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Author Topic: Merry Xmas War Is Over II
majorvictory
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posted 24 August 2003 12:01 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Buckle up, folks, it's gonna be a long war!

Spain under pressure to pull out troops from Iraq

quote:
Thursday, 21 August , 2003, 04:21

Madrid: The Spanish government came under pressure to withdraw its troops from Iraq as it mourned the first Spanish fatality in the international reconstruction effort to rebuild the war-shattered country.


Navy captain Manuel Martin Oar was one of at least 24 people killed in Tuesday's attack against the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which has been condemned around the world.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, a staunch US and British ally in the war on Iraq, has pledged a 1,300-strong troop contingent for the reconstruction effort despite growing public concern.

Spain already has 744 soldiers there, but the death of one of their own number has shocked the population and opposition parties demanded a parliamentary debate in the belief that Spanish forces should be brought home.

Oar was working for Spanish special ambassador to Iraq, Miguel Benzo Perea, who was not in the office at the time of the explosion.

While Aznar and Foreign Minister Ana Palacio said the world should "stand firm in the face of terrorism" and maintain the military mission, left-wing opposition parties said the blast had called into question the wisdom of a continued Spanish presence in Iraq as an occupation force.

Socialist Party president Manuel Chaves called for a parliamentary debate "leading to the exit" of Spanish forces.




From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Foxer
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posted 24 August 2003 04:32 AM      Profile for Foxer     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
What have the kurds been up to? I haven't heard much about them in a while. They'll be just as happy to see the spaniards leave i suppose.
From: Vancouver BC | Registered: Jul 2003  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 24 August 2003 10:03 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Oh -- I mentioned this early on the previous thread, but I repeat here a request to the moderators:

I think the first Merry Xmas thread should be archived now under Best of ... It is mainly majorvictory's creation, and it is a superb record of the slow unravelling of the U.S. "victory." We will surely need it as a reference when people with short memories or other agenda try re-writing the history of this U.S. adventure.


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 24 August 2003 10:25 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Sure thing.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 24 August 2003 12:36 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Thanks, folks. I intend to spend all my money before i croak, so this can be my legacy to the world!

Families grieve for 3 more fallen soldiers

quote:
By Joshua S. Howes
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 24, 2003

Spec. Eric Hull was 7 when he cooked his first gourmet meal, a dinner of homemade bread and soup that he whipped up on a snow day when school was canceled and his parents were at work.

By 13 he earned a first Boy Scout merit badge in cooking, by 15 he had a regular gig cooking at one of the finer restaurants in Uniontown, Pa., and at 21 he made his vocation official by earning a degree in culinary arts from Westmoreland Community College.

"He was a gentle man and had a heart as big as he was," said his mother, Debbie. "He just loved to cook."

Hull, 23, was killed Monday in Baghdad when his military vehicle hit an improvised explosive device, according to the Department of Defense. Hull was assigned to the 307th Military Police Company, Army Reserves, based in New Kensington, Pa. Born and raised in Uniontown, whose residents proudly note that their town was incorporated July 4, 1776, Hull joined the Reserves two days after graduating from high school in 1998 to "go further in life" and earn money for college, his mother said.

Hull achieved his dream of being a chef at age 23 by landing a position with Nutrition Incorporated Services in Uniontown, his mother said. She said nobody was surprised at his success because of his drive and determination. At 13, Hull was the youngest Eagle Scout in his troop, and he later starred on his high school football team, she said.

Hull was married and had two young children. His daughter, Mia, is 2, and his son, Dominic, celebrated his first birthday two weeks ago, his mother said.

"His goal in life was to come home and be with his children and his wife and cook," she said.


[ 24 August 2003: Message edited by: majorvictory ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 24 August 2003 12:40 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Healing the wounds of war

quote:
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers


WASHINGTON - You don't hear much about them or see their faces very often, but you should. Planes land at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington every night bringing these American soldiers home from Iraq the hard way.

Ambulances ferry them to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where doctors and nurses stand ready to rush them into the operating rooms.

Maj. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, the commander of Walter Reed and a medical doctor, said that since the beginning of July, two months after the official end of major combat operations, there had been only two days when his hospital hadn't received soldier casualties.

More than 1,000 injured American soldiers have flowed through Walter Reed since the war in Iraq began, and another 300 have arrived from the continuing conflict in Afghanistan since it began in October 2001.

"We are in this for the long haul," Kiley said. "This is going to continue for a long, long time."



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beluga2
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posted 24 August 2003 08:23 PM      Profile for beluga2     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Re: Foxer's question on "what the Kurds have been up to":

Ethnic fighting spreads to Kirkuk

quote:
According to both CNN-Turk television and private NTV television in Ankara, Turkey, hundreds of Turkomen, carrying blue Turkomen flags, marched on the governor's office. Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported two Turkomen were shot and killed and 11 wounded by Patriotic Union of Kurdistan forces.

The violence in Kirkuk, 150 miles north of Baghdad, followed fighting between Turkomen and Kurds on Friday in nearby Tuz Kharmato. Iraqi police killed two Turkomen tribesmen and wounded two others in Tuz Kharmato after they arrived to quell ethnic fighting, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, 4th Infantry Division spokeswoman.

She had originally reported that it was U.S. soldiers who fired on the crowd, but on Sunday said it was Iraqi police who had been sent to quell the protests and the U.S. soldiers arrived after the incident.

''They were nervous and they panicked and fired warning shots into the crowd, which killed two and wounded two,'' Aberle said Sunday. The policemen were taken into U.S. military custody and an investigation was underway, she said.



From: vancouvergrad, BCSSR | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
al-Qa'bong
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posted 24 August 2003 08:32 PM      Profile for al-Qa'bong   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
"His goal in life was to come home and be with his children and his wife and cook," she said.

Never get off the boat.

From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 25 August 2003 01:03 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Robert Fisk: We Have A Long And Dishonourable Tradition Of Smearing The Dead

quote:
24 August 2003: Across the marble floor of the Shrine of the Imam Hussein in Kerbala scampers Suheil with his plastic bag of metal. He points first to a red stain on the flagstones. "This was a red smoke grenade that the Americans fired," he tells me. "And that was another grenade mark." The Shia worshippers are kneeling amid these burn marks, eyes glistening at the gold façade of the mosque which marks the very place, behind silver bars kissed by the faithful, where - in an epic battle far more decisive in human history than any conflict fought by the United States - Imam al-Hussein was cut down in AD680. There is a clink as, one by one, Suheil drops his souvenirs on to the marble.

US forces denied that any ordnance fell upon the shrine when they opened fire close to the Huseiniya mosque last month. Of course they denied it. Denial has become a disease in Iraq - as it has through most of the Middle East. The Americans deny that they kill innocent civilians in Iraq - but kill them all the same. The Israelis deny they kill innocent civilians in the occupied territories - indeed, they even deny the occupation - but kill them all the same. So folk like Suheil are valuable. They expose lies. The evidence, in this case, are his little souvenirs. On one of the grenades in his plastic bag are written the words "Cartridge 44mm Red Smoke Ground Marker M713 PB-79G041-001". Another is designated as a "White Star Cluster M 585", yet another carries the code "40mm M195 KX090 (figure erased) 010-086". They are strange things to read in a religious building whose scholars normally concentrate on the minutiae of Koranic sura rather than the globalised linguistics of the arms trade.

But one of the Kerbala shrine's guards, Ahmed Hanoun Hussein, was killed by the Americans when they arrived to assist Iraqi police in a confrontation with armed thieves near the shrine. Two more Shias were shot dead by the Americans during a protest demonstration the next day.

Suheil insist that the US troops wanted to enter the mosque - an unlikely scenario since they are under orders to stay away from its vicinity - but four bullets did smash into an outer wall. "We are peaceful people - so why do we need this?" Suheil asks me plaintively. "Remember how we suffered under Saddam?" And here he points upwards to another sacrilegious assault on the shrine, this time amid the gold of one of the two principal minarets - a shrapnel gash from a shell fired by Saddam's legions during the great Shia revolt of 1991, the rebellion we encouraged and then betrayed after the last Gulf War.

So you'd think, wouldn't you, that the shootings at Kerbala were an established fact. But no. The US still insists it never fired into the shrine of the Imam Hussein and "has no information" on the dead. Just as it had "no information" about the massacre of at least six Iraqi civilians by its soldiers during a house raid in the Mansour district of Baghdad a month ago. Just as it has no information on the number of Iraqi civilian casualties during and after the illegal Anglo-American invasion, estimated at up to 5,223 by one reputable organisation and up to 2,700 in and around Baghdad alone according to the Los Angeles Times.

And I've no doubt there would have been "no information" about the man shot dead by US troops outside Abu Ghraib prison last week had he not inconveniently turned out to be a prize-winning Reuters cameraman. Thus Mazen Dana's death became a "terrible tragedy" - this from the same American authorities whose Secretary of State Colin Powell thought that the tank fire which killed another Reuters cameraman and a Spanish journalist in April was "appropriate". Of course, the Americans didn't hesitate to peddle the old lie about how Dana's camera looked like a rocket-propelled grenade - the same cock-and-bull story the Israelis produced back in 1985 when they killed a two-man CBS crew, Tewfiq Ghazawi and Bahij Metni, in southern Lebanon.



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WingNut
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posted 25 August 2003 09:15 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Turkey Claims Historic Duty To Interven In Iraq

As the region’s former colonial master, Turkey is claiming a historic duty to intervene in Iraq ahead of a debate today on sending troops there, while Kurdish leaders in the north of the occupied nation are vehemently against the deployment.

While a parliamentary vote on the deployment of troops in Iraq is not expected before mid-September, community leaders within Iraq have already been issuing their own warnings, and the issue has kicked off a fierce debate in Turkey where most of the population was against the US-led war.


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Jimmy Brogan
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posted 25 August 2003 09:41 PM      Profile for Jimmy Brogan   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Meet the new boss; same as old boss.


U.S. Recruiting Hussein's Spies

quote:
The extraordinary move to recruit agents of former president Saddam Hussein's security services underscores a growing recognition among U.S. officials that American military forces -- already stretched thin -- cannot alone prevent attacks like the devastating truck bombing of the U.N. headquarters this past week, the officials said.

Authorities have stepped up the recruitment over the past two weeks, one senior U.S. official said, despite sometimes adamant objections by members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, who complain that they have too little control over the pool of recruits. While U.S. officials acknowledge the sensitivity of cooperating with a force that embodied the ruthlessness of Hussein's rule, they assert that an urgent need for better and more precise intelligence has forced unusual compromises.

"The only way you can combat terrorism is through intelligence," the senior official said. "It's the only way you're going to stop these people from doing what they're doing." He added: "Without Iraqi input, that's not going to work."

Officials are reluctant to disclose how many former agents have been recruited since the effort began. But Iraqi officials say they number anywhere from dozens to a few hundred, and U.S. officials acknowledge that the recruitment is extensive.


quote:

Officials say the first line of intelligence-gathering remains the Iraqi police, who number 6,500 in Baghdad and 33,000 nationwide. But that force is hampered in intelligence work by a lack of credibility with a disenchanted public, and its numbers remain far below what U.S. officials say they need to bring order to an unruly capital. Across Iraq, walk-in informers have provided tips on weapons caches and locations of suspected guerrillas, but many Iraqis dismiss those reports as haphazard and sometimes motivated by a desire for personal gain.

The emphasis in recruitment appears to be on the intelligence service known as the Mukhabarat, one of four branches in Hussein's former security service, although it is not the only target for the U.S. effort. The Mukhabarat, whose name itself inspired fear in ordinary Iraqis, was the foreign intelligence service, the most sophisticated of the four. Within that service, officials have reached out to agents who once were assigned to Syria and Iran, Iraqi officials and former intelligence agents say.


[ 25 August 2003: Message edited by: JimmyBrogan ]


From: The right choice - Iggy Thumbscrews for Liberal leader | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 26 August 2003 01:50 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
US Troops Provoke Anger, Fear in Afghan Villages

quote:
Sat August 23, 2003 02:56 PM ET

By Saeed Ali Achakzai

SHER-O-ABA, Afghanistan (Reuters) - When U.S. forces entered a remote Afghan village recently to hunt Taliban and al Qaeda rebels, locals hurriedly hid their Korans in a sack.

Baffled soldiers who discovered the copies of Islam's holy book asked an elder what was happening. He told them that villagers feared they would be killed merely for being Muslims.

The misunderstanding underlines the depth of confusion and mistrust caused by foreign troops in Afghanistan, particularly in rural areas in the south and east where the coalition is most active in its hunt for "terrorists."

In many cases that mistrust has turned to hatred, as aggressive search tactics and a general sense among Muslims of being under siege plays into the hands of the very people the U.S. military is trying to wipe out. "On the slightest suspicion they arrest us and treat us like animals," said Haji Allah Dad, a 50-year-old resident of Sher-o-Aba, a village four miles east of the town of Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan.

"Their treatment is so inhuman that sometimes we even think of joining the 'jihad' (holy war) of the Taliban against them."



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majorvictory
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posted 26 August 2003 12:30 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count
From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 27 August 2003 03:00 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Abandoned weaponry litters Iraq - U.S. faulted for not securing Hussein-era munitions

quote:
Baghdad -- Iraqi officials and former army officers say the United States, in its haste to dismantle Saddam Hussein's rule, has left thousands of pounds of munitions unguarded and accessible to looters and criminals.

"When the Americans came into Iraq, they didn't secure the military bases," said former Iraqi Army Brig. Gen. Mohammad Abdullah Nour. "The munitions were everywhere, even on the sidewalks. Not just 500-pound bombs, but 2-ton or 5- ton bombs or 10-ton bombs. The Iraqi army was scattered all over Iraq, and when they abandoned their posts, they left the weapons there."

The truck bombing of the U.N. compound in Baghdad on Tuesday has prompted harsh Iraqi criticism of the U.S. and British security operations.

Investigators say the bomb, which killed at least 23 people, including the United Nations' Iraq point man, Sergio Vieira de Mello, was built of Soviet- era munitions -- the mainstay of the Iraqi arsenal -- possibly those abandoned and left unguarded following the collapse of Hussein's government. Hundreds of pounds of mortar and artillery shells were wrapped around a 500-pound bomb.

While U.S. forces hunted for weapons of mass destruction, Iraqis say, criminals made off with bombs, explosives and sophisticated weapons like rocket-propelled grenade launchers.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 27 August 2003 02:32 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The face of Afghanistan's resistance

quote:
CHAMAN/SPIN BOLDAK, Pakistan-Afghanistan border - The significant increase in the number and nature of attacks on US targets, as well as on the Afghan administration, provides indisputable evidence that the Taliban are back with a vengeance, especially in the south of the country. It is now as clear as broad daylight that neither an indigenous force nor a foreign force (not even one with massive bombers ruling the skies) can control the resistance movement.

On the face of it, the Taliban are the most isolated guerrilla fighters in the world, with no moral or material help from outside the country. However, there is an intriguing world within Afghanistan and Pakistan that supports and facilitates the struggle against foreign troops.

Across a broad swath of Afghanistan in the south and southeast Taliban-led guerrilla operations are the order of the day. Their attacks initially targeted US bases and convoys, but now the Afghan administration is in the firing line. The reason for this is to frighten as many local Afghans as possible into laying down their weapons, thereby leaving the battlefield clear for Taliban militia to take on US-led forces in the rugged mountainous terrain of the region.

This target has already very much been achieved in the southern Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan, including Zabul and Hilmand, beside Urugzan, which is nearing the point where the US-backed Afghan administration will be forced to flee.

Whether it is the house of the brother of interim leader Hamid Karzai or well-guarded ceremonies for independence day, nothing now appears beyond the range of the Taliban, and they are making life particularly difficult for the Afghan administration in Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold in the south.



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Jingles
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posted 27 August 2003 04:42 PM      Profile for Jingles     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Any predictions of what will be Canada's response when we start losing soldiers to the Afgani resistance?

It won't take much for the public to demand withdrawl. It's one thing to be killed by Americans, quite another to be killed by the people you are supposed to be keeping in peace.

Then again, DND could always claim casualties are the result of vehicle accidents, as they did in Yugoslavia.


From: At the Delta of the Alpha and the Omega | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 27 August 2003 04:44 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
From a coroner's point of view, Baghdad is as deadly as ever

quote:
By Sarmad S. Ali

08/26/03: (Iraq-Today) BAGHDAD - Everyday, women mill about crying outside the courtyard of Baghdad's Institute of Forensic Medicine at Bab al Muadam Square, so overcome with grief that they are unable to stand. The men stand grim and silent, the sleepless nights showing on their faces. But behind the doors of, the day is just beginning as the daily toll of postwar Iraq's crime wave gets counted.

Coroners have to work overtime these days to keep up with the stream of bodies that comes through the everyday. Five coroners distributed along the five benches of the morgue are barely able to keep up. More than ten corpses lay around in the room as if they were in an abattoir, with chairs for students to study the place and the events taking place there. About 10 autopsies a day are completed here as partially decomposed bodies pile up on autopsy tables and along the office floors awaiting final approval for burial. From the outside, the smell of the room is enough to make one retch; inside the stench is simply overwhelming.

"Neither during the war nor during the previous two wars has this happened," said Dr. Qais Hassan Salman, a specialist in forensic medicine at the Institute. "The number of dead is absolutely unbelievable, and I'm just speaking of Baghdad alone. God knows what's happening elsewhere." Coalition officials have claimed that Baghdad's crime rates are comparable to any major US city. But in fact, judging by coroner's reports, the Iraqi capital's homicide rate exceeds that of even the most violent American cities several times over. Even before the war began, Baghdad was one of the most dangerous places to live in the world. This year's records mark more than a doubling in violent deaths.

