Iraq crisis: Fifty bodies found south of Baghdad

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

Iraqi security forces have found the bodies of 53 men shot recently near a town south of Baghdad, police say.

The men, who were still bound and had gunshot wounds to the head or chest, were found in Hamza al-Gharbi, 30km (18 miles) south-east of the city of Hilla.

It was not immediately clear who the victims were or why they were killed.

The mainly Shia area has not seen any activity by the jihadist-led Sunni rebels who have seized control of large swathes of northern and western Iraq.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28225184

---

Shows how dangerous the whole country still is, if 50 bodies can be 'unexpected'.

[Jefferson23]

1. Not going well, which we are not expecting but still horrible, ugh. n/t

[WinkyDink]

2. Terrible, terrible, terrible. So many lives lost and hearts broken. Widows, orphans.

[rtracey]

3. Sad

Very Sad, and I am NEVER one to say intervene in a countries civil or religious war, but I believe air strikes need to take place here. If not to totally defeat ISIS, but to cripple them, drive them back.

[ballyhoo]

4. Even though they'll be a myriad of ancillary deaths of even

more innocents?

[Tetris_Iguana]

5. I think The conflict needs to play itself out.

The Middle East is currently in the midst of drawing their own borders over the crumbling artificial ones we created a century ago.

Let them play it out. This is their war, not ours.

[Amonester]

8. Oh boy... that would solve the problem... not!

Yeah, let's go blow a few tens of thousands more of them up in fumes when ya don't even know who you're blowin' up.

That will show them, children, who is the bo$$... not.

[rtracey]

9. ahhh

and your solution is what?....and don't say keep US out of this situation, because that doesn't solve the death problem does it?

[Amonester]

10. First and foremost, a large majority of the US population says a big, big NO...

Second, they've been in-fighting, killing, and dying over which Sect(s) of Islam is the meanest and deadliest for about 1,500+ years. So, no matter how many more years, decades, or centuries it will take, they will probably keep disagreeing and shooting at each other, no matter what any stranger does or doesn't do.

You don't solve the death problem by causing more death problems...

Stay out of it. When they'll come shooting at you in your backyard (which will probably never happen), you'll have a reason to complain.

[Fred Sanders]

6. This many people were killed every second day for the lat 2 years in Iraq, but only now have

American media propaganda masters let the general public hear about what a incredibly broken nation they left behind after 10 years of incompetent rule.

America is purposely ignorant as a nation, as easily pliable by a homogenous media as most dictators can only dream about.

Iran has a more diverse media than America, and more political parties by far than the two permitted by the media in America.

[Amonester]

7. Awh... Religion, religions, wtf hey?

Religions of peace... love... forgiveness, yeah, that's so obvious... not.

[freshwest]

17. Religion is not the issue; it's the cover story for taking land, labor and resources.

Always has been and it always will as long as people believe it is the real issue.

It's not. None of the fabled hatreds are, except for the very ignorant, who would get taken in by some other shell game.

If there was not a religion to rail against, there would be an ideology, a variant of racism, nationalism or some other shiny dangled before the masses.

While those in a position to take and hold land, steal labor and exploit natural resources will stay out of sight and keep the spoils.

We can play the role of willfully ignorant to feel superior or support a side. But we will ignore the underlying factors, of which we are all a part of, at our peril.

JMHO. YMMV.

[lexx21]

11. This is a crisis WHY?

More than that were killed under the previous ruler/dictator of that country. They are in a civil war, this is what happens.

What IS a crisis are the Americans that go to bed hungry because their food stamps have been cut. A crisis is also Americans who lose their jobs due to their companies moving their plants overseas. THOSE, dear media, are the real crisis. And those are crisis that we can actually do something about.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. A civil war *is* a crisis

People getting murdered is a crisis. You think that death is not a 'real' crisis?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

[lexx21]

13. So what is your solution?

Sending our troops back in for another 10 years? Have that crap start all over again when we pull out? We do not need to be in this at all. They have to find their own equilibrium, not one that we or the EU would force on them. Unfortunately it make take a civil war to do just that. If you will remember, that's what it took for us.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. It's odd that you think the reporting of some deaths makes you think of sending in US troops

The world has many more tools than sending in the American military. First of all, continued reporting is needed, because everyone (especially the Iraqi government) needs to know who these people were, and who killed them. A bit of diplomacy to get the Shia-majority government and the Kurds cooperating better would be a good idea, because both of them are far preferable to the bloodthirsty 'Islamic State' that has declared itself in the middle of them, and that government needs to be able to control its territory well enough to prevent massacres of 50 people.

[lexx21]

15. Oh I'm pretty sure..

that the Iraqi government knows who the people are and who killed them. I don't think that they need for us to tell them who it was. It's a bit colonialist of you to think that we are the only ones who can figure that sort of thing out.

Like I said, they need to work this out amongst themselves. Believe it or not, the middle east is tired of us sticking our noses in where it doesn't belong. Their government made the decision to have a Shia majority so they can deal with the consequences. We, as a Nato country, are not big brother in this internal Iraqi matter.

Our government can try diplomacy, just like it tried early on with the Taliban. They basically told us to shove it. I'm pretty sure that is what will happen in this case as well. Just because we are a "super power" doesn't mean that everything is our business.


Do you see a theme to what I am saying here? It's not our business to dictate what is proper for that country. It's time we either step up to the plate and try to stop ALL (as in Africa) slaughter or we need to stay at home and stfu.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Your 'theme' seems to be to assume a lot, and to bury your head in the sand

I never said that " we are the only ones who can figure that sort of thing out", so I reject your name-calling of 'colonialist'. I said I wanted reporting on it. I'm not an isolationist who objects to a news story that describes a civil war as a crisis. You are. When you say "stfu", that should apply neither to the BBC, whom you wanted to gag, or the DUers.

[lexx21]

19. Wow you really are missing my point. Go back and re-read what I have posted and think it over. n/t

[Amonester]

18. I suspect it's 50 Sunnis that got massacred by the Shia-majority gov.'s militias in retalliation 2..

the self-appointed Sunni Calife's own mass murders... They were found South of Baghdad, were Shiia militias rule in majority.

And if they can't get along with one another since around the year 600 or so, what makes you think they could ever govern anything side-by-side now?

Not.Gonna.Happen.

[Comrade Grumpy]

21. There are some reports the victims are Shia. We shall see. Or not.

[quadrature]

20. peace is not important to these people...

more important is that their tribe
is on the winning side...

or not?

just my 2 cents