Democrats assail one of their own for backing the war.
Monday, December 12, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
The debate over Iraq is getting nastier, if that's possible, and the new target of antiwar Democrats isn't even President Bush. It's Joe Lieberman, the Democrat from Connecticut and 2000 running mate of Al Gore, who has dared to suggest we must and will win the war.
"I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there," Senator Lieberman wrote on these pages November 29. "What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will [in Iraq]."
When that policy substance was ignored in Washington, the Senator repeated his case last week in the political language the Beltway press corps could finally comprehend: "It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander in Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation's peril." The media, and his fellow Democrats, seemed agog.
And it's true that in modern, polarized Washington, such bipartisan sentiments are unusual. But as Mr. Lieberman also noted last week, they have a historic parallel from the early days of the Cold War. Then a Democratic President, Harry Truman, was trying to build alliances to resist Communism amid ferocious criticism from many Republicans, including their Senate leader, Ohio's Robert Taft. But a GOP Senator from Michigan, Arthur Vandenberg, stepped forward to support Truman, and the bipartisan "containment" strategy was born. Forty years later it would result in victory under Ronald Reagan.
We're now in the early stages of what might be another long, twilight struggle, this time against Islamist terrorism, and now the partisan tables are turned. While a Republican President is trying to win a campaign in Iraq that is part of a larger war, most Democrats are assailing his policy and predicting disaster, and even the party's senior Members have begun a Vietnam-like chant to "come home, America."
So it's revealing of the party's foreign policy condition that his fellow Democrats are now training their guns not on the enemy in Iraq--but on Mr. Lieberman. "I completely disagree with him," said Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader who went so far as to associate herself with the isolationist Taft Republicans of the early Cold War years.
"I agree with a Republican Senator, Senator Robert Taft," she said, who "said that disagreement in time of war is essential to a governing democracy." That would be fair enough if Ms. Pelosi were merely arguing over the tactics of how to win the war. But she has joined Congressman John Murtha in advocating a six-month deadline for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, no matter the consequences. She doesn't want to win; she wants to quit.
Her Senate counterpart, Minority Leader Harry Reid, averred through a spokesman that while the Senator "has a lot of respect" for his colleague, "he feels that Senator Lieberman's position on Iraq is at odds with many Americans." How's that for wartime leadership? Mr. Reid disagrees with Mr. Lieberman's support for the war because the opinion polls do too. Never mind that one reason public opinion has turned against the war is because of the relentless pessimism of the likes of Mr. Reid.
Democratic Chairman Howard Dean also took a public shot at Mr. Lieberman, and his brother Jim Dean, who runs something called Democracy for America, is ginning up a letter-writing assault on the Senator. "It is disturbing enough that Senator Lieberman remains one of the President's biggest cheerleaders. But his call for opponents of the President's failed policy to keep quiet is outrageous," Jim Dean wrote last week. Meanwhile, at the fever swamps of MoveOn.org they're talking about a primary challenge to Mr. Lieberman in 2006.
We're confident the Senator would whip all comers in Connecticut. But this liberal animosity toward him speaks volumes about how far left Democratic foreign policy has shifted since Bill Clinton's Presidency. The same Senate Democrats who voted for the Iraqi Liberation Act in 1998 and for the war in Iraq in October 2002 are now claiming they were duped and it was all a mistake.
Even the supposedly serious Democratic policy voices are offering mostly criticism without any positive advice or counsel. Senator Joe Biden doesn't advocate withdrawal--"I'm not there yet," he says--but he too has been consistently negative, predicting the January elections would be "ugly" and now insisting we must "change course" to succeed. Yet the actual policy advice he offered in a recent speech consisted of the Bush strategy dressed up in different rhetoric.
Then there's former NATO Commander and once-and-future Democratic Presidential hopeful Wesley Clark, whose recent counsel was for Mr. Bush to invite Syria and Iran to help us in Iraq. Just how the U.S. is supposed to win over Tehran's mullahs without conceding them a nuclear weapon, or Syria's Assad clique without letting it return to dominate Lebanon, Mr. Clark doesn't say.
This is all a shame, because President Bush's conduct of the war could have used a more constructive opposition. There's no question the U.S. was terribly slow in training Iraqi troops, far too slow in transferring sovereignty to Iraqis, and far too cautious in pursuing insurgency strongholds in Fallujah and elsewhere. But those criticisms all came from the right, or from Iraqis, not from American Democrats.
Which brings us back to Mr. Lieberman, whose recent candid support for the war surely means the end of his Presidential ambitions. But if Democrats are smart they'll listen to what he's saying about the defeatist message they're now sending about Iraq, and about U.S. foreign policy in general.
The Taft Republicans of the late 1940s never did make it to the White House; Dwight Eisenhower won in 1952 as the heir to the GOP's Vandenberg wing. Smart Democrats who want to win in 2008 aren't going to do it as the party of pessimism and retreat.
source: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007669
Monday, December 12, 2005
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Sunday Funnies...
Here are some jokes I've gotten in email, or otherwise came across on the internet. I got a chuckle or two out of 'em, hope you will too:
Near Death Experience
A middle-aged woman has a heart attack. While on the operating table she has a near death experience. She sees God and asks, "Is this it? Am I dead?" God says, "no, you have another 30 to 40 years to live."
She recovers and decides to stay in the hospital and have a facelift, liposuction, breast augmentation, tummy tuck, hair dyed, and so on. She figures since she's got another 30 to 40 years, she might as well make the most of it.
She walks out of the hospital after the last operation and immediately gets hit by an ambulance. She arrives in front of God and asks, "I thought you said I had another 30 to 40 years?" To which God replies, "sorry -- I didn't recognize you."
The Man I Marry
At a local coffee bar, a young woman was expounding on her idea of the perfect mate to some of her friends. "The man I marry must be a shining light amongst company. He must be musical.
Tell jokes. Sing. And stay home at night!"
A cynical male listener overheard and spoke up, "Lady, what you really want is a television set!"
1) When I die, I want to die like my grandfather--who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car."
--Author Unknown
2) Advice for the day: If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle:
"Take two aspirin" and "Keep away from children."
--Author Unknown
3) "Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they
meet at the bar."
--Drew Carey
A Letter from a farm kid now at the San Diego Marine Corps Recruit Training
Dear Ma and Pa,
I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled. I was restless at first because you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. but I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing. Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there's warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food plus yours holds you till noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much. We go on "route marches", which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it's not my place to tell him different. A "route march" is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.
The country is nice but awful flat. The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot.
The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none. This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move, and it ain't shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes. Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home. I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake. I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I'm only 5'6" and 130 pounds and he's 6'8" and near 300 pounds dry. Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.
Your loving daughter,
Carol
Maine Girls
Three men were sitting together bragging about how they had given their new
wives duties.
The first man had married a woman from Alabama, and bragged that he had
told his wife she was going to do all the dishes and house cleaning that
needed done at their house. He said that it took a couple days but on the
third day he came home to a clean house and the dishes were all washed and put
away.
The second man had married a woman from Florida. He bragged that he had
given his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes, and the
cooking. He told them that the first day he didn't see any results, but the
next day it was better. By the third day, his house was clean, the dishes
were done, and he had a huge dinner on the table.
The third man had married a Maine girl. He boasted that he told her
that her duties were to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed,
laundry washed and hot meals on the table for every meal. He said the
first day he didn't see anything, the second day he didn't see anything, but by
the third day most of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little
out of his left eye. Enough to fix him self a bite to eat, load the
dishwasher, and telephone a landscaper.
Got to love them Maine girls!
A Woman's Prayer:
> >
> >
> > > Dear Lord,
> > > I pray for:
> > > Wisdom, To understand a man.
> > > Love, To forgive him and;
> > > Patience, For his moods.
> > > Because, Lord, if I pray for Strength
> > > I'll just beat him to death.
Near Death Experience
A middle-aged woman has a heart attack. While on the operating table she has a near death experience. She sees God and asks, "Is this it? Am I dead?" God says, "no, you have another 30 to 40 years to live."
She recovers and decides to stay in the hospital and have a facelift, liposuction, breast augmentation, tummy tuck, hair dyed, and so on. She figures since she's got another 30 to 40 years, she might as well make the most of it.
She walks out of the hospital after the last operation and immediately gets hit by an ambulance. She arrives in front of God and asks, "I thought you said I had another 30 to 40 years?" To which God replies, "sorry -- I didn't recognize you."
The Man I Marry
At a local coffee bar, a young woman was expounding on her idea of the perfect mate to some of her friends. "The man I marry must be a shining light amongst company. He must be musical.
Tell jokes. Sing. And stay home at night!"
A cynical male listener overheard and spoke up, "Lady, what you really want is a television set!"
1) When I die, I want to die like my grandfather--who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car."
--Author Unknown
2) Advice for the day: If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle:
"Take two aspirin" and "Keep away from children."
--Author Unknown
3) "Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they
meet at the bar."
--Drew Carey
A Letter from a farm kid now at the San Diego Marine Corps Recruit Training
Dear Ma and Pa,
I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled. I was restless at first because you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. but I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing. Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there's warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food plus yours holds you till noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much. We go on "route marches", which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it's not my place to tell him different. A "route march" is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.
The country is nice but awful flat. The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot.
The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none. This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move, and it ain't shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes. Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home. I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake. I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I'm only 5'6" and 130 pounds and he's 6'8" and near 300 pounds dry. Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.
Your loving daughter,
Carol
Maine Girls
Three men were sitting together bragging about how they had given their new
wives duties.
The first man had married a woman from Alabama, and bragged that he had
told his wife she was going to do all the dishes and house cleaning that
needed done at their house. He said that it took a couple days but on the
third day he came home to a clean house and the dishes were all washed and put
away.
The second man had married a woman from Florida. He bragged that he had
given his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes, and the
cooking. He told them that the first day he didn't see any results, but the
next day it was better. By the third day, his house was clean, the dishes
were done, and he had a huge dinner on the table.
The third man had married a Maine girl. He boasted that he told her
that her duties were to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed,
laundry washed and hot meals on the table for every meal. He said the
first day he didn't see anything, the second day he didn't see anything, but by
the third day most of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little
out of his left eye. Enough to fix him self a bite to eat, load the
dishwasher, and telephone a landscaper.
Got to love them Maine girls!
A Woman's Prayer:
> >
> >
> > > Dear Lord,
> > > I pray for:
> > > Wisdom, To understand a man.
> > > Love, To forgive him and;
> > > Patience, For his moods.
> > > Because, Lord, if I pray for Strength
> > > I'll just beat him to death.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Our Troops Must Stay
America can't abandon 27 million Iraqis to 10,000 terrorists.
BY JOE LIEBERMAN
Tuesday, November 29, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.
Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress.
There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. And Sunni candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly. People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there to protect it.
It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern. The terrorists are intent on stopping this by instigating a civil war to produce the chaos that will allow Iraq to replace Afghanistan as the base for their fanatical war-making. We are fighting on the side of the 27 million because the outcome of this war is critically important to the security and freedom of America. If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American national and economic security priority.
Before going to Iraq last week, I visited Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israel has been the only genuine democracy in the region, but it is now getting some welcome company from the Iraqis and Palestinians who are in the midst of robust national legislative election campaigns, the Lebanese who have risen up in proud self-determination after the Hariri assassination to eject their Syrian occupiers (the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militias should be next), and the Kuwaitis, Egyptians and Saudis who have taken steps to open up their governments more broadly to their people. In my meeting with the thoughtful prime minister of Iraq, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, he declared with justifiable pride that his country now has the most open, democratic political system in the Arab world. He is right.
In the face of terrorist threats and escalating violence, eight million Iraqis voted for their interim national government in January, almost 10 million participated in the referendum on their new constitution in October, and even more than that are expected to vote in the elections for a full-term government on Dec. 15. Every time the 27 million Iraqis have been given the chance since Saddam was overthrown, they have voted for self-government and hope over the violence and hatred the 10,000 terrorists offer them. Most encouraging has been the behavior of the Sunni community, which, when disappointed by the proposed constitution, registered to vote and went to the polls instead of taking up arms and going to the streets. Last week, I was thrilled to see a vigorous political campaign, and a large number of independent television stations and newspapers covering it.
None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the coalition forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country.
The leaders of Iraq's duly elected government understand this, and they asked me for reassurance about America's commitment. The question is whether the American people and enough of their representatives in Congress from both parties understand this. I am disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November's elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead.
Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.
The leaders of America's military and diplomatic forces in Iraq, Gen. George Casey and Ambassador Zal Khalilzad, have a clear and compelling vision of our mission there. It is to create the environment in which Iraqi democracy, security and prosperity can take hold and the Iraqis themselves can defend their political progress against those 10,000 terrorists who would take it from them.
Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in Iraq? Yes we do. And it is important to make it clear to the American people that the plan has not remained stubbornly still but has changed over the years. Mistakes, some of them big, were made after Saddam was removed, and no one who supports the war should hesitate to admit that; but we have learned from those mistakes and, in characteristic American fashion, from what has worked and not worked on the ground. The administration's recent use of the banner "clear, hold and build" accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented last week.
