Iraq - The Best Story of the Year

gimmesometruth27

either they are out of martyrs or they are waiting us out until the next president pulls our troops out. if that ever were to happen.

Byrnzie

MrSmith wrote:

Petraeus has done a good job. i think the improved situation is fantastic news. I don't agree with going in their in the first place, but i'm glad the violence is coming down. The only problem is the iraqi gov't is still pretty much useless, and until that changes the problems will continue.

That's right. Any problems still occurring over there are clearly the fault of the Iraqi 'government'.
We can all now wash our hands of the over one million dead men, women and children.

NCfan

theroachman wrote:

Got a link for all this good news?

This guy is a pretty solid source for news in Iraq, and he is agnostic on the arguement of whether we should be there or not. Be sure to scroll all the way down the main page and read some of the linked entires as well. He's been over there a long time and I get the feeling he's a straight shooter.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/

RolandTD20Kdrummer

reality's a bitch

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/60714/

Abuskedti

NCfan wrote:

This guy is a pretty solid source for news in Iraq, and he is agnostic on the arguement of whether we should be there or not. Be sure to scroll all the way down the main page and read some of the linked entires as well. He's been over there a long time and I get the feeling he's a straight shooter.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/

well over a million people dead or seriously injured as a result of our being there. what ofsets that? granted most of these not Americans - lower value indeed

RolandTD20Kdrummer

"It didn't work....they don't fear us." Very succinct statement.

Correct. They don't fear us. It did not work.

Byrnzie

RolandTD20Kdrummer wrote:

reality's a bitch

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/60714/

Just watched this. He can certainly hold his own.

RolandTD20Kdrummer

Byrnzie wrote:

Just watched this. He can certainly hold his own.

I think he's actually brainwashed/hypnotized/prayed himself into believing it.

Byrnzie

RolandTD20Kdrummer wrote:

I think he's actually brainwashed/hypnotized/prayed himself into believing it.

The Stephen Hayes fella? Yeah. Fucking dufus.
I still regret Bill Maher linking up with Chomsky on video satellite, or something, one night, but then allowing Chomsky to disapear before the debate around the table began. There was some prick at the table slagging Chomsky, but by then of course Chomsky wasn't around to respond. They should really bring him into to the sit at the table.

RolandTD20Kdrummer

Byrnzie wrote:

The Stephen Hayes fella? Yeah. Fucking dufus.
I still regret Bill Maher linking up with Chomsky on video satellite, or something, one night, but then allowing Chomsky to disapear before the debate around the table began. There was some prick at the table slagging Chomsky, but by then of course Chomsky wasn't around to respond. They should really bring him into to the sit at the table.

Robbins had me at Shawshank redemption

Actually #6 on the same list Chomsky gives a bit about 9/11.

I went to http://www.ae911truth.org just the other day, and the way the #7 building comes down so clean....there's just no way.....it's a textbook demolition. I mean honestly what are people even arguing about? It's almost laughable to think it's not. The other towers...who knows. Who was involved exactly ...who knows for sure. Anyone in the media can't stay anything about it without losing all credibility and future exposure... labeled a lunatic etc......so they don't. The same reason someone will come along and say the same thing to me here soon enough.

Byrnzie

NCfan wrote:

The fact that the US will "own" whatever happens in Iraq now doesn't seem like a problem to me. I see more potential there, than anything else. I think most people would agree that the US did not go to Iraq to steal their oil and expand our empire. If people feel that way, then fine, so be it...

So you think we still would have invaded Iraq if their chief export had been turnips?

'Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m.
The man once regarded as the world's most powerful banker has bluntly declared that the Iraq war was 'largely' about oil.'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2170237,00.html

NCfan wrote:

I think Iraq can do amazing things, and overcome its past. Iraq has a lot of oil money which will bring wealth and opportunity to its people if the money is spent wisely. I think the masses will opt more for an open society, and shun strict religion in the name of progress. We'll see.

Please elaborate on what you mean by 'progress'. It's a very vague word.

NCfan wrote:

But I think alot of people overlook the potential in Iraq. This isn't like Palestine, where everybody is poor and the country survives on the donations of others. This is a large part of the cycle of violence there. Nobody has the resources to rise out of it.