"The number of deaths that need proper autopsy now is absolutely unbelievable and I just speak of Baghdad," says Dr Salman, "God knows what is happening in other provinces."



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 28 August 2003 02:26 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Aid agencies pull out as the coalition loses control

quote:
By Julian Borger in Washington

August 28, 2003

Humanitarian aid agencies say they are evacuating their workers from Iraq.

It is the latest sign that the security situation is slipping out of the United States-British coalition's control.

Oxfam said on Tuesday it had pulled out its staff following last week's truck bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, and as a result of continuing threats to relief workers.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which stayed in Baghdad during the war, also announced it was reducing its presence there. So did Save the Children, which pulled out two of its four international workers, and cut local staff numbers.

The withdrawals came as the US death toll from the postwar occupation surpassed the number killed in the invasion itself.

A soldier was killed in an ambush on the road between Falluja and Ramadi. This brought the number of US deaths since President George Bush declared "major combat operations" over on May 1 to 139.

That is one more than the total casualties US forces suffered during the invasion, though a much higher proportion of those were killed in combat. During the occupation, 77 US soldiers have been killed by accidents, suicides and illness.

However, Mr Bush vowed there would be no retreat from Iraq. Addressing an American Legion convention in St Louis, he said: "Retreat in the face of terror would only invite further and bolder attacks. Our only goal, our only option, is total victory in the war on terror."

In Oxford, Julia Tilford, a spokeswoman for Oxfam, said the pervasive environment of insecurity had hit the aid agencies.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 29 August 2003 12:42 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Hiding the Body Count - The Little Deaths

quote:
By BRUCE JACKSON

Every few days the U.S. Department of Defense issues a terse press release of US military deaths in Iraq from non-combat causes. These lack drama or narrative so they are hardly ever noted in newspapers or television newscasts in places other than the hometowns of the newly dead. The DoD release for August 25, 2002, for example, read, in its entirety:

Pfc. Michael S. Adams, 20, of Spartanburg, S.C., died on Aug. 21 in Baghdad, Iraq. Adams was participating in a small arms fire exercise on the range when a bullet ricocheted and ignited a fire in the building. He died as a result of injuries sustained during the fire. Adams was assigned to 1st Battalion, 35th Armor Regiment, 1st Armored Division, Baumholder, Germany.

Spc. Stephen M. Scott, 21, of Lawton, Okla., died on Aug. 23 in Baghdad, Iraq. Scott died as a result of non-combat injuries. Scott was assigned to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Carson, Colo.

Pfc. Vorn J. Mack, 19, of Orangeburg, S.C., died on Aug. 23 near the Hadithah Dam, west of Ar Ramadi, Iraq. Mack jumped into the Euphrates River to take a swim and did not resurface. A search party found Mack's body downstream on Aug. 24. Mack was assigned to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Carson, Colo.

These incidents are under investigation.

The U.S. does not, as a matter of public record, keep any listing of Iraqi civilian and paramilitary kills (but some nonmilitary people try: see Iraq Body Count ). There was no attempt at a count during the formal part of the war; there is no admission of a continuing count during this continuing part of the war. I have no doubt, however, that they do have their own body count of the civilian dead since the U.S. occupation of Iraq began. They're just not distributing the numbers. They fear misinterpretation by people like you and me.




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WingNut
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posted 29 August 2003 09:31 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:

Friday, Aug. 29, 2003. Page XII

Global Eye -- Die Laughing
By Chris Floyd

Here's a headline you don't see every day: "War Criminals Hire War Criminals to Hunt Down War Criminals."

Perhaps that's not the precise wording used by the Washington Post this week, but it is the absolute essence of its story about the Bush Regime's new campaign to put Saddam's murderous security forces on America's payroll.

Yes, the sahibs in Bush's Iraqi Raj are now doling out U.S. tax dollars to hire the murderers of the infamous Mukhabarat and other agents of the Baathist Gestapo -- perhaps hundreds of them. The logic, if that's the word, seems to be that these bloodstained "insiders" will lead their new imperial masters to other bloodstained "insiders" responsible for bombing the UN headquarters in Baghdad -- and killing another dozen American soldiers while Little George was playing with his putts during his month-long Texas siesta.

Naturally, the Iraqi people -- even the Bush-appointed leaders of the Potemkin "Governing Council" -- aren't exactly overjoyed at seeing Saddam's goons return, flush with American money and firepower. And they're certainly not reassured by the fact that the Bushists have also reopened Saddam's most notorious prison, the dread Abu Ghraib, and are now, Mukhabarat-like, filling it with Iraqis -- men, women and children as young as 11 -- seized from their homes or plucked off the street to be held incommunicado, indefinitely, without due process, just like the old days. As The Times of London reports, weeping relatives who dare approach the gleaming American razor-wire in search of their "disappeared" loved ones are referred to a crude, hand-written sign pinned to a spike: "No visits are allowed, no information will be given and you must leave." Perhaps an Iraqi Anna Akhmatova will do justice to these scenes one day.

However, the sahibs' unabashed embrace of their soulmates in the Saddamite security forces did provide some sinister comedy in the Post story. The wary reporters and Raj officials displayed the usual hilarious delicacy in coming up with reality-fogging prose to protect the tender sensibilities of the American people, who must never be told what their betters are really getting up to.

For example, the U.S. alliance with Saddam's killers -- yes, the very ones who inflicted all those human rights abuses which, we're now told, was the onliest reason the Dear Leader attacked and destroyed a sovereign nation in an unprovoked war of aggression -- was described demurely as "an unusual compromise." (As opposed to, say, "a moral outrage," or "a putrid stain on America's honor," or "a monstrous copulation of rapacious conquerors with bloodthirsty scum.") However, the Post hastens to assure us that the wise sahibs do recognize the "potential pitfalls" of hooking up with "an instrument renowned across the Arab world for its casual use of torture, fear, intimidation, rape and imprisonment."

Those kidders! Surely they know this "potential pitfall" is actually one of the main goals of the entire bloody enterprise: to intimidate the "Arab world" until they straighten up and fly right -- i.e., turn their countries over to Halliburton, Bechtel and the Carlyle Group. That's why you buy an "instrument" like the Mukhabarat in the first place. You certainly don't employ professional murderers and rapists if you are genuinely interested in building a "decent, open, democratic society," as the Bushists claim in their imperial PR.


dripping sarcasm from Moscow


From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 30 August 2003 12:00 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Iraqi resisters are patriots

quote:
By TED RALL

08/29/03: (Yahoo!News) NEW YORK - Nearly 70 percent of Americans tell Newsweek that “the United States will be bogged down in Iraq for years without achieving its goals.” Yet 61 percent tell the same poll that invading Iraq was the right thing to do. The reason for this weird disconnect: people think that we’re in Iraq to spread democracy and rebuild the Middle East. They think we’re The Good Guys. But the longer we keep patting ourselves on the back, the more we tell ourselves that the Iraqi resistance is a bunch of evil freedom-haters, the deeper we’ll sink into this quagmire.

It’s time to get real.

In war, the side that most accurately sizes up the situation ultimately prevails. In this war in Iraq, our leaders thought the fall of Baghdad meant the end of the conflict. “Mission accomplished,” as the banner behind George W. Bush read on the aircraft carrier. But Saddam understood the truth: the war began with the occupation. Guerilla warfare offered the only way for Iraq’s tiny, poorly armed military to resist the US. The Baath Party planned to provoke US occupation forces into mistreating the population.

It worked.

Random bombings and sniper hits have made the American occupiers jittery and paranoid. They’ve withdrawn into fortified cantonments where they’ve cut off contact with civilians. Their ignorance causes them to offend Iraqi cultural and religious sensibilities. Even better, from Saddam’s perspective, US troops push people around: shooting unarmed motorists, stealing their money and jewelry at roadblocks, breaking into houses in the middle of the night, manhandling wives and daughters, putting bags over men’s heads and carrying them off to God knows where for who knows how long.

“US troops put their boots on the back of men’s heads as they lay face down, forcing their foreheads to the ground,” the Associated Press’ Scheherezade Faramarzi writes about the procedure used by US troops during sweeps. “There is no greater humiliation . . . because Islam forbids putting the forehead on the ground except in prayer.” Amnesty International says the US subjects Iraqi prisoners to “cruel, inhuman or degrading” conditions.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 30 August 2003 01:46 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
New Iraqi army recruitment going well
quote:
Hayder Ali, a former sergeant in Saddam’s army and father of a 1-year-old, was among the first in line Monday morning, waiting for a chance to schedule his interview.

Ali, who said he has not been paid since before the war began, hopes the process of getting the new army together won’t take too long, “maybe one month, two months.”

“They understand it’s not going to be an overnight process,” Hickman said. “But it’s a step in the right direction.”

Ali, for one, said he is planning to wait for a spot in the new army no matter how long the process takes.

“I want to serve my country, to help accomplish peace,” he said.

Asked whether he is angry at the Americans for bombing his city, Ali smiled.

“To the contrary,” he said. “They helped us get rid of a tyrant.”



From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 30 August 2003 02:10 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
"We have told the occupation forces that Iraq is for Iraqis and not for them," Hakim's nephew said, and urged the Americans to hand over security to the Iraqi people.

"We have told them that security in this country cannot be accomplished unless we depend on the faithful public forces because they know who are the enemies and who are the friends," Ammar told the crowd.

The sea of people shouted back: "Revenge, revenge, oh Ammar!

"No, no to America, death for America. Death for Baathis.


Death to America


From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 30 August 2003 07:50 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Ammar Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the son of Hakim's brother and Iraqi Governing Council member Abdel Aziz, addressed the demonstrators, grieving over the slain scholar, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"These crowds have gathered today to carry a message to the whole world, we will keep on working, struggling and sacrificing until we raise the flag of Islam, on the lands of the Mesopotamia," he said.
And here I thought the flag of Islam – at least in spirit – was already flying over Mesopotamia.
So some Judge-Moore-Like demagogue scolds and others should tremble?

Meanwhile, we have worrisome empirical evidence that tells another story.

quote:
The poll said 31% wanted troops to stay "a few years", while 25% said "about a year."
Only 13% said they should leave now, while 20% said they should go "within 12 months".

Some know-nothing once said:
quote:
Some anecdotal quip from a pissed-off taxi driver to an aspiring imam calling for jihad is interesting but largely useless in assessing the situation. There are numerous web-sites offering first hand accounts from soldiers and reporters that portray a situation entirely at odds with much of the anti-war press.

[ 30 August 2003: Message edited by: SHH ]


From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 31 August 2003 06:06 AM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
But Saddam understood the truth: the war began with the occupation. Guerilla warfare offered the only way for Iraq’s tiny, poorly armed military to resist the US. The Baath Party planned to provoke US occupation forces into mistreating the population.
Darn. Fooled again. It was all part of the “plan”. For He ‘understood the truth’.

From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 31 August 2003 10:45 AM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Shiite membership in council suspended

quote:
NAJAF, Iraq, August 30 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - In protest against coalition forces indifference about protecting religious leaders and places, Mohammad Bahr al-Uloom, a Shiite dignitary on Iraq's Governing Council, announced Saturday, August30 , he was suspending his membership of the U.S.-named interim body.

Accusing the U.S.-led coalition forces that ousted Saddam of turning a deaf ear to repeated calls for the protection of Najaf, Bahr al-Uloom called on "the Islamic and Arab world ... to send a (force) to protect our sanctities and people".

Should Arabs and Muslims fail to do so, the Iraqis themselves and the tribes of central and southern regions should "protect our sanctities and religious symbols, standing as one in the face of this criminal terrorism ... practiced by a vicious gang from inside and outside" the country, said the statement issued in Najaf, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).



From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Black Dog
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posted 02 September 2003 05:35 PM      Profile for Black Dog   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Car bomb explodes; more U.S. soldiers killed
quote:
The fourth car bombing in Iraq in a month killed a police station employee Tuesday and wounded at least 18 other people near the station in western Baghdad.
-----------------------------------------
In other violence, two U.S. military police officers died and one was wounded Monday after their Humvee hit a bomb on a highway in southern Baghdad, U.S. Central Command said Tuesday.


From: Vancouver | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 04 September 2003 08:41 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
France, Germany Reject U.S. Draft on Iraq

quote:
DRESDEN, Germany - France and Germany refused Thursday to support a U.S. draft resolution that would spread the burden of running postwar Iraq (news - web sites), but said they believed a compromise was possible.

French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder demanded that Washington give the United Nations (news - web sites) more influence in Iraq's political future. Their stance threatened to reopen a barely healed trans-Atlantic rift over their ardent opposition to the Iraq war.

Under the draft resolution circulated Wednesday at the United Nations, Washington seeks money and troops from other countries but would not cede political or military control in Iraq.

Chirac seemed particularly critical of the U.S. initiative and was adamant that the draft foresee the United States' giving up control of the political process in Iraq.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 05 September 2003 06:14 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Have You Forgotten?
September 11 was a tragedy. Not because 3,000 Americans died… but because 3,000 humans died. I was reading about the recorded telephone conversations of victims and their families on September 11. I thought it was… awful, and perfectly timed. Just when people are starting to question the results and incentives behind this occupation, they are immediately bombarded with reminders of September 11. Never mind Iraq had nothing to do with it.

I get emails constantly reminding me of the tragedy of September 11 and telling me how the “Arabs” brought all of this upon themselves. Never mind it was originally blamed on Afghanistan (who, for your information, aren’t Arabs).

I am constantly reminded of the 3,000 Americans who died that day… and asked to put behind me the 8,000 worthless Iraqis we lost to missiles, tanks and guns.

People marvel that we’re not out in the streets, decking the monstrous, khaki tanks with roses and jasmine. They wonder why we don’t crown the hard, ugly helmets of the troops with wreaths of laurel. They question why we mourn our dead instead of gratefully offering them as sacrifices to the Gods of Democracy and Liberty. They wonder why we’re bitter.

But, I *haven’t* forgotten…

I remember February 13, 1991. I remember the missiles dropped on Al-Amriyah shelter- a civilian bomb shelter in a populated, residential area in Baghdad. Bombs so sophisticated, that the first one drilled through to the heart of the shelter and the second one exploded inside. The shelter was full of women and children- boys over the age of 15 weren’t allowed. I remember watching images of horrified people clinging to the fence circling the shelter, crying, screaming, begging to know what had happened to a daughter, a mother, a son, a family that had been seeking protection within the shelter’s walls.

I remember watching them drag out bodies so charred, you couldn’t tell they were human. I remember frantic people, running from corpse to corpse, trying to identify a loved-one… I remember seeing Iraqi aid workers, cleaning out the shelter, fainting with the unbearable scenes inside. I remember the whole area reeked with the smell of burnt flesh for weeks and weeks after.

I remember visiting the shelter, years later, to pay my respects to the 400+ people who died a horrible death during the small hours of the morning and seeing the ghostly outlines of humans plastered on the walls and ceilings.

I remember a family friend who lost his wife, his five-year-old daughter, his two-year-old son and his mind on February 13.

I remember the day the Pentagon, after making various excuses, claimed it had been a ‘mistake’.

I remember 13 years of sanctions, backed firmly by the US and UK, in the name of WMD nobody ever found. Sanctions so rigid, we had basic necessities, like medicine, on waiting lists for months and months, before they were refused. I remember chemicals like chlorine, necessary for water purification, being scrutinized and delayed at the expense of millions of people.

I remember having to ask aid workers, and visiting activists, to ‘please bring a book’ because publishing companies refused to sell scientific books and journals to Iraq. I remember having to ‘share’ books with other students in college, in an attempt to make the most of the limited resources.

I remember wasted, little bodies in huge hospital beds- dying of hunger and of disease; diseases that could easily be treated with medications that were ‘forbidden’. I remember parents with drawn faces peering anxiously into doctors’ eyes, searching for a miracle.

I remember the depleted uranium. How many have heard of depleted uranium? Those are household words to Iraqi people. The depleted uranium weapons used in 1991 (and possibly this time too) have resulted in a damaged environment and an astronomical rise in the cancer rate in Iraq. I remember seeing babies born with a single eye, 3 legs or no face- a result of DU poisoning.

I remember dozens of dead in the ‘no fly zones’, bombed by British and American planes claiming to ‘protect’ the north and south of Iraq. I remember the mother, living on the outskirts of Mosul, who lost her husband and 5 kids when an American plane bombed the father and his sons in the middle of a field of peaceful, grazing sheep.

And we are to believe that this is all being done for the sake of the people.

“Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away?”

No… we haven’t forgotten- the tanks are still here to remind us.

A friend of E.’s, who lives in Amiriyah, was telling us about an American soldier he had been talking to in the area. E’s friend pointed to the shelter and told him of the atrocity committed in 1991. The soldier turned with the words, “Don’t blame me- I was only 9!” And I was only 11.

American long-term memory is exclusive to American traumas. The rest of the world should simply ‘put the past behind’, ‘move forward’, ‘be pragmatic’ and ‘get over it’.

Someone asked me whether it was true that the ‘Iraqi people were dancing in the streets of Baghdad’ when the World Trade Center fell. Of course it’s not true. I was watching the tv screen in disbelief- looking at the reactions of the horrified people. I wasn’t dancing because the terrified faces on the screen, could have been the same faces in front of the Amiriyah shelter on February 13… it’s strange how horror obliterates ethnic differences- all faces look the same when they are witnessing the death of loved ones.


http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/


From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 07 September 2003 04:09 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Soldier killed in Afghanistan returns

quote:
SYRACUSE -- The casket bearing Chad Fuller, a 10th Mountain Division soldier killed in Afghanistan, was met by an honor guard Friday that provided an escort for his return to northern New York.

