U.S. Announces 14 Troop Deaths in Iraq

Source: AP

BAGHDAD (AP) - Fourteen American soldiers were killed in three deadly days in Iraq, the U.S. military said Sunday, including four in a single roadside bombing and one who was struck by a suicide bomber while on a foot patrol southwest of the capital.

The blast that killed the four soldiers occurred Sunday as the troops were conducting a cordon and search operation northwest of the Iraqi capital, according to a statement. Two other soldiers from Multi-National Division - Baghdad were killed and five were wounded along with an Iraqi interpreter in two separate roadside bombings on Sunday, the military said.

---

Seven others troops were killed in a series of attacks across Iraq on Saturday.

The deaths raised to at least 3,493 members of the U.S. military who have died since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6680949,00.html

Welcome to the Desert of the Real...

May his ass blister with an incurable rash.

His eyes, tongue, and eardrums.

so from now on they share the blame with Bush for every GI that is killed or wounded.

As Barbara Boxer said, elections have consequences, and failing to act on a mandate to end the war will also have consequences.

But I think you know that.

and the GOP did not have enough votes, or the Speaker's chair, to get a bill out of committee, much less out on the floor.

The one time that the Democrats could have beaten Bush by doing nothing, they chose to play along with Bush, and in doing so, became as culpable as Bush.

"Go ahead and veto this bill. There won't be another."

Chimp would have signed.

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If they'd stonewalled and demanded a withdrawal timetable, Junior would have vetoed it repeatedly and tarred the Democrats as traitorous fucks who are happy to let the soldiers die and leave us vulnerable. It's not reality, but it's political reality.

It's sort of like impeachment. Yes, Junior and Deadeye Dick have committed crimes that obviously warrant removal from office but since IT'S SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE to get the votes in the Senate to convict, it's better to spend the limited time and resources of the legislature fighting things that can be won.

Uncompromising ideologues tend to be narcissistic. I've tussled with you before over the last 6+ years, but do respect your motives. In this, you're incredibly wrong. Are we to rip each other apart because the best possible pristine result can't be had? Meanwhile, the forces of privilege, greed and domination laugh on to another of their repeated triumphs. Don't fund the war? You're a traitor. If you don't see this ad absurdum reduction, then further discourse is fruitless.

The Democrats didn't just cave in, they fought and made their point. There was no way that they could defund this dreadful mistake without being derided as defeatists (a charmingly Hitlerian epithet to dismiss rivals) or cowards. They're moving on and fighting rearguard actions and picking their battles carefully. It's very messy and I don't like many of their choices either, but to dismiss the only entity (the DemocratIC Party) that gives us (and by us, I mean those Americans who actually give a damn about anyone but themselves) any hope of warding off the forces of greed and privilege is either naivety or narcissism. To be involved in politics is to be dirty; compromises and calculated tactical losses that may lead to strategic victory are the nature of the beast.

Heady as many of us are right now about the successes of the '06 election, never forget how this can turn on its head and give the assholes dominance in the next cycle. One of the most revolting mindsets that recurs on a regular basis is that, yeah, the Republicans are sons-of-bitches, but the Democrats have problems and a lack of focus and their missteps are sloppy and they have some problems too. Yeah, there are many Republicans who've been indicted and convicted lately, but them damn Dems got some too. At least the Republicans are consistent. Scalia's correct; this isn't a democracy; it's a constituent republic. He's deeply wrong that there's no inherent right to vote, but he's in the driver's seat and thuggery will out.

The Dems played this one right (so far) in that they couldn't force a withdrawal schedule and they couldn't be seen as obstructing helping the troops. (Forget the fact that the greedhead Republicans can't spring for proper support services, body armor, vehicles or logistical support; it doesn't register in the cheap seats.) They're also playing the impeachment issue correctly. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HATED THE REPUBLICANS FOR THE IMPEACHMENT ATTEMPT. So many of the movers-and-shakers lost their seats that it's not even funny. The only impeachment manager who didn't get his ass kicked was Lindsay Graham, who got promoted to Senator. Barr got slammed. Rogan got his ass kicked. McCollum was flushed. Hyde held firm, but only because of being in a truly safe seat.

Fight battles that can be won. Fight delaying actions in ones that can't. Those who spoil for a fight on everything get their asses kicked.

