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Banned
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Originally Posted by stevo
But this time out we are not fighting to keep our "pure culture" as america is not made of one type of people, but fighting against people who would strap bombs to themselves and blow up innocent people celebrating a wedding or praying to God.
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I grew up in 1950's America, and I sometimes harken back to a simpler time, like the memories of those days...epitomized in old TV shows like "Ozzie and Harriet" and "Leave it to Beaver". Trouble is...I don't have the gift of selective memory that would permit my mind to linger back in those times, for very long.
Trouble is....I live here. I envy you for your way of thinking stevo. Mine gives me a headache; the price I pay for living in the here and now, and trying to take it all in. Where do you offload all of the stuff that doesn't make it into your perspective?
Like....for instance....
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http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/a...istan.bombing/
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- About 40 people, all civilians, were killed Monday in an attack by U.S. forces on a central Afghan village, Afghan Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah said Tuesday. "Some 100" other people were wounded, he said.
Abdullah said the dead included 25 family members who were celebrating a wedding in a village in Uruzgan Province.
Casualty figures remain unclear. Wedding party members told reporters about 120 to 130 of the 300 attending the celebration may have been killed, while U.S. defense officials said at least 20 people died in the attack and more than 60 were wounded in the incident.........
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004May20.html
washingtonpost.com > World > Middle East > The Gulf > Iraq
U.S. to Investigate Controversial Assault in Western Iraq
Military Denies Strike Hit Wedding Party
By Sewell Chan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 21, 2004; 3:50 PM
BAGHDAD, May 20 -- U.S. military officers said Thursday that they would open an investigation into a ground and air assault on a desert site in western Iraq that has produced sharply conflicting accounts of whether the approximately 40 people killed were mostly foreign insurgents or included civilians engaged in a wedding celebration.
Witnesses near the village of Makr al-Deeb, near the Syrian border, told television crews that a U.S. military aircraft strafed innocent people, mostly women and children, at a wedding party. However, U.S. military officers maintained for a second day that the target was a desert way station used by armed foreign insurgents who cross the porous border into Iraq.
"How many people go into the middle of the desert 10 miles from the Syrian border to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization?" asked Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division, whose unit operates in western Iraq.
The dead included "more than two dozen military-age males," said Mattis, speaking at a press conference in Fallujah. "Let's not be naive."
The senior military spokesman in Iraq, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, said an investigation is "the only prudent thing to do" because of the seriousness of allegations raised by people interviewed on television.
Among those killed in the attack were "34 to 35 men" and "less than a handful of women," Kimmitt said, speaking at a press conference here. U.S. ground troops remained at the site "for an extensive period of time," he said, and did not find any dead children among the casualties.
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Quote:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/inter...222817,00.html
Iraqis lose right to sue troops over war crimes
Military win immunity pledge in deal on UN vote
Kamal Ahmed, political editor
Sunday May 23, 2004
The Observer
British and American troops are to be granted immunity from prosecution in Iraq after the crucial 30 June handover, undermining claims that the new Iraqi government will have 'full sovereignty' over the state.
Despite widespread ill-feeling about the abuse of prisoners by American forces and allegations of mistreatment by British troops, coalition forces will be protected from any legal action.
They will only be subject to the domestic law of their home countries. Military sources have told The Observer that the question of immunity was central to obtaining military agreement on a new United Nations resolution on Iraq to be published by the middle of next month.
The new resolution will lift the arms embargo against Iraq, allowing the country to rearm its 80,000-strong army in readiness for taking over the nation's security once coalition forces finally leave.
'The legal situation in Iraq will be very difficult after 30 June, with some confusion over where jurisdiction lies,' said one Whitehall official. 'We wanted to ensure that British troops maintained the immunity they already have under Order 17.'
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Quote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...223564,00.html
'Wedding video' contradicts US denials
Staff and agencies
Monday May 24, 2004
A videotape emerged today apparently showing the wedding party in Iraq that survivors say was attacked by US warplanes last week in raids that killed up to 45 people.
The US military has admitted launching air strikes at targets near the Syrian border last Tuesday but insists it attacked a safehouse for foreign insurgents and that there was no evidence of a wedding.
The top US military spokesman in Iraq, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, told reporters at the weekend that there could have been some kind of celebration but said "bad people have celebrations too".
He insisted there were "no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration".
However, the video obtained by APTN - which lasts for several hours - shows a large wedding party, and separate footage shot by AP cameramen the following day shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans, and brightly coloured beddings used for celebrations scattered around a bombed-out tent. There were also fragments of ordnance that appeared to have US markings.
An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video.
The survivors say dozens of missiles were launched lat at night after the festivities had ended and that women and children were among those killed, as were the bride and groom.
The US military has launched an investigation into the raids on the village of Mogr el-Deeb, which is about five miles from the Syrian border, but maintains that the evidence suggests it was a safehouse for insurgents coming over the border.
Iraqi officials said at least 13 children were killed and the AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 whom relatives said had died. Brig Gen Kimmitt has denied finding evidence that any children died in the raid although he admitted that a "handful of women" - perhaps four to six - were "caught up in the engagement".
"They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft," he told reporters last week.
Bodies of five women were filmed by APTN the survivors took them to the nearest town of Ramadi for burial last week. The dead included video cameraman Yasser Shawkat Abdullah who had been hired to record the festivities.......
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I wonder if any of the suicide bombers say "let's roll" when they're strappin' em on ? |