I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
see my name
at least my tax dollars aren't paying Halliburton and the rest of the country club for this WAR CRIME.
not that I pay taxes anyways..
Sadam was a bad man. I'm sure if he'd thought of flooding his own people with raw sewage, he would have. After all he gased them. You know what, if we can't fix the raw sewage in the hospital problem after 6 months, I don't know what good we could possibly be doing in the country.
The sad sad sad sad fact is that whenever we leave, civil war will follow.
Saddam's mass graves were an atrocity. Iraq ain't seen nuthin' yet.
Had we planned a bit, we could have done better. But that chance is gone, never to return.
Sorry. Haloscan ate my cookie. That "sad sad sad sad" anonymous up there is me.
Keep rockin' the free world, Tena.
Not only that, but one would think that by now the streets of Baghdad would be safe enough for pregnant women to get to the hospital to have their babies.
I cannot think of another situation this country has fucked up as badly as this one.
Can anyone else?
Yknow, I'm sorta surprised that neither the Reps or the Dems have offered the following solution. Encourage each state in the US to adopt one Iraqi hospital for the period of 3 years.
The schools, the schools!
Jesus, remidnd me to tell thist to the next lunkhead who starts screaming abou thow the schools are open in Iraq.
"Sure, the kids can go to school, but if they take a fall on the playground and go to the hospital, they're going to DIE."
Wow, I need to learn to type...
remidnd = remind
thist = this
abou thow = about how
A thousand apologies, etc.
No wonder the POTUS doesn't read newspapers.
Are y'all Iraqazoid Arabiacs enjoying all of that fucking freedom the U.S. of A. gave you, direct from Jesus and me?
I sent this to Hoff at Hoffmania a few hours ago. It's winning hearts and minds, and conveying the blessings of "democracy" my friends. Don't you long for another way?
Yeah, but the schools are open! You're forgetting the schools are open!
Don't you remember when we watched it on television, the "wave of steel", bristling with guns, speeding across the desert to open the schools?
Who cares about this other shit. We opened the freaking schools.
Course, they were closed because of the war. But still.
Sometimes I wish I had studied medicine as my mom wanted so I could join Medicines Sans Frontiers or something. This is sick.
What's even worse is that Halliburton, KBR and all of these other merchants of death are stealing money from the children's ward, basically.
The sad sad sad sad fact is that whenever we leave, civil war will follow.
We don't know that. I think with international assistance and as long as the US or Iran does not undermine the process, the Iraqis will seek peace and democracy on their own. The UN needs to be there to ensure that no single foreign government exerts too much influence on the fate of Iraq.
It took a ruthless dictator to prevent the secession of the different ethnic regions from Iraq, the borders of which were drawn by the British Empire in the Empire's interests NOT the Iraqis. They probably don't want another ruthless dictator.
If civil war may indeed be inevitable, it might be inevitable whether the US stays or leaves now. Maybe we should not be working so much on keeping Iraq as one, but in encouraging autonomy, but cooperation, among the diverse regions.
Clearly, there is no money for Halliburton or other Bush Crime Family related enterprises in the cleaning up of raw sewage on the floors of hospitals.
Therefore there is no interest in doing anything about it.
As long as the GOP contributors and insiders are happy the hell with everything else.
Its all about money and power with the right wing, whoever dies and suffers American or otherwise is irrelevant.
What would we call these individuals if they were from another country, think about it and determine your own definition to describe these people. If you are honest, the words should scare even those in the USA who are the opposition.
These are frightening people with a like agenda for everyone but their own.
Totally OT: Bad news, guys. I'm afraid the AWOL scandal is toast. Cartoonist Mike Luckovich has uncovered incontrovertable proof of Bush's presence in the Alabama National Guard.
6:51-- I'm afraid the AWOL scandal is toast. Cartoonist Mike Luckovich has uncovered incontrovertable proof of Bush's presence in the Alabama National Guard.
Thank you, Beth. In this thread, a good snarking belly-laugh is a welcome relief. Great 'toon.
