Arkansas Blog

Well, ya know, if the mainstream U.S. media says it, it's bound to be true. And if they say it three times, it is beyond the rhelm of question or debate. Everybody knows that.

The Daily Koz article makes it clear and very simple: The Iraqis know that American forces and their allies, whatever their motives for "regime change" in Iraq, are not there to benefit Iraqis.

It is with a bitter feeling that I read the Daily Kos post.

Yesterday, I parked behind a Vietnam veteran's car with a bumper sticker that reminded me that conflict lasted from 1959 to 1975. The day before I joined the Army, a battalion in my future Vietnam unit, the First Infantry Division, was ambushed and suffered severe losses, an action featured in They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 by David Maraniss, which I highly recommend. As Maraniss learned in his research, even as that was occurring, LBJ and his top advisers knew the war was not winnable, but continued to say publicly that victory was achievable, just like the current adminstration does now in Iraq. Vietnam ran another 7 years, with a large number of lives lost unnecessarily. What will it take for our political leaders to do what it is necessary to end this madness now?

Ironically, that ambush was treated as a great victory for the U.S., with Westmoreland showing up at the hospital to hand out medals to the survivors. Probably the same thing going on Iraq today too.

5 million Orphans in Iraq, that the green zone admits to.

http://gorillasguides.com/2007/12/15/5-million-orphans/

Read this recent article by an American citizen journalist who does not hide in the green zone when over there.

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1196786126550&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout

We are partitioning refugees and average citizens across the entire country. We are temporarily buying off many thousands with monthly stipends.. None of the infrastructure is being restored, none of the millions of refugees have a place to return to. We have far morw Iraqis in prisons than at any point in our occupation. We can't even keep the Turks from invading Iraq this week and bombing the hell out of the Kurds, supposedly our best ally in Iraq. As Whit E Knight pointed out.. we have now been in Iraq equal to the amount of years we were in Viet Nam. We even had US troops stand up last week and declare (mutiny) if they were asked to return to certain areas for duty they would kill everyone in sight.. fortunately they won the day and were allowed to stay. This was the most deadly year to date for us and Iraqis. And the financial costs keep soaring with over 3/4 of a trillion dollars alloted to MIC, Afghanistan (which is also a disaster), and Iraq in the last week.

This has always been horrific and shameful on a human scale and time and again its proving to be a disaster for us economically. We are protecting Big Oil robber barons at a time and cost which we could easily change our level of addiction while insuring long term national economic security..

And we are failing by the only measure Bush and Cheney ever cared about.. OIL.. Iraq is still nowhere near signing away their oil with American invader robber barons.

The overwhelming majority of Americans have been ready to start withdrawal or completely withdraw this year, yet roughly 25 percent of the Senate voted this week to leave.. No Republicans voted to establish time lines and about half of the Dems did. Our Government is serving other (corporate) interests than the American people and committing genocide in the process.

Only one of the four Senators running for president spent time voting on a large number of significant year end bills in DC this week. Chris Dodd. Hillary, Barack, and Joe... dropped the leadership ball, big time. Their is no humanity or leadership there, except with Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich or Bill Richardson.

Nothing matters but exiting Iraq and Afghanistan, apologizing, making restitution where possible, and beginning war crimes charges on our own neo-nuts at home or in the Hague.