High Death Toll in Iraq Suicide Attacks...again!

[Hanren]

Wala na ba talaga katapusan ito? I think it does not make sense anymore that a lot of people (adults and children) are dying and miserable while the world watches helplessly..We don't hear the Iraqi peolple's stories a lot but we know that there are living in fear and in misery..

Just today, at least 175 people (or more) died in four suicide truck bombs attacks in (URL: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakin...ticle_id=82660)

tsk...its already a normal part of the daily news. It seems we've gotten used to this scenes already. Nakakasawa at nakakainis na rin.

[niky]

Well, what can we do?

A lot of advisors and a lot of foreign governments gave their reservations about going into Iraq before the war started, and all they received from the ultra-right wingers surrounding Bush at the time was derision, contempt and ridicule.

Now that Iraq has turned into such a muddle, a breeding ground for terrorism (which it actually wasn't, previously, Osama never liked Saddam) and a local hotspot... now that Saddam is no longer around to balance the political and military influence of Iran... now, more than ever, the US needs help from the international community to restore balance to Iraq.

Good luck getting it. Even with the staff changes Bush has implemented, putting more moderate people into position, people friendlier towards other countries... a lot of people are still pissed at the US, and still don't support the war. Not to mention the fact that Bush has lost majority in the Houses, which is hindering him from sending more troops over, and the fact that some of those staff changes include people who are so anti-war, they didn't even support humanitarian efforts in Somalia and Yugoslavia.

In simple terms: when they shouldn't have gone to war, they did. And now that they need to finish off the insurgents and terrorists, everyone's so sick of fighting that nobody really feels like doing it, anymore.

[torque2006]

And they're having problems again. Their army is stretched too thin around the world, with China starting a military buildup to challenge US dominance in the Pacific.

[Altis6453]

Bush and his war hungry advisers don't want to admit that it was a mistake to go into Iraq. Well, Americans made his party pay for it by electing a Democratic-dominated House of Representatives. I hear the Dems are pushing hard for the White House to come up with a timetable for the exit of American armed forces in Iraq, otherwise, they'll face a showdown when budget time comes.

[uls]

Bush and his advisers thought it was going to be as easy as when the US freed Kuwait back in 1991

They thought it was gonna be quick.

They thought after they remove Saddam from power, the Iraqi people would rejoice and establish a new govt and rebuild their country... using funds from oil revenues.

haha!

wrong!

[Monseratto]

Halos lahat ng advisors na nagtulak kay Dubya sa Iraq are out already. Si DICK Cheney na lang ata na iwan dahil VP siya. A lot of Americans would rather run away from this mess, pero may konsensya naman si Dubya na wag iwanan. Pero kagaya ni ex-PM Tony Blair, Dubya's legacy is already sealed in with this quagmire. He is rated as one of the worst Presidents in US history.

[theveed]

US aside, this has been going on for eons anyway, unless Islamic leaders tame their flocks and make those extremist appear like a-holes to their fellow Muslim followers, this will never end.

The fact that a lot of higher-powered Islamic leaders are somewhat supportive of such violent reasonings, there's no point in going to war unless you eradicate all of them.

Think of how insane it'll be if Ang Dating Daan's troops were considered as legitimate and logic-based and they grew as fast as the mainstream catholic/christians do hehe.

[VtEC]

The fact that a lot of higher-powered Islamic leaders are somewhat supportive of such violent reasonings, there's no point in going to war unless you eradicate all of them.

from the time of the crusaders till present day, isa lang naman magulo talaga e.nag iisang sila.better for the US to drop a nuclear bomb and leave the place.atleast kahit pano mabawasan mga suicide bomber na yan.

[Monseratto]

from the time of the crusaders till present day, isa lang naman magulo talaga e.nag iisang sila.better for the US to drop a nuclear bomb and leave the place.atleast kahit pano mabawasan mga suicide bomber na yan.

Hmmm...I see Muslim bashing here...paano naman yung inosente, sorry na lang pero muslim ka so you deserve to die...

[CoDer]

Muslim apologist deserve to die from the true muslim point of view. Kaya nga wala pakiaalam ang grupo ni osama na karamihan ng nanamatay sa suicide bombing nila sa iraq eh mga muslim din.

True muslim will always be superior to anyone... Problem is deeply rooted in their religion. Imagine the reward you get in heaven if you die as a muslim martyr. The koran puts an emphasis on that and their history prove's that.

I embrace the muslim apologist and consider them my brothers but not the true muslims. And yeah I came from South Cotabato within a proximal distance of the muslim dominated areas.

[Hanren]

update on the latest casualty figures: 500+ and rising

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html

these attacks may have been timed before the US Military chief in Iraq gives his assessment report to Bush come September.

As it stands now, more attacks are coming. And Bush remains adamant about leaving the country. History will be the judge later on and it may render a cruel but just verdict- on both side of the conflict.

[theveed]

Eradicate the extremist, not Muslims...

