ARMY DESPERATE FOR TROOPS SENDS WOUNDED BACK TO IRAQ

SOLDIERS WITH MINOR INJURIES
SENT BACK TO IRAQ

01/19/08 AP: U.S. army, short of soldiers, sends troops with minor injuries to Iraq
Seventy-nine injured soldiers were pressed into war duty last month as the U.S. Army struggled to fill its ranks, but most were assigned to light-duty jobs within limits set by doctors, two Army leaders said.

While the mainstream media goes into complete overkill on the South Carolina primary and the Nevada caucus, there is more proof that conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan are deteriorating.

The success of the "surge" is a figment of the mainstream media's imagination and especially the cheerleader for the Bush White House, Fox News.

And there is more proof the American public are being sold a bill of goods on the success of the "surge" in Iraq and conditions in Afghanistan.

Below are just a few documented news accounts you won't find anywhere else but on this blog http://corksphere.blogspot.com/ hosted by Bill Corcoran who is bound and determined not to let the troops down in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families back in the United States.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

50 dead in southern Iraq clashes : The Iraqi government says it has seized full control of Basra and Nasiriya after bloody clashes between the police and armed men from a "messianic cult", that left nearly 50 people dead and another 100 wounded.

Iraq: At least 25 killed in another bloody day of US occupation: Six policemen were killed and 13 wounded when two suicide bombers attacked policemen assembled for evening roll-call at a police station in the town of Albu Ubaid west of Ramadi, police said.

Afghan war only just beginning, security group warns: The war in Afghanistan is only just beginning as NATO forces, far from pursuing remnants of a defeated Taliban, are entering a widening and deepening conflict they may well lose security NGO said on Saturday.

Taliban now seriously in the fight: It has also become clear that the Taliban's "easy departure" in 2001, when a US-led invasion drove them from power, was "more of a strategic retreat than an actual military defeat," the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) said.

WAR RAGES ON IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN.

NOBODY CARES ANYMORE.

NOT THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA.

NOT THE AMERICAN PUBLIC.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer of interest to the press or Americans. It doesn't make any difference that we have 160,000 troops in Iraq and 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, the media and the people of the United States couldn't care less what happens to them.

The reason is quite simple. Very few people in the media have a loved one serving in the military and the vast majority of Americans all across the country not only don't have a loved one in the United States military, they don't know of anyone who is serving in the military.

In short, the the troops that keep dying and the Iraqi citizens who continue to be killed are something the mainstream press and the American public find boring.

What a sad indictment of both the media and the American public when the attention is focused on one pregnant Marine who was savegedly killed in North Carolina, but the deaths of American troops overseas and Iraqi civilians are not even a sidebar story in the media or of interest to the American public.

Editorial comment by Bill Corcoran, host of this blog, and former Cpl. (E-4) in the United States Army Combat Engineers.

Here is just a sampling of what took place on Saturday in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Saturday, January 19, 2008

What took place in Iraq today.

Baghdad:#1: Around 10 a.m. two mortar shells slammed into Al Shoala neighborhood, minutes later another two mortar shells hit Al Ghazaliyah neighborhood. No casualties were reported.

#1: In northern Baquba, an explosive device was detonated, killing three civilians and wounding two others.Three bodyguards of Diala governor were killed and two others wounded in an improvised explosive device attack in the northeast of Baaquba city, Iraqi police said on Saturday. "An explosive charge detonated at Friday midnight in the orchard surrounding the residence of Diala Governor Raad Rasheed al-Mulla Jawad in al-Khashab area, 45 northeast of Baaquba, killing three of his security personnel and wounding two others," an assistant to Diala governor for administrative formation, Hafiz Abdul Aziz, told Aswat al-Iraq, Voices of IraqNasiriyah.

#1: Security forces on Saturday overran a mosque in southern Iraq where Shiite doomsday cultists were holed up, ending two days of clashes in two cities that killed at least 70 people, police said. The mosque was the last stronghold of the cultists. Wearing yellow headbands sporting the Star of David, they attacked police simultaneously early Friday afternoon in the southern port city of Basra and in Nasiriyah. Fighting raged through the afternoon in both cities. It died down in Basra during the night but continuing sporadically in Nasiriyah. The security forces had found the mosque to be booby-trapped and disposal experts later triggered a blast which destroyed the building, he said. Amid the rubble were found yellow headbands and anti-government literature. Police officials said at least 35 cultists were killed in Basra and 18 in Nasiriyah. A total of 12 police, two Iraqi soldiers and three civilians were also killed, according the latest police figures.

#2: Two policemen were killed by teenage snipers during Saturday's clashes in Nasiriyah. The snipers, two 14-year-old boys, were quickly arrested, police said.Hilla.

#1: The Murjana Hospital in Babel received 12 cases of food poisoning of local residents from Wassit province, an official source from the Babel police said."The Murjana Specialist Hospital in the city of Hilla received 12 people suffering from food poisoning and all of them were from Wassit," the source, who did not want to be named, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of IraqBasra.

