900th GI Dies Since War Began in Iraq

[Subversive Pessimist]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Militants freed a Filipino truck driver Tuesday after the Philippines government gave in to their demands to withdraw troops from Iraq to prevent the beheading of the 46-year-old father of eight who had been held captive for two weeks.


On Wednesday, a 1st Infantry Division soldier became the 900th U.S. military death in Iraq since the beginning of the war in March 2003. The soldier was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in a Bradley fighting vehicle in Duluiyah, 45 miles north of Baghdad.


Two Marines had been killed in separate incidents Tuesday while conducting "security and stability operations." One soldier was killed Monday, and a second died Monday of wounds. Before the five deaths, the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s official count of the dead had stood at 895.


Apparently emboldened by their success getting the Philippines to withdraw, insurgents promptly took aim at Japan, threatening in a Web site message to send "lines of cars laden with explosives" to kill its troops in Iraq if they did not leave. Japan rejected the demand.


More than 60 foreigners have been taken hostage in recent months, and there were fears that the action by the Philippines government would lead to more kidnappings and prompt members of the U.S.-led coalition to think twice about sending, or keeping, their soldiers in Iraq.


"The Filipino withdrawal tells the insurgents that they can continue to chip away at this coalition and make it a coalition of two (Britain and the United States)," said Richard Shultz, a professor of security studies at Tufts University.


In Baghdad, Filipino hostage Angelo dela Cruz was dropped off in front of the United Arab Emirates Embassy on Tuesday, a day after his government withdrew the last of the 51 troops they had stationed here.


"Angelo has become a Filipino 'everyman,' a symbol of the hardworking Filipino seeking hope and opportunity," Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (news - web sites) said during a nationally televised address. "Angelo was spared, and we rejoice," she said with a smile.


With more than 7 million Filipinos working overseas — 1.4 million of them in the Middle East — many people in the Philippines developed a personal connection to dela Cruz since he was first shown in a video aired July 7 surrounded by masked gunmen who kidnapped him near the city of Fallujah. That connection put intense pressure on Arroyo to secure his freedom.


Dela Cruz's family, and much of the Philippines, cheered his release.


His wife, Arsenia, burst into tears in neighboring Jordan, where she had been awaiting word of him.


Safely inside the Philippines Embassy in Baghdad, dela Cruz enjoyed beer with friends, including a fellow Filipino driver, around a table covered with plates of salad, rice and traditional Iraqi chicken.


Dela Cruz said his captors treated him well, and he thanked Arroyo for pulling out the troops. "I know that the Filipinos are all very happy about the decision of the president," he said.


The United States and Iraq have criticized the pullout, saying it would endanger others here.


"All of us know that if you appease terrorism, you will sooner or later fall victim to it or be taken over by it," Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, said during a visit to Bahrain.


Thousands of foreigners work in Iraq, for U.S. forces, in reconstruction efforts or as drivers hauling fuel and cargo for private companies.


Of those kidnapped in recent months, some escaped, many were released and at least three were beheaded in gruesome videos designed to spread fear.





A fourth video released last week showed a man, identified as Bulgarian truck driver Georgi Lazov, kneeling before armed men from the Tawhid and Jihad group of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Al-Jazeera television station, which declined to show the rest of the video, said it depicted his killing.

The group had threatened to kill Lazov and fellow Bulgarian Ivailo Kepov if the U.S. military did not release Iraqi detainees. Kepov's fate remains unknown.

Bulgaria — with a 480-member infantry battalion here — refused to withdraw, though it did urge Bulgarian truck drivers to stop making trips into Iraq. Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Pasi suggested Monday that all countries adopt a common "code of behavior" for such hostage crises. "In these cases, cooperation is crucial," he said.

The kidnappings could cause problems for many governments, including Bulgaria, that sent troops here over the strong opposition of their citizens.

Spain withdrew troops after a Socialist election victory following a terrorist attack in Madrid. South Korea (news - web sites) also faced pressure to cancel plans to send 3,000 troops here when one of its citizens, Kim Sun-il, a 33-year-old translator, was kidnapped and beheaded by militants.

