Disbelief in Iraqi hamlet where Zarqawi was killed (residents skeptical)

[sabra]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/08/AR2006060800609.html

Disbelief in Iraqi hamlet where Zarqawi was killed

HIBHIB, Iraq (Reuters) - Standing on rubble left by the U.S. air raid that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqis in the village of Hibhib expressed disbelief on Thursday that the al Qaeda leader had been living among them.

"I don't know anything about Abu Musab or anyone else being here," said a teenager who declined to give his name, inspecting blankets amid crushed concrete.

"The Americans have a habit of bombing places and then claiming Zarqawi or others were there."

...

"Zarqawi. Zarqawi. Zarqawi. That's all we hear about. Zarqawi was not here. This home belonged to displaced people," said a village resident, holding up a teddy bear and a child's knapsack buried in the destruction.

[izzie]

1. That is interesting. I do not get the pictures either.

They showed a mans face that looked pretty good for a dead guy and the building looked like ground zero. What is up?

[saigon68]

3. its like killing "Simon Jester"

lol

[hobbit709]

4. Was he wearing

a"Liberty Cap"?

[saigon68]

14. One was apparently NOT FOUND at the scene

The Baker Street Irregulars must have spirited it away

[Demeter]

7. Too Bad We Live On Earth, Then

We are all prisoners of the Warden,, anyway.

[saigon68]

15. Mort's days are numbered

[Orsino]

51. When is Der Tag?

It's not gonna be as glorious as in my favorite book. It's gonna be cruel and nasty, and a lot of people will be miserable, maimed or killed.

I'm leaving the country before that happens. I hope.

[davepc]

43. overpressure from the blast dosent leave many external wounds

but destroys your insides.

[turbo_satan]

60. I'm usually quite skeptical, but...

not this time. Zarqawi is dead. Good riddance. The guy was a bezerker and didn't serve anyone's ends anymore. I think he was sold out from the inside because he was more detrimental to the cause than he was helpful. In other words, he was a blood-thirsty psychopath without much of an ideological purpose beyond wreaking havoc. IMO, his loss is a net neutral. Not much will change.

[htuttle]

2. "holding up a teddy bear and a child's knapsack buried in the destruction"

I'm sure lots of al queda leaders have children staying in their hideouts, right?

Right?

[maxsolomon]

11. though i distrust the military's version, i find it plausable

that zarqawi would have a safe house in an area where kids were living.

why don't you?

[fun n serious]

22. Yes.

It is absolutely plausable. In fact, I doubt a guy like Zarqawi has comapssion for children.

[htuttle]

24. I'm sure he was just keeping them around to cook them for dinner

[The Stranger]

12. Riiiiiight..

They like playing with kids in their spare time.

But the propaganda machine will spin it as "human shields" or "collateral damage" or some other term that the catatonic now imbibe hungrily, allowing them to deny what their lying eyes are showing them -- the death of completely innocent children.

[Orsino]

13. No spin needed.

Zarqawi was a killer, working with killers. They weren't above living among human shields. Whether or not they counted on *'s "compassion," though, residential neighborhoods provide quite a bit of cover.

[Canuckistanian]

20. Yup, that's what they do.

It's in the terrorist's handbook. And all the Iraqis are in on it. None of them can be trusted.

Those dastardly terrorists put kids everywhere. They even import some from Syria and Iran. That's why you see all those stories about dead kids.

They're eeeeeeevil.

[jcall2]

21. "Eeeeeevil"

Of course they're not "eeeevil". The occasional beheading doesn't make them bad people. When prisoners are made to wear underwear on their heads, there is an explosion of indignation. When insurgents pull 50 people off a bus and kill them there is a deafening silence. I find it very interesting that you are more willing to trust terrorists than the people that are serving your nation.

[Zhade]

27. The poster said nothing about trusting terrorists.

You are way out of line with that remark.

Oh, and FYI, those soldiers aren't serving our nation, they're being used in an illegal war by the squatter in the White House.

This war does NOT serve our nation's interests. It's making us LESS safe.

[The Stranger]

30. Given the lies that have come from those who hijacked the government,

you sure as fuck should not be surprised that anyone would trust their own eyes, seeing pictures of clothes from murdered children, rather than the endless spewing coming from the pathological liars that occupy this Administration.

[PsychoDad]

47. When insurgents pull 50 people off a bus and kill them

IMHO, if they were middle class or wealthy white people, and not just more dark skinned eye-rakys, there would be quite a bit of media attention and outcry.

Or perhaps just one blonde girl.

Gotta ask yourself, which would get more coverage in America. A city full of poor people, mostly black, left to die in the path of a hurricane, or a missing blonde woman....

We know the answer.

Peace.

