The so called collateral damage!!!!

[khalidali7070]

Iraq air raids hit mostly women and children
Submitted by smcrae on Fri, 2009-04-17 16:50.
Tags: Frontpage News

Iraq air raids hit mostly women and children

Report urges review of military strategy when targeting urban areas
By Kim Sengupta

Air strikes and artillery barrages have taken a heavy toll among the most vulnerable of the Iraqi people, with children and women forming a disproportionate number of the dead.

Analysis carried out for the research group Iraq Body Count (IBC) found that 39 per cent of those killed in air raids by the US-led coalition were children and 46 per cent were women. Fatalities caused by mortars, used by American and Iraqi government forces as well as insurgents, were 42 per cent children and 44 per cent women.

Twelve per cent of those killed by suicide bombings, mainly the tool of militant Sunni groups, were children and 16 per cent were females. One in five (21 per cent) of those killed by car bombs, used by both Shia and Sunni fighters, was a child; one in four (28 per cent) was a woman.

The figures, compiled by academics at King’s College and Royal Holloway, University of London, show that hi-tech weaponry has caused lethal damage to those in the population who would be furthest away from the conflict.

The victims of one of the most brutal and common types of killings in the war – abduction and execution by death squad – were 95 per cent men, many of them bearing marks of torture.

The report, The Weapons That Kill Civilians, Deaths of Children and Noncombatants in Iraq, was compiled from a sample of 60,481 deaths in 14,196 events over a five-year period since the 2003 invasion. Civilian casualties from concentrated bouts of violence, such as the two sieges of Fallujah, were excluded.

IBC estimates that the total deaths in the conflict so far number 99,774. The medical journal The Lancet has maintained in another study that more than 600,000 people were killed in the first three years of the war. IBC holds that the indiscriminate nature of the fatalities caused by air strikes shows they should not be used in urban areas.

Growing anger over civilian casualties caused by air raids in another front of the “war on terror”, Afghanistan, has led to the US, UK and their Nato partners reviewing their policy of using warplanes. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, recently said this had become the most contentious issue between him and Western powers.

From 2004 to 2007, the overall tonnage of munition dropped from planes in the Afghan conflict rose from 163 tonnes a year to 1,956 tonnes, an increase of 1,100 per cent. Since 2001 the US air force has dropped 14,049 tonnes of bombs in Afghanistan and 18,858 in Iraq.

Professor John Sloboda, of Royal Holloway, co-author of the report, said: “Our weapon-specific findings have implications for a wide range of conflicts, because the patterns found in this study are likely to be replicated for these weapons whenever they are used.

*Last night a US army sergeant was facing life imprisonment after being found guilty of executing four Iraqi detainees in 2007. Master Sgt John Hartley shot four men in the head and dumped their bodies in a canal in West Rasheed area of Baghdad. He is due to be sentenced today.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/17/headlines#3
http://www.spartacuslives.org/node/20918




So after reading this can we expect the same for the people of Pakistan if the so called precision bombing continues. Any ways some here do hold the theory that its ok for so many to be dead as this is the part and parcel of cleaning the world of so called
ISLAMIC EXTREMIST

[McBoom]

Its not about Islamic extremism, its about Islam.

[161]

America should and will pull out if Iraq soon.

If extremists want to take Iraq down the toilet .. it's up to the Iraqis themselves to stop them.

[McBoom]

Originally Posted by kashif77 America should and will pull out if Iraq soon. If extremists want to take Iraq down the toilet .. it's up to the Iraqis themselves to stop them.

Well the extremists of the world (USA) have already taken Iraq down the toilet along with more than a million lives. As your hero Bush would say, "mission accomplished" !

[161]

Originally Posted by McBoom Well the extremists of the world (USA) have already taken Iraq down the toilet along with more than a million lives. As your hero Bush would say, "mission accomplished" !

No .. the Iraqis took Iraq down the toilet.

Shia Sunni fighting killed many more people than the Americans killed.



And how is Bush my hero ?

Are you also taking notes from Waqar on how to make up random lies and false claims ?

[McBoom]

Originally Posted by kashif77 No .. the Iraqis took Iraq down the toilet. Shia Sunni fighting killed many more people than the Americans killed. And how is Bush my hero ? Are you also taking notes from Waqar on how to make up random lies and false claims ?

Why do you want to make an a§§ of yourself every single time with your barely coherent posts devoid of any sense and historical correctness, with the same rhetoric over and over again ? But I guess thats a given from a Yank.

Care to tell me who was Saddam's first and foremost supporter in the west? But I guess back then he was fighting the noble war against evil Iran and buying lots n lots of weapons (conventional & chemical) from your country so it doesn't matter in the scheme of things.