Soon after dela Cruz's release, his kidnappers — the Khaled bin al-Waleed Corps — took aim at Japan, demanding it pull out 500 troops sent here for medical and reconstruction duty. Japan refused in April to withdraw after three Japanese were kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents. They were released unharmed.

"To the government of Japan: Do what the Philippines has done. By God, nobody will protect you and we are not going to tolerate anybody," said the group, which is the military wing of Tawhid and Jihad. "Lines of cars laden with explosives are awaiting you; we will not stop, God willing."

A Foreign Ministry official in Japan said Wednesday that Tokyo would not pull its troops from Iraq.

"Japan is in Iraq on a humanitarian mission," the official said on condition of anonymity. "The Iraqi people and government are grateful for its efforts."

The insurgents' Web statement also told Arab and Islamic governments not to send troops.

"We are warning you for the last time: We will hit with an iron fist all those supporting the Americans or (interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad) Allawi or his cronies."

Allawi had asked some Muslim countries to contribute troops, but so far none has come forward. Violence is a likely factor. Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he would not even send a planned medical team until "the situation is a little more stable."

Iraq's fledgling interim government relies heavily on the 160,000 coalition troops to fight the 15-month-old insurgency, which has used car bombings, assassinations, sabotage and other violence to try to create chaos and drive out foreign forces.

Violence continued Tuesday, with a roadside bomb attack on a vehicle near the city of Baqouba, north of Baghdad, killed four civilians and wounded two others, said Emad Kamil Rahim, a local hospital official.

Also, in the southern city of Basra, gunmen killed Hazim al-Aynachi, a gubernatorial candidate, and his bodyguard and driver as they were leaving his driveway for work Tuesday morning, council head Abdul Bari Faiyek said.

In Samarra, a hotbed of violence 60 miles north of Baghdad, U.S. forces and militants engaged in running gunbattles, the U.S. military said. Four Iraqis were killed and five were wounded, said Ahmed Jaddo, a hospital official. The military said U.S. soldiers returned fire at insurgents and destroyed the house they were in, while a U.S. warplane flattened another house with a 500-pound bomb.



Link (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=2100&e=&u=/ap/20040721/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq)

[CubanFox]

I would celebrate the death of the 900th imperialist lackey but for the fact that nearly all the troops are from extremely poor backgrounds who have often no choice but to join the army to feed themselves.

[Subversive Pessimist]

Me too. However, they could always refuse to fight.

[Guerrilla22]

Unfortunately, pretty much all of them are misguided souls, who actually believe they are helping their country, or Iraqis or whoever by being in the army. As far as refusing to fight, they would be court martialed and spend quite a few years behind bars and have all their G.I. benefits stripped.

[dopediana]

you make me sick. "hooray, 900 servile lackeys of imperialism have died! goooooo insurgents!" it's a senseless waste of young lives and it's showing america that war has very PERSONAL effects. i don't really care if they died for what they believe in or not since i don't believe in it, but i care that they died and about the example it shows to the world. there's such a thing as conscientous objector. they let pharmacists refuse to give women birth control pills, breaking the medical code of ethics. you can refuse to fight nowadays and everything is a bit more out in the open so you'd get a voice by pure virtue of raising such a ruckus.

[Hate Is Art]

Amen Di, these are people not some kind of anonomous grunt of the state, they have families.

Get some morals mon ami.

[fuerzasocialista]

900 dead and nothing to show for it. They died in vain. I, in no way, celebrate the deaths of soldiers who are being forced to participate in a war that has no fundamental principal.

[Hate Is Art]

aye, death is sad but dieing for no reason is even sadder. It seems like they are digging themselves a grave, but they can only go deeper, I really don't see a way for them to pull out though.

[Subversive Pessimist]

900 dead and nothing to show for it. They died in vain.

They liberated the Iraqi people, remember? ^_^

[scrap metal]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2004, 11:02 AM
Me too. However, they could always refuse to fight.
Most of the time for them, refusing to fight involves refusing to eat.
Tough call.