A motorcade of two dozen cars and motorcycles assembled at the Syracuse airport shortly before 3 p.m. Soldiers and police saluted as Fuller's casket was unloaded from a commercial jetliner.

The honor guard took the casket to a hearse, and the motorcade left the airport in a line, heading toward Fuller's hometown of Potsdam, near the Canadian border, where the funeral will be held.

Col. C.A. Cruse said there would be a brief period of healing and mourning 60 miles away at Fort Drum, where the division is based. But he said all the troops realize that this is part of what they do.

Fuller, 23, was one of two 10th Mountain Division soldiers from Fort Drum killed Sunday in a firefight with Taliban guerillas in eastern Afghanistan, Fort Drum officials said.

"He was proud to serve his country. His family and his country were the most important things to him," Gene Burnham said after learning of his stepson's death. "He said a man doesn't leave the Army when his country needs him."

He was one of six snipers who came under fire Sunday during the early hours of "Operation Mountain Viper" in the southern Zabul province near the Pakistan border, The Watertown Daily Times reported.

Adam L. Thomas, 21, of La Plata, Mo., also was killed in the intense 90-minute gunbattle, according to his family.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Courage
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posted 07 September 2003 05:02 PM      Profile for Courage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by SHH:
Darn. Fooled again. It was all part of the “plan”. For He ‘understood the truth’.

Please avail yourself of a media search from the months leading up to the war. There were indications from many corners that the Bagdhad regime were speaking openly of Vietnam and guerilla-style tactics to bait the Americans into a war that would eventually pit them against the general population of Iraq.

Moreover, the Americans understood this, and made certain strategic and psy-ops preparations for this probability. Not only did they immediately begin massive propaganda efforts through print and television to convince the population of certain ideas about the war and occupation, but they have already set-up pro-American media outlets that present around-the-clock propaganda about 'Western values' to the Iraqi population.

Another note; your admonition above that 'other sources' show that the anti-war press is giving a distorted picture rests on the troublesome assumption that the non-anti-war press are in fact unbiased and reporting everything without reservation or obfuscation - in short, that they have no axe to grind of their own. Considering the sheer immensity of the lies and propaganda that our mainstream media published during the war without skepticism or reservation, I think I can safely counsel a little more caution in regard to their 'pro-occupation' reports at this point.

Or have these same gutless sycophants suddenly risen from their knees, grown spines and become paragons of unbiased, honest reporting?

Sure, and I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale...

The knife cuts both ways.


From: Earth | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 07 September 2003 08:37 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Cheney warns more GIs to die in terror fight

quote:
09/05/03

By JOHN ANDERSON
Times Staff Writer [email protected]


Vice President Dick Cheney during a brief visit here today warned Americans to expect more military casualties in President Bush's war on terrorism.

In a sober defense of Bush's policy, under attack as the military death toll in Iraq climbs, Cheney called the Sept. 11 attacks "a defining moment'' for Bush. The president decided then to change the nation's Cold War strategy of containment to take the offensive by going after terrorists before they strike, Cheney said.

"No treaty, no arms control (agreement) or deterrence will end terrorism," Cheney told more than 400 people who attended a $500-per-person breakfast to raise money for freshman U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Anniston.

"A good defense is not enough," Cheney said at the Von Braun Center's North Hall, because even with one that's 99 percent effective in keeping terrorists from attacking on American soil, "the one percent that gets through can kill you.''



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 07 September 2003 09:44 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Please avail yourself of a media search from the months leading up to the war. There were indications from many corners that the Bagdhad regime were speaking openly of Vietnam and guerilla-style tactics to bait the Americans into a war that would eventually pit them against the general population of Iraq.
I don’t recall reading anything of the sort but even if I did my reaction would be a simple: talk is cheap and lies are easy. It seems clear to me that the Iraqi army simply deserted; not being willing to die for Hussein; an entirely understandable reaction. The notion of a grand plan of guerrilla warfare as perpetrated by these same deserters is simple nonsense. A few thousand or so, working as desperate mercenaries I find plausible, a wholesale “plan” of such, I find ridiculous. With approx. 100 thousand officers on the payroll pre-war, the ‘plan’ seems quite a whimper so far.

As to my admonition of the anti-war press, I make no apologies. Aside from the usual cluelessness, inaccuracies, and slanted coverage we receive from our media brethren, they do necessarily report more on plane crashes than successful landings. So, I guess it’s par for the course. ‘The sky is falling’ always sells better. And that fact tells us nothing worth knowing.

But people that obsess and dwell over every miss-step, as reported, while ignoring the equally available positive developments are a peculiar sort to me. I wonder if they know that most planes land safely. Maybe there’s something else at work.


From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 07 September 2003 10:24 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
SHH, your leadership,. which apparently you blindly support, lied. They lied to the you, to all Americans, to the world. And they are still lying.

Amerticans are dying and being wounded almost daily. Ten thousand Iraqi civilains are dead. Up to 30,000 Iraqi conscripts. They are heading toward civil war.

The US economy has tanked and yet Bush, still promising billions in tax cuts for the rich, wants $87 billion more over and above what is already being spent and what will be required.

And still you apologize and for Bush, the war, and attack everyone else who offers an alternative opinion. And your attacks are routinely based not on arguments but assigning guilt or undermining credibility through some sort of association.

Given all of that, I'm sorry, but you are a sucker. You would buy a used car that didn't run so long as it was painted red, white and blue and George W. or some other lying liar told you the dead Honda was "a good American vehicle." And then every mechanic who told you it was a lemon, you would dismiss as having graduated from a second rate technical school, or being suspect because some columinst says the car runs even if you can't get to roll down hill in neutral.


From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Hinterland
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posted 07 September 2003 11:08 PM      Profile for Hinterland        Edit/Delete Post
quote:
They lied to the you, to all Americans, to the world. And they are still lying.

That's the cut-to-the-chase version. The long version is demagoguery within normal standards of political dissembling and lengthy discussions about people not reading enough or not knowing that the media are falsifying facts or (surprisingly, in the case of the US) concentrating too much on negativity, and in any event, it's all too boring for the average person anyway. It's no wonder Americans choose to work and play "hard"; the rest of life, apparently, just isn't worth it. I think Americans need to grow up.


From: Québec/Ontario | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 07 September 2003 11:36 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
WingNut, I’m not a Bush supporter by any means and I opposed his most recent tax plan. I’m not even a ‘big’ pro-preemptive strike guy. But that doesn’t make me immune to chicken-little nonsense, which is, if you read back, the only real thrust of my comments. Sorry if I can’t join in with all the hand-wringing. If reserving judgment and balancing the positive against the negative makes me a sucker, so be it. Planes sometimes crash but I still fly all the time because most don’t.

I’m not ready to declare defeat yet...it’s way too early. Let’s chat, in, say, 5 or 10 years. And while you may be eager to declare failure, my unwillingness to attend your church of gloom can in no way be construed as an apology for anybody.

From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 09 September 2003 08:44 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Militants kill 5 Afghans, wound 2 GIs

quote:
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Suspected Taliban insurgents killed five Afghan government soldiers and wounded two U.S. soldiers in attacks in the south and east of Afghanistan, Afghan and U.S. officials said Monday.

In Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, insurgents late Sunday ambushed a pickup truck carrying Afghan soldiers through a mountain gorge. Five soldiers were killed and five wounded, said Haji Granai, a military commander.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 09 September 2003 09:54 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
I’m not ready to declare defeat yet...it’s way too early. Let’s chat, in, say, 5 or 10 years. And while you may be eager to declare failure, my unwillingness to attend your church of gloom can in no way be construed as an apology for anybody.

Defeat of what?

See, that is what you don't get, isn't it? You wave the flag and talk of victory and defeat as though it were a college football game.

You were defeated morally and politically as soon as you raised arms against a much weaker nation which never threatened you never mind raised arms against you.

And the lies continue. Now it wasn't clear and present danger now it was potential danger in the future, maybe, maybe not, but definitely maybe.

And while you speak of victory in 5 years or 10 years Iraqis are dying now. Americans are dying now. And Haliburton is getting stinking rich. Is that the freedom Americans are dying for? The freedom to occupy another people and kill them for not being grateful? The freedom for WorldCom to extract another $40 million from Americans? The freedom for Cheney and cronies to get rich of the spilt blood of your troops and innocent Iraqis?
The freedom to push the world further down the path to more arms and more wars with talk of yet more invasions? The freedom to divert money from schools and health and all that really matters for General Dynamics to build more weaposn of mass destruction to be used against civilian populations?

What victory?

I suppose any hollow victory on the backs of the weak is good enough for the flag wavers.


From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
al-Qa'bong
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posted 09 September 2003 10:04 PM      Profile for al-Qa'bong   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Great post Wingy.

Not to undermine the seriousness of what you say, but by the time I reached the end, the tune "Land of Hope and Glory" was playing in my head.


From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
Tommy M
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posted 10 September 2003 11:15 AM      Profile for Tommy M     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:

Citing the US military Central Command as its source, the Washington Post reported on September 2 that “more than 6,000 service members” had been medically evacuated from Iraq since the launch of the war. At the time, the number of combat wounded stood at 1,124. A further 301 personnel had been injured in non-combat incidents such as vehicle accidents. The figure of “more than 6,000” supplied to the Post therefore implies that over 4,500 US troops have required evacuation from Iraq for medical reasons other than combat or non-combat injuries.

The Washington Post article did not include any further information on what is a staggering admission by the military. At no point in the last six months have the American people been told that for every soldier who has been killed in Iraq, at least another 15 have fallen so ill that they had to be flown back to the United States. The Post described the unexplained evacuations simply as the “thousands who became physically or mentally ill”.


Thousands of US troops evacuated from Iraq for unexplained medical reasons


From: Here | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 10 September 2003 01:09 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Suicide Car Bomber Kills Three in Iraq

quote:
IRBIL, Iraq - A suicide car bomber struck the U.S. intelligence headquarters here, killing three Iraqis — including a 12-year-old boy, a Kurdish security official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The U.S. military in Baghdad said the bombing wounded four "Defense Human Intelligence Service" officers and a Kurdish peshmerga guard at the building.

The Kurdish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said three of the wounded Americans suffered serious abdominal injuries from flying glass and were airlifted by helicopter to a U.S. military hospital.

The official said the attack was the work of al-Qaida. He gave no reason for that assessment, but said he was certain Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s organization was behind the attack.

The Ansar al-Islam terrorist organization, with suspected ties to al-Qaida, formerly was based near Sulaymaniyah, about 30 miles east of Irbil and near the Iranian border.

Ansar headquarters was bombed by American jets during the war and was captured by a joint U.S.-Kurdish force. Surviving members of the group were thought to have fled to Iran, but they now are believed to have returned to Iraq (news - web sites).

Forty-one Iraqis were hurt in the bombing, which destroyed several homes in the neighborhood, the Kurdish official said, adding that the vehicle was packed with TNT. The neighborhood was cordoned off by U.S. soldiers.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 10 September 2003 05:58 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Defeat of what?
Why the defeat of The Plan silly, which I don’t even know if you know exists. And that would be, right or wrong, an attempt to remake the ME in order to thwart the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and stabilize the oil supplies in the region so the world can go about pursuing the ‘freedom’ of modern civilized life (which has almost nothing to do with the silliness you ramble on about).
quote:
The freedom to occupy another people and kill them for not being grateful?
Did you know there’s a new Zogby International poll? Guess, what? Most Iraqi’s are grateful.
quote:
Seven out of 10 say they expect their country and their personal lives will be better five years from now.
And there’s more…
quote:
Asked to name one country they would most like Iraq to model its new government on from five possibilities--neighboring, Baathist Syria; neighbor and Islamic monarchy Saudi Arabia; neighbor and Islamist republic Iran; Arab lodestar Egypt; or the U.S.--the most popular model by far was the U.S.
Islamic revolution? Going to be a hard sell.
quote:
Interestingly, Iraqi Shiites, coreligionists with Iranians, do not admire Iran's Islamist government; the U.S. is six times as popular with them as a model for governance.
Read the whole thing. It’s full of interesting observations.
quote:
"We will not forget it was the U.S. soldiers who liberated us from Saddam," said Abid Ali, an auto repair shop owner in Sadr City last month--and our research shows that he's not unrepresentative.
Perhaps you should explain to Abid Ali and the 70% that are looking forward to life without Saddam’s security forces why they should long for the good old days. Clearly you know something they don’t.

But don’t let news like this deter you. Carry on with hand wringing.


From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 10 September 2003 06:28 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Did you know there’s a new Zogby International poll? Guess, what? Most Iraqi’s are grateful.



These are the same Iraqis who voted 99.9% for Saddam Hussein?

Sone of you Americans are so out of touch with reality it is not only mind boggling it explains your government.

Iraqis view the occupiers as they did thier government. They will say what they think they are expected to say and then shoot a G.I.

Anyway, this thread is drifting. SAo this is my last post on thsi topic. I would only appeal to you to remove the flag from your eyes and examine not only the immediate truth but the truth of your nation's involvement in the middle east.

I read a column recently by a pro-American, pro-war in Canada. He wrote, essentially, that the ungrateful Arabs and Muslims are terrorists in response to US intervention since the 50's in attempting to control middle east oil resources. He wrote that if the Arabs woulod just accept that the U.S. needs their oil and that they are subservient to US interests, all will be right with the world.

This type of appalling bigotry, supremacy and arrogance is what brings us to where we are today. Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you were saluting.


From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 10 September 2003 10:06 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Predictable. The message isn’t right so the impugn the messenger. From the article...
quote:
We consulted Eastern European pollsters about the best way to elicit honest answers from those conditioned to repress their true sentiments.
Even though this poll is supported by several others that I’ve linked to earlier, let’s assume that their ‘Eastern European’ pollsters failed and they were off 20-30%. That would still make you 100% at odds with most Iraqi’s.

Have you considered opening up a retraining school in Iraq? Clearly these poor misguided folks need some WingNut wisdom.


From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 11 September 2003 12:47 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
U.S. Soldier Killed by Homemade Bomb in Iraq

quote:
Wed September 10, 2003 11:34 AM ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An American soldier was killed in Iraq Wednesday by a homemade bomb which exploded during an attempt to detonate it safely, the U.S. military said.
The soldier, killed in Baghdad Wednesday morning, was part of a bomb disposal team from the U.S. Army's First Armored Division, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

The statement said the soldier had been trying to defuse an improvised explosive device (IED), a term the military normally uses to refer to homemade bombs planted by guerrillas on roads to explode when a military vehicle travels over them.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 11 September 2003 12:48 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Will We Look Like the Soviets When We Leave Iraq?

quote:
By Marc Kaufman
Sunday, September 7, 2003; Page B03

Well-equipped foreign troops were under daily fire from determined if ragtag guerrillas, and casualties steadily mounted. Much of the world was opposed to the military action, and opposition was especially strong in Muslim countries. Islamic holy warriors were eventually drawn to the fight, bringing funds and increasingly extreme tactics. The occupying forces sought to modernize a traditional Muslim society and do it quickly. They never lost a battle, yet the war wouldn't end.

If this sounds like a description of the challenge facing U.S. forces in postwar Iraq, you're right. But it could just as well describe another war in the same region -- the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s.

As the American death count rises in Iraq and efforts to improve life for Iraqis remain limited by the lack of security, the Bush administration is working hard to convince us that we are merely witnessing the untidy death throes of Saddam Hussein's regime. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice and others have held up post-World War II Germany and Japan as models for the U.S. occupation in Iraq. The administration's detractors respond by raising the specter of Vietnam or the aborted U.S. military missions in Lebanon and Somalia.

And yet the Soviet experience in Afghanistan -- where a superpower moved in a bold and aggressive way outside its clear sphere of influence into a fractured Muslim nation -- is a more useful model, however different the occupiers' motivations and however different the outcome ultimately may be. And because the Soviets' Afghan occupation ended in disaster for both the occupier and the occupied, it offers lessons that U.S. officials would do well to remember.



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WingNut
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posted 11 September 2003 08:06 AM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Iraqis do not trust Americans, says poll
By Guy Dinmore in Washington
Published: September 10 2003 18:27 | Last Updated: September 10 2003 18:27

Braving bullets, arrests and hot pursuit while carrying out the first scientific survey of Iraqi public opinion, pollsters commissioned by a conservative US think-tank have discovered that most Iraqis do not trust Americans and want to be left alone.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059479720102


Gee, isn't that the pollster that says Iraqis LOVE American occupation troops. And commissioned by a right-wing think tank, no less. Must be completely impartial.


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WingNut
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posted 11 September 2003 06:02 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
A small crowd gathered at the scene of the attack and began shouting jubilantly "Allahu Akbar," or God is great, and "Oh, Iraq, we sacrifice our lives and blood for you."


Major shootout; casualties reported

From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 11 September 2003 10:38 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
That last article is classic. I’ll be sure to add it to the “Mommy...mommy! Those bad men are behaving badly!” file.