We are now embedding a core of coalition forces in every Iraqi fighting unit, which makes each unit more effective and acts as a multiplier of our forces. Progress in "clearing" and "holding" is being made. The Sixth Infantry Division of the Iraqi Security Forces now controls and polices more than one-third of Baghdad on its own. Coalition and Iraqi forces have together cleared the previously terrorist-controlled cities of Fallujah, Mosul and Tal Afar, and most of the border with Syria. Those areas are now being "held" secure by the Iraqi military themselves. Iraqi and coalition forces are jointly carrying out a mission to clear Ramadi, now the most dangerous city in Al-Anbar province at the west end of the Sunni Triangle.
Nationwide, American military leaders estimate that about one-third of the approximately 100,000 members of the Iraqi military are able to "lead the fight" themselves with logistical support from the U.S., and that that number should double by next year. If that happens, American military forces could begin a drawdown in numbers proportional to the increasing self-sufficiency of the Iraqi forces in 2006. If all goes well, I believe we can have a much smaller American military presence there by the end of 2006 or in 2007, but it is also likely that our presence will need to be significant in Iraq or nearby for years to come.
The economic reconstruction of Iraq has gone slower than it should have, and too much money has been wasted or stolen. Ambassador Khalilzad is now implementing reform that has worked in Afghanistan--Provincial Reconstruction Teams, composed of American economic and political experts, working in partnership in each of Iraq's 18 provinces with its elected leadership, civil service and the private sector. That is the "build" part of the "clear, hold and build" strategy, and so is the work American and international teams are doing to professionalize national and provincial governmental agencies in Iraq.
These are new ideas that are working and changing the reality on the ground, which is undoubtedly why the Iraqi people are optimistic about their future--and why the American people should be, too.
I cannot say enough about the U.S. Army and Marines who are carrying most of the fight for us in Iraq. They are courageous, smart, effective, innovative, very honorable and very proud. After a Thanksgiving meal with a great group of Marines at Camp Fallujah in western Iraq, I asked their commander whether the morale of his troops had been hurt by the growing public dissent in America over the war in Iraq. His answer was insightful, instructive and inspirational: "I would guess that if the opposition and division at home go on a lot longer and get a lot deeper it might have some effect, but, Senator, my Marines are motivated by their devotion to each other and the cause, not by political debates."
Thank you, General. That is a powerful, needed message for the rest of America and its political leadership at this critical moment in our nation's history. Semper Fi.
Mr. Lieberman is a Democratic senator from Connecticut.
BY JOE LIEBERMAN
Tuesday, November 29, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.
Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress.
There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. And Sunni candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly. People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there to protect it.
It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern. The terrorists are intent on stopping this by instigating a civil war to produce the chaos that will allow Iraq to replace Afghanistan as the base for their fanatical war-making. We are fighting on the side of the 27 million because the outcome of this war is critically important to the security and freedom of America. If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American national and economic security priority.
Before going to Iraq last week, I visited Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israel has been the only genuine democracy in the region, but it is now getting some welcome company from the Iraqis and Palestinians who are in the midst of robust national legislative election campaigns, the Lebanese who have risen up in proud self-determination after the Hariri assassination to eject their Syrian occupiers (the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militias should be next), and the Kuwaitis, Egyptians and Saudis who have taken steps to open up their governments more broadly to their people. In my meeting with the thoughtful prime minister of Iraq, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, he declared with justifiable pride that his country now has the most open, democratic political system in the Arab world. He is right.
In the face of terrorist threats and escalating violence, eight million Iraqis voted for their interim national government in January, almost 10 million participated in the referendum on their new constitution in October, and even more than that are expected to vote in the elections for a full-term government on Dec. 15. Every time the 27 million Iraqis have been given the chance since Saddam was overthrown, they have voted for self-government and hope over the violence and hatred the 10,000 terrorists offer them. Most encouraging has been the behavior of the Sunni community, which, when disappointed by the proposed constitution, registered to vote and went to the polls instead of taking up arms and going to the streets. Last week, I was thrilled to see a vigorous political campaign, and a large number of independent television stations and newspapers covering it.
None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the coalition forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country.
The leaders of Iraq's duly elected government understand this, and they asked me for reassurance about America's commitment. The question is whether the American people and enough of their representatives in Congress from both parties understand this. I am disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November's elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead.
Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.
The leaders of America's military and diplomatic forces in Iraq, Gen. George Casey and Ambassador Zal Khalilzad, have a clear and compelling vision of our mission there. It is to create the environment in which Iraqi democracy, security and prosperity can take hold and the Iraqis themselves can defend their political progress against those 10,000 terrorists who would take it from them.
Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in Iraq? Yes we do. And it is important to make it clear to the American people that the plan has not remained stubbornly still but has changed over the years. Mistakes, some of them big, were made after Saddam was removed, and no one who supports the war should hesitate to admit that; but we have learned from those mistakes and, in characteristic American fashion, from what has worked and not worked on the ground. The administration's recent use of the banner "clear, hold and build" accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented last week.
We are now embedding a core of coalition forces in every Iraqi fighting unit, which makes each unit more effective and acts as a multiplier of our forces. Progress in "clearing" and "holding" is being made. The Sixth Infantry Division of the Iraqi Security Forces now controls and polices more than one-third of Baghdad on its own. Coalition and Iraqi forces have together cleared the previously terrorist-controlled cities of Fallujah, Mosul and Tal Afar, and most of the border with Syria. Those areas are now being "held" secure by the Iraqi military themselves. Iraqi and coalition forces are jointly carrying out a mission to clear Ramadi, now the most dangerous city in Al-Anbar province at the west end of the Sunni Triangle.
Nationwide, American military leaders estimate that about one-third of the approximately 100,000 members of the Iraqi military are able to "lead the fight" themselves with logistical support from the U.S., and that that number should double by next year. If that happens, American military forces could begin a drawdown in numbers proportional to the increasing self-sufficiency of the Iraqi forces in 2006. If all goes well, I believe we can have a much smaller American military presence there by the end of 2006 or in 2007, but it is also likely that our presence will need to be significant in Iraq or nearby for years to come.
The economic reconstruction of Iraq has gone slower than it should have, and too much money has been wasted or stolen. Ambassador Khalilzad is now implementing reform that has worked in Afghanistan--Provincial Reconstruction Teams, composed of American economic and political experts, working in partnership in each of Iraq's 18 provinces with its elected leadership, civil service and the private sector. That is the "build" part of the "clear, hold and build" strategy, and so is the work American and international teams are doing to professionalize national and provincial governmental agencies in Iraq.
These are new ideas that are working and changing the reality on the ground, which is undoubtedly why the Iraqi people are optimistic about their future--and why the American people should be, too.
I cannot say enough about the U.S. Army and Marines who are carrying most of the fight for us in Iraq. They are courageous, smart, effective, innovative, very honorable and very proud. After a Thanksgiving meal with a great group of Marines at Camp Fallujah in western Iraq, I asked their commander whether the morale of his troops had been hurt by the growing public dissent in America over the war in Iraq. His answer was insightful, instructive and inspirational: "I would guess that if the opposition and division at home go on a lot longer and get a lot deeper it might have some effect, but, Senator, my Marines are motivated by their devotion to each other and the cause, not by political debates."
Thank you, General. That is a powerful, needed message for the rest of America and its political leadership at this critical moment in our nation's history. Semper Fi.
Mr. Lieberman is a Democratic senator from Connecticut.
Turning your PC into a multimedia powerhouse
Linux is often thought to be inferior to Windows and Mac OS when it comes to multimedia applications. However, by using open source software and a few simple tips, one can easily turn a simple Linux box into a multimedia powerhouse, according to Kyle Rankin, author of the newly published Linux Multimedia Hacks.(To see original article with embedded links, click HERE).
In the book, Rankin writes: "It seems like a person's computer is becoming the multimedia hub more and more these days. Even if you have some sort of portable device to listen to music or watch videos, most of the time you end up doing your ripping, encoding, and storage on your home PC."
Linux has often been overlooked for these types of applications, he writes, but multimedia programs under Linux are getting more and more mature. "The list of things you can't do with free open source tools under Linux keeps getting shorter as the multimedia tools get easier to use and more powerful," Rankin asserts.
Rankin's book, one of O'Reilly's "Hacks" series, contains 100 hacks to help readers get the best multimedia experience from their computers, the publisher said. Topics covered include:
* Building a MythTV digital media hub that allows you to record television, watch videos, listen to music, and even play classic arcade games
* Editing audio, video, and images, using both command-line and GUI tools, all of them free
* Managing your music collection by synchronizing your MP3 player and desktop and using dynamic playlists
* Creating and burning your own DVDs and VCDs
* Streaming audio and video over the Internet
* Syncing your digital camera to your PC to organize, touch up, and display your photographs
"Linux can be a great multimedia platform, once you learn how to use it," Rankin writes. "The problem is that documentation for these tools is often scattered, incomplete, and in some cases overly complicated. Plus there are plenty of great tools that few people have even heard of. Linux Multimedia Hacks puts all of this information in one place written in plain English."
The following sample hacks are available for download (PDF files):
* Hack 16: Get MP3 Libraries for Red Hat–Based Distributions
* Hack 19: Shuffle Your Music the Smart Way
* Hack 54: Watch Videos in ASCII Art
* Hack 74: Watch TV on Your Computer
* Hack 91: Watch Videos Within Firefox
For more information about the book, including table of contents, index, and author bio, go here:
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS3779433778.html
Friday, December 09, 2005
Target: Firefox?
By Dan Dinicolo
This year will almost certainly go down in Web history as the Year of the Firefox. The open-source browser ended up the greatest beneficiary of the barrage of bad press aimed at Microsoft Internet Explorer and its various security vulnerabilities. With the ever-present threat of spyware, it's little surprise that so many users have made the switch to what is now widely considered to be the "safe" Web browser, at least compared with IE.
Alas, "safe" is relative. There's little question that IE has taken many people for a bad ride. Malicious ActiveX controls and various security holes have resulted in dangerous toolbars, keyloggers, and dialers being installed on millions of PCs. Unfortunately, many users believe that switching to Firefox is enough to keep them safe. That's just not the case.
As of October, there are approximately 86 known security vulnerabilities targeting IE 6.x users and 25 facing those running Firefox 1.x, according to the security firm Secunia. While Firefox does a better job of protecting against current spyware threats—a result of its lack of support for ActiveX—the browser-security landscape is ever-changing. Dig into the details of existing Firefox issues and you'll find threats that allow remote users to access and control your system, launch denial-of-service attacks, leave you vulnerable to phishing, and even spoof dialog boxes to trick you into performing unintended actions. These are similar to the issues that have put IE users at risk for years.
Though Firefox doesn't expose your PC to many current spyware threats, you can expect that to change. The year 2005 saw the birth of the first malware threats designed to infect Microsoft Windows systems via any Java-enabled Web browser, including Firefox. In one case, visiting an infectious Web site (with Sun's Java Virtual Machine running) launched a Security Warning dialog box prompting users to install a "signed" applet from Integrated Search Technologies (the developers of spyware known as Istbar). If the user clicked Yes—as required to gain access to the site's content—a whole range of pests was installed on his or her system. Interestingly, these exploits didn't infect Firefox directly; instead, they lodged themselves in the user's IE browser, regardless of whether it was actually running.
Blaming Firefox in this particular case would be an injustice—other browsers running Sun's JVM were equally at risk. But the exploit does show that any Web browser—especially when combined with careless surfing and "active" technologies like ActiveX or Java—can be used by malicious software developers as a gateway to infecting user PCs.
The Firefox development community does a speedy job of addressing threats as they're discovered, and that gives cause for hope. But Firefox users are still well advised to plan for the worst. The more popular the browser becomes, the more likely it is to become a major target.
Users should commit to keeping Firefox properly updated. To do that, keep an eye open for blue, green, or red arrow icons in the upper-right corner of the browser window. Clicking these buttons will list all available updates and let you install them. Try also to limit your exposure to potential risks associated with "active" technologies like Java; look to Firefox extensions like PrefBar ( http://prefbar.mozdev.com ) that let you control these functions for individual Web sites.
Speaking of extensions, always install them with caution; third-party extensibility provides a perfect vector for new threats, as many IE users have learned the hard way. Researching user opinions and experiences with extensions before installing them is probably a good idea. And pay more attention to what you're doing while surfing the Web—if you're being prompted to take an action that seems suspicious or unnecessary, it probably is.
Dan DiNicolo is a freelance writer and author of the forthcoming book PC Magazine Windows XP Security Solutions.
Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,,1892675,00.asp
This year will almost certainly go down in Web history as the Year of the Firefox. The open-source browser ended up the greatest beneficiary of the barrage of bad press aimed at Microsoft Internet Explorer and its various security vulnerabilities. With the ever-present threat of spyware, it's little surprise that so many users have made the switch to what is now widely considered to be the "safe" Web browser, at least compared with IE.
Alas, "safe" is relative. There's little question that IE has taken many people for a bad ride. Malicious ActiveX controls and various security holes have resulted in dangerous toolbars, keyloggers, and dialers being installed on millions of PCs. Unfortunately, many users believe that switching to Firefox is enough to keep them safe. That's just not the case.
As of October, there are approximately 86 known security vulnerabilities targeting IE 6.x users and 25 facing those running Firefox 1.x, according to the security firm Secunia. While Firefox does a better job of protecting against current spyware threats—a result of its lack of support for ActiveX—the browser-security landscape is ever-changing. Dig into the details of existing Firefox issues and you'll find threats that allow remote users to access and control your system, launch denial-of-service attacks, leave you vulnerable to phishing, and even spoof dialog boxes to trick you into performing unintended actions. These are similar to the issues that have put IE users at risk for years.
