Rising Resistance in Iraq: 4 US Dead in two days, 2 missing

[tnitsuj]

from MSNBC.COM

It appears to be spreading to the Shias in the south which is very troubling. Please keep the families of all these serviceman in your minds.

 

[Alistar7]

probably many of the same people responsible for the bombing of the mayors office, the bombing and sabotage of power plants and pipelines, and the murder of an Iraqi power plant worker.

I don't see this as the general mood of the overall population as recent Iraqi polls indicate overwhemingly that they want us to be there until they can take over. This is the work of insurgents and Saddam loyalists with more than likely a few revenge killings here and there by Iraqi's.

 

[Alistar7]

An Iraqi villager went looking for help from U.S. intelligence officers in Baghdad last week. He was afraid. His hamlet, about 30 miles east of the capital, had become practically a ?ghost town? in recent years, he said. Within the last few weeks, though, a group of 40 or 50 armed Iraqis had arrived from the towns of Al Fallujah and Ar Ramadi, more than 50 miles away.

THE MEN WERE using the abandoned buildings for military training. Some were former officers from Saddam Hussein?s armed forces, others were identified by the Iraqi as ?Wahhabi?? Muslims akin to the extremist sect that inspired Al Qaeda. ?At first I wasn?t sure [the story] was real,? says a U.S intelligence officer. ?But now, all of a sudden, these Wahhabi guys have been appearing. We?re hearing that word a lot more: Wahhabi.?

In Al Fallujah the organization seems to be growing stronger every day. Townspeople often greet American patrols with jeers?and, increasingly, with open violence. U.S. intelligence says the Baathists are offering big money to locals who participate in attacks. A tank had its treads blown to scrap metal last week when it ran over a tripwire attached to several pounds of TNT on the highway. The next day a man threw a grenade at U.S. troops in broad daylight. They shot him and he fell, but when they approached to see if he was dead or alive, the man threw another grenade he had concealed beneath him. Two Americans were hurt. For weeks now, troops in the region have noticed men on motorcycles tailing them, then zipping away when U.S. troops have tried to engage them. The encounters were particularly worrisome because motorcycles used to be a trademark of Saddam?s Fedayeen. ?There have been suspicions that they were using the motorcycles to scope out the area and pick out patterns,? says Sgt. 1/c Michael Lindenbusch. ?It appears they actually got the picture they wanted. Now they?re starting to act on it.?

 

[Alistar7]

Somewhere in America, there's got to be a CIA analyst who wants to bang his head against a wall every time he opens a newspaper. Somewhere, I'm convinced, there must be people who get it, who clearly see the war the United States must fight, who see the enemy multiplying and dividing while good people who can't grasp the situation do nothing. The people who "get it" no doubt understand what Jewish and mainline Muslim political scholars the world over figured out years ago: that al Queda is merely a tentacle of a monster whose head isn't in Iraq, but in Saudi Arabia.

By now, the word "Wahhabi" should be right up there with "al Queda" and "bin Laden" in the American vernacular, but it isn't. Wahhabism, the state religion of Saudi Arabia, is a radical form of Islam that interprets the Koran literally and mandates the destruction of all other belief systems and cultures. What we call terrorism is what happens when a Wahhabi Muslim acts upon his religious beliefs.

As it stands, a weak Saudi monarchy controls the world's richest oil reserves, yet presides over a stagnating, Stalinist economy. To hold its power over a state of Wahhabi Muslims increasingly ruled by their religious leaders, they've turned more and more power over to the Wahhabis, who control virtually every level of Saudi government. After oil, the number one export out of Saudi Arabia is the madrasas, the schools in which little more than Wahhabism is taught. These "schools" are the educational networks and channels of funding intended to give Saudi Wahhabi Muslims worldwide reach.

Where there is no money for education, the Saudis provide it. The madrasas have been exported to dozens of countries; there are over 40,000 of these Saudi-funded schools in Pakistan alone. You can also find them in Sudan, Chechnya, Indonesia and throughout the Muslim world.

Most Westerners mistakenly believe that US support of Israel is the chief source of unrest in the Middle East, and consequently we've focused much of our political and diplomatic attention on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while ignoring the fact that Israel wasn't even mentioned in the al Queda manual that lays out the group's beliefs and governs its actions.

 

[phillyTIM]

It's a cryin' shame that our soldiers are left for dead out of this "created" war. Every single drop of American blood just exemplifies this and creates more anger. Those poor families of those American dead soldiers. It's just a cryin' shame.

 

[Alistar7]

U R a shame to this country, and to the families of those serving there, keep your political BS out of this please.

Were tens of thousands of American's worth the freedom of millions of Europeeings from the Hitler regme?

