I got an email this morning, my email address is easy enough to find if you’re prepared to put a bit of effort into to looking for it, from a total stanger in Phoenix Arizona who wanted to tell me how hurt her feelings were at my criticism of what her country is doing in Iraq. That it would all work out in the end, that America had brought freedom to Iraq and that Americans cared, really they care about the terrible things going on and that was why America had sacrificed and would continue to sacrifice so much in Iraq.
I wrote back asking her what she personally had done or had sacrificed I asked if for example she had emailed her Senators or Congresspeople or if she had ever donated to a charity for relieving the suffering in Iraq.
Melanie wrote back saying no she hadn’t done any of those things and she wasn’t going to vote in the next election either because “they’re all the same” and she doesn’t think any of them will do anything about “these people” “overruinning (sic) my country”.
Feelings: Pain Grief and Dread
- Haider Ali is 11 years old he was injured yesterday Tuesday, May 16th, 2006 in the bus terminal bombing in Baghdad and treated at Yarmouk hospital. The hand holding his is that of his father Swadi Ali.
- The grief stricken teenage boy being led away from Yarmouk hospital has just identified his father’s body - killed in the same bombing.
- The woman gesturing anxiously is on her way to the Kindi hospital in Baghdad. Her son Ali was at the bus terminal when the bombing and shooting attack was committed. According to another email I got this morning. She wasn’t able to find him
Meanwhile in Basra ….
“One person is being assassinated in Basra every hour, as order in Iraq’s second city disintegrates, according to an Iraqi Defence Ministry official.
And a quarter of all Iraqi children suffer from malnutrition, a survey of 20,000 households by the Iraqi government and Unicef says.
The number of violent killings in Basra is now at a level close to that of Baghdad, and marks the failure of the British Army’s three-year attempt to quell violence there. Police no longer dare go to the site of a murder because they fear being attacked. The governor of Basra, Mohammed Misbahal-Wa’ili, is trying to sack the city’s police chief, claiming that the police have not carried out a single investigation into hundreds of recent assassinations.
The collapse of government authority in Iraq is increasing at every level and leaders in Baghdad have yet to form a cabinet, five months after parliamentary elections on 15 December.
Insurgent attacks on American and British troops are also proving more lethal, with 44 US soldiers and seven British killed so far this month, and with daily losses exceeding anything seen for more than a year.
Majid al-Sari, an adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, describing the situation in Basra to the daily al-Zaman, said that on average one person was being assassinated every hour. Militiamen and tribesmen are often the only real authority. When Sheikh Hassan Jarih al-Karamishi was killed by men dressed in police uniforms at the weekend, Mr Sari said his heavily armed armed tribesmen stormed one police station in south Basra, killing 11 police, and burnt down two other buildings, headquarters for a political party.”
UK Independent
Today Wed May 17, 2006 the bodies of the two Attey brothers - Abbas who was aged 12 and his brother Hussein who was aged 8, both of whom were murdered yesterday in the bombing in Baghdad were put into a single coffin and tied down to the roofrack of a bus bound for Najaf so that they could be buried in the Wadi-us-Salaam (”Valley of Peace”) cemetary. Najaf is dedicated to Imam Ali, the Wadi is where Imam Ali is buried it’s probably the largest cemetery in the world, because most Iraqi Shi’i ask that they be buried there. Now it holds two more bodies scythed down in their innocent blood at the behest of the United States the country which has invaded, occupied, and is now breaking up Iraq the country which was their home. In related news the most emailed stories on Yahoo News As I was writing this posting were:
Feelings: Pain, Grief, Dread, Indifference, Contempt.
Dear Melanie,
I don’t give a flying fuck about your feelings.
Yours sincerely,
markfromireland
I gather Melanie will no longer be frequenting your site - haven’t you perfected that email where a hand comes out and slaps you - I could really make a lot of use of that!
I also invited her to tag along my next trip. For some strange reason she hasn’t replied.
MFI,
The wheel turns too slowly for some. Things are crumbling but no one seems to notice. Hope you’re not posted to Somalia of Darfur. But, if you are, good luck.
Neither of those places Doc and it won’t be for a while anyway as I’m still getting beaten up on a daily basis by a team of Genghis Khan wannabes … EEK! … I mean getting physiotherapy and will be for another month or so. Even when I do head off it’ll be for a short trip just a few weeks to see what’s what.
Ah go on Gor head off there instead you haven’t been shot at by the Chinese yet and it’ll make a refreshing change from the usual sh*gg*rs
Yeah go on Gor go there instead and when you come back you can tell us if Chinese lawnmowers sound different to Israeli ones.
(And a big thanks to dr. c who in all innocence has given us an unpassble up opportunity to slag Gor rotten.)
I’m arriving at the party fashionably late in a cloud of two stroke smoke ;-) What’s to eat?
Yawl lissen up reel good now d’ya heer?
