I can not bear what is going to happen in Fallujah.

If we do these things, there will be no turning back for our country.

I can not bear to see any of our Democrats saying increase the force on the city, do it "right."

There is no right way to destroy a city and kill its people. I know I will be jumped on for saying this, called names, called a sissy, whiner, whatever. What we do now will define us as a country from now on.

Clark sounded so cold when he said we just need to go ahead and do it right or something like that. All of our Democrats agree, and it breaks my heart. These are human beings there.

because if its us or them that will win, who would you choose? There are only two answers here, and we all know it. There's no turning back now, so we may as well win this thing. I don't want to risk losing more of our troops, so I say give them what they need: backup.

What have we become? Yes, there is time now for us to back off. There are over 250,000 people there. What does Clark think we should do, kill them all? He said to get tougher, didn't he?

do not have to feel it first hand. "Merikuns" will support Bushes brutalising of Iraq.

You're not alone.

But it's not. It's Bush or us.

Bush is the enemy of the peace of the world.

And I'll bring it on.

No turning back now so we may as well "win"? You tell me, what will we have "won"? Eternal scorn of the world? Going down in history books as the nation that led the most corrupt, evil war of the new millenium?

If you bring the damn troops home, we won't risk losing anymore.

What a novel idea! BRING THE TROOPS HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!

the ability to bring our guys home! Be realistic and see that we are THERE and as long as Bush is in control we will stay THERE. And it certainly isnt going to change today or tomorrow. So instead of bringing soldiers home in body bags, I prefer them standing up and hugging their families, get it? THAT is what we win.

OMG. We will stay there no matter who is in the presidency, and the people of Fallujah will be just as dead.

This is too much for my mind to take in.

the more our guys come back in transfer tubes.

That is not a win.

You're probably being ironic by using the neocon euphemism but since I didn't see an indication such as: 'transfer tubes', I'm jumping on this point to restate the obvious.

My apologies.

See my sig line

"Our guys" versus "their guys" CRAP will ONLY get everyone blown to kingdom come

But perhaps as Country Joe said, that's the only way peace will be won

:cry: :cry: :cry:

Country Joe Rocks...

Well come on all you new young men
Uncle Sam's in a mess again
Got himself in a terrible jam
With a crazy Muslim named Saddam
So put down your bibles pick up your guns
We're gonna have a whole lot of FUN
And it's 1 2 3 what are we fighting for
Don't ask me I don't give a damn
I just know we gotta kill Saddam
And its 5 6 7 open up the pearly gates
Aint no time to wonder why
Big oil is startin to cry


Well come on all of you christian right
We all know you love a good fight
Now's your chance for a last crusade
The whole damn word has got to be saved
Just remember when your children all die
They'll be standing at the good Lord's side

Come on Dubya, better move fast
Our gas is burnin and it won't last
Your daddy started but he couldn't finish
Now's your chance to make your own image
Aren't you glad you don't have sons
Cause were callin up the guard for this one


http://www.countryjoe.com/crisis.htm#fixin2

We lose our humanity and whittle down any chance we have of ever returning to a normal world or country.

How many additional terrorists do you imagine are being created every day? The day where America will look like Tel Aviv with people blowing up all over the place is not far off thanks to all the people who just want to get the job done "right".


http://www.wackyneighbor.com/cgi-bin/terrah

bring em back already.

there's something called a win-win situation-
we bring our troops home, they stay alive.
it spares the Iraqi innocents, they too get to live.
can it get any simpler?

Remember "Bring 'em on"?

We will not gain a damn thing from this. We will pay for it for decades to come.I am disappointed in Clark for saying this.

We should bring 'em home.

I'm not American, but what the US government has been doing for a year is just nonsense. It has to end and the sooner the better. Every decision this administration takes makes things worse.

Win what?

MF -

I know how you feel. I feel so hopeless. I want to be able to scream to the Iraqis, I am so sorry for what my country is doing to you. I feel so ashamed of what is being done in my name.

I suppose I will never understand why anyone thinks killing innocent people a "win".

That is the point. People are just afraid to say so. No one wants the right wing down their throat calling them unpatriotic.

It is unbearable to think of this.

It isn't "us or them." We're not fighting for our survival in Iraq, they are. We're fighting to try to impose our will on a foreign country.

If we packed up and left Iraq tomorrow, life would go on just the same always in the United States.

Maybe we shouldn't be there, but we are. Maybe it was a mistake, but it's made. To back out now will invited contempt from the world, and more terror attacks on US soil by outlaws who think they can get away with it. Once you're on the slippery slope, you have to ride it to the bottom. I just hope the loss of innocent civilians is minimal, because I know it won't be zero.

Don't worry!

The world will :toast: you.

Bush has won the United States the contempt of the world. And so long as Americans enable him, it's earned.

the Islamic world.

It's the equivalent of jumping on some guy and beating him- then, when you realize that you screwed up and he didn't actually have that big weapon that you thought he did, you say:

"well, if I get off this guy now he's going to be pissed. Guess the only option is to keep beating him until he gives up any will to avenge the incredibly unjust thing I'm presently doing to him. If I beat him long enough and hard enough, he'll just learn to love me."

What a crock.

How 'bout if we, as a nation, take some goddamn responsibilty for a change. The truth is that Iraq and the rest of the Islamic world has every right to be pissed that we let this crusading criminal in the White House kill so many of them for no good reason - how 'bout we find a way to say we're sorry that doesn't involve killing so many more of them.

Because that doesn't really translate to "sorry" in Arabic.

Hadn't heard it put quite like that before. :thumbsup:

I think * has gone about it in the wrong way, but I do think that it is time that fanatics, tyrannous governments, and bandits, based in the Arabic world learned that the USA is not their private shooting range. They are not mad at us, they do not hate us, because * is in the WH. They hated us when Carter was in the WH, they hated us when RR was in the WH, they hated us when Bush 1 was in the Wh, and they hated us when BC was in the WH. Time they had a reason.

To back out now will invited contempt from the world, and more terror attacks on US soil by outlaws who think they can get away with it.

Uh...hellloooo!! We're inviting a shitstorm right now.Leaving would most definately NOT invite more attacks.We are already being held in contempt.How can you not see this?


Once you're on the slippery slope, you have to ride it to the bottom.

Fine,cya...but leave the sane ones behind.Have fun storming the bottom!!

By playing the bully, we show our weakness.

By bombing people indiscriminately from the air because we're afraid of fighting it out on the ground, we show our weakness.

By going to war for the oil to drive our SUVs three blocks to the convience store, we show our weakness.

Americans are fat and lazy and risk-adverse, and the world know it.

You don't show strength by hurting others. You show strength by taking the chance of being hurt yourself. Americans are no longer willing to take that chance. That is why we are bullies, and that is why we are weak.

And that is why we will lose in the long run, no matter what we do.

there is only one way conflict ever ends. it is when one side decides to take the high road.

that needs to be us.

