Posted on 05/27/2007 4:23:04 PM PDT by james500
Staff Sgt. David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents.
“In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place,” he said. “There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome.”
But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this past February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber’s body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.
“I thought, ‘What are we doing here? Why are we still here?’ ” said Sergeant Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the First Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. “We’re helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us.”
His views are echoed by most of his fellow soldiers in Delta Company, renowned for its aggressiveness.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
He’s listed in the white pages on AKO.
I’d be in jail if looks were a determinant.
Why is that? It is..after all..still a higher approval rating then Bush has among the general population.
I choose what to ignore. I’m ignoring you.
Please, calm down.
Great post, Chgogal
Yup, I sure beleive the idea, that if GW was up agains Hillary for election, that GW would only get like 30 percent or less of the vote.
Serioulsy, even to someone like you, doesn’t that sound pretty stupid?
I doubt that!
I’m going to ping you in a few minutes.....you have to hear this link....it’s great.
Yes, the NYT is biased and wants us to lose. Yes, the reporter went looking for discouraged soldiers to interview. However, we have been there for several years, the Iraqi forces haven’t stepped up, and the sentiments expressed appear genuine and unsurprising given the facts we know.
You’re right...how DARE those sailors celebrate going home after successfully completing their tour and mission. They should have realized that idiot liberals would twist their mission to be an out of context sound bite.
And, when we withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, you suppose the enemy will become friendly, peaceful?
I don't think anyone here called for withdrawl from Afghanistan. I think if we only have enough troops to really do it right in one country, the country we should concentrate on is Afghanistan.
So, should we bug out and lose the war or change tactics?
If bugging out has no strategic consequences were we really fighting to "free Iraq"?
If so, should we not be fighting to "free Darfur"?
The fact of the matter is that Iraq happens to be right in the middle of the region of the Planet Earth that contains 70% of the World's known oil reserves and, after Jimmy Cater bugged out of Iran in 1979, that region was threatened by both fanatical Islamists in Iran and a secular thug in Iraq, both of which were seeking nuclear weapons capabilities.
A Persian Gulf region, with 70% of the World's known oil reserves, controlled by a nuclear armed Saddan Hussein or by Iranian nuclear armed Islamist nutjobs would have created a U.S. and Western Civilization catastrophe of Biblical proportions.
Did you really think that the Gulf War was about "freeing Kuwait"?
If the U.S. bugs out of Iraq, Islamists of the most radical form will control 70% of the oil that fuels modern civilization. With Iranians in control of Iraq and with Iranian nuclear weapons with North Korean missiles delivery systems and no U.S. military presence in the region, reversing that situation will mean Israel and some European cities going up in mushroom clouds at best and, if we wait until their missile technology advances, a few U.S. cities going up in mushroom clouds at worst.
IMHO, George W. Bush will go down in History as a failed President because he is unwilling or incapable of addressing the issue of the catastrophic strategic consequences of failure in Iraq.
I just did.
We are not in Iraq to "help" some S.O.B. who is a Sergeant in the Iraqi Army. We are in Iraq defending U.S. strategic vital interests of the highest order.
Before the "Bug Out Brigade" joins the Democrats in wishing for an American defeat in Iraq, they should stop to consider the strategic consequences of what they are wishing for.
I do hope you read CWO Funk's words. He earned that.
That's my point. Would we attack Saudi Arabia? Jordan? The Philippines? Pakistan? None of those countries officially "harbored" the terrorists like Afghanistan did.
It is a great read from a CWO with 5,000 flight hours out of Anaconda. He deserves to be read. ;)
Good, I didn't have anything to say to you and you have the right to stay confused.
Reminds me of a thrash metal song from the mid 80’s...
S.O.D. (Stormtroopers Of Death) Lyrics
F**k The Middle East Lyrics
F**k the middle east
There’s too many problems
They just get in the way
We sure could live without them
They hijack our planes
They raise our oil prices
We’ll kill them all and have a ball
And end their f**kin’ crisis
BEIRUT, LEBANON-Won’t exist once we’re done
LIBYA, IRAN-We’ll flush the bastards down the can
SYRIANS and SHIITES-Crush their faces with our might
Then Israel and Egypt can live in peace without these d**ks
Great looking family, like I said.
I doubt that.
So do I, mainly because it is a favorite leftwing media tactic to dredge up a malcontent somewhere and then pretend he is representative of the target population. Generally a warning flag that one is knee deep in the BS.
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