Ammunition dump blast in Baghdad / US soldiers stoned by Iraqi protestors (merged)

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Around 40 Iraqis and 1 trigger happy invader has been killed.

Iraqis in anti-American protest](http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030426/80/dylu5.html)

ZAAFARANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - About 500 Iraqi men, chanting anti-American, pro-Islam slogans, have driven in a convoy of trucks, buses and cars out of the Baghdad suburb hit by a huge arms dump blast.

Reuters correspondent Rosalind Russell saw a first truck carrying six coffins, apparently containing bodies, followed by the rest of the convoy as it passed a U.S. military checkpoint set up after angry residents forced out American troops.

**“No Americans or Saddam; Yes, Yes to Islam!” **the men chanted in Arabic, some of them flying green Islamic flags and banners. Among the slogans were two in English: “Stop Explosions Near Civilians” and “The Terror After War”.

U.S. officers blamed unidentified attackers for firing flares into the dump to set off a series of huge explosions on Saturday.

Irate residents said they had complained before that U.S. forces were bringing munitions into the area from elsewhere and blowing them up in powerful detonations

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[QUOTE]
U.S. officers blamed unidentified attackers for firing flares into the dump to set off a series of huge explosions on Saturday.
[/QUOTE]
And supposing that is the truth, Iraqis blame unidentified US officers for allowing it. Who leaves an ammo dump unguarded in such a location?! Better yet, who puts an ammo dump in such a location?!?

3

American soldiers stoned by Iraqi protestors after ammunition blast in Baghdad

An utter disregard of civilian lives by the American occupation forces, and huge anti-American backlash, just as many have long been predicting…

US troops were stoned by a crowd when they first reached the site and began taking victims to local hospitals. Hundreds of people waved their fists at US troops as they were evacuated from the area.](BBC NEWS | Middle East | Anger over Baghdad arms blast)

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by spoon: *
And supposing that is the truth, Iraqis blame unidentified US officers for allowing it. Who leaves an ammo dump unguarded in such a location?! Better yet, who puts an ammo dump in such a location?!?
[/QUOTE]

Why do you suppose that the ammo dump was un-gaurded?? I doubt that the U.S. has mini-Patriot missles to shut down pistol flares.

The answer to "who puts an ammo dump in such a location" is found in the link posted by Malik73, "the location of the ammunition cache near a civilian population is another example of the former regime's disregard for the safety of Iraqi citizens".

5

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by JusticeIsBlind:

*The answer to "who puts an ammo dump in such a location" is found in the link posted by Malik73, "the location of the ammunition cache near a civilian population is another example of the former regime's disregard for the safety of Iraqi citizens". *
[/QUOTE]

Try not to tell half truths when quoting from articles I post, as it makes your argument rather foolish. The above claim you cite comes from a statement from the US Central Command, a fact you omitted to tell us about in your selective quotes. Here are some other facts you also forgot to quote from that article:-

Many Iraqis are accusing American troops of storing weapons in a residential area.

In recent days, US forces have carried out controlled explosions at the same arms dump.

"This is the responsibility of the US army because we told them this is a civilian area," one man said.

Next time try to to be more honest about what you quote. Thanks.

6

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Malik73: *

Try not to tell half truths when quoting from articles I post, as it makes your argument rather foolish. The above claim you cite comes from a statement from the US Central Command, a fact you omitted to tell us about in your selective quotes. Here are some other facts you also forgot to quote from that article:-

Many Iraqis are accusing American troops of storing weapons in a residential area.

In recent days, US forces have carried out controlled explosions at the same arms dump.

"This is the responsibility of the US army because we told them this is a civilian area," one man said.

Next time try to to be more honest about what you quote. Thanks.
[/QUOTE]

sorry Malik73, I did a bad thing, I assumed something. I assumed that the reason for posting links here was for people to read the entire article if they wish and to verify the source of the material.

