Congressional Iraq memorial runs out of room.
“Congress already has run out of space on a memorial created last year to honor all of the U.S. service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a grim sign of the times, the “Wall of the Fallen,” set up by House Republican leaders in June, is almost full. The mounting death toll from Iraq has forced U.S. House staffers to study how to reconfigure the display in the lobby of the Rayburn Building — the largest office building for members of Congress — to squeeze in more names.” No new soldiers have been added since November.
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Put up all the names on the walls of King George’s library….
May 6th, 2007 at 9:52 amI agree that more room is needed.
May 6th, 2007 at 9:52 amBeat ya, Patrick1!
May 6th, 2007 at 9:55 amFor the record, the White House Library is quite small compared to the Rayburn lobby — there’s plenty of space next to the Vietnam Memorial on the Mall — I am also unaware of any definition of “King” that requires said monarch to leave the throne on January 20, 2009.
May 6th, 2007 at 9:57 amMove the display to inside the Oval Office. Add photos.
Replicate it in the Vice President’s office, and the Secretary of States’ and the Secretary of Defense’s offices as well.
May 6th, 2007 at 9:59 amTo paraphrase Jon Stewart, some jokes just write themselves, which goes to show that there’s absolutely nothing the White House and the GOP can do that isn’t ironic.
Bush and the GOP: Turning America into a Fox sitcom.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:01 amPerhaps it is the idea of the Bush administration that this wall continues to grow until it equals or exceeds the number that are enshrined on the Vietnam Wall Memorial- some 58,000 of those who, like in Iraq, had died for a less than noble cause.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:03 amIf we lose 58,000 troops in Iraq, even I will agree it’s time to leave.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:07 amWell, Jake, if the madmen in the White House invade Iran, you’ll probably get your wish of 58,000+ troops dead.
I certainly hope Heller’s Catch-22 is on the bestseller’s list at Amazon. It is a world turned upside down.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:15 amIf we lose 58,000 troops in Iraq, even I will agree it’s time to leave.
Comment by Jake
Well, it’s nice to know even you have your limits, you sad old f*cker.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:19 amJake
May 6th, 2007 at 10:25 amStand up and be a patriot. Add your name to the list.
For the record, I already served in the Korean War. I would also expect the same number of KIA in Iran if we bombed as we took in Kosovo — Heller’s “Catch 22″ is at least ranked below the PRE-SALE of “The Reagan Diaries” (currently at # 86 : )
May 6th, 2007 at 10:26 amJune 15, 2006, Congressman Vernon J. Ehlers, R-Grand Rapids, announced on the floor of the House the creation of the “Wall of the Fallen.†There is enough blank space on the wall to last 6 months.
October 23, 2006, Impeachment is off the table.
November 2, 2006, the last name is added to the wall. Only 130 more spaces remain, not enough to go through December.
November 7, 2006, Democrats win a majority in the House and Senate.
April 24, 2007, Dennis Kucinich introduces articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney. It goes nowhere. Even ThinkProgress ignores it.
May 4, 2007, there is a backlog of 504 names to be added to the wall: 504 deaths of American women and men since impeachment was pulled off the table, an average of about 100 American soldiers per month.
May 6, 2007: three more Americans were killed in Iraq today.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:30 amJake,
“I would also expect…” Yeah and those f*cking morons running this war thought we’d be greeted as liberators. You old senile grey hairs need to go play shuffle board and boss old ladies around, this countries had enough of what you and your ilk think, figure, or expect.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:31 amIf the U.S. were to foolishly bomb Iran, the number of those who would be killed would be far greater than those who were killed in Kosovo. That is because bombing a nuclear reactor in Iran would then end up contaminating the underground water supply in that country, thereby killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Iranians. As In Iraq, the United States would have no legitimate right to attack Iran, since Iran poses absolutely no threat at all against the [at least] 7,500 nuclear weapons that the U.S. has in its possession.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:36 amWhat did I miss?
Is jake really this stupid AFTER living a long life?
I always thought of him as a 10 year old wearing wheelies and the clothes his mom made him wear.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:41 amWhy do you people waste time responding to the proven liar Jake?
