As we look into the next year, here’s a few topics to kick off the new year here, and around the world…

As Israel continues it’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, the succeed in the taking out of one of the only high level members of Hamas to not flee to the underground.  Nizar Rayan and 11 others, 6 of whom were family members died in the bombing of a 4 story building in which his apartment was located.  It’s the first high level target to be hit during the 6 day assault.

Cuba is celebrating it’s 50 year anniversary of the revolution that placed Communist leader Fidel Castro in charge of the country.  Raul Castro became President in February after his brother fell ill and it is hoped that as the new year progresses President Elect Barack Obama and Castro will be able to open talks to continue to improve relations with the country, and end many of the restrictions on travel and trade currently in place.

The UK has handed over the Basra Airport to the country of Iraq in a continuing of the drawing down of international forces and increased control over the country being placed in the hands of it’s own government and public.  It is said that the UK will have all troops withdrawn from the country by July of this year.

At the same time Iraq is taking control of the Green Zone as U.S. forces continue handing over the of the country to local police and military.  Soldiers will remain in place to continue assisting with security patrols in the area for at least the next 90 days at which point the next step will be decided by leaders of U.S. and Iraqi security forces.

So there you have it, just a small portion of the happenings in our world as we kick off 2009.  Here’s to it being better than 2008!

2008 has been a year that in many ways defies easy summation.  Granted the words “utter disaster” “meltdown” “beginning of the end” could all come to mind, but so could “amazing triumph” “realization of hope” “beginning of change” and the like.  It all depends on how you want to look at it, and which parts you’d like to focus on.

I think the best I can do is… “it could be worse” and right now that’s true.

But the world continues to spin, and in it’s spinning we draw to the end of the year and the beginning of the next.  Sadly the calendar and various night spots are the only places where the strike of midnight matters.  For all things that matter, it’s just another day.  There’s been a lot of things I’ve wanted to touch on these past few days, I just really haven’t known how to go about it.  The economy isn’t great, and we all know it, though that seems to be a big focus for our incoming Prez and his Cabinet, so maybe there’s hope for at least some improvement, though for every bailout and stimulus check the money still has to come from somewhere and it’s likely that our kids and grandkids and perhaps beyond will still in some form or fashion be dealing with the fallout from each dollar spent… I don’t know where it all will come from other than just continued printing of money and exchanging cash for debt which devalues each cent and increases inflation and all around just further plunges us into the depths of economic failure… but there are those much smarter than I working on this case and hopefully they have a plan that while beyond my comprehension will nonetheless help to improve the financial state of the country.

However, there are other fears on tap, not manufactured fears heightened by changing color scales and random warnings, but actual threats to the well being of all peoples of the world.  Iraq’s security has improved beyond the holdouts who will likely continue to try to fight what is in their mind the good fight long after we’ve left and Iraq has been governing itself for decades, but while one warfront lessens in severity another picks up as the war in Afghanistan, so oft neglected while Iraq gained in focus, continues to escalate and grow in new and different ways, changing in dynamic, and requiring untried tactics to gain ground in the conflict.  And while American continues to fight in Afghanistan and along the border of Pakistan, Pakistan develops greater tension along the border of another of it’s neighbors in India, spawning most recently from the horrible terrorist attack and hostage situation in a hotel in India that has reportedly been traced back to Pakistan.  On top of that, the UN is still working on a commission to look into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto who was aiming to lead Pakistan into a new progressive future.  Then there’s the new escalation of force by Israel against the Palestinians in Gaza and specifically Hamas following the end of the cease-fire and Hamas’ continued rocket attacks even during the cease-fire, the show of force which is dividing the Arab community as many extremists turn on their various country’s leaders for not taking a hard enough stance against Israel and/or for Hamas in a conflict that many are worrying could prove to be a rallying point for extremists and a growing source of violent intent and action.  In addition there’s been a raise in gas prices as a result of predictions that oil routes could be shut down due to violence and protests in the Middle East (in the grand scale of things, hardly the worst thing to spawn out of all this madness, but it still effects us so it’s worth mentioning).  Our incoming leadership has been strangely quiet about all of these world events as opposed to his revealing of plans regarding the economy, instead deferring to the current President George W. Bush and taking cues from him on what the country will do in response to all of these events and conflicts.

Like the economy I have no answers about any of these conflicts, they spawn from years upon years of issue between various social and religious factions along and about many different borders, and each conflict has it’s own intricacies that will require great care and consideration, as the clock continues to tick down the minutes to midnight and the end of 2008, I can only hope for resolutions to the many conflicts that face our world and a stabilization that would benefit us all in the next year.  I’m not holding my breath, and crossing my fingers would make it really hard to type any more of these late night rants, but regardless of what comes next… perhaps as some mantra that will just make it easier to get through the day remember that “it could be worse.”

There’s been an ongoing discussion here between myself and reader “An_Arab” about how justified the insurgents are or or not in attacking U.S. troops, and how justified the U.S. is in fighting the insurgents.