Though Firefox doesn't expose your PC to many current spyware threats, you can expect that to change. The year 2005 saw the birth of the first malware threats designed to infect Microsoft Windows systems via any Java-enabled Web browser, including Firefox. In one case, visiting an infectious Web site (with Sun's Java Virtual Machine running) launched a Security Warning dialog box prompting users to install a "signed" applet from Integrated Search Technologies (the developers of spyware known as Istbar). If the user clicked Yes—as required to gain access to the site's content—a whole range of pests was installed on his or her system. Interestingly, these exploits didn't infect Firefox directly; instead, they lodged themselves in the user's IE browser, regardless of whether it was actually running.
Blaming Firefox in this particular case would be an injustice—other browsers running Sun's JVM were equally at risk. But the exploit does show that any Web browser—especially when combined with careless surfing and "active" technologies like ActiveX or Java—can be used by malicious software developers as a gateway to infecting user PCs.
The Firefox development community does a speedy job of addressing threats as they're discovered, and that gives cause for hope. But Firefox users are still well advised to plan for the worst. The more popular the browser becomes, the more likely it is to become a major target.
Users should commit to keeping Firefox properly updated. To do that, keep an eye open for blue, green, or red arrow icons in the upper-right corner of the browser window. Clicking these buttons will list all available updates and let you install them. Try also to limit your exposure to potential risks associated with "active" technologies like Java; look to Firefox extensions like PrefBar ( http://prefbar.mozdev.com ) that let you control these functions for individual Web sites.
Speaking of extensions, always install them with caution; third-party extensibility provides a perfect vector for new threats, as many IE users have learned the hard way. Researching user opinions and experiences with extensions before installing them is probably a good idea. And pay more attention to what you're doing while surfing the Web—if you're being prompted to take an action that seems suspicious or unnecessary, it probably is.
Dan DiNicolo is a freelance writer and author of the forthcoming book PC Magazine Windows XP Security Solutions.
Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,,1892675,00.asp
A Moral War
The project in Iraq can succeed, and leave its critics scrambling.
December 02, 2005
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Almost everything that is now written about Iraq rings not quite right: It was a “blunder”; there should have been far more troops there; the country must be trisected; we must abide by a timetable and leave regardless of events on the ground; Iraq will soon devolve into either an Islamic republic or another dictatorship; the U.S. military is enervated and nearly ruined; and so on.
In fact, precisely because we have killed thousands of terrorists, trained an army, and ensured a political process, it is possible to do what was intended from the very beginning: lessen the footprint of American troops in the heart of the ancient caliphate.
Save for a few courageous Democrats, like Senator Joe Lieberman, who look at things empirically rather than ideologically, and some stalwart Republicans, most politicians and public intellectuals have long bailed on the enterprise.
This is now what comprises statesmanship: Some renounce their earlier support for the war. Others, less imaginative, in Clintonian (his and hers) fashion, take credit for backing the miraculous victory of spring 2003, but in hindsight, of course, blame the bloody peace on Bush. Or, better yet, they praise Congressman Murtha to the skies, but under no circumstances go on record urging the military to follow his advice.
How strange that journalists pontificate post facto about all the mistakes that they think have been made, nevertheless conceding that here we are on the verge of a third and final successful election. No mention, of course, is ever made about the current sorry state of journalistic ethics and incompetence (cf. Jayson Blair, Judy Miller, Michael Isikoff, Bob Woodward, Eason Jordan). A group of professionals, after all, who cannot even be professional in their own sphere, surely have no credibility in lecturing the U.S. military about what they think went wrong in Iraq.
Of course, the White House, as is true in all wars, has made mistakes, but only one critical lapse — and it is not the Herculean effort to establish a consensual government at the nexus of the Middle East in less than three years after removing Saddam Hussein. The administration’s lapse, rather, has come in its failure to present the entire war effort in its proper moral context.
We took no oil — the price in fact skyrocketed after we invaded Iraq. We did not do Israel’s bidding; in fact, it left Gaza after we went into Iraq and elections followed on the West Bank. We did not want perpetual hegemony — in fact, we got out of Saudi Arabia, used the minimum amount of troops possible, and will leave Iraq anytime its consensual government so decrees. And we did not expropriate Arab resources, but, in fact, poured billions of dollars into Iraq to jumpstart its new consensual government in the greatest foreign aid infusion of the age.
In short, every day the American people should have been reminded of, and congratulated on, their country’s singular idealism, its tireless effort to reject the cynical realism of the past, and its near lone effort to make terrible sacrifices to offer the dispossessed Shia and Kurds something better than the exploitation and near genocide of the past — and how all that alone will enhance the long-term security of the United States.
That goal was what the U.S. military ended up so brilliantly fighting for — and what the American public rarely heard. The moral onus should have always been on the critics of the war. They should have been forced to explain why it was wrong to remove a fascist mass murderer, why it was wrong to stay rather than letting the country sink into Lebanon-like chaos, and why it was wrong not to abandon brave women, Kurds, and Shia who only wished for the chance of freedom.
Alas, that message we rarely heard until only recently, and the result has energized amoral leftists, who now pose as moralists by either misrepresenting the cause of the war, undermining the effort of soldiers in the field, or patronizing Iraqis as not yet civilized enough for their own consensual government.
We can draw down our troops not because of political pressures but because of events on the ground. First, the Iraqi military is improving — not eroding or deserting. The canard of only “one battle-ready brigade” could just as well apply to any of the Coalition forces. After all, what brigade in the world is the equal of the U.S. military — or could go into the heart of Fallujah house-to-house? The French? The Russians? The Germans? In truth, the Iraqi military is proving good enough to hold ground and soon to take it alongside our own troops.
Despite past calls here to postpone elections, and threats of mass murder there for those who participated in them, they continue on schedule. And the third and last vote is the most important, since it will put a human face on the elected government — and the onus on it to officially sanction U.S. help and monetary aid or refuse it.
Saddam’s trial will remind the world of his butchery. Despite all the ankle-biting by human-rights groups about proper jurisprudence, the Iraqis will try him and convict him much more quickly than the Europeans will do the same to Milosevic (not to mention the other killers still loose like Gen. Mladic and Mr. Karadzic), posing the question: What is the real morality — trying a mass murderer and having him pay for his crimes, or engaging in legal niceties for years while the ghosts of his victims cry for justice?
More importantly, we can also calibrate our progress by examining the perceived self-interest of the various players, here and abroad.
The Sunnis — no oil, a minority population, increasing disgust with Zarqawi, a shameful past under Saddam — will participate in the December elections in large numbers. They now have no choice other than either to be perpetual renegades and terrorists inside their own country or to gain world respect by turning to democracy. The election train is leaving in December and this time they won’t be left at the station.
Zarqawi and the radical Islamicists are slowly being squeezed as only a war at their doorstep could accomplish. Critics of Iraq should ask if we were not fighting Zarqawi in Iraq, where exactly would we be fighting Islamic fascists — or would the war against terror be declared over, won, lost, dormant, or ongoing, with the U.S. simply playing defense?
Instead, what Iraq did is ensure that al Qaeda’s Sunni support is being coopted by democracy. Jordan, the terrorists’ old ace in the hole that could always put a cosmetic face on its stealthy support for radicals, has essentially turned on Zarqawi and with him al Qaeda. Syria is under virtual siege and its border sanctuary now a killing zone. Bin Laden can offer very little solace from his cave. And somehow Islamists have alienated the United States, Europe, Russia, China, Australia, Japan, and increasingly Middle East democracies like those in Afghanistan, Turkey, and Iraq, and reform movements in Lebanon and Jordan.
Decision day is coming when Zarqawi’s bombers will have to choose either to die, or, like a Nathan Bedford Forrest (“I’m a goin’ home”), quit to join the reform-seeking majority. That progress was accomplished only by the war in Iraq, and without it we would be back to playing a waiting game for another 9/11, while an autocratic Middle East went on quietly helping terrorists without consequences, either afraid of Saddam or secretly enjoying his chauvinist defiance.
Kurds and Shiites support us for obvious reasons — no other government on the planet would risk its sons and daughters to give them the right of one man/one vote. They may talk the necessary talk about infidels, but they know we will leave anytime they so vote. After the December election, expect them — and perhaps the Sunnis as well — quietly to ask us to stay to see things through.
Europe is quiet now. Madrid, London, Paris, and Amsterdam have taught Europeans that it is not George Bush but Islamic fascism that threatens their very existence. Worse still, they rightly fear they have lost the good will of the United States that so generously subsidized their defense — an entitlement perhaps to be sneered at during the post-Cold War “end of history,” but not in a new global war against Islamic terrorists keen to acquire deadly weapons.
Our military realizes that it can trump its brilliant victories in removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein by birthing democracy in Iraq — or risk losing that impressive reputation by having a new Lebanon blow up in its face. China, Japan, India, Russia, Korea, Iran, and other key countries are all watching Iraq — ready to calibrate American deterrence by the efficacy of the U.S. military in the Sunni Triangle. Our armed forces have already accomplished what the British and the Soviets could never do in Afghanistan; what the Russians failed to accomplish in Chechnya; and what we came so close to finishing in Vietnam. They won’t falter now when they are so close to winning an almost impossibly difficult war, one that will be recognized by friends and enemies as beyond the capability of any other military in the world.
The Left now risks losing its self-proclaimed moral appeal. It had trashed the efforts in Iraq for months on end, demanded a withdrawal — only recently to learn from polls that an unhappy public may also be unhappy with it for advocating fleeing while American soldiers are in harm’s way. Another successful election, polls showing Iraqis overwhelmingly wishing us to stay on, visits by elected Iraqi officials asking continued help, and a decreasing American footprint will gradually erode the appeal of the antiwar protests — especially as triangulating public intellectuals and pundits begin to quiet down, fathoming that the United States may win after all.
The administration realizes that as long as it stays the course and our military remains confident we can win, we will — despite defections in the Congress, venom in the press, and cyclical lows in the polls. In practical political terms, only the administration, not the Congress or the courts, can choose to cease our efforts in Iraq. Rightly or wrongly, the Bush administration will be judged on Iraq: If we lose, the president will be seen as a tragic LBJ-like figure who squandered his initial grassroots support in a foreign quagmire; if we win, he will be remembered, in spirit, as something akin to a Harry Truman, and, in deed, an FDR who won a critical war against impossible odds, and restored the security of the United States.
George Bush may well go down in history as a less-effective leader than his father or Bill Clinton; but unlike either, he may also have a real chance to be remembered in that select class of rare presidents whom history records as having saved this country at a time of national peril and in the face of unprecedented criticism. Bush’s domestic agenda hinges on Iraq: If he withdraws now, his proposals on taxes, social security, deficit reduction, education, and immigration are dead. If he sees the Iraq project through, these now-iffy initiatives will piggyback on the groundswell of popular thanks he will receive for reforming the Middle East.
Strangely, I doubt whether very many would agree with much of anything stated above — at least for now. But if the administration can emphasize the moral nature of this war, and the military can continue its underappreciated, but mostly successful efforts to defeat the enemy and give the Iraqis a few more months of breathing space, who knows what the current opportunists and pessimists will say by summer.Will they say that they in fact were always sorta, kinda, really for removing Saddam and even staying on to see democracy work in Iraq?
©2005 Victor Davis Hanson
Source URL: http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson120205.html
December 02, 2005
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Almost everything that is now written about Iraq rings not quite right: It was a “blunder”; there should have been far more troops there; the country must be trisected; we must abide by a timetable and leave regardless of events on the ground; Iraq will soon devolve into either an Islamic republic or another dictatorship; the U.S. military is enervated and nearly ruined; and so on.
In fact, precisely because we have killed thousands of terrorists, trained an army, and ensured a political process, it is possible to do what was intended from the very beginning: lessen the footprint of American troops in the heart of the ancient caliphate.
Save for a few courageous Democrats, like Senator Joe Lieberman, who look at things empirically rather than ideologically, and some stalwart Republicans, most politicians and public intellectuals have long bailed on the enterprise.
This is now what comprises statesmanship: Some renounce their earlier support for the war. Others, less imaginative, in Clintonian (his and hers) fashion, take credit for backing the miraculous victory of spring 2003, but in hindsight, of course, blame the bloody peace on Bush. Or, better yet, they praise Congressman Murtha to the skies, but under no circumstances go on record urging the military to follow his advice.
How strange that journalists pontificate post facto about all the mistakes that they think have been made, nevertheless conceding that here we are on the verge of a third and final successful election. No mention, of course, is ever made about the current sorry state of journalistic ethics and incompetence (cf. Jayson Blair, Judy Miller, Michael Isikoff, Bob Woodward, Eason Jordan). A group of professionals, after all, who cannot even be professional in their own sphere, surely have no credibility in lecturing the U.S. military about what they think went wrong in Iraq.
Of course, the White House, as is true in all wars, has made mistakes, but only one critical lapse — and it is not the Herculean effort to establish a consensual government at the nexus of the Middle East in less than three years after removing Saddam Hussein. The administration’s lapse, rather, has come in its failure to present the entire war effort in its proper moral context.