May 6th, 2007 at 10:44 amI always thought of him as a 10 year old wearing wheelies and the clothes his mom made him wear.
Comment by mparker
He still is — at 75. That’s why he’s so vile.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:45 amThe soldiers should be left to rot in hell they created just like they leave the dead Iraqis in the mud
May 6th, 2007 at 10:46 amAh, I see Baboo is out of church.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:51 amReichwingnuts are so near sighted…about everything…they remind me of troglodytes.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:59 amI sincerely doubt that Jake is 70 years old. But he does exhibit the kind of braindeath typical of the planners of the Iraq war.
So, Jake expects a cakewalk in Iran with less than 5 casualties? That’s the kind of neo-con thinking that got us into the Iraq quagmire. He compares it to Kosovo. Sheesh! And where were the Serbs supposed to strike back? The Iranians, on the other hand, can sink any number of ships in the gulf, they can cross over into Iraq, and they have allies in the Iraqi Shi’ites who would more than likely rise up and greet them as liberators. (That would make Rummy frown, furshur.)
Bush is like the jerks I knew in the high school chess club who would never admit defeat but would play on until you checkmated them. It was a pathetic waste of time. Chess champs can always tell when they’ve lost after a dozen or so moves. Bush should have changed direction the moment the Iraqi invasion stop going according to plan. But he didn’t. Instead they stuck to their plan and tried to change the reality on the ground by force, then by renaming it, then by covering it up. These guys are the enemy, more so than al-Qaeda.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:00 amdavid
Bush was a cheerleader. I seriously don’t think he played chess.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:04 amHey Baboo,
This war is not of our soldiers making.
They never created false intelligence or cherry picked from what they had to foster war.
They never signed up for an illegal invasion.
They never asked to occupy a country indefinitely.
Just like everyone else, they were lied to.
So here we have our expertly trained killers constantly under attack in a country they should never have been sent to, without a plan.
That’s a recipe for death and destruction in a big way.
I’m just saying, it’s not their recipe.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:09 amIt’s not that difficult, Ehlers. All you had to do was take the number of months remaining in Bush’s term of office and multiply it by the average number of Americans getting shot to death or blown to pieces in Iraq each month. You designed a memorial with only enough room for 6 months of Bush’s endless war. You should have left space for an additional 3,000 names. And that just takes us to the end of Bush’s reign.
But if you had been that realistic, it would have been politically embarassing, because the wall would have been only about half filled with names. It would have demonstrated to the world how many casualties you were willing to accept as the price of continuing Bush’s War.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:13 amChess is a game of strategy that requires forethought and mental dexterity to quickly change course in response to the moves of an unpredictable foe.
Bush is a chekers guy.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:15 amNo problem– they’ll just have to start writing a lot smaller.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:16 amBush is a checkers guy.
Comment by mparker — May 6, 2007 @ 11:15 am
So was Nixon.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:20 amBush’s favorite part of checkers is the “KING ME” part.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:21 amThese marines are like bank robbers really for a Mafia boss , they are both as bad
and I dont think marines that take out 68 year old man to dig a hole then shoot him in the head are expertly trained
or marines that rape children or bugger Insurgenst kids are expertly trained
The marines can go to hell, they are making a fool of our nation
May 6th, 2007 at 11:22 amBaboo,
I think I see the point you are trying to make but WOW it’s not unlike pig-English to decipher, not on the debate team I’m guessing.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:28 amI’m sure the Rethuglicans wll find a smaller font to use.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:29 amComment by Baboo
What about the Blackwater mercenaries.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:32 amI agree that the murder, rape, torture, of ANYONE is a crime even in war and those who have committed these crimes should be punished.
ALL OF THEM WITHOUT EXEPTION !
Every individuals behavior is their own responsiblity.
The bastards who sent them into Iraq with the message that the Geneva Convention is “quaint” have made this situation into the chaotic, murderous, vile, disgraceful mess that they desired.
They need to be held accountable most of all.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:35 amexpertly trained killers ??????????????????????????????????????
Col. Michael Steele ordered his soldiers to “kill all military age malesâ€.
