From Xinhuanet:
CANBERRA -- Top officials of Australia and the United States on Friday agreed to boost counter-terrorism efforts in Southeast Asia as well as in Iraq.The annual Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) were held in Adelaide, capital city of Australia's state of South Australia, amid tight security with the attendance of Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Defense Minister Robert Hill and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick.
In a joint communique released after the talks, the two countries emphasized the importance of encouraging governments and institutions that promote tolerance and work to counter extremism, but gave no details of the new measures to combat terrorism.
The consultations were held only days after a video tape was seized by Indonesian police showing a masked man warning that Australia will face more attacks unless it pulls its troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Australia, who maintains around 1,300 troops in and around Iraq, is the only one in core countries in the US-led coalition forces in the war-torn Middle East country which has never experienced a major attack on home soil.
The two countries pledged in the joint communique to pursue their efforts to defeat "terrorists and insurgents" in war-ravaged Iraq.
Rumsfeld dismissed growing calls for the United States to start withdrawing forces from Iraq, saying Iraq was several years behind Afghanistan as a secure country...
"Rumsfeld dismissed growing calls for the United States to start withdrawing forces from Iraq, saying Iraq was several years behind Afghanistan as a secure country..."
-- from the article above
What constitutes "security" for us? Indidles should be indifferent to what constitutes "security" for a Muslim country, and should wish that most Muslim countries were "insecure" and constantly on edge. One would wish Saudi Arabia and Iran to be far more insecure than their regiems are at present, and less able to concentrate on exporting money, or propaganda, or weapons in the case of Iran, abroad.
But if you start from the wrong premise -- the premise that there is nothing wrong with Islam itself, and that all one cares to conduct is a "war on terror," then one can never get things right. One cannot say, one cannot allow oneself to think, that perhaps the islamization of
Europe is something of horrific moment to the United States, and that whatever it takes to stop and reverse that islamization has to be carefully considered, and all the instruments of a world-wide anti-Jihad be deployed.
Naively, one thought that Rumsfeld was somehow better than the rest. That somehow, once he got over the first initial innocence, at least he, Rumsfeld, would see how important it was to get out, get out fast, from Iraq (and since the Hunt for Bin Laden is so silly and so expensive, and forces us to be far too nice to Pakistan and that Islam-not-quite-lite regime run by the oleagineous Mr. Karzai, the one who found Mahathir Mohamed's ranting anti-Infidel war-rally speech to the O.I.C. so "splendid").
Apparently not. Apparently he too is in the camp of the Terminally Obstinate, so brave with all that boots on the ground stuff (but he can never be forgiven for the display of callousness in reply to that soldier's query about armor), so timid wand tongue-tied, like all of them, when tt comes to analyzing Islam and identifying the nature and scope of the threat.
Of course Murtha is right. And even if his reasons are not exactly, or not even close, to the right reasons, as set out here -- his demand is right.
Six months after this "election." Then get out of the way. Permanently. And start thinking seriouslly not about "Iraq" or about "Afghanistan," but about France, Italy, Belgium, England, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden. And for that matter, about Canada and this country as well.
Start Making Sense.
As long as the U.S. is in Iraq, more islamic terrorist will be drawn there..more terrorist will be killed... and when terrorist keep killing other muslims in far great numbers, maybe this will cause sensible muslims to questions their faith. after all.. like all people some sense will come of this.
To the poster above-- there will be many more Muslims killing each other once the Americans leave. If that is your goal as a way of showing Infidels, and some Muslims, what comes naturally to Islam, the best way to achieve it is for the Americans to remove themselves. They are gumming up the works.
If the Amercians leave Iraq.there will be a definate blood bath-killings between Shia muslim,Sunni muslim,and kurd muslims.Each will be at the throat of other. The great muslim UMMA-brotherhood will be hounding at each brother's throat, for his blood. Neighbouring Shiya county Iran will come to the help of Shiya Iraqis,and the rest of the Arab world will support Sunnies.Kurds will be left to fend for themselves. Sunnies ,with outside sunnies support will dominate and who knows-they may release the captured Saddam Hussain,and make him Prisident once again (Ofcourse after much blood flow and heads rolling). Anything is possible in this" Law of the jungle" society. My heart goes for the 2000 and odd (still growing ) young american boys at their prime ,who were killed by these brutes. I only hope the sacrifices of these young blood and the billions of americn dollors spent on this war,is of any use to America or to the whole world.