US air raid terrorize and kill 6 civillians

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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BAGHDAD - Six Iraqis have been killed and 15 others wounded in a US-British air strike on the southern province of Basra, an Iraqi army spokesman said Monday.

The spokesman said the US-British warplanes carried out 71 armed sorties over Basra and nearby areas.

The US Central Command said earlier that one air defence base near the city of Basra and four communications near Al-Kut were raided, after coming under attack from ground fire.

It denied the attacks were a preliminary to a major military assault.

Raids in the no-fly zones in both southern and northern Iraq have been stepped up as the United States has increased pressure on Iraq, massing more than 200,000 troops in the Gulf.

US bomb and kill 6 civillians

The terrorists of US and UK have been killing people for past 12 years under there illegal no fly zone! and those impotent corrupt useless regimes in the middle east from saudi to bahrain are the ones who helping the American and British terrorists by allowing them bases and permission to kill innocent muslims!:frusty2:

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Unprovoked terrorism and carried out without any legal mandate whatsoever. It seems the US-UK are determined to oppose the will of the UN and the world community and wage war on Iraq whatever happens.

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IMHO, there is no other name for it.
It is three years old, but the Washington Post ran an extremely informative article regarding the ‘no-fly’ zones; they ran it a few months after the much-publicized killing of a 13 year old Iraqi shepherd boy, Omran Harbi Jawair, whose head was partially torn off during one of the ‘routine’ patrols over the ‘no-fly’ zones by the US & UK.
If this is not terrorism, then God only knows what is.

No-fly zone raids ‘opening new war’, Richard Norton-Taylor and Nicholas Watt
The Guardian, 4 March 2003

The government yesterday came under strong pressure to explain the purpose and role of the no-fly zone over southern Iraq as British and American aircraft struck five more military targets.

The zone was originally presented as a humanitarian exercise - to protect Shias and marsh Arabs - but air patrols are now widely seen as an “undeclared war”, a military operation to soften up Iraqi air defence systems and mobile surface-to-surface missiles which would threaten invading British and US forces.

Iraq said yesterday that six civilians were killed and 15 wounded in an overnight raid on the port city of Basra. America’s central command said the aircraft attacked five air defence targets in response to anti-aircraft fire from the ground.

The targets included four fibre-optic communications centres near Al Kut, about 95 miles southeast of Baghdad, and a military command and control centre near Basra. The US military said Iraqi forces fired anti-aircraft artillery. “The specific targets were struck because they enhanced Iraq’s integrated air defence network,” said Lieutenant Commander Nick Balice. In the Commons, the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, said there had been “no substantial change in the operation of the northern or southern no-fly zones”.

His comments provoked a sharp response from the shadow defence secretary, Bernard Jenkin, just returned from visiting British troops in Kuwait. “Isn’t it clear that US and UK aircraft are now pre-empting threats to allied ground forces in Kuwait, which are themselves preparing to invade,” he said. "And while we still hope diplomacy will avoid the need for the last resort of war, haven’t we already seen the opening shots of the second Gulf war?

“The tactics are no longer just to enforce the no-fly zones themselves. The tactics now reflect the government’s decision to help clear the way for the invasion of Iraq, which requires the protection of British and American ground forces now massing to cross the Iraqi border.”

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You think the U.S. should stop conducting flights? What do you think Saddam would do to the kurds if that were to happened?

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i was hoping i would not have to argue with anyone this early in the morning:D

Yes, i believe the flights should permanently cease. i am not certain i understand how the Kurds are being ‘protected’ by conducting illegal patrols over a sovereign country’s airspace, and how this contributes towards domestic stability within Iraq, particularly when 144 civilians have died and 446 wounded by the very same American and British airforces supposedly there to ‘protect’ them.

IMHO, it’s terrorism plain and simple. i wish those who endorse the necessity of these illegal zones would explain their position to 13 year old Omran’s parents and grandparents, as to why it was necessary that their grandson’s head be torn off - all in the name of ‘protecting’ the Kurds.

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Nadia, Saddam's forces carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing that killed more than 100,000 Kurds.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by underthedome: *
...
[/QUOTE]

What do you think the US military did to the Iraqi people in the first Gulf war? Do you remeber the horrible civilian massacre at Amirya? They are doing the same now, and against international law if you did not know that.

