Roadside Bomb Kills Two GIs in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A roadside bomb killed at least two U.S. soldiers Saturday in Mosul, and many parents kept children away from classes in the capital after leaflets attributed to Saddam Hussein's party warned of a "Day of Resistance" against the U.S. occupation.

Also Saturday, witnesses said an oil pipeline was on fire about 10 miles north of Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, an area of widespread opposition to the U.S.-led occupation. Witnesses said they suspected sabotage because the blaze was preceded by an explosion.

Sabotage to pipelines and the decayed state of Iraqi's infrastructure have slowed efforts to revive the country's giant oil industry, considered the key to rebuilding this nation's economy, which has suffered from more than a decade of wars and sanctions.

The U.S. military said two U.S. soldiers were killed and two wounded in the roadside bombing in Mosul, Iraq (news - web sites )'s third-largest city, which Iraqi police initially reported as a land mine. More details were not released and identities were withheld pending notification of relatives.

The two deaths would bring to 122 the number of American soldiers killed by hostile fire since President Bush declared an end to hostile combat on May 1 when added to the total given by the Department of Defense on Friday. A total of 114 U.S. soldiers were killed between the start of the war March 20 and the end of April.

Another U.S. soldier was injured in Mosul late Friday when his patrol was attacked by a grenade or homemade bomb, the military said.

The latest attacks came after rumors swept Baghdad that bombings or other resistance action would strike the capital Saturday. A leaflet attributed to Saddam's ousted Baathist party declared Saturday a "Day of Resistance," and called for a three-day general strike.

It was difficult to gauge public response to threat. Many shops in this city of 5 million people were open, but morning traffic appeared lighter than usual. Many parents kept their children home Saturday, the first day of the Iraqi work week.

At one boys' secondary school, Al-Jawad, only 80 of 500 students showed up for class, deputy principal Abdel Karim al-Azzawi said. "Parents are worried about their children," al-Azzawi said.

Classes were canceled at the Al-Huda girls' elementary school after only 23 of 700 pupils arrived, according to the principal, Sana Naji Abbas. More than half the teachers also stayed home, she said.

One teenage girl who did set out from home Saturday morning sounded a defiant note. "We heard that they want to bomb schools, but we weren't afraid," said Sabrin Talib, 17. "I came to school today."

Witnesses in Mosul and in the southern city of Basra said most shops were open and traffic appeared normal in those cities.

TY. The first two alone will take a while to digest (although the first I assumed was standard practice).

Walt Schrepel's article is thought-provoking. Still, no simple rule for American Soldiers, raised with Western ethics, responding to a mother + children careening towards their checkpoint in a speeding car, or to a young child wearing explosives in a crowded market - 'taught' it is good to kill infidels by his culture, and wanting to please a parent.

A shameful victory is without honor and should be rejected, says Cicero: “It is a shameful victory unless it is gained with honor . . . In truth, it is a noble thing for a man to refuse to gain the victory by foul acts.”[110] Let us hope this among the others lessons will be learned from the Battle for Algiers.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

Too much for this Cowgirl for one day.

For all of Saddam's saber-rattling, promoted by our press - in a nation the size of California, with over 23 million Iraqis (5 million in Baghdad alone), and over 130,000 US troops on the ground - 11 brave US troops were killed and 38 were wounded last week, including 16 casualties in last Sunday's Al Rasheed attack, and 7 that may have been counted twice by CENTCOM on Oct. 27. For all the reports of potential IED's called in to our EOD guys around Baghdad alone (from Iraqis, too) - 4500 in the last three months - we lost 7 troops and 9 were wounded when their vehicles hit IEDs last week across all of Iraq - in Mosul today, Khaladiyah yesterday, north of Balad, on Oct. 28, and in Baghdad on Oct. 26.

It appears to me that our awesome military prevented far more attacks, riots, etc, than they suffered by our enemies last week.

The most recent numbers I've heard is that 21 people have now died as a result of the arson fires that erupted in California following the regime change there that replaced a corrupt Democrat with a Hollywood Republican.

The question is, when will we abandon the quagmire that is California, the state with the Red Star of communist hate and slavery on its very flag, along with it's hateful depiction of a child-eating predator.

U.S. out of Californio NOW!

< /sarcasm>

-archy-/-

Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

I have no problems with the actions of the crews and commanders of the Enola Gay or Bock's Car.

The were frontline, get-the-job-done and follow-the-orders airmen who were no better and no worse than those they faced. Had I been there in their particular and peculiar set of circumstances ionstead of those that have come my way, I'm sure I'd have done about what they did.

But on another level, it may be that those involved in the genesis of the *gadgets* they delivered in August, 1945 and their development were perhaps less purely motivated, just as frontline troops are more usually driven by understandable and acceptable motivations than some of the politicians and war profiteers back home who've sent them to the hellholes where they do their business.

But less Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I would think, then maybe the actions ordered by General *Hell-Raising Jake* Smith at Samar and Batangas in the Phillipines circa 1898-1902, or maybe more recently, those of the Special Forces ODA 595 at Dasht-e Leili around the same time as the prison uprising at the Qala-i-Janghi fortress Where *Taliban Johnny* Walker lived and CIA paramilitary officer Mike Spann did not.

Meanwhile, 16 were killed Saturday in Nepal, 13 hostile and three friendly. That's noteworthy, of course, but no cause for hand-wringing horror among the Gurung people.

So many Maoists! Where WILL we bury them all?

-archy-/-

My father loved the Philippine locals he lived around during WWII.

Amazing that a nation so brutally treated by us just 35 years before, would adopt a constitution based on a US model, with checks and balances, elected pres., judiciary (I'm cheating, didn't know *g*) and formed such a long-lasting bond with their 'abusers'.

The 'blame-America first' press / NGOs didn't bother to ask eye-witnesses about Mike Spann's heroic death, yet they gave Taliban sympathizers a forum to promote anti-American hate - and give them legitimacy. (still today)

Thank you for Johnny Spann's letter.

The CA 'regime change' *g* post was supposed to come after the rough stuff.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.