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Is this how you define success?

fff

Well-known member
An explosion tore through a men's garment district Thursday afternoon in central Baghdad, killing at least nine people, wounding 50 more and adding to worries that the relative calm of recent months may not last.

Since Monday, 12 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq in a string of suicide bombings, improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and rocket fire.

After a low of 76 in November, the number of Iraqi civilians killed in Baghdad is rising, with March now on pace, with 104 dead so far, to become the fourth straight month to top the previous month, according to statistics kept by McClatchy. Already, the 325 wounded in the first 13 days of March tops the 322 hurt in January and seems likely to surpass the 403 wounded in February.

Car bombs, such as the one that struck al Khayam Street on Thursday, are exploding in increasing numbers and are seemingly mocking American officials' claims that blast walls and security enhancements had made it difficult for insurgents to use the weapon. So far this month, there have been five car bombings, one less than in all of last month and one more than in all of January.

Public killings happen daily. Gunmen using a silencer killed an assistant at a free local newspaper on Thursday as he sat in his car. On Feb. 22, the head of an Iraqi journalists association also was shot. He died from his injuries five days later in the hospital.

Thursday's bombing occurred three miles from where two bombings — one from an IED, the other from a suicide bomber — killed nearly 70 people last week.

Compared with 2006 and 2007, violence levels remain "significantly lower," Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner said Wednesday. But he added that the battle in Iraq remains a "tough fight," though he said he was encouraged by the Iraqi army's progress and local militias' contributions in the past year.

"Despite the progress we are making and despite the dramatic improvements we have seen, we have said all along there will be tough days. And there will be periods when we see al Qaida adapt to new tactics and new approaches, and we will as well," Bergner said.

The latest U.S. military deaths came Wednesday when three soldiers were killed and two were wounded by six Kaytusha rockets that hit their base near Nasiriyah, southeast of Baghdad.

On Monday, five soldiers and an interpreter were killed in Baghdad when a person wearing an explosive vest detonated himself in the Mansour neighborhood. Three soldiers were wounded in the blast. On Thursday, the military announced it had detained five people in connection with the attack.

In a separate attack Monday in east of Baqouba in Diyala province, three soldiers were killed in an IED explosion.

Bad news came from throughout Iraq.

On Thursday, the U.S. military said that an American soldier had killed a young Iraqi girl on Wednesday when he fired a warning shot into an earthen berm the girl was behind. The shot was intended to warn a woman nearby who the soldiers felt might have been sending signals about the soldiers, the military statement said.

On Thursday, Iraq's rapidly shrinking Christian community was dealt another blow when the body of the archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq was found near Mosul, in the country's north. Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho had been kidnapped Feb. 29 in Mosul as he left Mass.

An anonymous caller told people at the church where to find his body, according to Iraqi police. The cause of death remained uncertain, but some reports said the archbishop was ill and died while in his kidnappers' custody.

Christians demonstrated in a neighborhood in Irbil to denounce his death and demand protection.

Southwest of Kirkuk, a female suicide bomber killed two people and wounded six others when she blew herself up following a city council meeting, according to the U.S. military. It was at least the 10th such bombing carried out by a woman in recent months.

There also has been violence in southern Iraq.

On Tuesday, as many as 16 pilgrims returning from the holy city of Najaf were killed on a bus when a roadside bomb known as an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, targeted a U.S. military convoy.

In the city of Kut, members of the Mahdi Army militia, the Iraqi army and U.S. Special Forces have been fighting, with 11 people reported killed.

Along the Iranian border in Sulaimaniyah province, government officials said Iranian armed forces shelled five mountain villages Thursday for more than two hours. No casualties were reported.

The Iranian military bombarded the same area last autumn in an attempt to strike members of the anti-Iranian Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK. The group is closely allied with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has strongholds in northern Iraq along the Turkish border.

Both groups seek the creation of an independent Kurdistan and are considered terrorist organizations by Turkey and Iran. Three weeks ago, the Turkish military struck PKK forces in Iraq.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/30322.html
 

fff

Well-known member
Sandhusker said:
And to think your Democrat leaders voted for that war.....

