Sunday, May 13, 2007

Three Troops Missing in Iraq

4,000 U.S. soldiers are searching for them. For three people.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped--some by gangs, others by insurgents, others by U.S. forces. But the U.S. occupation forces don't lift a finger to find them.

It's been said before, and I'll say it again anyway: Until we start acting like other people's lives count for as much as Americans, people overseas are going to hate our guts. Who can blame them, really?
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12 comments:

  1. blackhelicoptercirclingMay 13, 2007 at 1:57 PM

    I'll defer from making my usual half-assed wisecracks and post something serious this time.

    An insightful excerpt about the Iraq War from "The American Moral Meltdown Accelerates" by LAWRENCE R. VELVEL:

    << [That] now hardy perennial, the war in Iraq[, last month] killed more than another 100 Americans, and Lord knows how many Iraqis. In the last week or so, Bill Moyers has again exposed, and George Tenet too (perhaps less wittingly) has again exposed, that this war is a horrible, incompetent mistake made by grossly incompetent, thoroughly dishonest leaders. But are we going to stop, any time soon, the American participation which opened the door to this disaster, to this creation of killing fields, and which remains so much a driver of the disaster? No, we almost certainly are not going to stop it any time soon. The incompetent fools at the top of the Administration desire to continue it -- indefinitely, no less, and they desire this even though to accomplish their aims would be likely to take 10 years and at least a quarter million more American soldiers. Meanwhile the Democrats don't have the guts to do what is necessary to stop it -- which could easily be done by merely refusing all further funding of any type for the military (or, more limitedly, for Iraq) except for funds needed to finance the protection of troops during a withdrawal. Washington and the media also are filled with pundits and advisers who invent one reason after another why it would be bad to stop our participation even though to begin our participation was a terrible mistake. (In business such excuse mongering is called throwing good money after bad.) Out in the country, among Republican at least, and probably more heavily in the militaristic states of the old Confederacy than elsewhere, there are still people who think we should fight, no doubt to the last Iraqi. >>

    http://www.counterpunch.org/velvel05052007.html

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  2. StephanieMay 13, 2007 at 4:06 PM

    Dear Ted:

    I completely agree with your point that "until we start acting like other people's lives count for as much as Americans, people overseas are going to hate our guts".

    It reminds me of an NPR story I heard just today May 13, 2007 “Mother’s Day” which focused on “Maria”, a US Army truck driver stationed in Iraq, who is the mother of four children and who much she and her husband—also in the US Army and also stationed in Iraq—are sacrificing as parents ["U.S. Troops in Iraq Include 10,000 Mothers" by Ann Garrels http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10158519 ]. How did Maria decide to enlist in the US Army? Patriotism? “Avenge 9/11”? Naw. Seems that Maria as a single mom fresh out of high school with just one young child then (the NPR reporter Ann Garrles tells us the child was conceived when Maria was raped at age 15) needed some kind of job to support herself and her child. Maria tells us as a high school graduate in the US she had to work three jobs to support her family, so she saw the US Army as an employer through which she could finally afford to spend some time with her child.

    As I listened to this heart-warming NPR story, I kept remembering the May 8, 2007 news story I had read just a few days earlier: “Infant Mortality in Iraq Soars as Young Pay the Price for War” [ http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2521681.ece ] documenting a 125% rise in Iraqi infant mortality since 1990.

    I waited for the NPR reporter Ann Garrels to inform the NPR audience about this statistic or even to ask “Maria” if she knew how many Iraqi babies are dying as a direct effect of her own job which she does to support her own four children. Of course, I waited in vain.

    As I was writing this comment to your own blog entry, Ted, I also remembered this April 22, 2007 news story: “In Turnabout, Infant Deaths Climb in South[ern US]” [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/health/22infant.html?ex=1179201600&en=e0692059fdfa47b2&ei=5070 ].

    The NPR story ends with the news that Maria has decided that when her current Iraq tour ends, she will be quitting the US Army to become a "stay at home" mom (Good luck with that, Maria! Don't let the stop losses, involuntary call-backs, and tour extensions getcha!). Maria actually says that she imagines after her retirement from the service she will feel jealous when she watches her still-active-duty hubbie put on his uniform and leave for "work".

    The US government has arranged things in the world so that it can actually hire exploited, violated poor people in the US to go violate other violated, exploited poor people all around the globe so that the rich can become richer.

    Happy Mother’s Day!

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  3. AnonymousMay 13, 2007 at 5:00 PM

    Don't forget the FRONT PAGE ARTICLE about the missing four year old British girl in Portugal.

    Keep the focus on American lives first, then missing white people, regardless of if they are American or not.

    Evil Kumquat

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  4. peejay3May 13, 2007 at 5:21 PM

    right on! same in korea, vietnam. we're better.
    a main source of our problems, for sure. why do we think this way? fear? yeah, it's fear of other cultures...

