Video of US military targeting Iraqi civilians. PLEASE EXPLAIN!?

Iraq Forum

You want to know why the Iraqis are begining to hate the US military occupation.

Anyone who thinks the American military isn't being heavy handed in Iraq should watch this apache helicopter target and kill civilians including a reporter reporting another incident.

*WARNING - video is graphic *

http://www.informationclearinghouse...rticlee6896.htm

Aparently over a 1000 Iraqis were killed in 3 weeks of fighting in Najaf.

Saddam slaughtered thousands of Iraqis who rose up against his rule. When do people start to question the number of Iraqis the US is killing before it's pretty much the same thing - lots of dead Iraqis, lots more killing fields, lots of bodies in graves.

It's easy to say that all Iraq have to do is accept American occupation, but what if they don't - is America just going to go on and on with the killings?

When will they question the number of Iraqis killed by Syrian and Iranian fighters in their country?

Next you will say this was deliberate and that we always target civilians.
You are so biased it stinks H@ts.

You are biased. I never hear your outrage about the car bombings that kill hundreds at a crack. I never heard your outrage at the killing of 300 chiulren in Russia either.
Only when the coalition does something that you feel doesn't meet your brilliant military ideals. If you have oputrage at the killing, don't be so biased.

I will wait for more reports on this before I rush to judgment over it like you did. But then again your mind is already made up.

Was the croud protecting the militants? Do you know this? Were the militants part of the croud? Did someone in the coruud fire on our troops?
I don't think you know this. You simply take it at face value and blame the US.

I guess they don't understand, we distroy our weaponary before it ends up in the wrong hands. I mean, what did they think a hovering armed chopper was going to do, sit there and watch? Here's your sign!!!!

Yes, I do know that they gather in groups to protect the fighters. Where the hell have you been? They hide behind women and children for Christ sakes.
I still hear no outrage from you about Syrians blowing up civilians outside the mosques.
Are you affraid this war makes you or America look bad or what? Or is it you truly feel horrified by the deaths of this attack. If you do, why aren't you equally as horrified when they kill each other and why wouldn't you claim so here?
Because you have an agenda and that agenda is a biased agenda and not a true feeling. If it was, you would be talking a little different but, instead you dance around the issue of what really matters to you.
Frankly I think you are just embarrassed by the whole thing. Thank GOD you never joined the military or felt a need to serve your country. I would hate to see you ever have to follow an order or worse, serve under my command.

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What a great postcard! Looks like a fantabulous marshmallow roast. You gotta hand it to those Iraqis, they're quickly catching on to those great all-American customs. Starbucks, anyone?

Bush just wants to KILL, KILL, KILL. He's just a bloodthirsty CRUSADER. Are you reading this Muslims?

As for you Americans...VOTE <ANYBODY BUT> BUSH!

h@ts this curley idiot is on my ignore list just ignore him like i did

3 more. Is there any outrage?

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle....storyID=6241493

Obviously your outrage is missapplied as usual.

The Gates of Hell are Open.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exe...7169C9D8C72.htm

You are correct. I am a militant. A militant for Anti-Jihad, Anti-Al Queada, Anti-Islam.

Get a shovel.

The reporter killed was from Al Arabya

I do have a son in Iraq and a Son in-law in SpecOps who landed in Bagdad today.
YOU said I was as bad. I just showed you how stupid your remark was..

The reporter killed was the enemy also. He supported the enemies agenda. Just like Al Jazeera does. I have no sympathy for him or her. When you are on the front lines, expect to be shot at. If you hide under a skirt who carries a gun, expect more of the same. If Dan Rather was there, he would expect the same as he did in Vietnam. Too bad he's not there.

Their wars? You are a crackpot.
Your hero John Fonda Kerry would have done exactly the same thing. He admitts it and you would now be complaining about him instead of Bush. Go ahead vote for that nut case and see what it brings.
You are just another hypocrite like peacebaby there.

My good chap,

Anti-war, anti-U.S. rhetoric from Europists like yourself is something Americans have been used to, and have come to expect, since even before the regime change in Iraq proceeded to fruition. So what makes you think any sensible American is even paying attention anymore to blatant Euro-propaganda?

Now, go pound your sand.

Last I checked there was nobody that won an election on a platform of "I'm not (insert name here)"

I'm starting to think the US deserves a guy like Bush as president. Kerry's hopeless - not because he wouldn't do a better job than Bush, but because despite the obvious failures of Bush's Middle East policies, and his failure to capture the guy that apparently planned the 9/11 attack (btw not Saddam for the 42% of brain-deads) he's not way ahead in the polls.

