The Barron Blog

Monday, 13 September 2004

My Top Ten Anti-Establishment/Anti Vietnam War Movies
Long before Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, Americans have been making controversial and thought provoking movies. Check these out:
1.Easy Rider 2.First Blood 3. Billy Jack 4.Good Morning Vietnam 5.Platoon
6.Born On The Fourth Of July 7.Apocalyse Now 8.Coming Home 9.Bonnie And Clyde 10.All The President's Men

Tell me how you like them.

Posted by qualteam at 3:17 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, 13 September 2004 3:32 PM EDT

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Sunday, 12 September 2004

Three Years After 9/11
The following article is from Bob Herbert of the New York Times:

"It was Vietnam all over again -- the heartbreaking head shots captioned with good old American names: Jos? Casanova, Donald Cline Jr., Sheldon R. Hawk Eagle, Alyssa Peterson.

Eventually, there will be a fine memorial to honour the young Americans whose lives were sacrificed for no good reason in Iraq.

Last week, the New York Times ran photos of the first thousand or so casualties.

They were sent off to war by a president who ran and hid when he was a young man and his country was at war.

They fought bravely and died honourably. But as in Vietnam, no amount of valour or heroism can conceal the fact that they were sent under false pretenses to fight a war that can't be won.

How many thousands more will have to die before we acknowledge that George W. Bush's obsession with Iraq and Saddam Hussein has been a catastrophe for the United States?

Fewer and fewer Americans believe the war in Iraq is worth the human treasure we are losing and the staggering amounts of money it is costing.

But no one can find a way out of this tragic mess, which is why the dreaded word from the Vietnam era -- "quagmire" -- has been resurrected.

Most Washington insiders agree with Senator John McCain, who believes the U.S. will be involved militarily in Iraq for 10 or 20 more years.

To what end? You can wave goodbye to the na?ve idea that democracy would take root in Iraq and spread like the flowers of spring throughout the Middle East. That was never going to happen. So what are we there for, other than to establish a permanent military stronghold in the region and control the flow of Iraqi oil?

The insurgency in Iraq will never end as long as the U.S. is occupying the country.

And our Iraqi "allies" will never fight their Iraqi brethren with the kind of intensity the U.S. would like, any more than the South Vietnamese would fight their fellow Vietnamese with the fury and effectiveness demanded by hawks in the Lyndon Johnson administration.

The Iraqi insurgents -- whether or not one agrees with them -- believe they are fighting for their homeland, their religion and their families.

Americans are not at all clear what they're fighting for. Saddam is gone. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The link between Saddam and Sept. 11 was always specious and has been proven so.

At some point, as in Vietnam, the American public will balk at the continued carnage, and this tragic misadventure will become politically unsustainable.

Meanwhile, the death toll mounts.

One of the reasons the U.S. effort in Iraq is unsustainable is that the American people know very little about the Iraqi people and their culture, and in most cases couldn't care less.

The war in Iraq was sold as a response to Sept. 11. As it slowly dawns on a majority of Americans that the link was bogus, and that there is no benefit from this war, only endless grief, political support will all but vanish.

(This could take a while. In a poll done for Newsweek magazine last week, 42 per cent of respondents continue to believe that Saddam was directly involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.)

We've put our troops in Iraq in an impossible situation. If you are not permitted to win a war, eventually you will lose it. In Vietnam, for a variety of reasons, the U.S. never waged total war, although the enemy did. After several years and more than 58,000 deaths, we quit.

We won't -- and shouldn't -- wage total war in Iraq, either.

But to the insurgents, the Americans epitomize evil.

We're the crazed foreigners who invaded their country and killed innocent civilians, including women and children, by the thousands. We call that collateral damage. They call it murder.

For them, this is total war.

Bush never prepared the nation for the prolonged violence of this war. He still hasn't spoken candidly about it.

If he has an idea for hauling us out of this quagmire, he hasn't bothered to reveal it.

The troops who are fighting and dying deserve better."

Please pray for peace in Iraq.

Posted by qualteam at 6:41 PM EDT

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Saturday, 11 September 2004

A Poor Record On The Defense Of Earth
If we relied only on military might and political expertise to defend our countries, this world would have been reduced to a nuclear wasteland a long time ago.

Long before 9/11, there were problems of how intelligence acencies obtained and analysed their data. I knew these defects and I'm sure others knew them too. Whistleblowers had exposed flaws in the CIA many times, but no one was listening, especially, the present administration in Washington.

