Replies to post #640 on Nothing But Politics

[sarals]

sorry, I don't buy it. We keep saying we are so humane, but this kind of behavior contradicts that. I've always been appalled at the flimsy excuses foreign governments use to imprison and torture people and here we are doing the same thing. It's just plain not right.

[sylvester80]

MSNBC:Casualties grow as troops head north

Iraqi civilians, journalists among the reported dead

http://www.msnbc.com/news/888496_asp.htm?0cv=CB10

NBC NEWS AND NEWS SERVICES

March 25 — As coalition forces make their way through Iraq, the number of combat casualties is growing. Soldiers are not the only victims — two Western journalists are among the dead, along with Iraqi civilians and at least five Syrian workers whose bus was hit by an errant U.S. missile in western Iraq.

IN THE SOUTH of Iraq, coalition forces have faced a pattern of deadly ambushes and ruse attacks by Iraqi militiamen in civilian clothes.

U.S. officials have said nine Marines were killed near Nasiriyah on Sunday when one Iraqi unit indicated it was giving up, then opened fire when the Marines approached. U.S. military sources said about 40 were wounded. The Marines were stationed at Camp Lejeune, a base spokeswoman confirmed.

Also on Sunday, at least 10 members of the 507th Maintenance Company went missing in Iraq. Five of them were seen later in Iraqi video being interrogated.

On Tuesday, a Navy corpsman was killed near Nasiriyah, putting the total number of confirmed U.S. casualties at 18. The official total of dead and missing British troops, including non-combat deaths, rose to 20 after two soldiers were killed in action near Zubayr in the south of Iraq.

Mechanical failures and accidents have resulted in the death of 21 coalition troops.

IMMIGRANT AMONG THE DEAD
One of the first two U.S. casualties in Iraq included Jose Gutierrez, an immigrant from Guatemala who lived in California. The 22-year-old lance corporal was killed in ground combat Friday.

An orphan who grew up on the streets while Guatemala was enmeshed in civil war, he found a new family when at age 14 he traveled to the United States by train, foot and bus. He enlisted partly to thank the United States for his new life, his foster brother said.

“He joined the Marines to pay back a little of what he’d gotten from the U.S.,” Max Mosquera said. “For him it was a question of honor.”

The U.S. suffered its first combat casualty on Thursday when a Marine from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was shot in the stomach as his company advanced on a burning oil pump station in the Rumeila oil field outside Basra.

COALITION POWS
Iraq has also taken a number of U.S. soldiers prisoner. Two pilots of an Apache helicopter were held by Iraq after their helicopter went down near Karbala as it targeted Iraq’s elite Republican Guard.

The men, identified as Chief Warrant Officer Ronald D. Young Jr., 26, of Lithia Springs, Ga., and Chief Warrant Officer David S. Williams, 30, of Orlando, Fla., appeared on Iraqi TV on Monday.

“I just wanted to know that he was alive,” said Young’s father, Ronnie Young, on NBC’s “Today” on Tuesday. “It’s not the best situation in the whole world but it is somewhat better than the alternative.”

At least seven American soldiers have been taken prisoner by Iraq since the weekend.

IRAQI DEATHS
About 500 Iraqi fighters have been killed in the last two days by the 3rd Infantry Division’s tanks and mechanized units as they swept through southern Iraq, estimated Command Sgt. Maj. Kenneth Preston of V Corps, who oversees the 3rd Infantry Division.

Preston said U.S. forces ran into “a lot” of Iraqi tanks and anti-aircraft weaponry and “thousands and thousands” of weapons around the city of Najaf.

’This could have been very ugly, but they’re not very motivated,” Preston said of the regular Iraqi army recruits. “I think a lot of them wanted to go home.”

Later Tuesday, a Reuters reporter traveling with the 1st Marines Division said around 30 Iraqis who may have been on their way to reinforce the southern Iraq city of Nasiriyah were killed in what appeared to be a bombing raid by U.S.-led forces to support some of the toughest battles of the war thus far.

Two western journalists were killed on Saturday in Iraq. Australian cameraman Paul Moran died in northern Iraq when a car bomb went off. The blast was blamed by Kurdish officials on militant Islamic group Ansar al-Islam, which Washington has linked to al Qaida.

