1000 new graves

[Lanya]

BAGHDAD (AP) — Americans have opened nearly 1,000 new graves to bury U.S. troops killed in Iraq since Memorial Day a year ago. The figure is telling — and expected to rise in coming months.

In the period from Memorial Day 2006 through Saturday, 980 soldiers and Marines died in Iraq, compared to 807 deaths in the previous year. And with the Baghdad security operation now 3½ months old, even President Bush has predicted a difficult summer for U.S. forces.

"It could be a bloody — it could be a very difficult August," he said last week.

DEADLY DAY:Eight American troops killed in Iraq

U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus on Saturday acknowledged the increase in casualties as a result of the American surge in forces to regain control of Baghdad.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Iraq | BAGHDAD | American | Gen. David Petraeus | Day

"We're doing heavy fighting. This is a fight. There's a war on out there," he told reporters at al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq.

Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst with the Brookings Institution and a consultant to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, said the increased casualties were a result of the security operation.

Thousands more American soldiers are patrolling the streets and living in isolated outposts across Baghdad, leaving them more vulnerable to attack. He also said the increase in raids on extremist Shiite militiamen had brought a wave of retaliatory attacks.

"We're out there on the streets a lot more. There are more patrols going on every day, so we're more open to attacks," O'Hanlon said.

Stephen Biddle, a military expert at the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of a group that spent weeks in Iraq assessing the situation for Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, agreed that more American deaths were likely.

"The biggest change in their (insurgent and militia) tactics is that they've changed to exploit the vulnerabilities we've opened ourselves up to. They see a new, small American base in their neighborhood, three blocks away, and they're going to car bomb it," said Biddle.

"We're going to see a spike in the short term," said Biddle. "But the likelihood is that in six months we'll see a drop in casualties as these areas become more secure. The problem is, what about the rest of the country?"

By the end of Saturday at least 100 American troops had died in the first 26 days of May, an average of 3.85 deaths a day. At that pace, 119 troops will have died by the end of the month, the most since 137 soldiers were killed in November 2004, when U.S. troops were fighting insurgents in Fallujah.

As of Saturday, May 26, 2007, at least 3,451 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,817 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-05-26-memorial-us_N.htm

[BT]

No surprise that there are casualties in war. Why think otherwise?

[sirs]

BAGHDAD (AP) — Americans have opened nearly 1,000 new graves to bury U.S. troops killed in Iraq since Memorial Day a year ago. The figure is telling — and expected to rise in coming months.....

And..............?  Did the author not grasp we're in a war?  Shall we remind the author and poster the #'s killed in previous wars, over a 1 year period??   

[Michael Tee]

I think we're all agreed that war produces casualties.  That's why a country usually goes to war with everything it's got and shoots for a quick knockout punch delivered by overwhelming force.  YOUR country was consistently lied to, not only as to the reason for the war, but as to how "easy" the whole thing would be.  If the country had been told the truth from the beginning about the resistance and the casualties, a much larger (and costlier) force, involving dramatic sacrifices, would have had to be assembled.  But that would have been impossible because the people weren't convinced of the reasons. 

Not enough of them really believed in the necessity for the war.  They put up with a war fought by an all-volunteer force with no tax increases and I believe this was because they really didn't give a shit.  Didn't care enough to object because no one was asked to pay higher taxes and no one except for a bunch of ignorant hillbillies and lumpenproletariat underclass members were being asked to sacrifice their children.  No one who "counted" would be asked to contribute anything at all.  So they pretended to swallow the incredible bullshit cooked up by the government (which any intelligent high-school student could and did see through) and the chickenshit "legislators" took the pulse of the country and decided they could safely authorize both invasion and occupation.

The outrage over the casualties is really the long-delayed response to lie built upon lie, once the real bill comes due.  The original lie was the reason for the war.  The second lie was how easy it was going to be.  This resulted in the executive getting away with the relatively low number of troops used.  A higher number would have resulted in an exposition of the depth of resistance that would really be faced.  When this number became known, people would re-examine the need to go to war at all, which of course would lead to a challenge to the original set of lies, the fake "reasons" given for the invasion in the first place.  Rather than risk the exposure of the original lies, the adminsitration unleashed what was bound to be a losing effort, i.e., invaded Iraq with a grossly insufficient force.  Leading to the long-drawn-out debacle we now see, the ever-escalating body count (and I'm not even referring to the dead Iraqis, now well over 600,000) and the obvious choice now between major escalations and pull-out.

