Iraq (1 Viewer)

[aoboa]

my respect for miller is at an all time low.

Yeah, he can go f**k himself.
Prick

 

[Latex lizzie]

standards(if there were any in the US military) continue to drop...


http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10672


you could see more torture claims in the future if this is to be believed.

 

[Latex lizzie]

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000361.php#more

very good blog.these are the "security" incidents for today

*RAMADI - Six insurgents were killed and another wounded on Saturday when U.S forces conducted an air strike in the city of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, the U.S military said on Sunday.
*MUQDADIYA - Clashes between insurgents and Iraqi army soldiers conducting a raid killed one rebel in Muqdadiya, 90 km (50 miles) north east of Baghdad. The army arrested 40 suspected insurgents in the same operation.
*BAGHDAD - A 53-year-old male detainee at Abu Ghraib prison died on Saturday as a result of complications from an assault by an unknown number of detainees, the U.S military said in a statement.
*MAHAWEEL - The bodies of three people, bound and shot in the head and chest, were found in Mahaweel, 75 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. The bodies showed signs of torture.
*ISKANDARIYA - The bodies of two people, bound and shot in the head and chest, were found in Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. The bodies showed signs of torture.
*BAGHDAD - Three police commandos and a civilian were killed and four commandos wounded when a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt blew himself up near a check point in southern Baghdad, police said.
*KIRKUK - Gunmen killed four policemen while they were driving in a civilian car in the main road between Kirkuk and Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
*KIFL - Gunmen wearing police uniforms killed a civilian on Saturday in Kifl, a town about 150 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
*NEAR LATIFIYA - Police retrieved the body of a dead person from the river on Saturday near Latifiya, south of Baghdad.
*BAQUBA - A director of sport education of Diyala province was killed by gunmen in the city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
*YATHRIB - Gunmen kidnapped three truck drivers who were carrying equipment to a U.S military base on Saturday in Yathrib, a region near Balad, 90 km (55 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
*BAIJI - Gunmen blew up a gas station on Saturday near the oil refinery city of Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad.
BAGHDAD - Twelve civilians were wounded when two roadside bombs exploded in quick succession near an Iraqi police patrol in central Baghdad, police said.
SAMARRA - The Iraqi army found three Iranian Shi'ite pilgrims who were among a group of 12, including an Iraqi driver, kidnapped by gunmen in Samarra on Friday, Iraqi army officials said.
HAWIJA - Gunmen shot dead a doctor and wounded an employee working in the main hospital in Hawija, 70 km south west of the northern city of Kirkuk, on Saturday, police said.
KIRKUK - Four policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
KIRKUK - The corpse of a Kurdish contractor working with the U.S army was found on Saturday in Kirkuk, police said.
KIRKUK - Two civilians were wounded by a roadside bomb near their patrol in Kirkuk, police said.
BAGHDAD - Two civilians were killed, including a child, and three were wounded, when a roadside bomb targeting police commandos exploded in a northern district of the capital, police said.

 

[Latex lizzie]

you can also get a video of the sbs programme on the abuse pictures on this site. well worth a look.

 

[Mermade.]

they talk about about iraqi deaths like football scores or something

 

[Latex lizzie]

who does?

 

[Latex lizzie]

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1714282,00.html

life imitates art or something...

 

[Mermade.]

who does?

mainstream media/politicians
just how there is very little made of civilian casualties in iraq for the number of dead
the numbers are rattled out like stats that mean nothing
you only register on the give-a-fuck-ometer if you are european or american after that you must be joking.. die in your dozens,see if we care.. sure its your destiny anyway


cnuts

 

[spiritualtramp]

mainstream media/politicians
just how there is very little made of civilian casualties in iraq for the number of dead

Are you referring to civilian casulaties caused by america and the uk here? Or just civilian casualties in general?

Looks to me like way more Iraqis are currently dying at the hands of suicide bombers and militia.

die in your dozens,see if we care.. sure its your destiny anyway

If they honestly didn't care why are they rebuilding infrastructure in Iraq?

