Hospital In Baghdad Casualty of US Air Strike
A hospital in the Iraqi capital’s Sadr City, a Shiite militia stronghold, was damaged in a US air strike on Saturday, wounding around 20 people, medics and witnesses said.
A medic at the Al-Sadr hospital which was hit said women and children were among the 20 wounded in the strike, which a security official said took place at around 10:00 am (0700 GMT).
The US military confirmed the air strike but said it targeted “known criminal elements”.
“I can confirm that we conducted a strike in Sadr City this morning. The targets were known criminal elements. Battle damage assessment is currently ongoing,” a military spokesman told AFP.
Witnesses said the target of the strike, in which US forces dropped several missiles, was a small house adjacent to Al-Sadr hospital and used as a rest area by Shiite pilgrims.
The impact of the strike damaged more than a dozen ambulances belonging to the hospital, one of the three main medical facilities in the district, and also shattered windows of the building, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
© 2008 Agence France Presse
Continuing to win hearts and minds….
Murderers.
litt_wmn@yahoo.com
Guess that smart bomb had a Bush brain.
My father in law was a bombardier in WW2 and in Korea (napalm in Korea, first use of)
Dropping bombs on people creates a really sick personality
Where you are above it all, creating death and destruction, and
You just keeping going. Leaving all the mess behind.
He carried that pattern with him his whole life.
I am afraid that the United States has been seduced by ‘bombardier personality syndrome’
Remember “Shock and Awe” over Baghdad ? Presented on TV like a fireworks display ?
ps note to Kem Patrick — are you familiar with the Tunguska Event (Siberia, June 30th, 1908)
if not, try googling it, there is a centennial conference coming up in June this year so lots of info out there
Disgusting. Bush, and that Mother he rode in on are a curse to all of Humanity. She told the world he was a good boy. He is a murderer and she knew that. Curses to their disgusting lineage and the disgusting things they do. Nobody, Except: Bush and His Principals**, deserves what those Iraqi people are Enduring!
** http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/30/8611/
Well said, CD’ers. You said it Kem.
The US does not ‘do’ regime change.
The US does not torture.
The US does not employ corporate mercenaries to perform deniable black ops.
The war in Iraq is not about oil.
The US does not target civilian infrastructure, including hospitals.
George W. Bush does not have a criminal record for possession and use of cocaine.
BWAHH HAH HAHH HAAHH HAH!!
Sorry… I just couldn’t say it with a straight face!
“You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” G.W.Bush
“Son, I love your strategy, but don’t let them get to know you.” Barara Bush
The US military targeted “known criminal elements” such as women, children, the sick and elderly. Reminds me of Bush’s Jews targeting the red crosses on ambulances in Lebanon or the six decade Palestinean Holocaust…
If I had a military mindset, which I do not, I would probably have to say that “acceptable losses are normal during a bombing run”
Just goes to show that any war is unacceptable, any loss of life is unacceptable, anytime a country has as it’s primary expenditure the making of war and war materials, instead of the peaceful resolution to conflict, I would consider the leaders of that country evil.
It appears that the greatest expenditure of U.S. taxes is going to the Middle East conflict and from grants and payouts to support countries that make war on it’s own citizens.
Seems that I’m having some problems editing the last post.
What I meant to say was that I consider the leaders of that country evil not the entire country.
Sorry about the problem
“Bombing the houses is a patchy way of getting the women and children, and our infantry always incur losses in shooting down the Arab men. By gas attacks the whole population of offending districts could be wiped out neatly…”
T.E. Lawrence, letter to The Observer, 1920
(Robert Fisk, Conquest of the Middle East, Knopf, 2005)
- Deja Vue, n’est pa?
alaskamaid. I just saw an hour long Pentagon-sponsored piece on PBS (followed right after Sesame Street so’s to catch the kid audience) of people who displayed abundantly the “bombardier personality syndrome” of which you spoke. Some of these guys (and gals) expressed disinterest in the issue of the targets they were hitting when these carrier-based bombings were “called in” for air strikes to protect our ground troops from the “bad guys.” and a few mouthed the propaganda about how precise are our weapons with little collateral damage and if so, so what? One pilot expressed skepticism about the connection between all this and terrorism but he described himself as “different” than the other guys and one of this squadron mates called him a “blue” guy. Combined with reading about this errant strike on a Baghdad hospital, this viewing leaves me with a very indignant feeling about the criminality of our “air war” in Iraq, which is where most of the damage (to Iraqis, not U.S. guys) is coming. The “long war” proposed in varying degrees by McCain, Clinton and Obama will be built on the shoulders of a collective version of the “bombardier personality symdrome” because hell, we’re a COUNTRY OF BPS’s.
Republican apologist friends of mine insisted that the mistaken bombing of a wedding party in Northern Iraq during the early days of Shock and Awe was propaganda. They were sure everyone in Fallujah - men, women, and children - were al Qaeda terrorists when US forces blasted that city into oblivion about a year later. Now I’m sure they are saying we don’t bomb hospitals so it must have been a front for Iranian terrorists infiltrating Iraq. Is there no end to the killing and the rationalization of the killing? Where is our humanity? If not humanity, where is our intelligence? There were 19 hijackers - 14 Saudis and ZERO Iraqis? What the hell are we doing in that innocent country?
I remember a M*A*S*H episode where Hawkeye gave a B-29 bombardier a close-up look at what his button-pushing did to innocent victims; naturally, he repented and amended his ways. Do you think bomb-boy McCain feels any remorse? Do you think he’ll tell us if his cocky bombardier hubris started the USS Forrestal fire that killed over 150 sailors? Do you think his button-pushing might lead us deeper into war?