To blame the Dems for every ensuing death is sanctimonious. They did what they could and made their point. Had they shut down the system over the point of defined withdrawals, they'd have been seen as callous ideologues and obstructionist politicians while our dewy-eyed innocent combat troops were in the line of fire.

Somethings just suck, and this "war" is the height of suckitude. To dismiss leaders when they know that they're up against an immovable object is clueless, abstract and generally self-aggrandizing.

There's only so much time in legislative sessions. Personally, I'd like to see some battles fought that can actually be won.

They did what they could, and they regrouped to move on.

Two options: Send nothing, the Kucinich option; or send the same bill that Bush vetoed, the Edwards option.

Democrats chose instead to do their traditional BOHICA dance to Bush's tune.

It's the responsibility of the Congress to fund the government and the government's various activities. To play games and not address the huge costs of this war of conquest and occupation smacks more of the Republicans' separation of costs from the overall budget than it does of anything else.

For Congress not to address the obvious costs of this imperial incursion would have been sheer cynicism, and the Dems would have been accused of screwing the sweet, innocent soldiers of conquest for purely political motives. Ducking the issue is no demonstration of leadership, nor is it of political awareness or responsibility. I'm not advocating that we spend all of our time looking over our shoulders and currying favor with people who will never approve of us anyway, I DO think we should concentrate on what is possible. Digging in one's heels and standing for a point of honor is only noble when there's something to be won.

There is no way we could have avoided funding this fiasco without being irrevocably tarred as cowardly traitors. Making the point and maneuvering for whatever position was possible is the only sane and decent thing to do. In the end, an increase of the minimum wage was tacked on, so yet another battle was won.

They can fund what they want, and defund what they don't want.

The power of the purse is particularly important when it comes to war. It was a courageous Congress that defunded the Vietnam War, effectively ending that sad chapter in our history. Had they listened to the nay-sayers that wanted to keep the war going, we would have ended up with a far larger memorial wall on the Vietnam monument.

Nobody else can fund ugly incursions like this. The Executive and Judiciary can't determine how the common purse is going to be spent. By your very citation of Congress being the entity that stalled the runaway ugliness of Vietnam, you show that it's their domain.

No, Congress doesn't have to come to heel and do as the the Executive pleases, but it is also the only entity that can cut off the flow of monies, maintain them or increase them. To cut them off at this point is to play into the hands of reactionaries who'd love to tar Democrats as lily-livered cowards and traitors. Sad as all this is, and depressing as it is when looking at the hundreds of thousands of humans who've died, been disfigured and displaced by this greedy ugliness, it simply hasn't touched the American psyche yet. There is no draft. The casualty figures are still too low (although close to 3500 soldiers have been killed and somewhere around 24,000 have been significantly injured) for this to really intrude on our national selfishness. There is no shared sacrifice like rationing, taking away one's sugar, coastal blackouts or anything even close to an impact on the lives of the common folk.

I'm a left liberal. I'm a capitalist who wants significant socialistic controls and market substitution. I want socialized medicine. I want fairly significant regulation on industry, food and drugs and the airwaves. What bugs me to no end is when people would rather see the whole society burn to the ground unless it can be perfect. Much as Ralph Nader is a truly decent and honorable man, he's an asshole for the '00 election. He still won't admit any culpability for letting the fascists seize control and drive thousands upon thousands to death and poverty.

Only Congress can spend the major portions of the budget. They are thus under a strict Constitutional mandate to fund the government. This doesn't mean that they have to lay down and pay for whatever's requested, but it DOES mean that they're the only ones who can authorize payment on major issues like the war. If you've ever controlled a budget of an organization, you'll see this point in stark light: monies are being spent (never mind that it's a shitty cause and not supported by all) and need to be spent. No other entity can authorize those monies or shut them down. Sure, they could stall and deny funding unless Bush bent to provisions of timed withdrawals, but this petty little nobody would have stalled forever and anyone with a scrap of sense knows that. This would have been seized upon as stabbing the heroic troops in the back. How hard is that to understand? Show me any way that funding could have been denied without it being viciously skewed by the reactionaries as a betrayal of our pristine heroes. Show me any way. There simply isn't the outrage from the masses yet since it's all been tidily compartmentalized.

Yeah, it sucks, but this is how a messy pluralistic republic works. The Dems did their best and they went on record, but to have held the line would have brought on a fascist dictatorship faster than you can say "gosh".

