Despite President Bush’s repeated calls to support the troops by staying the course in Iraq, some U.S. combat troops harbor growing doubts about the mission and their Iraqi "allies," as revealed in a New York Times article.
Staff Sgt. David Safstrom — on his third tour of duty — said that his earlier support for the war has been shaken by incidents such one in February, when soldiers killed a man planting a bomb. He turned out to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.
"I thought: ‘What are we doing here? Why are we still here?’" he said. "We’re helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us."
Safstrom said that 95 percent of his platoon now agrees with him.
The Army is probably glad that soldiers can no longer write online blogs.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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41 Comments
Deja vu all over again.
This (traitors) happens in any conflict and any war. Although tragic, this is nothing new.
Traitors???
Um…they’re IRAQI’s. We’re not. They live there. We don’t. We’re occupying their nation. They aren’t occupying ours. They want us to leave. Hell, *I* want us to leave, as do 60% or so of the rest of the American public.
The longer the rulers of our nation continue to insist that we have some sort of divine right to occupy Iraq, the longer this will go on. We’re not solving anything there. It’s their country. It’s time for Bush & Co. to recognize that.
After watching 60 minutes sunday about the Iowa National Guard, moral is dropping over there faster than Shrub’s approval rating. We have broken our military so bad that we all had better prepare for the reinstatement of the draft. Guardsman are choosing not to reenlist and the door is already open to just about anybody that would like to serve otherwise. God forbid we get attacked again. We will barely be able to defend ourselves. Thanks alot Shrub! Hope your croonies enjoyed their money!
Randy, if they disagree with the war they are aloud, they are the one fighting it, so they can do it all day long..But if Randy said that the Government is shutting down the Blogs so they can’t complain is just stupid..If they want to complain they can write letters, or tell their wifes on the phone.. and I guarentee if it is as wide spread as they say… You would know…So don’t act like the lack of being able to blog is to shut people up..
Yeah Randy! They are working….don’t use the company computer for personal use. Heaven forbid them seeing the dumb ass wedding dance on youtube. Who do they think they are? Wasting our tax dollars blogging by day and getting shot at by night. They should be more appreciative….right BG?
The traitors I referenced were the Iraqis. Like I said, this happens in any war, nothing new.
Oh, BTW if they keep complaining about being blown up by roadside bombs we will start charging them to cut their leg off! Start sending their loved ones the medical bills for services rendered. Ruin their credit if they don’t set up some type of pay agreement.
Ridiculous! Let them blog or watch youtube or do whatever makes them feel better when they are not on patrol or a mission.
While I respect Staff Sgt. David Safstrom, and his opinion, I could find Staff Seargants with opposite opinions, so the New York Times is probably being selective in whom they talk to That being said, there is rising sentiment among the military that we are wasting our time –only in the sense that whenever we leave, chaos will erupt. Wether that is today, or five years from now. While I disagreed with the invasion to start with, I think it is to our benefit to help the country as much as possible before we completely pull out. A different strategy is needed. Perhaps border control as our primary responsibility, with trainers embedded with Iraqui troops, and air support (evac and gunship)to pick up our guys if and when the Iraqui governmental forces cut and run. Just an idea, but we need new ideas. Give them some time to clean up their own house, but it time to either force the Iraqui government to put up or shut up. And for those who say they want us out, I read that too, except they say “but not yet”. Sometimes that small note gets forgotten
mike,Randy says the Government shut down the blogs to keep the soldiers from complaining..and I,m saying that is bullshit..read the tread.
they can tell anybody they want without blogging..
Several hundred thousand trained ARI troops against a few thousand dead-enders in their last throes. With those odds wouldn’t one think the ARI can take over the fighting?
Handwritten letters take a little more time in reaching their intended target. Blogging is a way to make your feelings known in a public forum. Why not let them blog?
looks like the Iraqi police are getting in on the act:Five Britons abducted in Iraq, 10 U.S. troops killed By Ahmed Rasheed1 hour, 32 minutes ago
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen in police uniforms kidnapped five Britons in Baghdad on Tuesday and the deaths of 10 U.S. soldiers were announced, making May the deadliest month for the U.S. military in more than two years.
ADVERTISEMENTThe gunmen seized the Britons from a Finance Ministry building in eastern Baghdad. Two ministry employees who witnessed the kidnapping said at least one computer expert and several bodyguards were taken in the daylight raid.
Britain’s Foreign Office in London said five Britons were kidnapped. “Officials from the British embassy in Baghdad are in urgent contact with the Iraqi authorities to establish the facts and to try to secure a swift resolution,” said a spokesman.
