G20 and all that...

In the nutshell....America wants to run the world. OK. Can't do it alone, so they asked the British to join them...after all they saved their butt in WW11. France was added...the world war 2 winners were: the USA, Britain, France (?) and the communist Soviet Union. The principal losers of course, Germany and Japan...
Back to the G20.
Because the U.N. as it is structured accomplishes little or nothing on the worlds economic scene, the G club added Japan and Germany to the original 3 participants...G5 then...They later added Canada and Italy and there you are, G7. More recently The Russian Federation was invited and the G8 created.

As a result of the G8 & G20 meeting here in Toronto Ontario Canada an expense of over a Billion Dollars incurred....not sure if that included the damage a bunch of idiots caused during the meeting...on the whole apparently the meeting went well...not sure what agreements resulted and what world piece progress was made.

July2010

Well, it has been an eventful month, the G20 thing in Toronto, the soccer scene, the Queen visit, busy month indeed..
My hope was that the financial happenings would improve somewhat but sadly another pile of money is lost in mutual funds, it looks like while the stockmarket is only down about 1% from last year end, the mutuals took a loss of over 4 points in the last three months...one wonders where this is going.

..much in the news...
I tried to post a note but the cut n. paste function is not working...probably something I missed to install in this new confuser..

four years...

I've been writing in bits and pieces on this blog for exactly 4 years. My main attempt in putting some lines togeter from time to time was to point out the stupidity of our ways in this world.
Finally the yokel administration of this idiot in the USA has come to an end, but we may have to live for a long time with the screw ups and inaction of this fellow Bush 2. To this day I don't think he has a clue why some people in this world hate America. It looks like Mr. Obama is quite capable in reversing the downhill route america was on. I wish him luck...so far so good.

in the news...

.The BP Oil mess in the Gulf of Mexico...they call it a spill,it's a disaster..
.Tea Party member elected, blows in the face of both, the democrats and republicans....
.The Greek bailout by the other Euromembers put pressure on the Euro...it dropped versus the Dollar..
.New faith in the Greenback acted to reduce the Can. $ from parity to 94cents US; at this moment it is undervalued..

THEN...

On 16 July 1945, the Americans successfully tested an atomic bomb at Alamogordo in the New Mexico desert, USA. July 21; Churchill and Truman agreed that the weapon should be used. Truman did not tell Stalin of the weapon until July 25 when he advised Stalin that America had 'a new bomb of unusually destructive force.' While Stalin seemed unaffected at hearing this news, he was later noted as being outraged at President Truman for not sharing this information earlier. Stalin was actually aware of the atomic bomb before Truman was as he had two spies that had infiltrated the Manhattan Project. By the 26th of July, the Potsdam Declaration had been broadcast to Japan, threatening total destruction unless the Imperial Japanese government submitted to unconditional surrender.

happy...happy...happy...happy.

Ah..well....it was my birthday...number...oh well...and Diana took me for dinner to a German Restaurant in Toronno...I just had one beer and can not explain the somewhat dipped look on my face..back to more serious stuff like Obama,Sarah Palin  King George the Shrub and related events.
In the news, the bailout of Greece by mostly Germany and their grip on the Euro, and...the ridiculous disaster in the Gulf of Mexico the event they like to call the spill....

America,America

Please,do not mistake my comments as sour grapes or any kind of attemptto badmouth Americans, not at all.  German born in Palatinate at the French border 1937,  I spent my first 18 years in Germany. I emigrated to Canada in 1956 and became a Citizen of Canada in 1967 our centennial year.
In the 80s I obtained a proper "green card" and decided for mostly climate preference reasons to buy a home in Florida. But.

I therefore consider myself ethnic German with Canadian Citizenship and American Alian (green Card).
But History is what it is. Truth, a bunch of dates and many  distortions. I like Mr. Obama, what he stands for and what he appears to believe in. My remarks are directed to those who have no clue as to the past, that includes Frau Merkel and most likely Mrs. Sarah Palin..among others.
I disaprove most of what Mr.Bush II had a part in, involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the World financial crisis and his inability to even try to cope with many domestic and world problems.(Hurricane Katherina, for instance). I suspect that for most bof his eight years in power he had no clue of what he was doing. One of his more ignorant remarks after 9/11 was "why do they hate us?"

beginning of modern warfare 1861

home sweet home in Gaza

Germany....read this Frau Merkel!

German occupation zones in 1946 after territorial annexations

More than 7 million Germans, including almost 2 million civilians, died during World War II.After the end of the war in Europe additional casualties were incurred during the Allied occupation and also during the population expulsions that followed.

After the war, the German people were often viewed with contempt because they were blamed for Nazi crimes by other Europeans. Germans visiting abroad, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, attracted insults from locals, and from foreigners who may have had their families or friends live through or perish in the atrocities. Today in Europe and worldwide (particularly in countries that fought against the Axis), Germans may be scorned by elderly people who were alive to experience the atrocities committed by Nazi Germans during World War II.

