Posted on 12/05/2001 1:52:56 PM PST by truth4all
Even the Boston Globe is reporting the slaughter of innocent Afghans.Click here to see the little boy with stumps for arms The murder of innocents continues. What is the ratio of terrorists killed to woman and kids? Five to one, ten to one? And yes, I know 6,000 some Americans were murdered in NY, but murdering innocent woman and kids who had nothing to do with it is despicable. Kids maimed and family's destroyed, but its just "collateral damage", right? Except when its our loved ones. What is the difference if your family is wiped out because of "collateral damage" or a terrorist act? Bush's strategies are doing a great job of creating more hatred of us than ever before.
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Thank you. Gavin.
Unintended Victims Fill Afghan Hospital
by John Donnelly
JALALABAD, Afghanistan - The intensive care unit of the Jalalabad Public Hospital was full yesterday with children and mothers from the Agam region. It was oddly quiet. They were victims of an American bombing, and they bore the look of disbelief on their blood-speckled faces.
Saed Hassan and nephew Noor Mohammad, who lost his sight and hands in strikes on the Agam region. (Globe Staff/Dominic Chavez)
In one bed lay Noor Mohammad, 10, who was a bundle of bandages. He lost his eyes and hands to the bomb that hit his house after Sunday dinner. Hospital director Guloja Shimwari shook his head at the boy's wounds.
''The United States must be thinking he is Osama,'' Shimwari said. ''If he is not Osama, then why would they do this?''
The boy's village is about 15 miles north of the Tora Bora cave complex, which US officials and some Afghan commanders believe may house the suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants. Bombs dropped Saturday and Sunday killed about 18 people in the Agam region and injured dozens more, villagers and hospital officials say.
Even as Afghan military commanders here sent troops to Tora Bora to root out bin Laden and his Al Qaeda fighters, the anger over the civilian deaths in the area has only deepened.
From Friday through Monday, a stretch of intense US bombing aimed at members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorist network who have taken refuge in these hills, the hospital received a steady flow of bomb victims. Five victims arrived Friday, 18 Saturday, 13 Sunday and Monday, almost all coming by private car after journeys that lasted for several hours. Yesterday there were no new arrivals by early afternoon, a relief to health workers.
The hospital's morgue received 17 bodies last weekend, and officials here estimate at least 89 civilians were killed in several villages.
In the hospital yesterday, a bomb's damage could be chronicled in the life of one family.
A bomb had killed the father, Faisal Karim. In one bed was his wife, Mustafa Jama, who had severe head injuries. Her left eye was swollen shut; her right eye barely opened. ''She is in trouble,'' said Dr. Shafiquallah Atish. ''Her condition is grave.''
Around her, six of her children were in bandages. They ranged from 18-year-old Brishna to 10-month-old Raheem. One of them, Zahidullah, 8, lay in a coma.
The only child who escaped unharmed was Ismait Ullah, 11. Yesterday she held the baby, Raheem, and watched out for her twin 2-year-old sisters, Zairaab and Shahida, who shared a bed. When the baby let out a soft cry, Ismait rubbed Raheem's chest and sang to her softly.
The baby put her bandaged head on her older sister's bony shoulder, and closed her eyes.
''We were sitting in one room when the bombing started,'' Ismait said. ''I survived because I was standing under the wood frame of the house,'' a spot that didn't collapse.
The only other adult from the family at the hospital was one of the children's uncles, Niz Mohammed. He remained by the side of Zahidullah, the boy in a coma.
''America says it has well-targeted bombs, but our home is [15 miles] from Tora Bora,'' Mohammed said. ''Maybe they were targeting a district building, which was near our house.''
He said that the villagers viewed Al Qaeda as ''our enemy. We would never let them in our village. What the Americans did was a brutal action.''
Many of the injuries have gone unreported because the victims never make it to the hospital, which has only two ambulances. Mohammed used his own car to drive the family five hours over long, barren stretches of terrain to the hospital.
