THE 600TH AMERICAN DEATH IN IRAQ

The Iraqi People have been liberated, not conquered.
Yes, that is why the US & UK refuse to leave. The colony must be managed by force and fear. The Iraqis are going to accept the US dictated style of democracy or else.

When the US troops death toll reaches 50,000 the American population might become concerned. As has been pointed out 600 dead and around 3, 000 maimed is insignificant. 50, 000 die each yr. in the US due to traffic accidents.

".......can you suggest an alternative ... a firm with the expertise and resources disposed by Haliburton?" timberlandko

Actually, there were several firms with the "expertise" of Haliburton to reap the windfall of tens and possibly hundreds of billion of dollars of Federal government contracts in Iraq's rebuilding.

But alas, they weren't Cheney's former employer, and they aren't the firm Cheney happens to own 433,000 shares of stock.

Perhaps you, as a Bush loyalist, find nothing immoral in Haliburton feeding at the government trough, not having to bid, and then overcharging US taxpayers millions for a wide range of items, including the food to feed US troops stationed in a place they don't belong in the first place, all the while making Cheney as wealthy as a Rockefeller, but many Americans are appalled, and rightfully so.

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timberlandko,
You write like a nice man. You state it so much less severe than it is.

My dentist is a nice man-- he says, "This wont hurt a bit...."


(ummmhummm)

D'art, I appreciate what you're saying. There is ample room for historically validated concern. I trust we've learned some over the intervening years. I devoutly hope we have.

pistoff, I have a particular personal appreciation for what you say, too. I will, however, refrain from indulging myself by offering details of that personal appreciation.

Titus, I just don't find your concerns validated by the preponderance of evidence. As to "No Bid", for instance, Halliburton, during the Previous Administration, bid on and won the contract to serve the very function they now perform. I disagree any other firm, not Slumberger, not Krupp, not Thomson, boasts the capabilities, the resources, and, in particular, the already in-place-in-the-region-before-any-of-this-started infrastructure of Halliburton. I find the strident allegations of impropriety and highly placed governmental collusion merely the ludicrous rantings of folks either who are totally without a clue or who are so wrapped in anti-Bush/Anti-US/Anti-War agenda and rhetoric as to make clues meaningless. If wrongdoing exists, as always it does, it should be, has been, and will be exposed, and addressed in appropriate ammeliorative, corrective, and punitive manner. What is not going alltogether well, IMO, is the effort to portray the undertaking in Iraq as going unwell.

theoldlay, I don't think I portray the "severity" in any way less than it is. I do follow The Media, of course, and I follow unedited raw live broadcast news feeds and by-subscription wireservice ticker streams, but beyond that, I am in day-to-day contact with folks actually on-the-ground in Iraq, people, in a variety of capacities and positions, associated with the Coallition Authority, people in the military of several Coalition parners, people employed by civilian contractors, and Iraqi people themselves. From the folks who are there, I get a different picture than that fed to folks by folks who want to promote their own version of what is going on. Yes there are serious problems. Yes there have been, and will continue to be, for quite some time, attacks aimed at derailing the process. Despite that, the process is succeeding, from what I see. Others may see it differently, but that is how I see it, and I put a good bit of energy into looking at it.

Occupation Iraq
Here is a place where one can learn more about the Occupation.

http://occupationwatch.org/

"Titus, I just don't find your concerns validated by the preponderance of evidence." timberland

LOL!!!

You do make me laugh. How many moe times must Cheney's Haliburton get busted for ripping off and overcharging the American taxpayer until you wake up?[/color]

Titus, untill such time as substantive legal finding in such matters is handed down there is no finding; there simply are allegations, whether sustainable or not, untill official charges have been filed and legal proceedings have concluded there are merely allegations. In point of fact, no legal action focusing on impropriety re Cheney/Halliburton has been initiated. With all the anger and outrage behind the allegations swirling around the issue, you'd think someone would have properly formulated and correctly filed charges or at the very least initiated specific Congressional Inquiry Into Items of Impeachment by now. Lots of lawyer types out there would love to have Cheney's head. Unfortunately for them, there is no legal basis on which they may proceed. If and when legitimate charges may be brought to bear against Cheney, or any other government figure,, the matter would certainly merit, and surely receive, the stiffest of scrutiny. Should a finding not in Cheney's or any other government figure's favor be delivered, Cheney or whoever should be subjected to the full presence and weight of such remedy as may be available under law. As more than one vice president and president have found out, even they are not above the law.