But with the security agreement between the U.S. and the government of Iraq that would allow U.S. troops to continue operating in Iraq still pending- meaning that if it’s not signed by Dec 31st all U.S. activities in Iraq would have to cease until an agreement is reached, and an incoming President Obama who has pledged to withdraw combat troops within 16 months of taking office, there is still one thing on everyone’s mind- the security of Iraq.

Something that was reinforced today in Baghdad, not in an attack on U.S. forces, not with a placed roadside bomb, but in twin violent suicide bombings that killed at least 28, injured roughly 68, and destroyed store fronts, and a bus full of school girls.

A suicide bomber struck Monday in a crowd gathered at the site of an explosion that moments earlier had damaged a bus filled with schoolgirls, with both blasts killing at least 28 people and wounding 68 others, authorities said.

Also Monday, a female suicide bomber attacked a security checkpoint in downtown Baqouba, killing five people including a local leader of Sunni group opposed to al-Qaida, police said. Fifteen other people were wounded in that explosion, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The twin blasts — the deadliest in Baghdad in months — occurred during the morning rush hour in the mostly Shiite Kasrah section of Azamiyah neighborhood in the northern part of the Iraqi capital. They shattered storefronts along a crowded street and set fire to more than a dozen cars.

Police said the first explosion damaged a minibus carrying young girls to school. The second happened when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt in the middle of a crowd that had gathered around the vehicle.

Associated Press Television News video showed the minibus pocked with shrapnel marks with the floor soaked in blood. Girls’ shoes were scattered about amid the wreckage.

Ahmed Riyadh, 54, owner of a nearby grocery, said called it a ”vicious attack” that ”did not differentiate between Shiites and Sunnis.”

”We are fed up with such attacks and we want only to live in peace,” he said. ”The politicians should work hard and set aside their differences to stop the bloodshed.”

Nothing I can say in debate can illustrate nearly as well as this that the insurgents are not “justified” in their violence.  There are no political aims gained from events such as this.  This is violence for the sake of violence.  The average person on the street in Iraq doesn’t want violence no matter who is initiating it, they want what every person wants, peace and prosperity.

While I don’t agree with every move the U.S. military has made in Iraq, I could never sympathize with anyone who would kill so indiscriminately.  So there it is dear readers… better than any argument I could ever make, illustrated in real life.

I wonder how you say “oops!” in Arabic:

Syrian state-run TV and witnesses said Sunday that American helicopters attacked an area close to the Iraqi border zone, killing at least nine people.

Local residents in a Syrian border town said that American forces killed seven men in a helicopter-borne commando attack inside Syrian territory. State-run TV later raised the number of dead to eight.
Doctors in the town of Al-Sukkariya, some eight kilometers from the Iraqi border, said seven corpses and four wounded had been delivered to a nearby clinic after the attack.

An official Syrian spokesman confirmed the attack.

The eyewitness accounts said that four helicopters were involved in the operation, with two of the helicopters landing in the town and eight American soldiers disembarking. The eyewitnesses said that the seven killed men were supposedly construction workers.

Ok, so I think the key here is that reports are coming from the Syrian state-run TV. I’ll keep an eye on this to see how it progresses.

UPDATE:

Holy shit. Interesting that Bush gave the green light on this one. Don’t you think it could have waited till, say, mid-next week?! Can someone smell that “international test” on the horizon?

A U.S. military official said the raid by special forces targeted the network of al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters moving through Syria into Iraq. The Americans have been unable to shut the network down in the area because Syria was out of the military’s reach.

“We are taking matters into our own hands,” the official told The Associated Press in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids.

[source: MSNBC]

It’s clear now that the Bush Administration won’t give the green light for Israel to attack Iranian nuclear facilities (I think that might be the one thing Bush and myself agree on).

But what we have done is provide kick-ass military equipment.

After several months of teetering back and forth about what weapons to provide Israel, the United States overwhelmingly decided to allow Israel use of the X-band radar system.  It’s not run-of-the-mill radar by any means.

The x-band can “track an object the size of a baseball from 4,700 kilometers away” essentially protecting Israel from an Iranian missile attack:

It would allow Israel’s Arrow missile to engage a Shahab-3 ballistic missile about halfway through what would be a 11-minute flight from Iran, or six times sooner than Israel’s “Green Pine” radar can.

The decision to deploy the radar in Israel was finalized during Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s recent visit to the US.

The radar, according to the magazine, will be linked to the US Joint Tactical Ground Station (JTAGS), which receives and processes threat data transmitted by US Defense Support System satellites.

The ever amusing DEBKAfile reported yesterday that the U.S. Air Force delivered the equipment and American military personel on a C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster III (that translates to ginormous airplanes).

DEBKAfiles’ ever elusive “military source” who’s identity is never, ever named:

Commenting on the FBX radar deployment, a Pentagon source said: First, we want to put Iran on notice that we’re bolstering our capabilities throughout the region, and especially in Israel. But just as important, we’re telling the Israelis, ‘Calm down; behave. We’re doing all we can to stand by you and strengthen defenses.’”

Right.  I’m sure Israel LOVES that you’re insinuating that they’re children who needs babysitting.

How do you compete against the first black presidential candidate?  You tap that p**sy!