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Malik, the coalition during the Gulf War did not go out and try to kill civilians, it's was against Saddam and his military forces. Unlike Saddam whose forces have targeted civilians, raped the women of Kuwait and set the oil fields on fire causing an ecological disaster.

The international community has failed time and time again by standing by and watched massacres occur. If the U.S. and Britain did not have flights over Iraq it's a good bet that Saddam forces would once again kill the Kurds. International law or not, it’s the right thing to do.

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[QUOTE]
Originally posted by underthedome:

Malik, the coalition during the Gulf War did not go out and try to kill civilians, it's was against Saddam and his military forces.
[/QUOTE]

Not entirely correct. I remember well how the American's bombed the Amirya bomb shelter killing nearly 500 people, when it was obvious to all the foreign reporters who visited it that it was nothing but a civilian compound. Even Peter Arnett of CNN stated this quite publicly...

No one believes your words of sympathy for the Iraqi people, because the vast majority of the world have now wised up to the fact this is a war for American strategic interests and oil, not the Iraqi people. Don't use the suffering of the Iraqi people for your own selfish causes, because it is so hypocrtical especially considering your leaders have been exposed dining with the Saddam himself as he was carrying out such atroctites against his people, and later covering up such crimes.

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*Nadia, Saddam's forces carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing that killed more than 100,000 Kurds. *
And while Rumsfeld was busy shaking the hands of the tyrant you are so aptly describing, perhaps Donald Rumsfeld could also have included one or two words of condemnation for Hussein's mass ethnic cleansing.

...the coalition during the Gulf War did not go out and try to kill civilians, it's was against Saddam and his military forces.
This has got to be a typo. If the the US-led coalition did not try to kill civilians, why did they deliberately target Iraq's civilian infrastructures, causing 200,000 deaths as a result of contaminated water and the lack of electrical supply to hospitals?

If the U.S. and Britain did not have flights over Iraq it's a good bet that Saddam forces would once again kill the Kurds.
Isn't it ironic that, in their patrols over the 'no-fly' zones, the US and UK have killed and injured far more civilians than Hussein ever would have. But i suppose killing shepherd families and their 13 year old sons is all part of the collateral damage game.

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Malik, Firstly I believe Saddam is a dangerous man, this has been proven to the world through his actions. Secondly Saddam has used the Iraqi people as pawns and is responsible for their suffering. Thirdly a democratic Iraq could pressure other nations in the region to follow suite, freeing people from their repressive situations in which many blame the United States for. Removing the cause of blame removes the blame and hatred, a positive for everyone. Nations do not have friends, they have interests and a free Iraq is in the best interests of the United States, if that’s selfish so be it.

As far as oil goes it is not Saddams nor does it belong to the United States, it belongs to the people of Iraq.

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[QUOTE]
Originally posted by underthedome:

Malik, Firstly I believe...
[/QUOTE]

You can believe what you want. But the fact is that the illegal US-UK "No-Fly" zones have killed innocent Iraqi civilians in their hundreds over the years. The fact is the the US military massacred nearly 500 Iraqi civilians at the Amirya bombing shelter , and countless thousands of others during the first Gulf war. And the clearly photographical fact is that the same hypocritical American leaders who now use the suffering of the Iraqi people for their own selfish goals, were the ones who wined and dined with Saddam knowinf full well what he was doing to the Iraqi people. Those are the facts...

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GlobalPolicy has a good archived section surrounding the issue of the ‘no-fly’ zones.

One of the articles by John Pilger featured in the archive, dated 20 December 2002, states, “Since 1991, and especially in the last four years, [the US and British bombing] has been unrelenting and is now deemed the longest Anglo-American campaign of aerial bombardment since World War Two.”

So much for human rights :k:

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So don't protect the kurds. let Saddam do what he please?

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the cheeky Americans they say iraq break this international law and that international law according to them. Then they impose illegal no fly zones which no one except imperial nations like America and Britain recognize!

Underthedome i think your sympathies for the kurds are at best very suspicious :eek:

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by underthedome: *
So don't protect the kurds. let Saddam do what he please?
[/QUOTE]

Yes, if the Iraqi people really dislike him there'll be an uprising not seen since biblical times, until then play fair sell him arms and buy cheap oil and drop the sanctions.