The same day Terry Lloyd, a senior journalist from the British Independent Television News, was killed after coming under fire on way to Basra. Two more ITN journalists went missing on Sunday after their car came under fire near Basra the day before.

[sylvester80]

BREAKING NEWS:U.S. fails to persuade Turkey on Iraq
[ED: Get ready for a war within a war. Before you know it the wholre region will be up in chaos. Bush should be arrested and tried for war crimes against humanity for starting World War III.]

Foreign minister says troops may create zone inside north


Turkish soldiers drive their tanks past the port of the southern Turkish city of Iskenderun on Monday.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/886517_asp.htm?0cv=CB10

MSNBC NEWS SERVICES

ANKARA, Turkey, March 25 — The United States, eager for stability in northern Iraq to marshal a possible second front against Baghdad, apparently failed Tuesday in a bid to talk Turkey out of sending troops into the Kurdish-controlled area. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Ankara will send forces up to 12 miles into northern Iraq to deal with any flood of refugees, but will only move if a crisis develops.

WASHINGTON FEARS that Turkish forces could end up clashing with local Iraqi Kurdish fighters or engaging in friendly fire accidents with U.S. forces.

Gul said Turkey was determined to act to avoid a flood of refugees. Following the 1991 Gulf War, hundreds of thousands of starving, freezing Iraqi Kurds fled Saddam Hussein’s forces for the Turkish border, creating a humanitarian disaster for Turkey.
Gul said Turkey was looking to create a 12-mile zone on the border.

“We want to keep all of the refugees there. This is very clear,” he said in an interview in his office.

“This is not a populated area and this area ... is for security reasons,” Gul said. “If the need is there, this is our plan.”

When asked how many soldiers Turkey would send in, Gul said: “It depends on the need.”
Gul said Turkish and U.S. officials were discussing the Turkish plans.

U.S. ENVOY
U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad was in Ankara on Tuesday for talks with Turkish officials.

A senior U.S. official said the goal of Khalilzad’s talks is to keep Turkish troops out of northern Iraq. The official said Washington is offering to work to contain any refugee flow in order to keep Turkish forces out of the region.

Khalilzad pledged to continue the discussions.
“These are difficult and complicated issues,” he said.
In addition to a flow of refugees, Turkey also fears that the fall of Saddam Hussein could lead to the creation of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq.

That could boost the aspirations of Turkey’s Kurdish rebels, who fought a 15-year war for autonomy in southeastern Turkey.

Meantime, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Henry P. Osman arrived in Irbil in Kurdish controlled-northern Iraq on Sunday. Osman is Commanding General, II Marine Expeditionary Force, and was previously an officer on the Joint Staff heavily involved in the war on terror.

Osman is likely to command a joint force with a lead element of Marines from Camp LeJeune, N.C. It remains unclear how large and what its mission will be.

A senior Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Osman would outrank Kurdish generals “thereby insure that the U.S. determines what the future of Kurdistan will be.”

The official also hinted that moving a Osman into Kurdish territories was part of the deal with the Turks.

[sylvester80]

NEWS:Senate Republicans Vote AGAINST Bush; Even they can see the threat Bush is to our country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2886725.stm

Tuesday, 25 March, 2003, 21:56 GMT

Senate reverses Bush tax cuts

By Steve Schifferes
BBC News Online in Washington

Speaker Hastert (left) made the budget a test of patriotism
In a surprising reversal, the Senate has reduced the size of proposed tax cuts by 50%.
The plan to cut taxes by $726bn over the next 10 years is the centrepiece of the Bush administration's domestic agenda.

The president believes it is crucial to create jobs and boost the flagging US economy, but critics say it will add to the surging US budget deficit, which is already projected to be over $300bn this year.

On Friday, a coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats lost a vote to reduce that tax cut by $360bn, in order to limit the size of future deficits.

But on Tuesday the same group tried again, and won by a vote of 52-47.

Moderate Republican Senator George Voinovich said that "we are at the edge of a fiscal precipice if we keep going the way we are, particularly with this war hanging over us."