We took no oil — the price in fact skyrocketed after we invaded Iraq. We did not do Israel’s bidding; in fact, it left Gaza after we went into Iraq and elections followed on the West Bank. We did not want perpetual hegemony — in fact, we got out of Saudi Arabia, used the minimum amount of troops possible, and will leave Iraq anytime its consensual government so decrees. And we did not expropriate Arab resources, but, in fact, poured billions of dollars into Iraq to jumpstart its new consensual government in the greatest foreign aid infusion of the age.
In short, every day the American people should have been reminded of, and congratulated on, their country’s singular idealism, its tireless effort to reject the cynical realism of the past, and its near lone effort to make terrible sacrifices to offer the dispossessed Shia and Kurds something better than the exploitation and near genocide of the past — and how all that alone will enhance the long-term security of the United States.
That goal was what the U.S. military ended up so brilliantly fighting for — and what the American public rarely heard. The moral onus should have always been on the critics of the war. They should have been forced to explain why it was wrong to remove a fascist mass murderer, why it was wrong to stay rather than letting the country sink into Lebanon-like chaos, and why it was wrong not to abandon brave women, Kurds, and Shia who only wished for the chance of freedom.
Alas, that message we rarely heard until only recently, and the result has energized amoral leftists, who now pose as moralists by either misrepresenting the cause of the war, undermining the effort of soldiers in the field, or patronizing Iraqis as not yet civilized enough for their own consensual government.
We can draw down our troops not because of political pressures but because of events on the ground. First, the Iraqi military is improving — not eroding or deserting. The canard of only “one battle-ready brigade” could just as well apply to any of the Coalition forces. After all, what brigade in the world is the equal of the U.S. military — or could go into the heart of Fallujah house-to-house? The French? The Russians? The Germans? In truth, the Iraqi military is proving good enough to hold ground and soon to take it alongside our own troops.
Despite past calls here to postpone elections, and threats of mass murder there for those who participated in them, they continue on schedule. And the third and last vote is the most important, since it will put a human face on the elected government — and the onus on it to officially sanction U.S. help and monetary aid or refuse it.
Saddam’s trial will remind the world of his butchery. Despite all the ankle-biting by human-rights groups about proper jurisprudence, the Iraqis will try him and convict him much more quickly than the Europeans will do the same to Milosevic (not to mention the other killers still loose like Gen. Mladic and Mr. Karadzic), posing the question: What is the real morality — trying a mass murderer and having him pay for his crimes, or engaging in legal niceties for years while the ghosts of his victims cry for justice?
More importantly, we can also calibrate our progress by examining the perceived self-interest of the various players, here and abroad.
The Sunnis — no oil, a minority population, increasing disgust with Zarqawi, a shameful past under Saddam — will participate in the December elections in large numbers. They now have no choice other than either to be perpetual renegades and terrorists inside their own country or to gain world respect by turning to democracy. The election train is leaving in December and this time they won’t be left at the station.
Zarqawi and the radical Islamicists are slowly being squeezed as only a war at their doorstep could accomplish. Critics of Iraq should ask if we were not fighting Zarqawi in Iraq, where exactly would we be fighting Islamic fascists — or would the war against terror be declared over, won, lost, dormant, or ongoing, with the U.S. simply playing defense?
Instead, what Iraq did is ensure that al Qaeda’s Sunni support is being coopted by democracy. Jordan, the terrorists’ old ace in the hole that could always put a cosmetic face on its stealthy support for radicals, has essentially turned on Zarqawi and with him al Qaeda. Syria is under virtual siege and its border sanctuary now a killing zone. Bin Laden can offer very little solace from his cave. And somehow Islamists have alienated the United States, Europe, Russia, China, Australia, Japan, and increasingly Middle East democracies like those in Afghanistan, Turkey, and Iraq, and reform movements in Lebanon and Jordan.
Decision day is coming when Zarqawi’s bombers will have to choose either to die, or, like a Nathan Bedford Forrest (“I’m a goin’ home”), quit to join the reform-seeking majority. That progress was accomplished only by the war in Iraq, and without it we would be back to playing a waiting game for another 9/11, while an autocratic Middle East went on quietly helping terrorists without consequences, either afraid of Saddam or secretly enjoying his chauvinist defiance.
Kurds and Shiites support us for obvious reasons — no other government on the planet would risk its sons and daughters to give them the right of one man/one vote. They may talk the necessary talk about infidels, but they know we will leave anytime they so vote. After the December election, expect them — and perhaps the Sunnis as well — quietly to ask us to stay to see things through.
Europe is quiet now. Madrid, London, Paris, and Amsterdam have taught Europeans that it is not George Bush but Islamic fascism that threatens their very existence. Worse still, they rightly fear they have lost the good will of the United States that so generously subsidized their defense — an entitlement perhaps to be sneered at during the post-Cold War “end of history,” but not in a new global war against Islamic terrorists keen to acquire deadly weapons.
Our military realizes that it can trump its brilliant victories in removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein by birthing democracy in Iraq — or risk losing that impressive reputation by having a new Lebanon blow up in its face. China, Japan, India, Russia, Korea, Iran, and other key countries are all watching Iraq — ready to calibrate American deterrence by the efficacy of the U.S. military in the Sunni Triangle. Our armed forces have already accomplished what the British and the Soviets could never do in Afghanistan; what the Russians failed to accomplish in Chechnya; and what we came so close to finishing in Vietnam. They won’t falter now when they are so close to winning an almost impossibly difficult war, one that will be recognized by friends and enemies as beyond the capability of any other military in the world.
The Left now risks losing its self-proclaimed moral appeal. It had trashed the efforts in Iraq for months on end, demanded a withdrawal — only recently to learn from polls that an unhappy public may also be unhappy with it for advocating fleeing while American soldiers are in harm’s way. Another successful election, polls showing Iraqis overwhelmingly wishing us to stay on, visits by elected Iraqi officials asking continued help, and a decreasing American footprint will gradually erode the appeal of the antiwar protests — especially as triangulating public intellectuals and pundits begin to quiet down, fathoming that the United States may win after all.
The administration realizes that as long as it stays the course and our military remains confident we can win, we will — despite defections in the Congress, venom in the press, and cyclical lows in the polls. In practical political terms, only the administration, not the Congress or the courts, can choose to cease our efforts in Iraq. Rightly or wrongly, the Bush administration will be judged on Iraq: If we lose, the president will be seen as a tragic LBJ-like figure who squandered his initial grassroots support in a foreign quagmire; if we win, he will be remembered, in spirit, as something akin to a Harry Truman, and, in deed, an FDR who won a critical war against impossible odds, and restored the security of the United States.
George Bush may well go down in history as a less-effective leader than his father or Bill Clinton; but unlike either, he may also have a real chance to be remembered in that select class of rare presidents whom history records as having saved this country at a time of national peril and in the face of unprecedented criticism. Bush’s domestic agenda hinges on Iraq: If he withdraws now, his proposals on taxes, social security, deficit reduction, education, and immigration are dead. If he sees the Iraq project through, these now-iffy initiatives will piggyback on the groundswell of popular thanks he will receive for reforming the Middle East.
Strangely, I doubt whether very many would agree with much of anything stated above — at least for now. But if the administration can emphasize the moral nature of this war, and the military can continue its underappreciated, but mostly successful efforts to defeat the enemy and give the Iraqis a few more months of breathing space, who knows what the current opportunists and pessimists will say by summer.Will they say that they in fact were always sorta, kinda, really for removing Saddam and even staying on to see democracy work in Iraq?
©2005 Victor Davis Hanson
Source URL: http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson120205.html
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Some articles by Sowell, Bruce & Rummy
MORALITY VS. SANCTIMONIOUSNESS
by Thomas Sowell
There are so many substitutes used in our society-- substitutes for eggs, substitutes for wood, substitutes for diamonds-- that perhaps we should not be too surprised to find substitutes for morality as well. One of the most widespread substitutes for morality, especially among intellectuals, is sanctimoniousness.
How do you tell morality from sanctimoniousness? For one thing, morality is hard and sanctimoniousness is easy. Anyone who has succumbed to temptation, and then felt deeply ashamed long afterwards, knows how hard morality can be.
Sanctimoniouniousness is easy. There are editorial writers who are sanctimonious every day of the week, without any visible sign of fatigue. As far as they are concerned, those who disagree with them are not merely in error, but in sin. Morality means being hard on yourself. Sanctimoniousness means being easy on yourself-- and hard on others.
There are organizations whose very names proclaim the self-congratulation of the sanctimonious, the joy of being one-up on those with different opinions. For example, there is an environmentalist organization calling itself "Friends of the Earth," as if people who disagree with its opinions are enemies of the earth. There is another organization calling itself "The Union of Concerned Scientists," as if other scientists with different opinions were calloused and insensitive. There are groups who favor disarmament and call themselves the "Peace" movement, as if those who favor a policy of deterence instead just don't care about the dangers and horrors war...
The full article is HERE.
Hollywood Half-Wits
I recently came across an article Tammy Bruce did about Barbara Streisand, called "Funny Lady" I certainly found it funny! The article is dated Oct. 2002, but still amusing to me, I love Tammy's sense of humor. I've just finished reading Tammy's new book, "The New American Revolution", It's wonderful, I hope to be printing some excerpts from it here in future posts.
From the Wall Street Journal Editorial pages:
'Do Some Soul Searching'
Why aren't the media telling the whole story about Iraq?
BY DONALD RUMSFELD
Wednesday, December 7, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
(Editor's note: Mr. Rumsfeld delivered this speech Monday at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.)
I'm not one to put much faith in opinion polls. But the other day, I came across an interesting set of statistics that I want to mention. It seems that the Pew Research Center asked opinion leaders in the United States their views of the prospects for a stable democracy in Iraq.
Here were some of the results: 63% of people in the news media thought the enterprise would fail. So did 71% of people in the foreign affairs establishment and 71% in academic settings or think tanks. Interestingly, opinion leaders from the U.S. military are optimistic about Iraq by a margin of 64% to 32%. And so is the American public, by a margin of 56% to 37%.
And the Iraqi people are also optimistic. I've seen this demonstrated repeatedly--in public opinion polls, in the turnout for the elections, and that tips to authorities from ordinary Iraqis have grown from 483 to 4,700 tips in a month.
This prompts the question: Which view of Iraq is more accurate? The pessimistic view of so-called elites in our country--or the optimism expressed by millions of Iraqis and by the roughly 158,000 troops on the ground? But, most important is the question: why should Iraq's success or failure matter to the American people? I'd like to address these questions today.
First, should we be optimistic or pessimistic about Iraq's future? The answer may depend on one's perspective. Indeed, one of the reasons that views of Iraq are so divergent is that we may be looking at Iraq through different prisms of experience and expectation.
For starters, it must be jarring for reporters who have never covered the Middle East to leave the United States and arrive in a country that is so different, where they consistently have to worry about their personal safety, then are rushed to the scene of car bombs and shootings, and have little opportunity to see the rest of the country.
By contrast, the Iraqi people see things somewhat differently: They can compare as it is Iraq today, to what it was three years ago--a brutal dictatorship where the secret police would murder or mutilate a family member sometimes in front of their children, and where hundreds of thousands disappeared into Saddam's mass graves. From that perspective, Iraq today is on a vastly different, and a greatly improved path.
If one is viewing events through a soda straw, one should know that one is by definition selectively focusing on facts that may highlight one's perceived view and not seeing other perspectives. A full picture of Iraq comes best from an understanding of both the good and the bad, and the context for each.
Among the continuing difficulties are:
* Bursts of violence, including continued assassinations and attempts to intimidate Iraqi leaders and those supporting the legitimate Iraqi government.
* Continuing U.S. and Iraqi casualties.
* Iran and Syria continue to be notably unhelpful.
However, there are also a number of positive developments to be seen, if one looks for them:
* The political process is on schedule. Iraqis have a Constitution they wrote and voted for, and hundreds of candidates are politicking for the elections.
* There seem to be growing divisions among the enemies of the Iraqi people, particularly after the bombing of a wedding reception in Amman, Jordan.
* More of Iraq's neighbors now seem to believe this new democracy might succeed and are moving to get right with the Iraqi people by being more active in their support.
* A vital and engaged media is emerging, with some 100 newspapers, 72 radio stations, and 44 television stations.
* Sunnis are increasingly taking part in the political process, further isolating those who still oppose the legitimate Iraqi government.
To be responsible, one needs to stop defining success in Iraq as the absence of terrorist attacks. As Sen. Joe Lieberman recently suggested, a better measure of success might be that a vast majority of Iraqis--tens of millions--are on the side of the democratic government, while a comparatively small number are opposed. This gives the Iraqi people an enormous advantage over time.
The other question I posed is of critical importance: why does Iraq's success or failure matter to the American people?
Consider this quote: "What you have seen, Americans, in New York and Washington, D.C., and the losses you are having in Afghanistan and Iraq, in spite of all the media blackout, are only the losses of the initial clashes."
The speaker is Ayman al-Zawahiri, a senior member of the terrorist group al Qaeda and a top leader in the effort to defeat U.S. and coalition forces around the world. The terrorists' method of attack, simply put, is slaughter. They behead. They bomb children. They attack funerals and wedding receptions.
This is the kind of brutality and mayhem the terrorists are working to bring to our shores. And if we do not succeed in our efforts to arm and train Iraqis to help defeat these terrorists in Iraq, this is the kind of mayhem that a terrorist, emboldened by a victory, will bring to our cities again--let there be no doubt.
