CIVIL WAR & Bush a WAROHOLIC
Good morning,
I have not posted in several days because I have been away for the Thanksgiving Holiday. Much has happened during that time in Iraq. Hundreds have been killed in multiple car bombings and other attacks in Baghdad and various other parts of the country. Finally, some of our news media is calling what has been ignited by America and it's coalition, by what it really is. It is called CIVIL WAR. News channels NBC, MSNBC, decided to finally call it a civil war yesterday. Mr. Bush, of course, will not call it a civil war, so he can feel he still has justification to keep the American troops in there.
Part of the problem that Mr. Bush has, is that he quit alcohol cold turkey and did not get professional help, such as enrolling in an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) program. In AA, Mr. Bush would have been required to go through the grueling steps to heal himself from his addiction. I believe, that this man is a waroholic. Withdrawing his troops, would be as difficult as withdrawing from alcohol. It is my prediction, that troops will not begin to be withdrawn by any significant number until the man is literally GONE from office in 2008. He may make some feeble attempts at withdrawing some troops before the 2008 election to help his republican party, but I believe, within my heart, he would rather sacrafice his own republican party, than back down on his "Committment" to Iraq. His committment to Iraq, is a metaphore to a committment to himself.
I urge Bush, the Waroholic to seek immediate help. Mr. Bush, heal yourself, and for the sake of us all, try to understand the shades of grey. This "War" will not be won. Here are the AA steps that many follow. Consider it:
Step 1:
Admit you are powerless over Iraq--that your life had become unmanageable.
Step 2:
Belive that a Power greater than yourself could restore you to some form of sanity.
Step 3:
Made a decision to turn your will and our lives over to the care of democrats.
Step 4:
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself.
Step 5:
Admitted to the univers, to yourself and to another human being the exact nature of your wrongs.
Step 6:
Get entirely ready to have the universe and democrats remove all these defects of character.
Step 7:
Humbly ask the universse to remove your shortcomings, and subsequent removal from office.
Step 8:
Made a list of all persons you have harmed, and be willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9:
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step 10:
Continued to take personal inventory and when you are wrong and promptly admit it.
Step 11:
Seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with the universe, praying only for knowledge and the power to carry that out. Listen to people. Some are smarter than you. Embrase diversity of thought.
Step 12:
Have a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, try to carry this message to other waroholics, and to practice these principles in all of your affairs.
Step 13: Retire.
Have a nice day.
22 Killed & 26 Bodies Found. 1,216 Dead So Far In November 2006
Good afternoon,
BAGHDAD, In all, 22 Iraqis were killed Monday in a series of attacks in Baghdad, Ramadi and Baqouba, police said. The bodies of 26 Iraqis who had been kidnapped and tortured also were found on the streets of the capital, in Dujail to the north of Baghdad and in the Tigris River in southern Iraq.
The Iraqi death toll this month is already well above the 1,216 who died in all of October, which had been the deadliest month in Iraq since the AP began its count.
The actual totals are likely considerably higher because many deaths are not reported. Victims in those cases are quickly buried according to Muslim custom and never reach morgues or hospitals to be counted.
Have a nice day.
At Least 112 Murdered & Dozens Wounded In Iraq
Good Evening,
A suicide bomber in the predominantly Shiite city of Hillah south of Baghdad lured men to his KIA minivan with promises of a day's work as laborers, then blew it up, killing at least 22 and wounding 44, police said.
Babil province police Capt. Muthana Khalid said three suspected terrorists, two Egyptians and an Iraqi, were arrested on suspicion of planning the suicide attack with the bomber, a Syrian.
Within hours, a roadside bomb and two car bombs exploded one after another near a bus station in Mashtal, a mostly Shiite area of southeastern Baghdad, killing 11 and wounding 51, police said.
Besides the victims of the bombings in Hillah and Baghdad, at least 23 other people were killed nationwide. In addition, the bodies of 56 murder victims, many of them tortured, were dumped in three Iraqi cities, 45 of them in Baghdad alone.
