This is sad:

Photo essay on Iraq's brutally wounded

Yes, it is.

HonestBrother, good call! I figured if that was posted anywhere it would be here, in "The ER."

This photo essay and the statistic that veterans account for 25% of the homeless population...wow! Makes me think of the Edwin Starr song "War."

Democrats unable to bring troops home

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
15 minutes ago


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada



Nearly a year after anti-war voters put them in power, congressional Democrats remain unable to pass legislation ordering troops home from Iraq.

Frustrated by Republican roadblocks, Democrats now plan to sit on President Bush's $196 billion request for war spending until next year — pushing the Pentagon toward an accounting nightmare and deepening their conflict with the White House on the war.

"We're going to continue to do the right thing for the American people by having limited accountability for the president and not a blank check," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a $50 billion bill by Democrats that would have paid for several months of combat but also would have ordered troop withdrawals from Iraq to begin within 30 days. The measure, narrowly passed this week by the House, also would have set a goal of ending combat in December 2008.

The 53-45 vote was seven votes short of the 60 needed to advance. It came minutes after the Senate rejected a Republican proposal to pay for the Iraq war with no strings attached.

Now, Democratic leaders say they won't bring up another war spending bill until next year. They calculate the military has enough money to run through mid-February.

The delay will satisfy a Democratic support base that is fiercely anti-war. But it also will give Republicans and the White House ample time to hammer Democrats for leaving for the holidays without funding the troops.

"We ought to get the troops the funding they need to finish the mission without restrictions and without a surrender date," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

At the White House on Friday, deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said the spending gap is unjustified.

"We'd rather see the Department of Defense, the military planners and our troops focusing on military maneuvers rather than accounting maneuvers as they carry out their mission in the field," Fratto said.

Since taking the reins of Congress in January, Democrats have struggled to pass any significant anti-war legislation. Measures that passed along party lines in the House repeatedly sank in the Senate, where Democrats hold a much narrower majority and 60 votes are routinely needed to overcome procedural hurdles.

In May, Republicans agreed not to stand in the way of a $95 billion bill that would have set a timetable for troop withdrawals. Bush rejected the measure and Democrats lacked the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto, as Republicans anticipated.

Democrats eventually stripped the timetable from the bill and sent Bush the money without restrictions on force levels. The move was an unpopular one with many Democratic voters who say Congress should cut off money for the war.

As the year progressed, Democrats hoped for Republican defections. But a drop in violence this fall in Iraq helped to shore up GOP support for the war.

On Friday, only four Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the Iraq measure: Sens. Gordon Smith of Oregon, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Susan Collins of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Sen. Christopher Dodd was the lone Democrat opposing it because he said it did not go far enough to end the war. Other Democrats, including Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, said they too opposed the bill as too soft but that they supported advancing debate.

"The only way to end the war is with a firm deadline that is enforceable through funding," said Dodd, D-Conn.

Democrats acknowledge recent progress made by the military in Iraq but contend the security will be short-lived unless the Iraqi government reaches a political settlement.

"We need to do more than say to the Iraqis that our patience has run out and that they need to seize the opportunity that has been given them," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "Their dawdling will only end when they have no choice."

Republicans on Friday tried to counter with an alternative proposal that would have paid $70 billion toward the war without restrictions. That measure failed by a vote of 45-53, falling 15 short of the 60 needed to advance.

The Pentagon confirms the military will not run out of money until mid February, after which all Army bases would cease operations.

But Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this week that without the money now, drastic steps would have to be taken in anticipation of the shutdown, including plans to freeze contracts and to furlough about 100,000 government employees.

Notices to some union employees would start going out in mid-December, he said.

I saw this video posted at alternet.com. Damn, damn, DAMN!

One Soldier's Suicide: James Jenkins

That was truly sad, SSC. But thanks for sharing it.

They do not include the Iraq-related suicides of soldiers in the total death count .. but reports have always said (from the beginning of this farce) that the suicide rate was higher than for any previous wartime.

For the last two months the death toll for U.S. soldiers has been higher in Afghanistan than they were in Iraq. The count in Iraq alone is over 4100 dead and 30,000 wounded. And for at least half of those 'wounded' that means now missing a body part.

This young man was only 23 years old ... and in the short span of his life had seen horrors that he felt he couldn't live with.

I wish somebody would show Bush those same horrors. Over and over and over again.

quote:

They do not include the Iraq-related suicides of soldiers in the total death count .. but reports have always said (from the beginning of this farce) that the suicide rate was higher than for any previous wartime.

Yeah, ER I saw this posted at Alternet:

"More than 6,000 veterans took their lives in 2005 alone, according to a study by CBS News. By some estimates, veterans are attempting suicide 1,000 times a month."

I'm guessing they mean veterans in general and not just of the Iraq and Aghanistan wars, but maybe I'm wrong. Still, those numbers seem ridiculously high.