 

[aoboa]

Are you referring to civilian casulaties caused by america and the uk here? Or just civilian casualties in general?

Looks to me like way more Iraqis are currently dying at the hands of suicide bombers and militia.



If they honestly didn't care why are they rebuilding infrastructure in Iraq?

Lowest estimates for civilian deaths caused by the us/uk are about 30,000. I doubt if anywhere near that number have been killed by suicide bombers and militia.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=9784
"After presenting his conservative estimate of 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths to Pentagon officials last autumn, Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health was told by one official: "We have dropped about 50,000 bombs, mostly on insurgents hiding behind civilians. What the [expletive] did you think was going to happen?"


I'd like to see some proof that they are rebuilding the infrastucture. Last I heard most of the money earmarked for the rebuilding process was being diverted into security.

 

[cookiemonster]

I'd like to see some proof that they are rebuilding the infrastucture. Last I heard most of the money earmarked for the rebuilding process was being diverted into security.

The Bush administration does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request going before Congress in February, officials say. The decision signals the winding down of an $18.4 billion U.S. rebuilding effort in which roughly half of the money was eaten away by the insurgency, a buildup of Iraq's criminal justice system and the investigation and trial of Saddam Hussein.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1676911,00.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/02/AR2006010200370.html

 

[aoboa]

Class - so they're doing much rebuilding then

I reckon that pretty much any other money that has been spent was spent rebuilding infrastucture needed for the oilfields, refineries, pipelines etc.

 

[spiritualtramp]

Lowest estimates for civilian deaths caused by the us/uk are about 30,000. I doubt if anywhere near that number have been killed by suicide bombers and militia.

Really? There are practically suicide bombings every day.Do deaths not register with people unless they are caused by America?

If 50 people are killed a day by insurgents, over three years that makes at least 50,000 dead.

I'd like to see some proof that they are rebuilding the infrastucture. Last I heard most of the money earmarked for the rebuilding process was being diverted into security.

Here you go then.

Over 4 million Iraqis who had no clean drinking water in 2002 now have safe, potable water piped to their homes following USAID efforts to refurbish and expand 19 water treatment plants in five cities. Providing clean water and efficient sewage treatment has greatly improved sanitation and contributed to a decrease in waterborne disease. USAID is also providing plant-level operations and maintenance (O&M) training at major water and wastewater plants nationwide to ensure that these plants remain functioning. By December of 2006, USAID and implementing partners will restore water treatment service to 8.1 million Iraqis, and sewerage treatment service to 8.8 million.

Reestablishing essential primary health care services:

• 2005 emergency campaigns supported the immunization of 98 percent of children 1-3 years (3.62 million children) against measles, mumps, and rubella. As a result, there has been a 90 percent reduction in laboratory confirmed cases of measles between 2004 and 2005.
• 97 percent of children under five (4.56 million) immunized against polio during the 2004-05 national polio immunization campaign, enabling Iraq to maintain its polio-free status.
• Vaccinated 3.2 million children under five and 700,000 pregnant women, with UNICEF and WHO.
• Provided supplementary doses of vitamin A for more than 1.5 million nursing mothers and 600,000 children under two, and iron folate supplements for over 1.6 million women of childbearing age.
• Trained 11,400 staff at over 2,000 community child care units to screen for malnutrition and to provide monthly rations of high protein biscuits to malnourished children and pregnant mothers.
• Renovated 110 facilities and equipped 600 centers with basic clinical and lab equipment.
• Trained over 2,500 primary health care workers, improving access to essential primary health care.

