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Increasing Violence in Iraq

by TChris

The administration complains that news reports from Iraq enhance the negative and omit the positive. What "positive" event could be more newsworthy than this?

More Iraqi civilians were killed in Baghdad during the first three months of this year than at any time since the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime -- at least 3,800, most of them found hog-tied and shot execution-style.

Others were strangled, electrocuted, stabbed, garroted or hanged. Some died in bombings. Many bore signs of torture such as bruises, drill holes, burn marks, gouged eyes or severed limbs.

Every day, about 40 bodies arrive at the central Baghdad morgue, an official said. The numbers demonstrate a shift in the nature of the violence, which increasingly has targeted both sides of the country's Sunni-Shiite sectarian divide. ...

[T]he killings are systematic, personal. Masked gunmen storm into homes, and the victims -- the majority of them Sunnis -- are never again seen alive.

Such killings now claim nine times more lives than car bombings, according to figures provided by a high-ranking U.S. military official, who released them only on the condition of anonymity. ...

But even the grim morgue statistics -- 3,472 violent deaths in Baghdad from January through March -- do not present the full picture of the violence in the capital.

That number does not include those killed in bombings or during gunfights between insurgents and security forces because they are generally are not brought in for autopsy at the central morgue. At least 351 civilians were killed in bombings across the capital during the first three months of the year, according to calculations based on daily reports by hospital and police officials.

Those reports, considered conservative, did not include slain Iraqi security forces, Iraqis killed by U.S. or Iraqi forces, and Iraqis killed outside the capital.

In the words of Lt. Gen. William Odom (Ret.): "America must withdraw now."

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    Re: Increasing Violence in Iraq (none / 0) (#1)
    by soccerdad on Sun May 07, 2006 at 08:24:35 AM EST
    Its just that many fewer the US will have to kill later. There are reports that the US is directly furmenting the civil war. Having an unstable Iraq is better for Bushco than a Shia dominated Iraq. Meanwhile it lets them concentrate on getting ready for the upcoming bombing of Iran

    Re: Increasing Violence in Iraq (none / 0) (#2)
    by Edger on Sun May 07, 2006 at 08:49:30 AM EST
    Thursday, May 04, 2006: At Least 61 Dead in Iraq Civil War, Dozens Injured
    Another wave of violence washed over Iraq on Wednesday. A suicide bomber killed 18 potential police recruits in Fallujah and left 20 others injured, mostly critically. Reuters points out, correctly, that high politics inside the Green Zone (the 4 sq mile heavily fortified and guarded compound in downtown Baghdad) is irrelevant to the guerrilla war going on in the 7 or 8 center-north provinces of the country.

    Baghdad is often getting only one hour of electricity a day! It is hot in Iraq, now. People's groceries are spoiling. It will be years and billions more invested before sufficient electricity can be generated, assuming the guerrillas don't just blow up the new plants.


    Re: Increasing Violence in Iraq (none / 0) (#3)
    by Dadler on Sun May 07, 2006 at 10:48:48 AM EST
    Don't you liberals get it??? There's 25 million Iraqis, but there's only so much good news to go around. Why focus on the bad, when there's so many Iraqis to replace the dead ones? Let's get happy and celebrate the bridge to genuine democracy we've built in Iraq. This has been sarcasm, for those who don't know it.

    Re: Increasing Violence in Iraq (none / 0) (#4)
    by Edger on Sun May 07, 2006 at 10:51:00 AM EST
    Every day in every way Iraq is getting better and better. (George's 12 step mantra)

    Re: Increasing Violence in Iraq (none / 0) (#5)
    by Edger on Sun May 07, 2006 at 11:00:54 AM EST
    Baghdad is often getting only one hour of electricity a day! It is hot in Iraq, now. People's groceries are spoiling. It will be years and billions more invested before sufficient electricity can be generated, Baghdad Weather - Sunday May 07, 2006 Scattered Clouds. High: 100° F / 38° C Wind NW 6 mph. / 10 km/h. Baghdad 5 day forecast.

    Re: Increasing Violence in Iraq (none / 0) (#6)
    by Dadler on Sun May 07, 2006 at 11:07:50 AM EST
    Scattered clouds and 100 degrees. Sounds like those clouds are scattering for their life.

    Re: Increasing Violence in Iraq (none / 0) (#7)
    by Edger on Sun May 07, 2006 at 11:14:55 AM EST
    100 degrees. No electricity. No refrigeration. Spoiled food. No air conditioning. No lights. The TV and the radio are paperweights. No news coming in. Everyone is pi*sed off at everyone else. Especially at America. Hot sweating very angry men running around with guns and RPG's. And the women forced to wear these. Freedom and democracy. Aim for their hearts and minds. Keep killing them till they love us. We do it all for you.

    Re: Increasing Violence in Iraq (none / 0) (#8)
    by Edger on Sun May 07, 2006 at 11:17:17 AM EST
    A comfy 66 degrees and cloudy in D.C. today. If it gets any warmer we'll turn on the air conditioning before dinner.

    Re: Increasing Violence in Iraq (none / 0) (#9)
    by Edger on Sun May 07, 2006 at 11:33:11 AM EST
    The Dosadi Experiment
    Frank Herbert, 1977

    Generations of a tormented human-alien people, caged on a toxic planet, conditioned by constant hunger and war -- this is the Dosadi Experiment, and it has succeeded too well.

    For the Dosadi have bred for vengeance as well as cunning, and they have learned how to pass through the shimmering God Wall to exact their dreadful revenge on the Universe that created them. . . .

    Quotes from The Dosadi Experiment

    Re: Increasing Violence in Iraq (none / 0) (#10)
    by john horse on Sun May 07, 2006 at 07:57:55 PM EST
    With the Bush administration, victory in Iraq is always just around the corner. But then we supposedly turn the corner and nothing seems to get better but they tell you if we keep on going victory will just be around the next corner. Finally, several thousand casualties later you start to realize that we've been going around in circles and instead of progress we always seem to end up in the same place where we started.

    Re: Increasing Violence in Iraq (none / 0) (#11)
    by squeaky on Sun May 07, 2006 at 09:27:06 PM EST
    ' "There is an anger," said Jaffar Mohammed Asadi . . . "You can hear it in the slogans at Friday prayers: 'Death to America,' " he said. "They're burning American flags. They're saying, 'The Americans won't leave except by the funerals of their sons.' "
    Whose sons? That question answers the question: why are we still in Iraq? link

    Re: Increasing Violence in Iraq (none / 0) (#12)
    by jondee on Mon May 08, 2006 at 07:30:19 AM EST
    Trying to escape scrutiny, by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory - that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood - That sepents eye, that charms to dystroy - he plunged into war. Abraham Lincoln

    Re: Increasing Violence in Iraq (none / 0) (#13)
    by jondee on Mon May 08, 2006 at 08:21:23 AM EST
    The "Hearts and Minds" battle is over; a foregone conclusion. If it ever had any chance to begin with. After all the pain and suffering thats been inflicted through years of selfserving intervention, sanctions, and this current occupation of unintended consequences, the only "hope" that Ft. Bush has is continued warring factionalism. Meanwhile the usual blood engorged parasites and Pioneers exploit this "oppurtunity" to the nth degree and sock the booty away in places safe from tax-and-spend liberals.