I am an anonymous inbread redneck coward who is to dumb to work out what an IP address is. I’ve never served a day in my life and I shore weeyush I haad ay dicshunairee ‘cos while I can rede I caint spel vairy wel. Not that that reely matters to sumun like me two lazy and too stupid even to think up a name. Well sheeeut it reely riles me when peeple like that Irish guy who unlike me reely does know the country and its peopel and unlike me reely does no what its like to be a soldier. Well it jus riles me thas all. So i cum here and I tell reel clever lies like that I a medical office hoo spent the las month in Baghdad oooooh lookee lookee I spelt it right for once.
Sheeyut wear wuz I?????
Caint member rightly wair I wuz. Thinkin don’ cum natchrul wen ur a 16f. shore as hayull hope that reel medical officers hav a bedder standard than mee. Ya know sumtimes I jest git so skeered that a reel merkun soldier will reed what I type in heer an wurk out hoo i am I meen i jes wish one of ‘em would say sumtin to me sted uv “neel down” that wey i cud get my lies a little better like the how long a medical officer serves. an it shore wud be nice if i cud find out if its reely true that none of ‘em serve in the Baghdad huzpitals. but ya know it ain’t so bad cuz there allus some kind hearted person who dun know what a lyin liddle fool eyeam an who noes mebbe i’ll ged away wit it jus this unce. shore wud lak to get me sum more muny from that grand ol partee wishun dey’d pay better than two bits still its better than i get doin the udder stuff
Melanie will probably drink from the Kool Aid trough again to refuel her inane remarks. I am so sorry for all the grieving victims of this violence that we have wreaked. We must stop. ;(
anon– thank you for your service!
That 12 yr old was defending his right to eat, protect his family and survive. I know you were ordered in by your leaders and trained to kill, but turn it around– what would you do at 12 yrs old? What would you do at 80 yrs? “They” are no different. You have lost the peace with your wrong- headed, dehumanizing statements. Recover well, young man.
Angie bless your kind heart that anoymous that you responded to:
Well lets be fair …. it is remotely vaguely very very slightly possible that there’s more than one person who:
Always comes in from the same ip-block.
Who always makes the same typos.
Who always makes the same grammar errors.
Who always gets the identical details wrong time and time again (such as for example the little fool doesn’t know which hospitals real US medics serve in.)
And who always shills the identical lies at other places too.
This submoron even tried on my main forum until I banned him at the unanimous request of all the real US forces personnel registered there and who come there to discuss matters in a civilised way.
They find this idiotic lieing little dweeb’s attempts to prostitute the way in which the majority of real US soldiers try to serve their country with honour, decency, and bravery bloody offensive. They know that there are liars who whore that honour and decency and bravery out without compunction and it really fucks them off and you know what? It really fucks me off too.
Usually I keep moderation on here so that decent honourable people like them and you don’t have to read that sort of crap. Trolling of this substandard variety had died down recently so I forgot to turn moderation back on, my bad, and sure enough the slimey little scumbags come snifing round again like pigs in shit.
Hey ho looks like I’d better turn moderation back on.
Listen “anonymous” or “taylor” or “jeff” or “gold star boy” or “lonestar goldstar” “NOLA veteran” or “grunt100″ or whatever the fuck you’re calling youself today. The reason why you have an inferiority complex that you need to masturbate regularly by hanging out here and other places where people who really have served come to read and spewing your unbelievably dimwitted lies is because you are inferior just like the other draft-dodging cowards whoring out the country, America, that real American soldiers try to serve.
And you know what else? Every time I turn off moderation you come here and try this mentally deficient crap and you get caught every single fucking time because you’re not only a miserable abject failure morally you’re a miserable abject failure intellectually too.
Now piss off loser.
Wayne - thanks for the heads up sorry you had to read that crap.
Note to the trolls. I don’t know what’s wrong with that single solitary brain cell you’ve got left but get used to it - every time you try this crap either I or one of the real soldiers who come here will re-write your comments. Whoever it was who told you that it’s not possible to trex a troll on blogger was either as stupid as you, or as untruthful as you, or as technologically subliterate as you, or as cowardly as you, or of course all four combined into one snivelling little package.
Thanks for the fun - now get back on your knees open your mouths and get back to making an honest living it’s what your best at, it’s a socially useful service and it stops you from talking.
Y’awl have a nice day now d’ya hear?
I dun seen that thar aynonymouse comment afor an I dun thin to maself, ah best hury up ans get me sum popcorn as da shows gunna be startin reel soon.
An it did by golly gum. Ownee problem now is I gunna have to spen sum time cleanin up da popcorn ah spraid roun da room. Sheeit, wot a mes.
I welcome disagreement and debate a pack of blatantly stupid lies coupled with blatant racism (and subliterate spelling) gets right up my nose.
As usual I get here too late to join in the fun.
ROFLOL Griffon, we’ll send Declan over to capture and train some dropbears to do the housework and gardening for you :-)
just sittin’ back watching the master trex tricks
Mark, abowt doz dropbears - nah, yuo dont need to bother, Declan now. Nah ah, really. No pleez dont. No, no, no.
I al cleen it up maself. I dont need no hep, reely. Seee, I got it haf dun olredy.
(I don’t know whether I’m more afraid of Declan, now, or the bloody dropbears!)