C'mon, Bushies-- I'm waiting.....who is going to be the first among you to tell us again about youor great "leader" and all the good he's doing.
This Iraq fuck-up will be looked upon as one of the most shameful events in our history....completely messed up by an ignorant President and his ideological true-believers.
Much of what has happened was predicted, but was IGNORED by our asshole President.
tena: "I can't think of another situation this country has fucked up as badly...can anyone else?'
well, vietnam for starters...I don't think anything was as fucked up as that....but then..iraq is far from over and it's very likely to engulf the entire middle east if bush doesn't get kicked out.
They must lead those Republican Congressmen around by their noses when they take fact finding missions to Iraq. They are always reporting about how wonderful everything is, and oh what a leader Bush is. The only other explanation is that they do all their fact findering in their Baghdad hotel cocktail lounges.
If the Iraqis would pony up $2000 each to Bush's steal the election campaign they could get a few seconds of his time...
The REALLY sad, sad fact is: come June 30, IF we turn over "sovereignty" of the country, we will maintain control, because the military won't go anywhere.
Bush & Co expect to put a government in place that will 'invite' the U.S. Forces to remain and provide "security" (well, the "Green Zone" is secure; but that's where the military is) until Iraqis can provide it.
Does anyone really think we'll leave and let the chaos erupt that our military withdrawal would cause? Six months before the election? What was Kerry's famous line from Vietnam: How do you tell the last man he died for a mistake? Something like that.
"Sovereignty" we might cede (major IF there); military withdrawal ain't gonna happen.
As for raw sewage, well, it's not a security problem, is it?
I'll retire to Bedlam....
This was about the state of hospitals in Iraq. I thought I had the link. I'm too blown tonight. Mea culpa. Chardonnay culpa.
Clearly, there is no money for Halliburton or other Bush Crime Family related enterprises in the cleaning up of raw sewage on the floors of hospitals.
Therefore there is no interest in doing anything about it.
And we have a winner.
If you want Georgey Boy elected, we should leave
If you want to solve Iraq's problems, we should stay
Why did our soldiers die ??
Well, a bit of a rephrased line from Pete Seeger comes to mind...
"We're neck deep in the Big Muddy/
And the damn fools keep yelling to push on"
For the sake of the Iraqis in the hospital I sure hope it doesn't get that high...
Well, a bit of a rephrased line from Pete Seeger comes to mind...
"We're neck deep in the Big Shitty/
And the damn fools keep yelling to push on"
For the sake of the Iraqis in the hospital I sure hope it doesn't get that high...
The blessings of "democracy". Keep voting children.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. H. D. Thoreau
The blessings of "democracy". Keep voting children.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. H. D. Thoreau
I didn't do the double post on purspose
I meant to post to Thor.
It's the Big Muddy, the Mississippi...timeless, ageless, changeable, but constant.
Iraq has nothing - nothing - to do with a humanitarian effort. It is 100% about draining the US treasury and funelling as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, to corporations that support the Bush family and the GOP. That's it. Quit pretending that there is more to it.
This was one of my biggest problems with the invasion in the first place. Before we invaded, Iraq was in terrible shape after beign battered by more than a decade of sanctions.
But for the most part, that shape was Saddam's problem. He could change the country, or not, as he chose to do because he was in charge. If he chose to shirk his responsibility to the people, it was his problem, not ours.
As soon as we invaded Iraq, we took responsibility for every square inch of city and desert. We took responsibility for every man, woman, and child in that country as soon as the Iraqi army melted away and the old regime fell.
Why is all this our responsibility? Because we became an occupying power. As an occupying power, we are responsible for the welfare of that country under international law. The intermittent electricity? Our problem. Inadequate education? Our problem. Poor water and sewage? Our problem.
As the Bush administration continues to trumpet its pullout date (just in time for the election!), it seems that a lot of those worries are being lost.
And if we shirk international law by ignoring the needs of the Iraqi people? A big problem.