[Sabocat]

I regard it with total apathy. I don't really care about the well being of professional killers, acting as a security force for the oil companies. A lot of these cats want to be over there "fighting for freedom". Do you really think those animals from the Abu Ghraib prison aren't enjoying themselves? Did they look like they were having a moral dilema? The soldiers there that don't want to be, should go AWOL. Otherwise, who gives a fuck?

This sympathy for the soldiers is all part and parcel to the insipid "Support Our Troops" nonsense. If you support the troops, you support the war.

I'm sorry but, if I have to cheer on any side, it will be the insurgents trying to expel a foreign occupation army.

[dopediana]

i disagree with you, doug...... a lot of people don't have the strength of character to go AWOL, were trying to fund their way through college and didn't have the grades for scholarships, reject their military dad's goals that have been set for them, taught a certain way, had the misfortune for turning out the person they are. you know i'm against the war but we're talking about confused kids full of bravado who are suddenly stranded in a desert where people hate them and they don't even get decent toothbrushes. misinformation and lack of creative thinking are among comprehensible reasons for people to join the US army. apathy is not the answer.

[Sabocat]

Signing up for the military as a tool to get a college education as far as I'm concerned is no excuse. These people knew that signing up also meant the possibility of seeing "action". They made that choice. That meant in their minds, that it is acceptable to go to foreign lands and kill people at their governments will. The same excuses could be made for the German soldiers operating the gas chambers. He was confused, he had too much peer pressure, he had no money, etc, etc. With a little critical thinking before hand, they should have been able to make the right decision. Once over there, killing women and children should have invoked some sort of moral dilemma. From what I've seen, that hasn't happened in any appreciable numbers.

The bottom line, is that a lot of these kids are over there killing "rag heads" and "sand niggers", and "terrorists. A lot of them are ignorant racists, with war hero delusions of grandeur. Remember, this is a volunteer Army. Some are there from economic conscription and that's unfortunate, but quite a few aren't. I have no sympathy for them.

[BOZG]

Conscientious objectors......well there's 900 who didn't bother to object, conscientiously or not. I will shed no tears, nor be sorry for them. Any action taken against US Imperialism, or against its lackeys in its armed forces is justifiable, simple. I remember a post by Malte about the Holocaust with a quote in it, that translated from German to "German perpetrators are not victims". What Disgust said reminded me of that quote and I must echo it.

[refuse_resist]

Now as far as the money and funding for college goes, that is the biggest lie recruiters tell me. The recruiters are the ones who will suck people in through decepting people into believing things that are not true, and they try to make the military look like that by joining they'll be on some sort of vacation. It's sad how they do this stuff to people and they all fall for it.

Almost every person I've known who's joined the military didn't like it, whether it be the Marines, Army, Navy or Air Force. The amount of brainwashing they do to people is very bad. In Marine basic training, they have two of the trainees sit across from one another for days out in the middle of nowhere and have them dry fire a rifle at eachother, so they won't have a problem shooting someone they know. This explains why so many veterans were going on shooting sprees for no apparent reason. And of course, lets not forget Timothy McVeigh, who was a Gulf War veteran and neo-Nazi. Bigotry in the military racism is instituted to all the soldiers, so that when they go out there to kill the people they're out there to kill they wont have a problem with doing it. A lot of them go around saying their job is to kill all people with towels on their head, so that only makes you wonder what kind of stuff goes on in there and lets seriously hope a lot of these people don't come back and become a bunch of McVeighs.

The Iraqi people have every right to defend themselves against imperialist aggression. When all these people volunteer to enlist in the military, they need to know what they're getting themselves into and it's no joke. They're all capable of going AWOL too. There is no excuse.

[KrazyRabidSheep]

i'm not happy about the people dying, the 900+ troops, or the thousands of Iraqis, because killing for any reason makes me sick

however, i feel if you people have something to say, it's about the men who sent them there more so then the troops



Bush, Blair, C.I.A., how many people have you killed today?

[CubanFox]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2004, 04:46 AM
This sympathy for the soldiers is all part and parcel to the insipid "Support Our Troops" nonsense. If you support the troops, you support the war.
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/trall/2004/trall040515.gif

Ah, I love Ted Rall.

