Air Strike in Rebellious Iraqi City Kills 11

[DoYouEverWonder]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=721&e=1&u=/nm/20040718/wl_nm/iraq_dc

July 18, 2004

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. air strike on a house in Falluja killed 11 Iraqis including women and children on Sunday, doctors said, in the latest of a series of attacks on buildings believed to be sheltering guerrillas and foreign militants.

Doctor Ahmed Ghanem told Reuters 11 bodies had been brought to Falluja general hospital after the bombing in the southeast of the city, which reduced the house to rubble. The U.S. military confirmed it had launched air strikes.

<snip>

Several times over the past two months the U.S. military has launched air strikes on buildings in Falluja said to be safe houses for militants loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian accused of masterminding a series of suicide attacks.


Edit: Replaced story with one that has more details.

[izzie]

1. What is this? Do they have to get rid of so many rockers per week?

I swear they have been doing this a year and never do they get the person they say they are after. I guess it just keeps every on their toes in that city. How to make Friends, right.

[Malva Zebrina]

5. that is the beauty of pre-emtive attacks

you just need to "suspect" terrorists are hiding out in a house , bomb it ahd kill all the children who are suspected and a threat.

There are people who advocate pre-emptive strikes though, they have their head up you know where--it is the latest fad in warfare and the latest talking point of politicians wanting to be electable.

[dudeness]

2. democracy takes many forms

missiles and bombs to name a few..

[Snoggera]

3. And the graves of women and children.

Blowing up buildings, killing families, and never getting the intended target. I believe it is happening, but I didn't believe it could get that incredibly insane.

[Aidoneus]

4. the Shuhadah cemetary (aka "Soccer Stadium turned Mass Grave")

is apparently not full enough as per Coalition Standards.

This is not so much a massacre, per se, but rather a bureaucratical correction mechanism.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Bu$h is looking to surpass Saddam's top score

of 5000 bodies that have found in mass graves from his regime. In just a year and a half, W has already beat Saddam's score by at least twice that amount.

[gottaB]

7. disgusting

What are they thinking? What have all these attacks brought them? They kill at least as many civilians as combatants--every goddamn time. Even if they believed their own "intelligence" gathered from tortured taxi drivers and the like, there's still no justification for tactics like these with their record of haphazard carnage.

They need to be investigating their own failures and misdeeds in Fallujah, not repeating past mistakes.

[teryang]

8. Believe it or not, this is their idea of restraint!

Wait till the simulection in November is completed.

Currently, modern communications and public relations requirements are keeping them from laying waste to the entire country and just destroying "rebellious cities."

In past wars, the Pentagon would have leveled this entire city. But the standards for armed conflict have changed in the sixty years since WWII and with communications developments since Vietnam, the reality has changed as well. The prospect of forthcoming elections and the need to raise additional troops at home, have kept these deadly attacks on a small micro- managed, scale.

Just wait a few months, it will get much worse.

[jackofhearts]

9. Hey...we have God on our side...

C'mon you don't worry collateral damage when God is with you. It is regrettable of course but its Gods will. Our war president gets his direction from God himself. Women and children...look they are muslims...Arabs...God is OK with this...really. Yeah yeah I know all that Jesus stuff about do unto others and peace and love and turning the other cheek...that all sounds nice but this is war by God. We have God to council us and God is Jesus' father so really we're going a step up the ladder to the big guy.

Trust us...we're doing the right thing...

The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.

---Dylan---

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. "Good" Iraqis mixed with "bad "Iraqis"? Kill them all, and...

....let God sort them out.

That does appear to be the "strategy" these days, doesn't it?

For every Iraqi killed in this manner, ten more will choose to take up arms against the Infidel Occupier.

[hadrons]

11. another story posted on DU said the U.S. hasn't been in Falluja since May

they depend on Iraqi within to tell them where the "insurgents" are ... you can see how well that's going

[jmcgowanjm]

12. U.S. hasn't been in Falluja, oh, but it has

I wouldn't be surpeised if everyone of these
safehouses isn't on the main routes into the city.

According Iraq Resistance:
Resistance pounds US camp near al-Fallujah with 23 rockets, setting command center ablaze.-Last Sunday.

And on and on:

Resistance pounds US camp near al-Fallujah with 23 rockets, setting command center ablaze.

And in Ar Ramadi, Thursday:

the US sent a military patrol consisting of four Humvees
to al-Mu‘arid Street <“Street of Expositions”> and it stopped at
the ar-Ramadi General Garage.  There it came under a
blistering Iraqi Resistance attack that destroyed all
four Humvees.  After that engagement, intense fighting broke
out between the US aggressors at 10:15 and was still going
on as the correspondent filed his report.  The field of
battle extended, he wrote, from the festival squares in the city
all the way to al-Ma‘rid
Street.

http://www.freearabvoice.org/Iraq/Report/report101.htm

And why you're not going to see this on USMedia:

Rule 1: See the Middle East through Israeli eyes.
Rule 2: Treat American and Israeli governmental statements as hard news.
Rule 3: Ignore the historical context.
Rule 4: Avoid the fundamental legal and moral issues posed by the Israeli occupation.
Rule 5: Suppress or minimize news unfavorable to the Israelis.
Rule 6: Muddy the waters when necessary.
Rule 7: Credit all Israeli claims, even if wholly unfounded.
Rule 8: Doubt all Palestinian assertions, no matter how self-evident.
Rule 9: Condemn only Palestinian violence.
Rule 10: Disparage the international consensus supporting Palestinian rights.
(Insert Iraq Resistance for Palestinian when needed)

There is an eleventh rule that hovers over all the
other
rules. Equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
This
shuts everyone up. That's why it is so critically important
that
this Eleventh Rule be challenged loudly and
clearly
and frequently.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/071404_jurassic_park4.shtml

[teryang]

13. I had a great experience today

Thought you might be interested.

I was talking about F911 with a dyed in the wool republican who has pictures of reagan and bush in his office. He brought it up. He saw it with his sister. He thought it was great and that it changed his mind about the war and bush.

He then went on to tell me of his elderly father who fought in island campaigns in the south Pacific as a Marine Corps corporal in WWII. He mentioned that he had seen combat at Bougainville Is. I told him that my favorite uncle who had died of kidney failure had done the same. He went on to tell me that his father now with one leg amputated and a bad heart had finally given up on bush and the Iraq war. The other day he said "that SOB bush has got to go."

My new friend now is dying to know more about my uncle and the unit he served with.

If this story doesn't mean something personal to you, Jmcgowanjm, forget about it. If it does let me know.