US Slaughters 40 at Iraqi Wedding...

A replay of US "regettable mistakes" in Afghanistan... Wonderful.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040519/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_attack_4



Middle East - AP U.S. Reportedly Kills 40 Iraqis at Party

20 minutes ago




BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. helicopter fired on a wedding party early Wednesday in western Iraq (news - web sites), killing more than 40 people, Iraqi officials said. The U.S. military said it could not confirm the report and was investigating



Lt. Col Ziyad al-Jbouri, deputy police chief of the city of Ramadi, said between 42 and 45 people died in the attack, which took place about 2:45 a.m. in a remote desert area near the border with Syria and Jordan. He said those killed included 15 children and 10 women.



Dr. Salah al-Ani, who works at a hospital in Ramadi, put the death toll at 45.



Associated Press Television News obtained videotape showing a truck containing bodies of those allegedly killed.

About a dozen bodies, one without a head, could be clearly seen. but it appeared that bodies were piled on top of each other and a clear count was not possible.





The Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television reported that more than 20 people were killed and 10 injured in the attack.



Iraqis interviewed on the videotape said partygoers had fired into the air in a traditional wedding celebration. American troops have sometimes mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire.



"I cannot comment on this because we have not received any reports from our units that this has happened nor that any were involved in such a tragedy," Lt. Col. Dan Williams, a U.S. military spokesman, wrote in an e-mail in response to a question from The Associated Press.



"We take all these requests seriously and we have forwarded this inquiry to the Joint Operations Center for further review and any other information that may be available," Williams said.



The video footage showed mourners with shovels digging graves. A group of men crouched and wept around one coffin.



Al-Ani said people at the wedding fired weapons in the air, and that American troops came to investigate and left. However, al-Ani said, helicopters attacked the area at about 3 a.m. Two houses were destroyed, he said.



"This was a wedding and the (U.S.) planes came and attacked the people at a house. Is this the democracy and freedom that (President) Bush has brought us?" said a man on the videotape, Dahham Harraj. "There was no reason."



Another man shown on the tape, who refused to give his name, said the victims were at a wedding party "and the U.S. military planes came... and started killing everyone in the house." In July 2002, Afghan officials said 48 civilians at a wedding party were killed and 117 wounded by a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s Uruzgan province. An investigative report released by the U.S. Central Command said the airstrike was justified because American planes had come under fire.

 

The world sees us as barbaric, hypocritical, and money hungry...well if you look at our actions as a nation...we are. We're not fighting for liberation of anything and the world knows it. I think the soldiers over there get brainwashed by the constant propaganda and learn hate and fear. Not to say all, but certainly the majority. Do actions such as the ones described in your message make us appear big and strong to the world, or small and weak.

I noticed a little cop driving in his car with his skinhead and shades. He was barely tall enough to see over the wheel, but he had this negative energy about him. The whole energy there said "little man syndrome" He wants to be big and powerful because in his heart he believes himself to be little and afraid. A little, afraid person who chooses to police others to prove his power...Kinda sounds like the US. A little afraid nation that tries to prove it's power by policing the world (except with countries that could hold their own with us) We're a country of arrogant bullies and I am ashamed to be an American.

Since Gomers been president, we've lost freedom and liberties, and have suffered world discrimination because of our nationality. Do you read what the foreign papers report? it's not the same news we get. The world alternates between viewing us as bumbling and inept and cruel and money hungry. How is this latest event going to reflect on the people in this country,..not positively I assure you.

I don't know how to respond to this whole thing. I just want to say fuck you to G.W, and Fuck you to our entire military. It's just a bunch of fucking oil. It's not worth it. It's not worth the death of one person. Everyone just start riding a bike or something. We've made gomer rich enough.

In the words of M&M "Fuck you America" otherwise known as "the divided states of embarrassment"

 

go to canada, please

 

So, the reason we, and the world, are given for invading Iraq changes from "uncovering WMD's" to "liberating the Iraqi people." What a bumbling, tragic mess. And we slaughter innocents in the process of perpetuating this horrible mess. Slaughtering a wedding party. Do you realize how many generations of martyrs we are creating, that will hate us for killing their children, parents, families and citizens.

Bush claims to be a man of God. I say he is the devil, disguised as a man of God, attempting to destroy our country for his own evil purpose. And his sheep, are the blind conservatives, following him towards their own destruction and pulling all the rest of us who are sane, along with them.

It's time to stop this nightmare, this hell he is dragging us into. It sickens me beyond words. I literally feel sick to my stomach and I want to cry over what this man has done to our country.....my country. I hate the fucking man!!!

 

Fuck you Megara.

