I Don't Think Iraqis Can Take Much More US "Freedom"! *graphic*

[leftchick]

"Bomb sandwich" kills 29 in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Two car bombs targeted a contractors' convoy in central Baghdad yesterday just as a minibus carried away schoolchildren. Twenty-seven Iraqis and two Americans were killed, the U.S. military said.

Exact figures on the number of children from the nearby school killed in the incident were unavailable.

Officers with the U.S. 7th Cavalry's 3rd squadron and the Iraqi army described the coordinated attack as a "car-bomb sandwich." One bomber apparently pulled out from an alley near the school to attack the convoy's rear; and another crashed head-on into the front of the convoy.

Nearly 300 people have been killed in insurgent violence since Iraq's democratically elected government was sworn in 10 days ago.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002267316_iraq08.html

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An Iraqi man shot by U.S. soldiers lies slumped in the front seat of his car in Baghdad May 7, 2005. The man failed to halt when told to stop by soldiers riding in a U.S. military convoy and they opened fire, killing him, witnesses said. REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz

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The bodies of two men lie on a street corner in the western Iraq city of Ramadi May 7, 2005. The men were executed by insurgents who said they were killed because they worked with Americans, witnesses said. REUTERS/Ali Mashhadani

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<snip>

But two years after his ousting, the dreams of many Iraqis have been shattered by daily car bombings, ambushes, kidnappings and urban fighting.

"I live with my five children in one room. We do not have electricity or fresh water. We cannot afford to send our children to school," Hasna Sarhan, a 49 year-old widow, said.

She lost her husband in the US-led invasion in March 2003.

"What we want is to live like human beings. We had a dream of a better future, but everyday this dream fades," Sarhan added.

Zainab Latif, 10, said as she carried her two year-old brother: "We are poor and no one accepts us. What we need is to go to school, have new clothes and toys."



Children sleep on thin mats in
large rooms with no electricity

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CEE9D548-CD14-4209-A24E-241AD0843E00.htm

[mhr]

1. And The Sheeple Freeper Repukes Can Do No Better Than

Take their mother's out to dinner today.

We do live in a sick country!

[DrDebug]

2. And they are calling it a success story again!

Upsurge in Iraq bloodshed as US seizes key militants
Military says latest violence is sign of anti-terrorist success

After one of the bloodiest weeks in Iraq since the fall of Saddam, US military officials have claimed that the dramatic upsurge in violence is proof they are close to breaking up the terrorist network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

In the last nine days, about 250 Iraqis - mostly from the country's fledgling security services - have died in a series of suicide bombings which continued yesterday when two car bombs killed 22, including two Americans, at one of Baghdad's busiest road junctions.

Despite the escalating violence, American officials this weekend took the unusual step of announcing that the bloodshed was the insurgents' response to the headway they claim they are making in breaking up the terror networks.

According to the statement, at least 20 'trusted lieutenants' of Zarqawi - the most wanted man in Iraq - have been captured or killed in recent months, including 'terror-cell leaders, propaganda chiefs, bomb-makers, drivers and other key lieutenants'.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1479036,00.html

[teryang]

3. Tunnel vision

This focus on Zarqawi is delusional. Because the suicide bombings are so sensational and get press attention, Zarqawi becomes the main subject of US press releases. The American quagmire is so much deeper than Zarqawi.

The official propaganda tries to create the impression that victory is within its grasp when nothing is further from the truth. It is the connection between the occupiers and the new government which is its fatal defect, lack of legitimacy. The American corporate colonial edicts will never be accepted in Iraq.

Why are mercenaries called civilians? They don't look like civilians.

[DrDebug]

4. Zarqawi is just a name

If they catch him, there'll be somebody else who is archenemy #1. They simply need a name, because without a name it seems like it's widespread unrelated groups with little or no structure who are planning the attacks. And nobody wants to read about that 'rumour' in the newspaper, right?

[leftchick]

5. You are right. They don't look like civilians...

They look like hired killers...

http://us.news3.yimg.com/img.news.yahoo.com/util/anysize/345,http%3A%2F%2Fus.news2.yimg.com%2Fus.yimg.com%2Fp%2Fafp%2F20050508%2Fcapt.sge.nkn09.080505083920.photo01.photo.default-300x384.jpg

A wounded foreign security contractor speaks on his walkie-talkie at the area where a car bomb exploded in the heart of Baghdad Saturday. A massive car bomb exploded in central Baghdad Saturday, killing at least 18 people, including four US citizens.(AFP/file/Ali Al-Saadi)

[leftchick]

6. amazing

incredible. Are there people really stupid enough to believe that horseshit?
don't answer.

[seemslikeadream]

7. But the president talks to God

When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women’s' rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
I wonder which one plays the better cop
We should find some jobs. the ghetto's broke
No, they're lazy, George, I say we don't
Just give 'em more liquor stores and dirty coke
That's what God recommends

When the president talks to God
Do they drink near beer and go play golf
While they pick which countries to invade
Which Muslim souls still can be saved?
I guess god just calls a spade a spade
When the president talks to God

When the president talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe he's not?
That that voice is just inside his head
When he kneels next to the presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the president talks to God?

I doubt it

I doubt it

[leftchick]

8. Juan Cole weighs in with "Melting Pot of Blood "

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/050605B.shtml

<snip>

The most dramatic instance of Sunni-Shiite conflict this past week concerns the death of Baghdad University student Masar Sarhan. He joyously threw a party when Ibrahim Jaafari was sworn in as prime minister. A member of the Shiite Dawa Party, Sarhan was expressing his solidarity with his party, which had won the office of prime minister for the first time ever. He was gunned down by three assassins. In reaction, Shiite students rioted on Tuesday, attacking Sunni Arab students and professors, whom they blamed for Sarhan's death.

In the meantime, Sunni-Shiite violence continued in a number of hot spots. In the mixed neighborhood of Doura in southern Baghdad, guerrillas constantly target Shiites for killings. They especially go after Sayyids, or those who claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad. In Suwaira near Madaen, police pulled 40 bodies out of a river, most of them Shiite. Mourning family members blamed Sunni guerrillas for the deaths. Rumors had earlier circulated that Shiite hostages would be killed in Madaen, and many Iraqis were convinced that the bodies recovered were those of Shiite victims of Sunni barbarity. The new, Shiite governor of Najaf, challenged Sunni clerics to rein in their adherents and warned that if the provocations continued, Shiites would take the law into their own hands.

The entire Bush administration-driven political process since last November has worked at odds with its own goals. The U.S. military attack on Fallujah enraged most Sunni Arabs and spread the guerrilla war to previously quiet cities such as Mosul. As a result most Sunni Arabs were not able to vote or were too angry to do so. Sunnis ended up with only 17 seats in the 275-member Parliament. Attempts to put them in the new Cabinet have produced new wrangling and delays and bitterness. The Sunni question in Iraq is now on the front burner. Given all the explosives still missing in Iraq, that is a dangerous place for it to be.