Germany itself and the German economy were devastated, with great parts of most major cities destroyed by the bombings of the Allied forces, sovereignty was taken away by the Allies and the territory filled with millions of refugees from the former eastern provinces which the Allies had decided were to be annexed by the Soviet Union and Poland, moving the eastern German border westwards to the Oder-Neisse line and effectively reducing Germany in size by roughly 25%. (see also Potsdam Conference) The remaining parts of Germany were divided among the Allies and occupied by British (the north-west), French (the south-west), American (the south) and Soviet (the east) troops.

.The expulsions of Germans from the lost areas in the east (see also Former eastern territories of Germany), the Sudetenland, and elsewhere in eastern Europe went on for several years. The number of Germans expelees totaled roughly 15,000,000. Estimates of number of deaths in connection with expulsion range from under 500,000 to 3 million.

After a short time the Allies broke over ideological problems (Communism versus Capitalism), and thus both sides established their own spheres of influence, creating a previously non-existent division in Germany between East and West, (although the division largely followed the borders of states which had existed in Germany before Bismarck's unification less than 100 years before).

West Germany, (officially: Federal Republic of Germany, FRG - this is still the official name of the unified Germany today) received (de facto) semi-sovereignty in 1949, as well as a constitution, called the Grundgesetz (Basic Law). The document was not called a Constitution officially, as at this point, it was still hoped that the two German states would be reunited in the near future.

The first free elections in West Germany were held in 1949, which were won by the Christian Democratic Party of Germany (CDU) (conservatives) by a slight margin. Konrad Adenauer (who spent the war years in the USA), a member of the CDU, was the first Bundeskanzler (Chancellor) of West Germany.The communist party was outlawed in West Germany, so much for democracy.

Foreign troops still remain in Germany today, for example Ramstein Air Base, but the majority of troops left following the end of the Cold War (By 1994 for Soviet troops, mandated under the terms of the Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany and in the mid-1990s for Western forces). The Bush Administration in the United States in 2004 stated intentions to withdraw most of the remaining American troops out of Germany in the coming years. During the years 1950-2000 more than 10,000,000 U.S. military personnel were stationed in Germany.

The West German economy was by the mid 50's rebuilt thanks to the abandonment in mid-1947 of some of the last vestiges of the Morgenthau Plan and to fewer war reparations imposed on West Germany (see also Wirtschaftswunder). After lobbying by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Generals Clay and Marshall, the Truman administration finally realized that economic recovery in Europe could not go forward without the reconstruction of the German industrial base on which it had previously had been dependent.In July 1947, President  Truman rescinded on "national security grounds the punitive JCS 1067, which had directed the U.S. forces of occupation in Germany to "take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany." It was replaced by JCS 1779, which instead stressed that "[a]n orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany.

The dismantling of factories in the western zones, for further transport to Russia as reparations, was in time halted as frictions grew between East and West. Limits were placed on permitted levels of German production in order to prevent resurgence of German militarism, part of which included severely restricting German steel production and affected the rest of the German economy very negatively (see "The industrial plans for Germany"). Dismantling of factories by France and Great Britain as reparations and for the purpose of lowering German war and economic potential under the "level of industry plans" took place (finally halted in 1951), but to nowhere near the scale of the dismantling and transport to the Soviet Union of factories in the eastern zone of occupation. The Eastern Block did not accept the Marshall Plan, denouncing it as American economic imperialism, and thus it (East Germany included) recovered much more slowly than their Western counterparts. German political end economic control of its main remaining centers of industry was reduced, the Ruhr area was under international control. The Ruhr Agreement was imposed on the Germans as a condition for permitting them to establish the Federal Republic of Germany. In the end, the beginning of the Cold War led to increased German control of the area, although permanently limited by the pooling of German coal and steel into a multinational community in 1951 (see European Coal and Steel Community). The neighboring Saar area, containing much of Germany's remaining coal deposits, was by the U.S. handed over to French economic administration as a protectorate in 1947 and did not politically return to Germany until January 1957, with economic reintegration occurring a few years later.

The Allies confiscated intellectual property of great value, all German patents, both in Germany and abroad, and used them to strengthen their own industrial competitiveness by licensing them to Allied companies Beginning immediately after the German surrender and continuing for the next two years the U.S. pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents in Germany. John Gimbel comes to the conclusion, in his book "Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany", that the "intellectual reparations" taken by the U.S. and the UK amounted to close to $10 billion.  Meanwhile thousands of the best German researchers were being put to work in the Soviet Union and in the U.S.

