Attack Sets Off Baghdad Arms Dump Blast, Casualties

Yahoo! News ^ | April 26, 2003 | Reuters wire

[SkyPilot]

"Intellectual activity is a danger to the building of character."

Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945)

I am so angry at CNN I could spit. I watched their "report" on this tragedy. It is infuriating.

They started out by telling us how the Iraqis are "furious at the Americans, and that Iraqis had warned the US troops days ago the ammo dump was in a residential area."

Then they showed an Iraqi man screaming (IN ENGLISH) that it was the Americans fault this thing blew up.

Only later did they show an American soldier say the Iraqis fired a flare at the ammo dump, and CNN reported it in such a way as to frame the Americans as being deceptive.

It has been 2 days since CNN founder Ted Turner labled Robert Murdoch as a "war mongerer." I think it is high time to label CNN and their employees as propganda criminals in league with mayhem, terror, and war crimes. By CNN's own admission, they have been in complicity with Saddam's reign of terror for over a decade. To enable the terrorists who ignited this ammo dump (that injured killed innocent children) is akin to complicity in the crime itself.

CNN has already show it's true colors. We cannot depend on the UN or the Hague to hold these people accountable. The US and British should ban CNN from Iraq--the grounds being they are enablers to terrorists in their propaganda war--which is outside their rights as journalists and against the Geneva Convention and the Internatioal Code of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC). The Coalition of the Willing should set the example that if you are there to propagandize for terrorists--you will be exposed and punished.

[gwmoore]

Good Afternoon, SkyPilot,

I have a question for you. Do you think it is feasable, with this new development, to have enough Probable Cause to arrest Ted Turner for War Crimes??.... [HUGE Evil Vietnam Vet Grin] It should also be, in the scheme of things, time to knock 'ol Hanoi Jane off the pedestal as well.arrest her too..would have been a LONG time coming, but oh so satisfying.

Keep the Faith for Freedom

Greg

[RightWhale]

Didn't take long at all for their hatred of anything American to override their gratitude

Don't lump them all together. Most of these loud ones are foreign agents. The noisy demonstrating ones are on their own campaign to destabilize the region and institute their own version of utopia. They are taking advantage of the situation whenever possible and sound exactly like the "No Blood for Oil" crowd over here. They are there and have nothing better to do. Either arrest them all or accept their presence at every photo op.

[RightWhale]

Whoever fired the flares is with the demonstrators. They set it up just to make their point. The whole chanting crowd needs to be removed to the deep desert.

[SkyPilot]

I wish it were so. Truth be told, I know we will take no action against CNN and what they are doing in Iraq presently (complicity with the terrorist's propaganda war.)

Here is one suggestion: have the Pentagon's ace spokesperson (Torrie Clark) thrown down the gauntlet to CNN on camera, and challenge them about what they are doing. These bastards are still trying to SPIN SPIN SPIN their way out of the Eason Jordan fiasco. They are on their heels more than even they realize.

I say go after the cowards...I predict they will exhibit as much testicular fortitude as Tariq Aziz.

[gwmoore]

Agreed!! What a wonderful press conference that would make.

Watching the events unfold on FOX News would be uplifting.

Greg

[SkyPilot]

Look at this excerpt from a very important article here on Free Republic—titled Saddam’s Cash

"We're overwhelmed with information," says one Pentagon official. "It's going to take a long time to go through it all."

That process is just now beginning--a fact that is surely rattling nerves around the world.

IRAQ IS WINNING the battles in the propaganda war with a modest media strategy, despite a multi-million dollar U.S. campaign featuring painstakingly choreographed briefings and Hollywood-style sets. Undeterred by America's elaborate media plan, Iraq is making its mark on the airwaves with its decidedly basic approach, media pundits say, and list their latest claims of conquest, sometimes wielding chrome-plated Kalashnikovs. Unlike America and its allies, theirs is a simple message delivered directly: "We will defeat the infidel invaders."

This article details how journalists and editors around the world were bribed by Saddam and his regime—for years---with cars, cash, gifts, and blackmail. In regards to this barbaric regime that has tortured thousands and murdered millions, it is time to get the truth about what CNN and other media knew, and when they knew it.

