[Homestead] "How sweet it is - -" (was)
Toni Hawryluk
tonihawr at msn.com
Sun Sep 12 11:35:54 EDT 2004
used to be a "tagline" on TV (back when I
used to watch it, years ago).
Today it would be "How stupid "we" are - -"
excerpts : from :
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5973272/site/newsweek/<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5973272/site/newsweek/>
At about 5 in the afternoon, on a quiet side street outside the Ibn Haitham hospital, a gang armed with pistols, AK-47s and pump-action shotguns raided a small house used by three Italian aid groups. The gunmen, none of them wearing masks, took orders from a smooth-shaven man in a gray suit; they called him "sir." When they drove off, the gunmen had four hostages: two local NGO employees-one of them a woman who was dragged out of the house by her headscarf-and two 29-year-old Italians, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both members of the antiwar group "A Bridge to Baghdad". The whole job took less than 10 minutes. Not a shot was fired. About 15 minutes afterward, an American Humvee convoy passed hardly a block away-headed in the opposite direction. Sixteen months after the war's supposed end, Iraq's insurgency is spreading. Each successful demand by kidnappers has spawned more hostage-takings- - - -
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"What we see is a classic progression," says Andrew Krepinevich, author of the highly respected study "The Army and Vietnam." "What we also see is that the U.S. military is not trained or organized to fight insurgencies. That was the deliberate choice after Vietnam. Now we look to be paying the price." Americans aren't safe even on the outskirts of a city like Fallujah. Early last week a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into two U.S. Humvees nine miles north of town on the four-lane concrete bypass called Highway 10. Seven Americans died. It was one of the deadliest blows against U.S. forces since June, when Iraqis formally resumed control of their government.
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