Marines Begin to Question Their Mission (from an official USMC website)

I got this off an official USMC website...

what has Bush gotten us into?

IRAQ: No smiles, no waves

04/20/2004


SEEN THROUGH THE EYES of President George W. Bush, the war in Iraq is a war to help Iraqis win their birthright of freedom, to plant the seeds of democracy in the Middle East and to ward off terrorist attacks on the civilized world.

Seen through eyes of the grunts of 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, the war is about guerrillas waiting in ambush, roadside bombs ready to explode, Iraqis turning away and buddies who aren't coming home.

"Who gives a damn about gay marriage or Martha Stewart?" Lt. Jason Johnston told a reporter. ". . . I don't think the American people understand that this is full-blown guerrilla warfare. This is the real war. Last year was a cakewalk."

Lt. Johnston's frustration was captured by Post-Dispatch reporter Ron Harris, who has returned to the 3rd Battalion a year after he and Post-Dispatch photographer Andrew Cutraro followed it on the road to Baghdad. The battalion hadn't lost a man then. But since returning to Iraq in March, its losses have mounted. Four men were killed during their first month back. Five more were killed and 12 were wounded Saturday in an ambush in Husaybah, near the Syrian border.

Forget hearts and minds. Forget the waves and smiles. Forget the good deeds and good manners. Forget the polite knocks on the door before searches. This is urban warfare against a faceless enemy. On Sunday, the Marines were breaking down doors in house-to-house searches for the fighters who had killed their friends.

These Marines will stay and fight for all of the noble purposes that the president talks about. They want to bring Iraqis freedom and democracy. They want to fulfill their duty to their country. But doubts are spreading among even these gung-ho fighters.
Sgt. Carl Scott of Pine Bluff, Ark., is a veteran of Operation Desert Storm. "Most of these Marines, you can give them an M-16 and one bullet, and they'll go out there and battle to the death," he said. "But some are beginning to question why we're here. It's not that they don't want to be here. It's just that in times like this, it's hard for them to find a purpose."

Americans don't want the men of 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines to have died in vain. Nor do they want the other 700 Americans who have died in Iraq to have given their lives for nothing. But neither do we want to sacrifice more young Americans to a lofty but unachievable goal.

President Bush owes it to the soldiers in Iraq to mount a diplomatic offensive to internationalize the effort in Iraq by turning over the political decisions to the United Nations. He has to do more than just say he wants U.N. help. He must work the phones and send envoys around the world the way his father did before the Persian Gulf War. An international force of troops from NATO and Muslim countries should be organized to protect U.N. peace efforts and ease the pressure on U.S. troops.

Mr. Bush certainly has diplomatic fences to mend. But as the most powerful leader in the world, he should be able to persuade our NATO allies to help prevent Iraq from descending into a civil war that could turn it into a hothouse for terrorists every bit as dangerous as Saddam Hussein.

I have contacts in the Kerry campaign and the links are required for me to get it to the right people.

http://www.29palms.usmc.mil/fmf/3-7/news.asp

click on "Iraq no smiles, no waves"

that this was put on an official USMC website...dont you think this is a cry for help from the USMC?

He had nothing to prove to himself or anyone and he wasn't stupid enough to NOT earn a degree in the service.

There's a lot of guys in the service like that.

This is what is going on here

...to this nation and to the troops. This war was not about giving Iraq it's freedom, because if that had been the real purpose, there would have been a plan in place before the invasion ever began to transfer power to Iraqi citizens. No such plan was ever conceived by Bush and his advisers and military commanders. There was a plan for post war Iraq, but that plan was about taking control of Iraq's oil reserves and placing major U.S. companies in charge of the rebuilding and establishing a puppet Iraqi government that would do BushCo's bidding.

Bush lied! We all are now paying for those lies, and in particular, the troops who have served with honor are paying also. Bush lied.

Amen!
The "finite" cheap energy of the past 100 years OIL is what it's all going to be about....FORGET THE BS !...
The world demand is about 29 Billion barrels per year & increasing sharply do to the new kids on the block , India & China.

New oil reserve discovery (of less quality , expensively extracted oil) averages 6 billion barrels per year.

Opec Producers have lied about & inflated the amount of their reserves to increase their slice of the OPEC pie.
The globes reserves have been mapped.
The industrial nations KNOW the underlying seriousness of PEAK OIL.

go ahead google it.....PEAK OIL

This time , the American public was sold a truck load of BS as reasons to go to war......next time , you may be told the TRUTH.

It's crunch time

and the most awful reality is that their CinC doesn't care if they die or not. There are petro dollars to be made.

He was finished, done, gone. He did four years active duty, deployed in Kosovo as well as other places. Did well, made sargeant. His time was almost up when 911 happened and he was fully prepared to stay active, although he'd already decided not to re-enlist. The Marines had no idea of what a mess the administration was getting us into, though and told him he'd served and thank-you and sent him stateside. They had a very good thing going on. I guess that even in relative peacetime the Marines is a pretty intense organization, so they had kind of a system to muster a person out slowly. He told me that you need to get used to civilian life and that he really needed that time to do that. He got to go home a lot the last few months. He was allowed to have a dog at the base. He finally got out, started his life and must be well into the sixth year of his obligation and he's going to Iraq now. To Fullajah. I guess that's not really relevant to the topic, but I just feel so bad for him.

And bush is cheating on them.

But it's got to break a Marine's heart to have doubts like this.

What has * done? How dare he put such fine people in the position of doubting their purpose? What a shame that we have to live under this tin-horn dictator.

I was 100% against the Iraq invasion. I strongly feel there should be an exit plan within the next 6 months. Since it has been done I now feel that the Military can feel that they did the job they volunteered to do. The Saddam regime is gone and probably won't come back. The Military purpose was to protect America from the Saddam Regime and the WMDs. They did their job. Turning Iraq into a democracy is not their job. Protecting Iraq from its own citizens is not their job. Bring the troops home, ASAP!

being sorry they killed ten thousand mostly innocent civilians. All I saw was that it was not fun anymore since they are shooting back.

stupefying number of innocents our guys killed while they thought they were John Wayne taking out the injuns for Jesus and Freedom.

I don't mean to sound unsympathetic to our troops who were lied to and had their willingness to sacrifice their lives and limbs to what they thought was a good cause.

But as someone (43 years old) who learned 35 years ago that the US government is a lying killing machine, I can't imagine signing up trusting that the US government won't use to you to commit atrocities, prevent democracy, and then throw your shattered body away.

How many Vietnams will it take? Is this the verse to 'Blowing in the Wind' that should have been spelled out without poetry to stick out??

Maybe the body count will be smaller each time that lesson gets relearned until it doesn't happen at all.