Tuesday, April 24, 2007
'Our generation's Vietnam' - A soldier's view
From an observation post in an abandoned shopping mall, Staff Sergeant Matthew St. Pierre gazes across the Sunni heartland of West Baghdad. The sprawl beneath him shelters insurgents, including Al-Qaeda, as well as ordinary Iraqi families, traumatized, terrified and angry after more than four years of war.

It has been a tough day.

The debate in Washington over the war, mirrors one among troops on the ground.

“We’ve talked at length, my soldiers and myself,” says St. Pierre, “and the term that comes up often is that this is our generation’s Vietnam.”

It is noon. Already that day, St Pierre’s patrol of Humvee vehicles had been narrowly missed by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack. Just an hour earlier they had driven into an ambush.

A massive explosion flowered metres in front of St Pierre’s lead vehicle. A second one followed moments later to the rear. They were bombs buried in the road, so-called IEDs, the main weapon of choice for insurgents and the primary killer of US troops.

Through small arms fire, St Pierre, 24, had led his patrol back to this observation post.

Now he is in a reflective mood.

“I don’t think this can be won,” he says. “We’re caught in the middle of a civil war.”

He says morale among U.S. combat troops is still good. Some Iraqis, fearful of their neighbors’ reaction, have whispered to him that they want the Americans to stay. But, he says, that’s not most of them.

“I think the majority is going to want us to leave and when we do pull out you’re going to hear cheering in the streets.”

He feels most for the Iraqis who have supported the United States.

“They’re the ones that are going to feel the wrath. They’re going to suffer, “ he says. “The people who are against us – and I think that’s the majority – they’re going to ultimately win.”

Staff Sergeant St. Pierre, a six-year army veteran, has spent two of the last three years in Iraq. He is due to leave in early 2008. He says his great regret is that for all the lives lost the United States will leave Iraq in a worse state than it found it.

That “doesn’t make me feel good as an American.”

-- From Hugh Riminton, CNN International Anchor/Correspondent
Even as the U.S. was preparing for invasion in 2003 I said back then, this war is Vietnam with sand. Mark my words.

Just as back then, our leaders got us into the wrong war for the wrong reasons. Shame on them!
When the whole world was telling the U.S. what was going to happen in Iraq, the U.S. didn't want to listen.
I feel sorry too for all the lives that have been lost, but I also feel terribly angry that not even one of people who decided to start this war was held accountable and has payed any price for their criminal lies and for this disaster.
Our justice and morality have failed completely.
My hope is that the justice of God will do better.
It is a shame that what the courageous Staff Sergeant says is exactly that which the administration denies.
The most appropriate ending to this soldiers story would be to say George W Bush should be held accountable for the 3347 soldiers dead, thousands injured, George Bush is commiting genocide amongst his own middle and poor class people. He has made Iraq a terror haven .
saddam met what he did to innocent lives but now people who are responsible for all this mismanagement and dying as a result of very precious should be tried and should be as earliest as humanity needs .
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