Good!!

You knew this was going to happen when they changed the rules of engagement the other day.

Another question: what happends when a woman carries out a suicide attack? How do the people on the ground deal with that?

They just showed how the dealt with it. How can you blame them?

Sean-Paul and everybody: the Guardian has set up a chronicle of claims and followup at:

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,921647,00.html

Via Atrios.

Good!!

Does the troll list expand?

"Good"?

Someone can actually write "Good!" How horrible. Pro or con this war, we all should bemoan the death of inncoents.

I would say a lot of things, but "good" isn't one of them. "Unfortunate" maybe.

What's that song "Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie"

words: "they're not listening still, perhaps they never will"
(with regards to the 'road kill')

Please pray for victims.

I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. Its gonna get far worse before its going to get better.

>>What's that song "Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie"

>>words: "they're not listening still, perhaps they never will"
(with regards to the 'road kill')

That's from the song VINCENT - about Vincent Van Gogh, who is coincidentally celebrating his 150th birthday

Go over to Yahoo and check out the AP photo stormtrooper outfit. A combination of Caligula's Macro and Star Wars...a praetorian preditor.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20030331/ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_us_military_369

Supposed Saddam interview by a Russian journalist: http://www.kp.ru/daily/23003/2719/ I would treat it as highly suspect

Why not make 2 gates? the first one being an unmanned gate with a remote. Everyone must stop there, get out of car, and show no weapons. That would prevent this sort of stop or we shoot. Make everyone stop.. far away.

Classic guerilla warfare : you use dirty tricks on the enemy which has no choice than using civilian-unfriendly procedure to defend itself.

Effective... Will it significantly lower the Iraki tolerance towards a US occupation ? Possibly.

x Fire

Anyone see this piece of atrocity?

When antiwar demonstrators gathered outside the Fox News building in Manhattan, the network's outdoor news zipper replaced its headlines with taunts:

"War protester auditions here today. . . . Thanks for coming!" And: "How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them." And: "Attention protesters: The Michael Moore Fan Club meets Thursday at a phone booth at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street."

Unfair and unbalanced? "I thought I'd have some fun with it," says Fox zipper-writer Marvin Himelfarb, a former Hollywood screenwriter. "I couldn't resist."

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

x Fire

Anyone see this piece of atrocity?

When antiwar demonstrators gathered outside the Fox News building in Manhattan, the network's outdoor news zipper replaced its headlines with taunts:

"War protester auditions here today. . . . Thanks for coming!" And: "How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them." And: "Attention protesters: The Michael Moore Fan Club meets Thursday at a phone booth at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street."

Unfair and unbalanced? "I thought I'd have some fun with it," says Fox zipper-writer Marvin Himelfarb, a former Hollywood screenwriter. "I couldn't resist."

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

So I guess there are seven more hearts and minds Rove, Wolfowicz, and Rummy don't have to worry about winning.

Seriously, this cannot be true, can it?

Well, unless the folks at BBC are cribbing their war coverage from the web, this latest report echoes precisely an 'intercept' reported at

http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/iraqwar_ru_016.htm

from Saturday.

This site has a kind of breezy Tom-Clancy feel to it, but can anyone tell me with certainty that they ARE full of sh*t?

Reuters is reporting that a U.S. tank carrying four U.S. Marines plunged from a bridge into the Euphrates River last week after the driver was killed in combat, apparently causing the other three crewmen to drown, U.S. military officials said on Monday

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030331/ts_nm/iraq_tank_dc&cid=564&ncid=1473

I don't even know what to say anymore. We (the US) will come out of this more hated than ever. I am thinking of moving to Germany to disassociate myself with imperialism and fascism, as painful as that would be to leave my own country.

How the HELL could our idiotic leaders not have foreseen suicide bombers, pan-Arab (radical & terrorist) involvement, and the fallout that would be created by the 'rules of engagement' needed to deal with these elements? We have to ELECT a leader in 2004!

HOWARD DEAN IN 2004

question? how do you know they were alive before the troops started firing in to the car?

other than the driver?

BHS, Foc's zipper's behavior was juvenille, yes, but nto an atrocity. The temptation to use inflated language is great.

Sam, given the announcements that anyoen who failed to stop at a checkpoint would be shot at (after "suicide bombers"), it can indeed be true.

Fox has the shooting story online first:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,82742,00.html

How terribly sad! :-(

PS...no cracks about women drivers either!

This is a disaster for the U.S. image in the Islamic world and the rest of the world.Its also real good OBL recruiting material.

This I would have expected out of the Russians in Chechnia or the Chinese in Tibet. But our troops f**king up like this is insane! We've dehumanized ourselves.

We as Americans are going to be very lucky if we are not thrown out of every country in the mid-east and europe if this goes on.

And you clowns supporting this mass murder don't even have a clue as to how this plays worldwide and its political, economic and military ramifications. You want to isolate the US this sort of behavior will do it.

Fox News sucks!

If you missed Fox News last night, you missed the truly "Kafka-esque". The sharks were circling. Let me just say they would have hung Arnett on the spot, and everytime they finished the segment, which ran every 15 minutes or so, they clearly stated so you couldn't possibly miss it that he worked for NBC, MSNBC, and the National Geographic Explorer.

It was a hatchet job, and NBC is just trying to save their butt. What Arnett said is not really the big issue, it's who he said it to and how they perceive him as an American, and possibly representative of us.

Hearing an Al-Jazeera commentator (a fine media outlet among many) say it, and a well-known American commentator say it, are two very different things.

In fact, last night I didn't think it was a big deal. Upon further reflection, Fox News is way out of line, and being punks, but Arnett clearly stepped over the line, and his firing will set the record straight to any Iraqis who are wondering about our resolve.

In the long run, it will work to our advantage. The only good conclusion to this war is mass surrender by the Iraqis. Anything else is going to suck, whether I'm opposed to it or not, which I am, but I don't want my guys and gals to die.

Period!

It is unfortunate that this had to happen, but this is not what the Western forces wanted to have to do. They tried to play by the rules, and were bitten by suicide attacks. It is so easy for us to condem.. lest we be the ones manning the checkpoints. This war (like all wars) is getting to be a dirty business. If we show weakness, it will be used against us tenfold, and you will see an explosion of such suicide attacks. Yes it is unfortunate, but the message that this sends ( We will not hesitate to shoot to kill) will end up saving many more lives in the end.

let me see if i got this right....

guys in army hats with guns say stop
you decide not to stop
amry guys shoot you with guns

am I missing something??

BTW: everybody knows there is a war so the whole idea of refusing to acknowledge the infidels authority is rather weak

Another version of the tank story:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LAJF33102.htm

this is probably the kind of thing that will get me banned again.
I don't believe that there are any innocents in Iraq (excluding very young children) They have been told our plans. If they don't fight to free themselves they are tacitly complying. And are therefore the enemy.

Sean-Paul? I got more details on that van incident from MSNBC ... they seemed to break that story the fastest.

For the pro-war crowd, Syria joining in the fray makes perfect sense. Might as well get it over it. On the other hand, for the pro-troops crowd, this is unacceptable. We'll lose so many more than were lost in 9-11 it'll lose its impact.

But we would "win", and probably end up kicking the sin out of Iran while we're at it. Then we would have an occupation of epic proportions, and the beginning of the decline of American empire.

Elvis...please leave the building along with Baldwin, et al. Once again, your ilk only cares about its portfolio and nothing else.

How many more tens of thousands of Iraqis would Saddam Hussein kill, torture, and maim if he were left in power? Certainly more than the thousands who may die in our invasion. And the lives of the survivors will undoubtedly be better in a free Iraq with a rebuilding economy than in the current moribund police state. If we care about Iraqi lives, the best outcome is to finish off the current Iraqi regime. You can’t argue against the calculus of human life.

And for the sake of US troops and other human beings, we should all hope for a long, bloody conflict with many coalition casualties. How many more American soldiers’ lives will be sacrificed, how many more civilians will die in the wars that follow this one, if the war in Iraq proves to be a veritable cakewalk? If Baghdad surrenders and Saddam flees tomorrow, the views of the people who steered our country into this war will be affirmed and their power increased. Syria will be next--or maybe Iran--or maybe North Korea--or maybe all of them at the same time. How many more soldiers and civilians would die in those wars? The best outcome in Iraq would be so many US battlefield casualties that “preemptive war” is only uttered in revulsion, and the American public and their president rebel at the next call for an unprovoked attack, and our country goes back to remolding the rest of the world in our image through the usual diplomatic and economic measures. It is awful to contemplate hundreds of young Americans, even a thousand, dying in Iraq, but worse to think about the far greater numbers who will die in senseless wars against countries who have not been already decimated by a decade of sanctions.

It is good that war is so terrible, because if it ever becomes kewl, we’re all screwed.

