Mother in Iraq with troops. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1896&e=2&u=/nm/20031205/us_nm/iraq_daughter_dc_2 Mom Vainly Tries to See U.S. Iraq Soldier Daughter 1 hour, 23 minutes ago Add U.S. National - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Michael Georgy TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - A peace activist accused the U.S. military on Friday of depriving her of the chance to visit her soldier daughter, telling her that the truck driver was on a mission. But Lieutenant Colonel William MacDonald, spokesman for the U.S. Fourth Infantry Division in Tikrit, said he was trying to organize a meeting for Saturday. Anabel Valencia said she had informed U.S. military officials that she would be at the gates of the base at noon to see 24-year-old Giselle. She arrived only to discover that her daughter had been sent on a mission to Baghdad. "I have not seen her in three years, I don't know why they are doing this," said Valencia, standing outside a sprawling U.S. military base in Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s hometown. "The last time we spoke she said 'I miss you and my father and sister. I want to come home for Christmas but I have to finish my mission'." "I feel so bad. I am sad," said Valencia, who was accompanied by Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange, an anti-war human rights group. Several parents of Americans serving in Iraq (news - web sites) have come to the country to visit their children, including ones that were killed in the war that toppled Saddam. Their presence just outside the military complex clearly made U.S. troops nervous. One arrived with a sniffer dog and firmly told Valencia to keep a distance from the main checkpoint. "Can I talk to her?" Valencia asked before being told that Giselle had been sent on a mission to Baghdad, where her brother is also serving in the U.S. Army. Valencia and her party were told that Giselle would be back at five o'clock. But MacDonald contradicted that claim. "This mission has been scheduled for quite a while and you know she is a soldier. She is out performing her duty," he said. One soldier stood by and reminded everyone that "this is a war and soldiers are sent on missions." Giselle had spoken to her mother highly of her tour of duty in Iraq. When a group of U.S.-trained Iraqi policemen showed up, American soldiers loaded their weapons. "The Americans asked us to come here to stop the demonstration," said Iraqi policeman Mohanan Taha. Asked if protests were illegal in the new Iraq, he told reporters: "There are no human rights under the Americans. Nothing. It is all empty talk." "We miss the days of Saddam," said Iraqi policeman Mohammed Shawki.
Morale boost over, back to reality. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...le&cid=1070493010535&call_pageid=968332188492 Dec. 4, 2003. 06:35 AM CHRIS HELGREN/REUTERS U.S. Army soldiers, in a amoured personnel carrier, search for attackers after explosions rocked central Baghdad Nov. 4. Life in battened-down Baghdad Armoured city sends mixed messages Self-preservation U.S. soldiers' goal MITCH POTTER BAGHDAD—The grimaces on these young American faces speak volumes, however monosyllabic their words may be. Turkey Day has come and gone, and that whisper of a visit from President George W. Bush barely echoes now in the ears of his troops in Iraq. A young corporal named Bourgeois corrected a reporter yesterday when asked whether the president's dramatic night-time foray brought any kind of levity to his personal slog in Baghdad, now a stale seven months old. The first answer, an embittered, dirty look. Then, grudgingly, to fill the dragging silence: "They said he came to Baghdad, but it was really only BIAP." (Translation: Baghdad International Airport, in army-speak.) Bourgeois' final thought on the matter: Neither he nor anyone else in his unit would have gone anywhere near Bush had they known of his visit, which they didn't, and had they been enjoying a rare day off, which they weren't. "I would have been somewhere else," he said. "Sounds like a pretty high-profile target to me." More telling, perhaps, the surprising ambivalence of a PAO (more army-speak for Public Affairs Officer), the very sort paid by the Pentagon to make nice for the media. He, too, managed few words on the presidential foray: "I'm indifferent. I'm just a soldier, sir." War or peace, right or wrong, win or lose, none of it seems to matter any more to many enlisted Americans in Iraq, for whom a political exit strategy cannot come too soon. In the wake of the worst month yet for coalition casualties, self-preservation appears to have taken hold as the overriding ethos. Hunker down. Don't grin, just bear it. Survive. Now, nearly eight months after the welcome toppling of Saddam Hussein, the unwelcome army that did the deed is yet another confused element in a cacophony of mixed messages in today's Baghdad. This is an armoured city now, so battened-down against the terror insurgency it barely resembles the Baghdad of April, when giddy Iraqi children swarmed like seagulls around smiling U.S. Marines and army infantry units. Complex networks of concrete, sandbag and razor-wire barriers clog the streets, encircling every remaining site of Western value, as the coalition leadership — civilian and military alike — retreats ever deeper within a hermetically sealed Green Zone comprising nearly 10 per cent of greater Baghdad. Armoured U.S. patrols are still to be seen motoring twitchily through the main thoroughfares, but their numbers are dwindling as newly minted Iraqi police deploy in their place. The appearance of the nascent native security men was described yesterday as a Godsend by one Baghdad man. "They are like angels from heaven, putting their lives on the line against the devils (resistance fighters) who are trying to ruin us," he said. The pinpoint severity of the most recent attacks — extending to Spanish, Japanese and Italian diplomatic, military and security convoys — has left the remaining foreign nationals in a race to determine how, exactly, not to be a soft target. Diplomats are thinking twice about the