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Iraq
Casualties mount in Sadr City as U.S. troops press ahead with attack
2008-05-06
Deaths and injuries are soaring in the Sadr City as U.S. troops increase their military and economic pressure on the city home to more than 2.5 million people. More than 532 people among them camp followers women and children have been killed in the past two weeks, hospital sources in the city said.

The sources, refusing to be named, said they have so far treated 2,563 serious injuries. Most of the deaths and injuries, the sources added, have occurred due to random shelling by U.S. warplanes and helicopter gun ships.

U.S. snipers are also responsible as many of the hits are in the head, chest and legs, the sources said.
They never hit them in the arms, cruel people, these US snipers.
At least 14 percent of those killed and injured so far are children, 12 percent women and the rest are men of different ages.
Except for the 120 percent baby ducks, fluffy bunnies and kittens.
The troops have blocked all entries to the citys for the third week and the sources said their supplies of medicine and other essential items were dangerously low. The Zahra Maternity Hospital in the city has been closed and the other two hospitals in are working under extremely difficult circumstances.

U.S. shelling has destroyed at least 310 buildings, damaged 625 shops and wrecked 180 vehicles, police sources say.

Schools have been closed for more than a month and government offices as well as municipal services have stopped functioning.
Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC

#22  You're sweet to say that, Chinegum McGurque5166, but she's got perfectly good parents of her own, who have some difficulties that need handling at the moment. I've graduated from Mrs. wife to Aunt trailing, though. :-)
Posted by: trailing wife   2008-05-06 23:59  

#21  good thread, refreshing insights.. Thanks RBees.
Posted by: RD   2008-05-06 23:40  

#20  If she's really smart, TW, she'll try her best to move up to "adopted" from "temporary."
Posted by: Chinegum McGurque5166   2008-05-06 21:46  

#19  My temporary daughter thought we are neglecting Iraq in favour of the next war with Iran. She now understands that is a journalist issue, not a question of the attention span of our Armed Forces. She's learnt a lot of unexpected things since she joined us two weeks ago!
Posted by: trailing wife    2008-05-06 19:56  

#18  Jumbo,

We do not have an independent media. We have a global media-industrial complex. This is not the free press of the Founding Fathers, it is effectively an unelected, unaccountable shadow government whose only loyalty is to its own interest and to the depraved value systems of its own members and of its characteristic internal culture.

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs is fond of saying that the "media are the enemy." With certain qualifications (not all media conform to Media-Industrial Complex values), this is nothing less than the literal truth. It is the central fact and the crucial issue of the current global war.

For more on the symbiosis between totalitarian politics and the commercial media, see Thomas Frank's landmark cultural history, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism

Yes, Frank is a major lib, but that fact only makes this damning indictment of media culture all the more credible.

Victory in the current war will be achieved only when an authentic free press is restored in the western world, and the Media-Industrial Complex is discredited and its 50 year reign of cultural terror brought to an end.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2008-05-06 19:20  

#17  Again, nominal "journalists" use terrorists as a source for stories. Wherever there is an attack on jihadis, they always report large numbers of civilian casualties, while claiming - unless denial is impossible - that their own escaped unharmed.

Do we have an independent media, when they insist on re-spewing terr-prop?
Posted by: Jumbo Glineling9721   2008-05-06 18:01  

#16  Thanks Pappy, you took the words out of my mouth. That's the very reason I posted the article. This type of crap is on Arab Satellite TV 24/7.

Exactly. Consider the source this article came from...
Posted by: Pappy   2008-05-06 17:55  

#15  I agree with postponing the talks. We should just say: "We'll get back to you. We're busy right now. Killing Iranians"
Posted by: Frank G   2008-05-06 15:06  

#14  Thanks Pappy, you took the words out of my mouth. That's the very reason I posted the article. This type of crap is on Arab Satellite TV 24/7.

I always say if you know what bullshit looks like and smells like you can avoid stepping in it. Knowledge is power.

