I disagree with your assumption that the issue takes religion into account when picking sides or media (the US has a highly constricted view to reporting news from Israel in AIPAC controlled way, have you ever heard anything critical of Israel from US news sources?), there are many Christian and Jewish activists who believe that Israelis process of peace is heavy handed. As I recall Israel is the only nation that has a nuclear weapons program that is hush hush on the International scene, and is well armed with Merkava tanks, AH-1 Cobras and M-16 wielding soldiers, that force has always been there and is not a response to the threat recently. Not that this is a justification for Palestinian tactics, but what other response would you expect after 60 years? Them throwing rocks still?

I believe that the Israeli people want a peaceful resolution to this conflict, but that is at odds with the decision reached in high government of Israel to deny the Palestinian people the right to their own land.

For all the peace rhetoric of the last 60 years, all you have see is a slow dismemberment of the Palestinian territory into ever smaller enclaves. As Henry Siegman writes:

"The Middle East peace process may well be the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history. Since the failed Camp David summit of 2000, and actually well before it, Israel’s interest in a peace process – other than for the purpose of obtaining Palestinian and international acceptance of the status quo – has been a fiction that has served primarily to provide cover for its systematic confiscation of Palestinian land and an occupation whose goal, according to the former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon, is ‘to sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people’.

But I digress from the main video, I just find it so supremely ironic as well for UN Watch to attack the human rights records of Iran when you have Bush come up on the podium and talk about human rights when we have Guantanamo bay. Robert Parry from ConsortiumNews:

George W. Bush – who asserts his unlimited personal authority to kill, kidnap, torture and spy on anyone of his choosing anywhere in the world – opened his annual speech to the United Nations by hailing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The U.S. President pushed the envelope of the world’s credulity even further by citing the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of 1948 as justification for his “war on terror” and his draconian policies for eliminating “terrorists” or other threats to world order with little or no due process.

I mean srsly?

It's become part of Bush's surge propaganda to equate sectarian insurgent groups in Iraq with Al-Qaeda, especially given OBL's comments in his new video.

"A numerically small but politically significant component of the insurgency is non-Iraqi, mostly in a faction called Al Qaeda-Iraq (AQ-I). Increasingly in 2007, U.S. commanders have seemed to equate AQ-I with the insurgency, even though most of the daily attacks are carried out by Iraqi Sunni insurgents. AQ-I was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a June 7, 2006, U.S. airstrike.

AQ-I has been a U.S. focus from very early on in the war because, according to U.S. commanders in April 2007, it is responsible for about 90% of the suicide bombings against both combatant and civilian targets. AQ-I is discussed in detail in CRS Report RL32217, Iraq and Al Qaeda, by Kenneth Katzman.

In large parts of Anbar Province and now increasingly in parts of other Sunni
provinces, Sunni tribes are trying to limit Al Qaeda’s influence, which they believe is detrimental to their own interests, by cooperating with U.S. counter-insurgency efforts. In other cases, there have been clashes between AQ-I and Iraqi insurgent groups, such as in June 2007 in the Amiriyah neighborhood of Baghdad, apparently representing differences over targets and AQ-I’s reported abuses of Iraqis who do not fully cooperate with AQ-I.

U.S. commanders say they are trying to enlarge this wedge between Sunni insurgents and AQ-I by selectively cooperating with Sunni insurgents - a strategy that is controversial because of the potential of the Sunni Iraqis to later resume fighting U.S. forces and Iraqi Shiites. The strategy is reported to have led to increased tensions between Maliki and the lead U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus."

- CRS Report for Congress : Iraq Post-Saddam Security and Governance.

This of course is perfect for both Bush and OBL.

After years of talking about sectarian violence, Bush can now fear monger that leaving Iraq would create a terrorist state formed of the AlQ's Caliphate, giving him more blank checks to continue the surge and the war. Think January 2009.

While OBL can garner more support from radicals since America's president is giving him such constant praises about military operations in Iraq. Sending political bombshells via videotape in safety somewhere in the area between Pakistan and Afghanistan slowly rebuilding his organization, preparing for more attacks avoiding the attention of the US military and special forces because they are all in Iraq. He even had time to color his beard.

So both are playing into each others objectives at the expense of American and Iraqi lives.

Robert Parry covers this eloquently in Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis Reborn.

Over the last few years there were reports that showed the US military dropping recruitment requirements and offering waivers in exchange for military service.

Reports of the Army unable to supply sufficiently armored vehicles and other equipment against IED threats, pre and post surge. Soldiers are now familiarizing combat driving techniques using simulators because there is a shortage of M-1114s.

America does possess formidable military forces, but we are talking about soldiers on the ground currently not total combined forces; which would take into account navy and air.

Extended tours (from 12 to 15 months), with multiple returns are common, fatigue is taking it's toll. A secondary surge has already taken place to bolster troop numbers, by sending more combat brigades and extending tours for troops already in Iraq.

Troop levels would thus increase to around 200,000 by the end of this year, a record since the start of OIF. These numbers of course do not include the large number of private military contractors in Iraq, also surging in numbers, paid for by US taxpayers under contract from the DOD. Meanwhile the Army is shedding officers at an alarming rate, 44% left, the highest loss rate in 3 decades.

