Scenes From An Iraki Childhood May 6th 2007
Isn’t this just heart warming? Does it not make you go “awwwwww ….how sweet?” 
A U.S. soldier greets children
during a joint raid
by U.S.-gzg forces on several
houses in Baghdad’s Sadr City May 6, 2007.
That picture is what America would like the world to see and to believe is happening behind those famous “protection” walls being built in Baghdad.
The reality is a little very different.
The reality is the second photo.The reality is that the Americans refuse to allow local people to search cars coming into the markets for bombs.
The bombing in Al Bai’aa south-west Baghdad today has killed at least 30 and wounded at least 80.
The market has been bombed repeatedly.
The reaility is the child you see in the second photograph standing in a pool of bloodied water going about his task of picking up pieces of dead human flesh and putting them into a bucket for decent disposal.
Perhaps we should be grateful that this time the Americans didn’t shoot any of the rescuers as they have done before so many times.
The reality is the American Salvador Option is surging ahead. It never went away.The reality is that the Americans are not even a little interested in Irakis uniting in peace.
Child with bucket and gloves reflected in
a pool of bloodied water in Al Bai’aa,
Baghdad. His task is to pick up pieces
of human being and put
them into the bucket for decent disposal.
(Photograph taken May 6th 2007
Al Bai’aa south-west Baghdad after the
bombing of Al Bai’aa market.)
The most recent proof of this their walls.
Behind those walls the Americans are doing as they will and to hell with the lives of innocent civilians.
In Adamhiya they are bombarding civilian homes using helicopter launched missiles. Such as can be seenin this photograph taken in Adhamiya the day after the American bombing of civilian residences on the night of April 23rd 2007..
In Adhamiya and Sadr City for several nights now the Americans have launched missile attacks from helicopters on densely populated civilian areas.
The Americans consistently refuse to comment on these attacks.
The reality is not some kindly American soldier shaking hands with some Iraki child.
The reality is the child standing in front of his shell and bullet riddled home after it was targeted by American troops during the night.
The reality is funeral after funeral after funeral for civilians who have been bombarded by American artillery and by American missiles.
The reality is that once the walls have been built the Americans will let their friends in and there will be no escape.
The reality is the Americans don’t care how many they kill.
They never have.
Child standing outside his bullet
riddled home Sadr city after
it was targeted during
the American night attack
of May 5th 2007
(Photograph taken May 6th 2007)
They never will.
They will not balk at further mass murders.
As they overextend more and more of them will behave like this:
WASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) - Only 40 percent of Marines and 55 percent of U.S. Army soldiers deployed in Iraq say they would report a fellow serviceman for killing or injuring an innocent Iraqi, a Pentagon report released on Friday shows.
The Army survey, which showed increasing rates of mental health problems for troops on extended or multiple deployments, also said well over one-third of soldiers and Marines believe torture should be allowed to elicit information that could save the lives of American troops or gain knowledge about Iraqi insurgents.
Overall, about 10 percent of the 1,320 soldiers and 447 Marines covered in the survey said they had mistreated civilians, either through physical violence or damage to their personal property. The survey was conducted by U.S. Army medical experts between Aug. 28 and Oct. 3, 2006.
“Soldiers with high levels of anger, who had experienced high levels of combat or who screened positive for mental health symptoms were nearly twice as likely to mistreat noncombatants,” acting Army Surgeon General Gale Pollock told reporters.
The findings, which included the first survey of ethics among U.S. troops in combat, were released Friday in an 89-page report posted on the Web site www.armymedicine.army.mil. It was delivered to senior military officials in November.
Claims of U.S. mistreatment of Iraqi detainees and civilians have shadowed American forces in Iraq from revelations of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in 2004 to reports of the Nov. 19, 2005, killing of 24 Iraqi civilians by Marines in Haditha.
EXTENDED TOURS
The survey data came out a month after Defense Secretary Robert Gates extended tours for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to up to 15 months instead of one year as U.S. forces increase their numbers in Iraq under a plan ordered by President George W. Bush.
The extended tours were widely seen as the latest sign of strain placed on the U.S. military by the two wars.
There are currently some 145,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 25,000 in Afghanistan. Bush’s plan calls for boosting the U.S. deployment in Iraq by 28,000 combat and support troops.
The report, the fourth prepared by the Army’s Mental Health Advisory Team since the war in Iraq began in 2003, showed that mental health problems such as acute stress, anxiety and depression rose among troops facing longer deployments or their second or third tour in Iraq.
Overall, about 20 percent of Army soldiers and 15 percent of Marines showed mental health symptoms of either anxiety, depression or acute stress. The rate was at 30 percent among troops with high combat experience.
Among Army soldiers, 27 percent of those with more than one tour of duty tested positive for a mental health problem, versus 17 percent for soldiers on their first deployment.
The rate of anxiety, depression and acute stress stood at 22 percent among soldiers deployed for more than six months and at 15 percent for troops in Iraq for less than six months.
Army experts recommended that the Pentagon extend the interval between deployments to 18 to 36 months so that troops could recover mentally.
Gates said last month that troops in the region covered by the U.S. Central Command — from East Africa to Central Asia — could expect to spend 12 months at home between deployments.
Source: Reuters AlertNet - US Marines unlikely to report civilian abuse -study
Why is everyone so shocked? As the Americans come under more pressure they will revert more and more to type. This is a colonial war against brown people. Attrocities are S.O.P.
The reality also is that the political war in Irak as various groups seek to position themselves for when the Americans are finally completely overextended is coming to an end. The reality is that the tribes of the South have offered to help the tribes of Al Anbar.
Mohammed Ibn Laith.
Saba Ali Iihsan
Indexed under: Al Anbar (Governorate), Babil (Governorate), Baghdad, Baghdad (Governorate), Baghdad Markets, Basrah, Bombings, Children, Diwaniyah, Diyala, Joint Postings, Sadr City, SIIC (Formerly SCIRI), Women and Children