MSNBC: Storms in U.S. divert gaze from worsening Iraq ("It's Hell")

[leftchick]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9529720/

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Focused on its own troubles, America might have turned away for a while, but the situation in Iraq has not improved. In fact, there has been a surge in violence.

In the month since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, at least 55 U.S. soldiers have been killed. The Iraqi death toll is many times greater, though much harder to calculate. Sunni insurgents have terrorized many parts of Iraq, especially those occupied by majority Shiites, with a relentless series of suicide attacks, roadside bombs and shootings. Attacks on Thursday and Friday of this week alone have left more than 100 Iraqis dead.

‘It’s hell’
"It's worse," said 29-year-old Saif al-Hakim, who recently returned to his homeland after spending most of the last year in Los Angeles. "It's hell."

Al-Hakim, a graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television, is an entrepreneur, a television producer with aspirations of becoming a Hollywood director. One of the many attacks that strike Baghdad each day, a car bombing, left his business in a formerly peaceful neighborhood in ruins.

"It ravaged my company completely," he said. "I was sitting in my office and I could see grenades thrown in the street."



Residents view the destruction on Friday left after a suicide car bomber struck a vegetable market Thursday evening in the Iraqi town of Balad.

[tompayne1]

1. this is some ammo

kinda. i mean if we were not in iraq the response to the storms would not have been so pathetic and because we are in iraq both are hugely comprimised.

[movonne]

2. These poor people in Iraq have lost everthing...just like the

people of NO.

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. Then why the F don't they report it? Liberal bias, my foot.

The Iraq news is relegated to the back pages these days. If it's so bad then damn it, put it in the headlines.

[daleo]

4. Why are the Katrina death toll and Iraqi civilian death tolls alike?

Because they are both "hard to calculate".

[leftchick]

6. I Keep comparing Katrina victims to the Tsunami victims

night and day. They are purposely squashing the numbers dead.

[daleo]

15. It's a good point

The events had too much in common for the death tolls to vary by so much. Sadly, the government can no longer be trusted on something this fundamental.

[FloridaPat]

5. The repubs are trying to cut everything for the people but keeping

the tax cuts for the rich and the Iraq invasion going. I don't think the war is too far out of everyone's mind because it's a matter of who's going to get screwed - us again or the repubs.

[goodhue]

7. 108 die in Iraq in 24 hours

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9530709/

[PurityOfEssence]

8. We are a deeply selfish people

That's why a party with virtually no value to most Americans (the Republicans, natch) is able to get close enough to steal enough elections to secure a thin governmental majority.

The dark side of America has engulfed (fun word, in light of recent developments, huh?) the good side of America (its resilience and pluralistic acceptance of all); ugliness is now our greatest goal. We have trampled our tolerance, and become a "fuck you" country with no mitigation. Greed is not only good, but anything not completely selfish is to be scorned. Fuck the rest of the world. Fuck fellow citizens who don't agree with us. Fuck everything.

We have always been a country of mixed values, but the good ones are pretty much swept away now.

[Skittles]

9. I am completely disgusted by the American people

just disgusted

[meganmonkey]

10. But we can't give up, we have to keep the good stuff alive

And we have to throw it at them, we have to spread it. We can't give up or it will only get worse. I don't want to see what worse looks like :(

[PurityOfEssence]

11. No book is perfect except for the childish fantasy superholy change-killer

The Koran is just another silly attempt to freeze time and lock a fixed reality with the enforcement of supernatural fear. This is tiresome. As long as we suck up to superstition as if it's anything more than the prejudices of fearful slaves, we will pay the price.

The Bible is little better, and only because it's somewhat more tolerant of others. If that's not being damned by faint praise, then I should have taken more time writing this.

There is going to be Islam in whatever government exists when the smoke clears, and that is a VERY bad thing. That people don't see this is because of a mistaken prejudice that religion is "good".

Believe what you may in your own free time, but to enshrine primitive guesses and endorse them as truths that must be obeyed is the path to savage calamity. Get your kicks on route 666.

[Erika]

12. W & Condi assures us to stay the course

Don't worry, be happy.

[Roland99]

13. Have a Latte in a coffeeshop. The grenades and car bombs are Illusions!

[buzzsaw_23]

14. Outbreak of Violence Kills More Than a Hundred Iraqis in 2 Days

Outbreak of Violence Kills More Than a Hundred Iraqis in 2 Days

By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: September 30, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 30 - A car bomb detonated today near a fruit and vegetable market in Hilla, a Shiite town south of Baghdad, killing at least eight people and wounding 41, the second strike in two days of bloodletting that has left 110 people dead.
Enlarge This Image


The bomb was remotely detonated about 10:15 a.m., in the al-Sharia market in central Hilla and tore into a crowded area of people shopping for food. The attack was almost identical to three others that took place just 16 hours before in Balad, north of Baghdad.

In those bombings, two of which were also in a crowded marketplace frequented mostly by Shiites, the death toll rose sharply overnight and by this afternoon had reached 102, including 18 children, according to Dr. Qasim al-Qaisi, the manager of Balad Hospital. In all, 150 people were wounded, he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/30/international/middlee...

Shopping while the world explodes in Never Never Land

[rodeodance]

16. good headline. it is the truth.