Over 550 Killed In Iraq
The death toll in Iraq skyrocketed today, with 572 Iraqis reported killed and 412 others wounded…
“Four suicide bombers, at least one driving an oil tanker truck attacked residential compounds belonging to Yazidi sect. At least 250 were killed and 350 more were wounded in three areas near Sinjar, with CNN reporting that over 500 were killed. Mortar attacks and more exposions were reported afterwards
In Baghdad, 15 dumped bodies were found. A roadside bomb wounded two civilians near Yarmouk. Two people were killed and four wounded during a mortar attack in Ur. Two civilians were injured in the Shorja marketplace during clashes between gunmen and Iraqi army. Gunmen in Jamiya killed one civilian and injured four more. In Shabb, three people were wounded in a mortar attack. Also, dozens of uniformed gunmen, driving official vehicles, stormed the Oil Ministry and kidnapped six people and a deputy oil minister; five guards were also wounded.
Joint U.S.-Iraqi forces killed four suspects and detained eight during raids in Sadr City. Police reported that four civilians were killed and five were wounded as well. A three-year-old girl and her uncle were among the dead.
In Kirkuk, a pair of coordinated roadside bombs injured three policemen and four civilians. Two policemen and a civilian were wounded during a separate roadside bombing. Two booby-trapped corpses were found yesterday on the highway to Tikrit. Another bombing, this one in Festival Square killed a policemen and wounded 21 others.
Fifteen bodies belonging to Sunni men were found dumped near a petrol station in Khalis.
Bombers destroyed the Thiraa Dijlaa Bridge near Taji, killing at least 10 people and wounding eight others.
Gunmen in Suwayra stormed the home of a police officer and killed his pregnant wife, his son and his brother. Yesterday, gunmen killed a policeman.
Gunmen attacked and killed four people who were sleeping on the roof of their home in Ghraiya; three women and a man were killed.
A drive-by shooting in Hilla left one guard dead and two others wounded. Witnesses said they saw U.S. forces shoot and kill a civilian yesterday.
A policeman was killed during a drive-by attack near his home in Diwaniyah.
A body bearing torture and gunshot wounds was found in Fallujah.
In Midhatiya, two bodies, belonging to a man and a woman were found yesterday. Gunmen also killed an Iraqi soldier.
A landmine injured a civilian near Safwan.
Sporadic violence, including several bombings and clashes, plagued Nasariya yesterday but no casualties were reported.
The bodies of three suspects were brought in to the morgue in Baquba.”
While on the subject of Iraq, a new report penned by Guido Steinberg “under the auspices of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin” entitled Iraq Between Federalism and Collapse is of interest…
“Already today, the main priority is to prevent Iraq from breaking apart completely.” That is the sober conclusion of a new study released Wednesday in Berlin on the situation in Iraq. Called “Iraq Between Federalism and Collapse,” the study argues that there is little hope of a centralized power in Iraq and that the country’s future depends on walking the fine line between decentralizing power and civil war.
The report, written by terror and Middle East expert Guido Steinberg under the auspices of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, says that a far-reaching decentralization is the country’s only hope. And if it fails, the result could be devastating, including the possibility of full-scale civil war complete with foreign intervention.
“The basic assumption of this study,” Steinberg writes, “is that a federalist solution will be the only possibility to maintain Iraq as a single country. The most important role of German and European policies should therefore be that of supporting steps toward a peaceful federalist solution.”
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August 15th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
it is disgusting that this kind of thing happens in my world, i have been out and about all day, and the first i have heard of it is from Matthew Good. Thanks Matt, keep fighting the good fight brotha.
August 15th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
in reference to the “hills” article yesterday, i find it incredibly hard to believe anyone could concentrate, much less care, about something of such small caliber when more then 500 human beings have been killed. personally, i find it hard to concentrate on my own life when i know such atrocities are happening. this is yet another day that brings even more proof that something is terribly wrong with this picture.
August 15th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
572 sigh…..
August 15th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
The US forces are useless in Iraq. *maybe* if they could keep the peace in Iraq then they should stay there, but they cant, so they should leave.
We will see massive amounts of casualties when/if the US leaves, but we already have that… the US serves no purpose in that country.
August 15th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
[quote comment="23261"]The US forces are useless in Iraq. *maybe* if they could keep the peace in Iraq then they should stay there, but they cant, so they should leave.
We will see massive amounts of casualties when/if the US leaves, but we already have that… the US serves no purpose in that country.[/quote]
I absolutely agree.
I say enough with foreign intervention. Mainly because it seems to be causing more conflicts than it’s solved. None of these people are going to ever buy that the US is trying to do what’s best for them.
I think that the US being there is only intensifying the violence and giving the Iraqi people a distaste for any aide or intervention from anyone from the Western World. I am aware that Iraq was not a great place before this whole thing transpired, but now that there is no dictator all different movements are constantly at war against each other vying for their particular interests to be fulfilled. What the US should have done was finished what they started in Afghanistan instead of passing the responsibility onto us…
by the way…when was the last time that you heard George Bush utter the name ‘Osama Bin Laden’?
August 15th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
sigh…I am speechless.
August 15th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
man, a thousand people killed or hurt…that number has gone up quite a bit as the day has gone on.