--|PW|--
How many people got blown-up in the past week? I lost count myself. The military has never been known for being an efficient logistics machine. It's likely that the supplies doctors need is being kept within 50 miles of the hospital, waiting for some clerk to fill out some form. The comment about everyone being interested in elections and bombs only is chilling, though.
And now an atheist says: "God bless Pete Seeger."
I have a double CD of his Carnegie Hall show. The back cover shows a photo of his banjo. Written around the rim is this quote: "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender."
I wish I could buy him a beer.
Donna:
I didn't do the double post on purpose either...
I know perfectly well that it was the Mississippi...the part I wanted to emphasize was the "damn fools keep yelling to push on" part
But your "timeless, ageless, changeable, but constant" comment is true of imperialist dreams since the beginning of empires
As we've said before, Iraq is actually worse now than under Saddam. That should be the snappy answer to crypto-Nazis thinking "they'll never go that way." Dumbya is a much more muderous tyrant. The people who really killed all those Kurds (not Saddam's people, the literate will note), who ultimately gave the go-ahead and provided the gas, are still in charge in our government (or in one case their son is, which we wouldn't count as a change in an Arab hereditary tyranny).
I'll ask it again, a different way
Did our soldiers die to fix iraq or get George elected ??
First, Tena, I don't think that we're abandoning Iraq, per se. Perhaps 100,000 troops will remain there for several more years, tens of thousands for the forseeable future. In the near term, these will be hunkered down trying not to get killed in the crossfire or lured into supporting one faction or another (as in Beruit, 1983 or Israel in the Lebanon, before that). But I suppose the hospitals will get better, provided that they're not destroyed anew in the fightiing.
As I posted over on Billmon's site, we are no longer in control of the outcome of the Iraqi invasion. It might have been silly to think we ever were, but God knows the miserable fashion in which we began it--delivering the country from the Saddam frying pan into the fire of anarchy--terminated any trust the Iraqis might have had for us. And this situation with the hospitals is a fine illustration of our failure.
I note that James Galloway reports that the Pentagon can't wait for its Coalition Provisional Authority to go out of business, graft possibilities or not. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, and no doubt their enabler, Dick Cheney, are abandoning this enterprise to whatever end it finds for itself, which suggests they have no hope other than to spend the people's money and its children to keep whatever's left of their reputations intact for a bit longer.
What a waste of blood and treasure.
D'oh. The Atlantic Monthly. James Fallows. Read it. Now:
http://www.theatlantic.com/issue...iew/
fallows.htm
or
http://tinyurl.com/28yh8
Hey, now the gang of whores are going to discuss Haiti
Another george Bush Foriegn Policy Success
And none of us need to learn to spell, it is all interpretive theater in this zone
I commented about this several weeks ago. US soldiers occupied the best hospitals, like Saddam's personal clinic. Oh man you ought to see it, marble floors and walls, all the most modern fixtures, it was better equipped than my local university hospital, and that's BEFORE the US forces grabbed it and resupplied it with their own medicla equipment. Meanwhile, the local Iraqis have to deal with medieval conditions in THEIR hospitals.
The medical palaces occupied by US forces are rightfully the property of the Iraqis. They were built with funds stolen from Iraqi citizens, and now we're stealing them from the Iraqis too. Until the US gives these palaces back to the people, they will be considered an occupier, not a liberator.
I hate sloppy political thinking. The President NEVER promised he would "pull the US out of Iraq by June 30," not even REMOTELY. What he said is that he would "transfer sovereignty to Iraqis." Unless the antiwar movement is successful, the U.S., under either Bush OR Kerry, will have troops in Iraq, substantial numbers of troops, for MANY years (may I remind you that U.S. troops are still in South Korea 50 years after the end of the Korean War).
P.S. - for a good background on health care in Iraq, see this post and the various linked posts therein.
"The sad sad sad sad fact is that whenever we leave, civil war will follow"
Civil War is underway now...just not fully reported.
BushCo is truely one of the biggest F**kups of all-time, certainly THE largest American f**kup ever.
>>The back cover shows a photo of his [Pete Seeger's] banjo. Written around the rim is this quote: "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender."