[treestar]

62. You judge people by the group, don't you? So doesn't that make

you responsible for all the good as well as bad?

So you bombed Zarqawi. However you also killed people in Haditha. Oh, wait, those people are all terrorists because they belong to a group which has terrorists. So do you. Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist. You're just as much a terrorist as they are, therefore.

Since I belong to the group "American" I get credit too for "serving my nation." Which means I am murdering people in Iraq in revenge for 911, with which they had nothing to do. Which you are doing also.

Zarqawi belongs to a group and that group still exists, so killing him hasn't done anything. They're still there. They still want to kill you. You still want to kill them.

[ShortnFiery]

35. Oh how sterile! All our troops are choir boys and girls instead of

Trained Killers.

How about you consider wiping that unsightly "nationalistic fervor smirk" off of your face?

[Orsino]

37. I said nothing about *our* trained killers. n/t

[ShortnFiery]

40. But you see "our trained killers" are part of the occupation package

No matter how humane we choose to view ourselves, our Country's Troops are systematically creating collateral state sanctioned terror. Oh, if our soldiers did not intend to KILL the innocent mothers and infants does it make them any less DEAD when our bombs hit their mark?

War makes TERRORISTS out of us all.

We must put an END to War.

[Orsino]

42. I certainly agree...

...or mostly, anyway.

Wars of aggression are certainly no better than terrorism. I think all killing is wrong, but I have some sympathy for the underdog who fights only when war is forced on him.

[ShortnFiery]

45. Understood. When war is forced on them ... especially our

USA troops who are only in their late teens or early 20s.

May they return to their loved ones safe and sound.

These are our children. Our treasure.

[Orsino]

50. It's tearing me up.

The younger brother of a friend of mine is packing up to go to Iraq. We old veterans had coached him to go Signal Corps to learn some skills useful in the "real" world, but he wanted excitement, and so enlisted a year ago as an infantryman. He broke a bone in his foot in Basic, and so missed his shot to go straight to Airborne school.

Now he's in the Big Red One's 2nd Brigade at Schweinfurt, the folks whose deployment was put off indefinitely just last month. Indefinitely doesn't last long enough in *Co's world, and they are just waiting on the final order.

Damn it. I remember the skinny eight-year-old, and it makes me want to cry. I can't bear to think of all the civilians he will face, loaded for combat and waiting for someone to make a wrong move.

War is a hell I can't even imagine.

[Mike Daniels]

16. They could just have easily had stuff lying around for this purpose

How hard is it to conceive that perhaps the insurgents have "furnished" safe houses with the odd civilian or child type item strictly for this purpose.

House gets hit, local media shows people discovering items belonging to non-combatants and viola, instant propaganda.

The insurgents have used video and audio tapes, the internet and the media to spread their message. Why can't they also engage in duplicity of this form?

[The Stranger]

17. I can't believe I am reading this.

Now we are dreaming up schemes where these destitute, war-ravaged, tortured, bombed and shocked-and-awed people are DESIGNING PROPAGANDA by putting dead children's backpacks and shoes in the bombed-out rubble?

Reason is calling.

[Scriptor Ignotus]

25. an Insurgent would give up his life to blow up an American

or Iraqi Security Guard but would not stoop to lying about children being killed? Is that the argument you are making?

Also, a distinction is warranted between someone we could call the "average" Iraqi from the Iraqi (or Syrian, Jordanian, etc) import planting IEDs on the roadside. The Iraqi insurgent has no scruples. The "average Iraqi does. How do we know who is the insurgent and who is not?

We don't and we can't and that's the problem. We don't know who to believe. In addition, they don't know if they can believe us. Welcome to the quagmire.

[The Stranger]

29. No, there are some things we do know. There is no need to dream up the

bizarre to explain the very simple.

The U.S. airstrike that destroyed the home (or "hideout") where Zarqawi is alleged to have been obliterated the lives of innocent children. We know this because their shoes and backpacks are lying in the rubble.

There is no need to dream up bizarre explanations and schemes to explain what is very simple. We have seen numerous pictures of Iraqi children murdered in U.S. airstrikes. There are others for which we have not seen pictures.

This we do know.

[Nihil]

52. Rubbish

> We don't know who to believe.
> In addition, they don't know if they can believe us.

We know full well who *not* to believe - press releases from
the White House, anonymous video/audio tapes sent to Al Jaheera
(sp?) and the tame (bought/volunteer) repeaters of both.

The Iraqis also know full well that they CAN'T believe us.

> an Insurgent would give up his life to blow up an American
> or Iraqi Security Guard but would not stoop to lying about
> children being killed?

That merely puts the so-called "insurgent" on the exact same
footing as our brave "warriors" who have repeatedly lied about
the murder, maiming and torture of innocent Iraqis.

