Scores killed at Iraq wedding...

[droolymutt]

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

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Associated Press Television News obtained videotape showing a truck containing bodies of people who were allegedly killed in the incident. Most of the bodies were wrapped in blankets and other cloths, but the footage showed at least eight uncovered, bloody bodies, several of them children. One of the children was headless.

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Here's the link....





God Bless America...

[Seismic Anamoly]

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Pentagon says it attacked fighters -- not wedding



Witnesses say Iraqi wedding attacked near Syria



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.

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Looks like the US (as the US has been accused of here) isn't the only party involved in this mess that has gotten good at "staging" incidents.



Ah, well..."He said, She said"....and so it goes.

[DreamTone7]

They blew it with Berg, and now they're trying to point the attention at the US...par for the course. Too bad people had to die in this attempt to garner world-wide sympathy.

[droolymutt]

yep.



It happened in Iraq.





At a Wedding on their Home Soil.





A foreign (American) invading Apache Helicopter rains explosives on a Wedding, killing innocent civilian Women and Children....







God Bless America.







*excuse me while I Vomit in America's face*





Thanks.













Get a leader with a Brain and a Heart and a Soul, America...

[DreamTone7]

Drooly, I have to say that you really take the cake this time. Do you really believe everything the media puts in front of your face (or ears)?

[NRKofOver]

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Do you really believe everything the media puts in front of your face (or ears)?

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Well, unfortunately truth is a rare commodity in today's world, whether that's with American news or Al Jazeera, or whether that's coming from Dan Rather or the Pentagon. I don't know what to believe as far as 'truth' goes. We all know that the American government is not telling the truth about the Iraqi prison abuse, they are keeping a lot from the American public. We know that they enhanced information about WMD's and imminent threat before the war. Why should I believe anything they have to say at all? Granted, I don't know if I should believe Al Jazeera or 60 minutes either. Truth seems impossible to know in today's world of spin.

My music for the disenchanted masses

[HKRockChick]

I dont believe anything that comes out from the whitehouse these days and neither should you. Its all a crock. The elections were a farce, they havent lived up to any election promises, the war was based on lies, and every story that continues to come out is disproved, Jessica Lynch gets amnesia, the list goes on. I believe there is nothing they wont stoop to. I have good reason not to believe, wouldnt you say?

[Seismic Anamoly]

The Double Standard in this Forum is nauseating...



Excuse me while I just plain Puke.

[LarreeMP3]

Get this straight, tards. NO ONE will know the details of this war until the history books come out in about 50 years. IF the government told us every little detail of this war as it is happening they wouldn't have much of a strategic edge. But I am sure that all of you America haters would love that. So f^ck all of you.



G-d bless the USA and President Bush! Death to ALL terrorist @#%$.

[LarreeMP3]

..."Death to ALL terrorist sc^m."

[HKRockChick]

historians rate the dubya presidency a failure. We can see whats unfolding under our noses, and so can the historians...

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I do not share the view of another respondent that “until we have gained access to the archival record of this president, we [historians] are no better at evaluating it than any other voter.” Academic historians, no matter their ideological bias, have some expertise in assessing what makes for a successful or unsuccessful presidency; we have a long-term perspective in which to view the actions of a current chief executive.

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hnn.us/articles/5019.html



"Although his approval ratings have slipped somewhat in recent weeks, President George W. Bush still enjoys the overall support of nearly half of the American people. He does not, however, fare nearly so well among professional historians.



A recent informal, unscientific survey of historians conducted at my suggestion by George Mason University’s History News Network found that eight in ten historians responding rate the current presidency an overall failure.



Of 415 historians who expressed a view of President Bush’s administration to this point as a success or failure, 338 classified it as a failure and 77 as a success. (Moreover, it seems likely that at least eight of those who said it is a success were being sarcastic, since seven said Bush’s presidency is only the best since Clinton’s and one named Millard Fillmore.) Twelve percent of all the historians who responded rate the current presidency the worst in all of American history, not too far behind the 19 percent who see it at this point as an overall success.



Among the cautions that must be raised about the survey is just what “success” means. Some of the historians rightly pointed out that it would be hard to argue that the Bush presidency has not so far been a political success—or, for that matter that President Bush has not been remarkably successful in achieving his objectives in Congress. But those meanings of success are by no means incompatible with the assessment that the Bush presidency is a disaster. “His presidency has been remarkably successful,” one historian declared, “in its pursuit of disastrous policies.” “I think the Bush administration has been quite successful in achieving its political objectives,” another commented, “which makes it a disaster for us.”



