Commercial photographers and video people are normally required to get releases from any person they film BEFORE they can sell or display their work for money (that’s why you see all those pixilated faces on videos). There are exceptions for ‘crowd shots’ or where a person can not be readily identified. But generally speaking if you film someone you are required to obtain a release before you can show the film commercially. Failure to do so can result in a lawsuit.

If Youtube starts sharing money with posters then wouldn’t Youtube be similarly required to obtain releases? They could certainly be seen as commercial videos. The photographer is getting paid for their work.

It could certainly create some serious legal problems for Google. I can see easily see a situation where someone sees a funny accident or something similar and posting it to youtube without a release. It gets popular; youtube gives the poster some money. The guy, who never signed a release, finds out and files a lawsuit.

… because he wasn’t up to the job of ‘uniting’ Iraq? Isn’t that why Maliki came to power in the first place?

The problem of course is there is NOBODY in Iraq capable of uniting the country. Certainly not anyone in the existing Iraqi government. Even if the Iraqi parliament votes ‘no confidence’ in Maliki I very much doubt that Shia dominated body is going to raise up somebody willing to cut deals with the Sunnis. More likely we’ll end up with someone even more reactionary than Maliki.

Watching Stewart explain so succinctly the media ‘story line’ on Barak Obama being ‘inexperience’ and ‘making gaffes’ was amazing. And then watching him so easily deconstruct and render show how empty the rhetoric really is.

Of equal brilliance was Stewart running down how all the mistakes the ‘experts’ made in mid-east policy.

As with Senator Lugar before him, Warner’s comments amount to little more that empty rhetoric if they are not matched with votes. Which they WILL NOT BE!! He will ‘vote to support our troops’ with funding (as Lugar did) and reject Congressional timetables as ‘undermining the Generals on the ground’ (as Lugar did).

His call for ‘5,000’ troops to come home by Christmas is silly because that’s right around the number that would come out of Iraq with standard rotations anyway (and it’s a meaningless number anyway with over 100,000 troops in Iraq for an indefinite amount of time). The ‘surge’ will end in Mar/Apr of next year and large amounts of troops will come home (and then we’ll see just how ‘successful’ the ‘surge’ is when the Iraqi military and security forces are left to their own devices in Anbar Province and other locations). The question is how long until we send them back and how much longer are we going to keep over 100,000 troops in Iraq (hint, the brilliant General Patreus acknowledges at least 10 more years).

All of this posturing is meant to provide rhetorical cover for Republican Congressional candidates, particularly the ones in the Red States the Republican’s lost in 2006, to criticize the war while nothing really changes.

Current rotation schedules will require a significant draw down of troops in Mar/Apr of 2008. This has been known and reported for quite some time. The way the ‘surge’ worked is the US Army extended deployments for troops who had been scheduled to rotate back to the states between July-Sept and deployed troops that were schedule to arrive in Iraq between Sept-Dec early (Jul/Aug). That’s how they achieved maximum troops on the ground between the Months of Jul/Aug 2007 and Mar/Apr 2008.

The obvious problem with this approach is that it literally robs Peter to pay Paul. Current rotations mean that come Mar/Apr of 2008 the Army will have no choice but to draw down troops to BELOW their pre-‘surge’ levels (probably to less than 120k). The only way to prevent this is to either:

1 – Extended tours beyond their current 15 months. This will tank recruiting levels, speed up retirements and sink morale far more than talking about leaving Iraq ever will. It will also merely delay the inevitable moment of reckoning.

or

2 – Find, train and equip an additional 40-50k troops (that’s above and beyond the Army’s already difficult to meet recruiting goals) to send to Iraq before Mar of 2008.

One way or another, troop levels are coming down and that’s when we will learn just how ‘effective’ the ‘surge’ has really been. When we pull back from Anbar and withdraw from forward operating bases due to lack of troops and leave the Iraqis on their own. The violence which has been ‘down’ for a couple of months will shoot right back up.

On a side note, violence is down in July and August compared to the previous months. Traditionally July and August have always had the lowest levels of violence in Iraq because of the summer heat. So violence WOULD HAVE DECLINED regardless of the ‘surge.’ I might conceded that violence has declined slightly more than it otherwise would have because of the ‘surge’ but the real test will come in September and October (conveniently after the ‘report) when the insurgents get back into the swing of things and violence traditionally goes back up.