Iraqi child crushed by US tank

[UpInArms]

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6956CCBB-1998-43A9-A14E-92AFABDE994A.htm

A six-year-old Iraqi child has been crushed to death by an American tank.

The incident was said to be reminiscent of scenes caused by the Israeli occupation of Palestine as the child was crushed underneath the tank's tracks.

<snip>

Up to 14 Iraqi civilians were killed and five wounded. One Iraqi policeman is also reported killed. There were more casualties the following day.

<snip>

CNN reported that 14 Iraqi civilians were killed when US troops opened fire on demonstrators. However the following day, on November 1, the US media widely reported that the 14 were killed while trying to attack US troops, added NTM.

...more...

[jenk]

1. and if his father takes up arms against the US

....I guess that would make him a baath party loyalist?

[DuctapeFatwa]

6. If his father tried to stop the tank he is a terrorist

And is being "interrogated," along with any other family members who did not "die as a result of a routine coalition military operation."

[Brucey]

2. It's easy to see why the Iraqis hate the American military,

and it's easy to see that the American soldiers are scared, frustrated, and wanting revenge for the deaths of US troops. What a mess Bush has created. All of this was avoidable with patience, diplomacy, and international cooperation. But the blustering, arrogant fool and his advisors saw the chance for revenge, higher approval ratings at home (what happened? Americans used to root for peace; now they like the guy who talks war the best), and stealing the resources of a supposedly oil-rich, market-rich country. I suppose it pleased some of their Saudi, Kuwait, and Qatar business friends too. Money, power, greed, revenge. These guys have seen too many Hollywood movies.

[hippiechick]

7. All this was avoidable with one sharpshooter, too ....

... according to Ari last winter... remember ?

What's the ultimate point of all the destruction and mutilation, since apparently 'removing Saddam' wasn't really the main thing on our to-do list ??



:hippie:

[porkrind]

3. What a tragedy! As a father, this makes me sick!

Please, just bring our forces home.

[Wwagsthedog]

19. Welcome porkrind

May your wishes that our service people come home be granted ASAP.

[newyawker99]

34. Hi porkrind!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[BeHereNow]

4. As a mother-

I can not begin to imagine the pain of losing a child
like this. As a mother, I can not imagine the pain
of losing a child at all. My heart goes out to all the
mothers and fathers whose lives have been destroyed
by the evil men who perpetuate the insanity of war and violence.
To the war mongers everywhere- in the US, Israel, Palestine,
Afghanistan, Iraq, where ever they hide in the halls of power,
I say:
Damn you all; may you burn in hell forever for
the pain you have caused.
BHN

[karlschneider]

5. One less heart and mind to win over.

:cry:

Uh, don't take that subject line the wrong way, please...

[gulliver]

8. Al Jazeera is not credible. However, at least it is ...

... useful to know what Arabs are being told.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

10. Why isn't Al Jazeera credible?

I do believe that their track record far outpaces American media when it comes to reporting in the Middle East. Would you explain why you don't think it's a credible source?

[DuctapeFatwa]

13. Al Jaz has been bombed twice, their people killed and disappeared

by the bush regime.

You can't get much more credible than that, IMO

[Military Brat]

11. You may change your mind

Please visit their English web site. It is very well done, and from what I have read there, no flaming anti-American rhetoric. It's worth a look. There's more than one side to every story.

http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage

[arikara]

15. Why do you say that?

I'm more inclined to believe them than any of the "fair and balanced" US sources.

I'm sure that they aren't going to make up a story about a child being killed by a bulldozer and I'm equally sure that such a story will be underreported or not reported at all in the corporate media.

[prolesunited]

16. Like we're not subjects

of our own media propaganda? :eyes:

Independent verification would be nice, but lately, I trust "my" government less that Al Jazeera. I think the poster brought up on excellent point that they have been in the direct line of fire. Sounds to me like someone wants to make sure that any news that hasn't been whitewashed and sanitized for our protection doesn't get out.

[Aidoneus]

20. look before leaping, eh?

this story was picked up in other places previously.

Granted that it's something of a mark of status to lash out blindly and attack al-Jazeera in some shallow way, but at least do your homework first.. it keeps you from looking bad when mouthing off.

[gulliver]

23. OK. I'll pick yours to respond to.

Yes, I've heard the story and read it elsewhere. Supposedly a riot ensued when the six-year-old's relatives protested.

However, something this inflammatory needs more than Al Jazeera's word. They very frequently report things that are just completely ridiculous, dozens of U.S. troops killed and their bodies being kept hidden for political reasons and on and on. Let's see a BBC link on it.