Lapses in intelligence go back before World War Two when Washington knew in the early 30s of Japanese plans for conquest and Hitler's "Mein Kamp". Without a doubt, both Hitler and the Japanese could have been stopped before they started World War Two.

Humans are often negligent in their duties, so ordinary people should rely upon spiritual protectors(angels)to help them expose and triumph over evil.

Most of us can't look around corners and government agents only seem to discover what they want to find.

Life is journey and the enemies we meet on the way can be many. God help us to distinquish our true friends from our vilest enemies.

The Angel At Hotel California

Posted by qualteam at 10:35 AM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 11 September 2004 4:39 PM EDT

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Friday, 10 September 2004

A 9/11 Victim Speaks Out
This letter was published in the Toronto Sun, today. It's from Nicole Gabrielle whose father, Richard Gabrielle died at New York's Trade Center.

"My father was killed on Sept/11/01, when I was 23 years old. I've been quiet for nearly three years, but now I am so offended, I can no longer be silent.

As we approach the November election, I can't help but reflect on what kind of world my father would have wished for me. Honestly, I cannot imagine a world where my father would have ever wished for four years more of George W. Bush. The admininistration has done more harm to our nation than most of us can bear to acknowledge.

We are at war with Iraq based on false intelligence. We had a half-hearted attack on Afghanistan and never did find Osama bin Laden, my father's alleged killer, dead or alive.

Every day, in my father's name, American soldiers and innocent Iraqi citizens die based on the faulty intelligence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. How long will these deaths pile up before the U.S. learns from its history that Iraq is becoming another Korea or Vietnam?

We have squandered the sympathy and compassion that were showered upon us by people all around the world immediately after 9/11. We should have used that precious opportunity to work together with other nations for peace.

Instead, we have chosen the path of war. I feel constantly overwhelmed with the lies, the media manipulation, the threats, the fear.

Fear is being used as a weapon. Americans are being manipulated. And now, most of us are too scared to say anything about it.

We should not be so complacent as to allow the status quo to continue because they tell us how safe we are....because we are not safe.

I am only one person and I feel weak screaming alone. It is only when we are united in our mission for truth and change that we will have the strength in numbers to help turn this great country around.

Don't listen to the rhetoric. We owe it to my father and to nearly 3,000 others who were murdered on that warm, sunny morning in September of 2001."

Posted by qualteam at 5:18 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, 10 September 2004 5:34 PM EDT

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Thursday, 9 September 2004

Fiscal Responsibility Is Important
In Canada, back in 1993, it was revealed that the Mulroney Government had its eighth wopping deficit in a row(to the tune of 45 billion dollars). That meant Canada's total debt stood over 500 billion dollars. In the election of that year, the ruling party (the Conservatives) were reduced to only two seats. Jean Chretien's Liberals won by a decisive margin and over the next eleven years they produced seven surpluses in a row. Needless to say, the party still rules today under the leadership of the former finance minister, Paul Martin.

Canadians expect their governments to be fiscally responsible. Nobody wants their future and their kid's future mortgaged to high government debts.

Citizens should trash any politician or party that wastes the taxpayer's money on outlandish schemes or fraud. That includes the US Government.
The US Deficit

Posted by qualteam at 10:56 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 9 September 2004 11:00 PM EDT

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Wednesday, 8 September 2004

Iraq: An Easy Target
The following viewpoint is from a Toronto Star Article in June/04:

"Most Americans endorsed the war on Iraq because President George Bush and his advisers led them to believe Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with the 9/11 terrorists, and had a terrifying arsenal of biological and chemical weapons to boot.

Indeed, most Americans still believe Saddam helped Osama bin Laden plan the 9/11 attacks, despite a complete absence of evidence.

No surprise there. Bush continues to feed this myth. "There was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda," he insisted on Thursday.

Maybe so. But the American commission that has just exposed the chaos that prevailed at the White House on 9/11 has also torn into the myth that Saddam and bin Laden were partners in that crime.

There is "no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda co-operated on attacks against the United States," the commission concludes. What scattered contacts Al Qaeda may have had with Baghdad, never amounted to a loose alliance, much less a threat.

And of course, Bush has never found a single Iraqi horror weapon.

In short, the Iraq war was fought on bogus grounds. It never was about fighting 9/11 terror. If anything, it was a distraction.