Re: Woman carrying out an attack = bullet to the head.

All's fair in love and war, and if the Iraquis want to use terrorist tactics, they should be treated as terrorists.

Drive through a road block and the US soldiers have every right to fire on the vehicle. Blame the driver for endangering the lives of his passengers, not the soldiers for defending themselves.

Sean-paul,
Don't see anything politically loaded about the word "coalition"..it seems a pretty accurate aggregrator...emphasizing "U.S. forces" would demote the contributions of the others, IMO. Something i find myself guilty of when i talk of 'american language' on missiles instead of just plain 'english'.

Since you're listening: i have to add my voice to the multitude in gushing that this blog rocks!...it's cured me of my compulsion to go to cnn.com every five minutes and get fed the party-line...(now i'm just hooked on coming here every five minutes and getting unfettered and truly balanced info) Of the myriad pulitzers which will no doubt be showered upon others after this thing is done, no one deserves the award more than you and this site.

I recently found a site that is obviously biased toward anti-war types. They do however have links to very disturbing photos of dead Iraqi citizens and also of dead American troops. I have a lot of ex-Viet Nam vets for friends that never got over having to do the things we now force upon our children. War is harder on survivors than those lost in the battle. The site: http://162.42.211.226

"Why not make 2 gates? the first one being an unmanned gate with a remote."

And how do we construct this piece of equipent out in the desert? Good idea for the future bu impractical for today. What happens when some one drives around your outer barrier. Or they just park their car in this little unmanned gate. Do you open fire then if they don't get out? Eventually some one is going to have to check it out...AND what happens if some one blows up the unmanned gate. It won't be easy to replace. Plus the logistics of it are just impossible.

I have troubles to figure how Syria could hope to attack the US Army and survive the war. I have even more trouble to figure how it could hope survive a two fronts war (remember Israel ? )

Change of pace: Pakistan has decided al Quaeda is a terrorist org! :-o

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,82683,00.html

~erasing "u"~ Force of anglo-speaking habit, sorry!

You stick a couple of women and children into a truck at gunpoint. Point the truck down the road. And wedge a brick into the accelerator.

Instant media.

Anyone wish to have a little insite on Bush's real motives for liberation (invasion) of are Iraq are you might try these three recently de-classified sites.

http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/1130/takeover.wav

http://www.rtcw-pnb.de/

http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/1130/

Dear Bingo, et al.

This is the difference between responding to an invasion and invading a country in order to "liberate" it from its rulers. Every civilian the invaders kill is another reason why the liberated masses won't like them. Shooting at a vehicle that ignores a road block IS understandable when you consider the normal rules of engagement in war time, so please don't consider that I think the soldiers on the ground should be taken to task. But the fact that the incident can be forgiven in martial terms doesn't mean it will be forgiven or even understood by those who are being invaded. This IS a problem for us.

Sean-Paul,

I caught only part of your interview. When the moderator leads with questions that control the topics addressed, sometimes you are not allowed the opportunity to say what you want. You have a good thing here.

I thought you did fine on NPR today-was out in the greenhouse working and listening and it was a nice surprise to hear that you were on. just started reading your webpage i like it alot- it gives alot of sources for alternative views to the usual sources of info. when dick asked about authenticity of the news you source, i almost called to say that you are good about saying that you aren't sure of the source and also that you show corrections. A big bonus--you were the first to talk about the awol dolphin and to report his safe return from galavanting around ( lol just kidding-alittle humor is important esp now when i seem to spend my days serching for articles that cut down this administration) thanks for having us all and doing the work for us.

RUCKUS - I got know clue what you are talking about 'portfolio'. I am not invested, except through my 403(b) retirement plan, which is for crap anyway since I didn't get this job till 1999, when the Dow was in the 10-11,000 range.

I am merely commenting on the irony that German residence would be better than sticking around for what we are developing in the U.S. You know, what with their Nazi history and all. Shooting women and children isn't as popular there as it used to be.

It's not like I am a dilletante (or even like I know how to spell that word ;-). I am just a step above working-class, but I am a lefty Deutschophile who isn't afraid to take a crappo job in a SANE country!

question? how do you know they were alive before the troops started firing in to the car?

It's a reasonably good expectation that the Marines could not yell "stop" in Arabic, and that the woman driving the vehicle spoke no English.

"Drive through a road block and the US soldiers have every right to fire on the vehicle."

That's what they will say when it is your family just down the street from your house. Stupid idiots, if they hadn't been in front of my gun..."

Magister Ludi...you are a true fanatic. How could you wish for your brother to die? And war isn't going to get cool, and it's only bad when people die. So if less people die, and there are more wars, is that a bad thing, or a good thing? What if everybody dies in this one, and it's not cool for awhile? It's more dangerous to talk about ends without means than it is to have terrible means for your ends.

Which means I think you're losing me, especially if you're an American. Our brothers and sisters man!

"GOOD"

UGH.. That's horrible!

The faster we can send to hell all the members of the bloodsoaked ba'ath regime and end the conflict, the less of these terrible types of mishaps we'll see.

This blame for this awful incident lies squarely on the head of Saddam and his stooges, not on our troops.

Let's pray for the Iraqis, our troops, and for a victory complete enough to allow for a safe, stable environment for the Iraqi people for the next 30 years, they deserve it after being subjected to life under that stalinist regime for so long.

It will get worse before it's over, the troops need our support now more than ever to be able to deal with these types of incidents.

m.a.

Pinky and the Brain was CLASSIFIED?? Go take your meds...NOW!

I have troubles to figure how Syria could hope to attack the US Army and survive the war. I have even more trouble to figure how it could hope survive a two fronts war (remember Israel ? )

I am thinking about this myself. For one thing, they are better equipped than Iraq. For another, how many MORE American troops would be required for this region? For yet another, if the war got to this point, I imagine there would be a whole lot of other things happening in the region.

But I can't imagine Syria actually declaring war ... perhaps they would goad the Americans into it?

I tried desperately to get Sean-Paul on NPR in Pittsburgh but could not find the station. I found local stations that used NPR news feeds but none that carried NPR regular broadcasts...
God I miss NYC... today I even miss Philly.

Any chance of a link to a transcript?

((In fact, last night I didn't think it was a big deal. Upon further reflection, Fox News is way out of line, and being punks, but Arnett clearly stepped over the line,))

Arnett's mistake was granting an interview to anyone else while on the NBC payroll. That wasn't his job. The good news is now that he's unemployed, he can write that new book umimpeded. It just sucks to be his cameraman and producer in Baghdad right now.

try these three recently de-classified sites.

Yeah, it's a good thing those GeoCities sites were recently "declassified".

I know that the NSA has been trying really hard to keep a tight lid on GeoCities.

"cck" said:

"I don't believe that there are any innocents in Iraq (excluding very young children) They have been told our plans. If they don't fight to free themselves they are tacitly complying. And are therefore the enemy."

Funny--CCK, would you agree with our benevolent leaders that Saddam is oppressing his people, mass-murdering them, and we are liberating them? And that they don't have access to our free and unhindered media? That kind of doesn't jive with your claim that they are in the know and 'tacitly complying,' now does it. Do I assume correctly that, unlike Rumsfeld, Bush, et al, if you were in charge you would carpetbomb all cities in Iraq?

ascap_scab, very true. well put.

Listening to the various freeper-like comments on this thread (kill the brutes, exterminate them all) is enlightening -- in a sick sort of way.

Couple of weeks ago, before this nightmare started, I remember being amazed by the conversations I was coming across in right-wing blogspace.

You had people who basically wanted to wipe every Arab from the face of the earth, but who also wanted to believe their Dear Leader's spiel about "liberating" Iraq. So you ended up with these really wacky threads that read something like this:

Freeper #1: "We must help our beloved president bring freedom and democracy to our little brown brothers in the Middle East."

Freeper #2: "Damn straight. So let's go blow their freakin' heads off!"

But that was then and this is now. Looks like you guys have pretty much blown past the silly "liberation" schtick . . . and gotten down to the heart of the matter, so to speak.

More and more it looks like the US is trying to solve its domestic problems by means of a "no-lose" foreign policy. In defending and promulgating an oil-based lifestyle ('sacred right' according to Bush) that faces an increasingly uncertain future (not just politically, but as resources dwindle away), the US is just buying time but paying an enormous cost.
Nations that spend their (precious/few) resources looking for alternatives will find them. The short term objectives of the coalition are well known, but the cost of opportunity may yet destroy any short term gains (controlling oil, shoring up the US dollar, winning hearts and minds).
Instead, you change course by; abandoning oil and stop feeding the 'monster' as some would describe it (meaning the Middle East extremists but including Saudi Arabia), initiate an energy policy that promotes a 180% change in energy usage,
contribute to a world-wide effort to change.
This is only one alternative, but the mass media (even Gary Hart) are not going to sound 'unpatriotic' to suggest anything in war-time but the official version.