I think every American who claims to be Christian should have "turn the other cheek" tattooed on their foreheads.

Conflicts end when one side is beaten, not when one "takes the high road". the biggest lie they ever told you in kindergarten was "violence never solves any problems". And they made sure you learend it because they were bigger than you. As for "turn the other cheek", that's for individuals who can make their own decisions, but not other's decisions.

Conflicts often end with treaties and other forms of accomodation, such as intermarriage and trade. For example, in 1786 in New Mexico, the Spanish and the Comanches made a peace treaty that held for decades--neither side "beat" the other, neither side was capable of doing so, but they could inflict a lot of very draining damage on each other. In the same vein, the Comanches and Kiowas made peace with their former enemies, the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, in 1839, another treaty and alliance that held until the end of Native American independence. Again, neither side had "won," but both wanted an end to the warfare.

There are many DUers here from all over the world.

Let's just ask them if they would have more contempt for us if the US left, or if the US stayed and destroyed Falluja.

Will that be satisfactory to you?

Kanary

at the moment around the world..this is preceived as being Bush's War to date and the GI's are still seen as a reluctant but loyal participants in events..but an attack on Falluja which will result in so many more innocent deaths will push them over.

It's normal and reasonable for Americans to not want to see more GI deaths but to the rest of the world to hear them speak about US deaths continually in one breath and not mention innocent civillian deaths in a war they didn't choose to be in just re-inforces the perception that Americans think a US life is more valuable.

George Bush and his cohorts and a big Falluja attack will generate a lot of hate that will not be quenched for generations.I come across a lot of yanks in my work in Sydney and it's difficult for me to not wonder what each one thinks..whether they are a Dem or Repub..but I'm reasonably sane and know how the Repubs/freepers are conned by the media etc (unfortunately..we gave you R.Murdoch)..but I hear many others here often saying they now hate Americans..and we are an ally !

..just my view as an Aussie whose country is right along side the US in these battles, although it's perceived here by the majority as an unjust and unpopular war and that our PM truly is a Bush arse-lickin bastard !

Since the responses to this thus far have concentrated on the "contempt" part of your talking points, allow me to point at that your argument is equally specious when you say that leaving Iraq would invite "more terror attacks on US soil by outlaws who think they can get away with it."

Could you help me understand why admitting that invading Iraq was a completely unjustified war of aggression and ceasing aggressive action there would have this result?

I hope you do not believe that Iraq had anything to do with terrorism directed at the USofA ever. How our arguments do slide, speaking of slippery slopes. GulfWarDaddy was about "freeing Kuwait," but required demonization of Saddam Hussein as part of the sales pitch. GulfWarBaby was about "WMD," er, "ridding the world of a madman," ummm, "freeing Iraq."

But here you are, merrily conflating Iraq and the invasion of America by the mighty Mooooslim Terrist Army.

Why in hell would stopping aggression against a wrongfully invaded country invite these terrists?

I guess that's the beauty part of the scattershot approach to war rationalization: If you throw enough shit out there, some of it's bound to stick in receptive American brains. Whichever lie speaks most to any particular person is the one they'll regurgitate when comes time to justify the unjustifiable.

As the equally bogus "domino theory" from a generation ago. Back then, the rationale for Vietnam was that if we weren't there, the commies would take it as a green light to invade the rest of the world and eventually attack the US.

Just change the word Vietnam to Iraq, and communists to terrorists, and you have the exact same thing.

I guess we're still waiting for that invasion from the communist hordes of Ho Chi Minh.

make even more sense now.

not support the going to war. However, to say that Saddam never had anything to do with terrorism is an error.

Why in hell would stopping aggression against a wrongfully invaded country invite these terrists I don't know what invited them BEFORE we invaded Iraq. Still, even though I think we probably shouldn't have gone in, I rejoice everyday that Saddam and his rapist sons are gone. The mass graves uncovered ensure that I always will.

from the world and they already rsvp'd in the affirmative. this is all about not wanting to lose face. but it's already too late for that. macho begets macho and it's a lose-lose for everybody. i will paraphrase will pitt here and say when you find yourself in a hole, fer chrissakes. stop digging!!!!

Only losers. Bush has unleashed madness in Iraq. We -- Iraqis and Americans -- all are losing.

Over 250,000 people? This is ok with you? Back up the troops so we can destroy a huge city?

"We" say that we are only responding when attacked, but we also say we are not sending in patrols yet. So who is attacking "us" ? It looks to me like our brave pilots are dropping bombs on people way down below, where they can't shoot back. And what are these bombs hitting? Who is there to see? The most sickening part is that people believe these big fat liars.

"They" (the not us side) will win, backup or not.

It sickens me to think how far we will go before we realize that.

But if you want backup, let's NOT do what America has done countless times before: Get the black troops out in front first. x(

Okay, using your logic, let's just nuke the country. That way no more of our men will die and our superior "compassionate christian" morality will be maintained. :eyes: x(

Sweet Jesus, man, we allowed a true and total contemptable insect of a madman to cause all this pointless carnage. And now we turn around and give a boadload of bullshit conditions tacked on: "Kill them all and may none of us get hurt. God bless America." Well, NUKE THEM and then you can sleep well at night. This clearly reflects what you want.

We, as a country, started the slaughter and most of us seemed to have wanted it - again, as a country. We had no real plan on going in, that much is sickeningly obvious. It was never liberation, the fact we started hanging our flag everywhere proves it. Oh, initially the first two thugs were told to take it down, but subsequent pics had the same gigantic US flags all over and people stopped caring. Rocketman George* wanted to launch his toys and have his petty vengeance.We pay for it too. As a country. THAT is what we have to say if we want * out of office. (Oh, this war is not about oil, where is the oil? Didn't President Apostate* TELL US that their oil would be used to PAY for this war? WHERE IS IT? WHY is our idiot government spending tons more? Isn't the oil paying for it? I demand some answers, fuck this spurious morality that is distracting everybody from the core issues: Bush* started the war and has lied his way through everything, and nowhere near enough people are connecting the 78pt dots.) This is 78pt. :-)

So, what's the choice? This is the choice: Radioactive oil, Or have more troops pay for *'s petty lifestyle.

hardly, the lives lost on both sides will haunt us for the rest of our lives. this invasion that led to war was based on nothing but lies. If my son, if my daughter, if my grandkids have to go and die for lies, WE HAVE FAILED THEM,

I want my progeny to outlive me, I don't want them to think the country they were born in is a hatemongering, hostile nation, with enemies on all sides. We've tried to teach them not to fight in day care, not to fight their siblings, and then we throw them into this shit. After all this time, this is what we've accomplished? Something is radically wrong, so wrong.