Nearly three years after 9/11, bin Laden is still on the loose. Al Qaeda still threatens the continental U.S. and the group continues to attack U.S. interests in Iraq and elsewhere.

Yet Bush continues to cynically perpetuate the Saddam/bin Laden myth, because he needs to justify a $200 billion war that has killed 15,000 Iraqis and 830 Americans, and which continues to tie up 138,000 U.S. occupation troops.

Had a fraction of that huge U.S. effort gone into chasing down Al Qaeda, much of the terror threat that Americans and their allies still face, might have been removed. Instead, that battle is far from won.

And in a final irony, the 9/11 commission warns that Al Qaeda is trying to lay its hands on the kinds of weapons Saddam had given up long before Iraq was invaded. Bush has been fixated on the wrong foe."

Posted by qualteam at 5:35 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 8 September 2004 9:31 PM EDT

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Tuesday, 7 September 2004

Winning The Peace In Iraq
It's time to end the fighting in Iraq and bring stability to this region. There are many things the US can do to accomplish that goal and one of them is to phase out their present occupation with UN troops.

With no weapons of mass destruction around and Saddam Hussien before a war crimes tribunal, it's imperative that the US radically reduce its military presence as a peace gesture to the Arab world.

Also various projects must be undertaken to reduce the heavy unemployment in the country. Without meaningful work, it would be easy for a warlord to enlist an Iraqi citizen.

There's no magic formula for peace in the Middle East. Any one country or individual can only do so much. Therefore, we must seek God's help in this mission. Please, pray for peace in Iraq and Afghanistan when you read this entry.

Thank you for participating.
Another View On Winning The Peace

Posted by qualteam at 10:26 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 7 September 2004 10:30 PM EDT

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Monday, 6 September 2004

The Superman Of Trivia Is Back
Mood: on fire
It's none other then Ken Jennings, the masterbrain on Jeopardy. If young people want a role model on getting terrific marks at school/university, this is the guy to emulate.

In order to defeat him, I suggest trick questions like this:

1. What was the canary called after she fell into a blender?
2. Who was the first Chinese frontiersman?
3. You can call me anything except...?
4. The name of "The Zen Cod Master"?

Links:
Ken Jennings On Jeopardy
Why Not Me?
The Zen Cod Master's Homepage
Answers:
1. Shredded Tweet
2. Daniel Poon
3. Late For Dinner
5. RSole Fishtank

Posted by qualteam at 5:22 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, 6 September 2004 5:27 PM EDT

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Sunday, 5 September 2004

Fighting Terrorism Smart Or Fighting It Stupid
Below is an interesting article from Bob Herbert of the New York Times on the Republican Convention and the war on terrorism:

"Despite all the macho posturing and self-congratulating at the Republican convention, the wave of terror that has been unleashed on the world is only growing.

The American-led war in Iraq is feeding that wave, causing it to swell rather than ebb.

Any serious person who looked around the world this week would have to wonder what the delegates at the Republican convention were so happy about.

The conventioneers spent the entire week reminding America that we were attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.

But interestingly, there was hardly a mention by name of those actually responsible for the attacks, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

Discussions about the nation's real enemies were taboo. We don't know where they are or what they're up to.

The over-the-top venom of some of the speakers and delegates was reserved not for Osama, but for a couple of mild-mannered guys named John.

What Americans desperately need is a serious, honest discussion of where we go from here.

If we're going to be in Iraq for 10 or 20 more years, the policy-makers should say so, and tell us what that will cost in money and human treasure.

The violence associated with such a long-term occupation is guaranteed to be appalling.

Vietnam tore this nation apart.

As we've seen in this campaign, the wounds have yet to heal.

Incredibly, we're now travelling a similarly tragic road in Iraq."

The full article has a link below.
Bob Herbert's Full Article In The New York Times

Posted by qualteam at 9:53 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 18 September 2004 6:12 PM EDT

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Saturday, 4 September 2004

What Happened To The War On Terrorism?
In the fall of 2001, most of the world was united against terrorism and the Qaeda Network. From 2002, this unity slipped over Iraq and the Bush agenda there.

Like I said in an earlier blog entry, the focus should have been on Bin Laden and his Qaeda connections. Sure it would have taken a concerted effort from allied intelligence services around the world, but the union of the good people against the evil people would have been worth it.

Instead we're still getting this:

Posted by qualteam at 3:31 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 4 September 2004 3:37 PM EDT

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