One incident:. Forty dead. Two stories. What really happened?

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=523356\

One incident. Forty dead. Two stories. What really happened?
By Justin Huggler in Baghdad
21 May 2004


A tiny bundle of blankets is unwrapped; inside is the body of a baby, its limbs smeared with dried blood. Then the mourners peel back the blanket further to reveal a second dead baby.

Another blanket is opened; inside are the bodies of a mother and child. The child, six or seven years old, is lying against his or her mother, as if seeking comfort. But the child has no head.

These are the images that American forces in Iraq had no answer to yesterday. They come from video footage of the burials of 41 men, women and children. The Iraqis say they died when American planes launched air strikes on a wedding party near the Syrian border on Wednesday.

US forces insist that the attack was on a safe house used by foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria. They do not dispute that they killed about 40 people, but claim American forces were returning fire and the dead were all foreign fighters. For the video footage that shows dead women and children they have no explanation.

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Damn them!

This is not my America anymore..it belongs to people who are totally alien to what America stands for. Where did these aliens come from? How did they get to the positions they hold? Many many questions, no answers or if answers are proferred, they turn out to be lies.

Its disingenuous to the MAX

We will know the truth in the end.

the rightwing mantra for every horror.

This article is absolutely heart-wrenching. I found myself sobbing.

This is just so f-upped,...so awful.

Those Eye-Rackies...! We must stay the course until they loosen up and laugh a little!

I was looking for one that compared the US response to all the facts on the ground from the Iraqi side of the story. The official military response has been absolutely shameful so far.

...get a message saying "you have requested a page we can't supply at present." Anyone else have any trouble? I would like to read the whole article.

I can't imagine anyone believing a word the military is saying anymore. I am so utterly sickened by what we are doing that I can't even talk about it coherently.

the link works for me

It just keeps getting worse every week.

Bush and company will be out of Washington in January!

Edited for typo.

so coarsened, so numb, so almost blase from the daily tide of outrage, terror, torture done in our name.

So, obviously, it was a wedding party that shot up in the air.

:eyes:

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should we believe them?

even from the Guardian home page, though I can access every other story there. Maybe some glitch on my computer. The Guardian has printable format for stories. Could someone post a link to the printable format of this one? Perhaps I can access it there. Thanks.

your link

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=523356&host=3&dir=75

Dirk

...soon that the military command structure, under orders from Rummy, has lied once again about shooting up another gathering of civilians. Deny everything, and continue to deny it until forced to admit it.

The "evidence" that the command structure is desperately trying to use to claim that the group was actually a gathering of terrorists is about what you would find in any mid-size gathering of people in the Middle East.

What Middle Eastern male DOESN'T carry at least one weapon at all times, particularly when traveling in areas that have become lawless?

What mid-size gathering of Middle Easterners will NOT be traveling with some amount of money with them...the equivalent of about $1300 dollars among 40+ people is not even remotely unusual, particularly if some of the money was intended as wedding gifts.

What idiot would travel through desert areas no longer supporting telephone and cellphone servces without some other form of communication like a SATCOM phone...even some Americans were using that capability early in the war.

And finally, if you lived in desert areas, what time of the day is best suited to gatherings and/or celebrations, and how long would those celebrations last into the night/early morning? How long can American weddings last...2:00AM?...3:00AM?...even later?

I have no words to describe how badly I feel for this and similar actions that have taken place since we first sent troops into Afghanistan. I don't think we can ever overcome the enormous ill-will we have created throughout the Middle East during the last two and some odd years.

Not that the official US military version has convinced me of anything except that they are LIARS since the illegal invasion a year ago. The BBC had a reporter there interviewing victim survivors. There was a little girl about 11 or 12 showing a picture of her brother, a famous muscician and singer in Iraq, who was murdered. Many videos of the tiny dead bodies too. Foreign fighters my ass, scumsfeld! :grr:

in Iraq (and almost all of the officers) actually enjoy killing. This is their big chance to kill anyone they want, any time they want. It is a murderer's holiday. I've listened to how cavalierly the various officers and soldiers speak of killing - it's like they are talking about a bank transaction. I have also heard how the President so blithely confesses to assassinations - summery executions without trial or discussion. I can no longer stomach these blustering, straight faced murderers who disregard life so callously. "My" country sickens me. I no longer call myself "American" - how can I?