Wedding Party Massacre? Doubtful.....

In message , Chad Irby
writes
Well, the video shown on the BBC shows *a* party or wedding. It could
have been shot at any time over the last year or more, as far as that
goes.

I've seen the footage, but it's been heavily caveated - this "purports"
(the BBC's word, not mine) to be film of the wedding party before the
attack, and footage of the aftermath, but firm evidence is lacking to
date.

The original source for both the footage and some of the claims is
Associated Press TV News.

--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

"Scott MacEachern" wrote in message
om...
"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...

The pictures were shown at the brief, but curiously none of the news
outlets
seem to want to run them on their sites, as best I can determine
(understandable--they in general much prefer running anti-US materiel,
of
course).

Of course. That must be why they're not on dod.mil as well.
Subversives in the Pentagon, no doubt.

Yeah, no doubt they were all fabricated before they were shown to the media
folks at that press brief yesterday, right? In your fervent imagination that
may be the case...


what if it was a "smuggling operation" aimed at providing
supplies to the insurgents/terrorists? Guess that still makes them a
non-target in your mind, eh?

Nope. What it does indicate is that _it would be a capital idea to
know who they are before blowing them up_!

Well, when they started shooting at US forces, they kind of crapped up the
ol' "OK, everybody put your guns down and let's talk..." approach, now
didn't they?

Kimmitt's various
statements over the last few days make it clear that the military did
not know what was out the terrorists? smugglers? bad people? bad
people having celebrations? women? children? musicians from Baghdad?
What are you going to do, just fly over the Western desert of Iraq and
drop bombs on everyone who moves?

Kimmitt:

"But the intelligence that we had, that got us there, what we found on the
ground and our post-strike analysis suggests that what we had was a
significant foreign-fighter waystation, smuggler waystation in the middle of
the desert that was bringing people into this country for the sole purpose
of attacking to kill the people of Iraq. We have a responsibility to
maintain a safe and secure environment. That is our responsibility, that is
our obligation, and we will carry that out."

Your paraphrasing again leaves a lot out.


So you find it quite understandable that a large number of Sudanese men
of
military age, armed to the degree we have seen thus far in this case,
and
carrying a pretty grand portable field medical set with them, etc ...

Where did this come from? One passport from Sudan, from what Kimmitt
said on the 22nd.

Same source on the 24th: "These are the passports of Sudanese citizens that
were involved in the raid." Note the use of plural "passports".

A medical examinationtable on the site. Syringes.
This is a 'pretty grand portable field medical set '? AKs and an
RPG.... in Iraq.

Kimmittt: "More weapons, battery packs that we typically associate with
those that are used for improvised explosive devices, a full-sized medical
treatment bed for hasty operations in the field; top right, as we've showed
before, the binoculars that had reticle patterns in them that one typically
uses for adjusting artillery, adjusting mortar rounds."


Well, if we have smugglers running RPG's and ammo, then they sound like
a
viable target to me. Those RPG's are killing our guys, don'tcha know?

So are AKs. Are you going to declare open season on everyone in Iraq
who owns an AK, as well? A pistol... don't forget, there were some of
those found, too. Do you want to kill everyone in Iraq who owns a
pistol?

RPG does not equal pistol. You need to get back to the basics of
weaponeering--you obviously are having a bit of difficulty with basic
concepts.


Yep...lots of Suadanese smugglers a long way from home, with terrorist
training manuals, armed to the teeth, to include at least one RPG,
battery
kits of the same type being used to set off IED's, etc.... Yep, they are
most definitely innocent bystanders--the PA system proves it, right?!

Quite a bit of this seems to be your imagination. You might note that
the 'terrorist training manuals' seem to have disappeared from the
last briefing given by Kimmitt, although you'd think they'd be pretty
determinative. And as for teh rest... no, I can't see anything in
there that proves these anything but bystanders, innocent or not.

So now you are saying that because he does not list every piece of evidence
found *each and every time* he briefs, it never existed in the first place?


You also conveniently forget to mention video of the wedding,

The jury is still out on that one, from what I have gathered.

video of
smashed musical instruments and furniture taken by AP last week,
grieving widows in Baghdad, pictures of women and kids being buried.
But hell, that's only Iraqis, eh? Not nearly as convincing as a nice,
clean briefing room in Baghdad...

