"Gunmen set eight communication towers ablaze in Mosul"
"Hmmmm. Is something about to happen the rest of the world is not to know about?" -- Mike Rivero of What Really Happened
That was my first thought when I saw "unknown gunmen."
"What they call “victory in Iraq”"
"February 8, 2008 | Page 2
IS THE U.S. winning the war in Iraq? It depends on who's answering the question.
According to the Bush administration, the U.S. military has never been doing better. In his State of the Union address, he declared, “Some may deny the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt. Al-Qaeda is on the run in Iraq, and this enemy will be defeated.”
But the view is very different from Iraq.
On February 3, the U.S. military reported that it “accidentally” killed nine civilians and wounded at least three more in a bombing raid the day before south of Baghdad that was supposed to target a group called Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. According to Iraqi police, among the dead and injured were civilian Sunni guardsmen who the U.S. military had contracted with to go after insurgents.
This “accident” is very much the inevitable result of a terrifying escalation in bombings being carried out by the U.S. military “The U.S. military conducted more than five times as many air strikes in Iraq last year as it did in 2006,” reported the Washington Post. That's 1,447 bombs dropped on Iraq in 2007, an average of nearly four a day, compared with 229 bombs, or about four each week, in 2006.
The U.S. military says the “precision” bombing campaign goes hand in hand with the strategy of troops surging into “insurgent” areas. But there's nothing precise about these bombs. According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, some 200 civilians were killed by U.S. air strikes between April and the end of 2007.
The horror continued January 17 when the U.S. dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives in a 10-minute period on 38 targets in Arab Jabour, southeast of Baghdad--the largest air strike since the 2003 invasion. The week before, another 16,500 pounds of bombs were dropped north of Baghdad.
The terror isn't ending soon--as the U.S. military appears to have settled in for a long stay.
“In these last years, the Pentagon has invested billions of dollars in building up an air-power infrastructure in and around Iraq,” writes Tom Engelhardt on his Web site TomDispatch. “As a start, it constructed one of its largest foreign bases anywhere on the planet about 80 kilometers north of Baghdad. Balad Air Base has been described by Newsweek as a '15-square-mile mini-city of thousands of trailers and vehicle depots,' whose airfields handle 27,500 takeoffs and landings every month.”
Engelhardt concludes, “Here's the simple calculus that goes with all this: Militarily, overstretched American forces simply cannot sustain the ground part of the surge for much longer. Most, if not all, of those 30,000 troops who surged into Iraq in the first half of 2007 will soon be coming home.
“But air power won't be. Air Force personnel are already on short, rotating tours of duty in the region. In Vietnam, back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as ground troops were withdrawn, air power ramped up. This seems once again to be the pattern. There is every reason to believe that it represents the American future in Iraq.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE AIR campaign is a response to an occupation that is unraveling. Despite superior air power, the U.S. has so far been unable to quash resistance. And if there has been a decrease in violence in Iraq, it is due not to actions on the part of the U.S., but in large measure to the six-month ceasefire called by Moktada al-Sadr, leader of the Mahdi Army militia, which is due to end later this month.If “winning the war” in Iraq is measured by freedom and a better way of life, which the U.S. claimed it would bring to Iraq, then the U.S. war is, of course, a failure. Iraq's infrastructure is in a shambles--rebuilding remains at a standstill, and Iraqis are suffering without adequate shelter during this year's cold winter. Because of poor sanitation and lack of clean water, Iraq is once again in danger of a cholera outbreak.
But of course, it is control over Iraq and its oil--not infrastructure and clean water--that the U.S. is fighting for. In a recent article, independent journalist Dahr Jamail shared this comment by Abu Taiseer in Baquba: “At the very beginning of the occupation, the people of Iraq did not realize the U.S. strategy in the area. Their strategy is based on destruction and massacres. They do anything to have their agenda fulfilled.
“Now, Iraqis know that behind the U.S. smile is hatred and violence. They call others violent and terrorists, while what they are doing in Iraq and in other countries is the origin and essence of terror.”
