Dispatch From The Black Hills of Ninewah

Multi-National Corps – Iraq
Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory
APO AE 09342

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RELEASE No. 20080128-01
January 28, 2008

Coalition Soldiers killed in IED attack (Ninewah)

Multi-National Division – North PAO

NINEWAH, Iraq – Coalition Force Soldiers were conducting a mounted patrol in Ninewah Jan. 28 when insurgents detonated an improvised explosive device, killing five Soldiers.

Insurgents attacked the other Soldiers in the patrol with small arms fire from a nearby mosque.

Iraqi Army forces and CF secured the area and returned fire on the insurgents.

The Iraqi Army entered the mosque, but the insurgents had fled the area.

“The insurgents are willing to desecrate a place of worship by using it to attack Soldiers to further their agenda,” said Maj. Margaret Kageleiry, a Task Force-Iron spokesperson.

The names of the deceased are being withheld pending next of kin notification and release by the Department of Defense.

-30-

Wow, that’s so nicely formatted, it’s going to look cool on my blog. I especially like the way it ends, with the old editor’s mark -30- to set the end of the article for the typesetter. But I have some issues:

• What in hell is a mounted patrol? It means in vehicles, right? As opposed to a foot patrol. Asshats, playing army with their military terms.
  
  Custer’s Last Stand was a mounted patrol too.
• Why is the word soldiers capitalized? (I guess we should appreciate the fact they aren’t misusing the word Troops. A troop is a plural number of soldiers, so troops is multiple number of groups of soliders.)
• Willingness to desecrate a Mosque? That’s the point we’re supposed to glean from this? Who gives a shit? Desecrate whatever is needful, just stop killing people.
• Their agenda? They don’t need no fucking agenda. This isn’t political. It’s a simple, instinctive reaction to domination, aggression and occupation. You corner any dog in his back yard and poke him with a stick, sooner or later he’ll turn and bite.

I can’t believe this is still going on. I can’t believe it is ever going to end.

IMPEACH BUSH & CHENEY NOW

Well we used do, but we don’t, I mean we stopped. Right.

WASHINGTON – Former US spy chief John Negroponte admitted that the United States has used a controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding but does not anymore, according to a published interview Monday.

Common Dreams 

Kucinich Bails on Impeachment

He has chickened out, knuckled under, buggered off, turned tail, and let his deal go down.

He’s going to let the wolves be responsible for getting the fox out of the henhouse.

“I do not believe that there will be an impeachment this year — I don’t think that will happen — but I do think that the questions relating to an inquiry of both the president and the vice president are important so that our nation has a real understanding of the effort that was made, a consistent effort, to mislead the people into supporting a war,” he said.

 The Cleveland Plain Dealer 

Damn. We were so close. [Ha.]

They Fire Football Coaches Don’t They?

This article from today’s LA Times explores the failure of the Democratically – controlled Congress to end the war in Iraq.

What happened?

The answer lies partly in the slim Democratic majority and a determined Republican president.

But it was the new Democratic majority’s inability to work across the aisle that ultimately ensured failure.

Self Interest

I find it difficult to feel responsible for the suffering of others. That’s why I find war so hard to bear. It’s the same with animals: I feel the less harm I do, the lighter my heart. I love a light heart. And when I know I’m causing suffering, I feel the heaviness of it. It’s a physical pain. So it’s self-interest that I don’t want to cause harm.

- Alice Walker, writer