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Mon 21 Nov, 2005 10:08 pm
Published on Monday, November 21, 2005 by Reuters
U.S. Troops Fired on Baghdad Civilians: Reports
by Faris al-Mehdawi
BAQUBA, Iraq - Witnesses and the Iraqi police said U.S. troops opened fire on a crowded minibus north of Baghdad on Monday, killing five members of the same family, including two children, and wounding four others.
The U.S. military said it was looking into the incident but did not confirm its involvement or provide any other details.
One of the survivors told Reuters the family was traveling from Balad, a town about 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, to the nearby city of Baquba for a funeral when they were shot at by a U.S. patrol as it approached them on the road.
"As we tried to move over to one side to let them pass, they opened fire," one of the survivors said. None of them would provide their names but said the family was headed by Mohammed Kamel.
They said the incident occurred at around 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) just outside Baquba.
Major Hussein Ali of the Iraqi police said the minivan the family was traveling in was taken away by U.S. forces shortly afterwards.
Police and the surviving family members said five people were killed, including two young children. Reuters television footage showed the dead children in a morgue in Baquba and relatives kissing another dead body on a morgue trolley.
"They are all children. They are not terrorists," shouted one relative. "Look at the children," he said as a morgue official carried a small dead child into a refrigeration room.
"We felt bullets hitting the car from behind and from in front," said another survivor with blood running from a wound to his head and splattered on his shirt. "Heads were blown off. One child had his hand shot off," he said.
Of those wounded, two were women and one was another child, the survivors said.
U.S. troops are frequently accused by Iraqis of shooting at civilian vehicles at checkpoints and roadblocks. At the same time, U.S. troops are attacked every day by car bombers in civilian vehicles who race at U.S. patrols or roadblocks.
To avoid the possibility of being fired on, most Iraqis pull over to the side of the road when U.S. convoys approach.
The convoys generally travel with signs in Arabic telling people to stay back or away and warning them that deadly force will be used if they get too close.
© Reuters 2005
So, the US doesn't kill women and kids eh? Bit trigger happy jerks, those Americans. Hope they remember those dead children the rest of their lives. I'm sure GWB is just SO upset. It might even ruin his golf game.
It's war! Things happen. It's not right, but it happens. Do you think our troops go over there and seek out families to kill? Next I suppose you will be calling our troops "baby killers" just like in Viet Nam?
They are badly trained, nevrvous as hell, trigger-happy as most were video gamers of shoot 'em up war games.
How does the count of civilians we kill accidentally, as happened in all past wars between anybody and anybody, compare with the count of civilians the insurgents kill on purpose? Strapping bombs to your waste and blowing up a wedding? You're so clueless.
No. YOU are clueless, American. Think you can follow this article? DO try:
Published on Monday, May 10, 2004 by the Agence France Presse
Iraq-Vietnam Parallels Pile Up
WASHINGTON - While most people here still recoil from comparisons of Iraq and Vietnam, the political parallels are piling up between the wrenching wars that have sharply divided two generations of Americans.
This is just so disgusting and off the charts. It just plays to everything, the humiliation of these men, the whole issue of pornography and the argument that all the West wants to do is make it into one large brothel.
John Mueller
Ohio State University political science professor
Few suggest Iraq has reached the same military proportion. But its disputed origins, a surprisingly resilient local resistance, and now repugnant abuses by US troops all recall the trauma of the distant jungle conflict.
Photographs of hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners abused by US guards have triggered a wave of revulsion not seen here since the Indochina campaign, alarming one-time staunch supporters of the desert war.
"We risk losing public support for this conflict," influential Republican Senator John McCain, himself a prisoner in Vietnam, told an emotionally charged congressional hearing Friday.
"As Americans turned away from the Vietnam War, they may turn away from this one, unless this issue is quickly resolved with full disclosure immediately," McCain said.
Polls show nearly half of Americans now feel the invasion was not worth it, and 62 percent believe the occupation is going badly. Yet the public is still resisting equating the embattled occupation with Vietnam.
A Pew Research Center survey published last month before the prison scandal broke found only 25 percent feared Iraq would become another Vietnam war, which claimed 58,000 US lives between 1961 and 1973.