War is Hell . . . .
War destroys . . . . That’s what is does.
Your job as a member of the military is to kill the other guy before he kills you or one of your buddies. Why are you so surprised that others will be killed besides the actual enemy. As long a humans continue to use war to gain what they need, think they need, or just plain want, there will be people killed . . . . That folks is the reality of war . . . . The only way to stop the killing is to stop the war. As long as America needs oil there will be war. If you expect an elected Democrat to stop the war take a look at the reality of our currently elected politicians.
“known criminal elements” are hiding near a Sadr City hospital?
The most notorious and destructive criminal elements are hiding inside the White House.
I keep waking up to hear the news: “White House destroyed; Bush and Cheney missing”
This is just another sorry and horrible addition to the growing list of war crimes committed by the United States over the last centuries. Unfortunately, the perpetrators of U.S. war crimes are never brought to the bar of justice to receive their just desserts.
Were there any justice in this world, Bush and Cheney and the neo-con architects of the Iraq War and Occupation atrocity would have long been behind bars awaiting their final judgment.
Ooops. Sorry, our GPS mustve been off on that one.
We’ll try not to let it happen again
Dropping bombs on a city you “occupy” following the defeat of an enemy in war is a war crime. The war ended in 2003.
So we were targeting ““known criminal elements”. Ok, so whats next, dropping bombs in NYC? Don’t laugh. I mean, there are other ways to fight crime.
A friend came back missing parts after an Iraqi tried to throw homemade dynamite in his armored carrier. He had no animosity towards Iraqis after that and even felt sorry that Iraqi hospitals have no anesthesia to kill the pain operating on the Iraqi troops. So I imagine the “public” hospitals don’t use anesthesia either.
What a nightmare that must be.
Allow me to annotate the military spokesperson’s statement with a dose of cold, hard, truth:
“I can confirm that we conducted a strike in Sadr City this morning.”
(It’s all over the news, so we have no choice but to fess up.)
“The targets were known criminal elements.”
(That’s all I’m going to say. That’s all we ever say. Get used to it. To quote Don and Dick, “Stuff happens, go f%&$ yourself.”)
“Battle damage assessment is currently ongoing.”
(We don’t have a clue what happened, and we don’t really care.)
There. Fair and balanced.
George is a cruel and soulless man who kills people for profit. He is our all American boy.
#1 It’s a war crime to bomb a hospital.
#2 The “militants” are not “taking cover within a civilian population & therefore cynically putting the civilians at risk” (the perpetual excuse - in Iraq and Lebanon - for bombing civilian targets) - the “militants” ARE the civilian population, defending their homeland, just as we would (I think) if occupied.
#3 It’s a war crime to bomb a hospital.
‘I can confirm that we conducted a strike in Sadr City this morning. The targets were known criminal elements”
Define :criminal” Too many unpaid parking tickets? Nice way to fight crime…coming soon to an amercian city near you
I rest my case about executions in the USA as this proves how the USA exports murder so why not murder their own in America.
Now they have taken to calling the insurgents ‘criminal elements’????? I guess that sounds better than ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘Iraqi’s defending their country’! Maybe someone told them how their propaganda of calling them ‘terrorist’s’ or ‘al Qaeda’ wasn’t working anymore! So they are changing tactic’s trying to keep their die hard Republican supporters from demanding what they are doing killing innocent people???? Not that most ‘neocon lunatics’ consider any Arab innocent! They are guilty for just being an Arab!
Part of the current administrations’s bully policy. Wouldn’t surprise me to discover the hospital was hit on purpose.
Whatfools…is this the Deja Vu to which you refer:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/22/2682/
BTW Lawrence was being facetious in his letter, were you?
I love this blog and all who have written today. Thanks
Greatbear215 Says:
{Part of the current administrations’s bully policy. Wouldn’t surprise me to discover the hospital was hit on purpose.}
Good point. And if the target was “known criminals” why didn’t they kick down the door and go in as they have been doing the last 5 years.
One word: COWARDS
I find it very interesting that, while al-Maliki’s personally commanded attack on Shiite militia (3/25) was executed using solely his government’s military forces, ever since the U. S. had to come to their aid (because al-Sadr’s army was kicking their asses)…all the reports I’m getting on subsequent military action only mentions U. S. forces.
We were led to believe (by the lying bastards who are running the show) that we were remaining in Iraz for training and support purposes. A jockstrap is a means of support but one has to have the balls to be supported; obviously the Iraqi forces are lacking in that department.
I’ve made reference to it before; the kid in the first grade never learns to fight his own battles as long as he knows his big brother is going to step in and defend him And that is precisely what the U. S. is doing, not only in Iraq but everywhere it can manage to stick its nose in, playing big brother.
At the risk of being repetitious, for the benefit of wcdevins (above) and anyone else who still wants to know what we’re doing in that country if they were not involved in the 9/11 attacks on us, I cordially invite you to visit the following:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1028-01.htm
Thank you for putting up with the rantings of this tired old man who does not believe that how many people you kill should be a measure of your patriotism. I strongly support our military forces; I just want to support them SOMEWHERE ELSE!
While this “war” continues without any sign of relief, I fail to see the difference between Hitler marching into Austria and Poland and Bush invading Iraq. Oh yes, Hitler rode into town standing up with his salute, but Bush cowers behind some hidden room encircled with countless military and secret service men protecting his cowardly ass.