A New Chapter

As the war ends and American troops leave the Middle East, new goals are made as well as a forming partnership between the two nations.

"'Our goal is simply to make sure Iraq succeeds, because we think a successful, democratic Iraq can be a model for the entire region,' Obama said."

To do so, Obama told the Iraqi prime minister that they will build up trade relations, support the building up of Iraq's democratic capacity, help Iraq rebuild its air force, and possibly help in training Iraqi troops

"The U.S. goal 'is a sovereign Iraq that can protect its borders, protect its airspace, protect its people,' Obama said."

In order to help achieve its goals, nonmilitary U.S. personnel will remain in Iraq.

So could this truly be the start of a "new chapter" as Obama says?

References to Biblical Passages on US Guns in Iraq and Afghanistan

Literally, the guns of Jesus. It turns out that the gun sight supplier, Trijicon, has encoded references to the New Testament on US Military sights being used in Iraq and Afghanistan. To the civilians in these countries, this undermines the credibility of the US's statement: the US is not at war with Islam, and never will be. The rifles with these sights are being referred to by some soldiers as "Jesus Rifles".

This has created a lot of controversy. Some Christians are proud of this, others are, I'm sure, offended. Soldiers in these countries are forbidden to proselytize, and this seems to undermine that. The order is actually referred to as "Order #1". The US Military's Religious Freedom Foundation is outraged saying that many of the soldiers are disgusted, and that it allows the enemies our soldiers are fighting to claim that this is a "crusade" of sorts against Islam.

Well, yes, this annoys me, and I think most people would be offended. This, to me, seems like an undermining of the separation of church and state. I am proud to say, however, that I am not a crazy conspiracy theorist that thinks this is evidence for an actual "crusade". I think it likely that the government's plea of ignorance is true. Whether or not I agree with current wars abroad, this undermines them. In Iraq and Afghanistan this information will probably be used as propaganda for the US's opponent's cause. I hope that the Biblical references on these scopes will be removed soon.

After Fort Hood, Soldiers Still Willing to Deploy

Only 2 weeks after the tragic shootings at Fort Hood, 8 of the mental specialists wounded by Hasan are now ready and willing to deploy. 14 other Mental Health Reservists have volunteered to fill the vacancies. Recently, the U.S. Army decided to deploy more psychologists to help soldiers cope mentally with all the severe war conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I applaud this kind of resilience from these soldiers. It truly shows how dedicated some of the troops are to our country. These are the actions that make me grateful for the soldiers fighting for us. Hopefully, shootings like the one at Fort Hood never happen again as these soldiers are the last people to deserve that sort of hostility.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2009-11-19-replacements-fort-hood_N.htm

As the Smoke Clears from the Fort Hood Massacre

This is a follow-up blog post to my most recent on on the Fort Hood Killings. Once again, the article my post is based on can be found on the title.
As new information continues to unfold, the killings have been attributed to an army psychiatrist named Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. He was soon to be deployed to Iraq before the shooting occurred.
Hasan was reported dead at first but as reports are now coming in, he is still living.
Obama stated, "It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas," and that "It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil." I completely agree with this statement. I did mention this in my other post but I will reiterate that these soldiers should not be faced with any type of danger when they are home and in their own base. There is still yet to be a motive and so I will hold judgments on Hasan's actions until then, but I will say that regardless of motive what he did was wrong and unforgivable.
As events continue to unfold, I want to know how America will respond to this act of violence and what new information will be revealed to the public. What do you think will be the next big news on this topic?

Helping Iraq - We Could Be Doing Worse

For a while now, the United States has been admitting refugees from Iraq. However, until now the numbers of those admitted have been horrendously low. But this year the US stepped up and is now close to having admitted 12,000 refugees this year. The government plans to admit a minimum of 17,000 people in 2009, along with many others through the use of a special visa they can acquire if they have worked for the United States. While the US is beginning to improve it's admittance policies, it still lags far behind other countries like Sweden, which has brought in 40,000 Iraqis so far. Full article here.

I think that, while the US is improving, it still needs to grow a lot in the charity department. However, there are worse thing we could be doing. Britain, for example, is diverting over 100 million Euros worth of aid that it promised to more than 20 South American countries to Iraq instead, leaving South America far short of what it expected to receive. That's not a very cool move.

It's one thing to be a little short on helping out, its entirely different to promise money to someone, then yank it away and give it to someone else. While the US isn't giving as much as other countries, at least we are being reliable with our charity. So far, we have handed out exactly what we promised to hand out.