represent one of the more glaring examples of Iraqi security forces on their American partners to devastating effect."
They are trying to kill us. What are we doing there?
Add that to the fact that on October 21, 2007 the US is being accused of attacking women and children in Sadr City and you must conclude that the time to get out is now!
The article "Iraqi Police Tied to Attack on U.S. Base -- 8 Officers Arrested in Rocket Strike That Killed 2 American Soldiers in Baghdad" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/20/AR2007102001009_pf.html
states "The men gathered in the evening at the schoolyard to execute their attack. By the time they finished, at least seven rockets had crashed down nearly four miles away inside the American military headquarters compound in
Baghdad, killing two U.S. soldiers and wounding at least 38 other people, according to U.S. soldiers.
From the courtyard of his concrete-barricaded garrison in southwestern Baghdad that evening, Lt. Col. Patrick Frank heard the distinctive sound of rocket fire.
He hurried inside his command office to flat-screen panels displaying aerial imagery to pinpoint the launch site.
Within minutes, his cellphone began ringing. Several Iraqi informants told him the attack had originated near the decrepit school in al-Amil, recalled Frank, the battalion commander in the neighborhood. His sources agreed on another thing, too, he said: "There were several Iraqi police vehicles spotted leaving the scene."...
But if the police are found guilty, the Camp Victory assault would represent one of the more glaring examples of Iraqi security forces turning on their American
partners to devastating effect.
"It's no secret the Iraqi police have some systemic problems with corruption," said Maj. Bill Kinsey, operations officer for the 1st Infantry Division's 1st
Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment. "They've got dirty cops. I would say 'just like anywhere else,' but there's more of them and the stakes are higher."
The US military is becoming blase' about the people who they are training and equipping turning against them as "For folks who've never been out or never been deployed before, it is a big deal. Then there are those that know it's part of the deal with being over here and the chances of getting hit are very slim," a U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity because he was not
authorized to speak publicly about the incident. "This attack, in the context of our time here, isn't all that surprising, but it has been a while since we've been hit like that."
The October 22, 2007 Informed Comment at
http://www.juancole.com/
details how we aren't taking proper care in our airstrikes with "collateral damage" being the predictable outcome as "So the US military went into Sadr City or the Shiite slums of East Baghdad in search of the leader of a "special group" or cell of the Mahdi Army whom they suspected of being part of a kidnapping -for- ransom ring. Then they took hostile fire from, well, hostile Shiite slum militiamen. The troops called in an air strike on the building from which the fire came. You can't, obviously, avoid killing civilians if you bomb a heavily populated slum from the air. So the real question is how many civilians they killed this way. The Iraqi government maintains that the victims were mostly children and innocent non-combatants, and PM Nuri al-Maliki has ordered an investigation-- to mollify the very angry Iraqi Shiites who saw the bombing as a war crime.
The US military did not catch the cell leader they were originally after."
They didn't achieve the intended outcome and the disgust with us because of these atrocities is unsurprising.
W's people will say it isn't so, but a picture tells a thousand words and regarding this massacre Associated Press photos showed the bodies of two toddlers, one with a gouged face, swaddled in blankets on a morgue floor. Their shirts were pulled up, exposing their abdomens, and a diaper showed above the waistband of one boy's shorts. Relatives said the children were killed when helicopter gunfire hit their house as they slept.
It doesn't matter what the US propaganda rags say. We'd like to know what the people close to "those who are against us" think. The article details how "Both
[Aljazeera and Alarabiya] channels reported the US version of events, which states that US forces entered the area in pursuit of Al-Mahdi Army elements suspected of masterminding the abduction and murder of US soldiers, but were forced to open fire and call in air support when a bomb targeted them, ultimately killing 49 gunmen and no civilians. The channels, however, were more interested in the Iraqi version, which speaks of multiple civilian casualties."
They conducted some interview and "At 2039 GMT, Al-Jazirah interviewed Shaykh Salah al-Ubaydi, head of the media branch of the Martyr Al-Sadr Office, who maintained that there were no clashes with the Al-Mahdi Army, that US helicopters bombed residential neighborhoods on the outskirts of Al-Sadr City, and that most of the casualties
were civilian."
W should be frightened off from wars after his failures in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but no--he and his president of vice, the v.p. Heartless, reckless, feckless Cheney are itching to go after Iran. Dicky, who is the operator behind the curtain for the current US version of the "Wizard of Oz", with W reprising the feeble lead character. Dicky, the "lord of darkness" is the ultimate one trick pony-always stuck in the attack mode on every issue-the more bloodshed the better.
The article "Cheney targets Iran nuclear plan" at
http://www.miamiherald.com/519/story/279800.html
states "The United States and other nations will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday.''Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions,''
Cheney said in a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Studies.
He said Iran's efforts to pursue technology that would allow it to build a nuclear weapon are obvious and that ''the regime continues to practice delay and deceit in an obvious effort to buy time.''"
What does his talking puppet big bro 43 say? W's warning "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be
interested in preventing them [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon" sounds unstable and had to be cleared up by his minions as
"Bush's spokeswoman said the president was making not making war plans but rather "a rhetorical point."
W is saber rattling about not allowing Iran to possess the knowledge of producing nuclear weapons. Anyone with access to the Internet possesses that knowledge. They are making their lies line up in order that they can attack Iran.
We are in one Middle East country in which the people we've trained and equipped are trying to kill us. Add that to the fact that the US is being accused of attacking women and children in Sadr City, and you realize it is time to cut our losses. We are in over our heads and these sects have had much more training in duplicity than W can ever hope to achieve.
Why are the Reckless, Feckless one and W--the ultimate caricature within a caricature who is trying, but dismally failing, to play a role of a strong, decisive, war-time president, trying to prolong our agony in the region. We've seen this before. They are only repeating almost verbatim these identical, transparent facades which are purporting to provide evidence of Iran's possession of imminent threats against the US. They will eventually pretend these hypocrisies are rationales for war--just as they did so recently for Iraq.