And I have been down this path before...so i give up.

you are right. It's barbaric. It's also too late to stop. The craven, murderous, corrupt, sniveling, dimwitted adolescent in the White House got the toothpaste out of the tube and now it has to be put back in. And that is always awful. Thanks, Chimpy, love the bad Karma we are getting out of this. BTW, you ARE NOT sissy. Real compassion and understanding of one's actions takes courage-further proof * really is a coward and the REAL SISSY.
:cry: :puke:

There are 250,000 people in that city, minimum. How can my country do this? How can our Democratic candidates think this is ok?

I wish I could tell you otherwise, but we can't just leave now because what Chimpy and crew have done is taken a brutal but stable country and turned it into a brutal and unstable one. We broke the country, so we bought it. We unleashed the fanatics so now we have to stop them or leave the region at their mercy. Sorry, there is no way to escape bad Karma on this one. Why do you think I'm so angry and disgusted? Even if we leave tomorrow, the damage that follows will still be our fault. No happy ending here.

The same way they said OK to IWR. I am not a Nader fan at all but he is so right when he says both parties are screwing America right before our eyes. I hate it.

And speaking of which, now would be a good time for Kerry to make a statement about the missteps that got us here. But we know THAT will never happen. He really angers me with that "go along to get along" mentality when it comes to this war. He is SO not worthy of our votes in our hearts but we must keep`working to change him.

Sorry to ramble but this pisses me off.

and that is to pack our troops up and leave...we have done enough damage over there...

the tacit consent

the silent complicity


THAT IS as bad, if not worse, than being a pro-war neo-con.

The tacit consent & silent complicity of people who knew better is what caused the death 11 million people in Europe.

I have a very special hate in my heart for those who think it's ok if you just do it "right".

of 1933.

Not so different.

Does ANYTHING ever really change about intrinisc human nature?

I wonder...

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose ;)

But, that's over.... out of "respect" for our "nominee".

Tacit consent and silent complicity -- indeed.

Yet, we're supposed to all happily "fall in line".

I'm disgusted with the whole bunch. Dennis remains, as he started, the only one who said it like it is.

OUT NOW!

Kanary, completely ashamed

The vast majority of residents of Fallujah aren't involved in this. Unlike Nasf where it's reported that other Iraqis have been killing Sadr's men possibly in retribution for his army's presence in the city, Fallujah is being held hostage in a sense.

There is no good solution here. If the insurgents hadn't killed and desecrated the bodies of the four Americans, I doubt we would have had anything to do with Fallujah.

.

Bush attacked in the Gulf war too....I remember back then sitting up for hours watching that horrible green screen and crying, in 1991....I didn't agree with that war either...Too few people are thinking like you...mourning all the innocents who are dying in Iraq, including the young American soldiers..... It is so terrible...

most Iraqi's didn't have a country in the sense we have a country. They had no rights living under Saddam's regime. In the future hopefully the Iraqis will also have a country of their own.

As mixed as out history is, we have enabled different peoples to gain a democratically elected government. Leading up to WW II neither Germany or Japan had a government that was truly of the people.

Don't even try those arguments with me.

I'm open to reason. I'm not someone who is always right.

have "democracy," I have some swampland in northern Minnesota to sell you.

He doesn't even care about whether Americans have democracy.

We don't have a democracy in this country. As for Bush, the number one item on his "to-do" list is "Get Re-elected." Somewhere near the top is also "Make sure those who donated to my campaign get their payback." It's standard for most politicians.

Are the Iraqis on his list? I hope so.

We don't have a democracy in this country.

We have a constitutional republic, which is a form of representative democracy.

While RW talk radio might not tell you this, any high school civics textbook will. Perhaps you should crack one open some time.

Until we have one man one vote I have a problem with our so-called democracy especially when a presidential candidate gets the majority of the popular vote and loses the presidency. I always thought the majority ruled in a democracy. No?

Please state for me your knowledge of conditions in Iraq, especially with regard to education, rights of women, and healthcare before GulfWarDaddy (at which time Saddam Hussein had been in power for more than a decade).

Thank you.

I'll find some links to articles you can read for yourself. There's no doubt that the first Gulf War damaged a lot of Iraqi infrastructure. Saddam didn't seem as interested in rebuilding and extending infrastructure as much as building palaces following that war. Sure, power plants and other essentials were restored in areas useful to Saddam.

I didn't ask about the conditions after Gulf War I.

I must confess that I am every bit as impressed with the "building palaces" information as I am with the incubator babies and massed forces on the Saudi border. But then, as far as I can tell, you probably believe those were both gospel truth, too.

The question is: What were the conditions for most Iraqis before Gulf War I?

You have stated that "most Iraqi's didn't have a country in the sense we have a country. They had no rights living under Saddam's regime."

I am asking you to tell me how you think Iraqis lived under Saddam's regime before Gulf War I. I'm talking here about the majority of Iraqis, not about political dissidents. I am not suggesting that Saddam Hussein's regime was some bastion of permissiveness; I am simply asking how the common folk lived.

Thank you.

Until I can provide you with credible sources, I'm not going to say "Trust me. Yadda, yadda, yadda."

"I am simply asking how the common folk lived." And that is what I will answer in time. Keep reminding me.

Here's an interesting read:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/iqtoc.html

It's a concise history/present day study of Iraq. Of course, it's from the Library of Congress, so that may not be adequately authoritative for you.

The really interesting part of it is that most of it was written in 1988, before it became national policy to demonize the Great Satan Hitler Saddam.

See if you can find the time to poke around in there and get back to me on the un-countried horror that was Iraq.

First off a history of our involvement in Iraq, our support of Saddam in the war against Iran, which we encouraged. A quote:

"Three months later, Saddam invaded Iran at the urging of the US, Britain, and the Gulf Arabs in a foolish attempt to overthrow its new Islamic government and return the oil-rich nation to western control. Washington and London secretly financed and armed Iraq, providing technicians and materials to produce poison gas and germ warfare weapons. When Iraq's Kurds rebelled, Iraq followed Britain's example by using poison gas against them.

Two years after the stalemated end of the Iraq-Iran war, Iraq invaded Kuwait, which had been stealing Iraqi oil through by slant drilling and undermining Iraq's battered economy. Extremely ambiguous if not purposely deceptive US diplomacy convinced Saddam he had a green light to invade and punish Kuwait. This he did, with disastrous consequences. Many Arabs believe Saddam fell right into a trap prepared for him by President George Bush Sr. US bombing and ensuing sanctions transformed Iraq from the most modern Arab nation into the most backwards."

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/history/2002/0802blood.htm

Next is a book review in which the author claims that GDP growth in Iraq was surprisely strong before Saddam's accension to power. Following Saddam's seizing power and due in part to our involvement, things got worse for the average Iraqi unless you happened to be part of Saddam's regime. From the following link:

"But despite the many impediments and adverse factors, Dr. Zainy concludes in the first section of this book, Iraq's economy 1960-80 was actually quite vibrant, achieving a real GDP growth of around 8 percent per annum and a real per capita GDP growth of around 4.7 percent per annum; such growth rates were among the highest in the world during that 20-year period.