If you're referring to Obama, he didn't vote for it. Hillary did and should be ashamed of it.

At least they're calling for us to get out of Iraq. With John McCain, we'll see more troops in-country there and a never ending debt as he tries to "win."
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
fff said:
Sandhusker said:
And to think your Democrat leaders voted for that war.....

If you're referring to Obama, he didn't vote for it. Hillary did and should be ashamed of it.

At least they're calling for us to get out of Iraq. With John McCain, we'll see more troops in-country there and a never ending debt as he tries to "win."

I see, so we go in, raise hell, and bail out before cleaning up the mess. I suggest you and Mr. Obama (or is it Sheik Al-Obama) study a little history and see what has happened when that strategy has been employed. Get back to us on that....

What Hillary should be ashamed for is lying about her vote now that Democrats have flip-flopped on the war. She should, but since she seems to be trying to top her husband on whoppers told, I'm sure she isn't. The woman has no shame.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Sandhusker said:
fff said:
Sandhusker said:
And to think your Democrat leaders voted for that war.....

If you're referring to Obama, he didn't vote for it. Hillary did and should be ashamed of it.

At least they're calling for us to get out of Iraq. With John McCain, we'll see more troops in-country there and a never ending debt as he tries to "win."

I see, so we go in, raise hell, and bail out before cleaning up the mess. I suggest you and Mr. Obama (or is it Sheik Al-Obama) study a little history and see what has happened when that strategy has been employed. Get back to us on that....

Actually- the last one we bailed out of (Vietnam)- after concluding their civil war- united the country and is now one of our valued trading partners with us importing over $10 Billion dollars worth of product from them last year while exporting almost $2 Billion to them...
Besides the $Billions we (directly and thru the World Bank) give them in "foreign aid" each year so they can transition to a market economy, to enhance equitable and sustainable development, and to promote good governance ( or in other words to subsidize and build up their markets to better compete against our domestic business's and producers :???: :( )


07June-Triet-Bush.jpg

GW and Vietnam President Nguyen Minh Triet-June 22, 2007 after signing a Trade and Investment Agreement

What Hillary should be ashamed for is lying about her vote now that Democrats have flip-flopped on the war. She should, but since she seems to be trying to top her husband on whoppers told, I'm sure she isn't. The woman has no shame.
That I can't/won't argue :wink:
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
I don't think you say Iraq will come out like Vietnam. Look who is on the other side in both cases; Vietnam had a group with a political agenda that just wanted dirt. Once we got out, they were happy and it was over. Iraq has a bunch with a religious agenda that wants us dead - and they've already come over HERE to do exactly that. It isn't just about territory with them, it's killing infidels to win virgins and favor with their perverse god. If we pull out, it still won't be over. Instead, we will just embolden an enemy.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Sandhusker said:
I don't think you say Iraq will come out like Vietnam. Look who is on the other side in both cases; Vietnam had a group with a political agenda that just wanted dirt. Once we got out, they were happy and it was over. Iraq has a bunch with a religious agenda that wants us dead - and they've already come over HERE to do exactly that. It isn't just about territory with them, it's killing infidels to win virgins and favor with their perverse god. If we pull out, it still won't be over. Instead, we will just embolden an enemy.

And I'm afraid the more entrenched we become in that area of the world (which we wouldn't be if we didn't need their oil) - the more of the radicals we P.O. .....And the more it looks like we are colonizing and nationbuilding in the area, the more "virgin seekers" we bring into their folds....
It goes back to Britains and the allies handling of the Arab nations and breakup of the Ottoman Empire during/after WWI- where instead of the free countries they were promised France, Britain, Italy and Russia colonized them- or installed puppet governments and most ended up having to fight to retrieve/develop the independent countries that now exist..None of which are truly what you can call Democracies- still much ruled by the gun and the tribes...