When the U.S. loses and is forced out of Iraq, then there can be a chance of peace for Iraqis."
EXACTLY!
And how much you want to bet this is a one-day special from the New York Times, readers?
"G.I. Tells of Ordering Unarmed Iraqi’s Deaths"
"A top Army sniper testified Friday in a military court that he had ordered a subordinate to kill an unarmed Iraqi man who wandered into their hiding position near Iskandariya, then planted an AK-47 rifle near the body to support his false report about the shooting.Under a grant of immunity, the sniper, Sgt. Michael A. Hensley, an expert marksman and sniper trainer, testified in the court-martial of Sgt. Evan Vela. Sergeant Vela is accused of murder, impeding a military investigation and planting evidence to cover up an unjust shooting. An earlier charge of premeditated murder was dropped.
Sergeant Vela is the third soldier to be charged in the death of the Iraqi, Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, last May. Sergeant Hensley and another soldier, Specialist Jorge G. Sandoval Jr., were acquitted of murder charges last year, but were convicted of planting evidence. As part of his sentence, Sergeant Hensley was demoted from staff sergeant.
All three soldiers were elite snipers with the 501st Infantry Regiment, Fourth Brigade (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, based at Fort Richardson, Alaska.
The military trials have highlighted a secret baiting program, begun in early 2007, in which snipers placed lures like fake explosives or other weaponry to draw insurgents into the open, where they could be killed.
See: Asymmetrical Warfare Group
But Sergeant Hensley’s testimony at the base here suggested that by last spring, in addition to baiting and killing, soldiers had added a new tactic: carrying weapons to plant on bodies to deter prosecution.
What, our wonderful fighting men planting "evidence" on Iraqis they murdered?
Say it isn't so, Times!!!!
Sergeant Vela’s lawyer, James Culp, of Austin, Tex., did not dispute that his client had shot and killed Mr. Janabi, but emphasized the battlefield stresses the soldiers endured.
And WHAT ABOUT THE IRAQIS?
Mr. Culp argued that Sergeant Vela had had only a few hours of sleep over three days of constant operations.
Hey, Bush supports the troops!
Mr. Culp also said his client’s superiors pressed his squad to increase their kill rate, while holding out the threat of prosecution for unjust shootings.
“It’s not a case of beyond reasonable doubt,” Mr. Culp said in an interview after Friday’s proceeding. “It’s about giving warriors the benefit of the doubt.”
I'll give them a pass if you guys GO AFTER the WAR CRIMINALS in WASHINGTON who ORDERED THIS INVASION based upon LIES!!!
That includes AmeriKa's MSM, too, readers.
Sergeant Vela may testify Saturday.
Sergeant Hensley said that on May 11, he led his squad to a hiding spot overlooking a village they suspected was controlled by Sunni insurgents. But after several days with little rest, soldiers were drifting into sleep.
“I woke up to a local national squatting in front me with his hands up,” Sergeant Hensley testified. The man was Mr. Janabi, who lived nearby. Sergeant Hensley said he tackled Mr. Janabi and pinned him to the ground.
Mr. Janabi was followed into the hide-out by his son, Mustafa, 17. Sergeant Hensley and his team held the two captive until he spotted several Iraqi men in the distance and Mr. Janabi became agitated. Sergeant Hensley feared that Mr. Janabi’s thrashing would alert the other Iraqis.
Sergeant Hensley said he released the boy and ordered everyone except Sergeant Vela to leave because he “didn’t want them to bear witness” to what they were about to do.
“I pretty much knew at this point that something was going to happen to the father,” Sergeant Hensley testified. “He was making too much noise. I thought that the only way to protect my guys was to take this guy’s life.”
Good God!
This is PREMEDITATED MURDER!
They ASSASSINATED HIM in COLD BLOOD!
Sergeant Hensley said he ordered Sergeant Vela to load his 9-millimeter pistol, and then made four radio calls to his command post to support a cover story. The first call reported that an Iraqi man was approaching, the second that the man was armed, the third that the sergeant was preparing to shoot.
