For Memorial Day: Editorials Still Oppose Iraq Withdrawals

[ProSense]

For Memorial Day: Editorials Still Oppose Iraq Withdrawals

By Greg Mitchell (Opinion)

Published: May 29, 2006 11:15 AM ET

NEW YORK Today marks another Memorial Day, this time with the American death toll in Iraq well past 2400 lives, with over 18,000 injured. Just over six months have passed since hawkish Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) called for the beginning of a U.S. pullout in Iraq – but just days ago, President Bush outlined his latest plan, amid rumors of a withdrawal, to "stay the course,” amid graphic reports of a new “My Lai.”

All of this would seem to call out for a re-thinking of positions or assumptions on newspaper editorial pages. Indeed, three of the most influential did weigh in Sunday with Iraq editorials. All of them, despite voicing strong crtiicism in the same editorials, came out against starting to bring the boys home.

This continues the depressing tradition of newspaper editorials saying most of the right things, and pressing charges against the administration’s handling of the war – while arguing for “more time” or “a few more months” for the latest “turning point” in Iraq to produce a positive outcome. This pattern could – and possibly will – go on nearly forever.

It ain’t funny how time slips away.

more...

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002577027

"This continues the depressing tradition" of the complicit MSM!

[ProSense]

1. KILLING FIELDS: Iraq Is the Republic of Fear (Bush's legacy)

KILLING FIELDS

Iraq Is the Republic of Fear

By Nir Rosen
Sunday, May 28, 2006; Page B01

Every morning the streets of Baghdad are littered with dozens of bodies, bruised, torn, mutilated, executed only because they are Sunni or because they are Shiite. Power drills are an especially popular torture device.

I have spent nearly two of the three years since Baghdad fell in Iraq. On my last trip, a few weeks back, I flew out of the city overcome with fatalism. Over the course of six weeks, I worked with three different drivers; at various times each had to take a day off because a neighbor or relative had been killed. One morning 14 bodies were found, all with ID cards in their front pockets, all called Omar. Omar is a Sunni name. In Baghdad these days, nobody is more insecure than men called Omar. On another day a group of bodies was found with hands folded on their abdomens, right hand over left, the way Sunnis pray. It was a message. These days many Sunnis are obtaining false papers with neutral names. Sunni militias are retaliating, stopping buses and demanding the jinsiya , or ID cards, of all passengers. Individuals belonging to Shiite tribes are executed.

Snip...

For instance, in the negotiations between parties after the January 2005 elections, Sadr loyalists gained control over the ministries of health and transportation and immediately began cleansing them of Sunnis and Shiites not aligned with Sadr. The process was officially known by the Sadrists as "cleansing the ministry of Saddamists." Indeed, some government offices now do not accept Sunnis as employees at all.

Based on my visits to the ministries, it is clear that an apartheid process began after the Shiites' electoral success. In the Ministry of Health, you see pictures of Moqtada al-Sadr and his father everywhere. Traditional Shiite music reverberates throughout the hallways. Doctors and ministry staffers refer to the minister of health as imami, or "my imam," as though he were a cleric. I also saw walls adorned with Shiite posters -- including ones touting Sadr -- in the Ministry of Transportation. Sunni staffers have been pushed out of both ministries, while the Ministry of Interior is under the control of another Shiite movement, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (its name alone a sufficient statement of its intentions).

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601578.html

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