The evidence is in! Take heed! Bush, Cheney, Condi and Rumsfeld (Bushco) continue to commit fraud on the American people! We can now say with certainty that a civil war is raging in Iraq. Due to honest reports from our troops and their leaders, we now learn the full truth and the extent of these particular lies--as distinguished from the plethora of other lies they have perpetrated on the people.
In Iraq, “neighborhoods become open battlegrounds” as night falls. But Bushco will not use the words “civil war.” Yet because their top generals in command have uttered those words, the hell that is Iraq today can be denied no longer. Added to the other Mideast chaos and you have a terribly dangerous world. Soldiers’ observations below the fold.
Gorette's Diary:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0805-03.htm (actual linky below)
The recent assertion by U.S. soldiers here that Iraq is in a civil war is a stunning indication that American efforts to bring peace and democracy to Iraq are failing. Army troops in and around the capital interviewed in the last week cite a long list of evidence that the center of the nation is coming undone: Villages have been abandoned by Sunni and Shiite Muslims; Sunni insurgents have killed thousands of Shiites in car bombings and assassinations; Shiite militia death squads have tortured and killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Sunnis; and when night falls, neighborhoods become open battlegrounds.
Yet, the astute Dan Bartlett, Bush’s counselor, said http://www.nytimes.com/...
Mr. Bush’s hands would not be tied in Iraq by domestic politics. (HA!!!) Mr. Bartlett said the administration would spend the fall explaining the strategy in Iraq, describing success as certain....
Today on MTP Condi said that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis demonstrating the other day in Baghdad, shouting “Death to America” and burning the American flag was a great display of democracy, something for which 2,588 Americans have died.
“You know, to see hundreds of thousands of Iraqis demonstrating, exercising their right to free speech, well it’s the only place in the Mideast that could happen.”(not verbatim)
Really?
Bush, Cheney, Condi, Rummi. They all have got to know better. But they lie.
How can you deny that Iraq is worse off today than it was before we invaded? How can you talk about the “Unity Government,” which failed in its effort to stop the violence? When the police of Iraq are utterly helpless to stop the violence so that even when they see it they pass by, how can you throw our soldiers into the midst of it? (See Ruttenberg, below.)
What is Rumsfeld's repsonse to the increase in sectarian violence in Baghdad? To send in a few more troops. Sure, extend the tours of the Stryker battalion which has already been in Iraq for a year, just as they are about to hop on the planes for home. What will 3,600 more American soldiers mean or 5,000? Nothing. Because it is a hellish civil war already in full swing.
What is going on? They lie.
They are trying until November to hold on to the illusion they have been perpetuating for far too long--that Iraq will be a success certain, that there is no real civil war, it's just an exaggeration, something suggested by alarmists.
Senator Chuck Hagel NE-R has called for troops to begin exiting Iraq within six months and says that adding to the already higher number of 133,000 U.S. troops will only "make it worse for us."
http://www.newsnetnebraska.org/...
(Hagel) said that Bushco are “completely disconnected from reality…It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."
....With Iraq exploding in sectarian violence and “moving closer and closer to a straight-out civil war,” Hagel said, the Bush administration’s decision to transfer nearly 5,000 additional U.S. troops into Baghdad is “only going to make it worse for us.” In the end, Hagel said, “feed(ing) more American troop fodder into the fight” could result in “even a worse defeat.”
Today’s NYT “Washington MEMO” by Ruttenberg,http://www.nytimes.com/...</ </p>
“‘Civil war’ is sort of a proxy term for wars we cannot win,” said Christopher F. Gelpi, a professor of political science at Duke University who has worked on gauging opinions on Iraq with Peter D. (“Plan for Vicotry”) Feaver… “The problem they’re facing is there’s only so much their rhetorical strategy can do to reshape public perceptions of the very real events that are out there, and right now those events are very bad…”
“Those of us who still back the war are worried and alarmed,” said William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, an early proponent of the invasion. “We need to win the war and if it’s not going well we need to change strategy.”
And, a former speechwriter for President Bush, David Frum…said that if the United States did not change its policy by significantly increasing troop levels, “Baghdad — and therefore central Iraq — will in such a case slide after Basra and the south into the unofficial new Iranian empire.” Then, he predicted, “American troops will be free to stay or go, depending on whether we wish to deny or acknowledge defeat.”
This is the most important recent article about the situation in Iraq today, from 8/5/6. Tom Lasseter, “Iraqi Civil War has Already Begun, US Troops Say” published by The McClatchy Newspapers http://www.commondreams.org/...
I only wish I could quote more. “Killing fields,” people who “probably got threatened last night,” families fleeing the area with the back of their trucks filled with clothes and mattresses and even bricks to build shelters somewhere else. “Cleansing…..” not ethnic, but religious, more “like Kosovo” in the words of one general.
Then there is Lt. Col. Craig Osborne, 39, of Illinois. He commands a 4th Infantry Division battalion working in one of the worst areas in Baghdad along the western edge.
"I hate to use the word `purify,' because it sounds very bad, but they are trying to force Shiites into Shiite areas and Sunnis into Sunni areas" as he compared Iraq to Rwanda, where hundreds of thousands of people were killed in an orgy of inter-tribal violence in 1994. "That was without doubt a civil war - the same thing is happening here. But it's not called a civil war - there's such a negative connotation to that word and it suggests failure," he said.
"There's one street that's the dividing line. They shoot mortars across the line and abduct people back and forth," said 1st Lt. Brian Johnson, a 4th Infantry Division platoon leader from Houston. Johnson, 24, was describing the nightly violence that pits Sunni gunmen from Baghdad's Ghazaliyah neighborhood against Shiite gunmen from the nearby Shula district. .. snip/
Some Iraqi troops, too, share that assessment. "This is a civil war," said a senior adviser to the commander of the Iraqi Army's 6th Division, which oversees much of Baghdad. "The problem between Sunnis and Shiites is a religious one, and it gets worse every time they attack each other's mosques," said the adviser, who gave only his rank and first name, Col. Ahmed, because of security concerns. "Iraq is now caught in hell."
The violence has increased as Iraqi troops have been added, and feuding among the political leadership is intense. American soldiers, particularly the rank and file who go out on daily patrols, say they see no end to the bloodshed. Higher ranking officers concede that the developments are threatening to move beyond their grasp. "There's no plan - we are constantly reacting," said a senior American military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I have absolutely no idea what we're going to do."
More lies in the AirForce Times: http://www.airforcetimes.com/...
Since 2000, about 40,000 troops from all branches of the military have deserted, the Pentagon says. More than half served in the Army. But the Army says numbers have decreased each year since the United States began its war on terror in Afghanistan.
Those who help war resisters say desertion is more prevalent than the military has admitted.
“They lied in Vietnam with the amount of opposition to the war and they’re lying now,” said Eric Seitz, an attorney who represents Army Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to the war in Iraq. Watada is under military custody in Fort Lewis, Wash.
Lasseter's article contains these additional assessments:
Staff Sgt.: "It's to the point of being irreconcilable; you know, we've found a lot of bodies, entire villages have been cleared out, we get reports of entire markets being gunned down - and if that's not a marker of a civil war, I don't know what is."
Sgt.: "I don't think there's any winning here. Victory for us is withdrawing."
Another comment reveals how the lies and dastardly acts of the administration, in neglecting to plan and neglecting to consult the experts, have driven these events:
“I don’t think we moved too quickly,” General Caldwell said of putting the Iraqis in charge of Baghdad. “I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the sectarian violence.”
That's where lies and stupidity and greedy oil-loving leaders will get you. Killing fields, civil war, and chaos in the Mideast.