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Ear to the Ground

Iraq Violence on the Rise

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Posted on Mar 12, 2008

The Iraq occupation has once again taken a violent turn. Dozens of Iraqis were killed on Tuesday as the average number of Iraqis killed or found dead each day continues to rise. Eight U.S. soldiers died on Monday, the most in one day since last September. U.S. military officials, however, have been anxious to downplay any talk of a trend.

Related: Read Eugene Robinson’s latest column on the streak of violence.

AP:

According to an Associated Press count, at the height of unrest from November 2006 to August 2007, on average approximately 65 Iraqis died each day as a result of violence. As conditions improved, the daily death toll steadily declined. It reached its lowest point in more than two years on January 2008, when on average 20 Iraqis died each day.

Those numbers have since jumped. In February, approximately 26 Iraqis died each day as a result of violence, and so far in March, that number is up to 39 daily. These figures reflect the months in which people were found, and not necessarily—in the case of mass graves—the months in which they were killed.

Military spokesman Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said Sunday that recent violence should not be taken as evidence of “an increase or a trend of an increase.”

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By nefertiti, March 13 at 2:08 am #
(80 comments total)

Reply to Expat

Most the iraqis who can afford it have left iraq . Most the people in the green zone have their wives and children in Amman, Dubai, London , and Paris .. those who could afford visas or were accepted as assylum seekers have left . what is left is poor iraqis who cant even afford the cost of living and lack of jobs and services . the So called fair and just media is not paying attention to them , and is not even paying attention to the death of 12 US soldiers in 48 hours but paid more attention to the escapades of mr Spitzer (hope i got the spelling right)

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By zeitgeist, March 12 at 11:58 am #
(186 comments total)

Commander Gomer BetrayUs

Surprise, surprise commander Gomer BetrayUs is on the rise and is now getting his needed injection of Viva-Iraqi-Viagra.

Admiral William Fallon stated that, “Petraeus Is ‘An Ass-Kissing, Little Chicken-shit,’ ‘I Hate People Like That’.

Al Quieda has become a catch-all myth, used to exacerbate an already fearful public by whipping the mind into an all out frenzy so that it steps in line to the required support for what would otherwise be considered, illict activity.

What’s next; Bombs Bursting in Air? How do we stop these psychopaths in carrying out a new ‘October Surprise?

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope

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By Hammo, March 12 at 10:45 am #
(372 comments total)

Adm Fallon gone; attack Iraq?

The sudden, and surely forced, retirement of Navy Adm. William Fallon has sent a chill through those in the know: This could mean that the Bush-Cheney administration plans to attack Iran.

Fallon was a major obstacle to this course of action, and now they have forced him out.

Fallon knew that attacking Iran, while we are bogged down in Iraq, was unwise.

Food for thought in the articles …

“Will Bush, Cheney attack Iran? When and why?”

PopulistAmerica.com
Populist Party of America
Feb. 2, 2007

http://www.populistamerica.com/will_bush_cheney_attack _iran_when_and_why

- - -

“Military Draft Needed for War With Iran and Syria?”

PopulistAmerica.com
Populist Party of America
Sept. 28, 2006

http://www.populistamerica.com/military_draft_needed_f or_war_with_iran_and_syria

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By michael, March 12 at 9:09 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

so if deaths go down it indicates the surge is working but if deaths go back up we need to look at the big picture and this does not indicate failure?  sounds like they are cherry picking info again

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By Maani, March 12 at 8:51 am #
(1271 comments total)

From an article in the NYT today:

“President Bush delivered a rousing defense of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on Tuesday, mixing faith and foreign policy as he told a group of Christian broadcasters that his policies in the region were predicated on the beliefs that freedom was a God-given right and “every human being bears the image of our maker.” In a 42-minute speech to the National Religious Broadcasters convention, Mr. Bush called upon European allies to step up their efforts in Afghanistan, and conceded that recent security gains in Iraq “are tenuous, they’re reversible and they’re fragile.” Still, he insisted his troop buildup there is succeeding.  “The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency,” Mr. Bush said, to a standing ovation. “It is the right decision at this point in my presidency, and it will forever be the right decision.”

It is truly breathtaking how clueless this man is.  He gives a bad name to politics, religion, culture, psychological stability, and just about everything else.

The rest of the article is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/world/middleeast/12p rexyweb.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

Peace.  (ever more distant...)

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By cyrena, March 12 at 11:06 pm #
(4172 comments total)

Re:

• “The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency,” Mr. Bush said, to a standing ovation. “It is the right decision at this point in my presidency, and it will forever be the right decision.”

It’s the insanity folks. THAT is what should be worrying everybody, because the insanity is the terror.

