Tuesday, June 13, 2006

al Zarqawi kicked to death

There’s a lot of dodgy US accounts of the death of al Zarqawi. First, they said he was killed right away in the air strike, then they said he was still breathing and mumbling a few words before he expired. They even claimed to be resuscitating him to keep him alive.

Maj Gen William Caldwell, a US. military spokesman in Baghdad initially told reporters: "He was dead when we arrived there."

Then one day later he changed his story to Zarqawi was clinging to life when Iraqi and, later, American forces arrived at the scene of the bombing that killed him. Apparently when the Americans arrived, he was already restrained to a stretcher, tried to move but obviously couldn’t and mumbled something indistinguishable.

Caldwell said: "Everybody re-secured him back onto the stretcher, but he died almost immediately thereafter from the wounds he'd received from this air strike."

Note what he said, that Iraqi forces arrived before US troops.

However, Ali Abbas, a man living nearby the building bombed by the US airstrike witnessed how Zarqawi was killed. He said that Zarqawi was still alive when he was being evacuated by some locals from the house that was destroyed by US warplanes.

The Americans, and not Iraqi troops, arrived first, and finding Zarqawi still alive, assaulted him.

The Washington Post said Ahmed Mohammed, a local resident who rushed to the scene shortly after the bombs helped others pull Zarqawi from the rubble. Ahmad also said that when the US forces arrived, they took Zarqawi aside and kept asking him his name. When he did not respond, the soldiers kicked him and hit him until his nose began to bleed.

Besides Zarqawi, the air strike killed his spiritual adviser, Sheik Abdel Rahman, another man and three women. Initially there was a report that a couple of female children died but the Americans changed the story to 3 women instead. I suppose killing women doesn't sound as bad as killing kids.

Then the villagers of Hibhib, where Zarqawi was killed, said US forces had raided several other houses in the vicinity one day later, killing four people and wounding four others. Why, the Americans didn't respond nor explain.

About 4 miles away from where Zarqawi died US soldiers burst into a house in the early hours of around 4:15 a.m. The occupant, Ayad Abdul Hadi Hirmis al-Ibadi, said the American intruders hit him with their rifles and kicked him as he lay on the ground.

When his brother came to his aid, he was shot and killed. His father, who was on the roof of the house, was also shot and killed. His home was virtually destroyed, its walls blackened and pockmarked with bullet holes, its roof riddled with large holes. Ho hum, just some rag heads.

Colonel Fadhil Azzawi, chief of the Hibhib police force, said it was unclear why the Ibadis' home was targeted. He described the family as Shiite Muslims. Most of the insurgents linked to Zarqawi, who had called for a war against Shiites, are Sunni Arabs.

But the Americans obviously couldn’t distinguish a Shiite from a Botswanan, let alone a Sunni, nor would they be bothered. After all, they were all Arabs, weren’t they, including those women/female kids.

While very few would shed a tear over Zarqawi, a terrorist who was frown upon even by Osama bin Laden for the former’s loose cannon crazy car bombings of even Iraqis, the US unmitigated killing of women and children in the process of killing Zarqawi shows a callous disregard for innocent Iraqi lives by American troops. It's the usual collateral damage approach.

It’s hardly surprising that some of them had massacred Iraqi families including toddlers in Haditha a la My Lai. They have inherited the tradition of Wounded Knee, where they (US government) stole native properties and then had the US 7th Calvary massacred them, complete with a full inquiry and the usual and not unexpected full exoneration for the officer responsible for the slaughter.

It's the way of the American military.

p/s

The US 7th Calvary was decimated by the American natives at Little Big Horn.

5 comments:

  1. 'the US unmitigated killing of women and children in the process of killing Zarqawi shows a callous disregard for innocent Iraqi lives by American troops.'
    Zarqawi hides behind children and the skirts of women . A terrorist safehouse is by design part and parcel of the community the terrorists are hiding in. How do you get Zarqawi without inflicting damage on the community he is hiding in?

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  2. Al Zarqawi kicked to death? Man that's too good for him. They should have made the scum suffer a little more before they ended his pathetic existence.

    Your knowledge of the Wounded Knee incident leaves much to be desired. First of all, it was not done out of prejudice or malice, but due to inexperienced and jittery troops being asked to carry out duties they were not trained to do. Which explains why the US army shot 25 of their own men in the chaos. Secondly, it is laughable that you cite 2 instances of massacres where the CO is then exonerated in 116 years and try to paint it as a "tradition". (not that anyone has been exonerated of Haditha as yet, but hey, why let facts get in the way of a good lie, eh?)

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  3. Quote
    Al Zarqawi kicked to death? Man that's too good for him. They should have made the scum suffer a little more before they ended his pathetic existence
    Unquote

    Zaeqawi was a terrorist. His physical tormenters, "theoretically", have been US soldiers of a 1st world (supposedly) democracy. You've gone down to his level. But should we be surprised?

    The US Army's treatment of its natives are well recorded, and then there are the My Lai's (of which only one was brought to trial), with a joke of a court case where only one bloke was found guilty and straightaway pardoned.

    Then there's Bagram, Abu Ghraib with the orders coming down from Rumsfeld and Guantanamo. In Fallujah we saw on TV a marine executing in cold blood an already badly wounded man, dropping phosperous a la Vietnam, preventing ambulance from ferrying the wounded, denying the inhabitants basic amenities, ro supply of such, after the original were destroyed.

