On the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq

[freddyv]

anyone have any thoughts they'd like to share? recently when I've thought about what we're doing over there I just feel badly for the soldiers that believe that they are over there fighting for freedom. in truth, they are over there fighting to protect our oil interests and to keep the military industrial complex rolling.

when we initially invaded, I didn't have a problem with it. I wasn't really paying too much attention to what was going on in the world at the time, or to history for that matter. it's difficult to wrap your mind around what's going on over there...I personally feel very disconnected from it all. you can't exactly get a true picture from the tale that the media tells either.

any way you slice it, it seems like a mess. below is a press release from ron paul, for those interested.

Ron Paul Statement After
10 Years of War with Iraq

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 19, 2008

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – On the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Congressman Ron Paul, member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, issued the following statement:

“The occupation of Iraq began five years ago today, but few realize that the march to war began ten years ago under Bill Clinton, when regime change became official U.S. policy. In 1998, I took to the House floor in protest of the Iraqi Liberation Act to warn that, ‘I see this legislation as essentially being a declaration of virtual war. It is giving the President tremendous powers to pursue war efforts against a sovereign Nation.’ My warnings were largely dismissed at the time, but five years later, we were bombing Iraq.

“After five years of occupation, today is a good time for reflection. The cost to America has been great: 4,000 soldiers are dead, 30,000 have been severely wounded, and over 100,000 have applied for disability. In addition, the war has put a tremendous strain on our economy. As we spiral toward recession and experience an assault on our dollar, we spend $12 billion per month financing our Iraqi operations. The war has cost us nearly $1 trillion dollars, or over $3,300 per American man, woman, and child.

“In a recent presidential debate, I was asked whether the war was ‘worth it.’ I said, and still say, ‘absolutely not.’ In addition to the tremendous costs to America, the war has been helpful to our enemies. The war has strengthened Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and Iran. And yet the other presidential candidates want to keep troops there for at least five more years. One even says we should keep American troops in Iraq for 100 years.

“As I have repeatedly said when discussing United States policy in Iraq, when you find yourself going the wrong way down a one-way street, you need to look for the nearest off-ramp. The only solution to the mess in Iraq is to promptly bring our troops home. Our bad policy spans at least ten years and two presidents and has had severe costs in lives and economic consequences. Continuing down the same road will solve nothing and compound our already substantial problems.”

[HBGOnline]

I agree Freddy, Iraq is a mess. Unfortunately in the last few decades, America has turned into a bunch of pussies and we can no longer fight a war.

We are more concerned over collateral damage than the safe being of our troops. War is hell, to fight it properly women, children and other civilians will be killed. Our enemy is a coward hiding within the civilian population. So when we go after them and god forbid take out a few innocent life's, it's plastered all over the news like we are the bad guys.

I wish we could just go to war and get it done without worrying about people's feelings.

The surge is working and that's great news. However until the Iraqi government steps up to the plate and takes control off it's own country, we'll always seem to be at square one all over again. If they can't and still needs us after a certain point in time, I think we should charge them for our services.

Currently the US spends 500 billion a year in other countries for our petro needs. We need to grow some balls and start getting some of that money back.

[seanx]

admin said:

I agree Freddy, Iraq is a mess. Unfortunately in the last few decades, America has turned into a bunch of pussies and we can no longer fight a war.

We are more concerned over collateral damage than the safe being of our troops. War is hell, to fight it properly women, children and other civilians will be killed. Our enemy is a coward hiding within the civilian population. So when we go after them and god forbid take out a few innocent life's, it's plastered all over the news like we are the bad guys.

I wish we could just go to war and get it done without worrying about people's feelings.

The surge is working and that's great news. However until the Iraqi government steps up to the plate and takes control off it's own country, we'll always seem to be at square one all over again. If they can't and still needs us after a certain point in time, I think we should charge them for our services.

Currently the US spends 500 billion a year in other countries for our petro needs. We need to grow some balls and start getting some of that money back.

.............vomit..............

how about we just get the hell outa there and bomb them if we have to? the ground soldiers are only there to protect oil interests ................... trust me, Jim would kill every non-white child in the world for a nickel............

[seanx]

...........ok I'm bullshitting.......he'd do it for a dime.............

[HBGOnline]

Since Vietnam our politicians decided they would fight our wars instead of our military.

I'm 100% certain if we kicked all the media out and let the military do their jobs, this thing would be over within months.

If we could drill within our own country, we could let the Middle East rot in hell.

[freddyv]

admin said:

I wish we could just go to war and get it done without worrying about people's feelings.

However until the Iraqi government steps up to the plate and takes control off it's own country, we'll always seem to be at square one all over again.

congress should declare war and then we should fight to win. end of story.

I'm wondering why iraq isn't taking the reins on this. probably because right now, we're footing the bill and keeping the peace. why pay out of your own pocket if someone else is willing to do the heavy lifting for free?

[JeffD5Buddy]

"Declaration of War" is not, in fact, mentioned by the US Constitution. Instead the Constitution says "Congress shall have the power to ... declare War, ..." without defining the form such declarations will take. Since Congress voted for the Iraq invasion.... isn't it basically the same? I know a lot of the Ron Paul supporters harp on this..... just wondering what you think it would change?

[BT]

War is a racket. It only benefits the Money Changers.

I heard Alex Jones interviewing David Mayer De Rothschild and near the end AJ was blasting him about how his family has caused so much pain and suffering in the world. Rothschild just laughed him off. These psychopaths/generational Satanists have no conscience and funded both sides of every war for (at least) hundreds of years.