Building Capacity and Strengthening Health Services:

• Provided skills training to 3,200 primary care providers and physicians, improving service delivery.
• Trained 2,000 health educators, teachers, religious leaders, and youths to assist in mobilizing communities on hygiene, diarrhea, breastfeeding, nutrition, and immunization issues.
• Established training and education centers in five governorates to support local health care training.
• Vaccines and cold chain equipment provided to selected remote health centers along with training of staff and social mobilization has increased routine immunization coverage from 60 to 74 percent.
• Minimized epidemics by re-establishing Iraq’s disease surveillance and response system. Addressed urgent water and sanitation service needs to prevent disease outbreaks: Other USAID programs, particularly in water and sanitation, have immensely contributed to improvements in Iraqi health. USAID partners have repaired 1,700 breaks in Baghdad’s water distribution network. Key supplies have been procured to service water treatment facilities in Baghdad and other cities. Water treatment facilities across four governorates have been rehabilitated. Over 100 sewage pumping stations, rainwater stations, and collapsed sewer lines have been repaired countrywide

• Audited more than 1,200 km of the national fiber optic backbone network.
• Performed emergency repairs to the national fiber optic network from Mosul to Umm Qasr, connecting 20 cities to Baghdad and the 70 percent of Iraqis that have landline telephone accounts.
  • Purchased tools, equipment, and parts and provided management oversight to assist ITPC in the restoration of the fiber optic network.
  • Replaced obsolete transmission equipment between Baghdad and Basrah in collaboration with the ITPC.
• Reconstituted Baghdad area phone service by installing switches with 240,000 lines at 12 sites.
  • In total, USAID installed 12 domestic switches and one international switch, fully integrating the new equipment with the existing switches. The switches provide connection points for ITPC to connect subscribers.
  • Installed a satellite gateway system and restored international calling service in December 2003.
  • Trained ITPC engineers and technicians in the operation and maintenance of the satellite gateway system and the new telephone switches.
  • .
  • Over 47,500 secondary school teachers and administrators nationwide have received training.
  • More than 80 primary and secondary schools are being established to serve as model schools. At these “centers of excellence,” teachers will receive up to five weeks of training, and schools will be equipped with computer and science laboratories.
  • Hundreds of thousands of desks and chalkboards have been distributed countrywide.
  • USAID edited, printed, and distributed 8.7 million Iraqi math and science textbooks.
  • More than 550 out-of-school youths completed a pilot accelerated learning program. An expanded program, targeting more than 11,000 youths, is being implemented during the 2005–06 school year.
  • School supplies have been distributed to one million primary school children and two million secondary; sports equipment has been distributed to every school.
  • An early childhood learning television series is currently being developed.
  • Through university partnerships, more than 1,500 Iraqi faculty and students at 10 Iraqi universities have participated in workshops, trainings, conferences, and courses in Iraq, the greater Middle East, Europe, and the United States.
  • At 10 Iraqi universities, USAID has rehabilitated and equipped 23 specialist libraries, 23 computer laboratories, 20 specialist science labs, and 17 auditoriums or classrooms. These efforts have benefited approximately 50,000 university students in colleges of law, engineering, medicine, archeology, and agriculture. In addition, books and electronic resources have been provided to university libraries.

 

[spiritualtramp]

I reckon that pretty much any other money that has been spent was spent rebuilding infrastucture needed for the oilfields, refineries, pipelines etc.

See above post.

Also, oilfields etc. should be maintained as they are Iraqs biggest asset. It is vital to the stability of the Iraqi economy that the oil keeps pumping.

Stable economy = kids don't starve.

 

[Latex lizzie]

stable economy ? that needs a stable country.

150 dead in two days in sectarian violence as Iraq heads ever closer to the civil war that has been predicted by the pundits in the know from the start.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/69EF8908-7BCD-4DF5-BF0D-CB7C5594017D.htm

I've looked at the stats in the above post and it reminds me of vietnam even more when I see stuff like that. The US had all sorts of programmes like that for "helping" the ordinary vietnamese(hearts and minds people!).Why were all the kids in Iraq starving? why was the infrastructure so bad? why was medical community in tatters? maybe 10 years of sanctions might have something to do with it? or the fact that medical personell have left the country in droves because it is now so unstable?So the US is there now handing out band aids after cutting the country in half. What happens when they realise that Iraq was a bad Idea and they have to leave?

looks like a few kids might starve yet.

 

[spiritualtramp]

stable economy ? that needs a stable country.
150 dead in two days in sectarian violence as Iraq heads ever closer to the civil war that has been predicted by the pundits in the know from the start.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/69EF8908-7BCD-4DF5-BF0D-CB7C5594017D.htm

Yeah, cos the americans asked sunnis to attack a shia place of worship, didn't they?

