Joe

'Few of us are sears in our own lifetime'

I have no doubt most people in the US, if they could, wouldn't vote for George. Recall he only won just under half the popular vote at his last election so he's only recently become unpopular with about half his previous supporters. The fact people can't vote for him, depending on the sampling methodology, probably skews that figure.

My point was not George's popularity but about how he may have set the Middle East on a course for modernisation and peace.

If Iraq turns into a functioning democracy, Israel contracts or a single state solution emerges, Syria adopts a more open dialogue, Lebanon again finds peace in it's diversity, Saudia Arabia ... well who cares? ... and Iran's mullahs finally concede they can't control the westernisation of their Persian heritage, coupled with the need for oil being replaced by the newer electrical, battery and solar technologies how will history view George and his Invasion of Iraq?

Joe in Australia we've just had an election. The winner was a fool who championed withdrawal from Iraq. Australians highly value our connections with the US (Regardless of who is president) so the fool, to ensure he would be seen as maintaining that special relationship with, committed unconditionally and indefinitely our troops to the Afghanistan quagmire.

We've only had casualties in Afghanistan.

My view Iraq will reach a peaceful existance and a participatory democracy while we will still have troops fighting and dying in Afghanistan. A place which has had intractable divisions, warlords and violence for many centuries. And we are stuck there now too.

Where would you prefer our (Australian) committment to be made? I for one would prefer Iraq. Don't cop out by saying neither cos that just won't happen ... now.

I do read on line the the NYTimes and the Washington Post. I watch CNN and Fox on satellite pay tv. I'm not ignorant of the positions and attitudes of the people in the greatest power and liberal democratic country the world has ever seen.

Kind regards

Very interesting comments from the avid followers of The Great Iraq Awakening so far, yet nothing so far is mentioned about a future for Iran.

As a trained historian, one is waiting for futher comments with interest?

Cheers - BB, WA.

It is interesting that five years ago, Paul Bremer appeared to have ideas about what could be happening in Iraq right now.

And even though there were suggestions even from some of our contributors that much of the so-called terrorism in Iraq was not from AL Quida but from Saddam's quarter million top brass military force turned into insurgents.

As the Sunnis have long been branded two-timers different than the Shias, questions also came about why Paul Bremer had not offered to put Saddam's Sunni front-liners on the US pay-roll?

As good historians have also the mental capacity to equate on the opposite side - though without favour - the same historians might believe that if it is just the proven Sunni-two timerism that has fuelled the so-called Great Awakening, most historical academics might easily point out similar historical cases that have failed miserably.

Cheers, BB.

What planet are you living on Keith?

Planet Realism, Bernie.

Due to the corruption, incompetence and outright felonious mindset of the members of the fbi/cia, all of the other intel arms of the USA government are unable to protect the country from the mounting threats by persons and countries who seek to stop this nation's assault on Humanity. The reason for the national intel failure, therefore , can be directly attributable to the fbi/cia and their foolish congressional and presidential Handlers. I have learned that the following intel groups study my material sometime in an apparent effort to comprehend why the fbi would attempt to frame (or neutralize) one of their own:

fbi ( this group of thugs ostensibly operates under doj, but in reality the fbi is the boss);
cia- this group is a nation unto itself, operating completely independently of the US governmnet;;

homeland security (responsible for many threats and assaults on my person)has an intel office manned by special agents and others who analyze data;
dea has an intel office for national security matters, but dea is largely controlled by fbi/cia; dea also pretends to function under the authority of doj;

the dept of defense is top dog in military intel, but they too take orders (or to put it mildly, "requests" from the fbi/cia)-within this dod group are army, air force, navy, marines (their respective intel offices);also under the dod banner are the dia, nsa, nro (national recon office), and the national geospacial intel office (Note that this office has extensively analysed my sites and for this reason I came to learn of their existence as a highly specialized tech office coordinating data both from earth and space);

The US Department of State has its own office of intel which regularly reviews my material to determine whether I may be a candidate for a federal arrest warrant;The US depts of energy and treasury also each visit my sites in connection with their appraisals of finances, etc., in connection with my material and visits thereto.

The various intel groups have their own subgroups which also carry out mission oriented objectives globally.