Today’s main posting is here as the title suggests it deals with the death of three British mercenaries reported killed in Iraq.
This posting covers some technicalaspects of the bombing that caused their deaths. The bombing was at Al-Suwaira (a town south of Baghdad). According to the local police they were killed when when a tire of the car they were in exploded. Take a look at the photo. Take a second look maybe this composite with helpful added pointer will help:
I gather they’ve now retracted that claim. I’m going to pretend I believe it was made in good faith and not by a group of men terrified that they’d be blamed, terrified for their lives, and casting about desperately for a plausible lie. The awful thing is they’re going to be blamed anyway. The even more awful thing is that in that town they do actually try against insuperable odds to do their job and now they’re between the proverbial rock and hard place. God have pity on them nobody else will.
markfromireland
PS: Happy third anniversary of a heckuva a job getting the mission accomplished. Heckuva a job.
mfi
No tag for this post.
Damn it, we’ve got to get them out of there. How do we push the UN to become more involved? You would think that the BushCo Administration would grasp at any straw at this point.
They’re convinced they’re right. They’re convinced that these are just temporary difficulties. Their friends are making a fortune. They want double or quits They want a spring board into Iran. They’re busy ramping up the presence of military “advisors” into Lebanon. I just want to get sick.
Bush only wants to get out if we assume the plan all along was to “liberate” or “democratize” or whathaveyou - but if the plan was to establish a “beachhead” with permanent bases and control of oil supply, then the chaos and bloodshed are inconsequential to Bush’s plans - his goal is being achieved (fortress bases, an embassy the size of a small country, etc). That said, I do wonder why there is not more pushback from other countries or the UN …is it a sit back and watch the US eff itself or is it powerlessness or vicarious desire to see the middle east “managed” on someone else’s dime with no concern for the people there? I keep waiting for calls to drag W in irons to the Hague … it’s our only hope I fear.
*P.S. Happy third anniversary of a heckuva a job getting the mission accomplished. Heckuva a job.*
So, I see you remembered too, Mark.
Oh believe me Richard it’s not the sort of thing I forget. At a minimum tens of thousands of innocents scythed down. torture, rape, looting, corruption on a massive scale, deliberate destructuon of archaelogical sites of world importance, mutilation of children and other civilians, uncounted warcrimes, occupying troopps using children as human shields, denial of food, water, medicine, to entire civilian populations, deliberately fomenting civil war, deliberate attacks upon hospitals, deliberate destruction of places of worship, rape both homo and heterosexual, trading photographs of dead Iraqis for access to pornographic sites, these to name but a few.
It’ll be a cold day in hell before I forget this “anniversary.”
It’s also another anniversary - Beltane
Beltane is Beáltaine [Byowltineh]and is the name for May in Irish Griffon so you can see where it came from. It’s actually Lá Beáltaine [Law Byowltineh = May 1st] and Mí na Bealtaine “month of
August is spelt Lughnasadh or Lúnasa depending on dialect but pronounced and November is Samhain although I grew up saying “Mí na Samhna” [ Me na howna - “The month of Sowinn” {as in female pig}] as well. - How ’bout you grania did you learn it as both?
AFAIK the Irish calendar is the only extant pre-Christian calendar in Europe and it’s equinoctally and solstice centered IOW the seasons begin about halfway between equinox and solstice. open to correction on that - maybe the basques? But AFAIK we’re the only Europeans still using a pre-christian seasons/calendar.
I’d missed this first time around. A ‘good American’ friend & fellow blogger Tom Rushing who runs ‘Current Era’ reminds us all of all the pathetic lies spewed at the time by the Prince of Darkness, Richard Perle re: Mission Accomplished.
It’s well worth a visit to see the sort of stupid sh*t he spouted.