posted May 20, 2006 07:48 PM              

By Nadia McCaffrey / Mother of Army Sgt. Patrick R. McCaffrey, Sr., killed June 22nd, 2004 in Balad, Iraq

Did I actually give birth 36 years ago?

My mind is wandering over sixty one years of my life. What does "Mother's Day” signify anymore? I am trying desperately to rescue the vague meaning left in two words. Or is it that the meaning is so strongly anchored within me, that I am not sure how to deal with the disappearance of the dearest person in my life? I better get used to not getting a sweet card and flower, and phone calls ever again saying "Happy Mother’s Day" and "MOM, I love you, your son, Patrick." For so many years I took all messages of love for granted. What a fool I was! Why do I wish today that I had kept and saved it all?

I never doubted that Patrick was my guardian and would watch over me until I died, as I watched over him while he was a baby, a child. What am I supposed to do next without him, without his wisdom, his compassion without his love, without his gentle strength, without his voice saying "I love you Mom you have always been here for me as I will be there for you..."

Patrick’s birthday is almost here: May 26. For the past two years, I have been hiding to myself the fact that Patrick was NEVER coming home. I did not say that I had accepted it, nor realized it. Patrick would have been 36 years old this year. I fully realize that this huge pain will never go anywhere, or fade away in the background of my consciousness. No, this pain will be with me until my last day on earth. Perhaps I will learn how to function with it, or perhaps not. What I am experiencing right now is uncertainty.

For the first time in three years, or the beginning of the war, and since Patrick’s murder in Iraq, I have doubts. My faith, up until a month ago, was so strong and powerful, that I believed that anything could be accomplished or changed. I thought that by now, the American people would have awakened and stopped the corruption, the lies, the betrayal, the destruction and the killing of our country and its citizens, but I was wrong. How long is it going to take?

Speaking across country non-stop for two years, I know that I have touched many people’s souls; many people have changed their life because of Patrick’s death. Patrick left on my shoulders, the burden to be part of the actions that will stop the war. He was very disillusioned with the whole picture. He felt betrayed as a Patriot. Patrick was not a fool, he knew the truth. However, he followed his heart after the blast of September 11th and enlisted, joining the National Guard (not the International Guard!). He wanted to help out his country and its people, and he wanted to serve within the country, not overseas, illegally invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

How much more time is it going to take to glance at a peaceful world? I fear for my grand children’s future. Still, after these blue notes I shall pursue my Journey to Peace with compassion, unconditional love, tolerance, caring for each other and this is the road that I have chosen. I do the best that I can to fulfill every day and keep on my faith.

Nadia McCaffrey
Gold Star Mother

posted May 20, 2006 10:09 PM              

..thanks for the letter from that sad, sad, mom...

Petron....*sigh*

That website breaks my heart....

I've been so very aware from the beginning - of the innocent young lives that have been sacrificed for the shrub and his cronies....not to mention the Iraqi civilians; women and children among them....Horror! Horror! Horror!

I can only imagine the sorrow that each mother, father, wife, must feel when learning of the loss of their loved one in this stupid, stupid, war!

...and then some people even have the unadulterated guts to criticize CINDY SHEEHAN when she speaks against the war her son was sacrificed in...

posted May 21, 2006 12:23 AM              

quote:

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I am not pointing this post above to any ONE country or ruler, but how true is that mother? Do we need War anymore? But on the flip side, how to check the growth of terrorists?

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Any war in the Middle East is only going to create more and more terrorists in my opinion, Moon. At least it has been working that way so far. We will never stop the problems in the Middle East with war.

My heart goes out to Nadia McCaffry, Cindy Sheehan and all moms who have lost sons in the Iraq and Afghanistan war.

posted May 21, 2006 02:41 AM            

"All we are saying...
Is give a peace a chance"-John Lennon

posted May 21, 2006 11:45 AM            

May 20, 2006
COLORADO SPRINGS

An Iraqi mayor stood before troops lined up on the lawn at Fort Carson on Friday morning and said only two words in English.
But those two words brought the crowd to its feet.

"Thank you."

It was a telling gesture from Tal Afar Mayor Najim Al Jibouri, who spoke for about 20 minutes in his native tongue praising the 3rd Armored Cavalry for saving his city from certain ruin.

It was his first trip to the United States, arriving via Washington, D.C., then coming to Colorado Springs with his wife and son.

