GI SPECIAL 3D10:

"Some Came Home And Some Didn't"

U.S. Air Force personnel inventory wounded American soldiers lying in a bus before loading them onto a cargo plane in Balad Nov. 9, 2005. The soldiers will fly with other wounded to Germany for further treatment. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)

"They Did Their Job And Some Came Home And Some Didn't"

"Soldiers Are Getting Killed With No Cause"

"The Many Soldiers I Talked To Said We Shouldn't Be There"

From: D, Wounded Iraq Soldier's Mom

To: GI Special

Sent: November 07, 2005

Subject: Re: GI Special 3D7: Torment Of the Innocent

The 278th just back from Iraq - the many soldiers I talked to said we shouldn't be there: the work they do gets destroyed and soldiers are getting killed with no cause.

They did their job and some came home and some didn't.

Some came home wounded to fight another battle with the VA and government.

I went to GA to visit my son and he got his VA claim in the mail. He got 60% and that is not with the loss of hearing. He wears 2 hearing aids because he has lost 57% of his hearing and they didn't list all the damages to his body as a disability when the medical reports are very clear to the damage of his body

Well, we are here to stay and fight too. There are many people being aware of this, and we are going to fight it all the way.

If they would take care of the soldiers the programs that help the soldiers wouldn't be so low on money and pass the soldier from one program to the other, hoping the other will help.

I thank everyone that has helped him in anyway.

But this is a start and we are here to be heard and will not go away either. Keep up you good work.

Voices are being heard very loudly in a lot of states with Senators being emailed and called.

I emailed Washington they told me to get in line after the Katrina victim.

Well the war happened before Katrina and the chain of command was screwed up there, so soldiers have to wait behind them.

I know they need help also but hey someone is not doing their job in the higher chain of command if our soldiers have to wait in line!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is an outrage and we will be heard very loudly very soon.

Life goes on changes us in many ways.

I just wanted to update. I hope you're well.

[Reading what you write, very well indeed. You feel and write the heartbeat of our soldiers as well as conveying information the country needs to know, and the press is too blind and/or stupid to report. You words are a golden light to guide us out of the blizzard of bullshit that comes out of Washington and the news networks. You have truly earned the thanks of a grateful nation, as has your son, by his service. Respect to you. T]

Happy 230th Birthday Marines,

Semper Fi

From: ArchAngel1BL@aol.com

To: GI Special

Sent: November 09, 2005 8:49 PM

ArchAngel1BL would just like to post to all my fellow Marines out there.

Happy 230th Birthday Marines, Semper Fi.

I would also like to say hello to my fellow Marines whom I've worked with while stationed at K-Bay, HI., CSSG-3, Motor T. Co. from 1995 to 1998.

Below is a poem/prayer that to me says it all.

Please, as you read it, think of those who are in harms way and pray for their safe return.

God Bless you all,

Stay safe,

and come home to your family

and friends soon

Cpl. Chucky (Kline), USMC

no longer in service

GRUNT'S PRAYER

Now I lay me down to sleep

My rifle is handy, my hole is deep

If bullets fly before I wake

Please let me give instead of take

Don't let it rain on me tonight

And keep us from a firefight

Keep frags and tracers from my skin

Lord, let me see the sun again

And in the morning when we move

Make all the hump a downhill groove

And if the "Enemy" should happen by

Make sure his fire is all aimed high

Yes, now I lay me down to sleep

In battle the crud is way too deep

Let "our leaders" remember we're just men

We cannot die and rise again.

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

II MEF MARINE DIES FROM IED ATTACK NEAR RUTBAH

November 9, 2005 Associated Press

BAGHDAD  A Marine has died of injuries received when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Iraq, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

The Marine, whose name was not released, was assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2 of the 2nd Marine Division, which is based in Anbar province, west of Baghdad.

The bombing occurred Monday near the western Iraqi town of Rutbah and the Marine died the following day, the U.S. statement said.

