Iraq Rebuild: Your Tax $ At Work (Not), American Investment in Iraq Reconstruction Projects At Risk, Inspector General Report Finds - CBS News

Iraq Rebuild: Your Tax $ At Work (Not), American Investment in Iraq Reconstruction Projects At Risk, Inspector General Report Finds - CBS News



An inspector general report on Iraqi reconstruction projects found that of 8 sampled projects declared successes and turned over to Iraqi control, 7 are no longer functioning properly, if at all.


Sites suffered from deterioration, poor or no maintenance, or were not even being used by the people for whom they were built, at a cost to U.S. taxpayers of approximately $150 million.

Thursday thoughts....

I'm not into reality shows. Why they have not caught my fancy I can't say. Perhaps it is due to the stark reality we live in day to day. I mean if we could vote Bush off the Island, I might start to get interested.

Are you aware that we are burning $9 billion a month on the Iraq war? That's $108 billion a year. Any thoughts as to how much longer this could go on? Who is going to pay for this war that was an expensive lie to the world? It is not in any fiscal budget. Our children will be paying for this for years to come. Not only financially, but in loss of credibility around the world. Our foreign policy has become a joke.

The war in Iraq has not made America any safer. If anything, it has fanned the already existing flames of hate among some in the Middle East. Bush is the best recruiter extremists could ever have.

Digesting the morning

Saturday morning, post instant Maple & Brown Sugar Oatmeal. The dishwasher is churning in the kitchen and I sit in the great room holding court over Barry, Mo and Klaus (the boy's as we refer to them... dogs). They are all happy from the most part. Resting quietly, for which I am grateful. No doubt they are conserving energy for an afternoon romp.

Siting back and surveying the news and whatnot around the world, (who knows what fodder this may give me in the weeks ahead for NaPoWri Mo) a number of interesting things pop up.

For example, Barack Obama is in the news not for some major policy statement, but for poetry he wrote in his student years. [click here]

D. Thomas Jenkins in an op-ed piece asks a very simple but profound question about the future of the United States commitment to the war in Iraq. [click here]

When one of the nation's leading ethanol research and development companies too on the name- Poet, it sure seemed like a bunch of hot air to me. [click here]

My Sweet Lord [click here] a nude, anatomically correct chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ was canceled Friday amid a choir of complaining Catholics that included Cardinal Edward Egan.
Ok, when I first heard this story yesterday before it was cancelled, I e-mailed the link to all of my immediate family asking if they felt this was distasteful art. Since we are all Catholic, I wondered if my family members looked at it the same way. I said nothing about my thoughts one way or the other not wanting to influence their responses. Not one of them was shocked or outraged. One said they don't know it they would chose to display an anatomically correct Christ in their home, but saw nothing per say wrong with someone using chocolate as a medium for the artwork or that it was nude. Another made a very good point, saying... " that people who get mad about this better also be mad about the American Flag on a magnetic sticker for cars or beach towels made to look like the flag."

Drama Students Students at Wilton High Commended by Music Theatre International

The saga of Wilton High School's "Voices of Courage" continues. A Broadway musical licensing agency that has been around since 1952, has created a special award to recognize Wilton High School drama students for writing a play on the Iraq war that school school official have blocked from production.

It is not uncommon for the company to give awards to school theater departments for singing, dancing, directing and stage design."However, we are aware that theater is not just about acting, singing, dancing and excelling in performance," says a letter to the students from the company."It is also about positive risk taking for students, working as a community and utilizing theater skills, to present points of view on the stage which comment on the world in which we live."

School principal Timothy H Canty and School Superintendent Gary Richards have censored the production, not only disallowing it on campus, but off campus as well.

Play About Iraq War Divides a Connecticut School - New York Times

Play About Iraq War Divides a Connecticut School - New York Times

Natalie Kropf, 18, Seth Koproski, 17, Devon Fontaine, 16, and James Presson, 16, are students at Wilton High School in Wilton, Connecticut. Timothy H. Canty is the principal at Wilton High. These are a few principal players in an off stage drama about an on stage drams, "Voices in Conflict."

Wilton students in an advanced acting class were taking on the challenge of creating an original play about the war in Iraq. Last week, principal Timothy H. Canty canceled a play to be put on by the school's advanced theater class citing questions of political balance and context. Efforts were made to make some concessions in the script by the students. Even the thought of doing the performance off campus at night was out. Students say Canty had indicated that the material was too inflammatory, and that only someone who had actually served in the war could understand the experience. “He told us the student body is unprepared to hear about the war from students, and we aren’t prepared to answer questions from the audience and it wasn’t our place to tell them what soldiers were thinking,” said Sarah Anderson, a 17-year-old senior.

