"They began pulling people off the street and checking their ID cards to see if they had Sunni names or Shia names and then the Sunnis were driven away and killed. Some were executed right there in the area. The media is playing it down and claiming 37 dead but the people in the area say the number is nearer 60.
…. No one is quite sure why the Americans and the Ministry of Interior didn't respond immediately. They just sat by, on the outskirts of the area, and let the massacre happen.
…Why don't the Americans just go home? They've done enough damage and we hear talk of how things will fall apart in Iraq if they 'cut and run', but the fact is that they aren't doing anything right now. How much worse can it get? People are being killed in the streets and in their own homes- what's being done about it? Nothing. It's convenient for them- Iraqis can kill each other and they can sit by and watch the bloodshed- unless they want to join in with murder and rape."
Most of our politicians are claiming that we can't just "cut and run." Why not?
2 comments:
Riverbend blog is powerful, but it's full of emotion and rumor. there are facts on mass killings on Iraqis, most conclusions about Americans and Zarqawi are from rumor. many families leaving Iraq and mass violence between Sunnis and Shia..very clear that it is more of a civil war than an insurgency.
Well, if I lived in Baghdad I'd be pretty emotional, too. Wouldn't you be emotional if you saw your country reduced to murder, chaos and ruin before your eyes?
As far as rumor is concerned, I think she's just reporting things that might be commonly believed by a large number (if not the majority) of Iraqis. I think that's very important information. As far as these beliefs being based on rumor rather than facts that we can establish with certainty, that doesn't mean that they should be left unspoken or dismissed. Heck, Iraqis might have a better idea of what's going on in Iraq than we do--they actually live there. And what would happen if you tried to analyze all of your knowledge about Iraq (or the US), and then divide it between "rumors" and facts that could be established with absolute certainty? Probably more of our knowledge of the world is based on "rumors" (including "educated rumors") than most of us would care to admit.
And in saying that it's "more of a civil war than an insurgency", are you suggesting that there's not so much of an insugency going on there? And that perhaps the US soldiers getting killed are just getting "caught in the crossfire"? I'm sure the US soldiers in Iraq would beg to differ from you.
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