bobby_cahill

In all the replies to this opinion piece I'm surprised no one has commented on the LAST paragraph. That should tell you everything you need to know. No one knows whats going to happen.....especially the author. We all know progress is being made in our favor of a good outcome. Semper Fi

That was fun! TY Semper Fi

BAGHDAD (AP) — An anti-American cleric is urging his followers to stop attacking U.S. troops in Iraq so that their withdrawal from the country isn't slowed down, a call meant to ramp up pressure on Baghdad's political leaders who are considering asking some American forces to stay. In a statement posted on his website, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr told his militias to halt attacks against U.S. forces till the withdrawal is finished at the end of the year as required under a security agreement between Washington and Baghdad. "Out of my desire to complete Iraq's independence and to finish the withdrawal of the occupation forces from our holy lands, I am obliged to halt military operations of the honest Iraqi resistance until the withdrawal of the occupation forces is complete," al-Sadr said in the statement, posted late Saturday. Sadrist lawmaker Mushraq Naji confirmed the statement on Sunday. However, al-Sadr warned that "if the withdrawal doesn't happen ... the military operations will be resumed in a new and tougher way." The statement followed last week's notice by U.S. officials in Baghdad, announcing the start of the withdrawal. There are currently about 45,000 U.S. forces in Iraq. However, U.S. and Iraqi leaders are currently weighing whether some American troops should remain past the Dec. 31 deadline as Baghdad continues to struggle with instability and burgeoning influence from neighboring Iran. Last month, Iraqi leaders began negotiating with U.S. officials in Baghdad to keep at least several thousand troops in Iraq to continue training the nation's shaky security forces. Officials in Washington say President Barack Obama is willing to keep between 3,000 and 10,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. But with fewer than four months before the final deadline, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and parliament still have not indicated how many U.S. troops Iraq might need, how long they would stay, or exactly what they would be doing. After more than eight years of war, many weary Iraqis are ready to see U.S. troops go, and staunchly defend their national sovereignty against an American force they see as occupiers. Al-Sadr's followers vehemently oppose a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq, and walked out of last month's meeting where political leaders decided to open the talks on having American troops stay. "Our goal has been always to fight the occupiers because they are still in our country," Naji said Sunday. Still, other Iraqi officials privately say they want American troops to continue training the nation's security forces for months, if not years, to come. The president of Iraq's northern Kurdish region this week pleaded for U.S. forces to stay to ward off threats of renewed sectarian violence. Many Iraqis — both Sunnis and Shiites — share that fear. "As for me, and the sheiks of Nasiriyah, we want the U.S. Army to stay," Sheik Manshad al-Ghezi of the southern Shiite city of Nasiriyah said in a recent interview. "We are afraid of civil war. All the parties and groups in Iraq are armed and the Iraqi Army cannot manage to bring security to Iraq and stop the fighting among these parties."

