I hope and pray, as I'm sure all people of good will do, that the Iraqis can come to a peaceful settlement among themselves once the occupation ends. I know that would surprise a lot of westerners, steeped as they are in disdain and bigotry for non-white nations and civilizations, but we can hope.

Bulgaria Begins Plans for Iraq Pullout

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The Associated Press

September 02, 2005

Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said his government intends to consult this month with its coalition partners about the military pullout and Bulgaria's future participation in humanitarian activities in Iraq.

"Our upcoming withdrawal does not mean that we are stepping back from our engagements in the broad anti-terror coalition," Stanishev told parliament. "We will remain a responsible and predictable partner of the multinational forces and of the Iraqi government," he said.

Stanishev said Bulgaria will continue to be part of the efforts of the international community to stabilize Iraq, but "in a different way." He said that Bulgarian military instructors could participate in training missions for Iraqi soldiers and police officers.

Bulgaria has lost 13 soldiers in Iraq since it launched its military mission there in August 2003. Seven died in insurgent attacks, one was killed by U.S. troops in a friendly fire incident and five have died in vehicle accidents

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Bring Them Home Now Bus Tour - Day 1 and 2

by Cindy Sheehan

Since I was bone tired when I finally got to a bed, I didn't write my blog last night. This will probably be the last time I write for awhile, unless I think of something exciting to say. I am on my way home until the end of next week when I head back for the Bus Tour.

Yesterday, we left Camp Casey and it was very emotional for me. Like I said before, I never thought I would feel so badly about leaving Crawford, Texas behind. But I never counted on the Crawford, Texas experience turning into the Camp Casey experience. We actually walked around most of the time with stupid grins on our faces because being at Camp Casey was such a happy experience. However, we are carrying Camp Casey with us to the nation now.

I left Camp Casey on the same bus I pulled up in: The VFP Impeachment Tour Bus. It was excruciatingly hot as we rolled into Austin in 100 plus degree heat with no air. When we got into Austin and were still on I-35, our bus was greeted by honks, waves, and cheers from our fellow rush hour motorists. I was afraid we would cause an accident in the go sometimes, but mostly stopped traffic. We arrived safely at Congressman Lloyd Doggett's office and spoke to his aide. It was a great meeting and we are 100% behind Lloyd Doggett and he is 100% behind us.

From the Congressman's office, we went to the state's capitol and I received a Texas flag and a proclamation welcoming me to Texas from an Austin state legislator. I thought since I had been in Texas for almost a month it was nice that someone finally welcomed me.

We marched from the state capitol to Austin city hall. It was quite a sight as many hundreds of people followed us down Congress Street behind our "Support our troops, Bring Them Home Now" banner. We sang and chanted as we walked. People were joining us for our march from the sidewalks. It was the most remarkable march I have ever been a part of.

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US 'understands' Italy troop pullout

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From correspondents in Washington
02sep05

THE United States "understands" Italy's reasons for withdrawing troops from Iraq, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said today.

"We understand that this is a long-planned, phased withdrawal," he told reporters.
"It's a decision taken by the Italian government, and certainly we understand the reasons behind it."

"Certainly, we would encourage those states who are making contributions to the security forces to maintain those contributions.

"But, again, we respect the decision of sovereign countries to make the best decisions for them and for their people," he said.

"The Italian government has been stalwart in fighting the war on terrorism and in standing with the coalition in Iraq.

"Italian Carabinieri have shed blood along with American troops and others in Iraq.

"And we very much appreciate and value their contribution."

Italian Defence Minister Antonio Martino announced today that Italy would continue to reduce the number of its troops deployed to southern Iraq with new departures expected soon.

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FRASER NELSON
POLITICAL EDITOR

KENNETH Clarke yesterday laid out an audacious bid to shift the Conservatives to an anti-war agenda, as he launched a blistering attack on Tony Blair using arguments previously deployed by Labour rebels.

In the first speech of his leadership campaign, the former chancellor said the "disastrous" decision to invade Iraq was a catastrophic error that has made Britain a foremost target for Islamic extremists.

He also accused Mr Blair of seeking to blame "mad mullahs" for the London transport attacks. Such extremists were symptoms, he said, of a problem inflamed by the Iraq war.

In a speech which injected life into the Conservative Party leadership race, Mr Clarke, 65, delivered a powerful and bruising critique of the "war on terror" - saying the Prime Minister must be the only person left who thinks it is unconnected with the London bombs.

"The disastrous decision to invade Iraq has made Britain a more dangerous place," he said. "I would have accepted this increased risk as the price of going to war if I had believed we were driven to go to war for a just cause."

But he made it clear that he did not believe the Iraq war was just, and that "the reasons given to parliament for joining the invasion were bogus".

And just as the invasion of Iraq inflamed terrorist opinion, he said, new anti-terror laws risk radicalising British Muslims.

Mr Clarke made caustic references to George Bush, the US president. "I share the late Robin Cook's suspicions that the Bush administration hope to pull out most of their troops in whatever way they can before next year's US mid-term elections," he said.

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TD: As the person who, in 1967, wrote Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal, how do you compare the logic of withdrawal discussions in this moment with that one?

Zinn: There was a point early in the Vietnam War when no major figure and no critic of the war was simply calling for immediate withdrawal. Everybody was hedging in some way. We must negotiate. We must compromise. We must stop the bombing north of this or that parallel. I think we're at a comparable point now, two years after the beginning of the Iraq War. When my book came out in the Spring of ‘67, it was just two years after the escalation in early '65 when Johnson sent in the first major infusions of American troops. What's comparable, I think, are the arguments then and now. Even the language is similar. We mustn't cut and run. We mustn't give them a victory. We mustn't lose prestige in the world.

TD: ...credibility was the word then.

Zinn: Yes, exactly, credibility. There will be chaos and civil war if we leave...

TD: ...and a bloodbath.

Zinn: Yes, and a bloodbath -- because the one way you can justify an ongoing catastrophe is to posit a greater catastrophe if you don't continue with the present one. We've seen that psychology operating again and again. We saw it, for instance, with Hiroshima. I mean, we have to kill hundreds of thousands of people to avert a greater catastrophe, the death of a million people in the invasion of Japan.

It's interesting that when we finally did leave Vietnam, none of those dire warnings really came true. It's not that things were good after we left. The Chinese were expelled, and there were the boat people and the reeducation camps, but none of that compared to the ongoing slaughter taking place when the American troops were there. So while no one can predict what will happen -- I think this is important to say -- when the United States withdraws its troops from Iraq, the point is that we're choosing between the certainty of an ongoing disaster, the chaos and violence that are taking place in Iraq today, and an eventuality we can't predict which may be bad. But what may be bad is uncertain; what's bad with our occupation right now is certain. It seems to me that, choosing between the two, you have to take a chance on what might happen if you end the occupation. At the same time, of course, you do whatever you can to mitigate the worst possibilities of your leaving.

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Tim Collins told his troops this was a war of liberation, not conquest. Now he says that he was naive to believe it

Sunday September 18, 2005
The Observer

When I led my men of the 1st Battalion the Royal Irish Regiment across the border into Iraq we believed we were going to do some good. Goodwill and optimism abounded; it was to be a liberation, I had told my men, not a conquest.
In Iraq I sought to surround myself with advisers - Iraqis - who could help me understand what needed to be done. One of the first things they taught me was that the Baath party had been a fact of life for 35 years. Like the Nazi party, they said, it needed to be decapitated, harnessed and dismantled, each function replaced with the new regime. Many of these advisers were Baathists, yet were eager to co-operate, fired with the enthusiasm of the liberation. How must it look to them now?

What I had not realised was that there was no real plan at the higher levels to replace anything, indeed a simplistic and unimaginative overreliance in some senior quarters on the power of destruction and crude military might. We were to beat the Iraqis. That simple. Everything would come together after that.

The Iraqi army was defeated - it walked away from most fights - but was then dismissed without pay to join the ranks of the looters smashing the little infrastructure left, and to rail against their treatment. The Baath party was left undisturbed. The careful records it kept were destroyed with precision munitions by the coalition; the evidence erased, they were left with a free rein to agitate and organise the insurrection. A vacuum was created in which the coalition floundered, the Iraqis suffered and terrorists thrived.

One cannot help but wonder what it was all about. If it was part of the war on terror then history might notice that the invasion has arguably acted as the best recruiting sergeant for al-Qaeda ever: a sort of large-scale equivalent of the Bloody Sunday shootings in Derry in 1972, which in its day filled the ranks of the IRA. If it was an attempt to influence the price of oil, then the motorists who queued last week would hardly be convinced. If freedom and a chance to live a dignified, stable life free from terror was the motive, then I can think of more than 170 families in Iraq last week who would have settled for what they had under Saddam. UK military casualties reached 95 last week. I nightly pray the total never reaches 100.

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By Simon Jenkins

09/21/05 "The Guardian" -- -- Don't be fooled a second time. They told you Britain must invade Iraq because of its weapons of mass destruction. They were wrong. Now they say British troops must stay in Iraq because otherwise it will collapse into chaos.

This second lie is infecting everyone. It is spouted by Labour and Tory opponents of the war and even by the Liberal Democrat spokesman, Sir Menzies Campbell. Its axiom is that western soldiers are so competent that, wherever they go, only good can result. It is their duty not to leave Iraq until order is established, infrastructure rebuilt and democracy entrenched.