A few hundred are worth the freedom of 22,000,000 Iraqi's living in worse conditions.


There are dozens of other threads you can disseminate your personal opinion about the validity of the action which resulted in their deaths, they were only following orders and deserve a bit more respect.

 

[phillyTIM]

nice attempt at your spin on it, A7; but the fact remains that Saddam was a threat to no one outside of his own country (and even then he'd already been severely weakends after the past 12 years), and that Hitler was actually using what he had to take over other countries and the world.

iraq posed nary a threat compared to hitler, get over yourself

 

[calbear2000]

Originally posted by: Alistar7
U R a shame to this country, and to the families of those serving there, keep your political BS out of this please.

Were tens of thousands of American's worth the freedom of millions of Europeeings from the Hitler regme?

A few hundred are worth the freedom of 22,000,000 Iraqi's living in worse conditions.


There are dozens of other threads you can disseminate your personal opinion about the validity of the action which resulted in their deaths, they were only following orders and deserve a bit more respect.

Oh please Rambo... stop pretending like you give a sh*t about the families of those getting killed.

 

[phillyTIM]

and further, no, a "few hundred" DEAD americans are not worth the comfortness of 22m iraqis...not at all. that's their business, and their country, and if it was truly wrong, or unjust, then that's for the UN to step in on.

the us has no right to force it's policies/culture on everyone else.

bush has no right to LIE to the american people, either.

 

[Alistar7]

Originally posted by: phillyTIM
nice attempt at your spin on it, A7; but the fact remains that Saddam was a threat to no one outside of his own country (and even then he'd already been severely weakends after the past 12 years), and that Hitler was actually using what he had to take over other countries and the world.

iraq posed nary a threat compared to hitler, get over yourself

He posed the same threat to his own people that Hitler did for others.

Tell that to the hundreds on thousands of Kuwaiti's who bought gas masks before this last war, or the ones killed by the banned missilles Saddam fired into their country.
Saddams threat was never that his army would take over the world, I challenge you to find anyone who thought otherwise, his threat to the world was different. I will stick to what is not debatable. He had control of the worlds 2nd largest oil reserves, that alone gaves him the power to disrupt global markets.

Cal, yes, I do, I have extended family there right now, and some of our members here have children there as well. I don't care any less about the others either, or the fate of the people of Iraq. You would have to be a supreme as*hole not to....

 

[Alistar7]

Originally posted by: phillyTIM
and further, no, a "few hundred" DEAD americans are not worth the comfortness of 22m iraqis...not at all. that's their business, and their country, and if it was truly wrong, or unjust, then that's for the UN to step in on.

the us has no right to force it's policies/culture on everyone else.

bush has no right to LIE to the american people, either.

Forced? Did you forget what you saw in Baghdad, what was compared to the fall of the Berlin Wall by the international community? LMAO....

Are they not setting up their own govt, creating their own constitution, which they will vote on and pass?

Where was this UN only business created? Because the US bothered to ask before when nobody else does, suddenly it's a requirement?

Bush has no right to lie, prove to me he did.

Tell me how you can equate "comfort" with mass graves of children.....

 

[Phuz]

Originally posted by: calbear2000

Originally posted by: Alistar7
U R a shame to this country, and to the families of those serving there, keep your political BS out of this please.

Were tens of thousands of American's worth the freedom of millions of Europeeings from the Hitler regme?

A few hundred are worth the freedom of 22,000,000 Iraqi's living in worse conditions.


There are dozens of other threads you can disseminate your personal opinion about the validity of the action which resulted in their deaths, they were only following orders and deserve a bit more respect.

Oh please Rambo... stop pretending like you give a sh*t about the families of those getting killed.

Don't bother. The guy sees everything in black and white.

 

[NorthRiver]

This war is a farce!

We would have to have a man in every building just to keep things in check. I say let these clowns work it out themselves. If they decide to go extremist, then we will have something to worry about.

But, what it really boils down to is that we should have never gone! Saddam was not a threat to anyone outside of his country. I think that Saddam was a bad person, but it sure is funny that he could keep the country in check.

We are too lax on these people. Obviously we are in it for the long haul, so why not crack down big time.

Remember, it is all about OIL!

 

[phillyTIM]

Originally posted by: Alistar7
Forced? Did you forget what you saw in Baghdad, what was compared to the fall of the Berlin Wall by the international community? LMAO....

Are they not setting up their own govt, creating their own constitution, which they will vote on and pass?

Where was this UN only business created? Because the US bothered to ask before when nobody else does, suddenly it's a requirement?

Bush has no right to lie, prove to me he did.

Tell me how you can equate "comfort" with mass graves of children.....