The second half of the book examines Iraq's economy since 1980, the year it reached its pinnacle. It was in mid-1979 when Saddam Hussein assumed the presidency of Iraq to find a vigorously growing economy and a treasury replete with foreign exchange. But Saddam's policies, horribly repressive to the Iraqi people and highly belligerent and hostile to Iraq's neighbors, were inimical to economic stability and development. The nation's economic growth halted with the start of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980, and the economy in general deteriorated thereafter, with Iraq turning from a creditor to a debtor country. With the Gulf War and the economic embargo, Iraq's infrastructure crumbled; the dinar collapsed, hyperinflation set in, and the economy took a nosedive."


http://www.politicalreviewnet.com/polrev/reviews/mepo/R_1061_1924_044_1002599.asp

A review of conditions in Iraq post Gulf War I. From the link"

'"Despite its claims that the people of Iraq are dying due to a lack of food and medicine, Saddam Hussein doesn't hesitate to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for entertainment of Ba'ath Party officials and cadres," Rubin said. "This is in addition to all the palaces that Saddam has had built for himself. You may remember that we have estimated that somewhere on the order of $2 billion has been spent by Saddam Hussein for 48 palaces."

The report also contains charts that show food imports have now reached pre-Gulf War levels. Under the United Nations' oil-for-food program, Iraqi oil revenues "have risen to near pre-war levels but Saddam refuses to buy, to use this revenue to buy more food," Rubin continued.

Further, he added, "much of what is delivered to Iraq is not distributed. This leads to an important conclusion: if Saddam Hussein gets control of more money, he won't use it to help the Iraqi people. The reason the Iraqi people don't receive a large percentage of the humanitarian supplies that are delivered is because the regime is not distributing these supplies. ... The government has failed to distribute about 50 percent of the medicine, about 60 percent of the supplies for clean water and agriculture and 40 percent for education."'

http://www.usembassy-amman.org.jo/9Iraq.html

Current conditions of the poor in Iraq due in part or whole to the recent war.

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_040419ca.shtml

If you've plowed through that, the United States has played a part to the detriment of the average Iraqi for over twenty-five years. So do we leave the Fallujahs to the chaos of competing groups and a possible civil war or do we put down insurrection, impose order and reconstruct Iraq for the benefit of all. I think we owe it to them not to leave them in chaos.

Leading up to WW II neither Germany or Japan had a government that was truly of the people.

Adolf Hitler was the democratically elected Chancellor of Germany, and the Nazi members of the Reichstag were also democratically elected.

Comparing what we're doing in Iraq to what we did in WWII is at best fallacious, at worst absurd.

In WWII, Japan attacked us, and Germany declared war on us following the US declaration of war on Japan.

The Bush administration fabricated reasons to invade Iraq (which is why the rationale seems to change every few months), for the purpose of asserting US dominance over the Middle East, and condescendingly trying to remake Iraq into what they'd like it to be.

When our cause for going to war was just, we've always fared pretty well in the end. When we decided to make war with foreign nations for the sake of bringing the white man's burden to them, it's been a different story. We tried that once before in a SE Asian country called Vietnam. It didn't work out so well.

But go back and read how the elections were "managed."

OK. For all its faults and rare mistakes, the USofA has been on balance a great force in the world for creation of democracies. Look what we did for

1. Germany (which, of course, had a democracy before Hitler took over)
2. Japan (which, of course, had a parliament which predated WWII)
3.

Please do continue the list of democracies which US intervention has created. Shouldn't be too difficult.

you're bringing them democracy....HOW ARROGANT!!!!

I'm hoping it's correct too!

democracy."....If you can't see that forcing your form of government on another country is wrong...that's more than arrogant.. .that's stupid....

the big push in Fellujah, but I think that people forget what the people of fellujah were angry about in the first place. Seems there was a lot of killing of innocents there back when this whole misguided mess began.

I am surprised (although I probably shouldn't be) by the misadministration's outrage over the four dead contractors. Look at how many of our soldiers have died. I haven't heard much outrage out of any of them about that. And I think part of the reason that printing the photos of the mutilated bodies of the contractors was to stir up that sense of outrage (not that what was done to them wasn't outrageous-it was). And lessening the outrage of the folks against the misadministration was the reason they were so upset that someone had the audacity to actually take pictures of the flag-draped coffins. They'll decide what you should be angry about, the willing minions of the Ministry of Propaganda.

It seems very convenient.

Agents provacateurs from the left, seeking to derail the Great War for Democracy and besmirch the righteous name of our Fierce Warrior Chieftain? Ay-rab troublemakers?

Inquiring minds want to know. Whodunnit?

Really! Doesn't it strike you as strange that something happened that even upset many Musilms (the desecration of the bodies) and then immediately ended up in the international press?

Was this something planned by Bush's cronies so we could wipe a city off the face of the earth, kill a gazillion Iraqis and scare the rest of the population so they'd behave? I thought we'd already done that in a few places.

Did a few Iraqis decide to get some great press coverage to make their demands made public? I'm reading many of the clerics in Iraq are trying to get Sadr to back off especially since he's endangering Nasaf. I'll give that one a maybe.

Feel free to add your own theories.

of your first supposition-that it was planned by Bush cronies. Just because it fits into my Ministry of Propaganda theory. Nothing gets to the press unless they put it out there themselves. The coffin photos are different-they wound up all over the net and in that paper in Seattle. The public outcry was too great for them to ignore.

If we're to understand at all what is going on in the world, we have to leave behind the talking points of the reich wing, and stop letting them frame it all in their terms.

If YOU were being under attack in YOUR neighborhood, you'd be an "insurgent", too.

Let's understand what is *really* happening.

Kanary, disgusted to the MAX

Living in WV and having a clean record and being of sound mind I have a right to own any weapon I wish legally. If someone came into my city stirring up trouble to the extent we're seeing in Fallujah, I suspect the National Guard wouldn't have to trouble themselves.

I wouldn't be an insurgent. A closer comparison is the Iraqis in Nasaf that are asassinating "insurgents" creating problems.

I may be reading into this a higher level of sophistry than it deserves, but I don't think so.

In order to make any sense of this at all, I have to understand you to be saying something, which, fully stated (rather than obscurely and sideways) amounts to this:

"If a buncha gah-damned DU left-wing fringies came to my town and started stirring up trouble, me 'n my legal weapons would take care of that problem, right quick."

In other words, you identify the source of the problems in Fallujah as "outside agitators."

What about this:

Let us say that, back in the good ol' days when we didn't have to work quite so hard at being scared of the designated bad guy (after all, the USSR did have the means, albeit not the desire, to inflict real hurt on the USofA, as opposed to the paper tigers of Grenada, Panama, and Iraq), the USSR successfully invaded the USofA. During the occupation, some freedom-loving Americans came to your town and organized some violent resistance to the occupation (this is, for the sake of argument, granting your unsubstantiated belief that violence in Fallujah is fomented by outside agitators, and is not the natural reaction of an occupied people), whereupon the Russkies laid siege to your town.

