IRAQ OUT OF CONTROL

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
IRAQ OUT OF CONTROL
26
Tue, 09-14-2004 - 12:33pm
The mission in Iraq is far, far from accomplished. A surge in deadly violence this weekend brought the bloodiest day in Iraq in recent months; suicide bombings, mortar fire and fierce battles between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi security forces, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15899-2004Sep12.html including a firefight between an Iraqi crowd and a U.S. helicopter crew, killed dozens, leaving even more injured. Attacks against U.S. forces now average 87 per day, the worst monthly average, reports Newsweek, "since Bush's flight-suited visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln in May 2003." Casualty figures keep escalating: the U.S. death toll passed 1,000 last week and over 7,000 have been wounded. Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted this weekend, "We did miscalculate the difficulty" of winning the peace in Iraq.

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/lookup.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480


As a sidebar, if US forces do go into Falujah and other Iraqi cities to quell the insurgency, most likely this will take place in December or thereabouts, assuming Bush wins the election. Which for the past 4 to 6 months American servicemen and women who have been killed in Iraq have given their lives for the reelection of George Bush.

dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

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Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 09-14-2004 - 12:50pm
Sadly, I agree with you. How does the president plan to salvage what is rapidly becoming a guerilla war, much like Vietnam?

"Where are our sons?" she said. "What have the Americans done to us? What have our sons done to the Americans?"

September 14, 2004

Car Bomb Kills at Least 47 at a Police Headquarters in Baghdad

By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 14 — A suicide car bomb packed with artillery shells exploded outside police headquarters here this morning, ripping into a crowd of hundreds of young men seeking to join the nascent Iraqi police force and killing at least 47 people and wounding 114 others, police and health officials said.

That attack was followed by a drive-by ambush northeast of the capital, in which gunmen killed 11 policemen and one civilian in the restive city of Baquba. In the afternoon, another car bomb exploded in downtown Baghdad near a convoy of sport utility vehicles carrying civilian contractors, but only the bomber was killed, witnesses and policemen said.

Together, the assaults marked one of the deadliest days in Iraq in months, as insurgents continued a brazen campaign to strike at the very heart of the American-backed interim government here, topple its fledgling institutions and drive out the American occupiers. The morning bomb killed more people than any since July, when a suicide car bomb killed at least 70 people in Baquba, including men lining up outside a police recruiting center.

The latest bloody drive began on Sunday, when insurgents staged a highly coordinated hours-long attack on the fortified government headquarters and other sites around the country, resulting in the deaths of at least 78 Iraqis and the wounding of at least 200 others.

The escalating violence throughout the country, following on the heels of an incendiary uprising by Shiite militiamen last month, demonstrates that the insurgency has actually gained in strength, efficiency and popularity since Prime Minister Ayad Allawi took office on June 28, and that the interim government has so far failed to exercise enough power or win enough street support to quell the hostilities.

Despite insistence by Bush administration officials that general elections for a constitutional assembly will be held by January, the disintegrating state of security here raises serious doubts about whether such elections can take place or whether their results will be viewed as legitimate by any meaningful share of the population.

The ceaseless bloodletting was brought into stark clarity at the scene of the first car bomb today, which exploded around 10 a.m. near Haifa Street, where insurgents have repeatedly clashed with American soldiers. Bits of flesh hung from trees, concertina wire and buildings, while boys raced around scooping up chunks onto pieces of cardboard and one man held up a torso-sized portion. Policemen, bystanders and journalists at the scene could not take a single step without walking through pools of blood or treading on pieces of flesh.

At least a half-dozen cars were incinerated, and bits of glass and metal — as well as dead birds — lay scattered across the street.

People had gathered together a pile of 100 shoes and sandals belonging to the dead and wounded.

"It happened all of a sudden," said Ayad Hussein, 24, a young man who in the morning went to police headquarters hoping to get a job interview and by noon was lying bandaged and half-naked in a bed at nearby Karama Hospital. "I flew into the air and landed on the ground. I saw body parts all over the place."

The health minister, Abdul Sahib al-Alwan, strode out of the hospital after visiting with doctors and said that "the terrorist groups are attempting to impede the rebuilding of Iraq."

The headquarters of the Iraqi police is a white-walled compound on the western side of the Tigris River and near a neighborhood populated by remnants of the former ruling Baath Party.

Despite repeated attacks in the last year on large groups of men standing outside police and army recruitment offices, policemen had told job seekers to wait outside the compound. One policeman at the scene said this was done because many of the men had shown up without an appointment. And so hundreds from across Iraq gathered on a corner where children usually play pool on outdoor tables and video games inside a shop.

Perhaps as disturbing as the attack itself, though, was the reaction of the crowd at the scene. Gripped by an anti-American fervor all too common these days, dozens of men rushed at a Western cameraman and chanted, "Bush is a dog, Bush is a dog!"

They held up bits of the artillery shells and said American warplanes had fired missiles at the police recruits.

This rumor was echoed by wounded police officers.

"I saw American helicopters bomb one of the cars, and then they bombed another car," said Sgt. Kassim Mahmoud, 32, as he sat grimacing in pain in Karkh Hospital, his left leg wrapped in a bloody bandage. "But I don't think this will make us afraid."

Two policemen standing next to him looked on silently in agreement as nearby nurses put white gauze on a man shredded by dozens of pieces of shrapnel. The man bit his teeth in pain and shut his eyes. Tears streamed from their edges.

At the bomb scene, a woman in black robes knelt down by a pool of blood and began wailing, almost collapsing to the ground.

"Where are our sons?" she said. "What have the Americans done to us? What have our sons done to the Americans?"

