- The words in the title of this article were spoken by
First Lt Justin Harper, a platoon leader in 2-12 Cavalry, who with his
unit, arrived only three weeks ago near Baghdad. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml
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- In the context of his sentence it seems that he's saying
that there is nothing anyone at home can do about it. But, he also knows
that he or anyone in the U.S. Army in Iraq can do anything about it. They
are just taking orders which is both confusing and detrimental to their
lives from day to day, or minute to minute, according to the reports flowing
back to the U.S. since the war began almost a year ago.
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- How do you feel when you know our young men and women
in Iraq are so disillusioned, so unsupported by their own superiors in
Iraq, who are also praying that 'someone' will do 'something' about it?
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- How do you feel when hearing that our own soldiers are
in as much danger from our own army as from the enemy? Oh, you may wonder
what danger I'm referring to? Not enough necessary supplies, life saving
flak jackets and a long list I won't go into at this time because I would
hope by now previous reports from the soldiers themselves has reached your
eyes and ears, too.
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- If not, find and ask families whose loved ones are in
Iraq or who have come back and told them who it really was over there.
Or, find families whose loved ones came back in a body bag, or without
body parts or eyesight or with severe nervous breakdowns.
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- When I think about that sentence, "There's nothing
anyone can do about it.", my first thought is 'oh, yes there is! Why
do we HAVE a Commander-in-Chief if not to do something about these problems?'
By now it should seem obvious to everyone that the little man who holds
that title now has no intention of doing anything about it to make our
soldiers safer. In fact the self-crowned WAR PRESIDENT is doing more to
cause increased danger and death to our soldiers. He has to think dying
is what soldiers should expect to do in war.
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- However, we can do something about it! So, why aren't
we? We put the sociopathic brat on the throne and we can take him off of
it! Yes, it's a mega machine we're up against with this Bush Party. But,
when in history weren't the freedom loving people out armed and most often
outnumbered?
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- The fact is, this time we are NOT outnumbered. We are
allowing a very small group of powerful men to rule us. We gave our power
to them. Isn't that a hard pill to swallow? We did it though. We were not
watching the store, folks!
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- There is something we can do about it now. I will not
give up believing that enough of us who want our freedoms back, want our
loved ones in Iraq and other countries, which our government controls by
keeping military our men and women stationed in them, to come home again,
will do that something over this summer. By November, it may be too late.
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- All we have to do is overcome the fear of losing the
illusion of the good life of peace and of material things long enough to
put these gree dy drunk on power men out of our government.
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- It can be done. Don't ever think it cannot. It always
means suffering something for achieving something worthwhile. But, we are
suffering already, for nothing achieved and everything we cherish, lost!
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- Even of some of us don't see this now, it is still happening
and getting worse the longer we hide in denial and live in fear that it
only "might" be true. And, I know that people think if we don't
see it and don't think about it maybe it will just go away.
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- Only in the movies will you see that happen.
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- _____
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- 'I've Gotta Get Out Of This Country'
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- For American Troops Newly Arrived In Iraq,
Just Leaving Their Compounds Can Be An Ordeal
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- By Inigo Gilmore
The Telegraph - UK
2-29-4
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- With a deafening bang, the Humvee span violently out
of control and I was thrown out through a back door into the middle of
a busy dual carriageway in Baghdad's dangerous western suburbs.
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- Seconds later, one of the three young American soldiers
with whom I was travelling rushed over, clutching his ribs with one hand
and his gun in the other. "Just stay down sir," he yelled, as
if we might be under attack.
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- There was no incoming gunfire, however, and it quickly
became clear that there had been no bomb. Instead we were victims of something
almost as commonplace and sometimes as deadly - a high-speed car crash
involving American troops.
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- Only minutes earlier the three young GIs had set off
from near their base, taking me to join a patrol from their company, fresh
from America. Soon they were hurtling along the highway towards Baghdad
- in completely the wrong direction. Told of their mistake, they attempted
a high-speed U-turn, apparently oblivious of the car following close behind.
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- Miraculously, the Humvee passengers escaped with only
cuts and bruises, but those in the following vehicle were not so lucky:
an American contractor from Halliburton appeared to have a broken leg.
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- The dazed young GIs, barely out of their teens, had only
been in Iraq for a fortnight.
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- They were without their flak jackets
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- and there was panic in their eyes.
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- A passing convoy of soldiers from an engineering unit,
grizzled and weary veterans after a year in the country, stopped to help.
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- "I've gotta get out of this country," one engineer
said, shaking his head at the sight of the damaged Humvee.
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- It is a sentiment shared by the thousands of American
soldiers who are nearing the end of their year-long duty in Iraq and preparing
to make way for fresh units.
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- In the biggest US troop movement since the Second World
War, over the next three months 14 brigades will briefly overlap with,
and then replace, 17 brigades now in Iraq, reducing the number of divisions
from four to three, and the total US force from 130,000 to 110,000. The
rotation brings high risk as inexperienced soldiers grapple with their
first real taste of combat in a complex, dangerous and alien country.
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- Despite intense training beforehand in simulated Iraqi
towns and villages, nothing can fully prepare the new troops for the mixture
of anti-terrorist action, defending civilians and policing Iraq, that they
face. Commanders know that relationships forged over many months with Iraqi
officials, tribal chiefs, and religious leaders cannot be duplicated overnight.
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- Gen Peter Schoomaker, the US Army chief of staff, told
a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington last week:
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- "We're very, very sensitive to the fact that the
great progress we've made has much to do with the understanding and relationships
we've established at the local level." Just days earlier near Kirkuk,
in northern Iraq, an incident involving newly arrived soldiers of 25th
Infantry division illustrated the dangers.
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- A bomb had exploded next to a troop convoy and in the
ensuing panic, soldiers chased and shot a woman and her two daughters who
had failed to heed warnings to stop -killing one daughter and injuring
her sister and mother. No soldier was hurt, yet local goodwill developed
by their predecessors over almost a year was destroyed in an instant.
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- Such matters are much on the mind of First Lt Justin
Harper, a platoon leader in 2-12 Cavalry, stationed near Baghdad.
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- In the three weeks since his unit arrived, their base
has come under sustained mortar fire and they have seen action.
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- He has written in bold letters, across the windscreen
of his specially armour-plated Humvee: "This ain't a movie."
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- From the unit his own has replaced, 18 of 64 soldiers
were either killed or injured, and among the dead was one of Lt Harper's
university classmates. He hopes that by drawing on the survivors' experience,
his own soldiers can make it through the next 12 months.
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- "We are fresh and keen, but that may change if we
take casualties," Lt Harper said.
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- "I told the guys not to tell their families about
these incidents, but to save their war stories for when they get home.
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- It will just make them worry more -
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- and, there's nothing anyone can do about it."
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
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- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml
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