Actually just ban religion hehehe... OT

[Jun aka Pekto]

It's tough trying to make head and tails of who to back in Iraq. There's friendly and hostile Sunnis. There's friendly and hostile Shiites. The Kurds.....most of them are probably friendly to the US. Then there's Al Qaeda. It's faction vs faction and faction vs US/Coalition forces. It kinda reminded me of Lebanon during the 70's and 80's. There's the Israelis, the Christian Phalangists, the different Muslim factions, and the short, abortive US mission. I didn't think peace would ever come to Lebanon. The brutal fighting there was daily news back then just like Iraq is now. But, peace (if somewhat uneasy) did come eventually. If it can happen there, it can happen in Iraq. It'll take a while though .

[niky]

There's the rub. Time. Patience.

It's something a lot of people don't have, nowadays... which is what started this mess in the first place.

[Jun aka Pekto]

There's the rub. Time. Patience.

It's something a lot of people don't have, nowadays... which is what started this mess in the first place.

I would agree with you for the most part. But, dating back from the end of Desert Storm from 1991 to 2003, that 12 years of Saddam playing cat and mouse. So the time and patience was there. I didn't like the idea of the 2003 invasion. Personally, I thought it was much too late. I think it should've happened back in 1991or maybe 1992. But Bush Sr didn't have the balls to follow through. So, it's just another "what if" that could've been.

Of course, I remember reading so much news about the civil war in Lebanon that I simply quit reading about it. So, I was very much surprised years later to find out that Lebanon was at peace finally. With Iraq... who knows how long it'll take? It might take just as long or longer.

Hopefully it'll happen in my lifetime. I'm a history buff and there are many places in the Middle East I would love to visit.

[niky]

Well... the problem back then was the interest in pursuing war. Since Desert Storm was ostensibly a war to free Kuwait from Iraq, that's what they did. I don't think anyone would have complained at all if Coalition tanks had rumbled right into Baghdad and stuck some Sheik or Freedom Fighter on the throne back then... in fact, maybe a few thousand more dissidents would still be alive today if they did...

But many wars are fought for specific interests, even those in the name of freedom. In this case, the interest of the Allies was to protect an allied state, Kuwait. They had no interest in adding Iraq to the UN's trophy case.

Very few wars are fought for purely humanitarian causes, the Balkan intervention, the Somalian intervention, etcetera... a war the size of Desert Storm could never have been waged on these grounds by the Allies... it took the threat of oil supply instability to goad them into spending on this one. If there were a possibility of waging wars that big on purely humanitarian grounds, then the Allies would have invaded China after Tianamen Square.

That's why "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was met with such negativity and skepticism from the world in general. Most everyone knew there was some hidden agenda... be it oil, a personal grudge, protecting US assets or a wish to assert US influence in the Middle East.... the idea that Saddam = terrorists was laughable then, and is still laughable now... Iran and Syria contribute more actively, and they're still standing, and laughing.

Stability in the Middle East cannot be forced upon it. It has to come from within. Billions of dollars spent on funding a sledgehammer of a war machine won't stamp out terrorism. In fact, the strife and suffering brought about by armed conflict merely fuels it. Spending that money on livelihood, infrastructure development and economic growth might help curb it. The roots of terrorism may lay partially in Islam, but they also lay in the rich:poor divide... as we can see with the riots in France by poor, young men, frustrated at new anti-labor laws. As long as young, impressionable Muslims can look around and see non-Arabs living the rich life while their fellow Arabs live in poverty and squalor (never mind the fact that it's also because their Arab-run governments are corrupt, wasteful and ineffective), the terrorists will not lack for new recruits.

I'd like to travel to the Middle East, too, someday... before the Taliban blows up all the things I'd like to see... ...but it might be a decade or more before Al Quaeda's influence wanes. It might take a Chinese-level industrial revolution to do it... but with the fractuous nature of the Middle East, I don't see it happening, yet.

[empy]

i wonder how life is for the average Iraqi citizen, though. i don't doubt that life in Iraq is a living hell for US soldiers, but is the fear and violence for Iraqis different from, say, life in the Philippines nung nanggugulo ang NPA or Abu Sayyaf....or even life under Saddam Hussein?

my Iraqi friend's wife just came home from visiting family in Basra - i should ask her. she last visited home shortly after the fall of Saddam and back then, the whole city was ecstatic.

from the time of the crusaders till present day, isa lang naman magulo talaga e.nag iisang sila.better for the US to drop a nuclear bomb and leave the place.atleast kahit pano mabawasan mga suicide bomber na yan.

your comment is ironic, considering the Crusades were Christian wars of aggression, and some of the atrocities committed against Muslims in these wars are Holocaust-worthy.

[imprezawrxsti]

Any tsikoteers have seen the movie THE WAR PROFITEERS ? That's all folk. Thats all about it...

[oldblue]

hey believe in God the creator and respect the Biblical and Koranic prophets, especially Abraham, but their main focus of worship is Malak Taus, the chief of the archangels, often represented by a peacock.

Followers of other religions know this angel as Lucifer or Satan, leading to popular prejudice that the secretive Yazidis are devil-worshippers.

so that explains it ...

[mamichula]

I just kinda got tired of following this issue eversince they voted Bush again. I stopped reading about it..
I remember our college professor swamping us with tons of reading materials about this war how it started , and even the mumbo jumbos about the WMDs were all included in the final exams we were asked soo many times to write opinion pieces about this issue..
Ive been working for I dunno how many years now and they're still at it..
Its been so long and they still haven't thought of a decent exit strategy. My gosh..