The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

TAMPA, Fla. -- A 33-year-old high-school teacher was arrested after admitting that she had sex with a 16-year-old student, police said.



Christina Butler, a ninth-grade teacher at Middleton High School, admitted to the relationship with the boy after a series of events Tuesday that began with a police stakeout targeting street crime at an apartment complex, police said.



Officers first followed a group of six boys who left the apartment complex on bicycles, the report said. Later, the same group was pulled over driving erratically in Butler's Jeep Grand Cherokee.







The 16-year-old driver, who did not have a license, told police that Butler let him use the vehicle. Another boy told an officer that the driver was involved in a relationship with the teacher.



Butler was called to the scene and questioned by officers and eventually admitted having sex with the student, whom she taught in one of her classes, police said.



Charged with lewd or lascivious battery, she was released early Wednesday after posting $7,500 bail, according to jail records, which did not indicate if she had an attorney. A working phone number could not be located for her Wednesday.



She was suspended with pay from her $35,000-a-year job until the school board can address the situation, a district spokesman said. She has been employed in the district since August.



A recent investigation by The Associated Press showed that between 2001 and 2005, Florida revoked, denied or suspended licenses or took other sanctions against at least 100 teachers who were accused of sexual misconduct.



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Well, if parents did not have enough to worry about with the school shootings and the chance their child may take drugs among other things, here is yet another thing to worry about. I keep thinking that we did not hear about this kind of thing , when I was in school, but as with child molestation, I know this thing was hidden, swept under the rug or whatever you want to call it.



I do not know what a woman in her thirties sees in a teenager, but sex. The boy is nothing more than a sex object or maybe the object of some sick affection the lady has. She allowed unlicensed driver to be behind the wheel of her car. Someone allowed this lady to teach school. I am sure she acted the part and made sure her employer thought she was someone who could be trusted in front of students. Could you imagine the reaction of most school boards if one of their teachers came to work in a goth outfit? They would throw a fit. However, a lady who probably dressed conservatively everyday is admitted to a sexual relationship with a student. Go figure.



I think parents are and should have been warning their children that not everyone in positions of authority are good . We teach our children to respect people in certain professions. Teachers are among those. Now, we have to teach our children to respect their teacher as long as they respect the fact that they are the adult and should not cross the line in certain areas. This is going to be hard. Teenage boys and girls for that matter sometimes have hormones that run amok. The last thing they need is some adult playing on that.

Woman Wants Accused Torturers to 'Fry'

By SHAYA TAYEFE MOHAJER,

AP



CHARLESTON, W.Va. (Oct. 23) - Megan Williams thought she was going to a party.



That is why she tagged along with a woman she says she hardly knew, up a remote West Virginia hollow to a run-down trailer surrounded by beer cans and broken-down furniture.





But there wasn't no party," Williams told the Associated Press in one of her first public interviews since the arrest of six people now accused of becoming her captors. "I realized I'd made a bad mistake."



For days, the 20-year-old black woman was allegedly tortured, beaten, forced to eat feces - rat, dog and human - and raped by six white men and women who held her until Sept. 8.



A passer-by heard cries from the shed where she had been kept, and Logan County sheriff's deputies found her hours later.



Seated in a rocking chair in her mother's living room, about 50 miles from that shed, the slight woman says she was outnumbered by people who just wanted to hurt a black person.





"They just kept saying 'This is what we do to niggers down here'," she recalls.



"I just hope they fry for what they did to me. That's really all I got to say," she says when asked what should become of her captors.



West Virginia does not have a state death penalty, but the six could spend the rest of their lives in prison if convicted of rape and kidnapping charges. Kidnapping carries a possible life sentence in West Virginia. Sexual assault is a crime punishable by up to 35 years in prison.



Williams and her family want the torture prosecuted as a hate crime, but no such charges have been filed by state or federal prosecutors. In West Virginia, a hate crime carries only a 10-year maximum penalty.



Prosecutors also say hate crime charges could complicate their case. Hate crimes are typically prosecuted in situations involving strangers, they say, and Williams knew one of the suspects before her captivity.



Megan's adoptive mother, Carmen Williams, says her daughter was trusting.



"She's a little slow, so it's kinda hard for her to comprehend sometimes," she said. "So I think that played a big part in it."



Carmen Williams will not disclose Megan's IQ but says she is "not at full capacity."