Three 101st Soldiers Killed By Roadside Bomb

Nov. 04, 2005 Associated Press

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. - Three members of the 101st Airborne Division died of injuries they suffered from a roadside bomb that detonated in Latifiyah, Iraq, the Army said Friday.

The three soldiers, all infantrymen assigned to the 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, died Wednesday in Baghdad, the Army said. They were riding in a Humvee when the bomb exploded.

Wednesday's bombing killed Spc. Joshua J. Munger, 22, of Maysville, Mo.; Spc. Benjamin A. Smith, 21, of Hudson, Wis.; and Pfc. Tyler R. Mackenzie, 20, of Evans, Colo.

With the latest casualties, 76 soldiers based at Fort Campbell have died in the Iraq war, according to Kelly Tyler, a public affairs officer at Fort Campbell.

In all, nearly 20,000 soldiers from the 101st will deploy to Iraq.

This is the third deployment of the 101st since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Cleveland Native Killed:

"He Said He Knew He Would Not Return"

10.28.05 (AP)

An Ohio Marine in his third tour of duty in Iraq died Thursday from injuries sustained in an explosion, the military said Friday.

Before he left Sept. 18, Lance Cpl. Robert F. Eckfield Jr. of Cleveland asked his mother to bury him at Arlington National Cemetery.

"He was scared about going back,'' Virginia Taylor told The Plain Dealer."He said he knew he would not return. That's when he made me promise to have him buried in Arlington if the worst happened.'' Eckfield, 23, and Lance Cpl. Jared J. Kremm, 24, of Hauppauge, N.Y., died from an explosion in Saqlawiyah, Iraq, the military said.

"They said he was killed when something, a shell or something, went through the building he was in,'' Taylor said.

Kremm died at the scene while Eckfield died at a nearby medical center, according to the Defense Department.

Both were assigned to 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Taylor said her son joined the Marines after graduating from high school.

"Right from the start, he wanted to do his duty,'' his mother said. "He went right into boot camp after graduation. I understood it. My father was a Marine, but he died in 2000. They talked about the military service.''

Fallen Soldier

October 31, 2005 Reported By: Lauren Hieger, KSN 16

Area residents are remembering one local soldier and what he gave to the community. 38-year old Army Master Sergeant Thomas Wallsmith graduated from Carthage Senior High in 1985. Friends say Wallsmith was a leader and "he was perpetually optimistic, a true solace to a group of inexperienced soldiers who had no idea of what lay before them."

He and another soldier died when a bomb exploded near their car in Iraq last week.

Wallsmith leaves behind a wife and two children. Funeral services will be held this week in Michigan.

Northern Marianas Troops Killed In Iraq

11.1.05 ABC Asia Pacific TV

Two soldiers from the Northern Marianas have died in bomb attacks in Iraq.

Our reporter Gemma Casas says Sergeant Wilgene Lieto and Specialist Jeff Derrence Jack died on Monday in the northern city of Balad.

Officials say the two Saipan soldiers were killed while patrolling the area, about 68 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Their deaths bring to three the number of casualties from the islands' contingent serving with the United States military in Iraq.

More than 500 men and women from the Northern Marianas are currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Soldier From Surprise Killed

11.3.05 Associated Press

PHOENIX A soldier from Surprise died of injuries suffered when an improvised bomb exploded near his vehicle in Iraq.

The Pentagon says 32-year-old Sergeant James Witkowski was wounded Wednesday near Ashraf, Iraq.

The military says Witkowski died the same day.

Witkowski was assigned to the Army Reserve's 729th Transportation Company based in Fresno, California.

Four Soldiers From Nation Of Georgia Injured

2005-11-09 UNA-Georgia

The Georgian Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed on November 9 that four Georgian servicemen were injured after an explosive went off in the Iraqi city of Baquba on November 7.

According to the MoD, soldiers, whose injuries are not life-threatening, are from the 1st Light Infantry Brigade.

The Georgian soldiers were injured, when their vehicle hit a landmine, while patrolling in the city late on November 7.

"The Impact Will Blow Off Shards Of Armor Inside The Vehicle"

[Thanks to PB, who sent this in.]

