Will of the people on Iraq

map: I also agree with the impeachment of the administrative branch, as they were very much involved with every aspect that has led us to where we are today. But where I disagree is the impeachment of our current house/senate, it was not this house or senate that was a simple rubber stamp for everything Bush wanted to do.

I agree almost 90 percent with your assessment; however (and there's always a "but") the current congress is also a "rubber stamp" for Bush even after the American electorate gave this congress a mandate to change course. The biggest problem is that the house of representatives must bring the charge of impeachment, and the senate must perform it. Not likely to happen.

I think there was a mandate to change course, I agree with you. But I do not see how they could have done that with the slim majority they have now.

I agree; not only are dems voting with the republicans on Bush's demands, but the republicans prefer to stick with their moron leader rather than listen to the American People. I hope the American People get their comeupance during the next election and vote all them out of office.

The 11 Republicans who pleaded with President Bush about the Iraq war in a private meeting this week all voted against two critical bills yesterday that would have forced Bush to change his war policy.

In private, the members issued a "blunt warning" to Bush "that conditions needed to improve markedly."

In public, all 11 members aligned with Bush and opposed one bill that would have redeployed U.S. forces out of Iraq in nine months, and another that would make continued funding of the war in Iraq dependent on a July progress report from the administration. (Roll calls for those votes are HERE and HERE.)

The list of 11 members:

Fred Upton (MI)
Mike Castle (DE)
Charles Dent (PA)
Jo Ann Davis (VA)
Todd Russell Platts (PA)
Jim Ramstad (MN)
Jo Ann Emerson (MO)
Mark Kirk (IL)
Jim Gerlach (PA)
Jim Walsh (NY)
Ray Lahood (IL)

Cleric calls for U.S. pullout from Iraq

By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 24 minutes ago



BAGHDAD - Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr appeared in public for the first time in months on Friday, delivering a fiery anti-American sermon to thousands of followers and demanding U.S. troops leave Iraq.

It was not immediately clear why he chose to return now to his base in the Shiite holy city of Najaf from Iran. His speech had new nationalist overtones, calling on Sunnis to join with him in the fight against the U.S. presence. He also criticized the government's inability to provide reliable services to its people.

I thinks he has visions of being the top dog in an islamic law ran Iraq.

The House voted 280-142 to pass the bill, followed by a 80-14 vote in the Senate.

Thank you from the Shia of Iraq for freeing them from the oppression of Saddam.

QUOTATION OF THE DAY -

"No, no, no to Satan! No, no, no to America! No, no, no to occupation! No, no, no to Israel!"
- MOKTADA AL-SADR, the populist Shiite cleric, speaking to worshipers
yesterday on his return to Iraq

maybe its time for another revolution?

i can feel the flames already, bring it

Where is Saddam when we need him?
He had it right these people need a strong and ruthless leader to keep the peace. Democracy and Islam are not compatible.

That's where Bush failed his history; they've been fighting for 1400 years, and Bush thought he could bring democracy into the Middle East with a occupation.

What a dork! We don't need another "D" student in the white house - ever!

With allies in enemy ranks, GIs in Iraq are no longer true believers


By Michael Kamber Published: May 27, 2007





BAGHDAD: Staff Sergeant David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents.

"In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place," he said. "There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome."

But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this past February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber's body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.

"I thought, 'What are we doing here? Why are we still here?' " said Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. "We're helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us."

His views are echoed by most of his fellow soldiers in Delta Company, renowned for its aggressiveness.


A small minority of Delta Company soldiers - the younger, more recent enlistees in particular - seem to still wholeheartedly support the war. Others are ambivalent, torn between fear of losing more friends in battle, longing for their families and a desire to complete their mission.
With few reliable surveys of soldiers' attitudes, it is impossible to simply extrapolate from the small number of soldiers in Delta Company. But in interviews with more than a dozen soldiers over a one-week period, most said they were disillusioned by repeated deployments, by what they saw as the abysmal performance of Iraqi security forces and by a conflict that they considered a civil war, one they had no ability to stop.

They had seen shadowy militia commanders installed as Iraqi Army officers, they said, had come under increasing attack from roadside bombs - planted within sight of Iraqi Army checkpoints - and had fought against Iraqi soldiers whom they thought were their allies.

"In 2003, 2004, 100 percent of the soldiers wanted to be here, to fight this war," said Sergeant First Class David Moore, a self-described "conservative Texas Republican" and platoon sergeant who strongly advocates an American withdrawal. "Now, 95 percent of my platoon agrees with me."

It is not a question of loyalty, the soldiers insist. Safstrom, for example, comes from a thoroughly military family. His mother and father have served in the armed forces, as have his three sisters, one brother and several uncles. One week after the Sept. 11 attacks, he walked into a recruiter's office and joined the army.