Additionally, it is, of course, as one respondent rightly noted, “way too early to make a valid comparison (we need another 50 years).” And such an informal survey is plainly not scientifically reliable. Yet the results are so overwhelming and so different from the perceptions of the general public that an attempt to explain and assess their reactions merits our attention. It may be, as one pro-Bush historian said in his or her written response to the poll, “I suspect that this poll will tell us nothing about President Bush’s performance vis-à-vis his peer group, but may confirm what we already know about the current crop of history professors.” The liberal-left proclivities of much of the academic world are well documented, and some observers will dismiss the findings as the mere rantings of a disaffected professoriate. “If historians were the only voters,” another pro-Bush historian noted, “Mr. Gore would have carried 50 states.” It is plain that many liberal academics have the same visceral reaction against the second President Bush that many conservatives did against his immediate predecessor.



Yet it seems clear that a similar survey taken during the presidency of Bush’s father would not have yielded results nearly as condemnatory. And, for all the distaste liberal historians had for Ronald Reagan, relatively few would have rated his administration as worse than that of Richard Nixon. Yet today 57 percent of all the historians who participated in the survey (and 70 percent of those who see the Bush presidency as a failure) either name someone prior to Nixon or say that Bush’s presidency is the worst ever, meaning that they rate it as worse than the two presidencies in the past half century that liberals have most loved to hate, those of Nixon and Reagan. One who made the comparison with Nixon explicit wrote, “Indeed, Bush puts Nixon into a more favorable light. He has trashed the image and reputation of the United States throughout the world; he has offended many of our previously close allies; he has burdened future generations with incredible debt; he has created an unnecessary war to further his domestic political objectives; he has suborned the civil rights of our citizens; he has destroyed previous environmental efforts by government in favor of his coterie of exploiters; he has surrounded himself with a cabal ideological adventurers . . . .”



Why should the views of historians on the current president matter?



I do not share the view of another respondent that “until we have gained access to the archival record of this president, we [historians] are no better at evaluating it than any other voter.” Academic historians, no matter their ideological bias, have some expertise in assessing what makes for a successful or unsuccessful presidency; we have a long-term perspective in which to view the actions of a current chief executive.



Accordingly, the depth of the negative assessment that so many historians make of George W. Bush is something of which the public should be aware. Their comments make clear that such historians would readily agree with conclusion that then-Democratic presidential hopeful Richard Gephardt pronounced a few months ago: the presidency of George W. Bush is “a miserable failure.”



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Read on Mcduff....

[NRKofOver]

Larree, I have said for a very long time that the gov't does have the right to withhold information, but they never have the right to lie. If you don't want to answer a question, then fine. But to lie to us is not right. It's my government and your government and every other American's government. I do question information coming from the White House because their track record leaves a lot to be desired, but I also question the media (no matter where it's from) because everyone has a slant. It would be great if there really was a balanced informed outlet for news, but it simply doesn't exist. All any of us can do is absorb information from numerous sources and try to make sense of it.



Regardless of the 'truth' about this wedding, there are problems in the way we're handling Iraq, that should be clear to everyone.

My music for the disenchanted masses

[Galmin]

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Do you really believe everything the media puts in front of your face?

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This from NewsMax:



"Ten miles from Syrian border and 80 miles from nearest city and a wedding party? Don't be naive," said Marine Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis in Fallujah. "Plus they had 30 males of military age with them. How many people go to the middle of the desert to have a wedding party?"

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How many people go to the middle of the desert to have a wedding party?

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Obviously more than fourty.

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"This operation is not something that fell out of the sky," he said. "We had significant intelligence ... This is one of the routes we have watched for a long time as a place where foreign fighters and smugglers go."



Military officials in Washington refused to say whether anyone from a wedding party was killed.



Iraqis interviewed by APTN said revelers fired volleys of gunfire into the air in a traditional wedding celebration before the attack. American troops have sometimes mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire.



The footage showed a truck containing bloodied bodies, many wrapped in blankets and piled atop one other, after it arrived in Ramadi. Several were children. The body of a girl who appeared to be younger than 5 lay in a white sheet, her legs riddled with wounds and her dress soaked in blood.



Two Iraqis said to have been killed in the attack were buried Thursday in Baghdad. One of them was the wedding singer, mourners said.

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It's not like anything like this never happened before...

Remember this headline not two years ago?



'Scores killed' in US Afghan raid

[HKRockChick]

I am praying that they go down in November and rot in hell. Animals, barbarians, thieves, murders. @#%$ of the earth.





AP: Video Shows Iraq Wedding Celebration



56 minutes ago



By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer



RAMADI, Iraq - A videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck.



The U.S. military says it is investigating the attack, which took place in the village of Mogr el-Deeb about five miles from the Syrian border, but that all evidence so far indicates the target was a safehouse for foreign fighters.



"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."



But video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent.