Pray for all victims, please.

How many more tens of thousands of Iraqis would Saddam Hussein kill, torture, and maim if he were left in power? Certainly more than the thousands who may die in our invasion.

Great point, Mr. Ludi. We have started this WW3 to save the world. When we are done with Iraq, we should go after the 111 COUNTRIES WHOSE POLICE OR "SECURITY FORCES" COMMIT TORTURE LIKE SADAAM DOES according to Amnesty International. I don't care how many of our kids have to die to stop that kind of brutality. Brutality only understands brutality. An eye for an eye. We need to conquer these bad nations (and North Korea, Pakistan and China) and then we will finally have peace.

Elvis, DEAN in 2004? I don't think so. Dream on.

"This blame for this awful incident lies squarely on the head of Saddam and his stooges, not on our troops."

And if saddams tanks were rolling through the streets of alabama right now i would be in total agreement with you.

And no, I don't blame our troops who are mostly a bunch of scared kids, I know a bunch of them. I put this squarely on the heads of our fearless? leaders.

Sean Paul - Forgive me, but I don't understand the post at 5:30 - Is the RG at more or less than 50%?

Sean Paul - Forgive me, but I don't understand the post at 5:30 - Is the RG at more or less than 50%?

"carpetbombing"
hm ... that was done to my country. And that's the example that so many point to as how a democratization can work. Germany worked, they say. Germany was treated differently than Iraq is treated now. So?

I was a bit afraid something would happen where someone might misunderstand the checkpoints. :(

I suppose it is for the benefit of our troops, bless em, but I would have hoped that some other idea might have been concieved. Although it makes me wonder what it exactly looks like and if there are signs in Arabic and what not telling people to stop. (shrugs) It says they fired warning shots and shots at the car in some other article. If someone started firing at me I'm not sure I'd slow down either. With Iraqi army and paramilitary groups all around, I'd be freaked by *any* bullet not caring what they dressed like either.

Has anyone seen any further confirmation of the US using WMD as this article suggests?

http://www.rediff.com/us/2003/mar/31iraq3.htm

in a poor country like iraq, you have to expect that a lot of the vehicles on the road aren't running properly - eg. no brakes, or civilians panic when seeing troops. there was a story somewhere about the u.k. troops shooting the tires out of a vehicle.

did the americans even try that?

Whoa--this just in [very tangential, I apologize]:

Change your whole life by sending one dollar only to this address

adeeb yaseen
Republic of Yemen
Sana 'a
P.box: 37503

One dollar only and you are going to see the different in your life

Am I being enlisted in the coalition of the willing or the Yemen chapter of Al Qaeda?

5:30 EST As a result of reconnaissance problems in U.S. 3rd Brigade, 7th Cavalry, a BDA has been made of the Medina and Baghdad divisions of the Republican Guard. It is believed those divisions are not operating at 50% of their operational capability.

This means what? More than 50%? Less than?

Source?

It's useless (IMHO) to post cryptic stuff like this. Most folks don't know what 'BDA' is (Battle Damage Assessment) let alone the significance of this comment without at least a source and at best more context...

What does "a BDA has been made of the Medina and Baghdad divisions" mean?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2479.htm

Down the road, a little girl, no older than five and dressed in a pretty
orange and gold dress, lay dead in a ditch next to the body of a man who
may have been her father. Half his head was missing.

Nearby, in a battered old Volga, peppered with ammunition holes, an Iraqi
woman - perhaps the girl's mother - was dead, slumped in the back seat. A
US Abrams tank nicknamed Ghetto Fabulous drove past the bodies.

This was not the only family who had taken what they thought was a last
chance for safety. A father, baby girl and boy lay in a shallow grave. On
the bridge itself a dead Iraqi civilian lay next to the carcass of a
donkey.

As I walked away, Lieutenant Matt Martin, whose third child, Isabella,
was born while he was on board ship en route to the Gulf, appeared beside
me.

"Did you see all that?" he asked, his eyes filled with tears. "Did you
see that little baby girl? I carried her body and buried it as best I
could but I had no time. It really gets to me to see children being
killed like this, but we had no choice."

This was foreseeable. War always comes to this. It always has. It's why diplomacy is always preferred to making murderers of your own citizens. It's why an American president who says such things as, "The game [of negotiation] is over," and shuffles through reasons for war in exactly the way an old woman sorts through pictures of her grandchildren, is so universally loathed outside America. It puts the lie to a doctrine of "preventive war," of attacking a country on the basis that it might, one day in some indeterminate future, possess both an undeterrable will and the capacity to attack the United States. The fantasy of smart weapons that kill only the guilty undergirds the fantasy of "preventive war." Time to dispense with both, and make sure that the next commander-in-chief has outgrown his "fratboy-jock" stage.

I heard a talk by several tank commanders from the First Gulf War, one of whom, in the thick of battle, put a round into a van full of civilians trying to escape the firefight, realizing his mistake about the time he saw it strike the vehicle. It was 9 years later, and the officer still suffered from the guilt. I fully believe it will bear on his concience until the day he dies.

Elvis --
You don't need to explain yourself. Just leave. You think it's so much better there? Go. Enjoy the neo-nazis, radical islamofascists, etc. They're so sane there that anti-semetic symbols are now in vogue on the windows on more and more shops througout Duetschland.

Our fathers and grand-fathers fought as great an evil for a longer period of time in WW2 and here we are in what? - Day 12? And you cowards are screaming the sky is falling. .....ooooooo they're going to hate us even more....now what will we do??????

I have nothing but loathe for un-american cowards like you. I was in Viet Nam. I lost friends in Viet Nam. You don't deserve to breathe this country's air with your pathetic cry baby crap.

am I missing something??

Only the languages spoken/understood by them that did the shooting, and them that did the dying.

Interesting recent posts on BBC journo's log re: Syria and how Rumsfeld screwed up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/2003/reporters_log/default.stm

I would assume UK officials encouraged this Rumsfeld screws up *again* story.

Drip, drip, drip.

BDA = Battle Damage Assessment

See my comment prior to this regarding sourceless, cryptic stuff...

A review of tomorrow's UK papers, on the BBC's 24-hr news channel a few minutes ago, indicates that the Daily Mirror has hired Peter Arnett to cover Iraq.

m. a. battilana

Recently declassified sites? Boy is that rich. Time to adjust your tin foil again.

everyone go to theconnection.org some of the npr stations that host it will be hosting it tonight, and there should be a link to an archive as well.

sean-paul i think you did magnificently. The interviewer seemed like he was trying to goad you into saying something stupid non stop, especcially with all the comments along the lines of "how dare you determine what is true and what isnt" that ticked me off pretty badly. btw, you have a wonderful voice for radio. if you ever decide to do this full time, you should think of putting in a web radio station with it, you have a very charismatic voice and are a very good speaker. listen to npr a lot, and you learn that many people can't speak into a microphone with decent diction and a lack of the word um for their life.

alex
www.geocities.com/the_leaking_pen/
www.variousthings.net

Am I being enlisted in the coalition of the willing or the Yemen chapter of Al Qaeda?

Worse! Your mailbox is gonna be filled with Amway and Poniz schemes! Bad enough to get spam nevertheless foriegn kinds. lol

hehe

"Pinky and the Brain was CLASSIFIED?? Go take your meds...NOW!"

E-mail me some? Little red ones this time.

It is believed those divisions are not operating at 50% of their operational capability.

The same claims were made in Serbia. Will these claims also prove to be patent lies?

Re your NPR interview: I thought you did a fine job!

Re the press propaganda machine:

I attended the huge antiwar rally in Boston last Saturday. The Boston Globe estimated the crowd to be about 25,000; I suspect it was much larger.
In Sunday's paper, the Globe made a point of including prominent coverage of pro-war "support our troops" rallies that took place in other parts of the state. I don't object to this, but I do object to the Globe minimizing the importance of this peace rally by listing other larger rallies that have occurred in Boston on other dates in history (including the million people that showed up for the Pope--could this be because of his anti-war stance?) I also object to the incorrect statement that there were "100 pro-war protesters, many of them veterans" who confronted demonstrators at the peace rally. There were at most 20. I saw them--I was there. Whenever there is a pro-war rally, even if it is only 20 people, you may be sure it receives front-page coverage full of inflated inaccuracies and outright lies. The AP chose to lead its story yesterday entitled "Rallies For and Against the War" with a photograph of a small pro-war rally.
I do not understand this odd belief that many Americans have that we should "support our troops" by supporting this obscene war. Supporting our troops means bringing them home and ending this outrage fostered by madmen in the White House.

