Tensions high as Iraqis bury mosque dead - Reuters

[Lone_Star_Dem]

By Terry Friel 5 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ites on Monday began burying 20 people shot dead at a Baghdad mosque in what some of their leaders said was a massacre by U.S. troops.
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"The American forces went into Mustafa mosque and killed more than 20 worshippers ... They tied them up and shot them," Sadr aide, Hazim al-Araji, said.

In a sign of how little faith some Iraqis have in U.S.-backed government forces, angry mourners said only Sadr's Mehdi Army militia could protect them from sectarian bloodshed.

Men wailed and hugged each other as some of the coffins were transported on the top of vans.

"No one is protecting us," shouted Hamid Taayab, his voice raised in anger. "If it wasn't for the Mehdi Army we would be slaughtered in our homes."
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More...


Reuters Photo: A video grab shows bodies lying on the floor at a mosque in the Shaab...

[LynnTheDem]

1. SHIA leaders; US troops MASSACRED 20 innocent SHIA civilians.

Irony from the darkest deepest pits of hell. Courtesy of BUSH and his illegal supreme crime war of aggression.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. While the U.S. statement said no mosque had been raided

...or damaged in the Iraqi operation. Yet I posted a video capture showing dead bodies laying on the floor of the mosque in the OP.

From the AP

Associated Press videotape showed a tangle of dead male bodies with gunshot wounds on the floor of what was said by the cameraman to be the imam's living quarters, attached to mosque itself.

The tape showed 5.56 mm shell casings scattered about the floor. U.S. forces use that caliber ammunition. A grieving man in white Arab robes stepped among the bodies strewn across the blood-smeared floor.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME

The Shia leaders appear to have more evidence backing their claim than the US.

[LynnTheDem]

4. So Saddam is a liar...all Sunnis are liars...Kurds are liars...and now

the Shia are liars. Or so the US wants eveyrone to believe.

Well we know at least the MFing rightwingnuts will of course believe anything they're told by their bush-gawd.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

5. Well, the bush-gawd isn't brown

And then there's the fact that he's a good 'christian' just like they are and not a scary terrorist muslim.

If ignorance is bliss then they are euphoric.

[LynnTheDem]

6. Jesus was.

Brown.

And that's his backyard bush & Cabal are busily blowing up.

If I were a rightwingnut, I wouldn't be in a hurry for Judgement Day.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

7. NO! Say it ain't so!

Yes, indeed he was. But don't tell 'em OK? I have this fantasy of the look on their face at the moment they find out... :wow:

[LynnTheDem]

16. Same fantasy I have, LOL!

Heh. :D

[darkmaestro019]

9. Yes he was. And poor and tended to hang with undesireables.

Jesus would definitely be on the nofly list. : )

edit: THE nofly list, not OUR nofly list

[LynnTheDem]

17. And be deemed a "librul terra-ist pinko commie hippy"

The irony of warmongers calling themselves Christians...

[0007]

10. John Negroponte is a bright and shinning honest saint too, 'eh?

[megatherium]

12. We are told that it's the Shiite militias that are rounding up

hundreds of Sunnis, and torturing and killing them. We are told that Sunnis are now seeking help and protection from the US. But in the present case, it appears that US troops did kill these people. I can imagine that the US was trying to get the leadership of one of the militias, and I can believe that this was some sort of big mistake.

But I cannot credit the notion that US forces are doing these death squad killings now attributed to Shiite militias. Triggering a civil war is the last thing the US wants -- it would force us out of Iraq. We do not have enough manpower to control a fractured, disintegrating Iraq. (We would need 500,000 troops for that at least.) Indeed, we now know, as reported in today's NY Times, that Bush and Blair expected a quick, easy war with a managable aftermath, they expected a stable government friendly to the west that would allow coalition forces to leave soon. None of what's happening now was planned by the US/UK. This is all a big clusterfuck -- by bringing down Hussein, we've created a Yugoslavia.

[IndianaGreen]

15. And the biggest clusterfuck are the politicians in denial about Iraq

from both parties! We need to bring the troops home NOW!

[adigal]

14. The Freepers are screaming that no mosque

was involved - the more serious the charge, the louder they scream, so we know this is serious.

[LynnTheDem]

18. Of course a mosque was involved. And when they can no longer deny

that fact, the freepers will scream about mosques being nothing but places of "devil worship" or some such crap.

[MisterP]

22. "insurgent sniper posts"--our excuse for blowing the minarets off of one

and almost dynamiting the Leaning Tower of Pisa in WWII

[Kagemusha]

8. The US spokesman just doesn't know better.

Go check Juan Cole's site - it may not have been a "mosque", but it was a Shiite religious edifice devoted to worship and prayer. It's like saying don't worry, it's not a church - it's only a synagogue, no big deal!

So this is bad. Very bad.

[Igel]

20. But the imam's living quarters

is not the mosque. He would crap in his living quarters, presumably, and have sex with his wife; it's unlikely he'd do either of these in the mosque itself. Rather like the rectory to a Xian church; the vicar may well do things in the rectory that s/he would not be likely to do in the church itself.

Such distinctions range from incredibly and crucially important (when it serves Sadr's interests) to completely irrelevant (when it serves Sadr's interests). What I find interesting is that we accept how they manipulate the definitions, even when it's obvious that they (and therefore we) are manipulated to serve Sadr's interests.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

21. It appears to have been a place of worship and not living quarters

I think the clincher was the video, you just can't spin it when there's video showing the room covered in religious symbols and the prayer mats covered in blood and dead bodies.

No matter what they are now martyrs to their people. In the end that's really all that matters, not what actually took place nor what you or I think. It's all about how things are perceived by the people of Iraq and the video to them shows fellow Iraqi Muslims killed by the occupying forces while attending to their prayers in a prayer hall.


From the BBC

The room where the killing occurred appeared to be a prayer hall. The floors are carpeted and the walls covered with religious posters.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4850108.stm

[LynnTheDem]

24. Good luck!

:D

[LynnTheDem]

23. From the victim's viewpoint, rather than the illegal invaders';

Such distinctions range from incredibly and crucially important (when it serves bush's interests) to completely irrelevant (when it serves bush's interests). What I find interesting is that we accept how they manipulate the definitions, even when it's obvious that they (and therefore we) are manipulated to serve bush's interests.

[EST]

2. Welcome to bush's -not really-civil war.

Even if this is a case of bad info, the damage has been done. Stupid f*cks don't realize that the biggest thing that brought the USSR to its knees was ten years of anguish, expensive anguish, in Afghanistan.

[saddemocrat]

11. omg

:o

[grytpype]

13. The US is saying this was a joint US/Iraqi operation.

So were the Iraqis who took part in this Sunnis or Shiites?

[Lone_Star_Dem]

19. Joint as in they were the ones being killed?

Who knows anymore. Iraq is spiraling out of their control so fast they can't even manage the news coming out of there anymore.

[Supersedeas]

25. Pointing the finger as always, maybe Clinton is responsible for this too