Indeed, the most important reason for our involvement in Iraq--despite the cost--is often overlooked. It is not only about building democracy, though democracies tend to be peaceful and prosperous and are in and of themselves good things. It is not about reopening Iraqi schools and hospitals or rebuilding infrastructure, though they are proceeding apace and are desirable and essential to ensure stability.
But, simply put, defeating extremist aspirations in Iraq is essential to protect the lives of Americans here at home.
Imagine the world our children would face if we allowed Zawahiri, Zarqawi, bin Laden and others of their ilk to seize power or operate with impunity out of Iraq. They would turn Iraq into what Afghanistan was before 9/11--a haven for terrorist recruitment and training and a launching pad for attacks against U.S. interests and our fellow citizens. Iraq would serve as the base of a new Islamic caliphate to extend throughout the Middle East and to threaten legitimate governments throughout the world . This is their plan. They have said so. We should listen and learn.
Quitting is not a strategy. Quitting is an invitation to more attacks and more terrorist violence here at home. This is not just an hypothesis. The U.S. withdrawal from Somalia emboldened Osama bin Laden in the 1990s. We know this. He has said so.
The message retreat in Iraq would send to the free people of Iraq and to moderate Muslim reformers throughout the region would be that they can't count on America. The message it would send to our enemies would be: that if America will not defend itself against terrorists in Iraq, it will not defend itself against terrorists anywhere.
What is needed is resolve, not retreat; courage, not concession. Rather than thinking in terms of an exit strategy, we should be focused on a strategy for success. The president's strategy focuses on progress on the political, economic, and security tracks. You can read that strategy paper on the White House's Web site.
On the security side, some 214,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained and equipped. Working with coalition forces, they are steadily improving in experience and capability:
* Coalition forces have handed over military bases to Iraqi control and a complex of palaces in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.
* Iraqi forces are improving their control of the Western borders of Iraq, with coalition support.
* The Shiite areas of Najaf, Karbala and Sadr City, the scenes of battles last year, are considerably more peaceful.
* In Tal Afar, 5,000 Iraqi troops took a key role in liberating and securing what had been a base of operations for extremists' networks and foreign networks.
I began these remarks by mentioning the jarring contrast between what the American people are reading and hearing about Iraq and the views of the Iraqi people. I don't think we can close a discussion on Iraq without mentioning the media coverage and the current political debate.
Recently, a member of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association recounted intense discussions within the AP over whether or not their coverage of Iraq has been slanted. For my part, almost every time I meet with troops, I am asked the same question. They ask, why are the American people being given a pessimistic, inaccurate picture of what is happening in Iraq?
But let me say something in defense of the media. They have a tough job. Many reporters in Afghanistan and Iraq have done excellent reporting, and some have lost their lives.
And consider what would result if the federal government had to put out a daily newspaper or a daily television program. You can probably imagine what the bureaucrats would come up with: conflicting rules and regulations, an army of lawyers to sort through all the conflicts, a multitude of auditors to check up on everyone, a mammoth bill to the taxpayers, followed by congressional investigations of why they missed their daily deadline.
The media serves a valuable--indeed an indispensable--role in informing our society and holding government to account. But I would submit it is also important for the media to hold itself to account.
We have arrived at a strange time in this country when the worst about America and our military seems to be so quickly taken as truth by the press and reported and spread around the world--with little or no context or scrutiny--let alone correction or accountability--even after the fact. Speed, it appears, is often the first goal--not accuracy, not context.
Recently there were claims by two Iraqis on a speaking tour that U.S. soldiers threw them in a cage with lions. Their charges were widely reported--still without substantiation. Not too long ago, there was a false and damaging story about a Koran supposedly flushed down a toilet, and in the riots that followed people were killed. And a recent New York Times editorial implied America's armed forces--your armed forces--use tactics reminiscent of Saddam Hussein.
I understand that there may be great pressure on them to tell a dramatic story. And while it is easy to use a bombing or a terrorist attack to support a belief that Iraq is a failure, that is not the accurate picture. And further, it is not good journalism.
Consider this: You couldn't tell the full story of Iwo Jima simply by listing the nearly 26,000 American casualties over about 40 days; or explain the importance of Grant's push to Virginia just by noting the savagery of the battles. So too, in Iraq, it is appropriate to note not only how many Americans have been killed--and may God bless them and their families--but what they died for--or more accurately, what they lived for.
So I suggest to editors and reporters--whose good intentions I take for granted--to do some soul searching. To ask: how will history judge--if it does--the reporting decades from now when Iraq's path is settled?
I would urge us all to make every effort to ensure we are telling the whole story. To take a moment for self-reflection and reassessment.
Further it is worth noting that there are 158,000 Americans in uniform who are sending e-mails back to friends and families, telling them the truth as they see it. And much of it is different than what those in the United States are seeing and reading about every day.
Our country is waging a battle unlike any other in history. We are waging it in a media age unlike any that war fighters have ever known. In this new century, we all need to make adjustments--in government and in the media. And change is hard.
But to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, we are all Republicans. We are all Democrats. We are all Americans. We are all in this together. And what we do today will not only impact us, but our children and our grandchildren, and the kind of world they will live in.
Mr. Rumsfeld is secretary of defense.
source URL: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007644
by Thomas Sowell
There are so many substitutes used in our society-- substitutes for eggs, substitutes for wood, substitutes for diamonds-- that perhaps we should not be too surprised to find substitutes for morality as well. One of the most widespread substitutes for morality, especially among intellectuals, is sanctimoniousness.
How do you tell morality from sanctimoniousness? For one thing, morality is hard and sanctimoniousness is easy. Anyone who has succumbed to temptation, and then felt deeply ashamed long afterwards, knows how hard morality can be.
Sanctimoniouniousness is easy. There are editorial writers who are sanctimonious every day of the week, without any visible sign of fatigue. As far as they are concerned, those who disagree with them are not merely in error, but in sin. Morality means being hard on yourself. Sanctimoniousness means being easy on yourself-- and hard on others.
There are organizations whose very names proclaim the self-congratulation of the sanctimonious, the joy of being one-up on those with different opinions. For example, there is an environmentalist organization calling itself "Friends of the Earth," as if people who disagree with its opinions are enemies of the earth. There is another organization calling itself "The Union of Concerned Scientists," as if other scientists with different opinions were calloused and insensitive. There are groups who favor disarmament and call themselves the "Peace" movement, as if those who favor a policy of deterence instead just don't care about the dangers and horrors war...
The full article is HERE.
Hollywood Half-Wits
I recently came across an article Tammy Bruce did about Barbara Streisand, called "Funny Lady" I certainly found it funny! The article is dated Oct. 2002, but still amusing to me, I love Tammy's sense of humor. I've just finished reading Tammy's new book, "The New American Revolution", It's wonderful, I hope to be printing some excerpts from it here in future posts.
From the Wall Street Journal Editorial pages:
'Do Some Soul Searching'
Why aren't the media telling the whole story about Iraq?
BY DONALD RUMSFELD
Wednesday, December 7, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
(Editor's note: Mr. Rumsfeld delivered this speech Monday at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.)
I'm not one to put much faith in opinion polls. But the other day, I came across an interesting set of statistics that I want to mention. It seems that the Pew Research Center asked opinion leaders in the United States their views of the prospects for a stable democracy in Iraq.
Here were some of the results: 63% of people in the news media thought the enterprise would fail. So did 71% of people in the foreign affairs establishment and 71% in academic settings or think tanks. Interestingly, opinion leaders from the U.S. military are optimistic about Iraq by a margin of 64% to 32%. And so is the American public, by a margin of 56% to 37%.
And the Iraqi people are also optimistic. I've seen this demonstrated repeatedly--in public opinion polls, in the turnout for the elections, and that tips to authorities from ordinary Iraqis have grown from 483 to 4,700 tips in a month.
This prompts the question: Which view of Iraq is more accurate? The pessimistic view of so-called elites in our country--or the optimism expressed by millions of Iraqis and by the roughly 158,000 troops on the ground? But, most important is the question: why should Iraq's success or failure matter to the American people? I'd like to address these questions today.
First, should we be optimistic or pessimistic about Iraq's future? The answer may depend on one's perspective. Indeed, one of the reasons that views of Iraq are so divergent is that we may be looking at Iraq through different prisms of experience and expectation.
For starters, it must be jarring for reporters who have never covered the Middle East to leave the United States and arrive in a country that is so different, where they consistently have to worry about their personal safety, then are rushed to the scene of car bombs and shootings, and have little opportunity to see the rest of the country.
By contrast, the Iraqi people see things somewhat differently: They can compare as it is Iraq today, to what it was three years ago--a brutal dictatorship where the secret police would murder or mutilate a family member sometimes in front of their children, and where hundreds of thousands disappeared into Saddam's mass graves. From that perspective, Iraq today is on a vastly different, and a greatly improved path.
If one is viewing events through a soda straw, one should know that one is by definition selectively focusing on facts that may highlight one's perceived view and not seeing other perspectives. A full picture of Iraq comes best from an understanding of both the good and the bad, and the context for each.
Among the continuing difficulties are:
* Bursts of violence, including continued assassinations and attempts to intimidate Iraqi leaders and those supporting the legitimate Iraqi government.
* Continuing U.S. and Iraqi casualties.
* Iran and Syria continue to be notably unhelpful.
However, there are also a number of positive developments to be seen, if one looks for them:
* The political process is on schedule. Iraqis have a Constitution they wrote and voted for, and hundreds of candidates are politicking for the elections.
* There seem to be growing divisions among the enemies of the Iraqi people, particularly after the bombing of a wedding reception in Amman, Jordan.
* More of Iraq's neighbors now seem to believe this new democracy might succeed and are moving to get right with the Iraqi people by being more active in their support.
* A vital and engaged media is emerging, with some 100 newspapers, 72 radio stations, and 44 television stations.
* Sunnis are increasingly taking part in the political process, further isolating those who still oppose the legitimate Iraqi government.
To be responsible, one needs to stop defining success in Iraq as the absence of terrorist attacks. As Sen. Joe Lieberman recently suggested, a better measure of success might be that a vast majority of Iraqis--tens of millions--are on the side of the democratic government, while a comparatively small number are opposed. This gives the Iraqi people an enormous advantage over time.
The other question I posed is of critical importance: why does Iraq's success or failure matter to the American people?
Consider this quote: "What you have seen, Americans, in New York and Washington, D.C., and the losses you are having in Afghanistan and Iraq, in spite of all the media blackout, are only the losses of the initial clashes."
The speaker is Ayman al-Zawahiri, a senior member of the terrorist group al Qaeda and a top leader in the effort to defeat U.S. and coalition forces around the world. The terrorists' method of attack, simply put, is slaughter. They behead. They bomb children. They attack funerals and wedding receptions.
This is the kind of brutality and mayhem the terrorists are working to bring to our shores. And if we do not succeed in our efforts to arm and train Iraqis to help defeat these terrorists in Iraq, this is the kind of mayhem that a terrorist, emboldened by a victory, will bring to our cities again--let there be no doubt.
Indeed, the most important reason for our involvement in Iraq--despite the cost--is often overlooked. It is not only about building democracy, though democracies tend to be peaceful and prosperous and are in and of themselves good things. It is not about reopening Iraqi schools and hospitals or rebuilding infrastructure, though they are proceeding apace and are desirable and essential to ensure stability.
But, simply put, defeating extremist aspirations in Iraq is essential to protect the lives of Americans here at home.
Imagine the world our children would face if we allowed Zawahiri, Zarqawi, bin Laden and others of their ilk to seize power or operate with impunity out of Iraq. They would turn Iraq into what Afghanistan was before 9/11--a haven for terrorist recruitment and training and a launching pad for attacks against U.S. interests and our fellow citizens. Iraq would serve as the base of a new Islamic caliphate to extend throughout the Middle East and to threaten legitimate governments throughout the world . This is their plan. They have said so. We should listen and learn.
Quitting is not a strategy. Quitting is an invitation to more attacks and more terrorist violence here at home. This is not just an hypothesis. The U.S. withdrawal from Somalia emboldened Osama bin Laden in the 1990s. We know this. He has said so.
The message retreat in Iraq would send to the free people of Iraq and to moderate Muslim reformers throughout the region would be that they can't count on America. The message it would send to our enemies would be: that if America will not defend itself against terrorists in Iraq, it will not defend itself against terrorists anywhere.
What is needed is resolve, not retreat; courage, not concession. Rather than thinking in terms of an exit strategy, we should be focused on a strategy for success. The president's strategy focuses on progress on the political, economic, and security tracks. You can read that strategy paper on the White House's Web site.
On the security side, some 214,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained and equipped. Working with coalition forces, they are steadily improving in experience and capability:
* Coalition forces have handed over military bases to Iraqi control and a complex of palaces in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.
* Iraqi forces are improving their control of the Western borders of Iraq, with coalition support.
* The Shiite areas of Najaf, Karbala and Sadr City, the scenes of battles last year, are considerably more peaceful.
* In Tal Afar, 5,000 Iraqi troops took a key role in liberating and securing what had been a base of operations for extremists' networks and foreign networks.
I began these remarks by mentioning the jarring contrast between what the American people are reading and hearing about Iraq and the views of the Iraqi people. I don't think we can close a discussion on Iraq without mentioning the media coverage and the current political debate.
