Posted by Crash9: What you two seem to be into is winning your point instead of expanding your understanding. Bot adds all kinds of meaningful observations to these discussions, and frequently puts a spin on things that I hadn’t considered. So when he or anyone gets feed up with the character that these threads take and doesn’t participate, you both lose – so do I, and I don’t appreciate it.

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It's an open forum. He's free to participate--or not.

Joe B.

Gresham's Law wins again.

The fact the Bot is tired of posting comments here has nothing at all to do with "winning vs losing" an argument, but people that specialize in self-dillusion won't get it so feel free to celebrate your "victory".

I've been following the discussons on the topic or Iraq/terrorism for the last few months - when I began reading I was kind of on the fence regarding the whole situation and the future of Bush 43.

I was NOT planning on voting in the 2004 election - after seeing the argument made by both sides of this issue I've come down pretty firmly on one side and I will be in the voting booth in November.

Thanks to all.

Me too. W for EX-President in 2004.

__________________
'83 240D with 617.952 and 2.88
'01 VW Beetle TDI
'05 Jeep Liberty CRD
'89 Toyota 4x4, needs 2L-T
'78 280Z with L28ET - 12.86@110
Oil Burner Kartel #35

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1...oD/bioclip.jpg

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday: "Anybody else for President". That sums it up for me.

quote:
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Originally posted by KirkVining
Custer, a pistol in each hand, goes down, riddled with barbs.
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quote narwhal:
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Where is the panty waist who keeps accusing me of throwing pitches into the dirt and crashing threads when this type of comment arises?
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I actually thought it was pretty good satire.

"Barbs" - Get it? barbs? Custer, foisted upon a barbed wit as it were.

No grounder or crash dummy there!

Well, you have to actually have a sense of humor to start with.

This article that appeared in one of the trade spams I get made me sick. Our "nation building" in Iraq is a sickening pork-barrel black hole. Why we feel it necessary to build this country, which hasn't even proven it can stand on its own yet, a state-of-the-art TCP/IP infrastucture, is beyond me. Did anybody actually get to vote on this ****?

As the transfer of power in Iraq nears, the U.S.-led authority prepares to turn over tools to manage the assets being rebuilt
By Paul McDougall

In addition to democracy, the United States is bringing business technology to Iraq. As the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority prepares to hand power next week to a newly constituted Iraqi government, technologists within the authority are huddling with Iraqi officials to complete information systems to ensure the country can operate and maintain the power plants, refineries, hospitals, and thousands of other infrastructure elements under construction.

It won't do any good to build facilities if they can't be managed, says Dennis Plockmeyer.

At the heart of the plan is an effort to introduce an asset-management system to public officials who, in many cases, have never used anything more than pencil and paper to manage vital national assets. "It doesn't do any good if you build all of these facilities and then walk off without giving the recipients the tools and the wherewithal to manage them," says Dennis Plockmeyer, director of IT for the Coalition Provisional Authority's Program Management Office, which oversees logistics for all coalition initiatives.

Plockmeyer, a 53-year-old military veteran who served as CIO for the Navy's Facilities Engineering Command, has been in Iraq since September and will spend most of this year sharing a two bedroom, 12-by-60-foot trailer in Baghdad's Green Zone, a fortified section of the city from which the coalition is managing its major reconstruction efforts. He was in Alexandria, Va., last week and is scheduled to return to Iraq Saturday, flying on a commercial airliner to Kuwait City before boarding a military C-130 transport plane for the journey from Kuwait to Baghdad. "It's the five minutes before you land that you're most worried about," he says, referring to the sporadic sniper fire drawn by coalition aircraft.

Plockmeyer's team could have built an IT system to run just the coalition's reconstruction effort. That would have been cheaper and easier, since it would function entirely in English and run on off-the-shelf software. Instead, they opted for the complexity of writing additional code that lets the system run in parallel in Arabic and Kurdish. Plockmeyer needs to ensure that the investment in technology and processes to manage the reconstruction has ongoing value that can be transferred to the Iraqis. It's a central part of a vision held by Ret. Rear Adm. David Nash, the Program Management Office director and Plockmeyer's longtime friend from his years in Naval service. "He's focused on what happens the day after the contractors leave," Plockmeyer says. "If the lights go out and the water turns dirty, we're right back where we started from."

To ensure that doesn't happen, staffers in the Program Management Office have begun training Iraqi officials in how to deploy and use the asset-management system that the office employs to track ongoing reconstruction efforts by contractors such as Halliburton Co. and Lucent Technologies. In the months following the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqi government, Plockmeyer hopes to have about 150 Iraqi technologists working side by side with Program Management Office staffers.

con'td

The technology behind the asset-management system would look familiar to many U.S. IT managers, built around Oracle's database, project software, and 11i business applications. That system is connected through IBM WebSphere middleware to other engineering, construction, and asset-management applications, such as MRO Software Inc.'s Maximo program, and project-management software from Primavera Systems Inc. It's housed on servers located in the Program Management Office in Baghdad and is mirrored at a site in Virginia to permit remote management and updates.