[sirs]

The outrage over the casualties is really the long-delayed response to lie built upon lie, once the real bill comes due.  The original lie was the reason for the war.  The second lie was how easy it was going to be.   

Speaking of lies.     

[Michael Tee]

<<Speaking of lies>>

Yes, sirs, I was speaking of lies.

[sirs]

<<Speaking of lies>>

Yes, sirs, I was speaking of lies.

Yea, ironic, isn't it

[Michael Tee]

<<Yea, ironic, isn't it>>

Actually, there was nothing ironic about it.  I described the lies, I described how the administration was a prisoner of its own lies, and I described the unfortunate results.  And finally, I showed how the public indignation over the 1,000 graves was not some naive little snit by people who were too dumb to know that wars produce casualties, but the indignation of people who have been lied to, have seen the results of their government's web of lies and can trace them right into those 1,000 new graves.

Now you show me what's ironic in all that.

[sirs]

<<Yea, ironic, isn't it>>

Actually, there was nothing ironic about it.

Of course there was.  Pretty every claim of a Bush lie after lie was either a blatant distortion, wilful ignorance, or a bald face lie itself

Now you show me what's ironic in all that.

Been down that road many a time already.  The references to nearly everyone else making the same conclusions that you claim that somehow only Bush lied about, the commission, after commission, after report after report that concluded no lies, no deception no intel manipulation, no lies with the Bush administration, with your only comeback in that they're "all covering themselves", with the notable and consistent lack of any proof or evidence, just Tee's Anti-American, Anti-U.S. military, Bush hating say so.  Oh yea, one big fat finger pointing at a Bush lied web site as the supposed smoking gun  Yes, the irony is thick as molasses in summer

[Michael Tee]

I think by now most people can see through the bullshit that "everyone else agreed" Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.  In the first place, you'll never know what the other intelligence agencies really told the Bush administration, because that's a secret.  In the second place, you can't possibly know what every single country's intelligence agency told the U.S. intelligence collectors because there's no record of it.  Third you don't know whether what any other country's intelligence representative told a U.S. intelligence agent was information or disinformation.  So you are just talking out your ass when you refer "to nearly everyone else making the same conclusions."  (And even if they did, it is not Bush's job to count the raised hands and announce the winning opinon - - and I put this in brackets because I realize it didn't happen that way.) 

Bush assured the American people that Saddam had WMD and that the need to remove them was urgent.  That was a lie.  A double lie because even if Saddam had WMD, there was no evidence, and in fact it boggles the mind to believe that he would use them against the U.S.A.  There was absolutely no evidence to suggest he would nuke the U.S.A. and none that he would give stuff away to terrorists so that they could nuke the U.S.A. 

The stated reasons for invading Iraq were not only lies but they made no sense.  Some courageous Americans stood up and denounced this as a crock.  Most kept their heads down - - politicians especially.  That they acted like gutless cowards doesn't make Bush any less of a liar.

And the other lie of course was how easy it would all be.  What a rapturous welcome would await American forces after they removed the evil dictator.  When generals told Bush he'd need vastly more troops, there was no problem - - Bush just fired the generals and found some who didn't need more troops.  Why?  Because he needed to con the American sheeple not only as to the cause of the war, but also as to its cost.  Had the real cost been made known from the outset there would have been a shitstorm of popular outrage.  Some of the gutless legislators would have been forced by their own constituents' rage to re-examine the phony "causes" for the war and the whole thing would have unravelled.

That's the truth, sirs - - all the whitewash committees in the country won't wipe it out - - one bunch of gutless windbags validating the other.  Fooling nobody but you, it seems.  So there's nothing at all ironic in what I wrote.  Tragic, maybe, disgusting for sure, but never ironic.

[sirs]

I think by now most people can see through the bullshit that "everyone else agreed" Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. ....rant, blather, rationalize, rant

Revisionist History, or are you applying the ignorance card again?  A) the many countries referenced in their intelligence conclusions have been consistently mentioned long before the invasion, and long before Bush even contemplated running for President.  And B) no one has EVER said that EVERY Intelligence agency made those conclusions, just a vast majority of them, including those of England, France, Germany, Russia, Poland, Austrialia, Spain I believe, Israel, the NIE, even the UN's own folks, just to name a few.  Not "every", simply most, with the caveat being the slam dunk reference by our own Clinton hold-over running the CIA.  As you keenly forget Tee, the Intelligence gathering community is NOT science, it is their "best guesses" (as you should be well awareof), based on the intel they've gathered, thru all sorts of various means.  The concensus of their conclusions is a fact, as opposed to Gore's lie about the supposed concensus of Climatoligists regarding the man-made crisis of Global Warming. 

