U.S. Soldiers: 'I Don't Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier's Life'

[babylonsister]

'I Don't Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier's Life'
After 14 months in a Baghdad district torn by mounting sectarian violence, members of one U.S. unit are tired, bitter and skeptical.

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 27, 2007; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Oct. 26 Their line of tan Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles creeps through another Baghdad afternoon. At this pace, an excruciating slowness, they strain to see everything, hoping the next manhole cover, the next rusted barrel, does not hide another bomb. A few bullets pass overhead, but they don't worry much about those.

"I hate this road," someone says over the radio.

They stop, look around. The streets of Sadiyah are deserted again. To the right, power lines slump down into the dirt. To the left, what was a soccer field is now a pasture of trash, combusting and smoking in the sun. Packs of skinny wild dogs trot past walls painted with slogans of sectarian hate.

A bomb crater blocks one lane, so they cross to the other side, where houses are blackened by fire, shops crumbled into bricks. The remains of a car bomb serve as hideous public art. Sgt. Victor Alarcon's Humvee rolls into a vast pool of knee-high brown sewage water -- the soldiers call it Lake Havasu, after the Arizona spring-break party spot -- that seeps in the doors of the vehicle and wets his boots.

"When we first got here, all the shops were open. There were women and children walking out on the street," Alarcon said this week. "The women were in Western clothing. It was our favorite street to go down because of all the hot chicks."

That was 14 long months ago, when the soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, arrived in southwestern Baghdad. It was before their partners in the Iraqi National Police became their enemies and before Shiite militiamen, aligned with the police, attempted to exterminate a neighborhood of middle-class Sunni families.

Next month, the U.S. soldiers will complete their tour in Iraq. Their experience in Sadiyah has left many of them deeply discouraged, by both the unabated hatred between rival sectarian fighters and the questionable will of the Iraqi government to work toward peaceful solutions.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/26/AR2007102602402.html?hpid=artslot

[Canuckistanian]

1. Required reading

For the "fight them there..." crowd.

K&R

[Subdivisions]

2. All things considered, I'd almost rather

our enemies attempt to bring the fight to us so that we can fight them here, at home.

[lonestarnot]

5. WTF are you talking about?

How they getting here, on their thumbs?

[Subdivisions]

7. I did use the word "attempt". =)

[Canuckistanian]

14. I see your point

It would certainly bring a sense of reality. It would also bring out the "true patriots" to defend their land.

Freepers would be hiding in their basements, quivering. It's what they do when faced with real situations.

[izzie]

3. I do not see Bush ever giving this up.

We will just have to put in people that will cut off the money and bring the army home.

[Golden Raisin]

6. Not only is he never going to give this up,

he will get us into something worse (Iran). He's just ITCHING to go after Iran and the wardrums beat louder every day. Congress will do nothing about that either. I worry that there will be some reason (War with Iran, another 9/11, etc.) which will be used by Bush to suspend elections, thus preventing ever getting congresspeople who might actually stand up to him or DO something. Hope I'm wrong.

[izzie]

16. I guess we get what we have put in office. Not that I voted for him.

This war business seems to be what many want. For the life of me I do not understand it or what they are doing. I am not sure the WH knows either but I think they are a group of old time thinkers that think war can do every things for them. Most of the modern world seem to see it as the last thing we should do but Bush and his father seem to think it is the first thing we should do. 8 years with a man who does not know what he is doing who also brings along the same type of people and this is what the country gets. It is hard to face the fact that one country can get such a group of men in one place with this much power but we seem to have done it.

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. knr

[Olney Blue]

8. Reading this story this morning has upset me tremendously.

The soldiers make the point that most Americans don't know the real story of what is happening there.

WTF is it going to take to get those troops out of there?

:cry::banghead::cry::banghead::cry::banghead::cry::banghead::cry::banghead:

[Subdivisions]

9. It sounds to me almost as if life in Iraq, before Bush

decided to destroy not just Saddam but the whole fucking country, was not all that different than life in our country.

It's one thing to take issue with the government of another country, but to absolutely destroy a culture, that is just pure evil at work.

[Olney Blue]

10. Pure evil, indeed.

Texas, what did you mean by your comment above about "having the fight here?"

[w4rma]

11. He means they **can't** "bring the fight here" so let them waste their time trying.

Our troops need to come home, instead of acting as easy targets.

[Subdivisions]

12. Thank you.

[MethuenProgressive]

13. Thanks for the link, BabylonSister k&r

:kick:

[TacticalPeek]

15. Lawrence of Arabia been there done that.

All our subject provinces to me were not worth one dead Englishman.

T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/lawrence/te/seven/introduction1.html