Posts Tagged ‘Many’
Many U.S. veterans say Iraq, Afghan wars not worth it (Reuters)
Last Updated on Wednesday, 5 October 2011 04:43 Written by admin Wednesday, 5 October 2011 04:43
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A 3rd of U.S. military veterans who have served in the armed forces given that the September eleven, 2001, attacks believe the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been not well worth combating, a poll produced on Wednesday showed.
The poll by the nonpartisan Pew Analysis Center discovered that these veterans held relatively more optimistic views of these two wars that the basic manifeste in the United States but even now harbored deep misgivings about the conflicts.
Thirty-a few % of the publish-nine/eleven veterans who took portion in the poll mentioned neither of these two wars was worthwhile considering the costs vs the benefits to the United States. That in comparison to forty five % of nonmilitary poll respondents who explained neither war was beneficial.
U.S. forces had been sent into Afghanistan in the weeks right after the 2001 attacks on the United States to topple that country’s Taliban leaders who had harbored the al Qaeda leaders liable for nine/11.
The United States led an invasion of Iraq in 2003, toppled Saddam Hussein’s federal government, but then confronted a protracted insurgency. The primary justification for the war provided by the United States just before the invasion was the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. No this sort of weapons had been located.
A lot more than 4,400 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq and nearly one,700 killed in Afghanistan, Pentagon figures present.
Looking at each war individually, 50 percent of the post-9/11 veterans explained the war in Afghanistan has been worth battling and 44 percent explained the exact same factor about the Iraq war, in accordance to the Pew Investigation Center.
In comparison, 41 % of the U.S. public discovered the Afghanistan war really worth the costs and 36 % thought the Iraq war was beneficial.
Amid the post-nine/11 veterans, 34 percent held the watch that each of the wars ended up worthwhile, compared to 28 % of the standard public, in accordance to the Pew Research Middle.
The poll discovered that 96 percent of these veterans expressed satisfaction in their military support. But 44 % documented troubles in readjusting to civilian lifestyle and 37 percent documented struggling from post-traumatic pressure connected to their provider.
The findings were based mostly on two nationwide surveys carried out in between July 28 and September 15, one involving military veterans and the other involving the general manifeste, Pew Investigation Middle mentioned. It stated one,853 veterans were surveyed, like 712 who served in the army soon after the 2001 attacks. The general manifeste survey concerned two,003 U.S. adults.
(Reporting by Will Dunham)
George Bush ‘Decision Points’ – how many books will he sell? – Christian Science Monitor
Last Updated on Tuesday, 9 November 2010 10:04 Written by admin Tuesday, 9 November 2010 10:04
Publishers of President Bush’s ‘Decision Points’ have printed up 1.5 million copies. President Bill Clinton’s ‘My Life’ sold 606,000 in its first week, and has totaled 2.2 million since.
“Decision Points,” George Bush’s presidential memoir, hit stores Tuesday. The hoopla has been huge – an NBC special, with Mr. Bush interviewed by Matt Lauer; reviews in all major media outlets; and a book tour that kicked off with hundreds waiting in line at a Dallas Borders minutes from Bush’s home.
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That’s publicity that most authors can only dream about. (And they do dream about it – that’s why they’re authors.) So how many books will former President Bush sell?
Time will tell. But we can guess by the number of books publisher Crown has produced with the first printing, which is 1.5 million. By the standards of current big political books that is fairly modest. Bush should sell at least that many.
After all, “True Compass,” the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s memoir, sold just short of 900,000 copies in the last three months of 2009 alone, according to Nielsen BookScan figures. Bill Clinton’s post-presidential work “My Life” has sold some 2.2 million copies since its 2004 publication. Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue,” which was the number-one non-fiction title of 2009, sold about 2.7 million copies last year. Can Bush match the nation’s chief Mama Grizzly? We’ll see.