At Karama Hospital, another woman threw a shoe at

http://nytimes.com/2004/09/14/international/14CND_IRAQ.html?hp




C

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Tue, 09-14-2004 - 1:16pm
"Sadly, I agree with you. How does the president plan to salvage what is rapidly becoming a guerilla war, much like Vietnam?"

Assuming they win reelection they have on of two choices.

1). A massive show of force and invasion of Falujah and other insurgency strongholds. In order to pacify the country this should have been done BEFORE trumpeting "Mission Accomplished". The problem is that urban street fighting is some of the most vicious, violent fighting during war. Had they done it then, the American casualty figures might have skyrocketed to unacceptable levels on the eve of a political campaign, and Iraqis and the Middle East would have been outraged at the destruction and loss of life. As it is, if they go this route this will happen anyway, after the loss of hundreds of Ameican lives in the meantime.

This will also require many more troops than are in Iraq now, most likely another reason they are waiting till after the election, they don't want to be seen increasing troop strength as was done in Vietnam. In the meantime the insurgency grows more powerful, there are reports that they are now using armor piercing bullets. God protect our troops over there.

2). The other alternative is to do what was suggested in Vietnam, announce that we won and pull out. I don't think that this will happen because this would leave Iraq as a radical state much more dangerous now than it ever was, if it ever was. We might also just retreat to our bases and leave the country to it's own fate, but again I don't think this will happen, it would leave an extremely radicallized Iraq.


All of this should have been taken into account BEFORE the rush to war, this is why for the rational war is the diplomatic option of last resort, not first. Saddam is 66 or 67 years old. Time and patience would have taken care of this for us. As he aged he would have been less and less likely to survive Iraqi politics.

"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."

-- Sir Winston Churchill

dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Tue, 09-14-2004 - 1:35pm
Why didn't they wait to say "mission accomplished" when the troops were home? Aren't they still at war so therefore the mission isn't done with? XOXO.
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-09-2003
Tue, 09-14-2004 - 2:19pm
"Why didn't they wait to say "mission accomplished" when the troops were home? Aren't they still at war so therefore the mission isn't done with?"

Good question... I've often wondered that myself.

"Without music, life is a journey through the desert"...

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Tue, 09-14-2004 - 3:59pm
"Why didn't they wait to say "mission accomplished" when the troops were home? Aren't they still at war so therefore the mission isn't done with?"

"Good question... I've often wondered that myself."

Because they are ideologues, and ideologues see the world in terms of their ideology. If the world and reality don't match their ideology, they ignore reality and claim it isn't REALLY taking place. They can't conceive that their ideology is wrong. Communists are leftist ideolgues who do exactly the same thing, but that's a discussion for another thread.

Our ideologues' ideology told them that the whole world LOVES Americans, especially sanctimonious, self-righteous Americans who get their marching orders directly from God. Given this, the Iraqis would welcome us with flowers, as the French did during the liberation of Paris, Iran and Syria would immediately fold their governments and become democracies, the Palestinians would sue Israel for peace, the entire world would tremble before American might, and the lion would lie down with the lamb.

I suspect that they actually believed their own PR and believed that Iraq was on the verge of being pacified when Flight Suit Johnny landed on the flight deck. They were blind to the mistakes they made, the biggest being dismantling the Iraqi army and purging Baathists from all viable employment.

I'm not sure why they didn't figure that the remnants of the Iraqi army and the Baathists have families that need to be fed too, and that if they were denied the ability to do this through legitimate means they would do so through illegitimate means. What did they think these people would do? Leave the country? Curl up and die?

This campaign will be studied for years for the blunders made throughout it. Tragically it will do enormous harm to this country's long term interests and no matter who wins in November America's sons and daughters will continue to bleed in Iraq for a long time to come. At this point there is no easy way out.

And for those who march off to war, or send others marching off to war, because they claim God is in direct communication with them, I offer this:

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."

--Susan B. Anthony

dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-06-2004
Tue, 09-14-2004 - 5:32pm
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."

--Susan B. Anthony

Now THAT is a great quote! I was just saying on another thread yesterday that I get very worried when the leader of any large country brings God into the mix......especially saying they are "guided by God." I absolutely want my government and religion separate. Isn't that what most extremists say? That they are doing God's work???

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Tue, 09-14-2004 - 5:56pm
"Who needs Tokyo Rose when we've got you?

Treason, aid and comfort to the enemy... anything goes when you're trying to overthrow a sitting Republican president in time of war.

Fortunately, your "strategy" is failing miserably."

Thanks for you insightful reply.


"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."

~Kierkegaard


dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Tue, 09-14-2004 - 10:30pm
<< overthrow>> thats laughable it's called an election which we have every right to have.
Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 09-15-2004 - 10:42am
Will the draft have to be re-instituted if and when option 1's massive show of force is set in motion? I agree with you that option 2 is unlikely, which again brings up the question of US troop strength.

C

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-1999
Wed, 09-15-2004 - 5:29pm
"Will the draft have to be re-instituted if and when option 1's massive show of force is set in motion?"

I don't think so, it would be political and social dynamite. My guess is that they will pull troops from Japan, Germany, Korea and other areas. Of course, one might wonder why they would pull troops from Asia with North Korea on the verge of developing the bomb, but given their 4 year record of failure, nothing would surprise me.


"I agree with you that option 2 is unlikely, which again brings up the question of US troop strength. "

Which is why all of the talk about invading Iran or North Korea is nonsense, we've painted ourselves into a corner in Iraq chasing non-existant WMDs and al Qaeda connections


C

dablacksox


Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

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