The fourth call confirmed that he had killed his target.
“At that point his head was at Sergeant Vela’s feet, and I asked him if he was ready and then I moved out of the way,” Sergeant Hensley said. He ordered Sergeant Vela to fire, and Sergeant Vela complied immediately, Sergeant Hensley said.
“A round was fired into his head,” he said.
Mr. Janabi did not die immediately, Sergeant Hensley said. As his brain hemorrhaged, he choked on his blood.
Oh my God!
Oh, Iraqis, there is nothing I can say.
Apologies don't cut it.
I am ashamed of my country, readers!
Sergeant Hensley simulated the gurgling sound and testified that he ordered Sergeant Vela to fire again.
Sergeant Hensley said he pulled out an AK-47 that he had ordered one of his men to carry and placed it near the body.
“It wasn’t uncommon for us to have stuff like that out there,” he said. They often carried incriminating items to plant on Iraqis as “insurance,” he said.
Hey, how many "Al-CIA-Duhs" did the U.S. military claim to kill today, and can you EVER BELIEVE THEM AGAIN?!!
Dr. Michael Baden, a prominent New York forensic pathologist, showed several poster-size photographs of Mr. Janabi’s body and said he had been killed by a single shot to the head. The photos showed two coin-size wounds behind each ear, which Dr. Baden described as entrance and exit wounds.
The victim’s son, Mustafa Ghani Nesir al-Janabi, also testified. He said he had found his father being held captive by American soldiers hiding in a stand of trees. When the soldiers saw him, they sat him next to his father.
“At the beginning I talked to him and he answered back,” he said. Perhaps drawing a parallel with their perilous situation, he said he told his father about how one of their relatives had recently been killed. “I was talking to him about how my cousin Saif was killed in Iskandariya,” Mr. Janabi said. “I told him that the Mahdi Army killed him.”
The Americans shushed them repeatedly and then told the son to go away, he said.
When a military prosecutor exhibited a picture of the dead man, the young man said, “That’s my father.” Another was shown and he repeated, “That’s my father.”
“Did your father look like this when they released you?” the prosecutor asked.
“No, he didn’t,” the son answered.
Bombs Kill 5 G.I.’s
BAGHDAD (AP) — Five American soldiers were killed Friday in two roadside bombings, the military said on Saturday.
Four of the deaths were in Baghdad. The fifth death was in northern Iraq, in Tamim Province.
The military gave no further information."After what I just read above, and the American invasion has killed over a MILLION IRAQIS, I am some how supposed to feel sorrow for the Americans who died?
Besides, I thought the surge success made Iraq better, so why are guys being blown up by roadside bombs?
Don't tell me the American MSM lied again!
Prop 101: Al-CIA-Duh and the OSI
Prop 101: Al-CIA-Duh's Greatest Hits
Prop 101: The "Terrorism" Business
Prop 102: Iraq and Government Lies
Al-CIA-Duh
"Al-CIA-Duhs" Catch-and-Release Program
Who Invented "Al-CIA-Duh?"
Operation Gladio
Operation Northwoods
Salvador Option
Special Police Commandos
Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group
Prop 201 tutorial
FRU
How much more evidence you need, readers?
This?
And did I mention the DOD's MSM press offices in Lincoln, the Pentagon, or Langley?
That's where the AmeriKan press gets their "reports."
Case closed!
Also see:
So how many Iraqis dying in all of this?
35 people killed every day, with the number of Iraqis killed by the surge around 300 per day, 10,000 per month -- and 1.2 million Iraqis dead since the invasion, mainly due to the U.S. military's 75 air raids a day, and the five-fold increase in air bombings.
Also see: Story Iraq: MSM Lied About Death Tolls
Memory Hole: 600,000 DEAD!
Occupation Iraq: One Million Dead Iraqis
And the MSM just KEEPS on LYING, huh?