Also Sunday, gunmen kidnapped Iraq's deputy health minister from his home in northern Baghdad, the Iraqi army and police reported. They said the gunmen wore police uniforms and arrived in seven vehicles to abduct Ammar al-Saffar, a Shiite.
Al-Saffar was snatched nearly a week after dozens of suspected Shiite militia gunmen in police uniforms kidnapped scores of people from a Ministry of Higher Education office in Baghdad. That ministry is predominantly Sunni.
In the deep south of Iraq, security forces searching for five private security contractors, four Americans and an Austrian who were kidnapped near the Kuwait border, detained about 200 suspected insurgents, police said Sunday. Police Maj. Gen. Ali al-Moussawi said none of the hostages was found.
Have a nice evening.
82 Killed Or Found Dead Today, + 100 - 150 People Kidnapped From Education Ministry Office
Good morning,
At least 82 people were killed or found dead in murders, bombings and clashes nationwide.
In Tuesday's worst violence, 21 people were killed and 25 injured in a car bombing targeting traffic along a highway linking downtown with the Shiite slum of Sadr City, police Lt. Ali Muhssin said.
Mohammed Ali, a 30-year-old clothes merchant, had closed his shop early and was heading home when the bomb blast threw him from his motorcycle.
"I could see people on fire. We tried to rescue some women from a minibus, but they died in our arms," Ali said.
In other violence Tuesday, police and medical workers said at least 31 Iraqis were killed in overnight clashes in the western city of Ramadi, where U.S. ground troops and warplanes have conducted a series of operations over recent days targeting Sunni insurgents. U.S. forces had no immediate comment
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen dressed as police commandos kidnapped scores of staff and visitors in a lightning raid on an education ministry office Tuesday in one of the biggest mass abductions since the start of the U.S. occupation. Five senior police officers _ including the neighborhood police chief _ were arrested, the government said.
Alaa Makki, head of parliament's education committee, interrupted the legislative session Tuesday morning to say that between 100 and 150 people, both Shiites and Sunnis, had been abducted in the 9:30 a.m. raid at the ministry offices, calling the kidnapping a "national catastrophe."
Have a nice day.
159 Killed
UPDATE for Sunday 11-12-06
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Shiite prime minister promised Sunday to reshuffle his Cabinet after calling lawmakers disloyal and blaming Sunni Muslims for raging sectarian violence that claimed at least 159 more lives, including 35 men blown apart while waiting to join Iraq's police force.
Among the unusually high number of dead were 50 bodies found behind a regional electrical company in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, and 25 others found scattered throughout the capital. Three U.S. troops were reported killed, as were four British service members.
Have a nice afternoon.
35 Killed In Bombing, 16 Killed In Scattered Violence, 5 Bodies Found
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A pair of suicide bombs ripped through a crowd of would-be police recruits in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 35. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki rebuked lawmakers for putting party and sectarian loyalty ahead of Iraq's stability, and said he was planning a sweeping Cabinet reshuffle.
In Sunday's bombing, two men detonated explosives strapped to their bodies simultaneously at exactly 10:00 a.m., police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq said. The attack outside the police recruiting station off western Baghdad's Nissur Square was one of several Sunday in the capital.
In addition to the suicide bombing at the recruiting station, at least 11 people were killed in scattered bombings in the capital _ in both Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods.
And five bodies _ all blindfolded and bound at the wrists and ankles _ were recovered in various parts of eastern Baghdad early Sunday, police said. All had been mutilated by torture, marking them as victims of death squads that regularly kidnap rivals from Iraq's Muslim Sunni and Shiite sects. Three more bodies were pulled from the Tigris River in Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, morgue official Maamoun al-Ajili said.
Five people were killed in drive-by shootings in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Have a nice day.
