11 Iraqis Killed At Army Day Commemoration

Also, Defense Department Announces Two U.S. Military Deaths Over The Weekend

(AP)  Three Iraqi soldiers threw themselves on a suicide attacker wearing an explosives vest at an Army Day celebration Sunday - an act of heroism the U.S. said likely prevented many more deaths. Iraqi police said at least 11 people were killed in the blast, the deadliest in a series of bombings in Baghdad.

One of the attacks in the capital killed an American soldier - one of two U.S. deaths announced on Sunday.

Shortly before the bomber struck the Army Day festivities, about two dozen Iraqi soldiers were standing outside the offices of a local non-governmental agency pushing for unity in Iraq. The troops, their AK-47 rifles raised in the air, chanted pro-army slogans and a common anti-insurgent taunt: "Where are the terrorists today?"

Associated Press photographer Hadi Mizban was about five yards away from the suicide attacker when he blew himself up on a narrow street in the central Karradah area.

"The blast happened as civilians were giving flowers to soldiers and sticking them in the muzzles of their guns," recalled Mizban, an Iraqi national. "It was a jubilant scene."

Afterward, he said, the street was littered with bodies, weapons and shoes. Dazed soldiers and policemen carried their bloodied colleagues to nearby pickup trucks that whisked them to a hospital.

"There was a severed head on the street and some of the soldiers that I was photographing earlier were dead. Those who survived panicked, pulling back from the scene and shooting in the air," said the 40-year-old Mizban.

Among the dead were four police officers, three Iraqi soldiers and four civilians, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. At least 17 people were injured.

A U.S. military statement said five people were killed. The discrepancy could not immediately be explained.

"These martyrs gave their lives so that others might live," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a U.S. military spokesman.

In the north in the Iraqi city of Mosul, meanwhile, three apparently coordinated explosions targeted two Christian churches and a convent, local officials and the U.S. military said. There were no deaths, but four people were wounded.

"They are cowards," a priest told The Associated Press, refusing to give his name because he feared for his safety. "We don't know what message they want to convey."

"This act will only foster our insistence to remain loving brethren to all sects in the city. I'm sure that those who committed this crime are far away from religion."

The attacks in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, began mid-afternoon when a parked car bomb exploded near a Chaldean Catholic Church, causing damage but wounding no one.

About 30 minutes later, another parked car bomb exploded in the eastern part of the city near an Assyrian Christian Church, damaging the building and wounding four passers-by.

Nearly simultaneously, a bomb planted near a Chaldean convent in western Mosul exploded, damaging the structure and a few nearby houses. No one was hurt.

Violence in Iraq has fallen by some 60 percent in the last six months, according to the U.S. military. Al Qaeda fighters were driven northward from Baghdad and Anbar and Diyala provinces by angry Iraqi Sunni Muslims who joined American forces, who were bolstered by 30,000 additional troops last summer.

In other violence, a parked car bomb exploded and four mortars landed near a bus terminal in eastern Baghdad, killing a civilian, police said. In northeastern Baghdad, a parked car bomb exploded outside a popular restaurant, killing a policeman and two civilians, police said.

Earlier Sunday, a Shiite tribal sheik who was trying to set up a U.S.-backed group to combat militias was shot to death in Shaab, one of Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods and a center for outlaw Shiite fighters, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The attack was confirmed by a resident of the neighborhood who asked not to be named, saying he feared reprisal.

Near Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, a joint Iraqi-U.S. patrol on Sunday discovered five severed heads, Iraqi military officials. No further details were immediately available. The U.S. military said it had no information about the macabre discovery.

Near the city of Khalis in Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad, suspected al Qaeda in Iraq fighters attacked the house of a local sheik and kidnapped him and 13 members of his family, an official from a joint coordinating office said. The day before in the restive province, an American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said. Another U.S. soldier was killed Sunday in a roadside bombing in southern Baghdad.

[prinzowhales]

Nancy_Naive--Nice Analysis.

[ivandrago]

That priest was wrong when he said those monsters don''t know religion. They simply embrace the horrific parts (which are numerous) that the rational religious followers reject. Religion is general always has the potential to cause this kind of chaos. Look at the track record of the big 3 and tell me I''m wrong.

