IRAQ: 1,000 killed in one week .

[AtomicKitten]

This has to be stopped NOW.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Iraqi Interior Ministry estimates that about 1,000 people have been killed throughout Iraq in the past week due to gunbattles, drive-by shootings and bomb attacks, a ministry official said Sunday.

The figure includes members of militia and terrorist groups, civilians and Iraqi security forces. The official said the data was gathered by Iraq's Interior, Health and Defense ministries.

The grim estimate came just a day after a bloody bomb attack on a crowded market in central Baghdad that killed 128 people and wounded 343 others Saturday, according to a Health Ministry official. (Watch chaos as dozens are rushed to hospitals Video)

The incident, which also destroyed cars and surrounding stores, occurred in Sedriya, a mixed district of Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds.

The Health Ministry official said he expected the death toll from that attack to rise. Already, it is the deadliest attack in Iraq since November 23, when Shiites were targeted by coordinated car bomb attacks in Sadr City. At least 200 civilians were killed in those attacks.

Jihad Jabri, head of the Interior Ministry's bomb squad, said a Mercedes truck used in Saturday's blast contained a ton of explosives.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed the attack on Saddam Hussein loyalists and Sunni extremists.

more at http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/02/04/iraq.main/index.html

[Skink]

1. What did they do to us again?

[AtomicKitten]

2. they apparently have our oil under their sand

:(

[Egalitarian]

3. For those who need further reading

Check out this blog http://www.gnn.tv/threads/21799/Iraq_100_Deaths_Every_Day

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

4. 600,000 since the start of this war.

[zulchzulu]

5. The genie is out of the bottle

I fear that many more thousands will die. This conflagration is going to be genocidal beyond anything seen in the Balkans in the recent war there. And it's going to be at least 20 years before anything resembling peace is in that region. It's a downward spiral that's gaining more momentum by the day...

Wait until al-Maliki gets assassinated... that should be fairly soon based on what is happening. If al-Sadr is killed, expect this hell to go into hyperdrive.

[AtomicKitten]

6. I really wish the Dems would understand

that pulling up their socks and asserting themselves on ENDING THIS is not only the right thing to do, it is political gold.

[zulchzulu]

8. I envison this...

Imagine five people all near a cliff looking down into the abyss. One is an American, one a Sunni, one a Shiite, one a Kurd and one representing the rest of the World.

The American decides to push all the others off the cliff and all are falling into the abyss. No one knows where the bottom is...they are just falling...

Getting "out of this" is past. We can withdraw (and should) but there is no definitive answer as to what is going to happen in the region. I fear that the Iran-Iraq War will look like a playground brawl compared to what lies ahead...and it's going to happen over many years.

[AtomicKitten]

9. Funny how my first thought turns to the UN.

The organization that has been systematically denigrated by BushCo's minions.

Obi-Wan, they are our only hope.

[zulchzulu]

10. These are wise words, Princess

Maybe Bush thinks there's a target in the logo, so...

[lligrd]

7. Just Wait Till Tomorrow

When the Baghdad escalation hits. Stupider and stupider!

[Skink]

11. The Bagdahd escalation....?

Yikes:hide:

[lligrd]

13. Yep - See Here

Baghdad offensive set to begin - U.S. officers By Dean Yates
Sun Feb 4, 2:55 PM ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S.-Iraqi campaign to stabilize Baghdad will begin soon and the offensive against militants will be on a scale never seen during four years of war, American officers said on Sunday.

Briefing a small group of foreign reporters, three American colonels who are senior advisers to the Iraqi army and police in Baghdad said a command center overseeing the crackdown would be activated on Monday.

<<more>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070204/ts_nm/iraq_offensiv... ;_ylt=Ao1w1xt8IZqcU.gVjXpYhH7MWM0F;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

[AtomicKitten]

14. The admin is actually blaming the violence on al Queda

Who are these "militants" exactly? Are we just going to start killing Iraqis indiscriminately thinking that violence will stop violence?

These people are trying to just live their lives.

[lligrd]

15. I Can't Even Imagine What Iraqis Are Going Through

And I can't stand the thought that it is because of us.

[pampango]

21. I think some of the "militants" are the ones who explode bombs

in markets and around job seekers and shoot students at a girls' school. I would submit that people who commit these atrocities would be targeted in most countries in the world.

