Soldiers who authored critical op-ed killed in Iraq

Three weeks ago, seven U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq wrote an op-ed in the NYT expressing criticism of the way aspects of the war have been handled and pessimism about Iraq ever becoming a secure and free society while American soldiers remain there. 

As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day....

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework....

Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful....

[T]he most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably....

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are -- an army of occupation -- and force our withdrawal.

Two of the soldiers, Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance T. Gray, died Monday in west Baghdad.