posted on January 28, 2005 11:50:31 AM new
Insurgents Warn Iraqis Not to Vote
Updated 1:31 PM ET January 28, 2005
By ROBERT H. REID
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Insurgents killed five American soldiers in separate attacks Friday in Baghdad and blasted more polling stations across the country, sending a message that if Iraqis suffer deaths and injuries on election day, "you have only yourselves to blame."
A U.S. Army OH-58 Kiowa helicopter crashed Friday night in southwestern Baghdad, U.S. officials said. There was no word on the fate of the crew. Four Iraqi police were killed in a car bombing in Baghdad.
With crucial national elections only two days away, Iraqi officials announced the arrests of three more purported lieutenants of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, including the Jordanian terror mastermind's military adviser and chief of operations in Baghdad.
Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh told reporters that U.S. and Iraqi authorities were closing in on al-Zarqawi, head of al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq who is believed responsible for many of the car-bombings, kidnappings and decapitations of foreigners in Iraq.
Despite Saleh's assurances, al-Zarqawi's group posted a new Web message Friday warning Iraqis that they could get hit by shelling or other attacks if they approach polling stations, which it called "the centers of atheism and of vice."
"We have warned you, so don't blame us. You have only yourselves to blame," it said.
Sunni Arab extremists have vowed to disrupt Sunday's national elections, in which Iraqis will choose a 275-member National Assembly and provincial councils in the country's 18 provinces. Iraqis in the Kurdish-ruled north will chose a new regional parliament.
Officials fear a low turnout in Sunday's vote _ particularly among Sunni Arabs _ could tarnish the legitimacy of the new government.
Expatriate Iraqis began casting ballots amid tight security in early voting in 14 countries from Australia to Sweden to the United States.
In Baghdad, U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte insisted some Sunnis will turn out to vote. "Sunnis don't only live in some of these beleaguered provinces, they live here in Baghdad, they live in other parts of the country," Negroponte said on CBS's "The Early Show." "I think you're going to see participation across the board."
Nevertheless, opposition to the election appears strong in Sunni areas, and many voters there are expected to stay away, either out of disgust over the process or fear of the insurgents.
In the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, residents said the rebels decapitated six Iraqis from the majority Shiite community Friday. Shiites, who comprise 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people, are expected to turn out in large numbers for the election in hopes of gaining power after generations of suppression by minority Shiites.
American soldiers have fanned out from their base at the western edge of the capital to take up positions at smaller garrisons throughout the city so they can respond quickly in case of major attacks on election day.
Insurgents, meanwhile, stepped up their own attacks, killing the five American soldiers in three separate strikes in northern, western and southern Baghdad, according to the U.S. command. More than 1,411 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since fighting began in March 2003.
American troops and insurgents exchanged fire on a major Baghdad thoroughfare. The crackle of gunfire could be heard over the noon call to prayer. U.S. fighter jets thundered through the skies over Baghdad throughout the morning in a show of force against the militants.
Those measures, however, have not been enough to stop the violence. A suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle Friday in Baghdad's Doura neighborhood, killing four Iraqi policemen. Hours later, another car bomb exploded on the neighborhood's main road, damaging a school where voters are to cast ballots Sunday. No one was hurt.
Elsewhere, insurgents hit designated polling centers in at least six major cities across the country. Gunmen attacked a school to be used as a polling station in Kirkuk, killing one policeman, officials said.
Bombs blasted three more schools designated as polling sites in the city of Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad. A mortar shell landed on a house close to a school believed to be used as polling site in Ramadi, wounding two women and two children, a hospital doctor said.
In southern Iraq, a roadside bomb hit an Iraqi police vehicle, killing one officer and wounding three others, said police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaydi. The attack occurred in the town of Zubair, south of the port city of Basra.
Also Friday, insurgents shelled a U.S. Marine base south of Baghdad, injuring three American troops and three civilians, the military said.
The arrested al-Zarqawi associates included Salah Suleiman al-Loheibi, the head of his group's Baghdad operation, who met with al-Zarqawi more than 40 times over three months, said Qassim Dawoud, a top security adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
Dawoud said Ali Hamad Yassin al-Issawi, another associate, was also captured. Dawoud said the two arrests took place in mid-January but gave few details.
Also captured was al-Zarqawi's military adviser, a 31-year-old Iraqi named Anad Mohammed Qais, 31, said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh.
"We are getting close to finishing off al-Zarqawi and we will get rid of him," Saleh said.
posted on January 28, 2005 02:00:10 PM new
I hope that everyone that prays...will say a little prayer for our troops in Iraq. As Sunday draws nearer. We see reports of the voting places, usually their own schools, that are being blown up. They're doing all they can to stop this election from happening. I pray it's not as bad a day for our troops as some have predicted it might be. God Bless each and every one of them.
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Then a little on the biased reporting about this war....how our troops AREN'T honored for their successes....we're only hearing, mostly from the liberals, of their deaths.
--
Bias evident in coverage of Iraq war
By Thomas Sowell
January 27, 2005
THERE ARE still people in the mainstream media who profess bewilderment that they are accused of being biased. But you need to look no further than reporting on the war in Iraq to see the bias staring you in the face, day after day, on the front page of The New York Times and in much of the rest of the media.
If a battle ends with Americans killing a hundred guerrillas and terrorists, while sustaining 10 fatalities, that is an American victory. But not in the mainstream media. The headline is more likely to read: "Ten More Americans Killed in Iraq."
This kind of journalism can turn victory into defeat. Kept up long enough, it can even end up with real defeat, when support for the war collapses at home and abroad.