[inventagod]

The Bu$h Oilwar has cost:

$487,619,472,981 so far...

Did you get your moneys worth?

[prinzowhales]

The pictures from Iraqi Army Day don''t look particularly festive...Barney''s protege, General Betrayus, with his ready smile and winning ways apparently was not around to tout the success of the surge and partake in the carnival-from-''ell-like atmosphere. Not to worry America! Your trillions of dollars budgeted for Iraq have not been wasted!... it is safe to sell tashrib on Haifa Street.

[ajaxtheleast]

"First, I must say that my surge is working beautifly.

However, I must admit that I am still puzzled by the

insurgent''s ability to continue to convince naive

people to carry out suicide bombings without their

using a hand microphone while standing in front of

and telling dumb jokes and acting cute to a scripted

audience."

[taotxzen]

Published on Saturday, January 5, 2008 by Huffington Post

The Surge and American Military Triumphalism
by Gareth Porter

Right-wing pundit Michael Barone has published a column on the surge in Iraq that may be the clearest expression so far of the American triumphalism over the U.S. military and Iraq that emerged in 2007. The current popularity of that idea reflects the degree to which the apologists for war, having been discredited earlier on Iraq, are now on the offensive.

Barone%u2019s theme is he %u201Clessons to be learned%u201D from what he calls the %u201Cdazzling success of the surge strategy in Iraq%u201D. The first lesson, he suggests, is that %u201Cjust about no mission is impossible for the United States military%u201D. A year ago, he writes, everyone thought that %u201Ccontaining the violence in Iraq was impossible%u201D, but not, %u201Cwe have seen it done%u201D.

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)

Intoxicated by the hosannahs bestowed on Gen. David Petreaus%u2019s strategy, Barone pushes the military triumphalist creed to a new level. He goes so far as to assert the inevitability of American military triumph, regardless of the circumstances of any war. Barone says it%u2019s simply a matter of finding the right general with the right strategy. He points to the examples of George Washington at Yorktown, Lincoln and the civil war and Roosevelt and World War II.

And then there was Vietnam. Many Americans have been under the impression that the United States did not prevail in Vietnam, mainly because a powerful nationalist movement had mobilized Vietnamese against foreign domination since the end of the World War II. For Barone and true believers in the efficacy of American military power, however, the United States actually won the Vietnam War, and it was all because of the brilliant strategy of Gen. Creighton Abrams. The only reason they can%u2019t celebrate that victory fully, Barone insists, is that Congress refused to %u201Callow the aid the United States had promised%u201D.

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)

That brings us to the alleged %u201Cdazzling success%u201D of the surge in Iraq. Just as the triumphalist narrative on Vietnam turns a real defeat into an imagined victory, the narrative now being constructed by Barone and others on Iraq tries to make a pointless military occupation that cannot prevail in the end into a glorious triumph of U.S. military power.

In 2003 U.S. military forces destroyed the Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein and installed a Shiite regime in its stead. The Sunnis predictably launched a military resistance, and the U.S. military began its own war against Sunni insurgents. The presence of a U.S . military occupation force in an Islamic country with some of Islam%u2019s holiest sites predictably incited much greater popular support among Sunnis, both within Iraq and in neighboring Sunni countries, for jihadi extremists aligned with al Qaeda.

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)

Thus al Qaeda, which had practically no support in Iraq in 2003, quickly became a major force in 2003 and 2004. By 2005, however, the tensions between al Qaeda and the predominantly Baathist nationalist Sunni insurgents had reached the point of open warfare. That warfare had become even more violent during 2006. The main non-al Qaeda Sunni resistance groups tried to negotiate a peace agreement with the United States in 2005-2006, but Bush refused.

By 2007, however, the Bush administration had changed sides in Iraq. It was more concerned with Shiite forces they associated with Iran than with the Sunni resistance. The United States finally began allowing them to police their own cities - something the Sunnis themselves had been proposing since 2005 but which Bush had refused to approve. The nationalist Sunnis have shown they were perfectly capable of taking care of al Qaeda themselves if the United States would only stop attacking them and get out of the way, which is what they had been saying all along.

