bombing in Iraq

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7302406.stm

There have been many bomb attacks in Iraq and at least 52 bombing attacks in Iraq so far. A woman set a bomb off a bomb as a suicide threat and killed 78 people and left 75 injured. the bomb was planted in a crowded area and in total there have been 52 bombing attacks in Iraq.

I know that Iraq is trying to fight us but why fight yourself? If some one wants to kill themselves, why kill a bunch of people with you. Just go and kill yourself to save other people from the pain and suffering of their dead ones that were just killed in the bomb blast. Many families will be very angry and sad because of someone that is doing a job for someother person. nobody has the right to go and kill another person.

We are in this world for a reason and people dont need to ruin those purposes. What if a future doctor, who will cure aids, were to be killed in the bomb attack? There will be no cure. Not until some more people die and the next person figures it out. Many people are actually afraid to die and when they hear of bomb attacks and other things they will start to go crazy and freak out.

This world is deing destroied and we are the cause if it. soon we will come down to not being able to truch eachother and then we will fight people that used to be our friends.

Why you should have the thought of uranium in ur-cranium

Imagine hearing a city near you has been hit by a nuclear bomb. Imagine seeing your city getting hit by a nuclear bomb. Not something anyone wants to happen, I would think. Nuclear weapons are certainly also a threat as long as the technology is out there, in the wrong hands.

About 30,000 nuclear weapons are estimated to exist, 22,ooo of which are in the Russia/middle east region and possibly in the wrong hands. By “the wrong hands”, I mean people with the potential to use the weapons for acts of terrorism. Currently, only the U.S., Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Isreal and North Korea have nuclear weapons/the capability to build them, and Iran is under close watch for suspected nuclear programs. However, people are not immune to corruption, and will sell the nuclear weapons or the proper tools/blueprints to build them.

Most Americans don’t think about the threat of a nuclear attack very often, but it is more probable than some may think. The fact that North Korea, one of our nations in the “axis of evil”, has the ability to build and use nuclear weapons scares me. What if we never got knowledge of their ability? We wouldn’t even be here to discuss it, I would think.

We always have to be prepared. Nothing is completely certain, especially when it involves the activites of the government. Nuclear weapons are a danger to us, especially with all the hate of the U.S. out there, and people willing to do anything for their religion. All its gonna take for an attack is some secret exchange of blueprints.

  http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/peace/abolish-nuclear-weapons/the-vital-statistics

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803u/uranium-smuggling

Afghanistan, Bin laden, and the Taliban

Whether then average american knows it or not, the US has been fighting wars with and against our current enemies for decades. The CIA’s association with Afghanistan reaches back into the middle of the cold war. In 1979, the soviet union invaded afghanistan in order to prop up the puppet government it had in place there. At first glance, this may seem to be nearly insignificant, superpowers do that all the time, but al queda was born in that war. Osama bin laden became a principle figure in the america-backed afghan jihad against the USSR, and he gained many of his folowers there. the usa and bin laden have a long history, way before 9/11. We were even directly told of the Taliban/Al queda threat by Amhed Shah Massoud, the leader of the northern alliance (essentially the counter taliban), In early 2001 Massoud spoke to a group of european leaders concerning the taliban. In his speech he said this: “If the West does not help us eliminate al-queda, if they do not help us rid our land of those terrorists who have invaded it, there will be a tragedy, a horror visited on you that is beyond comprehension or endurance. Help us, and in doing that, help yourselves.” The fact that the leader of the northern alliance, the last bastion of hope in a incredibly unstable portion of the world,  having given a warning this specific, was totally and completely ignored is mind boggling. The entire war on terror could have been averted if this warning had been heeded.

source: Ghost Wars by Steve Coll

taking troops out of Iraq

Should we take the troops out of Iraq? I believe that we should because many troops are being killed and more are being shipped off and many. When we think of the families that have troops as their kids, they are heartbroken when their child dies so we need to stop the heart ache of others.  We are spending 3.5 billion dollars a day and that could be used to feed the homeless and get the childers in poor families into school.”We’ve had to make some very considerable adjustments in the rest of the defense program in order to pay for that,” Wolfowitz said.  If we take the troops out of Iraq they will probably be happy to know that they are home and they will live to see another day. 

