U.S. Soldiers Fire Into Baghdad Crowd

[SoCalDem]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030813/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Wed Aug 13, 8:44 AM ET

A small group of dozens of Iraqis shout anti-American slogans after claiming that U.S. forces attacked them in the Al-Sadr City district in Baghdad, Iraq (news - web sites) on Wednesday Aug. 13, 2003. According to the protesters, a U.S. military helicopter overflew a tower where religious flags were flying and tried to take down a flag and later opened fire on the people. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

---

U.S. Soldiers Fire Into Baghdad Crowd
24 minutes ago

By TAREK AL-ISSAWI, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. soldiers shot into a crowd of thousands of demonstrators in a Baghdad slum on Wednesday, killing one civilian and wounding four after a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at them, the military said. North of Baghdad, guerrillas killed two American troops.




In Sadr City, a Shiite Muslim slum, about 3,000 demonstrators gathered around a telecommunications tower where they said American forces in a helicopter tried to tear down an Islamic banner. U.S. military spokesman Sgt. Danny Martin said it was apparently blown down by rotor wash from a helicopter.


However, amateur video footage obtained by Associated Press Television News showed a Black Hawk helicopter hovering a few feet from the top of the tower and apparently trying to tear down the banner. Later, U.S. Humvees drove by and the crowd threw stones at them. Heavy gunfire could be heard and demonstrators were seen diving to the ground.


Martin said U.S. forces opened fire after stones, gunfire and one rocket-propelled grenade were directed at soldiers of the 1st Armored Division. One civilian was killed and four were wounded, he said. He said no soldiers were hit.


Sadr City, formerly known as Saddam City, is a Shiite stronghold in the otherwise Sunni Muslim-dominated capital. "We're peaceful people, but one edict (from the imams) and the entire American Army will become our prisoner," said Hassan Azab, a member of the local district council.


Also Wednesday, an attack 15 miles south of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s hometown, killed one U.S. soldier and wounded a second when their four-vehicle convoy hit a roadside bomb, according to Maj. Josslyn Aberle, spokeswoman for the 4th Infantry Division.


...snip

[proud patriot]

1. They showed a clip of this on CNN earlier

It was closest thing I've seen to real coverage of chaos
and the sound of gunfire people hitting the ground to avoid
getting hit . They also showed the helicopper trying to
position itself close to a flag at the top of tower .
A hand reached out of the helicopter grabbed the flag
tried but failed to remove it .

[Guaranteed]

22. The wind blew the helicopter into the flagpole...

...and the guy inside just got scared and tried to hang onto it.
That's all!:crazy:

[DeathvadeR]

24. Freedom of religion at it's finest....... n/t

[evworldeditor]

26. Watch CSPAN Press Conference "Bring Them Home Now"

Be sure to watch today's press conference on CSPAN put on by Military Families Speak Out announcing their "Bring Them Home Now" campaign.

http://video.c-span.org:8080/ramgen/archive/iraq/iraq081303_familiesspeak.rm?start=3.0

[htuttle]

2. Did the Iraqi's 'relish' this experience?

Did they 'relish' the bullets, Mr. Bremer?

[arcane1]

9. wasn't the freedom to protest the ONLY thing he mentioned?

hard to relish when you're being shot at

good job on those banners of mass destruction! :toast:

[Maple]

3. Interesting remark further down as well

"Also Wednesday, the U.S.-led coalition said it had SENT IN 6.6 million gallons of gasoline, much of it to southern Iraq. Fuel and power shortages had been particularly acute in the southern city of Basra, where weekend protests left at least three people dead."

Capitals are mine.

[Ohio Dem]

4. Our troops are being pushed over the edge.

I'm not condoning firing into a crowd of civilians.

But think about what our military men and women are going through over there. 120 degrees, lack of food and water, danger everywhere they look, no hope of going home anytime soon. It's a wonder that more of them haven't snapped by now.

Here's to all the "Support the Troops" types out there before the war started. See what you've done? This one's for you.

Edited for poor typing skills.

[Tinoire]

6. Psychologically and morally exhausted.

And my contacts tell me that those coming home aren't even being offered any of the counselling and recovery services they were promised. Just a welcome home son and that's it... So they sit around with that thousand yard stare...

How many broken lives is that oil worth? How many dead kids?

[DeathvadeR]

25. sounds like Gulf War Syndrome II.............. n/t

[TrogL]

8. So...

:wtf: were they doing trying to take down a flag?

Was it shooting at them?

[Exultant Democracy]

16. Army intelligence...

Maybe God told them to do it, just like he told the Chimp to invade.

[Kat 333]

15. It is (was) their home .. not ours

This is far from the first instance of the US troops killing innocent Iraqis. It is happening daily - Still. It never hurts to think of what they may be going through as well. Having their sons, daughers, husbands, wives, children killed in an attack that was motivated by nothing more than greed, and an agenda by gentlemen (I use this term lightly) that are making even the people of Iraq realize that they were not the only country being led by a deceiptful, hateful, and dangerous regime.

[lfairban]

18. Welcome Kat!!

:toast:

[Voltaire99]

28. Beautifully put; this occupation is evil

You are quite right not to isolate this--anyone reading the world press knows that these atrocities have been piling up, malignancy upon malignancy. Excellent reporting in the Independent, the Guardian, and the Asia Times, to name but a few places, continues to document as much in vivid detail.

It's time we in the US and Britain lied less to ourselves. The extinction of Iraqi lives is neither an accident nor a rarity; it is a condition of occupation, well-seasoned by the preceding decade of exterminating sanctions. It will continue. When you've already killed a million, what's a few more?