I wonder if being imprisoned in Apartheid style ghettos by a rich, powerful, and brutal neighbour has anything to do with their plight?
Maybe this video clip will go some way to explaining why Palestinians are having such a hard time....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaUO1NFeqKU&feature=related

NCfan wrote:

I think you will see life for the average Iraqi become far better than it ever was under Saddam and far better than any of their neighboring countries. I'm thinking its another 5 years out or so, but they will eventually get there if we can keep the peace.

But that doesn't include the 'over one million dead' though does it?
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2170237,00.html
And since when has the U.S been 'keeping the peace' in Iraq? Is that what the U.S army is? Peacemakers? Peacemakers that invade, ransack, plunder, and tear apart a soveriegn nation and are directly responsible for the deaths of at least a million men, women, and children?
Fuck me! I think Orwell may have been onto something!?!

Meanwhile...

Friday, 21 December 2007, 16:46 GMT

Iraq children 'paying high price'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7156399.stm

Two million children in Iraq are facing threats including poor nutrition, lack of education, disease and violence, the UN children's agency, Unicef, has said.

Hundreds were killed in violence during 2007, while 1,350 were detained by the authorities, it said in a new report.

Some 25,000 children and their families had to leave their homes each month to seek shelter in other parts of Iraq.

But Unicef said the fall in violence in recent months was opening a window for more international assistance.

Earlier, the top US military commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, told the BBC that the number of violent attacks in Iraq had fallen to its lowest in two-and-a-half years.

According to recent figures, some 536 Iraqis have died in violence so far this month, compared with more than 2,300 in December 2006.

In a report entitled "Little Respite for Iraq's Children in 2007", Unicef said Iraqi children continued to pay too high a price for their country's turmoil, and that this year things had got worse.

The report said an average 25,000 children per month were being displaced from their homes as their families fled violence or intimidation. By the end of the year, 75,000 children had resorted to living in camps or temporary shelters.

The disruption led to extreme hardship for many children and eroded access to education and healthcare, Unicef said.

Many of the 220,000 displaced children of primary school age had their education affected in a country where around 760,000 children (17%) were already absent from primary school. Only 28% of 17-year-olds sat their final exams.

Unicef said children in remote and hard-to-reach areas were frequently cut off from healthcare and that only 20% outside the capital, Baghdad, had working sewerage in their community. Access to safe water was also a serious issue.

But the agency said there had been some progress during 2007 - more than 4m children were vaccinated against polio and 3m against measles, and more than 500,000 internal refugees were given medical help, safe water and shelter by relief agencies and local communities.

It also said the current fall in violence provided an opportunity to deliver more aid and to get a clearer view of exactly what the conflict had done to Iraq's children.

"Iraqi children are paying far too high a price," said Roger Wright, Unicef's special representative for Iraq.

"While we have been providing as much assistance as possible, a new window of opportunity is opening, which should enable us to reach the most vulnerable with expanded, consistent support. We must act now."

Mr Wright stressed that Iraqi children should be the priority for international investment in Iraq as they would be the "foundation for their country's recovery".

RolandTD20Kdrummer

It's astonishing the level of ignorance that supports this occupation, and the people that actually think it's working, or even can work.

Honestly... It's delusionally unbelievable. Unprecedented delusion of a scale far beyond the realm of comprehension. Is there something in the water in some towns?

Watch the documentary meeting Resistance sometime.

http://meetingresistance.com/

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-8123098254755520828&q=meeting+resistance+duration%3Amedium&total=88&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

Abuskedti

RolandTD20Kdrummer wrote:

It's astonishing the level of ignorance that supports this occupation, and the people that actually think it's working, or even can work.

Honestly... It's delusionally unbelievable. Unprecedented delusion of a scale far beyond the realm of comprehension. Is there something in the water in some towns?

Watch the documentary meeting Resistance sometime.

http://meetingresistance.com/

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-8123098254755520828&q=meeting+resistance+duration%3Amedium&total=88&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

guess it all depends on what you consider important and what you can dismiss as not important.

Lots of people like the killing

RolandTD20Kdrummer

Abuskedti wrote:

guess it all depends on what you consider important and what you can dismiss as not important.

Lots of people like the killing

That's the only thing that would explain it, I know some people are aloof to reality... but it's gong on 5 years now.....youch. That is some serious hatred.

