Americans Bomb School 7 Children Dead 3 Wounded.
An American helicopter has bombed a primary school in Mindli, a town in Diyala governorate 75 km north-east of Baqubah.
Aswat al Iraq have published an both an Arabic and an English account of this attack by the Americans on a school. There are no significant differences between the English and Arabic versions. The text below is from the English version:
U.S. helicopter kills seven students, injures three in Diala
By Aasem TahaBaaquba, May 8, (VOI)- A U.S. chopper shelled on Tuesday a primary school in Mindli town, killing seven students and injuring three others, eyewitnesses and medical sources said.
“The Mindli hospital received seven bodies and three wounded of a primary school’s students,” a medical source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) over the phone.
“A U.S. helicopter shelled Al-Saada primary school, killing seven students and injuring three,” the source said, adding no further details.
An eyewitness confirmed the news by saying that
“a U.S. chopper bombarded the school while students and teachers were still there and the blasts rattled the town. We rushed to the scene to rescue victims.”
No comment was available from the U.S. army on the incident.
Baaquba is the capital city of Diala province. It is located 57 km west of Baghdad.
Source: Aswat al Iraq
Analysis
It is a war crime to bomb children in a school. Not that that would ever stop the Americans. Murdering children particularly in that area of that governorate is not how you make friends and influence people. It is how you go about absolutely guaranteeing that those who were beginning to give some information and help to your forces start helping the resistance with redoubled enthusiasm.
I expect to see escalated reprisal attacks both against American and green zone forces in the area. I don’t expect the rapprochement with local tribes that the Americans were starting to have will continue. 10 for is the usual ratio for revenge killings in such circumstances.
Omar Khdhayyir
Indexed under: Aswat Al Iraq - News, Baqubah, Children, Diyala, Women and Children
Before I say the following, let me be up-front and make clear that I think the U.S. invasion was (and is) an moronic, ill-concieved and illegal action. The death of innocent children by so-called “friendly fire” is even less excuseable and horrific.
But I do have one question that keeps nagging at me:
If Saddam Hussein was the nasty, brutal dictator (along with his two psychotic sons) that everyone says he was…..then who’s responsibility was it to remove him from office? And more importantly…WHY was it not done?
It seems to me that there’s all kinds of so-called brave young men in Iraq now (”insurgents”) who’ve come out of the woodwork to take on the Americans and all of their technological toys, and yet, where were these “brave” fighters during Saddam’s reign? If he was so bad, why were there no IED’s planted on the roads? Why were there no snipers laying in wait for him? Where were all the suicide bombers who could have been driving right into his palace to blow him up? See my point?
When a whole segment of people live under a tyrants’ rule AND it is, in fact, a hardship to do so…..then it is the responsibility—morally and ethically—of THOSE PEOPLES to deal with that tyrant.
It is NOT the responsibility of some 19-year-old from Kentucky to pick up a weapon, and travel thousands of miles across the globe to do for them what so clearly they would not do for themselves.
THAT, in and of itself, warrants simply getting on board every boat and plane available, and all foreign personnel leaving, with a promise of future aid in reconstruction and re-building, once it has been demonstrated to the world that they ARE able to have a functioning government; a government which is committed to the betterment of its people, and that can encourage them to live in peace with one another, as opposed to butchering each other because of some ludicrous difference in religious opinion.
Let the Iraqi’s sort out their own future. No one can do it for them.
Someone THOUGHT they could……and look where it got everyone.
One furthur note to my previous posting:
I just finished watching a video posted on the internet, showing a large group of Iraqis KICKING AND STONING a very young girl to death. Apparently, she belonged to one particular religious sect, and became involved with a young boy who was part of another religious sect. Her own family, as well as others in the huge crowd, decided to brutally murder her in quite the barbaric fashion, to punish her for this dire transgression.
My question now is two-fold:
1. Will I see anything on THIS website condeming, or even mentioning, this atrocity?
2. With all the horrific things the Americans have inflicted on this country, is this then what common Iraqi’s are visiting upon one another? Or on their own children? Because of what? Religious beliefs? Glory to Allah?
