June 22, 2004

OURS

(Via Blackfive) Troops kill 13 in fierce 12-hour firefight near Baqubah

Sources in the governor’s office claim that rebels who fought in Najaf and Fallujah during the insurgency uprising there in April and May are paid to travel to Baqubah to kill Americans and to undermine efforts by coalition forces to establish a new Iraqi government.

In my loudest roar: BRING IT ON!

Posted by Sarah at June 22, 2004 01:30 PM
Comments

10 US Servicemen Die in Iraq, 11 Iraqis

Monday's toll (still incomplete but more complete than any one article I saw in any one language)

http://www.juancole.com/

I'm afraid it was "brought on". I can find no pleasure in this.

This is the good news that you have been wanting the press to report? That our tactics have devolved to seizing houses and leaving our troops in them as bait? That "the fledgling enforcers of law and order are still finding their way and barely even have enough equipment or the clout among the population to be totally effective"?

Posted by: jpenny at June 22, 2004 03:45 PM

No, jpenny, this is not "good news". But it's news that concerns my husband, and if I want to cheer him on, then that's my own damn business.

I'd better shut up before I say something I'll regret...

Posted by: Sarah at June 22, 2004 04:41 PM

Sarah:

You have loved ones in this situation. You deserve
considerable latitude. You have a lot of emotional
investment. But...

Asking for American troops to be attacked seems, at
best, an odd way to cheer your husband on, whether
roared or whispered. Please, don't tempt the fates.

Posted by: jpenny at June 22, 2004 05:21 PM

Sarah, you are right! To effeminate Bring it on! to Please, don't shoot me, does us no good. We are at war with Islamists. I recently heard a story about the hostages taken in Riyadh in Saudi. Not only men were taken hostage by these Islamists, but women and you know what they did? They lined up the women and slit their throats. So by hell, I say Bring it on! By saying it you are standing up for what is right. Our soldiers understand this better than most. We cannot sing kumbajah and all will be well. Our soldiers are not asking to be shot, but it is a way to find our enemies and to shoot them. So I thank God for them and for you. Because you are not speaking out of emotion, but out of the instinct to survive and to win.

Don't let anyone minimize that.

Posted by: Moor at June 22, 2004 09:49 PM

No man gets away from his reckoning, but with luck he may learn how to face it.
Neil Gunn (1891–1973), Scottish writer.
Blood Hunt (1952).

We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.
Karl Popper (1902–1994), Austrian-born British philosopher, 1975.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945).

A bad penny always turns up.
Anonymous.
Proverb.

A great fortune depends upon luck, a small one on diligence.
Anonymous.
Chinese proverb.

Blessings never come in pairs; misfortunes never come singly.
Anonymous.
Chinese proverb.


Bullets are shot by men and God deals them out.
Anonymous.
Mexican proverb.

God is always on the side of the big battalions.
Anonymous.
Proverb.

One man's fate is another man's lesson.
Anonymous.
African (Swahili) proverb.

Two bullets never go in one place.
Anonymous.
U.S. proverb.

Fates are hard to determine in the face of war.
Moor.

Posted by: Moor at June 22, 2004 10:03 PM

If you would be reveng'd on your enemy, govern yourself.

-Benjamin Franklin, *Poor Richard's Almanac*

Posted by: False Prophet at June 24, 2004 05:08 AM