PB Soldier Says Situation Tense in Baghdad

[floda]

Pine Bluff (AP) - An Arkansas soldier serving in Iraq says that the children's attitude toward the Americans has changed in the last few months. Pine Bluff soldier Johnny Center said a few months ago when members of his National Guard squad waved to children in Baghdad, the youngsters smiled and waved back.

Now, he sees parents slap children's hands if they wave, he told the Pine Bluff Commercial.

The soldier said the duty in the Iraq is very hard because of the changing environment. Center, a Magnolia native who worked as a Tyson plant superintendent before the 39th Infantry Brigade was activated, was in Pine Bluff for a few days recently after a death in the family. He has since returned to Baghdad.


http://www.katv.com/news/stories/0704/161195.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. AR Guardsmen tours extended

for another year. This is the first of the extensions for the Guard. As elements of our forces rape and torture Iraqis, how do you expect Iraqis to look on any Americans as favorable? I'd say that the ones in Iraq now are probably in greater danger than those who were deployed at the outset of this illegal war.

[acmavm]

2. I agree, I think that they're in for more trouble and in more danger than

the outset as well. But that's not saying much since there was very little, if any, resistance to the troops during the initial invasion. It is only since the 'occupation' phase began that things started to get really ugly.

What's really not going to help our troops with the Iraqi people is the fact that we installed a regime that is not seen as having been 'democratically elected', which is the biggest justification the bush* administration has been spouting for the attack on their country. I think that the average Iraqi understands the concept of freedom and the promise of a democratically elected government. And they know that they don't have either one of them. They know that we picked a handful of criminals and clowns (albeit not the original crew that the neocons wanted), and then Bremer jumped ship and left. And on his way out of Dodge he abandoned our troops there to try to prop up Allawi and his bunch of pocket lining cronies.

The resistance to these fools are theocratically driven fundamentalists of the type that we said would never be allowed to have any political power in Iraq. And not just one fundamentalist sect, but sects within a sect. Sunnis, Shi'ites, radical Shi'ites, whatever. Then there's the proverbial poster children, the Kurds. They want an independent homeland and somehow got the crazed idea (again) that we would help them to get one. What's bush* say? "Fool me once, shame on me...."

Yeah, we left our troops between a rock and a hard place, as the saying goes. Now who's going to rescue them?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

6. It's not just the rape and torture, it is also the use of 500 and 1000...

...pound bombs used in the attempts to kill opposing leaders and pockets of insurgents in an urban landscape. Those kinds of weapons kill indiscriminately for hundreds of feet in all directions, and you may, or may not, kill the people you were actually targeting.

Another issue is the fact that our ground units have overwhelming firepower...once the shooting starts in an urban setting, everyone becomes a target until the shooting stops.

All of that creates enemies of those that see the actions with their own eyes. And even more enemies are created as the stories spread by word of mouth. People become more hardened, and more willing to do whatever it takes to get the invader off their soil.

This is part of the irreversible downward spiral that the Soviets got into when they invaded Afghanistan. They eventually left that country after losing 30,000 troops, and creating enemies of nearly everyone in the country.

[Zeke]

3. Thank You, Jesus...

God help me, but I actually considered enlisting into the Air Force Reserve about 4 years ago.

My scores and background were such, they wanted me for INTEL, but at the last moment I decided not to sign up, just couldn't get away from home responsibilites.

The Lord helped me dodge a bullet. I really believe that.

VOTE KERRY !!!!

[0007]

4. I don't think the lord had anything to do with it!

But I will vote Kerry -

[w4rma]

5. You would have probably been quite safe in the Air Force, particularly

Intel which stays away from the front lines.

[daleo]

8. But he may have had the job of choosing targets for 1000 lb bombs

I would hate to be involved in that during an illegal war like this. From a moral standpoint, it may well be more hazardous than being an unwilling foot soldier of the empire.

[faithnotgreed]

7. right on friend!