Developing: Bush abandoned U.S. soldier behind enemy lines

[montana500]

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/11/abandoning_an_a.html

[SeattleGirl]

1. The SOB. Truly shows how much he DOES NOT understand

about the military.

[Nite Owl]

2. The silence of the

corporate media is deafening. It screams orders from the WH to hush.

[montana500]

4. Why isn't this the top story?

I guess the "news" really isn't doing it's job.

[nealmhughes]

3. The headline in London in The Independent is: Baghdad is under siege

Patrick Cockburn reported from Arbil yesterday that Sunni militia had surrounded Baghdad on 3 sides by cutting off all routes into/out of the city and that the city itself was carved up into varying zones, with the al Mahdi Army being the strongest in Sadr City.
Evidently that is why we have let down the roadblocks we had set up to find the missing GI and the Shiites got mad and Malaki actually had the power to "consult" with the US and get our troops out of Sadr City.
Meanwhile, back in the US, we are getting our news all about John K. and Madonna's new black baby and if he will be raised as culturally African or English or Kaballah Jewish/Catholic...
When the Iraqi Adventure is over, there will be no need other than The Independent and le Monde Diplomatique to use to write the histories other than the interviews and memoirs...

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


Baghdad is under siege

1 November 2006 Patrick Cockburn in Arbil

[bananas]

5. Can we get a couple more votes for this thread? nt

[autorank]

6. This just might be Bush's November surprise;) n/t

[lostnfound]

7. This is so depressing.

I really wish this administration would surprise me once in a while by being competent or caring or both.

[Diane R]

8. Please recommend this.

[JohnnyLib2]

9. Recommended, with sadness

Sadness for our country; this is a terrible moment in our history.

[eShirl]

10. And here I thought he waited until they got back home before abandoning them.

[montana500]

11. sad. nm

nm

[Vinca]

12. The media in this country is so controlled by the White House.

The country is going to hell in a hand basket and old Imus is still blabbering about Kerry.

[bowens43]

13. To this I say so what?

I think it is waste of resources to launch an entire campaign to find one soldier. He was a volunteer. He knew the risks. To send the US military all over baghdad busting down doors to find this one guy will only make the situation worse. It will only increase the hatred felt by the Iraqis towards the US. Call him missing in action and leave it at that.

[semillama]

14. Spoken like a true non-veteran

I can only imagine the seething rage in that poor guy's unit towards Bush right now. Bush sould probably think twice before hopping over there to deliver fake turkeys.

Now the message is that you can actually get away with abducting American servicemen and the Iraqi government will cover for you.

[leeroysphitz]

18. You'd feel differently if it was your son or daughter.

Just sayin'.

[Crankie Avalon]

15. Bush should apologize...oh, wait: no "apology" can make up for what was done to THAT trooper. n/t

[KittyWampus]

16. Sullivan puts it plainly.

[sui generis]

17. Well our motto should be "We'll Leave No Soldier Behind"

Actually, now that I think about it that motto is already being used by DADT "No Soldier Behind", which means something entirely different.

[madrchsod]

19. this was reported on npr as soon as it happened

i`ve seen other reports but nothing on the main news channels because it has been kerry 24/7. nice distraction isn`t it?
the american commanders in iraq are more than pissed off about this...i guess politics is more important than our troops

[Kierkegaard]

23. "i guess politics is more important than our troops"

Damn straight. These guys are all politics, all the time. They'll do or say anything to hold on to power to allow themselves and their cronies to continue looting and pillaging. The military is just another stage prop in their pantomime.

[3reddogs]

20. MSM Predictably Looks the Other Way

What a surprise, the TODAY show this morning was still going on and on about Kerry (finally) apologizing! No mention of abandoning this soldier and no mention of Bush declaring yesterday that Cheney and Rumsfeld are doing "a fantastic job" and how much he hopes both will continue through the rest of his term. (Declared, by the way, on Rush Limbaugh's show ... way to reward this scumbag for making fun of someone with Parkinson's disease, Mr. President, you pathetic excuse for a human being.) The White House is desperate for something to deflect attention away from Iraq and the MSM is, as usual, happy to oblige.