From the FTimes...

quote:
Interviewees were given a list of five countries they would like to model Iraq after. A total of 36 per cent chose the four Middle Eastern countries listed (16 per cent for Saudi Arabia, 11 per cent for Syria, 6.5 per cent for Egypt and 2.8 per cent for Iran) while 21.5 per cent settled for the US, the only western country listed.
From Opinion Journal
quote:
Asked to name one country they would most like Iraq to model its new government on from five possibilities--neighboring, Baathist Syria; neighbor and Islamic monarchy Saudi Arabia; neighbor and Islamist republic Iran; Arab lodestar Egypt; or the U.S.--the most popular model by far was the U.S. The U.S. was preferred as a model by 37% of Iraqis selecting from those five--more than Syria, Iran and Egypt put together. Saudi Arabia was in second place at 28%. Again, there were important demographic splits. Younger adults are especially favorable toward the U.S., and Shiites are more admiring than Sunnis. Interestingly, Iraqi Shiites, coreligionists with Iranians, do not admire Iran's Islamist government; the U.S. is six times as popular with them as a model for governance.
Interesting that the FT cherry-picked like the BBC. The title editor was esp non-biased. It probably doesn’t matter who’s got their facts wrong, the lap dogs will continue to drink.

From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 11 September 2003 11:18 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Yes, and drink you must.

So Iraqis would be prefer the throne of the emperor than the dirt of the downtrodden. Big fucking surprise, SSH. What you fail to get is the reason they hate you is because you keep fucking them over.

Maybe if you let them control their own resources, manage their own economies and select their own governments they would be more willing to stay home and would be less lilely to want to kill you.

Your country is a netexporter of misery. And you still don't get it.

You leaders lie. They steaL. They kill. And you call those resisting the most militarized nation on earth and defending thier own country terrorists.

And you apologize for and defend this nonsense.

Wait, your SUV needs gas.


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SHH
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posted 11 September 2003 11:56 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Your shallow baiting notwithstanding. Have a good night.
From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 12 September 2003 07:54 AM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
US army blunder 'kills eight Iraqi officers'

Agencies
Friday September 12, 2003

US soldiers mistakenly killed at least eight Iraqi police officers who were chasing a car full of armed men through a checkpoint near Falluja, it was reported today.

According to witnesses cited by the Associated Press, the shooting took place as Falluja police and security guards pursued a white BMW used by suspected highway robbers on the road connecting Baghdad with the Jordanian border.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1040702,00.html


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WingNut
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posted 12 September 2003 07:58 AM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Blair 'right to over-ride terror warnings'

Tony Blair got the warning a month before the war
The prime minister was right to "exercise his judgement" and take Britain to war with Iraq despite warnings that it could increase the risk of terrorists getting weapons of mass destruction, the health secretary has insisted.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3102694.stm


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SHH
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posted 13 September 2003 12:07 AM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Yes, and drink you must.
And to think I was thinking of you! Such a silly boy you are.

Funny that you should attack the OPJ article and cite the FT version. You missed the slant and twist, I guess. (The actual Zogby questions and results seem to be available to only those that pay...thus, we don’t know for sure who’s spinning).

Your buddy, kiowa, on another thread, supports the notion – as suggested in the Zogby poll that you both support and deny – that many of the Iraqi people are distrustful and angry with the American soldiers. Is that a shock to you? Some are, some are not. The only thing we know for sure is that forecasting is almost always wide or short of the mark.

I wonder, if I were an Iraqi, would it be possible to be distrustful, even resentful, of the American soldiers, and yet still feel new hope for my kids because Saddam is gone. Conflicted, perhaps. I see similar in full motion every day. It’s an old story. The Zogby poll seems to suggest just that.

Tell them, WingNut, why they are wrong.


From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 13 September 2003 12:49 AM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Tell them, WingNut, why they are wrong.

You see, that is where we are differnt. I believe they have the right to self-determination, to decide for themselves what is right and wrong in their own society. Unlike you and your government who knows what is best for them and if they don't accept it, well, you'll just have to kill them all and let God sort them out.

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majorvictory
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posted 13 September 2003 12:57 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Wounded billed for hospital food

quote:
WASHINGTON - After a grenade exploded inside his Humvee in Iraq, Marine Staff Sgt. Bill Murwin was treated at a military hospital in Germany and spent four weeks at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. Part of his left foot was amputated.

His medical care was free, but the government billed him $243 for the food.

Then, just three days after he received his first bill for the hospital food in Germany, he got a stern letter saying the bill was overdue. It warned that his account would be referred to a collection agency.

Murwin, like thousands of other military personnel hospitalized every year, is expected to reimburse the government $8.10 per day for food. That's standard procedure because of a law Congress passed in 1981. But it has angered many military families over the years.

When Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Largo, and his wife, Beverly, heard about the problem, they personally paid Murwin's tab. Then the congressman introduced a bill to change the rules.

Rep. Young said Wednesday that the soldiers "were sent to war by their country. Many of them will be handicapped for the rest of their lives - and we're asking them to pay $8.10 a day for their food! There's something really wrong with that."

The practice is especially egregious, Young said, because "the food probably isn't that good."



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 13 September 2003 02:10 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
I believe they have the right to self-determination, to decide for themselves what is right and wrong in their own society.
So do I. And with the greatest obstacle now removed, maybe self-determination can begin.

One of the worst actors on the global stage is gone, and yet, somehow – in the face of all evidence to the contrary – the assertion remains, that matters would be healthier if he were still on stage. Regardless of what they think about this or that, very few Iraqis seem to believe that. You still haven’t told them, WingNut, why they are wrong.


From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
al-Qa'bong
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posted 13 September 2003 02:23 PM      Profile for al-Qa'bong   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Rep. Young said Wednesday that the soldiers "were sent to war by their country. Many of them will be handicapped for the rest of their lives - and we're asking them to pay $8.10 a day for their food! There's something really wrong with that."

Instead of sticking their noses in where they aren't wanted, maybe these guys should stay home and fight for Medicare.

From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 13 September 2003 11:13 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
US and Britain isolated as Iraq angrily buries its dead

The imam, Fawzi Namiq, called for an end to the random shooting that crackled from every corner of the city. "Save your bullets for the chests of the enemy," he said through loudspeakers.


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=443250


From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 14 September 2003 04:14 AM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Am I the only one that reads ‘imam’ and thinks ‘Farewell’...'Robertson'? And we should regard idiots because...?

Still haven’t told them why they’re wrong, WingNut.


From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 14 September 2003 04:20 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
America's hidden battlefield toll

quote:
New figures reveal the true number of GIs wounded in Iraq

Jason Burke in London and Paul Harris in New York
Sunday September 14, 2003
The Observer

The true scale of American casualties in Iraq is revealed today by new figures obtained by The Observer, which show that more than 6,000 American servicemen have been evacuated for medical reasons since the beginning of the war, including more than 1,500 American soldiers who have been wounded, many seriously.
The figures will shock many Americans, who believe that casualties in the war in Iraq have been relatively light. Recent polls show that support for President George Bush and his administration's policy in Iraq has been slipping.

The number of casualties will also increase pressure on Bush to share the burden of occupying Iraq with more nations. Attempts to broker an international alliance to pour more men and money into Iraq foundered yesterday when Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, brusquely rejected a French proposal as 'totally unrealistic'.

Three US soldiers were killed last week, bringing the number of combat dead since hostilities in Iraq were declared officially over on 1 May to 68. A similar number have died in accidents. It is military police policy to announce that a soldier has been wounded only if they were involved in an incident that involved a death.

Critics of the policy say it hides the true extent of the casualties. The new figures reveal that 1,178 American soldiers have been wounded in combat operations since the war began on 20 March.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 14 September 2003 08:37 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Wounded in Iraq, Deserted at Home

quote:
September 12, 2003

More than thirty satellite trucks and nearly a hundred reporters hunkered down outside the Eagle County (Colorado) courthouse on Wednesday Aug. 6th waiting to get a glimpse of Los Angeles Laker basketball star Kobe Bryant entering the courtroom for a scheduled ten-minute appearance. Most of the major television networks and cable news and sports networks had reporters and camera crews at the scene.

Across the country, where plane loads of wounded soldiers are airlifted back to the states, unloaded at Andrews Air Force Base, and sent off to area hospitals, there are no hordes of television cameras recording these tragic trips off the tarmac.

In a summer marked by the media's focus on the Bryant sex case, the entrance of Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) into California's recall election, the killing of Saddam Hussein's sons and the hunt for their father, little attention has been paid to U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq and stuffed into wards at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the nation's biggest military hospital, and other facilities.

There are no pictures of wounded soldiers undergoing painful and protracted physical rehabilitation. There are no visuals of worried families waiting for news of their sons or daughters.

What is it about the wounded that makes us uncomfortable? Why have they been left out of the coverage of the war by the broadcast media?

"There have been no feature news stories on television focusing on the wounded," Liz Swasey, director of communications at the Media Research Center (MRC), a conservative media watchdog group, told me in a telephone interview. "While there have been numerous reports of soldiers getting wounded, there have been no interviews from hospital bed sides," she pointed out. The Alexandria, Va.-based MRC, founded in 1987 by L. Brent Bezel III, monitors all major nationally televised and print news broadcasts and maintains "the nation's largest video news archive," Swasey said.

"The war was televised and sold as a sanitized war with minimal US casualties," said John Stauber, co-author of the recently released book, "The Weapons of Mass Deception," in an email exchange. "Showing wounded soldiers and interviewing their families could be disastrous PR for Bush's war. I suspect the administration is doing all it can to prevent such stories unless they are stage-managed feel-good events like Saving Private [Jessica] Lynch."



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 15 September 2003 01:27 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Iraq's Security Weakened by Fear

quote:
U.S.-Trained Police Are Accused of Being Collaborators and Spies
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 14, 2003; Page A01

KHALDIYA, Iraq, Sept. 13 -- The convoy of U.S. military engineers had just entered this rough-and-tumble town when disaster struck. They had a flat tire, stopping the convoy along a ribbon of desert asphalt some Iraqis have nicknamed "the highway of death."

Soon after, masked guerrillas fired two rocket-propelled grenades. Machine guns crackled across the late afternoon sky. When it ended an hour later, witnesses said, homes were gouged with large holes, two U.S. vehicles were burning, and the soldiers had beat a retreat.

On the sidelines throughout the clash Thursday were Khaldiya's police, who are supposed to be the allies of the U.S.-led occupation in restoring order to Iraq. Not only was it not their fight, several said this week, but the guerrillas fighting U.S. soldiers had their blessing.

"In my heart, deep inside, we are with them against the occupation," said Lt. Ahmed Khalaf Hamed, an officer with the 100-man force trained, equipped and financed by U.S. authorities. "This is my country, and I encourage them."

From President Bush to U.S. soldiers in the field, the United States is putting a growing emphasis on transferring the purview of security and stability to tens of thousands of Iraqis now under arms. The bulk of them -- more than 30,000 -- are police. The restive town of Khaldiya offers a small but significant example of the challenges this policy faces in a country shaken by car bombings and rampant lawlessness and filled with anxiety about the future.



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majorvictory
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posted 15 September 2003 11:55 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Desperate Iraqis Clamor for Help as Powell Visits

quote:
By Andrew Cawthorne

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Black-robed women wept for lost sons. Old men brandished death certificates with photos of bombed homes and scarred bodies. Jobless men begged for work.

As Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) visited the main U.S. headquarters in Baghdad Sunday, desperate Iraqis kept up a daily ritual at barbed wire barriers outside.

Knowledge that Powell was just a stone's throw away -- meeting Iraq (news - web sites)'s U.S. governor Paul Bremer inside one of the former palaces of deposed President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) -- heightened the clamor beyond the gates.

"He must be told that the Iraqi people have gained nothing from the American war. Now it is much worse than under Saddam," said Mushtaq Talib, 28.

Although he defected from Saddam's military in 1996, Talib was hoping to get hold of a stipend being paid to former soldiers in the now disbanded Iraqi army.

The problems and petitions on daily show outside the U.S. gates are a litany of Iraq's postwar woes.

Most people Sunday were either looking for work, information on detained loved ones, or compensation for war damage. Some simply moaned about the price of gasoline.

Nazhat Ibraheem brought her 7-year-old epileptic daughter Narjis Taha with her to illustrate why she needed work. "My husband is sick in bed, my daughter is very ill, I need to buy medicines urgently," she said, her daughter standing patiently beside her under the midday sun.

"Someone tell the American visitor (Powell) I need help."


[ 15 September 2003: Message edited by: majorvictory ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 16 September 2003 12:23 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The way Iraqis appear to feel that they have to petition Colin Powell for help reminds me all too uncomfortably of the way people used to depend on the goodwill of an emperor or a king for an audience with his or her subjects, when said subjects wanted to get something accomplished.
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 16 September 2003 11:08 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Straw 'begged Blair' not to join Iraq war

quote:
TONY Blair found himself embroiled in a fresh Iraq crisis last night after it was claimed Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made a desperate last-minute plea for him to call off the war.

Just days before the fighting started, Straw begged the Prime Minister not to send British troops into action, according to a new book on the affair.

The hugely damaging allegations emerged last night just hours after hundreds of Iraqis fired shots in the air and chanted "America is the enemy of God" following the burial of 10 Iraqi policemen killed accidentally by US troops.

More than 36 hours after the catastrophic firefight, the American military apologised for what it called an "unfortunate incident" in the rebellious town of Falluja, west of Baghdad. Troops had mistaken police and security guards chasing highway bandits for anti-American rebels.

There were further scenes of grief and gunfire in the same town as residents buried a three-year-old girl who was shot in the head by American soldiers during a separate incident late on Friday.

"We wish to express our deepest regrets to the families who have lost loved ones," military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel George Krivo said in Baghdad.

With Falluja seething, police fired warning shots into the air to disperse demonstrators as the first coffin was carried to a cemetery.

There were chaotic scenes at the town’s main mosque, where several hundred people carrying an Iraqi flag gathered to pray over the coffins and protest against the US military. "There is only one God. America is the enemy of God," the crowd chanted. Witnesses in Falluja said Iraqi guerrillas fired on a US base just outside the town in the early hours yesterday but American soldiers on the scene said there were no casualties.

Around the town, graffiti read: "We have the right to kill the American occupiers" and "US will pay in blood for oil".



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majorvictory
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posted 17 September 2003 06:11 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
U.S. Raids in Saddam's Hometown Leave Iraqis Angry

quote:
Sep 16, 12:46 am ET

By Saul Hudson
TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. troops lost the hearts and minds of some Iraqis on Tuesday in aggressive pre-dawn house raids in the hometown of Saddam Hussein, blowing open gates, kicking down doors and shoving faces in the dirt.

Ten-year-old Ahmed, herded with the rest of his family into his garden, shook visibly as he watched soldiers interrogate one man, whose head slammed onto the ground with a thud.

"I will become an Iraqi fighter and I will kill Americans," the boy said. He pointed at troops who charged into his home with rifles, sledgehammers and bolt-cutters hunting for anti-American guerrillas. "They are the enemy," he said.

An old, barefoot man was led from his house over shards of glass from a broken picture frame knocked off the wall.

A balding man with a gray beard and dark tunic sat with his hands cuffed behind his back. "Why did you smash the gate down?" he asked the soldiers pointing their weapons at his chest. "I would have let you in."

The U.S. military raids dozens of homes each day throughout Iraq, trying to stem the flood of mine, grenade and mortar attacks against them by rounding up suspected assailants.


Senior commanders say the strategy has helped wrest the initiative from the guerrillas who have killed 73 U.S. soldiers since Washington declared major combat over in Iraq on May 1.

But they acknowledge that when innocent Iraqis are caught up in the raids, it deepens distrust of the occupiers and can undermine the goodwill the soldiers generate by projects such as restoring electricity that aim to win over "hearts and minds."



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 17 September 2003 11:41 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
My son's death in Iraq

quote:
By Anne Marie Mattison | My Word
Posted September 17, 2003

My son is Spc. Jeffrey Mattison Wershow. He was shot and fatally wounded by an assassin while serving on a security detail at Baghdad University on July 6.

Jeffrey was a remarkable young man -- full of resolve, self direction, love of life, optimism and courage. He lived life to the fullest, and had more conviction and sense of purpose than many who are double and triple his age. When he died he was 22 years old, a member of Charlie Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 124th Infantry of the Florida National Guard.

I am convinced that Jeffrey was not the only soldier in Iraq who was extraordinary. All have a story, and they are all worth telling. But the story that reporter Roger Roy told Sunday in the Sentinel was that of my son. It was a story that was hard to read, but it finally put into perspective for me the events surrounding my son's death. The Army had told me what happened, but clearly, those delivering the news were not there. I have longed to know who was with Jeffrey, how they helped, and their own feelings about this unimaginable tragedy. The men who were with Jeffrey are my closest link to him.

From the moment I learned that Jeffrey and the other soldiers were ordered to remove their protective gear, I knew the order was the beginning of a fatal result. By removing the gear, the soldiers appeared to be "soft targets." Given the situation in Iraq, it is beyond belief that anyone would order a soldier to take off his body armor. The civil-affairs officer who ordered these soldiers to do so should, at the very minimum, be removed from any position that gives him decision-making authority about the safety and security of others. This war is not about "images" or "public relations" or "appearances." The soldiers are people's sons, daughters, grandsons and cousins of Americans, who are paying dearly for the consequences of this war. Those who are more concerned about "appearances" should perhaps be asked to walk around crowds of hostile Iraqis without protective gear. Let us see what they would do. I doubt they would choose to be unprotected -- yet they would order a soldier to do so.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 18 September 2003 02:24 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Saddam's old terror cells fail squeaky-clean test despite US facelift

By ROBERT FISK

09/17/03: ABU GHRAIB PRISON - We could see them beyond the dirt yard, standing in the heat beside their sand-brown tents, the razor wire wrapped in sheaths around their compound.
No pictures of the prisoners, we were told. Do not enter the compound. Do not go inside the wire.

Of the up to 800 Iraqis held in Abu Ghraib Prison, on the outskirts of Baghdad, only a handful are "security detainees" - the rest are "criminal detainees" - but until now almost all of them have lived out here in the heat and dust and muck.