11.9.05 By JIM KRANE, Associated Press Writer

U.S. and British troops are being killed in Iraq by increasingly sophisticated insurgent bombs, including a new type triggered when a vehicle crosses an infrared beam and is blasted by armor-piercing projectiles.

Heavily armored Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles are better able to withstand the blasts, although some have been destroyed.

Even if a blast doesn't penetrate a vehicle's armor, "the impact will blow off shards of armor inside the vehicle that are red hot and cut people to ribbons," said Bruce Jones, a London-based intelligence expert who advises NATO.

REALLY BAD PLACE TO BE:

BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

Nov. 8, 2005: Hospitalman 3rd Class Esnola with 2d Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, in Husaybah. (AP Photo/U.S. Marine Corps, Cpl. Michael R. McMaugh, 1st Marine Division Combat Camera, HO)

TROOP NEWS

"If The Kid Who Gets Killed Is Local, Then - The War Is Local"

[Thanks to Alan S., who sent this in.]

November 9, 2005 Jimmy Breslin, Newsday, Inc.

The church was empty at dusk. You stood in the stillness and looked at the place, right there on the side of the altar, where Michael Bloomberg spoke over the casket of a fallen aristocrat of the city, Riayan A. Tejeda, Marine, dead in Iraq at age 26.

Bloomberg pronounced, "He died to keep the weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of ..."

You heard no more. He was up there in the presence of a gallant New Yorker and he spread a lie and for me it was the start of his campaign and it ended with me not voting for him last night.

He says of Iraq, "It is not a local issue."

This was almost two years ago at St. Elizabeth's Catholic Church on Wadsworth Avenue in Washington Heights, which is more than somewhat local.

By myself, I have been at the deep grief of another soldier's funeral in the Bronx, one in Ridgewood, another in Brooklyn.

If the kid who gets killed is local, then - the war is local.

This war continues without an official protest that would call out the will of the people of the City of New York and might count in a nation that by now realizes it has been the victim of a president who is a fake and a fraud and a shill and a sham and now is going around with the blind staggers.

Only the other night, in a television appearance with the opponent, Ferrer, Bloomberg was asked about withdrawing troops from Iraq and - heavens! - you can't do that. Why, that would mean that New York's fallen military would have died in vain. And why you could never say that about the three or four who would be killed on the day after that, and tomorrow and tomorrow.

They die in the splendor of bravery, the prayer of valor. And fall in vain because the government causes them to die in vain.

How can Mike Bloomberg be the mayor of this city and not try to put his voice and weight into saving lives?

Bloomberg follows the smirking, deadly lies of a president who had people getting killed for what? For oil, for Dear Old Dad, for a racist disdain for a guy in an alley with a rag on his head. Bush saw the rag but never noticed the gun the guy carried.

Last night, Julio Cesar Tejada, the dead Marine's father, stood in the swarms of people going past his building at 602 W. 180th St. He is 53 and stocky, with short black hair and a pleasant face. On the sidewalk next to him was the small, permanent grotto to his son. A photo. Flowers. Candles. Prayers in Spanish and English.

"How has it been?" he said. He patted his chest. "My heart fell apart. I cannot work. I spend all the days going to the doctor."

"The wife?"

He shook his head. "It is very bad for her."

He said he had to get the Con Edison bill paid. "They turn off the lights if you don't."

At the corner, a young woman, a college student, asked him about Bloomberg clinging to the war. Now I mentioned the speech at his son's funeral.

Julio shook his head. "I was too mixed up at the funeral."

He said then he was going to vote.

"For whom?"

He shook his head. "I don't know 'til I get there."

ROTC Instructors Say:

"Don't Talk To The Kid In The Padres Hat"

Comic of MLB Player Wearing 1984-style San Diego Padres hat

From: D

To: GI Special

Sent: November 08, 2005

Subject: "Don't Talk to the Kid in the Padres Hat"

Today, our student antiwar group was promoting an upcoming educational forum about how war wastes money that should be spent on education.

