There are so many great things about this report from Iraq by John Burns of the New York Times, I wasn’t sure where to start commenting.
First, General Rick Lynch gives an honest assessment of what is required to keep security in Iraq. Second, Lynch and his fellow Americans have promised the Iraqi civilians they will not leave them in the hands of terrorists any longer. Congress needs to make that same promise.
But it was this passage that really caught my attention.
General Lynch said he was “amazed” at the cooperation his troops were encountering in previously hostile areas. He cited the village of Al Taqa, near the Euphrates about 20 miles southwest of Baghdad, where four American soldiers were killed in an ambush on May 12 and three others were taken hostage. One of the hostages was later found dead, leaving two soldiers missing. Brig. Gen. Jim Huggins, a deputy to General Lynch, said an Iraqi commander in the area had told him on Saturday that women and children in the village had begun using plastic pipes to tap on streetlamps and other metal objects to warn when extremists were in the area planting roadside bombs and planning other attacks.
“The tapping,” General Huggins said, was a signal that “these people have had enough.”
General Lynch also challenged an argument often made by American lawmakers who want to end the military involvement here soon: that Iraqi troops have ducked much of the hard fighting, and often proved unreliable because of the strong sectarian influence exercised by the competition for power between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political factions.
“I don’t know,” he said, how American war critics had concluded that the new American-trained Iraqi Army was not up to the fight. “I find that professionally offensive,” he said, after noting that there were “many Iraqi heroes” of the fighting south of Baghdad. “They’re competent,” he said. “There’s just not enough of them.”
There also are not enough American heroes in our political establishment as well.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
Speaking through an American interpreter, Lieutenant David Wallach who is a native Arabic speaker, the Iraqi official related how al Qaeda united these gangs who then became absorbed into “al Qaeda.” They recruited boys born during the years 1991, 92 and 93 who were each given weapons, including pistols, a bicycle and a phone (with phone cards paid) and a salary of $100 per month, all courtesy of al Qaeda. These boys were used for kidnapping, torturing and murdering people.
At first, he said, they would only target Shia, but over time the new al Qaeda directed attacks against Sunni, and then anyone who thought differently. The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.
this is truly sick
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/baqubah-update-05-july-2007.htm
Trackbacked by The Thunder Run – Web Reconnaissance for 07/16/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
I wonder what the lack of liberals commenting on this topic means?
The tide is turning and watch the squirming liberals (Democrat & Republican) try to move center & right on the war now.
I hope President Bush and those of us who truly support the Troops & Mission press on toward complete victory!
the tide is turning? the “insurgents” are running wiht their tails between their legs? The daily bombings in cities have stopped? Marine testifying in court that Marines were to treat all Iraqi men as insurgents?
By the way, I’m still wondering when all you war supporters are going to get out from in front of your computers and join up to serve in Iraq.
Let’s see, Kevin; since you and your fellow Democrats claim to support fighting in Afghanistan, when are YOU volunteering to get yourself out from in front of your computer and on the plane to Kabul?
Furthermore, like I pointed out elsewhere, even puppet Obama was forced to admit that more schoolchildren have died in Chicago shootings this year than service members from Illinois have been killed in Iraq. What’s your excuse in THAT Democrat-controlled and dominated city?
Kevin, you ask when are you war supporters going to get out from your computers and serve in Iraq. I would be glad to serve in Iraq. I have served 4 years in WW2 and there are many like me that would serve again.
Oh Kevin… I’ve served US Army 1975-1996. I’d love to do more but not able to. Thank you for the offer though. I did help train those still serving right. They are defending both of us young man.
I served in the US Army from 1975-1996. I wish I could serve again, I’d be right there. I am comfortable with those that I helped train continuing the mission though.
Besides Kevin, the troops don’t want your sympathy, they want your support!
Anybody watch nightline last night?
A brit reporter followed around a group of soldiers for several weeks.