Which is why the Americans were so pleased to see us at Saddam Hussein's vile old jail yesterday: things are getting better.

So first, the good news. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, commander of the US 800th Military Police Brigade, has cleaned up the burned and looted cells for hundreds of prisoners.

A new medical section with stocks of medicines, x-ray machines and even a heart fibrillator has been installed. There is even a kindly Iraqi doctor called Hussain Majid who praises the new Iraqi Ministry of Health and the occupation authorities for sending him - and paying for - "all the medicines we need".

In the newly painted cells, there are blankets and toothpaste, toothbrush, soap and shampoo for every man, neatly placed for them - and for us, I suspect - on top of their prison blankets.

Crisis-tourism is a pastime in New Iraq but yesterday's little trip around Abu Ghraib was, well, odd.

Karpinski is obviously a tough lady - she was an intelligence officer in 7th Special Forces at Fort Bragg and served as a "targeting officer" in Saudi Arabia after Saddam invaded Kuwait - but she had a little difficulty at first in recalling that there was a riot at the jail in May in which US troops used "lethal force" when protesting prisoners threw stones and tent-legs at American military policemen. The troops killed a teenage inmate.

But Karpinski was remarkably frank about other events, such as the fact that the Americans in Abu Ghraib are attacked four out of every seven nights with mortars, small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.

That's 16 times a month. And that's a lot of attacks.

Then came the head doctor of the prison, Majid. When I asked him what his job was when Saddam used the place as a torture and execution centre, he replied that he was, um, the head doctor of Abu Ghraib Prison.

Indeed, half his staff were running the medical centre at the jail under the Saddam regime.

"No, I didn't ever attend the executions," he said. "I couldn't stand that. I sent my junior doctors to do the death certificates."


From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 18 September 2003 08:22 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
That last line is priceless.
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majorvictory
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posted 19 September 2003 01:45 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Iraq Ambush Kills 3 U.S. Troops, Wounds 2

quote:
Thu Sep 18, 7:47 PM ET

By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer

TIKRIT, Iraq - Attackers ambushed a U.S. military patrol late Thursday, killing three American soldiers and wounding two on the outskirts of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s hometown. The assault near Tikrit came hours after insurgents ambushed two U.S. military convoys with remote-controlled bombs, opening a three-hour gunbattle in a volatile city 50 miles west of Baghdad.

The U.S. military said two soldiers were wounded in the Khaldiyah ambush, the latest in a string of attacks that has raised questions about the Bush administration's handling of post-war Iraq

The three soldiers from the Army's 4th Infantry Division were killed when attackers opened fire with small arms in the village of Al-Ouja, just five miles south of the center of Tikrit, shortly before midnight Thursday, Lt. Col. William McDonald said.

The two wounded soldiers were evacuated to a medical treatment facility and the names of those killed were withheld pending notification of next of kin, he said.

The soldiers were part of a patrol investigating a suspected site used to launch rocket propelled grenades, or RPG's, at American military convoys. The weapons have been used to launch repeated attacks against the U.S. military in and around Tikrit.



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majorvictory
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posted 19 September 2003 01:47 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Robert Fisk: "What is Happening Is An Absolute Slaughter Every Night of Iraqi People"

quote:
As the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq approaches 300, we go to Baghdad to hear from London Independent reporter Robert Fisk on the virtually unreported number of Iraqis killed in feuds, looting, revenge killings and raids by U.S. troops.

CLICK PLAY TO LISTEN




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majorvictory
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posted 19 September 2003 11:10 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Mistakes of Vietnam repeated with Iraq

quote:
By MAX CLELAND


The president of the United States decides to go to war against a nation led by a brutal dictator supported by one-party rule. That dictator has made war on his neighbors. The president decides this is a threat to the United States.

In his campaign for president he gives no indication of wanting to go to war. In fact, he decries the overextension of American military might and says other nations must do more. However, unbeknownst to the American public, the president's own Pentagon advisers have already cooked up a plan to go to war. All they are looking for is an excuse.

Based on faulty intelligence, cherry-picked information is fed to Congress and the American people. The president goes on national television to make the case for war, using as part of the rationale an incident that never happened. Congress buys the bait -- hook, line and sinker -- and passes a resolution giving the president the authority to use "all necessary means" to prosecute the war.

The war is started with an air and ground attack. Initially there is optimism. The president says we are winning. The cocky, self-assured secretary of defense says we are winning. As a matter of fact, the secretary of defense promises the troops will be home soon.

However, the truth on the ground that the soldiers face in the war is different than the political policy that sent them there. They face increased opposition from a determined enemy. They are surprised by terrorist attacks, village assassinations, increasing casualties and growing anti-American sentiment. They find themselves bogged down in a guerrilla land war, unable to move forward and unable to disengage because there are no allies to turn the war over to.

There is no plan B. There is no exit strategy. Military morale declines. The president's popularity sinks and the American people are increasingly frustrated by the cost of blood and treasure poured into a never-ending war.

Sound familiar? It does to me.



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pogge
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posted 19 September 2003 11:34 AM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
We are facing death in Iraq for no reason

quote:
For the past six months, I have been participating in what I believe to be the great modern lie: Operation Iraqi Freedom.

After the horrific events of September 11 2001, and throughout the battle in Afghanistan, the groundwork was being laid for the invasion of Iraq. "Shock and awe" were the words used to describe the display of power that the world was going to view upon the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was to be an up-close, dramatic display of military strength and advanced technology from within the arsenals of the American and British military.

But as a soldier preparing to take part in the invasion of Iraq, the words "shock and awe" rang deep within my psyche. Even as we prepared to depart, it seemed that these two great superpowers were about to break the very rules that they demanded others obey. Without the consent of the United Nations, and ignoring the pleas of their own citizens, the US and Britain invaded Iraq. "Shock and awe"? Yes, the words correctly described the emotional impact I felt as we embarked on an act not of justice, but of hypocrisy.


About the author:

quote:
Tim Predmore is a US soldier on active duty with the 101st Airborne Division, based near Mosul in northern Iraq.

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SHH
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posted 19 September 2003 01:56 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Residents return with visions of Iraq.
quote:
"Ninety-nine percent of what is going on over there is a good story," said Callanan.

"There were a lot of reporters over there who overlooked the good stories, which may have been the only frustrating part of being there," he said. "From media reports, it may not seem as though things are going well there but they are. There are a lot of changes taking place which will eventually pay big dividends."

Cheung agreed that the media reports he read while in Iraq seemed so much different from what he was seeing for himself. One of the things he read that goaded him the most was that the Iraqis did not want the troops over there.



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josh
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posted 19 September 2003 02:07 PM      Profile for josh     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Thank you, Andy (Sully) Sullivan.
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SHH
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posted 19 September 2003 02:50 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I actually got that from Reynolds. But, since you mention Sully...

The Iraqi Homecoming.

quote:
The IPO was set up to convince the world that the Iraqi people wanted and needed Saddam's regime to be overthrown, even if that meant an invasion, and for democracy to be established. They wanted to persuade people that the anti-war movement did not speak for the Iraqis or Kurdish people. After all, their Iraqi relatives were praying for the invasion to happen.

Opinion polls conducted in Iraq since the war - by reputable polling agencies that have predicted election results across the world - have vindicated this view, showing that a large majority of Iraqis wanted the invasion.

As for those who blame every problem in Iraq on the legacy of sanctions, Sama has little time for them. "Iraqis aren't stupid," she says. "They know that Northern Iraq was under sanctions, too, and none of the terrible things that happened under Saddam, like dying babies, went on there. Most people call them `Saddam's sanctions'. The real issue was Saddam's tyranny, and the way he used sanctions like he used everything else to strengthen his rule."



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Briguy
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posted 19 September 2003 03:41 PM      Profile for Briguy     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
As I've said numerous times, the sanctions only served to strengthen Saddam's hold on Iraq. I'm glad to see that some right-wing pundits are clueing in to this fact.
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WingNut
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posted 19 September 2003 03:42 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Grateful Iraqis kill three moreU.S. soldiers:

Here


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WingNut
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posted 19 September 2003 03:44 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Jubilant Iraqis celebrate occupation with triumphant display:

Click


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SHH
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posted 19 September 2003 04:00 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
But asked if he missed the old regime, he became quiet and slightly embarrassed.

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ronb
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posted 19 September 2003 04:15 PM      Profile for ronb     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Oh, that's alright then. As least the US isn't mistreating the Iraqis as badly as their former client did. Great yardstick you've got there.
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josh
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posted 19 September 2003 05:12 PM      Profile for josh     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by SHH:

I actually got that from Reynolds. But, since you mention Sully...



Those loathsome two are the best you can come up with? Next you'll be quoting Ann Coulter.


From: the twilight zone between the U.S. and Canada | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 19 September 2003 05:49 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Uh, josh, the articles linked by Reynolds and Sully were written by a staff writer for the Belmont Citizen-Herald and a playwright/journalist, respectively. In their articles they cite the opinions and first hand experiences of actual soldiers who are in Iraq and actual personal Iraqi friends that have visited and returned to London. Is the mere act of being linking by someone you disagree with enough to invalidate?

The consistent discrepancy between first hand accounts such as these and most other Big Media is curious to say the least.

Here's another person in Iraq wondering about the same thing.


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WingNut
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posted 19 September 2003 05:55 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
But asked if he missed the old regime, he became quiet and slightly embarrassed.

No one suggests Iraqis miss the old regime. But in apologizing for the lies, killings, pillaging and occupation of your nation you would have us believe Iraqis are happy. Which would explain why the National Guard is on stand-by, tour pf duties have been doubled, at least 70 U.S. soldiers are dead since the "end of hostilities" we don't know how many more are wounded. and the Iraqi lives that love the U.S. so much aren't even valuable enough to count.

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josh
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posted 19 September 2003 06:04 PM      Profile for josh     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by SHH:

The consistent discrepancy between first hand accounts such as these and most other Big Media is curious to say the least.


The consistent discrepancy between first hand accounts and the dead American soldiers is more than curious.


From: the twilight zone between the U.S. and Canada | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
pogge
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posted 19 September 2003 06:13 PM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
There's a blog called Baghdad Burning that's written by a young Iraqi woman. Here's an excerpt from today's entry.

quote:
Everyone is worried about raids lately. We hear about them from friends and relatives, we watch them on tv, outraged, and try to guess where the next set of raids are going to occur.

Anything can happen. Some raids are no more than seemingly standard weapons checks. Three or four troops knock on the door and march in. One of them keeps an eye of the 'family' while the rest take a look around the house. They check bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms and gardens. They look under beds, behind curtains, inside closets and cupboards. All you have to do is stifle your feelings of humiliation, anger and resentment at having foreign troops from an occupying army search your home.

Some raids are, quite simply, raids. The door is broken down in the middle of the night, troops swarm in by the dozens. Families are marched outside, hands behind their backs and bags upon their heads. Fathers and sons are pushed down on to the ground, a booted foot on their head or back.

Other raids go horribly wrong. We constantly hear about families who are raided in the small hours of the morning. The father, or son, picks up a weapon- thinking they are being attacked by looters- and all hell breaks loose. Family members are shot, others are detained and often women and children are left behind wailing.



From: Why is this a required field? | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
ronb
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posted 19 September 2003 06:24 PM      Profile for ronb     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
...actual personal Iraqi friends that have visited and returned to London

Really. You don't say. Those wouldn't also be Chalabi's expat buddies now would they?

I think I read the prediction somewhere here on babble that the recent FCC ruling would effectively free the corporate press to get back into the job of selling newspapers by reporting instead of placating the Bush administration. Seems to be sorta coming true.


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SHH
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posted 19 September 2003 07:35 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
No one suggests Iraqis miss the old regime. But in apologizing for the lies, killings, pillaging and occupation of your nation you would have us believe Iraqis are happy.
I don’t know if the ‘Iraqis are happy.’ There are numerous polls and anecdotes that suggest that many Iraqis are indeed glad that the US toppled Hussein. But who knows? I can however, envision a state of affairs where there is a great deal of happiness and resentment and fear, etc. But I’d only be guessing.

Regardless, if I didn’t know better, as I cruise the Big-Media-It’s-All-Bad-Bad-Bad-Cry-Feast everyday, I would swear that many of these reporters and press institutions have let their palpable disdain for Bush and the war influence their reporting. Influencing it to the extent perhaps, that it’s worthless. But that would never happen. I’m sure.


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josh
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posted 19 September 2003 08:02 PM      Profile for josh     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by SHH:

Regardless, if I didn’t know better, as I cruise the Big-Media-It’s-All-Bad-Bad-Bad-Cry-Feast everyday, I would swear that many of these reporters and press institutions have let their palpable disdain for Bush and the war influence their reporting. Influencing it to the extent perhaps, that it’s worthless. But that would never happen. I’m sure.


Obviously you haven't "cruised" Faux News or MSGOP, or listened to any Clear Channel talk radio. I guess you were more comfortable when reporters were "inbedded" with the troops so they only reported what the Pentagon wanted reported.


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WingNut
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posted 19 September 2003 09:38 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Yeah, really.
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SHH
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posted 19 September 2003 09:56 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Really. You don't say. Those wouldn't also be Chalabi's expat buddies now would they?
I wouldn’t know that, ronb, anymore than I might know that the Iraqi woman at Baghdad Burning was a Bush Hater [small](Except that she says she is).[/small] Angels on a pin stuff...

quote:
No one suggests Iraqis miss the old regime.
But they do and did. Almost everyday. Why, right in your last link, WingNut, the article closed with this...
quote:
“We want progress but things were better in the days of Saddam," he said. "At least there was order and security."
I dunno: “better in the days of Saddam” and ”miss the old regime”. Simplese me, I can’t tell the difference.

quote:
Obviously you haven't "cruised" Faux News or MSGOP, or listened to any Clear Channel talk radio. I guess you were more comfortable when reporters were "inbedded" with the troops so they only reported what the Pentagon wanted reported.
Funny you mention that, I was noticing the same thing. But then it occurred to me that covering the charge to Baghdad and covering the current mission, would be very different under any circumstances...because they’re different. That just sits better with me than the FCC angle.

I’ve also read that most reporters have left Iraq and now source their news from the home turf by talking to each other at parties. Ha! Like that would ever happen.


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pogge
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posted 19 September 2003 10:09 PM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
SHH:

quote:
I wouldn’t know that, ronb, anymore than I might know that the Iraqi woman at Baghdad Burning was a Bush Hater [small](Except that she says she is).[/small] Angels on a pin stuff...

1. Does the fact that she hates Bush negate her description of what Iraqis are going through?

2. Can you blame her for hating him? After bombing the shit out of her country, George "Bring 'em on" Bush practically issued an engraved invitation to every terrorist with a grudge against the US to come and party in Iraq. He's protecting his own turf by making a war zone out of somebody else's home. You call that liberation?


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SHH
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posted 19 September 2003 10:42 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The easy one first, Slim,...
quote:
1. Does the fact that she hates Bush negate her description of what Iraqis are going through?
Absolutely not. I think she’s rather genuine even. We do know some are still fighting. It’ll be interesting to track the phrase, “dead-enders”. Josh seemed to intimate that even a link ref was enough to deploy the earplugs. I have no reason to doubt what she writes.

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majorvictory
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posted 19 September 2003 11:57 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
U.S. May Study Israel Occupation Tactics

quote:
Thu Sep 18, 6:00 PM ET

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM - In an apparent search for pointers on how to police a hostile population, the U.S. military that's trying to bring security to Iraq (news - web sites) is showing interest in Israeli software instructing soldiers on how to behave in the West Bank and Gaza, an Israeli military official said Thursday.

Using animated graphics and clips from movies like "Apocalypse Now," the software outlines a "code of conduct" for avoiding abuse of civilians while manning roadblocks, searching homes and conducting other activities, said Lt. Col. Amos Guiora, head of the School of Military Law.

Israeli troops have frequently faced criticism from Palestinian and human rights groups. Two weeks ago, Amnesty International said in a report that Israeli military checkpoints and curfews violate Palestinians' human rights.

U.S. soldiers have also faced criticism in Iraq, where they have been accused of using excessive force.

In a reflection of tensions in Iraq, guerrillas ambushed two U.S. military convoys Thursday, wounding two soldiers. And a nervous American patrol shot at a wedding party late Wednesday, killing a 14-year-old boy and wounding six other people after mistaking celebratory gunfire for an attack, witnesses said.

Guiora told The Associated Press that U.S. military officials had recently seen the software, which was developed this year, and expressed interest. As a result, he said, the military is now working on an English version for them.

A U.S. official with the Embassy in Tel Aviv would say only that American officers have seen the Israeli software and considered it useful.

Guiora said the software was developed after military lawyers found themselves giving dry lectures to disinterested audiences of troops.

"There are complicated issues. The fact that this (software) is so user-friendly, that it has the movie clips, the sounds, the animation — we felt this was the best way," he said.



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SHH
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posted 20 September 2003 01:55 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
2. Can you blame her for hating him? After bombing the shit out of her country, George "Bring 'em on" Bush practically issued an engraved invitation to every terrorist with a grudge against the US to come and party in Iraq. He's protecting his own turf by making a war zone out of somebody else's home. You call that liberation?
Slim, I know you’re a TPM reader, so I don’t have to give you the Pollack line (which Marshall bought, for a while anyway). Neither Marshall nor Pollack are stupid unknowing people. So you know the drill. Remake the ME; stabilize the global aorta; Fundi-Islam; they started it, we’ll finish it, etc.