At least 38 people were killed when a bomb on a parked minibus exploded in central Baghdad and a car bomb exploded in a busy market in a southwestern Shi’ite district.
The U.S. military said 10 soldiers were killed in Iraq on Monday, taking the total for May to 114, the deadliest month for U.S. troops since November 2004, when 137 soldiers were killed.
Two were killed when their helicopter came down under enemy fire in Diyala province, where 3,000 reinforcements have been sent to combat a spike in violence. Troops heading to the crash site were hit by roadside bombs that killed six.
Two other soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in southern Baghdad.
The 10 deaths happened as Americans observed Memorial Day services for their war dead.
The U.S. military has said it anticipated heavier casualties when it began pouring thousands of extra troops into Baghdad and other areas as part of a security crackdown aimed at averting all-out sectarian civil war.
U.S. President George W. Bush won a bruising battle against Democrats over war funding this month but is under growing pressure from some in his own Republican Party to show progress in an increasingly unpopular war or start bringing troops home.
A total of 3,465 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have also died.
The worst month for U.S. forces was November 2004, when 137 were killed. The second worst was April that year when 135 died.
“I think if the current elevated level of U.S. casualties continues, it will signal the failure of the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq because it will mean that rather than drawing down, we are becoming more deeply engaged,” Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the U.S.-based Lexington Institute, told Reuters.
“WHERE ARE THE FOREIGNERS?”
There were conflicting reports over the kidnapping at the Iraqi Finance Ministry computer centre in Palestine Street, particularly over the nationality of those taken. Police and witnesses initially said Germans and Americans were among them.
The ministry official who witnessed the kidnapping said it took place as several computer experts gave a lecture on organizing electronic contracts. She said another lecturer escaped abduction because he was not sitting with the others.
The gunmen entered the room led by a man wearing a police major’s uniform, the witness said.
The gunmen shouted “Where are the foreigners, where are the foreigners?” she said.
A second Ministry employee said she recognized one lecturer and two bodyguards among those who were taken.
Police said gunmen in a large convoy of sports utility vehicles, typically used by police, had driven up and sealed off streets around the building.
It was the first reported kidnapping of foreigners since the Baghdad security plan began in mid-February and the first time Westerners had been taken from inside a government building.
Kidnappings in Baghdad are a daily occurrence, usually for ransom or political motives. Men in camouflage uniforms took dozens of Iraqis from the Higher Education Ministry in November.
More than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped since the U.S. invasion in 2003, although there had been a recent lull in the taking of foreigners.
Most of the foreign hostages who have been taken in Iraq have been released but at least 60 have been reported killed.
(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin, Aseel Kami and Mariam Karouny in Baghdad, Sophie Walker in London, and Noah Barkin in Berlin, and Kristin Roberts in Washington
Reminder: Don’t feed the troll.
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2007/05/open_thread_27.html#comments
And besides the “Allies by day, enemies by night” question, some police officers quit.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6665385,00.html“… in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, 70 police officers resigned from an elite police unit and handed over their weapons, saying they were afraid of the Mahdi Army militia of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, police said.”
Yep, sure looks like the “last throes”. NOT!
Sounds like the Iraqis are “standing up” so, unless Shrub was lying to us, it’s time for Americans to “stand down.”
Only problem is, the Iraqis are standing up against American occupation troops.
The American military did its job in 2003. It’s been misused and abused ever since, thrust into the middle of a civil war Bush/Cheney/Rummy et al were warned about by the CIA, the Pentagon, and field commanders (before those dessenters against NeoCon orthodoxy were drummed out of their careers and positions of expertise).
Conservative commentator P.J. O’Rourke recounted a Field General’s observation of American troops massing along the Iraq boarder in March, 2003. He was hovering in a helicopter and as far as the eye could see — from horizon to horizon on a table-flat plain — were Humvees, personnel carriers, tanks, artiliary helicopters, gunships, and thousands upon thousands of people, tents, support machinery, etc.
The General observed, “Christ! It’s costing us more to steal oil than to buy in!”
And it’s cost us. In blood, in treasure, in military strength and morale, in international credibility and prestige. (Although Halliburton’s been doing nicely.)
This should bother every American. The key to the article lies in Staff Sgt. David Safstrom’s unit.
He’s a member of Delta Company of the First Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. He comes from a military family.
He’s also only one of three Sergents of Delta Company quoted in the piece.