“Decision Points” is already atop Amazon’s bestseller list. Number two is “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth,” by Jeff Kinney. If you think we’re going to mine that for cheap humor, you’re wrong – anyone with pre-teen children knows that Mr. Kinney is a hugely successful author. Kinney is ahead of Glenn Beck, whose “Broke” is third on the list, so he’s doing something right.
As far as the Bush book, first week sales might be an indication if it is really flying off the shelves. When Clinton’s book was released in 2004, it sold 606,000 copies in seven days, the most ever for a US political book in that amount of time. Palin’s “Going Rogue”, in contrast, had first week sales of 469,000.
And how did Joe Biden’s “Promises to Keep,” his 2007 pre-presidential campaign book, rank? One week sales of … 5,000. Good thing he landed that vice-presidential gig.
Ex-president Bush’s book advance reportedly was in the area of $ 7 million. Bill Clinton, in contrast, got $ 15 million for his book, according to tax returns made public when Hillary Clinton ran for president.
But if the Matt Lauer interview boosts sales into the stratosphere, Bush could still stand to make a lot of money. Let’s look at Sarah Palin as an example.
Authors typically get about fifteen percent of a book’s list price as a royalty, according to author agents. “Going Rogue” hardcover sold for $ 28.99, before discounts. If you do the math, that means she made about $ 11 million on last year’s hardback sales alone, not to mention this year’s sales, including e-book and paperback rights and the advance for her next book, and speaking fees. No wonder she resigned the Alaska governorship.
By the way, the Monitor will be running its full review of “Decision Points” later this week. Until then, you can read about some of its highlights.
Defeated Democrats outspent GOP in many campaigns – Washington Post
Last Updated on Wednesday, 3 November 2010 11:06 Written by admin Wednesday, 3 November 2010 11:06
The vast group of House Democrats defeated Tuesday lacked many things, but money wasn’t one of them.
In two-thirds of the House seats that Republicans picked up Tuesday, Democratic candidates had more money behind them, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission.
Overall, Democratic candidates in the 63 races that flipped to the GOP had $ 206.4 million behind them, a tally that includes candidate fundraising and spending by parties and interests. That compares with only $ 171.7 million for their GOP rivals.
The pattern appears to contradict widespread complaints from Democrats that they were being unfairly overrun by wealthy Republicans, many of whom donated money to conservative groups to spend on political races – unencumbered by the limits and public-disclosure requirements that constrain most political fundraising. The data show that even in many races in which Republicans had more outside help, they still had fewer resources than their Democratic opponents.
“It sends a clear message that most Democrats couldn’t buy their way out of bad spending and health-care votes,” said Ron Bonjean, a GOP consultant and former top House and Senate aide. “It shows just how desperate the White House was in the final months of the campaign to make unsubstantiated claims that could easily backfire without the real facts.”
In the run-up to the election, President Obama and other Democratic Party leaders decried the influx of outside money for Republicans, alleging that some of it may have come from overseas sources.
“The record amount of secret money spent by right-wing outside groups turned this political storm into a Category 3 political hurricane,” said Ryan Rudominer, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Democrats say that reliance on spending by interest groups calls into question the independence of lawmakers, especially when the sources of funding are hidden from the public.
Outside interests played a bigger role in Senate races, and their aid helped the Republicans, the data show.
Some Republicans were able to win despite being badly outspent in Democratic-leaning districts. Outside Philadelphia, Rep. Patrick J. Murphy (D), the Democratic Party and groups backing them had about three times as much as conservatives and the campaign of former congressman Mike Fitzpatrick.
Murphy’s campaign used its financial advantage to run ads tarring Fitzpatrick, but the Republican triumphed regardless, bringing in 54 percent of the vote. Obama won the district with 54 percent in 2008.
Fitzpatrick, a lawyer, served one term in Congress before losing to Murphy in the Democratic wave of 2006. Murphy was the first veteran of the Iraq war elected to Congress when he narrowly took the Bucks County district.
