About three weeks ago my son, who is a member of the Tennessee Army National Guard, found out that he will soon be heading to Camp Bucca in Iraq to help guard the camp. At that time he was told he would be stationed for between six to eight weeks someplace in the US to train for his mission and after the training would immediately be shipped to his duty station in Iraq.

Friday he found out he would leave on June 7^th for Fort Dix in New Jersey for his training. Today I read this. I’m more than just a little worried about him.

Growing up in the early sixties I remember people building fallout shelters and a fear people had of Soviet missles being launched at the US. The decade hadn’t passed before those bomb shelters were being converted into storage space and the worries of Soviet missles was greatly diminished. There were other, more pressing evils out there and it seemed that even though the US and the Soviet Union still had thousands of warheads pointed at each other it was pretty much decided that the fear of mutually assured destruction would prevent them from ever launching.

The cold war ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union and with it went whatever worries we had about nuclear weapons. Even though India and Pakistan joined the Nuclear Club neither country was showing any aggresive animosity toward anyone but each other so we still felt sort of safe from nuclear weapons being used by anyone. Destruction by nuclear weapons was just things that movies were based on.

Then North Korea started making a noise. For years, though, all of the tantrums that Kim Jung Il were throwing were good for was just to make eyes roll. Last night that changed.

North Korea is now a member of the Nuclear Club. Even China, who often just laughs and pats little Kim Jung Il on the head when he pull his tantrums is now showing concern. Talk is surfacing in Japan about talks of rewriting its constitution to allow for possible preemptive strikes when done in conjunction with other countries and arming itself with nuclear weapons. Even suggestions that South Korea may now be motivated to posess nuclear weapons of its own are circulating.

Someone is trying to alleve our fears over this with this:

Analysts say North Korea probably has enough fissile material to make six to eight nuclear bombs but probably lacks the technology to devise one small enough to mount on a missile.

But how long will it take to reduce the size of their device down to where it will fit in the back of a truck to be launched against US soldiers manning the frontier between North and South Korea? I don’t think we are looking at much more than a couple of years before they will have developed a warhead capable of being launched by one of their missles that you can bet they are currently working on improving.

I don’t want to scare anyone with my take on this but I do want people to recognize that we need to find out what it’s going to take to make the Chinese stop worrying about a unified Korea if we really want to get things back under control in this region. My biggest concern isn’t a nuclear North Korea, it’s a Nuclear Japan with a new constitution 40 years from now.

A little over two years ago I wrote this. I came across it while looking for something else but I had to stop and read it again just to make sure I’m staying consistant.

What’s bothering me is that I don’t like a lot of what could happen in the aftermath. Who’s going to fill the vacuum? There will be a stabilization period after the war where the US will more or less be in control of that country. The UN may have its name on the provisional government but it will be the US pulling the strings. How are those strings going to be pulled? That’s what’s bothering me.

Okay, the UN had no involvement in the government but my concerns are still the same.

Here are the current headlines in the top stories section of my my.Yahoo.com account:

• Attacks kill 33 in London, Blair breaks off summit - 14 minutes ago
  Four blasts rocked London during rush hour early on Thursday, killing at least 33 people and disrupting a summit of Group of Eight leaders in Scotland in the deadliest peacetime attack on London.
• London-like attack not expected in U.S.-officials - 20 minutes ago
  The U.S. government raised the terrorism alert level for buses, subways and trains across the United States on Thursday in the wake of deadly bombings in London but said it expected no similar attack in the United States.
• Bush orders U.S. vigilance after London blasts - 3 hours ago
  President Bush directed U.S. security authorities on Thursday to be extra vigilant and take precautions in response to a series of apparently coordinated attacks in London.
• London blasts fit al Qaeda pattern - analysts - 30 minutes ago
  Apparently coordinated blasts across London’s transport network on Thursday bear similarities to last year’s Madrid bombings and suggest an attack in the style of al Qaeda, security analysts said.
• World recoils in horror at London attacks - 11 minutes ago
  The world recoiled in shock on Thursday after bombs tore through London’s transport system killing at least 33 people in a coordinated rush-hour attack.
• Al Qaeda says kills Egypt envoy in Iraq-Web - one hour ago
  Al Qaeda group in Iraq said on Thursday it killed Egypt’s top envoy to Iraq for representing a “tyrannical” government allied to the “Jews and Crusaders.”
• London blasts throw G8 summit into disarray - 15 minutes ago
  A series of attacks in London threw the Group of Eight summit into disarray on Thursday, forcing British Prime Minister Tony Blair to rush from the venue in Scotland to handle the crisis.
• Taliban vow to kill ‘captured’ U.S. commando - 2 hours ago
  The Taliban reiterated on Thursday that they are holding a U.S. commando who has been missing in Afghanistan for more than a week and vowed to kill him, but the U.S. military said it had no information to support the claim.

While I expected most of the stories to be about the London bombings it’s the two other stories that I’m looking at and seeing a common thread. Acts of violence in the name of Islam is the only thing newsworthy at this moment. What is sad is that I don’t see this being uncommon. What is even sadder is that some people will see these headlines and not get angry with the people who set the bombs or killed the diplomat or threatened to kill the captured soldier, they will get angry at Tony Blair or George Bush.

There is something very wrong with that.

ROME (Reuters) - Italy’s foreign minister said on Tuesday the killing of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq by U.S. forces had been a tragic accident, but added that Rome did not believe the U.S. military’s version of events.