BAGHDAD (AP) — As a Shiite Muslim who was interrogated by Iraq's secret police and lost her job because she would not join the regime's Baath Party, Fawzia al-Attia should feel safer now that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. She does not. Death threats and Baghdad's daily bombings have made al-Attia more afraid than she was during Saddam's reign of terror, she says. "Before, I couldn't say anything in my own home," said al-Attia. "But at least I was safe. I was only afraid of Saddam. It is not like now. Now, you open the door to your home and you could get killed." American troops are preparing to pull out of Iraqi completely by the end of December, more than eight years after the invasion that ousted Saddam and promised a better life for Iraqis. As the country enters a post-U.S. era, many Iraqis who had welcomed the 2003 invasion feel they remain in even more danger than before Saddam's fall. Security is a key indicator of Iraq's future — it drives business investment, government policy decisions and the psyche of the war-torn nation. In interviews across Baghdad, Iraqis cited the random daily bombings and shootings that continue to kill people here. At least under Saddam, they say, they knew they could avoid being targeted by violence by simply staying quiet. Al-Attia doesn't make the comparison lightly. She remembers the fear when, under Saddam's rule, she was called to a police station for questioning. Her husband followed her because he didn't know if he'd ever see her again. Now that same uncertainty looms in the background every day. Because of sectarian violence, she and her family moved from a Shiite neighborhood to the heavily fortified Green Zone. A sociology professor at Baghdad University, she can't drive herself to work, relying instead on bodyguards to take her. "Under Saddam, there was fear, but in a different way," she said. Sectarian violence, which drove Iraq to the brink of civil war just a few years ago, was almost nonexistent under Saddam. In May 2003, two months after the invasion, there were fewer than a handful of daily attacks on Iraqis, national security forces and foreign troops. That number spiked in May 2007, with an average of 180 attacks a day, according to the U.S. military data released by congressional investigators at the General Accounting Office. Between 2005 and 2008, an average of 60 Iraqis was killed daily. Since then, violence has dropped dramatically, but attacks continue. Several people a day die, and a bombing in a residential area or on a street of shops that causes no casualties still spreads fear among everyone who hears about it. This past July, U.S. forces in Iraq reported an average of 20 daily bombings, rocket attacks and shootings — including some that were thwarted before they were carried out. Sunni insurgent groups, which sprung up when Saddam was ousted and Iraq's majority Shiites took power, continue to strike at anyone who tries to restore normalcy to Iraq — security forces, the government, Americans or even fellow Sunnis, like the 29 who were killed in a Baghdad mosque by a suicide bomber during Ramadan prayers this past month. "I'm not going to short-sheet the current security situation; I think it's not what the Iraqis want or deserve," said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan, the American military's top spokesman in Baghdad. Asked to compare today's security in Iraq to what it was under Saddam, Buchanan called it "very, very different." "I don't think we know as much of what was going on in the past, just because much of it was quiet," he said. "In the dead of the night, people would come and take you away, and you never heard from them again." Certainly no one has forgotten the horrors under Saddam. Estimates of how many Iraqis were executed or otherwise "disappeared" during Saddam's 24-year regime range from 300,000 to 800,000. Reviews of bodies found in mass graves from that era point to what Gerard Alexander, an expert at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, has called a "conservative estimate" that an average 16,000 Iraqis a year were killed. Saddam persecuted prominent Shiite clerics and their followers and launched what Human Rights Watch calls a campaign of genocide against Kurds. People from all backgrounds rarely, if ever, dared to criticize the government, even to relatives or neighbors, for fear they'd be taken away by Saddam's secret police and beaten, imprisoned, killed, or simply disappear. "When I was in Baghdad, I would always feel that today would be the day that I would be killed. But I was lucky," said Biekhal Alkhalifa, a 31-year-old Kurd who commuted between engineering classes in Baghdad and her hometown of Kirkuk when Saddam was president. "I am sure there are a lot of Arab people who now say, 'We wish Saddam was still in power,'" she said. "But for the Kurds, it is 100 percent of us who are happy that he is gone." The U.S. military surge that poured more than 160,000 troops into Iraq in 2007 quelled much of the sectarian violence. But a July report by the U.S. watchdog that oversees construction in Iraq concluded that the nation is more dangerous now than it was last year due to bombings, assassinations and a resurgence in violence by Iranian-backed Shiite militias. Iraq Body Count, an independent British monitoring group, estimates at least 102,043 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the war began. Iraq has gone into what Sean Kane, a former United Nations diplomat now with the U.S. Institute of Peace, calls a "sideways drift" — progress has plateaued and Iraqis have a hard time predicting what may come next. The violence looms over the American military's planned exit, fueling fears about instability and burgeoning influence from neighboring Iran. As a result, Baghdad and Washington are reconsidering whether the U.S. troops should leave by Dec. 31, as required under a 2008 security agreement. Saddam's last wide-ranging campaigns of death against Shiites and Kurds ended in 1991. As a result, in the perception of many Iraqis, the years before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion seemed peaceful — even as Saddam continued terrorizing people in smaller numbers without attracting much nationwide attention. "Even though Saddam was a tyrant, we Iraqis used to live a good life," said Huda Aqeel Jaffa, 35, a Sunni housewife with three children and a husband who receives death threats because, as a construction contractor, he is seen as working with Americans. "Life was simple, and we could go everywhere we wanted. Now, there is no security. There is no stability. There is no humanity. We are afraid of everything." http://news.yahoo.com/fear-still-reigns-iraq-even-saddam-070626276.html

I was ALL in till u said "Drop your nads" I'm too old to drop em, may never get em back! I'll cheer from the sidelines on this one Semper Fi

I bought into this "thing" on a whim. People such as Scooter EDUCATED me beyond my wildest imagination! Thank you Sir! You're a gentleman! Semper Fi