So, you can keep pleading ignorance, claim "no one really knows", (your famous validation of Tee-leaf proclaimations based on the actual lack of evidence, so that way you can neatly keep applying your template of how Bush, and Bush alone lied us into war, was able to convince every other Government agency to support his lie, and convince every one of the Committees formed to look into the validity of the conclusions mand and if any manipulation of intel was found, which included most every Democrat in DC to also lie and claim Bush never lied, so that you can keep ironically claiming "see, Bush lied, everyone knows it because......well because we didn't find any and because......Bush is a moronic version of Hitler.  How so?....Because I said so, end of story", hit enter, declare victory


, you'll never know what the other intelligence agencies really told the Bush administration, because that's a secret.  In the second place, you can't possibly know what every single country's intelligence agency told the U.S. intelligence collectors because there's no record of it.  Third you don't know whether what any other country's intelligence representative told a U.S. intelligence agent was information or disinformation.  So you are just talking out your ass when you refer "to nearly everyone else making the same conclusions."  (And even if they did, it is not Bush's job to count the raised hands and announce the winning opinon - - and I put this in brackets because I realize it didn't happen that way.) 

Bush assured the American people that Saddam had WMD and that the need to remove them was urgent.  That was a lie.  A double lie because even if Saddam had WMD, there was no evidence, and in fact it boggles the mind to believe that he would use them against the U.S.A.  There was absolutely no evidence to suggest he would nuke the U.S.A. and none that he would give stuff away to terrorists so that they could nuke the U.S.A. 

The stated reasons for invading Iraq were not only lies but they made no sense.  Some courageous Americans stood up and denounced this as a crock.  Most kept their heads down - - politicians especially.  That they acted like gutless cowards doesn't make Bush any less of a liar.

And the other lie of course was how easy it would all be.  What a rapturous welcome would await American forces after they removed the evil dictator.  When generals told Bush he'd need vastly more troops, there was no problem - - Bush just fired the generals and found some who didn't need more troops.  Why?  Because he needed to con the American sheeple not only as to the cause of the war, but also as to its cost.  Had the real cost been made known from the outset there would have been a shitstorm of popular outrage.  Some of the gutless legislators would have been forced by their own constituents' rage to re-examine the phony "causes" for the war and the whole thing would have unravelled.

That's the truth, sirs - - all the whitewash committees in the country won't wipe it out - - one bunch of gutless windbags validating the other.  Fooling nobody but you, it seems.  So there's nothing at all ironic in what I wrote.  Tragic, maybe, disgusting for sure, but never ironic.


[/quote]

[Michael Tee]

<<the many countries referenced in their intelligence conclusions have been consistently mentioned long before the invasion, and long before Bush even contemplated running for President. >>

Well of course that's the first flaw in your argument.  At one point in time, Saddam DID have WMD, mainly poison gas.  And so "long before Bush even contemplated running" there was obvious truth in the allegations at the time because the gas was used in the Iran-Iraq war (with the enthusiastic blessing and support of the U.S.A., one might add) but Bush lied in maintaining the allegation long after the truth of it had become stale-dated.

<<no one has EVER said that EVERY Intelligence agency made those conclusions, just a vast majority of them, including those of England, France, Germany, Russia, Poland, Austrialia, Spain I believe, Israel, the NIE, even the UN's own folks, just to name a few.>>

Poland?  Australia?  Who gives a shit what their intelligence agencies think?  Who knows where they got their info?  Given their limited resources, probably a good part of what they know comes from the U.S. anyway.  Where is your source for what they "knew" of Iraqi WMD and when they "told" the U.S. of their "knowledge?"   