    There was the callous order in Vietnam to shoot "anyone who runs away as a VC, and anyone who don't as a brave VC".

    But get this mate, in every case, the US did those crimes on other people's land, country and house (including the land of your natives).

    Face it, your military have been brought up generally as bad asses.

    A former British SAS told the British media that American troops in Iraq may be divided into two groups - one who are college kids who want some money from their military tour to continue into universities, and the other who want to kill the rag heads. Th latter group is made up of nice all-American apple-pie-eating pychopaths.

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  4. You were wrong. Just be man enough to admit it. You clearly stated "(snip) tradition of Wounded Knee, (snip) full inquiry and the usual and not unexpected full exoneration for the officer responsible for the slaughter." In My Lai there was no full exoneration, hence you cannot bring that into the equation. Two isolated incidents, one of which has yet to be fully investigated hardly make a tradition. Hence you told a boldfaced lie and are now trying to crayfish your way out of it.

    "In Fallujah we saw on TV a marine executing in cold blood an already badly wounded man"
    That Marine has been faced with a court martial.

    "dropping phosperous a la Vietnam"
    Phosphorus is used as a marker for artillery shells, and is not a WMD nor a chemical weapon, hence there is no issue with this.

    "denying the inhabitants basic amenities"
    What a joke for a Malaysian to talk about this. Remember the good ol' days of the Emergency? When y'know, the British rounded up anyone who looked like Chinese and placed them in concentration camps? With the tacit approval of the ruling parties?

    "A former British SAS....blah blah blah"
    Given that that "former British SAS" personnel was the one who chose to desert the British army he isn't exactly an unbiased source. If all the Americans wanted to do was to "kill rag heads" there are far more efficient ways of doing it without ever setting foot in Iraq.

    And yeah, being kicked to death is too good for Zarqawi. We should've handed him over to the Jordanian or Saudi secret police to brutally torture for a few days before delivering the coup de grace. Its hardly "descending to his level", seeing as the slaughtering sheik isn't exactly an "innocent".

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  5. Didn't the US 7th Calvary slaughter women and children at Wounded Knee? Wasn't there other similar incidents with the "Indians"? Didn't the US government renege regularly on its words and agreement with the "Indians" and usurp Indian land, even those thd US government had agreed was the already reduced Indian Reserve? Wasn't that the origin of the saying "White men speak with forked tongue?" Wasn't the officer exonerated of his crimes?

    Aren't those traditions of stealing by force, grabbing others' properties, killing the natives, exonerating its criminal soldiers still continuing?

    Wasn't the soldier who mercilessly bashed up an innocent Afghan taxi driver until he expired out of severe trauma, an innocent man who happened to be unfortunately passing by Bagram Air Force at a time when the Taleban was attacking the base?. Despite evidence given by American soldiers, mind you, not Afghan but American soldiers who witnessed the inhuman cowardly torture to death of a person who had nothing to do with terrorism (admitted by the US military), wasn't the criminal only demoted to some insignifant lower class level of the same rank? Is that US justice?

    The US crimes in Vietnam have been too many to write here but you talked about My Lai with no full exoneration which is the biggest lie, because a whole company of soldiers killing wantonly resulted in one unpopular Lt being offered as a cloaking front for the other murderers; and what is a full US presidential pardon if not a complete exoneration?

    OK, tell me what was the punishment suffered by that cold blooded killer marine of the infamous Fallujah execution? There was just an investigation without the findings ever revealed.

    Read this: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/36752/

    Relevant Extract:
    In April of 2004, there were widespread reports -- in the foreign press -- that civilians were targeted during the "Siege of Fallujah." The Pentagon was outraged when journalists reported the number of civilians killed in the city. One report quoted Dr. Rafa Hayad al-Issawi, director of the city's main hospital, saying "the dead mostly included women, children and elderly." The Iraqi minister of health, Khudair Abbas, confirmed that U.S. forces had shot at ambulances -- in Fallujah and elsewhere -- and condemned the acts as possible war crimes. Snipers who served in Fallujah told the Los Angeles Times that "there might not have been such a 'target-rich' battlefield" since the World War II battle for Stalingrad.

    Also read this http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1194878,00.html

    Phosperous? - read this http://www.chris-floyd.com/fallujah/ and bloodly weep, not for the Iraqis because I know you won't, but at least for the loss of humanity in Americans

    Malaysian emergency had the "new villages" - there was restriction of movement and control of food (to ensure the commies weren't fed by villagers) but no loss of basic amenities like water, food, etc. You don't even know what the purpose of those "new villages" were for. That's why we won the war against the commies, while Americans lost to a 3rd world nation next door.

    And your comment "When y'know, the British rounded up anyone who looked like Chinese and placed them in concentration camps?", apart from showing your ignorance, typifies the conduct of American military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    That's why the USA will once again lose the wars. Bet you Bush will pull out like the US did in Vietname, just before the 2008 presidential election.

    And as for your "We should've handed him over to the Jordanian or Saudi secret police to brutally torture for a few days", haven't you heard of the US "extraordinary rendition" programme, which the US Administration has not denied. In fact Colin Powell admitted it exists. The US has devolved or outsourced torture, but like all delegation, it continues to be responsible for that delegation and its conduct and consequences.

    I could go on and on, but I won't. Reflect on the sad fact that the USA was once the most admired nation in the world. Today it's the most despised.

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