Falluja: 'Abu Abdullah the martyr, mutilated by Americans.'

[leftchick]

An Iraqi youth cries near the grave stone of Falluja resident Abu Abdullah, at a makeshift cemetery in the besieged town, April 20, 2004. The script in Arabic reads, 'Abu Abdullah the martyr, mutilated by Americans.' Arabs in the Middle East hate the United States more than ever following the invasion of Iraq and Israel's assassination of two Hamas leaders, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in comments published Tuesday. Mubarak, who visited the U.S. last week, told French newspaper Le Monde that Washington's actions had caused despair, frustration and a sense of injustice in the Arab world. Photo by Akram Saleh/Reuters

[Daisey Mae]

1. Pouring Gasoline onto a fire has never been an effective way of

fire fighting..... of course we now are down the Rabbit Hole so now maybe it WILL work ? cross your fingers........

[anarchy1999]

2. I would guess the poor child crying is probably about to become

another one of those "insurgents", "dead-enders", or any one of another name these SOB's choose to give the citizens of Fallujah who have lost mothers, fathers, sons, daughters and whole families.

I'm pretty certain of what I would be doing if I had survived the last year in Fallujah. Three guesses.......

[LagaLover]

3. Only because I served with her...Lt Col Kwaikowski is not a solider

She's an Airman! (From your signature line)

[leftchick]

5. well she refers to herself as just that!

Sorry if there is some confusion but I got the photo and caption from the blog where her articles are posted. I will look for the link if ya don't believe me. :)

[0007]

22. Airman can't be a soldier for truth?

I think so!

[Blue_Chill]

4. hmmm.....

I don't see this right/wrong street having two way traffic. Americans have us, liberals, who basiccally serve as the conscience of the country. We keep the violent brainless masses informed of the wrongs we commit. However when I see Iraqi's talking about the situation they seem to be unwilling or unable to acknowledge the wrongs they commit. Are there no left wingers/whatever over there that have the balls to stand up and say "What the f*ck are you morons thinking hanging a burning corpse from a bridge?"

I find it very hard to believe the statements that Americans are bad anymore because I don't see a clear definition of what bad is over in Iraq. It would seem the current definition is anything done to an Iraqi for any reason = wrong and anything done to a american no matter how horrible is ok or not so bad. I can't connect with that. Things are wrong or right, who's finger is on the trigger is of little concern to me. It's wrong to kill civilians, it's wrong to mutilate bodies, etc etc.

If this keeps up the world is going to stop caring. Everytime people dance around a corpse or celebrate violence they dehumanize themselves. I worry for them, but I'm finding my heart growing cold. Sad really but true.

[gottaB]

7. Many Iraqis condemned the mutilations, some condemned the killings

http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20040402/449_22443.asp

With U.S. officials promising an "overwhelming" response to Wednesday's murder and mutilation of four U.S. contractors by an Iraqi mob in Fallujah, nervous local leaders condemned the acts, and imams have devoted prayers today to denouncing them as sins in Islam.

"The City Council held a meeting late last night to condemn the acts of mutilation of the bodies," council president Saadallah al-Rawi said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo! News, April 2).

According to senior Fallujah cleric Sheik Khalid Ahmed, "Prophet Muhammad prohibited even the mutilation of a dead, mad dog and he considered such a thing as religiously forbidden. What happened in Fallujah is a distortion of Islamic principles and it is forbidden in Islam" (Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, April 2).

Many Fallujah residents also condemned the mutilations of the bodies, but some thought the acts were justified as a reaction to army raids on homes and mosques in the town.

[Blue_Chill]

8. Let me ask you something.

Seriously now. If there was a video tape of Americans in Iraq that were non-military snatching a Iraqi corpse, dancing around it, and then hanging it from a bridge/or whatever....what do you think the reaction here would be? Seriously.

Don't you think the vast majority of the country would think 'what the hell is wrong with those people?' I mean I would bet the farm that a good number of freepers would support them and wish they were their and whatever because they are sick freaks that seemingly live to commit and support violence. But for the most part don't you think the vast majority would be outraged?

I don't see that coming from the ME. Perhaps it's the spread of fundi-ism or perhaps they are just really pissed off but it's there. It bothers me. There is a point you can't cross and be considered innocent, there is a point you can't cross and be considered good. I'm seeing a lot of disturbing things and I'm not thrilled. I wanted the US to stay out of Iraq because of this. I don't trust the enviroment over there to be fixable. I think they are where the Catholic church was at the time of inquisititions. A pervasive evil that is best avoided.

[gottaB]

9. Generally speaking the American response to death is juvenile

Further, the blithe acceptance of the killing of Others is a despicable trait common in American living rooms. It is one of the most disturbing artefacts of the culture of the specatacle, and should be resisted in every way.

