seven more

I hate to quote Bill Maher, but I'm pissed that more people aren't pissed.

How can these soldiers, whose families are all around us, be so far from our minds that we don't even pause anymore when we hear about their deaths? And we don't. I'm guilty of it myself. We were all shocked by the shit that went down at VaTech, and rightfully so, but you could fill the classrooms at several colleges with the kids who have died in Iraq.

What's almost as frustrating to me is that every time the deaths are mentioned, it gets turned into a political pissing match, which I really can't understand. Because to have a match of any kind, you need two sides. Figure that shit out. I mean, WHO'S STILL DEFENDING THE SIDE THAT'S KEEPING THESE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN OVER THERE?

I've said it since day one of this bullshit war: We, as a country, which I think still includes the president, made a solemn, unmistakeable promise to every man and woman who signed up and swore to risk their lives for the protection of this country. That promise was that we would never put their lives at risk unless it was our absolute last resort.

The moron running this country broke that promise.

 

Without question, he must go to tribunal.

 

More people aren't pissed because we're not being asked to sacrifice anything. Those who have loved ones over there obviously have a stake in the outcome, but what about the other 295-million Americans? There is no draft, we aren't being asked to ration meat, gas, bread, like in WWII. People are too damn happy? content? don't give a crap about their neighbors to care about kids dying. But, gas goes up by a quarter, and its like aremgeddon (sp?) for those people.

what is the solution? Pull out entirely, then let AL-Qaida take over? Just like what happened in Afghanistan in the 80s. Then we sit back and wait for the next 9-11. Or DO we continue to send kids to the meat grinder with no end in sight? that's not a strategy either. Bush abdicated his responsibility when he assigned this "War czar" last week. He got us into this mess, now he assigns a fall guy? Dude, take control, take the handcuffs off the soldiers and let them fight the war they need to, lest Baghdad becomes another Saigon.

 

how many fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters will have their hearts ripped out today? anyone?

if you find a number, please tell us how many innocent iraqi women and children died monday as well.


another day in iraq. ho-hum.

 

No, pull out and let the Shia take over. The Shia will take care of what Al Qaeda there is in western Iraq. The Shi'ites and their Iranian backers are quite frankly the lesser of two evils.

Al-Sadr is laying low because he knows the U.S. is concentrating on Sunnis in Anbar, the Triangle and Baghdad. He's letting us do the dirty work for him. He knows the Shia are the majority and will win any national election easily, so he's biding his time until whats-his-face that's the prime minister now either eats lead or quits.

I say end all the pretense and hand the country over now. It seems Sadr's fighters are far more competent than the 6,000 Iraqis ready now.

 

god bless the usa



BAGHDAD - A parked car bomb ripped through a crowded outdoor market in southwestern Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 25 people despite a 3-month-old security crackdown meant to reduce violence in the capital.

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At least 60 people were wounded in the 10 a.m. blast in the Shiite-dominated neighborhood of Amil. Nearby buildings were badly damaged and set ablaze, while others were reduced to rubble. Residents ran through the streets with buckets and pots of water, while others frantically tore through the rubble, looking for survivors. Groups of men carried bodies wrapped in tarps out of the damaged buildings.

"There were four women around my stall when we heard a loud explosion, which threw me many meters away from my stall," said Fadhil Hussein, 32, who sells spices in the market and suffered shrapnel wounds in his back and head. "I found myself in a pickup truck with other people. Some of them were bleeding and yelling."

Sami Hussein, 25, was heading to the market with her 5-year old son when she heard the blast, "followed by gray and black smoke, which engulfed the market and made me to fall on the ground."

She suffered shrapnel wounds in her face and legs.

"I lost my son, and have no idea about his fate," she said. Medical officials at the hospital said her son had been killed in the explosion.

The neighborhood has seen an increase in violence in recent weeks, and Sunni politicians expressed fears that Shiite militiamen had resumed their campaign of sectarian cleansing in Amil and nearby neighborhoods of southwestern Baghdad.

