9 children killed in U.S. raid in Iraq
BAGHDAD - A U.S. attack killed 19 insurgents and 15 civilians, including nine children, northwest of the capital Thursday — one of the heaviest civilian death tolls in an American operation in recent months. The military said it was targeting senior leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq.
American forces have applied fierce and determined pressure on militants, especially al-Qaida in Iraq, since the full contingent of additional U.S. troops arrived June 15. But Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has recently confronted top American commander Gen. David Petraeus about what he sees as overly aggressive U.S. tactics that harm innocent civilians, according to Iraqi officials.
The military statement detailing Thursday's air and ground assault said soldiers were acting on intelligence reports about an al-Qaida meeting in the Lake Tharthar region. The southern reaches of the big, man-made lake are about 50 miles northwest of the capital.
The American account said U.S. surveillance confirmed "activity consistent with the reports and supporting aircraft engaged the time-sensitive target." The first air attack killed "four terrorists," said the statement.
The military said it then tracked some of those who escaped the initial attack to a place south of Lake Tharthar. It said ground forces moved on the site and came under fire. Air support was called in.
"After securing the area, the ground force assessed 15 terrorists, six women and nine children were killed," the statement said. Two suspected al-Qaida members, a woman and three children were wounded, according to the military account.
The military said its troopers "were reviewing information from the scene (of Thursday's attack) as well as assessing the level of damage involved."
The statement also issued regret "that civilians are hurt or killed while Coalition forces search to rid Iraq of terrorism."
On Oct. 5, a pre-dawn U.S. raid on Khalis, a Shiite city north of Baghdad, killed 25 people when U.S. troops called in airstrikes after meeting a fierce barrage while hunting suspected smugglers of arms from Iran to Baghdad. Village leaders said the victims included civilians, but the military insisted the 25 killed were militants.
ehh, što je lepo kad si svecka sila pa ti se može da ideš okolo po globusu i tamaniš teroriste, i decu koja se nađu na putu, a da ti niko ne zvoca.
odnosno, baš nije lepo ako si sitna boranija, pa ne smeš da tamaniš ni teroriste u sopstvenoj zemlji, odnosno ako neko dete tom prilikom strada, tu su odma sankcije, bombardovanja i ostalo (videti pod: čišćenje a. jašarija i familije; račak, itd.)
kad musliman bombom ubije 50 muslimana i 1 amerikanca onda nikom ništa muslimani šute nema prosvjeda
a kad jedan nemusliman ubije muslimana odmah je svjetska hajka i pozivanje na sličnost s krstašima i tako to demonstracije paljenje busovih lutki i zastava :x
i podboče se i lupaju papučama :!:
Report: Love Letters From U.S. Troops Increasingly Gruesome
,,My love for you is as deep as the gash in my commanding officer's throat." – Pfc. James Malvern, in recent letter to wife Kimmie
June 6, 2008
WASHINGTON—According to a Pentagon report leaked to the press Monday, love letters written by U.S. troops have nearly tripled their use of disturbing language, graphic imagery, and horrific themes since the start of the war.
The report, which studied 600 romantic notes sent over a period of two years, found a significant increase in terrifying descriptions of violence and gore, while references to beautiful flowers, singing bluebirds, and the infinite, undulating sea were seen to decrease by 93 percent.
An April 28 letter from Sgt. David Howard to his wife, Monica.
"Not only are U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq less likely to compare their lover's cheeks to a blushing red rose," the report read in part, "but most are now three times more likely to equate that same burning desire to the 'smoldering flesh of a dead Iraqi insurgent,' and almost 10 times more likely to compare sudden bursts of passion to a 'crowded marketplace explosion.'"
According to detailed analysis of the letters, the longer a U.S. soldier had been stationed in Iraq the more macabre the overall tone of his correspondence became. Troops who had been fighting for less than a year lapsed into frightening allegory about 15 percent of the time, while those who had been serving between two and three years described their affection for loved ones back home as more vibrant and alive than any of the children in the village of Basra.
Troops stationed in Iraq for four years or longer composed their letters entirely in blood.
"The more often U.S. soldiers are confronted with images of carnage, the more these elements become present in their subconscious and, ultimately, in their writing," said Dr. Kendra Allen, a behavioral psychologist who reviewed the Pentagon's findings. "This is precisely why we see so many passages like, 'Darling, I miss the way your bright green eyes always stayed inside your skull' and 'Honey, how I dream of your soft, supple arms—both of them, still attached as ever, to the rest of your body.'"
Allen went on to say that many of the harrowing details found in the love letters were linked to specific events in Iraq. A bloody clash with Islamic extremists in late March resulted in more than 40 handwritten notes from a single battalion, all of which contained some version of the message "My love for you spills out of me like my lower intestine, my gallbladder, and my spleen."
The most noticeable change came after a violent border skirmish in May that left four U.S. soldiers dead and dozens more severely injured. Since the incident, a number of letters, which had previously signed off with "Yours forever," instead ended with "Please God, deliver me from this nightmarish hellhole! The screaming—it never stops! Christ, I beg you, make it all go away! Make the parade of blood and pain and tears go away!"
