Fifth column vows to kill as many GIs as possible

[hedgetrimmer]

link: http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1371292003

~SNIP~

PHILIP SMUCKER NORTH OF BAGHDAD


ALONG the lush banks of the Tigris River north of Baghdad, Iraq’s anti-American insurgency has a life of its own.

As the birds twitter in the winter air at dawn, a burly Iraqi grandmother in black makes bread in an open-air oven for an extended family of 20. At night, she recites epic poems - which she dreams up herself - about the courage of her sons in their fight against US forces.

She vows that Iraq’s brave warriors will take their white shrouds with them to their graves in their fight to avenge the death her own husband, killed by a US bomb in May as he rode to market in a truck full of fresh fruit.

Her rebellious brood, sitting cross-legged around a kerosene lantern, falls instantly silent as she continues. "The blood of a million Iraqi sons will flow like a river to oppose you."

...more...

[lazarus]

1. hmm

So when do the flowers get there?

[htuttle]

2. Hill and Knowlton was supposed to have them delivered last March...

...but the shipment apparently got hung up somewhere.

[DivinBreuvage]

3. Hate

Not that I'm comparing the conduct of American soldiers in Iraq to that of German soldiers in Eastern Europe, because there is absolutely no comparison. But regardless of your reasons, your restraint, or your expressions of regret, when you come into a foreign land and subject the people there to arrests, barbed wire, bombed houses, and dead children, you breed one thing: hate.

From Voina (War) by Soviet propagandist Ilya Ehrenberg, 1942:

"The Germans are not human beings. Henceforth the word 'German' means to us the most terrible curse. Henceforth the word 'German' will trigger your rifle. We will not speak any more. We will not get excited. We will kill. If you have not killed at least one German a day, you have wasted that day... If you cannot kill your German with a bullet, kill him with your bayonet. If there is calm on your part of the front, if you are waiting for the fighting, kill a German before combat. If you leave a German alive, the German will hang a Russian and rape a Russian woman. If you kill one German, kill another -- there is nothing more amusing for us than a heap of German corpses. Do not count days; do not count miles. Count only the number of Germans you have killed. Kill the German -- this is your old mother's prayer. Kill the German -- this is the plea of your children. Kill the German -- this is the cry of your Russian earth. Do not waver. Do not let up. Kill."

[reknewcomer]

4. The blood of a million Iraqi sons will flow like a river

Thank goodness so far only a few insurgents have chosen to add their blood to that river. Let's hope everything works out so that no more sons choose to waste their life to prop up Saddam or stall democracy.

[DivinBreuvage]

5. Only a few? Obviously you didn't get the memo from the CIA. n/t

[reknewcomer]

8. No, I didn't get that memo

Do you have a link to it?

[DivinBreuvage]

10. Here it is. 50,000 insurgents and growing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1083847,00.html

[reknewcomer]

12. Sorry, the math does not add up

If 50k were the case then the handful of attacks per day would be hundreds. Try that link on sombody more gullible than myself. I quit knee-jerking when most here were still in diapers.

[maggrwaggr]

14. there are scores of attacks every day

the only ones that get reported are those where a GI gets killed or seriously wounded.

Dozens happen every day.

You need to get your news somewhere other than CNN, dude.

[DivinBreuvage]

15. Why, because you expect them all

to line the streets ten deep and form a huge crowd that can be spotted and destroyed? Doesn't it seem to you to make more sense to limit their efforts to small groups here and there, and to keep at it day after day after day? Or is that too smart for brown people? How do you know that they're not rotating people through there so it's a different set of people making the attacks every time?

Maybe you could explain why half the new Iraqi army deserted if they had only a few Saddam loyalists to worry about, especially when they were all ready to be handed this great gift of Bush-style democracy.

[Barrett808]

16. CIA estimates 50,000 -- Pentagon estimates 5,000

Who should we believe?

[DivinBreuvage]

17. The White House.

A president would never lie. Not a Republican, anyhow. At least not unless it was for our own good.

[aquart]

22. Or his.

[Barrett808]

20. The Scotsman recently reported 130 attacks per day

It is not much better for Iraq. There are now an average of 130 attacks a day on coalition (mainly American) forces...
("Inside story of how Washington is losing its bottle,"
http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1317722003)

Considering how often the US government, and the Pentagon in particular, have been caught in lies, I see no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt on the issue of attack/casualty rates.

[tkmorris]

23. You're a funny guy Reknew

You are one of the best I've seen at what you do. Kudos to you for that, and have one on me.

:beer:

[aquart]

19. 50,000 to act. Millions to assist or look away.

We are not the liberators of Iraq. We are the invaders.

[Crunchy Frog]

9. I'm afraid that this insurgency

has little or nothing to do with propping up Saddam, and our presence has little to do with installing democracy. These people will keep fighting us because they have a culture which demands that they avenge deaths of their family members, and because their country is being occupied by a foreign military. No matter how badly we wish it, it simply is'nt going to go away. The notion that the Iraqis are going to settle down and let us create a democratic free market utopia is just a neocon fantasy. It sounds like things are going to get alot worse over there.

[NNN0LHI]

11. Deleted by poster

[maggrwaggr]

13. haven't walked many miles in other folks' moccasins I see

Let's see ..... if your father was killed while driving to work by, say, a French bomb because they were invading our country to kill the evil George Bush ......

Wouldn't your desire for revenge have absolutely nothing to do with loyalty to Bush but instead be 100% about avenging your father and kicking out the foreign assholes?

[aquart]

18. Saddam is not part of this picture. He was proven weak. He ran.

Whoever rids Iraq of the Americans will rule. That is the picture.

Dead Americans are how they are going to keep score in their civil war. Which has begun.

We invaded a sovereign nation without just cause. We are hated for it. Not only by Iraqis, but by Muslims all over the world.

And by people who value freedom and the rule of law, something Republicans never mention anymore, we are despised.

We earned it. We didn't stop the BushCo coup from seizing the government of the United States of America.

The price of our wishy-washiness is going to be high. More expensive than anything we've ever paid for before, and I include the terrible cost of two world wars.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

6. Yeah, scattered resistance led by Saddam, huh?

Sounds like lots of resistance led by pure white hate and anger. How oddly reminiscent of VietNam it is to have our daytime "allies" become our nighttime "insurgents."
What a bunch of idiots run this thing.

[NNN0LHI]

7. I was thinking about this earlier today. We were so proud destroying...

...the training camps in Afghanistan. Remember? Now we have on the job training going on in Iraq! The perfect setting for training people how Americans think, operate, fight, everything! Bush has really screwed up this time.

Don

[mmm]

21. that's good

and so true: On the job training.

[Eloriel]

24. Seems like a good day to

:kick:

this