The university ROTC program was also out. They've been increasingly visible that last few weeks. And they're much more active and outgoing, encouraging cadets to walk up to students sitting or standing around, and pass out key chains, bookmarks, and radios.

One of our members asked an ROTC member why he had joined.

The cadet said it was basically because his whole family was military, and he wanted to make something of himself.

He also said he liked our member's "Bring the Troops Home Now" button. In the discussion, the cadet also revealed that before setting up their table, the ROTC students were told what student organizations they should talk to and who NOT to talk to.

He said the instructors told everyone "Don't talk to the kid in the Padres hat."

Who's the kid in the Padres hat? Me.

Sgt. Discharged For Behavior In Iraq:

"Command Bringing Him Down For The Very Conduct They Themselves Engaged In"

11.7.05 Army Times

A Rhode Island National Guard soldier was convicted in a court-martial at Fort Sill, Okla., of various charges, including drinking alcohol, possessing drugs, weapons offenses and threatening fellow soldiers while stationed in Iraq.

Former Sgt. Kenneth William Clark was reduced in rank to private and received a bad-conduct discharge, according to his attorney, Patrick McLain.

McLain said his client had turned down a plea deal that would have brought up to two years in jail because he thought it was unfair.

McLain said evidence showed drinking was widespread in the unit.

"This is one guy being brought in here, and here is the rest of his command bringing him down for the very conduct they themselves engaged in," he said.

Clark's artillery battery was attached to an Arkansas unit charged with training Iraqi soldiers, McLain said. Clark was sent to Iraq in March 2004, and the violations were alleged to have occurred in January and February at Camp Cooke, Iraq.

Labor Declares War On Union-Buster Rumsfeld

November 8, 2005 Washington Post

Organized labor went back to court to file a suit to stop new workplace rules at the Defense Department. Ten unions, representing more than 350,000 defense civil service employees, asked a federal court to block a regulation that would allow top Pentagon officials to override union contracts and to streamline the process for hearing employee appeals of major disciplinary action.

A similar lawsuit was filed against the Department of Homeland Security this year, and the unions have prevailed in the first round of court tests.

Army Fills Ranks But 12% Of Recruits Had Lowest Acceptable Scores

November 8, 2005 Baltimore Sun

The number of new recruits who scored at the bottom of the Army's aptitude test tripled last month, Pentagon officials said, helping the nation's largest armed service meet its October recruiting goal but raising concerns about the quality of the force. Twelve percent scored between 16 and 30 points out of a possible 99 on an aptitude test that quizzes potential soldiers on general science, mathematics and word knowledge.

V.A. Assholes Intent On Launching "Witch Hunt" Attack On Disabled PTSD Troops Starting Jan. 1, 2006

November 09, 2005 By Dennis Camire, Gannett News Service [Excerpts]

When Vietnam veteran Gregory A. Helle heard the government was going to review his disability case and those of 72,000 others who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, he wondered what old wounds would be opened.

Veterans advocate Gerald E. Humphries was even blunter: "It's a witch hunt," said Humphries, supervisor of the Disabled American Veterans' office in Jackson, Miss. "That's all it is."

"If you have got a guy who has got a 'combat disability mental illness,' why are you going after him?" he asked.

The VA says it's looking for fraud and to correct paperwork errors granting unearned disability.

"Our current plan is to begin that review after the first of the year," said VA Secretary Jim Nicholson, who said there are still no firm details on how the review will proceed.

But Congress could step in and block it. The Senate approved a provision in the VA spending bill to block the review until the VA justifies it to Congress. At least 50 House members are urging House negotiators to adopt the same provision.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Falluja: The Resistance Thrives:

"If It's A Game Of Cat And Mouse," Says Corporal Richard Bass, "Then Who's The Mouse?"

Night Patrol: Marines of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines walk the streets of Fallujah. (YURI KOZYREV FOR TIME)

[Thanks to PB, who sent this in.]