"You guys want to start a fight in my backyard, I got something for you," he recalls thinking at the time.

But in Safstrom's view, the American presence is futile. "If we stayed here for 5, even 10 more years, the day we leave here these guys will go crazy," he said. "It would go straight into a civil war. That's how it feels, like we're putting a Band-Aid on this country until we leave here."

Their many deployments have added to the strain. After spending six months in Iraq, the soldiers of Delta Company had been home for only 24 hours last December when the news came. "Change your plans," they recall being told. "We're going back to Iraq."

Nineteen days later, just after Christmas, Captain Douglas Rogers and the men of Delta Company were on their way to Khadimiya, a Shiite enclave of about 300,000. As part of the so-called surge of American troops, their primary mission was to maintain stability in the area and to prepare the Iraqi Army and police to take control of the neighborhood.

"I thought it would not be long before we could just stay on our base and act as a quick-reaction force," said the barrel-chested Rogers of San Antonio, Texas. "The Iraqi security forces would step up." It has not worked out that way. Still, Rogers says their mission in Khadimiya has been "an amazing success."

"We've captured 4 of the top 10 most-wanted guys in this area," he said. And the streets of Khadimiya are filled with shoppers and the stores are open, he added, a rarity in Baghdad due partly to Delta Company's patrols.

Rogers acknowledges the skepticism of many of his soldiers. "Our unit has already sent two soldiers home in a box," he said. "My soldiers don't see the same level of commitment from the Iraqi Army units they're partnered with."

1
Yet there is, he insists, no crisis of morale: "My guys are all professionals. I tell them to do something, they do it."

His dictum is proven on patrol, where his soldiers walk the streets for hours in the stifling heat, providing cover for one another with a crisp efficiency.

On April 29, a Delta Company patrol was responding to a tip at the Sadr mosque, a short distance from its base. The soldiers saw men in the distance erecting burning barricades, and the streets emptied out quickly. Then a militia, believed to be the Mahdi army, began firing at them from rooftops and windows.

Sergeant Kevin O'Flarity, a squad leader, jumped into his Humvee to join his fellow soldiers, racing through abandoned Iraqi Army and police checkpoints to the battle site.

He and his squad maneuvered their Humvees through alleyways and side streets, firing back at an estimated 60 insurgents during a gunfight that raged for two and a half hours. A rocket-propelled grenade glanced off O'Flarity's Humvee, failing to penetrate.

When the battle was over, Delta Company learned that among the enemy dead were at least two Iraqi Army soldiers that American forces had helped train and arm.

Rogers admits that, "the 29th was a watershed moment in a negative sense, because the Iraqi Army would not fight with us," he said, adding that "some actually picked up weapons and fought against us." The battle changed the attitude among his soldiers toward the war, he said.

"Before that fight, there were a few true believers." Rogers said. "After the 29th, I don't think you'll find a true believer in this unit. They're paratroopers. There's no question they'll fulfill their mission. But they're fighting now for pride in their unit, professionalism, loyalty to their fellow soldier and chain of command."

To O'Flarity, the Iraqi security forces are militias beholden to local leaders, not the Iraqi government. "Half of the Iraqi security forces are insurgents," he said.

As for his views on the war, O'Flarity said, "I don't believe we should be here in the middle of a civil war."

"We've all lost friends over here," he said. "Most of us don't know what we're fighting for anymore. We're serving our country and friends, but the only reason we go out every day is for each other."

"I don't want any more of my guys to get hurt or die. If it was something I felt righteous about, maybe. But for this country and this conflict, no, it's not worth it."

Who says the action in Iraq was not a success ? Certainly not the terrorists. For them it couldn't have been more successful.


Militants Widen Reach as Terror Seeps Out of Iraq
By MICHAEL MOSS and SOUAD MEKHENNET
The Iraq war, which for years has drawn militants from
around the world, is beginning to export fighters and
tactics to neighboring countries and beyond.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/28/world/middleeast/28exodus.html?th&emc=th

au, The war in Iraq also sparked the spread of terrorism in the neighboring countries like Jordan and Lebanon. According to most recent reports, they have infiltrated other groups including the Iraqi army, so this idea of training the Iraqis to secure their own country is a big failure. Bush and his cohorts doesn't understand nor care they screwed up everything they tried to do.

There was also a report recently that shows most troops complaining of being short-handed when they go out on patrol. Is that a DUH or what? They've been over-stretched for years, not days or months, and Bush and general Petraeus still thinks there's a chance of success. These guys are all screwballs who belong in an institution for demanding our soldiers go into harms way for a lost cause.