Iraq Cemetery Workers Union *Heart* al-Qaeda
The only people who miss violent deaths in Iraq more than its cemetery workers…
A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that’s cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.
Few people have a better sense of the death rate in Iraq .
“I always think of the increasing and decreasing of the dead,” said Sameer Shaaban, 23, one of more than 100 workers who specialize in ceremonially washing the corpses. “People want more and more money, and I am one of them, but most of the workers in this field don’t talk frankly, because they wish for more coffins, to earn more and more.”
…. are McClatchy Newspaper reporters and the American Democratic Party leadership.
[Related Story - "Iraq War is 'Lost': US Democrat Leader - - Breitbart.com, April 19, 2007 ]
[Related Story - Baghdad neighborhoods sees 85% reduction in violence - Multi-National Force, Iraq, October 14, 2007]
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
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Question: The left claims our presence in Iraq is the cause of the violence, so shouldn’t violence have gone up with the surge?
Comment by V the K — October 17, 2007 @ 7:36 am - October 17, 2007
[...] Original post by GayPatriot [...]
Pingback by Politics: 2008 HQ » Blog Archive » Iraq Cemetery Workers Union *Heart* al-Qaeda — October 17, 2007 @ 9:00 am - October 17, 2007
Shouldn’t Jimmy Carter go to Iraq and monitor this crisis?
Comment by Heliotrope — October 17, 2007 @ 11:06 am - October 17, 2007
In honor of our anti-military / anti-U.S.-victory DNC-Soros shills, let’s raise the subject of the Wapo op-ed yesterday by 12 former Army captains, proclaiming U.S. defeat and the necessity of immediate withdrawal:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/15/AR2007101500841.html
Flopping Aces has a comprehensive answer, replete with fascinating links and reports, for those interested in knowledge: http://www.floppingaces.net/2007/10/16/burying-the-victory-in-iraq/
Basically, none of the 12 have been in Iraq the last year – or even the last 2 years, for the vast majority of them – and hence, no, they don’t know what’s going on. The very title of their piece – “The Real Iraq We **Knew** [emphasis added]” – tells their story. People like Michael Yon, General Petraeus, and others who are in Iraq now, tell a different story.
Their piece is also rife with truly bizarre leaps of “logic”. For example, they claim a good alternative to immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is the imposition of compulsory military service in the U.S. (huh??????). But having acknowledged their poor logic: I do honor and thank them, for their past service.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — October 17, 2007 @ 1:40 pm - October 17, 2007
OT: Zombie covers a Code Pink protest on Oct. 7 of a Marines recruiting office in the People’s State of Berkeley, CA:
http://zombietime.com/code_pink_vs_marines_10-7-2007/
I love the John Stuart Mill quote, which the Marines displayed in their office window:
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — October 17, 2007 @ 2:08 pm - October 17, 2007
Guess that’s why we haven’t seen Ian/KYjelly ’round lately. Nothing for him to take joy in.
Also, check out the last two of the Party-Approved Posters
Comment by ThatGayConservative — October 17, 2007 @ 7:48 pm - October 17, 2007
I think it’s excellent that fewer Iraqis are getting killed. But for me, it still doesn’t dissuade my basic problem with the situation. I believe we can control the country. I don’t see us being able to exercise that control into political power. We have set a finish line that requires the Iraqi people to run the last length of the rely. That remains very problematic.
Comment by Chase — October 17, 2007 @ 10:54 pm - October 17, 2007
The relay analogy works only if you demand the impossible. A relay is a time and length limited event.
We are still in South Korea and Bosnia and have a heavy presence in Germany and Japan due to the way we wrote their constitutions.
The United States had a very rough period between the end of the revolution and the begining of the current government in 1789. We were a straw in the wind and had we not had the safety of weak neighbors and geographic isolation we might well have fractured beyond recognition.
We will be in Iraq for a very long time as the government grows in strength and direction. Perhaps they will toss us out on our ear at some point. But to think that they have a limited time to reach maturity and effectiveness is to wish them ill. We evacuated from Vietnam and Somalia. Those are the operative examples for looking at Iraq as some sort of relay race.
We stayed as occupiers in Germany and Japan for more than six years before we turned the countries back to the sovereignty of the people. In Iraq, our “occupied government” phase was historically brief. The people of Iraq have their government and their sovereignty. We are helping them to maintain it in the face of deadly force from Syria, Iran and radical Islamists within the population and radical Islamists who have infiltrated the population from without.
There were two other possible courses open to us. We could have stayed out of Iraq and left Saddam to do his bidding. Since you can not unscramble eggs, that option is no longer possible. We could have bombed Iraq and Saddam into dust and let the survivors sort out the pieces. That is how Clinton tried to handle the Balkans. We finally sent troops in there to try to help sort out mess. Those who propose we walk away from Iraq need to do some serious explaining of how that would improve the security of the world in facing the works of radical Islam.
Comment by Heliotrope — October 18, 2007 @ 10:41 am - October 18, 2007
You know if that happened here, the aged and irrelevant would be staging “Cemetery Worker Aid” concerts, and the Democrats would be clamoring for another unconstitutional vote buying boondoggle for the newly impoverished cemetery workers.