By LARA JAKES, Associated Press Lara Jakes, Associated Press – 2 hrs 51 mins ago KARBALA, Iraq – At times, as he describes how he sleeps on the floor of the store where he works or misses the family he left in Nepal to find a job, Mohan Rai punctuates his gloomy tale with a laugh. He tries to make light of the misery he shares with the thousands of foreign laborers who have spent their life savings to get to Iraq to do the country's dirty work. The brutal punchline: Rai and his colleagues face deportation with little, if any, profit to show for years of hardship. The problem of illegal migrant workers is not unique to Iraq, says the labor minister, Nasser al-Rubaie. Even the United States, he says, grapples with severe difficulties over illegal immigration. But in Iraq, where the specter of violence still hangs over even its holiest cities, there is scant hope for immigrants seeking a better life in a new homeland. With 900,000 Iraqis unemployed, the government has little sympathy for foreigners who have flocked here to take menial jobs as housekeepers or restaurant workers. And, to get here, authorities say immigrants are routinely fleeced by employment agencies who charge thousands of dollars for flights and temporary visas for workers who wind up earning only a few hundred dollars each month. "When I am in Nepal, they tell me I will be paid $600 a week," Rai, 33, said last month at the clothing store in Karbala, 55 miles (90 kilometers) south of Baghdad, where he works and lives. "When I get here, $300 a month. Hahahaha! It's a problem." Rai, whose broken English is better than his Arabic, paid $5,000 to a Nepalese employment agency in 2009 to find him a job. A farmer, he scraped together the money for months by selling crops, borrowing from friends and banks, and in part by selling off a plot of his family's land. He had no idea where Iraq was when the agency sent him here on a two-year contract. He did not know the country was awash with violence and years of war. When he and fellow Nepalese workers learned they would be sent to the Shiite holy city of Karbala, they were told, "'No, no, it is not dangerous,'" said Durga Rai, also 33, a fellow clansman who works at the same shop. It's very dangerous in the city where Shiite pilgrims are targeted by Sunni insurgents hoping to stir up sectarian violence. At best, the two men will have made $2,200 profit each for two years' work as cleaners, stockboys and salesmen in the store. They sleep on the floor between racks of polo shirts. And that's if they're lucky. Iraq's parliament is considering new laws to curb foreign workers by forcing employers to hire at least as many Iraqis. Otherwise new incoming foreigners would be barred from the country. Gaining employment visas for foreigners is arduous, a process that usually is solved with bribes. The visas themselves are not very expensive — it costs about $80 for initial tourist stamps. Residency visas that allow long-term employment only cost up to about $100. Facing high unemployment and 23 percent of its people living in poverty, Baghdad is clamping down on foreign workers. That has created a black-market in foreign workers who are sold like a commodity as cheap labor to businesses and government contractors. Al-Rubaie, the labor minister, said wealthy Iraqis "buy" foreign workers from employment agencies to serve as housekeepers — a process he likened to slave labor. Employers usually pay agencies about $500 for the workers and agree to feed and shelter them. Al-Rubaie said it's doubtful that many, if any, have the necessary permits to work. "There are thousands of people here like that," al-Rubaie said in an interview. "And we must ensure that they have eight hours work, eight hours rest and eight hours sleep to preserve their human rights." He estimated there are a minimum of 6,000 illegal foreign workers in Iraq. Under the new laws, businesses will not be allowed to bid on government projects unless they can prove their work force is 50 percent Iraqi, al-Rubaie said. Contractors already in Iraq will be given six months to meet the 50 percent requirement, and may be fined thousands of dollars each day until the threshold is met. That could result in mass layoffs for foreign workers already in the country. They will be given six months to obtain government work permits before facing deportation. "Those who enter legally will be protected by law," al-Rubaie said. "The existence of foreign workers who are here illegally means they will be exploited and contractors will deny them their human rights. He should not be humiliated. He will not be denied sleep. We will force the contractors and the Iraqi employers to give him his rights." In Najaf, another holy destination for Shiite pilgrims, the owner of a local employment agency who supplied foreign workers for hotels and restaurants said he shut down in 2009 to avoid being caught up in what was then becoming a shady business. He said he tried to ensure that all workers he recruited had the proper work permits. Still, "we stopped this business two years ago because we do not want to do anything that is illegal," said Ghazi al-Ghazali. "We used to hire foreign labor from Pakistan and Bangladesh because they are cheaper and they are ready to accept low-skilled jobs that Iraqis do not want to work in, such as cleaning." At the hotel Qasr al-Dur in Najaf, housekeeping staff manager Mohammed Sharuz, a Bangladeshi, said he'll return home if he's forced to leave before his two-year contract is up next year. But "if Iraq's government decides that the foreign workers cannot stay, things will be tough, for the hotels as well," Sharuz said. "Maintenance is very hard." "We need to be available 24 hours for the guests, and Iraqi workers would not want to do that," said Sharuz, 43, who sends his salary to his wife and four children back home. "If they let me stay, I will work very hard. I get my salary and I send it to my country. I make $500 a month and even that is not enough for five people back home. There are days I do not eat here." He oversees 34 housekeepers at the hotel a few blocks away from the famed Imam Ali shrine: 18 Bangladeshis, 15 Pakistanis, and one Nepalese. Most foreign workers in Iraq earn between $200 and $400 monthly in a country where al-Rubaie said the minimum wage is $600. And some don't get paid at all. In May, ten Sri Lankan workers tried to hang themselves in Iraq's southern Maysan province because they had not been paid for two years, said local councilman Salman al-Shara. The Sri Lankans were brought to Iraq for jobs with a private construction firm, but were left to fend for themselves when the building project ran out of money and stopped work. The Sri Lankans gave up months of begging for food and climbed one of the half-finished buildings, "carrying ropes to hang themselves in protest of not being paid," al-Shara said. Local officials intervened, and the Maysan governor gave each worker $210 and promised to solve the problem. Rai, the Nepalese worker in Karbala, says he usually works 12 hours each day, six days each week. The stress and his meager living conditions have sent him to the local hospital twice in the last 14 months with severe headaches. Requests for a salary raise have been denied. His boss, the owner of the clothing store that is staffed by at least three other Nepalese men, refused to be interviewed for this article. If he's not deported by then, Rai will leave Iraq in next spring, when his two-year contract ends. It has not been a happy life in Iraq: "Most of the time it is a bad feeling," he said. But given the chance, he'd stay for years longer. Even the small amount of money he earns has been worth what he's paid in misery. "To stay is not possible, I think," he said. "Any country, I'll go. No problem. Nepal, Iraq — I'll go anywhere there is money."