Two things come to my mind about this story....

• From a purely artistic point of view, principal Timothy Canty is way out of line. I'd have to give him my tops of 5 thumbs down for censorship of a piece of creative work by students that no doubt took significant commitment on their part. Perhaps (and sadly) their greatest learning experience from all this is the distaste for censorship in art when they could have been taking away more positive life experiences.
• Outside my artistic mode, I have to again give Mr. Canty my maximum 5 thumbs down for like many, sticking there head in the sand (I had another place in mind) with respect (and I emphasise the "R" word here) to treating these students in such a demeaning manner. Students like Natalie Kropf are old enough to be serving in Iraq, and of course many other students are not far behind. Why hide in the safety of comfort and pretend this war in not in the room. It is a fucking elephant he wants to pretend it is not there. Gives these students a lot of credit for wanting to undertake this and ask the hard questions that too many adults in this country are afraid to ask. Maybe if people had asked more questions earlier and engaged in meaningful dialogue there would not be 3234 U.S. serviceman dead and we would not have spent $410 billion plus on a war the has no end in sight. A war that has left deep divisions and civil-war strife between the Iraqi people themselves. Give these you people a little respect. We ask them to fight our wars, don't talk down to them like we know what we are doing. If we did, things would be a lot different after four years.

Senate Republicans nix Iraq resolution

On a 56 to 34 vote in the Senate today, Democrats with the help of a few Republicans fell 4 votes short of being able to advance the same resolution forward that the House passed - stating it's opposition the the Troop Surge in Iraq. The test vote Seven Republicans broke ranks with the Party Leadership to side with Democrats. While the vote on the on the resolution itself did not occur, it is clear that a majority of the Senate wanted this to happen and those in the majority on the test vote would likely have voted for the Resolution opposing the Troop Surge itself.

Both Houses of Congress are now understanding just how much the American public sees this war as a mistake and not worth the costs of American lives and the hundreds of billions in tax dollars we have already spent on it. Even as President Bush is sending to Congress a request for $100 billion more.

U.S. House of Representatives Vote Opposition to Bush's Troop Surge In Iraq

On a vote of 246 to 182 - The House approved H.Con Res 63 - A bill opposing the increase of some 21,000 troops to be sent to Iraq.

12 Republicans Break Ranks on Iraq Resolution

A Washington Post article today says as many as a dozen House Republicans today broke ranks with the President over the Iraq Troop Surge.

The Iraq Troop Surge

The following members of the Senate [in a procedural motion ] went on record against allowing the Senate to consider S. 470 a resolution. This [S. 470] was a non-binding resolution expressing opposition to the President Bush's Surge of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.

Alexander (R-TN)Allard (R-CO)Bennett (R-UT)Bond (R-MO)Brownback (R-KS)Bunning (R-KY)Burr (R-NC)Chambliss (R-GA)Coburn (R-OK)Cochran (R-MS)Corker (R-TN)Cornyn (R-TX)Craig (R-ID)Crapo (R-ID)DeMint (R-SC)Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)Ensign (R-NV)Enzi (R-WY)Graham (R-SC)Grassley (R-IA)Gregg (R-NH)Hagel (R-NE)Hatch (R-UT)Hutchison (R-TX)Inhofe (R-OK)Isakson (R-GA)Kyl (R-AZ)Lieberman (ID-CT)Lott (R-MS)Lugar (R-IN)McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)Reid (D-NV)Roberts (R-KS)Sessions (R-AL)Shelby (R-AL)Smith (R-OR)Snowe (R-ME)Specter (R-PA)Stevens (R-AK)Sununu (R-NH)Thomas (R-WY)Thune (R-SD)Vitter (R-LA)Voinovich (R-OH)Warner (R-VA)

Sadly these Senators would not allow the Senate to have a serious discussion on the matter.
Then as you can see below, Senator McCain didn't even have the guts to cast a vote.

These members were Not Voting - 4
Johnson (D-SD)* Landrieu (D-LA)
Martinez (R-FL)McCain (R-AZ)

* Johnson is in the hospital.

The World of Good and Evil

This is not about poetry. It is about more weighty subjects. But those of you who read me on a routine basis have learned I digress. This is about a world of texture and of color. A world in which there are gray areas and all is not black and white.