I've looked at the stats in the above post and it reminds me of vietnam even more when I see stuff like that.

Typically predictable attitude. You'd be happier if they didn't vaccinate children against disease, fix up the sewers and water supply, educate people etc as it would fit in more with your evil yanks attitude.

The US had all sorts of programmes like that for "helping" the ordinary vietnamese(hearts and minds people!).

Iraq is not comparable to vietnam. The vast majority of vietnamese were not suffering under a horific dictatorship.

Why were all the kids in Iraq starving? why was the infrastructure so bad? why was medical community in tatters? maybe 10 years of sanctions might have something to do with it? or the fact that medical personell have left the country in droves because it is now so unstable?

You don't think all of the above has anything to do with years under a dictatorship, no? Dictators tend not to give a damn about such things.

looks like a few kids might starve yet.

There are kids starving all over the middle east. People only seem to get bothered if they can blame it on america.

 

[aoboa]

Can you give me the link from where you got those stats? I'm curious to know where they came from.


I really don't understand your support of the US/UKs actions in Iraq.
The generally accepted figures for civilan dead is around 30,000. That figure doesn't include military deaths - so you can at least double that figure for total deaths caused by the invasion.
In all your posts you come across like you support this. You also seem to forget that it's not a war - it was an invasion.
So with all that death and destruction of property and radioactive polution you think that the US going in a doing a little rebuilding is great?
Give me a break.

Sadams dictatorship was to blame for the state of the country?
Stable economy = kids don't starve???
I think you'd better look at the affects the years of sanctions had on the kids in Iraq and the state of the country.

 

[broken arm]

Stable economy = kids don't starve.

mmmmm.

here is a poem a guy that a guy i know wrote after he visited iraq to investigate the effects of depleted uranium. it was published in 1999 and won a number of poetry awards. not sure if it is relevant

TWENTY-FIVE LAMENTS FOR IRAQ


The muzzein voices break the night
Telling us of what we are composed:
Coffee grits; a transparency of sugar;
The ghost of the cardamom in the cup’s mosque.

These soldiers will not marry.
They are wed already
To the daughters of uranium.

Sherazade sits
In heat and dust
Watching her bucket fill.
This is the first story.

Before hunger
Thirst.
Before prayer
Thirst.
Before money
Thirst.
Before thirst.
Water.

Boys of Watts and Jones County
Build cookfires on the ramparts of Ur.
But the desert birds are silent
And all the wolves of the province
Fled to the north.

While we are filming the sick child
The sick child behind us
Dies. And as we turn our camera
The family group smartens itself
As if grieving might offend.

Red and gold
The baldaquins
Beneath the Baghdad moon,
Beneath the Pepsi globe.

Since the first Caliph
There has been the suq –
These lemons, this fish:
And hunched over the stone
The women in their black –
Four dusty aubergines.

My daughter, he says,
Stroking the Sony DV Cam,
Its batteries hot, the tally light red.
My daughter.

But his daughter, 12, keeps to her cot,
Woo, woo wooing like the hoopoe
Over the British cemetery.


What are children here
But olivestones under our shoes?
Reach instead for the date
Before its brilliance tarnishes.

Back and forth
Back and forth
The Euphrates kingfisher,
The ferryman’s rope.

The ice seller waits
Beneath his thatch of palm,
His money running in the gutter’s tilth.

Over the searchlights
And machine gun nests on Rashid Street
The bats explode like tracer fire.

Yellow as dates these lizards
Bask on the basilica.
Our cameraman removes his shoes,
Squats down to pray.


Radiant,
With the throat of a shark,
The angel who came to the hundreds
Sheltered in Amariya.

In the hotel carpark
One hundred and fifty brides and grooms
Await the photographer.
All night I lie awake
Listening to their cries.

This first dollar peeled off the wad
Buys a stack of dinars higher than my heart.