I believe alot of us can totally relate to what Cryptoman is saying. There are alot of impassioned people in this forum who hate what that fucking president is doing to our country. How can people like you Megara, sit there and tell others to leave the country because we hate what Bush has done to America. We're angry because WE LOVE OUR COUNTRY you asshole!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

to think, i actually respected YOUR comment.


I didnt say that because he bashed bush....or what bush has done for the country....hating america and the troops who protect you is something completely different.

There is a difference between loving your country and not liking where its going and just down right hating the country....he showed the later..you the former..

My statement stands..he can go to canada..you can do whatever the hell you want

 

Please, Please, Please....start a fund to get me out of this country. Hey, Maybe Gomer will start an initiative to deport political dissadents. It's probably the only way his approval rating will go up from here.

You see, I would save up the money myself, but I don't have a job. I have three bachelor of science degrees and a Master of Arts degree and I can't find a job. So if there are any good republicans out there that want to increase Gomers chances of being president, please send me a check or money order!

To my fellow democrats, I do not mean to bail on you but I don't think I can stand it here anymore.

Here's an idea, maybe we could just wait till his daughter gets married and invite the Iraqi military.

 

Do I love our troops? yes, Do I love what they're doing? no. They are pawns of this $&%^&** government that we have. This is going to be a Nazi state soon with the way things are going. Have you noticed the freedoms that we've lost? This is not America anymore, and it wont be until Bush is GONE.

 

sorry, but you are sick.

 

coulda fooled me

 

I don't give a fuck what a stupid little baby killing ( in support, if not in action) fuck like yourself might think about me. I'll go to canada, but why dont you go pull the trigger yourself instead of singing the praises of our "sick" government.
Better yet, why don't you join a young republicans forum so you can suck some government cock and get your own ego stroked. It's the little republican pukes like you that put our country in situations like this anyway.

 

i see i touched a nerve..but please dont project your assumptions onto me

 

Megara

Make your little mind up about you Support or Dont support ,if you have nothing useful to add to This Topic then dont Post at all..An American Helicopter Gunship Blew a Wedding apart and Killed 40 people ,26 from the one Family...what should have been a day of celebration was Turned into a Day of hell..and the Ameriacan Military are to Blame ,it's that Simple ,that's what this Topic is about ,so unless you want to Discuss that ,Piss off and stop baiting people into needless argument's.

 

That's really terrible....


This is why I'm never getting married.


Chill out guys. I know it's easier to bicker about who's right than it is to make a valid point....but you'd could put a little more effort into being articulate instead of childish. Folks will like you more.

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Pentagon officials Wednesday denied alleged eyewitness reports of a U.S. attack on a wedding party in a remote area of western Iraq that killed innocent civilians.

"Our report is that this was not a wedding party, that these were anti-coalition forces that fired first, and that U.S. troops returned fire, destroying several vehicles, and killing a number of them," a Pentagon spokesman said.

He was responding to a video distributed by The Associated Press showing Iraqi witnesses who said that at least 20 people were killed and five others critically wounded early Wednesday when planes fired on a wedding celebration.

A man on the video said all homes in the village near the Syrian border were destroyed in the attack at about 3 a.m. local time Wednesday.

The video showed at least a dozen bodies, including small children, wrapped in blankets for burial as they were unloaded from a truck.

Men with picks and shovels were digging a series of graves in the video.

A senior military coalition official said as many as 40 people were killed in the attack, but said it was his belief that the attack was against a foreign fighters' safe house.

A coalition official said in a written statement that coalition forces conducted a military operation "against a suspected foreign fighter's safe house in the open desert, 85 km southwest of Husaybah, and 25 km from the Syrian border.

"During the operation, coalition forces came under hostile fire and close air support was provided.

"Coalition forces on the ground recovered numerous weapons, 2 million Iraqi and Syrian dinar, foreign passports and a satcom radio," the statement said.

Asked if the incident was the same one described on videotape, he said, "Yes, it is the same incident."

He added, "We had actionable intelligence to go after a foreign fighters' safe house. It is not our belief that there was a wedding party in the open desert."

The taped witnesses identified the village as al Qa'im, which maps show is on the Iraqi side of the Syrian border, along the Euphrates River.

In Afghanistan two years ago, U.S. airstrikes killed dozens of civilians at a wedding party.

After an investigation, a report issued by U.S. Central Command blamed those deaths on hostile anti-aircraft fire from the ground that provoked a U.S. AC-130 gunship to respond.

Local Afghans said that U.S. forces confused "celebratory fire" from wedding participants for hostile fire, but the U.S. military found that several compounds in the area were "positively identified" as sources of anti-aircraft artillery fire.


