"The use of B1 bombers shows the terrible failure of the U.S. campaign in Iraq"

[leftchick]

isn't that the truth. :(


IRAQ: More Bombing Creates New Enemies

By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*


http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41122

Many Iraqis view the attack Jan. 10 by bombers and F-16 jets on a cluster of villages in the Latifiya district south of Baghdad as overkill.

"The use of B1 bombers shows the terrible failure of the U.S. campaign in Iraq," Iraqi Major General Muhammad al-Azzawy, a military researcher in Baghdad, told IPS. "U.S. military and political tactics failed in this area, and that is why this massacre. This kind of bombing is usually used for much bigger targets than small villages full of civilians. This was savagery."

The attack on Juboor and neighbouring villages just south of Baghdad had begun a week earlier with heavy artillery and tank bombardment. The attack followed strong resistance from members of the mainly Sunni Muslim al-Juboor tribe against groups that residents described as sectarian death squads.

"On Jan. 10, huge aircraft started bombing the villages," Ahmad Alwan from a village near Juboor told IPS. "We took our families and fled. We have never seen such bombardment since the 2003 American invasion. They were bombing everything and everybody."

Residents said two B1 bombers and four F-16 fighter jets dropped at least 40,000 pounds of explosives on the villages and plantations within a span of 10 minutes.

"The al-Qaeda name is used once more to destroy another Sunni area," Akram Naji, a lawyer in Baghdad who has relatives in Juboor told IPS. "Americans are still supporting Iranian influence in Iraq by cleansing Baghdad and surroundings of Sunnis."

[spanone]

1. wow, news from iraq....rare these days...the media has dismissed this war

[madokie]

4. prolly be heads rolling in the morning because of it

without a free and open press we have no chance or very little chance of ever regaining our footing

[leftchick]

8. please note

before you get too impressed, this is a foreign news source. Iraq's surge is a complete success and the war is over for the M$M.

[Pavulon]

2. That would be 20

2000 pound weapons. Not quite a strategic bombing campaign. DO NOT know the circumstances here, or what was targeted. However the quantity is not necessarily relevant.

If this was dropped in a dense area the mass casualties would be huge.

[leftchick]

3. civilian residences were targeted

the "enemy" are Sunni Iraqis.

<snip>


The cluster of Sunni villages was bombed just weeks after the U.S. military encouraged families to return to their village after heavy bombing earlier in which scores of people were killed. Many residents had fled fearing sectarian death squads, which they say were backed by the U.S.

Few people in the village now talk the language of reconciliation of U.S. President George W. Bush and of some Iraqis in the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad.

"We have no alternative but to fight this occupation and its allies," a former army officer in Baghdad speaking on condition of anonymity told IPS. "We can see clearly now that Americans came with the idea that we, Sunni Arabs, are the enemies they have in mind no matter what we do to please them. We will fight for our existence, and this massacre will not go unpunished."

"It was a miracle that I could evacuate my family at the last minute," said Omar Hussein, who fled for Dora in Baghdad from the bombarded area. "My house and farm are on the outskirts of the village. I took my family out the minute I saw the aircraft in the sky.

"Apache helicopters later fired at the trucks that were carrying the families out of the area, and killed so many civilians. They took some wounded people to their military base. I am sure hundreds of people would have been killed. It is just like the Fallujah crime."

[Pavulon]

6. 20 GBU anything. (BTW this was MSM)

in a residential dense area would kill more than scores. Not that we have not killed civilians, but this does seem to be out of context.


Here is another version. No mention of stacks of bodies or a mini dresden.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22587715/
http://abcnews.go.com/International/WireStory?id=4113286&page=2

[NickB79]

9. Do I even dare ask how much money was wasted using those 20 bombs?

I'm gonna guess, a lot.

[RC]

5. More War Crimes.

Move along now, nothing to see here anymore. It's been taken care of.

[tuckessee]

7. k&r n/t

[Fire Walk With Me]

10. Failure? Every minute US troops spend in Iraq securing the oil for BushCo is a victory

for BushCo.

If the Iraqis were in control of their own resources, we likely would not be seeing record oil prices and thus record profiteering.

[KG]

11. time to face the facts. it's all over but the shouting. we lost.

the only mystery is how many lives and how much money till this:

[leftchick]

13. yeah well

tell that to the democrats. The majority seem to believe we need a permanent US presence in the MidEast "to protect our vital national security interests" (read: OIL!)

:(

[KG]

14. the dem party is pro-empire.

'national security intrests' always mean 'extraction industry intrests'.

[Redstone]

12. Not to mention the Air Force struggling for justification in having that useless

piece of shit (The B-1).

One of the best things Carter did was to cancel it. One of the stupidest things Reagan did was to revive it.

Redstone

[gratuitous]

15. Our bestest bombers

Used to drop tons of bombs on civilian populations without warning. Civilians who can't fight back and can't get away. So very brave on our part. This is what our popular media call military success. No word in our popular media of what the folks under those bombs call it.

[leftchick]

16. .

kick for the dead. :(