Think for just a moment, about what GW has said here; apparently recently, if I understood the post. Let’s just say for the sake of argument, that it WAS the ‘right decision’ to remove Saddam Hussein. Set aside for the moment that this is all a lie, and that removing Saddam Hussein (even if it was a good idea) did NOT require the destruction of an entire nation and its economy. (actually, more than one nation’s destruction…theirs and ours).

Let’s still say that it was a ‘right decision’. Now, Saddam was ‘removed’ 5 years ago, and he’s been dead over a year. The question is WHY IS THE US STILL IN IRAQ?

Ahmadinejad posed this same question quite a while back. It was a reasonable question, and I tried finding an answer to it myself. SADDAM HUSSEIN IS DEAD. WHY IS THE US STILL IN IRAQ?

So, if it was the right decision then, and the right decision now, and will be the right decision forever, it still doesn’t answer the question.

In that standing ovation, would anybody have been able to answer this very simple question. If it was a good decision, and the deed has been done, why are we still there, and why do we plan to stay?

Can ANYONE answer that question?

Gomerspile? Marshall? Hillary? John McCain? ANYBODY?

Again, WHY ARE WE STILL THERE?

WHY are we still killing, and dying, and killing, and dying?

Now I really don’t give a hoot what sort of bad name this gives to religion or any of the rest of that. I figure that anyone who believes this shit (and does a standing ovation) gives a bad name to THEMSELVES.

Culture, politics, psychological stability? Please. The insanity of george bush doesn’t DEFINE me, nor should it define culture, religion, or politics for ANYONE!

As for the concept of psychological stability in conjunction with these other things Maani…that is an oxymoron!

In a standard IQ test, (even for morons) religion, culture, politics, would be the ‘similar’ things. You’d chose ‘psychological stability’ as the one that ‘didn’t belong’ in this question.

Be that as it may, it has nothing to do with how we define ourselves, and the moron-in-chief CANNOT ‘give these things a BAD NAME’. Only people and/or groups of people can ALLOW themselves to be defined by insanity. 

Meantime, now that Saddam has been removed, can anyone explain on behalf of the insane, (GWB) why we are still in Iraq?

That’s all I wanna know. (at least for now.)

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By cyrena, March 13 at 7:19 am #
(4172 comments total)

Re: Re:

MMC,

In all honesty, I don’t KNOW what the rectum did on the Wal-Mart board, even though I DID read a lengthy piece on it recently.

Still, I’ve been reading a lot of stuff, lots of which is required, but most of which I’m just basically snatches my attention, even when it should be directed to other things.

What I do remember is that Hillary was there at the more or less ‘beginning’ of it, at least to the extent of moving it out and about to cover the entire flippin’ US. Apparently her connections to the Walton’s (the Wal-Mart Family Dynasty, not the ones on TV) go way back. And of course Arkansas is the ‘home’ of Wal-Mart.

Still, I can’t say exactly what her job was, though I think it was more than just as a ‘board member’ like Condi Rice was with Exxon-Mobile. She really WAS just a board member, because of her daddy’s connections to the ‘establishment’, but I think Hillary also had a larger advisory capacity at the Wal-Mart board, in helping them ‘go-corporate’ in a really big way.

Before that, Wal-Mart just wasn’t much at all...just really tacky stores. And of course in that part of the country...extra tacky if ya ask me.

(now THAT might be rude, but not the rectum part).

Anyway, I’ll see if I can find the piece I was reading. It had the run down.

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By zeitgeist, March 12 at 1:06 pm #
(186 comments total)

Re:

**Maani> “The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency,” Mr. Bush said, to a standing ovation. “It is the right decision at this point in my presidency, and it will forever be the right decision.”>

The problem is, Bush-co illicitly invaded, lynched a sovereign, murdered and displaced millions in the pursuit of his personal worldly desires.

This must be the rabid 30 percent, rag-tag retinue of Bush, whose enchantment of a psychodrama, intends ‘not to’ manifest a self-fulfilling prophesy, but a certain psychotic death-wish.

What insane hypocrites these xenophobic religious fanatics are, to stand in such a rousing ovation in support of this lunatic war-monger. And then, to spout the beliefs that freedom was a God-given right and every human being bears the image of our maker, as they themselves proceed in plotting out on how to bludgeon that very same image in their fellow human beings. It would appear, to these bigoted minds, that some images are not quite as photogenic and admirable as their own, especially if they look, speak or think differently***

***Obama has stated repeatedly, and I wish that he would trumpet it even louder, his intentions and the necessity in ‘destroying the mindset, the psychology of fear that led us into this illicit war/invasion’. We need to address the corrupt U.S. foreign policy of plunder and exploitation, the decades long, festering boil, which manifest itself in the eruption of 9/11; it is not something that occurred in a vacuum.

