Iraqi officials: Gunmen kill family of Awakening Council leader

[Robb]

Source: CNN

Gunmen stormed a house north of Baghdad, killing the family of a local Awakening Council leader, police officials said Tuesday.

The attackers killed the man's wife, their 22-year-old daughter and their three sons, who were beheaded, according to police. The father was not home when the attack took place Monday night in the Salaheddin province town of Tarmiya, about 30 miles (45 kilometers) north of Baghdad, police said.

The attack is the latest targeting Awakening Council or Sons of Iraq members and their families.

Earlier this month, gunmen wearing military uniforms stormed houses and killed 25 people in a Sunni village near Baghdad. Five of the dead were women. Most of the victims were shot in the head, and all were found handcuffed, police officials in Baghdad said.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/04/20/iraq.violence/

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We can't leave Iraq soon enough, but I hope there's a strategy in place to end this sort of thing.

[zipplewrath]

1. It's called the surge

And it's working, haven't ya heard? Working so well Obama decided to keep doing it.

[maglatinavi]

2. Get out!

It was wrong to go, and it is wrong to stay.
:kick: :kick: :kick: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[tekisui]

3. Increased violence in Iraq is further reason to get out.

Yet, increased violence in Afghanistan is reason to stay?

And, increased violence in Pakistan is reason to become more involved, militarily?

[Robb]

4. Yes, yes, they're all brown people who don't speak English.

Iraq and Afghanistan are exactly the same.

Edited to add: I've said before I know very little about Iraq, but I am quite aware how we arrived at having US forces there. There are no remotely sensible reasons left for us to keep troops there, and I am glad we're removing them.

[tekisui]

5. Killing and destabilizing for 'US national interest'

Iraq and Afghanistan are far from the same. Yet, our military is employed in response in the name of our national interest. Don't fool yourself. We didn't go to Iraq and are not staying in Afghanistan for any reason other than US interests. There is no noble cause to either.

[Robb]

7. What national interest in Afghanistan would that be?

Oil? None. Gas? That ship sailed. Economics? None. Strategic for the military? We can do better within 500 miles. Political? You said yourself the only political win would be an organized withdrawal.

[tekisui]

8. Don't tell me you think we are escalating in Afghanistan for the Afghans!

The official propaganda line is that we are there for national interest. We are sold the fear day in and day out that the Taliban is a threat to our national security.

I don't buy into the fear-mongering. The real reason we are there isn't clear. I am not sure anyone knows, other than to feed the gluttonous military beast. Obama wants to make a win out of it, and paints the Taliban as a threat to the US. They are an easy target, easy to tout successes over. But, these successes are little more than short-lived PR stunts.

Our presence in Afghanistan is a net negative for all involved. In that way it is like Iraq.

[Robb]

9. The MIC boogeyman is your best answer?

...In a boots and bullets war like Afghanistan? Please. If we were smart-bombing Iran you might have a point. And in Iraq, sure.

But the usual suspects aren't getting rich in AfPak.

[tekisui]

12. You're kidding, right?

There are more contractors in Afghanistan than troops. The budget for war is the largest it has ever been in history, and Obama is asking for more on top of that.

From June 2009 to September 2009, there was a 40% increase in Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan.

The US has spent more than $23 billion on contracts in Afghanistan since 2002. By next year, the number of contractors will have doubled since 2008 when taxpayers funded over $8 billion in Afghanistan-related contracts.

Contractors now comprise 69% of the Department of Defense’s total workforce, “the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel in US history.”

http://www.alternet.org/story/144694/

Not to mention the significant increase in Reapers and Predators that Obama has ordered for the Air Force, and the unprecedented increase of use in Pakistan. The MIC is no boogeyman, they are just an industry that feeds on greed and profit from war.

[Robb]

13. Nice cherrypick.

...How many of those contractors are local citizens? I know it doesn't support your little narrative, but you should include that number.

"Reapers and predators," eh? Google treating you well? :rofl:

[tekisui]

14. The contractors may hire local citizens, but the profit goes up.

It really doesn't change the fact of record contracts and record budget.

Yuck it up, laughing boy.

[Robb]

15. 95%. 95% of the armed contractors are Afghan.

http://www.acq.osd.mil/log/PS/p_vault/Contractor_Support_8Dec09.doc">Facts change things quite a bit. Spin away.

[tekisui]

16. I'm not talking about armed contractors.

I am talking about all contractors. That is the discussion we are having. The profits of the military contractors, not which private security contractors are local. The military budget is the highest it has ever been, war contractors are seeing the growing profits.

[Robb]

17. LOL right, of course not. You're concerned about the bricklayers.

You gain a lot of traction on DU talking about the evil bricklayers. :D

[tekisui]

18. I can see you would rather avoid the issue and make

petty personal attacks. Figures.

[Robb]

19. No, don't quit now. Tell us why you're concerned about the evil bricklayers.

[Ticonderoga]

6. This was predictable.

The Awakening Council Members are nothing but traitors who sold out Iraq to the Americans for a fee in the eyes of the "insurgents". Imagine if you will a scenario in America where we were under occupation from lets say the old U.S.S.R. and American "patriots" as we would call our own insurgent forces were being sold out and killed by fellow Americans for a few Soviet Rubles. Would not these people be fair game? You bet they would. Iraq is and will continue to be a disaster zone and will only deterriorate further as long as an American puppet government is in place. Get out now, pay reparations to the victims of the bu$h invasion and let the chips fall where they may.

[MilesColtrane]

10. Bush opened up hell in Iraq by deposing Saddam.

Just like Tito in Yugoslavia, Saddam Hussein kept an iron boot on ethnic violence, but the hatred remained under the surface.

Bloody civil war is inevitable. The occupation has simply kept things at a slow boil.

The Iraqi government will probably fall and the country will probably split into three separate, ethnically defined states.

Obama will be blamed for the carnage by Republicans who will complain that he pulled out U.S. troops "too early".

[aquart]

11. If we leave, there will be a massacre. SO NO DIFFERENCE.

We have, short of offering citizenship in America to every threatened Iraqi, NO WAY OF STOPPING THE MASSACRE. It was ALWAYS going to happen, the only question was when. If we'd left it alone, not invaded, then the massacre would have waited until Saddam died and his sons failed to hold the nation together which was a certainty.

And, had we waited, we could have come in as honest brokers and helped stop the killing, and wrap up the oil contracts. But we didn't. So China will get the oil and we will get centuries of hatred.

People are dying sooner because of what we did. We've done enough. More than enough. We have to go home.