Fourteen U.S. Marines and a civilian interpreter were killed and another Marine was wounded in an insurgent attack today northwest of Baghdad, the military said.
The Marines died when their amphibious assault vehicle hit a bomb during combat 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) south of Haditha, the military said in a statement e-mailed from the city of Fallujah. The incident brought to 21 the number of Marines killed in the region in three days.
U.S. and Iraqi forces in the past week have fought insurgents around Haditha, killing at least 20 rebels since July 29, the military said yesterday. Haditha is in al-Anbar province, where Iraqi and U.S. forces began operations against insurgents in late May.
The leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has sought refuge with local tribes in the province who give him support and shelter, the military says.
U.S.-led troops and Iraqi security forces are struggling to contain an insurgency that has become more violent with the approach of an Aug. 15 deadline to draft the country's new constitution. The charter is scheduled for a national referendum Oct. 15, paving the way for general elections by the end of the year.
Marines Killed
The interpreter's nationality and other details weren't given. The Marines killed today were assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), the military said.
Seven Marines from the same unit died in action two days ago. Today's casualties bring to 1,816 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, according to Defense Department figures.
The insurgency has killed more than 4,000 Iraqis, including 2,000 civilians, since January, according to figures released by the defense, interior and health ministries, Agence France-Presse reported.
As many as 26,264 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the invasion and subsequent violence, according to a tally by Iraq Body Count, a London-based group that opposes the war and compiles its casualty toll from English-language media reports and official statements.
Jesus. Almost two dozen troops from the same unit.
Americans Worried
A survey of the U.S. public released today shows that 56 percent said they ``worry a lot'' that the war in Iraq is leading to too many casualties, while 26 percent said they ``worry somewhat.'' Eighteen percent said they don't worry at all in the poll, which surveyed 1,004 adults by telephone June 1-13 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The poll, conducted for the first time, and scheduled to be repeated every six months, was a joint effort of the nonpartisan research group Public Agenda and Foreign Affairs magazine. Sixty- four percent said that the U.S., in its war on terrorism, should put more emphasis on diplomatic and economic efforts.
American reporter Steven Vincent was found dead in the southern city of Basra, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said today. The freelancer was abducted and shot dead yesterday, AFP said.
Vincent, who reported for the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times, had been in Iraq for several months and was working on a book about the history of Basra, according to his Web site. He had also written a book entitled ``In the Red Zone,'' about Iraq, which was published last year.
The 50-year-old journalist was kidnapped along with his female translator and shot dead by unknown gunmen, AFP said, citing Basra police. The translator suffered injuries, AFP said.
In a July 31 article in the New York Times, Vincent wrote that Basra's police force had been heavily infiltrated by Shiite militants. He also criticized U.K. forces for ignoring abuses of power by Shiite extremists.
Haven't heard much from the braintrust about any of this, the increasing volume of attacks from the insurgents, the levels of infiltration in the military forces that we're handing the keys over to ASAP. It will devolve into civil war, as Iranian-backed Shia militias start getting even with the Sunnis who oppressed them for decades.
And in the end, we'll be less safe, oil and gas will continue to rise in price, the Iraqis' nightmare will continue under a different set of monsters (or maybe they're the old guard re-instated), and the world at once despises us and no longer fears us.
Then there's this little gem, going largely unnoticed as we meander through Year Three of Dear Leader's Glorious Democratic Transformation:
Despite having the world's second-largest reserves of oil, Iraq announced Monday that it would begin rationing gasoline over the next few months to cope with an ongoing fuel shortage.
Iraqis will be issued ration cards next month allowing them to buy limited quantities of kerosene and cooking gas. Later, they will face restrictions on gasoline purchases.
Increased demand for fuel and the failure of the U.S.-led reconstruction effort to restore refining capacity has led to chronic shortages, resulting in long lines and short tempers at gas stations. The government has been spending millions of dollars a month to import fuel to meet the nation's needs.
Imagine, for a second, just how monumentally inept you have to be to turn the world's second-largest proven oil reserve into an electricity-starved fuel importer. Yes, refining capacity has been sabotaged by insurgents. But still. They have to ration gas in Iraq.
Nice going, guys. Anything else you want to fuck up?
4 comments:
Not to be an idiot, but when you compare the number of US marines that have died in Iraq in the past year it doesnt even equal the number of people who die each *day* in the world from starvation or dieses like malaria. Not to say it isn't a big deal that 2000+ US citizens have died but more than that die from car accidents in amonth. Think about it. We could use that retarded amount of money foolishly spent in Iraq at an attempt to prevent the Chinese from gaining access to their oil toward something like redeveloping the economy and *poof* economic crisis over, money would be spent in development of real and useful technology.
But hey thats only what I think, if the President would think like that the world wouldnt be on the brink of a nuclear world war between N. Korea, China the US and soon to be Iran.
Isn't rationing a sign of prosperity? Business is so good, they have to stem the tide. At least prices are low. Last I read, gas was going for 15 cents a gallon in Baghdad.
Three more years of this shit.
Craig and Arthur both hit on a similar point, which is that we always -- sometimes even subconsciously -- make a rather gruesome moral calculus every time we address military casualties.
On the one hand, we universally assert the sanctity of all human lives, yet most of us -- conservatives and liberals alike -- readily chime in regarding military lives (and, for that matter, police and firefighters), trumping them over any and all others involved in the same incidents.
There is a nugget of truth to it; those are all occupations in which people are voluntarily endangering their lives in order to protect the rest of us. This is a rare and admirable thing.
But what ends up happening all too often is that all other lives affected get shoved aside all too hastily. Nowhere is this more true than in times of war. At least the innocent victims of domestic crime get the requisite shrines, replete with stuffed animals and votive candles. The civilians maimed by previously unexploded daisy cutter bomblets, if they're lucky enough to be found in time to save them, may get a trip stateside to be properly fitted for prosthesis. The dead are lucky to get a proper burial.
After all the emoting, at the end of it we are all left with, as I said before, an ugly moral calculus, a determinative sliding scale of the importance of a given human life, based on the general utility said life had in regard to things Americans typically care about.
It is a terrible thing to even behold, much less contemplate, this virtual equation. Yet we must if we are reclaim our national soul, and the respect we had once earned from the rest of the world.
We were once the good guys who went to war reluctantly, and in a previously unprecedented manner, we picked up our vanquished foes (Germany and Japan), brushed 'em off, and helped 'em get back on their feet.
We don't do that anymore. We're all too proud of the schools we repainted after we bombed them, and the soccer balls and candy we give away to try to assuage suspicious woglets. We pay the Kuwaitis $2.65 per gallon to import gasoline into Iraq, and then subsidize it further so that Iraqis only have to pay 10¢ a gallon or so.
That is not progress, no matter what Dear Leader and his Tinkerbell Coalition tried to convince us from Dubya's humid vacation shithole. As Jeff Gannon™ could tell them, it's merely a butt-plug.
Gas rationing huh? Kind of ironic, considering that the indigenous population is sitting on the second-largest oil reserves on the fucking planet, wouldn't you say?
So, Halliburton has the oil; Now, who's got the food?
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