I’ve been looking and looking at this incident and wondering how it could have happened. I’ve read Giuliana Sgrena’s account of what happened but an ambush just doesn’t make sense to me. While I understand that US soldiers are fully capable of making up a story to cover up their wrongdoings, looking at the situation it seems that the story they are telling is a lot easier to believe than the story Ms. Sgrena and her driver are telling.

“Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate”
“Plurality should not be posited without necessity”

Stars have held various political offices throughout the years with Sonny Bono being elected to congress, Arnold Scwartznegger being elected govenor of California and Ronald Regan being elected both govenor of California and President of the United States. The most bizarre political news involving a celebrity, though, is thatBono or U2 fame may head World Bank. Yeah, I know he’s up for a Nobel Peace Prize and that he’s done an awful lot of work to gain debt forgiveness for third world countries but I always thought the World Bank Required someone with years and years of experience in Finance. Is the president of this organization just a figurehead?

It appears that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may have been arrested. It’s curious that at this time (01/04/2004 10:46 AM EST) there is no word about this in US news sources.

You knew it was going to happen. All those supposed terrorist being detained down at Gitmo are going to have to have some sort of final dispostion decided for them by the US. It appears that some pentagon and intelligence officials feel that they need to be kept incarcerated for the rest of their lives even when there isn’t enough evidence to bring them to trial. Luckily, a couple of US Senators in high places recognize the fact that our constitution doesn’t allow for that.

It came two days early. Iraq is now officially a sovereign nation again. My take on it is that the early handover has probably foiled the Iraqi insurgents in any ideas they may have had in marking the day of handover with coordinated attacks on the new government. Aljazeera is reporting another take on the early handoff.

Critical of the early handover, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, Abd al-Bari Atwan, said: “The Iraqis have been shortchanged.”

"It will not make any difference … why is Blair and Bush not there?" he asked. "Where are the celebrations?"

It is clear, Atwan added, that the the occupation is afraid of attacks. "If the Iraqi police cannot protect their own stations, how are they to protect on a day of ceremony like this?"

"They wanted to have the show as soon as possible … so everybody can go home," he stated.

This, Atwan added, will be seen "as a victory for the resistance".

"They will rejoice. It is clear the coalition forces are not in power. This will be seen as a sign of weakness by the coalition."

Personally, I see this early handover as a good thing. I don’t believe we will see an end to the violence but it should be easier for an Iraqi government to get better cooperation from the Iraqi citizens in stemming this violence than it was while the U.S. led coalition was in full charge.

It appears that it isn’t just Christians and Jews that have problems getting along with Muslims, Buddhist can’t seem to get along with them either.

It was the worst violence in a region that has seen dozens of people killed in near-daily of attacks this year. The government has blamed Islamic separatists who have sought to carve out a homeland in the Muslim-majority south of this predominantly Buddhist country for decades.

Of course there’s also the problems between Hindis and Muslims which is the root of the problem between Pakistan and India. Now I know that religious differences have sparked problems between groups that didn’t include Muslims but why does it seem that this century has started out with every other religous group seeming to at least tolerate each other but Muslims seem to have declared war on the world?

Yeah, I know, not all Muslims are responsible for this violence. The violent ones are only a small, extremist minority of all Muslims. I understand this but you don’t hear about small, extremists groups of Hindis attacking Buddhists. Do you? I’m not bringing this up as any sort of condemnation of Islam, I’m just trying to understand an observation.

When things heat up in Iraq I generally look to Salam Pax to get an understanding of what’s really going on over there. Not that he’s got any inside information but he’s living with the consequences of what’s happening. It seems that right now Pax views al-Sadir as a greater threat to Iraqi safety than the US.

You have to be careful about what you say about al-Sadir. Their hands reach every where and you don’t want to be on their shit list. Every body, even the GC is very careful how they formulate their sentences and how they describe Sadir’s Militias. They are thugs, thugs thugs. There you have it.

I was listening to a representative of al-sadir on TV saying that the officers at police stations come to offer their help and swear allegiance. Habibi, if they don’t they will get killed and their police station “liberated”. Have we forgotten the threat al-Sadir issued that Iraqi security forces should not attack their revolutionary brothers, or they will have to suffer the consequences.

Hopefully this is the end of al-Sadir soon and this bloodshed will prevent worse over the long term.

North Korea has threatened to expand its nuclear weapons programme if the annual US-led military exercises in South Korea go ahead next week.

Maybe I’m just numb to it all but sooner or later nuclear weapons technology is going to be as common knowledge as vulcanized rubber technology. You just can’t keep this stuff bottled up. We’ve been involved in these military excercises ever since the Korean War paused, I don’t see where that should change now just over this "threat".

Yesterday I mulled over the events occuring in Spain. The bombing last Thursday chilled me to the bone. My step-sister’s daughter is living in Barcelona and I was worried about her.

I listened to news reports come in telling of Spain’s government insisting that ETA was responsible for the bombings and I thought that claim was odd. I’m not all that familiar with ETA’s ways but it seemed to me more likely that it was an Islamist extremist group like al Qaeda that was responsible.

It seems the citizens of Spain smelled bullshit on this claim, also. On Sunday it became clear that Spaniards were not going to allow a lying group of politicians continue to rule their country. The Spanish People’s Party was out and the Socialist were voted in.

It is real easy to say that the terrorist were able to overthrow Spain’s government with bombs. So easy, I’m afraid, that the terrorist will see this as their victory. I’ve come to the conclusion that that isn’t the case. Spain’s actions may well have emboldened the terrorists to continue their bombings but I believe Spain reacted to being lied to rather than acting to appease the terrorist.

The BBC asked for opinions as to why Spain overthrew it’s government. Read some of the opinions from around the world. It’s very interesting.

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