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11/23/2003 Archived Entry: "From bad to worse."
From bad to worse.
Just when you think things in Iraq can't get any more barbaric, you read this.
Iraqi teenagers dragged the bloody bodies of two American soldiers from a wrecked vehicle and pummeled them with concrete blocks Sunday, witnesses said, describing a burst of savagery in a city once safe for Americans. Another soldier was killed by a bomb and a U.S.-allied police chief was assassinated. The U.S.-led coalition also said it grounded commercial flights after the military confirmed that a missile struck a DHL cargo plane that landed Saturday at Baghdad International Airport with its wing aflame.
Nevertheless, American officers insisted they were making progress in bringing stability to Iraq, and the U.S.-appointed Governing Council named an ambassador to Washington — an Iraqi-American woman who spent the last decade lobbying U.S. lawmakers to promote democracy in her homeland.
Witnesses to the Mosul attack said gunmen shot two soldiers driving through the city center, sending their vehicle crashing into a wall. The 101st Airborne Division said the soldiers were driving to another garrison.
About a dozen swarming teenagers dragged the soldiers' bodies out of the wreckage and beat them with concrete blocks, the witnesses said.
"They lifted a block and hit them with it on the face," Younis Mahmoud, 19, said.
Another teenager, Bahaa Jassim, said some looted the vehicle of weapons, CDs and a backpack.
"They remained there for over an hour without the Americans knowing anything about it," he said. "I ... went and told other troops."
Television video showed the soldiers' bodies splayed on the ground as U.S. troops secured the area. One victim's foot appeared to have been severed.
And a US chopper went down today in Afghanistan. 5 dead.
Replies: 17 people speak up
wasnt that a scene in black hawk down? well, its obviouse that everything is fine. we should be out of there by june, just like bush says.
Posted by justin @ 11/23/2003 09:28 PM NY
Reminds me of that awful footage of the "Rodney King" Riots back in the early '90's when Reginald Denney was dragged out of his truck and beated with bricks by some of the rioters. That kind of violence (along with just about every other form of violence) makes me physically ill. It's difficult for me to comprehend the hatred that motivates those actions.
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 11/23/2003 09:38 PM NY
As a dazed and shaken Rodney King said in an impromptu TV interview shortly after the LA riots, "can't we all just get along?"
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 11/23/2003 09:42 PM NY
yeah, it really is incomprehensible that someone could be that filled with anger, but then again i didnt live through more than a decade of sanctions that killed more than a half a million people, and a war that killed 10,000 civilians, and wounded countless (literally uncounted) others. no one in my family has been blown up by cluster bombs. i havnt lived through any real horror, so i dont feel fit to judge those people. war is hell, and regardless of what bush says, this is still a war, i dont think those soldiers families would be any less horrified or apalled if their sons were killed in the "afterwar". its just inconcievable from all sides. its about time we realized that war isnt a video game. the little green blobs on the night vision screens are people, and all of those people have families. i think it is time that we realize that when we are watching the "news". war is pain
Posted by justin @ 11/23/2003 09:56 PM NY
Every time Mensa Boy posts, it brings to mind the immortal words of Raging Cajun Dave:
"I want to personally thank BLAH 3 and it's loyal readers for giving us Justis. No matter what you post, or how well you argue, Justis is there to illustrate how fucking stupid the liberal movement and ideals are. Surely, Providence alone must be responsible for this gift to the Conservatives.
Thank you BLAH 3, thank you loyal readers, and thank you Providence for this incredibly stupid man, Justis.
Thank you for the "Useful Idiot."
Posted by Geoffrey @ 11/23/2003 10:32 PM NY
Justin,
Yes, the sanctions. In truth it could be said that poverty is but a subtle form of violence. The beauty about violence is that it comes in so many yummy, tasty flavors.
I recall the opening night of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was like the premiere of a major motion picture. I remember the breathless commentaries of cable news reporters. I recollect that eerie green glow of the night-vision equipment when the bombs descended on Baghdad. I remember the nausea that siezed me. It was the exact same nausea that I felt at 10:45 a.m. on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, when my coworker Zach and I stood at the corner of Broadway and 15th Street gaping upwards at a tall building with a radio tower. Then the earth opened up and swallowed the building. It was the exact same feeling.
