Friday, April 6, 2007


"Good" Friday?


Just wading through the article linked that describes just some of the violence in Iraq in one 24 hour period covering Thursday and Friday has wrecked my entire day and left me feeling physically ill.

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives-and-Chlorine laden vehicle, killing at least 25. As he sped toward a checkpoint outside Ramadi, coalition forces opened fire and the driver veered toward a residential development, killing women and children.

It was the sixth Chlorine-bomb attack in recent weeks, and it was unclear whether the explosion or the poison killed more people. Final casualty numbers are not known as yet, but are expected to climb as victims are pulled from the rubble.

All around Baghdad, mortars rained down, killing indiscriminately. Snipers picked off civilians, including children, as they went about attempting to live their lives, only to have them stupidly snuffed out.

Buried in the article, it is revealed that missiles fired from American helicopters killed 15 civilians, that a Toyota sedan was fired on, and all three occupants were killed. There is no mention that the people in that car posed any threat at all, apparently they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the same section of the piece, we learn that American forces mistakenly fired on a college residence hall, killing two students.

Stuck in the middle of a sectarian civil war, where the only common thread among the warring factions is a hatred of the occupying forces and a deep desire for all of the occupiers to leave, American forces are targets for all of the hatred and anger felt by the people of Iraq.

That focused anger and hatred has resulted in the deaths of 18 Americans so far in April, and the four-month period from December-March has been the deadliest for Americans this year than in the same time period since the war started in 2003. (Hat tip to Larry Johnson at No Quarter for the chart)

What has happened to that country, as a result of the pathologically delusional agenda of a mentally ill American president is unconscionable.