Air Force Gen.: Some Iraq Deaths Staged (US doesn't bomb civilians)

[leftchick]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051120/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_us_civilian_deaths

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - A top U.S. Air Force general said Sunday that reports of civilian casualties in Iraq as a result of American military action were exaggerated.

"I would tell you first off I don't believe most of it and I am very much aware that some of that has been staged," said Lt. Gen. Walter E. Buchanan III, Commander of the 9th U.S. Air Force and U.S. Central Command Air Forces.

Buchanan, speaking to The Associated Press on the sidelines on the annual Dubai Air Show, said the U.S. Air Force was doing everything necessary to minimize civilian casualties.

"We are very, very careful, and we use precision-guided munitions. We only drop the weapons we have to and they are always the smallest weapons possible," he said.



... so those dead women and children we see on our TVs after US bombing raids really don't exist! Now tell me how this is not like Vietnam? :grr:

[xultar]

1. We don't torture, We don't use white phosphrous, We don't have secret

prisons.

Ahhh yeah I'll believe y'all.

[sakabatou]

2. We haven't killed a single civilian with our bombs

and even if we did, they're all terrorists...

:puke:

[Zhade]

25. Eventually, it'll be "No one died in Iraq at all".

"Silly Citizen! There have been zero casualties on either side! Now drink your flavored sugar water and LIKE IT!"

[thebigidea]

3. shock and awe was the "smallest weapons possible?"

go fuck yourself, you lying rummy stooge.

[rzemanfl]

4. Somebody should "stage" the deaths of a lot of these BushCo

assholes. Frankly I woundn't believe the death of a BushCo salesman unless I saw the spike in their heart with my own eyes.

[K-W]

5. Yah.... That's the ticket.... Yah.... EOM

[leftchick]

6. "We are very, very careful"!!!

<snip>

"We are very, very careful, and we use precision-guided munitions. We only drop the weapons we have to and they are always the smallest weapons possible," he said.

:pke: :puke: :puke:

[Rick Myers]

7. Holy crap!

With all the BAD news this week, this bonehead has to come out and say THAT? :grr:

[IndianaGreen]

8. Obviously, those dead women and children committed suicide

Our glorious Air Force doesn't target civilians. It targets the buildings in which civilians live.

[ninkasi]

12. These people are all without conscience

simplysonsntionallo read Riverbends diaries, in the most current one she was discussing seeing film of the after effects of the WP used in Fallujah. This is what she has to say after we finally admitted it, and referred to it as a "conventional weapon".

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

The Pentagon spokesman recently said:

"It's part of our conventional-weapons inventory and we use it like we use any other conventional weapon,"

This war has redefined ‘conventional’. It has taken atrocity to another level. Everything we learned before has become obsolete. ‘Conventional’ has become synonymous with horrifying. Conventional weapons are those that eat away the skin in a white blaze; conventional interrogation methods are like those practiced in Abu Ghraib and other occupation prisons…

Quite simply… conventional terror. "

So who is now the terrorist, Bush? Iraqis know that innocent civilians have been killed, and horribly wounded. Our denials only make them hate us more, because they have been to their loved one's funerals, and watched their loved ones suffer and die.

[gratuitous]

9. How does someone this willfully stupid become a general?

And, considering that it is the stated policy of the United States not to count or even acknowledge civilian casualties, how in the world would General Buchanan know for a fact how many civilian casualties have been inflicted by our military and its apparatchiks?

I notice that General Buchanan makes his definitive pronouncements from the safety and distance of the Dubai Air Show. The initials "REMF" keep coming to mind, for some reason.

[IndianaGreen]

10. Generals like Shinseki are drummed out of the service

Ass kissers like Buchanan and the former Chair of the Joint Chiefs, Meyers, are promoted.

[Gyre]

23. Generals and Admirals are those who learn the fastest how to "get along".

That would translate into walking ASS KISSERS.

Gyre

[thereismore]

24. "All you have to do is enlist."

That's what Peter Sellers (Inspector Clouseau) said whe Dreyfus asked him "How can an idiot become a police officer?"

[WildClarySage]

11. And who ya gonna believe? Your government or your lyin' eyes?

[DBoon]

13. Those Iraqis aren't dead

They're just resting.

Or pining for the fiords.

[Mz Pip]

14. Precision guided

by what? By whom? Nothing is precise and there is nothing careful about a war.

He makes it sound like heart surgery. So very precise and careful are we. Bullshit.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[othermeans]

15. If I remember correctly the first civilian casualty was a Jordanian cab

driver on some bridge we bombed.