Six US soldiers have been charged with gang raping a 14 year old Iraqi girl then murdering her, and her 5-year old sister and her parents.
The four soldiers — Pfc. Corey R. Clagett, Spc. William B. Hunsaker, Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard and Spc. Juston R. Graber have been accused of killing blindfolded Iraqi detainees for sport.
Lining up unarmed civilians and shooting them execution style, just as the Nazis did.
Falluja
American soldiers used napalm in the attack on Fallujah
mustard gas: even Hitler refused to use this.
nerve gas: even Hitler refused to use this. On 2005-03-01, Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli of Iraq’s Ministry of Health made the revelation at a Baghdad press conference:
Killing 2/3 of the people in Fallujah. Not even Hitler was that ruthless.
According to the prestigious medical journal Lancet, American soldiers killed over 100,000 civilians,
most of them children.
American soldiers sexually abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
American soldiers raped children, both male and female.
American soldiers are issued candy that they hand out to Iraqi children to attract them to form a human shield.
American soldiers cut off water supplies, bombed electric plants and sewage plants causing epidemics of cholera, dysentery and typhus.
American soldiers have forbidden Iraqi farmers to grow anything unless they buy the seed containing terminator genes (to make the seed sterile) from American companies such as Monsanto.
Bush bombed the water treatment plant in Basra in order to kill children.
Dropped three precision bombs “by accident†on Iran. They claim these thing are accurate to the foot, but they could not even get the right country three times.
Dropped five precision bombs “by accident†on Syria 300 miles away from Baghdad. Strangely, no bombs at all fell “by accident†on Israel which is 200 miles from Iraq.
Sent a missile into a Kuwait shopping center.
Bombed Children’s Hospital in Rutbah.
On 2003-04-02 US aircraft hit a Red Crescent maternity hospital in Baghdad,
May 6th, 2007 at 11:35 amComment by Baboo — May 6, 2007 @ 11:35 am
It’s your job to spit on them when they come home, ok?
But first, you have to spit on George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, George Tenet, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, et al.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:45 amThese are, for the most, all war crimes.
I don’t think the Monsanto thing counts but as for the others, each and every US soldier or Merc should be tried if there is evidence that they have comitted such crimes.
I have no arguments supporting war crimes or torture.
There are none to be had.
The disgrace from such behavior is apon every American Citizen like it or not.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:50 amLet’s Write the Iraqi Names on our new 3 mile Baghdad Wall. D’ya think it can fit a million names or more…?
May 6th, 2007 at 12:18 pmFor those of you jumping Jake’s shit. He served and has a right to his opinion just as you and I. He is trolling and got you to what he wanted. I served during the Korean War also and we haven’t been in a war I agreed with since. Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Bay of Pigs, Panama, or this clusterfuck thing of choice going on in Iraq. Kosovo and Kuwait were many nations contributing SUBSTANTIAL support. Afghanistan was/is necessary and we dropped the ball. Jake is full of crap and a kool-aid drinker but he is entitled.
May 6th, 2007 at 12:28 pmhttp://mindprod.com/ politics/ iraqatrocities.html#ATROCITIES
or try
http://mindprod.com/ politics/ iraqwarpix.html#IRAQWARPIX
warning graffic
May 6th, 2007 at 12:34 pmBaboo,
The ones that have blood on their hands, and hopefully (but doubtfully) their conscience are the Bush administration and all their supporters. I would hope that they have recurring nightmares of drowning in blood of soldiers and Iraqis.
Your hatred towards the soldiers is misdirected, look up Jake, Patrick1, Firehead, Venerealvenus…. whatever name the sycophantic whores are posting under today, and take out your rage on their asses.
I agree with david, Bush and his supporters are the real enemies of our country. Our weapons are the truth and our vote. If they continue to obfuscate the truth, and if they steal our votes again, then we would have to load the magazines and go after them, but it won’t come to that.
If it does, I have dubs on Jake.
May 6th, 2007 at 12:52 pmOh, puh-leeeze, Baboon has troll written all over him. His list of atrocities is so over the top. I recognize a few well known cases, but then he tosses in bogus stuff.