The NYT story on the checkpoint shooting calls the tragedy "the first known incident since the start of the war of Iraqi civilians dying as a result of American gunfire...curious, as the British press via their "embeds" have been reporting instances of quite a few civilians getting blown away by US fire...here is just one example:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2479.htm
I guess what Bernie Weintraub meant in his NYT piece was that this was the first incident of civilian deaths admitted to by the US military command.

Raven - get over yourself...just because someone disagrees with your opinion does not make them a troll.

BDA = Battle Damage Assessment. I interpret the post as meaning that a prior report that reconnaissance showed the Medina division of the Republican Guard to have been degraded 50% by bombing has been essentially retracted, because the reconnaissance was faulty. But I look forward to a clarification if I have it wrong.

Another reason for using the word "coalition" is because it's a well, a coalition.

These kind of developments have been anticipated, and long standing allies and friend of the USA have strongly sternly warned against this "campaign".

I still can not fathom that the current US administration put American troops into such a desperate situation and I still do not understand the rational. There is nothing to win in Irag. From my point of view this war is completely irrational.

I love America and I feel for the coalitions troops. I am enraged. Not at Saddam, because I know he's a ruthless killer with guts. So I didn't expect him to behave in any other way. I am enraged at a chicken-hawk administration that believed their own propaganda and at a president who only heard what he wanted to hear.

Sorry for the rant, but the news coming in is just too depressing.

Bo you are not missing anything Raven, DavidByron and m.a. have all taken a little too many psychotropic drugs and believe that everything is a conspiracy and nothing is what it seems...

Life is one big X-FILES episode.

RE that WMD article someone keeps bringing up, it contains a link to the Balochistan Post (I'm not making that up), which reports that "These weapons which are commonly known as Depleted Uranium Bombs, work like a Hydrogen bomb. There is no difference except that the radiation of these bombs is lesser in degree and quantity. However, the devastating effects of this radiation on the people are as serious as the H-Bomb."
(http://www.balochistanpost.com/item.asp?ID=3629)

And I think we can say with some certainty that they are indeed making that up.

Sadly, it seems the most important war is not the one healthy men and women are giving their lives for, it is the one that pits one propaganda against another. As it stands, coalition forces are seen as invaders by popular sentiment in the Arab world. Add to it the sentiment from the anti-war groups around the world and this is a political nightmare. Coalition embedded reporters are broadcast on coalition airwaves, citing examples of violations of Geneva Conventions, while Arab media outlets display gruesome pictures of civilian casualties due to a bomb in a marketplace that the Coalition still insists it didn't fire. But the Arabs have no reason to believe the "westerners" Why should they? I put myself in their shoes, and can see their perspective. Syria, Iran, Lebanon, none of which have any love lost by Saddam's fall, but all of which have fear that their regime may be the next target. The Middle East has become far more unstable than any time in the near future, and all of this seems to have a very shaky foundation. I am an American, and I have inexpressible honor and support for our brethren oveseas, but I still find myself at a loss to explain why all of this is necessary.

I'm a little confused by that posting about the Medina Division as well...does this mean they are at 50%, or not @ 50%...and if they are not @ 50%...what percentage are they at.

Confused.

"You don't need to explain yourself. Just leave. You think it's so much better there? Go. Enjoy the neo-nazis, radical islamofascists, etc. They're so sane there that anti-semetic symbols are now in vogue on the windows on more and more shops througout Duetschland."

Now that is the American spirit. "You don't like the way I think - LEAVE." America - love it or leave it" "I don't like the way you think, I'll just set your ass on fire." Real Jeffersonion, Contitution stuff I'm hearing. Hell, you sound like Ashcroft.

From www.thetimes.co.uk

US Marines turn fire on civilians
at the bridge of death
Mark Franchetti, Nasiriya

THE light was a strange yellowy grey and the wind was
coming up, the beginnings of a sandstorm. The silence felt
almost eerie after a night of shooting so intense it hurt the
eardrums and shattered the nerves. My footsteps felt heavy
on the hot, dusty asphalt as I walked slowly towards the
bridge at Nasiriya. A horrific scene lay ahead.

Some 15 vehicles, including a minivan and a couple of trucks,
blocked the road. They were riddled with bullet holes. Some
had caught fire and turned into piles of black twisted metal.
Others were still burning.

Amid the wreckage I counted 12 dead civilians, lying in the
road or in nearby ditches. All had been trying to leave this
southern town overnight, probably for fear of being killed by
US helicopter attacks and heavy artillery.

Their mistake had been to flee over a bridge that is crucial to
the coalition's supply lines and to run into a group of
shell-shocked young American marines with orders to shoot
anything that moved.

One man's body was still in flames. It gave out a hissing sound.
Tucked away in his breast pocket, thick wads of banknotes
were turning to ashes. His savings, perhaps.

Down the road, a little girl, no older than five and dressed in a
pretty orange and gold dress, lay dead in a ditch next to the
body of a man who may have been her father. Half his head
was missing.

Nearby, in a battered old Volga, peppered with ammunition
holes, an Iraqi woman - perhaps the girl's mother - was
dead, slumped in the back seat. A US Abrams tank nicknamed
Ghetto Fabulous drove past the bodies.

This was not the only family who had taken what they thought
was a last chance for safety. A father, baby girl and boy lay in
a shallow grave. On the bridge itself a dead Iraqi civilian lay
next to the carcass of a donkey.

As I walked away, Lieutenant Matt Martin, whose third child,
Isabella, was born while he was on board ship en route to the
Gulf, appeared beside me.

"Did you see all that?" he asked, his eyes filled with tears. "Did
you see that little baby girl? I carried her body and buried it as
best I could but I had no time. It really gets to me to see children
being killed like this, but we had no choice."

Martin's distress was in contrast to the bitter satisfaction of
some of his fellow marines as they surveyed the scene. "The
Iraqis are sick people and we are the chemotherapy," said
Corporal Ryan Dupre. "I am starting to hate this country. Wait till
I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No, I won't get hold of one. I'll just
kill him."

Only a few days earlier these had still been the bright-eyed
small-town boys with whom I crossed the border at the start
of the operation. They had rolled towards Nasiriya, a strategic
city beside the Euphrates, on a mission to secure a safe
supply route for troops on the way to Baghdad.

They had expected a welcome, or at least a swift surrender.
Instead they had found themselves lured into a bloody battle,
culminating in the worst coalition losses of the war - 16 dead,
12 wounded and two missing marines as well as five dead
and 12 missing servicemen from an army convoy - and the
humiliation of having prisoners paraded on Iraqi television.

There are three key bridges at Nasiriya. The feat of Martin,
Dupre and their fellow marines in securing them under heavy
fire was compared by armchair strategists last week to the
seizure of the Remagen bridge over the Rhine, which
significantly advanced victory over Germany in the second
world war.

But it was also the turning point when the jovial band of
brothers from America lost all their assumptions about the war
and became jittery aggressors who talked of wanting to "nuke"
the place.

None of this was foreseen at Camp Shoup, one of the marines'
tent encampments in northern Kuwait, where officers from the
1st and 2nd battalions of Task Force Tarawa, the 7,000-strong
US Marines brigade, spent long evenings poring over maps and
satellite imagery before the invasion.

The plan seemed straightforward. The marines would speed
unhindered over the 130 miles of desert up from the Kuwaiti border and
approach Nasiriya from the southeast to secure a bridge over the
Euphrates. They would then drive north through the outskirts
of Nasiriya to a second bridge, over the Inahr al-Furbati canal.
Finally, they would turn west and secure the third bridge, also
over the canal. The marines would not enter the city proper, let
alone attempt to take it.

The coalition could then start moving thousands of troops and
logistical support units up highway 7, leading to Baghdad, 225
miles to the north.

There was only one concern: "ambush alley", the road
connecting the first two bridges. But intelligence suggested
there would be little or no fighting as this eastern side of the
city was mostly "pro-American".

I was with Alpha company. We reached the outskirts of
Nasiriya at about breakfast time last Sunday. Some marines
were disappointed to be carrying out a mission that seemed a
sideshow to the main effort. But in an ominous sign of things to
come, our battalion stopped in its tracks, three miles outside the
city.

Bad news filtered back. Earlier that morning a US Army convoy
had been greeted by a group of Iraqis dressed in civilian
clothes, apparently wanting to surrender. When the American
soldiers stopped, the Iraqis pulled out AK-47s and sprayed the
US trucks with gunfire.

Five wounded soldiers were rescued by our convoy, including
one who had been shot four times. The attackers were
believed to be members of the Fedayeen Saddam, a group of
15,000 fighters under the command of Saddam's psychopathic
son Uday.

