US Soldier asks: "Why can’t we just come out here, have our fight and go home?"

[sabra]

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=f22c5ffe-0e44-4ab6-8ab1-968df5567170&k=2919

<snip>

The largest Baghdad enclave of Iraq’s Shiite majority, Sadr City is the base for the Mahdi Army, a militia led by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Under pressure from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in October, U.S. soldiers took down barbed-wire barricades that controlled traffic in and out of the area. Since then, they have ventured in only sparingly.

But so many mortar and rocket attacks have been launched from the outskirts of Sadr City in recent weeks that U.S. commanders decided to raid homes nearby, searching for weapons.

Many soldiers wondered whether what they were looking for was worth the risk.

"Every day we have a mission, but it’s hard to see how that helps accomplish what we came here to do, how it fits into the big picture," said Sgt. James Simons, 24, of Tacoma, Wash., a soldier in the battalion’s Company A.

A roadside bomb soon exploded under a Stryker driving down a nearby street. No one was injured because the vehicle’s engine absorbed much of the force of the blast.

"I hate that combat takes so long," said Staff Sgt. Gaylord Reese of Coffeeyville, Kan., who leaned against a bedroom wall at Dhamin’s home. "Why can’t we just come out here, have our fight and go home?"

[Wapsie B]

1. If we had the kids of the bankers and corporate elite doing the fighting

the war would've been over in a matter of hours, if fought at all.

[Monkeyman]

2. yep

[WinkyDink]

3. "...combat takes so long"? "Why can’t we just come out here, have our fight and go home?"

Is this STAFF SGT. DELUDED??
I'm all for the troops, especially the poor b*****ds who believed their dreams of college and/or career might be fulfilled by this man's army, but a staff sergeant? Shouldn't he be more aware of reality?

[teryang]

4. Rescue the dollar at the point of a gun

They attacked Iraq to end the threat to the petrodollar.

They've done everything but attack Iran so far. Escalating the war in Iraq, bombing Somalia. Thumb in the newly elected Congress' eye.

Your oil, gas, uranium, gold, silver, etc. are worthless compared to the value of a paper dollar of a country with no manufacturing sector because we exported it overseas to enrich a small class of shareholders. Oh wait, we do manufacture bombs and warplanes, the very best! And we take other nations infrastructure, by hook or by crook.

So we isolate the Iranian energy resources and potentially block their market entry, how does that make the price of oil GO DOWN?