The purpose of people like Baboon is to malign and slander everyone so as to discredit the liberal/progressive movement. They are, in fact, agent provocateurs.
May 6th, 2007 at 12:54 pmdavid,
I agree with your assessment of Baboon, he will no doubtedly turn right around and post on Red State under a different name to show how wacky the progressives are.
There are really only about three trolls who post here constantly, but they name-shift often. I think Baboon is the nom du jour of the Patrick1/ Firehead/michael troll.
TP - please ban Baboo, in all of his multiple personalities.
May 6th, 2007 at 1:06 pmAmericans should, I would hope, try to look at the occupation through the eyes of the Iraqi people. If an American saw a foreign soldier walking down an American city in battle fatigues and, most of all, carrying an assault rifle in his hands, do you think that an American should then feel love and admiration and respect for that foreign soldier? That is exactly what is happening in Iraq and why the United States will never “win” in Iraq just as it never was able to defeat the Vietnamese people when the U.S. illegally invaded and bombed Vietnam and committed atrocities against the Vietnamese people.
The soldiers who are fighting in Iraq are not heroes. The true heroes are people like Lt. Watada and members of the IVAW [Iraq Veterans Against the War] and those in the book Mission Rejected, whose subtitle defines who they are: U.S. Soldiers who say NO to Iraq. The best way to support the troops is to bring them home-now.
May 6th, 2007 at 1:10 pm24 / expertly trained killers
Quotes from a prisoner
They said we will make you wish to die and it will not happen They stripped me naked. One of them told me he would rape me. He drew a picture of a woman to my back and makes me stand in shameful position holding my buttocks.
Ameen Saeed Al-Sheik, detainee No. 151362,
‘Do you pray to Allah?’ one asked. I said yes. They said, ‘[Expletive] you. And [expletive] him.’ One of them said, ‘You are not getting out of here health[y], you are getting out of here handicapped. And he said to me, ‘Are you married?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ They said, ‘If your wife saw you like this, she will be disappointed.’ One of them said, ‘But if I saw her now she would not be disappointed now because I would rape her.’” […] “They ordered me to thank Jesus that I’m alive.” […] “I said to him, ‘I believe in Allah.’ So he said, ‘But I believe in torture and I will torture you.’
– Ameen Saeed Al-Sheik,
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
May 6th, 2007 at 1:33 pmThey stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. The next day the medics came in and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake I.V. in his arm [to suggest he died under medical care] and took him away. This OGA (other governmental agency) [prisoner] was never processed and therefore never had a number.
– Ivan Frederick
next
Sgt. Ivan Frederick sitting on an Iraqi detainee between two stretchers
these soldiers deserve to die in Iraq and be left in the gutter to be eaten by Dogs - thats what happens to Iraqis a lot of the time
May 6th, 2007 at 1:40 pmThe New York Times, in a report on January 12, 2005,[8] reported testimony suggesting that the following events had taken place at Abu Ghraib:
Urinating on detainees
Jumping on detainee’s leg (a limb already wounded by gunfire) with such force that it could not thereafter heal properly
Continuing by pounding detainee’s wounded leg with collapsible metal baton
Pouring phosphoric acid on detainees
Sodomization of detainees with a baton
Tying ropes to the detainees’ legs or penises and dragging them across the floor.
Sergeant Samuel Provance from Alpha Company 302nd Military Intelligence battalion, in interviews with several news agencies, reported the sexual abuse of a 16-year-old girl by two interrogators, as well as a 16-year-old son of an Iraqi general, who was driven through the cold night air on the open back of a truck after he had been showered and besmeared with mud in order to get his father to talk.[9] He also pointed out several techniques used by interrogators that have been identified as being in violation of the Geneva Convention. He spoke to the media, even against direct orders, about what he knew about at the prison (largely from conversations and interactions with the interrogators). He explained that he did so because there was “definitely a cover-up” underway by the Army. He was administratively flagged and had his top secret clearance suspended in retaliation by the Army. A detailed statement by Sergeant Provance concerning these and numerous other abuses at Abu Ghraib and his treatment by the army is available.[10]
you cannot blame George Bush he was not even there - its easy to blame the neocons - But lets face it they were not present
These soldiers of ours are the lowest form of human life and deserve everything they get
May 6th, 2007 at 1:43 pmNail them to the door of the White House.