Your continuing "damn the US at all costs" sentiments come through loud and
clear, as usual. I guess the possibility of bad guys manipulating the media
(not that it requires a great deal of manipulation in most cases) is to be
discounted outright, too, eh? Gosh, some of the terrorist networks even have
websites these days! Not to metion their other stalwart support sytems, like
Al Jazeerah..and you?

Brooks

Brooks


Scott

"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message ...

Out of curiousity--when was the last time you posted something positive
about the US, or its military forces, or its military operations (and keep
this in the modern era, please)?

How about these most recently, in an exchange that you and I had in
February, on a thread entitled ' "The New Soldier" by John Kerry et
al':

" You and I have differing views of what makes someone "admirable". I
find the
Army aviators who landed at My Lai and placed themselves in between the
perpetrators and some of the soon-to-be victims as being "admirable"...

Actually, I find that admirable as well. You don't like what Kerry
said after a war that, AFAIK, he was in and you (and I) weren't? Fine,
but that's hardly a reason to condemn him, in my book."

and "Kerry went to a dumb-ass war, then opposed it when he got back...
both admirable things and fulfilling the duties of a citizen, I'd
say."

Or don't those count because the conversation involved a Democrat? I
won't even ask you to find a case in which you were critical of the
American military... I'm sure they exist, somewhere.

In any case, why would you think that I'm disgusted with America, or
even with the American military? It's a standard practice in these
forums to accuse anyone who brings these topics up of hating America
(you're actually far less dramatic about doing that than a variety of
other people...), but you must realise that it is possible to
criticise -- even consistently criticise -- particular aspects of
military affairs without hating the organisation involved.

You want a statement of principles? OK: I have a great deal of respect
for many aspects of the American military, and for American soldiers
as a group. I think that for the most part, they are professional and
sincere in what they do. I think that an American doctrinal emphasis
on overwhelming firepower is not equalled by a similar emphasis on
intelligence gathering and target confirmation, in circumstances of
expeditionary warfare where people who may be valid targets are
interspersed with innocent civilians and where military knowledge of
local populations is often abysmally low. I think that the rhetoric of
the 'War on Terror' has led American civilian leaders to put in place
procedures where significant violations of human rights, more
specifically the various Geneva Conventions, have occured; the most
systematic violations appear to have involved civilian agencies, but
military units have been involved in some cases. I think that a
military as professional as that of the United States should be able
to police its own screw-ups, and I don't like to see cases where it
doesn't. I dislike historical amnesia, and historical revisionism.

Now, you may think all of that nonsense -- and I won't care a whit.
But now you know more or less where I'm coming from.

The reasons I stay here are fairly straightforward: I find a lot of
things to admire about the United States, I like my job and I like the
community I live in. The reason I bring these issues up (here and in
other forums) are equally straightforward: I disapprove of the way
they're handled, I pay (rather substantial) taxes in America and I
don't have an American franchise to exercise. The fact that I live
here doesn't mean that I have to approve of everything your government
does, nor that I have to show any deference toward your president.
Sorry, lèse-majesté isn't even a crime in Canada, let along the USA.

You have inaccurately paraphrased, or incompletely paraphrased his
statements to the point of changing his meaning.

A paraphrase is necessarily incomplete, and I'm not about to paste
full transcripts into a Usenet post. If you have cases where I've
distorted what Kimmitt has said, post 'em.

Scott

On Mon, 24 May 2004 21:32:42 -0400, Scott MacEachern wrote:

On Mon, 24 May 2004 04:30:21 GMT, Paul Elliot
wrote:

Just why are we giving ANY creedence to criticism from an "alleged"
FRENCH person?

Who, me? I'm Canadian, and I've worked in different parts of Africa --
but mostly in the area I mentioned -- through the last 20 years.

Scott

You are an ass regardless of your nationality. You consistently take
"news reports" as gospel, regardless of the facts of a situation.

Being an apologist for Saddam and Al-Q is not the road to
credibility.

Al Minyard

In message , "Paul J. Adam" wrote:

it's fine in peacetime idiot, but firing mg's in a war zone will get you
killed .

It's not a "war zone"

??????