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Qassim Abdul-zahra, Associated Press – Tue Jun 14, 3:04 am ET BAGHDAD – Saadoun al-Sahil already had an AK-47 assault rifle at home but just didn't feel safe. The furniture merchant was worried about violence in Baghdad and the impending U.S. withdrawal of troops. So he bought two pistols and some more ammunition. Iraqis are facing a changing and uncertain future, and they're dealing with it by arming up. "These weapons are for the protection of myself and my family. I fear that things will get as worse as it was in 2005 and 2006. We cannot predict what will happen tomorrow or after tomorrow," said al-Sahil. Weapons are an everyday part of the Iraqi landscape. Nearly every home has at least one weapon, often an AK-47 assault rifle. At many buildings, residents and bodyguards can be seen checking their pistols with security before they're allowed to go inside. Political figures are protected by bodyguards often carrying a pistol and an assault rifle. Only people with certain jobs or positions that might make them need a weapon are allowed to legally own them and only with a license. Jewelry store owners who often find themselves attacked or doctors who are targeted for kidnapping can apply for a license. For years following the 2003 invasion, the Iraqi government followed the basic policy of allowing one gun per household. Iraq military units searching a house would often tell people that if they had one weapon it was OK, but additional weapons would be confiscated. But the top military spokesman in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, said authorities were now moving away from that unofficial policy and had recently started a campaign to disarm Iraqi cities. But that's not stopping the stockpiling of guns and ammo. A senior official in Iraq's military intelligence department said in recent months illegal arms sales have jumped, specifically AK-47 assault rifles and pistols. The AK-47 assault rifle is ubiquitous in Iraq and much of the world. The weapon was designed in the Soviet Union back in the 40s. But its durability, low cost and relative ease of use mean it has been mass produced and used by armed forces and insurgent groups around the world. Another government intelligence official said in April Iraqi officials noticed a 15 percent increase in weapons sales overall and a 20 percent increase in the purchase and sale of AK-47s alone. The officials said they based their information on weapons seizures and information learned through operations and arrests. The official, who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the buyers are purchasing for different reasons. The clients are a combination of individuals looking to protect their families and organized groups like militias worried about what the future might hold. Sunnis are worried about the return of Shiite militias and the rise of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Sadr, has threatened to unleash his militia called the Mahdi Army if American forces stay past their Dec. 31 departure date. The Mahdi Army was accused of some of the worst atrocities during Iraq's sectarian violence, and the prospect of its return is enough to scare even the most hardened of Baghdad's residents. Shiites are worried about the return of former Baath Party loyalists who fled to Yemen and Syria after the 2003 invasion. As those countries slip into chaos, the worry is that they might return to Iraq, the official said. One weapons smuggler who spoke to The Associated Press from his luxurious newly built house in eastern Baghdad where chandeliers and elaborate furniture decorated the reception room, said the market increases during times of political crises. "For example when Muqtada threatened to unfreeze the Mahdi Army, that increased the demand for buying weapons. Up until now, the demand for weapons is really big. The withdrawal of the Americans is making people demand weapons," said the dealer. He would only identify himself as Abu Ali because he was worried about protecting himself and his business. Most of the weapons he sells, especially the newer ones, are smuggled into the country although he would not identify the smuggling routes or say which countries he imports from. He said he also sells Glock pistols that were distributed by the American military to the Iraqi army and police but later ended up on the black market. The weapons trade isn't as obvious as it was in years past. In 2003, weapons were sold openly in markets across Iraq, even heavy weapons like mortar rounds and tubes. Millions of pieces of equipment went missing after the fall of Saddam's government and the Iraqi army was disbanded. Much of it ended up on the black market and the hands of insurgents. The dealer said that the weapons are being sold nowadays through secret deals nationwide, adding that he usually tours Iraq's provinces to buy weapons and send them to the buyers. He refused to divulge more details. But even though the weapons trade has gone underground, everyone knows where to make their purchases, al-Sahil said. "It is not that difficult to buy weapons and ammunition. Every weapons merchant would recommend another if he does not have what the customers are demanding," he said. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110614/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq_weapons_sales