May 6th, 2007 at 2:00 pmlook at the way our soldiers behave it is not Bush that made a mockery of our country it is our soldiers that did these hidous crimes
Our Soldiers finished our country - Bush lied Ok but we lost the war though the actions of these morons on the battlefield
May 6th, 2007 at 2:03 pmNot sure why you’re unloading on Baboo. Yeah, he/she is somewhat overstating the case against the soldiers. On the other hand, the whole “our soldiers are our heroes” is a load of crap.
May 6th, 2007 at 2:07 pmThe way I see it, any person out there who is eager to sign up with an organization whose primary mission is to kill people is automatically suspect in my book. Furthermore, anyone who signed up after the war started has no right to hide behind the “I’m just following orders” excuse. The information that this was was illegal, immoral, and completely unnecessary was out there for anyone to learn for themselves. That’s where Watada went wrong. He’s in a mess now because he didn’t do his due diligence then.
I don’t see the soldiers as a homogenous group of evil people. I do think that within the ranks are a bunch of immature people who are ill-equipped to deal with the complex moralities of a war zone. From incidents ranging from stealing the good liquor from the liquor cabinets of the homes they “search” to the outright rapes and murders, there are a whole lot of things being done by “our heroes” that are earning us more enemies every day. Yeah, Bush and his cronies set this whole debacle in motion; but there are enough stories of individual servicepeople committing illegal/immoral acts (and, yes, I think it’s beyond just a tiny number of “bad apples”) that prevents me from ever uttering an unqualified “I support our troops.”
look at the way our soldiers behave it is not Bush that made a mockery of our country it is our soldiers that did these hidous crimes
Our Soldiers finished our country - Bush lied Ok but we lost the war though the actions of these morons on the battlefield
Comment by Baboo — May 6, 2007 @ 2:03 pm
So Baboo we can assume you work at the White House then.
May 6th, 2007 at 2:24 pmNo I dont - our country could be trillions of dollars richer in Oil money If not for the conduct of our troops on the battlefield if we had respected and helped the Iraqis then left a sovereign country almost intact
Thats why I hate our troops they lost the war, they were nothing but cold blooded morons that have cost us everything
May 6th, 2007 at 2:34 pmHow bout we start etching them into each and every Legislator’s desk in the House and Senate?
May 6th, 2007 at 3:31 pmIf we lose 58,000 troops in Iraq, even I will agree it’s time to leave.
Comment by Jake —
Your comment reminds me of the old joke about the stewardess
agreeing to sex for$1,000,000.
We’ve established what you are…. now we’re haggeling over prices.
May 6th, 2007 at 4:01 pmIf we lose 58,000 troops in Iraq, even I will agree it’s time to leave.
Comment by Jake
So it’s like the old stewardess joke when she agrees to sex for $1,000,000 but refuses for $5.00.
We’ve established what you are, we’re just haggeling over price……
May 6th, 2007 at 4:05 pmSo Sorry about the double…..
May 6th, 2007 at 4:07 pmAh, Baboon, this is the line offered by all neo-cons covering their butts. “It’s not the war, it’s the management.” Well, it’s a crock. There was no reason to attack Iraq except oil and no way to get “trillions of dollars richer” than to occupy Iraq for decades.
And you, Baboon, are a cretin if you think it was the troops that lost the war. That’s what gives you away as a Rumsfeld bootlick. The troops knew they were below proper numbers, without proper armor, and without proper support and training. They’ve done their best under the circumstances. But they have no clear mission, no clear objective.
Except that jackasses like Baboon want them to take the fall for their poor judgement.
May 6th, 2007 at 5:48 pmYou liberals are sooooo stupid.
May 6th, 2007 at 5:53 pmPeople, people, doesn’t anyone remember the walls we built in Baghdad and on the Mexican border? There’s still some room left on the new New Orleans levees!
May 7th, 2007 at 3:21 am