Soldier's Death Strengthens Senators' Antiwar Resolve

[Rose Siding]

Just before Christmas, an Army captain named Brian Freeman cornered Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) at a Baghdad helicopter landing zone. The war was going badly, he told them. Troops were stretched so thin they were doing tasks they never dreamed of, let alone trained for.

Freeman, 31, took a short holiday leave to see his 14-month-old daughter and 2-year-old son, returned to his base in Karbala, Iraq, and less than two weeks ago died in a hail of bullets and grenades. Insurgents, dressed in U.S. military uniforms, speaking English and driving black American SUVs, got through a checkpoint and attacked, kidnapped four soldiers and later shot them. Freeman died in the assault, the fifth casualty of the brazen attack.
...
Late last year, Freeman approached the senators at Landing Zone Washington, in Baghdad's Green Zone, "almost out of the shadows," Dodd recalled.

Even though he felt nervous, he told his wife later, he delivered his message with urgency. Soldiers were being deployed to do missions that they were utterly untrained to do; Freeman, for example, an armor officer, had been sent to help foster democracy and rebuild an Iraqi civil society. State Department personnel who could do those jobs were restricted in their travel off military bases by regional security officers who said it was unsafe for them to venture out....

"The notion of sense-of-the-Senate resolutions, what the hell does that mean?" Dodd asked yesterday. "Is that all you got?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/29/AR2007012902002_2.html

[IndianaGreen]

1. I read this article earlier today, it is really very moving

and it shows the tremendous loss that our country has suffered in Bush's war of choice. Kerry's comments about Cpt Freeman, and his own recollection of what he went through when he returned from Vietnam, is a reminder of what this is all about. We must end this war now!

[_dynamicdems]

2. I only wish Dodd and more Democratic senators had voted for the binding legislation

that Kerry & Feingold put forth last year. A non-binding resolution means nothing. The Kerry-Feingold amendment would have been a real solution for bringing out troops home.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that all these other senators are seeing the light. If only they had listened LAST YEAR when Kerry and Feingold tried to tell them we had to get out of Iraq. We would have had a different situation had that legislation been approved and the phased redeployment begun and the diplomatic solutions they called for put in place. We'll never know because it was rejected out-of-hand by some of the very senators who are now calling for the same damn thing.

To think, only 13 senators voted for that resolution.

[IndianaGreen]

4. and Joe Lieberman actually joined the GOP in opposing Kerry/Feingold

on that day Lieberman became the ultimate traitor.

[_dynamicdems]

5. He sure did.

And he still has his lips firmly planted on Bush's backside.

Sigh!

Another thing I remember about that day is the lengthy debate between John Warner and Kerry. Warner didn't believe that it was right to set a deadline to get out of Iraq. Warner is singing a different tune now. Too bad his change of heart had to come at the expense of so many lives. That's the shame of all this.

[Pachamama]

3. Wow....I read this guys story and it makes you sick...

And ofcourse, the GOP and BushCo. will try to spin this where they will in their new "intelligence" findings that show it was really "Iranians" that had killed this guy, that his death needs to be revenged against the Iranians....

[Usrename]

6. "Is that all you got?"

Treasonous bastards.

Heads on pikes!!!!