Note the word "until". It hides a bloodstained half century of western self-delusion and arrogance. The white man's burden is still alive and well in the skies over Baghdad (the streets are now too dangerous). Soldiers and civilians may die by the hundred. Money may be squandered by the million. But Tony Blair tells us that only western values enforced by the barrel of a gun can save the hapless Mussulman from his own worst enemy, himself.

The first lie at least had tactical logic. The Rumsfeld doctrine was to travel light, hit hard and get out. Neoconservatives might fantasise over Iraq as a democratic Garden of Eden, a land re-engineered to stability and prosperity. Harder noses were content to dump the place in Ahmad Chalabi's lap and let it go to hell. Had that happened, I suspect there would have been a bloody settling of scores but by now a tripartite republic hauling itself back to peace and reconstruction. Iraq is, after all, one of the richest nations on earth.

Instead the invasion came with tanks of glue. Decisions were taken, with British compliance, to make Iraq an experiment in "ground zero" nation-building. All sensible advice was ignored on the assumption that whatever America and Britain did would seem better than Saddam, and better than our doing nothing. Kipling's demons danced through Downing Street. Britain did not want to colonise Iraq. Yet somehow Blair's "fighting not for territory but for values" needed territory after all, as if to prove itself more than a soundbite.

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US soldiers trade grisly photos of dead and mutilated Iraqis for access to amateur porn. The press is strangely silent.

By Chris Thompson

If you want to see the true face of war, go to the amateur porn Web site NowThatsFuckedUp.com. For almost a year, American soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been taking photographs of dead bodies, many of them horribly mutilated or blown to pieces, and sending them to Web site administrator Chris Wilson. In return for letting him post these images, Wilson gives the soldiers free access to his site. American soldiers have been using the pictures of disfigured Iraqi corpses as currency to buy pornography.

At Wilson's Web site, you can see an Arab man's face sliced off and placed in a bowl filled with blood. Another man's head, his face crusted with dried blood and powder burns, lies on a bed of gravel. A man in a leather coat who apparently tried to run a military checkpoint lies slumped in the driver's seat of a car, his head obliterated by gunfire, the flaps of skin from his neck blooming open like rose petals. Six men in beige fatigues, identified as US Marines, laugh and smile for the camera while pointing at a burned, charcoal-black corpse lying at their feet.

The captions that accompany these images, which were apparently written by the soldiers who posted them, laugh and gloat over the bodies. The soldier who posted a picture of a corpse lying in a pool of his own brains and entrails wrote, "What every Iraqi should look like." The photograph of a corpse whose jaw has apparently rotted away, leaving a gaping set of upper teeth, bears the caption "bad day for this dude." One soldier posted three photographs of corpses lying in the street and titled his collection "DIE HAJI DIE." The soldiers take pride, even joy, in displaying the dead.

This could become a public-relations catastrophe. The Bush administration claims such sympathy for American war dead that officials have banned the media from photographing flag-draped coffins being carried off cargo planes. Government officials and American media officials have repeatedly denounced the al-Jazeera network for airing grisly footage of Iraqi war casualties and American prisoners of war. The legal fight over whether to release the remaining photographs of atrocities at Abu Ghraib has dragged on for months, with no less a figure than Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Meyers arguing that the release of such images will inflame the Muslim world and drive untold numbers to join al-Qaeda. But none of these can compare to the prospect of American troops casually bartering pictures of suffering and death for porn.

"Two years ago, if somebody had said our soldiers would do these things to detainees and take pictures of it, I would have said that's a lie," sighed recently retired General Michael Marchand, who as assistant judge advocate general for the Army was responsible for reforming military training policy to make sure nothing like Abu Ghraib ever happens again. "What soldiers do, I'm not sure I can guess anymore."

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09/25/05 "The Observer" -- -- British troops will start a major withdrawal from Iraq next May under detailed plans on military disengagement to be published next month, The Observer can reveal.

The document being drawn up by the British government and the US will be presented to the Iraqi parliament in October and will spark fresh controversy over how long British troops will stay in the country. Tony Blair hopes that, despite continuing and widespread violence in Iraq, the move will show that there is progress following the conflict of 2003.

Britain has already privately informed Japan - which also has troops in Iraq - of its plans to begin withdrawing from southern Iraq in May, a move that officials in Tokyo say would make it impossible for their own 550 soldiers to remain.

The increasingly rapid pace of planning for British military disengagement has been revealed on the eve of the Labour Party conference, which will see renewed demands for a deadline for withdrawal. It is hoped that a clearer strategy on Iraq will quieten critics who say that the government will not be able to 'move on' until Blair quits. Yesterday, about 10,000 people demonstrated against the army's continued presence in the country.

Speaking to The Observer this weekend, the Defence Secretary, John Reid, insisted that the agreement being drawn up with Iraqi officials was contingent on the continuing political process, although he said he was still optimistic British troops would begin returning home by early summer.

'The two things I want to insist about the timetable is that it is not an event but a process, and that it will be a process that takes place at different speeds in different parts of the country. I have said before that I believe that it could begin in some parts of the country as early as next July. It is not a deadline, but it is where we might be and I honestly still believe we could have the conditions to begin handover. I don't see any reason to change my view.

'But if circumstances change I have no shame in revising my estimates.'

The disclosures follow rising demands for the government to establish a clearer strategy for bringing troops home following the kidnapping of two British SAS troopers in Basra and the scenes of violence that surrounded their rescue. Last week Blair's own envoy to Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, warned that Britain could be forced out if Iraq descends so far into chaos that 'we don't have any reasonable prospect of holding it together'.

Continued tension between the Iraqi police force, the Iraqi administration and British troops was revealed again yesterday when an Iraqi magistrate called for the arrest of the two British special forces soldiers. who were on a surveillance mission when they were taken into custody by Iraqi police and allegedly handed on to a militia.

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By EVAN LEHMANN, Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The invasion of Iraq was the “greatest strategic disaster in United States history,” a retired Army general said yesterday, strengthening an effort in Congress to force an American withdrawal beginning next year.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. William Odom, a Vietnam veteran, said the invasion of Iraq alienated America's Middle East allies, making it harder to prosecute a war against terrorists.

The U.S. should withdraw from Iraq, he said, and reposition its military forces along the Afghan-Pakistani border to capture Osama bin Laden and crush al Qaeda cells.

“The invasion of Iraq I believe will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history,” said Odom, now a scholar with the Hudson Institute.

Homeward Bound, a bipartisan resolution with 60 House co-sponsors, including Lowell Rep. Marty Meehan, requests President Bush to announce plans for a draw-down by December, and begin withdrawing troops by October 2006.

The measure has not been voted on, nor has the House Republican leadership scheduled hearings. But supporters were encouraged yesterday, pointing to growing support among moderate conservatives and the public's rising dissatisfaction with the war.

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American's are not devils. The majority of us are hard working and loving people. We have hearts and feel for the world. Unfortunately, because we are a young nation, we think we can solve all of the world's problems or what we precieve as problems.

I don't know what to think regarding Iraq. I don't think we have done the people of Iraq any favors. Was Sadam a bad man. No doubt. Did he really affect the average Iraqi? I don't know. Is it right for us to pull out right now and leave the Iraqi people hanging? Would we really be leaving them hanging? I don't know. I do believe we need to provide support in building up what we tore down.

I want to say that the average American does not hate Muslims simply for being Muslim. Are there extremists? Yes. Are they right. No. Is America right? Not always.

Your comments on Muslims is..to say the least..offensive.

You know who I find are the fanatics? Why those would be the Xian Reich currently running the Whitehouse starting war after war in the name of God. Now that, from a so-called 'sane' nation is simply screwed.

[ 05 October 2005: Message edited by: Stargazer ]

[ 05 October 2005: Message edited by: Stargazer ]

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Originally posted by Stargazer:
Your comments on Muslims is..to say the least..offensive.

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We want to do what is right. Sometimes though, like a child, we can't always differentiate between right and wrong. Although our leaders speak volumes, they don't always hit the nail directly on the head in regards to what the American people really feel.

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Originally posted by Stargazer:

...voting in GWB a second time...

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By Robert Fisk

Thursday 17 June 2004 "The Independent" -- They came as liberators but were met by fierce resistance outside Baghdad. Humiliating treatment of prisoners and heavy-handed action in Najaf and Fallujah further alienated the local population. A planned handover of power proved unworkable. Britain's 1917 occupation of Iraq holds uncanny parallels with today - and if we want to know what will happen there next, we need only turn to our history books...

On the eve of our "handover" of "full sovereignty" to Iraq, this is a story of tragedy and folly and of dark foreboding. It is about the past-made-present, and our ability to copy blindly and to the very letter the lies and follies of our ancestors. It is about that admonition of antiquity: that if we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. For Iraq 1917, read Iraq 2003. For Iraq 1920, read Iraq 2004 or 2005.

Yes, we are preparing to give "full sovereignty" to Iraq. That's also what the British falsely claimed more than 80 years ago. Come, then, and confront the looking glass of history, and see what America and Britain will do in the next 12 terrible months in Iraq.