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  5. AnonymousMay 13, 2007 at 5:21 PM

    America has no President. We don't even have a fake President. There's a vacuum in the White House where there used to be a semblance of common sense, credibility, intelligence, loyalty to our Constitution and Bill of Rights...and Honor. America can no longer respect George W. Bush simply because he holds the title, President of the United States. Even giving Bush the advantages of Head Start and On the Job Training, private tutors, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, and wet nurse, Harriet Miers, Bush has glowingly met the definitive requirements of the Peter Principle, not that he even came close to the basic requirements to function as a President and leader. America is going to hell in a handbasket. As we chase shadows looking for three captured American soldiers, the Iraqi Resistance hits us in various places. With Bush, the madman at the helm of government, it's like a 6 month old baby piloting the Space Shuttle. There's no place to go but down and in flames.

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  6. MikhaelaMay 13, 2007 at 7:38 PM

    The U.S. also doesn't lift a finger to protect or save the lives of the many Iraqis who have put their own lives in danger by working as translators or otherwise assisting the occupation forces.

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  7. heatkernelMay 14, 2007 at 6:11 AM

    Some good news, Ted, and reader's of the Rall blog. As of 9:30AM this morning, the following news item was posted:

    "SENATOR GRAVEL OFFERS A PLAN GUARANTEED TO END THE WAR IN IRAQ"

    "The essence of the Gravel Plan: the congressional leadership must draw-out over days and weeks, if necessary, repeated daily cloture votes in the Senate and repeated daily veto override votes in both chambers to give American voters time to weigh-in and force two-thirds of their Senators and Representatives to vote to override the President's veto of the American will."


    This and more details at: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/22461

    Now if only we can get the Representatives in Congress to implement the plan!

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  8. daveMay 14, 2007 at 9:33 AM

    My father said it best when he referred to the "people that matter"...meaning his notion of "us and them"...."them" is everyone not like him.

    Do you know what it was like to grow up with someone like that?

    Anyway, that is the mentality that any military trains itself with: US tax payer dollars used to defend each and every last American soldier whatever the cost to us because they deserve it; they are entitled. The US military is not on the side of anyone but themselves, Ted, but it's just caked on top of an already fascist leaning psyche of American superiority.

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  9. plushtownMay 14, 2007 at 1:00 PM

    Moon of Alabama has a thread on the geography of the 4 missing heroes.

    google: Mahmoudiya Amnesia

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  10. StephanieMay 14, 2007 at 2:35 PM

    Along the same lines of Brian S. Willson's motto "We are not worth more. They are not worth less" (http://www.brianwillson.com/)...

    "Sorry We Shot Your Kid, But Here's $500"

    For the entire war in Iraq, the press has been kept largely in the dark concerning the number of civilians killed by our forces, and what happened in the aftemath. Now several hundred files posted online reveal some of the true horror while raising questions about lack of compensation.

    By Greg Mitchell
    May 14, 2007
    http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003571125

    AND

    Tomgram: The Nearly Two Million Dollar Gap

    "What Price Slaughter?
    In New York and Jalalabad, Human Life Is Valued Differently -- by the U.S. Government"
    By Tom Engelhardt

    What value has a human life?

    http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=194387

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  11. blackhelicoptercirclingMay 17, 2007 at 3:52 PM

    As John McCain himself has remarked, the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq exposes America to the serious risk of jihadists "following us home". With this in mind, it might be worth exploring how Al-Qaeda could make good on this threat.

    Osama bin Laden would first need to direct all Al-Qaeda forces in Iraq to undergo a rigorous, Olympic-style swimming program. For jihadists to make the swim out of the Persian Gulf should be relatively easy. However, upon reaching the Indian Ocean, jihadists would face a number of challenges.

    To attack the eastern coast of the United States, jihadists must first reach the Atlantic Ocean. This would require them to follow one of two possible routes: (1) they could enter the Red Sea, swim through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean, and then head west to the Atlantic; or (2) they could make a more difficult swim to the southwest, past the southern horn of Africa, and into the South Atlantic. Option 1 is advantageous in that it covers the shortest distance, but jihadists incur a significant risk of detection. While option 2 is the stealthier route, entering the cooler waters of the South Atlantic would undoubtedly require jihadists to wear an extra layer of underwear.

    Reaching the western coast of the US would be equally difficult. The best option would be for jihadists to make their way to the Malaysian-Indonesian straits. From there, they could swim through the Philippines and head east across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. This would afford jihadists an opportunity to carry out selective martyrdom operations in Honolulu before closing the remaining distance to the western coast of the United States.

    Bin Laden's biggest problem by far would be devising a way for jihadists to keep their suicide vests from getting wet.

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  12. AnonymousMay 22, 2007 at 10:08 AM

    As I've said many, many times before....People, the USA you used to live in, where Bob Woodward can have a president impeached with a breaking book, where people can rise up and vote the bastards out, where all people are created equal is no longer. This is a massive work camp with open borders. Where brown slaves appear and disappear into the dust with little fanfare. Unions, peace groups, and science are looked upon with disdain by corrupt and cruel appointed overlords who have made pacts with giant corporations to invalidate the Constitution. I bellow and guffaw every time I read your quaint references to "The American Way" or your "Constitution". Those are ancient history. The American Way is now a self-propelled slave showing up to take your job and being happy to beg for $6/hour. You, as an American and as a person demanding rights are a threat to the economic expansion of Work-Camp USA. You are an enemy of the state. You are a terrorist. Step aside and let us get on with the New World Order.

    ReplyDelete

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