Other "militants" actually target the occupying military which gives them more moral authority than those who kill Iraqis indiscriminately, not as "collateral damage" (our inhuman term), but as the specific goal of their attacks. The more civilian deaths the better to show how bad the Americans are.

Any surviving members of the French resistance must be kicking themselves now that they realize they wasted much of their time attacking the German occupiers rather than killing French civilians in large numbers. The Iraqi "militants" look like they are much closer to getting rid of the occupiers than the French resistance ever did.

Bush illegally and immorally invaded a sovereign country whose dictator was very good at controlling his people and keeping a lid on the sectarian violence. By doing this he created the conditions in which this violence has flourished. As much as he deserves the ultimate blame for the aftermath, I do not in any way minimize the culpability of the butchers who believe that girls attending school and people shopping are legitimate targets in order to prove that another country is bad.

[Life Long Dem]

12. There doesn't look like an end to this. Bushco really blew up this area.

[lligrd]

16. It Really Irks Me When They Try To Take Credit For Painting A

school and the like. All one has to do is to look at the before and after pictures of Iraq to see that we have destroyed it. And it was Mesopotamia, the historic artifacts that we have destroyed or allowed to be vandalized are irreplaceable. Not to mention the peoples lives that we have destroyed.

[ProSense]

17. Don't worry Hillary Clinton is going to end it somewhere between

2009 and 2010.

That's two to three years from now.

[Tellurian]

18. NO ONE SENATOR can end the War..

Never mind a majority.. the implication of your post is unfair.

Hillary simply said...if she's elected she would end the war,

But it's up to Bush to do it NOW.

[AtomicKitten]

19. wait a damn minute .....

You mean Hillary is NOT the Master of Time and Space who could wave her magic wand and make it all go away and just refuses to do it? Some folks are yanking our chain here at DU.

[ProSense]

20. Not quite:

Nothing unfair in the post, she said if elected, which means 2009-2010. As for now, read.

[Tellurian]

23. Unbelievable! You don't realize ....

The point is ProSense...Bush isn't honoring the War Resolution..

And cutting off funding MIGHT be a solution depending on how it's written
AND if Bush elects to bring them home rather than stranding then in Iraq
without logistics, equipment etc. So, neither of your links are solutions.

As I said, you are misinformed and operating under the wrong assumptions.

NO ONE SENATOR especially a JR Senator can bring the Troops home.

The best Senator Clinton can offer IS, if elected president in 08'
she can bring the Troops home in 09'...

Here read this and you'll understand why:

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/sep/29/the_star_chamber

[ProSense]

25. No, you don't realize

that one Senator can and should try.

As I said, you are misinformed and operating under the wrong assumptions.

With all due respect to the author of the piece you linked, I think Marty Lederman, professor and expert on constitutional law, who I linked to would disagree.

Even if there were a prohibition in the Constitution against so-called congressional "micromanagement" of a war -- and there's not -- this wouldn't be that. There would be no congressional officials here overseeing the President's discretionary responsibilities; no requirement that the President get approval of one or both Houses before taking certain actions. There would, instead, simply be limitations on a war imposed by statutes passed with the President's signature or by supermajorities of both Houses of Congress over the President's veto.

Just as the McCain Amendment prohibits the President from using cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment against Al Qaeda prisoners; just as numerous other statutes and treaties place limitations on how the President can conduct war or other conflicts (e.g., the torture statute; the War Crimes Act; the War Powers Resolution; FISA; the Habeas Act; the UCMJ (upheld in part in Hamdan, over the President's objections that it would impinge on his ability to defeat the enemy); the Boland Amendments; a bunch of statutes at the tail-end of the Vietnam War prohibiting the use of funds for the use of armed forces in particular nations, such as Cambodia); just as numerous other statutes have authorized hostilities only for certain purposes and on certain conditions, thus imposing implicit limitations (e.g., the statute upheld in Little v. Barreme; the 1993 Defense authorization provision that funds could be obligated in Somalia beyond March of 1994 only "to protect American diplomatic facilities and American citizens, and noncombat personnel to advise the United Nations commander in Somalia"; etc.); -- and odds are that Senator Biden voted for the vast majority of these statutory limitations on the Commander-in-Chief . . .

Snip...