I was thinking of writing a letter to Treasury Secty. Snow suggesting that we change the motto on our currency from "In God We Trust" to "We Blow Shit Up." It's the kind of hip, snappy, happening type of motto that the Republic is crying out for. It's the kind of national motto that both allies and enemies will respect...and fear.
I'm tired of feeling bad.
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 11/23/2003 11:40 PM NY
Guess we're really winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people huh??
Posted by Mike C. @ 11/24/2003 09:52 AM NY
i do think its terrible that so many of our soldiers are getting killed, im simply saying that it is a bold faced lie to call the killing of soldiers durring a war terrorism. of course it makes it more traumatic that they were killed so brutally, but is that any worse than a child being blown up because they picked up a shiny yellow bag that happened to be a cluster bomb? war is hell, for both sides.
i was also sickened by the media coverage of the invasion ( i refuse to call it "operation iraqi freedom") ive never seen so many people so orgasmic over people being blown to little pieces. i had no respectg for the "media" to begin with, but if i had, that would have ended it. i cant really relate to your experiences with 9/11, because i was in ohio at the time, so it was more of a surreal feeling, harder to relate to ( also because i was at work that day, and was only hearing it on the radio. i didnt see video till 4 or so in the afternoon) even so, i certainly had a sense that the world had just changed for the worse, and a feeling of,"oh yeah, this is what it feels like to live in one of those 3rd world countries that is always being blown up on the news". i actually did know some people who worked in the WTC though, but luckily none of them were at work that day. what did give me a feeling of nausea at the time, and still does, is the fact that it was immediately evident that the deaths of those 3000 or so people would be exploited to the fullest extent possible for our governments evil goals.
Posted by justin @ 11/24/2003 03:49 PM NY
I'd like to mention that the NY Times just printed a retraction of this entire story.
Posted by Geoffrey @ 11/24/2003 07:00 PM NY
thats nice, does it make those soldiers any less dead?
Posted by justin @ 11/24/2003 07:07 PM NY
Nope. What's that got to do with my pointing out that this story is fiction?
Posted by Geoffrey @ 11/24/2003 07:12 PM NY
so your saying that they were not beaten and dragged through the streets? tell that to cnn, msnbc, fox, and every other news broadcast. (on the other hand, it wouldnt be the first work of complete fiction broadcast on all of those channels, actually it probobly wouldnt be the only complete work of fiction that day)
still, it doesnt seem like they would have anything to gain from that particular lie, since they are all towing the company line.
Posted by justin @ 11/24/2003 07:24 PM NY
I don't have to tell that to them. I'm sure they'll be posting retractions soon also.
It's funny to see you through fox up there. You swear the lie about everything until it suits your purpose, then you'd swear by their news. Have you ever wondered why even your liberal friends laugh at you?
Posted by Geoffrey @ 11/24/2003 07:29 PM NY
Ooops, looks like Fox just retracted also.
You're gonna have to find a new gig, it would seem.
Posted by Geoffrey @ 11/24/2003 08:53 PM NY
Not so fast, Geoffrey.
CNN is reporting that there is video tape that proves the soldiers were, indeed, mutilated.
Posted by editor @ 11/24/2003 11:03 PM NY
I couldn't find any info on CNN to that effect. I'll look again tomorrow.
Posted by Geoffrey @ 11/24/2003 11:17 PM NY
i believe that if you would go back and read what i wrote:
" tell that to cnn, msnbc, fox, and every other news broadcast. (on the other hand, it wouldnt be the first work of complete fiction broadcast on all of those channels, actually it probobly wouldnt be the only complete work of fiction that day)"
i was actually saying that i dont believe any of the news channels, whether it be fox, cnn or msnbc, and i wouldnt swear by any of them (although i often swear at them).
i was simply saying that all of the channels reported it, not just the NY times. either they were mutilated, or they were not, hell maybe they dont even exist. i dont know. you certainly cant trust what you see on the news (for that matter i dont trust their retractions either)
Posted by justin @ 11/25/2003 12:15 AM NY