When Megan Williams does detail her alleged torture, it comes in fits. Horrifying, disjointed memories of all that she allegedly endured spill forth while she fidgets and frowns.





"They braided some switches together and beat me across the back when I was pickin' peas out the field. They tore my clothes off of me and everything, and then they took me up to the lake and they said that was the place they were going to cut my throat and throw me in, and I was never coming back to see my family again," she said.





She looks off into the distance at the end of each recollection. She often falls quiet, reverting to yes and no answers.



At times she reaches up to touch her scalp, where her hair was cut off and yanked out during her ordeal.



For legal and mental health reasons, there are some details Williams has been advised not to discuss, such as the timeline of her captivity, the more graphic details of her experience and what, if any relationship she had with the defendants before the assaults.



However, suspects in the case outline a series of sexual crimes.



Statements from Frankie Brewster and her son Bobby Brewster allege that Williams was forced to perform oral sex on Frankie Brewster under threat of death, that she was forced to perform oral sex on Danny Combs at knifepoint, that she was made to lick their toes, raped and humiliated.



It was that fear that led her to cut her duct-tape constraints with a knife she ferreted away, and hang her tiny arms out of the small window of the shed she was kept in, yelling for help.



Williams says "a guy named Eddie" heard her calls, and she believes he called for help. Within hours, deputies responded to an anonymous tip, and came to the Brewster trailer asking for Williams by name.



She has no doubt that if the police had not shown up, she would be dead.



Charges against the six suspects are expected to go before a grand jury in January.



he defendants are: Bobby Brewster, 24; mother Frankie Brewster, 49; Combs, 20; Karen Burton, 46; Burton's daughter, Alisha Burton, 23; and George A. Messer, 27.



A coalition of civil rights organizations and black leaders are now uniting behind the Williams family, and it is receiving legal counsel from Black Lawyers for Justice co-founder Malik Shabazz.



"This case deserves national concern and national outrage," Shabazz said. "Megan Williams' case is 10 times, maybe 50 times, worse than what happened in Jena, Louisiana."



Hundreds are expected to attend a hate crime awareness march in Charleston on Nov. 3, an event endorsed by civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Conference of Black Mayors and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.



On the Internet, a Facebook.com group supporting Williams has more than 230,000 members.



Healing, however, has been a slow process.



Williams has received hundreds of cards and gifts from as far away as Iraq. She hopes to use donations to her trust fund to obtain a high school diploma and attend university. She speaks of becoming a nurse's assistant.



She is slowly gaining weight, and her face lights up when asked about her favorite food.



"Ribs," she says, grinning. Then she looks to her mother and laughs.



Yet there are large scabs on her left leg, where her ankle was cut and her thigh was stabbed three times. She walks with a slight limp.



The nights are still difficult, she says, as memories of the abuse she suffered come in the form of terrifying dreams. Thankfully, she usually awakens to find her mother lying next to her.



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I am sure each of the defendants in the above case would agree that Sadaam Hussein was a cruel dictator and that his two sons were equally cruel and inhumane. The thing is the defendants in this case have admitted to the same type of cruelty. The only difference between them and the Husseins is that they have not been on a world stage with unlimited power. I shudder to think what they would have done if they had been given power and authority.



The young woman in the above article was smart enough to yell for help. That act alone could have sealed her death warrant. She could have found herself dead , before help arrived. Thank God and all of Heaven that a decent person heard her cries for help and got her assistance.



My son is biracial. That means his father is African- American. I would love to be able to tell him that no-one in 2007 would do anything to him, because of his race, but I cannot. He is intelligent and not considered slow like the young lady who was victimized beyond belief. I would like to tell him that our society does not prey on those who are mentally inferior. I cannot. The above article would make a liar out of me.



I do not think the death penalty is punishment enough. What are these defendants going to do in jail? They will either be isolated or suffer in general population. How many people in jail are non white, have wives, daughters , mothers, etc, are female or were deemed slow or knows someone who is not quick on the uptake. Someone is going to want to make sure they pay more than the court could ever make them pay. They will be lucky if they serve out their whole sentence. The people who did this unspeakable horror to another human being may find themselves dead in the same way that Jeffery Dahmer found himself dead. What would a lifer have to lose by taking one of them out?