Our story begins in March 1917 as 22-year-old Private 11072 Charles Dickens of the Cheshire Regiment peels a poster off a wall in the newly captured city of Baghdad. It is a turning point in his life. He has survived the hopeless Gallipoli campaign, attacking the Ottoman empire only 150 miles from its capital, Constantinople. He has then marched the length of Mesopotamia, fighting the Turks yet again for possession of the ancient caliphate, and enduring the grim battle for Baghdad. The British invasion army of
600,000 soldiers was led by Lieutenant-General Sir Stanley Maude, and the sheet of paper that caught Private Dickens's attention was Maude's official "Proclamation" to the people of Baghdad, printed in English and Arabic.

That same 11in by 18in poster, now framed in black and gold, hangs on the wall a few feet from my desk as I write this story of empire and dark prophecy. Long ago, the paper was stained with damp - "foxed", as booksellers say - which may have been Private Dickens's perspiration in the long hot Iraqi summer of 1917. It has been folded many times; witness, as his daughter Hilda would recall 86 years later, to its presence in his army knapsack over many months.

In a letter to me, she called this "his precious document", and I can see why. It is filled with noble aspirations and presentiments of future tragedy; with the false promises of the world's greatest empire, commitments and good intentions; and with words of honour that were to be repeated in the same city of Baghdad by the next great empire more than two decades after Dickens's death. It reads now like a funeral dirge:

"Proclamation... Our military operations have as their object, the defeat of the enemy and the driving of him from these territories. In order to complete this task I am charged with absolute and supreme control of all regions in which British troops operate; but our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators... Your citizens have been subject to the tyranny of strangers... and your fathers and yourselves have groaned in bondage. Your sons have been carried off to wars not of your seeking, your wealth has been stripped from you by unjust men and squandered in different places. It is the wish not only of my King and his peoples, but it is also the wish of the great Nations with whom he is in alliance, that you should prosper even as in the past when your lands were fertile... But you, people of Baghdad... are not to understand that it is the wish of the British Government to impose upon you alien institutions. It is the hope of the British Government that the aspirations of your philosophers and writers shall be realised once again, that the people of Baghdad shall flourish, and shall enjoy their wealth and substance under institutions which are in consonance with their sacred laws and with their racial ideals... It is the hope and desire of the British people... that the Arab race may rise once more to greatness and renown amongst the peoples of the Earth... Therefore I am commanded to invite you, through your Nobles and Elders and Representatives, to participate in the management of your civil affairs in collaboration with the Political Representative of Great Britain... so that you may unite with your kinsmen in the North, East, South and West, in realising the aspirations of your Race.

(signed) F.S. Maude, Lieutenant-General, Commanding the British Forces in Iraq."

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The coalition is merely generating violence in Iraq. British ministers must save the army's reputation and pull it out

By Simon Jenkins

10/19/05 "The Guardian" -- -- Beware good news from Iraq this week. Some such news there will be. The federal constitution seems likely to pass referendum muster. It is the one thing that may yet forestall the country's formal partition.

Between now and elections for a new government in December there should be a semblance of political activity. As democracy it is a pastiche. Its leaders are entombed in the mightiest fortress on Earth, the Americans' Green Zone in Baghdad, while voting is not political but religious and ethnic. But it will be enough for the occupiers to claim that things are "getting better", and therefore that they should stay.

Last week I returned to Iraq for the first time since the end of 2003. If the essence of "getting better" is security then things are incomparably worse. I could no longer walk the streets or visit friends. Anyone associating with foreigners risks execution. Teachers, doctors, lawyers, academics are fleeing abroad for fear of kidnap. The National Museum has closed. Visiting VIPs must go everywhere by helicopter. The Iraqi head of Baghdad's military academy must change into civilian clothes before leaving his base. After nearly three years of American rule, Baghdad is simply the most terrifying city in the world.

Not surprisingly the chief topic among the occupation forces is how to get out. I own a fine collection of exit strategies dating back to Vietnam and Lebanon. Iraq already offers such exhibits as the neocon vintage 2003: "Exit when Iraq is a stable, secure and democratic beacon of peace in the region." There are less exotic versions, such as Tony Blair's exit-when-asked-to-leave or John Reid's exit-when-the-job-is-done. The most recent army standard-issue strategy is "exit when an Iraqi division is capable of independent deployment". Ask when that might be and the answer is "a ball of string".

These strategies have lost all touch with reality. Is Blair really giving right of veto on a British departure to a group of pro-Iranian Shias? As for Reid's "going when the job is done", what job? Bringing democracy to Iraq? We claim to have done that already. Bringing peace and security to the country? You must be joking. Rebuilding the Iraqi army? Of 113 paid-up battalions, the Americans regard just one as reliable in a firefight, and that after two years of recruitment and training. The fact is you can train an army but not motivate it. That it must do for itself.

No Iraqi units other than peshmergas from Kurdistan could be deployed by the Baghdad government against Sunni or Shia insurgents. At the weekend the Americans used air power rather than local troops to kill over 70 "insurgents" in a Sunni village outside Ramadi in revenge for five American deaths. Such counterproductive slaughter is what makes coalition withdrawal vital if civil authority is ever to be restored in Iraq.

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by Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
The call came late at night. My youngest child called from college, her trademark perky voice suddenly tense, halting.

"I haven't heard from D. since last Tuesday. When I talked to him, he said he couldn't say much over the phone anymore, or on e-mail. He sounded strange, like something was wrong, but he wouldn't tell me what was up. I thought maybe he was just depressed – he's depressed all the time now, and isn't allowed to tell me where he's being sent or how he's being used – but he hasn't answered any of my e-mails, which he always does. So I wondered if you could – do you think he's dead, Mom?"

The phone went silent. I visualized her, sitting on her dorm bed, trying not to cry. She's a girl who doesn't like to cry. She's always been that way. Even in preschool, for some reason she just didn't like to "give in" to tears. So I knew that she was really hurting.

I heard a sniffle on the other end of the phone, and then she said quickly, "A lot of soldiers got killed this last week in Iraq. I know you've found some Web site where you can find out what their names are. I was wondering, could you check for me?"

"Sure, I'll do it right away. I'll call you back, Honey."

I went to the DoD Web site, the one that publishes the list of all the American kids killed for George W. Bush's "noble cause."

As I was looking at the Web page, I remembered the last time I saw that boy, a charming kid whose family had endured much tragedy and poverty, yet managed to raise a polite, kind child. I remember him hugging my daughter good-bye before being shipped off to the killing streets of Iraq. He was tall and muscular, with dark brown skin and gleaming white teeth. He always called me "ma'am," and would do anything for us.

The .pdf file was just a bunch of numbers. Sorry, but it's true. Politicians love numbers; they can argue that there aren't enough dead kids to worry about, or that there are too many. Pollsters and strategists will dicker about how many military casualties the American public "will tolerate."

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NORTHERN BABIL PROVINCE, Iraq (CNN) -- The two men were good friends at Forward Operating Base Falcon in Babil province, each commanding units at the base in what's called Iraq's "Triangle of Death."

Col. William Wood and Lt. Col. Ross Brown exchanged gifts recently, said Sgt. Kim Bradshaw.

He couldn't say what the gifts were, just the kind of things soldiers with great responsibility and even greater worries share on a battlefield.

That's why the events of October 27 hit so hard.

Northern Babil province is vast farmland divided by a series of canals with narrow roads running alongside.

The members of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment patrol in Bradley fighting vehicles and Humvees, wary of the roadside bombs that have taken so many lives in Iraq, including those of four members of the 3rd ACR who died when an explosion knocked a Bradley into a canal.

Those were just four of the 14 deaths suffered by the 3rd ACR in 45 days during the summer.

On October 27, Brown led a patrol of two Bradleys and one Humvee along Route "Tampa," a highway in the sense that it is wider than the paths that pose the biggest danger for roadside bombs. "Tampa" links Babil province to Baghdad.

As he prepared the patrol that day, Brown asked his soldiers what they carry out with them for protection -- not meaning the usual flack jackets, Kevlar helmets, M-16s and grenades -- but pieces of so-called "luck" from home.

Among the pieces brought out -- a Bible, a folded prayer, pictures of loved ones, the patron saint of soldiers and the ever-present "charm" candy found in MREs (meals ready to eat).

Three bombs had exploded along the route the day before.

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The first step in getting out of Iraq is to blame George W. Bush.

This is a serious suggestion. It is neither facetious nor partisan.

It would be wonderful if the occupation were going to lead to the creation of a stable, secular, self-sustaining democracy. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Chaos and disorder are increasing.

The best prediction is that the country is headed toward full-scale civil war. It will end with Iraq divided along ethnic and religious lines. At least one segment will have an Islamic government closely tied to Iran. Our presence seems to be making things worse. Nor has anyone suggested some alternative way of running the war that might work better.

Realistically, there is nothing to be done but to get out.

Politically, that's next to impossible.

The arguments that the Bush administration has made for staying are not terribly logical, but they are emotionally compelling. The first is the Colin L. Powell position: We broke it, now it's ours, we're responsible and can't leave until it's fixed. The second is that we have to fight until we win so as to honor those who have already died in the fight. Finally, we don't want to "cut and run." That would be unmanly and dishonorable, bad for our self-image and our image in the world.

Most Democrats are terrified of taking an anti-war position. They have been branded so effectively as weak on national security that a Republican senate candidate who got out of the draft claiming bad knees actually beat a veteran who had lost two legs and an arm to a grenade in Vietnam by calling him soft on terror.