What you are saying is: In that situation, you'd take your guns, and light into the American agitators, rather than using those weapons against the Russkie invaders.

If that is how you would act, I must question your patriotism, and ask, "Why do you hate America?"

Back during the American Revolution, there were colonists who thought King George and his army were swell guys, and that the Continental Army and Congress were traitors.

In France during the Nazi occupation you had the Vichy puppet government.

Sadly, there will always be domestic collaborators with the hostile foreign power. But their fate always remains the same in the end. Once the foreign invader is finally gone, the collaborators will always be regarded as scum by their countrymen. If their lives are spared, that is.

"If a buncha gah-damned DU left-wing fringies came to my town and started stirring up trouble, me 'n my legal weapons would take care of that problem, right quick." LOL

FWIW, WV is a Democrat state just about anyway you look at it. As a left-wing fringie, I doubt you'd have any problems around here. The ballot for the county primary election is entirely composed of Democrats. Whoever wins the primary, will be unopposed in November. I know most of the folks on the ballot personally and that's more than fine with me that they'll be re-elected.

As for someone I would have a problem with, here's a scenario. Sometimes, infrequently actually, we've had folks come in from "outside" and try to help themselves and get out of the area before daylight. Typically when someone comes on my property, it's posted, and if I catch them, they don't come back. I'm the kind of guy who on the first day of deer season goes up on the ridge and waits for trespassers. Let's say that they're at a disadvantage.

Now if you and some of your buddies came into the neighborhood and created problems by shooting at representatives of the current official government when they weren't messing with me, but now you've got everyone holed up at home, yeah I'd empty a twenty round magazine into you if I got a chance.

I wouldn't burn you though. I'd feed you to the hogs. I might as well get some good out of you for all the trouble you, theoretically of course, caused.

On purpose I assume unless you're as dense as you might have us believe.

Since it appears that most Iragis believe themselves to be better off than under Saddam, the analogy is flawed. If I lived under a regime and had my daughter turn up missing because someone like Saddam's sons took a liking to her, kidnapped her off the street, raped her repeatedly and then turned her over to his buddies before killing her or had my brother taken off to never be seen again until a mass grave was excavated after the "liberators" put down the regime, or had another relative get lucky and return with the exception of a body part, would I take up arms against the forces that toppled the regime? No!

Did I miss anything?

The fact that propaganda is a hard sell.

The dubious statistics about the majority of Iraqis believing themselves better off are questionable for two reasons: (1) sampling methodology and (2) the fact that, when you dissect the numbers, they show, at best, a slim majority supporting that proposition. In addition, substantial numbers feel that the invasion was more a humiliation than a liberation.

In other words, the fact that a slim majority of Iraqis feel that they are better off than a year ago does not translate into an assurance that most Iraqis think that having their country occupied by the USofA is a pretty keen idea.

Do you honestly think that the "rape of your daughter" scenario was one experienced by anything approaching a majority of Iraqis? If you do, you should check your numbers. From what you say, I think you might be very surprised to review the information from Amnesty International for the five years preceding Little George's Big Adventure.

Finally, you invoke the spectre of the mass graves. Again, I refer you to Amnesty for information on how mass those graves might have been in the recent past. The massest graves in Iraq would relate to two items: (1) The Iran-Iraq war, during which Saddam Hussein was the heroic defender of American interests...er...freedom, and (2) The Shiite uprising following GulfWarDaddy which (and you may be assured that Iraqis remember this, even if you don't) was pretty much a team effort between Saddam Hussein and BushDaddy.

There are undoubtedly Iraqis who have the very experience that you describe. There are undoubtedly Americans (the families of people detained without counsel come to mind) who think that a liberation of America would be a keen idea. I don't think either group represents the majority.

And, really: Don't you think that, even if the USofA had a terrible bad dictator and was generously liberated by the Chinese, a pretty popular sentiment in the USofA would be, "Thanks a bunch! Now get the fuck out!"? If the USofA had been suffering under a dictator worse than the present one, and the altruistic Russians liberated us and said, "Oh. By the by. As long as we're here, we'll just have our people come over here and rebuild your country for profit, even though you have plenty of people qualified to do the work. And you surely won't mind if we take control of your natural resources." That would go over pretty big, doncha think? I guess under those circumstances, you'd still be out there killing your restive countrymen.

I'm still waiting for you to tell me all about the horrible repression and bad living conditions back before GulfWarDaddy, when the poor benighted Iraqis didn't have a country.

I must say that I think you are the one who is making your head hurt.

Surely you cannot believe that I'll read your discourse on the democratic leanings of WV as anything other than an effort at obfuscation (btw: I actually know which state has sent Sen. Byrd back to DC for many, many years). In order to ascribe anything but ground-shifting to your post, I would have to ascribe to you a level of understanding lower than I credit you with.

The "well, then, let's not talk about that, let's talk about something else that sounds kinda the same" method of argument is effective in some settings (if by "effective" one means results in a "win," even though it fails to address the original issues). Perhaps it is not so effective in this particular instance.

But here, after we wade through the folksy WV stuff is the nub of the issue, and I do give you credit for being somewhat more clever about this than many (but doing so reinforces my belief that your credulousness is more for effect than for real):

"Now if you and some of your buddies came into the neighborhood and created problems by shooting at representatives of the current official government when they weren't messing with me, but now you've got everyone holed up at home, yeah I'd empty a twenty round magazine into you if I got a chance."

Now here's a very simple question that shouldn't give you a headache at all:

In my hypothetical involving an invasion and occupation of the USofA by the Evil Empire, would you consider the USSR "the current official government," and take up arms against the American resistance?

Not a difficult question at all. I'll be fascinated to see how you undertake to misunderstand it.

With conditions.

If the life of Americans was better under the Evil Empire with greater freedom as compared to the previous government, yes I would be shooting resisters.

If the Evil Empire had displaced a government under which Americans had enjoyed constitutional freedoms and taken those freedoms away, I would be shooting the occupiers.

"insurgents" my hind end.

Get honest.

Kanary

If the insurgents hadn't killed and desecrated the bodies of the four Americans

Surely you don't believe that swill! :wow:

Can you tell me what those 4 thugs were doing in Fallujah in the first place? Maybe if the mercenaries hadn't killed and desecrated the bodies and land of Iraqis Fallujah would have had nothing to do with us :shrug:

If the "whatever you want to call them" hadn't started shooting, etc. why would we have even messed with the place?

to begin with. 1, we were messing with Fallujah which is why it exploded the way it did, and 2, what the hell are we doing in Iraq in the first place? I hope you're not one of those people who seriously thought we were going over there to do the helpless Iraqis a favor and were going to be greeted with smiles and flowers.