The mayor was invited as a part of a welcoming ceremony at Fort Carson for those who had just finished another tour in Iraq.

Al Jibouri, dressed in a black suit with a lavender tie, said he was glad to be back among them.

"Are you truly my friends?" he asked through a translator. "Yes. I walk a happier man because you are my friends. You are the world to me. I smell the sweet perfume that emanates from your flower of your strength, honor and greatness in every corner of Tal Afar. The nightmares of terror fled when the lion of your bravery entered our city."

Last year, the 3rd ACR was credited with securing the city of Tal Afar and largely ridding it of insurgents. The mayor singled out Col. H.R. McMaster, whom he called "a wise leader."

The mayor patted his hand on his heart and made the peace sign as a crowd of soldiers and their families gave him a standing ovation.

Al Jibouri proved to be a bit of a celebrity after the ceremony, which featured a display of charging horses and the cannon salute. People and press flocked around him, thanking him for coming and asking to have their photos taken with him.

Stephanie Gault, whose husband, Dana Gault, had just returned from his second tour in Iraq, settled for a picture with Al Jibouri's son, Omar, when it became apparent she wouldn't be able to cut through the crowd to get to the mayor.

"He's a great man," she said.

Maj. Gen. James Simmons praised the mayor as well, saying history would look favorably upon his role in supporting a democratic mission in Iraq. McMaster and Al Jibouri hugged, clasped their hands together and raised their fists in the air.

The mayor said afterward through a translator that he worried about fading support for the war in Iraq and urged Americans to remember what it was like before U.S. forces arrived.

"One year ago today, not even a bird used to be inside the city of Tal Afar because of all the shooting that happened continuously," he said. "All of the schools were closed and all the government facilities were closed completely. Killing and murdering was allowed - even of the children."

He said mistakes have been made - he did not specify them - but Al Jibouri said he believed troops might need to stay for another two to three years. He said there is still a lot of work to do.

That's what 1st Lt. Nate Garner thought.

Back from his first tour in Iraq, he said the sagging support for the war didn't bother him much because he saw a lot of progress in the country. Stationed in Baghdad, he said the improvised explosive devices along the roadsides seemed more hurried and crude and ineffective.

More than 2,450 U.S. military personnel have been killed since the war started in 2003.

posted May 21, 2006 12:15 PM            

And so it will be on the day Marxists, Stalinists, Leninists, Socialists and the other grubby collectivists attempt to overthrow the Constitution of the United States, overthrow the sovereignty of the United States and merge the people of the United States into a one world government gulag.

Gone will be the limo rides down Pennsylvania Ave, gone will be the chauffeured rides to the Halls of Congress and to the Supreme Court of the United States, gone will be the dinners at trendy Washington, DC restaurants, gone will be the elitist Washington, DC party circuit. Indeed, gone will be life itself for those sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States who violate their oaths of office.

Their continued existence upon the earth and those who assist them will be measured in minutes, hours, days and perhaps months...but don't venture out of those underground caves, don't flush that toilet, don't start that car and be ever mindful that death has a million faces.

Be ever mindful too that no amount of spin, no profession of "good intentions", expediency or world opinion will save them.

posted May 21, 2006 12:54 PM              

Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold

Across central Iraq, there is an exodus of people fleeing for their lives as sectarian assassins and death squads hunt them down. At ground level, Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold on a massive scale

By Patrick Cockburn in Khanaqin, North-East Iraq
Published: 20 May 2006

The state of Iraq now resembles Bosnia at the height of the fighting in the 1990s when each community fled to places where its members were a majority and were able to defend themselves. "Be gone by evening prayers or we will kill you," warned one of four men who called at the house of Leila Mohammed, a pregnant mother of three children in the city of Baquba, in Diyala province north-east of Baghdad. He offered chocolate to one of her children to try to find out the names of the men in the family.

Mrs Mohammed is a Kurd and a Shia in Baquba, which has a majority of Sunni Arabs. Her husband, Ahmed, who traded fruit in the local market, said: " They threatened the Kurds and the Shia and told them to get out. Later I went back to try to get our furniture but there was too much shooting and I was trapped in our house. I came away with nothing." He and his wife now live with nine other relatives in a three-room hovel in Khanaqin.

The same pattern of intimidation, flight and death is being repeated in mixed provinces all over Iraq. By now Iraqis do not have to be reminded of the consequences of ignoring threats.