And Mr. Bush, who used the ultimate rich kid's gambit to stay away from combat, beat an authentic war hero on similar grounds. Democrats know that if they oppose the war, the Republicans will suggest that they are practically traitors, un-American cowards who cannot be trusted to defend America - and then, for generations, they will accuse the Democrats of having "lost" Iraq.

And yet it is futile to stay in Iraq.

The solution is to rebrand the war. It's not America's war, it's not a war on terror, it has to be labeled as George Bush's war. It needs to be established in the popular mind that it's Mr. Bush's personal war, that he led us into for his own political and psychological reasons - it was not about security, not about weapons of mass destruction, not even about terrorists. That he lied to the American people and effectively conned us into following him, and that once in the war, he planned it foolishly and led it ineffectively.

Most important, George Bush has already lost the war.

If it is Mr. Bush's war, not America's, it is patriotic to end it.

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Wednesday, 16 November 2005
The Independent provides more depth and perspective to the breaking story about the Iraqi torture chamber uncovered yesterday: Raid on torture dungeon exposes Iraq's secret war .

This story has the potential of becoming a "Katrina" moment: a revelatory episode that exposes long-suppressed truths about the reality of Bush's "leadership" and its agonizing consequences. Just as the hurricane finally brought Bush's incompetence, cronyism and callousness to mainstream attention, the torture chamber revelations could lead to a broader awareness of the murderous chaos that Bush's "liberation" has unleashed upon Iraq, with sectarian and ethnic death squads roaming the land, murdering and oppressing the people -- often with tacit U.S. backing or U.S. training. As one American officer said of Baghdad -- the centerpiece of Bushist "democracy" in Iraq: "It's getting more like Mogadishu every day."

Some excerpts from The Independent: Yesterday, 24 hours later, the Prime Minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, promised an investigation after the shocking demonstration of how paramilitary units working for the government, and death squads allegedly linked to it, are waging a savage war in the shadows.

People are arrested and disappear for months. Bodies appear every week of men, and sometimes women, executed with their hands tied behind their backs. Some have been grotesquely mutilated with knives and electric drills before their deaths.

The paramilitaries are not held responsible for all the deaths - some are the work of insurgents murdering supposed informers or government officials, or killing for purely sectarian motives.

You very seldom see American soldiers on the streets of Baghdad now. The Iraqi police are in evidence outside, but so are increasing numbers of militias running their own checkpoints - men in balaclavas or wrap-around sunglasses and headbands, with leather mittens and an array of weapons. An American official acknowledged: "It is getting more and more like Mogadishu every day."

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By FRANK RICH

11/20/05 New York Times

IF anyone needs further proof that we are racing for the exits in Iraq, just follow the bouncing ball that is Rick Santorum. A Republican leader in the Senate and a true-blue (or red) Iraq hawk, he has long slobbered over President Bush, much as Ed McMahon did over Johnny Carson. But when Mr. Bush went to Mr. Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania to give his Veterans Day speech smearing the war's critics as unpatriotic, the senator was M.I.A.

Mr. Santorum preferred to honor a previous engagement more than 100 miles away. There he told reporters for the first time that "maybe some blame" for the war's "less than optimal" progress belonged to the White House. This change of heart had nothing to do with looming revelations of how the new Iraqi "democracy" had instituted Saddam-style torture chambers. Or with the spiraling investigations into the whereabouts of nearly $9 billion in unaccounted-for taxpayers' money from the American occupation authority. Or with the latest spike in casualties. Mr. Santorum was instead contemplating his own incipient political obituary written the day before: a poll showing him 16 points down in his re-election race. No sooner did he stiff Mr. Bush in Pennsylvania than he did so again in Washington, voting with a 79-to-19 majority on a Senate resolution begging for an Iraq exit strategy. He was joined by all but one (Jon Kyl) of the 13 other Republican senators running for re-election next year. They desperately want to be able to tell their constituents that they were against the war after they were for it.

They know the voters have decided the war is over, no matter what symbolic resolutions are passed or defeated in Congress nor how many Republicans try to Swift-boat Representative John Murtha, the marine hero who wants the troops out. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup survey last week found that the percentage (52) of Americans who want to get out of Iraq fast, in 12 months or less, is even larger than the percentage (48) that favored a quick withdrawal from Vietnam when that war's casualty toll neared 54,000 in the apocalyptic year of 1970. The Ohio State political scientist John Mueller, writing in Foreign Affairs, found that "if history is any indication, there is little the Bush administration can do to reverse this decline." He observed that Mr. Bush was trying to channel L. B. J. by making "countless speeches explaining what the effort in Iraq is about, urging patience and asserting that progress is being made. But as was also evident during Woodrow Wilson's campaign to sell the League of Nations to the American public, the efficacy of the bully pulpit is much overrated."

Mr. Bush may disdain timetables for our pullout, but, hello, there already is one, set by the Santorums of his own party: the expiration date for a sizable American presence in Iraq is Election Day 2006. As Mr. Mueller says, the decline in support for the war won't reverse itself. The public knows progress is not being made, no matter how many times it is told that Iraqis will soon stand up so we can stand down.

On the same day the Senate passed the resolution rebuking Mr. Bush on the war, Martha Raddatz of ABC News reported that "only about 700 Iraqi troops" could operate independently of the U.S. military, 27,000 more could take a lead role in combat "only with strong support" from our forces and the rest of the 200,000-odd trainees suffered from a variety of problems, from equipment shortages to an inability "to wake up when told" or follow orders.

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Originally posted by Madkins:
I want to say that the average American does not hate Muslims simply for being Muslim. Are there extremists? Yes. Are they right. No. Is America right? Not always.

I will say this. I am saddened by the impression the seemingly entire world thinks of us. We want to do what is right. Sometimes though, like a child, we can't always differentiate between right and wrong. Although our leaders speak volumes, they don't always hit the nail directly on the head in regards to what the American people really feel.

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Are they (Muslim Extremists) right. No
Is America (Bible Thumpers) right? No

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The significant problems we face today cannot be solved by the minds that created them - Albert Einstein had a quote to that similar to that

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Election posters promising a stable Iraq cut no ice with men like Abu Mohammed, who runs a women's clothing boutique in Baghdad's Adhamiya district by day but is an insurgent fighter by night.

As an insurgent, Abu Mohammed attacks U.S. military convoys with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles, fights Iraqi troops and hunts down "informers".

"Expect black days. Elections won't change anything. This is a long-term struggle. We will fight for the next 20 years," said Abu Mohammed, who used that name as an insurgent.

Iraqi officials and their American allies are pinning their hopes on December 15 elections for the first post-war, full-term government to defuse a Sunni Arab insurgency that has killed thousands of security forces and civilians.

Even though many more Sunnis are expected to vote after largely boycotting January elections, the big question is whether hardcore fighters can be drawn into peaceful politics.

Abu Mohammed and his insurgent brother sitting beside him in his shop aim to dig in for a protracted battle.

They dismiss candidates like Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, a former U.S. ally, and pro-Iranian Shi'ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and say they are exiles who rode into Iraq on American tanks.

In Adhamiya, a northern Baghdad district that is a typical stronghold for Sunni insurgents, inspiration still comes from Saddam Hussein, not from promises of democracy and prosperity made after his fall in 2003.

They see signs of decline all around. An old officers' social club now has sandbags in front of it and what was once a feared intelligence headquarters is inhabited by the homeless.

SECTARIAN FURY

Abu Mohammed says even election candidate and former prime minister Iyad Allawi, seen as a strongman who appeals to both Shi'ites and Sunnis amid sectarian fears of civil war, has little chance of winning over guerrillas in Adhamiya.

"We want Saddam back. If we can't have Saddam we want someone who stayed in Iraq and not exiles," said Abu Mohammed, a short, stocky man with glasses whose eyes fill with rage when he speaks of U.S. occupation and Iraqi politicians.

Both his favoured scenarios are highly unlikely. Saddam is fighting for his life in court and Iraq's political landscape, once controlled by Sunnis, is dominated by Shi'ites and Kurds.

Insurgent Abu Alaa, a former intelligence officer, says he wanted to join Iraq's new security forces but was discouraged by what he called Shi'ite discrimination and violence against Sunnis.

Unemployed, he spends most of his time fighting despite the slick election advertisements on television.

"These elections don't mean anything. There is no democracy in Iraq with our new leaders," he said.

Although Sunnis lost out by not voting in January elections, Abu Mohammed sees the elections as a U.S. plot to dominate Iraq.

His suspicions have been reinforced by the recent discovery of 173 malnourished Sunni prisoners found locked in a bunker by the Shi'ite-run Interior Ministry.