The forces of entrenched power won't go quietly. Sadly, many more will die until the people will come around enough to force a withdrawal.

Mercifully, due to the co-equal nature of the branches of government, if a Dem with a will to withdraw can be elected as president, it's all over. That's what we should work for, and even if one thinks that the current Congress hasn't shut down the entire world enough, there's plenty of will to make that work. To stand fast and live in some land of extreme moral superiority simply doesn't work in reality. Sure, let's shut down the government for months to impeach Junior or Deadeye Dick; many of the purists of the left rage that nothing short of that is demanded, but a conviction simply can't be had in the Senate, and meanwhile, the uglinesses of the reactionaries headlong run to the past will still stand. There will be no time to redress union concerns, civil rights rollbacks, environmental destruction and a host of other things.

It's a sloppy world; people need to know how to pick their fights, and much as the Dems have been their standard mixed-bag since taking the house, they've moved well on a broad front.

The reactionaries got a bit of an upset in the last election, but to think that they're out of the fight is naive. Nothing would suit them better than to be able to tag the Dems with being backstabbers of our heroic storm troopers. The Dems tried, they went on record, and when finally capitulating on this early round, they tagged on an increase to the minimum wage. That shows some savvy. It's sad and frustrating, but this too shall pass. The next cycle has so many vulnerable Republicans in the Senate that things may be very different.

More than anything else, this recent series of votes has shown many things, but it's shown some true tactical sense. Purists will rage against this, but picking one's battles is very important.

What a bizarre notion. Congress's power of the purse string (you have heard that phrase before, right?) is exactly the power to determine which activities of the government shall be funded, and this power lies solely with Congress. Congress most assuredly is NOT required to fund any thing at all. It is the responsiblity of Congress to decide which activities should be funded, and which should not.

Recently Congress simply abdicated on that responsibility, deciding to write Bush yet another blank check for his disastrous war, as the risks of actually exercising their funding authority were deemed unacceptable to our wise opposition party leaders. Far better to just go along. Too bad about all the dead people.

Of course, that's not what would be actually happening, but that's how it'd be interpreted. Our great heroes in the field would be being betrayed and left to die by cowards who just want to cut and run and are chickenshit functionaries refusing to pay the bill. Wouldn't that be fun? The right would depict this as elitists withholding money. Somehow it'd be twisted by the forces of huge money and privilege as if forces of privilege were hurting the innocent little guy.

It's sad that this is how the system works, but they'd be able to say that, you know that they would, and you should also know that it'd play very well to the cheap seats.

The Dems did their best and went on record. For the moment, that's all they could do.

I hate it too, but this is how the facile minds of the masses work in a pluralist society, especially one that's controlled by a media dominated by the voices of privilege and money.

It would seem like a greasy cheap shot to cut off the money and leave our heroes naked in the face of swarthy hate-filled christian-haters. What a mess.

so we might as well do the righteous thing and end the carnage. The problem with Beltway Democrats is that they have allowed the GOP to dictate the Democratic agenda to a large extent.

If the Democrats are not willing to confront the GOP, even if it means losing some battles, then we might as well disband the party and go home.

Why are the republicans not worried about how we are going to "paint" them? When did being pusillanimous ever get anyone elected?

To fight, to be on the record as wanting a withdrawal and making that loud and clear is a good thing. When pissy entrenched monarchists bent on world domination refuse to bend, THEY are the ones who look evil.

There's no magic potion for this one. Tactical disengagement is the most difficult of military maneuvers, and it's similar in politics.

Do you advocate completely shutting down government until rigid conservative ideologues sign onto something they'll never sign onto? Meanwhile, 150,000 people are vulnerable with their food and ammunition being cut off. (That won't be allowed to happen, but it'd be depicted as such.)

Much as I hate this whole thing too, to bluff the reactionaries in this situation is sheer stupidity. They don't give a fuck about the common infantryperson and will happily use any obstruction as a trump card to show that they're not at fault. The war is unwinnable, and they'd love to have some excuse that it's not their fault. Just as the Germans in the 20s and 30s bellyached about the October traitors in World War 1, the right wing of this country has skewed the failure in Vietnam as a betrayal from the left. It'll happen again and it'll cause much more pain than what the Dems are doing now.

If the Dems stick to it and fight a rearguard action as they're doing here, they'll be able to increase their margin in Congress and probably take the presidency. Then we can do the decent thing and get out of there without just leaving it a holy hell.