Blown-up tyres, a pool of blood, spent ammunition and shards
of glass from the bulletridden windscreen marked the spot
where the ambush had taken place. Swiftly, our AAVs (23-ton
amphibious assault vehicles) took up defensive positions.
About 100 marines jumped out of their vehicles and took cover
in ditches, pointing their sights at a mud-caked house. Was it
harbouring gunmen? Small groups of marines approached,
cautiously, to search for the enemy. A dozen terrified civilians,
mainly women and children, emerged with their hands raised.

"It's just a bunch of Hajis," said one gunner from his turret,
using their nickname for Arabs. "Friggin' women and children,
that's all."

Cobras and Huey attack helicopters began firing missiles at
targets on the edge of the city. Plumes of smoke rose as heavy
artillery shook the ground under our feet.

Heavy machinegun fire echoed across the huge rubbish dump
fire from three large oil tanks at a refinery. The Cobras were
called back, and within seconds they roared above our heads,
firing off missiles in clouds of purple tracer fire.

There were several loud explosions. Flames burst high into the
sky from one of the oil tanks. The marines believed that what
opposition there was had now been crushed. "We are going
in, we are going in," shouted one of the officers.

More than 20 AAVs, several tanks and about 10 Hummers
equipped with roof-mounted, anti-tank missile launchers
prepared to move in. Crammed inside them were some 400
marines. Tension rose as they loaded their guns and stuck
their heads over the side of the AAVs through the open roof,
their M-16 pointed in all directions.

As we set off towards the eastern city gate there was no
sense of the mayhem awaiting us down the road. A few locals
dressed in rags watched the awesome spectacle of America's
war machine on the move. Nobody waved.
Slowly we approached the first bridge. Fires were raging on
either side of the road; Cobras had destroyed an Iraqi military
truck and a T55 tank positioned inside a dugout. Powerful
explosions came from inside the bowels of the tank as its
ammunition and heavy shells were set off by the fire. With
each explosion a thick and perfect ring of black smoke ring
puffed out of the turret.

An Iraqi defence post lay abandoned. Cobras flew over an
oasis of palm trees and deserted brick and mud-caked houses.
We charged onto the bridge, and as we crossed the
Euphrates, a large mural of Saddam came into view. Some
marines reached for their disposable cameras.

Suddenly, as we approached ambush alley on the far side of
the bridge, the crackle of AK-47s broke out. Our AAVs began
to zigzag to avoid being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade
(RPG).

The road widened out to a square, with a mosque and the
portrait of Saddam on the left-hand side. The vehicles wheeled
round, took up a defensive position, back to back, and began
taking fire.

Pinned down, the marines fired back with 40mm automatic
grenade launchers, a weapon so powerful it can go through
thick brick walls and kill anyone within a 5-yard range of
where the shell lands.

I was in AAV number A304, affectionately nicknamed the
Desert Caddy. It shook as Keith Bernize, the gunner, fired off
round after deafening round at sandbag positions shielding
suspected Fedayeen fighters. His steel ammunition box
clanged with the sound of smoking empty shells and cartridges.

Bernize, who always carries a scan picture of his unborn
baby daughter with him, shot at the targets from behind a
turret, peering through narrow slits of reinforced glass. He
shouted at his men to feed him more ammunition. Four marines,
standing at the AAV's four corners, precariously perched on
ammunition boxes, fired off their M-16s.

Their faces covered in sweat, officers shouted commands into
field radios, giving co-ordinates of enemy positions. Some 200
marines, fully exposed to enemy fire and slowed down by their
heavy weapons, bulky ammunition packs and NBC suits, ran
across the road, taking shelter behind a long brick wall and
mounds of earth. A team of snipers appeared, yards from our
vehicle.

The exchange of fire was relentless. We were pinned down
for more than three hours as Iraqis hiding inside houses and a
hospital and behind street corners fired a barrage of ammunition.

Despite the marines' overwhelming firepower, hitting the Iraqis
was not easy. The gunmen were not wearing uniforms and
had planned their ambush well - stockpiling weapons in
dozens of houses, between which they moved freely
pretending to be civilians.

"It's a bad situation," said First Sergeant James Thompson,
who was running around with a 9mm pistol in his hand. "We
don't know who is shooting at us. They are even using women
as scouts. The women come out waving at us, or with their
hands raised. We freeze, but the next minute we can see how
she is looking at our positions and giving them away to the
fighters hiding behind a street corner. It's very difficult to
distinguish between the fighters and civilians."

Across the square, genuine civilians were running for their
lives. Many, including some children, were gunned down in the
crossfire. In a surreal scene, a father and mother stood out on
a balcony with their children in their arms to give them a better
view of the battle raging below. A few minutes later several
US mortar shells landed in front of their house. In all probability,
the family is dead.

The fighting intensified. An Iraqi fighter emerged from behind a
wall of sandbags 500 yards away from our vehicle. Several
times he managed to fire off an RPG at our positions. Bernize
and other gunners fired dozens of rounds at his dugout,
punching large holes into a house and lifting thick clouds of
dust.

Captain Mike Brooks, commander of Alpha company, pinned
down in front of the mosque, called in tank support. Armed
with only a 9mm pistol, he jumped out of the back of his AAV
with a young marine carrying a field radio on his back.
Brooks, 34, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had been in
command of 200 men for just over a year. He joined the
marines when he was 19 because he felt that he was wasting
his life. He needed direction, was a bit of a rebel and was
impressed by the sense of pride in the corps.

He is a soft-spoken man, fair but very firm. Brave too: I
watched him sprint in front of enemy positions to brief some of
his junior officers behind a wall. Behind us, two 68-ton Abrams
tanks rolled up, crushing the barrier separating the lanes on the
highway.

The earth shook violently as one tank, Desert Knight, stopped
in front of our row of AAVS and fired several 120mm shells
into buildings.

A few hundred yards down ambush alley there was carnage.
An AAV from Charlie company was racing back towards the
bridge to evacuate some wounded marines when it was hit by
two RPGs. The heavy vehicle shook but withstood the
explosions.

Then the Iraqis fired again. This time the rocket plunged into the
vehicle through the open rooftop. The explosion was deadly,
made 10 times more powerful by the ammunition stored in the
back.

The wreckage smouldered in the middle of the road. I jumped
out from the rear hatch of our vehicle, briefly taking cover
behind a wall. When I reached the stricken AAV, the scene
was mayhem.

The heavy, thick rear ramp had been blown open. There were
pools of blood and bits of flesh everywhere. A severed leg,
still wearing a desert boot, lay on what was left of the ramp
among playing cards, a magazine, cans of Coke and a small
bloodstained teddy bear.

"They are f****** dead, they are dead. Oh my God. Get in there.
Get in there now and pull them out," shouted a gunner in a
state verging on hysterical.

There was panic and confusion as a group of young marines,
shouting and cursing orders at one another, pulled out a
maimed body.

Two men struggled to lift the body on a stretcher and into the
back of a Hummer, but it would not fit inside, so the stretcher
remained almost upright, the dead man's leg, partly blown
away, dangling in the air.

"We shouldn't be here," said Lieutenant Campbell Kane, 25,
who was born in Northern Ireland. "We can't hold this. They
are trying to suck us into the city and we haven't got enough
ass up here to sustain this. We need more tanks, more
helicopters."

Closer to the destroyed AAV, another young marine was
transfixed with fear and kept repeating: "Oh my God, I can't
believe this. Did you see his leg? It was blown off. It was
blown off."

Two CH-46 helicopters, nicknamed Frogs, landed a few
hundred yards away in the middle of a firefight to take away
the dead and wounded.

If at first the marines felt constrained by orders to protect
civilians, by now the battle had become so intense that there
was little time for niceties. Cobra helicopters were ordered to
fire at a row of houses closest to our positions. There were
massive explosions but the return fire barely died down.

Behind us, as many as four AAVs that had driven down along
the banks of the Euphrates were stuck in deep mud and
coming under fire.

About 1pm, after three hours of intense fighting, the order was
given to regroup and try to head out of the city in convoy.
Several marines who had lost their vehicles piled into the back
of ours.

We raced along ambush alley at full speed, close to a line of
houses. "My driver got hit," said one of the marines who joined
us, his face and uniform caked in mud. "I went to try to help him
when he got hit by another RPG or a mortar. I don't even know
how many friends I have lost. I don't care if they nuke that
bloody city now. From one house they were waving while
shooting at us with AKs from the next. It was insane."

There was relief when we finally crossed the second bridge
to the northeast of the city in mid-afternoon. But there was
more horror to come. Beside the smouldering wreckage of
another AAV were the bodies of another four marines, laid out
in the mud and covered with camouflage ponchos. There were
body parts everywhere.

One of the dead was Second Lieutenant Fred Pokorney, 31, a
marine artillery officer from Washington state. He was a big
guy, whose ill-fitting uniform was the butt of many jokes. It
was supposed to have been a special day for Pokorney. After
13 years of service, he was to be promoted to first lieutenant.
The men of Charlie company had agreed they would all shake
hands with him to celebrate as soon as they crossed the
second bridge, their mission accomplished.