With regards to the Al Anbar success stories, one must remember that is only occurring because previous Sunni insurgents have turned against Al Qaeda, making US forces the most convenient allies in driving out foreign radical Islamic terrorists. The relationship is tenacious, it also means the US forces now have to bolster previous Sunni insurgents and make them components of the Iraqi government, which is filled with Shia militias who do not want minority Sunni influence.

"To bolster that case, Bush made his own surprise visit to a U.S. military base in Anbar province on Sept. 3 to tout growing cooperation between Sunni tribal leaders and American forces.

But the sheiks didn't seek out U.S. help because an additional 30,000 U.S. troops had been shipped to Iraq. Rather, the sheiks had found themselves caught between al-Qaeda extremists on one side and Shiite-dominated government forces on the other.

The Americans became the enemy and erstwhile friend, respectively, of my enemies – and thus an ally of convenience for the Sunni sheiks.

Indeed, the Anbar situation could be viewed as evidence that the political and ethnic divisions of Iraq continue to deepen – with Sunni traditionalists growing only more desperate. But these shifting sands of allegiances have become the foundation upon which Bush is building his case for open-ended U.S. military involvement in Iraq."

- How VIPs get 'Brainwashed' on Iraq by Robert Parry.

The important thing to consider is; will such success be replicated in other provinces? Will the forces join into the Shia dominated government which opposes Sunni influence? Thus how long will this commitment last. All questions to which officers within the armed forces cannot answer, because the situation is that fragile.

After posing gamely with the troops at the Al-Asad base, Bush celebrated the return of Sunni areas to the control of U.S.-armed militias-composed largely of former insurgents who have at least temporarily decided that their Shiite rivals, currently in control of the central government, are a more pressing enemy than the American occupiers. Speaking of one such group of Sunnis trained by the Americans and dubbed the “Volunteers” by their instructors, a U.S. soldier told The Washington Post, “I think there is some risk of them being Volunteers by day and terrorists by night.”

The National Intelligence Estimate reported that Iraqi goverment is precarious, violence remains high, a decrease in Baghdad violence due to sectarian cleansing. The Government Accountability Report, a congressionally mandated report, showed that the Iraqi goverment met 3, partially 4, and did not meet 11 of its 18 benchmarks. The NIE was tweaked favorably by Gen. David Petraeus, the GAO was attacked by the White House as being 'inadmissible', 'harsh' and 'locked into failure'.

With regards to your comments about losing Iraq on principle, it was never a war for us to win in any sense, it was a systematic fear mongering campaign driven by PowerPoint presentations with aerial photographs about WMDs that got us into Iraq.

After 4 years of being constantly lied to about hostilities ending, turning the corner, mission accomplished, and witnessing the daily ineptness of the way the current administration has and is handling the war we are again on the brink of giving this administration another pass on the war up to 2009 since the current surge will remain up to and until April 2008. To have President Bush then compare the Iraq war to Vietnam; As Andrew Sullivan put it:

His speech yesterday actually managed to shock. You might think that, in wartime, a president would acknowledge what no one denies is a terribly grim decision in front of us - whether to pursue a clearly unwinnable war in order to govern a clearly ungovernable country - or withdraw and redeploy in ways that will doubtless lead to even more bloodshed. But no. There is no gray here; no awful decision for the least worst option; not acknowledgment of his own moral culpability for such a disaster. There is instead an accusation that those who reach a different judgment about the course of the war are, in fact, enemies of the troops:

Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq? Here's my answer is clear: We'll support our troops, we'll support our commanders, and we will give them everything they need to succeed.

To place all the troops into the position of favoring one strategy ahead of us rather than another, and to accuse political opponents of trying to "pull the rug out from under them," is a, yes, fascistic tactic designed to corral political debate into only one possible patriotic course. It's beneath a president to adopt this role, beneath him to coopt the armed services for partisan purposes. It should be possible for a president to make an impassioned case for continuing his own policy in Iraq, without accusing his critics of wanting to attack and betray the troops. But that would require class and confidence. The president has neither.

For more I would refer you to an excellent post - Thirteen Ways not to think about the Iraq war.

Here's some info about Bruce Parry. He's a pretty amazing guy. Last year (I think it was) he recreated Scott's expedition to the South Pole, racing against a Norwegian team, just like the Scott and Amundsen race. They used all the equivalent gear and methods (dogs etc.). Of course the Norwegians kicked their frozen asses, but it was a fascinating series on the Beeb.

in WWII Japeneese Officers carried these Katanas and made a charge only known as "Banzai" at the enemy. thats how a young man manning a 30 cal.(unfortualatly was killed) killed over 300 Japeneese in a single nite.(in fact he killed a two thirds of those enemys after he was killed by a grenade. aparantly his finger was "frozen" on the trigger) i diddnt give u the entire documentary(too long)and cant think where to find the video. it was absolutly amazing. the blade is made and crafted to its highest extent in metals and crafting. i wonder if its possible to "parry" the bullets by "re-directing them". oh well.

i dont think you guys realize how TOUGH it is to pull that off at the end, Ken had no health left and even blocking takes some health, he parried every single attack from that rapid fire special... serious skills guys.