Committed to losing the War

Senator Reid (D) apparently wants us to lose and die in Iraq. That's the only thing that makes sense in his ongoing attempts to micromanage troop deployments. He's decided that limiting troop deployments for arbitrary political reasons are more important than A) Winning the campaign or B) Forcing the return of all troops. I mean, if he believes that the war is lost and we should not be there, why limit the troops? Just have them all come back and surrender. Oh that's right, the Democrats would be seen as the cowardly, shortsighted, treasonous, dogs that they are trying to be. "Altering the course of the war"? If one is winning a war, what would be a different course? Why would you want to alter it?

Reid Opens Door to Pact With Antiwar Republicans

By Shailagh Murray

Washington Post Staff Writer

LAS VEGAS -- Saying the coming weeks will be "one of the last opportunities" to alter the course of the war, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he is now willing to compromise with Republicans to find ways to limit troop deployments in Iraq.

One measure Reid said he will seek to resurrect would tighten rules on the use of troops by requiring soldiers' leave times to be at least as long as their most recent deployment. The proposal, offered by Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), would not set withdrawal terms, but it could effectively limit U.S. force levels. A vote of 56 to 41 in favor of the measure on July 11 fell four votes short of the 60 needed to overcome a GOP filibuster, but it had seven Republican supporters. (Thereby tying the hands of the generals and restricting troop levels. Want to see a "stretched thin" Army? Want to see multiple year deployments? they'll have to do it that way to meet mission goals if outgoing troops can't come back for over 2 years.....Or maybe CONGRESS could raise the troop quota and put REAL incentives into enlisting)

Reid's friends see the wear on him. "I think he has agonized over this," said Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), who has known Reid since she was a teenager. "I can see it. It weighs on his shoulders. But he's approaching this for all the right reasons, and I admire him for that." (WEAR on HIM?! How about the wear on those troops that would get limited support in theater due to reduced manning? Same mission, less manpower! What an idiot.)

Reid, from conversations with constituents and troops, has come the think we should withdraw. If this is what he believes, then he should do a full court press to end the entire campaign. Anything else is just politics. He wants to have the pullout blamed on Bush.

Here is Rocco DiPippo in Iraq, explaining how the Democrats and the turncoat RINOS are killing our soldiers....

Looking Iraqis in the Eye

Excerpt:Last October, driven by deep curiosity, the lure of a generous paycheck and by a desire to be where historic events were unfolding, I left my comfortable life and took a job in Iraq. With a group of Iraqi and American construction specialists, I helped manage renovations and new construction for 17 Iraqi police stations in Wasit Province, southeast of Baghdad.
...The main reason the police station project succeeded was that most of the Americans and Iraqis assigned to it learned to trust and respect each other, to cooperate, and to focus on a common goal, seeing it through completion. Without the mutual trust and respect, the project would have failed.

So it is with the effort to stabilize Iraq – without trust and respect between coalition and Iraqi security forces and ordinary Iraqis, no amount of weaponry or diplomacy will succeed in bringing peace there. And nothing can accelerate that process more than a firm commitment from the US that it will stand side-by-side with the Iraqi security forces, and with ordinary Iraqis, until peace and stability is at hand – no matter how long that takes to achieve.

Unfortunately, since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Democratic Party, the leftist media and the nation’s cultural elite as a whole have done little to help build trust between America and Iraq. Indeed, they have done exactly the opposite,...

Iraqis watch us, and they listen to us. What they hear from some of our politicians, political activists and cultural elites has made many of them reluctant to work with the Americans in bringing security to their country. Many Iraqis are afraid of what they are hearing from the Democratic Party leadership and their media shills – that America will abandon them. And as long as they are afraid, they will be reluctant to seize the initiative in their towns and villages and chase out those who are murdering their families.

The Democratic Party leadership and the media and the U.S. left have had nothing to do with that recovery. Indeed, in the name of trying to destroy a president they hate, they have tried hard to subvert that recovery. I often wonder how many American and Iraqi lives their subversion has cost. I wonder how many mothers have lost their children in Iraq because of the war-time treachery? I know for sure that their subversion has made it harder for ordinary Iraqis to trust American soldiers.

(Friends of the author that had to report to the Army)were worried because they believed the myth of American soldiers as violent psychopaths.

And last, and least, is Hollywood: "Redacted" stuns Venice
By Silvia Aloisi

VENICE (Reuters) - A new film about the real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers who also murdered her family stunned the Venice festival, with shocking images that left some viewers in tears.

"Redacted", by U.S. director Brian De Palma, is one of at least eight American films on the war in Iraq due for release in the next few months and the first of two movies on the conflict screening in Venice's main competition.

Inspired by one of the most serious crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, it is a harrowing indictment of the conflict and spares the audience no brutality to get its message across.

De Palma, 66, whose "Casualties of War" in 1989 told a similar tale of abuse by American soldiers in Vietnam, makes no secret of the goal he is hoping to achieve with the film's images, all based on real material he found on the Internet.

"The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people," he told reporters after a press screening.

"The pictures are what will stop the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against this war," he said.

Any movie theater that shows this unmitigated crap should be boycotted. It is slander against the United States Military, in that he is tarring us all with the actions of a PROSECUTED few. The troops that committed this crime have been prosecuted and punished. If he wants to slander the military, then, apparently he has no problem being called a rapist and murderer for the actions of the thug down the block.

"It's all out there on the Internet, you can find it if you look for it, but it's not in the major media. The media is now really part of the corporate establishment," he said. (So is the heroism!)

The film's title refers to how, according to De Palma, mainstream American newspapers and television channels are failing to tell the true story of the war by keeping the most graphic images of the conflict away from public opinion.

"When I went out to find the pictures, I said (to the media) give me the pictures you can't publish," he said, adding that because of legal dangers (Could that be because there was a Freakin! trial underway? What an idiot!) he too had to "edit" the material. (But only those that put us in a bad light.)

"Everything that is in the movie is based on something I found that actually happened. But once I had put it in the script I would get a note from a lawyer saying you can't use that because it's real and we may get sued," De Palma said. (Didn't Wallace put out a news item like that?)

"So I was forced to fictionalize things that were actually real." (False, but True! Trust me!)

The film, shot in Jordan with a little known cast, ends with a series of photographs of Iraqi civilians killed and their faces blacked out for legal reasons.

"I think that's terrible because now we have not even given the dignity of faces to this suffering people," De Palma said. (Except of course all of the faces on the internet...How about the victims of the terrorists?)

"The great irony about Redacted is that it was redacted." (Only by him. )

Distributor Magnolia has planned a limited U.S. release for later this year, and the film may be easier to sell to European audiences rather than to the American public. (Ya think? Thanks for poisoning our allies and making more enemies. )

That said, where are the OTHER producers? Won't ONE make a film supporting and celebrating the actions of the troops?