It didn't happen. Pokorney made it over the second bridge and a
few hundred yards down a highway through dusty flatlands
before his vehicle was ambushed. Pokorney and his men had
no chance. Fully loaded with ammunition, their truck exploded
in the middle of the road, its remains burning for hours.
Pokorney was hit in the chest by an RPG.

Another man who died was Fitzgerald Jordan, a staff sergeant
from Texas. I felt numb when I heard this. I had met Jordan 10
days before we moved into Nasiriya. He was a character,
always chewing tobacco and coming up to pat you on the
back. He got me to fetch newspapers for him from Kuwait City.
Later, we shared a bumpy ride across the desert in the back
of a Humvee.

A decorated Gulf war veteran, he used to complain about
having to come back to Iraq. "We should have gone all the way
to Baghdad 12 years ago when we were here and had a real
chance of removing Saddam."

Now Pokorney, Jordan and their comrades lay among
unspeakable carnage. An older marine walked by carrying a
huge chunk of flesh, so maimed it was impossible to tell which
body part it was. With tears in his eyes and blood splattered
over his flak jacket, he held the remains of his friend in his
arms until someone gave him a poncho to wrap them with.

Frantic medics did what they could to relieve horrific injuries,
until four helicopters landed in the middle of the highway to
take the injured to a military hospital. Each wounded marine had
a tag describing his injury. One had gunshot wounds to the
face, another to the chest. Another simply lay on his side in the
sand with a tag reading: "Urgent - surgery, buttock."

One young marine was assigned the job of keeping the flies at
bay. Some of his comrades, exhausted, covered in blood, dirt
and sweat walked around dazed. There were loud cheers as
the sound of the heaviest artillery yet to pound Nasiriya shook
the ground.

Before last week the overwhelming majority of these young
men had never been in combat. Few had even seen a dead
body. Now, their faces had changed. Anger and fear were
fuelled by rumours that the bodies of American soldiers had
been dragged through Nasiriya's streets. Some marines cried
in the arms of friends, others sought comfort in the Bible.

Next morning, the men of Alpha company talked about the fighting over
MREs (meals ready to eat). They were jittery now nd reacted nervously
to any movement around their dugouts. They suspected that civilian
cars, including taxis, had helped resupply the enemy inside the city.
When cars were spotted speeding along two roads, frantic calls were
made over the radio to get permission to "kill the vehicles".
Twenty-four hours earlier it would almost certainly have been denied:
now it was granted.

Immediately, the level of force levelled at civilian vehicles was
overwhelming. Tanks were placed on the road and AAVs lined along one
side. Several taxis were destroyed by helicopter gunships as they
drove down the road.

A lorry filled with sacks of wheat made the fatal mistake of driving
through US lines. The order was given to fire. Several AAVs pounded it
with a barrage of machinegun fire, riddling the windscreen with at
least 20 holes. The driver was killed instantly. The lorry swerved off
the road and into a ditch. Rumour spread that the driver had been
armed and had fired at the marines. I walked up to the lorry, but
could find no trace of a weapon.

This was the start of day that claimed many civilian casualties.
After the lorry a truck came down the road. Again the marines fired.
Inside, four men were killed. They had been travelling with some 10
other civilians, mainly women and children who were evacuated, crying,
their clothes splattered in blood. Hours later a dog belonging to the
dead driver was still by his side.

The marines moved west to take a military barracks and secure their
third objective, the third bridge, which carried a road out of the
city.

At the barracks, the marines hung a US flag from a statue of Saddam,
but Lieutenant-Colonel Rick Grabowski, the battalion commander,
ordered it down. He toured barracks. There were stacks of Russian-made
ammunition and hundreds of Iraqi army uniforms, some new, others left
behind by fleeing Iraqi soldiers.

One room had a map of Nasiriya, showing its defences and two large
cardboard arrows indicating the US plan of attack to take the two main
bridges. Above the map were several murals praising Saddam. One, which
sickened the Americans, showed two large civilian planes crashing into
tall buildings.

As night fell again there was great tension, the marines fearing an
ambush. Two tanks and three AAVs were placed at the north end of the
third bridge, their guns pointing down towards Nasiriya, and given
orders to shoot at any vehicle that drove towards American positions.

Though civilians on foot passed by safely, the policy was to shoot
anything that moved on wheels. Inevitably, terrified civilians drove
at speed to escape: marines took that speed to be a threat and hit
out. During the night, our teeth on edge, we listened a dozen times as
the AVVs' machineguns opened fire, cutting through cars and trucks
like paper.

Next morning I saw the result of this order - the dead civilians, the
little girl in the orange and gold dress.

Suddenly, some of the young men who had crossed into Iraq with me
reminded me now of their fathers' generation, the trigger-happy grunts
of Vietnam. Covered in the mud from the violent storms, they were
drained and dangerously aggressive.

In the days afterwards, the marines consolidated their position and
put a barrier of trucks across the bridge to stop anyone from driving
across, so there were no more civilian deaths.

They also ruminated on what they had done. Some rationalised it.

"I was shooting down a street when suddenly a woman came out and
casually began to cross the street with a child no older than 10,"
said Gunnery Sergeant John Merriman, another Gulf war veteran. "At
first I froze on seeing the civilian woman. She then crossed back
again with the child and went behind a wall. Within less than a
minute a guy with an RPG came out and fired at us from behind the same
wall. This happened a second time so I thought, 'Okay, I get it. Let
her come out again'.

She did and this time I took her out with my M-16." Others were less
sanguine.

Mike Brooks was one of the commanders who had given the order to shoot
at civilian vehicles. It weighed on his mind, even though he felt he
had no choice but to do everything to protect his marines from another
ambush.

On Friday, making coffee in the dust, he told me he had been writing a
diary, partly for his wife Kelly, a nurse at home in Jacksonville,
North Carolina, with their sons Colin, 6, and four-year-old twins
Brian and Evan.

When he came to jotting down the incident about the two babies getting
killed by his men he couldn't do it. But he said he would tell her
when he got home. I offered to let him call his wife on my satellite
phone to tell her he was okay. He turned down the offer and had me
write and send her an e-mail instead.

He was too emotional. If she heard his voice, he said, she would know
that something was wrong.

Sad about the 7 civilians. When the suicide bombings began, and Iraqi soldiers started to appear as civilians then proceeded to take American soldiers' lives, my first thought was, don't they care about their own people? It makes it so that every one is fair game, because no one knows the intent of the civilians (or at least those who appear to be). I wonder if Americans would do this, if we were desperate enough?? Has there been a precedent for doing this in recent American or European warfare? War just so sucks. (is that statement too inflammatory? sorry.)

That sounds reasonable, although unfortunate. I know what BDA means, but the phrasing left some doubt.

Mr. Covey - Those of us who have been here awhile have accepted that Sean Paul cannot always post his sources. If you go back through the flashes you will see that he is accurate 99.9% of the time.

NY Times article on this shooting incident:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/31/international/worldspecial/31CND-VAN.html?tntemail1

Another link to check for WMD :

http://www.msnbc.com/news/892606.asp

anonymous - "From www.thetimes.co.uk"

you could have just given us the link.

I find it interesting that many of you look at people who believe the war is necessary as people who are just spouting noise, or trying to get your dander up.

There are many on the left who could aslo be guilty of this (DavidByron comes to mind), however I think it is important to note that many of these people "on the right" are making legit arguments and are refuting many of the extreme left arguments with intelligent responses and their own facts (or propaganda)

I stand by my appeal that instead of slamming someones opinion right or left, you open up a dialogue that includes solutions, and not just "look what the US is doing to innocents, or "George Bush is right on with his master plan for the Middle East."

We should be asking questions on this site on how to make things better in the ME, in our region and in the far east.

Like it or not the United States are the New York Yankees of the world, and are loved to be hated (except by New Yorkers). In addition to some flawed foreign policy over the years (we're not the only country) we have everything on this side of the pond, and are hated for this as well.

The questions are how can we make a difference, not by boycotting CNN, or our mainstream media, not by lying in the middle of the road to stop traffic because of your dislike of war.

A proactive approach works better than an inactive, bitter one...

Personally I think GW Bush is a misguided, easily influenced man who has surrounded himself with people who don't have this country's best interests in mind. However, I think there are many valid reasons for continuing with this action in Iraq and attempting to affect some kind of change in the region, since honestly I don't think it can get any worse (people in the middle east already thought this country is the anti-christ).

Personally, I am interested to see what happens after Saddam Hussein is ousted from power, and until then I am not passing judgement on this action.

18 months and we can affect some of our own regime-change and put in a new collection of intellectuals who think they know what is best for this country.