The Iraq War could have been over a long time ago, Mr. Admin., this much is true. But they don't want it to end. It's not meant to end. Just like Vietnam. It's meant to drag on so they can reap more profits and sacrifices to daddy BLZ Bub.

There will be more wars until we break the power of the Money Changers.

[HBGOnline]

jeffd5buddy said:

"Declaration of War" is not, in fact, mentioned by the US Constitution. Instead the Constitution says "Congress shall have the power to ... declare War, ..." without defining the form such declarations will take. Since Congress voted for the Iraq invasion.... isn't it basically the same? I know a lot of the Ron Paul supporters harp on this..... just wondering what you think it would change?

Jeff weren't you over there when we kicked Iraq out of Kuwait? I might be thinking of the wrong person. Prime example of letting the military do their mission and then get the fuck out.

[freddyv]

jeffd5buddy said:

"Declaration of War" is not, in fact, mentioned by the US Constitution. Instead the Constitution says "Congress shall have the power to ... declare War, ..." without defining the form such declarations will take. Since Congress voted for the Iraq invasion.... isn't it basically the same? I know a lot of the Ron Paul supporters harp on this..... just wondering what you think it would change?

the problem with the iraq resolution was that it in essence said that the pres. can use the armed forces to protect our national security as he sees fit and to enforce UN security council resolutions against iraq. I think it was a way for congress to keep it vague and pass the buck. we hadn't been attacked by iraq, so we couldn't exactly declare war on them as it would have been coined a "war of aggression." it was about regime change, not about war. they said that they wanted to go in and find the terrorists and WMD's. unfortunately there were no wmd's and no terrorists...that is, until we got in there.

like the ron paul press release above said, this started during the clinton administration. truly it probably goes back farther than that because we'd been double-crossed by hussein, whom we had previously propped up to take care of iran for us, and ever since we've wanted him out of there.

but anyway...the founding fathers wanted to keep that "weapon" out of the hands of the president. they had just escaped the tyranny of the king of england, and they weren't looking to hand over that kind of power to one man again.

congress hasn't declared war since WWII...and we haven't won a war since. that power is about congress convening, debating, and really thinking it through to make sure it's the right decision. maybe if we would've done a little more of that on the front end we wouldn't be in such a mess here on the back end.

[JeffD5Buddy]

I was in the Gulf when we "supposedly" got rid of Al Queda in Sudan and Afghanistan (Summer of 1998).... right after the embassy bombings. I see your point FreddyV.... was just doing a little reading and found it kind of interesting.

[freddyv]

The Real Meaning of 4,000 Dead
By LIEUT. SEAN WALSH
Wednesday, Mar. 26, 2008

The passing of the 4,000th service member in Iraq is a tragic milestone and a testament to the cost of this war, but for those of us who live and fight in Iraq, we measure that cost in smaller, but much more personal numbers. For me those numbers are 8, the number of friends and classmates killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 3, the number of soldiers from my unit killed in this deployment. I'm 25, yet I've received more notifications for funerals than invitations to weddings.

The number 4,000 is too great to grasp even for us that are here in Iraq. When we soldiers read the newspaper, the latest AP casualty figures are glanced over with the same casual interest as a box score for a sport you don't follow. I am certain that I am not alone when I open up the Stars and Stripes, the military's daily paper, and immediately search for the section with the names of the fallen to see if they include anyone I know. While in a combat outpost in southwest Baghdad, it was in that distinctive bold Ariel print in a two-week-old copy of the Stars and Stripes that I read that my best friend had been killed in Afghanistan. No phone call from a mutual friend or a visit to his family. All that had come and gone by the time I had learned about his death. I sometimes wonder, if I hadn't picked up that paper, how much longer I would have gone by without knowing - perhaps another day, perhaps a week or longer until I could find the time and the means to check my e-mail to find my messages unanswered and a death notification from a West Point distro list in my inbox. The dead in Afghanistan don't seem to inspire the keeping of lists the same way that those in Iraq do, but even if they did it wouldn't matter; he could only be number 7 to me.

I'm not asking for pity, only understanding for the cost of this war. We did, after all, volunteer for the Army and that is the key distinction between this army and the army of the Vietnam War. But even as I ask for that understanding I'm almost certain that you won't be able to obtain it. Even Shakespeare, with his now overused notion of soldiers as a "band of brothers" fails to capture the bonds, the sense of responsibility to each other, among soldiers. In many ways, Iraq has become my home (by the time my deployment ends I will have spent more time here than anywhere else in the army) and the soldiers I share that home with have become my family. Between working, eating and sleeping within a few feet of the same soldiers every single day, I doubt I am away from them for more than two hours a day. I'm engaged to the love of my life, but it will take several years of marriage before I've spent as much time with her as I have with the men I serve with today.

For the vast majority of American's who don't have a loved one overseas, the only number they have to attempt to grasp the Iraq War is 4,000. I would ask that when you see that number, try to remember that it is made up of over 1 million smaller numbers; that every one of the 1 million service members who have fought in Iraq has his or her own personal numbers. Over 1 million 8's and 3's. When you are evaluating the price of the war, weighing potential rewards versus cost in blood and treasure, I would ask you to consider what is worth the lives of three of your loved ones? Or eight? Or more? It would be a tragedy for my 8 and 3 to have died without us being able to complete our mission, but it maybe even more tragic for 8 and 3 to become anything higher.

www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1725642,00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-full-world

[freddyv]

Advise your friends that have done tours in Iraq to get tested for pathogens. Looks like Halliburton wasn’t chlorinating the water they were charged with purifying.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FJC_OrO3Nw