Here’s another’s views:”To Sergeant O’Flarity, the Iraqi security forces are militias beholden to local leaders, not the Iraqi government. “Half of the Iraqi security forces are insurgents,” he said.
As for his views on the war, Sergeant O’Flarity said, “I don’t believe we should be here in the middle of a civil war.”
I don’t care what you say. Anytime we have personnel of the 82nd Airborne questioning the mission (especially the real hands-on leaders, the non-coms), then we have a problem
More deja vu:
http://www.livescience.com/history/top10_iraq_battles.html
It may take a Draft to end this war. If we’re going to engage in endless war, everybody, every family should bear the burden. When enough kids from the middle and upper-middle class die, their mothers will end this war.
If the neo-cons have their way, war will go on forever.
BG,
The troops HAVE been told they are not to blog.
Mike,
Just so everyone is aware, most of those soldiers are using their own computers (laptops), not the Army’s. Ask Nathan. He took his laptop to Iraq. My son-in-law takes his to UAE when he’s deployed there. A family friend who was deployed in Iraq last year IMed my daughter daily, able to keep in touch with everyone at home. The lines got too long at the computers (and telephones) provided by the government.
A laptop is one of the best gifts to give someone being deployed. It’s a way they can stay in touch with loved ones and friends. Yes, they do use the government internet access.
One more thing. Computer use is during their down times, when they have them. Late at night or early a.m. for some. Each soldier isn’t patroling 24/7, ya know. ;)
RDMy posts upthread were sarcastic in nature. I believe that it is ridiculous to limit where the troops can go online. Let them blog, watch video, communicate with family and friends all they want. They are in harm’s way and if posting their opinion on a blog helps them forget how they were betrayed then so be it. My prayers are with your family during this trying time RD. As I have family serving as well. This stupid policy is just another example of how this administration has betrayed those that serve.
“No more using the military’s computer system to socialize and trade videos on MySpace, YouTube and nine other Web sites, the Pentagon says.”
“The Pentagon said that use of the video sites in particular was putting a strain on the network, and also opening it to potential viruses or penetration by so-called “phishing” attacks in which scam artists try to steal sensitive data by mimicking legitimate Web sites.”http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/05/14/military.sites.blocked.ap/
The military hasn’t banned blogging per se, just on the military network. I can see that. If you have literally tens of thousands of people streaming videos, it’s a hell of a drag on bandwidth. There’s opportunity even in Iraq to use private services (internet cafes and such).
I have no problem with this decision.
I have to agree with XXX on this one. There is no sacrifice from the average person regarding this war. The ones who have loved ones, yes. But most people, no.
And that is the real problem I have with this war: Lack of sacrifice. We complain about gas prices; we complain about global warming; we complain about everything but the fact our troops are dying in Iraq, and, while we say we care, I don’t really see it happening.
If you do complain, you’re called a terrorist lover, or are guilty of treason.
Irag is not a player in global terrorism, but it is now. The training the next generation of terrorists are getting, along with the indoctrinations, are there because of the invasion. That, imho, is enough for me to demand our troops come home.
Now we have trained Iraqi militia swapping sides to further their parties agenda, whatever the hell that is. This whole affair has been blown from day one. It’s blown now. The smart thought is get the hell out. The neo-con thought is “in to win”. Win what? Secular mayhem?
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam.
Same deal for the same reason:
People don’t like being occupied by a foreign army.
Those of us who weren’t drunk and coked to the gills during Vietnam remember that.
Unfortunately, Chimpy was both drunk and coked to the gills during Vietnam . . .
and AWOL from the National Guard, heigh ho.
Does Bob Kerrey expect Staff Sgt. Safstrom to come back for a fourth tour? A fifth? If the war goes on indefinitely, where will the reinforcements come from? At some point, the existing troops will have done their bit. You can make the case that they’ve already done their bit. Who’s next? Perhaps someone from the Kansas Delegation can fill us in on the plan. It’s important to know where they stand because, except for the president’s race in ‘08, the citizen can only be a voice in the contests for the applicable Congressional or Senate seats. Right? Therefore, since we know that Senator Roberts is up for re-election in ‘08 and we know that Mr. Tiahrt is probably running, what are they recommending as we head through the summer? Stay the course? Does the aforementioned Staff Sargeant get told to go back again? How about six? Do I hear seven?
After all, according to Bob Kerrey, Democrats can’t be called upon to take the reins on stuff like this. You have to leave it to Republicans, the major maestros of military matters. What a deal for us in Kansas, though. We already have the chaps at the helm. Flash after flash of genuine brilliance as the sages guide the ship in accordance with wisdom. Roberts! Tiahrt! Hip hip hurrah!