Since 9/11 Iraq has killed 2,974 of our troops and when the towers fell Iraq killed 2,973 people and there are more people dying in Iraq everyday. There isn’t any way to stop the killing  but to take the troops out. We are killing them and they are killing us so we need to stop the blood shed. The only deaths should be the deaths of old people or from diseases. People are people and we shouldn’t kill them. They aren’t ours to kill. We need to be able to live our lives without being in fear that our people are being killed and making the families wonder if their child is still alive and will come home.

This war is killing our people and our country. It is making us fight against ourselves not only Iraq. we are stuck between the decision of taking our troops out of Iraq or if we should show Iraq who is the boss. we need to stop fighting and come together and that will be our strength to stop attackers. Save our troops for something better.

Darfur and why you should care

           

            Darfur. Do you know where that is? “I have no idea what that is.”, says Jared King, currently a freshman. For many, Darfur is just a word, and they are unaware that currently millions threatened by genocide in Africa. If you are one of these people, consider this an intervention.

            Darfur is the far western section of Sudan a country is northeastern Africa. Since early 2003, a conflict has been going on in the region. As of now about 500,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been displaced, and an average of 10,000 more people die each month.

            You may be wondering why these people are dying, or why no action is being taken.

First of all, this area has been in disaster for some time now, due to famine and desertification, as well as political tension. This finally erupted when a group called the Darfur Liberation Front began assaulting Sudanese government buildings. This would normally be put down by the army, but the military was deployed at the time in southern Sudan, where a civil was just ending. The government therefore, turned to militias, known as the Janjaweed, for help. The Janjaweed were originally Arabic nomadic herders, but they were made in to a well-armed counter-insurgency force by the Sudanese government.

            Upon entering the conflict the

Janjaweed were dominant, routing the rebels. The Janjaweed have thus far destroyed 385 villages in Darfur, singling out non-Arab villages. This has led the conflict to be called genocide.

            It became international in 2004, when the Janjaweed began pursuing refugees into Sudan’s neighbor, Chad. Eventually, peace was supposedly made, but the Janjaweed continue to slaughter civilians in Darfur. Even now, the Sudanese government continues to supply heavy weapon and to the Janjaweed.

            Many aid organizations are in Darfur, but they are constantly targets for violence. This has led some to pull out, plunging the area further into crisis. With no one stepping up to take action against it, this genocide looks like it’s going to continue for a long time.

            Sources: newsweek, US news.

Is Iraq worth the cost?

Amongst all the statistics about Iraq, one seems to bother me-the amount of money spent. Having spent 3 trillion already seems like an awful lot, but the war isn’t even over yet. One week of the war in Iraq/Afghanistan costing 3.5 billion dollars just sounds somewhat like a waste of funds.

At this point, we do need to stay in the Middle East, but cutting down a bit on the funds to help the struggling economy is a better use of millions of dollars. We’re spending 7 billion per year on Global Warming, so just think of the possibilities of taking that money and spending it elsewhere.

One of the things that sticks out about this funding is the fact that only a little goes to paying the troops. About 350 million dollars goes to the government troops, or one tenth of the money spent per week. This, really, is not enough pay, considering the fact that some employees of private contractors make ten times as much. The government spends about $650 million on personnel in Iraq. The other $2,850,000,000 goes to weapons, supplies, and services (such as cleaning the runways).

Considering the debt we are in, we have to do anything we can to cut costs and get the job done as soon as possible. We can’t keep sending billions and billions into Iraq while things are falling apart (moneywise) back in the United States.

There are so many different things we could spend all that money on. Millions of 4-year college scholarships for students, hiring millions of teachers, buying trillions of donuts, and the list goes on. Now, I don’t know if the donuts are important, but scholarships and teachers could really help the country.

Hopefully all this wasteful spending will end when the next president comes into office. The thing we need most around here is change.

Sources of Information:    http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/78683/?page=3

The Why

Most people have no idea as to the why of the war on terror. The question “why do they hate us” flies around more than bullets inFallujah . In this post you will learn exactly why Iran hates our guts and want us crawl into a hole somewhere and die.

Iran

As every patriotic american knows, Iran is an unholy dictatoship whose only goals are to kill jesus, nuke heaven, and feast upon the souls of the pure. of course, everyone outside of the asylum, the white house, and/or the O’reilly factor knows that Iran has a long and nasty history with the US. (P.s. I’m not trying to be anti-american here, I simply belive than when searching for the source of a problem, the first course of action should be self examination.)