The wedding videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert escorting the bridal car — decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a Western-style white bridal dress and veil. The camera captures her stepping out of the car but does not show a close-up.



An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video — which runs for several hours.



APTN also traveled to Mogr el-Deeb, 250 miles west of Ramadi, the day after the attack to film what the survivors said was the wedding site. A devastated building and remnants of the tent, pots and pans could be seen, along with bits of what appeared to be the remnants of ordnance, one of which bore the marking "ATU-35," similar to those on U.S. bombs.



A water tanker truck can be seen in both the video shot by APTN and the wedding tape obtained from a cousin of the groom.



The singing and dancing seems to go on forever at the all-male tent set up in the garden of the host, Rikad Nayef, for the wedding of his son, Azhad, and the bride Rutbah Sabah. The men later move to the porch when darkness falls, apparently taking advantage of the cool night weather. Children, mainly boys, sit on their fathers' laps; men smoke an Arab water pipe, finger worry beads and chat with one another. It looks like a typical, gender-segregated tribal desert wedding.



As expected, women are out of sight - but according to survivors, they danced to the music of Hussein al-Ali, a popular Baghdad wedding singer hired for the festivities. Al-Ali was buried in Baghdad on Thursday.



Prominently displayed on the videotape was a stocky man with close-cropped hair playing an electric organ. Another tape, filmed a day later in Ramadi and obtained by APTN, showed the musician lying dead in a burial shroud — his face clearly visible and wearing the same tan shirt as he wore when he performed.



As the musicians played, young men milled about, most dressed in traditional white robes. Young men swayed in tribal dances to the monotonous tones of traditional Arabic music. Two children — a boy and a girl — held hands, dancing and smiling. Women are rarely filmed at such occasions, and they appear only in distant glimpses.



Kimmitt said U.S. troops who swept through the area found rifles, machine guns, foreign passports, bedding, syringes and other items that suggested the site was used by foreigners infiltrating from Syria.



The videotape showed no weapons, although they are common among rural Iraqis.



Kimmitt has denied finding evidence that any children died in the raid although a "handful of women" — perhaps four to six — were "caught up in the engagement."



"They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft," he told reporters Friday.



However, an AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 children who relatives said had died. Bodies of five of them were filmed by APTN when the survivors took them to Ramadi for burial Wednesday. Iraqi officials said at least 13 children were killed.



Four days after the attack, the memories of the survivors remain painful — as are their injuries.



Haleema Shihab, 32, one of the three wives of Rikad Nayef, said that as the first bombs fell, she grabbed her seven-month old son, Yousef, and clutching the hands of her five-year-old son, Hamza, started running. Her 15-year-old son, Ali, sprinted alongside her. They managed to run for several yards when she fell — her leg fractured.



"Hamza was yelling, 'mommy,'" Shihab, recalled. "Ali said he was hurt and that he was bleeding. That's the last time I heard him." Then another shell fell and injured Shihab's left arm.



"Hamza fell from my hand and was gone. Only Yousef stayed in my arms. Ali had been hit and was killed. I couldn't go back," she said from her hospital bed in Ramadi. Her arm was in a cast.



She and her stepdaughter, Iqbal — who had caught up with her — hid in a bomb crater. "We were bleeding from 3 a.m. until sunrise," Shihab said.



Soon American soldiers came. One of them kicked her to see if she was alive, she said.



"I pretended I was dead so he wouldn't kill me," said Shihab. She said the soldier was laughing. When Yousef cried, the soldier said: "'No, stop," said Shihab.



Fourteen-year-old Moza, Shihab's stepdaughter, lies on another bed of the hospital room. She was hurt in the leg and cries. Her relatives haven't told her yet that her mother, Sumaya, is dead.



"I fear she's dead," Moza said of her mother. "I'm worried about her."



Moza was sleeping on one side of the porch next to her sisters Siham, Subha and Zohra while her mother slept on the other end. There were many others on the porch, her cousins, stepmothers and other female relatives.



When the first shell fell, Moza and her sisters, Subha, Fatima and Siham ran off together. Moza was holding Subha's hand.



"I don't know where Fatima and my mom were. Siham got hit. She died. I saw Zohra's head gone. I lost consciousness," said Moza, covering her mouth with the end of her headscarf.



Her sister Iqbal, lay in pain on the bed next to her. Her other sister, Subha, was on the upper floor of the hospital, in the same room with two-year-Khoolood. Her small body was bandaged and a tube inserted in her side drained her liver.



Her ankle was bandaged. A red ribbon was tied to her curly hair. Only she and her older brother, Faisal, survived from their immediate family. Her parents and four sisters and brothers were all killed.



In all, 27 members of Rikad Nayef's extended family died — most of them children and women, the family said.

[HKRockChick]

story.news.yahoo.com/news...0&ncid=716