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[ 08 December 2005: Message edited by: majorvictory64 ]

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A man carries the lifeless body of a child inside the morgue of Yarmouk hospital, in Bahdad, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2005. A car bomb detonated outside Mahmoudiya hospital in the center of a town south of Baghdad Thursday, killing 30 and wounding 35, a doctor said. Among the dead were four police guards, three women and two children, said Dr. Dawoud al-Taie, the director of the Mahmoudiya hospital. (AP Phoot/Hadi Mizban)

In this undated photo provided by the Hinton family, Army Spc. Dominic J. Hinton, 24, is shown. Hinton, with the 101st Airborne Division was killed with four other soldiers in two weekend roadside bombings in Iraq, according to the Defense Department. Hinton was killed Saturday in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad. (AP Photo/The Hinton family via The Morning Telegraph)

The dead bodies of two children lie inside the morgue of Baqouba hospital, Iraq, Monday, Nov. 21, 2005. U.S. forces mistakenly fired on a civilian vehicle outside of an American military base north of Baghdad on Monday, killing at least three people, including one child, a U.S. spokesman said. Five people returning from a relative's funeral, including three children, were killed and two others wounded, said Dr. Ahmed Fouad of the Baqouba city morgue. U.S. officials said they only knew of three deaths in the incident, including one child, and three others wounded. (AP Photo/Mohammed Adnan)

Mongolians wearing in traditional costumes, ride past the limo that carries U.S. President George W. Bush during his visit to Ikh Tenger on Mongolian culture, Monday, Nov. 21, 2005 in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Bush thanked Mongolia on Monday for standing with him in Iraq and compared the struggle against Islamic radicalism to this country's battle against communism during a brief visit on the final leg of his Asian tour. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

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BALAD, Iraq Long before he came to Iraq, Spec. Russell Nahvi hoped to save the world. In a spiral-bound notebook filled with math equations, he jotted his secret yearnings: "I PRAY one day I can make the world proud of me. I hope I can restore an unknown peace to wartorn nations, peoples, families, friends."

Nahvi's ambitions led him to a dark road on the outskirts of this town, where, on a patrol Oct. 19, a bomb hidden in a pothole dismembered him and incinerated his Humvee. Two other Americans were also killed. One soldier survived: a platoon sergeant who managed to wrench himself out of the vehicle, flames rolling off him.

Afterward, the Pentagon tersely attributed the soldiers' deaths to "enemy indirect fire." An officer handed Nahvi's mother, Nancy, a form asking if she wanted her 24-year-old son's body parts returned if they were recovered. President Bush sent his parents a three-paragraph condolence letter. It contained a typo: "God less you."

"It was just a grunt's death," said Nancy Nahvi, an Arlington, Tex., nurse, her voice tinged with bitterness.

Nahvi was assigned to the 5th Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, part of the 3rd Infantry Division, based at Fort Stewart, Ga. The unit's year-long combat tour, now in its final days, is a study in the banality of war: ordinary American lives confronted by moments of extraordinary violence, set against the backdrop of an inscrutable culture and an unfamiliar land.

This account of the unit's year at war was drawn from soldiers' diaries, from correspondence and from interviews in Balad, in the heart of Iraq's Sunni Triangle, where the 5th Battalion is based. It also draws on interviews in the United States with relatives of the soldiers, as well as Vietnam veterans of the same battalion, many of whom sponsored troops in Iraq. The experience has reverberated in a profound way among soldiers and their families, much as it has divided the nation over the price of a war now nearing the end of its third year.

"What is the purpose of us really being over there?" asked Latisa Baker, whose husband, Staff Sgt. L.B. Baker, 38, of Belcher, La., was the sole survivor of the attack that killed Nahvi. As she spoke, Baker had just been released from an Army hospital in San Antonio. He sat stiffly on the couch in his redbrick house near Fort Stewart, nursing a beer, second-degree burns covering nearly 10 percent of his body.

"People dying every day, for what? That's the question: For what?" Latisa Baker said. "If you give me a reason for why we're really fighting, then maybe I can handle it a little better. But we really don't know."

"You know, when I was in Iraq I never even thought about why I was over there," Baker told his wife. "I was just doing my job."

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On March 16, 1968, approximately 80 unarmed civilians were taken from the village of My Lai, Vietnam and huddled into the plaza. Lt. William Calley of Charlie Company told one of his soldiers, "You know what I want you to do with them." When Calley returned minutes later and found the Vietnamese still gathered in the plaza, he said to Meadlo, " Haven’t you got rid of them yet? I want them dead. Waste them." Meadlo and Calley began firing into the group from a distance of ten to fifteen feet. It was part of the massacre of an estimated 500 civilians that day.

Look at the above photographs. Examine them carefully. You will see that they are old men, women and babies. It is not the type of pictures we see coming from the American media in Iraq today. Indeed, we are not allowed to see the flag draped coffins of our war dead being unloaded at Dover Air Base. If President Bush had his way, National Public Television would not be able to list the names in role call fashion as they have been doing.

Vietnam and Iraq have many common aspects but public exposure is not one of them. The Bush administration, with the shameful cooperation of America’s mainstream media have, for the most part, hidden that face of war behind a veil of jingoism and a meticulous weave of deceptions,lies and secrecy.

A recent AP story told of the death of Hugh Thompson, a former helicopter pilot in Vietnam who was honored in 1998 for his courage in rescuing a number of Vietnamese civilians from that massacre at My Lai. It motivated me to go through my old files on Vietnam and revisit my notes on my time there. I was drawing and reporting from Vietnam and left the country just prior to the Tet Offensive in 1968.

The deja vu is stunning. Vietnam and Iraq are blood brothers at their core.

The U.S. crept into the war in Vietnam on the tunnel vision of its leadership. After the French occupation ended with a humiliating defeat at Dien Bien Phu in May of 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower ( a supporter of French) lobbied to delay a free election in Vietnam out of fear that the expatriate Ho Chi Minh would win. John Kennedy bought into the "communism domino" theory and sent 16,000 troops as U.S. "advisors" to prop up the South Vietnam dictator Ngo Dinh Diem.However, it was the testosterone of Lyndon Johnson that sent over 200,000 troops to Vietnam.

George W. Bush took us to war more directly—using the terrorists attack of 9/11, supplemented by lies, deceptions, and the gutlessness of congressional democrats.

The embedding of the media, dictatorial secrecy and Bush’s imperial presidency—i.e. he is not only above the law (domestic spying), he IS the law (enemy combatant declarations)—have kept Americans from getting an unsanitized look at his war.

Unlike the America of the 60s we do not see beyond the looped yellow ribbons that proclaim the euphemisms "support out troops" and "God bless America". We are not exposed to photographs of the torn and mutilated men, women and children who are victims of our bombs and the terrorist violence that has followed us into Iraq. Our only discomfort is the American body count that the Bush administration is forced to disclose. They do not keep a count of Iraqi bodies except for those victims of Saddam Hussein.

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Gen. Pace said young people should be encouraged to join, not shun, the military, "especially when we're in a war where our enemy has stated intention of destroying our way of life."

It is very curious that Gen. Pace likened the war in Iraq to a struggle against a foe who has stated its intention to destroy the American way of life. The only "way of life" being destroyed today in Iraq is the Iraqi way of life, and the force responsible for this devastation is the U.S. military. The insurgency being waged in Iraq today is not anti-American, but rather anti-occupation. The more Americans reflect on the nature of the occupation ongoing in Iraq, the more they wrestle with the notion of how they would respond if a foreign power put its troops on the ground here at home. The answer, of course, is obvious. It is hard to recruit Americans who know that if they were in the shoes of the Iraqis, they would be doing the exact same thing as the insurgents -- fighting with every tool available to drive out the foreign occupier.

Gen. Pace and others miss the point completely when they appeal to American patriotism in trying to draw recruits to a U.S. military that is engaged in activities in Iraq that can only be seen as inherently un-American.

The very fact that the War in Iraq does NOT threaten the American way of life is the main reason why Americans, by and large, are refusing to walk away from the comforts afforded by the American way of life to join a military system comparatively Spartan in nature. While economic incentives have always played a role in rounding out the numbers in the all-volunteer force of the post-Vietnam War era, the fact is that military service was for many (including myself) a calling, a reflection of a desire to serve a higher cause than simple economic self-interest. In many ways, military service was (and is) inherently un-American, since it embraces core values that place the collective over the individual. These inconsistencies were accepted, however, since those serving in the military understood that the team they were joining represented that which guaranteed to all others the wherewithal to enjoy the freedoms associated with being an American. We knew when we joined the military that we had a social contract with our fellow Americans. We who served would forego the comforts and freedoms of civilian life so that we could guarantee that those very same civilians could live as Americans. We also knew that, when the time came, America would support us by not only providing us with the wherewithal to wage war, but also ensure that before asking us to make the ultimate sacrifice in defense of a cause, that it was a cause worthy of that sacrifice.

Today, that contract lays broken and violated. America went to war in Iraq on the basis of false premises. Our troops fight and die for a cause most Americans cannot identify with. And the U.S. military is engaged in domestic spying operations against the very citizens it is sworn to defend.

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The story of Iraq and its people since 1991 is one of immense tragedy, of a fate cruel and evil that has befallen innocent human beings whose only crime has been living inside what was once the ancient land of Mesopotamia. It is ironic that the land that first gave rise to human civilization has been made to suffer tremendous hardship in the last fifteen years, severely decimated and destroyed, its wounds hemorrhaging from incessant human cruelty. The heart of the Fertile Crescent has become a barren wasteland, its waters, the Tigris and Euphrates, those veins of sustenance for our ancient forefathers, transformed into rivers of waste and pollution and decaying death, their fertility now mutated into toxicity.

