Farah tried to plead with the US troops but she was killed anyway

[NNN0LHI]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1037081,00.html

The death of two innocent Iraqis was thought so unremarkable the US military did not even report it, but Peter Beaumont says it reflects an increasingly callous disregard of civilian lives in coalition operations

Sunday September 7, 2003
The Observer

Farah Fadhil was only 18 when she was killed. An American soldier threw a grenade through the window of her apartment. Her death, early last Monday, was slow and agonising. Her legs had been shredded, her hands burnt and punctured by splinters of metal, suggesting that the bright high-school student had covered her face to shield it from the explosion.

She had been walking to the window to try to calm an escalating situation; to use her smattering of English to plead with the soldiers who were spraying her apartment building with bullets.

But then a grenade was thrown and Farah died. So did Marwan Hassan who, according to neighbours, was caught in the crossfire as he went looking for his brother when the shooting began.

more

[dArKeR]

1. Why isn't the American media held responsible for NOT reporting

what's really going on in Iraq?

[Zhade]

2. Because a great number of them are themselves traitors.

NT

[w13rd0]

3. Not keeping track of casualties....

...is a recipe for war crimes. The military doesn't know, and doesn't care, how many civilians die. It doesn't report it, so it doesn't happen. They can claim that they try to minimize civilian casualties among these "liberated Iraqis", but without any actual accounting to justify that claim, it's as bogus as Bush's reasons for war. All evidence seems to indicate that the US is killing even more indiscriminately than Saddam did (Saddam usually killed political opponents and dissidents, the US is killing EVERYONE)...

[Ilsa]

4. The media should placed on trial for complicity

in this behavior.

I am so tired of reich-wingers first saying that civilians aren't being killed by our smart-bombs, then saying casualties are bound to happen; "collateral damage". It's always collateral damage when it is someone else's life or freedom being taken away.
Shame on them.

[Judi Lynn]

5. This is so hard to read, and apparently IMPOSSIBLE for our media to WRITE!

What a damnable shame:

(snip) What is perhaps most shocking about their deaths is that the coalition troops who killed them did not even bother to record details of the raid with the coalition military press office. The killings were that unremarkable. What happened in Mahmudiya last week should not be forgotten, for the story of this raid is also the story of the dark side of the US-led occupation of Iraq, of the violent and sometimes lethal raids carried out apparently beyond any accountability.

For while the media are encouraged to count each US death, the Iraqi civilians who have died at American hands since the fall of Saddam's regime have been as uncounted as their names have been unacknowledged. (snip)

[The Zanti Regent]

7. Gee, I wonder why Stenographer Sue missed this?

Oh, I forgot, whe's writing more lies for the WHORESHINGTON POST!

[jenk]

6. Another Saddam LOYALIST NABBED!

mission accomplished!:puke:

[beanball]

8. The good the bad and the ugly

it seems that the good is missing,out of sight while the bad and ugly continues their onslaught against the defenseless Shame on you Mr.Bush.

[imax2268]

9. maybe...

because if they do report it they will be labeled as traitors...but that's just my opinion...

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

10. According to a Reuters report of Iraqi combatants KIA to Iraqi

civilians, we have killed roughly THREE TIMES MORE CIVILIANS than combatants.

<snip>

WHY HAS THIS FACT BEEN IGNORED? "Surgical strikes" my ass.

U.S., BRITISH, AND MULTINATIONAL TROOPS KILLED:

COMBAT/ATTACKS

United States 195 (64)

Britain 15 (7)

Multinational 0 (1)

NON-COMBAT

United States 94 (72)

Britain 30 (5)

Multinational

IRAQIS KILLED:

MILITARY 2,320#

CIVILIANS Between 6,113 and 7,830*

# = U.S. military estimates relating only to fighting in or near Baghdad. No other figures available.

* = Figure compiled on Web site www.iraqbodycount.net, run by academics and peace activists, based on incidents reported by at least two media sources.

NOTE: NON-COMBAT is defined as accidents, U.S. or British fire killing or wounding their own troops, and other incidents unrelated to fighting.
<snip>

I don't have the link handy, I kept the page because I felt no one would believe me and the fact is pretty damning to Bushco.