I still wonder how we can think we can succeed now- when the Russians, Italians, French and the British couldn't and were run out of every country they tried the same thing in..... :???:
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
Sandhusker said:
I don't think you say Iraq will come out like Vietnam. Look who is on the other side in both cases; Vietnam had a group with a political agenda that just wanted dirt. Once we got out, they were happy and it was over. Iraq has a bunch with a religious agenda that wants us dead - and they've already come over HERE to do exactly that. It isn't just about territory with them, it's killing infidels to win virgins and favor with their perverse god. If we pull out, it still won't be over. Instead, we will just embolden an enemy.

And I'm afraid the more entrenched we become in that area of the world (which we wouldn't be if we didn't need their oil) - the more of the radicals we P.O. .....And the more it looks like we are colonizing and nationbuilding in the area, the more "virgin seekers" we bring into their folds....
It goes back to Britains and the allies handling of the Arab nations and breakup of the Ottoman Empire during/after WWI- where instead of the free countries they were promised France, Britain, Italy and Russia colonized them- or installed puppet governments and most ended up having to fight to retrieve/develop the independent countries that now exist..None of which are truly what you can call Democracies- still much ruled by the gun and the tribes...

I still wonder how we can think we can succeed now- when the Russians, Italians, French and the British couldn't and were run out of every country they tried the same thing in..... :???:

I'll agree with that.
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
fff said:
An explosion tore through a men's garment district Thursday afternoon in central Baghdad, killing at least nine people, wounding 50 more and adding to worries that the relative calm of recent months may not last.

Since Monday, 12 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq in a string of suicide bombings, improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and rocket fire.

After a low of 76 in November, the number of Iraqi civilians killed in Baghdad is rising, with March now on pace, with 104 dead so far, to become the fourth straight month to top the previous month, according to statistics kept by McClatchy. Already, the 325 wounded in the first 13 days of March tops the 322 hurt in January and seems likely to surpass the 403 wounded in February.

Car bombs, such as the one that struck al Khayam Street on Thursday, are exploding in increasing numbers and are seemingly mocking American officials' claims that blast walls and security enhancements had made it difficult for insurgents to use the weapon. So far this month, there have been five car bombings, one less than in all of last month and one more than in all of January.

Public killings happen daily. Gunmen using a silencer killed an assistant at a free local newspaper on Thursday as he sat in his car. On Feb. 22, the head of an Iraqi journalists association also was shot. He died from his injuries five days later in the hospital.

Thursday's bombing occurred three miles from where two bombings — one from an IED, the other from a suicide bomber — killed nearly 70 people last week.

Compared with 2006 and 2007, violence levels remain "significantly lower," Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner said Wednesday. But he added that the battle in Iraq remains a "tough fight," though he said he was encouraged by the Iraqi army's progress and local militias' contributions in the past year.

"Despite the progress we are making and despite the dramatic improvements we have seen, we have said all along there will be tough days. And there will be periods when we see al Qaida adapt to new tactics and new approaches, and we will as well," Bergner said.

The latest U.S. military deaths came Wednesday when three soldiers were killed and two were wounded by six Kaytusha rockets that hit their base near Nasiriyah, southeast of Baghdad.

On Monday, five soldiers and an interpreter were killed in Baghdad when a person wearing an explosive vest detonated himself in the Mansour neighborhood. Three soldiers were wounded in the blast. On Thursday, the military announced it had detained five people in connection with the attack.

In a separate attack Monday in east of Baqouba in Diyala province, three soldiers were killed in an IED explosion.

Bad news came from throughout Iraq.

On Thursday, the U.S. military said that an American soldier had killed a young Iraqi girl on Wednesday when he fired a warning shot into an earthen berm the girl was behind. The shot was intended to warn a woman nearby who the soldiers felt might have been sending signals about the soldiers, the military statement said.

On Thursday, Iraq's rapidly shrinking Christian community was dealt another blow when the body of the archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq was found near Mosul, in the country's north. Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho had been kidnapped Feb. 29 in Mosul as he left Mass.