The issue is a complex one. Arguments are, indeed, often made for disabling Congress from limiting the Commander-in-Chief's discretion. And one can certainly imagine the President and the Vice President making such arguments. But Democratic critics in Congress? Does it make any sense for them to disclaim some of Congress's most important powers for checking the Executive, when there is a rich history of such statutory limitations and where there is almost no judicial authority questioning Congress's power?

Ask yourself this: Imagine a hypothetical situation in which an armed conflict has gone disasterously awry, resulting in a devastating and spiraling civil war in a major Middle Eastern nation and profound harms to both U.S. troops and our nation's long-term foreign interests. Over 70% of the U.S. public concludes that the President's proposal to escalate the conflict will only make the disaster worse, and is for that reason a terrible mistake. Over two-thirds of each House of Congress -- supermajorities that include numerous members of the President's own party -- are willing to vote to forbid him from taking such a fateful step.

[Tellurian]

26. In reading his statement, Prosense

He is not aware of how the radical changes have affected the hamstringing of Congress.

His quotes are geared to the original Constitution, not the de-constructed version. As
you see in the hypothetical he advanced as his example.

The research done by Newberry (in my link) took months of research to piece together
the effects of Bush's deconstruction and signings tipping the balance of power to
the Executive Branch. His conclusions are diabolically correct, noting Bush has insulated
himself from prosecution in the end. Stating unequivocally, we may not see a Constitutional
reconstruction to it's original state in our life time.

[ProSense]

27. The examples Lederman used are current, but if you want a more current statement,

here.

[Tellurian]

28. I don't doubt his statement is current..

What I'm saying, his statement doesn't reflect a strategy concurrent with the changes made to the Constitution
and his proposal does not reflect a unique strategy to over come those changes.

[karynnj]

29. There have been no amendments made to the constitution

If you are correct and Bush is existing outside the constitution as written, we have to impeach him. After all, if it's true, will he even honor an election. This is in the tin foil hate region.

[Tellurian]

30. Pro Sense..

Read this link..I know you haven't read it.

Newberry notes the deletions made to the Constitution
and the amendments that have been trashed. His summary
is not that hard to understand.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/sep/29/the_star_chamber

[karynnj]

31. I'm not prosense, though I wish I had her knowledge on this,

but, Newberry does not have the authority to delete or change anything in the constitution. There is a very specific process for changing the constitution - and there has no even been an effort to initiate a process to change the Constitution.

[Tellurian]

32. Bush made the deletions.. Newberry did the research

and noted the changes and the ramifications therof!

[karynnj]

34. Bush can not touch the constitution

He has signing statements, that should be called unconstitutional, where he changes provisions of bills he gets from Congress. He can't change the Constitution though - and neither can Congress unilataterally.

The way Bush uses signing statements was something that Alito was a proponent of. That and the unitary President ideas were why he should NEVER have been confirmed. Every Senator who believed in the Constitution and the balance of power should have fought his confirmation. This is why Senators Kennedy and Kerry were willing to incur the wrath of the party leaders to filibuster it. Kerry was one of the few to spend more effort dealing with these issues rather than where he stood on abortion.

[Tellurian]

36. It was done through the Patriots Act I+ II

by Bush's attorney, Alberto Gonzales. Newberry's research and conclusions are accurate and on the mark.

Believe me Karynnj, you are the thousandth person to view Newberrys work.
I suggest you read his link..

[karynnj]

37. I did read it, but I am not a lawyer

I don't agree with your conclusion - but as I said I do not have a law degree.

[Tellurian]

40. Understood. So, there is no good reason for you to discount it..nm

[ProSense]

41. Then defer to the legal experts:

The Framers distrusted the idea of standing armies and feared the degeneration of democracies into dictatorships, a distrust that is evidenced in several features of the Constitution-- the requirement that army appropriations must be regularly renewed, the Second Amendment's right to bear arms (so as to counter an oppressive federal army) and civilian control of the military, as embodied in the idea of the President as Commander-in-Chief and Article I section 8's delegation to Congress of law making and appropriations power over military matters.

Snip...

But as Fallows recognizes, our constitutional system cannot afford this particular safety valve. The military must follow civilian orders. The way out of the danger is not to look to the military to discipline the President. Congress must reassert civilian control over over the Presidency through its Article I, section 8 powers.