Many Iraqis are accusing American troops of storing weapons in a residential area. do these same Iraqis accuse the Saddam regime of starting the dump the the Americans are trying to gaurd and apparently destroy?

"This is the responsibility of the US army because we told them this is a civilian area," one man said.
responsibilty to gaurd and dismantle, yes. keep hell bent militants from exploding with a pistol flare? I supposed if the person that shot the flare or whatever caused this explosion had been caught and detained while trying to commit the act, the U.S. would denying him some right?

7

A little ironic coming from someone who has built his anti-American credentials on half-truths and selective quotes. :rolleyes:

Just the most recent example:
"An utter disregard of civilian lives by the American occupation forces, and huge anti-American backlash, just as many have long been predicting…

The utter disregard of civilian lives came from the Iraqis who set off the ammo depot - which US claims was an existing facility.
A few hundred protestors represent the “huge anti-American backlash?” that many have predicted? Any 'ol demonstration will do eh? Whether it is organized my militant extremist religous zealots or one in response to an Iraqi attack on arms depot.

Let’s all try to be honest and not let or biased views be presented as facts.

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Originally posted by JusticeIsBlind:

[quote]
sorry Malik73, I did a bad thing, I assumed something. I assumed that the reason for posting links here was for people to read the entire article if they wish and to verify the source of the material.
[/quote]

Yes, and not to take part of one line out of context, without stating all the facts. That is akin to lying.

[quote]
do these same Iraqis accuse the Saddam regime of starting the dump the the Americans are trying to gaurd and apparently destroy?
[/quote]

Another mistruth. Did you read the part about how American occupation forces are actually storing more weapons at these depots? If not here is the exact line in full:-

**US troops are trying to clamp down on this trade by storing weapons at dozens of depots around Baghdad. **

Try again, and this time read all the articles on this story over and over again carefully.

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OK Malik73, yer right! I cut and paste from an article you posted and you gave the link to and I'm a liar. I know that you are right. This ammo dump was only started a week or so ago so the Americans could kill more civilians. It's better that actually shoouting at them. You know, maybe if the goal was to kill civilians the U.S. military might consider just pulling out of the country right now. Now need to put themselves in harms way for people they wanna kill anyway. Maybe just arm all the different factions on the way out of the country and let them kill each other. No need to train them with any of the sophistiacted weapons, so what if the guy trying to deploy the ordinance kills himself in the process? Given a little time they could probably wipe themselves out!

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[QUOTE]
Originally posted by JusticeIsBlind:

This ammo dump was only started a week or so ago so the Americans could kill more civilians. It's better that actually shoouting at them.
[/QUOTE]

As the article quite clearly says:-

**US troops are trying to clamp down on this trade by storing weapons at dozens of depots around Baghdad. **

Now the US occupation forces have no objection to these ammunition dumps when they are themselves storing more weapons in these sites, leading to the conclusion that:-

Many Iraqis are accusing American troops of storing weapons in a residential area.

As for American occupation forces shooting at Iraqi's - well we all remember how they gunned down those children and babies in that car in the south. Then the other week when they slaugtered 18 Iraqi demonstrators in Mosul demonstraing against the US occupation forces.

11

do you understand tongue-in-check?

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Malik :rolleyes:

JIB,

You don’t understand the code. Here goes.

The US is collecting weapons caches from around Baghdad, hidden in schools and mosques, and trying to resore stability. (They INTENDED to stockpile them in a residential neighborhood and kill a bunch of civilians!)

The US has been destroying weapons in controlled explosions, as some of the weapons were too large, dangerous, unstable to transport out through residential neighborhoods. (The US has been cynically stockpiling weapons and blowing them up just to scare the residents.)

Regime fighters launched flares into the compound in an attempt to blow up the weapons. (One cannot blame the noble fighters who were just trying to rid their land of occupiers, and they may use any method possible without blame!)