August 15th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
“The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.” - Robert M. Hutchins
August 15th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
[quote comment="23297"]“The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.” - Robert M. Hutchins[/quote]
i like this:)
August 15th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
On that terrible note, I saw this today-
The war in Iraq through the eyes of its children- there is something horribly wrong when all a kid wishes for is “to have a life without car bombs,” can recite the words of ‘interrogation,’ and says that their least favourite thing is “when the Americans killed my dad.”
http://www.msnbc.com/modules/interactive.aspx?type=ss&launch=19714431,3042924&pg=1
August 16th, 2007 at 8:17 am
When I see such massacres, such brutality, I am scared to think of how this country will end up when the US inevitably pulls out, removing even the tiny belief that security exists in the country. But I hope people know, even those against the US occupation, that this mass killing will be exacerbated without any security presence. This was not a targeted attack against US forces, but against civilians. We see more and more of this, especially from Sunni militias that the US chooses to ignore. Al Qaeda is always to blame. But not Saudi Arabia, who massively fund Sunni extremists at least as much as Iran funds the Shias nor Jordan where many of the fighters are trained and call home. The hypocrisy of this never ceases to amaze me. Few people even point out Saudi Arabia’s involvement. I feel a great amount of sorrow for those who died, and for their families who will suffer for this. Oh, but “freedom is messy….”
August 16th, 2007 at 8:28 am
[quote]this mass killing will be exacerbated without any security presence.[/quote]
I dont agree… there are only so many people you can kill and maim before you have to take a break and have a nice meal.
The limited number of hours in a day is detering the daily death count more than US forces.
August 16th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Last night I put on the news and the piece on the 4 suicide bombings came up. They started flashing through all these pictures of homes and lives completely demolished. Parents and Children rocking back and forth over the dead bodies of their loved ones. The last pic that they showed was that of a child, not more then 4 years old, with half of his face burned off.
Here’s why I am writing this;
Even before the last picture had left the screen, the anchor turned to the next camera, smiled and with that sick little sing song voice, started a new story with ‘And now in the news, Mattel Inc. recalled almost one million Chinese-made toys because they may contain lead; leaving parents all over the world explaining to their children where their favorite toy has gone’
I couldn’t believe it. Our society has become so desensitized to the pain and fear and destruction plaguing entire countries that they have chalked it of to a simple series of bass notes on the keyboard, (opening: ‘and now, a breaking news story’..) a lower tone of voice, and a couple of pictures which only ever tell a small part of the true horror going on. And just like that, its forgotten… everyone has moved on. I’m still trying to wrap my head around what I’ve seen, and what I know they will never show me, and I look up with tears streaming down my face to see a report on Paris Hilton and her many lovers.
August 16th, 2007 at 9:52 am
[quote comment="23320[/quote]
I dont agree… there are only so many people you can kill and maim before you have to take a break and have a nice meal.
The limited number of hours in a day is detering the daily death count more than US forces.[/quote]
If the US forces leave the violence will increase. All the patrolling that the US does will stop, all the bomb shops they discover will continue to operate, and that will only mean more reprisal.
August 16th, 2007 at 9:59 am
There’s a heartbreaking story on CNN right now about Iraqi mothers forced into prostitution so they can feed their children. One person’s comment was really simple but meaningful to me and I wanted to share it: “How better it would have been for us to simply overwhelm Iraq with free medicine, technology, and compassion instead of war.”
August 16th, 2007 at 11:46 am
[quote comment="23328"]If the US forces leave the violence will increase. All the patrolling that the US does will stop, all the bomb shops they discover will continue to operate, and that will only mean more reprisal.[/quote]
The patrolling is pointless, for every bomb shop they discover, fifty more take its place. The troops are not stemming the tide of violence. Retaliation levels will remain constant between warring factions inside Iraq, retaliation levels upon US troops will drop (because they aren’t there anymore to retaliate against).
August 16th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
You cant force people to learn what YOU want them to learn, all you can do is show them a different world and hope that when you are gone they have the opportunity to experiment for themselves. It is rediculous to try to control a nation of people whose life styles and choices will be completely different then our own. All we can do is hope that some of our troops were able to have a possitive impact on the people, the rest will be decided by whether or not the country is re-built with change in mind or revenge.
August 16th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
And the states really showed them a more compassionate and evolved world when they commenced their air strike on targets they were ‘positive’ were harboring WMDs. If you are going to butt your nose into other countries’ conflicts you can’t start off by destroying any remaining peace. If the United States was truly intent on showing them a better way of doing things then they have failed miserably.
[quote comment="23334"] All we can do is hope that some of our troops were able to have a possitive impact on the people, the rest will be decided by whether or not the country is re-built with change in mind or revenge.[/quote]
you’re absolutely right…all we can do is hope that on a street level some sort of impact was made because the US government as a body is definitely not looking like the charitable democratic savior they have been pretending to be.
August 16th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
This blood is on the hands of the invasion force and the occupier.
We need a war crimes tribunal to decide, with due process, the people ultimately responsible.
Too many, too much and too long….
August 17th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
It’s quite a shock to go down this list and scroll further and further down. At one point i blurted out “when is this list going to end?”.