"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." George Orwell
Posted on 09/08/2004 5:38:43 AM PDT by presidio9
A U.S. soldier cut down while battling Shiite militiamen in a Baghdad slum yesterday became the 1,000th American warrior killed in Iraq. The soldier's death marked a terrible milestone in the controversial war and momentarily muted the debate over the conflict.
President Bush, speaking just before the awful arithmetic was released, told a campaign rally in Missouri that Americans would support the families of the dead in their prayers.
"My promise to them is that we will complete the mission so that their child or their husband or wife has not died in vain," Bush said.
The White House had been bracing for the 1,000th fatality - and also dispatched Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to deflect the grim news.
"When combined with U.S. losses in other theaters in the global war on terror, we have lost well more than a thousand already," said Rumsfeld, apparently including casualties in Afghanistan.
Democratic challenger John Kerry, who has criticized Bush for failing to anticipate the fierce Iraqi insurgency, called the soldier's death a "tragic milestone."
"The first thing every American wants to say is how deeply we each feel the loss," he said while campaigning in Ohio. "We are committed to making the right decisions in Iraq and the right decisions for them here at home - that is the way that we will honor their sacrifice."
John Wroblewski of Oak Ridge, N.J., who still mourns his son Marine 2nd Lt. John Wroblewski, said simply, "Those 1,000 casualties were a thousand heroes."
With two months to go before the election and U.S. support for the Iraq war waning, the sad statistics, which include noncombat deaths in Iraq, could be a blow to Bush.
All but 138 of the deaths occurred after May 1, 2003, when Bush made a dramatic aircraft carrier landing beneath a banner that read "Mission Accomplished." And even with Saddam Hussein in shackles and a new Iraqi government in place, the pace of the casualties has increased.
David Birdsell, a political scientist at Baruch College, said the milestone "will be a fulcrum event that may change many people's views of what we're doing in Iraq."
"It's a gripping number, a large number, a tragic number, and it will be a pivot to revisit Bush's reasons for fighting the war," he said.
"The only thing that would make this worse for Bush would be if the mile post were passed closer to the election," said Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "A lot of Republicans were worried this would happen in October, just before the election."
The Pentagon did not release the soldier's name, whose task force is made up mostly of soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood, Tex. The soldier died fighting followers of rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and amid a sudden spike of violence that has killed 14 Americans in the past two days.
The Pentagon tally of American dead since U.S. forces invaded Iraq in March 2003 stood last night at 1,001 - 998 soldiers and three Defense Department workers. Another 6,916 U.S. troops have been wounded, the Pentagon reported.
Nine soldiers killed in Iraq were from New York City, and relatives said their losses - coupled with the growing number of American dead - has shaken their confidence in Bush and the Iraq war.
"I supported the war because my son was there, because he was fighting for this country," said Julio Tejeda of Washington Heights, whose son, Marine Staff Sgt. Riayan Tejeda, was killed in April. "I don't know if President Bush is doing the right thing or wrong thing, but Osama Bin Laden is still alive and my son is dead."
Cathy Heighter of Bay Shore, L.I., said the war that claimed her son, Cpl. Raheen Tyson Heighter, would be Bush's undoing in November.
"I think the people are in a lot of pain about the war, about the number of soldiers who had died," she said.
But Wroblewski says he still supports Bush despite his son's death in Iraq.
"In his last letter home, my son said, 'Dad, we're doing the right thing.' I believe that," Wroblewski said.
A study done for the Austin American-Statesman newspaper by a Texas sociologist found that more of the soldiers who died in Iraq were poor whites from rural areas. The greatest number of fatalities came from California, and almost 60% of the dead were between the ages of 18 and 25.
Sick.
The MSM is already on the bandwagon and dreaming of a big advance in their hero's poll numbers.
