Posted on 04/27/2008 12:41:42 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
In another embarrassingly obvious, and childishly awkward, attempt to push a propaganda effort for the liberal SurrenderMedia to do more to save the Sadrist and Mahdi Islamo Fascists under siege in Iraq, we now have the lame claim that the US is using shrapnel-filled cluster bombs filled with Shrapnel in Sadr City:
Ale Yassin, the member of the Committee on Health and Environment in the Iraqi parliament said that the occupying troops use internationally prohibited weapons during raids on Sadr City.
He said that forensic medicine investigations proved that the occupying troops used banned bombs in the recent raids on Sadr City which killed a number of people and injured several others.
Yassin added that the investigations came to the conclusion after carrying autopsy on the bodies of martyrs and injured people from the city.
Sheikh Salah al-Obaidi, a senior member of Sadr group strongly denounced the US crimes and massacres against the people of the city.
Obaidi said in a statement given to Alalam satellite TV on Saturday evening that “There are crimes against humanity committed by the occupying troops in the Sadr City, and there is a provocation by targeting children and women.”
After months of reigning down rockets on Baghdad and years of violent oppression in Basra the concern with crimes against humanity is laughable. There are numerous atrocities committed by the Islamo Fascists, but let’s just take the most recent claim coming from the United Nations (of all places):
A United Nations official says Iraqi militias are recruiting children to kidnap, kill, and even serve as suicide bombers.
The U.N. special representative for children and armed conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, said Friday that only 50 percent of Iraq’s primary school-age children are in school. She said increasing numbers of children are being recruited to work for insurgent groups, where they become what she called the “silent victims of the continued violence.”
This probably explains the uptick in child casualties in Sadr City - they are being used as shields or as mules to move equipment and getting hit in the defensive attacks. The depravity of the Islamo Fascists will go down in history as one of the most sickeningly brutal ever.
But back to the propaganda BS. We have clear evidence that this new PR game is being jointly coordinated with Iran and the Sadrists since the stories are coming from Iranian ‘news’ agencies initially. Coordination is a clear sign this is an attempt to manipulate the press with false stories. And sadly a few liberal news organizations are being duped by this ridiculous claim.
The fact is there is no need to use cluster bombs, and if we wanted to wipe out people we would use real bombs, not precision hellfire missiles which limit the kill zone. If we wanted Sadr City depopulated indiscriminately it would have been done by now. So why the clownish attempt to get help from the western liberal news media? Simple - Sadr’s forces are taking a pounding and Iraqis, in general, are not rising up in protest but are instead sitting back in quiet support of the Prime Minister Maliki’s actions. Maliki has given Sadr conditions to end the fighting, so peace was put on the table if there is an interest by the Mahdi to grab for it:
Maliki said the government would halts its operations against the Mahdi Army if the militia turns in its weapons, turns over wanted members, provides the names of those behind recent violence, and agrees to “cease interference in the affairs of the state,” The Associated Press reported Friday. Sadr has refused to disarm and disband the Mahdi Army in the past.
The response was the lame PR stunt, so we can all see who is interested in peace and who is trying to find a way to continue the fighting. In Basra Sadr’s Mahdi thugs have been purged, which means the prime supply lines and funding sources for the Mahdi have been cut off:
raqi forces have taken control of the last militia stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the southern city of Basra, the US military said in a statement on Saturday.
It said Iraqi troops began the last stage of Operation Saulat al-Farsan (Charge of the Knights) on Friday in Basra’s northern neighbourhood of Al-Huteen, a bastion of Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.
The operation included clearing and searching homes in the area, it said.
“Al-Huteen, part of the Five Mile Market neighbourhood of Basra, had been considered a stronghold for criminal elements of the Jaysh al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army) militia,” the statement said.“But, when the soldiers…. moved into the city, the local citizens actively welcomed and cooperated with them.”