On the bright side Blare's going to get dumped soon - way before next years election - for his support for Bush and then the UK will have a government that actually represents the feelings of the British people. But you'll still have that Aussie guy on side. Just how you like it.

So Blare get's dumped for a nobody. Wonderful. This solves everything.
They seem to forget how he got there in the first place.
These are the same ignorant people who will vote AGAINST Bush and risk their future. I could respect them if they actually voted for someone and not against someone. These people deserve a Labotomy.

Do you alway's answer your one questions? Of course, that way you only get the answer you want to here.... Yes I feel safer except from Hurrican Ivan and maybe Jeanne which is on the way. But that's a differnet story. I expcet though if I was in another country that I may not feel safer but here in America I do.

Ron,
I agree completely.

Don't try and twist this into your little agenda. You asked if I feel safer, and the answer to that question is YES!!! Will I feel safe with a Kerry President, I don't know, but he doesn't give me a lot of confidence. One thing's for sure, I do feel safer with Bush as my President.


I DON"T live in another country. I live in Amreican and I feel safe.

If you live in some other country and don't feel safe, then you need to replace your leader.

It's a jeolously thing I think.
I love when people hide their locations. Are they embarrassed or what?
You can almost tell by the posts where they are from.
Canada most likely.

Shouldn't he be back in school by now?

The U.S. is well-aware of a near-worldwide anti-Americanism, particularly rabid from our so-called European "allies"—headed by France and Germany—who since the end of the Cold War have been relegated to bashing and shin-kicking of the sole hyper-power in the world. Based on primal envy and resentment these governments have all but completely brain-washed their public through their media. Not that a well-primed people, envious and hungry for political stability and morality and economic prosperity need much coaxing to hate America.

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Just for the record, I do not condone what the apache pilot did and think the Army should launch a full investigation. It is one thing to destroy it to prevent it from getting into the hands of the enemy. It is another to do it with so many civilians around it. Of course who were civilians and who were enemy combatants? NO UNIFORMS!!

I expect a few rounds from the machine gun to try and disperse the crowd should have been in order. Once the crowd was dispersed then launch a missile or else leave it alone.

Ron,

I agree with you, but as they fire those warning shots, the helicopters just become targets for RPG fire from the ground.

Oh how we choose to forget.

How about the good ole days when Saddam didn't work with the UN and deceived UN inspectors.

How about the good ole days of Saddam murdering and torturing his own people.

How about the good ole days of Sanctions and the extremely corrupt Oil For Food Program which lined the pockets of You Guessed it SADDAM.

You know why you think the life under Saddam was so good. It was because Western Media wasn't allowed in to show the horrors of Saddam and his boys.

The U.S. is not there to kill children. The U.S. is not there to create a mess or anarchy. And I think that is overstatement. The U.S. and coalition is there to help people and there are people who welcome it. Those are the people we are there for, the people who want our help and hope for a better life. Anyone attacking the U.S. and coalition for helping, deserves the bullets they are getting. That is all there is to be said. That is it.

WWIII has been declared on radical Islam. It has been long overdue—about 25 years in fact.


We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.
—George Orwell (of all people)

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The Iraq -- Al Qaeda Connections

By Richard Miniter Published 09/25/2003


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Every day it seems another American soldier is killed in Iraq. These grim statistics have become a favorite of network news anchors and political chat show hosts. Nevermind that they mix deaths from accidents with actual battlefield casualties; or that the average is actually closer to one American death for every two days; or that enemy deaths far outnumber ours. What matters is the overall impression of mounting, pointless deaths.

That is why is important to remember why we fight in Iraq -- and who we fight. Indeed, many of those sniping at U.S. troops are al Qaeda terrorists operating inside Iraq. And many of bin Laden's men were in Iraq prior to the liberation. A wealth of evidence on the public record -- from government reports and congressional testimony to news accounts from major newspapers -- attests to longstanding ties between bin Laden and Saddam going back to 1994.

Those who try to whitewash Saddam's record don't dispute this evidence; they just ignore it. So let's review the evidence, all of it on the public record for months or years:

* Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary.

* Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was speaking before the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.

* Sudanese intelligence officials told me that their agents had observed meetings between Iraqi intelligence agents and bin Laden starting in 1994, when bin Laden lived in Khartoum.

* Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Mr. Powell.

* An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* In 1999 the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.

* In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, now al Qaeda's No. 2 man.