A number of wives and fiancées of servicemen in Iraq, many of whom are now unsure how to reply to their partners abroad, provided personal accounts of how the tone of their correspondence has changed.
"Getting love letters from my husband used to be my favorite part of the week. But these days, they're almost impossible to get through," said Sheila Miller, whose husband, Michael, has been in Iraq since 2004. "Yes, it's still flattering to be told that you're as beautiful as a syringe full of morphine, or that you're as much a part of his being as the shrapnel near his spine. But I'm really starting to worry about him."
"My husband has never really been the romantic type, but even this is strange for him," said Margaret Baker, the wife of Sgt. Daniel Baker. "How am I supposed to react to hearing that my name is the sweetest sound in a world otherwise filled with desperate cries of anguish? I made the mistake of showing [daughter] Gracie the birthday card her father sent her from Tikrit and she hasn't spoken for a month."
In response to the damaging report, Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke on behalf of the thousands of soldiers on active duty in the Middle East, saying the study's findings were "misrepresented" and any rise in horrific metaphors and similes was in no way related to the situation in Iraq.
"I've been to our bases overseas and let me be the first to tell you that conditions in Iraq are the best they've ever been," Gates announced at a press conference Friday. "In fact, I would go so far as to say that we're making as much progress here as, say, an army private who accidentally falls on a land mine, and instead of choosing to die in the middle of the road like some dog, drags his bleeding trunk—inch by throbbing inch—to the side of a nearby ditch."
Added Gates, "It's that good."
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sef se izdere ili prigovori ne vlja neki projekt
odmah stres tablete...
a zamisli da na radnom mjestu pucaju na tebe mjesecima
ne znas odakle nisu u uniformi djeca zene odrasli dede babe
na psu bomba... dobro su zdravi ikako :x
bitno je da Bush kaze da ga je bog vec blagoslovio
blago njemu :x
American kills 5 fellow soldiers at clinic in Iraq
BAGHDAD – An American soldier opened fire at a counseling center on a military base Monday, killing five fellow soldiers before being taken into custody, the U.S. command and Pentagon officials said.
Although it was unclear what prompted the shooting, the incident draws attention to the issue of combat stress and morale after six years of war as the mission of the 130,000-strong force transforms to one of training and mentoring the Iraqis.
Attacks on fellow soldiers, known as fraggings, were not uncommon during the Vietnam war but are believed to be rare in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A brief U.S. statement said the assailant was taken into custody following the 2 p.m. shooting at Camp Liberty, a sprawling U.S. base on the western edge of Baghdad near the city's international airport.
The statement said nobody else was hurt, but a senior defense official in Washington said three people were wounded. The names of the victims and shooter were not released.
President Barack Obama, who visited a base adjacent to Camp Liberty last month, was shocked by the "terrible tragedy," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. Obama planned to discuss the shooting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
At the Pentagon, Gates said that "we're still in the process of gathering information on exactly what happened."
Pentagon officials said the shooting happened at a stress clinic, where troops can go for help with the stresses of combat or personal issues. It was unclear whether the gunman and his victims were workers at the clinic or were there for counseling. Soldiers routinely carry weapons on Camp Liberty and other bases, but they are supposed to be unloaded.
The U.S. military is coping with a growing number of stress cases among soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan — many of whom are on their third or fourth combat tours. Some studies suggest that about 15 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq suffer from some sort of emotional problems.
With violence declining, many soldiers face new challenges trying to shift from fighting a war to supporting the Iraqis — tasks that often require skills in which they have not been trained.
Adding to the stress, there have been several incidents recently when men dressed as Iraqi soldiers have opened fire on American troops, including an attack in the northern city of Mosul on May 2 when two soldiers and the gunman were killed.
Separately, the military announced Monday that a U.S. soldier was killed a day earlier when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Basra province of southern Baghdad.
The death toll from the shooting at the counseling center was the highest for U.S. personnel in a single attack since April 10, when a suicide truck driver killed five American soldiers with a blast near a police headquarters in Mosul.
"Anytime we lose one of our own, it affects us all," U.S. spokesman Col. John Robinson said. "Our hearts go out to the families and friends of all the service members involved in this terrible tragedy."
There have been several previous fragging incidents in the Iraq war.
• Last September, Sgt. Joseph Bozicevich, 39, of Minneapolis was detained after allegedly killing two members of his unit south of Baghdad. The case remains under investigation.
• In April 2005, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar was sentenced to death for killing two officers in Kuwait just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
• In June 2005, an Army captain and lieutenant were killed when an anti-personnel mine detonated in the window of their room at the U.S. base in Tikrit. National Guard Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez was acquitted in the blast.
• Spc. Chris Rolan, an Army medic, was sentenced to 33 years in prison in 2007 for killing a fellow soldier after a night of heavy drinking in Iraq.
• In 2008, Army Cpl. Timothy Ayers was sentenced to two years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the fatal 2007 shooting of his platoon sergeant in Iraq.
QuoteLast September, Sgt. Joseph Bozicevich, 39, of Minneapolis was detained after allegedly killing two members of his unit south of Baghdad.
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