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- The Turkish government will seek parliamentary approval for a military operation against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, a government spokesman said Monday, taking action on one of two major issues straining relations with Washington.



The spokesman, Cemil Cicek, said he hoped Parliament would vote on the motion this week -- passage is considered likely -- but indicated that the government would still prefer a solution to the conflict that does not involve a cross-border offensive.



"Our hope is that there will be no need to use this motion," Cicek said.



Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government twice acquired similar authorizations from the Parliament in 2003, but did not act on them.



Cicek insisted the only target was the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the PKK.



We have always respected the sovereignty of Iraq, which is a friendly and brotherly country to us," Cicek said. "But the reality that everyone knows is that this terrorist organization, which has bases in the north of Iraq, is attacking the territorial integrity of Turkey and its citizens."



The statement appeared to be aimed at reassuring Iraq's central government as well as Iraqi Kurds, who run their own administration in northern Iraq.



Fighting along the border with Iraq was reported over the weekend, where Turkey's military said it "responded heavily" to attacks from northern Iraq by Kurdish fighters on Friday. Iraqi Kurds reported that Turkish artillery hit their territory.



Senior rebel commander Duran Kalkan said the Turkish military would suffer a serious blow if it launches a cross-border offensive, saying it would "be bogged down in a quagmire," the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency reported Monday.



Oil prices rose Monday, partly reflecting concerns over a conflict that could open up a new front in the Iraq war. Light, sweet crude for November delivery hit a new high of $85.19 a barrel before retreating in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, midafternoon in Europe.



Cabinet ministers also were expected to debate retaliatory measures if the U.S. Congress passes a resolution that labels the World War I-era killings of Armenians as genocide.



A U.S. House panel approved the resolution last week, infuriating Turkish leaders who said ties with their NATO ally would suffer.



At issue in the resolution is the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks. Many international historians contend the World War I-era deaths amounted to genocide, but Turkey says the mass killings and deportations were not systematic and that many Turkish Muslims died in the chaos of war.



Turkish anger over the genocide resolution has led to commentary that Turkey would be less likely to take into account U.S. opposition to a unilateral Turkish action in Iraq, which could destabilize a relatively peaceful part of the country.



Turkey's top general warned over the weekend that military ties between Turkey and the United States could be seriously damaged if the genocide resolution is approved in the U.S. Congress.



Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said President Bush had no plans to intervene in the vote, although the administration has been lobbying intensely to persuade lawmakers to reject the resolution.



"There should be no question of the president's views on this issue and the damage that this resolution could do to U.S. foreign policy interests," Fratto told reporters Monday aboard Air Force One.



House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will schedule a vote soon on the resolution.



Fratto said the White House does not want Pelosi to bring it to the floor; should it come to a vote, he said, "We will strongly encourage members not to support it."



Turkey, a major cargo hub for U.S. forces in Iraq, has recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations and warned that there might be a cut in logistical support to the United States.



About 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military there. U.S. bases also get water and other supplies carried in by Turkish truckers who cross into Iraq's northern Kurdish region.



n 1975, Washington imposed an arms embargo that lasted three years against Ankara following its invasion of Cyprus, using U.S. weapons. Turkey, a Cold War ally of the United States, responded by limiting U.S. military and intelligence activities on its soil.



Turkey has urged the United States and Iraq to crack down on PKK rebels who have been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey since 1984.





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Even though this will tell my age, I started high school in 1984. If Turkey has been asking for the United States' help that long and has not received it than chances are they should not hold their breath until they get it. That is something. They will help us provide logistical support for our troops in Iraq, but we are going to hold the actions of the Ottoman Turks against the whole country of Turkey forever. I doubt if anyone that was involved in World War I era killing of Armenians ( which was wrong) is alive today or still working within the Turkish government. I love how the United States government can pass a resolution in Congress about something that happened in the last century. We are still scrambling in Congress to get enough votes to insure poor children in this country. There may not be enough votes to override Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill, but they are worried about who shot John in 1920. I hope the Democrats in Congress know they were voted in by people like me who was tired of Bush and his Republican Party. They can get on that same little list.