[SoCalDem]

5. Paging Col. Kurtz....Paging Col. Kurtz

:eyes:

[IndianaGreen]

27. The crazy COL Water E. Kurtz would not have rankled the natives.

Sadr City, formerly known as Saddam City, is a Shiite stronghold in the otherwise Sunni Muslim-dominated capital.

"We're peaceful people, but one edict (from the imams) and the entire American Army will become our prisoner," said Hassan Azab, a member of the local district council.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20030813_2236.html

The Shiites are throwing rocks at the British in Basra, and now we are killing them in Baghdad.

The entire basis for the Shiite sect is a blood feud over the beheading in the 7th century of their founder, Imam Hazrat Hussein Bin Ali.

[Cocoa]

7. that naughy Sgt. Martin got caught in a lie

the U.S. military was lying in the faces of the "liberated" Iraqis, one of whom they just killed.

[ScrewyRabbit]

10. They shouldn't be inciting the crowd...

...by trying to tear down a banner. That's just stupid (to say nothing of undemocratic).

[arcane1]

11. please click the link and rate this story a 5!

if you are so inclined :-)

:hi:

[izzie]

13. Well I was wed to a sailor for a long time and the Rep was never the party

If the top lets them get away with this they will do it. No need to shot into people. Yes it is sure time to bring these guys home.

[QuietStorm]

12. This stress on Iraqi Anti-American Slogans

I don't know, if the Ba'ath Party dropped a ton of bombs on the heartland and then dropped down with all sorts of ideas how to reconstruct a new Iraqi America based in Islam, while it took over the oil industry in Texas, Calfornia, Alaska, etc.; middle American's, left without utilities because of the bombing, and the price gouging the inconvenience brought on from neighborhood AM/PM's, mightn't they in the heartland feel somewhat beseiged and eventually get grouchy enough to protest with arms and yell out anti-Iraqi slogans? The US media always makes it look like the Iraqi people are just being unreasonably impatient.

[SoCalDem]

14. Welcome to DU.. and yes ..you are exactly right

They keep saying.. It's ONLY been a little over a HUNDRED days..:eyes:

How would WE feel if we went without clean water, electricity, adequate food, and security for that long???


and what if our homes had been detroyed in the process, and we have ZERO MONEY and could not even go anywhere to escape it??


Our big shots just do not GET IT... We are little better than what they had under Saddam..

At least when HE was in charge, they spoke the same lanugage and as long as they kept a low profile, they had jobs, money, food, shelter..

[Karenina]

17. And they didn't have ill-tempered "furriners"

running wild in the streets maiming and killing their old folks and children...

[koopie57]

20. The other day at work

I was having lunch, two other ladies were in the room and the news was on. The reporter said something about our troops finding guns and ammunition in a home of an Iraqi. These two ladies looked at each other, one threw her arms up in the air and the other said, "Well, if they want to be like that then we should just keep bombing them!" And then the rolling of the eyes and nasty comments. I was dumb founded and I know my jaw almost hit the table. Even thinking about it now, it just, I don't know. I knew there were ignorant people out and about, but I had no idea just how ignorant some were. And these people whose job needs a good deal of intelligence. That is what blew me away the most.

[Minstrel Boy]

23. your post reminds me

of a song by NOFX:

"The Idiots Are Taking Over"

it's not the right time to be sober
now the idiots have taken over
spreading like a social cancer, is there an answer?

Mensa membership exceeding
tell me why and how are all the stupid people breeding
Watson, it's really elementary
the industrial revolution
has flipped the bitch on evolution
the benevolent and wise are being cornered, ostracized, what a bummer
the world keeps getting dumber
insensitivity is standard and faith is being fancied over reason

darwin's rolling over in his coffin
the fittest are surviving much less often
now everything seems to be reversing, and it's worsening
someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool
now angry mob mentality's no longer the exception, it's the rule
and im startin to feel a lot like charlton heston
stranded on a primate planet
apes and orangutans that ran it to the ground
with generals and the armies that obeyed them
followers following fables
philosophies that enable them to rule without regard

there's no point for democracy when ignorance is celebrated
political scientists get the same one vote as some Arkansas inbred
majority rule don't work in mental institutions
sometimes the smallest softest voice carries the grand biggest solutions

what are we left with?
a nation of god-fearing pregnant nationalists
who feel it's their duty to populate the homeland
pass on traditions
how to get ahead religions
And prosperity be a symbol to culture

the idiots are takin over

[Voltaire99]

29. Those impatient Iraqis!

Agreed--Americans would do the same thing, just as the colonized nearly always and everywhere do against the invader. Try to kill him. Try to throw him out.

But as you say:

"The US media always makes it look like the Iraqi people are just being unreasonably impatient."

Abou this, Edward Said wrote memorably the other day in the LA Times,

"Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate. These ideas are by no means shared by the people who inhabit that empire, but that hasn't prevented the U.S. propaganda and policy apparatus from imposing its imperial perspective on Americans..."

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0720-05.htm

[David__77]

19. I was wondering when the "Rodney King" factor would emerge.

Smart Iraqis would have camcorders to record any potential abuses for later airing to the world media. It's amazing what a few seconds of very graphic imagery can do. US propagandists know this more than anyone...

[jab105]

21. again with the winning of hearts and minds.....

n/t

[Devils Advocate NZ]

30. Hmmm.... See that sub machine gun that the man in the photo is holding?

That my friends is a British Sterling SMG. I wonder how this Iraqi came to be in possesion of a BRITISH weapon?

It even looks rather new, don't you think? It's certainly well looked after if it's not.