10 Killed, 50 Kidnapped, 8 Killed In Car Bombing, 38 Injured, Bodies Found, Police Chief Killed & More Death
Good Afternoon,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen ambushed minibuses south of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 10 passengers and kidnapping about 50 others, police reported.
The abductions took place at around 7:30 p.m. nearly the highly volatile city of Latifiyah, said an officer who asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals.
Gunmen believed to be local Sunnis set up a false security checkpoint to stop the passengers, occupants of several minibuses. Latifiyah lies in the so-called Sunni Triangle of Death, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, where Shiites and U.S. and Iraqi security forces have been repeatedly targeted.
Earlier on Saturday, a pair of car bombs tore through a downtown shopping district in the capital, killing eight people, while a Slovak and Polish soldier were reported killed overnight by a roadside bomb south of the capital.
Police and a medical workers said at least 38 others were injured in the explosion at Hafidh al-Qadhi square, a formerly bustling area on the eastern bank of the Tigris River. It was one of at least three deadly attacks Saturday in the beleaguered capital, where U.S. forces searching for a kidnapped American soldier offered a $50,000 for information leading to his recovery.
In other violence in Baghdad, one passenger was killed and four injured when their car was hit by a a roadside bomb that targeted but missed a police patrol, police Cap. Mohammed Abdel-Ghani said.
A driver was killed when his car exploded as he was approaching a public market in a southeastern district, Abdel-Ghani said. He said that appeared to have been a botched suicide bombing.
One police officer was also killed when gunmen opened fire on their pickup truck in eastern Baghdad, said Lt. Muhsin of the Rissafa station.
Earlier Saturday, police said mortar fire hit the U.S. government's representative office in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad. Capt. Muthanna Khalid Ali said part of the compound was set ablaze, although there was no immediate word on damage or casualties in the attack _ at least the second on the office in recent weeks.
Inaccurate but highly mobile, the mortar is growing increasingly popular among Iraqi fighters because it can be fired from a secure location several miles from a target and then hauled away or hidden. Some insurgent groups mount the weapons on pickup trucks, remaining in constant motion except when firing.
Police special forces, meanwhile, said they killed two suspected insurgents and arrested 10 others during an overnight search for those behind a suicide bombing Friday that killed six Iraqi soldiers in the western city of Tal Afar.
Hand grenades and 20 AK-47 assault rifles were seized in the raid just east of the city, police Brig. Najim Abdullah al-Jubouri said. Officers also found fake ID cars and passports, and seized mobile phones and a pair of pickup trucks used by the group, he said.
In a suicide attack Saturday, a bomber drove a car rigged with explosives into the police station in the northern town of Zaganya, killing the police chief, setting four vehicles on fire, and badly damaging the building, the provincial police information office said.
In nearby Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, a staffer with the local agriculture directorate, Zuhair Hussein Alwan, was shot and killed in the city's downtown area, the information office said.
Two bodies that had been bound and shot in the head and chest were pulled from the Tigris River Saturday morning in Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, morgue administrator Maamoun al-Ajili said. Scores of such bodies are recovered around Iraq each week, most believed to be the victims of sectarian death squads.
Have a nice day.
Cartoon
6 Iraqi Soldiers Killed, 33 Bodies Found, 10 Wounded
Good morning,
Six Iraqi soldiers were killed and 10 wounded when a suicide bomber drove his explosives-rigged car into an army checkpoint in the northern city of Tal Afar, the military said.
Army spokesman Brig. Najim Abdullah said the car stopped after soldiers opened fire as it sped toward the checkpoint. The unit's commander, who was among those killed, then led a group of soldiers toward it, when the driver, apparently faking death, detonated the explosives, Abdullah said.
Tal Afar has suffered frequent insurgent attacks, despite President Bush's declaration in March that the city was an example of progress made in bringing security to Iraq. Tal Afar lies 93 miles east of the Syrian border and 260 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Three members of a family were killed by gunmen who stormed their home near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said.