It is true that the President sometimes needs to make threats that he does not intend to carry out in order to be a credible bargainer on the international stage. But to do this he must also have credibility at home-- people have to trust that he will act reasonably and not get the country into a disastrous conflict-- as he has before-- and disregard wise counsel and recalcitrant evidence-- as he has before. The President must regain the trust of Congress before he can usefully engage in saber rattling. Until he does so, Congress must rein him in. The current Democratic strategy of nonbinding resolutions, I fear, will not be enough. They will be too easily disregarded. The Democrats have assumed that nonbinding resolutions will signal to the President that he is isolated politically. That will do nothing. This President already knows that he is isolated politically. He already knows that the public is against him and he plans to proceed in any case. Like any headstrong individual, this President needs to understand that there will be real consequences for not acting responsibly.

This Administration has undermined the constitutional system in general and the Presidency in particular. Executive discretion in a system of separated powers requires trust and confidence in the quality of executive leadership by the other branches and by the American people themselves. The Administration has been so insistent on maximizing executive authority through foolish decisions that it has destroyed those elements of trust and confidence. As a result, the other branches must now check the President. The Administration that sought to increase Presidential authority may well end up diminishing it.

link

[Tellurian]

42. I have- Bruce Ackerman is a World class Constitutionalist and expert in Federalist Law..

He engineered this transition..

I really don't care to waste anymore time with you on this.

There is nothing left to discuss.

[ProSense]

43. This

Bruce Ackerman:

Set a spending limit on Iraq—A Commentary by Bruce Ackerman

January 10, 2007

The following commentary was published in the Los Angeles Times on January 10, 2007.

Set a spending limit on Iraq—Congress should creatively use its power of the purse to keep Iraq from becoming an indefinite quagmire.

By Bruce Ackerman

THERE ARE LOTS of bad ways for Congress to respond to President Bush's escalation in Iraq. But there is one good way: Set a price tag on the long-run cost of the war — say $500 billion — and tell the president that he won't be getting a penny more.

Without counting the cost of the much-anticipated "surge," we will have spent about $350 billion on the war by spring. Setting a long-term ceiling is the only step that will force the president to recognize that the American people are no longer willing to give him a blank check for an endless series of mistakes.

We have been suffering under a false dichotomy: Either Congress immediately cuts off funds, or the president can do what he wants. But there is a third way: Congress sets the ultimate financial constraint, leaving it to the president and his generals to figure out the most sensible way to spend their limited resources. The president is given a significant time horizon to plan and execute. But he can't run a war without money and must either succeed or prepare a serious exit strategy as the ceiling is reached.

Congress should engage in vigorous oversight in the meantime, but it should resist the temptations of micromanagement. As long as the president stays within the half-trillion-dollar limit, Congress should grant requests for funds without pretending that it can condition particular appropriations on the Iraqis meeting benchmarks. That is a pointless shell game. The president would predictably say that the Iraqis are making substantial progress, and when the money runs out, he would confront Congress with another demand: Give me another $75 billion or you will be undercutting the troops.

more...

Seems to me he is advocating funding cuts/limits. His colleagues lay outmuch more compelling arguments/scenarios for ending the war.

[karynnj]

44. A simple googgle shows that he has no credentials in this area either

He is a composer and a computer programmer. Not bad, so are some of my best friends. It does call in to question conclusions that no qualified proponent has supported. I stand by my high school civics class information.I have less reason to believe it than disbelieve it.

[TheWatcher]

22. Maybe if 6,000,000 are killed the whole world will finally have had enough

of our Bullshit War On Terror.

There should not have been ONE Iraqi killed.

There should not have been ONE US Soldier killed.

There should never have been a war.

These people running our government need to be removed. Legally and Peacefully.

NOW.

It's That Simple.

[Tellurian]

24. You Wish,,It's not that simple..

This is the shredding you heard about of our Constitution.

Read it, so you get it!

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/sep/29/the_star_chamber

[TheWatcher]

38. Wonderful Link. And don't worry, I Do "Get It."

[mtnsnake]

33. 1000 killed last week, yet they'd rather discuss what was the best Super Bowl commercial

...unreal.

Powerful article.

[newportdadde]

35. Perspective -> Iraq just had three 9/11s last week. US 10x population of Iraq.

Our population is approx 10x the 2005 estimate of Iraq. To put that number in perspective it would be like loosing 10k US citizens in one week.

[PresidentObama]

39. End this fucking war for god sakes n/t