The only bright spot in the MSM? Keith Olbermann ... and if you didn't catch his "Special Comment" on Countdown last night, I highly recommend you read the transcript
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15519404/)

[fishnfla]

21. Sadr told Malaki to call off the troops. So in effect

the insurgents are calling the shots now. What an everlasting clusterf***

[tnlurker]

22. Did anybody catch this part of the article?

"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."

Where are they getting their numbers? I thought that 105 dead in October was the largest number in many months.

[Bigmack]

24. Wait a minute....

The soldier in question is Iraqi-American. Hell, he's not even one of us. He probably went over to the other side. He has an Iraqi wife. Brown people, especially brown people of Middle East extraction... with those funny names.. don't count like regular Americans. Certainly isn't worth the life of some kid from Iowa to save his ass.

Deep, dark :sarcasm:

I wish his Air Guard unit would have left Dumbya behind during one of those Interdiction, Intercourse, and Intoxication missions into the Mexican border towns in the '60's.

[chat_noir]

25. Cafferty: Bush abandons captive US soldier in Iraq

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdLgUzReAmI

vote it up!

[confludemocrat]

26. What nonsense. Hold thousands hostage for one soldier? Yeah, that was working.

go ahead and play up this bowing of Bush to demands from the Iraqi leader under pressure from his own people and end the Sadr City locked down because in the midst of the chaos we have fomented, a soldier goes missing. What would you have done, an uprising was about to break out over this collective punishment measure and Bush had to back down? Glad he did.

[Terri S]

27. Another link about this

and STILL they're talking about Kerry!!!!!!!



On Iraqi Orders, Bush Abandons American Soldier To Al-Sadr’s Militia


I am shaking with rage at the moment. American soliders do not abandon their own. Unless, of course, someone orders them to do so. Which is exactly what happened when the Bush Administration — via it's envoy Zalmay Khalilzad — agreed to lift the eight day long blockade and search and rescue mission for the captured American soldier…on the demand and order of the Iraqi government.

You read me correctly, the US envoy in Iraq has decided that our US military personnel should take orders from the Iraqi government and abandon one of our soldiers to the Mahdi Army. That this decision occurred abruptly after Stephen Hadley's visit to Baghdad yesterday raises a whole host of questions in my mind — and the press had better damn well be asking for some answers from the Bush Administration today.

The move lifted a near siege that had stood at least since last Wednesday. U.S. military police imposed the blockade after the kidnapping of an American soldier of Iraqi descent. The soldier's Iraqi in-laws said they believed he had been abducted by the Mahdi Army as he visited his wife at her home in the Karrada area of Baghdad, where U.S. military checkpoints were also removed as a result of Maliki's action.

The crackdown on Sadr City had a second motive, U.S. officers said: the search for Abu Deraa, a man considered one of the most notorious death squad leaders. The soldier and Abu Deraa both were believed by the U.S. military to be in Sadr City.

The Bush Administration has been encouraging Iraqi-Americans to become more involved in the "liberation" of Iraq. The American military needs more soldiers with regional language fluency, and Iraqi Americans have an understandable interest and personal stake — with many relatives still living in the war torn nation — in working to make things better. The American soldier who was captured is of Iraqi-American descent, he was wearing the uniform of the United States…and we have abandoned him to Moqtada Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and Sadr City's rage as of yesterday.

We do not abandon our own.

Unless, of course, you are the Bush Administration — which, apparently, has decided to let the Iraqi government start calling the shots for the US military. I hear George Bush will be on Limbaugh's show — wonder if he'll be asked about his decision to abandon a US soldier to Al-Sadr's militia, with their penchant for torture, on the orders of the Iraqi head of state?

The corporate media had better start asking questions about this, because the American military taking orders to abandon one of their own from a foreign government is something that every single person with friends and family in Iraq right now will want to know about…immediately. How many American soldiers are we now willing to leave to the mercies of Al-Sadr's Army and other torture-wielding militants with no love for the American military presence in the name of propping up Maliki's government? George Bush does not get a pass on this one. Period. The time for accountability is now

[montana500]

28. thanks

nm

[Pierre.Suave]

29. The time for accountability was a long time ago...

it has passed.