(Why are all of those meetings significant? The London Observer reports that FBI investigators cite a captured al Qaeda field manual in Afghanistan, which "emphasizes the value of conducting discussions about pending terrorist attacks face to face, rather than by electronic means.")

* As recently as 2001, Iraq's embassy in Pakistan was used as a "liaison" between the Iraqi dictator and al Qaeda, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -- who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly involved with the preparation and planning" of the Sept. 11 attacks -- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports.

* An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as "Abu Mohammed," told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's Fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southeast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives -- on a full-size Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The major) said to me: 'You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq.'"

* In 1998, Abbas al-Janabi, a longtime aide to Saddam's son Uday, defected to the West. At the time, he repeatedly told reporters that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

*The Sunday Times found a Saddam loyalist in a Kurdish prison who claims to have been Dr. Zawahiri's bodyguard during his 1992 visit with Saddam in Baghdad. Dr. Zawahiri was a close associate of bin Laden at the time and was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989.

* Following the defeat of the Taliban, almost two dozen bin Laden associates "converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there," Mr. Powell told the United Nations in February 2003. From their Baghdad base, the secretary said, they supervised the movement of men, materiel and money for al Qaeda's global network.

* In 2001, an al Qaeda member "bragged that the situation in Iraq was 'good,'" according to intelligence made public by Mr. Powell.

* That same year, Saudi Arabian border guards arrested two al Qaeda members entering the kingdom from Iraq.

* Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, Mr. Powell told the United Nations. His specialty was poisons. Wounded in fighting with U.S. forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May 2002. When Zarqawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Zarqawi's Iraq cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan. The captured assassin confessed that he received orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq, Mr. Powell said. His accomplice escaped to Iraq.

*Zarqawi met with military chief of al Qaeda, Mohammed Ibrahim Makwai (aka Saif al-Adel) in Iran in February 2003, according to intelligence sources cited by the Washington Post.

* Mohammad Atef, the head of al Qaeda's military wing until the U.S. killed him in Afghanistan in November 2001, told a senior al Qaeda member now in U.S. custody that the terror network needed labs outside of Afghanistan to manufacture chemical weapons, Mr. Powell said. "Where did they go, where did they look?" said the secretary. "They went to Iraq."

* Abu Abdullah al-Iraqi was sent to Iraq by bin Laden to purchase poison gases several times between 1997 and 2000. He called his relationship with Saddam's regime "successful," Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* Mohamed Mansour Shahab, a smuggler hired by Iraq to transport weapons to bin Laden in Afghanistan, was arrested by anti-Hussein Kurdish forces in May, 2000. He later told his story to American intelligence and a reporter for the New Yorker magazine.

* Documents found among the debris of the Iraqi Intelligence Center show that Baghdad funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden. According to a London's Daily Telegraph, the organization offered to recruit "youth to train for the jihad" at a "headquarters for international holy warrior network" to be established in Baghdad.

* Mullah Melan Krekar, ran a terror group (the Ansar al-Islam) linked to both bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Krekar admitted to a Kurdish newspaper that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan and other senior al Qaeda officials. His acknowledged meetings with bin Laden go back to 1988. When he organized Ansar al Islam in 2001 to conduct suicide attacks on Americans, "three bin Laden operatives showed up with a gift of $300,000 'to undertake jihad,'" Newsday reported. Mr. Krekar is now in custody in the Netherlands. His group operated in portion of northern Iraq loyal to Saddam Hussein -- and attacked independent Kurdish groups hostile to Saddam. A spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan told a United Press International correspondent that Mr. Krekar's group was funded by "Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad."

* After October 2001, hundreds of al Qaeda fighters are believed to have holed up in the Ansar al-Islam's strongholds inside northern Iraq.

Some skeptics dismiss the emerging evidence of a longstanding link between Iraq and al Qaeda by contending that Saddam ran a secular dictatorship hated by Islamists like bin Laden.

In fact, there are plenty of "Stalin-Roosevelt" partnerships between international terrorists and Muslim dictators. Saddam and bin Laden had common enemies, common purposes and interlocking needs. They shared a powerful hate for America and the Saudi royal family. They both saw the Gulf War as a turning point. Saddam suffered a crushing defeat which he had repeatedly vowed to avenge. Bin Laden regards the U.S. as guilty of war crimes against Iraqis and believes that non-Muslims shouldn't have military bases on the holy sands of Arabia. Al Qaeda's avowed goal for the past ten years has been the removal of American forces from Saudi Arabia, where they stood in harm's way solely to contain Saddam.