At least 33 bodies also were found in Baghdad and several nearby cities, morgue officials said.
Have a nice day.
150,000 Iraqi Civilians Killed Since US Invasion - Says Health Minister
Good Afternoon,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A stunning new death count emerged Thursday, as Iraq's health minister estimated 150,000 civilians have been killed in the war _ about three times previously accepted estimates.
Moderate Sunni Muslims, meanwhile, threatened to walk away from politics and pick up guns, while the Shiite-dominated government renewed pressure on the United States to unleash the Iraqi army and claimed it could crush violence in six months.
After Democrats swept to majorities in both houses of the U.S. Congress and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld resigned, Iraqis appeared unsettled and seemed to sense the potential for an even bloodier conflict because future American policy is uncertain. As a result, positions hardened on both sides of the country's deepening sectarian divide.
Previous estimates of Iraq deaths held that 45,000-50,000 have been killed in the nearly 44-month-old conflict, according to partial figures from Iraqi institutions and media reports. No official count has ever been available.
Health Minister Ali al-Shemari gave his new estimate of 150,000 to reporters during a visit to Vienna, Austria. He later told The Associated Press that he based the figure on an estimate of 100 bodies per day brought to morgues and hospitals _ though such a calculation would come out closer to 130,000 in total.
"It is an estimate," al-Shemari said. He blamed Sunni insurgents, Wahhabis _ Sunni religious extremists _ and criminal gangs for the deaths.
Hassan Salem, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, said the 150,000 figure included civilians, police and the bodies of people who were abducted, later found dead and collected at morgues run by the Health Ministry. SCIRI is Iraq's largest Shiite political organization and holds the largest number of seats in parliament.
In October, the British medical journal The Lancet published a controversial study contending nearly 655,000 Iraqis have died because of the war _ a far higher death toll than other estimates. The study, which was dismissed by President Bush and other U.S. officials as not credible, was based on interviews of households and not a body count.
Al-Shemari disputed that figure Thursday.
"Since three and a half years, since the change of the Saddam regime, some people say we have 600,000 are killed. This is an exaggerated number. I think 150 is OK," he said.
Accurate figures on the number of people who have died in the Iraq conflict have long been the subject of debate. Police and hospitals often give widely conflicting figures of those killed in major bombings. In addition, death figures are reported through multiple channels by government agencies that function with varying efficiency.
As al-Shemari issued the startling new estimate, the head of the Baghdad central morgue said Thursday he was receiving as many as 60 violent death victims each day at his facility alone. Dr. Abdul-Razzaq al-Obaidi said those deaths did not include victims of violence whose bodies were taken to the city's many hospital morgues or those who were removed from attack scenes by relatives and quickly buried according to Muslim custom.
Al-Obaidi said the morgue had received 1,600 violent death victims in October, one of the bloodiest months of the conflict. U.S. forces suffered 105 deaths last month, the fourth highest monthly toll.
At least 45 Iraqis were killed or found dead in continuing sectarian violence Thursday, with 16 of the victims killed in bombings at Baghdad markets. For the fifth straight day, insurgent and militia mortar teams traded fire in the capital's northern neighborhoods.
Al-Shemari, while not explaining the death toll estimate, was more precise about the government's increasingly public and insistent demands for a speedier U.S. transfer of authority to Iraqi forces and the withdrawal of American troops to their bases and from Iraq's cities and towns.
"The army of America didn't do its job. ... They tie the hands of my government," said al-Shemari, a Shiite.
"They should hand us the power. We are a sovereign country," he said, adding that the first step would be for American forces to leave population centers.
Have a nice day.
16 Killed In Markets By Car Bombers
Good Morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Nearly simultaneous car bombs struck two markets in predominantly Shiite areas of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 16 people, and the Iraqi government offered its first overall casualty estimate for the war.
Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari said about 150,000 Iraqis have been killed by insurgents since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
For every person killed about three have been wounded in violence since the war started in March 2003, al-Shemari told reporters during a visit to Vienna. He did not explain how he arrived at the figure, which is three times most other estimates.
The health minister, a senior Shiite official linked to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, also said the United States should hand Iraqis full control of its army and police force. Doing so, he said, would allow the Iraqi government to bring the violence under control within six months.
"The army of America didn't do its job ... they tie the hands of my government," al-Shemari said.
"They should hand us the power, we are a sovereign country," he said, adding that as a first step, U.S. soldiers should leave Iraq's cities.
Have a nice day.
60 Killed in Nationwide Attacks
Good Morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A pair of mortar rounds slammed into a soccer field while young men were playing a game in a Shiite district of Baghdad on Wednesday as more than 60 people were killed in attacks nationwide.
The mortar rounds struck the soccer field in Sadr City as an afternoon game was in progress between young men from the sprawling slum that is home to about 2.5 million people, police Capt. Mohammed Ismail said. At least eight people were killed and 20 wounded, including players and bystanders, he said.
Dozens of people have been killed in recent days in mortar attacks by rival Sunni and Shiite groups on residential areas in Baghdad.
Two mortar rounds also struck an area in northern Baghdad Wednesday, killing at least one person, police Lt. Mohammed Khayoun said.
Authorities had originally called Tuesday's attack on a coffee shop in another Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad a mortar attack, but Lt. Ali Muhssin said Wednesday that it was a suicide bombing. He also raised the death toll in that attack from 14 to 21, with another 25 wounded.
South of the capital, a bomb planted in a minivan exploded in an open-air market in Mahmoudiyah, killing at least six people and wounding 28, policeman Haider Satar said.
Another 16 people were killed in a string of shootings and bombings in Diyala province north of the capital, while a car bomb in western Baghdad killed three people and wounded three, Lt. Mutaz Salaheddin said.
U.S. forces said they killed 10 suspected insurgents and rescued a kidnapped Iraqi policeman early Wednesday in a raid near Muqdadiyah, 60 miles north of Baghdad.
Have a nice day.
15 Bodies Found In Tigris, 14 Killed In Mortar Attack At Coffee Shop, 16 Wounded
Good Afternoon,
Authorities reported finding the bullet-riddled bodies Tuesday of 15 apparent death squad victims floating in the Tigris River south of Baghdad, all blindfolded and bound at the wrists and ankles. The victims apparently were tortured before being shot to death.
Hundreds of such killings have been recorded in the capital since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in February ignited revenge sectarian killings.
In the latest round of sectarian attacks, police said two mortar shells slammed into a coffee shop in a Shiite neighborhood in north Baghdad late Tuesday, killing at least 14 people and wounding 16. The attack appeared to have been in response to mortar fire on a Sunni neighborhood across the Tigris earlier in the day that killed seven people and wounded 25.
Go vote. Have a nice day.
56 Bodies Found Showed Signs Of Torture
Good morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte met Friday with the Iraqi prime minister, in the second visit this week by a top U.S. official. The unannounced visit to Baghdad comes amid spiraling violence that included four American deaths and the discovery of 56 bodies in the Iraqi capital bearing signs of torture.
The bodies found scattered around Baghdad were of men between 20 and 45 years old, and all were apparent victims of sectarian death squads, police said Friday.
All wore civilian clothes and had been bound at the wrists and ankles, police Lt. Mohammed Khayon said. He said the bodies showed signs of having been tortured, a common practice among religious extremists who seize victims from private homes or from cars and buses traveling the capital's dangerous streets.
Such murders almost always go unsolved and Khayon said the police had no solid information on the victims' identities or their killers.
Have a nice day.
7 Killed In Motorcycle Blast, 45 Wounded, 8 Others Killed Around Country
Good Morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A motorcycle rigged with explosives blew up Thursday in a crowded market in Baghdad's Shiite Sadr City district, killing at least seven people and wounding 45, police said.