The desires of Bush and the men around him to invade Iraq, made public in the PNAC material published long before Bush's Presidency by men as closely aligned with him as Cheney and Rumsfeld, Wolfowicz and Perle, made it inevitable that every single one of the intelligence agencies you referenced, unless they were staffed entirely by illiterates and morons , would have known of Bush's hard-on for Iraq.  What were their motives in feeding this little fascist exactly the kind of information they knew he was lookling for?  And why do you assume that they had no motivation other than the search for truth or the advancement of American interests and the protection of the American people?   That's quite an assumption.   They could very well have seen an advantage in catering to the criminal interests of the Bush administration and told Bush what they knew he wanted to hear.  Not because he would believe their lies any more than he believed his own lies, but simply as cover for future criticism, so idiots could say, as you are saying now, "Well it wasn't only Bush who believed that."

Here's a scenario for you to try on for size.  Bush wants to invade Iraq.  Wanted to for a long time but never had the excuse and knew the American people wouldn't buy into it.  Then 9-11 happens.  Now the American people will buy into a lot of crazy shit that they wouldn't have bought into before.  They're cowards and easily panicked.  All Bush needs now is an excuse - - any excuse.  WMD is selected - - it's as good as any other, better than some because it's based on fear and it's pitched at cowards. 

Foreign intelligence agencies - - right-wing swine, most of them, but that's beside the point - - know what Bush is up to, and have enough common sense that they can see right through him. Iraq a threat to America?  Come on man, what have you been smoking?  But they have a choice to make:  they can tell Bush in public or in private, "Ha ha man, you're a fuckin' joke!  This is the LAMEST con job we've ever seen."  What's that gonna get them?  Bush's undying gratitude?  OR - - they can tell Bush what they know he wants to hear - - ""shitload a WMD in Iraq, man.  Fuckin' shit-load."  And they know, sure as God made little green apples, that there's a big favour just accumulated in the Big Favour Bank for their agency and for their nation.  Bush can use their "opinions" any way he likes - - go public with it whenever he chooses, or save it till he needs it - - when the lie's exposed and the shit hits the fan, he pulls it out and covers his ass.

You know - - or should know - - that the foreign intelligence agencies are under NO obligation to tell America the truth.  They deal in lies and deception and misinformation on a daily basis, and if they're at least uncorrupted, then they will act in their own national interest, not in America's.

<<Not "every", simply most, with the caveat being the slam dunk reference by our own Clinton hold-over running the CIA.  As you keenly forget Tee, the Intelligence gathering community is NOT science, it is their "best guesses" (as you should be well awareof), based on the intel they've gathered, thru all sorts of various means.  The concensus of their conclusions is a fact, as opposed to Gore's lie about the supposed concensus of Climatoligists regarding the man-made crisis of Global Warming.  >>

I'm not getting into Global Warming here, sirs.  Sorry.  The "consensus of their conclusions" will never be known to you or to anyone else because they don't confide in you as to what they truly believe and how or to what extent it differs from what they tell others they believe.  It's the height of naievete to believe that what they tell others they believe is always what they really believe.  And you have yet to produce a source to show which ones told the Bush administratio that they really believed - - at the time that Bush was using WMD to sell America on war - - that Saddam had WMD and that these WMD were a realistic threat to America.

<< . . . you can keep pleading ignorance, claim "no one really knows", (your famous validation of Tee-leaf proclaimations based on the actual lack of evidence . . . >>

WHAT?  Are you gonna tell me that YOU really know?  That's worse than BS, that's insanity.

<< . . . your template of how Bush, and Bush alone lied us into war>>

I could be wrong.  Show me another country's intelligence agency that used an American forum to lie the American people into war.  Just one.

<< . . .  was able to convince every other Government agency to support his lie>>

That is not too hard.  It's called the employer - employee relationship.  I'm sure even conservativves have heard of it.  When you're a government employee and the boss has decided Iraq has WMD, it's not considered smart  to cross the boss you work for and say somethign different.

<< and convince every one of the Committees formed to look into the validity of the conclusions mand and if any manipulation of intel was found, which included most every Democrat in DC to also lie and claim Bush never lied . . . >>

Uhh, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't most of the Democrats fall for the lie, or go along with it?  So what are they going to say?  The guy lied brazenly to our face, and we, the opposition party, were so chickenshit scared or sold out to Israel and/or the oil business so we went along with it?  We want your votes cuz we're so different from those bad Republicans, but vote for us anyway even when we admit to being in bed with the bastards?  Is it surprising that the Democrats on the Committee would join in the whitewash?  Only to an idiot whose imagination couldn't rise to the level of a flea's.  Everyone else can recognize a CYA move when they see one.