Connecting the various components that comprise the system was relatively easy, Plockmeyer says. The tough part was adding additional code that allows it to accommodate inputs and generate information in three languages. "I've never seen anything like it in all my years of computing," says Mike Gray, CIO at Total Resource Management, which the coalition tapped to build and implement the system under a contract with an initial value of $1.9 million. "It's totally unique," says Gray, a computer-science Ph.D. and 25-year industry veteran.

Four Total Resource Management staffers have been in Baghdad since shortly after the contract was awarded in January, and they have been working with local Iraqi translators to create the system's trilingual capabilities. Ray Brisbane, CEO of Total Resource Management, says software with such sophisticated capabilities ordinarily could take years to deploy. "Yet, we've had to deliver it in months. There's a lot on the line to make something that is rock solid in a very short time frame," he says. Mike McCormick, Total Resource Management's project manager for the system, adds that his staff is working 90 to 100 hours per week to enhance it. "It's in the interest of the Iraqi people for all these things to move forward quickly so that conditions are restored to what they were before the war and beyond that," says McCormick, who spent 28 years as a Marine.

Total Resource Management's work is a small-but-central piece of the effort throughout the country to rebuild--and, in some cases, create for the first time--a solid IT infrastructure. For example, Lucent Technologies has a two-year contract worth as much as $75 million to design and build communications and IT infrastructure in 12 areas in Iraq, including Wi-Fi networks, public-safety information networks, TV and radio systems, and IT for the postal system. BearingPoint Inc. has a $9 million contract to help design government policies and institutions, including financial systems.

Total Resource Management's system automatically tells Program Management Office staffers when a new contract has been approved and what work needs to be scheduled. Plockmeyer hopes that within 30 to 60 days, some contractors in the field will have the ability to input live data and progress reports into the system using PCs that communicate with the main server via satellite Internet links. Later, the system should let users track the status of all construction projects within the country. A coalition or Iraqi engineer working on, say, an oil refinery in the southern port city of Basra could use a PC to input progress updates. Modules could be added that would monitor the health of oil pipelines and alert authorities to a drop in pressure caused by mechanical failure or sabotage, Plockmeyer says.
The coalition's asset-management system also will be able to capture data from remote diagnostic and management technologies being built into some of the newer Iraqi buildings. Plockmeyer says some of the construction blueprints he's seen call for utility plants to incorporate advanced SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) technologies--a first in Iraq.

Coalition officials want to introduce the asset-management system to Iraqi administrators in small doses. At present, Plockmeyer and staff are discussing ways to apply the technology to the electricity sector around Baghdad. Under a proposed plan, the system would be deployed at one or two facilities within easy reach of the Green Zone, and Program Management Office staffers would train Iraqi nationals to use it. "If we can see success on a small scale, then I think we can see it on a big scale," Plockmeyer says.

After months of work there, Plockmeyer believes the progress the coalition has made in Iraq has been largely obscured by news that focuses mostly on the day-to-day violence. The list of projects completed or initiated under the coalition's watch--and managed through the asset-management system--is lengthy. Each week, about $75 million in new construction work begins, on projects ranging from water-treatment and waste-management systems to new schools.

There are many technology-literate Iraqis anxious to apply their skills to the rebuilding effort, Plockmeyer says. While few have worked with advanced applications such as Maximo, many have basic technology skills and are familiar with Oracle and other common IT environments.

"I'm getting a steady flow of resumés from young Iraqi men and women who want to participate. They understand their skills may not be the most current, but they're ready to learn," Plockmeyer says. If all goes as planned, Total Resource Management would likely implement the asset-management system at various Iraqi ministries, extending its work in the country at least through this year. "Working shoulder to shoulder on the same system gives you the basis for a successful turnover," Plockmeyer says.

Ever present in a war zone like Iraq is the threat of attacks, on coalition personnel and any Iraqis working with them. From his living quarters, Plockmeyer can hear and feel the mortar shells that Iraqi insurgents occasionally fire into the Green Zone. It's a reminder that while he's in a relatively safe haven, the streets and countryside beyond coalition headquarters are rife with violence. Dozens of civilian contractors have been killed or taken hostage in the months since the initial U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The violence hasn't delayed the implementation of the core asset-management system, Plockmeyer says. However, Internet access needs to be widely available if it's to be fully utilized by some of the more far-flung Iraqi ministry outposts. The violence has slowed efforts by communications contractors, including Lucent, to deploy fiber beyond Baghdad. For now, satellite links are needed to make most Internet connections.

Still, Plockmeyer believes the project ultimately will be a success. "I'm an optimist," he says. "I think this will exceed our wildest expectations."

i post last night on 'how to win a war' and i come
back today to the same old squbbles.

osama is smiling:p

don

What solution?

