96 Hours And No End In Sight

"It's times like this I realize the duality of war," he said. "The guys upstairs are shooting at people, and we're trying to figure out how to shove poop down a hole."

That statement from Lt. Adam Bowen encapsulated not only the plight of his platoon hunkered down in Sadr City but also the entire U.S. endeavor in the Iraq fiasco.

As recounted in a gripping and maddening article in McClatchy Bowen's platoon had been sent into Sadr City on a four day mission that has stretched to sixteen days with no end in sight. If that weren't bad enough, their mission is less than clear since they are being fired on by both the Iraqi Army as well as Sadr's militia. Shia shooting Shia, with the U.S. stuck in between.

These soldiers are experiencing in a very personal way the fog of this disastrous war -

Where's it coming from?" the soldiers on the roof shouted to one another.

"I think it's coming from the north and west," one soldier said over the radio. "Is the Iraqi army shooting at us?"

Three times that day, the Iraqi army unit just up the road from the house was told to hold its fire because its erratic shots were hitting the house that its American allies occupied.

Three times, the Iraqis kept right on shooting.

"They told them to stop shooting," Lt. Adam Bowen, the platoon leader, told his men . . .

More shots rang out.

"Well, that lasted," said Sgt. David Stine, 28, of Iola, Ill., laughing.

Bowen's platoon is part of the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division, from Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. They were sent into Sadr City three weeks ago after the Basra foul up in an effort to halt the rocket attacks from Sadr City that were hitting that supposedly secure enclave known as the Green Zone. They soon realized that their stay in Sadr City would be a little different than planned.

The American soldiers can't go on the offensive from the run-down two-story house they commandeered in south Sadr City, but must hunker down and wait to get shot at.

An Iraqi family evacuated the house just before the fighting started. It has rats and clogged toilets but no electricity or hot water, and no air conditioning or heating. The American soldiers have had one shower and barely a change of clothes since they got here.

The fighting in Sadr City is about who controls Iraq after the upcomming Provincial elections in October. The Iraqi Army, refgerred to as IA by the soldiers, is predonimantly a Shia force that answers for the most part to the Maliki government. They are opposed by the Jaysh al Mahdi, the Arabic name of  Shia Cleric Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. So it's the IA against the JAM, in the vernacular of these soldiers. Except that they were recently told not to use the term JAM anymore, but rather refer to them as insurgents or special groups. Calling that kind of beaurocratc nonesenses, "retarded" Lt. Bowen also summarized his overall view of this conflict with an insight that transcends all such wars.

"I hate Sadr City," Bowen said. Before his stint here, he'd sympathized with Iraqis who lived in misery and detested foreign occupation. "It's always the poor and lower middle class that fight. Look at us."

And so it goes on. This article, as well as any other, encapsulates the lunacy of this war. This is a war that was sold with deceit and fearmongering by people whose limitless arrogance and hubris was tragically matched by their miniscule intellects - puny minds which could not begin to grasp the consequences of their actions. Now it is being fought by and suffered through the courage and dedication of soldiers whose only reward will be their survival and the survival of their brothers. It is also visiting untold suffering on the Iraqi people, a suffering that will not end until after we leave, at which point they will resolve their disputes for themselves.

May that day come soon.

UPDATE. Thanks to teacherken I'm reminded that his article was written by the Polk Award winning author Leila Fadel

UPDATE. The situation could be getting worse for our troops in Sadr City and elsewhere. Sadr is threatening all out war if the U.S.-Iraqi offensive does not stop

Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gave a "final warning" to the government Saturday to halt a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown against his followers or he would declare "open war until liberation."
A full-blown uprising by al-Sadr, who led two rebellions against U.S.-led forces in 2004, could lead to a dramatic increase in violence in Iraq at a time when the Sunni extremist group al-Qaida in Iraq appears poised for new attacks after suffering severe blows last year.

Al-Sadr's warning appeared on his Web site as Iraq's Shiite-dominated government claimed success in a new push against Shiite militants in the southern city of Basra. Fighting claimed 14 more lives in Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

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"So I am giving my final warning ... to the Iraqi government ... to take the path of peace and abandon violence against its people," al-Sadr said. "If the government does not refrain ... we will declare an open war until liberation."

You can read more here.