"5:02 EST BBC: Seven Iraqi civilians - all women or children - are killed by US troops firing on their vehicle after it refused to stop at a check point near Najaf"

The miltary took appropriate action under the circumstances. Regardless of how sad this story is - we ARE at war!!

A checkpoint is a point of clearance and STOP - however it is gesticulated or communicated - is universal. My guess is they were probably instructed to not stop under any circumstances - thereby making themselves unknowing 'suicide' victims. Since there are survivors, we may yet hear an explanation as to why they did not stop.

Folks,
slagging Sean Paul for not-yet-complete info is nothing short of idiotic. plug yourself into to the rest of the media if it bothers you so much.

the S/N was around 50 a week ago,
now is is about 5,
soon to be close to one, I fear....

Sorry about that.. but has anyone else heard or seen similar claims..?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,926407,00.html

More background on Iraq - White House, are you listening - perhaps you never will?

Pray for all victims, please, regardless.

"Iraqi soldiers started to appear as civilians"

Couldn't be civilians with guns?
No. CNN told me so.

I still find myself at a loss to explain why all of this is necessary.

Sometimes things have to get worse for them to get better. Remember how great life was in the 90s. That was a dream world, where people thought that focusing on building things and increasing connectivity was the way to peace and prosperity. In reality, as we found out on 9/11, there were billions of people out there who wanted to drop a "dirty bomb" on my little daughter's head. (Good luck, now that I've got the duck tape up.) This Administration understands that sometimes you have to knock over the chessboard and say to your opponent "You suck. I am going to kill you all." We need to focus on conquering the world and Iraq just happened to be first in line. Why Iraq? Why did that sniper in Washington kill somebody at a Home Depot? There's no real reason to get Iraq. We just have to get everybody - and why not start with Iraq. Hopefully, you get it now.

Ruckus - if you want name-calling, you WILL get it. I hope your email address is valid.

I support our troops. I do NOT support our leaders. And you don't know crap about what life is like in Germany, so keep your mouth shut on that point or I WILL take your old redneck arse to school.

If you were in Viet Nam, then you should know how outrageous it is for the U.S. to waste men and women to 'liberate' a country that really doesn't want to be liberated.

Any more non-intelligent personal attacks will be addressed off-list. If you want to be treated like the tapeworm you are presenting yourself to be, I will happily oblige you, you half-a-nazi. YOU and YOUR kind should get the hell out of the country, move to Argentina or something where your politics are more in line with the national spirit, and leave the sane people to run the U.S. the way our Founding Fathers meant it to be (with fairness and honest compassion). SHEESH!

"Personally I think GW Bush is a misguided, easily influenced man who has surrounded himself with people who don't have this country's best interests in mind."

I agree with you on this point.

On the issue of coalition, I don't quite know what it would mean to 'defer' to Brits and Aussies. The Aussies still don't seem to want the war; the Brits didn't want to get in.

You have to admit that there is a problem with using a term that the administration uses while constantly blurring the distinction between the 4 military members and the 40-odd who've signed up to help Iraqis afterwards.

Perhaps something that suggested the minimal range of the coalition might be better -- the Military Coalition.

tammy,

"War sucks" is the most intelligent thing posted here today! ~HUGS~

"We need to focus on conquering the world and Iraq just happened to be first in line."

I hope you were being sarcastic!

Schmoe, this war is not necessary, but it's on! So we have to get out of it however is best. And I've recently come to the light about us withdrawing...it ain't happening.

With that in mind, we've got to secure our troops ASAP, for their good, and for the good of the whole world eventually win this thing as cleanly as possible.

Otherwise, if we fail, the world will be left in even more chaos, and our economy may crash lower than you could ever imagine, which also would be disastrous for the world.

Disaster is the order of the day, let's hope for the best.

and what's the deal with the unending complaints of soldiers dressed as civilians. what do you think our special forces and cia paramilitaries are wearing? lingerie?

no people, they're "blending in". I've even seen pictures in the mainstream media. People are so selective with their perception sometimes it amazes me. This war is the greatest live experiment of social psychology, social influence, and cognitive dissonance ever.

We will capitalize on this when the dust settles. The human mind will be liberated!

I'm sure I'm echoing someone else on thread but I have'nt the time to read it all--

I note the Guardian of course is not rigorously fact-checking the Iraqi TV announcements/declarations andor the Al-Jezeera statements either.

Plus, some of the terms used in the article are quite loaded in context -- making implications about motivation behind stories instead of reporting on the fog of war.

While this scrutiny is needed, it should be applied evenly and above all, impartially without judgement of the motives -- at least not in a news story. Motives are for editorials.

Interesting recent posts on BBC journo's log re: Syria and how Rumsfeld screwed up.

[snip]

I would assume UK officials encouraged this Rumsfeld screws up *again* story.

BJ: I registered for the BBC's "breaking
news" email service a week ago. Nothing
arrived until a couple of minutes ago --
and it's a single item about
the checkpoint shooting.

It looks to me like the British are gearing
up to disentangle themselves.

"move to Argentina or something where your politics are more in line with the national spirit"

Argentine's government is not what it was 20 years ago. By the way they are currently facing US sanctions for not being "willing" and are on Rumsfield's "threatened" list. Brave, if you ask me.

The women and children killed by our guys at that checkpoint are dead. Their war is over. But the guys who did the shooting will never be the same again. Believe me. That is what happened to us in Nam. That is why we had so much trouble adjusting to life back here after the war. It wasn't the anti-war crowd being hostile. It was our consciences. Now this thoughtless fools are doing this to another generation of young Americans. yes they volenteered. but they didn't volenteer to be baby killers and anyone who experienced Vietnam could have told you that this was inevitable. It is just too freakin sad and sick that we are doing this all over again. I honestly can't believe it.

something else that is depressing...do you think this is reliable?
the civilian body count.
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

ruckus--

Elvis --
You don't need to explain yourself. Just leave. You think it's so much better there? Go. Enjoy the neo-nazis, radical islamofascists, etc. They're so sane there that anti-semetic symbols are now in vogue on the windows on more and more shops througout Duetschland.

"anti-semetic symbols"?

Are you insane? What would those be?

I know I should get out the house more often, but here in Germany there are strictly enforced *laws* against anti-semitism and neo-nazis, and I haven't seen *anything* like you describe.
Where do you get this kind of "information"?

"something else that is depressing...do you think this is reliable?"

Is that site up-dated? Red Cross I think had it much higher. Besides, no one knows what is happening in the small towns.

Please, continue to use the word "coalition." That's exactly what it is.

Posted by m. a. battilana at March 31, 2003 05:41 PM

"I don't like the way you think, I'll just set your ass on fire." Real Jeffersonion, Contitution stuff I'm hearing."

It's actually Jacksonian. If you understood that you would also understand why public opinion polls on the war will stay from 70-80% and go even higher if the US takes significant casualties from WMD. In fact, if that happened the public outcry to nuke Iraq would be overwhelming.

If you understood the Jacksonian tradition you would also understand that a cease fire and negotiated settlement is impossible. Nothing less than Saddam's head will do. Anything less and Bush would never get reelected.

The so called anti-war movement will never go anywhere. If anything the anti-war crowd will increasingly find itself at the wrong end of public opinion. The USA was attacked, the enemy is visible. That has changed everything.

SW - I feel it man, at least indirectly. One of my best friends from HS was an infantryman in Gulf War I, and he had 5 kills, face-to-face all of them. This is probably the biggest reason I have for being part of the 'support our troops, but not our leaders' camp. This guy will have a world of hurt to deal with on his own (as my friend did), and we don't need to make it worse by blaming him for doing a difficult job in an impossible situation.

Peace!

**(and yes, I do mean 'Dean in 2004'. Who the hell else do the dems have to offer that's worth half a crap & maybe could beat Bush on the issues???)**

"BBC: Seven Iraqi civilians - all women or children - are killed by US troops firing on their vehicle after it refused to stop at a check point near Najaf. "

Presumably the "refused to stop" part is the Pentagon's story. The dead civilians story ... we will never hear.

"there were billions of people out there who wanted to drop a "dirty bomb" on my little daughter's head."

George Butcher, BILLIONS of people??? Areyou that paranoid? Surely you meant to say "hundreds" of people?

MIES,

I hope you are still reading this thread. As far as Iraqis being in the know. THEY KNOW BETTER THAN ANYONE how repressive Saddam is. As far as carpetbombing, I'm not a monster. I don't want to see any deaths. The point I am trying to make is that the value we attribute to the Iraqis lives cannot be more than they attribute themselves. If they cannot make a distinction between living under Saddam or dying to try to rid themselves of him, we can't ascribe to much value to their thoughts or feelings.
Governments are to be representative of it's people. And people deserve what their government deserves. (yes, that applies to us as well.)

Warthog - "Bush would never get reelected."