conspicuous habit of loading themselves into easily spotted four-wheel drive vehicles, are as journalists, many of whom are trading armoured cars for the easily ignored wrecks far more common to these streets. Yet the hair-trigger fears of Westerners and the almost daily feed of visuals showing something on fire and some soldier dead belies the fact that 25 million Iraqis are going about the business of getting on with life. The new normal, in Baghdad at least, includes a measurably greater affluence — government salaries for everyone from street sweepers to school teachers are up significantly over Saddam-era rates, and signs of what is now the most freewheeling economy in the Arab world abound. An estimated 250,000 cars have been added to Iraqi streets, imported duty-free at bargain rates and fitted with black licence plates to denote that someday, when a real Iraqi government emerges, they'll be subject to proper registration. Yet even these come with mixed messages. Between the roadblocks, barricades and surfeit of new drivers, Baghdad is one big snarled gridlock; the growing fleet of private cars is also exacerbating another round of gasoline shortages, which has once again enraged Iraqis who thought they'd seen the last of the long line-ups. Coalition authorities yesterday were at a loss to explain the absurd fuel crisis, continuing as it is atop the world's second largest petroleum reserves. One source told the Star a combination of factors — increasing demand for home heating fuel, pipeline attacks and a shortage of trucks ferrying processed Iraqi oil down from Turkey — are to blame. Another factor: Gas is being siphoned off to feed electrical generators, which are busier now that Baghdad is once again grappling with dwindling electricity supplies. The new acting president of the Iraqi Governing Council, Shiite Muslim cleric Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, was bombarded with questions about the shortages yesterday during his debut press briefing at the Baghdad Convention Centre. He had no answers. But if nothing else, it was fascinating to see Iraqi journalists pounding away with hard questions for an Iraqi leader, however symbolic that U.S.-appointed leadership may be. Hakim's ascension to the rotating council presidency will be worth watching, as it symbolizes growing Shiite impatience with the transition of real power — and if Bush is to extract himself from Iraq with dignity, it can only come with the acquiescence and willing co-operation of the country's 60 per cent Shiite majority. In a briefing of almost comical vagueness, Hakim yesterday blue-skied the prospect of mobilizing his political group's armed wing, the Badr Brigades, together with Kurdish peshmerga fighters and other Iraqi militias into a new national force to take on the Saddam loyalists blamed for attacks on civilians, U.S. troops and foreign institutions. Once faced with demands to disarm from the U.S.-led coalition, the Badr Brigades as part of a new Iraqi force now seems an idea the Americans might just be willing to live with. This, too, appears part of the new normal in Baghdad.
Some troops not happy with historic visit By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes European edition, Friday, December 5, 2003 ARLINGTON, Va. — Amid the fanfare of his surprise visit to Baghdad on Thanksgiving, some soldiers were not all that happy with the President Bush’s pop-in, and some felt gypped out of a Thanksgiving meal. One soldier wrote to Stars and Stripes voicing displeasure that those under his command were told that during the president’s visit at the Baghdad International Airport for a quick meal and meet-and-greet, they weren’t allowed in. “Imagine [my soldiers’] dismay when they walked 15 minutes to the Bob Hope Dining Facility, only to find that they were turned away from their evening meal because they were in the wrong unit,” wrote Sgt. Loren Russell in a letter to the editor, published Wednesday. For security reasons, only those pre-selected got into the facility during Bush’s visit. But not one was denied their meal that day, according to Lt. Col. Mark Olinger, deputy chief of staff for Logistics for the Army’s 1st Armored Division. For six months, Army planners coordinated and prepped for the holiday, and picked the Bob Hope Dining Facility at the Baghdad International Airport because it would allow the maximum number of soldiers to participate, he said. Other locations could accommodate 100 soldiers at most. “Over 600 soldiers attended the event, who cheered and jumped to their feet when he entered,” Olinger said. The soldiers who dined while the president visited were selected by their chain of command, and were notified a short time before the visit, said Olinger and Capt. David Gercken, a 1st AD spokesman. “The hours for the dining facilities were published and publicized well prior to Thanksgiving,” Gercken said. “In particular, the dining facility at the airport maintained the same hours it posted prior to the president’s visit. The meal for the president was an additional meal.” At the airport, two facilities served main dinner meals from noon to 3 p.m. Hours were extended at the Hope facility until 4 p.m. and reopened at 8 p.m. for another serving, Olinger said, staying open for more than five more hours. “We did not close that facility until 1:30 a.m. I believe soldiers had multiple opportunities to have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and I know of no soldiers being turned away,” he said. In his letter, Russell acknowledges that his soldiers were told they could return later for their meals, and chose not to. “Regardless, my soldiers chose to complain amongst themselves and eat MREs, even after the chow hall was reopened for ‘usual business’ … As a leader myself, I’d guess that other measures could have been taken to allow for proper security and still let the soldiers have their meal,” Russell wrote. In Baghdad, soldiers celebrated Thanksgiving dinner at 32 locations throughout the city. Army cooks or Kellogg, Brown & Root employees prepared the meals and “quality was the same throughout the division task force,” Olinger said.