It was the first bombing in Sadr City since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the lifting Tuesday of a weeklong security blockade on the district.
Meanwhile, at least 119 Iraqi policemen were killed in shootings, abductions and bomb attacks last month, the Interior Ministry said Thursday, underscoring the toll Iraq's relentless violence is inflicting on the poorly trained and underequipped force.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on a trip to France that it would take his country two or three years to set up its own security forces and send U.S.-led troops home.
Scattered bombings and shootings in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq on Thursday killed at least eight people and injured 42, police said. The bodies of two men who had been bound and blindfolded before being shot execution style were found dumped in an eastern suburb of the capital.
In a brief statement, the U.S. military said Rafa al-Ithawi, also known as Abu Taha, was killed in the city 70 miles west of Baghdad on Wednesday by laser-guided weapons that destroyed his vehicle.
The U.S. military said al-Ithawi had been named an al-Qaida in Iraq emir, giving him the rank of local level commander in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni insurgency that has stubbornly battled U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies.
Al-Qaida in Iraq has sworn affiliation to Osama bin Laden and is blamed for engineering many of the most brutal incidents of sectarian violence in Iraq.
The military said al-Ithawi frequently provided haven for foreign militants who come to Iraq to carry out attacks on civilians and U.S. coalition forces.
"This and other recent operations in the region highlight the deliberate, methodical dismantlement of the al-Qaida in Iraq network and those who contribute to its illegal actions," the statement said.
The Iraqi government issued a nearly identical statement about the attack, but gave no additional details.
The U.S. military killed al-Qaida in Iraq's founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a similar airstrike in May.
Iraqi police said economics dean Jassim al-Asadi was driving with his family in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Azamiyah when unidentified assailants pulled alongside and opened fire, police Lt. Ahmed Ibrahim said.
The shooting follows the killing on Monday of geologist Essam al-Rawi, head of the University Professor's Union and a senior member of the hardline Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, which is believed to have links to the anti-Shiite insurgency raging against U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies.
The murders closely followed the pattern of tit-for-tat sectarian killings that have raged through much of Iraq following attacks on Shiite holy sites in February.
Academics have also increasingly been singled out for attacks due to their relatively high public stature and vulnerability. Some professors have also been killed by students angered over poor grades or other grievances, or because of their past membership in the Baath Party of former dictator Saddam Hussein.
The Education Ministry says at least 154 university professors were murdered in Iraq between April 9, 2003, shortly after the U.S. invasion, and Oct. 3, 2006. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of others have fled to neighboring countries.
Have a nice day.
23+ Killed
Good Morning,
At least 23 violent deaths were reported by police nationwide, including four people who died in three bombings targeting a police patrol, a busy Tigris River bridge and a central market in Baghdad. The attacks also left 23 people wounded.
In other violence:
_ A police officer riding his motorcycle home was killed in a drive-by shooting in central Baghdad, and a clerk with the Ministry of Industry was shot to death elsewhere in the city.
_ Four people, including a police officer and a police receptionist, were shot to death in separate attacks in Mosul. Police also discovered the charred body of an apparent murder victim in the northern city.
_ Two people were killed in Baqouba and Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.
_ Sunni cleric Sheikh Yasin al-Kubaisi and his son Ahmed were killed during clashes between police and armed fuel smugglers in the southern border town of Safwan.
_ The bullet-riddled bodies of three people who had been blindfolded and bound at the wrists were found dumped in eastern Baghdad, and five more bodies were pulled from the Tigris River near Suwayrah, 25 miles south of the capital.
Elsewhere, a member of the Transportation Ministry protection force was kidnapped while visiting relatives in Rahsad, 150 miles north of Baghdad. Gunmen also abducted a teacher from his classroom at the Rasool Intermediate School in Amarah, 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, the school's headmaster, Ahmed Naeem said.
Have a nice day.