But officials and analysts still see disturbing links between the conflicts.
Both sprang from dubious provocations: in Vietnam it was disputed North Vietnamese attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin; in Iraq it was the weapons of mass destruction that were never found.
In 1968 a daring Tet offensive convinced US commanders in Vietnam that they were up against a resourceful and determined foe. US occupation forces in Iraq learned the same lesson last month in the battle of Fallujah.
And if the 1968 massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese in the village of My Lai highlighted the ugly side of US military adventurism, it has been matched by the burgeoning scandal at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, once the nation's top general, raised eyebrows last week when he voluntarily compared Abu Ghraib to My Lai. But analysts say the prison debacle may be worse in some respects.
John Mueller, a political science professor and author who has written two books on war and public opinion, said that while My Lai was horrific, it was an extension of the basic US "search and destroy" mission.
"Going into Iraq, however, the idea is not to kill, not to humiliate, not to murder Iraqis," said Mueller, who teaches at Ohio State University. "We're trying to clean up Iraq from this kind of disaster."
"This is just so disgusting and off the charts," he told AFP. "It just plays to everything, the humiliation of these men, the whole issue of pornography and the argument that all the West wants to do is make it into one large brothel."
Evocations of Indochina carry heavy political overtones in a presidential election year, and when Senator Ted Kennedy called Iraq "George Bush's Vietnam" last month, he drew a stinging rebuke from the president.
"I think the analogy is false," Bush said. "I also happen to think that analogy sends the wrong message to our troops and sends a wrong message to the enemy."
But even army officers are now starting to go public with doubts whether the United States may be winning a series of battles in Iraq but losing the overall war just like in Vietnam.
"Unless we ensure that we have coherency in our policy, we will lose strategically," Colonel Paul Hughes, who last year directed strategic planning for the occupation authority in Baghdad, told the Washington Post.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam war veteran who has been hammering Bush on his Iraq policy, said last month that Iraq "is not Vietnam yet."
"I underscore yet," the Massachusetts senator added.
© Copyright 2004 AFP
*******
Oh yeah, you Yanks are really doing the Iraqis a favour. You would strap bombs on YOUR backs if they came into your country (which they did not, clueless amerikan.) Iraq had no WMD's and were not responsible for 9/11. THEREFORE, why are you there? OIL. You could care less about the people, and you know it.
If you Yanks are so humanitarian, why don't you go to Chad? Bingo! No oil there.
Hey, **** happens. Especially to other people far away. Where the most wasteful, gluttonous, Decadent people on the planet. Sombodys got to pay for that ****. As long as it's not me. I'm American and I don't give a f**k. I feel my tank with the blood of children and I get it cheap.
OH! OH! I GET IT NOW! Our troops are supposed to stand there and let people shoot at them! They are supposed to drive right over those road bombs so no one else gets hurt!
MAN, I CAN'T BELIEVE I DIDN'T FIGURE THAT OUT FOR MYSELF!
ARE YOU NUTS OR WHAT?
Better yet, check out the post 'totalitarian gov't in progress'. Know what that type of gov is? You won't like it. But after what you've done to the rest of the world, you deserve it.
Just who do you think you are? I happen to be one of those troops! And it's those like you that tear our country down! It's because of you young men over here have heavy hearts because of your venom!
I am sincerely glad that you do not live in the US. I would hate to think that me and my are men sacrificing their all for our country and it was being wasted on the likes of you.
You poor, deluded fool. Maybe you'll wise up and join the over 5,000 AWOL's who figured out they are being used for cannon fodder.
You could not give me an answer to why you are there because there isn't any.
If US Army officials are questioning why you're in Iraq, don't you think you should? Do you want me to send that article too, or are you capable of doing a google search on your own? Try 'army officials question war in iraq'. No one would blame you for going AWOL. Bush did.
xk8jaguar, The truth is not venom. The truth is the truth. Nothing more nothing less and if the truth about this war gives those young men a heavy heart it's because there human and they should. Bush and his whole gang are traitors. Any real American that can handle the truth can see this if they care to open there eyes. I know marines that fell the same way.
englishmajor
I live in So Calif and I drive an SUV and you sir are way out of line with your remarks. Do you sincerely believe 99% of Americans are sick bastards?? If so, I feel very sorry for you.