[refuse_resist]

Yup, so true :lol:

[Subversive Pessimist]

Haha, so true :lol:

[dopediana]

do all of you remember my rendezvous of the past year with the notorious rhino shit boy? well in the process i happened to get into the addressbook of one of his navy friends who out of the blue sent everyone is his book a letter. and now doug, i'm thinking i'm agreeing with you. fuck the soldiers. my reply to this jackass is soon to be in progress. if anyone has any suggestions of scathing statistics or "fun facts" post them now!


To all:



I 've shared with some of you my interest to go to Iraq...and here's why!



President Bush is a godly man and I know that his efforts wont be recognized for yrs. to come...oh well.....I already recognize them!



*** In AMERICA, We all take for granted what freedoms we have...and I say..if your not willing to die for what you believe in ....Q. Tell me...WHAT ARE YOU LIVING FOR???



* Just this past Sunday I had the awesome opportunity to help a catholic church feed the Homeless...later on that night I got to see Michael W. Smith " LIVE" in( www.michaelwsmith.com ) concert...remember the COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL massacre? Well, there was a book wrote about a certain girl who was shot to death that day,...she wasn't on a "battle field of war in Iraq" ...she just happened to go to school that day!

At Michael W. 's concert he speaks of this young lady, and tells of her story just seconds before she was killed...." She said Yes..the true Life story of Cassidy Bernall..I encourage all of you to get your hands on a copy of this book - I PROMISE, you wont regret it!

Now, back to my point! No matter if you will vote for Bush or not, ...i believe in him so much that I'm doing all that I can to try and VOLUNTEER MY SERVICES TO GO TO Iraq....My youngest sister, ( BABY SISTER///do you hear me??) on the other hand, doesn't have a choice...she is a U.S. MARINE...(whom I'm very PROUD of and L O V E very much..)and she will be heading back over there for a 2nd tour, so yes i can say this, FRANKLY, it scares me to think that the spinless man named John Kerry who happened to serve in Nam, ONLY to come home and protest the war...he will be MY COMMANDER - IN -CHIEF.....No, I'd rather be out of the Navy altogether.

///////

See, I've been places where people struggle on a daily basis . They don't even have a meal to eat and neither do their kids!..and Iraq is no different...there's woman, children, and MEN that bleed the same way you and I do.

If i can go over there and help out just ONE CHILD AND JUST ONE MOTHER, keep one terrorist from decappating another hostage, go in the spirit of the Native Americans, ( ..after all they still go thru..they NEVER complain....amazing),that have voluntaringly shed their blood for us Anglo - saxon's....once again! PLUS, my personal secret ambitions: #1 My sister will come back alive and live back home in SAFE PENNA. at Ma's horse farm where she belongs!...Soo, if that's all I accomplish while over there....LORD KNOWS...I've done my part! So far I haven't been able to convince those folks ....hey I want to volunteer! ....but, no fear...I still am looking into other options....I AM NOT A QUITTER!



* Just a Navy sailor sharing his perspective on things * Please, when you get a chance write to a soldier or sailor, especially one in Iraq or Afganistan and if you can afford it, send them a care package..and the funny thing is they'll appreciate it more than you'll ever know! -* ' TRUST ME! ' 0100AM/22JULY04

[Hate Is Art]

Go in the spirit of the Native Americans,

What a Jackass, people like him killed all the Native Americans.

[BOZG]

Originally posted by Digital [email protected] 23 2004, 04:14 PM
Go in the spirit of the Native Americans,

What a Jackass, people like him killed all the Native Americans.
This comes more to mind for me...

[Rex_20XD6]

What was his motive for killing the Native Americans?

[refuse_resist]

Whoever wrote that sure is dimented. Sooner or later, they'll get what's coming to them.

[dopediana]

oh yeah. and i'm going to give it to him. the spirit of the native americans. now there were some people who weren't fighting for the usa in the name of freedom. they were fighting for their rights and to get their asses off the line if for the govt at all...

[dopediana]

and they were starved, beaten, subjected, killed, humiliated, impoverished, and forced into it.

