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

**Hanren** · August 16th, 2007 03:24 PM

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** · August 16th, 2007 04:41 PM

Eradicate the extremist, not Muslims...

Actually just ban religion hehehe... OT

**Jun aka Pekto** · August 16th, 2007 06:01 PM

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** · August 17th, 2007 12:11 PM

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** · August 17th, 2007 07:36 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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** · August 18th, 2007 12:28 PM

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** · August 18th, 2007 09:23 PM

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.

Originally Posted by VtEC

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** · August 19th, 2007 02:16 AM

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

**oldblue** · August 19th, 2007 02:45 AM

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** · August 19th, 2007 03:17 AM

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..