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Civilians Slaughtered


djxeno

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Civilians Slaughtered

Thursday, March 27 2003 @ 08:59 PM GMT

Robert Fisk, The Independent

BAGHDAD - It was an outrage, an obscenity. The severed hand on the metal door, the swamp of blood and mud across the road, the human brains inside a garage, the incinerated, skeletal remains of an Iraqi mother and her three small children in their still smoldering car. Two missiles from a single American jet killed them all — more than 20 Iraqi civilians, torn to pieces before they could be ‘liberated’ by the nation which destroyed their lives.

Who dares, I ask myself, to call this ‘collateral damage’? Abu Taleb Street was packed with pedestrians and motorists when the American pilot approached through the dense sandstorm that covered northern Baghdad in a cloak of red and yellow dust and rain yesterday morning. It’s a dirt poor neighborhood — of mostly Shiite Muslims, the same people whom Messers Bush and Blair still fondly hope will rise up against Saddam — a place of oil-sodden car repair shops, overcrowded apartments and cheap cafes.

Everyone I spoke to heard the plane. One man, so shocked by the headless corpses he had just seen, could only say two words. “Roar, flash,’’ he kept saying and then closed his eyes so tight that the muscles rippled between them.

How should one record so terrible an event? Perhaps a medical report would be more appropriate. But the final death toll is expected to be near to 30 and Iraqis are now witnessing these awful things each day; so there is no reason why the truth — all the truth — of what they see should not be told.

For another question occurred to me as I walked through this place of massacre yesterday. If this is what we are seeing in Baghdad, what is happening in Basra and Nassiriyah and Karbala? How many civilians are dying there too, anonymously, indeed unrecorded, because there are no reporters to be witness to their suffering?

Abu Hassan and Malek Hammoud were preparing lunch for customers at the Nasser Restaurant on the north side of Abu Taleb Street. The missile that killed them landed next to the westbound carriageway, its blast tearing away the front of the cafe and cutting the two men — the first 48, the second only 18 — to pieces. One of their fellow workers led me through the rubble. “This is all that is left of them now,’’ he said, holding out before me an oven pan dripping with blood.

At least 15 cars burst into flames burning many of their occupants to death. Several men tore desperately at the doors of another flame-shrouded car in the center of the street which had been slipped upside down by the same missile. They were forced to watch helplessly as the woman and her three children inside were cremated alive in front of them. The second missile hit neatly on the east-bound carriageway, sending shards of metal into three men standing outside a concrete apartment block with the words “This is God’s possession’’ written in marble on the outside wall.

The building’s manager, Hishem Danoon, ran to the doorway as soon as he heard the massive explosion. “I found Ta’ar in pieces over there,’’ he told me. His head was blown off. “That’s his hand.’’ A group of young men and women took me into the street and there, a scene from any horror film, was Ta’ar’s hand, cut off at the wrist, his four fingers and thumb grasping a piece of iron roofing. His young colleague Sermed died the same instant. His brains lay piled a few feet away, a pale red and gray mess behind a burned car. Both men worked for Danoon. So did a doorman who was also killed.

As each survivor talked, the dead regained their identities. There was the electrical ship owner killed behind his counter by the same missile that cut down Ta’ar and Sermed and the doorman, and the young girl standing on the central reservation, trying to cross the road, and the truck driver who was only feet from the point of impact and the beggar who regularly called to see Danoon for bread and who was just leaving when the missiles came soaring down through the sandstorm to destroy him.

In Qatar, the Anglo-American forces — let’s forget this nonsense about “coalition†— announced an inquiry. The Iraqi government, who are the only ones to benefit from the propaganda value of such a blood bath, naturally denounced the slaughter which they initially put at 14 dead. So what was the real target? Some Iraqis said there was a military encampment less than a mile from the street, though I couldn’t find it. Others talked about a local fire brigade headquarters, but the fire brigade can hardly be described as military target.