[Up2Late]

16. I wonder how much time this guy has spent "on the ground" in Iraq?

The Dubai Air SHow is probably the closest this guy has been to the Iraq battlefield.

I you want to hear from one of the guys who did the actual target selecting in the Pentagon (Chief of High Value Targeting), and then a few days later, quit to go work for Human Rights Watch, where he actually went to Iraq to see where the bombs he targeted fell, check out this radio (audio) interview. It's from the WBEZ Chicago's nationally syndicated radio show "This American Life" -- What's in a Number? 10/28 Episode 300
<http://www.thislife.org/pages/archives/archive05.html>

<http://www.thislife.org/ra/300.ram>

The part with Mark Calesco, former "Chief of High Value Targeting" starts just after 25 minutes into the program. If you have time, I recommend you hear at least the Prologue and Acts 1 and 2, as you will see below in the show rundown, it was a very interesting show.

What's in a Number?

10/28
Episode 300

About a year ago, a study estimated the number of Iraqi casualties since the war began. It came up with a number – 100,000 dead – that was higher than any other estimate, and was mostly ignored. This week, Alex Blumberg revisits that study to look at the reality behind it. In Act One he reports that not only is the study probably accurate, but it says that most of the deaths were caused by Coalition forces (despite concerted efforts to avoid civilian casualties). In Act Two, we hear U.S. forces trying to cope in the aftermath of some of those deaths.

Prologue. We're a nation at war, but it hardly feels like it. That contrast is especially jarring for people like Hannah Allam, who just returned home to Oklahoma after two years in Baghdad running the Knight-Ridder Newspapers bureau there. Ira talks with Hannah, and Army Captain Chuck Ziegenfuss about what it feels like to come home from a war that nobody's paying much attention to. (6 minutes)

Act One. Truth, Damn Truth, and Statistics. About a year ago, a John Hopkins University study in the British medical journal The Lancet estimated the number of civilian casualties in Iraq. It came up with a number – 100,000 dead – that was higher than any other estimate, and was mostly ignored. This week, Producer Alex Blumberg tells the remarkable story of what it took to find that number, why we should find it credible and why almost no one believed it. (The original Lancet study is online; free registration is required). (36 minutes)

Act Two. Not Just a Number. Captain Ryan Gist was given a particularly tough assignment in Iraq: to build relationships with a town where U.S. bombs had killed twelve innocent people. But first he has to apologize to the families of those who were killed. We hear the apology, captured on tape by a journalist working in Iraq, and talk to Captain Gist about what things have been like since. (10 minutes)

Act Three. What do we do with these numbers anyway? So if in fact 100,000 Iraqis died because of the war, and that number's a year old ... what do we do with that number? It instantly brings you to all these imponderable questions about what's worth 100,000 dead. In a way, this doesn't seem like a helpful question to think about. So Ira turns to Nancy Sherman, who writes about the military and its values. She's a Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University and was the= Distinguished Chair of Ethics at the U.S. Navy Academy. She also wrote Stoic Warriors. (3 minutes)
Song: "Somebody's Gotta Do It," The Roots

[Sam_Lowry]

17. Anyone who runs...

is a VC. Anyone who stands still, is a well-disciplined VC!

anyone else remeber that line?

[0007]

18. Drum roll........black out lights..........ready for curtain rise and spot

light on center stage. Its a go go go..



Hello, I am Zell Miller and I'm here tonight to back up the truth of Lt. Gen. Walter E. Buchanan III, Commander of the 9th U.S. Air Force and U.S. Central Command Air Forces . . .

[Binka]

19. Hey Walt You Are A Stupid Fuckwittage Asshole

Hitting the gin dude?

[JoFerret]

20. Since when?

Has the man no knowledge of history? No sense of shame?

[Peace Patriot]

21. Unfrigging believable! So much lying! Vietnam deja vu all over again.

Upwards of 2 million slaughtered, by the end of it.

______________________

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE
words and music by Pete Seeger
performed by Pete Seeger and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone?
Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

©1961 (Renewed) Fall River Music Inc
All Rights Reserved.

[Gyre]

22. Typical Air Force.

They don't see shit from where they sit but that's a fact that they always seem to forget. The war isn't real to them. It's all one great big "exercise" to them while they pretend to be "professional(s)" and not the pussified killers that they are. They might be pros at delivering death from a distance but they are the personification of the military industrial complex that Ike was warning about.

Gyre

[Democat]

26. Even if we do bomb civilians, it's only because Saddam has nuclear weapons

WMD!