> Also, a distinction is warranted between someone we could call
> the "average" Iraqi from the Iraqi (or Syrian, Jordanian, etc)
> import planting IEDs on the roadside.

I think I've just found someone else not to believe ...

[treestar]

63. But the US war machine and the CIA would never do any of it

:sarcasm:

[leftchick]

5. what I find interesting is the WaPo publishing this

and so soon. Amazing!

[SmokingJacket]

9. They also recently published this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1380886

[bdamomma]

10. another scandal/cover up is emerging

I do not trust this government at all.

[Demeter]

6. Does It Make Any Difference One Way of the Other?

Perhaps Zarqawi IS dead, finally; Zarqawi is but one pissed off Iraqi---Bush has pissed off millions of them, and they don't sit around on their hands begging for leadership like some Democrats we can think of. If Bush plans to exterminate every last aggrieved Iraqi, Muslim, or whatever, he will depopulate the world. And he will still be a war criminal, still be a total LOSER, still be the villain of the 21st Century, just as Hitler was the villain of the 20th Century.

[Pastiche423]

19. "Zarqawi " is/was Jordanian

I think he was "killed" a little too soon (not closer to the mid-term election) this time.

[CJCRANE]

34. Maybe Osama or Zawahiri

is lined up for the mid-terms. I heard on the radio (BBC) that the team who took out Zarqawi were reassigned from hunting bin Laden. Perhaps they'll be switched back to the bin Laden hunt in time for the mid-terms.

[Pastiche423]

36. What would they show for OBL

his bones? (Since he died in December 2001.)

No framed picture for him!

[saskatoon]

28. to demeter

I really appreciated your post. Every point was on the money. Thanks friend. Grace

[RCinBrooklyn]

8. This is like the 3rd time the U.S. reports killing him. Go get Coulter!

[dmoded]

18. lol now thatd be news worth cheering about :))

[mom cat]

31. And just think: Jesus only beat death once!

[fooj]

23. Sabra...earlier you posted an ABC newslink.

I can't find it. Can you help me out? Thanks!!!:hi:

[sabra]

32. check out my journal :-)

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/sabra

[fooj]

33. Thanks! Why didn't I think of that? LOL!

[Zhade]

26. "The Americans have a habit of bombing places and then claiming..."

DING DING DING!

[jollyreaper2112]

38. not unreasonable to expect kids there

We're talking family neighborhoods. That's precisely the best place to hide out. If it's a place known for transient residency, that'd be even better. If you're a wanted dude, you don't want to draw attention by being the new face on the block. But if it's a big neighborhood, you could go unnoticed. Empty safehouses would be conspicuous. Why not stay with an ally and his family? If Zarq really was staying in a family home and we dropped bombs on it, dead women and children would be expected. Remember when we took out the restaurant Saddam (wasn't) in early in the war? Used a B-1, put gigantic craters in a neighborhood, killed I think 30 people, and he wasn't there. Even if he was, those 30 dead people wouldn't have been propaganda, they would have simply been collateral damage. Same as when Israel fires anti-tank missiles into crowded streets to hit terrorist cars, the dead weren't propaganda or planted evidence, they were really there and really died, nothing more than that. The moral of the story to me is "don't use big inaccurate splattery weapons when you're trying to kill one guy. Use a sniper, get it right." Because we just know how understanding an American would be if a foreign government blew up his family trying to get a guy who wasn't even in the neighborhood. Americans would understand and forgive. *SARCASM*

[Rex]

39. If he was hiding in a house with children, then why did we bomb it?

Why didn't we storm the place like we did Saddam's sons? I guess the military presence would arouse to much suspicion. I hope they really did get the bastard, this time. This will be the third time Zarqawi has been killed, I hope OBL was sitting right next to him! Both of those fuckers need to die.

[ShortnFiery]

41. Our Ruling Elites don't give a Fuck about Women and Children ...

Just like they will prove to the willfully ignorant right wingers that they only care about those humans who fall within the *investor class* (invested wealth greater than $500,000).

Wake up America! The BushBotBorg and the UK Poodle State don't care about us Peasant Classes.

END THIS IMMORAL AND ILLEGAL OCCUPATION.

NOW!!!

[jollyreaper2112]

44. why not storm it?

Bombing is easier and safer. There's jack all he can do about an LGB dropped from an F-16 but he and his compadres could shoot up quite a few soldiers if we stormed the house. Besides, this was (allegedly) a tip we got form fellow terrorists. Seems to me it would be a great trick to rig a house for us to raid. That's happened earlier in the war -- American soldiers raid a "bomb factory" or some such place and the whole thing is rigged to explode. So nope, we just bomb and pick through the rubble later.

[Rex]

46. True, a tip from fellow terrorists is very suspicious.

I was thinking his intel value and what might have been found in a raid. The risk was to high.

