A parked car bomb ripped through a crowded outdoor market in southwestern Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 25 people despite a 3-month-old security crackdown meant to reduce violence in the capital.
At least 60 people were wounded in the 10 a.m. blast in the Shiite-dominated neighborhood of Amil. Nearby buildings were badly damaged and set ablaze, while others were reduced to rubble. Residents ran through the streets with buckets and pots of water, while others frantically tore through the rubble, looking for survivors. Groups of men carried bodies wrapped in tarps out of the damaged buildings.
"There were four women around my stall when we heard a loud explosion, which threw me many meters away from my stall,'' said Fadhil Hussein, 32, who sells spices in the market and suffered shrapnel wounds in his back and head. "I found myself in a pickup truck with other people. Some of them were bleeding and yelling.''
The above is from Ravi Nessman's "Car Bombing in Baghdad Market Kills 25" (AP) which is covering violence today. In the New York Times, Kirk Semple's "Gunmen Kill 5 in Ambush of Minibus in Diyala Province on Day of Scattered Violence in Iraq" offers the rundown of some of yesterday's violence and we'll note this from the article:
The search for three captured American soldiers continued Monday. Col. Michael Kershaw, commander of the Second Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, said American and Iraqi troops continued to find and arrest people who had knowledge of the May 12 ambush that led to the soldiers' capture. He said the number of detainees believed to have been involved "is in the double digits."
He also said it was still not clear if any or all of the missing soldiers were still alive.
Do you ever get tired of being lied to? Do you ever wonder how stupid some people think you are? Kershaw thinks the American people are pretty stupid. 3 US soldiers are missing. For 11 days. Not for lack of trying have they not been found. (But lack of following standard procedures may have made them sitting ducks -- that's from above, that's not blaming the missing for doing what they were ordered to do by a command that didn't know what it was doing.)
So when you've got nothing, what do you do?
Well aren't we seeing that domestically? "The shooting would have been much worse!" Isn't that what the self-stroking police force wants Amercians to believe re: Virginia Tech? Isn't that really insulting? So is Kershaw.
Are 3 US soldiers still missing? Yes. Have you made any progress? No. That's reality. Tossing out that they've railroaded Iraqis in the "double digits" is stupid and worthless. They haven't found out anything. The three's current location and status is still unknown. That's reality. But lie to the people about what you're 'accomplishing'. We've heard that they know who was involved, we've heard that they know 2 of the 3 are still alive, we hear a lot of crap. The reality is they know nothing. Still, they know nothing. Which is why the location and status of the 3 missing US soldiers is still unknown. That's reality.
Just like what happened at Virginia Tech is reality. Just like it was "much worse" -- with or without more killings. But lie to the people to make sure your own ass is covered.
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