US officials have acknowledged that their intense bombing raids have inflicted more civilian deaths, especially around Jalalabad and the southern city of Kandahar, two areas where Taliban and Al Qaeda units are believed to be strong. Verifying the number of casualties usually falls to international aid organizations like the Red Cross.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a press briefing yesterday, addressed questions about civilian deaths and injuries and said that determining the facts on the ground is difficult in what is an increasingly chaotic country.
At the hospital yesterday, Mohammed spoke in a low voice, not wanting to disturb the others, including the 10-year-old boy who lost his eyes and hands.
Every so often over the past two days, the boy would talk softly to his uncle, Saed Hassan.
''Sometimes he says that a dog must have bit him. Sometimes he says bad words about himself,'' as if he had done something wrong, Hassan said. ''Sometimes he says he hears the sound of airplanes dropping bombs and he says he needs to run and get out of the room.''
The uncle leaned to Noor Mohammad and asked how he felt.
''I feel cold,'' the boy said. ''I cannot talk.''
He fell silent in the quiet ward.
Even the Boston Globe…
What do you mean "even the Boston Globe"?! They’ve been salivating at the prospect since day one.
War is bitch, and unlike the people in the WTC, the Afghanis were told it was coming.
I'm sorry they were too friggin' stupid to gather up the kids and leave town.
Flaming fonts?! Casino pop-ups! Faux-foil background! It looks like cyber-vomit!
I'm betting you don't get a lot of return visitors.
Easy. In one case, it's not murder. In the other case, it is. Anyone who cannot comprehend the difference is a moral cretin.
(Then you could start throwing in the even more gruesome deaths from abortion, but that would just start a whole new thread...)
What? This family didn't observe Holy Ramadan fasting until midnight? And the bomb we aimed at him took out his 'hands and his eyes'? If you try to think through the mechanics of that combination of injuries you have to wonder how it could happen. Was he covering his eyes with his hands ... his hands and eyes got blown away? The rest of him was OK?
The baby put her bandaged head on her older sister's bony shoulder, and closed her eyes.
PLEASE! John Donnelly, if that's your real name, you should be ashamed of yourself. This is the most lame fiction I have ever read. SHAME ON YOU!
Actually, Ramadan fasting stops after sunset, not midnight...
If you have to ask, no explanation is possible.
You are one sick dude if you believe there is such a thing as an antiseptic war, and if you are unaware that there are people who drag their women and kids to or near military targets, and that is never an acceptable reason for not attacking it.
I had a look at the picture. It is truly and genuinely heartbreaking. I am deeply sorry this child is having to go through this.
War is hell.
So what do you propose? Stop the bombing?
We could do that. Then a year or two from now, we'll likely have not just a few, but thousands upon thousands of little children just like this boy lying in hospitals, dying of radiation poisoning. Along with their mommies and daddies.
I've been just about the first and most vociferous to stand up against the "nuke 'em all" crowd here, and I've taken plenty of heat for it, too. I'm all against civilian casualties whenever and wherever possible.
But we must wage war, since war has been declared and committed upon us, and directly and deliberately upon our innocent civilians, and no matter how much due diligence we exercise to avoid civilivan casualties, guess what? They're going to happen.
If we fail to prosecute the war to its successful conclusion, we'll have far more civilian casualties in the long run. And these thousands will be American children. Is this what you want? A thousand such horribly injured children? Or do you really think these murdering bastards bent upon the destruction of our society, and upon world domination by radical Islam, will be nice and kind to us if we'll just say, "That's okay. We forgive you."
We must continue to fight the war, and we must win it. I hope and pray our armed forces will exercise as much care as they can along the way to avoid civilian casualties.
But if you want to know who's to blame for that suffering little boy who now faces a future with no eyesight and no hands - the names are: "al Qaeda" and "The Taliban".
P.S: piss on your web site.
OK. I stand corrected. It's still bad fiction.
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