An anonymous caller told people at the church where to find his body, according to Iraqi police. The cause of death remained uncertain, but some reports said the archbishop was ill and died while in his kidnappers' custody.

Christians demonstrated in a neighborhood in Irbil to denounce his death and demand protection.

Southwest of Kirkuk, a female suicide bomber killed two people and wounded six others when she blew herself up following a city council meeting, according to the U.S. military. It was at least the 10th such bombing carried out by a woman in recent months.

There also has been violence in southern Iraq.

On Tuesday, as many as 16 pilgrims returning from the holy city of Najaf were killed on a bus when a roadside bomb known as an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, targeted a U.S. military convoy.

In the city of Kut, members of the Mahdi Army militia, the Iraqi army and U.S. Special Forces have been fighting, with 11 people reported killed.

Along the Iranian border in Sulaimaniyah province, government officials said Iranian armed forces shelled five mountain villages Thursday for more than two hours. No casualties were reported.

The Iranian military bombarded the same area last autumn in an attempt to strike members of the anti-Iranian Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK. The group is closely allied with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has strongholds in northern Iraq along the Turkish border.

Both groups seek the creation of an independent Kurdistan and are considered terrorist organizations by Turkey and Iran. Three weeks ago, the Turkish military struck PKK forces in Iraq.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/30322.html

You did realize there is a war going on over there didn't you? There will be deaths and violence in war, it is part of the very description of it.

But you can not grab one situation of 12 soldiers dying and say the surge is not being successful. Wars are like the weather, some days it will be hot some days it will be cold. You have to look at the average of the days to get an idea. And since the surge the average has been success.

Typical libs life changing reactions based on a small specific sampling. Same reason you want to take our guns away.
 

fff

Well-known member
Sandhusker said:
I Iraq has a bunch with a religious agenda that wants us dead - and they've already come over HERE to do exactly that. .

Nobody came from Iraq and killed anyone. Most of the 9/11 highjackers came from Saudi Arabia. They have a king, you know, the one that Bush was kissing and smacking on recently. :roll:

You're pitiful to still be claiming Iraq was involved in 9/11. Pitiful.
 

fff

Well-known member
Winston Churchill created Iraq. England finally withdrew their troops after years of fighting, broken promises and money wasted. I do wish that our government could learn from their mistakes.

From Time magazine over two years ago. What's improved in that time?

There is something very sinister to my mind in this mesopotamian entanglement," Winston Churchill wrote his Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, in August 1920. "Week after week and month after month for a long time we shall have a continuance of this miserable, wasteful, sporadic warfare marked from time to time certainly by minor disasters and cuttings off of troops and agents, and very possibly attended by some very grave occurrence."

While the world has been fixed on the crisis in Israel and Lebanon these past few weeks, Iraq has reached the brink of a "very grave occurrence," an all-out civil war between Sunnis and Shi'ites that could quickly spread to neighboring countries. The Iraqi-led military push to pacify Baghdad, Operation Forward Together, has run into fierce resistance from the Sunni insurgency and the Shi'ite militias. The death toll—an average of 100 per day—is at least double the rate of casualties in Lebanon. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, gave a ridiculously upbeat speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress last week, but his government has been unable or unwilling to cut the grand political deal that is necessary for stability. Any such deal would include a guaranteed proportion, say 20%, of Iraq's oil revenues to the oil-less Sunnis, and also the root-and-branch cleansing of the Ministry of Interior, home base for many of the Shi'ite death squads. "We have been pointed toward civil war since the new Iraqi constitution was approved last October and reinforced in the December elections," a senior U.S. intelligence official told me last week. "The Sunnis have united behind the insurgency because they don't believe the Shi'ites will give them a fair deal." In recent months, according to U.S. intelligence sources, the Saudis and Jordanians, who are predominantly Sunni, have quietly moved to support the insurgency with money and intelligence, fearing that Shi'ite Iran will dominate the new Iraqi government if the U.S. decides to leave.