The Kurds have had control of their territory in Nothern Iraq for quite some time. They are unable to control a terrorist organization in that territory or what Turkey has labeled a terrorist organization. Perhaps, Joseph Biden and Sam Brownback , should rethink their little theory of dividing Iraq up into three semi automonous regions. It may or may not help get every country's troops home that are in Iraq. It could also result in even a bigger mess in Iraq. With no centralized government, Iraq could erupt into violence between all three regions and whatever little groups are formed in all three regions. You cannot say that Iraqis do not join groups. They are bigtime joiners. A prominent Shite is all for dividing Iraq. The Shites in the South will control most of the oil. Do we really think the Sunnis are going to go for that? If anyone does, then I suggest they stop thinking. It may cause you to strain your brain a little too much.



The last thing we needed was another front in the Iraqi war. Bush cannot do many things at once. He is either not a multi-tasker or very ADHD. I suggest someone give him some medication soon. Laura Bush may have to get him to a doctor rather quickly. While she is at it, she can get a bus and take many members of Congress with her.

When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,

When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on

Don't let yourself go, 'cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes



Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it's time to sing along

When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)

If you feel like letting go, (hold on)

When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on



'Cause everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends

Everybody hurts. Don't throw your hand. Oh, no. Don't throw your hand

If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone



If you're on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,

When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on



Well, everybody hurts sometimes,

Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes

And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on

Everybody hurts. You are not alone

I am sure anyone reading my journal remembers the recent entry about the mother who is in police custody for providing weapons to her son. Her son was found with Noe Nazi books and diaries that described violent acts. KCRC lives near where this happened and sent me a requested website so I could read more on the case.



The child involved is described as highly intelligent. I would have been nice if he had better parenting. His intelligence could have been used for the good of mankind. Thank God the authorities would tipped off to what he was planning. He was found with many videos of the Columbine school shooting. God only knows what could have happened if the stituation had played out on its own.



At www.philly.com, you can read more about the case. The young man's picture is shown. He is in school and sometimes youngsters can be quite cruel. I think he was a social outcast because of his weight. I never found overweight people to be unattractive or gross. I have always been more worried about their health. Diabetes is a big risk factor. Overweight or obese children run the risk of being that way as adults. This mother should have been more worried about her son's health than providing him with weapons.



The boy in this case has been described as an"extremely emotionally disturbed" teen. I want to ask this woman personally why she did not get help for her son. He did not just wake up one day like this.



Also, people need to tell their children to stop bullying and making fun of others at school. What once was seen as a semi-harmless rite of childhood is now causing mentally disturbed young people to dream about and plan on getting revenge. In some school shootings, the shooter has avoided shooting another student who did not participate in the perceived torture. Not every student who is bullied or made fun of will grab a gun. However, with Columbine, Jonesboro, Arkansas, Pearl, Ms, and other incidents , just who is willing to take that chance with their child's life?

I am addicted to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Tonight's show has been one of the best I have seen. I laughed so hard at his opening statement that I thought I was going to fall off my couch. If you did not see this episode, I recommend going on the Comedy Central site online and watching clips.



One of the regulars on his show is Lewis Black. This guy makes sense. He was blessed with more than his fair share of common sense. Some people need to borrow some of his common sense, before they win a Darwin award without even trying.



Mr Black made a comment about Fox News thinking that the fact Barak Obama is refusing to wear an American flag pin on his lapel is a bigtime news story. Of course, I believe certain shows on Fox News are nothing more than an open love letter to the Republican Party and George W Bush in particular. Sean Hannity and Bill O Reilly come to mind when I think of the so called journalists who seem to think everyone wants to hear how much they love or seem to love conservatives and their agenda.



One woman journalist on Fox News was able to be reminded of Bill Clinton saying I did not have sex with that woman by hearing Obama say he would not wear that pin. What I want to ask her is do pins on lapels remind you of sex or are you just turned on by anything that comes out of Barak Obama's mouth? How in the hell did this moron get a job on television and how in the hell is she reporting the news? I now know that Fox News will hire anyone. It does not matter if you are intelligent.