The blast came amid the U.S. and Iraqi security operation meant to flush out insurgents and restore order to Baghdad. However deadly attacks targeting civilians and police have continued.

U.S. military officials say that insurgent groups, feeling the pressure from the crackdown, have hit back by stepping up their car bombing attacks with their devastating death tolls. A May 6 bombing in a market in the neighboring Baiyaa district, killed 30 people and wounded 80 others.

A few minutes before the bombing in Amil, which adjoins the neighborhood where the May 6 blast occurred, gunmen in two cars drove through the nearby Khadra neighborhood and ambushed a civilian car carrying three plainclothes police officers from the major crimes unit, killing two and wounding the third, police said.

Police and other Iraqi security officers have been heavily targeted by insurgents, who accuse them of collaborating with U.S.-led forces in the country.

Another police officer was killed when a roadside bomb exploded next to a police patrol driving through an eastern Baghdad neighborhood about 9 a.m., police said. Three other officers were wounded in the attack.

Later Tuesday, two mortar shells slammed into a teacher's college affiliated with Baghdad University, killing three students and injuring seven, police said.

In the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, a sniper shot two civilians, killing one and wounding the other, police said.

The violence came as U.S. politicians debated how long U.S. troops will remain in Iraq. A senior American official warned Monday that the Bush administration may reconsider its support if Iraqi leaders do not make major reforms by fall.

The U.S. official, who briefed reporters on condition his name not be published, did not say what actions could be taken by the White House, but his comments reflected the Bush administration's need to show results in Iraq — as an answer to pressure by the Democrats in Congress seeking to set timetables on the U.S. military presence.

Also Monday, British troops clashed with Shiite Muslim gunmen in the southern city of Basra. Britain's military said one British soldier and a civilian driver were killed when a supply convoy was attacked in the center of the city, Iraq's second biggest.

Elsewhere, U.S. troops raided safe houses south of Baghdad but failed to find three soldiers missing since a May 12 ambush that left four other Americans and an Iraqi dead.

"We've (identified) some safe houses and we targeted a couple of those today and they were able to slip away from us. But we're going to come at things from a different angle," a U.S. spokesman, Maj. Webster Wright, said without elaborating.

U.S. officers said the search by thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers may be forcing the kidnappers to move the three Americans frequently, preventing insurgents from posting pictures of their captives on the Internet.

"We choose to be cautiously optimistic," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch told CNN. "We're pursuing all leads with a passion, but right now we believe our soldiers are still alive. Each day that passes when we don't see proof of life, it causes us concern."

With violence raging, pressure is mounting on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to demonstrate progress on key reforms or risk losing American support for the unpopular war.

Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi said that Iraq's military was drawing up plans to cope with any quick U.S. military pullout.

"The army plans on the basis of a worst case scenario so as not to allow any security vacuum," al-Obeidi said. "There are meetings with political leaders on how we can deal with a sudden pullout."

A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said Bush expressed confidence in al-Maliki during a telephone call Monday to the Iraqi leader.

He said the two talked about political progress in Iraq, and al-Maliki gave Bush updates on two key U.S. demands — legislation to share Iraq's oil wealth among its regions and ethnic groups and a reform of the constitution.

But two senior Iraqi officials told The Associated Press that Bush warned al-Maliki that Washington expected to see "tangible results quickly" on the oil bill and other legislation as the price for continued support.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information.

 

Every one of you should be a-fucking-shamed of yourselves. Using dead men and women to make a political point. That's about as sick as it can get, people.

You make me sick.

 

if we weren't in iraq, these 7 people would still be alive. can't run from the facts, buddy.

 

Riiiiiiiiggggggtt.

 

Good. I'm glad you can use Google.

It's just a little more personal to me than to others.

 

You know what might make this hit home for people? Next round of American Idol, the winner has to agree to spend a tour in Iraq.

Bet that would make folks take notice.