Crude, I know, but I’m allowed these jokes.  When you own a vagina, it allows you certain liberties:

Give it to us CNN:

Sen. John McCain on Friday announced Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate, calling her “the running mate who can best help me shake up Washington.”

“She’s exactly who this country needs to help me fight the same old Washington politics of me first and country second,” the presumptive Republican nominee said at a Dayton, Ohio, rally of about 15,000 supporters, who welcomed the surprise pick of the relatively unknown politician with cheers and flags.

“She’s got the grit, integrity, good sense and fierce devotion to the common good that is exactly what we need in Washington today,” McCain said.

Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Palin

Palin, 44, told the crowd, “To have been chosen brings a great challenge. I know that it will demand the best that I have to give and I promise nothing less.”

Palin is a first-term governor who unseated incumbent Gov. Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary in 2006 and went on to defeat former Gov. Tony Knowles, a Democrat, in the general election.

She will be the first woman to be nominated for vice president as a Republican and only the second to run for vice president on a major party ticket, after Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.

Palin also will be the first Alaskan to be on the ticket for either party.

I was actually a bit shocked by the choice as such a blatant gimmick. I mean really, what better way to compete against the first black presidential candidate than to tag team with a woman? If America thought they had come to terms with their highly suppressed sexism and racism guilt, I can’t WAIT to see what level it’s taken to now!

Ironically, I think his choice will make feminists across the nation’s blood curl.

UPDATE: Bloomburg gives us more information about who this Sarah Palin chick is:

Palin has a strong anti-abortion record. She is a member of Feminists for Life, a group that works to make health-care and child-care resources available to “pregnant or parenting students,” according to the group’s Web site.

Palin, a former beauty queen, high school basketball star and television sportscaster, began her political career in the 1990s as a city councilwoman and then mayor in her home town of Wasilla. The town’s estimated population in 2007 was 9,780, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Earlier this year, Palin threatened to evict Exxon Mobil Corp. and its partners BP Plc, Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips from a state-owned gas field, winning a promise from them to boost Alaska’s natural-gas output by 17 percent.

Palin hasn’t been implicated in the four-year-old federal corruption investigation, which has resulted in convictions of or guilty pleas from three state legislators, Murkowski’s former chief of staff and two executives of an oil-services company, as well as the indictment of Senator Ted Stevens.

Who said that the U.S military is strained for troops?  We’re doing perfectly fine.  The American army is stronger than ever.  We’re fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea, Kosovo…  HEY!  Private Johnny!  It says “Front Towards Enemy”. Wait!  Don’t press that…..  !

Army opens up prep school for dropouts to fill ranks

…the U.S. Army, eager to fill its ranks amid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, doesn’t see them as dropouts. They are recruits who only need a GED before they’re ready to begin basic training.

And so, the Army formally opens its first prep school Wednesday.

“It’s academic immersion,” explained Col. Jeffrey Sanderson, chief of staff at Fort Jackson, home of the Army’s largest basic training school. “Our studies show that with only three out of every 10 people of military age being capable of joining the Army, we are going to have to do something different.”

That includes turning six World War II-era buildings at the base into a mini-campus of spartan classrooms and barracks. Under the yearlong pilot project, classes of about 60 soldiers will enter the month long program every week.

Read complete story here.

Alright America, we’ve accepted their cash… they’ve accepted ours… we can finally make a fresh start with each other.

It’ll be great.  We’ll go out to nice restaurants on our birthdays. Give flowers on our anniversary. And maybe, for once, they’ll stop taking all the blankets in the middle of the night.  Ya know, really try and make the relationship work.

Libya and the United States have signed a deal that compensates all victims of bombings involving the two countries. The deal, which envisages millions of euros in compensation payments to victims’ families, was signed by US and Lybian diplomats in Tripolis.

There were 26 pending lawsuits filed by US citizens against Libya for terrorist attacks in the 1980s. These include the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am Flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people and the 1986 bombing of a West-Berlin disco in which three people died. Libyan officials said the deal also covered 40 Libyan victims, who were killed when US warplanes carried out reprisal bombings of Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986.

The agreement effectively clears the way for the full restoration of diplomatic relations between Libya and the United States.

Fantastic.

The national divorce rate isn’t 50% for nothing.  I’m just sayin’.

The first American Deserter of the Iraq War has been sent home as of Tuesday in a move that many find surprising given that roughly 200 men and women have found refuge in our neighbor to the north since the war began in 2003.

Most Canadians have no issue with deserters, what with Canada not having backed the war in the first place, but with it’s current conservative government in place the rules about who qualifies for asylum in the country have changed greatly since, say, the days that Bill Clinton went running for the border, thus making it more difficult for those seeking a safe refuge from further deployments to war.

The man has been arrested and while the charge of desertion can carry penalties up to and including death by firing squad (no, really), it’s suspected that prison and something much like a felony charge will be his penance.

Perhaps the most surprising fact in this story, isn’t so much Canada turning away someone seeking asylum, but the face that roughly 200 men and women packed up their lives and left the all-volunteer military of the U.S. to run into the north and start over, rather than stay in the States locked into their contracts.