"They absolutely think we're leaving," said retired Marine Colonel Thomas X. Hammes, author of The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century. "This is what happened in Afghanistan when it became clear the Russians were leaving. The factions began fighting each other." Afghanistan is instructive: civil war led to the Taliban government; the Taliban provided a safe haven for al-Qaeda; and you know the rest. A U.S. skedaddle from Iraq would probably lead to far worse consequences, given Iraq's strategic location and potential oil wealth. So what do we do now? I asked six leading U.S. military strategists, four of them on active duty, and the despair was universal. "This is the battle for Baghdad that didn't take place in 2003," said a general, expressing the consensus view. "The strategy of moving more U.S. troops into the city is correct, but ... our troops should be partnered with Iraqi units, our military police embedded with their police. The Iraqis must take the lead, but we're going to have to take some risks. Our troops need to be relocated from the safety of their forward operating bases right into the middle of Baghdad. That will mean more U.S. casualties. And if this doesn't reduce the violence over the next few months, we may have to change our basic strategy."

There was no consensus about what a new strategy might be, but there were two prevailing theories, and each was grievously flawed. "We've got to pick a side," said an Army colonel, who was talking not macro Shi'ite-vs.-Sunni side picking but micro Shi'ite-militia picking. "We should move against Sadr," he added, referring to Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, which has been responsible for much of the recent sectarian violence. But even if successful, a move against Sadr would leave the other prominent Shi'ite militia, the Badr Corps, which has close ties to Iran, in control of the Ministry of Interior. The second proposal was chilling. "We could partition Baghdad," said a general. "It's beginning to partition itself." But if the city were divided along the Tigris River—a popular rumor in the Iraqi blogosphere—approximately 1 million Sunnis would be stranded on the Shi'ite side and vice versa. "The human catastrophe would be extraordinary," said an Army colonel. If partition happens, an Iraqi official told Reuters, "Iraq as a political project is finished," and chaos ensues. Colonel Hammes identified a more basic, undeniable problem: "Talking about a new strategy is useless until we get a new team—in the Pentagon, in the Administration. These guys have screwed up everything. They haven't got the credibility to implement anything."

Writing to Lloyd George, Churchill, frustrated after all the bloodshed in World War I, asked, "Why are we compelled to go on pouring armies and treasure into these thankless deserts?" But the British had created the problem, cobbling "Iraq" from three disparate Ottoman provinces. They chose sides, picking the Sunni minority to run the country. The Brits remained there 12 years, bleeding occasionally, until 1932. The bleeding continued after they left, as the Sunnis brutalized Iraq until 2003. The Bush Administration, defiantly ignorant of history, has created a situation far more dangerous than the one Churchill complained about. We are in free fall in Iraq, and there is no net.

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1220442,00.html
 

fff

Well-known member
aplusmnt said:
fff said:
An explosion tore through a men's garment district Thursday afternoon in central Baghdad, killing at least nine people, wounding 50 more and adding to worries that the relative calm of recent months may not last.

Since Monday, 12 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq in a string of suicide bombings, improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and rocket fire.

After a low of 76 in November, the number of Iraqi civilians killed in Baghdad is rising, with March now on pace, with 104 dead so far, to become the fourth straight month to top the previous month, according to statistics kept by McClatchy. Already, the 325 wounded in the first 13 days of March tops the 322 hurt in January and seems likely to surpass the 403 wounded in February.

Car bombs, such as the one that struck al Khayam Street on Thursday, are exploding in increasing numbers and are seemingly mocking American officials' claims that blast walls and security enhancements had made it difficult for insurgents to use the weapon. So far this month, there have been five car bombings, one less than in all of last month and one more than in all of January.

Public killings happen daily. Gunmen using a silencer killed an assistant at a free local newspaper on Thursday as he sat in his car. On Feb. 22, the head of an Iraqi journalists association also was shot. He died from his injuries five days later in the hospital.

Thursday's bombing occurred three miles from where two bombings — one from an IED, the other from a suicide bomber — killed nearly 70 people last week.