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)

However the problem for the U.S. military is now Shiite resistance to the occupation in the form of the Mahdi Army. It is part guerrilla army and part government security force, and it is far larger than the Sunni armed resistance was when the U.S. military admitted that it could gain control over it. For all the brave talk by the Bush administration about bottom-up reconciliation, which suggests that end of resistance is coming, the Shiite struggle against the occupation led by Moqtada al-Sadr is still in an early phase of its development.

The triumphalist vision embraced by Barone and large segments of the American political elite and news media thus depends on an understanding of the conflict that omits all the facts that are inconvenient. Unfortunately for the triumphalists, those happen to be the facts that are most central to the problem.

The truth that the triumphalists can never accept is that, once a large part of the population is mobilized to oppose U.S. domination, U.S. military power becomes the main problem rather than part of the solution. Ironically, there is reason to believe that, after nearly five years of war in Iraq, the U.S. military leadership - including Petraeus himself - now understand that reality. It is the armchair triumphalists like Michael Barone who believe that it is really American military power that is winning in Iraq.

Unfortunately Barone has plenty of company in what Ari Berman once called %u201Cthe strategic class%u201D.

[fitedafuture]

AP says "they dont know which message they want to convey". I tell you what it is, pure and simple.Islam convert or die. Death to the Infadels.thats what they think.it is hatred personified.

[j-whitman]

BaghdadsTroopBashersHere,,,, Believe you ??? Sacramento wasn''t without power for 3 days idiot.

[j-whitman]

speakinup,,,, You are a girl, quit fighting it.

[j-whitman]

BaghdadsTroopBashersHere,,,, You can''t debate a turrd -- You think Carter caused 9/11

[baghdadshere]

speak,,,,,,j-whitman was out for 3 days because Sacramento was out of electricity due to that storm. It was the best period in this site.Believe me.

[baghdadshere]

Since you asked - and didn''''t bother to read my last post - I repeat - SUPPOSE YOU TELL US HOW THE WORLD IS SO MUCH MORE AT RISK NOW. Now, get your baseball bat. - I''''m pitching, idiot.

Posted by speakinup at 06:01 PM : Jan 06, 2008

speak,,,,,j-whitman-TroopsBasher is a lost cause. You can debate with him all day. He wont agree with you unless you say what he wants to hear.Forget about him.

[speakinup]

"You''ve lost your credibility, integrety & honor on this internet - j-whitman.

You know not the meaning of the words, then. You call me a girl, yet full well know I''m not - so much for your integrity.

You make redicilous claims about 110 senators in the US, and Isreali fighters using helicopter type equipment in a feeble attempt to bolster your impression of ''knowledge'' on this site - so much for your integrity.

And, you speak ill of our troops efforts in Iraq - going as far as to say they are ineffective - course - not in so many words, but saying it never the less. So much for your honor.

Since you asked - and didn''t bother to read my last post - I repeat - SUPPOSE YOU TELL US HOW THE WORLD IS SO MUCH MORE AT RISK NOW. Now, get your baseball bat. - I''m pitching, idiot.

North Africa, huh - so we all know Libya has been nothing but FRIENDLY towards us for decades(that was sarcasim in case you don''t recognize it), Morraco has been bombing Spain for over a decade, but I''m SURE you are talking about another nation. Inform us all, dim-wit. Smack it outta the park if you can.

[j-whitman]

speakinup,,,, I gotta hand it to you girl,, You''ve lost your credibility, integrety & honor on this internet ---- At least you''ve kept your screen name

[j-whitman]

speakinup,,,,,
"Suppose you tell us all about how the world is SO much more at risk now"... ?????
------ You haven''t paid any attention have you ??? Where would you like me to start, at the homeland, trade, foreign policy, national security, warfare ????? ------- Pick a point, I''ll go get my baseball bat

[j-whitman]

speakinup,,,
,,, Nothing new is it ??? Only now they are in more countries in larger numbers in North Africa & other under developed countries
--- By the way girl those people who want to blow themselves up come from the Saudi''s