All of them seemed near the breaking point.
Most of them looked pissed off.
Most of them didn’t see the point of being there.
Most of them were pissed at congress and the president for making them stay there.
Stories like this are the real Iraq.
Soldiers so worn out and at the breaking point due to horrible war planning that they kill an innocent taxi driver.
Soldiers so pissed off at their president and congress that they will bitch about it to a british reporter.
Soldiers doing their job with such courage even though they do not agree with the mission
Soldiers with no confidence in the Iraqi army
That is the real Iraq.
Not the spin job that the wacko right is trying to portray.
It’s a wonder how you false patriots can support a war that was planned so badly, with only theoretical goals, and has been bungled from the get go.
Especially when as the soldiers say “there is no point”
I do so laugh when anti-military hatemongers like gil make these kind of posts.
For example:
Soldiers so worn out and at the breaking point due to horrible war planning that they kill an innocent taxi driver.
I trust our soldiers to make the correct decision. That person was a threat to them and they are justified in acting.
But spinning leftist gil says they’re murderers and killers who killed an “innocent man”. He cries about what a terrible position our troops are in — even as he and his fellow leftists demonize our troops and call them evil people for defending themselves.
If gil wants to help our troops, he should support them, rather than calling them murderers and killers, and he should stop pandering to the leftists who hate the military and let our soldiers fight.
As admitted in another post: gil = keogh, the individual who empties the word “torture” of all meaning and constantly insults real victims of real torture – by his gross mis-use of the word.
P.S. It strikes me that the position of lefties wrt our troops, is not in any sense better than the position of Christian conservatives wrt homosexuality.
In the one case, conservative Christians go up to gays and say “You’re evil – but we support you, you pitiful thing trapped by the Devil. We’re going to bring you home to God.”
In the other case, anti-war leftists go up to our troops and say “You’re evil – but we support you, you pitiful thing trapped by the Devil (i.e., Bush). We’re going to bring you home to God (i.e., us lefties).”
Hmmm….merely pointing out that our troops killed an innocent person makes one “anti-military” Interesting….
Obviously I strayed from the rightist tripe of dehumanizing our troops and turning them into false icons. I should have stuck with the rightist line of not caring that the troop’s leaders stink, not care that nobody (including the troops) believe in what they are doing, and every mistake/crime should be swept under the rug to keep the right wing’s conscience clear.
Hmmm….merely pointing out that our troops killed an innocent person makes one “anti-military”
I think our troops can make a better judgment of whether or not a person is innocent than can leftists like yourself — who assume every person killed by our troops is innocent.
Obviously I strayed from the rightist tripe of dehumanizing our troops and turning them into false icons.
Your antimilitary hostility becomes obvious the more and more you open your mouth, “gil”.
Trusting our troops to make the right decisions and giving them the leeway to do so is not “dehumanizing”; on the contrary, it is treating them as equals, as intelligent human beings whose insights and wisdom we respect.
One wonders what to think of hatemongering leftists like yourself, who automatically assume our troops are always wrong, that they are always murderers and baby-killers, etc.
But the reason why is obvious here:
I should have stuck with the rightist line of not caring that the troop’s leaders stink
And this is what this is all about; you only care about the troops inasmuch as you can use them to bash Bush. If you really cared about them, you would be defending them against your fellow leftists who call them ignorant, who call them murderers and war criminals, and who call for their defeat and “a million Mogadishus”.
Leftist hatemongers like yourself think you’re fooling people; you think we don’t remember your calls for “a million Mogadishus”, your sitting on guns in Vietnam encouraging people to kill our soldiers, the statements of your politicians like John Kerry calling our troops idiots.
“I think our troops can make a better judgment of whether or not a person is innocent”
You only make my point further, never did I say the troops were unjustified. However, to point out that the person was innocent, is a crime in your eyes.
They are human and near the breaking point, they’re not the statues that you pretend they are.