Wednesday, March 22, 2006

75, 30, 28, 23, 23, 22, 6, 5, 5, 3, 3.

This made me feel sick.
These are the ages of the family members executed last week by American soldiers, according to the Iraqi police report. The report reads
At 230 of 15/3/2006, according to the telegram (report) of the Ishaqi police directorate, American forces used helicopters to drop troops on the house of Faiz Harat Khalaf situated in the Abu Sifa village of the Ishaqi district. The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people, including 5 children, 4 women and 2 men, then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles, and killed their animals...
Here is the AP story describing this massacre. Not quite as bad as MyLai, I guess, but the attitude is the same -- American military so paranoid and out of control that pre-schoolers are the enemy.
James Wolcott describes some of the chaos going on now in Iraq, quoting from Patrick Cockburn on the Iraq death squads and Robert Dreyfuss on the civil war. Then Wolcott has a suggestion for next year's invasion anniversary:
Perhaps next year on the anniversary of this glorious mission, the US could fly a transport plane crammed with the creme de la creme of warbloggers, hawkish pundits, neoconservative thinkers, and cable news and talk radio hosts, and deposit them on the site of Saddam Hussein's fallen statue--the newly christened Krauthammer Square--and let them behold the joy and splendor they have bestowed upon a grateful Iraqi people. Who, in turn, will brave the heat, dust, and danger and leave their homes to demonstrate their gratitude to their noble guests by attempting to shoot their lying asses to pieces.
No, that probably won't make for an appropriate holiday. Scratch that idea.
To earn its rightful date on the calendar, the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq should be a day of remembrance on which conscientious Americans wear mourning colors and beg the world's forgiveness, and Iraqis' forgiveness most of all.

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