Nov. 06, 2005 Time Inc. [Excerpts]

The members of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines, are creeping through the mean streets of Iraq's meanest town when their mission comes in. Intelligence officers at the Marines' headquarters at Firm Base One, at the edge of Fallujah, have zeroed in on an insurgent: a local teacher named Taufiq Latif Saleh, suspected of being the leader of a 10-person bombmaking cell.

Fox Company hits two "dry" houses before they find Saleh, a burly, bearded man in a grimy dishdasha. "I am a teacher! I am a teacher!" he protests as the Marines march him out into the courtyard, bind his hands with plastic ties and blindfold him.

The Marines order his four young sons to kneel and face the wall as punishment for cracking wise when the troops entered the house.

As Saleh is bundled into a waiting truck and taken to a detention facility, Lance Corporal John Hammar, 20, spots the man's daughter in tears and sighs in frustration. "Little kids are crying," he says. "I'm the bad guy now."

For the Americans charged with maintaining order in this roiling, ruined city in western Iraq, it's too late to make friends.

Some military analysts hoped Fallujah would be where the U.S. could apply the "oil spot" strategy of counterinsurgency, with the aim to spread stability by clearing and securing individual cities and improving the lives of their citizens.

But like much else about the war in Iraq, Fallujah hasn't turned out as the U.S. had hoped. In many respects, the city reflects less the progress of the U.S. enterprise than its troubles.

The city's reconstruction has been slowed by a lack of coordination among the military, U.S. aid agencies and the Iraqi government.

U.S. officers on the ground say they have denied terrorists a base in Fallujah.

While the city isn't an outright failure [does that mean it's a hidden failure?], a military official says the hope that Fallujah could soon serve as a model for U.S. success now looks like "perhaps the result of overzealous expectation."

The landscape of Fallujah today isn't encouraging. Some rebuilding is taking place, and three-quarters of the houses have been reconnected to the electrical grid. But neighborhoods in the northeast and southeast--the two main entry points for last year's invasion--are filled with rubble piles and buildings whose top stories have been blasted off.

For every reconstruction project, there is a pile of cinder blocks where a house used to be.

The military has closed the city to the outside world, allowing people in only after they show ID cards that they are residents of Fallujah. The Marines man five entry checkpoints, turning away anyone who can't provide proper credentials or who seems suspicious.

"Obviously, it's not foolproof," says Captain Chad Walton, spokesman for the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines. "But it's way better than it was."

That may be true, but the Marines acknowledge that they are operating in largely hostile territory. "This place is definitely not safe," says Hammar. "I wouldn't let my sister walk here, ever."

They test the troops by seeing how close they can drive to a patrol before the Marines open fire.

Lately, troops say, insurgents have begun using a technique called pigeon flipping: while on patrol, the Marines have noticed flocks of pigeons circling above them, leading them to conclude that supporters of the insurgents have somehow trained the birds to signal when troops are in the area.

"If it's a game of cat and mouse," says Corporal Richard Bass, "then who's the mouse?"

Marine officers say they aren't surprised by the insurgents' resilience. "I know this counterinsurgency is frustrating," Major Dan Williams tells members of Fox Company after another fruitless day of chasing enemy fighters. "But you've almost had insurgency Darwinism. All the stupid ones are dead."

The Marines aren't getting much help in their efforts to outsmart their adversaries.

Residents who are reluctant to help the U.S. identify insurgents are equally unwilling to cooperate with the U.S.-trained Iraqi forces, whom some xenophobic Fallujis consider foreigners. The cops are public-order battalions from Baghdad, and the Iraqi army units are made up almost exclusively of Shi'ites from southern Iraq. While locals still refer to U.S. troops as occupiers, some think the Iraqi troops are worse. "When Iraqi soldiers get inside the city, they start frightening the people by attacking them and shooting in the air," says Um Muhammed, 44, a housewife. "The Iraqi army wants revenge on us."

Because of security concerns, the State Department has only one envoy and one staff member from the U.S. Agency for International Development for the whole of Anbar province. As a result, reconstruction money isn't being spent in insurgent-friendly places like Fallujah. Says an aid worker in Fallujah who asked not to be named: "It's frustrating that it's taken 30 months to get someone out in the most restive part of the country."