I don’t know of the wisdom or stupidity of these assumptions or policies. And I’m fairly certain nobody else does either. The only semi-reasonable counter-argument I’ve heard – that is impossible to refute – is the one that cynically assumes many future events of which nobody can know (not unlike Pollack, yes). Thus, I find the steady drum-beat of foreboding prognostications and declarations of total gloom, just so much piffle. And I could be wrong, but I’m quite sure I occasionally detect, behind this sky-is-falling-drum-beat, a certain wishfullness. The fantasy of telling Bush, ‘I told you so’ is apparently just too much to resist for some.

I haven’t looked up ‘liberation’ in a long time. But these two facts appear to be...factual: 1) Most Iraqis are glad Hussein is gone, and, 2)Most Iraqis want the soldiers to stay for a while. I don’t know if that qualifies for liberation, but it sure is something you’d never know after reading most of the links on this tread. The consistent omission and denial of these two apparent facts – indeed overt attempts to suggest exactly the opposite – betrays a mindset that is wholly unconvincing.

Btw, if I lived in a free country, and were allowed to hate, I might hate Bush m’self.


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ronb
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posted 20 September 2003 02:45 PM      Profile for ronb     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Thus, I find the steady drum-beat of foreboding prognostications and declarations of total gloom, just so much piffle.

You're funny. 87 Billion dollars (or actually 140, but who's counting) a year to do what exactly? Remake the middle east is it? That's what sounds like piffle to me.


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pogge
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posted 20 September 2003 02:46 PM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by SHH:
I haven’t looked up ‘liberation’ in a long time. But these two facts appear to be...factual: 1) Most Iraqis are glad Hussein is gone, and, 2)Most Iraqis want the soldiers to stay for a while. I don’t know if that qualifies for liberation, but it sure is something you’d never know after reading most of the links on this tread.

I'll concede 1, but I'll argue 2.

Most Iraqis are desperate for someone to restore order. They look to the Americans to do it because the Americans are the only ones there right now with the firepower to pull it off.

But given the choice between a continued American occupation and the substitution of a truly international peace-keeping force under UN control, do you seriously think Iraqis would choose the former? I seriously doubt it. So far they're being denied the choice, so a bunch of American teenagers are being asked to do a job that they were never warned about or trained for.

quote:
The consistent omission and denial of these two apparent facts – indeed overt attempts to suggest exactly the opposite – betrays a mindset that is wholly unconvincing.

I've seen no concerted effort in the media to suggest that Iraqis are wishing for the return of Sadaam Hussein nor, I would submit, has that "mindset" been evident here on babble. That's just a continuation of the "yer with us or agin us" mentality.

What I have seen in the media is the beginnings of a concerted effort to dispel the propaganda from the White House that everything's just hunky-dory and the rebuilding of Iraq is proceeding on schedule. If there ever was a schedule it's long since gone down in flames because almost every assumption that Bush and the PNAC sold us about Iraq was wrong - so wrong that it's difficult to put it down to mere incompetence. And the situation has only been exacerbated by Rumsfeld's refusal to listen to his own military advisers and Bush's mindless bravado.

Are we focusing on the resistance to the occupation even if that represents only a small portion of the population? Yep. Are we agonizing over every unnecessary casualty? Yep. Because so much of this grief is unnecessary. And there are lessons here that need to be driven home before the assholes currently responsible for American foreign policy get a chance to do it again.

Do you really think it's all about being able say "I told you so"? Again I disagree. The mendacity and corruption of the Bush administration is staggering, and the damage they've done both at home and abroad will take years, if not decades, to undo.


quote:

Btw, if I lived in a free country, and were allowed to hate, I might hate Bush m’self.

God, I would hope so.

[ 20 September 2003: Message edited by: Slim ]


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WingNut
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posted 20 September 2003 02:59 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
ut they do and did. Almost everyday. Why, right in your last link, WingNut, the article closed with this...

quote: “We want progress but things were better in the days of Saddam," he said. "At least there was order and security."


There is your entire problem, SSH. A microcosm of the American mind. Selective reading. They sau "at least their was order and security" and you read, "thay hate us. Let's kill them."

They say we want freedom and you hear "they want us to kill them and steal their oil."

That would also explain your deep arrogance.

I understand the US just killed an entire family in Afghanistan. I think you should drop this long enough to apologize for that by repeating the lying liars who will say the entire family including children were Al Qaeda.


From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 20 September 2003 03:01 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Iraqis afraid occupiers will leave shoot member of puppet government:
quote:
Iraqi Councilor Shot, Critically Wounded


Saturday September 20, 2003 10:19 AM

By TAREK AL-ISSAWI

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Aquila al-Hashimi, a member of Iraq's Governing Council, was shot and critically wounded Saturday in an assassination attempt outside her home in western Baghdad, police and doctors said.

Al-Hashimi was in critical condition with abdominal wounds, a doctor at al-Yarmouk hospital said on condition of anonymity. After surgery she was moved to an unspecified location in a convoy of American armored vehicles and military ambulances.


Council member shot

[ 20 September 2003: Message edited by: WingNut ]


From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 20 September 2003 04:37 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
But given the choice between a continued American occupation and the substitution of a truly international peace-keeping force under UN control, do you seriously think Iraqis would choose the former?
Nope. Every poll I’ve seen says the Iraqis would much prefer the UN. So we agree there. But if faced with the stark choice of stay or go, the Iraqi people seem to prefer stay. Suggesting a third or fourth hypothetical alternative, that’s unlikely to happen, against what is very real (the soldiers are there) while suggesting an action that most Iraqis seem to dread (a US withdraw) still doesn’t disprove the affirmative statement.
quote:
I've seen no concerted effort in the media to suggest that Iraqis are wishing for the return of Sadaam Hussein nor, I would submit, has that "mindset" been evident here on babble.
I’ve seen no “concerted” effort suggesting such either. I have seen though, a bunch of supposedly free agents running like a herd of cattle. As I’ve said, plane crashes sell newspapers, plane landings don’t. This thread is mostly about crashes and that’s a buckle if you’re trying to assess the situation overall.
quote:
What I have seen in the media is the beginnings of a concerted effort to dispel the propaganda from the White House that everything's just hunky-dory and the rebuilding of Iraq is proceeding on schedule. If there ever was a schedule it's long since gone down in flames because almost every assumption that Bush and the PNAC sold us about Iraq was wrong - so wrong that it's difficult to put it down to mere incompetence. And the situation has only been exacerbated by Rumsfeld's refusal to listen to his own military advisers and Bush's mindless bravado.
On the basis of no evidence at all, I suspect Rummy is on-the-ropes, with Bush, Powell, Condi, and Rove. The Pentagon hates him, especially the Army (he’s cutting them back). So when I hear an Army guy taking a shot at Rummy, well... But still, Rummy dices the DC press up so badly when they try to take him on, Rove has to love it. His press conferences always remind me of when Murdoch took apart that Senate panel without even looking mean.

Clinton was famous for saying, “Mistakes were made”. (The effectiveness and passivity of that statement drove the Rs bonkers. It was fun to watch.) And mistakes were definitely made here too. Given the scale and enormity of this action, wouldn’t that be expected? I doubt there was, or is, an actual schedule; policy tends to be articulated with an “And if” in front of every statement. To be fair, the gloom-and-doomers didn’t do much better with their crystal ball: (civil war, oil well fires, famine, mass exodus, rising theocracy, and, curiously, a bio/chem attack on Tel Aviv.) I’m more inclined to go with incompetence.

If it’s any consolation, coming from me, I wouldn’t get too worked up over the PNAC people. They’re there, they’re real, but they’re directly at odds with most Americans. Most folks don’t pay much attention, so there’s a considerable lag. But at some point, if the PNAC people over-step, which they will of course, if allowed to, the politicians that are seen to be inclined in that direction, will be gone. Pardon the extreme generalization, but while Americans are perhaps more expressively patriot than many, they’re basically stay-at-home people not much interested in other countries and people. That’s why the suggestion of Empire is met with blinkered amazement. The very concept won’t get you anywhere with the voting populace...on either side.

quote:
Do you really think it's all about being able say "I told you so"?
I wouldn’t go quite that far, but yes, I do think there’s some of that.

From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 20 September 2003 04:55 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
You're funny. 87 Billion dollars (or actually 140, but who's counting) a year to do what exactly? Remake the middle east is it? That's what sounds like piffle to me.
Remaking the ME may indeed be piffle. I doubt I’ll live long enough to know. But while $87B is a lot of juice, in a $12T economy it’s like someone making $50K a year paying 360 bucks for an insurance policy. Not much in the big picture.

From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
pogge
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posted 20 September 2003 05:20 PM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Clinton was famous for saying, “Mistakes were made”. (The effectiveness and passivity of that statement drove the Rs bonkers. It was fun to watch.) And mistakes were definitely made here too. Given the scale and enormity of this action, wouldn’t that be expected?

The fabrication of evidence to justify the invasion wasn't a mistake. It was fraud. Ted Kennedy got that one right.

The decision to go in with the Coalition of the Bought and Paid For wasn't a mistake, it was deliberate.

Shock and Awe wasn't a mistake. It was a deliberate decision to minimize coalition casualities while demonstrating American military superiority - as if anyone needed the demonstration - and damn the consequences.

And the resistance on the part of Bush et. al. to turn things over to the UN now isn't a mistake. It's a deliberate decision based on, as Colin Powell publicly stated, the American determination to "recover our investment". It's a deliberate decision to protect Halliburton's revenue stream, allow Feith to drum up clients for his old law firm, and give WorldCom an opportunity to get back on it's feet after it got caught committing it's own brand of fraud.

quote:
I doubt there was, or is, an actual schedule; policy tends to be articulated with an “And if” in front of every statement. To be fair, the gloom-and-doomers didn’t do much better with their crystal ball: (civil war, oil well fires, famine, mass exodus, rising theocracy, and, curiously, a bio/chem attack on Tel Aviv.) I’m more inclined to go with incompetence.

It seems to me that much of what the gloom-and-doomers said is coming true. And it ain't over yet. The guerilla war is in process now. Civil war could still happen. Oil well fires did happen, if not on the scale that some predicted. The continued violence in Iraq is evidenced by the links in this thread as well as other incidents in the media today that no one has linked to yet. Theocracy could still happen. And given the arms race that Bush's policies have re-ignited, that bio/chem attack could still happen too.

quote:
If it’s any consolation, coming from me, I wouldn’t get too worked up over the PNAC people. They’re there, they’re real, but they’re directly at odds with most Americans.

It's no consolation at all because the PNAC is running the show. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton etc. are all in key positions in the administration and in a position to have an immense influence on White House policy and decisions.

quote:
Most folks don’t pay much attention, so there’s a considerable lag. But at some point, if the PNAC people over-step, which they will of course, if allowed to, the politicians that are seen to be inclined in that direction, will be gone.

If they overstep? They've already overstepped. Don't you read the papers?

quote:
Pardon the extreme generalization, but while Americans are perhaps more expressively patriot than many, they’re basically stay-at-home people not much interested in other countries and people. That’s why the suggestion of Empire is met with blinkered amazement. The very concept won’t get you anywhere with the voting populace...on either side.

Since their leaders delight in sticking their noses into the business of other countries, and spilling the blood of the people who live in those countries, it might be time for the populace to start paying attention. The fact that so many Americans don't want to know, or take responsibility for, what their leaders have done is all the more reason to keep drawing attention to what's going on in Iraq.


From: Why is this a required field? | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 20 September 2003 05:25 PM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Pardon the extreme generalization, but while Americans are perhaps more expressively patriot than many, they’re basically stay-at-home people not much interested in other countries and people. That’s why the suggestion of Empire is met with blinkered amazement.

It is comments like that which leave the rest of the world with blinkered amazement. American ignorance of their own histroy is dumbfounding:

Texas, Cuba, Phillipines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Panama, all of Latin America, the Indian Wars, General Custer.

The US has an imperial streak a mile wide and still occupies annexed territory seized in wars of aggression.


From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 20 September 2003 06:13 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Iraq's occupiers suspected of losing touch with reality

quote:
Robert Fisk:

09/20/03: BAGHDAD - A culture of secrecy has descended upon the Anglo-American occupation authorities in Iraq.

They will give no tally of the Iraqi civilian lives lost each day.

They will not comment on the killing by an American soldier of one of their own Iraqi interpreters on Thursday – he was shot dead in front of the Italian diplomat who was official adviser to the new Iraqi ministry of culture – and they cannot explain how General Sultan Hashim Ahmed, the former Iraqi minister of defence and a potential war criminal, should now be described by one of the most senior US officers in Iraq as "a man of honour and integrity."

On Thursday, in a three-stage ambush that destroyed an American military truck and a Humvee jeep almost a hundred miles west of Baghdad, a minimum of three US soldiers were reported dead and three wounded – local Iraqis claimed the fatalities numbered eight – yet within hours, the occupation authorities were saying that exactly the same number were killed and wounded in a sophisticated ambush on Americans in Tikrit.

Only two soldiers were wounded in the earlier attack, they said.

And for the second day running yesterday, the mobile telephone system operated by MCI for the occupation forces collapsed, effectively isolating the 'Coalition Provisional Authority' from its ministries and from US forces.

An increasing number of journalists in Baghdad now suspect that US proconsul Paul Bremmer and his hundreds of assistants ensconced in the heavily guarded former presidential palace of Saddam Hussein in the capital, have simply lost touch with reality.

Although an enquiry was promised yesterday into the shooting of the Iraqi interpreter, details of the incident suggest that US troops now have carte blanche to open fire at Iraqi civilian cars on the mere suspicion that their occupants may be hostile.

Pietro Cordone, the Italian diplomat whom Bremmer appointed special adviser to the Iraqi ministry of culture, was travelling to Mosul with his wife Mirella when their car approached an American convoy.

According to Mr Cordone, a soldier manning a machine gun in the rear vehicle of the convoy appeared to signal to Mr Cordone's driver that he should not attempt to overtake.

The driver did not do so but the soldier then fired a single shot at the car, which penetrated the windscreen and hit the interpreter who was sitting in the front passenger seat.

A few minutes later, the man died in Mr Cordone's arms.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 20 September 2003 06:28 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Another Day, Another Death-Trap For The US

quote:
by Robert Fisk

09/19/03: (The Independent: UK) The American Humvee had burnt out, the US troop transporter had been smashed by rockets and an Iraqi lorry - riddled by American bullets in the aftermath of the attack - still lay smoldering on the central reservation.

"I saw the Americans flying through the air, blasted upwards," an Iraqi mechanic with an oil lamp in his garage said - not, I thought, without some satisfaction. "The wounded Americans were on the road, shouting and screaming."

The US authorities in Iraq - who only report their own deaths, never those of Iraqis - acknowledged three US soldiers dead. There may be up to eight dead, not counting the wounded. Several Iraqis described seeing arms and legs and pieces of uniform scattered across the highway.

It may well turn out to be the most costly ambush the Americans have suffered since they occupied Iraq - and this on the very day that George Bush admitted for the first time that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and the 11 September assault on the United States. And as American Abrams tanks thrashed down the darkened highway outside Khaldiya last night - the soft-skinned Humvee jeeps were no longer to be seen in the town - the full implications of the ambush became clear.

There were three separate ambushes in Khaldiya and the guerrillas showed a new sophistication. Even as I left the scene of the killings after dark, US army flares were dripping over the semi-desert plain 100 miles west of Baghdad while red tracer fire raced along the horizon behind the palm trees. It might have been a scene from a Vietnam movie, even an archive newsreel clip; for this is now tough, lethal guerrilla country for the Americans, a death-trap for them almost every day.

As usual, the American military spokesmen had "no information" on this extraordinary ambush. But Iraqis at the scene gave a chilling account of the attack. A bomb - apparently buried beneath the central reservation of the four-lane highway - exploded beside an American truck carrying at least 10 US soldiers and, almost immediately, a rocket-propelled grenade hit a Humvee carrying three soldiers behind the lorry.

"The Americans opened fire at all the Iraqis they could see - at all of us," Yahyia, an Iraqi truck driver, said. "They don't care about the Iraqis." The bullet holes show that the US troops fired at least 22 rounds into the Iraqi lorry that was following their vehicles when their world exploded around them.

The mud hut homes of the dirt-poor Iraqi families who live on the 30-foot embankment of earth and sand above the road were laced with American rifle fire. The guerrillas - interestingly, the locals called them mujahedin, "holy warriors" - then fired rocket-propelled grenades at the undamaged vehicles of the American convoy as they tried to escape. A quarter of a mile down the road - again from a ridge of sand and earth - more grenades were launched at the Americans.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
beluga2
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posted 20 September 2003 08:21 PM      Profile for beluga2     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Pardon the extreme generalization, but while Americans are perhaps more expressively patriot than many, they’re basically stay-at-home people not much interested in other countries and people. That’s why the suggestion of Empire is met with blinkered amazement. The very concept won’t get you anywhere with the voting populace...on either side.

This phenomenon will no doubt provide fodder for many academic historical treatises for centuries to come: how was it that the citizens of the greatest imperial power in history managed to live in such a state of utter obliviousness, completely unaware that they even had an empire?


From: vancouvergrad, BCSSR | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
WingNut
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posted 21 September 2003 12:59 AM      Profile for WingNut   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
From the Fisk article above:
quote:
And for the second day running yesterday, the mobile telephone system operated by MCI for the occupation forces collapsed, effectively isolating the 'Coalition Provisional Authority' from its ministries and from US forces.


MCI is, of course, WorldCom, the fraudulent company with connections to the Bush administration which was awarded a $40 million contract to provide a service in which they have no proven expertise.

