Remember respectfully those soldiers from Colorado who have fallen in war. But, also this year remember those members of Colorado's congressional delegation who voted just four days ago to keep sending U.S. troops to fight, be wounded and die in the occupation of Iraq.
There is nothing glorious about war. Memorial Day is set aside to honor and respect those who have been killed in America's wars. Troops follow orders, they fight and too many die.
The United States has now suffered two hugely mistaken wars in just a generation: Vietnam and Iraq. There should be special sadness today over the unnecessary loss of soldiers in these unnecessary wars.
Upon contemplating the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, upon reflection over the 3,455 U.S. troops killed because of this war of choice, we can recognize the sacrifice of those who volunteered for the military believing that they would be defending our freedoms -- we should also, however, hold in contempt and disdain those politicians like George W. Bush and Richard Bruce Cheney who have trampled upon their noble intentions by lying to them and us about the need for this war.
No American soldier ever should have died for Bush's political advantage ... or to secure a new nation for an Islamic theocratic regime ... or to spread hatred of our country around the world ... that is all the blood spilled in Iraq will have accomplished when the dying and destruction has finally stopped.
News from Iraq today below. There is much more tragedy to come.
Because of Bush and Congress ... there will also be many more sad Memorial Days to come.
Link: With Allies in Enemy Ranks, GIs in Iraq are No Longer True Believers | International Herald Tribune
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. ...... 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." ...
... 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." ...
Link: Militants Widen Reach as Terror Seeps Out of Iraq | New York Times
When Muhammad al-Darsi got out of prison in Libya last year after serving time for militant activities, he had one goal: killing Americans in Iraq.
A recruiter he found on the Internet arranged to meet him on a bridge in Damascus, Syria. But when he got there, Mr. Darsi, 24, said the recruiter told him he was not needed in Iraq. Instead, he was drafted into the war that is seeping out of Iraq.
A team of militants from Iraq had traveled to Jordan, where they were preparing attacks on Americans and Jews, Mr. Darsi said the recruiter told him. He asked Mr. Darsi to join them and blow himself up in a crowd of tourists at Queen Alia Airport in Amman.
“I agreed,” Mr. Darsi said in a nine-page confession to Jordanian authorities after the plot was broken up.
The Iraq war, which for years has drawn militants from around the world, is beginning to export fighters and the tactics they have honed in the insurgency to neighboring countries and beyond, according to American, European and Middle Eastern government officials and interviews with militant leaders in Lebanon, Jordan and London. ...
... Militant leaders warn that the situation in Lebanon is indicative of the spread of fighters. “You have 50 fighters from Iraq in Lebanon now, but with good caution I can say there are a hundred times that many, 5,000 or higher, who are just waiting for the right moment to act,” Dr. Mohammad al-Massari, a Saudi dissident in Britain who runs the jihadist Internet forum, Tajdeed.net, said in an interview on Friday. “The flow of fighters is already going back and forth, and the fight will be everywhere until the United States is willing to cease and desist.”
There are signs of that traffic in and out of Iraq in other places.
In Saudi Arabia last month, government officials said they had arrested 172 men who had plans to attack oil installations, public officials and military posts, and some of the men appeared to have trained in Iraq.
Officials in Europe have said in interviews that they are trying to monitor small numbers of Muslim men who have returned home after traveling for short periods to Iraq, where they were likely to have fought alongside insurgents. ...
... A top American military official who tracks terrorism in Iraq and the surrounding region, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said: “Do I think in the future the jihad will be fueled from the battlefield of Iraq? Yes. More so than the battlefield of Afghanistan.”
Militants in Iraq are turning out instructional videos and electronic newsletters on the Internet that lay out their playbook for a startling array of techniques, from encryption to booby-trapped bombs to surface-to-air missiles, and those manuals are circulating freely in cyberspace.
And tactics common in Iraq are showing up in other parts of the world. In Somalia and Algeria, for example, recent suicide bombings have been accompanied by the release of taped testimonials by the bombers, a longtime terrorist practice embraced by insurgents in Iraq. ...
Link: Sunday: 3 GIs, 94 Iraqis Killed; 55 Iraqis Wounded, 47 Kidnapped | Antiwar.com
At least 94 Iraqis were killed or found dead today and another 55 Iraqis were wounded during violent events. However, the day’s biggest news was the rescue of 42 hostages from a suspected al-Qaeda hideout northeast of Baghdad. Unfortunately, another 40 were abducted from Samarra, and seven were kidnapped in other incidents. Three American servicemembers were also killed in separate events on Saturday, said military sources today.
Comments