U.S. commanders say rebuilding places like Fallujah will happen only if the insurgency is contained. So don't expect U.S. troops to leave anytime soon.

At a recent meeting, city council members pleaded with Lieut. Colonel Bill Mullen to let Fallujah police itself.

But Mullen refused and demanded that council members stop turning a blind eye to insurgent activities. "If the security situation does not improve," Mullen said, "guess what? We're not going anywhere."

[They could have used Mullen in Saigon, say about 1971? Same silly bullshit then. Yeah, they said stuff like that there too. Guess what happened? Guess who stayed? Guess who left? Guess why? Remember how many lives, U.S. and local, that piece of Imperial stupidity cost? The troops may have some surprises for Mullen sooner than he can possibly imagine. They will decide how long it goes on, just like they did in Vietnam, when the whole army rebelled against that equally hopeless, no-win Imperial war. It's coming. A little bit closer every day. You can sniff it on the wind. You can hear the faint rumbles late at night, in the tents and barracks. A whisper here. A look there. Bad moon rising. T]

Concerning The White Phosphorus Weapons Used On Falluja

November 09, 2005 From: David Honish to Veterans For Peace discussion group [Excerpt]

Yep, it is definitely nasty stuff. I suppose that is why Army Regs forbid it's use in CONUS? I think the only training ranges the red legs shoot it on are in Korea?

I've read accounts of German civilians in Hamburg during the firestorm bombing that had it on their skin jumping into the canals to extinguish it. Only problem is that it starts burning again immediately on exposure to air when pulled out of the water. The overwhelmed German civil defense forces gave up and just had Army troops walk the canals with pistols to end the misery.

The Army medic's textbook answer to treatment of troop spot exposures is to scrape it off with a bayonet. It is a sticky, viscous stuff, and even the largest scalpel blade would not be up to the task.

Pretty much an instant 3rd degree burn. Get a bunch of it on a person, or fail to remove it immediately and it is a guaranteed 4th degree burn.

The Geneva Conventions On War classify it the same as napalm, thermite, and magnesium incendiaries.

Falluja 2003

U.S. Military Police detain a man in Fallujah June 7, 2003. U.S. soldiers have been attacked several times in the past few weeks in Fallujah, the most openly volatile city in Iraq. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

"I Can't Bloody My Hands In This"

Christian Science Monitor, November 9, 2005

With their military bearing and signature thick mustaches, former Sunni officers in Saddam Hussein's army are considering the government's fresh offer to rejoin the ranks.

"I can't bloody my hands in this," says a former Iraqi Army major, who asked not to be named. "The occupation forces pay me to kill my people? That's not possible."

Bases In Jordan For U.S. Occupation Of Iraq Attacked By Bombers

11.9.05 By JAMAL HALABY, Associated Press Writer

Bombers carried out nearly simultaneous attacks on three U.S.-based hotels in the Jordanian capital Wednesday night, killing at least 57 people and wounding 115

In addition to housing Westerners, Amman's hotels also have become a gathering spot for affluent Iraqis who have fled their country's violence.

Assorted Resistance Action

AP: 11.8.05: Soldiers stand by car bomb that detonated Wednesday near a police patrol in Baquoba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing seven policemen and wounding six others. Aljazeera learned that the blast occurred after US forces said they had arrested 390 people in two areas north of Baquba. (AFP/Ali Yussef)

9 Nov. (AKI) & CBS News & Aljazeera & (Xinhuanet) 7 Reuters

Kirkuk: Resistance fighters have kidnapped a brother of the Iraqi parliament's speaker Hajim al-Hassani, in the northern city of Kirkuk. An Iraqi police source told Adnkronos International (AKI) he was seized at around 6pm on Tuesday evening, when armed men stopped him on a road in the al-Wasiti area, near one of the city's main squares.

Al-Hakimi is a moderate Sunni Arab from Kirkuk who spent many years in the United States and was active in the opposition movement to Saddam Hussein while living in exile, rising through the ranks of the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP).