ok so what prompted this post? i've been on his email list for over a year and no probs curious as to why this was posted Semper Fi

Ya know i always wondered about that. I get his "news" post thru my email and read em daily on my cell while at work Everyday i think it's gonna RV with all the good news lol When i 1st started receiving them i read the whole post, now i just read the headlines Works been busy so i don't really have alot of time to sift thru the BS So on a pecentage level, how much is BS and how much is truth? Thanks for the heads up Semper Fi

What state? Which Bob Evans? Do u have a phone # of the establishment so we can verify? Any chance of getting a pic of the toaster? Better yet, can we steal the toaster? Can ANYONE verify or debunk this? I'm sure we have peeps out there working on this! This could be what we're waiting on! Thanks for all your efforts. I will be waiting patiently Semper Fi p.s Did they also give out fortune cookies?

I'm kind of embarassed i just read this whole post/threads Semper Fi

Any idea how many people participate in those sites? It's amazing those type of sites even exist Kinda makes this investment scary I'll stick to the "let it come to us" theory Semper Fi

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: The Legislature of the National Coalition, Amir al-Kinany, has said on Wednesday that his Coalition, and al-Iraqiya and the Kurdistan Coalitions, have reached an agreement to settle all suspended problems among them, stressing that the agreement had been achived in a recent meeting of representatives of the three Coalitions at the residence of Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, Roz Nouri Shawes. “The meeting, held by the three coalitions in the residence of Deputy Prime Minister, Roz Nouri Shawes, had reached agreement on three issues, the first, being the formation of a 15-member committee to follow up the agreements concluded among the political blocs, the second on the issue of security cabinet posts, which was passed to the leaders of the political blocs to agree upon and the third on the issue of the National Council for Strategic Policies (NCSP),” Kinany told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. He said the issue of the security cabinet posts would be discussed among the leaders of the political blocs, due to the fact that that agreement had been reached to settle them, before passing them to the Parliament for final approval. Differences have taken place over the past four months about candidates for the security cabinet posts that are still vacant, especially the interior and defense ministers posts, with the first being the share of the National Coalition, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the second, the share of al-Iraqiya Coalition, led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, with each side rejecting the candidate of the other. Noteworthy is that differences towards the NCSP, being the council that was established by the new government, to be led by al-Iraqiya Leader, Iyad Allawi, demanding broad authorities, including executive authorities, that were rejected by the National Coalition. Members of al-Iraqiya Coalition have vowed to take strong attitudes in the event of the rejection of the establishment of the NCSP and what they considered as “continuation to delay the implementation of Arbil Agreement, launched by Iraqi Kurdistan Region’s President, Massoud Barzani.” SKH (FT)

Wake up....... Turn PC on....... Grab a cup of coffee...... Read K98's post........ Thanks for ALL your efforts Nuff said Semper Fi