Very interesting that when
the Memorial
Day weekend got underway, we got word that Congress was seeking to
grant rights to prisoners at Guantanamo while at the same time,
Vice-Presdent Cheney was trash-talking
the Geneva Conventions and the Constitution. Hmm,
could Cheney be afraid
of something? If that means he's losing influence, then
hip-hip-hooray!
Folks were still assembling
the back area when I arrived. VVAW
contributed a piece to PhillyIMC about the tombstones
display.
“In 2003, 2004, 100 percent of the soldiers wanted to be here, to fight this war,” said Sgt. First Class David Moore, a self-described “conservative Texas Republican” and platoon sergeant who strongly advocates an American withdrawal. “Now, 95 percent of my platoon agrees with me.”
In
2003 and 2004, they tell the Times,
they felt confident in the mission. As one staff sergeant puts it, "In
Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place....
There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down
the bad guys. It felt awesome.”
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“In 2003, 2004, 100 percent of the soldiers wanted to be here, to fight this war,” said Sgt. First Class David Moore, a self-described “conservative Texas Republican” and platoon sergeant who strongly advocates an American withdrawal. “Now, 95 percent of my platoon agrees with me.”
For
the first time, U.S. forces have suffered more than 100 fatalities for two
months in a row. And to listen to the president speak, many
more months lie ahead.
Says another soldier: [snip] “Most of us don’t know what we’re fighting for anymore."
As of 10:00pm Monday evening on the 28th, the casualty figure was up to 3455 American deaths, 179 UK and 127 "others" adds up to 3731 in all. In the initial, "major combat operations" phase, casualties averaged 4.02 per day, that average dropped to 1.89 for the second phase, but it's gone up again to 3.38. US forces are being hit very, very hard.