This whole thing with the ARI reminds me of what my stepbrother and others told me about the ARVN.
Here we go again!
IF the Iraqis want us to leave, we will gladly do so but until they say it is OK for us to leave, we have to stay.
“Um…they’re IRAQI’s. We’re not. They live there. We don’t. We’re occupying their nation. They aren’t occupying ours. They want us to leave. Hell, *I* want us to leave, as do 60% or so of the rest of the American public.”
The reasons that some of the soldiers are griping is because of the new surge methods in which the soldiers are required to stay out in the neighbourhoods 24/7. They live there and sleep there with their Iraqi counterparts. Prior to that, the soldiers would go out on patrol for a shift- perhaps 10 or 12 hours and then return to the “Green Zone” afterwards and play pool, send emails and watch TV. In the Green Zone, the soldiers feel comfortable and have all the comforts of home except their family. And they don’t have to deal with any Iraqis there. They miss being able to “call it a day” and rest and relax after their patrol shift ends.
Wow, “Kev” –
The utter contempt you show for American troops astounds me.
Do the same guys fight the whole thing then until 2020 or whenever the hell it is that the Iraqis “tell us it’s OK?” Maybe their leaders can give us an estimate when they get back from vacation in August. Let’s see, The Peloponnesian War lasted about 33 years if I remember right. We might be able to top it. One more question: is it okay for our guys to blow up their guys if their guys are trying to blow up our guys, even though our guys trained their guys and we’re all in this together?
Mike,
I caught your sarcasm, but wondered if all were aware of the communications advancements. Thank you, but I have no family in the Middle East right now, and I’m eternally grateful for that. It doesn’t stop the prayers for those who do, though.
Kev,
I wasn’t aware of the new 24/7 for some. Thanks for passing that one.
“Wow, “Kev” –
The utter contempt you show for American troops astounds me.”
No disrespect meant towards our wonderful troops in Iraq. I am just pointing out why a FEW of them are in a rather bitchy mood these days and I cannot say I blame them for feeling that way. But the vast vast majority of our troops love what they are doing, are proud to serve and would not want to be anywhere else than where they are doing what they are doing.
Right, “Kev” –
Any time somebody types “the vast majority of” anything, without providing a scintilla of evidence, I’m pretty confident they’re talking out their ass.
You originally wrote, “…soldiers would go out on patrol for a shift- perhaps 10 or 12 hours and then return to the “Green Zone” afterwards and play pool, send emails and watch TV. In the Green Zone, the soldiers feel comfortable and have all the comforts of home except their family. And they don’t have to deal with any Iraqis there. They miss being able to “call it a day” and rest and relax after their patrol shift ends.”
Now you claim they “…would not want to be anywhere else than where they are doing what they are doing.”
You obviously have no basis in fact for either assertion.
This is what the soldiers themselves say on their own blogs. No, I have not read too many of them but when they had access to Xanga, this was one of the things the complained about- not getting a break at the end of the day- and also having their tours extended and leave on a moments notice. But I think if you polled the soldiers and ask them if they want to go home, 90% of them would say no.
IF the Iraqis want us to leave, we will gladly do so but until they say it is OK for us to leave, we have to stay.Posted by: Kev | May 29, 2007 at 11:01 PM
Since when did US military forces - our young men and women - become hostages to what passes for an Iraqi “government?”
Kev: Did you read the article from the NY Times that Scholfield provided? Just wondering. The guys they quoted in the story said that most of them don’t want to be there. We appear to have a disconnect between what the Times is reporting and what you’re reporting. Did the Grey Lady get it wrong?
Why is it that after the last US congressional election, where the vast majority were voted into both the House and the Senate, only a majority of those candidates who would oppose the Iraq war, Bush got, not only all the money he needed to continue the war, but an increase of troops to boot?
Something is seriously wrong.
“Since when did US military forces - our young men and women - become hostages to what passes for an Iraqi “government?”
Since Israel hijacked US foreign policy.
You ask of meTo set them freeWhen submissionIs their seed
But should I dieAmid the lieThey want us thereNot greed
Bruise my soulFor lucre’s goalAnd corporateBottom line
Say our flagWill never sagFor profitIt will shineIt’s such a fightTo sleep at nightWhat costThe ordered deedsMidnight screamsHorror scenesSpills bloodOf other creedsBy force of willI am here stillPrayingTo my GodOn one blue moonStanding soonAnd shareA saddened nodmr_alleycat