My guess is Mahdi forces will be rolled up across the southern sections of Iraq. What is interesting is the continued fighting in Sadr City. Something is inside that area the Mahdi don’t want to have exposed, or they would have laid down their arms and melted into the population like they have done many times before. Something is special about Sadr City (as opposed to Najaf, etc). Only time will tell why this location is the one where the fighting remains strong.
What has this wrought for the US? Respect - and lots of it. Check out this piece from an Australian paper:
THE US war in Iraq has strengthened its strategic position, especially in terms of key alliances, and the only way this could be reversed would be if it lost the will to continue the struggle and abandoned Iraq in defeat and disarray.
Surely the author of this sentence is on the ganja, you might say. Something a little weird in the coffee? It goes against every aspect of conventional wisdom.
But the author of this thesis, stated only marginally less boldly, is one of the US’s most brilliant strategic analysts. Mike Green holds the Japan chair at Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies and was for several years the Asia director at the National Security Council. He is also one of America’s foremost experts on Japan and northeast Asia generally.
His thesis, applied strictly to the US position in Asia, is correct.
Yes, we are respected more - maybe not admired any less. But Bin Laden’s vision of a weak and impotent society too wedded to popular culture to defend itself has been destroyed. And people understand that our military power is beyond anything else in the world. Our precision strike capability allows us to take out those who are our enemies without extended risk to the population around them. We have reminded the world why it is not prudent to mess with America. We still have very strong and sharp teeth we will use when necessary.
That is, in the end, the prime message we wanted the world to know after 9-11. Don’t do that again because this is the smallest price you will pay - it goes up from here.
**************************EXCERPT************************
Open speculation has been growing this last week (fueled by the remarks of Admiral Mullen) that Iran was beginning to stockpile weapons and other assets with the Mahdis in preparation for a major insurrection/assault across southern Iraq in September and October, when they believed America would be paralyzed by election concerns. Maliki’s sudden attack must may have shortcircuited all of those plans.
Not to say that Iran won’t try *something* - they probably will. But the options open to them will now be much riskier.
US Using Banned Weapons in Iraq
**************************************
BAGHDAD, April 27--A senior Iraqi health official has said that the US military has been utilizing internationally prohibited weapons against the Iraqi people in Baghdad's eastern neighborhood of Sadr City.
Ale Yassin, the member of the Committee on Health and Environment in the Iraqi parliament said that the occupying troops use internationally prohibited weapons during raids on Sadr City.
She said that forensic medicine investigations proved that the occupying troops used banned bombs in the recent raids on Sadr City which killed a number of people and injured several others.
Yassin added that the investigations came to the conclusion after carrying autopsy on the bodies of martyrs and injured people from the city.
Sheikh Salah al-Obaidi, a senior member of Sadr group strongly denounced the US crimes and massacres against the people of the city.
Obaidi said in a statement given to Alalam satellite TV on Saturday evening that "There are crimes against humanity committed by the occupying troops in the Sadr City, and there is a provocation by targeting children and women."
The US military has recently launched a full-scale crackdown against the people in Sadr City killing the people there everyday.
On Saturday fierce clashes between gunmen and the US troops in Baghdad's Sadr City killed at least eight people, including two children.
The US military began building a concrete wall there last week. But the construction project has angered local followers of Sadr.
Sadr on Friday called upon his followers and security forces to stop confrontation, a week after he warned of "open war" against the occupying troops in Iraq.
He asked all Iraqi groups to continue to observe the ceasefire and not to battle government forces.
He also made clear his battle was against US occupying troops, whom he has demanded leave Iraq.
"My brothers in the Mehdi Army and the Iraqi forces, be a single hand and stop shedding each other's blood. Support all types of resistance in order to have a safe Iraq," Sadr said.
I'm guessing the thugs were killed by their own shrapnel, which also killed the innocents in the area.
In other words, if Sadr will totally surrender!!
Good on ya, Maliki.
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