Three Generals Spurn the Position of War ‘Czar’
April 12th, 2007Via: Washington Post:
The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.
At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration’s difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.
Research Credit: SA
Kurt Vonnegut Dies at 84
April 12th, 2007Via: Seattle Post:
Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “Cat’s Cradle,” died Wednesday. He was 84.
Pentagon Plans Troop Extension for Iraq
April 11th, 2007Via: AP / San Francisco Chronicle:
The Pentagon will lengthen tours of duty for all active-duty Army units in Iraq to 15 months from the current 12 months as the military struggles to supply enough troops for the conflict, two defense officials said Wednesday.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates planned to announce the decision Wednesday afternoon, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
It is the latest move by the Pentagon to cope with the strains of fighting two wars simultaneously and maintaining a higher troop level in Iraq as part of President Bush’s revised strategy for stabilizing Baghdad.
U.S. Dollar in Strong Decline
April 10th, 2007Via: Reuters:
The dollar fell towards last week’s two-year low against the euro on Tuesday, reversing gains sparked by a robust U.S. jobs report, while the yen hit a record trough versus the euro as carry trades flourished.
As European traders returned from the long Easter weekend, they pushed the dollar down across the board, reacting to rising U.S.-China trade tensions and on caution ahead of this weekend’s meeting of Group of Seven finance chiefs.
The U.S. currency also weakened against high-yielding currencies, hitting a 16-year low versus the Australian dollar and two-year troughs against the New Zealand dollar.
Bids Drying Up for Alt-A Paper
April 10th, 2007Via: Business Week:
At least five Wall Street analysts downgraded shares of American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. after the home lender said its mortgage loans are fetching lower prices from investors.
While it has been well publicized that investors are shying away from “subprime” mortgage debt — or home loans to people with bad credit — some people hoped the weakness would stay contained in the subprime market.
On Friday, the Melville, N.Y.-based mortgage lender said it tried in March to sell a pool of Alt-A home loans, which carry better credit than subprime loans and worse credit than prime. Far fewer bidders offered materially lower prices for the loans, the company said.
Because of a cooling market for mortgage debt and a spike in payment defaults among Alt-A borrowers, American Home Mortgage Investment said it now expects profit of $3.75 to $4.25 per share this year. The company, which operates as a real estate investment trust, previously predicted $5.40 to $5.70 per share in 2007 profit.
Analysts from Citigroup, Friedman Billings Ramsey, Lehman Brothers, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods and Bear Stearns cut their investment ratings on American Home Mortgage Investment’s stock before Monday’s trading began.
Advice on Being an Expat in Belize
April 10th, 2007There’s some great general information about Belize here, but I found the parts about how he’s helping to improve the situation in the village to be most interesting.
Via: Joe Bagent:
Well, Tom, I hate like hell to give advice about settling in Belize. After all, though I’ve been there several times and now have settled there, I am a newcomer and like all writers, I am prone to run my mouth because because we like to hear ourselves talk. Lately though, I’ve come to know a lot of expats in my area, which is the poorer Garifuna villages along the coast.
Belize has many different cultures and types of terrain, ranging from mountain jungle, savannah, beach etc. Most Americans are set on buying and owning property because of their cultural economic indoctrination. But land can also be leased for very long periods of time there.
I should say in all honesty that, though it appears cheap to an American at first, Belize is the most expensive country in all of Central America. This becomes quite apparent after a while as you try to stretch your money and function economically for the long haul, especially for Americans who attempt to recreate the American lifestyle there. Plenty do it but that sort of life costs the same as in America.
The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace
April 10th, 2007In case anyone is still keeping track…
Via: Yahoo / AP:
In a rueful reflection on what might have been, an Iraqi government insider details in 500 pages the U.S. occupation’s “shocking” mismanagement of his country — a performance so bad, he writes, that by 2007 Iraqis had “turned their backs on their would-be liberators.”
“The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order,” Ali A. Allawi concludes in “The Occupation of Iraq,” newly published by Yale University Press.
Allawi writes with authority as a member of that “new order,” having served as Iraq’s trade, defense and finance minister at various times since 2003. As a former academic, at Oxford University before the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq, he also writes with unusual detachment.
The U.S.- and British-educated engineer and financier is the first senior Iraqi official to look back at book length on his country’s four-year ordeal. It’s an unsparing look at failures both American and Iraqi, an account in which the word “ignorance” crops up repeatedly.
First came the “monumental ignorance” of those in Washington pushing for war in 2002 without “the faintest idea” of Iraq’s realities. “More perceptive people knew instinctively that the invasion of Iraq would open up the great fissures in Iraqi society,” he writes.
What followed was the “rank amateurism and swaggering arrogance” of the occupation, under L. Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which took big steps with little consultation with Iraqis, steps Allawi and many others see as blunders…
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And Now: The “Clean Skin” Terrorists from Europe
April 9th, 2007Sure.
Via: New York Sun:
The American government fears that the next September 11-style attack on the U.S. could be launched by Muslims from Britain or Europe who feel like “second-class citizens” and are alienated by a “colonial legacy,” according to the U.S. Homeland Security chief.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Michael Chertoff, who arrives in Britain on Thursday for talks with John Reid, the Home Secretary, said the American government was determined to build extra defenses against so-called “clean-skin” terrorists from Europe.
“We need to build layers of protection, and I don’t think we totally want to rely upon the fact that a foreign government is going to know that one of their citizens is suspicious and is going to be coming here,” he said.
Mr. Chertoff insisted that America required additional information, including e-mail addresses and credit card details, to vet European passengers and rejected “the idea that we’re going to bargain with the European Union over who’s going to come into the United States” under the visa waiver scheme.
“We have an absolute right to get this, in the same way that if someone wants to be a guest in my house, I have a right to ask them who they are and get identification.”