According an associate press story, Lawrence Wilkerson, a former chief of staff to then Secretary of State Colin Powell, told the BBC in an interview that Vice President Dick Cheney rejected an offer by Iran in 2003 to help the U.S. stabilize Iraq and at the same time end its military support of Hezbollah and Hamas. Wilkerson said when the offer was received, it was thought by the State Department to be “very propitious moment” to strike a deal, but as soon as it reached the vice president’s office, “… the old mantra of ‘We don’t talk to evil”…reasserted itself.

Of course here we are three years later, 3,000 plus U.S. Servicemen deal, countless others with wounds that will impact them for the rest of their lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian causalities and a bloody civil-war between rival factions and no end in sight. The Iraq Study Group recommends that one alternative approach would be to enlist the support of Iran and Syria in the region. Of course, the President, el al in the administration have chosen to ignore this possibility in favor of sending 21,500 more American to the middle of a civil war.

I understand fully the concern President Bush has with nuclear proliferation. There are several fronts in which this is an issue, including North Korea and some of the regions of the old Soviet Union which have unaccounted for nuclear weapons grade supplies. Unfortunately, through out his one and a half terms of service, he has really achieved nothing on two of those fronts and largely ignored the third. This administration sees everything in terms of “good” and “evil” and if you are evil, we isolate you and hope that one day you will wake up and realize you are evil and decide to be good instead. Is this progressive foreign policy?

For many years, nations have successfully worked to find areas of agreement even though they have other issues in which they remain far apart. There is the old adage that the “enemy of my enemy is my friend.” It has allowed countries to find areas of mutual interest and work towards solving problems from what they can agree upon. If what Wilkerson has indicated about Iran’s communication in 2003 is current, it angers me to think that the Vice President would not have allowed the State Department to see what might have been accomplished to spare the region more bloodshed, loss of more American lives, and slow the $380 billion plus drain on the people of this country.

If one is to accept the premise of good and evil, it might be noted that good like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Such a concept is strictly black and white. I can acknowledge my fears and concerns about the nuclear paths of North Korea and Iran. But I can clearly see how from their vantage point they feel a double standard that says some nations have nuclear weapons and it is ok for those that have them to keep them, but the rest just have to accept the fact that no one else can.

Perhaps it is time again for us to conduct our foreign policy in living color – recognizing all the gray areas and not just looking at everything as if it were just black and white. Do we need to put poets in government? Is this the answer?
Sorry, I digress again.

Ahh ~ Friday at last...

The week is coming to an end like a locomotive pulling into a small town station... the brakes stalling the wheels and the metal to metal glide amid all the steam and noise, the motion continues a bit longer but at a declining speed. Then the jolt and there you are. It has stopped.

I definitely feel the holiday upon us. Two Christmas parties yesterday. One for the office and one an evening at the Writer House. I read a couple of poems. I'll have Christmas shopping to do this weekend.
There is a mixture of a sort of manic world and this inner calling for peace and tranquility. They do not mix well together. I suppose that is would support James Hillman's assessment when he said, "Slowness is basic to the notion of melancholy from the very beginning. Mania is often described in psychiatry by the absence of sadness." When the world is in chaos it tends to overlook the sadness of war and famine and sickness, and so on. It is at these very moments that I believe mankind needs poetry the most. But no, we somehow find it easier to be numb to the horror and immune from humor as well. We are just to busy to let silly emotions get in the way of anything.
Bits from my journal this week:

• A fog of silence settles in the gully sunken between us.
• The reeds of hope / sprouting runners / travel across the anticipatory terrain
• I am transparent, here but out of sight.
• Nights of curview / days strung between roads / boardered by odds / not quite palatable / survival will apply to travelers / moving between strife // What are the options? / a sigh of indigestion /rather resignation of lost causes / St Anthony Pray for us. //

~0~

The President is not going to make "rash decisions" on Iraq. He has moved back the time for his anouncement to after the first of the year. Some military people are now calling for more troops. {sigh} The President has rejected major parts of the ISG. He talks about changing stratagy. I'm thinking that chage is going to look a lot more like "stay the course."

Question for Iraqi citizens. Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

~0~

Driving through Taco Bell - "Hold the green onions, hold the lettuce. Uh, come to think of it, just hold my order."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Latest Iraq War Deaths to date since U.S. Invasion in March 2003:
U.S.-LED COALITION FORCES = United States 2,941 / Britain 126 / Other nations 121
IRAQIS = Military Between 4,900 and 6,375 / Civilians Between 50,585 and 56,083
[source]