#1: Clashes broke out in central Basra for a second day with no casualties reported, while joint security forces conducted raid-and-search operations in hunt for escaped gunmen, a local security source said on Saturday. "Limited clashes renewed on Saturday morning between security forces and gunmen belonging to the self-styled 'Soldiers of Heaven' group in downtown Basra's al-Janiniya area," the source, who preferred to remain unnamed, told Aswat al-Iraq, Voices of IraqShirqat.

#1: The most wanted al Qaeda leader in Salahuddin province was killed on Jan. 16 by U.S. troops and Iraqi police in Shirqat, 300 km (190 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S military said.Kirkuk.

#1: On Saturday, two people were killed and seven wounded in a roadside bomb attack on an Ashura event in the northern city of Kirkuk, police said#2: Two militants were killed while trying to bury a roadside bomb which exploded in Kirkuk, police said.Mosul.

#1: Four soldiers and three civilians were wounded in an attack on the Iraqi army 2nd Brigade's 1st contingent headquarters with mortar shells, a security source said."The 1st contingent, stationed in Mosul Hotel, western Mosul, came under attack on Saturday with five mortar shells that wounded four Iraqi soldiers," Brig. Abdul-Kareem al-Juburi, the Ninewa police operations chief, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq a medical source from a Mosul hospital said the hospital received the four wounded soldiers in addition to three civilians wounded as a result of random fire opened by the Iraqi army the attack that targeted the 1st contingent.Tal Afar.

#1: A rocket slammed into the northern city of Talafar, killing four and injuring twenty people.In northeastern Tal Afar, insurgents sent a Katyusha rocket scudding into a crowd observing Ashura, killing seven people and wounding 20, Mayor Najim Abdallah told AFP.Al Anbar Prv:Fallujah.

#1: Police found two bodies with gunshot wounds near Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.Afghanistan:#1: PAKISTANI troops captured 50 Islamist militants in an operation in the rugged tribal region near the Afghan border, a day after killing dozens of rebels in the area. Troops also recovered 10 bodies of the rebels from the Chaghmalai area of South Waziristan - the scene of a major clash on Friday in which an estimated 30 militants were killed.

Casualty Reports: U.S. Navy Corpsman Christopher Braley, a medic wounded in September in an explosion in Iraq, is back home in Manteca for 30 days. The 23-year old Sierra High School graduate has spent the past four months in hospitals, where he has undergone seven surgeries to recover from a Sept. 13 attack in which he lost one eye and suffered brain trauma.

Army Specialist Lawrence Guerro is the third known injured Navajo soldier from Iraq. The 26-year-old was injured on May 25, 2007, when his Humvee was hit with an improvised explosive device, or IED, while patrolling the streets of Baghdad.Guerro sustained injuries to his right-leg, which eventually had to be amputated above the knee at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Guerro spent several months at a base at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, where he began a long process of therapy and recovery.

Just another day in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which the mainstream media in the United States feels is not worth covering.

ONE U.S. SOLDIER KILLED, 128 IRAQIS KILLED

Even with documented evidence indicating all this violence is happening still in Iraq, the mainstream media---led by FOX NEWS---continues to tell the American public that all is well in Iraq.

The media in the United States has become nothing more than a pawn for the Bush administration.

1 US Soldier, 128 Iraqis Killed; 103 Iraqis Wounded

http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=12232

Updated at 9:40 p.m. EST, Jan. 19, 2008

At least 128 Iraqis were killed and 103 more were wounded in the latest attacks. The worst violence took place in Nassiriya and Basra, where a Shi’ite sect staged attacks just ahead of the culmination of Ashuraa observances. Meanwhile, Turkey claimed to have destroyed 60 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq. Also, one American soldier was killed during an IED attack yesterday in Baghdad.

The Soldiers of Heaven (Jund al-Samaa) sect returned to the headlines today after clashes between sect members, who are Shi’ites, and security forces left 30 dead, including 10 policemen, and 82 wounded in Nassiriya. Last Ashuraa, similar clashes left hundreds dead, including the sect’s leader.

More Soldiers of Heaven attacks occurred in Basra, where clashes took place across much of the city. As many as 50 sect members were killed there, including their leader, while another 60 were arrested. A civilian and three policemen were killed as well. The exact number of wounded is unknown, but at least seven policemen were injured.

Two policemen were wounded during a shooting in Maqal. Also, a sniper killed a medical doctor as she left work at the general hospital.

In Baghdad, a woman and two children were killed, and two were more wounded, during a roadside bombing in Ur. Two bodies were found dumped in separate locations.

Gunmen attacked al-Bu Aziz, but Awakening Council members thwarted their attack. Seven gunmen were killed and one council member was wounded.
During the search of a home in Baquba, a bomb killed two policemen and wounded two more.

Near Baquba in al-Wejaiheiah, two policemen were killed and three more were wounded when gunmen attacked their patrol.

In Najaf, a cache of arms was discovered after a tip.

Two children were killed when an IED blew-up their home in Mo'alimeen. One woman and three men were also injured.

Three bodies, one decapitated, were found in Muqdadiyah.

In Saidiya, eight members of the Islamic State in Iraq were killed. The chief of suburban police in Kirkuk believes it might have been the work of Awakening Council members.