Various comments on this website decry the American invasion (rightfully so) as well as the bombing of a school of Iraqi children (again, rightfully so). Yet ordinary Iraqi’s can slaughter their OWN children in such a fashion?? Where is the outcry for this murdered girl? Where are the screams for justice and compassion? Or even tiniest morsel of civilized human behaviour? Is this what passes for “normal” in Iraqi (or even Muslim) society?
I am not a statesman.
I am not a political leader of any kind.
I am not lawmaker, or even anything resembling a “famous person”.
When the day comes for me to finally leave this earthly plane of existence, no one will care (except for close family members), and no one will notice. The world will continue on its own course, and I will not have caused even a ripple in the vast ocean of its events.
However, by virtue of todays technologies, maybe—JUST MAYBE—several years from now, perhaps even decades, someone, somewhere will have a glance at what I’ve just written, and at least might say to themselves, “this man, whoever he was, wished he could have helped that child, a total stranger to him, and instead was forced to mourn her passing because of a senseless act of barbarism, in a land where barbarism was visited upon IT—-time and time again.”
Make no mistake, citizens of Iraq. I was (and still am) opposed to this stupid useless invasion upon your houses by the Americans. Yet, after seeing this sad, pathetic video, I’m afraid that the line separating the Americans and yourselves…..just became blurred.
I wonder what her name was.
She was simply just…..a child.
No I do not.
Your questions show how liitle you know of Iraki history. There were repeated uprisings and repeated assasination attempts against Saddam Hussein.
That was despite the massive security he had - a matter of which I know a lot more than you do as I was an officer in the Republican Guard. The idea of someody being able to “right into his palace to blow him up” is too ludicrous for comment.
We can agree on that much. Even better get all the damned western troops and bloodsoaked western busybodys to hell out of all the Middle East and let us clean up the unholy mess that Western Policies have created in our homelands. Of course quite a few corrupt despots and their well oiled western business friends interests might suffer some of what they do to their own peoples ……
Try reading what is posted here and you will see that we routinely document and condemn attrocities irrespective of who commits them.
Yes she was just a child, in your haste to condemn an entire multi-ethnic and multifaith country you overlooked some quite important details:
The Yazhidi are a Kurdish religous group (not as you claim a sect)
They are not Muslims, nor are they Arab. I fail to see why felt it necessary to put in your Islamophobic little aside in your comment.
Their fellow Kurds regard them, their beliefs, and their customs with extreme distaste, and “extreme distaste” is a massive understatement. During both Ottoman times and Saddam’s rule the Yazhidi were protected from extermination by the fellow Kurds by respectively the governments of what is now Turkey and after the fall of the Ottomans by the governments in Baghdad.
Take up you complaint with the Kurdish warlords who seized control of that region with American blessing and the help of American airpower. While you are at it ask them why so called “honour killings” are so prevalent in Kurdish areas. YOu could also try asking yourself why those uncivilised “Political Muslims” in Irak, Turkey, and Iran. Try so hard to stamp out the practise of so-called “honour killings”. The incidence of “honour killings” in Turkey has dropped dramatically since those wicked Islamists took power peacefully in a democratic election. Did you know that? It is well known right throughout the region.
I suggest you wave your sense of selfrighteous outrage at somebody else. Nobody here is impressed.
Saba:
It’s very pathetic that in your zeal to label me “islamophobic” or being “self-righteous” that you completely missed the point of what I was saying. WHOEVER these people were who carried out this murder (Kurds, Yazhidi, Muslims, the Swedish Symphony Orchestra, whatever) is not the issue. They were ADULT HUMAN BEINGS!! GROWN PEOPLE!!! The fact that I didn’t make a distinction as to their “religion” is a moot point. However, that being the case, it was their “religion” (as you like to define it) that propelled them to murder this girl. I was merely decrying the fact that one innocent child was appallingly butchered by a cheering mob. Hoewever, seeing as how it was not clear in the video that this mob were, in fact, Yizhadi, I’m perfectly aware that of how my comments might appear to broad in nature. If you cannot see that something’s wrong with that WHOLE situation, then YOU, Sir, need a complete reality check.