Tags: campaigns, Defeated, Democrats, Many, outspent, Post, Washington | Posted under U.S. News | No Comments
WikiLeaks revelations come as little surprise to many Iraqis – MiamiHerald.com
Last Updated on Saturday, 23 October 2010 03:30 Written by admin Saturday, 23 October 2010 03:30
BAGHDAD —
The trove of leaked secret U.S. military documents filtered its way through top levels in Iraq on Saturday, with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki saying they could be used as evidence in court cases and the U.S. denying that it turned a blind eye to torture.
For ordinary Iraqis, it didn’t appear to have sunk in that the 400,000 documents, released Friday by the WikiLeaks website, contained details of the violent deaths of thousands of people that could finally provide answers and even evidence for some of the tragedies of the war.
The documents include indications of widespread Iraqi abuse of prisoners seemingly unaddressed by U.S. forces, a much higher Iraqi death toll than had been admitted, including among Iraqis killed at U.S. checkpoints, and fears of Iranian influence.
The U.S. military said it won’t comment on the specifics of the documents, which it maintains remain secret despite now being in the public domain.
The deputy commander of U.S. forces in Iraq denied the implication in many of the documents that U.S. forces witnessing abuse or torture of detainees by their Iraqi captors had turned a blind eye.
“It is not a gray area,” Lt. General Robert Cone told the Christian Science Monitor in an interview Saturday. “We have an obligation when we see something like this that it is reported, and it is dealt with with our Iraqi counterparts.”
He said he hadn’t seen the documents.
Cone, who’s in charge of ground forces in Iraq, said the U.S. military closely tracks Iraqi civilian deaths. Previous military commands have said they don’t keep figures of Iraqi casualties, in what has been widely interpreted as an attempt to downplay the number of Iraqis killed during the war that was to liberate them.
“It’s a tragedy the loss of life in any war … I can tell you we track civilian casualties today in this headquarters, and we work very closely with our Iraqi headquarters to make sure they are tracking civilian casualties,” Cone said.
A British-based anti-war group, Iraq Body Count, said Saturday that it’s raising its estimate of Iraqi civilians killed during the war to 122,000 from about 107,000 as a result of the leaked information.
The files, mostly comprising “significant activities” recorded daily by the military for any significant development, are the raw, ground-level data often later revised. They provide, though, a picture of Iraq through the eyes of the U.S. military on the ground through the darkest days of the war.
The documents span almost the entire length of the war, including the past four years under al-Maliki, when sectarian violence almost ripped the country apart.
In a statement Saturday, al-Maliki’s office said the timing of the leaks was questionable, implying that it was motivated by his political enemies. The Shiite prime minister has struggled for the past seven months to keep his job, demanding a recount of votes that left him two seats behind his nearest rival and now trying to patch together a coalition government.
The statement said the documentation of killings by private U.S. security contractors such as Blackwater, accused of a shooting spree that killed 17 civilians in 2007 in an incident that became a symbol of American brutality, could be used in court cases against the company, now called Xe Services.
“We stress once again the necessity of taking these documents into consideration to achieve justice for our citizens who might have been the victims of their unbridled aggression,” it read.
Al-Maliki’s office said it would examine politically explosive allegations of torture and killings by Iraqi security forces as accusations “that must be looked into cautiously and investigated.”
Al-Maliki’s main rival, the Iraqiya coalition, said the reports reinforced the need to curb his powers. His own Shiite partners have called for changes that would restrict his power to act unilaterally – a main complaint of his former allies.
The documents, which were released too late to be in Saturday newspapers in Iraq, attracted less attention than expected among ordinary Iraqis, with many of them saying they’re unsurprised by any accounts of abuse by either Americans or Iraqis.
(Jane Arraf is a Christian Science Monitor correspondent. McClatchy special correspondent Mohammad al Dulaimy contributed to this report.)
Tags: Come, Iraqis, little, Many, MiamiHerald.com, revelations, surprise, WikiLeaks | Posted under World | No Comments