Those mercenaries you are defending had shot Fallujah women and children in the backs of their heads in the days before those 4 were caught.

You act as if these mercenaries are such nice guys and we should all sheer our hair, place ashes on our foreheads and mourn the loss of their innocent lives.

Save that kind of talk for soldiers who serve their country honorably and for for $1000 hired killers who are their to deliberately circumvent the Geneva Convention so that the US can claim plausible deniability anytime they commit an atrocity.

You're defending thugs who deserve not one tear. These thugs would come slaughter you, me and our entire families in the middle of the night IF the price was right. Ideology and honor have nothing to do with it- war whores is what they are.

Check out this reptile... Don't just read my snippets. Thank God the Iraqis got this reptile off the street:

Iraq Victim Was Top-Secret Apartheid Killer

Sunday Times (Johannesburg)

April 18, 2004
Posted to the web April 19, 2004


Julian Rademeyer
Johannesburg

A security contractor killed in Iraq last week was once one of South Africa's most secret covert agents, his identity guarded so closely that even the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did not discover the extent of his involvement in apartheid's silent wars.

Gray Branfield, 55, admitted to being part of a death squad which gunned down Joe Gqabi, the ANC's chief representative and Umkhonto weSizwe operational head in Zimbabwe on July 31 1981. Gqabi was shot 19 times when three assassins ambushed him as he reversed down the driveway of his Harare home.


<snip>

In South Africa he joined the SA Defence Force's secret Project Barnacle, a precursor to the notorious Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) death squad. Given the rank of major, Branfield was put in charge of operations in the urban centres of Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia.

<snip>

Branfield arranged a meeting with the investigating officer in the case, Inspector Fred Varkevisser, a man he knew personally. When attempts to cajole Varkevisser into releasing Gericke failed, Branfield and other agents overpowered the policeman and strapped an explosive belt around his waist.

Branfield then took Varkevisser's family hostage, offering them and him, a safe haven and compensation in South Africa if they co-operated. Varkevisser duly complied and collected Gericke from the police cells.

<snip>

In 1985 he was involved in planning the now notorious SADF raid on Gaborone in which 14 people, including a five-year-old child, were killed.

<snip>

http://allafrica.com/stories/200404190944.html


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=512562

Fallujah has been a flashpoint from the beginning, primarily because after the invasion U.S. troops occupied the school, then killed 18 protestors.

I thought the current problems started when the coalition shutdown Sadr's newspaper for encouraging violence.

It started because mercenaries were shooting women & children in the back of their heads with hollowpoints. The Iraqis didn't take too kindly to it. Will see if I can find you an article on that.

US troops 'kill 13 Iraqi protesters'

Sarah Left and agencies
Tuesday April 29, 2003

US troops opened fire on a group of Iraqi demonstrators near Baghdad yesterday, killing at least 13 people and wounding 75 others, according to reports from the area.
Qatar's al-Jazeera television station reported that troops had fired on the demonstrators in the town of Falluja, around 30 miles west of Baghdad, after someone in the crowd threw a stone at US soldiers. The protesters had been demonstrating against the continued US presence in Iraq, al-Jazeera said.

US central command in Qatar said troops had shot at armed Iraqis who had fired on the soldiers. Witnesses said that the demonstrators, who had been protesting at a local school, had not been armed. They said that the protest had been peaceful.

A correspondent for the Reuters news agency in Falluja said that residents put the death toll at between 13 and 17 people. The director of the main hospital in Falluja said 13 people had died and said his staff and treated another 75 people.



I don't have a link, just saved the page for my archives.

Time for another fun round of DU fill in the blanks!!

1. Fallujah is located in the __________ Triangle. It is controlled by members of the ____________ group of Moslems.

2. Sadr is a ____________ cleric. He lives in the south of Iraq, which is a ______________ stronghold.

Maybe the troubles in Fallujah started because, as someone else on this thread suggested, Americans had this bad habit of shooting civilians in Fallujah. Just a thought.

If you actually think that "the current problems" are all attributable to shutting down Sadr's newspaper, please explain why (1) The USofA is terribly worried about sectarian violence in Iraq, should the USofA withdraw its beneficent peacekeeping forces, but (2) Iraqis, Sunni and Shiite alike, rise up in unitary force as a result of shutting down a Shiite newspaper. (Ooops! Gave away the answers to the quiz!!)

Maybe your head is hurting because it's about to explode. Believing two opposing truths simultaneously is like having matter and anti-matter inside your head.

because 4 mercenaries are worth a lot more than the lives of 1000+ sand-nigger civilians </sarcasm>

There is a good solution: GET THE HELL OUT OF THEIR COUNTRY!

We don't want to be sissies. We don't want to "lose." The NY Post calls them "fiends." The NY Daily News says "Renegades."

Now we have to kill them or look weak. EXCEPT that we will look weak anyway because they aren't going to stop and they aren't going to be cowed.

We can look weak with the ones we've killed already, or we can look weak after killing a million or more. We lost. We aren't going to win. We made a gargantuan error and the price is our standing in the world. It's GONE.

We're going to be beaten by the "brown-skinned" people who put bombs on mule carts.

And we deserve it.

The Democrats can't back down because the Republicans will never forgive us for being weak. Doesn't matter how many die. The image is what's important. The spin.

In my lifetime we will not be forgiven. We will not regain our strength. For the rest of my life, I live in an impoverished and diminished nation because we didn't stand and fight over the little things. We kept looking at the big picture and saving ourselves while they ate at our foundations brick by tiny brick.

So we, the brave liberals, will kill for our image and re-election. Be proud.

QUOTE:...."So we, the brave liberals, will kill for our image and re-election. Be proud. "

who are trying to kill our soldiers. Maybe they shouldn't be there, but they are.

neighbors, wouldn't you be trying to "kill the soldiers", too?

C'mon, think this through.

We don't ALL have to be morans.

Kanary

?

Put down the uprising in the city? To what end? There will just be more uprisings and more blood until we FINALLY turn tail and run.

Eventually, we will leave Iraq in the hands of a violent authoritarian ruler (whether this person is "elected" or not is moot, IMHO) who will be basically the same as Saddam- pro-America until we decide to make him our new enemy (somewhere around 2012, I'll guess) but always violent and authoritarian.

Our best scenario is that we leave in a way that somehow saves face and retains our credibility- but at best that will only happen in the eyes of western masses and journalists. The smarter westerners and all of the Islamic world will always view this whole Iraq thing as a clusterfuck, whether we achieve this incredibly low bar for success or not.

When you shoot someone with an arrow it may hurt them even more to pull the arrow out, but that doesn't mean the best plan is to leave it in and wiggle it.