I may not be an expert on Iraqi history by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m not completely ignorant either. I do know that for many years, the Iraqi people have suffered untold anguish because of western interference and influence, and that at one point during World War II, the regime-of-the-day even tried to ally itself with the Nazi Third Reich. For many years, the majority of whatever passed for a “government” in Iraq rarely acted in the interests of the people; the only interests they represented was there own. The Americans, who are trying to install a puppet government there now, is no different from what the British tried to do from the 1920’s and on. As a matter of fact, it’s eerily similar. Again, all was done without regard for the innocent people over whom they lorded over.
Which brings me nicely to my final point:
You betray yourself by admitting you were not only a part of the Republican Guard, but an OFFICER, no less. This speaks volumes. You were ensconced comfortably in an elite orginization, which had a significant role in upholding the rule of a tyrant. You played a direct role by assisting in the repression of your fellow citizens. If this were the 1950’s, this is the equivalent of you coming out and saying “Hello. I was once an officer in the Gestapo or SS”. This is hardly something to be bragging about, let alone admitting. How many innocent Iraqi’s have you arrested without cause? How many Iraqi’s have you helped to drag away in the middle of the night? And YOU have the audacity to label ME?? To criticize ME? And for what? Speaking up against the murder of a child. Let me tell YOU something, lieutenant, or captain, or major or whatever your
rank was: don’t sit there and pontificate to ME about how there were such-and-such attempts to remove Saddam from power. These are flimsy, pathetic excuses from a man who was directly involved in keeping him IN power. Again, my point is thus: if you and your cohorts had done even a quarter–A QUARTER!!!!—of what’s being done towards the Americans right now, Saddam would have been long gone. But that did not happen, because YOU and your brethren saw to THAT, didn’t you….SIR?
MY goal here was not to “impress” anyone, as you put it.
It was simply to express my sadness over the murder of a innocent child.
And while you’re at it, you can add to that the murder of the thousands of innocent Iraqi children thus far.
And I suppose one could reasonably surmise that as a former OFFICER in the glorious REPUBLICAN GUARD, you can take some credit in THOSE deaths during Saddams reign, either directly or indirectly.
You, SIR, disgust me.
And by the way:
Save your comments about me “condemning” those who live in a “multi-faith” or “multi-ehnic” nation.
Fact of the matter is, I was born and have lived ALL MY LIFE in a nation that RESPECTS people of different faiths, that has even adopted the concept of a multicultural mosaic as a matter of offical policy, and a cornerstone of pride in how different cultures and beliefs can live side-by-side peacefully, without resorting to ANY kind of butchery in the name of religion (whatever that religion may be), to achieve their standing. We have never had anything even remotely resembling a murderous para-military institution like the Republican Guard; nor anything like the fedayin; nor anything resembling ANY kind of system whereby ones religion will be allowed to dictate the killing of another human being (i.e. Shiite on Sunni, Yizhadi on Muslim, or whatever), nor a system that relied on a para-military unit to ensure its survival.
And no, I am most definitely NOT an American.
Now if all of that sounds to you like I’m “islamophobic” or “self-righteous”, then that’s too bad. What I’ve said is all motivated by the horror of watching a young girl being butchered by an angry, cheering mob. Period. Get it through your thick skull.
Any by the sheer virtue of who and what YOU were in your life, vis a vis your illustrious career as an OFFICER in the Republican Guard, YOU are no better than that misguided mob. And something tells me that because of that, YOU would have a harder time taking a stroll through some Iraqi neighbourhoods than I would.
At the very least, YOU, Sir, are a murderer-by-proxy.
And I hope that haunts you to your dying day.
I told you he’d back and that he would be worked up into a fine frenzy -
You now owe two dinners, (which are not to consist of “burnt cat’s ears”) and help with carrying the fuel.
I’m not worked up in a frenzy at all.
Far from it, actually.
Just at the point where I think my whole point about a young girls death was tragic and deploreable, that’s all. The fact that you’re now cracking jokes about it does not surprise me either.
After all….it’s well-known what the thoughts and attitudes towards females is by those…..like you.
She was just….inferior, yes? Just a carcass to kick around.
My heroes.
One and all.
Oh wow.
NOW I know why I thought something was strange here.
Sabi, you lying little hypocrite. Now you’re truly a joke. Now I AM laughing.
You write with the air of how you and you’re ilk are better than the mob who killed that girl, and how they’re looked upon “with distaste” by their fellow Kurds, and yet, after perusing some of the other articles by yourself and Mohammed on this site, what do I see?