Further battles

That vote, in the context of the Senate consideration of the $2.2 trillion 2004 budget, may not be the last word on the subject.


With Republican leaders urging their supporters not to undermine Mr Bush while a war was going on, the House of Representatives last week passed Mr Bush's plan intact, by a narrow 215-212 majority.

Republicans are expected to try and remove that provision when the bill goes to the conference stage, where the differences between the two branches of Congress are reconciled.

Mr Bush believes that carrying on with tax cuts is vital for his political success.

It was his father's failure to carry through his pledge to cut taxes, he believes, that dealt a fatal blow to his re-election campaign in 1992, despite his victory in the first Gufl War.

War bill due

One factor influencing the vote was the $75bn war bill which Mr Bush sent to Congress on Tuesday.

That will increase the deficit to $400bn this year - and many believe there is more war spending to come.

Some fiscal conservatives said that the true cost of the war could be $100bn per year for the next several years.

That could put a big dent in future government deficits, and many moderates argued that the American people should help pay for the cost of the war.

[sylvester80]

4 Palestinians, Including Girl, 10, Are Slain in West Bank
By GREG MYRE

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/25/international/middleeast/25CND-MIDE.html?ex=1049259600&en=1028...

JERUSALEM, March 25 — Israeli undercover forces, ambushed in Bethlehem, shot dead two Palestinian gunmen and a 10-year-old girl who was riding in a car that apparently blundered into the gun battle, Palestinians and news reports said today. Soldiers also killed a 14-year-old boy in a separate West Bank shooting.

The four Palestinian deaths shattered a brief period of relative calm in the region, where attention has been focused on the American-led war in Iraq. Until today, Israeli-Palestinian fighting had resulted in only one death since the Iraq war began last Thursday.

In the Bethlehem battle, plainclothes Israeli forces were searching for militants from the Hamas movement when they came under fire near the center of town and shot back, killing two gunmen in a car, Israel radio reported.

A moment later, a second Palestinian car approached and the Israeli troops, apparently fearing that it was part of the attack, opened fire, the radio reported. The 10-year-old girl was killed, and her parents and a teenage sister were wounded, Palestinian witnesses said.

The girl's father was in serious condition with a neck wound, while her mother and sister were slightly wounded, according to Hadassah Hospital, in nearby Jerusalem. The Israeli military said it was investigating and had no immediate comment.

In Jenin, in the northern West Bank, Israeli forces shot two youths who had climbed aboard an armored personnel carrier and were trying to steal a machine gun, the army said. The two were taken away by Palestinian ambulances, the army added.

Palestinian witnesses asserted that the two boys were throwing stones, and were not on the vehicle when they were shot. One of the boys, Haqam Nassar, 14, was shot in the abdomen and died of his wounds, while the second boy, age 12, was wounded in the leg, the Palestinians said.

In a similar incident a day earlier in Jenin, Israeli forces shot two youths who officials said had jumped on an armored vehicle. A 14-year-old boy was killed and another 14-year-old was shot in the leg, Palestinians said.

The military also said today that it arrested 21 Palestinian militants overnight in the West Bank. The army remains in and around most Palestinian cities in the West Bank and has been making arrests nightly.

Israelis and Palestinians have nonetheless given indications that they would like to ease tensions while the Iraq war is under way.

Israel believes the demise of Saddam Hussein would remove one of its most serious threats, and it wants to keep attention directed at that conflict. Israel also wants to avoid being drawn into the Iraq war or having its feud with the Palestinians linked to that battle.

Palestinians have expressed concern that Israel will use the Iraq war as cover to impose a host of harsh measures on them.

Elsewhere, an Israeli military court sentenced three Palestinians to life prison terms after they were convicted of involvement in multiple attacks. The three belonged to the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a militia loosely linked to the Fatah movement of Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader.

The brigades' leader, Muhammad Mazlah, was convicted of taking part in the mob killing of two Israeli soldiers who had lost their way and entered the West Bank town of Ramallah in October 2000. The two soldiers were taken to a Palestinian police station, where a mob stormed inside and killed them.