Category Archives: Iraq

Fallujah

Fierce Planet Posted on by

One goal of the Fallujah offensive was to make the city safer for the upcoming elections. But the offensive itself rained so much destruction on the city that it’s not clear the city can be rebuilt in anything under a year or two. Plus we face the additional burden of trying to tell who is or is not an insurgent among the people wanting to return to Fallujah. This isn’t something we’re really good at. The U.S. death toll in the Fallujah offensive has climbed to 71. Overall, November was the worst month yet for U.S. military deaths. I haven’t … Continue reading →

Heartbreaking

Fierce Planet Posted on by

Bush won. Get over it. Ever since George Bush was re-elected, conservatives have been telling liberals to “get over it.” Excuse me? “Get over it?” This wasn’t a baseball game. This wasn’t the Super Bowl. We’re not sobbing in our beers because the Steelers whipped the Packers. We’re at war. People’s lives are at stake. Every day, families are being destroyed, both here and in Iraq. To treat this election so dismissively is an insult to them and to the soldiers who gave life and limb in this war.

Continue reading →

Another vet must serve

Fierce Planet Posted on by

And this one is a Vietnam vet who’s 53. Paul Dunlap, a sergeant in the Army National Guard, will join an armored division next month as a telecommunications specialist in Kuwait, and expects to be there for at least a year, the newspaper reported. Dunlap, who has not been in combat since serving as a 19-year-old Marine in Vietnam, could not be reached for comment. He will leave behind his wife Mary, four children and three grandchildren. “I don’t think any of them want me to go,” Dunlap told the paper. “I’m thinking it’s a long time since I’ve been … Continue reading →

Forcing AID workers to Iraq

Fierce Planet Posted on by

This article in Salon says that the Agency for International Development is having trouble getting enough people to work in Iraq, which is no surprise after what happened to Margaret Hassan. So if they don’t have enough workers, current workers “will be required to volunteer” to stay in Iraq. There are more details in the Washington Post article Salon references. How can they possibly do that? It sounds like slavery to me. I hope these people have the option to quit their jobs and walk away, but neither article clarifies that.

Continue reading →

Assault on the Baghdad insurgents

Fierce Planet Posted on by

Sunni insurgents have taken up residence in the areas south of Baghdad, and from there have been launching attacks on the city. Today a combined force of 5,000 U.S. military, British troops, and Iraqi security forces launched a massive assault on the area, in an attempt to rout out the attackers there. While the Fallujah campaign has mostly wrapped up, violence has been non-stop in other areas of Iraq.

Continue reading →

Hawks call for troop reduction

Fierce Planet Posted on by

Finally, there’s something the hawks and I agree on. A growing number of national security specialists who supported the toppling of Saddam Hussein are moving to a position unthinkable even a few months ago: that the large US military presence is impeding stability as much as contributing to it and that the United States should begin major reductions in troops beginning early next year UPDATE: I only agree if they aren’t recalled in order to invade Iran, of course.

Continue reading →

Children are paying the price

Fierce Planet Posted on by

Surveys by the U.N. and various aid agencies show that malnutrition among children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the invasion. After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq’s Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway’s Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from “wasting,” a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein…. The surveys suggest the silent human … Continue reading →

Other U.S. citizens are dying too

Fierce Planet Posted on by

Phillip Carter points us to some figures on contractor deaths, which haven’t been reported before. I was surprised to find that there are nearly half as many contractors (60,000) as regular military (130,000) in Iraq at the moment. We sure don’t hear much about them.

Continue reading →

The monkey trap

Fierce Planet Posted on by

I was talking with some friends last night about Iraq, and how it’s like the traps set for monkeys – a coconut with a hole and some rice inside, the hole big enough to put a hand through but not to pull out when the hand is full of rice. The monkey is trapped because he won’t let go of the rice and pull his hand free. In my view, the “rice” for Bush and the neo-cons is the permanent bases they want so badly and won’t let go of. And oil, of course, there’s always oil. Anyway, as it … Continue reading →