An item about SUNNIS using their children to make bombs for IED’s.
Jesus H. Christ.
Sabi….Mohammed….aren’t there ANY GODDAMN religious SECTS left in Iraq that gives a shit about their own kids??? YOU’RE the so-called “experts” here. And you label ME as painting you all with the same brush (although at the time it was purely unintentional)??. Honestly, I’m laughing as I write this. And I’ve also seen numerous examples of Shiites as well, who toss their children to similar, if not worse, fates. And yet a former offcier in the Republican Guard sits there and says “Oh but those are Yitzhidis! WE are not like THEM!”. Okay…now I’m laughing too hard. Just a sec. Okay. I’m fine now.
I couldn’t figure it out at first, but I get it now.
Oh boy, do I ever get it now.
Irakis such as Mohammed, Saba Ali, Ra’ed, Yusuf, Omar, Ali, Fatima, Maryam, and others who post here risk their lives daily to bring relief to Irakis without distinction as to their sect, or sex, religion, or ethnic origin. They care far more about that poor murdered girls fate than some Canadian hypocrite who sits in safety and uses her death in the way that you have to make yourself feel good about yourself and your country by making wild statements on matters about which you know nothing.
You are ignorant in every sense of that word.
That child would have met that fate no matter who it was she married if she had married without her parents permission. The fact that she went outside her tribe made her “crime” worse in the eyes of her tribe. That is the sort of crime that is committed whenever there is no law.
To hell with you.
No Saba Ali (who was in the Republican Guard not the Special Republican Guard ask any of Saddam’s victims the difference) is NOT like them and YES he is far better than them - he is an Iraki trying to mitigate the daily hell that is all Irak for all Irakis. They are murderers, and you are a hypocrite prostituting a young girl’s brutal murder to demonise an entire nation and an entire religion.
Are you so emsasculated and so shameless that you must do that? I suggest you head south and join the republican party you will find many kindred souls there.
What fresh disaster has taken place in your kitchen?
Oh how quaint.
You’ve now deleted and censored my last replies, and left only your drivel about a felines ears burning. What finally triggered you? Was it the unexpected surprise of a western infidel knowing more about your countrys history than you cared to face or talk about? Or was it my tongue-in-cheek humor about hockey? Either way, I suppose it doesen’t really matter. The bottom line is still the same:
It is because of “religion” that those people murdered that girl in the street; and it is because of “religion” that has brought your Sunnis and Shiites to where there are now:
Sectarian.
Civil.
War.
And while this post will no doubt be deleted as well, I will pass on to you this VERY short anecdote that is widely told in Canada amongst its aboriginal natives:
A elderly grandfather and his grandson are sitting by a campfire on a peaceful night. The grandson says to him, “Grandfather? Why do people sometimes hurt or do bad things to one another?”
The grandfather thinks for a second, and says to the child, “This is because inside all human beings there are two wolves; both very large, powerful beasts. One of the wolves is white, and represents all that is good within Man, such as compassion, love, dignity and hope. The other represents all that is bad within him: hate, anger, rage and hopelessness. And these two creatures are forever locked in combat within Man, one always seeking out the others weakness; one always circling the other, looking for a way to finally triumph, and claim the high-ground.” The young boy thinks, and seems somewhat worried suddenly. He asks, “But which one will win?” The grandfather casts a sad look down at his grandson, and tussles his har affectionately, and then says:
“Whichever one you feed the most.”
Go ahead. Delete away. And have a great day.
No I haven’t bothered to post your latest comments because they are tendentious, windy, badly argued, and based on a false premise that what is going on in Irak is a sectarian civil war.
More than 90% of all attacks in Irak are against the American invaders and those allied with them and always have been.
Yes there are sectarian attacks, a thing unknown in Irak before the Americans kicked over the social structure and are doing their best to break up Irak. Yes various political groupings are attacking one another preparatory to the American withdrawal. Yes there are horrific attacks on civilians and yes civilians are the main victims.
None of which interests you even slightly - all you are interested in doing is furthering the myth that this is a sectarian civil war.
You haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about and aren’t even slightly interested either. All you are interested in doing is using here as a platform for your ignorance.
Just put it on the spam list Ali all it’s interested in doing is trolling the same tired old shit about sectarianism.