and some, like the president, moved to tears. From an email to the weeklystandard: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/460frrof.asp?pg=1
A letter to Stars and Stripes, a liberal rag... ______________ Thanksgiving visit So the boss came to visit us on Thanksgiving, under wraps and under the American flag. Thanks for coming. Oh thank you, kind leader, merciful leader, for taking one day out of your busy schedule to visit us. The shepherd looking over his flock. Thanks for making the sacrifice. God knows we’re making one. Re-election is coming up, but that had nothing to do with it, now did it? I remember your victorious landing on the ship. Oh how all those then alive, and now dead, would love to sit down next to you, cutting their families’ turkeys and filling the empty seats at the tables. Leader of the free world, be our guest at the head of our table. Or would you like to sit in one of the many empty seats left by the war? There’s plenty of room. Enough turkey and stuffing to go around. Fat and happy, delirious and exhausted. That’s how I feel. In a hurry? Going so soon? Have time for questions? You sure do have time for compliments. Do you ever feel responsible? I’m tired of this. Go back home to the ranch and tell them how happy and fulfilling the trip made you feel. Spc. Damian Torres Iraq
It wasn't a photo op to him, but it was to most of the rest of the world. Why is it so difficult for you to understand? Are your blinders getting in the way again?
Good points all, but let me pose this - would you have made the same (apparent) point about Al Qaeda incursions onto American soil if we had invaded Afghanistan...in 1999? We were asleep at the wheel, and taking no action (even preemptive action) was unforgiveable. Like Dennis Miller said, "there is absolutely nothing wrong with killing the a**holes who publicly state they are planning to kill you - why give them time to actually pull it off?" As far as your bigger point about free speech...I'm glad that we can have this discourse and debate here; or anywhere we please within these borders.
OK, say you're Clinton in 1999 and you want to go into Afghanistan to get OBL and remove the Taliban. How much support do you get from the GOP Congress? fact is the vast majority of folks were asleep at the wheel but even if the message had gotten out in sufficient force, the political will (probably from both parties) to put aside partisan bickering and do something like a major invasion simply was not there. The attitude Miller represents is most definitely a post 9-11 mentality that was not prevalent before.
Who said it was hard for me to accept? He can have his opinion, and I can have mine. To me, Bush's visit was (1)a morale booster for the troops and (2) a photo op for himself to counterbalance the ridiculous, premature aircraft carrier landing photo op. By the way, "whay" is spelled "whey" and it goes with curds, Little Miss Moffett!
perhaps i'm misunderstanding your point here, but you seem to bemoan the fact that partisan bickering couldn't be put aside pre-911. now that we have a president that is willing to bypass such bickering and do unto them before they do unto us, why do you object so stenuously?
I did not object to the Afghanistan operation. I do object to Iraq because I don't think that fits at all and I certainly object to the way this administration has squandered the post 9-11 good will of at least half of our country and our allies. Given an opportunity to unite rather than divide, they chose the latter to pursue an ill-advised adventure in Iraq.
well, i think at least half the country would disagree with you on who's the divider, and who has injected politics into what should've remained an issue of national security. as far as the rest of the world is concerned, i think it's clear that most of the opposition that's masquerading as passionately anti-war is infact virulently anti-american, let by the cheese-eating opportunists in Paris.
This war is the most important liberal, revolutionary U.S. democracy-building project since the Marshall Plan. The primary focus of U.S. forces in Iraq today is erecting a decent, legitimate, tolerant, pluralistic representative government from the ground up...it is one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad and it is a moral and strategic imperative that we give it our best shot." Tom Friedman. It is good to see Friedman come out of the closet and declare himself a neocon and fan of the brutal assasination business and other tactics in Iraq. It's really aggravating seeing him pretend to be some sort of humanistic moderate.
