Baghdad is under siege

[Postman]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1945769.ece

Sunni insurgents have cut the roads linking the city to the rest of Iraq. The country is being partitioned as militiamen fight bloody battles for control of towns and villages north and south of the capital.

As American and British political leaders argue over responsibility for the crisis in Iraq, the country has taken another lurch towards disintegration.

Well-armed Sunni tribes now largely surround Baghdad and are fighting Shia militias to complete the encirclement.

....Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Casey are picking out the drapes in the Green Zone while the rest of Iraq burns. These people don't realize just how large of a disaster they are.

[knowbody0]

1. good thing we built the world's largest embassy there!

[Postman]

4. It'll make for a nice mosque...

because Iraq will be known as West Iran.

[young_at_heart]

22. How will they find people to staff it?

I wouldn't think many would want to work there.

[knowbody0]

26. If they felt like they won, they could turn it

into a tourist attraction, swank hotel etc.

[MadMaddie]

2. The Green Zone....is a danger zone know and we need

to pull our soldiers now....yes we should pull out and let them fight amongst themselves....another American soldiers life lost will not prevent the impending bloodshead that is getting ready to occur....

[pork medley]

3. welcome to iraq

the world's biggest death camp

[High Plains]

5. Forget this--Kerry said something!

[itsmesgd]

8. The civil war is engulfing the country

The Iraqi PM told us to take down the barricades around Sadr City yesterday and now we have this. The Iraqi PM has obviously already taken a side in the civil war. It is far past time for us to be out of there. I have friends scheduled to deploy late this year, and I hope that they do not go, but alas they are infantrymen, foot soldiers.
This should be a loud wake up call to those in the white house who call it "sectarian clashes". They are in the middle of a civil war and will turn on us so that they might fight it out for control of Iraq once we are either dead or gone. let's help them get to their civil war quicker and get out of their way.

TROOPS HOME NOW

[EFerrari]

6. Oh geezus. I wonder if Rumsfeld is effen competent enough

to even get helicopters to the rooftops. I hope SOMEBODY is.

:(

[originalpckelly]

13. Katrina in Baghdad.(nt)

[roamer65]

7. The Battle of Baghdad. Here it comes.

[itsmesgd]

10. Siege of Saigon (the Iraqi version)

TROOPS HOME NOW

[Roland99]

9. 1,000 killed PER WEEK?!?!

:(

[whistle]

11. BushCo seven chakra's are all fucked up

...time to get unstuck from Iraq and leave that place.



The Seven basic chakras
3.1 Sahasrara
3.2 Ajna
3.3 Vishuddha
3.4 Anahata
3.5 Manipura
3.6 Swadhisthana
3.7 Muladhara

[Jcrowley]

12. K & R n/t

[bigbrother05]

14. kick

[Quixote1818]

15. Kick

[roamer65]

16. Reminds me of Cambodia...

...another Rethuglican failure.

[bigbrother05]

17. ...

Amid all this, Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, has sought to turn the fiasco of Iraq into a vote-winner with his claim that the Iraqi insurgents have upped their attacks on US forces in a bid to influence the mid-term elections. There is little evidence to support this. In fact, the number of American dead has risen steadily this year from 353 in January to 847 in September and will be close to one thousand in October.

[DaveJ]

18. This is major... but sadly we are so jaded

One commonality among all people is that they do not want foreign occupiers in their country. The GOP lies when they say they didn't expect this.

[leesa]

19. We're gonna have split screen Baghdad & Kabul helicopter evacuations!

All those diehards who never accepted the loss of the Vietnam War are really gonna have trouble with this!

[itsmesgd]

20. will this be what it takes to return the attention to Iraq

Will everyone (MSM) now please focus on this issue and demand that we bring our TROOPS HOME NOW.

[kineneb]

35. yup. Cue helicopters.

Those who fail to learn from history...

[DaveJ]

21. Unbelievable, these RW'ers think we should stay until we get the job done....

Iraqis will eventually learn to like having foreign soldiers patrolling their streets... just give them time. :eyes:

No matter when we leave we will have to watch our backs for the rest of our lives.