- major combat operations ended last year.

ISTR that they did. This is not the modern British Army (as it appears as
things are judged "over there." A few companies skirmishing with small groups
of insurgents hardly constitute a major battle. There has been no large scale
(corps/army) maneuvering, since the fall of Baghdad.

Your
President said so, I saw him on the televisualiser gadget thingy,
standing on one of his big grey war canoes.

They aren't his, they are the U.S. public's. We are a republic, remember?

What, was he wrong or something? Isn't anyone going to tell him?

For "he" you should have written "I," and, yes, you are, or are you attempting
to sell the notion that guerilla war is not war, therefore, a "warzone" cannot
exist? You have really stretched some of your arguing points beyond the point
of credulity of late.

--
Regards,

Michael P. Reed

"Michael P. Reed" wrote in message
...
In message , "Paul J. Adam" wrote:

it's fine in peacetime idiot, but firing mg's in a war zone will get
you
killed .

It's not a "war zone"

??????

- major combat operations ended last year.

ISTR that they did. This is not the modern British Army (as it appears as
things are judged "over there." A few companies skirmishing with small
groups
of insurgents hardly constitute a major battle. There has been no large
scale
(corps/army) maneuvering, since the fall of Baghdad.

Your
President said so, I saw him on the televisualiser gadget thingy,
standing on one of his big grey war canoes.

They aren't his, they are the U.S. public's. We are a republic, remember?

What, was he wrong or something? Isn't anyone going to tell him?

For "he" you should have written "I," and, yes, you are, or are you
attempting
to sell the notion that guerilla war is not war, therefore, a "warzone"
cannot
exist? You have really stretched some of your arguing points beyond the
point
of credulity of late.

Watch out--he is liable to take your earlier statement, "There has been no
large scale
(corps/army) maneuvering, since the fall of Baghdad" and remove the last
phrase of it, then toss the resulting paraphrase back at you and claim you
said there was never any large-scale maneuvering, period. It would not be
the first time he has done so. Even more blatantly than this attempt to
revise the character of Bush's actual speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln,
which included, "Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the
USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq
have ended...And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing
that country...We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to
parts of that country that remain dangerous...In the battle of Afghanistan,
we destroyed the Taliban, many terrorists and the camps where they
trained...Yet we also have dangerous work to complete." Notice how he has
latched onto the "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" part and tried
to twist it (rather unrealistically, as you noted) to his own purposes,
while leaving out those parts about difficult and dangerous work ahead of
us, bringing order to dangerous areas, etc., that don't suit his particular
goal at present.

Brooks


--
Regards,

Michael P. Reed

Name me *one* territory on the surface of the entire planet that isn't
"occupied land" from somebody's perspective.

That whole "occupied lands" thing is a farce.

The palestinians have their country/homeland. It's called Jordan.

Steve Swartz

"Tamas Feher" wrote in message
...
So Hamas isn't a bunch of terrorists. It's a militant group, or a
so-called "terrorist" group.

As long as Palestine and East Jerusalem is occupied, Hamas is free to
blow up whatever they want. Just like the WWII soviet partisans, Tito's
yugoslavian partisans, the french armed resistance or the anti-Quisling
norwegians did it. Trains, buses, automobiles, bridges and buildings,
anything israeli or Third Reich. It is their unalienable right to scare
the invaders off their occupied land. It is harder to do now, cause
palestinian do not receive any foreign supply comparable what Tito got
from the USA and USSR. They are practically fighting bare handed (AK-47
and homemade junk against heavy tanks).

But be sure, Allah is patient, and arabs have time on their hands, like
sand in the desert. Years are like seconds for the almighty. Some time
the sons of Allah will regain their land.

I think israelis should move to California and live there. They have
done so much harm and terror to the middle east in the last 55 years
(invasions, 200+ nuclear bombs, biological weapons of ethnically
selective mass destruction, ethnic cleansing, etc.) that you really
cannot expect arabs to live in peace with them ever. Damn it, jews they
still didn't pay the gov't of Lebanon for all the destruction they did
in those 22 years of occupation of the southern part of the country.

Regards, Tamas Feher.

In message , Michael P. Reed
writes
In message , "Paul J. Adam" wrote:
It's not a "war zone"

??????