[praxis1966]

You should ask him, "Hey Beavis, haven't you ever heard of AIM?" (And I don't mean AOL Instant Messanger, either.) Never complained about it my lily white ass. The Dogwarriors were some of the most hardcore activists of the 60s and 70s, with the Second Battle of Wounded Knee and the occupation of Alcatraz et al. They were more or less the Native American equivalent of the BLA or the Weather Underground. Makes me quite proud that I am part Penobscot, even though AIM is primarily comprised of Lakota Sioux.

[Kurai Tsuki]

The death toll is now 903 (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/FC54B07F-6FCF-4F5A-9E44-27F999217BE9.htm)

[CubanFox]

906, now.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-04/23/xinsrc_2004012314029742618423.gif

[Kurai Tsuki]

When was this? How did they die?

[CubanFox]

Iraq Coalition Casualties (http://icasualties.org/oif/)

906 Americans, 61 Britons.

[ComradeChris]

I have much more sympathy for the innocent civilians in Iraq who are being killed. The soldiers know the consequences of war and are willing to die for their country. Civilians shouldn't have to know the first hand (maybe from relatives who actually fight however).

It's interesting, ever since the US has started joining wars regularly (in the 1800's and beyond) the civilian to soldier killed ratio is approximately 8 civilians to 1 soldier. Before 1800, there were 8 soldiers to every 1 civilian death. I know technology plays a factor, but I also think the US war mentality, bomb now and "save" later plays a larger factor. I think this will turn out to be another "Viet Nam" incident.

[Kurai Tsuki]

It now reaches 907, I guess the most recent person's killing wasn't spectacular enough to be reported by Al Jazeera, maybe he stepped on a mine or hit a road-side bomb.

[Kurai Tsuki]

Maybe we should start a pool of when the number will reach 1000 :rolleyes:

[Abajo con el imperialismo]

soon enough I guess the battles are turning more intensive as the time passes

[Jesus Christ]

i feel sad only for the complete waste of human life and potential
these "patriots" had no idea what, if anything, they were fighting for
they died fighting for false ideals, believing they were "liberating" an unliberated people, when in reality they were only ousting one opressive regime in order to implicate another
they had no clue, and its a shame

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

What a waste. I think, like most of the people in this thread, that most of the American soldiers are misguided people that believe all the propaganda that Bush throws out. Bush killed every single one of those 906 GI's himself!

[refuse_resist]

Originally posted by Jesus [email protected] 26 2004, 12:30 AM
i feel sad only for the complete waste of human life and potential
these "patriots" had no idea what, if anything, they were fighting for
they died fighting for false ideals, believing they were "liberating" an unliberated people, when in reality they were only ousting one opressive regime in order to implicate another
they had no clue, and its a shame
Yes, that's very true. Many of them have no idea what they're fighting for, they just go along with whatever they're being told. They get taught to "act now and question later".

[PRC-UTE]

Here is something of even greater signifigance:


http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2004/...on/wednat01.txt (http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2004/07/21/news/nation/wednat01.txt)


Troops leave Anbar to its fate

By Tom Lasseter
Knight Ridder Newspapers




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In the face of lethal insurgency, Army scales back patrols

RAMADI, Iraq — After more than a year of fighting, U.S. troops have stopped patrolling large swaths of Iraq's restive Anbar province, according to the top American military intelligence officer in the area.

Most U.S. Army officers interviewed this week said the patrols in and around the province's capital, Ramadi — home to many Iraqi military and intelligence officers under Saddam Hussein — have stopped largely because the soldiers and commanders there were tired of being shot at by insurgents who've refused to back down under heavy American military pressure.

Asked for comment, officials from the 2nd Battalion 4th Marines in Ramadi — which makes up about one-fifth of the forces there — provided a 21-year-old corporal, who confirmed that the Marines have discontinued patrols, but said it was because of the hand-over of sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government.

While American officials in Ramadi wouldn't provide exact figures for the change in numbers of patrols, there's obviously been a significant drop.