In Baquba, with a population of 350,000, gunmen last week ordered people off a bus, separated the men from the women and shot dead 11 of them. Not far away police found the mutilated body of a kidnapped six-year-old boy for whom a ransom had already been paid.

The sectarian warfare in Baghdad is sparsely reported but the provinces around the capital are now so dangerous for reporters that they seldom, if ever, go there, except as embeds with US troops. Two months ago in Mosul, I met an Iraqi army captain from Diyala who said Sunni and Shia were slaughtering each other in his home province. "Whoever is in a minority runs," he said. "If forces are more equal they fight it out."

It was impossible to travel to Baquba, the capital of Diyala, from Baghdad without extreme danger of being killed on the road. But I thought that if I took the road from Kurdistan leading south, kept close to the Iranian border and stayed in Kurdish-controlled territory I could reach Khanaqin, a town of 75,000 people in eastern Diyala. If what the army captain said about the killings and mass flight was true then there were bound to be refugees who had reached there.

I thought it was too dangerous to go beyond the town into the Arab part of Diyala province, once famous for its fruit, since it is largely under insurgent control. But, as I had hoped, it was possible to talk to Kurds who had sought refuge in Khanaqin over the past month.

Salam Hussein Rostam, a police lieutenant in charge of registering and investigating people arriving in terror from all over Iraq, gestured to an enormous file of paper beside him. "I've received 200 families recently, most of them in the last week," he said. This means that about one thousand people have sought refuge in one small town. Lt Rostam said that the refugees were coming from all over Iraq. In some cases they had left not because they were threatened with death but because they were fired from their jobs for belonging to the wrong community. "I know of two health workers from Baghdad who were sacked simply because they were Kurds and not Shia," he said.

This was probably because the Health Ministry in Baghdad is controlled by the party of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric.

The flight of the middle class started about six months after the invasion in 2003 as it became clear Iraq was becoming more, not less, violent. They moved to Jordan, Syria and Egypt. The suicide bombing campaign was largely directed against Shias who only began to retaliate after they had taken over the government in May last year. Interior Ministry forces arrested, tortured and killed Sunnis.

But a decisive step towards sectarian civil war took place when the Shia Al-Askari shrine in Samarra was blown up on 22 February this year. Some 1,300 Sunni were killed in retaliation.

Kadm Darwish Ali, a policeman from Baquba and now also a refugee, said: " Everything got worse after Samarra. I had been threatened with death before but now I felt every time I appeared in the street I was likely to die."

Every community has its atrocity stories. The cousin of a friend was a Sunni Arab who worked in the wholly Shia district of Qadamiyah in west Baghdad. One day last month he disappeared. Three days later his body was discovered on a rubbish dump in another Shia district. "His face was so badly mutilated," said my friend, that "we only knew it was him from a wart on his arm."

Since the destruction of the mosque in Samarra sectarian warfare has broken out in every Iraqi city where there is a mixed population. In many cases the minority is too small to stand and fight. Sunnis have been fleeing Basra after a series of killings. Christians are being eliminated in Mosul in the north. Shias are being killed or driven out of cities and towns north of Baghdad such as Baquba or Samarra itself.

Dujail, 40 miles north of Baghdad, is the Shia village where Saddam Hussein is accused of carrying out a judicial massacre, killing 148 people after an attempt to assassinate him in 1982. He is on trial for the killings. The villagers are now paying a terrible price for giving evidence at his trial.

In the past few months Sunni insurgents have been stopping them at an improvised checkpoint on the road to Baghdad. Masked gunmen glance at their identity cards and if under place of birth is written "Dujail" they kill them. So far 20 villagers have been murdered and 20 have disappeare

posted May 21, 2006 12:59 PM              

Jibouri isn't even from Tal Afar. He was "recommended" by the US to fill in as mayor for the city. How much is the Bush regime paying him?

posted May 22, 2006 06:39 AM              

Can you prove he isn't getting something in return?

Anyways, if Iraqis were really thankful for the American invasion then why is there so much violence, and why aren't there more Iraqi voices on the media...plus who runs the media? It's pretty easy to label anyone and everyone who doesn't like American troops being there as terrorists. But the reality is most Iraqis don't want them there and didnt ask for all this turmoil they've started. Does that make the majority of Iraqis you are liberating terrorists? Or are you only trying to liberate a small fraction of the Iraqi population...one that will serve your interests?

posted May 22, 2006 11:02 AM            

You and your little coven of leftist America haters destroyed Greg's site with your constant lies about the US. You seem determined to do the same thing here.

posted May 22, 2006 12:58 PM              

quote:

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there are two sides to look at..with logic and common sense..