Russia Ready to Strike Against 'Terror' Worldwide
2 hours, 14 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Elizabeth Piper
BESLAN, Russia (Reuters) - Russia's top general said on Wednesday he was ready to attack "terrorist bases" anywhere in the world, as security services put a $10 million bounty on two Chechen rebels blamed for last week's school siege.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=3&u=/nm/20040908/ts_nm/russia_school_dc
An excerpt from UBL's 1996 fatwa:
We say to the Defence Secretary that his talk can induce a grieving mother to laughter! and shows the fears that had enshrined you all. Where was this false courage of yours when the explosion in Beirut took place on 1983 AD (1403 A.H). You were turned into scattered pits and pieces at that time; 241 mainly marines solders were killed. And where was this courage of yours when two explosions made you to leave Aden in lees than twenty four hours!
But your most disgraceful case was in Somalia; where- after vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA and its post cold war leadership of the new world order- you moved tens of thousands of international force, including twenty eight thousands American solders into Somalia. However, when tens of your solders were killed in minor battles and one American Pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you. Clinton appeared in front of the whole world threatening and promising revenge , but these threats were merely a preparation for withdrawal. You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew; the extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear. It was a pleasure for the "heart" of every Muslim and a remedy to the "chests" of believing nations to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut , Aden and Mogadishu.
From the front page coverage that this is getting, incuding a multi-page, name by name listing in several major newpapers, I can conclude that the Democrat leadership, and Kerry in particular, are very happy. I suspect that if the Dem leadership could get color death-photos of the men who were killed at the place of their death, they would love to post them in the NYTimes, et al.
"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." George Orwell
Rest in peace, brave American heroes, and may God comfort your families.
To fallen soldiers let us sing
Where no rockets fly nor bullets wing
Our broken brothers let us bring
To the Mansions of the Lord
No more bleeding, no more fight
No prayers pleading through the night
Just divine embrace, eternal light
In the Mansions of the Lord
Where no mothers cry and no children weep
We will stand and guard though the angels sleep
All through the ages safely keep
The Mansions of the Lord
This whole "1000 Casulties" thing is just stupid crap propagated by the liberal media. So are we to believe that a war with 999 casulties is acceptable, but adding one more makes it tragic? If people are affected by this, they are even more stupid than I thought.
I don't understand the facination with body count or the point of keeping body count by our media of our soldier. The next milestone is 2,000 killed? America is so drunk with "I have the right to know". We love our Freedom of Information Act sometime we even abuse it. Do we really want to know if Jack Ryan (candidate for IL Senate) want to have sex with his wife at a sex club? Do we have the right to see the American flag draped coffin on the way home to U.S? Do we need to know President Bush record in the National Guard duty?
see the media and democrats for what they are....vultures
When the VFW did their study they found that among the KIA and WIAs in Vietnam the majority of casualties came from white middle class families with @ 2yrs college, had enlisted in their branches of service, and volunteered for duty in Vietnam
The VFW also found that among these same volunteers a disproportionate number came from California.
The LM can send their OWN lib assassins out to target our military if they want, to run up the body count. It won't change a thing. These guys are doing a job. And they want to see it done. It's always the way. The old journalists understood that. So does Zell:
Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier.Zell added, I thought quite appropriately:And, our soldiers don't just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.
For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.
No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home.
Note to anyone on talk shows, talk radio, etc: the 1000 number includes all deaths, not just combat deaths. A large number are deaths from traffic accidents, illness, etc. This does not minimize the sadness associated with each death, but it should be remembered when responding to those who would exploit those deaths for political gain.
My local rag, The La Crosse (Wis) Tribune, regularly reports the news from Iraq with headlines when soldiers are killed. Many times what fighting actually went on and why will be be given only scant attention. Imagine WW II with thousands of GIs getting killed every day. Imagine D-Day or Tarawa when three thousand or more soldiers and Marines were killed in a few days of action at each site. Hey libs, no one likes to see Americans die either ....in battle OR in American cities. But like McCain said, it's either fighting terrorism or something much worse.
Anyone know the number of bad guys killed?
R.I.P
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