President W. Bush is in Mongolia. Mongolia is the third largest contributor to the forces in the Coalition after the US and UK. The number of Mongolian soldiers? 130 troops. The last Mongolian forces to go to Iraq, led by a grandson of Genghis Khan in 1258, sacked Baghdad and killed an estimated 800,000 people. Hegel here I come.
***
Meanwhile from today's Times :
FIVE members of the same Iraqi family, three of them children under the age of 4, were shot dead yesterday when US troops opened fire on their minivan outside a military base, fearing a suicide car bomb attack. The family were returning from a funeral in Balad to nearby Baquba, north of Baghdad, when they came across a patrol of US military vehicles forming a roadblock near the base. “The soldiers started shooting at us from all over,” Ahmed Kamel al-Sawamara, 22, the driver, said at the hospital where the dead and three wounded were taken. “I slowed down and pulled off the road, but they continued firing. I saw my family killed, one after the other, and then the car caught fire. I dragged their bodies out.”
(...)
American troops are often accused by Iraqis of shooting at civilian vehicles at roadblocks and from convoys travelling among ordinary traffic; but checkpoints and convoys are frequently attacked by car bombers driving civilian vehicles. No such bombing has yet been carried out by a vehicle with multiple occupants.
The Americans have never published figures for how many civilians they have killed by mistake in such incidents.
4 commentaires:
Jacques,
Have you read George Monbiot's article published in today's (22 Nov) Guardian?
Amongst other notable quotes from the piece is the following, which I think will be near and dear to your heart, as it is mine:
"The use of the toxic properties of a chemical as a weapon is illegal, whoever the target is."
Sean (iNoodle.com)
The US has never published an estimated amount of civilians killed in Iraq.
Earlier this year, some US soldiers opened fire on the car which was carrying Giuliana Sgrena (the kidnapped Italian journalist who had just been released). A member of the Italian secret service was killed (I think members of the secret service are considered to be civilians). There was an enquiry and a report had to be released – the contents of this report are not known – or at least little was said about the report (so much for freedom of information!).
Re Mongolian Soldiers: I might be wrong but doesn’t Mongolia still have a communist government? And doesn’t that go against Bush’s “democracy”?
Mongolia is now a democracy. See article linked in post for details.
Jacques and All (not shock-and-awe),
Please consider reading, thinking about and responding to this open question asked in my post of today, the 23rd of November (but with no expiration date):
A Worldwide Call for Input:
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
I would very much like to hear from you and any of your reader-contributors.
Thank you,
Sean (iNoodle.com)
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