Edward R Murrow is considered by many as one of the best if not the best journalist America has ever seen. One of the highlights of his career was going after Senator Joseph Mc Carthy when he went on a Communist witch hunt and violated people's civil rights in the process. Evidence meant nothing to Mc Carthy. Common sense meant nothing to Mc Carthy. He just went after people for any little reason. If your third grade teacher joined the Communist party twenty years after teaching you and your best friend was a member of the Communist party ( it did not matter if you were aware of that fact or not), you could find yourself in hot water. Murrow got himself investigated for going after the good senator. Mc Carthy eventually got censured by the United States Senate and went down in history as a paranoid nut in many peple's opinion. ( unless you are Ann Coulter who probably wishes she could go back in time and have an affair with Mc Carthy.) I wonder what Murrow would think about Fox News and its journalists focusing on such a small detail as what a candidate for president is wearing on his or her lapel. I am sure he would be more worried about the war in Iraq, uninsured children and what qualifications the person running for the presidency had and would care less about what they were wearing.



With all the problems we have in this country, members of our news media want to focus on someone's lapel and what they will not wear on that lapel. Damn the fact that millions of children do not have health insurance. Damn the fact that we are still in Iraq and are seeminly stuck there. Damn the fact that New Orelans has still not fully recover from Hurricane Katrina. Damn the fact that parts of Missississippi still are rebuilding after Katrina. Let's focus on nonsense.



IF something like this influences who you vote for, do me and the rest of the country a favor on election day. Do not get out of bed.

(CNN) -- A sheriff's deputy shot and killed six people in Crandon, Wisconsin, early Sunday before dying himself under circumstances that remain under wraps, the town's police chief said



The assailant, Tyler Peterson, also worked part-time as a Crandon police officer.



Forest County Sheriff Keith Van Cleve said Peterson was "about 20" and was not on duty at the time of the shootings.



Schools superintendent Richard Peters told The Associated Press that three Crandon High students were killed and another three who died had graduated within the past year.



The victims were at a house party together. Residents say one of those killed is or was the shooter's girlfriend.



A survivor of the shooting was in critical condition Sunday night, and a Crandon police officer was treated for minor injuries, according to AP.



"I'm waiting for somebody to wake me up right now. This is a bad, bad dream," Jenny Stahl, mother of 14-year-old victim Lindsey Stahl told AP. "He took them all out."



Karly Johnson, 16, told AP she knew the shooter.



"He was nice. He was an average guy. Normal. You wouldn't think he could do that," Johnson said.



She said he had helped her in a class and had graduated with her brother. Peters, however, said he could not confirm whether the shooter graduated from Crandon High.



Police Chief John Dennee would not say Sunday evening how Peterson died.



Crandon Mayor Gary Bradley said the assailant had been brought down by a sniper, AP reported.



The shootings took place about 2:45 a.m. at a home in Crandon, a town of about 2,000 people 220 miles north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.



Neither Dennee nor Van Cleve would discuss details of the shootings or identify the victims. They said officials would address questions Monday. Dennee told AP the victims were having "a pizza and movie party."



Marci Franz, who lives two houses south of the duplex where the shootings occurred, told AP the gunshots awakened her.



"I heard probably five or six shots, a short pause and then five or six more," she said.



Then she heard eight more shots and tires squealing, she told AP.



"There's never been a tragedy like this here," she said. "There's been individual incidents, but nothing of this magnitude."



The state attorney general's office will investigate the case, Van Cleve said.



Kevin St. John, a spokesman for the state Department of Justice, said the agency's criminal investigation unit routinely investigates cases of a "statewide or significant nature."



Van Cleve called the situation "very difficult" for his officers and the community. Video Watch how the small town is handling the shock of the shooting »



Bud Evans, an elder at Praise Chapel Community Church, said relatives of some of the victims of the shooting were gathering at his church.

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Evans said watching members of the community suffer left him with "a helpless feeling."



The Crandon School District canceled classes for Monday.



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And some people wonder why some segments of the population do not like cops. This is bad in and of itself but to have a member of the law enforcement community do this when they are suppose to protect and serve the community makes it that much worse.



This particular story gets to me because one of the victims is/was fourteen years old. My son is twelve. I really feel for the mothers of the young kids who were gunned down.



And of course we get the statement from someone who knew the shooter that you would never think he would do something like this. C'mon folks. The serial killer , Ted Bundy, was said to be the next JFK by people who knew him before the truth about his little serial killing hobby came out. How long and how many of these kinds of things are going to happen before people realize that it is nine times out of ten the people you would never think would get violent like this that do? The ones you suspect would go on a killing rampage are usually the last ones that will.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad disavowed a Senate resolution calling for dividing Iraq into federal regions, a move Iraqi leaders condemned Sunday as a violation of Iraq's sovereignty.