It seems we have a conflict of facts...so who is right? who is lying?

 

You can bet your bottom dollar that if it were an American wedding party gunned down, every blind and rabid little bushbot across the country would be screaming to nuke the whole middle east and you can bet at the very least the tomahawks would be cruising in massive numbers.

But because its Iraqis its all just "ooops" to them whilst they stroke themselves raw over our superior military strength.

Having had the benefit of extensive professional experience in foreign policy, I know all too well how the elites are dumbing down the domestic populace to be incapable of questioning whatever jingoistic war cry they choose to spew out to be lapped up and followed mindlessly.

Our nation is rotting from within and the real love of country from the outspoken rabid right has long been transformed into love of whatever corporations and the powermongers inside the beltway tell the nation is in its "best interest" (read: "elite best interest).

And all the while the PNAC perpetual war rages on fighting the new "Emmanuel Goldsteins" sold to the massess as the ever-present threat lurking behind every tree, the elected tyranny grows stronger.

But of course the sheep are kept diverted toward ranting about the the great liberal media conspiracy whilst the true conspirators excuse one another for getting caught redhanded in their own lies and barabrism and continue on toward the death of dissent and the birth of the secret police state.

Wake up friends, the pattern has been seen repeatedly throughout history.

It CAN happen here as well!

 

"no no no! i was not DELIBERATELY pointing my gun at you! i was aiming in a distinctly RANDOM MANNER in CELEBRATION."


actually, that sounds awfully convenient to me, too. no matter what, no one will ever take responsibility for those little kids getting shot the fuck up, because no one will ever know which side is lying. unless you have your mind made up already, then you know EXACTLY who's to blame, whichever side it is you sympathize with.

 

Woah Pentagon official's Deny the Story..now i can sleep Safely in my bed knowing Those TruthFul boys have it all Figured out...

American Weapon's Fired...Iraqi people Died..i'm Pretty sure who's to blame for this One...

 

honestly, i don't know who to believe, i really don't. i don't automatically disregard EVERYTHING told to us by the military, nor do i AUTOMATICALLY accept anything said by a group of people who understandably want us to go home and have motives of their own. being in a similar situation, where i could cry off that i didn't mean to do something, like shooting at american aircraft under the aegis of a wedding celebration would be a rather convenient way to show my disdain. but i probably would never admit to it, either, especially after little kids are killed for my rash actions. the whole thing is just sad.

even the geneva convention declares that holy places are no longer holy places once weapons are stashed there. i would think the same rule applies to wedding celebrations.

 

Let's see...who shall I believe? The American government, whose constant lies have been pathetically exposed over and over and over and over and over and over and over or the physician who was there treating the wedding guests who actually made it through this bombing.

"Mosques are legally targets if there are weapons stashed there!"
"Weddings are legally targets if there are weapons stashed there!"
"Daycares are legally targets if there are weapons stashed there!"
"Neonatal units are legally targets if there are weapons stashed there!"

The majority of people slaughtered in this illegal bombing were women and children. I wonder if ANY raid is "LEGAL" if the ENTIRE INVASION AND OCCUPATION IS ILLEGAL?!? I doubt it. Murderers.

Others may feel differently, but I DON'T love the american military and don't respect ANY of the people who are involved with it. I owe this country NOTHING. It has done NOTHING for me except divest me of my birthright as a human being and reduce me to a slave. The military can FUCK OFF - all of it. They aren't protecting me or my "interests" or my "way of life" - they are protecting the WEALTHY in this country, so they can keep sucking the lifeblood out of the planet and control its resources. I don't owe one single soldier ANYTHING - and this is coming from the DAUGHTER of a former soldier who served in TWO wars - and my father has said, the only regret he has in his entire life is serving this country's disgusting wealthy in their death squads. He told my brother he'd shoot him HIMSELF before he'd allow him to join the military.

Do I feel SORRY for some of them? Sure. Do I wish some of them weren't involved in this illegal farce, giving up their lives for NOTHING, losing arms and legs, never walking again so that american fat cracker businessmen can roll around in money on their king-size beds in bermuda, sucking the blood of Iraqi children through a straw? Yes, I am sorry for them. But I have no respect for them as human beings. They are murderers and babykillers. They have no honor. If they were men, they would walk off duty and go to PRISON before they would kill one more child for this bullshit. Little bitches, flying over villages full of women and children, slaughtering people like cattle. They are the soldiers of Babylon, the soldiers of the beast, they bring death and pestilence and misery in their wake, devouring the world like rabid beasts, destroying everything they touch.

When karma comes down on this country, my friends, it will make 9/11 look like a Sunday picnic. Or an Iraqi wedding.