According to your logic, Sunnis & Shias were destroying each other in Iraq when your leader out of his kindness decided to fix the problem and that's were you seem to be agreeing with your hero. And now when you guys have made a fool out of yourself because of some made up things about Iraq and don't have the capacity to take charge of the country its time for Iraqis so fix their own mess. Shabaash cheetay, chaa gaya hae tu.

Seriously, stop taking notes from the hick living next door.

[161]

Originally Posted by McBoom Why do you want to make an a§§ of yourself every single time with your barely coherent posts devoid of any sense and historical correctness, with the same rhetoric over and over again ? But I guess thats a given from a Yank. Care to tell me who was Saddam's first and foremost supporter in the west? But I guess back then he was fighting the noble war against evil Iran and buying lots n lots of weapons (conventional & chemical) from your country so it doesn't matter in the scheme of things. According to your logic, Sunnis & Shias were destroying each other in Iraq when your leader out of his kindness decided to fix the problem and that's were you seem to be agreeing with your hero. And now when you guys have made a fool out of yourself because of some made up things about Iraq and don't have the capacity to take charge of the country its time for Iraqis so fix their own mess. Shabaash cheetay, chaa gaya hae tu. Seriously, stop taking notes from the hick living next door.

Is that a post or a giant whining rant ?

Sunnis and Shias brutally butchering each other is what's holding back Iraq.

That much is blatantly obvious.

And as for all the other stuff you cry about .. tell me when exactly I said I supported US intervention in Iraq ?

[McBoom]

Originally Posted by kashif77 Is that a post or a giant whining rant ? Sunnis and Shias brutally butchering each other is what's holding back Iraq. That much is blatantly obvious. And as for all the other stuff you cry about .. tell me when exactly I said I supported US intervention in Iraq ?

Just keep that American flag waving in your backyard. Will do some worldly good for you.

[Zeenix]

Originally Posted by kashif77 Is that a post or a giant whining rant ? Sunnis and Shias brutally butchering each other is what's holding back Iraq. That much is blatantly obvious. And as for all the other stuff you cry about .. tell me when exactly I said I supported US intervention in Iraq ?

May i remind you that there was Shia Sunni Conflicts were unknown during the times of Saddam Hussain, and even if they did they were at a very low level. It only surfaced when the US created this rift so that the combined resistance of Sunni+Shia breaks down.

The sectarian divisions that were opened up amongst the Iraqi people and were fostered and exacerbated by imperialism’s colonial occupation. The Bush regime blindly launched its invasion of Iraq to gain control of that country’s huge oil reserves without regard to the possible consequences. They had no so-called exit strategy, believing they would be welcomed with open arms by the Shia majority as liberators. This naivety extended as far as the belief that within a matter of weeks they could install a pro-US government that would open up access to US mulitnationals to Iraq’s oil reserves and lucrative reconstruction contracts.

[161]

No one .. I repeat NO ONE is forcing the Shia and Sunni to kill each other.

America can be blamed for a lot of things.

The original invasion was politically motivated.

But the horror that resulted after the invasion was all Iraqi.

They had the choice to live in peace.

They even had the choice of fighting back the Americans.

But for some crazy reason they chose neither of the two obvious options and instead started to kill each other like animals.

[Zeenix]

Originally Posted by kashif77 No one .. I repeat NO ONE is forcing the Shia and Sunni to kill each other. America can be blamed for a lot of things. The original invasion was politically motivated. But the horror that resulted after the invasion was all Iraqi. They had the choice to live in peace. They even had the choice of fighting back the Americans. But for some crazy reason they chose neither of the two obvious options and instead started to kill each other like animals.

So you accept that the Horror started after the invasion.. Right..

Even for instance if we were to believe (Which isn't the case) all this butchery started after the US invaded Iraq. The Iraqis lived peacefully before this invasion. US is the country which destroyed the Peace of Iraq.

[offstump]

the american appointed iraqi government constructed in 2005 consisted of 25 members, 12 were shia, 5 sunni, 5 kurd a christian, turkoman and chaldean.

If you call this democracy then something is seriously wrong, no democratic government is appointed on a secretarian basis. The whole idea was to promote disunity and exploit ethnic fault lines. The U.S. wanted to split iraq in 3 autonomous regions and are succeeding. The americans wanted the majority Shia to get in their corner and back the occupation. All important positions held by Sunnis were eliminated via the de-ba'athification program. "Foreign policy experts" in the u.s. and prominant american think tanks were all of the view that to get iraq under control it had to be divided up into bits and pieces.

It would be naive to think powerful american intelligence agencies were not aware of the rising risk of secretarian violence which was about to overtake the country. Shias began forming death squads which were supported by elements in the majority shia government. The U.S. stood back and watched as chaos ensued.

The fact is the U.S. invaded, occupied and wiped out an entire population in Iraq on false pretenses, doctored evidence and on a threat that never existed. The policies they impose on other countries conjured up by their so called "experts" are sickening.