Just suppose you were trying to make a point to someone at lunch. You might say, "Yeah, man. Our tanks crushed a six-year-old Iraqi. Didja hear?"

"Well, where did you hear that?"

"Al Jazeera."

"Oh. Well that settles it." :eyes:

On edit: I would add that I consider them the Fox "News" of the Middle East. Or a cross between Fox and the Enquirerer. They are useful as a political barometer and occasionally for a scoop, but that's about all, IMO. Sorry if that opinion differs from yours or others.

[Aidoneus]

24. why do you say that?

again with the cliches...

[jayfish]

25. "They very frequently report things that are just completely ridiculous"

Could you cite some examples of these "ridiculous" reports, including the counter information that proved them false?

Jay

[Voltaire99]

27. Something critical you've overlooked

Al Jazeera is certainly engaged, political media. So the comparison to Fox isn't entirely inapt.

But you're missing two integral points which happen to be related.

1. Western "reporting" on the Middle East is deeply flawed. Most of the time neither the reporters nor the editors speak the language of the people about whom they write. Few know much history. Nearly all take their cues from powerful commercial interests (ie, their employers).

2. The Middle East is now occupied militarily by the West. That drastically impacts western reporting, from the sources available to reporters to the commercial pressures upon media companies to portray the occupation in the best possible (read: nonseditious) light. The imperative for these companies is to contribute to the narrative of a benevolent crusade - or risk being ostracized by their government, readers, and advertisers. (The BBC is mildly immunized here; but any critical reading of the Beeb's Iraq coverage reveals much the same colonial viewpoint to be found on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Sky, et al. And to imagine the noncommercial BBC immune from other pressures would be absurd, as its roughing up by Blair clearly shows. Its coverage is compromised, too.)

Sure, take all media with a grain of salt. But it's wiser to treat your own with the greatest skepticism; that is the culture about which you know the most, after all, and hence your reading of its texts is bound to be superior to your less-informed gloss of foreign texts. But do not do yourself the disservice of trivializing the voice of another culture - as you have done, Gulliver, with your Enquirer jibe - and particularly do not do so when you are a member of a culture violently colonizing other peoples. Your dismissive put-down of Al Jazeera on the basis that it has reported events a) inaccurately; and b) without western corroboration is risible. Do you imagine that you live in a land where the news is accurate? Do you believe every event reported in the western media actually occurred?

[DuctapeFatwa]

29. Thanks Voltaire99! I think a lot of the confusion over Al Jaz has to do

with the insularity, approaching cultural solepcism of view that some Americans bring to their viewing chairs.

Al Jaz has been criticized by US media and viewers and worse than criticized by the bush regime, for reporting on civilian "casualties."

While the regime has its reasons, and the US media does as its told, I don't think that many American viewers have thought about - what if Malaysia invaded the US?

Would Canadian news channels show cute Malaysian children lisping about how daddy had "gone to kill the bad guys" or bleeding American children moments after an "errant bomb" landed in Westchester County?

In a lot of ways, "other" countries are just not real to some Americans, and that makes it harder for them to understand that while to them "Iraqis" may mean strange and exotic beings in colorful national costumes jabbering gibberish, but to people in the region, Iraqis are regular people, neighbors, cousins, people they met at soccer games and vacations.

An even wider cause of the disconnect is that Americans are so accustomed, especially post 911, to their newscast being more of a patriotic pep rally than a news report - CNN's Wolf Blitzer even goes so far as to end every report on every story with a one sentence sum-up of the regime's latest press release on the subject.

"Opposing" views are presented in such a contrived and cautious window as to be laughable to those who reguarly watch news from non-US countries.

Fox is the easiest target because it is so over the top as to be cartoonish, but all 3 have earned the title of CrusadeNet, and all 3 have come out with some reports that look more like something you would expect to see come out of N Korea media than anywhere in the west.

[gulliver]

33. Look.

I hate arguing with people with whom I am in general agreement about many things. It is very hard to know what to believe. I certainly don't believe everything I read in the Western media. Our poor Western media is messed up. It is confused, full of illiteracy, illogic, innumeracy, many varieties of laziness, racism and nationalism.

You have to be skeptical about what you read. I am. Al Jazeera has simply disappointed me time and time again. They have no choice but to skew very, very hard toward their audience's predispositions. And that is what they do.

This story about the child? Just look at it on the very link we are being directed to. They show a picture of a tank, and the caption is "A tank like this one in Abu Ghraib crushed the Iraqi child". WTF?!?!