[damnraddem]

6. Well, it hs caused despair, frustration, and a sense of injustice ...

in the U.S., too; and we're not nealry as affected as those being attacked, dispossessed, and dominated are.

[TX-RAT]

10. fake picture?

[leftchick]

11. It is a Reuters photo...

found at the yahoo Iraq slideshow. Even a moran would not think it is fake I think.

[TX-RAT]

12. Thanks for the insult

Still looks fake.

[Blue_Chill]

13. Looks like a set up to me

Pic looks real, the contents look staged. I mean who the hell would write that on a tombstone? I don't buy it.

[TX-RAT]

14. No shadows around the tombstone

From the angle of the sun there should be a shadow in front of it.

[anarchy1999]

15. I don't think so. The slab is leaning back, sloping towards ground.

n/t

[Gruenemann]

16. you can't really tell the angle of the sun

in this picture unless you know for sure there is no overhang on the wall in the background. Even if there IS no overhang and the shadow is from the wall, I think it's still possible the 'stone' wouldn't have any shadow--it's leaning back...

[markses]

17. Here's another staged picture

I mean, really. :eyes:

[Blue_Chill]

19. What makes you think it's staged?

Or were you just trying to be a smart ass? heh.

[markses]

24. Just about as "smart ass" as you were being, chief

n/t

[Blue_Chill]

25. Thanks for answering my question

cheers.

[markses]

27. More than welcome

Salud.

[leftchick]

21. you must be so familiar with Arab culture eh?

". I mean who the hell would write that on a tombstone? I don't buy it."

REVENGE is everything in the Arab world. One would have thought the idiot in chief* might have mulled that over before killing THOUSANDS of Iraqis, thereby creating thousands more that seek revenge in his halfassed aWol* war. Then again the idiot does not think.

[Blue_Chill]

26. No I'm not

but somethings strike me as off and the message on that tombstone doesn't strike me as something a crying child would come up with. Wether staged for the picture or created to fuel US hatred that message seems off. You don't agree?

[leftchick]

28. No, I do not agree,,,,

Nothing strikes me as "off" in the photo. Who said the child wrote the epitaph? The photographer captured the grief of an innocent Iraqi mourning the death of yet another Iraqi at the hands of the US. No need to "fuel US hatred". Unfortunately the US is quite adept at fueling hatred without Iraqi help.

[markses]

29. I don't agree

First, that doesn't look like a "child" to me, but rather a "youth," as the caption says. Second, where does it say that it was the youth that wrote the slogan on the tombstone? What in the picture or the caption implies that? Now, it would seem pretty clear that the message on the tombstone was "created to fuel US hatred" (or, I suppose, hatred of the US), just as the massive media uproar over the mutilation of the four contract workers was "created to fuel" hatred of the "miscreants" in Fallujah. Nothing particularly surprising about that. In fact, it seems about right. Given the reports coming out of Fallujah, why would you be surprised if friends of the deceased, or even just the folks who buried him, used the tombstone as an occasion for propaganda, or for persuasion? Because it would be strange and new to use the occasion of an epitaph or eulogy to whip up indignation? Vaguely strange? Unheard of? Unlikely?

Antony
Good friends, sweet friends, don't let me stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.
The men who have done this are honorable.
Alas, I don't know what private concerns they have
That made them do it. They are wise and honorable,
And no doubt will answer you with reasons.
I do not come, friends, to steal away your hearts.
I am no orator, like Brutus is,
But (as all of you know me) a plain blunt man
That loves my friend; and that is known very well by the men
Who publicly gave me permission to speak of him.
Because I don't have intelligence, or words, or worthiness,
Action, or voice, or the power of speech
To stir up men's emotions. I only speak right on.
I tell you what you yourselves know,
Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor poor speechless mouths,
And ask them to speak for me. But if I were Brutus,
And Brutus were Antony, then there would be an Antony
Who would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Caesar that would persuade
The very stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

Strange? Exceeding strange. Strikes you as off, but you can't quite explain why? Just a vague feeling, see....Not being in your intuitive body, I'll not argue with your subjective feeling, nor with your instincts. And since I'm not in your intuitive body, and because i require some reason, I'll also not agree with your vague sensation, at least until you can put more meat on it, or pose it less subjectively.

That aside, it would be quite diffeent to say that the epitaph was written to fuel hatred of the invading Americans, and that the picture was staged. This is not a whether/or difference from the "staging" claim, but a world apart.

[LibertyorDeath]

20. TX-RAT...... R U slumming......sure sounds like it.

[TX-RAT]

23. Just don't look right

[lumpy]

18. What the hell difference does it make

what's on the tombstone. The Iraqi died, mutilated by an American bullet, shrapnel, bomb, whatever.