One of the biggest American victories during World War II was called "the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" because American fighter pilots shot down more than 340 Japanese planes over the Mariana Islands while losing just 30 American planes. But what if our current reporting practices had been used back then? The story, as printed and broadcast, could have been: "Today, 18 American pilots were killed and five more severely wounded as the Japanese blasted more than two dozen American planes out of the sky." A steady diet of that kind of one-sided reporting and our whole war effort against Japan might have collapsed.
Whether the one-sided reporting of the war in Vietnam was a factor in the American defeat there used to be a matter of controversy. But in recent years, high officials of the Communist government of Vietnam have admitted that they lost the war on the battlefields but won it in the U.S. media and on the streets of America, where political pressures from the anti-war movement threw away the victory for which thousands of American lives had been sacrificed.
Too many in the media today regard the reporting of the Vietnam War as one of their greatest triumphs. It certainly showed the power of the media - but also its irresponsibility. Some in the media today seem determined to recapture those glory days by the way they report on events in the Iraq war.
First, there is the mainstream media's almost exclusive focus on American casualties in Iraq, with little or no attention to the often much larger casualties inflicted on the enemy. Since terrorists are pouring into Iraq in response to calls from international terrorist networks, the number of those killed is especially important, for these are people who will no longer be around to launch more attacks on American soil.
With all the turmoil and bloodshed in Iraq, military and civilian people returning from that country are increasingly expressing amazement at the difference between what they have seen and the one-sided picture that the media present to the public here.
Our media cannot even call terrorists "terrorists," but instead give these cutthroats the bland name "insurgents." You might think that these were like the Underground fighters in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II.
Real insurgents want to get the occupying power out of their country. But the fastest way to get Americans out of Iraq would be to do the opposite of what these "insurgents" are doing. Just by letting peace and order return, those who want to see American troops gone would speed their departure.
. But the real goal of the guerrillas and terrorists is to prevent democracy from arising in the Middle East.
Still, much of the Western media even cannot call a spade a spade. The Fourth Estate sometimes seems more like a Fifth Column. --
Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, writes a syndicated column that appears Thursdays in The Sun.
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Four More Years....YES!!!
[ edited by Linda_K on Jan 28, 2005 02:03 PM ]
posted on January 28, 2005 02:09:25 PM new
It's the media's fault for not showing the real Iraq? So there's no news station that has privy to real pictures or video of what's really happening? So this is all just one big conspiracy to hide the good stuff going on there?
posted on January 28, 2005 02:18:24 PM new
Yes, KD
[i]With all the turmoil and bloodshed in Iraq, military and civilian people returning from that country are increasingly expressing amazement at the difference between what they have seen and the one-sided picture that the media present to the public here.
And any internet site that does give the good and the successes we've accomplished are labeled as 'rags' by the anti-war group who ONLY wants to focus on our dead soldiers...who uses their deaths for their anti-war agenda.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Four More Years....YES!!!
posted on January 28, 2005 02:29:39 PM new
Ha! linduh, if you only were a better English student you would realize what your statement says,
"i]With all the turmoil and bloodshed in Iraq, military and civilian people returning from that country are increasingly expressing amazement at the difference between what they have seen and the one-sided picture that the media present to the public here."
It says almost exactly the opposite of what you mean.......we DON'T see all the turmoil and bloodshed, the American media cleans up those pictures .........and presents the one-sided picture to the public.......and that's why those people are amazed........
Comprehension was never your strong suit.
By the way who are you quoting or have you interviewed dozens of people coming back from Iraq all by yourself??????
posted on January 28, 2005 02:33:13 PM new
And, linduh, since you don't like to be reminded of the people who gave us the greatest sacrifice why don't you petition your congressman to abolish Memorial Day.
posted on January 28, 2005 03:01:38 PM new
Linda, I want to hear about the success stories. I'm sick of hearing about the non-ending violence, destruction and death. I hate seeing the car bombs and the fear in everyone's eyes as much as anyone, but where are the success stories? What unbiased news channel reports them so I can watch that channel? I've asked about the reconstruction Bush & Co. claimed was taking place but got no response here and couldn't find anything on google. What's a person like me suppose to think?
posted on January 28, 2005 03:11:08 PM new
The number of American Troops being killed and wounded in Iraq won't stop with the Iraq elections. Nor will the 300 Billion in U.S. dollars being spent stop. I will say several PRAYERS for our Troops and America under this MORON.
posted on January 28, 2005 03:43:42 PM new
I think it's all too sad. I don't like that we are there, not one little bit. However, what is happening to those who want to vote is outrageous. I think Bush was all wrong about going over there, but now that we have it's important that these people see what freedom is. Is is not? Put aside your feelings about Bush for one moment and just think about the men, women and children over there who want nothing more than to vote for the first time in years. This could be an exciting time for them, but we know all to well that it will not be.
What a shame.
Cheryl
"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." ~ P.J. O'Rourke
posted on January 28, 2005 04:17:01 PM new
KD - Linda, I want to hear about the success stories. lol I don't really think you do. I have posted numerous "Good News" threads....all of which the liberals here mocked. They didn't want to hear any good news....just wanted to focus, as my article points out, on the negative...not the successes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Four More Years....YES!!!
posted on January 28, 2005 05:12:13 PM new
Something I find interesting is how little discussion (in the media as a whole - not here) there is about statements like:
"We have warned you, so don't blame us. You have only yourselves to blame,"
Like terrorists are somehow absolved from killing innocent people because, hey, they warned them not to vote. The same mindset prevails when some talk about 9/11. Its really sickening.
.......we DON'T see all the turmoil and bloodshed, the American media cleans up those pictures .........and presents the one-sided picture to the public.......and that's why those people are amazed........
??????