[shadowknows69]

55. He has to leave sometime

We apparently knew where we was. Surround the place with snipers and take out the desired targets. What the fuck do we train special forces for?

[Rex]

58. True, I figured his intel value alone would warrant an attempt to

take him alive, but who knows maybe he was waiting inside with a bomb strapped to his butt. Supposedly, he was ready for 'martyrdom', which probably made him 10 times more dangerous.

[bdamomma]

48. I believe the residents in the village who said this

I don't know anything about Abu Musab or anyone else being here," said a teenager who declined to give his name, inspecting blankets amid crushed concrete.

"The Americans have a habit of bombing places and then claiming Zarqawi or others were there."---------BINGO

[mhatrw]

49. The myth of Zarqawi died today. As for the man ...

WaPo - Zarqawi is a US Military PSYOP: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040900890.html

The NY Times Played Along: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002314713

Zarqawi - Bush's Man For All Seasons: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FJ15Ak02.html

UPI (Moonie Times) - How the US Created the Zarqawi Myth: http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:2QuiYcfLZV0J:www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php%3FStoryID%3D20051110-014753-2561r+Claim:+U.S.+Created+al-Zarqawi+Myth&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

CIA Agent Says US Allowed Zarqawi to Escape: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/us-allowed-zarqawi-to-escape/2006/04/30/1146335608444.html

How the US fuelled myth of Zarqawi the mastermind: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/04/wirq04.xml

Reputed Terrorist Al-Zarqawi Still Shrouded in U.S.-Fed Myth, Mystery: http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1546

Zarqawi - Everywhere & Nowhere: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GG07Ak02.html

A collection of pix of our happily finally actually dead parrot: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2327738&mesg_id=2328504

A collection of previous links saying Zarqawi was dead, seriously injured or captured: http://www.conjur.com/blog/2005/11/20/zarqawis-dead-again-3rd-times-a-charm-eh

From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/04/10/GR2006041000097.html



Just saying ...

[Psephos]

53. Oh boy, a new conspiracy theory! Yum!

I'm excited. :bounce:

Seriously, I wish we could put half the energy that's wasted on superstition into real issues that can capture votes on election day. The people whose votes we need to shift *are not attracted* by the monsters-under-the-bed mentality.

Peace.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

54. You misunderstand the nature of D.U.

...it's filled with people who'd rather sit on their butt and make up wacky conspiracy theories, than actually do anything to change the country in a positive direction. You see, typing up gratuitous insults about American soldiers in a horrific situation is easy. Actually talking to voters is hard.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Psephos]

56. C.D., I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship

Action is everything, isn't it?

I will be looking for more of your posts.

Peace.

[ronnie624]

64. Your use of the term "conspiracy theory"

in this context and your attempt to suppress discussion of this important topic marks you as one who has been thoroughly hoodwinked by the popular (corporate) media.

It has been clearly demonstrated that the Bush administration has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on propaganda campaigns and PSYOP missions the purpose of which was to deceive U.S. citizens into supporting an illegal war of aggression and the plundering of another nation. The post directly above yours is filled with valuable information, but do you and your new found friend have anything to say about the content therein? No, of course not. You choose to slander and insult with foolish, meaningless terms that are designed specifically to shame people into silence thereby suppressing discussion and criticism of U.S. government activities.

it is unlikely that your supposed action to "change the country in a positive direction" or your presumed "talking to voters" (whatever that means) will have any impact in the presence of such grand ignorance. May I respectfully suggest educating yourself about the activities of your government first. Only then can we even hope to have any influence over our government and the conducting of our national affairs.

[Left Coast Lynn]

57. Zarqawi is dead, and I'm glad

* incompetence aside, this is welcome news.

[daleo]

59. Today's Globe and Mail said a woman and child were killed as well

in the bombing. Just for the record.

[muriel_volestrangler]

61. 3 died in Hibhib a few days ago "from a stray American artillery shell"

in a training exercise, apparently.

Three Iraqi civilians killed in accident-US military

BAGHDAD, June 4 (Reuters) - A U.S. artillery round landed in a small Iraqi town and police reported afterwards that two civilians were killed in a blast and one woman later died from her wounds, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

Three other people were also reported wounded and six houses were damaged in the town of Hibhib, north of Baghdad, after a U.S. artillery unit fired a 155 mm round during training on Friday, it said in a statement.
...
The U.S. military statement said a self-propelled howitzer fired the round from a base near the bigger regional town of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of the capital.

"A short time later Iraqi Police reported an explosion at a building in the town (Hibhib) that killed two Iraqi civilians, injured four others and damaged six houses," the statement said.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=L04768876

If that is what really happened, it's shocking - a training exercise killing civilians?