Its cities and peoples, descendants of a civilization thousands of years old, rich in both culture and history, have been made to suffer the severe consequences of sitting atop modern humanity’s most coveted natural resource, a black gold sought by nations and corporations of the rich and powerful north, a devil’s excrement that fuels economies and human greed, feeding apathy and wickedness, corruption and colonialism, and, as always, expanding comfort and excessiveness in the lands of the pillagers. To those nations whose unlucky possession of oil has brought nothing but exploitation and misery, like Iraq, the black gold fever created has yielded a curse upon both peoples and lands, for in their strategic location exists the energy needed to feed today’s wealthiest and most powerful nations.

These countries will stop at nothing in order to possess, and control, the drops and gallons and barrels and pipelines and valves and oil wells saturated with ever dwindling supplies of oil, becoming blind to the corrosive effects their exploitation has on both native people and land, in the process ripping apart ground, polluting environment, poisoning air, intoxicating water, corrupting leadership and condemning the citizenry to the sins of human nature possessed by greed, addicted to money and infatuated by power.

The destiny of modern Iraq was sealed millions of years ago, when fossil fuels underwent their natural evolution, over epochs becoming the black blood hiding underneath sand dunes and desert landscapes. Due to the changing patterns of an ever evolving planet, a land once lush in forest, jungle and one can imagine bountiful vegetation became, over eons of change, the vastly different landscape we are familiar with today. Black gold replaced green Eden, to remain hidden for millions of years until that day when man developed the technologies in need of fuel. This bone marrow, dormant and undisturbed, lay below ground, remaining unknown to primitive man for its use and capabilities had yet to be understood.

This resource, useless to peoples ancient and primitive, was to find access to the surface in the late 19th century. It would be the beginning of the end for nations such as Iraq, their fate now in the hands of nations addicted to colonization and imperialism, for in oil the Western powers saw hegemony, control and advantage. Thus, from the nadir of Earth the devil’s excrement rose, becoming, over a century later, a most troubling demon possessing humanity and destroying, in the span of a little more than a century, the planet's environment.

At the time ignorance made the effects of fossil fuel use unknown. Meanwhile, the northern thirst for oil, insatiable thanks to industrialization and expansion of economies, began to imprison, exploit and colonize the lands and peoples of the Middle East, enriching a few tribal leaders, making kings of goat herders and creating tyrants of former shepherds. The market colonization of Arab and Muslim lands had begun, like a gold rush birthing a fever that has yet to stop.

In the process, lands that should never have been joined in unison were stitched together by Western powers ignorant to the region’s history, culture and idiosyncrasies. Rivals and hated enemies suddenly found themselves living in the same country, surrounded by Western imposed invisible borders, forced to subsist and govern together. The traditional lands of entire peoples were without understanding divided apart or granted to other entities, thereby planting the seeds for future conflict. Ethnicities found themselves split apart by imaginary lines, with large segments of their populations living in different nations, their congruity eviscerated, their connections to each other severed.

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02/06/06 "New York Times" -- -- In January more than 800 people — soldiers, security officers and civilians — were killed as a result of the insurgency in Iraq. While the daily toll is noted in the newspapers and on TV, it is hard for many Americans to see these isolated reports in a broader context. The map, based on data from the American, British and Iraqi governments and news reports, shows the dates, locations and circumstances of deaths for the first month of the year

Given the fog of war, the information may be incomplete. Nonetheless, it is our effort to visually depict the continuing human cost of the Iraq war.

Adriana Lins de Albuquerque is a doctoral student in political science at Columbia University. Alicia Cheng is a graphic designer at mgmt. design in Brooklyn.

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The "Shock and Awe" Gallery

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"The children seem to be the most openly enthused. They are getting a chance at a future the likes of which would never have been possible under the oppressive regime..."

April 22, 2003, Marine Corps News, Story by Staff Sgt. Bryan P. Reed

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Guardian - British troops will not wait for the end of the insurgency before leaving Iraq and there will be "significantly fewer" in the country by next year, John Reid, the defence secretary, said last night.

He made it clear that it was ultimately up to the Iraqis to look after themselves.

BBC - The head of Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Bet, has said his country may come to regret the overthrow of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Yuval Diskin said a strong dictatorship would be preferable to the present "chaos" in Iraq, in a speech to teenage Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

He also said the Israeli security services and judiciary treated Arabs and Jewish suspects differently. ...

When asked about the growing destabilisation of Iraq, Mr Diskin said Israel might come to rue its decision to support the US-led invasion in 2003.

"When you dismantle a system in which there is a despot who controls his people by force, you have chaos," he said.

Iraqi insurgency is home-grown, directly mostly against occupiers, says US gov't

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... consistently, most of the attacks—about three-quarters, never fewer than two-thirds—have been aimed at the Western occupiers.
This is a surprising finding because so many news stories from Iraq have been reporting a rise in attacks on Iraqi security forces and in clashes between Sunni and Shiite factions. The graph confirms that those attacks have risen, sharply. But they still constitute a small percentage of the attacks overall.

The graph reveals another discouraging trend. Since August 2004, the number of attacks has stayed about the same—bobbing up and down between 2,000 and 3,000 per month, recently hovering around 2,500. The GAO report puts it this way:

"According to a senior U.S. military officer, attack levels ebb and flow as the various insurgent groups—almost all of which are an intrinsic part of Iraq's population—rearm and attack again."

Two points in this sentence are worth highlighting: Very few of the insurgents are foreign terrorists, and their ability and inclination to keep striking appears endless.

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IRAQ'S CIVIL WAR HAS COST $3,000 PER U.S. FAMILY-- SO FAR

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LOS ANGELES -- God forbid critics of the war on Iraq should compare it with the war in Vietnam. But perhaps it is worth mentioning that the liberation of Iraq is now costing more each month than the preservation of the Republic of South Vietnam did more than 30 years ago.

As the admitted direct cost of the war reached $250 billion last week -- and the White House asked for $120 billion more on Thursday -- new analyses estimate that the invasion of Iraq could end up costing $2 trillion before it is over.

If you remember, the White House's own economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, was fired for predicting, in September 2002, six months before the invasion, that the total cost of the war might reach between $100 billion and $200 billion. What I (and perhaps others who questioned the wisdom of the war before it began) remember is the hundreds of e-mails and letters I received after I quoted Lindsey and used the higher figure as more likely. "Moron" and "traitor" were among the more polite epithets of the day.

Numbers can be misleading, of course. Some, such as the long-term cost of treating damaged survivors of battle, can be exaggerated or minimized. Some can be hidden in other budgets or drawn from confusing off-budget accounts. And even the most accurate audits and projections, while they translate all the numbers into current dollar amounts, rarely mention that the U.S. economy is much bigger than it was in the 1960s and 1970s, so that while the Vietnam War at times was using almost 10 percent of the gross national product, this one and the war in Afghanistan might be in the 2 percent range.

But the exact figures are not the issue. The Washington issue is that the Bush administration has been lying from day one about the cost of this "preventative" war of choice. The original White House estimate of the total war cost was $75 billion, including the destruction of all Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction." Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, whose fiscal acumen won him the presidency of the World Bank, even offered the theory that the war would be self-financing, paid for by Iraq's oil production. That's rich. And so are oil producers everywhere.

The war, in fact, is a factor in the escalating cost of petroleum products here and everywhere else in the world. Leaving that aside as you watch the gas-pump digits rise to Super Bowl numbers this weekend, two anti-war research institutes, the International Relations Center and the Institute for Policy Studies, estimate that the war's cost per citizen has reached $727 -- or close to $3,000 for a family of four. By the end of this year, those figures should reach about $1,300 per citizen, or more than $5,000 for that family of four.

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[ 11 February 2006: Message edited by: majorvictory64 ]

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I saw the news of the bomb on television when I was eating breakfast with my children. By lunch we had packed up our essential belongings and left to find refuge at a relative's house.

There was no argument from my wife. She knew as I did what the sight of the destroyed dome meant.

We live in a mixed Sunni and Shia area in Baghdad. Tonight there will be bloodshed and retaliation attacks and this time we are not going to sit inside while hoping we are lucky and the bullets do not come through our windows. This time we are leaving because things will get very bad.

It is not as if there are not already problems here. A neighbour was shot on his doorstep only a few days ago. Recently I visited the shops and the road was sealed: five armed men had been shooting at one of the Shia shops. The shopkeepers from all the other shops started firing back and the bodies were just lying in the street.

Such situations are common. We get used to them whether it is the Iraqi army closing off all the access roads so they can raid some house or the American helicopters flying over at night.

But this is going to be worse, I think. This may be the start of when it all goes really wrong and the thing that we all fear - the sectarian war that will destroy my country and my children's future - may be about to begin.

The Shia are crazy about this. I am Sunni and I am frightened that if I do not go somewhere to be surrounded by those who can protect me then they may take out their anger on me.

We were not alone on the roads. There were many cars with families in them. Then even more surprisingly there was the sight of the black-shirted followers of Moqtada al-Sadr with their Kalashnikovs at many of the street corners.

There were police out as well but they are standing with them manning checkpoints, not trying to tell them to go home.

I have seen such a thing before in Najaf but never in Baghdad. It frightened my wife. "There is the smell of civil war everywhere," she said to me.