Here's what I'm hoping:

Negotiations between Dem leadership and UN have been ongoing. Electorate will somehow be cued in to world opinion in favor of Kerry. UN forces, in return for U.S. relinquishing "iron grip" on oil production, will coalesce and move into Iraq. Bush will not be allowed to use this option, because the oil boyz are too greedy to cut deals with Europe. Bush will be OUT!

What, oh, nap-time's over. Time to wake up.

Still, I like to dream.

I think it's a given that a Kerry administration will be able to negotiate things that Bush cannot. Not only because of Bush's diplomatic imcompetence, but also because no one will give him, personally, the satisfaction.

Adam Putnam,R, District 12 representative.
Bob Graham D, senator
Bill Nelson D, senator

As far as I can interpret, Nelson is for whatever we have to do to stay the course....whatever.

Graham...sort of sure he is for it as well.

Putnam, goes without saying. Kill em all.

We are about to destroy a city of over 250,000 people, and very few even care.

LIVE DEATH

24/7 today on CNN

and it's still only "patty-cake"

<where's that head-shaking smilie when you need it?>

What the hell has happened to us? All this yes, yes, we must do this for the greater good crap....we must give a little to get a lot...and I could go on and on and on.

Everything seems to be ok now. It is just the only way to take our country back....to give in to the right just a wee little bit more. Just a wee bit more....it won't hurt. Be nice....don't confront issues.

I am starting to think we need to get the heck out of there, in spite of what all our good dems say.

And you are right. Many have morphed into thinking that we must stay and blow up those who would fight to save their own country from invading. Half probably because they believed the WMD lies and tacitly supported the invasion and now feel responsible and want to "fix it" and think that "fixing it" means blowing up more people.

This is absolutely disgusting. It is beyond redemption. It is godawful.

I was once considered way too moderate to be taken seriously here. Now I am considered a fringe lefty, which I most certainly am not.
Strange how things happen,huh?

...sigh.

Now it is the opposite. I am still moderate, still believe in the same things. I have been redefined.

I posted a few photos of the Babies of Falluja yesterday with not much response. Here is one from today. They have not killed him yet but they have taken his father from him. It drives me mad to see these innocent victims of the lunatic in the WH! :cry:



An Iraqi boy displaced from the city of Fallujah looks at a US marine, as he waits to return home with other members of his family, for his father who was left behind at a US military checkpoint, to return home.(AFP/Patrick Baz)

responses are because these pictures make it almost impossible to breathe let alone respond. I am glad you do this, I look and react but am usually unable to say too much after seeing them. This one for some reason is really bothering me. It is important to look into the faces of the ones we are destroying but it is hard.

self deleted

it's all bad

It was not a happy smile, but he did not look unhappy either. That was the worst. I usually just want to throw things at the TV when the GOP says things.

One of these days we're going to see a holocaust come out of all this. A f'cking mushroom cloud.

could honestly say that I'm ashamed of America, but that day has come. What is happening just makes me sick to my stomach and overwhelmingly sad.

Everytime that I encounter rwing "christians" whose response to all of this is 'that's what happens during a war'. Forget about the lies and bearing of false witness on those commandments they're so hot to hang up in the courthouse and the schools. None of it matters anymore. Nor does all of the killing of innocents. Truly sickening.

If we withdraw our troops now, we can be sure of two things. Our guys will stop dying, and Iraqis will stop dying at our hands.

What will happen in Iraq then? Nobody knows. Maybe the Iraqis will build on the unity they seem to have found in opposing the occupation to build a new unified country. Or maybe they will split into separate states. But whatever happens will probably be what is bound to happen when the occupation ends anyway.

As I see it, all we can do is delay what is going to happen, spill more blood, traumatize both American and Iraqi societies, waste, waste waste.

If you think we need to win something in Iraq, please answer:

What are we going to win?

What will it cost in blood and treasure and time?

Will it be worth it?

I wonder if it ever occurs to the wingnuts that the insurrectionists in Fallujah are doing nothing but defending their homes and property and expressing their right to keep and bear arms.

I mean, that's what America stands for -- right?

The WMD were a lie. Saddam has been removed from power. The people that we're killing now are just people who are fighting to expell a foreign invader. Our cause now is no more, no less than unabashed American imperialism.

...in that we're reliving the same mistakes over and over again. What will it take for people (Americans) to understand that NOTHING good ever comes from murder in the name of war? For once the US needs to admit it was WRONG and back off from the edge.

- And yes...it IS murder when Bush* and his cronies order attacks KNOWING they will cause the unnecessary death of hundreds or thousands of innocents. There is no objective so important in Iraq that we need to slaughter women and children in order to accomplish a 'mission'. Collateral damage is the rationale of depots who need no other excuse for murder.

I don't think flattening Falujah will solve anything. I'm leaning more to "get out now" where before I thought we had to play through.
Has anyone heard how many may be dead from this current cease fire?
Schneider was on CNN mentioning that Kerry needs a defining issue for his campaign. Of course they are repeating the dump Kerry BS.
I just think it is time for him to quit pulling punches and go after the Neo's on every issue. The messed up war too.

in this thread.

Our troops shouldn't be over there in the first place. Period. Slaughtering people won't change that.

There is no NEED to "control" Fallujah other than a raw desire for revenge.

Sorry to break it to you, but our "leaders" are the bad guys here, and they're putting the poor suckers who signed up for the National Guard to finance college in harm's way simply to satisfy their own greed.

And this attitude that American lives are more important than Iraqi lives is just plain tribal.

Well said, though sad. We are going to have to start waking up here and being honest about it.

in fact I appreciate your post. You got it so right.
We have no business being in that town, because we have
no business being in that country.

Shame on us! 1st we lost our standing in the world,
then we lost our integrity in the eyes of the Iraqis,
and now it looks like we will lose our humanity too.

against the people that we said we were going to "liberate"

It is a total slaughter because these people are rising up against an unjust invasion and occupation that stole their stuff and stole their assets and are leaving them out of virtually everything.

Their children have been murdered by a leader who is, at the least, insane.

and now we slaughter them with daisy cutter bombs.

We are barbarians-- we are murderers. WE kill =babies and children for oil

This is a shame--an absolute shame

and tommorrow the coward says he will "talk" to the commission investigating 9-11--and will refuse to tell the truth. He will additionally "talk" with his mentor Cheney at his side to see to it that he does not reveal his stupidity and how far over his head he is--Cheney is there to protect him, and
bush will bring his lawyers and he has been rehearsing all week.

Is this a president of the most powerful and rich country in th4e world. Yup and no one calls him one it?

It is disgraceful and it is shameful. The most powerful and rich country in the world has been dragged down into the muck by an idiot--with a family name, whose father and mother desperately wanted a family legacy, like the Kennedy family, and this dumb, man, former alcoholic and cocaine user, now in his mid fifties, who cannot articulate and is not interested in reading anything, is responsible for the murders of tens of thousands of people-and he lied to involve this country in that attack because he wanted the oil and he wanted the fame and he loves the image of himself as a "war president"

-he is indeed insane and evil.

that I can count on certain people here that I agree with on this issue that speak to the heart of it.