He then returned to Iraq following the US invasion in 2003, and was previously the industry minister in Iyad Allawi's interim government. When the IIP quit the government, al-Hassani chose to leave the party so he could stay on as minister.

He provoked anger among the Sunnis by backing the US military assault on Fallujah a year ago.

Earlier this year he was offered the post of speaker in the government following months of wrangling over the position, and after interim president Ghazi al-Yawer turned it down.

Many members of his family still live in Kirkuk, despite the serious security situation in the oil-rich city, located some 250 kilometres to the north of Baghdad.

Seven Iraqi policemen were killed and six were wounded when a car bomb hit a police patrol north of Baghdad on Wednesday, medical and army sources said. The attack took place in the city of Baquba.

Unknown armed fighters shot dead a Sudanese diplomat in western Baghdad on Wednesday, an Interior Ministry source said.

"Unknown armed men opened fire at Hummoda Ahmed Adam, an attachi in the Sudanese embassy, when he was driving in al-Safarat district in western Baghdad, at about 11:30 a.m. (0830 GMT)," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The attackers shot dead Adam and fled the scene, the source added, without giving further details.

In Baghdad, Ghanem Mohammed, an employee at the Education ministry, was killed when armed fighters opened fire on his car as he was driving to work in west Baghdad, according to police Maj. Mousa Abdul-Karim.

RAMADI - A member of the Iraqi Islamic [collaborator] Party was found shot dead in the city of Ramadi, doctor Hamdi al-Rawi said. He was abducted on Tuesday.

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

UFPJ "Helps To Legitimize The Presence Of The US In Iraq"

"And How Many More American Soldiers And Iraqi Civilians Are Supposed To Die In The Meantime?"

10.26.05 By Roy Rolin, Left Hook. [Excerpt]

As if to prove, once again, the old adage that there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the twin parties of the ruling rich, Howard Dean, last year's scourge of the DLC, who is now the party chairman, took Karl Rove's advice that "no serious politician should embrace immediate withdrawal" when he told Cindy Sheehan that opposition to the war had no place in the program of the Democratic party ... even though the majority of the country agrees far more with Sheehan than with Rove, or Dean, for that matter.

Dean, in fact, was never a real opponent of the war to begin with.

Nor were, or are, the Democrats as a party.

Whatever "opposition" they may have mustered back in the days of "WMDs" and "links to Al Queda," Dean and the more risqui Democrats only opposed the Bush regime's "unilateralism," preferring to get the seal of approval from the UN for multi-lateral aggression instead.

After all, Bill Clinton starved a million and a half Iraqis to death with the blessing of the UN. Since becoming chair of the DNC, a move hailed as a great victory by many a "progressive," Dean has gone so far as to wish Bush success in carrying out the occupation of Iraq, since "now that we're there, we can't leave".

But how could it be otherwise? John Kerry, who pushed Dean aside as the party's standard-bearer last year, campaigned as being even more pro-war than Bush was. Thus he called for 40,000 additional troops in order to better wage the war. He repeatedly used the word "kill" in all the debates in order to better hammer home that point. Even Hubert Humphrey displayed more opposition to the Vietnam War in 1968 - when he was still second in command of the regime waging it!

Hillary Clinton, touted by many as presidential timber for 2008, has repeatedly reiterated her support for the war. After briefly breaking bread with Sheehan, she made sure to meet with a group of pro-war "Moms," who are just as much a creation of Karl Rove as were the Vietnam Veterans for the War that the GOP threw against Kerry last year.

As for the rest of the Democrats in Congress, they have repeatedly voted Bush every cent he has asked for to keep the war going and even approved extending the USA PATRIOT Act to boot.

Currently Clinton is spearheading the "US Army Relief Act" in the Senate, which actually calls for an increase of 80,000 troops over the next four years.

At the same time, some Democrats in Congress are even pushing to reinstitute the draft! For while it may be a rich man's war, the Democrats, apparently more so than th