What precisely is your plan? Should we cut off all funding right now, shut down the government as Gingrich did and leave the troops in total confusion? All failures would be our fault. Mess that it is, there's nothing the reactionaries would love more: it's our fault, not theirs. We would be painted as the biggest assholes in history, abandoning our heroes like Napoleon did in Egypt and Russia. Knowing, as any rational person must, that the situation there is untenable, this would be fabulous for them: the left betrayed us.

What is your plan? Congress can't order a withdrawal, that's the province of the Commander-in-Chief. There is no legal way for Congress to mandate a withdrawal. That only leaves Congress with the power of the purse-strings, so they can starve our presence there. If it was a bloodbath like Vietnam was at the time when Congress actually found its collective spine--especially with the shared danger of the draft--that'd be one thing, but this has been kept very compartmentalized and doesn't touch most people. Our icky collective egos would be outraged at such a snippy underhanded approach. (Personally, I wish the clamps could be put on, as they should, but the votes simply aren't there and neither is public opinion.)

What is your plan, and what do you think the consequences would be?

Anyone who thinks this is simple and easy is clueless. It's like those who think we should just leave tomorrow. The destruction and death that'd plague that poor country would be horrendous.

Opinionated and cocksure that I am, I am truly humbled by this situation. I don't see a clean or simple solution, and since for whatever reasons we've disrupted a country that never threatened us and gone on a war of conquest and occupation, we owe it to them to somehow make it right. Immediate withdrawal would fuck them six ways from the proverbial sunday and would be an extreme act of selfishness on our part. Letting the right wing claim that we're starving our vulnerable heroes would bring forth at least a few opportunistic assaults from the crazies we've created there and would further entrench the bigotry that the left is weak, childish and incompetent.

This is a very complex mess, and simple solutions aren't to be had. It will take many complex and incremental moves to somehow extricate ourselves from this, and morally, that really isn't the true question. The true question is doing what is right for those poor people.

It's sad to hear the clamoring from the left about saving our asses, when if we truly gave a fuck about the human race, our desire should be to try to set things right for our victims; we're the bad guys, although the soldiers actually facing the IEDs and bullets aren't the villains; they're actually in service of us, albeit in a bad cause.

The Dems did what they could and are regrouping to maneuver some more. For this, they should be praised for perspicacity and finesse. To deride them for not being ham-fisted simpletons makes no sense at all.

This is not the end. This is hardly even the beginning. Personally, for all its faults, I like the dynamic of our governmental system. It's sad that so many people have been killed, maimed and disrupted by this, and it's truly the fault of the greedy reactionaries, but there's more pain on the way. At least the Dem leadership seems to have some sense of priority and reality.

Once again, explain your plan and show us the expected backlash. It's very easy to rage for rigid altruistic action, but I don't see how that could be anything but disastrous in this situation.

The war was lost long ago. No matter how one spins it, the fact is that the sacrifice and suffering our troops were asked to endure were a total waste. The only rational course of action is to cut bait and go home, as fast as we can load our troops aboard transports.

As it stands now, were we to have color coded panels on a future Iraq War Memorial, we would have black panels engraved with the names of the fallen up until last week when Congress voted to fund the war. From this moment forward, think of that yet-to-come monument having blue panels with the names of those that died after the Democrats failed to deliver on their electoral mandate to end the war.

When it comes to ending the carnage in Iraq, and bringing our troops home alive, there is no room for political calculations or electoral politics. We cannot rely on polls when there are lives on the line. We have done enough killing in Iraq to payback for 9-11 a hundred times over, and then some.

The late Pope John Paul II sent a personal emissary to Bush and Blair to warn them that if they went into Iraq, they would do so without God. We are in Iraq, and God is not on our side! Let's get the hell out before we put our troops in a situation in which they will have to shoot their way out of the country.

According to the idiotic rightist Vietnam revisionists, we only lost the war in Vietnam because Jane Fonda posed on an anti-aircraft gun; because of hippy protestors and "peaceniks;" and because Congress cut off the funding. Now, I'm not saying it wasn't right to cut the funding for that awful war. But in today's atmosphere and with today's closely divided politics, cutting the funding would have an immediate blowback effect on those who oppose this war, and the right would take full advantage of it.

I was actually driven off the boards and off of the site at Democrats.com for saying this same thing. (Geeze, are they a bunch of inflexible apparatchiks, or what?)

