Twin bombs kill 27 at police station in Iraq

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_IRAQ?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-05-19-08-44-45

KIRKUK, Iraq (AP) -- Twin bombs that lured policemen out of their fortified headquarters in a northern Iraqi city killed 27 people on Thursday, most of them police officers.

Scores were wounded in the double blasts in Kirkuk, and a third explosion 45 minutes later on a road to a city hospital brought the number of injured to at least 70, said provincial health director Siddiq Omar.

The ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, claimed by Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen, is one of the more politically volatile parts of the country. U.S. officials have long worried about what will happen in the city and region when American forces pull out of Iraq, as they're scheduled to do by the end of this year.

Eyewitness Adnan Karim described "a chaos of terror and fear" at a parking lot outside the police compound in central Kirkuk where the first two bombs went off.

[robdogbucky]

1. xchrom, fogeddaboudit

No one cares here. There is too much other news that is important, you know, Ahnold/Maid, DSK/Maid, Newt/Donald/Sarah/Michelle, doncha know.

Watch, I'll post the story about Afghan demonstrators being massacred and the same cricket sounds will prevail.

Just sayin' no one cares and that is how they are continuing these debacles.

Out of sight, out of mind.

[xchrom]

2. i believe you are correct.

there was something startling about this -- since this
area is relatively quiet.

hoping this doesn't mean a bad change of some sort.

[StarburstClock]

3. Don't forget all the pretty hats at the royal wedding

One thing my local news does is exploit the hell out of dead local soldiers, they sure care when they can sell something via the death of someone.

[Shagbark Hickory]

4. No, DONT FOGETTABOUDIT. This is the only way a lot of the people here find out whats going on in the

world.
msnBS/fox and CNN sure as hell aren't telling people.

[robdogbucky]

5. Interesting thing, xchrom, I read your AP story from the link and

I didn't see anything about this story, which seems like it might relate to that story in some ways, no?



Turkey killings trigger Kurdish protest
Clashes erupt between police and Kurds over killing of 12 members of outlawed group.

Last Modified: 17 May 2011 15:42

There is a 1:27 minute video report, with this blurb below it. I think there is more to this story, eh?

"In Turkey, violent clashes between ethnic Kurdish protesters and police erupted on Monday over the killing of at least 12 members of the Kurdistan Worker's party (PKK) by the country's security forces.

The clashes in the eastern Turkish city of Dogubayazit came after the PKK rebels were killed while trying to cross into northern Iraq. Thousands of other pro-PKK protesters also turned out in the southern city of Diyarbakir.

Stefanie Dekker reports.

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/europe/2011/05/2011517152536542812.html


In a regional perspective, I think forces like the PKK are in the mix. In the above-case, maybe this is what is spilling over to Iraq's north, with its Kurd population.

Like the Iranian elements within Iraq in the form of Sadr, the Kurds have long been at odds with Turkey and Iraq. I struggle to think their battles are compartmentalized.


Just sayin' and trying to read the crystal ball with bits of information.

[xchrom]

7. it would be hard to say -- but there is a strong, strong desire for

a kurdish homelenad.

would that lead them to an act like this or would a different source try to take advantage of the events in your link?

[robdogbucky]

6. Most Western reporters covering the war in Iraq do not speak Arabic

Western media fraud in the Middle East
Too many journalists report official narratives of the powerful, missing the stories of working class people.

Nir Rosen Last Modified: 18 May 2011 17:44

"Too often, you consumers of mainstream media are victims of a fraud. You think you can trust the articles you read - why wouldn't you? You think you can sift through the ideological bias and just get the facts. But you don't know the ingredients that go into the product you buy. It is important to understand how knowledge about current events in the Middle East is produced before relying on it. Even when there are no apparent ideological biases, such as those one often sees when it comes to reporting about Israel, there are fundamental problems at the epistemological and methodological level. These create distortions, falsehoods and justify the narrative of those with power...

...Journalists are the archetype of ideological tools who create culture and produce knowledge. Their function is to represent a class and perpetuate the dominant ideology instead of building a counter hegemonic and revolutionary ideology, or narrative, in this case. They are the organic intellectuals of the ruling class. Instead of being the voice of the people or the working class, journalists are too often the functional tools for a bourgeois ruling class. They produce and disseminate culture and meaning for the system and reproduce its values, allowing it to hegemonise the field of culture and since journalism today has a specific political economy, they are all products of the hegemonic discourse and the moneyed class.

The working class has no networks, that applies too to Hollywood and television entertainment and series; it is all the same intellectuals producing them. Even journalists with pretentions of being serious usually only serve elites and ignore social movements. Journalism tends to be state centric, focusing on elections, institutions, formal politics and overlooking politics of contention, informal politics, social movements...

...prism of the war on terror, through the American government's prism, rather than the needs and views of the people.

But if you spend any time with the demonstrators, you realise how unimportant al-Qaeda and its ideology are in Yemen, so that they don't even deserve an article. And you would do well to remember that even though the Yemeni franchise of al-Qaeda is portrayed as America's greatest threat, AQAP's record is little more than a failed underwear bomber and a failed printer cartridge bomb American reporting is problematic throughout the third world, but because the American military/industrial/financial/academic/media complex is so directly implicated in the Middle East, the consequences of such bad reporting are more significant. Journalists end up serving as propagandists justify the killing of innocent people instead of a voice for those innocent people..."

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/201151882929682601.html


This article is long, but it is worth the read. This guy is the real deal.


rdb

[xchrom]

9. there are so many good bilingual arabic reporters -- i've often wondered

at the reluctance of the u.s. outlets to use them.

[robdogbucky]

8. My Afghan story thread?

No replies, sinking like a stone. Just as I thought.

Hi ho, gotta go, someone that the media made famous is making news somewhere that is sure to titillate. Wars are so 2000 ya know?