We have to be really cleaning the Mahdi Army's clock. They and their Iranian handlers are doing everything to get us to stop. Note the Iranian decision to not talk to the US while we are defeating their proxy fighters in Iraq.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC   2008-05-06 14:16  

#13  Bobby,
I agree about reading between the lines. Add salt as needed. However facts remain:
1) number of dead claimed by hospital is close to number of bad guys intentionally killed by U.S.
2) Bill Roggio admits his is an underestimate because it doesn't include DOW etc.
3) This doesn't leave very many left over for kids,women, fluffy bunnies etc.

Feel free to disagree.

Al
Posted by: Frozen Al   2008-05-06 14:09  

#12  The only purpose I can see to posting it here is to push emotional buttons. Why would anyone want to publish Iranian propaganda here?

Because one should always know what the other side is passing out as 'information'. It's a requirement for us professionals; it's advisable for Rantburg readers.

If you want nice comfortable articles that support your viewpoint, there's plenty of places to look. Or you can look away. Your choice.
Posted by: Pappy   2008-05-06 13:59  

#11  "due to random shelling by U.S. warplanes and helicopter gun ships"

We learned a long time ago that "random shelling" is the way to go. Sometimes we end up killing a camel in the desert, sometimes we get fluffy bunnies, and once in a while we get a terrorist's grandmother. Ya just never know.

But whoever is posting that crap from "iraq updates" can stop now. The only purpose I can see to posting it here is to push emotional buttons. Why would anyone want to publish Iranian propaganda here?
Posted by: crosspatch   2008-05-06 13:49  

#10  The problem is that we have gotten way too good at avoiding civilian casualties.

War shouldn't be clean. It should be messy, ugly, nasty.

If war becomes too tidy people might forget to avoid it when possible.
Posted by: Iblis   2008-05-06 13:34  

#9  Not to disagree, Al, but you did a fair amount of reading between the lines.

Prolly the AP will pick this up and run with it...
Posted by: Bobby   2008-05-06 12:27  

#8  Actually, hidden among the horse pucky is some potentially usefull information:

It sounds like ~3,100 people have been killed and wounded in Sadr City. Of that number 74% are adult males (~2,300).

Hospital sources say 532 people have died. Bill Roggio reports the US and ISF have killed at least 502 criminals. Thus it appears that 95% of the dead are bad guys.

I conclude that very few children and women have been killed. Virtually all of the women and children casualties have been wounded.

It goes without saying that, except the 502, all other casualties could have been hit by us, by the JAM or debris.

I think we come out looking pretty good.

Al
Posted by: Frozen Al   2008-05-06 11:57  

#7  So far no action in the Iraqi legislature to restrict the Sadr City offensive.

However, I'll bet that in the Iranian legislature some people are asking the republican guard why their agents have performed as poorly as they have.
Posted by: mhw   2008-05-06 11:00  

#6  U.S. snipers are also responsible as many of the hits are in the head, chest and legs, the sources said.

Shots to the feet must be blamed on Hezbollah operatives.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2008-05-06 11:00  

#5  If the morons had watched what happened elsewhere in Iraq starting with Fallujha they would never had picked a fight with the US troops. They really need to spend more time on that situational awareness survival trait.
Posted by: 3dc   2008-05-06 10:39  

#4  So much cow pucky.
Posted by: JohnQC   2008-05-06 09:46  

#3  If we indulged in "random shelling" of these enemy infested areas, there wouldn't be two boards left nailed together there by this time.

If the media would quit using innocent insurgents as human shields, we could have finished off the real enemy by now.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2008-05-06 09:45  

#2  More than 532 people among them women and children have been killed in the past two weeks, hospital sources in the city said.

Will Miz Rice take time from her busy schedule of facilitating Paleo terrorism to save them like she saved Hizballah?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2008-05-06 08:18  

#1  random shelling by U.S

We DO NOT engage in 'random shelling' - we aim at stuff, and we hit what we aim at. Sounds like some militia 'projection' going on here - the writer figures random shelling is 'normal because that's what HIS guys do.
Posted by: Menhadden Snogum6713   2008-05-06 07:49  

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