Star Wars?

This was the one of the most outrageous stories I have heard in a while

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6281247.stm

Basically China released a missile into space, destroying and old weather Satellite. Although the Satellite that was hit belonged to China and was worthless anyways, questions have come up from all around the world demanding an explanation to China’s test.

China’s foreign minister claimed China is against the militarization of Space, and advocates space being used for peaceful purposes. However he did not mention what the intention of the missile being launched actually was. "I can't say anything about the reports. I really don't know." Said Liu Jianchao, China’s foreign minister. The U.S. and Japan are concerned that China is looking to take an arms race into outer space.

This is a major concern because China may now have the potential to destroy US or any satellite. It also is suspicious how China wouldn’t give the reason for their test. But is there seriously a possibility of an arms race spreading into space? It would be ironic if this ends up being a new style of warfare.

Stay the Course? What Course?

In Iraq the situation is worse than ever, sectarian militias and jihadist terrorists are devastating the country and our soldiers. Just recently the total amount of US troops killed in Iraq reached 3000. Everyone agrees that something needs to be done. Bush last week admitted that he made mistakes in Iraq, and announced that he in fact plans to send more troops. He wants to spend billions of dollars and add an additional 20,000 troops to help bring peace to Iraq. However sending troops could be a foolish idea, there is no real plan other than to “secure the nation.” Also sending troops would be hypocritical seeing as we wanted a stable democratic government of Iraq, independent of our troop support. Sending more troops would only add to the problem.

The goal of this mission, the president claims, is to help secure Iraqi neighborhoods from terrorists. However a plan to just “keep on fighting the insurgents” is not valid. We’ve been fighting them and we’ve killed thousands of them. However they seem to be able to replenish their numbers over and over again. If we just add more and more troops; It will be like Vietnam, where we kept on killing Viet Cong, but yet they recruited faster than we could kill them. In Iraq we need to have a focused goal and set up a democracy that’s independent from our military and stable enough to fight its own battles.

One of Iraq’s major issues is its government. Although the Iraqi people held elections and are now dictator-free, the government is a big part of the problem. Held mainly by Shiites, they conflict with Sunni interests and do everything in their power to oppress them. The government militias are corrupt, often rogue forces that support Al Sadr. Not to mention that the government has a big block of parliament controlled by Al Sadr, the Anti-American who targets our soldiers, innocent Sunnis, and even Shiites that don’t support their radical ideas. Now Bush wants to send more troops to support the government in which most of the problems lie.

With all the chaos and disorder, the question comes up “What can we do?” There is no simple answer to that question. Iraq is tied up in a civil war with our troops losing more and more support with a growing insurgency. There are a few things we need to do for example bring the Sunnis back into the government. As hard as that is, considering the violence we do need to find a way to negotiate. A man as powerful, and corrupt as Al Sadr, needs to be taken care of. Also an increasing problems are the Iraqi militias, who are supposed to protect, but only add to the killing. Instead of imprisoning and trying many of the militias, they are instead fired. There are a few measures we can take, but we can’t send any more troops, we need to take a different route and get out, for the safety of our soldiers.

Although Bush claims we need to “stay the course,” our presence has built a lot of problems in the nation. There is no easy simple solution in Iraq, in fact there might not be much more we can do. However a troop surge would have ensure that we have a long way before this war can end. Bush’s idea doesn’t have substance and will only add to the opposition and the problems we face over there.

Irony in The Saddam Execution

As we all know, Saddam Huessein, faced his final demise as he was hanged last week. After decades of murder of hundreds of thousands of people, you can hope that we are one step closer to democracy in Iraq and one step closer to peace in the middle east. Bush himself quoted

Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself

However there is more to his execution than just the getting rid of a brutal dictator, behind it included scams to cover up what was wrong.

Soon after his execution, new sites released footage of him before his death, however without sound. At first people wondered why sound was cut out. When one man however managed to release footage that included sound, it became evident why. In the video you can hear the Iraqi officials mocking and taunting Saddam before he was executed. There were witnesses shouting “go to hell” and chanting “long live Muqtada al-Sadr,” the notorious murderer who Is known for his assaults on innocent civilians. The sound was censored because obviously neither government wants their people to know some of the corruption behind the new Iraqi democratic government.

The man accused of taping and releasing the video has been arrested and awaiting his sentence. Apparently in the new democratic government videotaping and getting out a video showing the truth is a crime. And sadly the US government helped support the investigation to find the man responsible for the video.

Another Irony that can be seen is Saddam’s trial were the charges against him. Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of 148 people in the Iraqi town of Dujail back in 1982. Basically Saddam was tried for assaulting a town not the gassing of thousands of Shiite’s and Kurds. The only feasible reason explanation is that we don’t want the trial going back to the source of these. Saddam gassing of these innocent people was possible due to our generosity in giving him large stockpiles of these weapons. But our government wants to hide that we were ever part of the problem.

Saddam’s death, as atrocious of a person as he may have been, is nothing for celebration. In the new Iraqi Democratic government, a convicted criminal was hanged, a punishment no modern government uses. The so called democracy tried to hide their corruption by cutting out sound out of a video. Our government completely avoided being suspected of any crime. The death of one man does not signify democracy.

Welcome

Hello,
For those of you who do not know me, I am Sepanta Mohseni, from Farmington High School. I have been invited to write for this blog, and so I pounced at the opportunity. I consider myself to be pretty radical on some issues, although it is usually within the realm of what I dare say. If you convince me that I am wrong, thank you, but it hasn't happened too much, and even though I may not always agree with what you say, I fully respect it. There is a lot of hate and bitterness flying around these days, so I thought I might take this opportunity to discuss all the topics the Sheik has highlighted below. This is my first time participating in a blog and I must say my best grades are not in english class, so take it easy for a while. I would like to end with a quote. A man by the name of Ernesto "Che" Guevara once said, "If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine." That quote pretty much sums it all up.

Hello All

Hey everyone. Some of you might know me from my previous blog www.bowlingforamerica.blogspot.com. That one died out over time and i decided maybe its time for something new. This blog is however less focused on liberal politics and a bigger attempt to be more moderate. The blog will also drift away from hardcore politics and will include culture, music, sports, and hopefully art.

I will be mainly discussing political issues. As i try to ackknowledge both sides, I am however exceptionally liberal. I don't however post thinking i know everything, I am here for hopefully a good learning experience and to get my ideas out. I ask however that during the debates, people will refrain from insults, foul language, or any ad hominen attacks.

If you feel like you can contribute to this blog, write a short paragraph on why you'd be interested in writing and email me at donmoravej@gmail.com. That being said i hope we can all learn something from this blog and it should be a fun experience for all of us.