Many keep saying so.

- major combat operations ended last year.

ISTR that they did. This is not the modern British Army (as it appears as
things are judged "over there." A few companies skirmishing with small groups
of insurgents hardly constitute a major battle. There has been no large scale
(corps/army) maneuvering, since the fall of Baghdad.

So a virgin could walk the length and breadth of Iraq with her bosom
full of gold, and none might raise a hand to her?

What, was he wrong or something? Isn't anyone going to tell him?

For "he" you should have written "I," and, yes, you are, or are you attempting
to sell the notion that guerilla war is not war, therefore, a "warzone" cannot
exist?

I'm not the one trying to claim that Iraq is a peaceful haven of
tranquility with just the last handful of insurgents to be winkled
out...

You have really stretched some of your arguing points beyond the point
of credulity of late.

Why? I'm just asking for some consistency. One minute it's a successful
and mostly peaceful occupation: the next, it's a furious insurgency with
guerillas behind every rock.

I'm willing to believe one, or the other, but not both at the same time.




--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

"Leslie Swartz" wrote in message
...
Sure, Tamas, several hours of "video of a wedding party" must be real hard
to come by. Pictures/video of dead women and children must be rare
indeed.

Does anything- anything at all- tie any of this to the events in question?

Anything?

For that matter, perhaps the whole war is being faked in Hollywood. Maybe
none of it is real. Could you prove to me that it was?

Your post marks you as very naive. Maybe you are very young. A hint: wars
are not won or lost by the provability of facts. You may be thinking of
court cases?

This incident, whether it really happened or not, has caused terrible (maybe
fatal?) damage to the continued US occupation of Iraq. FWIW I believe it
really was a wedding.

John

PS Do you think all the torture pics and video were also maybe faked? How
about the moon landings...

John:

1) Leave your bogus ad hominem attacks for someone else; I don't buy them
("very young, indeed!"). The naive person is the one who believes that by
casting dubious a[psersions on the character or nature of the person
presenting hte argument, they have somehow "scored points" in the argument
itself.

2) I never stated- I never implied- that lies/propaganda have no power.
Go ahead and argue against that straw man if you like; once again, it also
(see ad hominem above) says more about you as a person than the nature of
your- or my- argument.

3) Add the straw man about "the whole war is faked" to the existing
bonfire, will you?

4) And nice go of adding a couple of other gratuitous (and irrelevant, and
reflective to your position) ad-hominem slanders and strawmen at the end as
well. You missed the obvious tin foil hat and trilateral commission ones
though.

O.K., so the crux of your argument is thus:

"I believe the wedding story is true, therefore you must be a big doody
head."

O.K., if I guess that's all you can come up with we can move on . . .

(note: I'm the guy who posted the analogy to the Jenin mythology and how
the power of "Arab Truth" is stronger than the power of "Western Truth"
mainly because while our truth is based on reason and evidence, arab truth
is based on faith and culture. Truths based on reason and evidence are
harder to demonstrate than truths basedc on "it sounds right to me and fits
my assumptions and preferences." That's why it's irrelevant- to you-
whether or not the "evidence" of the "wedding massacre" are in any way
"true" or "false" in a western sense. The pictures are purely authentic- no
fakery required- in that they represent what they represent- it's just that
what they represent have nothing whatsoever to do with what the providers
are *claiming* tehy represent. Nice chatting with you anyways.)

Steve Swartz





"John Mullen" wrote in message
. net...
"Leslie Swartz" wrote in message
...
Sure, Tamas, several hours of "video of a wedding party" must be real
hard
to come by. Pictures/video of dead women and children must be rare
indeed.

Does anything- anything at all- tie any of this to the events in
question?

Anything?

For that matter, perhaps the whole war is being faked in Hollywood. Maybe
none of it is real. Could you prove to me that it was?

Your post marks you as very naive. Maybe you are very young. A hint: wars
are not won or lost by the provability of facts. You may be thinking of
court cases?

This incident, whether it really happened or not, has caused terrible
(maybe
fatal?) damage to the continued US occupation of Iraq. FWIW I believe it
really was a wedding.

John

PS Do you think all the torture pics and video were also maybe faked? How
about the moon landings...