Our blogs about
America's Wars
War on Iraq
War on Drugs
War on Afghanistan
War on Columbia
War on Philippines
War on Venezuela

MORE
Matrix Masters
Blogs
World Events
Katrina's Aftermath
US News
Bush Crime Family News
Science & Health
Earth News
Free Speech
News from Africa
News from Palestine
Bill of Rights Under Attack

Support Bloggers' Rights!

Lorenzo's
Random Musings
. . . about Chaos,
Reason, and Hope

Al Jazeera (English)
    Baghdad Burning Blog (by Riverbend, an Iraqi civilian girl)
            Dahr Jamail's Blog from Baghdad
                Imad Khadduri's blog "Free Iraq" (scroll down for English version)

Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

Major U.S. paper speaks out against the war
(Editorial, The Toledo Blade, July 27, 2005)
IN SPITE of expressions of determination by President Bush and members of his administration to stay the course, the flow of bad news out of Iraq indicates that it is a mess which will get worse before it gets better. . . . The fighting has transformed itself largely into civil war. The 170,000 Iraqi security forces, largely Shiite in composition, represent the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. They are opposed and targeted by the largely Sunni insurgents. The Kurds of the north mostly go their own way, except that their autonomy is encouraging Kurds in Turkey and Syria to bestir themselves against their host governments. . . . Mr. al-Jaafari's government is taking steps to improve its relations with the Shiite-dominated Iranian government. Minister of Defense Saadoun Duleimi visited Iran earlier this month and concluded a military cooperation pact that provides for Iranian training of Iraqi military forces. . . . This is a step that is painful to the Bush Administration, given its antagonism with the government in Tehran. . . . Iraqi insurgent attacks focus on Americans, when they can get a crack at them, and on the Shiite security forces. U.S. war losses are climbing toward 1,800, from a force now standing at about 140,000. . . . [COMMENT by Lorenzo: There is reason to believe that 9,000 U.S. troops have been killed as a result of Bush's unprovoked attack and war on Iraq.] . . . The bombings in London illustrated that Iraq has increasingly replaced Afghanistan as the primary training ground for terrorists, and the devices used by the suicide bombers appear to have been a form of the explosives developed in Iraq. . . . In the meantime, the U.S. Army said this month that it has signed another extension of its contract with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root for another $5 billion to support U.S. forces in Iraq. The Army had not seen fit to announce the extension when it awarded it in May, in spite of the fact that some of Halliburton's previous billing, which has netted it $9 billion so far in the war, was disputed. . . . None of this has much to do with American elections, or Republican and Democratic wrangling. Mr. Bush will be president until January, 2009, whatever his ratings might be. The Congress shows itself as largely irrelevant to what is going on in Iraq, apart from being required to vote the money to finance the war, now running at about $5 billion a month. . . . It is increasingly clear that this war will not be won in any way that can be discerned as victory, and, in the meantime, it is draining America's blood away, in the lives of our soldiers and in resources that could be used to meet other needs.

posted by Lorenzo 11:58 AM