Soldiers suicides should be included in the total death count, but heck, they don't even want us to see flag-draped coffins returning home. It's like out of sight, out of mind.

quote:

Originally posted by Santana St. Cloud:

Soldiers suicides should be included in the total death count, but heck, they don't even want us to see flag-draped coffins returning home. It's like out of sight, out of mind.

It's more like Bush doesn't want the public to have daily reminders that he's about as smart as a bag of rocks.

And it's not just that so many men and women, many of them still very young, are dying and so many are being wounded and more and more are committing suicide ... but so many of them that manage to survive/avoid any of those are coming home mentally/emotionally broken and damaged!

It's things like this that make me really wish Kucinich was about to be our president.

Iraqi leader insists on deadline for troop pullout

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writers



Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki dug in his heels Monday on the future of the U.S. military in Iraq, insisting that all foreign soldiers leave the country by a specific date in 2011 and rejecting legal immunity for American troops.

Despite the tough words, al-Maliki's aides insisted a compromise could be found on the two main stumbling blocks to an accord governing the U.S. military presence in Iraq after a United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year.

Last week, U.S. and Iraqi officials said the two sides agreed tentatively to a schedule that includes a broad pullout of combat troops by the end of 2011 with the possibility that a residual U.S. force might stay behind to continue training and advising Iraqi security services.

But al-Maliki's remarks indicated his government was not satisfied with that arrangement and wants all foreign troops gone by the end of 2011.

That cast doubt on whether an agreement is near and suggested al-Maliki is playing to a domestic audience frustrated by the war and eager for an end to the foreign military presence.

"There can be no treaty or agreement except on the basis of Iraq's full sovereignty," al-Maliki told a gathering of Shiite tribal sheiks. He said an accord must be based on the principle that "no foreign soldier remains in Iraq after a specific deadline, not an open time frame."

Al-Maliki said the U.S. and Iraq had already agreed on a full withdrawal of all foreign troops by the end of 2011 — an interpretation that the White House challenged. Until then, the U.S. would not conduct military operations "without the approval" of the Iraqi government, al-Maliki said.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said negotiations with the Iraqis were continuing and repeated the U.S. position that the withdrawal must be linked to conditions in Iraq — a clear difference with al-Maliki's interpretation of what had been agreed.

"Any decisions on troops will be based on the conditions on the ground in Iraq. That has always been our position and continues to be our position," Fratto said Monday in Crawford, Texas. "There is no agreement until there is an agreement signed."

Fratto said the U.S. was "optimistic that Iraq and the U.S. can reach a mutual agreement on flexible goals" and allow "Iraqi forces to provide security for a sovereign Iraq."

President Bush has long resisted a timetable for removing troops from Iraq, even under strong pressure from an American public distressed by U.S. deaths and discouraged by the length of the war that began in 2003.

Last month, however, Bush reversed course and agreed to set a "general time horizon" for bringing troops home, based on Iraq's ability to provide for its own security. But the Iraqis insisted they want a specific schedule.

"We find this to be too vague," a close al-Maliki aide told The Associated Press on Monday. "We don't want the phrase 'time horizons.' We are not comfortable with that phrase," said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

Another top al-Maliki aide, also speaking on condition of anonymity for the same reason, said the Iraqi government had "stopped talking about the withdrawal of combat troops. We just talk about withdrawals," including trainers and logistics troops.

U.S. and Iraqi officials said last week they had agreed to remove American combat troops from Iraq's cities by next June, withdrawing to bases where they could be summoned if necessary. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, but the plan appeared in line with a U.S. strategy to turn urban security over to Iraqi police.

During his Monday address, al-Maliki also suggested the question of legal immunity for U.S. military personnel or contractors remains a sticking point in the negotiations.

The draft agreement provides that private U.S. contractors would be subject to Iraqi law but the Americans are holding firm that U.S. troops would remain subject exclusively to U.S. legal jurisdiction. The U.S. has ruled out allowing American soldiers to face trial in Iraqi courts.

But al-Maliki said his country could not grant "open immunity" to Iraqis or foreigners because that would be tantamount to a violating the "sanctity of Iraqi blood." He did not elaborate.

One of the al-Maliki aides said he believed language could be found to overcome differences over the withdrawal schedule but immunity was a tougher issue to resolve.

U.S. officials in Washington have privately expressed frustration over the Iraqi stand in the negotiations, which were supposed to have ended by July 31. The agreement must be approved by Iraq's factious 275-member parliament, where opposition to a deal is strong.

It appeared al-Maliki was seeking to bolster his nationalist credentials ahead of provincial elections late this year and a national ballot in 2009.

Al-Maliki's Shiite allies face a strong challenge from followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, long an opponent of the U.S. presence. The prime minister's strong statements in support of an end to immunity and for a firm withdrawal timetable would make it difficult for him to accept an agreement that falls short of his public demands.

In violence Monday, an American soldier was mortally wounded in a shooting attack on his foot patrol in north Baghdad, the U.S. military said. An Associated Press tally shows at least 4,147 U.S. military personnel have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003.

___

Associated Press writers Sameer N. Yacoub and Hamza Hendawi contributed to this report.