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Dear Prime Minister,
Ref: Sgt Christian Ian Hickey of the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, who became 97th fatality of the Iraq conflict
As a parent yourself, you will be aware that the most precious thing we have in our lives is our children. Until four months ago, I had been blessed with two grown-up sons. I still cannot get used to speaking about one of my sons in the past tense. My youngest son Christian, 30, was a member of the armed forces; he was an exceptional character, full of fun, with great sense of humour and was a generous, caring person who brought the best in people. He was an excellent soldier, who had progressed rapidly through the ranks, and became full sergeant at the age of 29. I enclose summary from the Coldstreams' website (Shinycapstar.com) to show I am not biased as his mother.

Since the death of my son on October 2005, three days before his tour was to end, I have started to question why the invasion of Iraq occurred. My son's remit in Iraq was as a "peacekeeper", helping with the rebuilding of schools and the infrastructure, and training the Iraqi police to enable them to maintain stability in the future. At the time of his death, Chris was the platoon commander and was responsible for clearing a safe route for a large convoy.
The Iraqi police have been implicated in the death of my son, from a roadside bomb. There will be no further investigation as they were spoken to, photographed and searched, then allowed to go as an Iraqi police service lieutenant colonel arrived and confirmed their identities. It makes nonsense of our involvement with them, as their own chief of police says that he can only trust 25% of his own men. This suggests that the remainder is made up of insurgents who would think nothing of killing coalition troops.

My son was on foot patrol when the bomb exploded. This was to minimise casualties should they come in contact with an improvised explosive device. The only vehicles available to them were fibreglass Jeeps; there were no armoured Land Rovers. The British government had sent a consignment of armoured Land Rovers for the Iraqi police prior to my son's death. His commanding officer spoke out about this following my son's death, as he had requested the essential Land Rovers but was turned down on the basis that they were not suitable for the roads. Would the Iraqi police not have been using the same roads as the troops? I understand that your wife, Cherie Blair, has a government bulletproof vehicle. I would question who is at most risk: British troops in a war zone or your wife driving around London?

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So, after more than a half-century of active meddling — protecting our interests, promoting our values, encouraging democracy, fighting terrorism, seeking stability, defending human rights, pushing peace — it's come to this.

In Iraq, we find ourselves unwilling regents of a society splitting into a gangland of warring militias and death squads, with our side (labeled “the government”) outperforming the other side (labeled “the terrorists”) in both the quantity and gruesome quality of its daily atrocities.

In Iran, an irrational government that hates us with special passion is closer to getting the bomb than Iraq — the country we went to war with to keep from getting the bomb — ever was.

And in Afghanistan — site of the Iraq war prequel that actually followed the script (invade, topple brutal regime, wipe out terrorists, establish democracy, accept grateful thanks, get out) — the good guys we put in power came close a couple of weeks ago to executing a man for the crime of converting to Christianity. Meanwhile, the bad guys (the Taliban and al-Qaeda) keep a low profile by concentrating on killing children and other Afghan civilians rather than too many American soldiers.

When the United States should use its military strength to achieve worthy goals abroad is an important question. But based on this record, it seems a bit theoretical. A more pressing question is: Can't anyone here play this game?

Half a century ago, Iran was very close to a real democracy. It had an elected legislature, called the majlis, and it had a repressive monarch, called the shah, and power veered uncertainly between them. In 1951, over the shah's objections, the majlis voted in a man named Mohammad Mosaddeq as prime minister. His big issue was nationalizing the oil companies.

But in 1952, the United States had an election for president, and the winner (Dwight Eisenhower) got more votes than anyone in Iran. That must explain why, in 1953, in the spirit of democracy, the CIA instigated a riot and staged a coup. Mr. Mosaddeq was arrested, the majlis was ultimately dissolved, and the shah ran things his way, which involved torture and death for political opponents, caviar and champagne for an international cast of hangers-on, and no more crazy talk about nationalizing the oil companies.

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04-29) 14:29 PDT NEW YORK, (AP) --

Tens of thousands of protesters marched Saturday through lower Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, just hours after this month's death toll reached 70.

Cindy Sheehan, a vociferous critic of the war whose soldier son also died in Iraq, joined in the march, as did actress Susan Sarandon and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

"End this war, bring the troops home," read one sign lifted by marchers on the sunny afternoon, three years after the war in Iraq began. The mother of a Marine killed two years ago in Iraq held a picture of her son, born in 1984 and killed 20 years later.

One group marched under the banner "Veterans for Peace."

The demonstrators stretched for about 10 blocks as they headed down Broadway. Organizers said 300,000 people marched, though a police spokesman declined to give an estimate. There were no reports of arrests.

"We are here today because the war is illegal, immoral and unethical," said the Rev. Al Sharpton. "We must bring the troops home."

Organizers said the march was also meant to oppose any military action against Iran, which is facing international criticism over its nuclear program. The event was organized by the group United for Peace and Justice.

"We've been lied to, and they're going to lie to us again to bring us a war in Iran," said Marjori Ramos, 43, of New York. "I'm here because I had a lot of anger, and I had to do something."

Steve Rand, an English teacher from Waterbury, Vt., held a poster announcing, "Vermont Says No to War."

"I'd like to see our troops come home," he said.

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Why America must get out of Iraq now.

Withdraw immediately or stay the present course? That is the key question about the war in Iraq today. American public opinion is now decidedly against the war. From liberal New England, where citizens pass town-hall resolutions calling for withdrawal, to the conservative South and West, where more than half of “red state” citizens oppose the war, Americans want out. That sentiment is understandable.

The prewar dream of a liberal Iraqi democracy friendly to the United States is no longer credible. No Iraqi leader with enough power and legitimacy to control the country will be pro-American. Still, U.S. President George W. Bush says the United States must stay the course. Why? Let’s consider his administration’s most popular arguments for not leaving Iraq.

If we leave, there will be a civil war. In reality, a civil war in Iraq began just weeks after U.S. forces toppled Saddam. Any close observer could see that then; today, only the blind deny it. Even President Bush, who is normally impervious to uncomfortable facts, recently admitted that Iraq has peered into the abyss of civil war. He ought to look a little closer. Iraqis are fighting Iraqis. Insurgents have killed far more Iraqis than Americans. That’s civil war.

Withdrawal will encourage the terrorists. True, but that is the price we are doomed to pay. Our continued occupation of Iraq also encourages the killers—precisely because our invasion made Iraq safe for them. Our occupation also left the surviving Baathists with one choice: Surrender, or ally with al Qaeda. They chose the latter. Staying the course will not change this fact. Pulling out will most likely result in Sunni groups’ turning against al Qaeda and its sympathizers, driving them out of Iraq entirely.

Before U.S. forces stand down, Iraqi security forces must stand up. The problem in Iraq is not military competency; it is political consolidation. Iraq has a large officer corps with plenty of combat experience from the Iran-Iraq war. Moktada al-Sadr’s Shiite militia fights well today without U.S. advisors, as do Kurdish pesh merga units. The problem is loyalty. To whom can officers and troops afford to give their loyalty? The political camps in Iraq are still shifting. So every Iraqi soldier and officer today risks choosing the wrong side. As a result, most choose to retain as much latitude as possible to switch allegiances. All the U.S. military trainers in the world cannot remove that reality. But political consolidation will. It should by now be clear that political power can only be established via Iraqi guns and civil war, not through elections or U.S. colonialism by ventriloquism.

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OTTAWA — Cindy Sheehan, who has become a leading voice in the American antiwar movement since the death of her son in Iraq, is urging Canada to offer sanctuary to deserters fleeing the U.S. military.

But the Tory government is having none of it.

- snip -

Sheehan urged Canada to get out of Afghanistan, which she said is just a branch office of a immoral and illegal American-led war in Iraq.

She said Ottawa should welcome war resisters.

“I am just here begging the people of Canada to force your government . . . to allow our soldiers to have refuge up here.”

Immigration Minister Monte Solberg said Canada has a very generous system for refugees, but if people don’t fit the definition of refugee, then they are out.

If Sheehan has a bone to pick with the Bush administration “she should take that to Washington,” he said.

- snip -

eta: you can drag the Prez around by left-clicking on him when he gets stuck.

[ 05 May 2006: Message edited by: Boom Boom ]

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Canadians have to be the healthiest looking and most polite citizenry that I have encountered in my travels. The British people that I have met are very polite but nowhere near the graciousness of Canadians. Canadians are truly civil, and they mean it. Canadians have been proud of their country's role of world peacekeeper and as the beacon of peace and hope and refuge for us Americans who feel that our country's aggressive militarism endangers us and harms our reputations and souls. Now Canadians need to wake up to the fact that their new minority, disliked government is leading them down this same slippery slope to the fascistic militarism of their immediate neighbors to the south.

The first day that I was in Canada, their defense minister, Gordon O'Connor, signed the extension of the NORAD Treaty with the Bush Regime without any debate or votes in Parliament. The citizenry was outraged in their courteous way. Not so coincidentally, Gordy just so happens to be a former defense industry lobbyist who has been using his position to promote the " Canada First" position which ultimately removes Canada, once and for all, from their world peace keeping role. With Canada's support of the Haitian Government's overthrow and support of BushCo's travesty in Afghanistan, Canada was already heading down this path of destruction.

Canadians are distressed that defense spending rose by 5.3 billions of dollars (roughly what the US spends for 2 weeks in Iraq) while the preschool budget is being cut and college tuition is rising. This increase in military spending coincidentally correlates with a push to recruit thousands of more soldiers who are still be told by the Canadian recruiters that their country only does peace keeping missions. This manipulation of facts and the exploitation of fear and false patriotism is being fueled by the Canadian media who seem to be turning, for the most part, into propaganda tools of their government a la our rightwing 4 thestate.