Recently, a member of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association recounted intense discussions within the AP over whether or not their coverage of Iraq has been slanted. For my part, almost every time I meet with troops, I am asked the same question. They ask, why are the American people being given a pessimistic, inaccurate picture of what is happening in Iraq?
But let me say something in defense of the media. They have a tough job. Many reporters in Afghanistan and Iraq have done excellent reporting, and some have lost their lives.
And consider what would result if the federal government had to put out a daily newspaper or a daily television program. You can probably imagine what the bureaucrats would come up with: conflicting rules and regulations, an army of lawyers to sort through all the conflicts, a multitude of auditors to check up on everyone, a mammoth bill to the taxpayers, followed by congressional investigations of why they missed their daily deadline.
The media serves a valuable--indeed an indispensable--role in informing our society and holding government to account. But I would submit it is also important for the media to hold itself to account.
We have arrived at a strange time in this country when the worst about America and our military seems to be so quickly taken as truth by the press and reported and spread around the world--with little or no context or scrutiny--let alone correction or accountability--even after the fact. Speed, it appears, is often the first goal--not accuracy, not context.
Recently there were claims by two Iraqis on a speaking tour that U.S. soldiers threw them in a cage with lions. Their charges were widely reported--still without substantiation. Not too long ago, there was a false and damaging story about a Koran supposedly flushed down a toilet, and in the riots that followed people were killed. And a recent New York Times editorial implied America's armed forces--your armed forces--use tactics reminiscent of Saddam Hussein.
I understand that there may be great pressure on them to tell a dramatic story. And while it is easy to use a bombing or a terrorist attack to support a belief that Iraq is a failure, that is not the accurate picture. And further, it is not good journalism.
Consider this: You couldn't tell the full story of Iwo Jima simply by listing the nearly 26,000 American casualties over about 40 days; or explain the importance of Grant's push to Virginia just by noting the savagery of the battles. So too, in Iraq, it is appropriate to note not only how many Americans have been killed--and may God bless them and their families--but what they died for--or more accurately, what they lived for.
So I suggest to editors and reporters--whose good intentions I take for granted--to do some soul searching. To ask: how will history judge--if it does--the reporting decades from now when Iraq's path is settled?
I would urge us all to make every effort to ensure we are telling the whole story. To take a moment for self-reflection and reassessment.
Further it is worth noting that there are 158,000 Americans in uniform who are sending e-mails back to friends and families, telling them the truth as they see it. And much of it is different than what those in the United States are seeing and reading about every day.
Our country is waging a battle unlike any other in history. We are waging it in a media age unlike any that war fighters have ever known. In this new century, we all need to make adjustments--in government and in the media. And change is hard.
But to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, we are all Republicans. We are all Democrats. We are all Americans. We are all in this together. And what we do today will not only impact us, but our children and our grandchildren, and the kind of world they will live in.
Mr. Rumsfeld is secretary of defense.
source URL: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007644
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Happy People, Firefox 1.5, Penguin Games
Happy People Make a Better World
by Dennis Prager
When you think about a Muslim suicide terrorist, is "happy" the first word you think of to describe him?
When you think about Nazis or Communists or Klansmen or child molesters, do you immediately think, "Now there are some happy people"?
Of course not.
It only takes a moment's thought to realize that while most unhappy people don't engage in evil, most evil is done by unhappy people. This is true on both the macro and the micro levels. We all know how much more likely we are to lash out at others when we are unhappy and how much we desire to make others feel good when we feel happy.
Given this association of evil with unhappy people, it is quite remarkable how little attention is paid to happiness as a moral, rather than only a personal psychological issue. Too often the pursuit of happiness (not the pursuit of fun or excitement) is regarded as a selfish pursuit, when in fact it is one of the best things a person can do for everyone in his life and for the world at large. The Founders of America were brilliant in many ways, not more so than by enshrining that pursuit alongside the pursuit of life and liberty.
It is therefore worth noticing how little thought is given to the question of happiness in attempting to understand the roots of evil and in seeking ways to improve the world.
Read the full article HERE.
Firefox 1.5 upgrade brings extension headaches
The arrival of Firefox 1.5, with its new extensions architecture, has thrown a few curves to users who might not be quite so technically inclined. The new architecture has required a number of existing extensions to be rewritten, and new ones to be developed.
"Many users upgrading ... to Version 1.5 will lose features on which they depend to perform daily business tasks," reader Donald French wrote to DesktopLinux.com. "Only users who thoroughly read through the technical 'Release Notes' are warned about the potential loss of functionality. Other users only discover that these features are missing after the upgrade.
Read the entire article HERE.
Penquin Games
Here is a great game to play, when you are feeling frustrated with Linux and want to smack a penguin around for a bit:
http://n.ethz.ch/student/mkos/pinguin.swf
A club-weilding Yeti helps you get the job done. How far can you hit a penguin? I got as far a 350 feet.
by Dennis Prager
When you think about a Muslim suicide terrorist, is "happy" the first word you think of to describe him?
When you think about Nazis or Communists or Klansmen or child molesters, do you immediately think, "Now there are some happy people"?
Of course not.
It only takes a moment's thought to realize that while most unhappy people don't engage in evil, most evil is done by unhappy people. This is true on both the macro and the micro levels. We all know how much more likely we are to lash out at others when we are unhappy and how much we desire to make others feel good when we feel happy.
Given this association of evil with unhappy people, it is quite remarkable how little attention is paid to happiness as a moral, rather than only a personal psychological issue. Too often the pursuit of happiness (not the pursuit of fun or excitement) is regarded as a selfish pursuit, when in fact it is one of the best things a person can do for everyone in his life and for the world at large. The Founders of America were brilliant in many ways, not more so than by enshrining that pursuit alongside the pursuit of life and liberty.
It is therefore worth noticing how little thought is given to the question of happiness in attempting to understand the roots of evil and in seeking ways to improve the world.
Read the full article HERE.
Firefox 1.5 upgrade brings extension headaches
The arrival of Firefox 1.5, with its new extensions architecture, has thrown a few curves to users who might not be quite so technically inclined. The new architecture has required a number of existing extensions to be rewritten, and new ones to be developed.
"Many users upgrading ... to Version 1.5 will lose features on which they depend to perform daily business tasks," reader Donald French wrote to DesktopLinux.com. "Only users who thoroughly read through the technical 'Release Notes' are warned about the potential loss of functionality. Other users only discover that these features are missing after the upgrade.
Read the entire article HERE.
Penquin Games
Here is a great game to play, when you are feeling frustrated with Linux and want to smack a penguin around for a bit:
http://n.ethz.ch/student/mkos/pinguin.swf
A club-weilding Yeti helps you get the job done. How far can you hit a penguin? I got as far a 350 feet.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
10 Days without windows... The Machine Stops
I read this interesting article on Flexbeta,called "10 Days as a Linux User: A GNU Perspective on things".
The author decides to use Mandriva linux exclusively for 10 days, without using anything by Microsoft.
I was amazed at how many things the author uses a computer for. I found it amusing the struggle he had to not use Microsoft for 10 days, and just use linux instead.
When I was in college, there were no personal computers. I did my term papers on an underwood manual typewritter.
I would have loved to have had a personal computer back then, but they didn't exist, and somehow we got by.
To now read about how difficult it is to just go without Microsoft products for 10 days is a little shocking.
I use my computer almost every day. But sometimes I'm too busy with other things, or I just get tired of it and give it a break for a bit.
I'm just amazed at how younger generations, who have grown up with personal computers, can have them so heavily intergrated into their lives. How much do they know about life without a computer in it?
I know, people used to say the same thing about electricity. But it's true, using electricity every day DID change the way people lived. I live in a rural area, and when you lose power for several days, things change a lot. Things get harder to do, you have to entertain yourself, you talk to your family more, you go to bed earlier. Life slows down.
I am not critisizing the author, if I had grown up with personal computers, I might be the same way. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just observing how its different from my own experiance. And I'm just wondering what the long term affects might be. I keep thinking of that short story by E. M. Forester, "The Machine Stops". Is there a point where we become too dependent on computers, or where it starts to effect the way we relate (or don't relate) to other human beings? Or am I just a totally outdated old fart?
I found a link where you can read the story on-line:
"The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster
It's truely amazing how such an old Sci-Fi story predicts something very much like the internet, long before anything like it even existed. Don't be fooled by the date it was written; it's relevance to the world we are living in now is amazing, and even a bit creepy.
I LIKE the machine, I don't want it to stop, I just don't want it to take over either. "Machines" like personal computers and the internet are useful and fun tools, but I hope we never become so dependent on them that we can't function, literally can't live without them.
- Chas
Born in the 60's, but not THAT old yet! ;)
The author decides to use Mandriva linux exclusively for 10 days, without using anything by Microsoft.
I was amazed at how many things the author uses a computer for. I found it amusing the struggle he had to not use Microsoft for 10 days, and just use linux instead.
When I was in college, there were no personal computers. I did my term papers on an underwood manual typewritter.
I would have loved to have had a personal computer back then, but they didn't exist, and somehow we got by.
To now read about how difficult it is to just go without Microsoft products for 10 days is a little shocking.
I use my computer almost every day. But sometimes I'm too busy with other things, or I just get tired of it and give it a break for a bit.
I'm just amazed at how younger generations, who have grown up with personal computers, can have them so heavily intergrated into their lives. How much do they know about life without a computer in it?
I know, people used to say the same thing about electricity. But it's true, using electricity every day DID change the way people lived. I live in a rural area, and when you lose power for several days, things change a lot. Things get harder to do, you have to entertain yourself, you talk to your family more, you go to bed earlier. Life slows down.
I am not critisizing the author, if I had grown up with personal computers, I might be the same way. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just observing how its different from my own experiance. And I'm just wondering what the long term affects might be. I keep thinking of that short story by E. M. Forester, "The Machine Stops". Is there a point where we become too dependent on computers, or where it starts to effect the way we relate (or don't relate) to other human beings? Or am I just a totally outdated old fart?
I found a link where you can read the story on-line:
"The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster
It's truely amazing how such an old Sci-Fi story predicts something very much like the internet, long before anything like it even existed. Don't be fooled by the date it was written; it's relevance to the world we are living in now is amazing, and even a bit creepy.
I LIKE the machine, I don't want it to stop, I just don't want it to take over either. "Machines" like personal computers and the internet are useful and fun tools, but I hope we never become so dependent on them that we can't function, literally can't live without them.
- Chas
Born in the 60's, but not THAT old yet! ;)
Monday, December 05, 2005
Time to begin...
I signed up for this blog in March 2003. Since then I've experimented with it some, but only in past few days have I really considered using it.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to do separate blogs for separate topics, but the fact is that I don't have a lot of time to manage a bunch of blogs, and I probably don't have so much to say about any one topic that it would justify a separate blog.
And I know that when I have read other people's blogs, it fun and interesting to see how many things they are into and discuss on their blogs. So it's going to be all topics under one tent.
The best way to start is to just start, so now I'm starting! Here goes.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to do separate blogs for separate topics, but the fact is that I don't have a lot of time to manage a bunch of blogs, and I probably don't have so much to say about any one topic that it would justify a separate blog.
And I know that when I have read other people's blogs, it fun and interesting to see how many things they are into and discuss on their blogs. So it's going to be all topics under one tent.
The best way to start is to just start, so now I'm starting! Here goes.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Mandrake Revisited: a Lycoris user revisits his former OS.
A review of Mandrake 10.2 Limited Edition 2005
Originally published 08-18-05 at www.desktopOS.com
By Chas Sprague
Years ago, I was a Mandrake Linux user, because it seemed the best available Linux desktop at the time. I eventually switched to Lycoris Desktop LX, because it seemed less buggy and more promising.
Now years later, Mandrake has merged with Conectiva, to form a new company, "Mandriva", which has now acquired Lycoris and it's CEO, Joseph Cheek. We are told that there is going to be a special discount for DLX users to upgrade to the next version of Mandriva. So I have decided to reconsider Mandrake/Mandriva, starting with it's current version.
Mandriva 10.2 Limited Edition 2005 is available as a three CD set, completely free of cost, via download. I tested it on an older Pentium III desktop and a newer Celeron laptop.
I would just like to clarify here that I consider myself to be a novice at using Linux, not a "power" user. My point of view is that of someone who wants to use Linux as a desktop system to get things done, and I approach this review from a computer user's perspective.
The Mandrake website now says Mandriva, but the software I downloaded still says Mandrake. For the purposes of this review, please consider the two names as being interchangeable.
Using Mandrake 10.2 Limited Edition 2005
I have two test machines. My desktop is an older Pentium III, with a 600 MHz processor, 368 megs of RAM, 20 gig HD, and 1 floppy drive, a CD drive and a CD/rw drive. My laptop is an HP model ze4547wm, with a 2.40 G Hz Celeron processor, 40 gig HD, and 700 megs of ram and a DVD player/CD burner.
I began testing with the desktop machine. The install went very quickly, and smoothly. I had left 7 gigs of empty space on the hard drive, and Mandrake formatted it without problems. I told the installer to put the boot loader on the root partition instead of the HD boot sector, so I could continue to multi boot win98 and PC Linux. It worked fine, I was able to easily add it into my XOSL boot loader menu.
There were some options for choosing groups of packages. I chose to install everything offered, except for server and developer packages. It was all very easy.
