posted on June 29, 2003 02:49:20 PM new
Saddness is, and Saddness will grow for all, therefore ONE MUST IMPEACH BUSH and his ADMINISTRATION, before it is too late, AND BRING BACK THE SOLDIERS FROM IRAQ
Death on the road to Basra
By Tristana Moore
BBC correspondent in Basra
It is another sweltering day in Iraq. The temperature gauge in our car says it is 48C outside - but our translator, Wissam, says it is far hotter than that.
We left Baghdad several hours ago. We are driving along the motorway built during Saddam Hussein's rule linking the capital with Iraq's second-largest city, Basra.
The road stretches ahead of us - a long straight line - the desert lying on either side. The only sign of life is the odd Bedouin herding his camels.
The land is arid and inhospitable. Every so often, there is a picnic stop by the side of the road. It seems incongruous in the desert.
It was indeed the body of a young boy, his blood-soaked clothes scattered across the road
We pass a number of American military convoys all heading towards Baghdad.
The Americans have set up bases along the motorway signalling the occupation is settling in. As we drive further south, Baghdad seems a world away.
It is a long journey - I feel exhausted, my cameraman is nodding off beside me.
Dark discovery
I still do not know why it caught my eye, why I looked ahead when I did - but I glimpsed a dark shape lying in the middle of the road.
The driver swerved to avoid it, braking sharply. As we passed I looked through window and caught sight of a body. Not the body of an animal, but the body of a child.
I asked the driver to stop, and we drove back. It was indeed the body of a young boy, his blood-soaked clothes scattered across the road. A few metres away, a girl is crying, screaming. She is inconsolable.
The Americans have set up bases along the motorway signalling the occupation is settling in
We see an American soldier and ask him to call for help. Ten minutes later, officers from the US Military Police turn up. In the blazing sun, a crowd is now gathering.
The girl is still crying - her name is Sabrina, she is 13 years old. She is barefoot and wears a ragged dress. She has dark eyes and long, brown hair.
She tells me how she saw her 11-year-old brother, Muhannad, had run up to an American military convoy trying to sell something to the soldiers, but was run over as he crossed the road.
The Americans did not stop.
Tension
The news of this terrible accident spreads quickly. In the distance, a group of women dressed in black are running across the desert towards the road.
The women are crying, wailing for their lost child. The men hold them back. A child beats his head on the ground until it starts bleeding. The unmistakable smell of death lingers in the air.
"Look, this is going to get tense," I overhear an American soldier telling one of his colleagues. "We have to get the body out of here."
The US soldiers look nervous. They are wearing full body armour and carry rifles ready for action.
I thought the Americans came here to protect us and give us security, instead there is death and more suffering, said the dead child's mother
"We can't take any chances," one soldier tells me, sweating profusely.
I engage him in conversation. He tells me he is from New York, his name is Al and he is married with three children.
"I've been in the Gulf for five months and I'm tired of all of this" he says. "We have become a target now. All I want to do is to go back to my family."
As he is talking he scans the crowd that has surrounded us. He is a worried man.
'Why?'
With grief comes anger and, soon, the young boy's relatives are hurling abuse at the Americans.
They are Shia Muslims, persecuted by Saddam Hussein. After the war, many of them welcomed the coalition forces but now they blame the Americans.
"I thought they came here to protect us and give us security," the dead boy's mother says.
She looks at the body of her son, which has been covered by a blanket. Tears run down her face. Another woman kneels down, she is frustrated.
"I can't understand - why has this happened?" she asks.
A few minutes later, the boy's father lifts the body into the boot of a car. The father is crying as he drives off to the hospital morgue.
My translator, Wissam, is furious.
"Why didn't the Americans stop when they saw they'd run over the child?" he asks me.
Why indeed ?
Wissam takes off his baseball cap and angrily waves his arms at the American soldiers - some of them can only be around 18. They seem too young to be here.
As we finally drive on, my mind flashes back to the image of the little boy lying in the road and his relatives weeping inconsolably with a haunting expression in their eyes.
In losing their child, they have lost their faith in the foreign faces which occupy their land.
posted on June 29, 2003 05:17:56 PM new
They didn't stop because when you stop it just leaves you a target so they can open up on you with RPG's
They don't know not to walk in front of a truck at eleven?
Somebody TOLD the kid to stop the convoy.
posted on June 29, 2003 05:40:16 PM new
There is no peace in Iraq. Now there is a guerrilla war in which at least 63 Americans have died since victory was declared, May 1.
"By last week the number of incidents had risen to two dozen a day, and Iraqi ambushes were growing in effectiveness and range. At least six soldiers have been killed since Wednesday. The enemy also managed to cut off power and water in Baghdad with sabotage attacks and killed several Iraqi civilians working to restore electricity."
posted on June 29, 2003 06:04:07 PM new
Yes that is correct Helen; you and the rest of the anti-war protestors should look in the mirror everyday it occurs and say "I did this"... feel proud we are trying to keep it "nice"...
posted on June 29, 2003 06:48:24 PM new
12
So hard to believe that atrocities are committed in time of war.