Timeline of US iranian relations

1856:US diplomatic relations established with Persia(iran).

The realationship is largly uneventful for decades.

1952:British/American intelligence organize protests to depose Mohammed Mosaddeq the prime minister of Iran, reenstating the Shah, who was basically a puppet king.

1979:Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini gains power, begins refering to america as “great satan” Hostage taken because Shah allowed into the US for cancer treatment. Massive sanctions against Iran, US was at time Iran’s largest commercial partner.

1981:iran-iraq war, sadaam supported by US, half the western world. US supplies iraq w/anthrax ect. over 1 million Iranians die, 400,000 iraqis die.

1983:beriut barracks bombing, hezbolla, iranian backed terrorists, held reponsible.

1986:Iran-contra scandal. US sells weapons to iran to pay for funding of nicuraguan rebels.

1988:Iranian air flight 655 tradedy. US cruiser destroys iranian civilian flight carrying 290 people from six countries. US pays families, never apologizes to iran or admits responsability.

1990′s:troubled talks, little happens as result.

2000′s:Bush refers to iran as axis of evil, nuclear weapons accusation unfounded by administrations own intelligence reports.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Currently, iran and the US regulary trade insults regarding iran’s nuclear program. Don’t expect this to end anytime soon, as talks with iran are nearly impossible under the bush administration. As always, reseach for yourself on this, i’m not the one who should decide what you think.

sources:

BBC

Modern Iran (book)

Foregin affairs magazine

New york times

Reagan presidential library

War in General & the War in Iraq

War is an interesting thing. Some people are completely opposed to it, some are completely supportive of it, and some people are against certain wars, but not others. I am one of those who is completely for war. I feel it is something that is, ironically, needed for us to survive. War, though violent as it is, is usually for a good cause. In the case of the war in Iraq, we are fighting to eliminate terrorism and improve the lives of the people there. On top of all that, war is something you can never get rid of for good, because there will always be people who want to fight instead of use diplomacy, so why not just accept it? If you don’t like war, don’t join the military.

The way I see it, many people think of war as something that wastes the lives of young people, something that will lead to our ultimate demise, and all that kind of gloom & doom stuff. In truth, the former statements can be disproved. We are not wasting the lives of our troops, because military service here is voluntary—at least for now. If we had no people to go out and fight for us, we would just have to bomb the bejeezus out of the other guys’ country from a computer, and that wouldn’t really work, would it? Whoever owns the biggest gun wins, basically. As for the human extinction thing, we have proved that war cannot possibly kill the entire population, at least with the way we wage war currently. Ever since war existed, the human population as a whole wasn’t close to complete and total extinction because these guys don’t like those guys very much. If you view the human race as a body, growing since birth, wars are like cuts and bruises, and maybe a broken bone every once in a while. Nothing that the doctor can’t fix, to sum it up. I think that we would be more likely to die of a large, uncurable breakout of illness or being hit by some asteroid floating around in space than to put ourselves into extinction than by war.

 The Iraq war is definitely a topic people get in heated debates about fairly frequently. I, personally, believe that having the troops in that country, right now, is extremely important to our safety here in the United States. Pulling out now would make the previous efforts and money spent mean almost nothing, besides the capture of Saddam Hussein. If we pull out, the terrorists there will just regroup, make a plan, and the fighting will begin again, but it will be on American soil. This will also embolden other terrorist groups to attack us, because since we can’t win in Iraq, then why would we be able to win against the same enemies as before, but with new terrorist groups allied with them, and a new plan? In all, pulling out would mean a much increased death toll, as well as destroyed cities, lost hope, and possibly the end of the good ol’ U.S.A. that doesn’t seem as ”good ol’ ” anymore. 

Overall, war is essential to life. Without the peace created by chaos of war, a less meaningful peace and an underground chaos would emerge. Some things just can’t be removed from human emotion, and with full human emotion comes conflict, and with conflict comes war.  
 

The wars

This blog is a project for modern problems, worked on by two classmates and I. Through this, we will be bringing you reports on ongoing conflicts around the world. During this next 18 weeks we will bring you news from such sources as the BBC and Al-jazzeera.

Stay Tuned.