The windows partitions are configured for access automatically, and can be found in the "mnt" folder. I know how to make the windows partitions accessible if I need to, but many newbies don't, so it is a nice touch that it is already done for you.
The icons and stuff are your standard KDE fare, which is fine with me. Some folks complain about the Mandrake Galaxy theme, but if you MUST, you can change the splash screen under the system/configuration/KDE/LookNFeel menu, as well as a Window Dressing option and many others under LookNFeel. There is also a Theme Manager available, but I just chose some pics from my windows partition, and easily saved one as the background by right clicking the pic thumbnail, choosing "actions" from the drop down menu, then choosing "set as background". Easy.
Kaffeineplayed my videos fine. Kaffeine also is the default player for sound files, but you can select other players, like Audacity or Rhythmbox. You can easily change the default setting for file types.
Other programs like Xine and PySOL card games were not installed by default, but I could easily install them from the CDs by using the Rpmdrake package manager.
From RPM Hell to RPM Heck
When I used Mandrake years ago, I was frustrated by what many people called "RPM Hell"; the problem of library compatibilities when installing new programs via ".rpm" files. Back then, if you tried to install a new program, you had to know which libraries to download and install with it, and where to put them. Sometimes there would be conflicts with other library files and versions. It could get quite complicated to install new programs and get them to work properly.
Things have changed a lot from those days. Now there are programs like Mandrake's "Urpmi", which is Mandrake's tool for dealing with collections of rpm files. It is a wrapper program for "rpm" that makes installs easier for the user. See Urpmi FAQ:
http://www.speculation.org/garrick/urpmifaq.txt
also here: http://www.linux-talk.com/post-22.html.
I had to configure Urpmi with on-line repository sources, in order to be able to update, upgrade and add software from the internet. I was advised to type "Easy Urpmi" into Google, and use one of the Easy Urpmi web pages to configure the repository sources. It's a three step process on an Easy Urpmi web page. The final output is several lines of text that you paste into a console window, while logged in as "su" (super user/root). Paste the text in, press return, and if all goes well, it configures your sources for you.
I say "if all goes well..." because I had two different experiences. With my laptop computer, connected to a broadband connection, it worked like a charm. It took about half an hour to configure the sources, and around an hour and a half to do over 800 MB of updates.
At home it was a different story. There, I have an Internet connection that does not go above 26k. Even if I was willing to tie up my phone line for endless hours, it just could not do it.
I reported this on the Mandriva forum, and was informed of a method for dial-up. On the Easy Urpmi page, there was a little toggle box to check in step two. Activating the toggle would cause it to use a compressed version of the package list (500kb) rather than the full version (20MB or so). That made a huge difference, and I was able to configure all the sources, although I had some problems configuring two of them. I had to cut and past them out of the text that Easy Urpmi gave me, and run the lines again individually. It did eventually work. A bit of a fuss, hence "RPM Heck".
I was then able to update a few things, and download a few programs, which did tie up the phone for a couple of hours. Not an ideal situation, but it was at least possible. Huge downloads were still out of the question. The 800 + MB of updates were too much to do at home by dial up, but I was told on the forum that it would be possible to download the RPMs at work and burn them on a CD. I haven't tried it yet, but it's nice to know it's a possibility.
All things considered, Urpmi isn't as easy as a few mouse clicks, but it's not rocket science, either. You don't have to use Urpmi at the command line to update and download software, you can use Mandrake's GUI package management tools, but the repositories still have to be configured for them to work.
With the laptop install, nearly everything was easier. For some reason the windows partitions were not automatically accessible, but I was able to edit the fstab file to make them so. I was able to upgrade the entire install via broadband at work, and I then had a very smooth, stable system, and Urpmi performed flawlessly. I use the GAG boot loader on the laptop, and it worked well with Mandrake. I installed Mandrake's boot loader on the Mandrake root partition, where GAG could find it.
Multimedia Files and Programs
I have a test folder of various file formats, that I use to test how Linux distributions handle various file formats. The file extensions are: .mp3, .mp2, .wma, .wmv, .ram, .pdf, .avi, .wav, .mid, .mov, .qt, .mpeg, .asf, .asx, .jpg, .bmp and .gif. I had been very happy with Lycoris DLX, because it could handle all these file formats without any extra tweaking of the software or adding new programs.
Would Mandrake LE 2005 be able to measure up? The answer is mostly yes. There were programs already configured to use all of the file formats. The gif file was animated, and to see the animation in action, it had to be opened with Firefox, instead of the default program Kuickshow. The Konqueror web browser also lets you open and view .pdf files perfectly. The only real bump in the road was midi files. Mandrake tried to play them with the Kmid program, but a message came up that said "Could not open dev/sequencer. Probably there is another program using it." I have found that most Linux distros I've tried give me this message. Lycoris DLX would play it with Kmid, but no others.
On the laptop, Kmid would open and play midi files, but there was no sound for the Kmid program. I left messages on the Mandriva boards, and received lots of suggestions, but was not able to solve the problem. One suggestion was to try another program instead, called "TiMidity++". This program did work, on the desktop and laptop, so I settled for that. Through forum recommendations I discovered a great looking program called "Rosegarden", but unfortunately, it worked the same was as Kmid on both my test computers. Perhaps one day, when I have more time...
All things considered, file usage was nearly as good as it was on Lycoris DLX.
I like to edit videos. The program "Kino" is available for Mandrake. It's not as capable as the program I'm using in Windows XP, but it and other programs are evolving. This will be an area of further study for me.
Functionality and Options
Years ago, I left Mandrake because I found it to be slow, unstable, and cluttered with applications that were broken. Happily, all this has changed! It's now fast and stable, and nearly all the applications (the sole exception being Kmid) worked fine. Much better with hardware compatibility. If it was this good years ago, I never would have left!
I tried installing ManLE2005 using only the first CD (while I was still downloading the others). The result was a very bare-bones install, fast and lean, but with few programs other than open office. Using Urpmi, you can add the other disks as upgrade sources later (I inquired on the Mandriva forums, and received exact instructions for how to do it). I think most people would want the other CDs too. It's more downloading, but it's worth it. It's easiest to install with all three CDs at once, and if you have the space, there is even an option that lets you copy the CDs to your hard drive.
The Mandriva menu structure can run several layers deep, like the LookNFeel menu. There much software available, and many controls and features for doing different things; it may take a while for you to explore the menus thoroughly and discover all the programs and options available to you.
Hardware and Overall Usability
For many of the activities I do most often with my computer, Mandriva is a fully functional desktop. I can surf the web with Firefox, access my web based email (I don't use any other kind), do word processing with OpenOffice.org or make notes with the Kate editor. I can play music CDs, and burn CDs with the K3b program. I was able to easily add DVD codecs I downloaded off the Internet, and had my DVD on the laptop playing movies just fine.
I was able to connect with my local networks, at home and work. The Internet connection via the LAN was instant. Using Samba (Smb4k) I was able to access XP default shared folders for file swapping. I was able to see, but not use, the network printers. With time I may have succeeded, but the need was not pressing so I shall have to pursue that at a later date. I was able to use my HP psc 1110 usb printer by plugging it directly into my laptop. It worked beautifully.
My Sony 256 MB USB RAM chip is recognized, as is my Fuji E510 digital camera. My Canon CanoScan FB 630P flatbed scanner was recognized and easily configured via Mandriva's control panel, but the output was less than satisfactory; the pictures were too dark and purple, and I couldn't find a way to adjust the scanner. I tried using both Kooka and XSane. Kooka had a simpler interface, XSane had more complex features, but I couldn't use either to get a usable scan. I had to boot into windows XP to get decent scans completed.
One of the best surprises for me was my Belkin F5D7010 wireless card. It WORKS! I've never gotten it to work with any Linux distribution before.
I used the ndiswrapper feature, to use my windows XP driver. At first, I thought it didn't work, I was using the GUI in the control panel to install the windows driver with ndiswrapper, and when I went to choose the location of the driver, it didn't seem to find it on the desktop where I put it.
It was offering me "desktop/home" and "desktop/welcome" as locations, but I eventually browsed for and found it in "home/chas/desktop". It installed, I rebooted (it said to restart Xwindows), and the WiFi card came to life. Configuring it was easy, and I was soon on the net with broadband via wireless... a long held dream come true!
The Mandriva Forums
Lycoris had (and still has) a very helpful public forum where I not only learned a great deal about Lycoris DLX, but a lot about Linux in general. The forum archives were a treasure trove of information, with a great search utility that made it easy to find helpful posts. It was a wonderful, free education, and the best customer support I've had for any software. Now, whenever I consider using a Linux distribution, I always consider it's on-line community and forum(s). If it does not have a vibrant on-line forum, I won't consider using the distribution.
Happily, Mandriva has two main forums, it's official forum at: http://forum.mandrivaclub.com, and another forum that is operated independently from Mandriva, http://mandrivausers.org/. I found friendly people, and quick replies to my requests for help at both forums. Both are easy to navigate and use, and have useful search features. Both have an optional feature that notifies you via email when there is activity in a thread you are watching. The forums at Mandrivausers.org seem to have more traffic at any given time, but I have found both sites to be a great asset for Mandriva users.
Conclusion
There has been a lot of debate about whether Linux is ready for the desktop or not. I think the answer to that question depends entirely on what YOU need to do with it.
Mandrake LE 2005 is already perfect for some people's desktop needs. For them, it's already "there". Other people, like me, have needs that have still not been completely met. Yet I am still hopeful that it is evolving into a desktop that I can GROW INTO as it matures. It is already pretty good at most of the things I ordinarily do with a computer: web browsing (networked and wireless), email, word processing. Playing CDs or DVDs. Using multimedia files, PDF files, light desktop publishing. More advanced features, like using flatbed scanners or editing video files, are not yet on a par with windows. But I can wait for that.
I'm dual booting right now. I prefer to access the Internet via Linux, and I do much of the time. By the time Microsoft comes out with Longhorn, I hope to be able to avoid the need to migrate to it. I think many people are seeking an alternative, a less restrictive OS.
There are many parts of this review that I would have liked to have taken further, troubleshooting problems until all avenues were exhausted, but two things stopped me.
1.) Mandriva's next release. The 2nd beta is already out. If I wait much longer, this review will be obsolete by the time it's published!
2.) It's a question of TIME. I really am more of a computer USER than anything else. I'm self-employed, and I need to use my time with the computer to get things done. More than a reviewer, I'm really just a computer user looking for a migration path to a better deal, a better way. I need a flexible desktop OS that is mostly configured and working already, so that can spend my time working with the software to get things done, instead of working on the software to get it to work.
And speaking of a better deal. The 3 CD download version is FREE. Access to the help forums is FREE. The majority of Mandriva users don't pay anything. There are reasonably priced packaged versions that come with additional software, including commercial programs and drivers. Then optionally, there are various levels of the Mandriva Club, with yearly "Standard" membership fees starting at $66.00 per year, with an assortment of benefits that increase with each level of membership.
I've heard many people claim that Mandriva is too expensive to use, but I don't understand why, when they have quite a range of prices, starting with FREE. Even updates via download, including security updates, are FREE (Mandriva offers a service called Mandriva Online, which automates the update process. There is a fee for that service, but it is optional. You can check for updates manually yourself, free of charge).
Also, many commercial linuxes have a "per seat" charge, a license fee for every computer it's installed on. Mandriva has none. If you are installing it on several computers, that adds up to quite a bit of savings. And compared with the cost of WindowsXP on several computers... do the math. The difference is awesome.
I believe there is a market for windows users who are looking for an alternative. If Mandriva offers a polished commercial product with a comparable look & feel, functionality and ease of use, I believe they will find customers who will gladly pay them for it.
Of course, they will have competition. PClinux is very similar to Mandriva, but has already begun modifications to make it a more friendly distro for people leaving windows. They have a "My Computer" icon on the desktop. They use apt-get and Synaptic to update, upgrade and install software, which is easier than Urpmi. Their repositories are smaller than Mandriva's, but are growing steadily. They have a robust, helpful forum. It's still a beta release, yet it's catching up quickly... but that's another review.
As it is, Mandriva's Mandrake 10.2 LE 2005 is already a very capable, useful desktop environment. With Mandriva and Lycoris combining their resources, I am hopeful that an even more complete, easy to use and powerful Linux desktop will be appearing in future releases.
Chas Sprague is a small business owner in rural Oregon who has been experimenting with Linux since 1997.
Originally published 08-18-05 at www.desktopOS.com
By Chas Sprague
Years ago, I was a Mandrake Linux user, because it seemed the best available Linux desktop at the time. I eventually switched to Lycoris Desktop LX, because it seemed less buggy and more promising.
Now years later, Mandrake has merged with Conectiva, to form a new company, "Mandriva", which has now acquired Lycoris and it's CEO, Joseph Cheek. We are told that there is going to be a special discount for DLX users to upgrade to the next version of Mandriva. So I have decided to reconsider Mandrake/Mandriva, starting with it's current version.
Mandriva 10.2 Limited Edition 2005 is available as a three CD set, completely free of cost, via download. I tested it on an older Pentium III desktop and a newer Celeron laptop.
I would just like to clarify here that I consider myself to be a novice at using Linux, not a "power" user. My point of view is that of someone who wants to use Linux as a desktop system to get things done, and I approach this review from a computer user's perspective.