They are saying United States troops crushed a child with a tank, yet they can't get a picture of the real tank, the real child, or even the name of the child, its family, or any witnesses. I'm sorry, the story may be true, but it is of such extreme propaganda value and is so incendiary in the region that it must be held to high standards of verifiability. It doesn't meet those standards.

If you are angry with what the Bush Administration has forced the United States to do, join the club. The Bushies use the universal language of "screw you" with anyone they can. And they walk the walk there too. It appears completely true to me that the people of the United States in their blindness and unawareness of the applicability of compassion for those unlike themselves have unleashed tremendous, shameful injustice on people in the Middle East. I don't need to speak Arabic to see that.

Violently colonizing other people? That is exactly what we are doing. We, the United States, misguided by Tartuffes, with the thought habits of Yahoos have become Bulgarians (so to speak). Bad information won't help matters at all, though. It just makes things worse.

Ultimately, I think we are all trapped in a bunch of noise and feedback when it comes to the media. The only thing that helps is bibliography, verifiability, repeatability, trusted sources, competition. It is the only way we can know that we know something.

[Fish Eye]

36. your point was....

well...pointless! Ahhhh the BBC is somehow less of a propaganda machine....

the fact is ALL news is biased..it is important to look at all reported angles to see a glimpse of the truth...

[leftchick]

22. are you kidding me?

What is your rationale for that statement? If they are not credible, why is the US still "detaining" 2 of their journalists?

[Minstrel Boy]

28. CNN is not credible. However, at least it is ...

... useful to know what Americans are being told.

[Barrett808]

9. Always need a dead baby story at the beginning of any war

Incubators, anyone?

[RuB]

12. Mom, Dad, do you know where your child is playing today?

wth?

[La_Serpiente]

14. He hate our freedoms.

[suegeo]

17. He hated us because we buy houses

Thank god the adults are in charge now

[sistersofmercy]

18. This is unbearably sad! How many more children have to die?

[berry]

21. Another child had a close call today, it seems.

I can't be sure, but it looks as if there has been another child who almost met the same fate, in exactly the same place. Apparently the US troops decided to crush a marketplace with tanks--and they did, regardless of who was in the way. The Aljeera article reports the child's death on Friday, but the article is dated Sun (today) and they say that there were 2 big clashes in 3 days--presumably Friday and Sunday.

The Reuters article appears to be reporting only on incidents that happened today (Sun). But the location--the Abu Ghraib market is the same as for the Friday incident reported by Aljazeera. Wouldn't you think the military would be sobered by Friday's tragedy? and reconsider their demolition operation? Apparently you'd be wrong.

When Wolfowitz spoke at GWU, a student challenged him about the incident in a Frontline documentary where US troops run a tank over a car (sole support for its taxi-driver owner)--the car had some wood on the roof, allegedly "looted" from somewhere, but who knows? Wolfowitz said the incident is already being investigated. Easy evasive answer?

But now it appears that oppression by tank is SOP for the US military. I'm very, very glad the 2nd child excaped alive.

This is from the Reuters story today, Nov 2
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=1967&u=/nm/20031102/india_wl_nm/india_134053&printer=1

<<Tension also ran high in the Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib, where U.S. troops sealed off a food market.

Witnesses said American soldiers had fired on a crowd after a hand grenade was thrown at them. U.S. helicopters circled as armoured personnel carriers blocked roads.

One man said he had pulled his five-year-old daughter out of a car just before an American tank crushed it. "She just made it. Why are the Americans doing this?" asked Ali Saleh. >>

This is from the aljezeera article posted to start this thread:
<<A six-year-old Iraqi child has been crushed to death by an American tank.

The incident was said to be reminiscent of scenes caused by the Israeli occupation of Palestine as the child was crushed underneath the tank's tracks.

The tragedy occurred during clashes between US troops and Iraqi civilians in the Abu Ghraib area, on the outskirts of Baghdad on Friday.

Locals said skirmishes developed in the market area of the town twice in three days, and by Sunday night military bulldozers had demolished stalls set up near the roadway>>

[Raenelle]

26. The media should focus on how many children weren't crushed

under a US tank--all this glass half empty talk.

[DuctapeFatwa]

30. LOL Best in Thread Award Goes to Raenelle!

Maybe we should start a letter-writing campaign, suggest that to them all, I bet they'll start doing it!

[karlschneider]

32. Gosh, what a concept. "NEWS FLASH: 129,979 US TROOPS NOT

KILLED TODAY!"
:eyes:

[samsingh]

31. another child that would be alive

if shrub was not pResident.

[ElementaryPenguin]

35. When do we launch the general strike to stop these fucking monsters??

:shrug: