Iraq Is a Disaster (John LeBoutillier at NewsMax talks gloom and doom!)

NewsMax ^ | October 23, 2006 | John LeBoutillier

[EveningStar]

Only 25 percent of the American people — according to the latest Newsweek poll — are now "optimistic" about the direction of the war in Iraq; 65 percent are "pessimistic."

Why have so many Americans, only now, come to realize that this war has gone bad...?

[DCPatriot]

Teach their children and we'll have peace.

[jrooney]

John LeBoutillier is just another old world conservative that does not realize the world has changed dramatically since the 60's. Most of the old world conservatives have not adapted to the times and are of little use to the modern republican party. I for one, usually dismiss what most of them say.

[Miss Didi]

Avoid him like the plague...it's always the same old doom and gloom.

[Taxman]

For that matter, parts of Washington, DC are more dangerous than Baghdad.

[jrooney]

Excellent damn post. I applaud your words.

[cyborg]

Not me. Then again I'm not fighting. As long as the soldiers don't give up, I won't.

[RadioCirca1970]

Remember waaaaaaay back in 2001, LeBoutlier's "sources" were pushing the Gary Condit, Kinky, Leather-Wearing, Gay Sex Murder Cult theory as the cause of Chandra Levy's disappearance??

THEN 911 happened....

Hey John, go pound Gary.....and quitcher bitchen...humphead!

[Verginius Rufus]

Detroit was surrendered to the British in the War of 1812. Maybe it's time to give it back to Canada. The peaceloving multicultural Canadians will have everyone being nice to everyone else there in no time.

Side benefit: Michigan's electoral votes would be in play in 2008.

[tennmountainman]

Like open borders? Like out of control spending? Like Harriet Miers?

[jrooney]

Yeah, I would like to see one large urban city where the cops can walk around without a firearm and a radio. There is none. We have areas in this country as dangerous as anywhere in the world. And it is where most liberals live.

[jrooney]

Did you blame GW the last time you stubbed your toe too?

[xzins]

This is a cave-in by the American people because they've bought the line that 2800+ killed is somehow an enormous number.

By this time after Pearl Harbor we'd had HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS killed. In a matter of hours in some battles we'd had more than 2800 killed.

But the media can take one single death (e.g., Cindy Sheehan's son) and blow it up larger than life and larger than all reason.

And the ignorant buy that line.

Our leaders are afraid to stand up with a set of cajones and simply speak the truth: Muslims are murderers, we're killing the bastards, they're killing relatively few of us, the media/liberal axis are traitors, and America's democrats are weak-willed and cowardly.

Did I leave anything out?

I'll vote for the guy who stands up and says the above.

[Finatic]

I read LeBoutilier at Newsmax all the time because its lightweight reading fodder. He makes no bones about his dislike for GWB and the entire administration, about the only thing he dislikes more would be Shrillary.

This guy is a one term congressman who didnt do piddly squat on the hill and then claims re-districting cost him his seat.

LeBoutillier is French for pussy.

[DakotaRed]

It sounds like a lot of people are crumbling under the negative media blitz.

The sheeple fell for it late during Viet Nam and they are falling for it again.

MNFI's website says much different, though. I think I'll believe them.

[paratrooper82]

Murder Rate Up In The Big Easy

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 18, 2005

---

(AP) Last year, university researchers conducted an experiment in which police fired 700 blank rounds in a New Orleans neighborhood in a single afternoon. No one called to report the gunfire.

New Orleans residents are reluctant to come forward as witnesses, fearing retaliation. And experts say that is one of several reasons homicides are on the rise in the Big Easy at a time when other cities are seeing their murder rates plummet to levels not seen in decades.

The city's murder rate is still far lower than a decade ago, when New Orleans was the country's murder capital. But in recent years, the city's homicide rate has climbed again to nearly 10 times the national average.

"We're going in the reverse of 46 of the top 50 cities in the United States. Almost everyone is going down, but we're going up," said criminologist Peter Scharf. "There is something going on in New Orleans that is not going on elsewhere."

Many of the killings are related to drugs and gangs — but police say more are simply disputes that get out of hand.

Along with reluctant witnesses, experts say the city has too few police and inexperienced prosecutors. Coming up with more cash has been a chronic problem for money-pinched New Orleans, which typically lurches from budget to budget.

"As far as law enforcement goes, money is at the root of everything," said Lt. David Benelli, head of the police officers' union. "We need more personnel, more equipment. The DA's office needs more people and money. The corrections department needs more people and space to house prisoners."


Homicides hit their historic peak here in 1994, with 421 dead — more per-capita than any other U.S. city that year. Within just five years, the number was slashed by nearly two-thirds, to 159, as homicides plummeted nationally.

But by last year, the number in New Orleans had crept back up to 265. There had been 192 this year by mid-August, compared with 169 at the same time in 2004. Adjusted for the city's size, those numbers dwarf murder rates in Washington, Detroit, Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City.

For police, recruitment is a continuing problem. The department has a poor image in the community, with allegations of brutality and corruption dating back decades. The city now has 3.14 officers per 1,000 residents — less than half the rate in Washington, D.C.

Scharf, director for the Center for Society, Law and Justice, said extra police are not always the solution to crime.

"My heart goes out to these police officers," Scharf said. "They're fighting public apathy, racial division and a dysfunctional court system. They work their hearts out and nothing ever happens to these cases."

Only one in four people arrested in the city for murder is eventually convicted, according to a recent study by the New Orleans Police Foundation, a private nonprofit group.

According to the study, 42 percent of serious crime cases reviewed by prosecutors — about 22,000 — were turned away between 2002 and 2004 because the cases were not deemed suitable for court.

District Attorney Eddie Jordan said the lack of eyewitness testimony was one reason for the dropped cases. New Orleans has had such a problem with retaliation against witnesses — including murder — that the district attorney's office took the unusual step of starting a local witness protection program.


Witnesses may also be reluctant to talk to police because of the department's struggles with allegations of brutality and corruption.

In the 1990s, two rogue cops turned out to be killers. Former Police Superintendent Richard Pennington, now Atlanta's chief, is credited with cleaning up the department, purging scores of bad cops during the 1990s.

But recently, complaints about police brutality have surfaced again.

In March, a New Orleans ritual — the annual St. Joseph's night assembly of the Mardi Gras Indians, black residents who dress up in elaborate costumes — was marred by complaints that officers roughed up members.

In early August, allegations surfaced that two officers had beaten a man before dropping him off at a hospital. The department has had little to say about the case, but Police Superintendent Eddie Compass ordered an investigation and called in the FBI to help.

Compass has tried to burnish the department's image with community outreach, including ordering officers to address people as "sir" and "ma'am." But the same day that order came down, the department was dealt another blow when a drug-related gun battle erupted in a residential neighborhood, leaving four people dead.

Rafael Goyeneche, a former state prosecutor who now heads the private Metropolitan Crime Commission, said both the district attorney and the police are trying to seriously tackle violent crime — but under current budgets, that will be tough.

"Unless they are given additional resources, and that means manpower and more money to recruit and retain, I'm fearful that we are not going to make any lasting and meaningful progress in combatting crime in this community," Goyeneche said.


Sound like Iraq? Why haven't we pulled out of New Orleans a liberal controlled quagmire?

[LibLieSlayer]

It seems that way, but it is really not. Half the country has it's head on straight, the other half... Sure, some grow queasy, but this will pass after the election and we ramp up violence against our enemies in Iraq.

LLS

[Miss Marple]

This guy is always negative, and hates President Bush. Nothing new here.

[gotribe]

I'm beginning to think the only way to fight a war these days is to start out by slaughtering so many of the enemy that the left can't focus on the American losses.

[Prost1]

I'm told LeBoutillier and Pat Buchannon exchange email and IM.

I don't want to make anything out of it, mind you...

[LibLieSlayer]

For some Americans, it will take a mushroom cloud over LA.

LLS