Compared with 2006 and 2007, violence levels remain "significantly lower," Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner said Wednesday. But he added that the battle in Iraq remains a "tough fight," though he said he was encouraged by the Iraqi army's progress and local militias' contributions in the past year.

"Despite the progress we are making and despite the dramatic improvements we have seen, we have said all along there will be tough days. And there will be periods when we see al Qaida adapt to new tactics and new approaches, and we will as well," Bergner said.

The latest U.S. military deaths came Wednesday when three soldiers were killed and two were wounded by six Kaytusha rockets that hit their base near Nasiriyah, southeast of Baghdad.

On Monday, five soldiers and an interpreter were killed in Baghdad when a person wearing an explosive vest detonated himself in the Mansour neighborhood. Three soldiers were wounded in the blast. On Thursday, the military announced it had detained five people in connection with the attack.

In a separate attack Monday in east of Baqouba in Diyala province, three soldiers were killed in an IED explosion.

Bad news came from throughout Iraq.

On Thursday, the U.S. military said that an American soldier had killed a young Iraqi girl on Wednesday when he fired a warning shot into an earthen berm the girl was behind. The shot was intended to warn a woman nearby who the soldiers felt might have been sending signals about the soldiers, the military statement said.

On Thursday, Iraq's rapidly shrinking Christian community was dealt another blow when the body of the archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq was found near Mosul, in the country's north. Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho had been kidnapped Feb. 29 in Mosul as he left Mass.

An anonymous caller told people at the church where to find his body, according to Iraqi police. The cause of death remained uncertain, but some reports said the archbishop was ill and died while in his kidnappers' custody.

Christians demonstrated in a neighborhood in Irbil to denounce his death and demand protection.

Southwest of Kirkuk, a female suicide bomber killed two people and wounded six others when she blew herself up following a city council meeting, according to the U.S. military. It was at least the 10th such bombing carried out by a woman in recent months.

There also has been violence in southern Iraq.

On Tuesday, as many as 16 pilgrims returning from the holy city of Najaf were killed on a bus when a roadside bomb known as an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, targeted a U.S. military convoy.

In the city of Kut, members of the Mahdi Army militia, the Iraqi army and U.S. Special Forces have been fighting, with 11 people reported killed.

Along the Iranian border in Sulaimaniyah province, government officials said Iranian armed forces shelled five mountain villages Thursday for more than two hours. No casualties were reported.

The Iranian military bombarded the same area last autumn in an attempt to strike members of the anti-Iranian Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK. The group is closely allied with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has strongholds in northern Iraq along the Turkish border.

Both groups seek the creation of an independent Kurdistan and are considered terrorist organizations by Turkey and Iran. Three weeks ago, the Turkish military struck PKK forces in Iraq.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/30322.html

You did realize there is a war going on over there didn't you? There will be deaths and violence in war, it is part of the very description of it.

But you can not grab one situation of 12 soldiers dying and say the surge is not being successful. Wars are like the weather, some days it will be hot some days it will be cold. You have to look at the average of the days to get an idea. And since the surge the average has been success.

Typical libs life changing reactions based on a small specific sampling. Same reason you want to take our guns away.

The article indicates that violence is trending up, up. Violent acts may be down from a year ago, but they're up from a month ago. That's not an unimportant thing to note. We're on track to have the worst month of the year in March. Is that how you measure success, three straight months of increasing violence?
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
Seems to me we right before this we had more months than 3 of declining violence, but I didn't hear you claiming anything about a trend then.....
 

fff

Well-known member
Sandhusker said:
Seems to me we right before this we had more months than 3 of declining violence, but I didn't hear you claiming anything about a trend then.....

No, because everyone knew the downturn in violence was not going to last unless the Iraqi government took the opportunity to try to bring the various factions together. And they haven't done that. By sending in more troops, as was originally recommended by the military, Bush played a holding game. But we can't maintain that number of troops in Iraq. The Army says so. So it was only a matter of time until a surge in violence started. It seems to be happening now.
 

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