This is a result of having the US military running the occupation instead of the UN, or the State Dept or USAID. While the military may really be trying to fix things, they are not known for their flexibility, adaptability, and thriftiness. Having the DoD fix hospitals there means building things to DoD sprecifications, on their timetables - in other words 100X what Iraqis would spend and 10X as long. The occupation needs to be run be people that are experts in working in developing countries, with scarce resources, and simple solutions. Unfortunately, it's our tax dollars being wasted, while Iraqis wait for plodding DoD guys to plan and implement. Rumsfield.
Sadam was responsible for the mass graves BUT Bush, our President, has been responsible for all the tragedy caused In Iraq since he was elected. I don't know how many bodies lie in those mass graves, but I can well imagine Bush has been responsible for even more deaths to Iraqi soldiers, and Iraqi innocents, together with the killing and wounding of our servicemen. The stories about the children in filthy and unequipped Iraqi hospitals breaks my heart - we have a humanitarian obligation to get Bush out of the White House.
Saddam was responsible for the mass graves
Well, not exactly. Being America means never having to take responsibility for anything. "Some guy we happen to arm, support, aid, instruct and only tangentially know did it." Tell us seriously Saddam would've dashed his country against Iran, or repressed dissent, had we not gone out of our way to make sure he did? Hell, he even talked to us before Kuwait (and our response was a bizarre nonsequitor all but asking him to attack).
Going after CIA tool Saddam is like Nuremberg only trying lieutenants. The Cabal killed those people, then the Cabal got thirsty and went back for more.
Hey Attila: I'm surprised no one has suggested this before. Each state should adopt some voters and then vote the fuckup Bush out.
I think Cheney is shaking down Rotor-Rooter but they have not ponied up enough yet to get the single-ply contract to fix the toilet.
And as far as "the schools, the schools!" notice that it is a teaching hospital, so we get a two-for-one. Almost a trifecta.
Now here is Kerry's problem: Will he be honest and run against Bush with a plan to bring in the international cooperation needed to rescue Iraq and then open yourself up to morons like Attila ("I don't need no foreigner telling me how to fix no Iraq. We rule the world!") or does he just say, "I'll fix it!" and then open himself up to attacks from morons like Attila ("He'll just go throw medals on the steps of Saddam's palace and then let Saddam come back into power.")
And then there's Bush's two plans: ribs or turkee.
Hell, he even talked to us before Kuwait (and our response was a bizarre nonsequitor all but asking him to attack).
kei & yuri
I've always suspected that he was given the green light so Bush I could ride to election day born up in a triumphal parade. Didn't turn out that way, did it. Glaspie should be made to answer for what she did, the blood of tens of thousands are on her lilly smooth hands.
Don't look away now, four more years of Bush and this is what most of our hospitals are going to look like.
Pennywit: I agree with you. Iraq is not analogous to VietNam for precisely the reasons you describe and I think precludes us from picking up and leaving Iraq as we eventually did in VietNam. Despite its controlling the south, the U.S. was not the occupying force in VietNam at any time because the country was never whole at any time. There was an established opposition force that never wavered. The opposition in Iraq as the war began was the country's own army, which disappeared in a blink.
So, while the argument to just pull out of VN may have been morally ambiguous there was no absolute reason to stay as there would have been had the US been entirely in control, a true occupying force. In fact, Nixon's solution -- after falsely campaigning that he had a secret plan to END the war -- was Vietnamization and an eventual pullout once the South had taken command of its own affairs. ((Of course, that never really happened and the North won swiftly and the U.S. was never the same afterwards.))
In Iraq, our course of action purports to be an Iraqization through elections of the country now run by the ``coalition of the willing,'' followed by a pullout. But it's OBVIOUS now that the country is a near-complete wreck with a multi-factional civil war looming and security a tragic joke. There simply cannot be a transition to democracy without security and the only force with even a remote chance of securing the country is the U.S. -- and it looks increasingly unlikely that we're up to the job.
