One of the biggest and as yet unanswered questions about the war in Iraq is how many people have been killed. With Baghdad under intensive bombardment, the International Red Cross says so many injured are arriving at hospitals that no one can keep track of the numbers. Iraq says more than 1,200 civilians have been killed
But the ICRC is estimating that at the height of the bombardment on Sunday, they were receiving injured people at the rate of 100 an hour.
An independent website has been set up to try to keep track of the body count. They’re collating figures from news reports and they give two figures. On Sunday they showed a maximum estimate of 1049 civilians killed and a minimum of 876.
Amidst all the aerial assaults, cluster bombs, slaughtering etc etc., can we ensure that innocent civilians who are supposed to be the ones liberated, receive their food rations. The World Health Organization has warned of a “health emergency” in Baghdad as well as the rest of the country. Casualties run at the rate of 100 patients - on an hourly basis - being admitted into city hospitals.
Access to the Iraqi capital’s hospitals has been restricted, but wards were already overflowing with the injured when American troops made their first incursion on Saturday. "It is certainly worrying if we hear talk of ways of prosecuting this war where the concerns of civilians are, if you like, put to one side," Stephen Crawshaw, director of Human Rights Watch in London, told the BBC.
Aid agencies have had only limited success in shipping in food relief, notably to the Kurdish north, although a United Nations team is now assessing conditions at the deep-water port of Umm Qasr in the south. Mr Crawshaw said he was particularly concerned at possible siege tactics in Baghdad, as they might involve "starvation and failure to have access to water".
The US military command has talked of “isolating” Baghdad, where the Iraqi Government is still putting up resistance, rather than storming it. Inside the city, where casualties have been admitted on an average of 100 per hour, hospitals are working around the clock to cope with a deluge of patients.
Hospitals are also hampered by shortages of electricity and water and the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of a health emergency both in Baghdad and in the country as a whole.
Nine civilians were killed when a missile crashed into a residential neighborhood in central Baghdad on Monday, witnesses said. Meanwhile, fighting was raging on Monday afternoon in the area of Baghdad’s landmark al-Rashid hotel, which has been cordoned off by Iraqi fighters, hours after a US raid on the nearby presidential palace, AFP correspondents said.
Iraqi paramilitary fighters were seen firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades from different angles toward the area of the al-Rashid, they said. It was not clear who was returning fire, as the entire neighborhood has been cordoned off by Iraqi forces since the lightning raid in the morning by US forces on the Republican Palace compound in central Baghdad.
Two abandoned police cars damaged by shelling were seen on the corner of a road leading to the hotel. A green civilian car was also damaged from shelling a few metres away, at the entrance of the al-Alawi bus station which has been empty since the morning amid US forces’ onslaught. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The Rashid Hotel has long been the residence of foreign dignitaries and journalists in Baghdad.
It became famous after the 1991 Gulf War for a mosaic portrait of the former US president George Bush set into the entrance, forcing all visitors to walk over his face. Most journalists have left the Rashid Hotel for security reasons amid the more than two-week-old US and British offensive to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Pretty graphic pictures of civilian casualties on the following website.
View at your own discretion.
Note from the website: Please note that some of these pictures are not suitable for small children and those who have weak hearts. Several pictures are being added daily
Its so hard to look at pictures like these. This is just one account, I don't know how many more lives unaccounted for have suffered and will suffer more.
May Allah swt destroy the destroyer of these lives, destroy ALL aggressors, ALL those people who kill others without justice, ruin the life of ALL those who are on the wrong side of this conflict.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Changez_like: *
Its so hard to look at pictures like these. This is just one account, I don't know how many more lives unaccounted for have suffered and will suffer more.
[thumb=B]victim.JPG[/thumb]
[/QUOTE]
This picture is so saddening, it was in our local paper.
his name is Ali, his father, his pregnant mother and brother were killed by American 'precision' guided missiles.
He was crying, wishing he had died too.
there were a flood of letters sent to the local paper from people offering to adopt him & to donate money for him and others alike.
All the americans are still glued to the story of the "great" rescue of a Female soldier from a "Iraqi hospital" whatever her name is. Only if they are aware of how many homes US destroyed. If Iraqis are to be liberated at the expense of thousand innocent lives then screw it. I would rather live under Sadams regime than see my family dying in this insanity. This is sad and painful. May Allah give sabar to the familes who lost their loved ones.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by underthedome: *
Should I start posting pics of what Saddam has done over there years to his people while you stood silent, why all the noise now?
[/QUOTE]
It wasn't just "us" watching/hearing. There was a global cop, or should I say gang-man helping this guy, stood silent when Saddam used arms/ammunitions/chemicals supplied by this gang-man. BTW, do you know who this "gang-man" is?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by underthedome: *
Should I start posting pics of what Saddam has done over there years to his people while you stood silent, why all the noise now?
