Girl, Eight, In Iraq Suicide Bombing

[maddezmom]

Source: SkyNews

An eight-year-old girl strapped with explosives has blown up and killed an Iraqi army captain, reports say.

The bomb was detonated by remote control, injuring four soldiers in addition to the one who died, an Iraqi Army spokesman said.

Local authorities imposed a curfew in the area and American troops launched a search for those responsible.

US soldiers confirmed that a young girl was involved in the attack, which took place near Youssifiyah, south of the capital, Baghdad.

The horrific bombing came as Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki flew to Mosul to take charge of a major offensive against al Qaeda.



Read more: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/20080514/twl-girl-eight-in-iraq-suicide-bombing-3fd0ae9.html

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:cry:

[soleft]

1. Sometimes you feel numb to the horrors in the news

But every once in a while there's a report that breaks through and completely sickens you to the core.

[Kelvin Mace]

2. IF true,

this is a new low for the insurgents. IF false, a new low for the military propaganda effort.

[maddezmom]

4. absolutely

And I'm not sure which would be worse

[angstlessk]

3. is this a new baby incubator story, or those mentally retarded women

they claimed last time? Who would do that??? THAT IS INSANE..I very much doubt this story, sorry, I did not question the mentally retarded women's story till it came out latter it was a FUCKING LIE!!!

ps..I also believed the baby incubator story! I am sick of being lied to by this admin and its cohorts! :grr:

[leftchick]

7. I would bet on another lie

that is all the DoD spews these days. Fucking lies.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[leftchick]

11. lol

sources? it ain't faux news that is for sure. :eyes: Have a nice stay rush.

[DavidDvorkin]

13. He's gone already!

Two posts. I wonder what the other one was?

[uppityperson]

17. Ask, and you shall receive...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3278577&mesg_id=3283550
Why go through the whole registering process to merely go out in 2 posts? Ah well, better than being out scrawling graffiti or torturing kittens.

[DavidDvorkin]

19. Hah. Thanks.

Maybe he thought he'd last longer than two posts. Maybe he thought our mods are morans!

[PassingFair]

20. HaHaHaHa....

If I weren't STILL so unsure of the definition
and use of IRONY, I'd say that's pretty ironic!

:rofl:

[angstlessk]

16. souce..her is the independent from the UK

More often, the lies have been small, designed to make a propaganda point for a day even if they are exposed as untrue a few weeks later. One example of this to shows in detail how propaganda distorts day-to-day reporting in Iraq, but, if the propagandist knows his job, is very difficult to disprove.

On 1 February this year, two suicide bombers, said to be female, blew themselves up in two pet markets in predominantly Shia areas of Baghdad, al Ghazil and al-Jadida, and killed 99 people. Iraqi government officials immediately said the bombers had the chromosonal disorder Down's syndrome, which they could tell this from looking at the severed heads of the bombers. Sadly, horrific bombings in Iraq are so common that they no longer generate much media interest abroad. It was the Down's syndrome angle which made the story front-page news. It showed al-Qa'ida in Iraq was even more inhumanly evil than one had supposed (if that were possible) and it meant, so Iraqi officials said, that al-Qa'ida was running out of volunteers.

The Times splashed on it under the headline, "Down's syndrome bombers kill 91". The story stated firmly that "explosives strapped to two women with Down's syndrome were detonated by remote control in crowded pet markets". Other papers, including The Independent, felt the story had a highly suspicious smell to it. How much could really be told about the mental condition of a woman from a human head shattered by a powerful bomb? Reliable eyewitnesses in suicide bombings are difficult to find because anybody standing close to the bomber is likely to be dead or in hospital.

The US military later supported the Iraqi claim that the bombers had Down's syndrome. On 10 February, they arrested Dr Sahi Aboub, the acting director of the al Rashad mental hospital in east Baghdad, alleging that he had provided mental patients for use by al-Qa'ida. The Iraqi Interior Ministry started rounding up beggars and mentally disturbed people on the grounds that they might be potential bombers.