Nevertheless an occupying force leaving at this juncture is a moral abomination sure to destroy whatever is left of the U.S.'s poisoned reputation. Our only hope and Iraq's only hope is for a rout of the Bush administration so that we can get some international help cleaning up the literal cesspool we've created.
'The word big is not enough to describe the disaster we are facing,' said Ahmed A. Muhammed, the hospital's assistant manager."
But, but, we're printing currency! Filter! Filter!
I think that the US can completely withdraw from Iraq and the violence there, assuming no other covert meddling , would be a fraction of what it is now.
This would be the environment of security and autonomy that would be necessary for the Iraq's to truly form a form of government that they alone must endorse and foster.
secularhuman: WRONG.
US was never in control of South Vietnam. That's just ludicrous. Heard of a little thing called "Tet"?
We were seen as occupiers. The analogy between Iraq and Vietnam works on many levels: led into it via lies, media parroting Pentagon line of "Making progress", George W. Bush making cowardly and selfserving choices, Bush admin claiming, as you quote, "we are on our way out, just need to set up local security" which is what Vietnamization was, claiming "We cannot leave right now, the poor people here want us to stay" (I couldn't believe you tried that one), and soon to come: expanding the war to neighboring countries (Syria, Iran).
You make some good points, though, but draw unimaginative conclusions. "US only one that can provide security" is silly. I think civil war can be avoided in Iraq (I used to think otherwise sometimes) but it requires a regional solution with the US playing a secondary role. We have no credibility, (gee, I wonder why? Israel, Iraq invasion, Saudi asslicking, slaughter of Kurds and Shiites after gulf war I (another crowning achievement in Cheney and Powell's life stories)) so we will never be viewed as objective (Fair and Balanced) intermediaries by the many participants in developing a workable and longlasting solution.
I can see a solution, but it would require some actual thinking on the part of our government, instead of looking to see who and how to make a quick buck off this.
any one feeling motivated can print out the article and mail it to Halliburton's Chairman of the Board-
David Lesar
Halliburton
5 Houston Center
1401 McKinney, Suite 2400
Houston, TX 77010
(may I remind you that U.S. troops are still in South Korea 50 years after the end of the Korean War).
well, while we're being picky about details, the Korean War never ended. There is an armistice (defined as, 'A temporary cessation of fighting by mutual consent; a truce').
There are no active hostilities, but neither has there been peace on the Korean peninsula the last 50 years.
We'll be in Iraq for a long, long time, whether it's Bush or Kerry in the WH. Thanks, George.
People should quit wondering why everything is going so wrong in Iraq. The mission is to sell off Iraqi assets to the lowest crony bidder and make pork while the sun shines. From this perspective, it's going swimmingly. The sooner people stop believing these adventures are ever about anything else (like say, spreading democracy) the sooner they'll end.
Hell, he even talked to us before Kuwait. . .
And if you want live examples of the same process, see the monsters we now court in Uzbekistan and Equatorial Guinea. And should these monsters get a mind of their own and start nationalizing their assets or selling them off to Russian and French companies, we'll make war on them too. And an ignorant public will be newly horrified by tales of atrocity removed from their context. I can hear it now -- 'He boiled his own people!'
Well, I think we are welcomed in Iraq.
"Riverbend's" blog (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/)
is particularly powerful this week. She's an Iraqi whose writings have become quite well known in some circles. She talks about the Amiriyah Shelter, which is the one the US blew up with missiles during the first Gulf War, killing scores of women and children, and she details how her family recently went through a kidnapping crisis. Check it out.
"First, Tena, I don't think that we're abandoning Iraq, per se. Perhaps 100,000 troops will remain there for several more years..."
What about 'six more countries in four more years' don't you understand? As long as Bxco remains in coup power over our country, we are at eternal war, as they blatantly said.
Now that Victory North is operational, we're pulling out of Germany, and "Iraq" is now a chain of US airbases with 2/3s-human Arabs stuck around them. The troops will fly in and out, guard the perimeter, and watch as the blood pours out of the gash Bxco is planning on making in the Islamic world.
