There are about to be protests calling for American withdrawal from Iraq.  Withdrawal from war is never easy, especially when lawlessness is more rife than it was before the war.  Nobody in their right mind would applaud Saddam Hussein but his war crimes seem pale when you read that the American invasion has resulted in up to a million civilian casualties, the dispersal of a huge and distributed stock pile of weapons and army was the last act of a dictator who seemed to understand a war strategy against the inevitable Iraq invasion.  If Disturbing Trends could predict the Iraq war before Bush even took the Presidency from the American people (some say it was fraud, the evidence would seem to support that assertion) then my guess is that Saddam’s intelligence people could also see it coming.  They weapons were stock piled and the army were probably ordered to disperse upon invasion.

The American forces are the target of the war, not the insurgency.

Erosion of American wealth seems the best weapon in Al Qaeda’s arsenal.  Best done by creating fear and costing the US government trillions in the attempt to wipe terrorism out.

The great lumbering beast has convinced its enemy that it is a good strategy as eventually they know democracy will weaken American military resolve.  The voters do not like the sense of not being able to win a war, so they keep the war president in office as long as they can hoping to win it.  It is the specific lack of strategy that seems to be losing America this war both on the battlefield and in the hearts of voters.

Withdrawal, unfortunately, may not be the complete answer.  The tension over Iran is useful to Russia.  We must remember however that Iran is also an arch rival or enemy of Al Qaeda.  The real enemy is whatever is motivating people to join the insurgency.  How many of them are Iraqi?

I do not think so.  Al Gore has already done two terms as Vice-President and something tells me that he will resist the obvious urge to test the electorate.  It is  question of what has he to win?  He would likely to be asked to be VP again by either leading democratic candidate and he knows that even if the Oval Office is where the “decider” may site, the VP is the one that enacts policy and makes a difference. The best running mate is the reluctant one that “common sense” demands.  Al Gore suits this bill perfectly.

Would he make a great President?  Who knows, for sure?

Al Gore won the Nobel Prize for changing the mind of humanity about global warming and perhaps just in time, perhaps not. On acceptance of such a great and worthy prize everyone from President Jimmy Carter to his friends ask him and keep asking him if he will run for President. I dare say that the idea has occurred to him and he has thought about it. I daresay his years of experience of working with one of the more significant Presidents of the twentieth century has informed him more clearly than most as to what to expect.

We think that Al Gore is either running the best campaign ever, with websites devoted to drafting Mr Gore into the White House and past Presidents (apart from the Clinton’s, in this case) imploring with him; or, more likely he simply does not want to do that to himself for the next eight years (if the Republicans seriously are considering running with Rudy Guiliani or John McCain, I suspect the focus of the right has become blurred and there may be two Democrat terms to consider).

This is the community edition of Disturbing Trends – using the Wordpress system for blogging.

The Blogger site has been phased over to become a column of this – the main publication. 

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1669421,00.html

Herein lies the problem. As the first signs that the USA may lose interest in Iraq, there are border skirmishes with “the Kurds”. Is that a euphamism for Kurdistan, a state that Turkey would be threatened by as a fifth of its population is Kurd. Would it mean eventual assimiliation, or loss of Turkish identity? It is a difficult question as Iraq was carved out of the ruin of the Ottoman empire after what is now Turkey was defeated. That more problems arise for Turkey does not bode well for the peace treaties that have existed for a hundred years or more. The USA may seek to protect the peace and this may disrepair any EU engagement with Turkey.

“Kurdistan”

When viewed thus, the dimensions of Kurdistan reveal the political tensions it would unleash – much of the wealth of all of its neighbors contained in a land that dreams of independence does not bode well for security. Why do very old treaties matter? How many generations must pass before dissolution of inherited political barriers limiting the freedom of the Kurdish people from self rule? Why should Turkey not want to trade with a Kurdish entity? Because it better to be the owner and seller of the oil than the customer of a people, whom – after all this time, is still considered an enemy?

Please discuss – I would love to know more about this potential flash-point in the insane saga of Western interventions in Middle East politics.