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I totally agree, Lotus

quote:

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You and your little coven of leftist America haters destroyed Greg's site with your constant lies about the US. You seem determined to do the same thing here.

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That is quite an accusation on your part, Jwhop. Get back to me when you can make accusations that you can actually prove.

Greg's death is why there is little activity at the site right now outside of chit chat because he was much loved by all there and a driving force at the site that is missed and very hard to replace. That the site is continuing on in his memory as his legacy through a lot of hard work by others is a testament to how very much he was loved and respected. Right now the people at the site are finding their way without Greg and that takes time. The site is hardly destroyed just in a period of transition. I have a lot of faith and confidence in Maria's abilities and the abilities of others assisting her to keep the site up and running and we will find our way because Greg is still guiding us.

Greg himself was also called a leftist, America hater by you, Jwhop, many times. He was also accused by you of spreading lies about the U.S. as anything that may disagree with your views are lies to you and Greg did disagree with your views in many instances. Especially regarding Bush.

I see I still have the ability through reason and logic to disconcert you to the point that you totally lose it and that is what got you barred from the site after repeated warnings and many, many chances given to you by Greg to clean up your act regarding personal attacks.

Regarding the fire in your chart that you commented on with AG on another thread, Jwhop I wouldn't think that there is any benefit in having too much fire in a chart or too much of any one element. The effects of that it seems to me would be a lifetime stuggle for a person to acheive balance and stability.

In my chart, my inner planets are equally divided by earth, water and fire, 2 each. And my chart as a whole is fairly equally divided with all the elements.

Regarding fire, I have Mars in Leo 2 degrees, direct, in the 1st house - Mercury in Aries 10 degrees, in the 10th house, direct.

My mercury aspects:

Mercury Conjunct Midheaven
Mercury Opposition Neptune
Mercury Square Ascendant
Mercury Square Saturn
Mercury Trine Pluto
Mercury Trine Mars
Mercury Sextile Uranus

It's all about clear, precise, analytical, logical thinking and reasoning. I think that is what so disconcerts you about me, Jwhop.

I don't want to have that kind of power over anyone, Jwhop so don't give it to me.

posted May 22, 2006 02:28 PM            

If anything, your logic circuits are totally disabled or you wouldn't be easy prey for every leftist crackpot lie that comes along. Neither would you be repeating those lies like they were established fact.

Second, before Greg passed away, and after I was asked to leave..and others fed up with the constant barrage of lies had migrated elsewhere, the active posters at consciousevolution dwindled down to only a handful...fewer than twenty on a regular basis.

Conscious Evolution and the Linda Goodman named site from which the Conscious Evolution site sprang, was at one time a vibrant, vital, high traffic website, much like LindaLand is today. I know because I was there long, long before you and the other leftist haters of America showed up to pollute the atmosphere with denouncements of America in virtually every post on what became the political forum. In short Mirandee, you and your leftist friends made reasonable people want to throw up with your leftist rants against America. They voted with their feet and left.

The problem with you and all the other leftist America naysayers is that you can't stand any discussion in disagreement with your positions. Indeed, your positions cannot stand any examination. Examination proves the lying stance prevalent on the leftist lunatic fringe.

The proof of that is your non answer to my request to show proof where Bush lied and stole, as you alleged. One of only a few of the lying allegations you and other leftist radicals have made against the President.

I am often at odds with Rainbow's politics and also her conclusions drawn from what she reads but I give Rainbow a large measure of credit for keeping her screen name from Conscious Evolution so we who knew her there know who we're talking to here....unlike you Mirandee.

posted May 22, 2006 02:34 PM              

Love and Respect for ALL..

posted May 22, 2006 02:50 PM              

you seemed rather heart-broken about that and i thought that was a sweet way to keep her memory alive.

i've also posted under different screen names at the other Linda Goodman website, as i do here...i've never posted under different names simultaneously (at one website) either here, there, or anywhere though...and i don't alter my posting style nor my essential personality. i don't post under different screen names to be deceptive, as i know you do not either.

you are a sincere and passionate knowflake...and consistent in your words and actions...it's what you share and hold as truth that's important, and i'm glad you choose to do that here.

posted May 22, 2006 03:24 PM              

and wouldn't at all be surprised if she herself posted here every now and then under a different screen name as well ...