Hmmm?

Unless you are talking Mecca and then WTF, more violence? not really a solution at all!

__________________
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RedMeat cartoon

To me, the solution requires us to take a good look at our energy policy. I heard something interesting on Lou Dobbs the other night, that if the oil companies simply quit looking for more oil, it would free up so many billions that could be used for a switch-over to other energy sources we would probably be free of Middle East oil in five years, with or without government involvement or extra taxes. As long as we need oil from their homelands and as long as we involve ourselves with the politcal situation there, we will be vulnerable to terrorist attack. We have essentially been caught up in a civil and religous war going on in the Muslim world. Muslim nations with kings, princes, etc that we prop up so we can exploit their oil supplies, are on the wrong side of history. At the same time, our current twisted desire for empire coupled with our own cultural bigotry says our form of democracy is the only form that can be right for these people. THat same cultural bigotry compells usto impose laizz fair capitalistic systems on them that they may not be ready for, just as we did to South Vietnam. In doing all of this, we seem to ignore the fact that the only faction with wide spread support and majority status in the Islamic countries want an Islamic Republic and a semi-socialist economic system as described in the Koran. Saudi Arabia for one, if free from its despotic kings, would vote one in tomorrow, with Osama as its premier. If we walked out of Iraq today, the Shiites would declare an Islamic Republic tomorrow. Same with all the petty fascist oil states like Kuwait and The Emirates, Yeman, Oman, you name one. If the dictator of Pakistan was killed in a coup today, Pakistan, with nuclear weapons and submarines instead of airplanes as potential suicide vessels, would be an Islamic Republic tomorrow. Absent the oil, we could simply walk out and let them slaughter each other until the civil war between the secular Baath Movement and the Islamic Wahhab movement is settled.

The alternative is not good. Since it doesn't require sqwat to run a terrorist movement, for example a few flying lessons and some airplane tickets is enough to send the most powerful nation on earth into mass hysteria for years, there will never be any such thing as "defeating" them, and as long as we defile the land of Mohammend with our unclean infidel (which means "not of the faithful" by the way) presence, they will continue to cause us trouble in proportion to the type of weapons they can get ahold of or the diabolic schemes they can continue to think of. We should be concentrating on the clear and present danger in front us currently in Pakistan, and get those bastards before they get us, instead of wasting lives, time and effort on the Disinformation War in Iraq. Every possible effort used in full-fledged war must be expended to disarm the Pakistanis and destroy al-Quedas base in Pakistan should be made, including drafts and tax increases to support all out war in Pakistan, if necessary. The Chinese and Russians, bith alarmed over the situation there destabilizing there own muslim poulations, would ally themselves with us to do what needs to be done here

Pakistan currently does not have the capability to deliver nukes to the US. We need to issue them an ultimatum to turn them over to us while we guarantee their security in the face of India, and if they don't agree we should destroy their nuclear arsenals and al_queda bases with whatever means we have necessary even if it means using our own nuclear weapons. Leaving the possiblity open, which is the current state of things, that al-Queda could acquire a Pakistani nuke may be the greatest thing we will ever come to regret in this country. All the false arguments in Iraq, are true in Pakistan -weapons of mass destruction, a despotic unstable government, al_queda connections with the Pakistani intellegence services, collusion with the Taliban. Our current policy is insanity in the face of those facts.

The stable position is easy: get the hell out. We should be neither propping up fascists or imposing governments that will ultimatly fail, resulting in the return of ever more brutal fascist regimes. These people have to go through their own process of democratization, and we should butt out. Our concept of rights is in conflict with Islam. They have to figure that out, not us.

our foreign policy talk is we want to instill democracy. our
practice is to install and maintain a dictatorship. to my knowledge
the u.s. has never brought a democracy. the talk of bringing
democracy is directed at the american population and is just
lip speak designed to get american support for our cloaked
imperialism.

the saudi royal family walks a tight rope. it is the first line of
defence against a full western takeover/invasion of saudi
lands. the family dances with the devil to keep it appeased
and this dance distresses their people. what else can they do?

to advocate any nuclear bomb use is insane. to think that we could control the outcome or have any moral standing to ourselves or the rest of the world is a sick fantacy. and the
world economy would probably collapse at the least.

the news today published a story that an 'anonymonus' high
ranking c.i.a. manager with c.i.a. approval published a book
slamming our iraq war and our longterm practices with the
islamic world. it points out islam doesnt hate us because we
ar infidels or what we have; it hates us for what we are doing
to them. (what we are doing to the arab/islamic world and their
resentment of this seems to be a very hard sell to americans)

oil is just fuel. our goverment and oil companies have made the
development of non-oil liquid fuel almost impossible. this needs
to change. it is part of the way out of the arab mess.

don