For several years following the surrender German nutritional levels were very low, resulting in extremely  high mortality rates. Throughout all of 1945 the U.S. forces of occupation ensured that no international aid reached ethnic Germans It was directed that all relief went to non-German displaced persons, liberated Allied POWs, and former concentration camp inmates.
During 1945 it was estimated that the average German civilian in the US and UK occupation zones received 1200 calories a day. Meanwhile non-German Displaced Persons were receiving 2300 calories through emergency food imports and Red Cross help.In early October 1945 the UK government privately acknowledged in a cabinet meeting that German civilian adult death rates had risen to 4 times the pre-war levels and death rates amongst the German children had risen by 10 times the pre-war levels. The German Red Cross was dissolved, and the International Red Cross and the few other allowed international relief agencies were kept from helping Germans through strict controls on supplies and on travel.The few agencies permitted to help Germans, such as the indigenous Caritas Verband, were not allowed to use imported supplies.
When the Vatican attempted to transmit food supplies from Chile to German infants the US State Department forbade it.
The German food situation reached its worst during the very cold winter of 1946-1947 when German calorie intake ranged from 1,000-1,500 calories per day, a situation made worse by severe lack of fuel for heating. Meanwhile the Allies were well fed, average adult calorie intake was; U.S. 3200-3300; UK 2900; U.S. Army 4000.German infant mortality rate was twice that of other nations in Western Europe until the close of 1948.

As agreed by the Allies at the Yalta conference Germans were used as forced labor as part of the reparations to be extracted to the countries ruined by Nazi aggression. By 1947 it is estimated that 4,000,000 Germans (both civilians and POWs) were being used as forced labor by the U.S., France, the UK and the Soviet Union. German prisoners were for example forced to clear minefields in France and the low countries. By December 1945 it was estimated by French authorities that 2,000 German prisoners were being killed or maimed each month in accidents. In Norway the last available casualty record, from August 29, 1945, shows that by that time a total of 275 German soldiers died while clearing mines, while 392 had been maimed. Death rates for the German civilians doing forced labor in the Soviet Union ranged between 19% - 39%, depending on category.

Norman Naimark writes in "The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949." that although the exact number of women and girls who were raped by members of the Red Army in the months preceding and years following the capitulation will never be known, their numbers are likely in the hundreds of thousands, quite possibly as high as the 2,000,000 victims estimate made by Barbara Johr, in "Befreier und Befreite". Many of these victims were raped repeatedly. Naimark states that not only had each victim to carry the trauma with her for the rest of her days, it inflicted a massive collective trauma on the East German nation (the German Democratic Republic). Naimark concludes "The social psychology of women and men in the soviet zone of occupation was marked by the crime of rape from the first days of occupation, through the founding of the GDR in the fall of 1949, until-one could argue-the present.

The post-war hostility shown to the German people is exemplified in the fate of the War children, sired by German soldiers with women from the local population in nations such as Norway where the children and their mothers after the war had to endure many years of abuse. In the case of Denmark the hostility felt towards all things German also showed itself in the treatment of German refugees during the years 1945 to 1949. During 1945 alone 7000 German children under the age of 5 died as a result of being denied sufficient food and denied medical attention by Danish doctors who were afraid that rendering aid to the children of the former enemy would be seen as an unpatriotic act. Many children died of easily treatable ailments. As a consequence "more German refugees died in Danish camps, "than Danes did during the entire war.
During the Cold War, it was difficult for West Germans to visit East German relatives and friends and impossible vice versa. For East Germans, especially after the building of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961 and until Hungary opened up its border to the West in the late 1980s, thus allowing hundreds of thousands of vacationing East Germans to flee into Western Europe, it was only possible to get to West Germany by illegally fleeing across heavily-fortified and guarded border areas.

The above was taken from Wikepedia, most of it in any case does not just reflect the views of the Germans but appears to be world opinion based on facts as exposed by some decent American , Canadian and British sources. I think Frau Merkel should be aware of some of these stated facts before she engages in stupidspeak such as describing the Amerticans as "unsere Befreier" ...our liberators.


44 years after the end of World War II, the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989. Both the East as well as the West parts of Germany were reunited on 3 October 1990.

...finally...success, Obama Health plan..for all Americans

The Laundrylist
 picture is a watercolour 4x6 by Diana

It is truly a significant accomplishment to have finally instituted coverage of some sort of health insurance for all Americans, including the somewhere between 30 and 50 Million people who had no medical coverage of any kind until now.
Germany....loser of two horrendeous world wars has had medical coverage since 1871, France probably has the best insurance of the western world, Britain has covered their people for some time and Canada has been with a countrywide healthplan administered by the provinces for almost two generations.

The USA should look at this as an opportunity as this new situation will undoubtedly create many rewarding careers although it is presently viewed as a considerable new tax burden.
I have been subjected to this totally ridiculous situation of finding myself without medical coverage about  ten years ago. One afternoon at an Orlando  Florida area hospital to check me out for a possible pnemonia problem ended up costing  over $2500, I can just imagine how many poor americans end up bankrupt because of an accident or medical condition and the lack of medical expense coverage.

Hurray for Mr.Obama, he and those who stuck with him on this most difficult undertaking accomplished what no other american leader of the past 100 years have  been able to do.

Let me recall his laundry-list:
Healthcareplan for all Americans
End the war in Iraq..Afghanistan
Close Q camp in Cuba
Resolve ever increasing unemployment in Aberica problem
Unexpected additional mess left by Bush ll:
Collapse of the financial system with worldwide consequences,AEG and big banks multibilliondollar bailout
Almost total demise of GM and Chrysler, financial assistance to restructure these auto giants