What I said was that the Democrats do not want to "own" this war in November 2008. They want to be able to say, "Look, you didn't get a timeline, you didn't get a deadline, and we gave you what you wanted in order to safeguard our troops. But yours, Republicans, is a failed strategy, a failed war, and an egregious example of failed governance, and we want you out."

At D.com, people railed at me for this, saying "this is about lives!" "This is about the truth!" "This is about standing up and being counted." Etc. Etc.

Starting and stopping wars is about lives, yes. But it is also about politics, and if your politics are not smart, realistic, and -- yes -- calculated, then you won't be able to effect any outcome. You'll be standing on a soapbox while the Roves of the world design your ejection from the sandbox.

Funding the troops, but starving the war -- that's the way to go.

I tend to agree with you; the Democratic majorities are too slim for outright de-funding of the war to actually happen. And if I'm wrong on that point, I'm not sure de-funding is a great idea for the reasons you state -- Vietnam War revisionists still love to claim that we "lost" Vietnam only because Congress cut the funding for it. It gives them one more excuse in addition to Jane Fonda for their stupid support of a useless, immoral war which was not, in any way in defense of American security or territorial integrity.

In the long run, though, I believe we need not only to cut funding for pointless and destructive adventures like the war in Iraq -- we need to de-fund the military itself.

The United State's "defense" budget is larger than every other nation's military budget combined. Our military is the hugest parasite ever to feed on the blood and treasure of any nation. Chalmers Johnson has described in "The Sorrows of Empire," how American bases all over the globe are not just bases, but expensive, luxury cysts inside other nations, where American imperialists live lives undisturbed and unconnected to the host nation and the host population. "Some of the 'rest-and-recreation' facilities include the armed forces ski center at Garmisch in the Bavarian Alps, over two hundred military golf courses around the world, some seventy-one Learjets and other luxury aircraft to fly admirals and generals to such watering holes -- and luxury hotels for our troops and their families in Tokyo, Seoul, on the Italian Riviera, at Florida's Disney World, and many other places." Parasites.

And never mind that -- what about the useless and dangerous boondoggle of the National Missile Defense program, a "pork-in-space" Maginot line in the sky that the Bush creature is even now politiking for in Prague, pushing Russia (and us) toward another arm's race?

When politicians start talking about "supporting the troops," it's just a way to keep our eyes on an aspect of the military that is the least pernicious -- they are America's sons and daughters. Of course we "support" them, insofar as we'd like them to stay alive and come home to live their lives. When we question the necessity of a preemptive war of choice, or suggest a deadline or timetable or at least benchmarks to deal with the crisis, or when we question the wisdom and effectiveness of a missile defense program, then we hear -- "you are not supporting the troops."

It's just rhetoric. It's just more Bushspeak rhetorical distortion, no better than "the people's money," or "the death tax," or "compassionate conservatism." "Support the troops" is another club to beat down any opposition to the venal, stupid, and dangerous things in which an out-of-control executive is stubbornly persisting.

Well, I don't "support the troops," if by that you mean supporting the mission. I don't even support them individually if they rape and kill civilians, torment and torture captives, or shoot wounded adversaries. To hell with those of them who do such things.

The parasites in our society are not welfare mothers, food-stamp recipients, or people on disability -- the greatest parasite on the American people is the American military. So, I advocate defunding it down to a lean force without Imperial Palaces passing as "bases," and without the Learjets, ski resorts, and useless spending projects like the "missile defense."

Tell them that you could have defunded the war and brought the troops home, but you were too chickenshit about Bush.

This has been the most agonizing time of my life.

Enough blood has been spilled, enough suffering has been endured. It is time to force the Congress to do what it does not want to do: End the war NOW!

:hug:

...and most all of the countless thousands killed would still be alive.

Say all you want about how Florida was stolen from Gore. Had Nader not run, Gore would've gotten several thousand more votes there and in New Hampshire. (Had Al won New Hampshire, he would've won regardless of what happened in Florida.)

Reminds me of the comic strip "Family Circus" when they had the kids always saying "Not Me!" whenever the parents wanted to know who broke something.

Shame on him.

but Nooooooh, you all had to listen to DLC tell you that the war would be over within a week, and that no one would care about how we were talked into invading Iraq.

That's because HE WASN'T EVEN IN CONGRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's no way on the face of this planet that he could've supported the IWR!