Bush will never get reelected.
Bush will never get reelected.
Bush will never get reelected.
Bush will never get reelected.
Bush will never get reelected.
Bush will never get reelected.
Bush will never get reelected.
Bush will never get reelected.
Bush will never get reelected.
Bush will never get reelected.
Bush will never get reelected.
Bush will never get reelected.
Bush will never get reelected.

thought there was no name calling allowed???? argentina and germany are now insults???? yikes people - you got me here! am i to answer: " thank whoever, that i am not a US national?" all this bs abouwar is good??? can't believe it! who was that clever person who said" all we have ever learned from history is that we do not learn form history

http://www.sundayherald.com/32522
US forces' use of depleted uranium weapons is 'illegal'

Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium (DU) project -- a former professor of environmental science at Jacksonville University and onetime US army colonel who was tasked by the US department of defence with the post-first Gulf war depleted uranium desert clean-up -- said use of DU was a 'war crime'.

"And people deserve what their government deserves"

So the people should get what we promissed Saddam? Good logic; if we can't set them free the least we can do for them is put them out of thier oppressed miserable lives.

cck

if you truely believe that people deserve what their gov.'s deserve (in the US case Bush was only elected by about 16% of the voting population!), then i wish you good luck! that is if you are an US citizen ....

cck

if you truely believe that people deserve what their gov.'s deserve (in the US case Bush was only elected by about 16% of the voting population!), then i wish you good luck! that is if you are an US citizen ....

re "Coalition"

Sean Paul and others--

I certainly take no offence at the word "Coalition" as it is, because, um, that's just what US/UK/AUS/PL is, more or less.

My peeve is just the direct copying of the "Coalition Of The Willing" PR phrase, because it carries all the connotations of a broader (including the Solomon islands, uh no, not anymore) coalition, as it was fluffed up to be.
Even "Coalition" does so to a lesser extend, but in lack of a better word, I can surely live with that.

You know that one of the great problems we have with the media is that the majority lazyly accepts not only words or phrases but entire articles out of the propaganda machine without scrutiny.

It's very effective. Give them pre-formulated copy and overload them with specially edited video footage and they *will* use it verbatim, because it's cheaper that way and most media outlets don't employ real journalists capable of a little introspection and own investigation anyway.

What do you think the "Office for Strategic Influence" of the Pentagon (yeah, I know they dropped the name) was all about?

Mr. Ludi

You're making a terrifying sort of sense. If the first Gulf War hadn't been such a
Cakewalk(TM) perhaps the chickenhawks wouldn't have been able to fool people into GWII.

War should never be considered kewl.

T

Birgit,
Are you an American? I am and I voted. Regardless, Yes, we live in a republic, are options for changing governments are better (elections) as opposed to brute force, but the premise remains if you don't like the way things are being run you have a responsiblity to yourself and everything you hold dear to try and change them. Even if that means your life. I guess I support taking up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing ending them.

War Sucks

i don't have a tv (not by choice, i like tv, but staying somewhere that doesn't have one) so i've missed the network coverage. but today i was walking past fox & cnn HQs, and you can watch/hear their broadcasts on screens in the street.

i expected patriotism, could understand bias, even 'propaganda'. but i wasn't prepared for how much they _love it_. there's no dignity there, no self-respect.

anyhow, point, saw CNN report on 'clever' psy-ops tactics round basra. putting loudspeakers on tanks so that two or three tanks sound like 'a whole division' (must be very very loud). this held up as tactical masterstroke. but wait. doesn't it actually mean 'we haven't got enough tanks'?

and re. reactions to the 'checkpoint shooting', i would've hoped the more gung ho crew on here might be a little slower to defend it. the only defensible argument in favour of this invasion was 'liberation'. if you weaken that, you've got nothing. at least have the humanity to recognise that, even in the terms of the pro-war case, it's a hideous, tragic fuck-up.

memo to self - don't post in abandoned threads

One bit of information I'd like to emphasize, especially in light of the recent incident involving U.S. troops firing into a civilian vehicle. This isn't meant to be 'pro' or 'con' anything, just a reminder.

This is war. That doesn't mean any of this is a good thing, or a bad thing. However, this is what war is. Wars are about killing people and breaking things, no matter what you're told by people in fancy suits who've never been there.

Soldiers implement policy decisions made elsewhere when they take ship or airplane to deploy; they *make* policy when their lives or the lives of their mates are threatened. It is a mark of how disciplined the U.S. and U.K. militaries are that incidents like this occur as infrequently as they do; also, that in an environment where the enemy has bragged about suicide vehicle bombings and promised more of them, that all vehicles aren't being indiscriminately disabled or destroyed.

Every time one of those soldiers *refrains* from firing on an approaching vehicle, he or she risks him or herself. Every time. From what is being reported, even if the warning shots were late, there were multiple attempts to force the van to halt. Pity the occupants, yes; pity the soldiers who had to pull those triggers, and will likely never be free of guilt. But don't lay the failures of a system that encourages and enforces the use of women and children as scouts, and humans as suicide bombers, or the failures of the system that sent those troops there, at the feet of the soldiers on the ground.

It's their lives on the line, and their friends have already paid in blood for their attempts to spare the unknown, much less the innocent.

Sierran
Well Said

sierran - i don't lay the guilt 'at the feet of the soldiers on the ground', i put it where it belongs, on the people that started this 'war'. and you're right and reasonable to pity both the dead and the soldiers that killed them. it's a situation that's sad beyond belief. i still believe that anyone who thinks that the invasion is 'just' (which i don't) should have the courage to recognise that killing women and children at close range is _wrong_, rather than try to justify it. sure, from your point of view, our troops have to 'defend themselves'. but it's a poor argument to support an invading army's killing of civilians. if you think of incidents like this as acceptable you've lost the moral argument for 'liberation'. and i agree the soldiers have been put in an impossible situation by their commanders, but the reported comments of US troops don't help either. 'but it's war' doesn't excuse anything. 'it was a terrible, shameful mistake made in our struggle to liberate iraq' wouldn't satisfy me, but at least it would give an indication that you believe in the cause we're supposedly fighting for.

I truely do regret not signing back on earlier. -- I wrote the first "good", and I will say it again --- GOOD!!!! This is not freakin difficult to understand. There are numerous signs warning of the consequesces well before the vehicles get to the check points. Who in the world can automatically assume that they were even innocent. "Children", from our concept (13-17 yrs old), are fighting voluntarily in the Republic army. Who is, indeed, to even say that Iraqi govt didn't bribe and/or threaten this group to just drive through the check point to test our resilliancy --- I am so tired of getting suicide bombed and ambushed by civilians and potential POW's, and when we finally defend ourselves, we are the bad guys???????? There is something really wrong here.

'interesting' - 'you' are tired of getting ambushed? i think, even from pro-war viewpoint, that's a disrespect to people who are taking the risk for you. if 'children' are fighting 'voluntarily' in the republican army, doesn't that tell you something about 'liberation'? and what were the 'numerous signs' warning of the consequences (unless you count US/UK proven willingness to attack civilians in other areas, which given US propaganda drops of leaflets saying how friendly the US is meant to be, bombing of the phone network etc. it's not surprising that civilians weren't aware of). but i agree, there is something really wrong here.

Signs -- in the traditional sense -- Letters written on boards giving out warnings at incremental areas on the side of the road well in advance of the check point. Bombing of the phone systems had nothing to do with that. (It's not like they were gonna get a phone call) I can speak because I was in, and did fight -- albeit not in Iraq; Kosavo, Somalia, and Haiti used the same tactics -- The opposition just didn't get the safety of having it publicised so widely. One last thing on that note -- Unless you have faught, and devoted yourself to the freedom of a nation, please don't mention things about it. I DO take it personal.
Voluntarily might be the wrong word. -- they are trained at a very young age that they will have to fight for Saddam (rather they would want to or not) Sociological studies prove that 3rd world contries are NOT individually focused, rather they are of a "groupthink" mentallity. Meaning that what ever the most dominating presence believes, they believe. We are only good at thinking for ourselves because we are taught to think for ourselves at a very young age. I think it very important to understand cultures before making decisions one way or another.

My impression from these incidents is that the American troops were either untrained or incompetent. If you don't want someone to drive through, you break the road or put up a roadblock. Surely there were enough busted vehicles around to manage that? In the incident reported in the Times, they did block the road, but not until after a lot of civilians had died.

All the discussion about whether they had the right to shoot is secondary. What should be asked is if they were wise to shoot. Criminal or not, it was damned stupid. Every civilian casualty will stiffen Iraqi resistance and mean more Coalition deaths in the future. And no, you can't kill them all. There are a billion Muslims out there. They'll kill you all first.

Welcome to your war. If you don't like it, of course, you can always stop. If you do like it, invest in the body-bag business. There will be a big demand in the future.