[/QUOTE]
At least you should have the balls to admit that these casualties are wrong, bad. Can you for a fraction of second leave the "evil-Saddam" rhetoric aside and try to feel the pain of people like these? Can you imagine yourself to be in his shoes (if he has left any)?
No body is saying Saddam was good/kind person. But to ignore the sadness/pain of suffering people is totally different talk.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by underthedome: *
If you think the U.S. provided Saddam with most of his weapons your wrong.
[/QUOTE]
Okay, lets say "gang-men"? would you be happy with that term? But then again, its the same gang-men attacking now. Try to feel the pain of the suffering people for a second. Let the discussion about "who provided most weapons to Iraq (esp WMDs) be a discussion for another thread, please.
Time to repeat the words of Abdul Hussein al-Quzweini, a Shi’ite cleric:
“Let the allied armies save this people from its occupiers (the Baghdad regime), who are not Iraqis.”
“Why are other peoples crying about the Iraqi people (during the war?) … Where were they during 35 years when prisons and detention centers were full of Iraqis?”
Time to also repeat the words of an Iraqi living under the Saddam regime:
“Look at it this way. No matter how bad it is we will not all die. We have hoped for some other way but nothing has worked. 12 years ago it went almost all the way but failed. We cannot wait anymore. We want the war and we want it now.”
Sitting from one’s comfy-bed, it is way too easy to look at the pictures demonstrating the horrors of war and say “I would rather live under Sadams regime than see my family dying in this insanity,” as sherrybaba has.
There is no doubt that we are witnessing tremendous “sadness/pain of suffering people” in Iraq. No one is rejoicing in the sadness and pain. The quicker the coalition accomplishes its objective, the quicker the suffering and pain ends. Then, let’s give the Iraqi people the respect they have earned through their suffering and pain and let them decide whether it was worth it.
Yes, you will find all sorts of people in this situation. One will say kill all Americans, one will say kill the army, one will say fight to save your land, one will say fight for your religion, and there will be people who have been oppressed before the war to say support the coalition forces. Yes, you will find all sort of support for different people. Its upto you to listen to one of them, tune your radio to your favorite station or the one you sympathize most.
Smoke was reported to be pouring out of the TV station following dawn attacks on Baghdad this morning. The raids stopped Iraq`s Satellite TV and domestic television service from broadcasting but they resumed service later today. Washington was reported to have been threatening to target Iraqi television for several days, since it showed interviews of American prisoners of war.
Amnesty International senior director for international law Claudio Cordone claimed that TV stations were protected under the Geneva Convention. He called on the allied forces to justify their attack on the Baghdad landmark. He said: The bombing of a television station simply because it is being used for the purposes of propaganda is unacceptable.It is a civilian object, and thus protected under international humanitarian law.
To justify such an attack coalition forces would have to show that the TV station was being used for military purposes and that the attack balanced the military advantage anticipated with the incidental risk to civilian life.At the Pentagon, a US spokeswoman confirmed coalition aircraft had struck the Iraqi state-run television channel, but did not know the extent of the damage. US Central Command in Qatar said this morning that coalition cruise missiles and bombs struck the station to damage the regime`s command and control capability. r Cordone said: ``Attacking a civilian object and carrying out a disproportionate attack are war crimes.
The onus is on the coalition forces to demonstrate the military use of the TV station and, if that is indeed the case, to show that the attack took into account the risk to civilian lives.During the Balkan conflict the US and Nato bombed the Serbian radio and television headquarters on the grounds that it was a propaganda organ. Sixteen civilians were reported to be killed.
Amnesty also condemned Iraqi forces reported to have deliberately shelled civilians and placed military objectives close to civilians and civilian objects in Basra.Any direct attack on civilians is a war crime. Those who blur the distinction between combatants and civilians undermine the very foundations of humanitarian law, Mr Cordone said.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Changez_like: *
Its so hard to look at pictures like these. This is just one account, I don't know how many more lives unaccounted for have suffered and will suffer more.
[thumb=B]victim.JPG[/thumb]
[/QUOTE]
I just want to hug that kid and tell him I'm sorry. I am so sorry.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Changez_like: *
Yes, you will find all sorts of people in this situation. One will say kill all Americans, one will say kill the army, one will say fight to save your land, one will say fight for your religion, and there will be people who have been oppressed before the war to say support the coalition forces. Yes, you will find all sort of support for different people. Its upto you to listen to one of them, tune your radio to your favorite station or the one you sympathize most.
[/QUOTE]
That's tunnel vision. It's up to everyone to LISTEN to EVERYONE and learn to live outside the box. Simply quoting and providing links to choice articles from your favorite media outlet does nothing to show you have your own foresight.