It is SO easy for those of you to judge the actions of the men and women who fight now in Iraq, but you have NO idea what their daily lives are like.
You want the closest thing you can experience to being a soldier in Iraq without dying ?
You will need the following items:
A large table
A large spring snap rat trap
Some peanut butter or cheese
A .22 caliber pistol or pellet gun
A friend you trust with a camera and a megaphone
100 mice
Here is what you do:
1) Set the rat trap and bait it with the peanut butter or cheese and place it on the table
2) Strip from the waist down
3) Place your testicles near the 'snap point' of the rat trap (Still trying to figure the female version of this experience out)
4) Have your friend dump the mice on the table
5) Shoot ONLY the mice that come near the rat trap and might trigger it
6) If you accidentally shoot a mouse that didn't seem like it was heading to the trap, have your friend scream "BABY KILLER" as loud as he can into the megaphone and then take a picture of the dead mouse and plaster it over the internet with captions that you HATE mice.
7) Stay there for at least a year doing this over and over. When the number of mice get low, replace them with Syrian or Iranian mice.
Important Rules:
a) At NO TIME can your friend with the camera show that it is your testicles on the line or display that you are trying to defend yourself in any way. (This is referred to as the 'balanced reporting' rule)
b) If your friend with the camera sees a mouse heading towards the trap and realizes you don't see it, he may under NO CIRCUMSTANCES warn you. He may however have the camera ready to film the 'snap' (This is referred to as the 'objectivity' rule)
c) Twice in that year, you may make one trip 'to the rear' for rest, but if any mice snap the trap, your friend must scream in the megaphone "NOT ENOUGH TROOPS" (This is referred to as the 'supporting the troops' rule)
I hope this can give you a little bit of the 'Complete Iraq Experience'
Who in hell asked you to go to Iraq?
If you don't like the heat....you know the rest.
Refer to above posts from amigo.
If truth hurts, too bad.
The people in Iraq feel pain as well. They don't want you there.
GWB asked young fools to fight in a war with no clear purpose. No WMD's. No reason to be there.
Except oil.
The opinion of America in the world has sunk to a new low. Enjoy your status.
We should have never invaded the place, huh Fedral?
rodeman wrote:englishmajor
I live in So Calif and I drive an SUV and you sir are way out of line with your remarks. Do you sincerely believe 99% of Americans are sick bastards?? If so, I feel very sorry for you.
Just joining the rest of the planet and their opinion of America.
Name one country, please (not GB-they have since regretted their decision to join in the silly war) who actually admires America.
I feel very sorry for you. But not too much :wink: as I live in Canada.
Sick bastards? Who voted Bush in twice? Now, there's got to be some seriously stupid people in the US! Got a better explanation?
Amigo wrote:Hey, **** happens. Especially to other people far away. Where the most wasteful, gluttonous, Decadent people on the planet. Sombodys got to pay for that ****. As long as it's not me. I'm American and I don't give a f**k. I feel my tank with the blood of children and I get it cheap.
LMAO. Good one, my friend.
Not to mention, I don't really think that your concern, englishmajor, is the welfare of those children. I think that you need one more thing to complain about because you don't have enough vileness spewed into this world yet.
Have you considered vounteering to go over to Iraq to help those poor people? Nope. Didn't think so.
rodeman wrote:englishmajor
I live in So Calif and I drive an SUV and you sir are way out of line with your remarks. Do you sincerely believe 99% of Americans are sick bastards?? If so, I feel very sorry for you.
three quarters of the world population think were sick bastards. Englishmajor is just an example of the sentiment that is now world wide. Weve brought the worlds people together. So get used to it. At least it's easy to ignore with all the comforts inside the castle walls
englishmajor wrote:You're one sick bastard. Like 99% of your fellow Americans. What goes around comes around....
Please eat my shorts.
In a later post, englishmajor wrote:I feel very sorry for you. But not too much :wink: as I live in Canada.
Yes ... it is
we who should feel sorry for
you.
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