More than 150 dead in Iraq blasts
So much for the success of "the surge".
At least 157 people have been killed in a string of attacks in Iraq's capital, Baghdad, security officials say.
In the deadliest incident, some 115 people were killed in a car bombing in a food market in Sadriya district.
An attack on a police checkpoint in Sadr City and several other explosions left at least another 42 people dead.
The attacks came as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said Iraqi forces would assume control of the country's security by the end of the year.
Every day the news from Iraq seems to get worse and worse.
And as Bush, rightly, mourns the 32 killed in Virginia, how can he even face the fact that five times as many die the very next day in one Iraqi city?
They have been living like this for over four years.
He has inflicted this upon a people who never asked him to. A people that had committed no crime against his nation. Indeed, a nation that had never attacked him.
These were the attacks today in Baghdad:
Car bomb at Sadriya market - 115 deadCar bomb in Sadr City - 30 deadCar bomb in Karradah district - 10 deadBomb on minibus in al-Shurja district - two dead
6 March 2007: 90 killed in double suicide bombing in Hilla3 Feb 2007: 130 killed in lorry bomb in Baghdad's market in mainly Shia area2 Dec 2006: More than 50 killed in car bombs in same Baghdad market23 Nov 2006: 200 killed in wave of car bombings and mortar blasts in Baghdad's Shia Sadr City7 April 2006: 85 killed in triple suicide bombing at Shia mosque in Baghdad
I genuinely and honestly don't know how that man lives with himself. It's almost sociopathic that he can look at this and simply blame "insurgents" without any part of his conscience realising that he unleashed this. Before his invasion Iraqi's could walk and shop without fear of anything like this occurring.
Now this is their daily reality. And he did it.
And he has no regrets.
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6 comments:
He has inflicted this upon a people who never asked him to.
Not exactly true. The Kurds and Shia had been pushing us to remove Hussein since the end of Desert Storm, although that wasn't the reason we went in.
A people that had committed no crime against his nation. Indeed, a nation that had never attacked him.
You mean aside from the attempted assassination on former President Bush and aside from shooting at our aircraft?
Before his invasion Iraqi's could walk and shop without fear of anything like this occurring.
You mean like the people in Halabja could? Or the other hundreds of thousands of Kurds murdered from 1983 up through 1991? How about the Shia residents of areas such as Hilla and Basrah in 1991? Could they walk around and shop without fear of anything happening? How about Samawah or Mahaweel, or countless other places?
Since you're so concerned about the Iraqis, what do you think would happen if you get your wish and your friends force our politicians to bring our forces home early?
You can keep going on-and-on about how you think we shouldn't have invaded in the first place, and how evil the US is and all that noise, but guess what? We're there now. What's your brilliant solution?
I've never seen any proof that Saddam was behind any attempt to kill Bush, no matter what his deranged son might claim. And we also know from the Duelfer report that Saddam believed the CIA knew everything he did, which is why he thought they knew he had destroyed his WMD, so it's very unlikely that - thinking they would know everything that he was doing - that he would plan to kill a President.
And the planes that Saddam shot at were flying in the illegal no fly zones. There is nothing in the resolutions that mentions these no fly zones, they were added later by the US and the UK and are not recognised under international law. Saddam had every right to shoot at invading aircraft.
The people in Halabja died in 1988. Were the US concerned the time to intervene was then not a decade and a half later. If I'm not mistaken the US continued diplomatic relations with Saddam despite Halabja, so it's an act of hypocrisy to bring that up later as a justification for anything.
And for the fifteen years after that attack people could walk about much easier than they have been able to since the invasion. Oh, and your forces have probably killed more Iraqis by now than Saddam did at Halabja.
The only solution is a negotiated settlement between the disparate groups. You'd have to negotiate with all of them in the same way that Britain had to negotiate with the IRA and Sinn Fein.
There is no military solution, as yesterday's events make clear.
Thank you for keeping this in mind. I am constantly writing about the war in Iraq, but a lot of people are beginning to get tired of it. I don't know why. Does anyone in the US care about anything other than themselves.
Thanks United We Lay.
Keep writing about it. I will.
I've never seen any proof that Saddam was behind any attempt to kill Bush
I'm sure this won't be sufficient.
And the planes that Saddam shot at...
Ok, then we agree that in fact Iraq did attack US forces. By the way, I was part of the operation that established the northern no-fly-zone and damn proud of it.
Were the US concerned the time to intervene was then not a decade and a half later.
Actually we began to intervene two years later.
And for the fifteen years after that attack people could walk about much easier than they have been able to since the invasion.
You mean, aside from the hundreds of thousands he murdered. Of course there are also the millions in Kurdistan who were able to live in safety and freedom due to our direct efforts.
Oh, and your forces have probably killed more Iraqis by now than Saddam did at Halabja.
Yes, I'm fairly certain that we have killed more in the last several years than on that one day in Halabja. Of course there's a vast moral difference between deliberately targetting a civilian population and striking valid military targets in the vicinity of civilians, but we've already established that you're not versed in LOAC.
The only solution is a negotiated settlement between the disparate groups. You'd have to negotiate with all of them in the same way that Britain had to negotiate with the IRA and Sinn Fein.
There's a wee bit of difference between having two clearly defined groups to negotiate with, and having countless groups a large portion of which simply can't be negotiated. Or do you actually think that Al Qaeda and the foreign jihadis can be negotiated with? Many of the other insurgent and militia groups are little more than gangs battling over territory, and there is very little in the way of any central leadership that can represent these factions.
In point of fact though, the Iraqi government and the US are attempting to negotiate with some of the groups. The problems they are running into is that the demands they are being given are things like "re-write the constitution" and other demands that simply aren't attainable. The light at the end of the tunnel is that some of the tribal factions are now starting to come in line.
There is no military solution, as yesterday's events make clear.
There is no purely military solution just as there is no purely political solution. But then, nobody has claimed that there was.
Does anyone in the US care about anything other than themselves.
Well, as individuals we give more money and volunteer time to charitable causes than pretty much anyone else in the world. So I'd have to say that empirical evidence indicates the likelihood that we care more than say Europe, for example.
Now if your question is whether or not we as Americans care about the opinions of Europeans and others regarding our affairs, I would say probably not.
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