What did you do when you went to war, at a time of high tension and anger and yes in spite of training, confusion, when sudden threat is perceived, I don’t believe that men will suddenly make the ‘right’ choice, but the life preserving choice.
You have told us that to be gay is an abomination, but to kill a child is not??? or don’t you believe that any children are killed at all.
How can you suggest its right, and yet still believe that a Palestinian at war with Israel that kills an Israeli child is wrong.
You seem to have a double standard or at least show that you do.
If you don’t have a double standard then you are at least lying to conceal the truth that your side can do wrong too.
We have ‘advanced’ much since Vietnam, as a society, and learnt not to blame the grunts but someone is to blame, these are not naturally occurring phenomena. Leaders place humans with ‘predictable’ behaviour in to these situations.
Our leaders knew that we wouldn’t be out of there in 3 weeks, that we wouldn’t be greeted with flowers, that children would be killed, that atrocities would be committed.
Wether you believe this war is just or not, the killing of innocents is wrong, it’s abhorrent, it ranks up there with paedophilia ‘at least’.
You seem to think that patriotism means the acceptance of crimes against another.
We can accept or acknowledge that ‘crimes’ will be committed in war, this is not because of riotousness but because of weakness.
You refuse to even CONSIDER that your side could be in the wrong, this is arrogance or ignorance,
You are either blind or devoid of compassion.
The ‘hawks’ claim that the ‘doves’ are all ‘negative’ looking at the worst, and yet they scream for defence against evil continuously, they are the ones promoting fear/paranoia they are the ones that got us to where we are today, they are the ones that took us to war, they are responsible for the killing of men women and children and entire civilisations.
Why don’t they encourage modderation, compromise.
They give saddam chemical weapons, then wait 10 years for their shelf-life to expire and use 9/11 as a ‘blessed’ excuse to do their deed.
For what!
Cheaper oil! To maintain their dominant position.
They are the paranoid, they are weak, and they will fall and take the rest of us down with them.
Is there any hope left???
Hell no!
Not as long as we let these hawks rule the roost.
Shame on you 12 for laughing at the death of a child.
posted on June 29, 2003 06:54:48 PM new
Austbounty... As someone already pointed out... you don't just stop... that boy should of known better to run out in front of the vehicles...
They have started their guerrila warfare and that means playing "nice" will get good men killed...
... better one Iraqi boy, than any American Soldier.
I will add that I do not believe the story as written... believe it is several stories taken out of context.
AIN'T LIFE GRAND...
[ edited by Twelvepole on Jun 29, 2003 06:55 PM ]
posted on June 29, 2003 07:26:17 PM new
“better one Iraqi boy, than any American Soldier.”
And that’s because you are an American not because it’s ‘right’.
Believe it or not Americans can do ‘wrong’ too.
You don’t seem to have trouble saying that when you know that they are liberals.
posted on June 29, 2003 08:05:16 PM new
Don’t call it aid, it implies compassion and philanthropy, it isn’t aid it is buying your way, it is a bribe and the threat of removing it is blackmail.
It isn’t humanitarian aid, it’s human corruption.
Israel doesn’t need your aid more than you, you child mortality rates are higher than theirs.
12
“Austbounty... As someone already pointed out... you don't just stop... that boy should of known better to run out in front of the vehicles...”
Well surely then you would agree that America should have kept out of the Israel/Palestine thing and America wouldn’t have been hit.
You had no problem saying that the Israeli attack on the USS Cole was deserved;
You are clearly not using logic, but just prejudice.
You base your claims on lies.
There is no debating from you, just lies.
There is no way to curb your action but to attack, and this is what our leaders invite/necessitate from ‘the other side’.
Don’t sit here claiming to be ‘just’, admit that you are a liar or we can only accept that you are a fool.
The boy’s intent may well have been honourable, but our (leaders’) intent for being in the region was not.
I believe you claimed that the reasons for being there were to remove WOMD and to liberate the people of Iraq.
Clearly you have little or no concern for the people or you wouldn't say the loss of one American isn’t worth it, so that was a lie.
Clearly you have found no WOMD.
The burden of proof is on you, we can not possibly show you some-thing to prove the existence of no-thing. (logic 101)
posted on June 29, 2003 08:14:52 PM new
As I have said before, WOMD quite possibly have been moved to another country... Hussien fully expected us to not continue in the invasion and would of stopped short of Baghdad... well guess what... we didn't..
We are looking and until every grain of sand has been turned over... I will not say there are not or were not WOMD there...
Syria and Iran should know that we will not tolerate any interfernce from them... we can and should take them out also...
Fortunately there are more of "me" in this world than there are of "you"...
posted on June 29, 2003 08:40:44 PM new
As I said 12
The burden of proof is on you, we can not possibly show you some-thing to prove the existence of no-thing. (logic 101)
You are wrong, there are more of me than of you.
Most of the world opposed this war, as did most Americans before the spin-doctors started their B.S.
I think it's also becoming clear that most Americans and us and our Parliaments seem to resent the fact that they were taken there on the strength of ‘trust’ of their leadership and that our action was based on lies. (not that most of us even got a choice)
They are fear mongers and warmongers and in both cases they have done a bad thing.
For those that are more biblically inclined, they have done an evil thing.