A heron in white
And a woman in black
Knee deep together
In the green Tigris.

Her two pomegranates lie beside the bed
But they have carried the child away.

She alights from the bus
In a cloud of black,
The moon and stars upon her skirt,
And painted across her breast
The Eye that Sees All Things.

The vermilion on his toenails
Is almost worn away,
This child of the bazaar
Who rolls my banknote to a tube
And scans through its telescope
The ruins of Babylon.

Four billion years
Until the uranium
That was spilled at Ur
Unmakes itself.
Easier to wait for the sun to die.

In the Ministry of Information
Computers are down, the offices dark;
But with me in the corridor
A secret police of cockroaches.

Moths, I say.
No. Look again, she suggests.
Fused to the ceiling are the black hands
Of the children of Amariya.

Sometimes
The certainties return:
These cushions, a pipe,
And the sweet Basran tea
Stewed with limes.

 

[Latex lizzie]

Yeah, cos the americans asked sunnis to attack a shia place of worship, didn't they?


Typically predictable attitude. You'd be happier if they didn't vaccinate children against disease, fix up the sewers and water supply, educate people etc as it would fit in more with your evil yanks attitude.


Iraq is not comparable to vietnam. The vast majority of vietnamese were not suffering under a horific dictatorship.


You don't think all of the above has anything to do with years under a dictatorship, no? Dictators tend not to give a damn about such things.


There are kids starving all over the middle east. People only seem to get bothered if they can blame it on america.

Personally I get bothered when kids are starving anyplace in the world so I dont get your point on that..the healthcare system under sadam was actually quite good before the sanctions hit..particularly after the war with Iran there were a lot of very experienced doctors knocking around.As for me hating the yanks..I dont hate the yanks but I do hate their administration. Iraq is totally comparable to vietnam as a political conflict,(smarter men than me and you have made the comparison)

“It is crucial to remember that the goal of guerrillas — including the Iraqi guerrillas — is not to militarily defeat the larger and stronger military force, but to undermine security and increase the number of locals opposing (both passively and actively) the occupying forces. The Iraqi guerrillas are doing a sterling job. Security in Iraq is deteriorating, popular opposition to the US is increasing (a recent report by the CIA points this out) which will both embolden and swell the ranks of the insurgency and give them the civilian pool of supporters they need to be effective. Sounds like Vietnam to me.”

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2003/565/565p18.htm

 

[spiritualtramp]

Can you give me the link from where you got those stats? I'm curious to know where they came from.

I made them all up!

Ha ha no, actually they come from here
http://www.usaid.gov

I really don't understand your support of the US/UKs actions in Iraq.

Look, I really, really didn't support the war at the time. I don't think it was a very good idea and didn't believe the WMD stuff at all for one minute.

However, I firmly believe in democracy and kind of changed my opinions seeing Iraqis vote.
Saddam was a brutal leader, I've read loads of accounts by kurds of the shit they had to put up with and just cannot bring myself to say Saddam should have been left alone.

I don't think all the problems of Iraq can be blamed solely on america. And I do think that countries who rebuild infrastructure have good intentions at heart. They've had some royal fuck ups of course, but for your average Iraqi life will be better in the long term.

So with all that death and destruction of property and radioactive polution you think that the US going in a doing a little rebuilding is great?
Give me a break.

A little? Why don't you read those figures again. I know they conflict with the america want to kill all the arabs theory but they are the facts. If the US did no rebuilding at all, had no programmes for education and didn't give a damn about the basic human rights of iraqis to vote for their own leaders and to believe what they want (shias were horribly oppressed under Saddam) I'd totally agree with your stance. However, they do seem to give a fuck about these things so I refuse to just think it is as simple as the west hate arabs, end of.

Sadams dictatorship was to blame for the state of the country?
I think you'd better look at the affects the years of sanctions had on the kids in Iraq and the state of the country.

I think you should look at the state of ANY country with a dictator instead of blaming it all on the yanks.

Stable economy = kids don't starve???

Er, yes. Can you give an example of a country without a stable economy in which all children are well fed and are provided education? I can't think of one.