But on 21 February, an American military spokes-man said there was no evidence the bombers had Down's. Adel Mohsin, a senior official at the Health Ministry in Baghdad, poured scorn on the idea that Dr Aboub could have done business with the Sunni fanatics of al-Qa'ida because he was a Shia and had only been in the job a few weeks.

A second doctor, who did not want to give his name, pointed out that al Rashad hospital is run by the fundamentalist Shia Mehdi Army and asked: "How would it be possible for al-Qa'ida to get in there?"

Few people in Baghdad now care about the exact circumstances of the bird market bombings apart from Dr Aboub, who is still in jail, and the mentally disturbed beggars who were incarcerated. Unfortunately, it is all too clear that al-Qa'ida is not running out of suicide bombers. But it is pieces of propaganda such as this small example, often swallowed whole by the media and a thousand times repeated, which cumulatively mask the terrible reality of Iraq.

©independent.co.uk

[BonnieJW]

8. I'm finding this hard to believe as well.

This administration wants to keep this war going so badly as well as invade Iran, it will do anything and say anything. I'm surprised the story didn't add that the girl was forced by Iranians to perform this outrage.

[piedmont]

9. I wouldn't call the mentally retarded bombers story a lie, exactly

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022108C.shtml

The first responders found the heads, and believed from the features that they had Down's syndrome. Officials later idntified the women, and they both had been treated at a psychiatric hospital, though their files didn't include a Down's syndrome diagnosis. Their files did indicate schizophrenia and depression, and one counselor said he believed one of the women may have had Down's. So they were apparently mentally ill in some way, and it does seem to me that they were probably taken advantage of.

[angstlessk]

15. you are quoting the US military there...LIARS ALL from the UK

More often, the lies have been small, designed to make a propaganda point for a day even if they are exposed as untrue a few weeks later. One example of this to shows in detail how propaganda distorts day-to-day reporting in Iraq, but, if the propagandist knows his job, is very difficult to disprove.

On 1 February this year, two suicide bombers, said to be female, blew themselves up in two pet markets in predominantly Shia areas of Baghdad, al Ghazil and al-Jadida, and killed 99 people. Iraqi government officials immediately said the bombers had the chromosonal disorder Down's syndrome, which they could tell this from looking at the severed heads of the bombers. Sadly, horrific bombings in Iraq are so common that they no longer generate much media interest abroad. It was the Down's syndrome angle which made the story front-page news. It showed al-Qa'ida in Iraq was even more inhumanly evil than one had supposed (if that were possible) and it meant, so Iraqi officials said, that al-Qa'ida was running out of volunteers.

The Times splashed on it under the headline, "Down's syndrome bombers kill 91". The story stated firmly that "explosives strapped to two women with Down's syndrome were detonated by remote control in crowded pet markets". Other papers, including The Independent, felt the story had a highly suspicious smell to it. How much could really be told about the mental condition of a woman from a human head shattered by a powerful bomb? Reliable eyewitnesses in suicide bombings are difficult to find because anybody standing close to the bomber is likely to be dead or in hospital.

The US military later supported the Iraqi claim that the bombers had Down's syndrome. On 10 February, they arrested Dr Sahi Aboub, the acting director of the al Rashad mental hospital in east Baghdad, alleging that he had provided mental patients for use by al-Qa'ida. The Iraqi Interior Ministry started rounding up beggars and mentally disturbed people on the grounds that they might be potential bombers.

But on 21 February, an American military spokes-man said there was no evidence the bombers had Down's. Adel Mohsin, a senior official at the Health Ministry in Baghdad, poured scorn on the idea that Dr Aboub could have done business with the Sunni fanatics of al-Qa'ida because he was a Shia and had only been in the job a few weeks.

A second doctor, who did not want to give his name, pointed out that al Rashad hospital is run by the fundamentalist Shia Mehdi Army and asked: "How would it be possible for al-Qa'ida to get in there?"