<<so that you can keep ironically claiming "see, Bush lied, everyone knows it because......well because we didn't find any and because......Bush is a moronic version of Hitler.  How so?....Because I said so, end of story", hit enter, declare victory>>

Remember what I said before about you not seeing what you don't want to see?  You know that my argument is a little more substantial than the lying parody of it you just presented - - that for example I did not ask anyone to believe that Bush lied because I say so.  You know that I spent a lot of time setting out the reasons why I think Bush lied whether you agree with them or not.  But you lie about almost everything I posted. 

For instance:  "Bush lied because we didn't find any WMD."  YOu know God-damned well I said Bush lied because of the circumstantial evidence of Prior Expressed Intent, Improbablility of Casus Belli (that WMD even if found would be used on America); Use of Forged Documents to Build a case - - in any event, you know by now ALL of the dots that I say connect up to prove that Bush lied.  You may disagree with how I link them up.  You may disagree that there IS a link at all.  But that's not what you did, because you are intellectually dishonest.  You won't even admit that I postulate dots and try to link them, rightly or wrongly.  You say that my argument is:  that the mere failure to find WMD is  proof of a lie.  Sorry to go on about it, but I hate lies and liars, and you are lying about what I say.

<<Bush is a moronic version of Hitler.  How so?....Because I said so, end of story>>

There's another one of your lies.  Bush IS a moronic version of Hitler.  And a cowardly version of Hitler.  That's true and it's also true that I say so.  But it's not true that I say "Bush is a moronic version of Hitler because I say so."  That's another one of your fucking lies.   It's a lie because I always gave my reasons for calling Bush a cowardly and moronic version of Hitler.  I never asked anyone to take that on my say-so only.

I enjoy debating with you, sirs.  Tell you that straight out.  And I really don't give a shit whether it's mutual or  not.  But I don't enjoy being lied about or seeing my posts grossly misrepresented.  If you can't keep the debate honest, I can't afford the time to rebut each one of your misrepresentations with the detail that's required. 

[sirs]

<<no one has EVER said that EVERY Intelligence agency made those conclusions, just a vast majority of them, including those of England, France, Germany, Russia, Poland, Austrialia, Spain I believe, Israel, the NIE, even the UN's own folks, just to name a few.>>

Poland?  Australia?  Who gives a shit what their intelligence agencies think?  Who knows where they got their info?  Given their limited resources, probably a good part of what they know comes from the U.S. anyway.  Where is your source for what they "knew" of Iraqi WMD and when they "told" the U.S. of their "knowledge?"   

Most of this rant is status quo Tee...I'm right, you're wrong, end of story, but let me focus on 1 spot to highlight.  In order for Tee's template (Bush is evil, Bush lied us into the war) to even start to breathe life, any and all facts to the contrary must be ignored, or in this case made to be apparently irrelevent.  The point was the vast concensus of Intel agencies that concluded, that AT THE TIME of the 2nd Iraq war, Saddam still possessed his stockpiles of WMD, and was again working on his nuclear program.  And TO DATE, I have not seen ONE credible news article from any news soruces running any story of how any of these Intel Agencies, such as England, France, Germany, Russia, and yea Poland & Austrialia are being lied about, as it relates to their conclusions.  So these other intel agencies apparently amount to nothing, and the big ones can be written off because we don't have specific releases from each and every intel agency.  On the contrary however, every article I've seen has referenced these, and many other countries, as well as the NIE's conclusions, all of them mirroring the other in wrongly concluding the disposition of Saddam's WMD

Now, maybe Tee could show us 1....JUST 1 ARTICLE, that refutes the claims of mass concensus, that refutes the conclusions made by messers England, France, Russia, Germany, etc..  You think he'll manage it?  We'll see, won't we.  Then will see the irony of my earlier reference again coming to fruition

---------------------------------------------------------

But, upon further conteplation, if Tee is really feeling "personally" insulted for my highlighting his dubious claims of Bush lied us into war, let me make this more general.  Anyone making a claim, and demonstrably labeling it as overwehlming evidence that Bush lied us into war, are either grossly ignorant of the facts or purposely lying thru their teeth, because they apparently hate Bush that much.  And you don't have to see it as lying and getting yourself all into a waddle, let's refer to it as ........... absurdly fabricating claims against Bush, regarding the war in Iraq, the WMD debacle, the so-called cherry picking of intel, and "it's all about the oil".  So, it's now a general reference, and in no way picking on poor Tee.  I hope that cleared the air