Comment by Crow — October 18, 2007 @ 3:35 pm - October 18, 2007
And look at the Balkans today. It worked very well. President Clinton’s handling of the Balkans was one of the finest achievements of his presidency.
No. I think those who support us staying indefinitely need to answer how long the American people are obliged to wait before we are to see a return on our investment. Because the current Iraqi government is a government in name only. It is non-functioning. I have no doubt the US military can continue to do its job. But when you spend the kind of money we are spending, the American people need assurance that the money is not being spent in a fool hearty pursuit. Right now, we do not have that assurance. That is the problem.
That is why I have long been a proponent of tying monetary investment to a firm set of benchmarks for the Iraqis to meet. You DO NOT continue to give loans to a person if that person has no intention to pay. A firm set of benchmarks would flesh out if the Iraqis have any intention to pay off their loan. The payment we seek is action.
Comment by Chase — October 18, 2007 @ 5:03 pm - October 18, 2007
No. I think those who support us staying indefinitely need to answer how long the American people are obliged to wait before we are to see a return on our investment.
Here’s one, Chase; the regime that you pandered to is no longer around to do this and cause this.
Your party claims to oppose genocide. Funny that you said nothing and actively worked to block anything being done about it when it was Saddam Hussein, especially after your righteous fury over Milosevic.
Then again, Milosevic wasn’t paying your donors billions of dollars in bribes to ignore him, either.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — October 18, 2007 @ 5:53 pm - October 18, 2007
Whew!
The war on the terrorism of radical Islam is to be measured in terms of “return on our investment”! Would that formula apply to “the war on poverty” as well?
Considering the era of legal segregation and the residual of racial prejudice, was the Civil War a good return on investment? Would it not have been far cheaper to buy out the plantations and just wholesale pack the slaves up and send them to Monrovia, Liberia with orders not to come back? Wouldn’t we have been better off to abandon Hawaii to the Japanese and concentrate on sinking German U-boats off our East coast? So what if England fell to the Nazis—that was their problem, not ours. And what the heck do the Balkans have to do with us when even the Europeans were indifferent? (I’m only speaking in terms of return on investment here.)
You socialists sure show your fannies big time when you attempt to use core capitalist terms.
Just out of interest, what war (if any) would be worth our return on investment in your mind? Maybe a quick nuke job to control the world’s oil supply? Hey! If we wipe out India, China and Japan, a lot of pressure would be taken off our energy problems. Now there is a great return on investment.
Comment by Heliotrope — October 18, 2007 @ 9:56 pm - October 18, 2007
HELLO!!!! Farm Subsidies.
We pay ass loads of money annually for people to grow and produce NOTHING. Where’s the return on that? We even pay to destroy crops and animals.
Not only do we give loans to people who have no intention to pay, we give it a name like Marshall Plan or War on Poverty and congratulate ourselves and tell others how much we care more than they do. Nevermind if it doesn’t do much of anything or makes matters worse.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — October 18, 2007 @ 11:38 pm - October 18, 2007
Heliotrope, it’s not 1864 or 1944 or 1967. It’s 2007. Conservatives constantly use analogies to past wars as a crutch to ignore the tough questions that need answers today. I’m not going to debate the Civil War or World War II with you.
You make a very valid point. Farm subsidies do need more oversight and regulation. There is a lot of money wasted there.
At the same time, agriculture is a national security issue. We must remain self-sufficient in our food supply. Thus, not all farm subsidies are bad.
Comment by Chase — October 19, 2007 @ 1:38 am - October 19, 2007
ThatGayConservative, I would add, in case it wasn’t self-explanatory, that the return on our investment in terms of farm subsidies is our continued ability to be self-sufficient in terms of our food supply. We can import cheap electronics to our hearts content, but food is a necessity. We can’t become dependent on China for our food.
Dependence on a foreign nation for our food supply would be a threat to our national security. That’s why we subsidize our farmers to make sure they can compete.
Comment by Chase — October 19, 2007 @ 1:52 am - October 19, 2007
After congressman Pete Stark declared yesterday that President Bush is “amused” when soldiers are killed in Iraq… to the joy of Kostards and the apparent approval of the Democrat leadership… can we have some honest admission that the extreme left is in fact in charge of the Democrat party?
Comment by V the K — October 19, 2007 @ 8:03 am - October 19, 2007
OK, Chase, forget the deep past. What about the Balkans? What about the return on investment in the United Nations? What the heck do we need to subsidise European countries for by carrying them in NATO? H-m-m-m-m? I would love to see your list of return on investment proprities. I doubt you could astound me, however.
Comment by Heliotrope — October 19, 2007 @ 12:26 pm - October 19, 2007
I’m not going to debate the Civil War or World War II with you.
In other words, because you can’t. It ain’t 1973 either, but the liberals love to spin comparisons to Vietnam rather than engage in honest discussion.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — October 19, 2007 @ 5:20 pm - October 19, 2007