This lopsided formula has been brewing for some time now, resulting in a nation that produces nothing of significance, other than the manufacture and export of munitions, enabling a corporate oligarchy of empire, a rule through brutish force, as it itself luxuriates and washes its people in the bath-water of consumption, flowing from the taps of exploited, cheap labor everywhere; bloating a ballooning trade deficit which continues to mushroom out of control. We squander the entire planets resources, in effort to secretly out maneuver the other; weaponizing the most brilliant thoughts that bubble to the surface into methods of killing, stealing, deceiving, then celebrating and crying about it; calling ourselves the enlightened ones.

Eisenhower warned us of this and now we live it. This is the mindset Obama wishes to change. If not, it will be to our own peril. There is something beastly psychotic in a nation, whose annual military budget of 650 billion dollars, with a world population of roughly 7 billion, which equates to 93 billion dollars per every man, women and child.

Along with me and all of the others, let’s join in support of Obama, in an attempt to find balance, and prevent this xenophobic driven mindset from spiraling into further madness.

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope

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By xdrfox, March 12 at 2:52 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Re: Re: merchants of

God has a name for it, it is called merchants of war, But first he said Whow to them......

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By David, March 12 at 7:11 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

soldiers killed in Baghdad bombing

Options


Standard Header|Full Message ViewSend this to a real Fighter in IrqacDavid Earl <xdrfox@yahoo.com> ViewMonday, March 10, 2008 9:06:08 PMTo:vice_president@whitehouse.gov; Bush at whitehouse dot gov
Cc:Charlie.Crist@eog.myflorida.com

From David XXXX Mon Mar 10 18:06:08 2008
Received: from [XXXXXXXXX] by web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:06:08 PDT
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:06:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: David Earl <XXXXXXX@XXXXXX>
Subject: Send this to a real Fighter in Irqac
To: vice_president at whitehouse dot gov, Bush at whitehouse dot gov
Cc: Charlie dot Crist at eog dot myflorida dot com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-XX6399241-XX05197568=:66027"
Content-Length: 6778
=========================================================== =================================
5 US soldiers killed in Baghdad bombing

LQQK they are regrouping and using tactics like in Nam, I told you they would be back, to compensate for lower numbers of recruits (Just Like Us) they are now going to drop them at our boys feet, Just Like Nam. Trust No one have them keep there distance, their training they have been doing is not about fighting but using what they have without lose of lives of their men. Iran has 10 of thousands of little girls to carry death.  One reason to stay out of there. All must stay shielded in vehicles or tanks, do not let them get close, make it understood with the people there to stay away from our men or be shot, then duck.  It will get worse if you let our men be pray. Do not give the “B"s a close up. WE had children and women run up and drop their death!. Trust no one!.  Make them rethink a new design if they do not have more RSD’s , IED’s that will come back if Iran wants to supply again, Use you Night-Star Satellite and nail them at the crossing but do not destroy the goods, you need for the world to see it. For the Prof and for a surge in support.

Too many broken eggs now you have to make an omelet. Cut out the fat in this war, send only Hard shell V’s with ports to shoot whatever we got through them. Keep our men out of harms way. We need them all there and back home. No more riding in the LOSER “HV"s. Even the Hardened ones. Green Zone only for them. They are “perfect killers” FOR the ENEMY. It works in “their” favor how long does it take to figure that. Have someone add that up. 

I fought I know a piece of crap when I see the “first aftermath”. APC’s were the same in Nam. When you see something doesn’t work you do something else dammit.

You got M-60 Big Boys over there. Use them, let them know YOU CAN"T TOUCH THIS.  Make them “B"s Work harder to DO LESS, USE MORE TO DO LESS.

Keep them away, away.  Make them ask for ‘stuff’ they will need. Then bust the Border when it comes in. They ran out of their stashes until they locate more if there is more.

They will not fighting between themselves till the last man stands. That’s just the way they are. Learn anything for some other counties that have been doing this for thousands of years. That’s Why we never committed troops there.

Inf Submitted by;
David B. Earl
755 Espanola Ave. # 44
Ormond Beach, Florida 32174
386 676 2694
xdrfox at Yahoo dot com



“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of
authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to
guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.” Daniel Webster

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By Expat, March 12 at 4:31 am #
(880 comments total)

I've been spun so much.........

^ I’m dizzy.  If people weren’t dying, it would just be silly.  Silly that anyone still buys this crap.  The only valid question is; would you like to be an Iraqi in Iraq?

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