[gwmoore]

Thanks much SkyPilot, for the link... If you would, ping me if/when you have any more info on this.

Greg

[LaineyDee]

IMHO, they should be grateful that only 40 are dead or wounded. It could've been hundreds if we'd decided to launch some missiles into the ammo dump, eh? CNN will do anything to undermine the integrity of our troops. Sickening.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Link here regarding the media:

Saddam's Cash

[GretchenEE]

Thanks for the update.

What a mess.

Our soldiers, and our diplomatic efforts, need more prayer than ever.

I don't see us leaving any time soon. Iraqis may be, as our president said, a well-educated people very able to govern themselves. But they've been unable to do so for so long that it's isn't going to happen quickly. Nor will it work to impose DC's favorite Iraqi son on Iraq from the top and expect it to work. There has to be some sort of revolution from the bottom up that purges out the waste and gives these people ability to see the true light of republican government, enabling them to fight and struggle within their own localities to elevate people who can and will govern locally, and then regionally, and then nationally, in a responsible manner.

The "all politics is local" maxim applies in Iraq as well as here. As more small communities choose a trustworthy local police chief and force, and other civil officers, from among their own people, the nation will be able to knit itself together and bridge large sectional divides, in exactly the way the colonies eventually forged their way into a nation. The process can't be hurried and can't be cosmetic, from the top down. We need to apply the lessons of King George III's mistakes.

[F16Fighter]

Earlier, Reuters photographer Yannis Behrakis had seen furious local people throw stones at American troops.

Good thing there's no snow on the ground in Baghdad.

[whadizit]

Someone needs to communicate with these people! All they are getting is the mullahs' side - the anti-American side. One would think an educated Iraqi in Baghdad could appear on TV and explain the process to these people. The only thing they are hearing is from the radicals.

Reported earlier that the educated Iraqis understand what it is all about, but the poor and uneducated do not.

[Travis McGee]

What do you think the flare ignited to start such a chain reaction?

[FreedomCalls]

Let me get this straight.

Iraqi militants fire flares into an Iraqi military ammunition dump resulting in the death of some Iraqi civilians.

And it is the U.S. military's fault?

[Jorge]

I am getting sick and tired of the Iraqi people blaming our soldiers for everything that goes wrong in their messed up country. I am happy they are free but this is getting to be annoying!

What do you expect from people who just had their friends, family members and neighbors blown up?...do you expect them to be reasonable and rational about the big picture about how their country is really much better off now?

The Americans are the only authority in the country now...it should be no surprise that they catch blame for something like this.

In any case...outside of the locals who were personally affected by this tragedy....the military says most Iraqis know they are there to help and are grateful.

[Squantos]

If I had to "guess" it'd be the rocket motors seperated from the PG-7's . Stacks and stacks of PG-7's in pics I have seen. SOP is to seperate the rocket motor from the RPG and store seperate normally but under such conditions we see Compatability Groups ect. ect go south till EOD and BB stackers arrive.

Flare gets down in a pile of those and things are gonna start to cook off......the rest is iceing on the cake per se !

Just My SWAG from the recliner of course !!.........

Stay Safe !

[swheats]

Hard to believe the large number of caches found among civilian population.

http://users.lvcm.com/swheats/cacheofweapons2.htm

[Cacique]

Notice the Madonna and Child on the upper right hand corner. The blast obviously occured in a Christian neighborhood. Who wants to bet that Muslim radicals targeted it on purpose! I am surpirsed that no-one has pointed this out. On the other hand, maybe the press is not reporting it on purpose or they are doing a lousy job at reporting.

.

Sun Apr 27,10:13 AM ET

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An Iraqi man sits in despair in the ruins of his house April 27, 2003, at Zaafaraniya on the outskirts of Baghdad. A powerful blast which the U.S. military said was caused by unknown attackers firing an incendiary device into an Iraqi munitions store at Zaafaraniya killed several Iraqi civilians on Saturday. Local residents said U.S. troops had packed cars with confiscated weapons and detonated them at the site. The Americans denied this. REUTERS/Petr Josek