The most compelling reason for bin Laden to work with Saddam is money. Al Qaeda operatives have testified in federal courts that the terror network was always desperate for cash. Senior employees fought bitterly about the $100 difference in pay between Egyptian and Saudis (the Egyptians made more). One al Qaeda member, who was connected to the 1998 embassy bombings, told a U.S. federal court how bitter he was that bin Laden could not pay for his pregnant wife to see a doctor.

Bin Laden's personal wealth alone simply is not enough to support a profligate global organization. Besides, bin Laden's fortune is probably not as large as some imagine. Informed estimates put bin Laden's pre-Sept. 11, 2001 wealth at perhaps $30 million. $30 million is the budget of a small school district, not a global terror conglomerate. Meanwhile, Forbes estimated Saddam's personal fortune at $2 billion.

So a common enemy, a shared goal and powerful need for cash seem to have forged an alliance between Saddam and bin Laden. CIA Director George Tenet recently told the Senate Intelligence Committee: "Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb making to al Qaeda. It also provided training in poisons and gasses to two al Qaeda associates; one of these [al Qaeda] associates characterized the relationship as successful. Mr. Chairman, this information is based on a solid foundation of intelligence. It comes to us from credible and reliable sources. Much of it is corroborated by multiple sources."

The Iraqis, who had the Third World's largest poison-gas operations prior to the Gulf War I, have perfected the technique of making hydrogen-cyanide gas, which the Nazis called Zyklon-B. In the hands of al Qaeda, this would be a fearsome weapon in an enclosed space -- like a suburban mall or subway station.

source: Tech Central Station

Seriously I've only read part of this conversation but this is stupid to not be critical of the actions taken by the military that kills civilians in the process. Just because someone else does the something doesn't take away the fact that the United States have just killed civilians and a reporter.

This is like me murdering 10 people and then bringing up some other people that have killed 30 or 40 people. This doesn't take away from the fact that I have 10 people. The US has killed civilians and a reporter all caught on tape and that doesn't mean it's isolated, this is just an incident caught on tape, which may be more widespread.

We can talk about tactics and everything here, but killing civilians to just achieve a military tactic of keeping weapons out of enemy hands is outright wrong. Pulling up beheadings does not take wasy from the fact that the United States has killed civilians and a reporter.

How many civilians do you think died in any other war, Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia or The Gulf War. War is Hell, People die, That's what war is. We don't like it but I think it's safe to say that some must sacrifice so that others may live. Or live in Freedom in our case.

SIMPLE FACT: Contrary to Euro- and Islamo-propaganda, the U.S. military does not target civilians.
SIMPLE POINT: If there has ever been a war in which civilians have not been casualties, kindly inform me of it.


___

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. —Bill Cosby

And we should not forget the reasons why we were told this war was so urgently necessary that we could not allow the weapons inspectors to continue the search for another 3 or 4 months that Blix asked for:

No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. - Donald Rumsfeld, testimony to Congress, Sept. 19, 2002

If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world - Ari Fleischer, press briefing, Dec. 2, 2002

We know for a fact that there are weapons there - Ari Fleischer, press briefing, Jan. 9, 2003

I think you better read Iraq Intelligence report starting at page 304.

Here is a copy for you to read. You might want to download it.

Iraq Report - Select Committee on Intelligence July 7, 2004

Concerning the 9/11 Commission on Iraq. Iraq ties with al Qaeda was not their focus, rather whether Iraq was involved with 9/11. So their investigation into Iraq was very limited to just their involvement.

Oh and that last line where it says "there was no
confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Ladin on unconventional
weapons."

Unconventional means WMD, which doesn't mean that they weren't cooperating on conventional weapons like bombs.

Ron, you reaching now completely.

Why would the commission leave out collaboration with al Qaeda? Wouldn't they say Iraq didn't collaborate with al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks, but that they helped al Qaeda in other capacities.

Even helping al Qaeda in other capacities is a connection to 9/11. There is no link.

Saddam Hussein was a secular dictator, Osama bin Laden an extremist Islamist, they were on opposite ends. Why would Saddam give weapons to an extremist that yes, may use them on the United States, but would just as likely use it on him?

Continue to reach all you want. Soon you'll be saying for everything they do not definitively say something, it means there's a great possibility.

Not unconventional weapons, but conventional weapons.
Not 9/11 but other terrorist attacks.

Weak argument.

The fact remains that Saddam and Al Qaeda had close ties.