The Mandrake website now says Mandriva, but the software I downloaded still says Mandrake. For the purposes of this review, please consider the two names as being interchangeable.
Using Mandrake 10.2 Limited Edition 2005
I have two test machines. My desktop is an older Pentium III, with a 600 MHz processor, 368 megs of RAM, 20 gig HD, and 1 floppy drive, a CD drive and a CD/rw drive. My laptop is an HP model ze4547wm, with a 2.40 G Hz Celeron processor, 40 gig HD, and 700 megs of ram and a DVD player/CD burner.
I began testing with the desktop machine. The install went very quickly, and smoothly. I had left 7 gigs of empty space on the hard drive, and Mandrake formatted it without problems. I told the installer to put the boot loader on the root partition instead of the HD boot sector, so I could continue to multi boot win98 and PC Linux. It worked fine, I was able to easily add it into my XOSL boot loader menu.
There were some options for choosing groups of packages. I chose to install everything offered, except for server and developer packages. It was all very easy.
The windows partitions are configured for access automatically, and can be found in the "mnt" folder. I know how to make the windows partitions accessible if I need to, but many newbies don't, so it is a nice touch that it is already done for you.
The icons and stuff are your standard KDE fare, which is fine with me. Some folks complain about the Mandrake Galaxy theme, but if you MUST, you can change the splash screen under the system/configuration/KDE/LookNFeel menu, as well as a Window Dressing option and many others under LookNFeel. There is also a Theme Manager available, but I just chose some pics from my windows partition, and easily saved one as the background by right clicking the pic thumbnail, choosing "actions" from the drop down menu, then choosing "set as background". Easy.
Kaffeineplayed my videos fine. Kaffeine also is the default player for sound files, but you can select other players, like Audacity or Rhythmbox. You can easily change the default setting for file types.
Other programs like Xine and PySOL card games were not installed by default, but I could easily install them from the CDs by using the Rpmdrake package manager.
From RPM Hell to RPM Heck
When I used Mandrake years ago, I was frustrated by what many people called "RPM Hell"; the problem of library compatibilities when installing new programs via ".rpm" files. Back then, if you tried to install a new program, you had to know which libraries to download and install with it, and where to put them. Sometimes there would be conflicts with other library files and versions. It could get quite complicated to install new programs and get them to work properly.
Things have changed a lot from those days. Now there are programs like Mandrake's "Urpmi", which is Mandrake's tool for dealing with collections of rpm files. It is a wrapper program for "rpm" that makes installs easier for the user. See Urpmi FAQ:
http://www.speculation.org/garrick/urpmifaq.txt
also here: http://www.linux-talk.com/post-22.html.
I had to configure Urpmi with on-line repository sources, in order to be able to update, upgrade and add software from the internet. I was advised to type "Easy Urpmi" into Google, and use one of the Easy Urpmi web pages to configure the repository sources. It's a three step process on an Easy Urpmi web page. The final output is several lines of text that you paste into a console window, while logged in as "su" (super user/root). Paste the text in, press return, and if all goes well, it configures your sources for you.
I say "if all goes well..." because I had two different experiences. With my laptop computer, connected to a broadband connection, it worked like a charm. It took about half an hour to configure the sources, and around an hour and a half to do over 800 MB of updates.
At home it was a different story. There, I have an Internet connection that does not go above 26k. Even if I was willing to tie up my phone line for endless hours, it just could not do it.
I reported this on the Mandriva forum, and was informed of a method for dial-up. On the Easy Urpmi page, there was a little toggle box to check in step two. Activating the toggle would cause it to use a compressed version of the package list (500kb) rather than the full version (20MB or so). That made a huge difference, and I was able to configure all the sources, although I had some problems configuring two of them. I had to cut and past them out of the text that Easy Urpmi gave me, and run the lines again individually. It did eventually work. A bit of a fuss, hence "RPM Heck".
I was then able to update a few things, and download a few programs, which did tie up the phone for a couple of hours. Not an ideal situation, but it was at least possible. Huge downloads were still out of the question. The 800 + MB of updates were too much to do at home by dial up, but I was told on the forum that it would be possible to download the RPMs at work and burn them on a CD. I haven't tried it yet, but it's nice to know it's a possibility.
All things considered, Urpmi isn't as easy as a few mouse clicks, but it's not rocket science, either. You don't have to use Urpmi at the command line to update and download software, you can use Mandrake's GUI package management tools, but the repositories still have to be configured for them to work.
With the laptop install, nearly everything was easier. For some reason the windows partitions were not automatically accessible, but I was able to edit the fstab file to make them so. I was able to upgrade the entire install via broadband at work, and I then had a very smooth, stable system, and Urpmi performed flawlessly. I use the GAG boot loader on the laptop, and it worked well with Mandrake. I installed Mandrake's boot loader on the Mandrake root partition, where GAG could find it.
Multimedia Files and Programs
I have a test folder of various file formats, that I use to test how Linux distributions handle various file formats. The file extensions are: .mp3, .mp2, .wma, .wmv, .ram, .pdf, .avi, .wav, .mid, .mov, .qt, .mpeg, .asf, .asx, .jpg, .bmp and .gif. I had been very happy with Lycoris DLX, because it could handle all these file formats without any extra tweaking of the software or adding new programs.
Would Mandrake LE 2005 be able to measure up? The answer is mostly yes. There were programs already configured to use all of the file formats. The gif file was animated, and to see the animation in action, it had to be opened with Firefox, instead of the default program Kuickshow. The Konqueror web browser also lets you open and view .pdf files perfectly. The only real bump in the road was midi files. Mandrake tried to play them with the Kmid program, but a message came up that said "Could not open dev/sequencer. Probably there is another program using it." I have found that most Linux distros I've tried give me this message. Lycoris DLX would play it with Kmid, but no others.
On the laptop, Kmid would open and play midi files, but there was no sound for the Kmid program. I left messages on the Mandriva boards, and received lots of suggestions, but was not able to solve the problem. One suggestion was to try another program instead, called "TiMidity++". This program did work, on the desktop and laptop, so I settled for that. Through forum recommendations I discovered a great looking program called "Rosegarden", but unfortunately, it worked the same was as Kmid on both my test computers. Perhaps one day, when I have more time...
All things considered, file usage was nearly as good as it was on Lycoris DLX.
I like to edit videos. The program "Kino" is available for Mandrake. It's not as capable as the program I'm using in Windows XP, but it and other programs are evolving. This will be an area of further study for me.
Functionality and Options
Years ago, I left Mandrake because I found it to be slow, unstable, and cluttered with applications that were broken. Happily, all this has changed! It's now fast and stable, and nearly all the applications (the sole exception being Kmid) worked fine. Much better with hardware compatibility. If it was this good years ago, I never would have left!
I tried installing ManLE2005 using only the first CD (while I was still downloading the others). The result was a very bare-bones install, fast and lean, but with few programs other than open office. Using Urpmi, you can add the other disks as upgrade sources later (I inquired on the Mandriva forums, and received exact instructions for how to do it). I think most people would want the other CDs too. It's more downloading, but it's worth it. It's easiest to install with all three CDs at once, and if you have the space, there is even an option that lets you copy the CDs to your hard drive.
The Mandriva menu structure can run several layers deep, like the LookNFeel menu. There much software available, and many controls and features for doing different things; it may take a while for you to explore the menus thoroughly and discover all the programs and options available to you.
Hardware and Overall Usability
For many of the activities I do most often with my computer, Mandriva is a fully functional desktop. I can surf the web with Firefox, access my web based email (I don't use any other kind), do word processing with OpenOffice.org or make notes with the Kate editor. I can play music CDs, and burn CDs with the K3b program. I was able to easily add DVD codecs I downloaded off the Internet, and had my DVD on the laptop playing movies just fine.
I was able to connect with my local networks, at home and work. The Internet connection via the LAN was instant. Using Samba (Smb4k) I was able to access XP default shared folders for file swapping. I was able to see, but not use, the network printers. With time I may have succeeded, but the need was not pressing so I shall have to pursue that at a later date. I was able to use my HP psc 1110 usb printer by plugging it directly into my laptop. It worked beautifully.
My Sony 256 MB USB RAM chip is recognized, as is my Fuji E510 digital camera. My Canon CanoScan FB 630P flatbed scanner was recognized and easily configured via Mandriva's control panel, but the output was less than satisfactory; the pictures were too dark and purple, and I couldn't find a way to adjust the scanner. I tried using both Kooka and XSane. Kooka had a simpler interface, XSane had more complex features, but I couldn't use either to get a usable scan. I had to boot into windows XP to get decent scans completed.
One of the best surprises for me was my Belkin F5D7010 wireless card. It WORKS! I've never gotten it to work with any Linux distribution before.
I used the ndiswrapper feature, to use my windows XP driver. At first, I thought it didn't work, I was using the GUI in the control panel to install the windows driver with ndiswrapper, and when I went to choose the location of the driver, it didn't seem to find it on the desktop where I put it.
It was offering me "desktop/home" and "desktop/welcome" as locations, but I eventually browsed for and found it in "home/chas/desktop". It installed, I rebooted (it said to restart Xwindows), and the WiFi card came to life. Configuring it was easy, and I was soon on the net with broadband via wireless... a long held dream come true!
The Mandriva Forums
Lycoris had (and still has) a very helpful public forum where I not only learned a great deal about Lycoris DLX, but a lot about Linux in general. The forum archives were a treasure trove of information, with a great search utility that made it easy to find helpful posts. It was a wonderful, free education, and the best customer support I've had for any software. Now, whenever I consider using a Linux distribution, I always consider it's on-line community and forum(s). If it does not have a vibrant on-line forum, I won't consider using the distribution.
Happily, Mandriva has two main forums, it's official forum at: http://forum.mandrivaclub.com, and another forum that is operated independently from Mandriva, http://mandrivausers.org/. I found friendly people, and quick replies to my requests for help at both forums. Both are easy to navigate and use, and have useful search features. Both have an optional feature that notifies you via email when there is activity in a thread you are watching. The forums at Mandrivausers.org seem to have more traffic at any given time, but I have found both sites to be a great asset for Mandriva users.
Conclusion
There has been a lot of debate about whether Linux is ready for the desktop or not. I think the answer to that question depends entirely on what YOU need to do with it.
Mandrake LE 2005 is already perfect for some people's desktop needs. For them, it's already "there". Other people, like me, have needs that have still not been completely met. Yet I am still hopeful that it is evolving into a desktop that I can GROW INTO as it matures. It is already pretty good at most of the things I ordinarily do with a computer: web browsing (networked and wireless), email, word processing. Playing CDs or DVDs. Using multimedia files, PDF files, light desktop publishing. More advanced features, like using flatbed scanners or editing video files, are not yet on a par with windows. But I can wait for that.
I'm dual booting right now. I prefer to access the Internet via Linux, and I do much of the time. By the time Microsoft comes out with Longhorn, I hope to be able to avoid the need to migrate to it. I think many people are seeking an alternative, a less restrictive OS.
There are many parts of this review that I would have liked to have taken further, troubleshooting problems until all avenues were exhausted, but two things stopped me.
1.) Mandriva's next release. The 2nd beta is already out. If I wait much longer, this review will be obsolete by the time it's published!
2.) It's a question of TIME. I really am more of a computer USER than anything else. I'm self-employed, and I need to use my time with the computer to get things done. More than a reviewer, I'm really just a computer user looking for a migration path to a better deal, a better way. I need a flexible desktop OS that is mostly configured and working already, so that can spend my time working with the software to get things done, instead of working on the software to get it to work.
And speaking of a better deal. The 3 CD download version is FREE. Access to the help forums is FREE. The majority of Mandriva users don't pay anything. There are reasonably priced packaged versions that come with additional software, including commercial programs and drivers. Then optionally, there are various levels of the Mandriva Club, with yearly "Standard" membership fees starting at $66.00 per year, with an assortment of benefits that increase with each level of membership.
I've heard many people claim that Mandriva is too expensive to use, but I don't understand why, when they have quite a range of prices, starting with FREE. Even updates via download, including security updates, are FREE (Mandriva offers a service called Mandriva Online, which automates the update process. There is a fee for that service, but it is optional. You can check for updates manually yourself, free of charge).
Also, many commercial linuxes have a "per seat" charge, a license fee for every computer it's installed on. Mandriva has none. If you are installing it on several computers, that adds up to quite a bit of savings. And compared with the cost of WindowsXP on several computers... do the math. The difference is awesome.
I believe there is a market for windows users who are looking for an alternative. If Mandriva offers a polished commercial product with a comparable look & feel, functionality and ease of use, I believe they will find customers who will gladly pay them for it.
Of course, they will have competition. PClinux is very similar to Mandriva, but has already begun modifications to make it a more friendly distro for people leaving windows. They have a "My Computer" icon on the desktop. They use apt-get and Synaptic to update, upgrade and install software, which is easier than Urpmi. Their repositories are smaller than Mandriva's, but are growing steadily. They have a robust, helpful forum. It's still a beta release, yet it's catching up quickly... but that's another review.
As it is, Mandriva's Mandrake 10.2 LE 2005 is already a very capable, useful desktop environment. With Mandriva and Lycoris combining their resources, I am hopeful that an even more complete, easy to use and powerful Linux desktop will be appearing in future releases.
Chas Sprague is a small business owner in rural Oregon who has been experimenting with Linux since 1997.
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