Robert

[dw]

18. The source for this table...

Reuters: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14676551.htm

[SOS]

11. American corporate media

is not reporting a fraction of what is happening in Iraq.
Kate Gessert, writing for Eat the State in Seattle describes a number of such "incidents":

April 2: Eight-year-old Aisha Ahmed was playing in the garden when a missile struck her family's farm in Radwaniyeh, near Bagdad airport. Her four-year-old brother died. Her mother, father, older brother, and sisters were critically injured. Aisha lost an eye; her face and body were peppered with shrapnel. She kept asking, "Mommy! Where is my mommy?"

http://eatthestate.org/07-17/Memoriam.htm

[benfranklin1776]

12. God. To read this makes me physically ill.

However reading of the horror of the mindless massacre of human beings should make anyone who is a member of mankind ill.
Sadly though it is a story willfully ignored by our media since it conflicts with the warm, fuzzy, cocoon-like illusion spun by the corporate shapers of public opinion who wish us to see this military action through lenses of rose colored purity, in which only "really bad guys" get killed and the bombs and bullets and grenades magically spare the innocent.

What do you say to something like this? I had hoped that we had seen the last of such barbaric
atrocities in the jungles of Southeast Asia three decades ago. Sadly we have not, and since the
official policy now as then, and as always in war, seems to be to dehumanize the "demon enemy" to
make their slaughter palatable to otherwise decent, rational people, I fear these incidents
will become the established norm, if they have not already. Of course we may never know since in
these Orwellian times, inconvenient statistics like numbers of civilian dead are willfully
ignored and erased from the public consciousness, lest they serve as a glaring reminder of the true
cost of this misguided, illegal war. I ask, then, how many more innocent human beings must die
in this horrific fashion, and how many more American soldiers must be forced to bear the
irreversible lifelong emotional scars of this type of carnage that they are being ordered to inflict,
before decent rational people everywhere stand up and unconditionally demand that this madness end?

A truly "God-fearing" nation does not engage in, nor does it tolerate the mindless slaughter of
eighteen year old girls, whose only crime was being a peacemaker and trying to stop more
bloodshed. Blessed are the peacemakers as Farah Fadhil for they shall, hopefully for our sakes,
inherit the earth.

[Karenina]

14. Thank you for your post.

.

[w4rma]

13. The U.S. big buisness media isn't even reporting U.S. casualties

How many U.S. solders have come back permanently maimed or wounded? How many articles has anyone seen on this? The military hostpitals are so full that wounded U.S. soldiers have to be put up in nearby hotels.

Not only does the corporate media not care about the Iraqis who are killed, but they don't even care about OUR soliders who are maimed for life.

We tried to stop Bush* and he ignored us and tried to marginalize us by labeling us as a "focus group". This is what happens when sociopahtic ideologues take power. :mad:

[tlcandie]

15. To a regime (*) who considers is own peeps as OFUs...

(one fodder unit), the next step to massacres isn't such a jump :( How utterly depressing!!!

[Virginian]

16. The American Wounded

are coming back with missing arms and legs and other permanent injuries.
They are reported as an aside "... and three Americans wounded..."

These American heroes are not leaving Iraq with bandaids over a scrape. They are being maimed for life.

[loudnclear]

17. We are becoming like Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters in our

disregard for human life...civilian or otherwise. What a sad, sad state of affairs for mankind.

[drool_n_yank]

19. You think

This whole damn war is taken right out of Sharon's play book via PNAC . Tonight Chimp will tell the sheeple that there is still a war on terror to justify this crap and Sharon will continue to get US tax payer $$ as long as there are terror attacks in Israel. He couldnt be happier that Abbas is gone . WAR on terror is perfect control meachanism because it never ends . Terrorist attacks can easily be bogus and get the same results . Notice how the enemies never go away , Arafat , OBL , Saddam ...how many damn Hamas leaders will be killed, must be a never ending reservoir of them . Just today I heard on NPR that Israel attacked the main ,biggest, top cat , Hamas leader and he has a injured leg. WTF..you know where he is but you dont use a large enough ordainace to take out half the town , just enough to injure his leg ? such crap , They never stop them because the public may think the war is over if the evil doers are dead or captured. Its like cancer, if there was a cure billions would be lost.


Leaked document exposes pro-Israel lobby's manipulation of US public

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1395.shtml

{Yasser Arafat has been a great asset to Israel because "he looks the part" of a "terrorist." The installation of Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian prime minister, and potential replacement for Arafat, comes "at the wrong time," because he has the potential to improve the image of the Palestinians, and that could put the onus on Israel to return to negotiations. The document advises supporters of Israel to appear to affect a "balanced" tone,

I wonder if some of the violence in my hood in Brooklyn could be be construed as an act of terrorism and we could collect some $$$$ .