800,000,000 Muslims might not like that very much. But 'our God is stronger' than Charlie's, right?
Clusterfucks are like cluster bombs. The limbs of the innocent flying in all directions explosively.
Syria and Lebanon are in the crosshairs, and USAF will finding all sorts of reasons to bomb the bejesus out of Yemen as well ('Remember the Cole!'?). Then Israel and the US will attack Iran, by about 2006. And then it's dreidels and haloes for us all, as the dead and dying husk of earth spins off kilter into darkness.
Tena, Bush and Cheney have their priorities. They first have to make sure the golf courses get made, and the closed membership country clubs get built.
Then there's the oil well executive suites that need to be furnished in order to attaract international investors(republicans).
MYOB'
.
Charlie don't surf.
Kerry could fix this.
Surrender now. Kerry knows how.
The sanctions, incidentally, were intended to hurt the civilian population. It's true Saddam could have done more for his people but that doesn't get us off the hook. As Barton Gellman pointed out in his June 23, 1991 article in the Washington Post, Iraq's civilian infrastructure was targeted in the first Gulf War with the idea in mind that under sanctions, it would be difficult or impossible to repair. The resulting suffering would cause Saddam to be toppled, or so they hoped. Kenneth Pollack confirmed that it was expected the sanctions would bring Saddam to his knees (by hurting his people, as if he'd care) on pages 125-126 of his stupid book.
So what the Iraqis are experiencing now is what they experienced at the end of Gulf War I.
I mention this because we should resist the temptation to make compassion for the victims of US foreign policy a purely partisan endeavor. Clinton supported the sanctions. Yes, Bush is worse, but that's setting the bar very low.
What the hell is Paul Bremmer doing other than sitting on his ass and buffin his nails?
Did anyone see the Frontline this past Thursday - US Army Commanders in in several towns state that many reconstrucution efforts are stalled b/c the army commanders in these various towns do not have the funds they need.
Where the hell is the $1 billion/week going that the US taxpayers are shouldering???
Tena
And the president promised in the SOTU that he would pull the U.S. out of Iraq by June 30?
Mmmmm . . . no. Not unless you call this a promise:
We're working with Iraqis and the United Nations to prepare for a transition to full Iraqi sovereignty by the end of June.
And as for your question:
Can he keep that promise, or perhaps a better question is: Should he?
Not to worry, dear.
"Where the hell is the $1 billion/week going that the US taxpayers are shouldering???
honmono | Email | Homepage | 02.15.04 - 9:24 am | # "
paying for halliburton's new image ads
on t.v. - two are showing in d.c. area
anyone else seeing these revolting
pieces of self righteous crap?
I've noticed in all these comments references to monetary cost, references to the burdens the Iraqis have to bear as the price of our adventurism, but this article in today's NYT magazine reminds us about the price our fellow Americans paid for this war:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/1...ine/
15VETS.html
Read knowing that there's not a lot any of us can say or do to bridge THAT gulf. The returning fighting men and women are aware of a different binary universe than ours - not the pro-war, anti-war crowds, but those who've been, and those who haven't.
I'm willing to bet that they find "the schools, the schools!" as annoying as our condemnations of this whole thing as Halliburton's War.
Rep. Charles Rangel has been for the draft in order to stay in Iraq and continue the fight and get more troops.
Kerry has said that we need international help but he has not said what kind of help? NATO or the UN.
NATO has already given their second NO to helping Bush in Iraq and I don't think that a change in Presidents will make any differance in Iraq.
IS the Democratic Party the Partyof the draft? It is as far as Rep. Charles Rangel is concerned.
to wandering by -
yea I know, but how stupid are these people - They can't continue to loot the war budget if the thing implodes?
But being the evil, immoral bastards that they are, they have probably calculated to the dime the amount they plan to reap and then run. So they screw our troops and the Iraqis but talk about "supporting our troops" and "promoting democracy."
If "The Inferno" is an accurate map of Hell then the 9th circle will someday welcome several more residents other than Judas and Satan.
Mission Accomplished!!!!!!
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