The area used to explode the weapons is an old military site with high walls, with huge amounts of stockpiled weapons that have been in that neighborhood for years. (The US put ALL the weapons there, and are fully to blame.)

You see, everything with the Americans must be perfect, as if 30 days into a conflict all things must be anticipated and dealt with, and that anything that goes wrong is an utter failure of the Americans. Never mind that 30 days ago the same Iraqi’s that are protesting would have been machined gunned down in the street.

Now, will there be more accidents and deaths? Yes. There are estimated to be over 10 Million landmines laid by the Iraqi’s. In Northern Iraq one child per day is lost to landmines. There are huge supplies of old weapons that degrade with time. Perhaps we forgot that an old RPG missfired and killed 3 marines and injured 8 others a couple of days ago. That same RPG could have killed a dozen Iraqi, not to mention a million other weapons in the same condition laying around the country.

It is a crying shame that people were killed. An absolute shame. Should the US have moved the weapons further out of town? Perhaps. But the transport of old, unstable weapons is also very dangerous to soldiers and civilians. If one of the “truck-sized” missles had blow up on a crowded road the casualties could have been much worse. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

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You mean moving it’s own weapons that it was previously storing in Iraqi schools?

US special forces take up residence in civilian installations…](http://www.gupistan.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=98277)

Try again. :rolleyes:

P.S. Nowadays it is American forces machine gunning Iraqi protestors as we saw in Mosul the other week…

14

Perhaps you should consider the following:

"A repentant member of the Fedayeen Saddam, a militia loyal to the former regime, told The Christian Science Monitor in a recent interview that his orders had been to wait until the end of the war, and then stage incidents that would cause Iraqi civilian casualties that could be blamed on the Americans. "

http://www.csmonitor.com/earlyed/early_iraq0426.htm

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OhioGuy! you know this can't be a credibale source! it has Christian in it's title.

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[QUOTE]
Originally posted by JusticeIsBlind: *
**you know this can't be a credibale source! it has Christian in it's title.
[/QUOTE]
*

Sorry, but what a silly statement. i myself have used sources from the Christian Science Monitor... No one has made a big deal out of it. The fact that it has "Christian" in its title has nothing to do with it whatsoever. If it happens to be an article that i believe is less subjective than CNN, i would gladly use CSM any day over other refs.

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[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Nadia_H: *
*

Sorry, but what a silly statement. i myself have used sources from the Christian Science Monitor... No one has made a big deal out of it. The fact that it has "Christian" in its title has nothing to do with it whatsoever. If it happens to be an article that i believe is less subjective than CNN, i would gladly use CSM any day over other refs.
[/QUOTE]

my comment was for Malik73. Maybe I should have directed it to Malik?

18

Oh!!! so just because you have this one statement from “a” militia guys the blame should be shifted from the invaders to Iraqis. Just like the Baghdad market bombing and other places where civilian casualities took place. It was never the invaders, always the Iraqis whose missiles misfired. Get a life. Try another one.

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[thumb=B]capt.1051365237.JPG[/thumb]
Caption: Iraqi Munthir Sabir, who lost six members of his immediate family when an American ammunition dump exploded and destroyed his home, walks through the remains of the site Saturday April 26, 2003. Unknown attackers fired flares at an Ameican ammunition dump on Baghdad’s southeastern outskirts, American soldiers said, setting off explosions and killing at least six. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by chosen1: *

Oh!!!!!!!!! so just because you have this one statement from "a" militia guys the blame should be shifted from the invaders to Iraqis. Just like the Baghdad market bombing and other places where civilian casualities took place. It was never the invaders, always the Iraqis whose missiles misfired. Get a life. Try another one.
[/QUOTE]
Just a wild guess... I bet you are of the belief that if the US finds WMD in Iraq they must have been planted by US, right?
It's funny how the inconsistency in the beilef of conspiracy theories around here is directly related to the amount of blame that is placed on the US for any such theory.