Polls will soon show Iraqis love WorldCom even when their mobile phones are useless.


From: Out There | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
pogge
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posted 21 September 2003 01:16 AM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
If they're going to conduct the polls by phone, we may have to wait a while for the results.
From: Why is this a required field? | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 22 September 2003 02:29 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Iraq's simmering south

quote:
By Ann Scott Tyson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor


KARBALA, IRAQ - Night was falling swiftly over the golden domes of this Shiite holy city when US soldiers manning the main police station received an urgent call: A robbery and stabbing had stirred trouble outside the Imam Hussein Mosque, and the newly trained Iraqi police needed backup.

The Americans knew the mosque area was off-limits to their troops - so did the thieves, arms merchants, and drug dealers who frequented the surrounding marketplace. Still, the situation sounded dire, so they dispatched a dozen US military police in four Humvees.

As the American MPs neared the mosque, which was thronged with evening worshipers, some Iraqis began shouting at them to leave. Rumors spread that the soldiers would violate the holy shrine. A hostile crowd of hundreds began pelting the Americans with rocks and bricks, denting the Humvees and smashing their windshields. Meanwhile, the 70 Iraqi police fled the scene on foot.

Surrounded in their vehicles, the MPs attempted to back down the street. They were still inching backwards, the soldiers say, when two Iraqis from the crowd opened fire and hit one MP, Staff Sgt. Carlos Lopez, in his right middle finger. Sergeant Lopez managed to shoot back with his pistol, killing the gunman. Firing into the air with a machine gun to keep the crowd at bay, the soldiers finally turned the Humvees and withdrew. At least one other Iraqi was wounded in the fray.

"It could have been a real bloodbath," says Capt. Leo Merck of the Army National Guard's 870th Military Police Company, which responded to the call in late July. Days of violent anti-US protests followed. Men slashing themselves with swords and wearing black suicide bomber vests marched through Karbala, long considered one of the most peaceful cities in postwar Iraq.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 22 September 2003 10:56 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
US troops run RPG gauntlet with guns and God

quote:
For the convoy riders, their success is thanks to God.

The soldiers often explain they overcome their fear on patrol by reciting their officer's refrain: "We are immortal until God decides otherwise."

Russell, a 40-year-old teetotaller from Oklahoma with five children, strums hymns on a guitar before a sortie and reminds his men nobody has been wounded on one of his convoys.

A letter from his eight-year-old daughter inspires the commander. "Dear Dad, hope you kill the bad guys. Love, Patricia."

But it is his unswerving faith that drives him through RPG alley. "I truly believe we are protected by God," he said.

Russell, like all the soldiers, says he respects the Muslims of Iraq and that his fight is only against the guerrillas.

His own conviction has been fortified by two episodes when rocket-propelled grenades slammed into vehicles in his battalion.

One failed to blow up when it hit a stack of water bottles, which wrecked the grenade's activation device. The second barrelled between two rows of soldiers sitting opposite each other and flew out the other side of their vehicle.

The chaplain of the battalion, whose official motto is "Regulars by God," reinforces the unit's conviction that God is on their side, seeing the war in the same way President George W. Bush has presented it: good versus evil.

Captain Xuan Tran, a Vietnam refugee distributes books entitled "Bullet-proof Faith" and thanks God for protecting the unit at Sunday service sermons.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Mandos
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posted 22 September 2003 12:46 PM      Profile for Mandos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
So good things can happen out of terrible wrong. If you like that sort of thing (I don't), Hitler built the Autobahn--among other things. Saddam Hussein industrialized Iraq and raised their living standards before Gulf War I. And the Americans have deposed Saddam Hussein (after, of course, regularly making passionate love with him).

All of this is sort of besides the point. If you ask an Iraqi, "Who do you prefer, Saddam or Americans?" naturally you might expect that quite a few Iraqis would say, "Americans." Duh. If you asked Iraqis, "Do you want American soldiers to stay?" they'd likely say "Yes" too. What alternative are they given?

The Bushies and their antecedents have stolen Iraqis' options. Nothing that happens from this point onwards can reasonably be called self-determination. Self-determination was ended long ago and never allowed to return, especially not now. So it is possible for Iraqis to answer "Americans" and "Yes" and still hate the Bushies. It is still possible for conditions to improve and yet for Iraqis to reject both Saddam Hussein and the Americans. Iraqis are smart enough to do this.

And this is precisely what SHH and company fail to understand.


From: There, there. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 23 September 2003 12:44 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
.S. Drive for Iraq Help Suffers Double Setback

quote:
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. efforts to enlist more countries to share the burden of occupying Iraq suffered a double blow on Monday when a suicide bomber attacked the U.N. compound in Baghdad and two potential troop contributors set conditions.

The bomber killed an Iraqi guard and wounded 19 people on the eve of the annual U.N. General Assembly session, at which President Bush will urge skeptical world leaders to provide money and troops to help pacify and rebuild Iraq.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan voiced dismay at the deteriorating security situation after the second attack in just over a month on the compound and said U.N. officials were reassessing the world body's posture in Baghdad.

"We need a secure environment to be able to operate," Annan told reporters. "We will go forward, but of course if it continues to deteriorate, then our operations will be handicapped considerably."

The U.N. Staff Union urged him to withdraw all staff until Iraq was safer and aid workers better protected. On Aug 19, a truck bomb devastated the same complex, killing U.N. special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others.

Muslim U.S. allies Pakistan and Turkey both spelled out conditions for sending forces to Iraq, while France repeated its call for an early transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 24 September 2003 11:22 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
U.S. Plans Special Force to Protect Iraqi Oil

quote:
Improving security is a major part of Bush's plan for the oil industry.

He is seeking $60 million to train and equip an "oil infrastructure security force," whose sole purpose will be protecting Iraq's oil facilities.

Current security is provided by a combination of U.S.-led forces and "an inefficient assortment of local security services," the documents said.

"Investments made to thwart (terrorist) attacks will certainly pay for themselves," they asserted.

U.S. occupation authorities are also seeking $55 million for a "quick reaction pipeline repair team" that would be dispatched to damaged pipelines within 96 hours after the site had been secured.

The Bush administration blames sabotage, looting and mechanical failures for causing "extended downtime on main pipelines" in Iraq.

It said failure to repair these pipelines has resulted in "significant lost revenues to the Iraqi people" -- as much as $7 million per day in the case of the Iraq-Turkey pipeline.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 26 September 2003 01:28 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Seven US soldiers wounded in convoy ambush

quote:
Seven US soldiers were wounded, three seriously, when a US convoy was ambushed yesterday with bombs and small-arms fire in the northern Iraq city of Mosul, a US military spokesman said.

Major Trey Cate, spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul, said a US military vehicle was destroyed and another damaged in the attack on a main road in front of the local telecommunications centre.

"Seven soldiers were injured, one very seriously, two seriously," Cate told AFP.

He said the convoy had been hit first by two roadside bombs and then small-arms fire, before the attackers fled when US troops returned fire.

About 10 witnesses reported earlier seeing what they said appeared to be the bodies of four US soldiers after the ambush in the city that has seen frequent attacks on US occupation forces.

One witness, Mohammad Ali, told AFP: "An American jeep was blown up at around 9.30am (3.30pm AEST) and an American car. I saw the bodies of four Americans who had died, one of them without legs."



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Willowdale Wizard
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posted 26 September 2003 08:43 AM      Profile for Willowdale Wizard   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Post-war violence kills an extra 1500 people, Reuters

quote:
From mid-April to the end of August, 2,846 violent deaths were recorded by the Baghdad morgue, the Iraq Body Count said, basing its figures on a variety of media sources.

After subtracting the average pre-war death rates, "a total of at least 1,519 excess violent deaths in Baghdad emerges," it added.

Gunfights are frequent on Baghdad streets and revenge killings are also common as people settle old scores knowing murders will probably go unpunished. Residents also live in fear of being caught in firefights between U.S. soldiers and suspected Iraqi guerrillas. Some have been shot accidentally by soldiers and their own police.

The IBC said the daily violent death rate recorded at Baghdad's main morgue virtually tripled from around 10 per day in mid-April to more than 28 during August.

Before the war, gunshot wounds accounted for approximately 10 percent of bodies brought to the morgue, but now make up more than 60 percent, it added.

"The U.S. may be effective at waging war but the descent of Iraq's capital city into lawlessness under U.S. occupation shows that it is incompetent at maintaining public order and providing security for the civilian population," researcher Hamit Dardagan said.



From: england (hometown of toronto) | Registered: Jan 2003  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
rabble-rouser
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posted 28 September 2003 12:13 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Iraq slips further into turmoil

quote:
In Baghdad yesterday US explosives experts were studying the scene of the attack on the hotel. It is on Arasat Street, which is filled with restaurants, expensive clothes shops and cigar emporiums.

The bomb was placed on the street, between the hotel and a generator. Several windows were shattered by the blast, which injured David Moodie, a soundman.

"I was awake," he said. "A chest of drawers in the room fell on me. I sleep in the room immediately above the generator, so I guess I was lucky."

Although there were no signs on the building advertising NBC's presence, there was a big white tent on the roof where the network's correspondents stood for live shots. Al-Aike was widely known locally as a hotel housing American reporters.

In a separate attack yesterday eight US soldiers in a convoy through the northern city of Mosul were wounded in a sophisticated ambush.

Two roadside bombs detonated as the convoy passed, and when the military Humvees stopped men opened fire. Three soldiers suffered serious injuries and a Humvee was destroyed, the military said.

The US military also announced that a unit based in the troubled town of Falluja had been cleared of blame for their accidentally shooting dead eight Iraqi policemen two weeks ago.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 28 September 2003 04:48 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
This conflict makes the Isreali/arab war look like a snow ball fight.
From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 28 September 2003 06:08 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Iraq bishop says media distorts coverage to discredit US-led war.
From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
pogge
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posted 28 September 2003 06:15 PM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
From dailykos

quote:
Things are going great in Iraq, the wingnuts would have us know. Bad things? It's all media spin! Why, we saw Dan Rather on TV and traffic was moving normally behind him!

Idiots. I grew up in a wartorn country, so I have some first-hand knowledge as to how these things work. Do people think modern guerilla war is fought in WWI-style threnches?

Shit, 99 percent of the time, things are normal. People carry on their daily routines, going to work (if they are lucky to have a job), buying food at the market, hanging out with friends, even partying at night. Then, for a few terrifying seconds, all hell breaks loose.

The measure of whether things are going well or not is not to highlight that normalcy, but to assess the damage of the attacks. How many people are dying. What's the cost to the nation's infrastructure?



From: Why is this a required field? | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
rabble-rouser
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posted 29 September 2003 01:25 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
An Occupied Country

quote:
It has become clear, very quickly, that Iraq is not a liberated country, but an occupied country. We became familiar with the term "occupied country" during World War II. We talked of German-occupied France, German-occupied Europe. And after the war we spoke of Soviet-occupied Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Europe. It was the Nazis, the Soviets, who occupied other countries.

Now we are the occupiers. True, we liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein, but not from us. Just as in 1898 we liberated Cuba from Spain, but not from us. Spanish tyranny was overthrown, but the United States established a military base in Cuba, as we are doing in Iraq. U.S. corporations moved in to Cuba, just as Bechtel and Halliburton and the oil corporations are moving into Iraq. The United States was deciding what kind of constitution Cuba would have, just as our government is now forming a constitution for Iraq. Not a liberation, an occupation.

And it is an ugly occupation. On August 7, The New York Times reported that U.S. General Ricardo Sanchez in Baghdad was worried about Iraqi reaction to the occupation. Iraqi leaders who were pro-American were giving him a message, as he put it: "When you take a father in front of his family and put a bag over his head and put him on the ground you have had a significant adverse effect on his dignity and respect in the eyes of his family." (That's very perceptive.)

CBS News reported on July 19 that Amnesty International is looking into a number of cases of suspected torture in Iraq by American authorities. One such case involves Khraisan al-Aballi, CBS said. "When American soldiers raided the al-Aballi house, they came in shooting. . . . They shot and wounded his brother Dureid." U.S. soldiers took Khraisan, his 80-year-old father, and his brother away. "Khraisan says his interrogators stripped him naked and kept him awake for more than a week, either standing or on his knees, bound hand and foot, with a bag over his head," CBS reported. Khraisan told CBS he informed his captors, "I don't know what you want. I don't know what you want. I have nothing." At one point, "I asked them to kill me," Khraisan said. After eight days, they let him and his father go. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, responded, "We are, in fact, carrying out our international obligations."

On June 17, two reporters for the Knight Ridder chain wrote about the Falluja area: "In dozens of interviews during the past five days, most residents across the area said there was no Ba'athist or Sunni conspiracy against U.S. soldiers, there were only people ready to fight because their relatives had been hurt or killed, or they themselves had been humiliated by home searches and road stops." One woman said, after her husband was taken from their home because of empty wooden crates, which they had bought for firewood, that the United States is guilty of terrorism. "If I find any American soldiers, I will cut their heads off," she said. According to the reporters, "Residents in At Agilia--a village north of Baghdad--said two of their farmers and five others from another village were killed when U.S. soldiers shot them while they were watering their fields of sunflowers, tomatoes, and cucumbers."



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 29 September 2003 01:26 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Missiles Strike At Heart Of US Occupation

quote:
By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

28 September 2003: (The Independent. UK) The man with the missiles was driving a white Toyota and pulled up in the leafy Baghdad suburb of Salhaya at 6.35 yesterday morning. Those who saw him said he climbed very calmly out of the car and placed a large battery on the road. Then he took seven rockets from the back seat and laid them on the tarmac. Using the battery as a ramp, he fired the first missile at the Rashid Hotel, fortress home to many of the senior American officials of the occupation authorities.

Rocket number one smashed into the bedroom of an Iraqi house on the corner of the street, showering the building in concrete but leaving its occupants without injuries. Rockets two and three, however, swished off towards the Rashid and exploded in the garden of the former five-star hotel whose perimeter is now surrounded by 20ft-high concrete walls, miles of barbed wire and several Bradley armoured vehicles.

Later reports suggested that the man had fired mortars rather than rockets but one eyewitness described how - after firing the third rocket - the man left four more missiles lying on the road and then drove away as slowly and calmly as he arrived. Dozens of American troops arrived in the street minutes later but their attacker was gone, his missiles killing no one but making headlines round the world. The message was obvious: now even the very centre of the US occupation, the most fortified compound in Iraq with the Rashid, the former Presidential Palace - now home to US proconsul, Paul Bremer - and a conference centre, is unsafe.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Courage
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Babbler # 3980

posted 29 September 2003 02:28 AM      Profile for Courage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by majorvictory:
Missiles Strike At Heart Of US Occupation


Yankee, go home...


From: Earth | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
EarthShadow
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3391

posted 29 September 2003 09:17 AM      Profile for EarthShadow        Edit/Delete Post
KABUL (AP) - Suspected Taliban insurgents set fire to two girls' schools in northern Afghanistan, a local official said Monday, in the second such attack in recent days.

Two tents housing schools for girls in the Charar Bolak district in Balkh province were destroyed in the blaze late Sunday, said Abdul Sabur Khan, a local military official.

It is the first such attack in the Balkh province, considered a stronghold of the anti-Taliban northern alliance that helped a U.S.-led coalition oust the hardline militia and their al-Qaida allies in 2001.

Suspected insurgents also delivered leaflets or "night letters" in Balkh warning people "not to send girls to schools," Khan said. The Taliban banned girls from school and barred women from getting jobs.

On Saturday, insurgents destroyed a girls' school in eastern Nangarhar province. Earlier this month another school was burned down just several kilometres south of the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Elsewhere, fighting between rival local commanders in a northern Afghan province killed one person and wounded at least three, a spokesman for one of two key factions in the region said Monday.

Local commanders loyal to ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum and Tajik leader Atta Mohammed began fighting Friday in northern Faryab province, Salam Palawan, a key commander for Mohammed in the area said over satellite telephone.

Palawan said 800 of Dostum's soldiers attacked Mohammed's troops from three directions using mortars, multiple rocket launchers and heavy machine-guns.

One civilian caught in the crossfire was killed and three were wounded, Palawan said.

On Monday, Defence Ministry spokesman Gulbuddin, who goes with a single name, said that a joint commission representing the ministry and both warring factions would try to negotiate a truce.

------------------------------------

Ah Yes,
Nice to know that the "resistance" is growing,
that "militants" are making their mark,
that peace love and justice are breaking out all over.

Or just us?


From: somewhere in a circle | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
al-Qa'bong
rabble-rouser
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posted 29 September 2003 11:51 AM      Profile for al-Qa'bong   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Ah Yes,
Nice to know that the "resistance" is growing,

...which is the point of this thread - that one side cannot unilaterally declare war over. The people the USians have attacked haven't heard the Faux News reports of their demise, apparently.

Who is the Kutuzov in this epic?

Why is Canada taking over the NATO force in Kabul?


From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
SHH
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1527

posted 29 September 2003 10:36 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Former business associates of Saddam’s late, unlamented son Odai have already won big reconstruction contracts. Iraqis know who these people are. The Iraqi National Congress had been working on de-Baathification of the economy since before the former dictator disappeared, and is still doing so. Bremer should worry less about Al-Qaeda and more about bankrolling those who, for as long as Saddam remains alive, will be hedging their bets on the future.
Who is Julie Flint?

From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2878

posted 30 September 2003 09:23 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Full Metal Jacket

quote:
Why must Americans in Iraq face death because of outmoded body armor?


By Jonathan Turley

Suzanne Werfelman is a mother and a teacher who has been shopping for individual body armor. This is not in response to threats from her elementary-class students in Sciota, Pa.; it's a desperate attempt to protect her son in Iraq.