1. A certain amount of Iraqi's were damn happy that they were out from Saddam, I can't agree with you more there. But remember, Saddam had a strong arm against the country because of the various strong sects of peoples there. Saddam forced unity of the country, perhaps out of necessity to keep it together. Why was the Soviet Union allowed to do this for a century, if that was so wrong for THEIR (not OUR, mind you) culture?

2. Are THEY setting up a new government, or are WE doing that for them? Seems like whoever they choose must pass OUR muster., which in all likelihood is NOT representative of THEIR country. As bad as that sounds, that's how it is, bud.

3. Apparently the UN (ie, the World) didn't think it was enough of a human rights issue to force their hand????? Again, compared to the Soviet strong-arm during the past century.

4. Again, comfort/death, is all relative in any given culture. They had a culture, it didn't meet our specifications therefore we (the US) must wipe it out. It's a shame that the world isn't allowed diversity under the Bush Regime's reign, isn't it?

!5!: and most importantly: this "invasion" was not sold to us as a human rights movement. this invasion was sold to us as Saddam in America's back-yard, just ready to takeover/destroy it. And even that was not believable by 90% of the WORLD. It's all about "BAIT AND SWITCH" babe, Bush's whole life has been about that.

this was CREATED to give bush something to do or to take vengence upon saddam for his daddy's hit or for his damned oil, or to help the economy by giving the Bush Regime's private-industry buddies something to do and money to make.

Take your pick.

But none of that adds up to the outpour of American death and blood in the desert. None of it, and none of the above.

 

[tnitsuj]

Originally posted by: NorthRiver
This war is a farce!

We would have to have a man in every building just to keep things in check. I say let these clowns work it out themselves. If they decide to go extremist, then we will have something to worry about.

But, what it really boils down to is that we should have never gone! Saddam was not a threat to anyone outside of his country. I think that Saddam was a bad person, but it sure is funny that he could keep the country in check.

We are too lax on these people. Obviously we are in it for the long haul, so why not crack down big time.

Remember, it is all about OIL!

What do you mean by crack down big time? History has shown time and time again that the more an occupying power "cracks" down on the native population, the greater the resistence is. Never underestimate the forces of nationalism and the yearning to set your own destiny.

If US forces were to "crack down" as you say, we would simply have more of our countrymen coming home in bags.

We need to get the Iraqis on our side, however that isn't going to happen without security, and a marked improvement in thier daily lives along with real steps towards self government. All of these are very tall orders.

This is going to be a long and difficult road, but we are commited now. People who talk of pulling out now, are I think not fully understanding the consequences of such an action...just as the administration did not fully appreciate the challeneges of attempting to rule a foriegn nation such as Iraq.

 

[Lucky]

Originally posted by: phillyTIM
and further, no, a "few hundred" DEAD americans are not worth the comfortness of 22m iraqis...not at all. that's their business, and their country....

Was it worth 405,399 american lives to make 400 million europeans "comfortable"?

 

[HappyGamer2]

yes we can't leave now, were trapped if we leave we have lost and made a fool of ourselves, well maybe we have allready anyhow.

the bad part is our troops will get tired, you can only be pumped up on guard, alert for so long. are we sending in fresh troops as replacements?

 

[BarneyFife]

Originally posted by: Alistar7

Originally posted by: phillyTIM
nice attempt at your spin on it, A7; but the fact remains that Saddam was a threat to no one outside of his own country (and even then he'd already been severely weakends after the past 12 years), and that Hitler was actually using what he had to take over other countries and the world.

iraq posed nary a threat compared to hitler, get over yourself

He posed the same threat to his own people that Hitler did for others.

Tell that to the hundreds on thousands of Kuwaiti's who bought gas masks before this last war, or the ones killed by the banned missilles Saddam fired into their country.
Saddams threat was never that his army would take over the world, I challenge you to find anyone who thought otherwise, his threat to the world was different. I will stick to what is not debatable. He had control of the worlds 2nd largest oil reserves, that alone gaves him the power to disrupt global markets.

Cal, yes, I do, I have extended family there right now, and some of our members here have children there as well. I don't care any less about the others either, or the fate of the people of Iraq. You would have to be a supreme as*hole not to....

Who cares about the Kuwatis? You certainly don't. So stop lying.

 

[BarneyFife]

Originally posted by: HappyGamer2
yes we can't leave now, were trapped if we leave we have lost and made a fool of ourselves, well maybe we have allready anyhow.

the bad part is our troops will get tired, you can only be pumped up on guard, alert for so long. are we sending in fresh troops as replacements?

The morale is probably low. The new troops coming in (if any) aren't going to be pumped or excited. Welcome to Vietnam part 2. Thanks Dick and George.