When it began to look like George W. Bush was actually going to have a chance to win the close 2000 election, and when it was clear that Nader's best chance for influencing this country for the better would clearly have been to throw his support to Gore and encourage his supporters to vote for Gore, he did not do the right thing.

Anyone who cared about our country and had any knowledge whatsoever about Bush had to know that the little weasel would inevitably bring disaster to us. And he has.

Even at the time, I wanted to see Nader step out of the race and support Gore, but he didn't.

Frankly, I cannot forgive him for that. He was a spoiler, and nothing else. Yeah, I damned well blame him -- because he is truly blameworthy.

If Nader had run and Harris hadn't purged the voter rolls, you could just as easily argue that Gore would've won. If you want to assign blame, at least be fucking fair about it...for the sake of the voters who were purged from the rolls illegally.

What Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris, and her lackey, Clayton Roberts, did in Florida was deplorable, even criminal, but they were going to do it irrespective of anything liberals or even moderates in the country cared about.

Nader should have seen what was coming, a disastrous Bush presidency, and he should have thrown his support to Gore and encouraged his supporters to vote for Gore. No one could have kept Bush's creatures from cheating in Florida, but Nader could have made a huge difference simply by doing what was obviously necessary -- but he cared more about himself and his inflexible passions than he did about this country.

There was nothing compelling Harris to purge the rolls. She did that of her own free will. Nader also chose to run of his own free will, as did Gore. Nobody took away their freedom of choice. What you are doing is substituting your opinion as a fact. It is a fact that Nader ran on the Green Party ticket. It is a fact that Gore also ran. It is a fact that Harris purged Black voters. It is a fact that thousands of voters were illegally purged and didn't cast their votes as a result. It is a fact that the US Supreme Court prematurely ended the recount citing the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

It is not a fact to assert he cares more about himself than he does for his country. That's opinion, not fact. I can change an opinion, and the outcome would not change. I could change one of the above-mentioned facts, and the outcome would change. Stopping Nader from running would have the exact same effect that stopping Katherine Harris from purging voter rolls would: Gore wins.

You could hoot and holler all day long about Nader, but the facts that Harris purged 50,000 Black voters can't be ignored either.

Basically you are saying that alternatives to democrats/republicans
should be forbidden.
And no, the 'not at this time' argument doesn't work:
there will never be a 'right' time for diversification
and a chance of real representation for more people.

Right now, there was a chance of seriously impairing the war machine.
They let it pass; and that is what counts.

I wish you all the best.

Clearly, it was not the right time. Nader should have thrown his support to Gore and encouraged his supporters to vote for Gore, simply because there was a chance that the golem, the Bush creature, would win the presidency. And he did.

Nader had the motive, the opportunity, and the means; anyone who was so much as awake at the time should have known that a Bush presidency had to be averted with as much urgency as a nuclear war or a military coup would have to be averted.

I blame Nader for that, yes. And with good reason.

...the Pentagon can't keep up

<snip>
U.S. Deaths Confirmed By The DoD: 3475
Reported U.S. Deaths Pending DoD Confirmation: 19
Total 3494

http://icasualties.org/oif/

At least one from last month hasn't been confirmed since mid-May, and is probably a mistaken or duplicate news story for icasualties. So the total death count is probably one lower than that showing now. They'll issue a specific announcement on icasualties when they take that off.

Iraq is a bipartisan war!

Shouted the democratic Congress!

:(

Right?

but it would have been a start at DE-escalation instead of giving the little tyrant all he wanted. And more! There will be a lot more dead thanks to lack of effort to stop this.

Some Democratic candidates are complicit in the plan to keep troops in Iraq beyond 2009. Hillary and Obama have spoken about keeping a US military footprint beyond 2009. Here is what Hillary has said on the subject:



Published on Thursday, March 15, 2007 by the New York Times

If Elected... Clinton Says Some G.I.’s in Iraq Would Remain

by Michael R. Gordon and Patrick Healy

WASHINGTON — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a “remaining military as well as political mission” in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.

In a half-hour interview on Tuesday in her Senate office, Mrs. Clinton said the scaled-down American military force that she would maintain would stay off the streets in Baghdad and would no longer try to protect Iraqis from sectarian violence — even if it descended into ethnic cleansing.

In outlining how she would handle Iraq as commander in chief, Mrs. Clinton articulated a more nuanced position than the one she has provided at her campaign events, where she has backed the goal of “bringing the troops home.”