As we have said in the past, attempts to partition or divide Iraq by intimidation, force or other means into three separate states would produce extraordinary suffering and bloodshed," the embassy said in a written statement. "The United States has made clear our strong opposition to such attempts."



"Partition is not on the table," the embassy statement read.



The resolution, which the Senate approved Thursday on a 75-23 vote, called for Washington to support "a political settlement among Iraq's major factions based upon the provisions of the Constitution of Iraq that create a federal system of government and allow for the creation of federal regions."



Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told CNN the resolution has caused "a great deal of confusion" in Baghdad. And Iraqi political parties representing a majority of the country's parliament blasted the proposal as "a threat to Iraq sovereignty and unity."



The constitution Iraqi voters approved in 2005 calls for the creation of federal regions similar to the Kurdish territory in the country's north. But Iraq's parliament has so far failed to enact legislation that would set up those districts, and the nonbinding resolution American lawmakers approved urged the Bush administration to step up that process.



The "fundamental" principle of the resolution is that Iraq will not be "governed from the center anytime soon," said Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden on Thursday.



And I am not prepared for my son and his generation to continue to shed their blood in an effort to do that."



Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Democratic presidential candidate. He has long advocated the division of Iraq into Sunni Arab, Shiite Arab and Kurdish territories that would be loyal to a central government in Baghdad.



His resolution was co-sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Republican presidential hopeful.



This is not a perfect solution by any means," Brownback said. "As an American, I look at it as a sub-par solution altogether, because I think they would be much better off if they could get along and form one country and operate it as one country."



But that scenario, Brownback said, "does not reflect the realities on the ground."



Zebari told CNN's "Late Edition" that the resolution "has created a backlash, but it needs to be explained more."



"I think the resolution is in line with what the constitution -- the Iraqi Constitution -- has called for to establish a federal democratic Iraq in the future," he said.



"No Iraqi is for dividing their country or for splitting it into three weak states, unable to survive," he added.



The Shiite Muslim United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in Iraq's parliament, condemned regionalizing the nation. Other parties against the move include the Sadr Bloc, led by anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr; and the Iraqi Accord Front, the largest Sunni party.



"We call the Arab League to condemn the resolution, and we call [on] all Iraqis to demonstrate against the resolution," the parties' statement read.



Nassar al-Rubaie, a lawmaker from al-Sadr's party, suggested parliament adopt the U.S. plan. But, he added, "It will not be applied until the last American soldier leaves Iraq."



But the U.S. Embassy said the Bush administration's "firm policy" is to support "a stable, secure, and unified Iraq."







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In theory, dividing Iraq into three separate regions sounds like a good idea. Since the Kurds, Shites and Sunnis seem intent on fighting each other, it makes sense in theory to give each of them their own country. What sounds good in theory is not always practical and does not always work when you try to accomplish it.



If the above article is true, the majority of Iraqis are not gung-ho about seeing their nation divided into three separate regions or weak states. I think the United States and its leaders have forgotten a little thing referred to as the Iran-Iraqi War. We put Sadaam Hussein in power and allowed his Sunni Muslims to do whatever they wanted to to the Shites in Iran and Iraq. Also, the same Sunnis did quite a bit to the Kurds. It would be short-sighted to believe that the Shites are all going to want to join hands with the Sunnis and sing peace songs. Their are vast oil fields in Iraq. Whatever small region gets the majority of those are going to be prone to attacks by other countries and possibly terrorists who want the money that can be made off of them. Right now, the ones trying to keep things from going haywire in Afghanistan are having a rough time keeping a certain region away from terrorists. Why do the terrorists want that region? The vast opium fields will bring them loads of money to rage whatever holy war they are wanting to fight. Do we think for one minute they are not wanting to get their hands on some oil fields?



Maybe someone should remind the leaders in American government that the Taliban are a Sunni Muslim Pashtun movement. Who do they think the Taliban is ready to side with if Iraq is divided into three regions and the Sunnis find themselves under attack? I understand that the US military cannot stay in Iraq forever. I understand the war is unpopular. I am tired of American troops being over there. We are attempting to bring democracy to a people that were unwilling to do that for themselves. In everyday life, we are always telling people we cannot help those who cannot help or will not help themselves. I am sure the same thing is true for an entire country.