Sobering news about Iraq from this morning's Washington Post:
- Photo Credit: Joshua Partlow -- The Washington Post
Joshua Partlow reports from Baghdad that hardened troops see the Iraq War as a bitter waste. I wonder if the Bush chickenhawks dare call these guys defeatocrats.
Even as the P.R. flacks and Bush and his cronies talk of the progress and advancement toward democracy as we confront "terrorism," these words ring hollow for the troops doing the fighting in Iraq.
The Post report by Partlow comes as veterans continue to organize group statements against the Iraq war such as the Twelve Former Army Captains Blast Iraq War public letter published earlier this month.
Writes Partlow:
A bomb crater blocks one lane, so they cross to the other side, where houses are blackened by fire, shops crumbled into bricks. The remains of a car bomb serve as hideous public art. Sgt. Victor Alarcon's Humvee rolls into a vast pool of knee-high brown sewage water -- the soldiers call it Lake Havasu, after the Arizona spring-break party spot -- that seeps in the doors of the vehicle and wets his boots.
"When we first got here, all the shops were open. There were women and children walking out on the street," Alarcon said this week. "The women were in Western clothing. It was our favorite street to go down because of all the hot chicks."
That was 14 long months ago, when the soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, arrived in southwestern Baghdad. It was before their partners in the Iraqi National Police became their enemies and before Shiite militiamen, aligned with the police, attempted to exterminate a neighborhood of middle-class Sunni families.
Next month, the U.S. soldiers will complete their tour in Iraq. Their experience in Sadiyah has left many of them deeply discouraged, by both the unabated hatred between rival sectarian fighters and the questionable will of the Iraqi government to work toward peaceful solutions.
Asked if the American endeavor here was worth their sacrifice -- 20 soldiers from the battalion have been killed in Baghdad -- Alarcon said no: "I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life." ...
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After 14 months in a Baghdad district torn by mounting sectarian violence, members of one U.S. unit are tired, bitter and skeptical.Pictured above: "Barriers in Sadiyah are daubed with graffiti about an Iraqi National Police brigade that used to patrol the area and the Iraqi army brigade that replaced it. U.S. soldiers and residents said the police were complicit in Shiite attacks on Sunnis."
- Photo Credit: Joshua Partlow -- The Washington Post
Joshua Partlow reports from Baghdad that hardened troops see the Iraq War as a bitter waste. I wonder if the Bush chickenhawks dare call these guys defeatocrats.
Even as the P.R. flacks and Bush and his cronies talk of the progress and advancement toward democracy as we confront "terrorism," these words ring hollow for the troops doing the fighting in Iraq.
The Post report by Partlow comes as veterans continue to organize group statements against the Iraq war such as the Twelve Former Army Captains Blast Iraq War public letter published earlier this month.
Writes Partlow:
A bomb crater blocks one lane, so they cross to the other side, where houses are blackened by fire, shops crumbled into bricks. The remains of a car bomb serve as hideous public art. Sgt. Victor Alarcon's Humvee rolls into a vast pool of knee-high brown sewage water -- the soldiers call it Lake Havasu, after the Arizona spring-break party spot -- that seeps in the doors of the vehicle and wets his boots.
"When we first got here, all the shops were open. There were women and children walking out on the street," Alarcon said this week. "The women were in Western clothing. It was our favorite street to go down because of all the hot chicks."
That was 14 long months ago, when the soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, arrived in southwestern Baghdad. It was before their partners in the Iraqi National Police became their enemies and before Shiite militiamen, aligned with the police, attempted to exterminate a neighborhood of middle-class Sunni families.
Next month, the U.S. soldiers will complete their tour in Iraq. Their experience in Sadiyah has left many of them deeply discouraged, by both the unabated hatred between rival sectarian fighters and the questionable will of the Iraqi government to work toward peaceful solutions.
Asked if the American endeavor here was worth their sacrifice -- 20 soldiers from the battalion have been killed in Baghdad -- Alarcon said no: "I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life." ...
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