Iraq keeps getting more Nuts

Just when you think it could not get worse, Iraq gets worse. Now the army may storm Najaf, the Muslim holy city which is the Muslim Vatican - you can imagine how Christians would react if a foreign army stormed the Pope. That's what is seriously being considered as I write.

Just WHO is making these decisions? It's clumsy mistakes like this --made by someone HIGH up the chain of command -- that will create a worse backlash -- And THAT will result in more of our troops being attacked and killed as a result.

Americans with little global experience will assume that this tactic will work. It's the same mistake the British 'redcoats' made against the American colonists before 1776, who were the ones not playing by the 'rules' -- shooting at the lined up Brits from behind trees and then retreating...American forget, but in 1776 WE were the 'insurgents' wanting independence, and didn't want anyone else telling us what to do.

Now in Iraq we Americans are the Redcoats and the insurgents are the ones not playing by the rules, hiding behind trees and roadside bombs on their own home turf. The insurgents and creeps like Al Sadr are hoping we do make a major mistake like going into Najaf - it will enflame the people against us. Whoever is running this show keeps making mistakes that make things worse instead of better over there.

To his credit Paul Bremer admitted publicly recently that major mistakes had been made -- then he started rehiring ex-Saddam Generals! Egads, Alice is Wonderland is here. What's next?

Bremer was the one (with somone's blessing) who cut of the pay of thousands in the Iraqi army with guns, so they then had nothing better to do from then on but shoot at our troops. Duh! Former Pres. Bush's Secretary of State James Baker warned NOT to do that. How many of our kids died because of that screw up? If we had kept them on the payroll they would not have had an incentive to start the insurgency. But deprive a man with a gun and a family to feed of a paycheck and you have trouble...firing them created an instant insurgency that has grown with every additional mistake.

Stay tuned. It looks like our clever leaders are about to make some more mistakes in Iraq, a country that has never known democracy, and was intentionally designed by the British after WW I to be unstable. We can't win with a military only solution. It will take a real political solution - not an imaginery one.

Last Water Heater Made in America

After the water heater blew up (sprang a nasty leak), we had to replace it (East Sunday we had NO Hot Water -yikes- and it was a downpour of cold rain outside).

We survived until Monday, thanks to a shower at a local country club.

The plumber who came out remarked, after installing our new unit, that it was the last one made in America - we bought the same kind we had before because it lasted nearly14 years!

Now, they will be made in Mexico!  Wonder how long it will last? Why do I think that the price won't really drop much when they start selling those?  The new one installed was $720 - pretty good for a 14 year lifecycle. So if one from Mexico is $500 (I doubt it) how many jobs were lost to save about $20/year over 14 years? 

Unfortunately, we are shipping our manufacturing overseas and the jobs that go with it.  I've been in over 55 countries since the 1970's, helping them set up their own production for local needs.

Now it turns out Mexico, China and India will produce everything we use in our houses, from faucets to toys and water heaters. They have a cost advantage because the economy has gone global.

Maybe future wars won't be over oil - it will be China cutting off our water heaters unless we cave in on Taiwan! Or they withhold all the Christmas toys they make for us. 

I bet after one cold shower many Americans would give up half of California and New York to get hot water again, to heck with anybody! Ummmm. Not sure we want to be this vulnerable guys!

My Water Heater Erupted with Iraq

How can a water heater be like Iraq?  Iraq sprang a serious leak this week - hot steam erupted from what was supposed to be progress in Iraq's nation building, just as I discovered our water heater sprouting steam into the attic, creating a waterfall into the house.

Fortunately, I walked into the house right after it happened and was able to shut a valve and stop the flow before real damage occurred. A few minutes or an hour later we would have had a major disaster.

Unfortunately, the valves may be stuck wide open in Iraq eruption that occurred this week. Someone has been turning the wrong valves and the mistakes have piled up, like a boiler set too high until it finally explodes. Some of the reasons I covered in a new Global American newsletter released a couple days ago (access and archives at www.INTLEGALGROUP.com).

A culmination of a series of blunders have set the stage for hellfire in Iraq - no planning, failure to have enough troops or give them cultural training, dismissing the Iraq army, failing to secure the borders to keep Al Qaida out, using aircraft to bomb a Mosque killing women and children, the list goes on. Our leaderships blunders have caused centuries old enemies, Shiites and Sunnis, to team up for the first time ever. We are poking the hornets nest and they are teaming up. NOT a good sign.

My water heater will be fixed by Monday. The Iraq broken water heater is so critical now from valves being turned, often the wrong way, that it will either blow up completely, or will take years to fix. Our obsession with Saddam the local thug has left Osama bin laden a wide open field to focus on attacking the U.S. We should NEVER have taken our attention off that snake. It's almost guaranteed America will be hit again, and probably soon.

Lack of international understanding by our military and political leaders has put us in a tight box. A U.S. commander said the American mission remained to ''kill or capture'' the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr. That can only make him a hero and get him elected - or increase the rage we seem to have stirred up (600 killed in Fallujah last week, mostly women, children and elderly).

First good sign was a U.S. commander negotiating a cease fire...

 

Iraq's Burning Days

Things seem to be getting very ugly in Iraq just the past few days - since the horrible killing and mutilating of four American contract workers. Yesterday a riot was started by a Shiite extremist, Mullah Sadr that I warned about months ago in one of my Global American articles. So if the Shiites start shooting, the entire country of Iraq blows up in our face.

Until now, the violence has been limited to the SUNNI Muslim areas that had been favored by Saddam. Yesterday's riots by the Shiites' (60% of the population) is a Bad Omen. It makes a June 30 hand-over extremely risky. The whole place could easily fall into a nasty civil war with American troops caught in the middle. Iraq women are already losing rights and are having to "cover up" like Iran. Until now, Iraqi women never had to wear veils and chadors.

Bombs have been recently been found on German high speed rail lines and a Spanish bullet train.  I gave a terrorism analysts speech to a Houston Energy Transportation group last Friday about the potential for attacks in Houston by Al Qaida. Some kind of ship attack on the U.S. is making the newspapers as far away as Australia.

I told the group that many of our new rules won't work on terrorists. Al Qaida was sophisicated enough to know that a hit on Spain could knock them out of Iraq. I wonder if any of our intelligence geniuses had that figured out before the Madrid train bombing? If not, why not? 

If they can hit any American ally without warning, it sends the message that America can't protect its allies. And that makes it hard to get allies.

We should never have taken our eyes off Osama when we first went into Afghanistan after 9 11. The diversion to Iraq eliminated no major weapons and has been a major recruiting tool for Osama and his extremists - now they can blow up tons of real people with tons of new recruits instead of just Afghan rocks...

What bothers me the most is the young American soldiers have been put in harm's way by people who had no post-war plan and wrong intelligence.