Like many other U.S. service members in Iraq, her son was given a Vietnam-era flak jacket that cannot stop the type of weapons used today. It appears that parents across the country are now purchasers of body armor because of the failure of the military to supply soldiers with modern vests.

Werfelman's son, Army Spc. Richard Murphy, is a military policeman in Iraq. He was also one of my law students last year before being sent off for a 20-month stint. Upon their arrival, members of Murphy's unit were shocked to learn that they would be given the old Vietnam-era vests rather than the modern Interceptor vest. (They were also given unarmored Humvees, which are vulnerable to even small-arms fire.) Military officials admit that the standard flak jacket could not reliably stop a bullet, including AK-47 ammunition, used in Iraq and the most common ammunition in the world.

Developed in the late 1990s, the Interceptor vest is made of layered sheets of Kevlar with pockets in front and back for ceramic plates to protect vital organs. These vests — one-third lighter than the old ones — have stopped machine-gun bullets, shrapnel and other ordnance.

They can mean the difference between living and dying, which was made all too clear to Sgt. Zachariah Byrd, a soldier with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, who was shot four times with AK-47 bullets (twice in the chest and twice in his arms) when his unit was ambushed. The vest protected his chest and he survived. Byrd had been issued a standard flak jacket and, if he had been wearing it during the attack, he'd probably be dead. However, at the beginning of the patrol, his buddy who was driving that night gave his Interceptor vest to Byrd — a passing kindness that saved Byrd's life.


[ 30 September 2003: Message edited by: majorvictory ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 30 September 2003 09:29 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
U.S. Soldier Killed by Guerrillas West of Baghdad

quote:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed and another was wounded on Monday when guerrillas attacked a military convoy in a restive area west of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman said.
Lieutenant Colonel George Krivo told reporters in Baghdad the morning attack took place in the town of Habbaniya, about 45 miles from Baghdad -- an area where U.S. forces come under almost daily attack from guerrillas opposed to the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

Eighty-one U.S. soldiers have been killed in attacks since President Bush declared major combat in Iraq over on May 1 following the war that ousted Saddam Hussein, according to official U.S. figures.

"There was an engagement this morning. It was an IED (improvised explosive device) attack on a convoy," Krivo told a news briefing. "There was a coalition soldier injured and one coalition soldier killed in action."

After the explosives attack, soldiers exchanged fire with guerrillas at the scene for several hours, Krivo said.

Details of the incident appeared to match reports from residents in the area, who said the soldiers had called in helicopters which also opened fire.

The residents said the fighting broke out after a U.S. vehicle ran over a bomb. Assailants emerged later, firing rocket-propelled grenades at the soldiers who returned fire.

One man said at least three Iraqis had been wounded.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 30 September 2003 09:32 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
GI Killed In Afghanistan

quote:
(AP) A U.S. soldier was killed and two others wounded in a clash with suspected Taliban rebels in southeastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

The clash occurred Monday near a coalition base at Shkin, in Paktika province, just a few miles from the Pakistan border, spokesman Col. Rodney Davis said from Bagram Air Base, the U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan.

"One coalition service member died of wounds received in combat and two others were wounded as a result of fighting on Monday near Shkin," Davis said in a statement. "Coalition forces killed two enemy fighters with direct small arms fire."

No other details were immediately available. Davis said the soldiers were not engaged in Mountain Viper, an ongoing operation in the south and east of the country to root out Taliban fighters.

Taliban rebels have dramatically stepped up operations in recent months. They waged a fierce battle in late August and early September in the mountains of southern Zabul province. One American special operations soldier died when he fell during a combat operation.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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Babbler # 1527

posted 30 September 2003 10:19 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Mounting insurgency? Guerilla warriors on the move? Quagmire? If coalition combat deaths are any indication...

July 25
Aug 22
Sep 15 (Accident deaths = 12)

...that looks like a 3 month decline of 40%. If these ‘dead-enders’ are ramping up to kill more coalition soldiers and run them out, it sure doesn’t show in their numbers.

Why, the soldiers are damn near killing themselves accidentally as much as the awesome and growing guerilla ‘movement’ is.

Source.


From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
al-Qa'bong
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posted 30 September 2003 10:57 PM      Profile for al-Qa'bong   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
...and here we at the halftime show at another match in the Haliburton Centre. The visitors had all the momentum in the early stages of the contest, but seem to be slipping as the game wears on.

Right Dick, the Deadenders are playing as if there's no tomorrow. In addition, they can't compete with the Crusaders' bloated salaries so have had to develop talent from the farm system. So far the poor kids are takin' a lickin', but they haven't stopped tickin'.

...speaking of tickin', take a look at the new jumbotron scoreboard...very impressive...

Yes, Dick. Scorekeeper SHH must love his job.

...Well back to the field, and the half-time show...it appears that one of the famous baton-twirlers of the cheerleading act is out of commission...

Yes, Dick. The lovely and talented kiowa slipped on his pompoms and will be on the sidelines for much of the rest of the season.

...it seems we'll be taking an unscheduled commercial break, as the concession stand at the south end of the field appears to have exploded.

The Deadenders are pulling out all the stops, Dick, and giving 150 percent as they know it ain't over 'till it's over.


From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
SHH
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posted 30 September 2003 11:18 PM      Profile for SHH     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
That’s good Bong...creative and funny. I’d like to see more funny stuff and parody in these exchanges.
From: Ex-Silicon Valley to State Saguaro | Registered: Oct 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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Babbler # 490

posted 01 October 2003 04:48 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The Iraq Revenue Watch

From the FAQ:

quote:
Will much work be required to make Iraq's oil industry operational?
"Major repair and upgrade work is required to restore Iraq's deteriorated oil sector infrastructure to pre-1991 production levels and to attain world-class safety standards. For over 20 years, Iraqi oil sector equipment has been poorly maintained. Rusted, outdated facilities have been operated through various improvised means. On the bright side, potentially crippling damage and sabotage to the sector during the war was avoided and the nine oil well fires in southern Iraq have been extinguished."

(Emphasis mine)

Gee, I wonder why the "potentially crippling damage and sabotage" was avoided in the first place? Could it possibly be because the US military had orders to secure the oil infrastructure at all costs?

Nooooooooooooooooo! Can't be!


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
drgoodword
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posted 01 October 2003 05:38 AM      Profile for drgoodword   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
An Average Of Eight American Soldiers A Day Are Wounded

quote:
But what this also results in is "a large number of survivors with permanent physical and emotional scars, not to mention profound disabilities," says Loren Thompson, head of security studies at the Lexington Institute in Alexandria, Va. "Not only are some wartime wounds uncommonly complex to treat, but the range of treatments provided - including counseling, assisted living, disability benefits, and so on - can be quite extensive."

From: Toronto | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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Babbler # 2878

posted 01 October 2003 10:00 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Epithet shows cultural divide

quote:
Troops turn title of respect into 'trivializing' slur for Iraqis, others

By JAY PRICE, Staff Writer

BAGHDAD -- World War II had its "krauts," Vietnam had its "gooks," and now, the War on Terrorism has its own dehumanizing name: "hajji. "
That's what many U.S. troops across Iraq and in coalition bases in Kuwait now call anyone from the Middle East or South Asia. Soldiers who served in Afghanistan say it also is used there.
related

Among Muslims, the word is used mainly as a title of respect. It means "one who has made the hajj ," the pilgrimage to Mecca .

That's not how soldiers use it.

Some talk about "killing some hajjis" or "mowing down some hajjis." One soldier in Iraq inked "Hodgie Killer" onto his footlocker.

Iraqis, friend or foe, are called hajjis. Kuwaitis are called hajjis. Even people brought in by civilian contractors to work in mess halls or drive buses are hajjis -- despite the fact that they might be from India, the Philippines or Pakistan, and might be Hindu or Christian.

The souvenir stands found on even the smallest U.S. bases in the Middle East and run by locals are called hajji shops. A cluster of small businesses inside a larger base is " Hajji Town."

The word has become the most obvious evidence of the deep gulf between the traditional cultures of the Middle East and Afghanistan and the young men and women of the U.S. military. Soldiers often have little knowledge of local culture beyond a 90-minute briefing they get before deployment.

"This is another reason that soldiers aren't good at winning the peace," Samer Shehata of Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies said Monday. "This doesn't bode well for the reconstruction."



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 01 October 2003 10:02 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Afghanistan planning calls for up to eight more years

quote:

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — U.S. forces could be digging in for a stay of up to eight more years in Afghanistan, where frequent firefights continue on the border with Pakistan nearly two years after major combat ended.

Base operations officials at Bagram and Kandahar bases are operating on long-term plans for improvements to the bases, which include building barracks similar to those found in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, among other quality-of-life projects.

“There is a long-term plan; we’re going to be here a long time,” said Lt. Col. Steve Mahoney, base operations commander in Kandahar. “[The plan] is in a state of being updated. We’re constantly looking at it because the environment here is always changing.”

At Bagram air base, base operations has devised a five- to eight-year community master plan, in which all U.S. troops will eventually move from the west side of the airfield to the east side, said Lt. Col. Paul Kimbrough, at Bagram base operations.

The U.S.-controlled bases could end up looking similar to those in Kosovo and Bosnia, where soldiers have cappuccino bars and movie theaters, among other extras.

However, Mahoney says, the unstable situation in Afghanistan directly affects how much the command can do to improve living conditions.

“The atmosphere here is much different,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Mike Wevodau, base operations at Bagram. “[Kosovo and Bosnia] are certainly dangerous, but it’s a different situation here. While those places are able to concentrate on quality of life, we still have to consider force protection.

“Here, we have two priorities: support warfighting, and then improve quality of life.”



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
pogge
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posted 02 October 2003 12:39 PM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
U.S. General Says Iraq Guerrillas More Lethal

quote:
The top American general in Iraq (news - web sites) said Thursday guerrillas fighting his troops were becoming deadlier, after the killing of three more soldiers added urgency to U.S. efforts to garner help stabilizing the country.

(snip)

"The enemy has evolved. It is a little bit more lethal, little bit more complex, little bit more sophisticated and in some cases a little bit more tenacious," said Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of ground forces in Iraq.

"As long as we are here the coalition need to be prepared to take casualties," he told a news conference. "We should not be surprised if one of these days we wake up to find there's been a major firefight or a major terrorist attack."



From: Why is this a required field? | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 02 October 2003 07:47 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
It's Not About The Oil?

quote:
BAGHDAD -- Oil is slippery stuff but not as slippery as the figures being peddled by Iraq's U.S. occupiers. Up around Kirkuk, the authorities are keeping the sabotage figures secret -- because they can't stop their pipelines to Turkey from blowing up. Down in Baghdad, where the men who produce Iraq's oil production figures are beginning to look like the occupants of Plato's cave -- drawing conclusions from shadows on their wall -- the statistics are being cooked.

L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator here, is "sexing up" the figures to a point where even the oilmen are shaking their heads. Take Kirkuk. Only when the television cameras capture a blown pipe, flames billowing from its wounds, do the occupation powers report sabotage.



From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 03 October 2003 02:42 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
General: 3-6 GIs Die Each Week in Iraq

quote:
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 1 — An American soldier died today in a bold daylight attack on her convoy just outside an American military base in Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, a military spokesman said.

Five soldiers have died in accidents and ambushes here since Monday, bringing to 314 the total number of troops killed in Iraq and Kuwait since the war began on March 20. Of those, 175 have died in the five months since President Bush declared major combat operations over on May 1. Four of the soldiers killed in action since March 20 have been women.

Additionally, 1,702 soldiers have been wounded since the war began, according to Maj. Mike Escudie, a spokesman for United States Central Command, which oversees troops in Iraq.

The death of the G.I. today was caused by a roadside explosion as a military convoy passed only a few hundred yards from one of three major bases used by the Fourth Infantry Division in Tikrit, Master Sgt. Dave Johnson, a division spokesman, said. "It was immediately outside the base, in broad daylight."

Three soldiers were seriously wounded, and one died as she was being flown to a nearby combat hospital, Sergeant Johnson said. Her name was not made public, pending notification of her family.

On Tuesday, a soldier died in a "nonhostile" shooting at a base near Balad, about 40 miles north of Baghdad, the military said. Two others drowned on Monday night when a vehicle overturned and fell into a canal near Abu Ghraib prison, just west of Baghdad, as a convoy was responding to a mortar attack. A fifth soldier died on Monday in an ambush near Habbaniya, about 40 miles west of Baghdad, that began a six-hour firefight between soldiers and Iraqi guerrillas.

A midmorning protest in Baghdad today briefly turned violent after the police fired in the air to disperse a crowd of more than 100 unemployed men angry at not being hired as government security guards. One protester was slightly wounded.

The protesters threw stones and set fire to two cars, which burned for almost 20 minutes, forcing traffic to be rerouted from one of Baghdad's central streets.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 03 October 2003 08:48 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
A graph showing the deaths.

The source data.

I did the math on the linear range of the graph, which is from 150 deaths up to 316, and used the source data to work out what day that was, and did the math for extrapolating out how many deaths there will be on any given day post-October 1.

It turns out that the slope of the linear range is 0.9540229885057471264367816091954 deaths per day, or if you want to approximate it, 0.95 deaths per day.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 04 October 2003 03:18 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Two Killed as Unemployed Soldiers Riot in Iraq

quote:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Unemployed former soldiers in Saddam Hussein's disbanded army clashed with occupying troops in Baghdad and the southern city of Basra on Saturday in violent protests that left at least two Iraqis dead.

The British army said one of its soldiers shot dead an armed Iraqi during an angry demonstration in Basra by hundreds of men who had gathered to collect redundancy payments after being laid off from the Iraqi military.

Major Simon Routledge said a British soldier heard gunfire and then shot and killed an Iraqi holding a weapon. British troops also fired rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.

Hundreds of former Iraqi soldiers also rioted at a disused airport in Baghdad where redundancy payments are handed out. They hurled rocks and rushed toward U.S. soldiers who beat them back with batons and fired shots in the air.

Officials at a nearby hospital said one Iraqi had been killed and several wounded in the violence. The U.S. Army said two of its soldiers were wounded.

The U.S.-led administration in Iraq disbanded the country's army in May, sparking several angry demonstrations by soldiers who said they faced destitution in a country whose economy has been battered by war and years of dictatorship and sanctions.



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 04 October 2003 05:18 PM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
British troops accused of torturing Iraqi

quote:

Amid allegations of torture, the British military is investigating the death of a 26-year-old Iraqi man who died in their custody.

Baha Salim Musa was arrested in the southern Iraqi city of Basra last month.

But after being held for four days, his father was asked to identify his body.

"His face was covered in blood, his nose broken, and the skin on his face was torn. There were bruises on his neck and all over his body," Baha's father Dawood told Reuters news agency.

"One wrist was broken and the flesh exposed where handcuffs had been pulled too tight. A sergeant confirmed that a rope had been put round his neck."

Dawood is convinced his son was tortured to death, and wants to know what happened.

The British military, which is responsible for Basra since the war on Iraq ended, says it is investigating the issue.

"Those suspected of any crimes will be tried, and if found guilty, punished under the laws of the United Kingdom"

"Seven men were arrested during a planned operation on the 14th of September, and one subsequently died in custody," a British spokesman said, adding the Special Investigations Branch of the Royal Military Police was investigating Baha's death.

Lieutenant Colonel David Amos, acting commander of British forces in the Basra and Maysan region, said this week that "those suspected of any crimes will be tried, and if found guilty, punished under the laws of the United Kingdom".



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
majorvictory
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posted 05 October 2003 01:43 AM      Profile for majorvictory     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Marines sure they were friendly-fire victims

quote:
JACKSONVILLE, North Carolina (CNN) -- It was the deadliest day of the Iraq war.

Eighteen Marines were killed in Nasiriya on March 23 as U.S. and coalition forces drove to Baghdad.

Six months later, those who fought alongside them told CNN they remain bitter that an undetermined number of their friends were killed -- not by Iraqis -- but by an Air Force A-10 they hoped was coming to their rescue.

Pinned down on all sides, the Marines were under fire from mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. Outnumbered, they fought back, their dead and wounded scattered all along the aptly named "Ambush Alley."

With no air support yet, Marine Capt. Dan Wittnam was elated as he looked into the clear skies to see it coming -- a U.S. warplane called a Warthog for its ability to root out and kill tanks.

"The first thought that went through my mind was, 'Thank God, an A-10 was on station," he told CNN.

And then, "the earth went black from the dirt being kicked up. And a feeling of absolute, utter horror and disbelief."



From: Toronto | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
pogge
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posted 05 October 2003 02:46 PM      Profile for pogge   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
U.S. 'years' from cut in Iraq force

quote:
The U.S. Army general who heads coalition forces in Iraq says it will be years before the United States is able to "draw down" its forces here and he warned Americans to brace for more casualties, including a "significant engagement where tens of American soldiers or coalition soldiers" are killed.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Chicago Tribune, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez gave a frank assessment of the military situation in Iraq. He said the coalition forces are winning the war here despite the daily drumbeat of news reports that suggest the military is encountering more trouble than its commanders had anticipated.

He said he is "very comfortable" with the current force structure and size, which includes 140,000 soldiers, all but a few thousand of whom are American, and he said for the first time publicly that the coalition force level won't be reduced anytime soon.



From: Why is this a required field? | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 05 October 2003 04:15 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Welp. This is about to tip into a third page, so I'm going to close it up (and yes, skdadl, I'll put it into the Hall of Fame right now ). Feel free to start a new one.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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