Lierberman in Iraq. Troops: When are We Going to Get out of Here??

PHOTO: Independent American Senator Joseph Lieberman sporting a shit eating grin during his recent visit to Iraq. Taken by Leila Fadel/MCT

Article By Leila Fadel
McClatchy Newspapers

GOI: My commentary follows the article:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, Mass., had two note cards in his pocket Wednesday afternoon as he waited for Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Williams serves in the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., the first of the five "surge" brigades to arrive in Iraq, and he was chosen to join the Independent from Connecticut for lunch at a U.S. field base in Baghdad.

The night before, 30 other soldiers crowded around him with questions for the senator.

He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:

"When are we going to get out of here?"

The rest was a laundry list. When would they have upgraded Humvees that could withstand the armor-penetrating weapons that U.S. officials claim are from Iran? When could they have body armor that was better in hot weather?

Williams missed six months of his girlfriend's pregnancy when he was given six days' notice to return to Iraq for his second tour. He also missed his baby boy's birth. Three weeks ago, he went home and saw his first child.

"He looks just like me," he said. "I didn't want to come back. . . . We're waiting to get blown up."

Next to him, Spc. Will Hedin, 21, of Chester, Conn., thought about what he was going to say.

"We're not making any progress," Hedin said, as he recalled a comrade who was shot by a sniper last week. "It just seems like we drive around and wait to get shot at."

But as he waited two chairs down from where Lieberman would sit, Hedin said he'd never voice his true feelings to the senator.

"I think I'd be a private if I did," he joked. "It's just more troops, more targets."

It isn't clear whether Williams mentioned the last line on his note card, the one that had a star next to it.

"We don't feel like we're making any progress," it said.

GOI: Lieberman like so many Republicans are stubborn and will ride this Iraq train straight to the gates of Hell then admit they were (and still are) wrong.

So I guess these soldiers are "wimps" as Republican Senator Jim DeMint claimed of Democrats since these troops have the same views as many of the Democrats in the Congress.

He better be careful because some 2/3 of the American public agrees with both these soldiers and the Democrats in Congress.

I'm tired of this empty rhetoric that the Democrats desire to get out of the war is hurting morale. Morale is low because these soldiers are stuck in an untenable situation that this president put them in--not the Democrats.

I mean how would you feel if you had signed up in the military after 9/11 to defend America believing Saddam was behind it. Then invading Iraq only to find out that Saddam had nothing to do with the attacks nor was he in possession of any weapons of mass destruction?? These soldiers are not fighting for Bush's idealogical wet dream but rather their buddies and when soldiers are pushed into that kind of desperate situation then they have long given up on the cause. They just want to fight long enough to save their asses and those of their brothers and sisters and get the hell home to their families. Families who haven't seen more then about 6 months of their beloved soldier(s) out of sometimes three deployments each seemingly longer and harder to deal with then the previous one.

It breaks my heart so yes, of course I'm a "bleeding heart liberal." I'll take that any day over having no heart at all like most of these Bush sycophants.

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