Certainly, there had been an attack less than an hour earlier on a military camp further north. I was driving past the base when two rockets exploded and I saw Iraqi soldiers running for their lives out of the gates and along the side of the highway. Then I heard two more explosions — these were the missiles that hit Abu Taleb Street.

Of course, the pilot who killed the innocent yesterday could not see his victims. Pilots fire through computer-aligned coordinates and the sandstorm yesterday would have hidden the street from his vision. But when one of Malek Hammoud’s friends asked me how the Americans could so blithely kill those they claimed to want to liberate, he didn’t want to learn about the science of avionics or weapons delivery systems. And why should he? For this is happening almost every day in Baghdad.

The truth is that nowhere is safe now in Baghdad and as the Americans and British close their siege of the city in the next few days or hours, that simple message will become ever more real and ever more bloody. We may put on the hairshirt of morality in explaining why theses people should die. They died because of Sept. 11, we may say, because of Saddam’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’, because of human rights abuses, because of our desperate desire to ‘liberate’ them all. Let us not confuse the issue with oil. Either way, I’ll bet we are told that Saddam is ultimately responsible for their deaths. We shan’t mention the pilot, of course.

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Originally posted by djxeno

Civilians Slaughtered

Thursday, March 27 2003 @ 08:59 PM GMT

Robert Fisk, The Independent

We shan’t mention the pilot, of course.

Or the ones sending the pilot coordinates.

Or the official who gave the order to drop bombs in such poor visibility.

Collateral damage they say.

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civilian life taken.. how sad :(...Its also sad it could have been prevented if that animal of a leader did what he was supposed to, then again they probably all would have been killed or left to die anyways on accoutn of him..:rolleyes:

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Originally posted by girly

civilian life taken.. how sad :(...Its also sad it could have been prevented if that animal of a leader did what he was supposed to, then again they probably all would have been killed or left to die anyways...:rolleyes:

I agree. Bush is a complete asshole.

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I agree. Bush is a complete asshole.

I know right?! Saddam Hussein is certainly far from that.. hes so wonderful, sweet and charming..oh! How can i forget how caring he is when it comes to his country and the people there..

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Originally posted by girly

I agree. Bush is a complete asshole.

I know right?! Saddam Hussein is certainly far from that.. hes so wonderful, sweet and charming..oh! How can i forget how caring he is when it comes to his country and the people there..

you've met him?!?!

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Originally posted by dnice35

you should go to Iraq to defend it from our evil troops..... :rolleyes:

Our troops aren't evil, its the slack jawwed fagats giving the orders who are evil.

I hope they watch out for the depleted uranium this time. (our troops).

-XeNo-

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Originally posted by djxeno

Our troops aren't evil, its the slack jawwed fagats giving the orders who are evil.

-XeNo-

what about the evil, murderer Saddam, that is having people die for him and murdering the people of his country in the name of religion...Don't forget abouthim now....

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Originally posted by girly

no but i have seen and heard so many wonderful thingsabout him, I definitely want too:rolleyes:

\

I wanted to see his interview that Dan Rather did but I missed it. Just to set the record straight, I do believe that Saddam is an evil man. However, I do not agree with the U.S's policies or behavior.

-XeNo-

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Originally posted by girly

what about the evil, murderer Saddam, that is having people die for him and murdering the people of his country in the name of religion...Don't forget abouthim now....

this just in---> saddam does not like fundamentalists..in fact he hasn't liked them for over 20 plus years, which is why he was at war with Iran and recieved your tax dollars to fund that war :rolleyes:

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Originally posted by girly

what about the evil, murderer Saddam, that is having people die for him and murdering the people of his country in the name of religion...Don't forget abouthim now....

In the name of religion? No. Saddam is far from a Muslim. Saddam hates Kurdes and Shiites, that's why the war with Iran and Iraq lasted so long. Iran is about 90 percent Shiite. Iraq has Kurds, Sunnis, and Shites living there. Saddam himself is Sunni.