[itsmesgd]

23. job's done

We've FUBAR'd the place like only we can. Can we come home now?

[Monk06]

24. Shit meet Fan. This is evolving from an exit strategy to a get the hell out of Dodge Strategy.

[roamer65]

25. All this Iraq chaos...

I wonder if this is PNAC bait in order to get Iran to invade? Iran eventually is going to have to get involved in order to set up a Shia "safe area" in southern Iraq. Iran gets involved and the PNAC'ers will scream "invasion" and bomb Iran.

[itsmesgd]

28. I'd like to see the pair on any guy that...

advocates starting some more shit right now, regardless of the trigger. Who would listen and execute such orders? If Congress didn't step in, we might have to toss them before next week. We need to get our guys out before Baghdad looks like Saigon complete with rooftop helicopter extractions.

[roamer65]

31. I agree completely...

but I keep thinking that the next PNAC goal is Iran.

[Strelnikov_]

27. Its A Big Shit Sandwich

and we're all gonna have to take a bite (the middle and lower classes, anyway).

[bobbieinok]

29. think of the troops (+ their families) based in Alaska who were

supposed to leave and were sent to Baghdad at the last minute.

[enough]

30. k&r

[milkyway]

32. Can we call it a civil war yet? K&R

[Laelth]

33. K & R

Very important. Thanks, Postman.

-Laelth

[itsmesgd]

34. k r

[SharonAnn]

36. We've lost Baghdad, Nov. 1, 2006 NYT article below

Iraqi Demands Pullback; U.S. Lifts Baghdad Cordon (NYT)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2589653

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/world/middleeast/01ir...

November 1, 2006
Iraqi Demands Pullback; U.S. Lifts Baghdad Cordon
By KIRK SEMPLE

BAGHDAD, Oct. 31 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki demanded the removal of American checkpoints from the streets of Baghdad on Tuesday, in what appeared to be his latest and boldest gambit in an increasingly tense struggle for more independence from his American protectors.

Mr. Maliki’s public declaration seemed at first to catch American commanders off guard. But by nightfall, American troops had abandoned all the positions in eastern and central Baghdad that they had set up last week with Iraqi forces as part of a search for a missing American soldier. The checkpoints had snarled traffic and disrupted daily life and commerce throughout the eastern part of the city.

The language of the declaration, which implied that Mr. Maliki had the power to command American forces, seemed to overstep his authority and to be aimed at placating his Shiite constituency.

The withdrawal was greeted with jubilation in the streets of Sadr City, the densely populated Shiite enclave where the Americans have focused their manhunt and where anti-American sentiment runs high. The initial American reaction to the order, which was released by Mr. Maliki’s press office, strongly suggested that the statement had not been issued in concert with the American authorities.

snip>

[The_Casual_Observer]

37. Welcome to the land of gw bush!

It's a place where everything is completely fucked up.

[magellan]

38. It seems the puppet is tired of his strings

K&R

[chat_noir]

39. iconic images

[symbolman]

40. I remember this clearly

I was drafted in 1971, and on the news this was called "An Orderly Retreat from Cambodia"...

Iraq has been vietnam on Steroids.

Troops out now. End all killing.

[Hubert Flottz]

41. Bush knows...

Dancing in the endzone...

[Old and In the Way]

46. More like "Mission Demolished"

what a friggen' mess. Sadly, many of us predicted that this was going to be a disaster when the intent to invade Iraq became clear in 2002. I guess this is one reason why we shouldn't allow Supreme Court Justices to select pResidents. Especially ones that are monumental failures in their own lives.

I hope our military/Congressional leadership will demand immediate action to get our soldiers out of this no-win situation. We cannot win this, we can only decide the magnitude of our losses.

[SeanQ]

42. d'oh - sorry wrong thread

[AntiFascist]

43. K&R

[OzarkDem]

44. kick n/t

[Zhade]

45. kick

kick

[many a good man]

47. This is the beginning of the end

The noose is tightening.

[cwydro]

48. This is the kind of thread

we need to see dominating DU...not Kerry crap on and on neverendingly.