After losing dozens of men to a "voiceless, faceless mass of people" with no clear leadership or political aim other than killing American soldiers, the U.S. military has had to re-evaluate the situation, said Army Maj. Thomas Neemeyer, the head American intelligence officer for the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, the main military force in the Ramadi area and from there to Fallujah.

"They cannot militarily overwhelm us, but we cannot deliver a knockout blow, either," he said. "It creates a form of stalemate."

In the wreckage of the security situation, Neemeyer said, U.S. officials have all but given up on plans to install a democratic government in the city, and are hoping instead that Islamic extremists and other insurgent groups don't overrun the province in the same way that they've seized the region's most infamous town, Fallujah.

"Since Ramadi is the seat of the governate, we worry that if they could unsettle the government center here they could destabilize the al Anbar province," said Capt. Joe Jasper, a spokesman for the 1st Brigade.

The apparent failure of a long line of Army and Marine units to bring peace to the province, which makes up about 40 percent of Iraq's landmass, will be a major challenge for Iraq's new government and could prove to be a tipping point for the nation as a whole. Increasingly, Iraq is a place in which cities or part of cities have been taken over by insurgents and radicals.

U.S. officers in Ramadi openly acknowledge that the Iraqi security force trained to take over the hunt for insurgents, the national guard, has become a site-protection service that so far is incapable and unwilling to conduct offensive operations.

When the governor of Anbar left town last month, the head of the national guard, who since has been replaced, took part in an attempt to overthrow him. National guardsmen in town have refused to go on patrols either alone or with the Americans. The 2,886 national guardsmen in Ramadi so far have detained just one person.

To show how operations in Anbar have changed, Jasper sketched a map on a piece of paper.

Pointing to a neighborhood outside the town of Habbaniyah, between Fallujah and Ramadi, he said, "We've lost a lot of Marines there and we don't ever go in anymore. If they want it that bad, they can have it."

And then to a spot on the western edge of Fallujah: "We find that if we don't go there, they won't shoot us."

Marine Cpl. Charles Laversdorf, who works in his battalion's intelligence unit, said the Marines averaged just five raids a month and no longer were running any patrols other than those to observation posts.

The sharp reduction in patrols flies in the face of comments made recently by a top military official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Any insurgent that … somehow thinks that after June 28 we'll be pulling back into base camps will be disappointed," he said. "This is a long-term program of handing over responsibility. … It's not going to take days nor weeks, it's going to be months and years."

More than 124 U.S. troops have died in Anbar since President Bush declared major combat operations over in Iraq on May 1, 2003.

Between the 1st Brigade's 4,000 soldiers, who arrived in Ramadi last September, and a battalion of 1,000 Marines, who came in February, more than 80 have been killed and more than 450 injured.

Since the hand-over of sovereignty June 28, 25 U.S. soldiers have been killed. Fifteen of them were in Anbar.

The U.S. military has poured about $18 million into reconstruction projects in Ramadi, but Neemeyer said the projects hadn't done much in the way of winning people over.

"The only way to stomp out the insurgency of the mind," he said, "would be to kill the entire population."

Residents in Ramadi had long said the U.S. military underestimated the resolve of fighters in the area. Also, residents said, soldiers made community support for the resistance stronger with each cultural misstep, such as brusque house raids and cultural slights toward important tribal sheiks.

Many of those interviewed in Ramadi recently said they'd welcome a Fallujah-like rule by insurgents.

Bashar Hamid, a stationery store owner, said "only the mujahedeen (holy warriors) can provide stability."

Muhanad Muhammed, a pharmacist, agreed: "The Americans misbehave ... that's why I do not blame the mujahedeen when they attack them."

Capt. John Mountford, who oversees a central command office in Ramadi for local police, national guard and U.S. military officials, said that in retrospect the military should've paid more attention to what the Iraqis were saying.

"We should have worked with the tribal leaders earlier," he said. "I just wonder what would have happened if we had worked a little more with the locals."

Knight Ridder Newspapers special correspondent Omar Jassim contributed to this report.

[Subversive Pessimist]

Iraq Insurgents Kill 2 Coalition Soldiers (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040728/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_clashes&cid=540&ncid=1473)