However, with Canadian soldiers dying in combat, the citizens of the country are starting to question their Bush clone of a PM and his Bush-style cabinet. Recently, the PM said that if he sends troops into combat, he expects the people of the country to support them; which really only means that he expects the people to support him and his loose interpretation of the facts. Also, Bush One and Two style (with a brief Clinton break), the Canadian media is now banned from showing images of the flag draped coffins: Allegedly to not cause the families any more pain. But, as the mother of a soldier who came home that way, trust me, it causes far more pain to have your child KIA in a pointless war then it does to see the military honor guard treating our children with the care and respect not afforded to them by their own misleaders.

The recent polls in Canada show that the people there are starting to wake up by the truckloads with support for their administration's support of BushCo's war slipping 14 percentage points in two months! Canadians are seeing that the war in Afghanistan is not righteous and that when Canada sends troops there, it frees American troops to be illegally and immorally deployed to Iraq. Canada needs a Cindy Sheehan to go to the PM's residence and demand to know what noble cause her child died for, or is still fighting for.

Even more of a struggle right now to Canadian peace coalitions, besides Canada's seeming slumber, is that the government won't support war resisters who flee the American military because they don't want to go over to Iraq and kill innocent people or die for the war profiteers. So far, two soldiers have been denied asylum. I was told by members of a few of their political parties that the asylum is being denied for two reasons: first of all, because our soldiers are "volunteers" now and, secondly, because if our kids refuse to go to Iraq and go to prison instead: our prisons aren't that bad.
....
Please, dear Canada, wake up before it is too late and you wake up in a country that you don't even know anymore. We here in America fell into an exhausted sleep of denial after Vietnam and we are reaping what was silently and deviously sown by the neocons who have been working for an overthrow of our government for over 30 years. If we didn't learn the lessons of Vietnam, we will never surely forget the lessons we learned at the feet of BushCo that have cost so many so much.

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I stopped reading as soon as it's 'Canadians are outraged...'

Canadian are no more a monolithic a group than Americans.

Outraged over NORAD? Where? One in a thousand? I'm not the least outraged and support our position on NORAD. I've never heard a friend or co-worker or reltive express outrage.

I stopped reading your post when you said "I'm not the least outraged..."

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Cindy: Canadians are truly civil, and they mean it.

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Aw, shucks. Shut the hell up.

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Cindy: Canadians are distressed that defense spending rose by 5.3 billions of dollars (roughly what the US spends for 2 weeks in Iraq) while the preschool budget is being cut and college tuition is rising.

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It should be explained to Cindy that our peaceable kingdom is organized such that military matters are of Canada-wide importance but the jurisdiction of education only merits our provincial attentions. We ain't as civilized as she might think.

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Cindy: ...trust me, it causes far more pain to have your child KIA in a pointless war then it does to see the military honor guard treating our children with the care and respect not afforded to them by their own misleaders.

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It's a good point worth repeating. One of the most immoral things that a government can do is to prevent its victims from burying their dead with the appropriate dignities. This is the sort of thing that routinely happens to the Palestinians. It arouses the most stubborn and unquenchable outrage among the people.

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Cindy: Canada needs a Cindy Sheehan to go to the PM's residence and demand to know what noble cause her child died for, or is still fighting for.

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Originally posted by Sanityatlast:
I stopped reading as soon as it's 'Canadians are outraged...'
...

It's unfortunate that folks like this come to Canada and spout off on all manner of things they know nothing about. If she wants to expres her position on the Iraq war (I agree with her position) then so be it but don't need her patronizing attitude about what Canadians think.

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You know, much as I grieve with Cindy Sheehan over her loss, I think I have to agree with SanityAtLast here. Why does she think Canadians need to be lectured to? Was she marching in the streets before her boy came home in a bag? I find her generalizations about Canadians ("Canadians are distressed", "need to wake up", "Canada's seeming slumber", etc.) to be condescending and... dare I say it... somewhat American in tone.

Here's one that really got to me:

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Canada needs a Cindy Sheehan to go to the PM's residence and demand to know what noble cause her child died for, or is still fighting for.

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I dunno, it would sound so much better if anyone other than Cindy Sheehan said it...

[EDITed for flame avoidance:] I do not support SanityatLast's views on NORAD! I support the NDP's old position on NORAD and NATO - Canada should get out, now, yesterday.

[ 14 May 2006: Message edited by: unionist ]

I think she may be a shill for the Democratic Party.

Why else would she talk about an attempted "overthrow" of the U.S. govt. by neocons in the planning for the past 30 years?

Does she really think there is a measurable difference in the war and foreign policies of the two parties?

She talks about Vietnam. Has she forgotten that escalation was the watchword of Kennedy and Johnson, while Nixon was the one who actually got out?

But Sheehan has done far more than you or I put together to mobilize active opposition to the Iraq War in the United States. I find it unseemly, if not downright sectarian, to ridicule a fellow anti-war activist because her politics aren't left enough or because I was against the Iraq war before she was, etc.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
I find it unseemly, if not downright sectarian, to ridicule a fellow anti-war activist because her politics aren't left enough or because I was against the Iraq war before she was, etc.

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After five months of confusion, bickering, dickering, dithering, and strong-arm tactics from Zalmay Khalilzad, our ambassador to Iraq and various high American officials arriving on the fly, Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki has reportedly chosen his cabinet and a government will evidently be established in Baghdad's Green Zone. At the moment, its reach seems unlikely to extend much beyond the American-protected berms and fortifications of that citadel-mini-state. In the meantime, what governmental authority still existed in Iraq seems to be rapidly on the wane -- and not just in largely Sunni areas of the country either. (In parts of Sunni al-Anbar province, however, according to Mathieu Guidère and Peter Harling of Le Monde Diplomatique, control seems to be passing into other "governing" hands: "A formal procedure is in place for lorry drivers to pay an insurance fee [to insurgent groups] that allows them to cross the governorate, as long as they are not supplying the enemy.")

In the city of Basra, in the Shiite south, the reliable British journalist Patrick Cockburn reports that, according to an Iraqi defense ministry official, an average of one assassination an hour is taking place, and local police "no longer dare go to the site of a murder because they fear being attacked." Indeed, when a tribal leader was recently killed by men in police uniforms, a local police station was promptly sacked and 11 policemen killed. Reprisal murders of every sort seem to be sweeping the country as a complex, low-level civil war only grows more intense. In fact, Middle Eastern scholar Juan Cole now regularly begins his daily blog at his Informed Comment website with lines like: "The Iraqi Civil War took the lives of another 42 persons on Tuesday.")

None of this seems to have slowed the Sunni insurgency. It is, if anything, better organized than a year ago and, as a result, American military deaths for the first half of May now stand at 45, the highest figure in many months, though those deaths are happening in twos and threes, largely due to roadside bombs, and rarely make the front pages of American newspapers anymore. At the same time, the use of air power and artillery against Iraqi cities, towns, and villages by the U.S. military remains commonplace (though, again, barely noted in the American press). Here are typical passages buried in Iraq round-up stories: This in relation to the town of Yusufiyah: "The ground troops called for more air support, and jets and helicopters pounded the enemy positions, killing approximately 20 more suspected insurgents… a powerful airstrike by U.S.-led forces caused many families in the area to flee. The strike killed several civilians… and leveled houses. ‘We spent a long, scary night with our families and children,' Qaraghouli said." Or this little phrase in relation to fighting in the city of Ramadi: "...U.S. troops engaged in intense, close-quarters combat with a large force of insurgents, killing several with gunfire and artillery strikes, according to residents of the area."

Here's a typical U.S. Air Force description of a day's action in Iraq: "Air Force F-15 Eagles, F-16 Fighting Falcons and Navy F/A-18 Hornets provided close-air support to coalition troops in contact with anti-Iraqi forces near Al Hawijah, Al Iskandariyah, Al Mahmudiyah, Baghdad and Hawijah." (Full reports on daily air action can be found by clicking here.)

The result of all this, as Michael Schwartz points out, is a constant level of destruction that has, cumulatively, proved devastating in Iraq's cities and towns. In the piece that follows he considers the nature of the ongoing destruction and the way U.S. occupation authorities laid the foundations for it through the programmatic deconstruction of the country. The results are increasingly apparent for anyone who cares to look, most recently in a UN-backed government survey of malnutrition among Iraq's children, which has soared to "alarming levels." (Nearly one in ten children "aged between six months and five years, suffered acute malnourishment," according to the report, far beyond levels of malnutrition in the worst moments of Saddam's rule.)

At his blog, AP Reporter Robert Reid catches something of what daily life is like in electricity-starved Baghdad, even for a Western reporter, with a description of how to shower when the water briefly and miraculously starts flowing. "It's pitch dark, but at my age, I know where the body parts are anyway… Now comes the tricky part: shaving in the dark. Only a real optimist would even bother to take an electric razor to Baghdad. I fumble in the dark, my hands finding the shaving cream on the counter and the razor, hidden on the corner where it fell in my earlier search for the soap…" And so on -- in the capital of deconstructed, ever-devolving Iraq.

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