Until such time as any of that happens, you've got no case. The folks who won't wake up to that are the ones who are dreaming. Conviction-by-innuendo has no legitimacy whatsoever. Those who alledge wrongoing must make, and prove, their case, not merely spread their allegations. The former is correct legal proceedure. The latter is irresponsible, and may itself be criminal. At the very least, it is juvenile.

I read the title of the discussion...and then I read Timber's post...and then I read the title of the discussion...and then I read some of the earlier posts...and then the title of the discussion.
Never mind. It's only 600.

That's what you get for jumpin' in late, RJB ... sorry if my participation in a digression put you off. I can see where it might have. My fault, I'm sure.

Timber, Do you remember the term Vietnamization? That was the plan for our exit strategy from Viet Nam. How long did it last after most of our troops pulled out? I was on Guam when the south fell. Operation New Life, C141's were coming in round the clock for days loaded with refugees. We had to help save those that worked with us. After the planes slowed down, then came the ships loaded with even greater numbers of refugees. Guam had more than a hundred thousand refugees temporarily housed there before being sent to the mainland.

I agree that we now have to make the best of it. It just pains me that this administration could nor forsee our current situation when it was so glaringly obvious. I see our current situation as eerily similar to the Vietnamization plan of Nixon. I hope I am wrong.

I remeber it well. mesquite ... too damned well for comfort. An image I found particularly striking, and horribly unforgettable, was the pushing of perfectly good helicopters into the sea from the decks of carriers so more refugee-laden hd, discharge their wretched human cargo, and join the machines sunk before them to allow yet more of the outrage to continue. And I remeber the images of the last helicopter to leave the US Embassy compound in Saigon, and I remember the images of the NVA tanks, flag-bedecked and aswarm with jubilant troops, rolling through the gates of the Presidential Palace. I sincerely hope we've learned from that, and that we employ what we've learned to best effect. In the same vein, I sincerely hope we learned from Mogadishu as well, and never repeat that sort of blunder, either. One can always hope.

After seeing what these people did to the civilian bodies and how jubilant they were, I think we should just blow the **** out of that whole city, and make it into a cemetary for them instead of us. All of 'em. F*ck 'em.

Fresh thinking, kickycan. I'm sure that would clear the air and solve the problems we've been having there.

But why stop at that? Let's think big here. A few well-placed nuclear bombs might teach them a valuable lesson...

Cordone off the city. Inspect every vehicle and person entering or leaving the city. No Americans allowed inside the city. When those that commited the crimes come forward, or are brought forward, the embargo could be lifted. Otherwise, they can sit and rot in their filth.

Yes, screw it all. Why do we pretend that everybody is so civilized? These were average citizens over there, and they do **** like that?! Maybe they just haven't caught on to the whole idea that the world is past that religious zealotry savagery. Too bad for them. If that whole city was turned into a parking lot the world would be a beter place.

Or, why not just adapt the tactics of the Nazi occupiers of Poland? Select hostages, and execute one per hour until teh perpetrators come forward. Or simply cordon off a block and execute everyone there as revenge! Yeah, that'll show 'em not to object to the "freedom and deomocracy" we brought!

Of course, the fact that another country has occupied them has nothing to do with any of this, right?

I don't know why you would want such an extreme answer. I think a barbed wire wall around the city would do just fine. There is no need to kill anyone, but those that carried out these attacks need to be brought to justice.

hobit, Now you're on the right track. Maybe we could just kill a few of them, drag their bodies through the streets, chop off a couple of limbs for good measure, and see how big the celebration is for that little party! ****, I think Saddam was the best man for the job over there, after seeing that crap! Yeah, I'm sure that Democracy and freedom is going to work real well over there.