You are one of those.

You and others like you are why it is worth it to come to this site.


It can be worth it to know what those who disagree with me think about this issue. But that is not why I am here. I can get that other places.


peace.

this never would have happened. All candidates have to do the macho act when campaigning; it is part of the game.

I completely agree with you about Falluja.

PLEASE explain to me why that would be good? Hurry it up, do it faster? But he thinks we might not be able to stay? Why kind of victory is that?

CLARK: Well, I think we do have to finish the problem with Fallujah. And, I would advocate that we finish it, if they're not going to negotiate, that we finish this with force. We do it quickly, not slowly, not drawn-out. Put sufficient troops up there, and I don't think there are sufficient troops there, based on what I'm reading in the press, to actually do the job, finish the job, get it over with. Get rid of the bad news. You've got to work Najaf separately. It should be negotiated, brokered, and let Sustani and the Shia leadership handle it.

The most important thing to think about is what happens after the 30th of June. I know we've got to get there, but think about this, Judy. After the 30th of June, what is it that our military is supposed to do there? What's the mission? It's not defense, it's not attack. What is it? We're not policemen. We cannot police Iraq.

WOODRUFF: Keep the peace? Keep the country secure?

CLARK: Well, sure, but, I mean, what does that mean? Do we do house-to-house searches? We've already got Saddam Hussein, and we know that there are no weapons of mass destruction. We're there at the sufferance of the Iraqi people. When they say it's time to go, whether or not they have the democracy we want them to have, I think we're going to end up recognizing that we can't stay.

Yeh, General Clark, but what about all those Fallujah deaths??????


:cry:

He has no problem with "collateral damage", as long as it's "sanitized" in the media.

The American military, then under the command of General Wesley Clark, did indeed kill some 3,000 civilians, both Serb and Albanian, during the Kosovo bombing campaign. This included the famous massacre of a train full of Albanian refugees (hit in error), the massacre at the government TV station, the flattening of an entire mining town (apparently again in error as it was supposedly mistaken for a factory) killing a large number of its inhabitants, and the destruction of a maternity ward in downtown Belgrade. Those are only the more large-scale examples of this. Whether you wish to then blame General Clarke or someone else in the chain-of-command for 'massacering' civilians is a matter of semantics.

Doesn't Clark advocate negotiation as the preferred method? I don't agree with the overwhelming use of force as the end point, but it's not like he's advocating assassination of Hamas leaders or something.

I get your dig about Hamas....unfortunately I believe most defend that. I don't believe in it, and I am talking here about Clark saying what he did.

He is saying....if we are going to kill that many people, let's do it quickly.

Defend it if you wish, but don't change the topic to Hamas.

but I think he also says that it's about negotiation first.

On edit: I should also say this...Clark has been critical of this military action for a LONG time, especially the way we have never allowed the possibility of Iraqi self-determination. We got to this place in part because the administration didn't listen to voices that discussed the importance of things other than brute force and imposed leadership with that "handover" of "sovereignty." This is the natural consequence--or unnatural consequence--of a policy he has thoroughly critiqued.

Can't have negotiation when we have the whole city surrounded. <sarcasm>

We gotta send in troops to take a railway station DURING A CEASE FIRE,we gotta bomb "strongholds" DURING A CEASE FIRE, and then we will blame the other side for shooting at our soldiers.

God help them and us. Unfortunately some of do know what we are doing in your name and ask your forgiveness.And some of us are just the witnesses and mourners around your cross, as others crucify you AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN.

. . . would probably lead to complete destruction of the city. I remember Wes saying a week or so ago that a Division would be required. As I understand it, there are 2000 terrorists (probably more) against 2500 Marines. All this in a city the size of Des Moines or Madison. How in the hell they expect 2500 Marines to secure a city of this size, and in addition press the fight against a force of equal size, is beyond me. Remember, this is urban combat, maneuver warfare force multipliers don't apply (see Stalingrad).

An inadequate force would probably find itself in trouble, thus having to rely on bombing to extricate themselves. With an adequate size force most of the City could be cleared rapidly and the populace secured/protected by a substantial holding force.

Of course, the above does not address the question of whether we need to go in. I, myself, would wait them out, using some of our $87b to construct first class refugee camps for the populace displaced. Oh, I forgot, most of the 'Contractors' can't operate because we don't control the roadways in the area.

I think Wes thinking is that the Fallujah 'problem' must be addressed before we can call things stabilized and pull out. The problem is I cannot see the current administration pulling out.

In summary, our Leader (His Vision, our path) has served us up a big shit sandwich, and we're all going to have to take a bite.

Kerry is trying to be, as well. Gotta keep that Military Industrial Complex happy, eh?


Bremer, I believe, apparently said he expected us to be in Iraq for 20+ years.


Joy.


:argh:

Murderers at this point - fucking war criminals, pure and simple!! These people are simply defending their homeland and we are killing them!! This is so fucking disgusting - we have now become the evil power of the world! Anyone here ever thought they'd live to see the day when the U.S. sank this low?? I sure as hell never did - and I'm not sure I'll ever get over it - or come to trust and love my country and fellow citizens again!! Evidently, being American means never having to say you're sorry - and might equals right! Nazi regime is honestly the most similar regime to Bushler's that I can think of!! We have truly become a nation of self-centered, uncaring, insensitive, ignorant, racist, TV manipulated, violence worshipping dolts!

:puke:
:argh:
:mad:

What difference will this battle make in 10 years?

Oradour-sur-Glane, My-Lai.

An infamy for which the United States will bear great shame. The world will not let us off easy this time.

I don't like what Wes is advocating, but from his position as a military man I can see WHY he is. That and I think when he said to deal with it quick that if it were up to HIM, then it would be quick and CLEAN with minimal casualties. The guy the Bushes have running the show over there obviously wants neither.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

The US was wrong to invade Iraq in the first place. And now the army of liberation morphed into the army of occupation......

Staying the course - if it is wrong, no matter how dedicated your troops, no matter how resolute you are, will not make the action noble, righteous and true.

They should of pulled out of Falluja, kept the barricades into and out of the city, and waited until Iraqi security forces were well enough trained to take over the city.
The June 30 deadline means nothing in this instance. Time is of no consequence....what is the hurry to kill and be killed?????

I watched "The Active Opposition" on Link TV this evening. It was nice to hear people talk about the Military Industrial Complex in a way that made sense.

It is all very depressing, however. And sad how few actually get it.

(I wonder how many were watching that show instead of CNN, FOX, the networks, etc.)

It absolutely makes me crazy that people think that we are fighting this "war" in any legitimate way.

Personally, I think it's too late. The last 3 years have defined us as a country, and most days, I don't see how we're going to recover.

...so that when the smoke clears and the Bush era is finally over we'll still be here to help pick up the pieces.