Few people in Baghdad now care about the exact circumstances of the bird market bombings apart from Dr Aboub, who is still in jail, and the mentally disturbed beggars who were incarcerated. Unfortunately, it is all too clear that al-Qa'ida is not running out of suicide bombers. But it is pieces of propaganda such as this small example, often swallowed whole by the media and a thousand times repeated, which cumulatively mask the terrible reality of Iraq.

©independent.co.uk

[Winterblues]

5. In Vietnam it was often reported that children would approach GIs with a hand grenade.

Children and women were constantly found among the VC forces and in fact were an integral part. Why should this news be any type of shock? When we engage against civilians we engage against civilians which includes women and children....No uniforms are worn by our supposed enemies...Our soldiers must feel so damn proud..

[Xithras]

21. Yep. Happened to my uncle. The guy next to him shot a 2 year old dead.

Screwed him up for life.

Usually, however, the kids didn't know what they were doing. In some cases the VC would kidnap a small child, hand them an explosive (usually a grenade, but sometimes a claymore in a bag) and tell the kid "Run over to those soldiers and they'll take you home." The kid would run over and BOOM. In other cases, they'd tell the kid to give the soldiers a "gift", or even threaten to kill their parents if they resisted. It was a brutal war, fought brutally by both sides.

By their use of the term "suicide bomber", I'm assuming that the kid knew she was going to die, which is a bit different than what we experienced in Vietnam.

[leftynyc]

6. Suicide bombing my ass

This was out and out murder - that child in all likelihood had no idea what was going on. The people who did this to her are fucking monsters.

[Not_Giving_Up]

12. Exactly

It said it was detonated by a remote. The child didn't choose this, someone else blew her up. That's murder, not suicide.

[Gormy Cuss]

14. Thank you.

To call this a suicide bombing is just flat out wrong and only serves to perpetuate the notion that Muslims are death-happy zealots even as children.

[uppityperson]

18. Indeed. shit shit shit shit shit

[Scriptor Ignotus]

22. I agree that the people who sent her to die are monsters

but I have seen many videos, documentaries mostly, of children in the middle east. and they can be indoctrinated to hate and to wish death on their enemies at ages far younger than 8. Death in Gaza was a good one on HBO a while back and there a few others whose names I can't recall now.

I think it is inaccurate to say she had "no idea" what was going on. She may very well have wanted to do this. But in truth, you or I will never really know for sure.

[leftynyc]

23. I simply cannot blame an 8 year old girl

for this. How could a child that young even understand what she was killing for? And she certainly didn't build the bomb or put it on her body herself. If she were so willing to blow herself up, why would they use a remote control device to detonate? Sorry, while I understand that she can be indoctrinated to hate, an 8 year old mind just doesn't have the capacity to understand what "martydom" is.

[Scriptor Ignotus]

25. child soldiers are found all over the world

and while I can't understand it, unfortunately, this is the world we live in. and people bitch about violent video games in this country. what a joke.

yes, an 8 year old probably doesn't grasp martyrdom, but I am not so sure an 18 year old in the US Army really understands what they are getting themselves into either. argh, this thread is depressing.

[LeftyMom]

24. A while back I went into a family-run take out place to get dinner

and the little boy behind the counter (in the evenings he and his older sister take orders and ring people up, while Mom and Grandma run the kitchen- they'd always seemed like very nice kids) was wearing a shirt with a slogan on it expressing a desire to kill or die for his faith, under a symbol of his religion made out of machine guns, belts of ammo, etc. Now I don't know if he believes in that sort of thing, or if he's too young to really object, but certainly his family approved of his wearing such a message, which is a pretty scary thought. He looks to be eight or nine. And fwiw, they're NOT a muslim family.

Violent fundamentalism isn't a uniquely middle-eastern phenomenon, and neither is brainwashing the young in order to indoctrinate them into a backward belief system.