Religion hating religion. Funny how somehow the humanity has been stripped right out of them. Not sure what god they follow....his name must be Great Lord Satan.

Byrnzie

NCfan wrote:

We're trying to help Iraq damnit!

1.2 million dead = trying to help?

Meanwhile....

Tuesday, 25 December 2007, 11:05 GMT

Iraq bombs hit US-backed militia

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7159794.stm
At least 20 people have been killed and 80 injured in a suicide car bomb explosion in northern Iraq.

Police say the bomber detonated the charge when he was stopped by police and local militias in Baiji, about 250km (155 miles) north of Baghdad.

Later, a suicide bomber killed four people in Baquba, at the funeral of a father and son - also volunteers who were themselves killed by US troops.

The Sunni tribal Awakening militias have turned against al-Qaeda.

They are credited with pushing back al-Qaeda in areas where they had been operating with relative freedom.

US officials say this has helped reduce attacks in Iraq by 60% since June.

But neighbourhood patrols have increasingly come under attack from Sunni radicals.

In Baiji, the bomb hit people queuing to buy gas cylinders in a residential area. Women and children are reported to be among those killed.

Witnesses said the attack there targeted a security checkpoint on a road leading to a residential compound housing employees of the Northern Oil Company.

Baiji, a mostly Sunni area in Salahuddin province, has been relatively quiet in the past two years and the presence of the militias could explain why it is being targeted once more by suicide bombers, says the BBC's Jo Floto in Baghdad.

At least 19 people were killed and dozens wounded in two car bomb attacks there in October.

The suicide blasts targeted the town's police chief and a tribal leader, Thamer Ibrahim Atallah, a senior member of the Salahuddin Awakening Council.

In Tuesday's attack at the funeral in Baquba, the capital of the restive Diyala province 60km (35 miles) north of Baghdad, the bomber, wearing a vest packed with explosives, also wounded 21 members of the local militia, police said.

Police said the father and son had been killed in a shoot-out with US troops.

The US military has only said its troops killed two "criminals".

jlew24asu

Byrnzie wrote:

1.2 million dead = trying to help?

pure iles and propoganda.

Byrnzie wrote:

Meanwhile....

guess what. you will find violence in this country for the next hundred years. violence happens in all countries. imagine how murders occur in the US daily. like someone else said, its humans being humans.

its good to see the usual suspects around here still cheering for the US to loose. Death to America! come on, you know the chant.


Merry Christmas.

Abuskedti

jlew24asu wrote:

pure iles and propoganda.



guess what. you will find violence in this country for the next hundred years. violence happens in all countries. imagine how murders occur in the US daily. like someone else said, its humans being humans.

its good to see the usual suspects around here still cheering for the US to loose. Death to America! come on, you know the chant.


Merry Christmas.

Were we singing Christmas Carols at the controls of our aircraft as we bombed Bagdad night after night? "Lies and Propoganda"? US leaders carefully refuse any information regarding dead in Iraq - they just merrily bomb on.... boom, boom, boom...

and you call estimates of dead propaganda

boom BOOM BOOM!

lotza dead motherfucker! Lotza dead!

RolandTD20Kdrummer

Occupation...not war.

Is it solving anything?...no

Is it making things worse?...yes

Rocket science it isn't.

gimmesometruth27

jlew24asu wrote:

pure iles and propoganda.



guess what. you will find violence in this country for the next hundred years. violence happens in all countries. imagine how murders occur in the US daily. like someone else said, its humans being humans.

yeah, don't you know how many suicide bombings occur in the US every day?? oh well, i guess its just humans being humans.

what a disgraceful excuse you present with the "humans being humans" line. you can not justify what we are doing over there any longer, so instead you generalize the entire human race and cite our propensity for violence. there are far fewer murderers in the world than there are murderers so that line is more propaganda than the war dead estimates..

america, fuck yeah!!

Byrnzie

jlew24asu wrote:

guess what. you will find violence in this country for the next hundred years. violence happens in all countries. imagine how murders occur in the US daily. like someone else said, its humans being humans.

its good to see the usual suspects around here still cheering for the US to loose. Death to America! come on, you know the chant.


Merry Christmas.

I won't waste my time responding to this bullshit.