Also, their is some speculation as to whether or not Saddam really did gas the Kurds, I have read documents that it was really Iran who did that during the Iraq-Iran war. However, I still have doubts as to what to believe, but it is a fact that the U.S supported Saddam when he gassed the Kurds. There was a previous thread about this on the board.

If you have studied Islam you will understand that Shites have some very different beliefs when it comes to traditional Islam. You could even label there actions as "un-islamic," but that is only my opinion.

-XeNo-

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Originally posted by girly

what about the evil, murderer Saddam, that is having people die for him and murdering the people of his country in the name of religion...Don't forget abouthim now....

Girly...you're getting completely confused here. Saddam - standing up for religion!! lol Bush would sooner start a Christian crusade!

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Originally posted by dnice35

when have you ever agreed with our goverment? you are anti-american remember, or did you forget that?

Well dnice, I love the freedoms this country gives me.

I love that i have the freedom to call you a fuck face.

I love that i have the freedom to spend crazy amounts of money at strip clubs

I love that I have the freedom to start my own business, etc etc......you see dnice, this country has many freedoms, and we shouldnt take them for granted, even if its such a little freedom of calling you a blithering idiot.

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why do you people choose to speak for Saddam Hussein? I am confused.. COnfused as to why you all speak this way for such an evil, murdering, human hating person that has killed massive amounts of people and will not stop..As for everything else you all have to say, it does teach me a thing or 2;)

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Originally posted by djxeno

Also, their is some speculation as to whether or not Saddam really did gas the Kurds, I have read documents that it was really Iran who did that during the Iraq-Iran war.

-XeNo-

I read the same BS, Saddam did it. all the evidence and comon sence points at him as being the guilty party.

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Originally posted by djxeno

Well dnice, I love the freedoms this country gives me.

I love that i have the freedom to call you a fuck face.

I love that i have the freedom to spend crazy amounts of money at strip clubs

I love that I have the freedom to start my own business, etc etc......you see dnice, this country has many freedoms, and we shouldnt take them for granted, even if its such a little freedom of calling you a blithering idiot.

Did you forget as to why you have these freedoms? For americans that serve the country in situations like this to make it safe and secure for you to go and spend your money in strip clubs and sit here and type..That is your problem:rolleyes:

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Originally posted by girly

why do you people choose to speak for Saddam Hussein? I am confused.. COnfused as to why you all speak this way for such an evil, murdering, human hating person that has killed massive amounts of people and will not stop..As for everything else you all have to say, it does teach me a thing or 2;)

Girly, not supporting Saddam. Just not supporting this war. Pls read my other post (this a war about our freedom, or something).

Too many things wrong with it, and too many things that can go wrong with it.

I AM for a UN backed solution(even if its war). Its more legal and does not send dangerous shockwaves through the global community as a war led by GB and US does.

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Originally posted by girly

Did you forget as to why you have these freedoms? For americans that serve the country in situations like this to make it safe and secure for you to go and spend your money in strip clubs and sit here and type..That is your problem:rolleyes:

You see...in the end we all want the same thing. Safety and security for us and our kids. We just view the war differently...I think its going to cause more problems, thats all.

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Originally posted by djxeno

Well dnice, I love the freedoms this country gives me.

I love that i have the freedom to call you a fuck face.

I love that i have the freedom to spend crazy amounts of money at strip clubs

I love that I have the freedom to start my own business, etc etc......you see dnice, this country has many freedoms, and we shouldnt take them for granted, even if its such a little freedom of calling you a blithering idiot.

so you like the opportunities, the money, the liberties which this country provides, yet you are not willing to fight for this country.... hmmm well I might be an idiot, but at least I am not a coward.

by the way we are all part of the same hypocrisy, you are as guilty as all those who "pull the strings".

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Originally posted by girly

Did you forget as to why you have these freedoms? For americans that serve the country in situations like this to make it safe and secure for you to go and spend your money in strip clubs and sit here and type..That is your problem:rolleyes:

he takes, yet he complains..... :confused:

typical tree hugger.

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