She said in the interview that there were “remaining vital national security interests in Iraq” that would require a continuing deployment of American troops.

The United States’ security would be undermined if parts of Iraq turned into a failed state “that serves as a petri dish for insurgents and Al Qaeda,” she said. “It is right in the heart of the oil region,” she said. “It is directly in opposition to our interests, to the interests of regimes, to Israel’s interests.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0315-02.htm

anybody noticing a pattern here?

Oh never mind...

(1967 Nam... once they launch their version of Tet it will be clear as day, even to the addled right)

that it will get worse before it gets better. That may be the one thing he got right in the 6 years of his threats and babbling. Yup, damn sad.

It will get worse, before it gets worser.

My thoughts are for their friends and families. This has gone on far too long.

This week was the most I've ever seen in there, it was around 40 names. It's mind boggling what these shallow suit-droid politicians are doing to our once vaunted military. We are around 1966 in VietNam terms, this is going to get much worse if these weasels succeed in stalling the withdrawal.

:(

i lost a child. the devastation is...it is...undescribable. you have to live it to even believe how bad it is.

it's wrong. it is so wrong.

my son will be 18 in three years, and if things have turned around in this country one hundred and eighty degrees, we're out of here. they will not get one of mine, not if i can help it.

those bastards.

It breaks my heart to hear of anyone losing a child. I'm out of here, too if they even get close to taking mine - both now draft age. I wish that the soldiers left in this country would just lay down their arms and refuse to fight. No soldiers = no war.

George W. - What will you be remembered for??????????????????

Billion dollar corporate welfare -

Torture of the worst kind -

Thousands of collateral damage victims -

A 500 million dollar embassy in Iraq -

Borrowed by the General Fund – $ 8,827,364,625,728* $ 462,885 and rising
Income: Income taxes. Outgo: Defense 30%, Interest 19%, ... http://zfacts.com/p/461.html

Deeper in debt - 2 Billion Dollar Price Tag for Iraq http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15499.htm

Katrina disaster and lose of quality of life for thousands of families with little end in sight

and unfortunately the list can go on and on and on

:cry:

Yes, the blood is 95% on the hands of Bushco, but I think the Dem leadership acted like total pussies. I'm tired of fucking democrats acting like pussies. Are the right wing thugs right? Can we not really trust the Dems to defend America? They sure haven't defended it against this piece of vermin shit called Bush.

I'm sorry, you can flame me if you want, but I am crying at night over this bullshit, and honestly I can hardly deal with this shit anymore. I voted to put an END TO THIS SHIT? Didn't the rest of America vote the same way?

and their families. :(

Attacks Kill 17 U.S. Soldiers in Iraq
Dozens Sickened by Gaseous Cloud in Bombing Outside American Base

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 4, 2007; 6:56 AM

BAGHDAD, June 4 -- A car bomb attack outside a major U.S. military base in Iraq discharged a gaseous cloud that sickened dozens of people Sunday, punctuating a flurry of violence that left 16 American soldiers dead during the first three days of June.

A 17th U.S. soldier, Staff Sgt. Juan Campos, died Friday in a military hospital in Texas, according to local news reports there. He had been injured by a roadside bomb near Baghdad in May.

The noxious gas cloud emanated from a bomb that exploded Sunday near the main gate of Forward Operating Base Warhorse, the largest U.S. military facility in Diyala province, a restive territory north of Baghdad. An Iraqi employee on the base said the bomb unleashed chlorine gas. The U.S. military cited an "unconfirmed report of off-color smoke" that caused soldiers to complain of "minor respiratory irritations and watery eyes," according to a statement. Soldiers were rushed to the clinic on base for treatment, but there were no deaths..

more:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/04/AR2007060400360.html

It looks like this is going to be another long month.

My heart goes out to all their families.

They're geniuses, ya know.

3,471....3475 American dead

than it was to defund it. Blame them for blowing a historic opportunity to end the carnage!

We will see them drop their masks soon

You can read the crap put out by the misnamed Progressive Policy Institute and compare it to the American Enterprise Institute, and you will see a commonality of views not seen since Hitler met Mussolini at a train station.

A/K/A--- The Puppet meeting the Puppet Master

But people will lose more faith if we don't stand our ground and stay there when it comes to funding past September.

We need to know how many flowers are on it today