Mosul families flee with the dead bodies of their children

Submitted by Linda Wood on Thu, 03/23/2017 - 12:14pm

I don't want to post this article from Rudaw, especially the slideshow of photographs, but we're grownups, right? We need to face the reality of our foreign policy.

http://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/180320171

Mosul residents flee the city with dead bodies of loved ones
By Rudaw 18/3/2017

Civilians continue to suffer in the war to drive ISIS from Iraq. On Thursday, family members fled the city, bringing with them the bodies of at least 21 allegedly killed in an airstrike targeting ISIS in west Mosul earlier this week.

“They were pulled from the rubble. Twenty-one bodies, women and children. Even a baby of just six months,” Ziad Khalaf told AFP, pulling a cart bearing the bodies of members of his family.

“They were human shields for the jihadists.”

He and others tried to retrieve the bodies but came under fire from ISIS militants. They had to wait until the neighbourhood was retaken by Iraqi security forces before being able to dig through the rubble and find their loved ones.

The UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, told reporters earlier this week that civilians are at risk whether they choose to flee the city or remain in their homes. Those who choose to stay face extreme risks from crossfire, snipers, and explosive hazards; while families who choose to leave are equally at risk: families get separated, ISIS targets them, and there is a risk of explosive hazards.

During the offensive to retake east Mosul, Grande estimated in January that 47 percent of all casualties were civilians. She said this week that in west Mosul, the reports they are receiving from families indicate that there is “much more destruction” in the city.

Photos: Aris Messinis/AFP

Tags: 
mosul
ISIS
War
Iraq war
Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

Submitted by CB on Thu, 03/23/2017 - 12:44pm
CB's picture

No one's supposed to know about this. Mosul is the good killing field. Accidents can happen when liberating a city so children can occasionally get hurt. No need to make more of it than necessary.


Our Crimes and Theirs: Mosul and Aleppo Viewed Through the Lens of Empire

As the bloody push to liberate Mosul from ISIS enters its third month, it goes without saying that the mainstream media in the West, by ignoring or bowdlerizing reports of human rights violations by the Iraqi security forces and US-led coalition, will continue to expose themselves as a gang of frauds. Before getting into details about what’s happening in Mosul, I’ll ask that you cast your mind back to the deluge of fury expressed over the Syrian government’s successful efforts to recapture east Aleppo from al-Qaeda, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaish al-Islam and other Wahhabi terrorists.
...
Sometimes the US media lose whatever self-control they otherwise possess and wind up pushing their disinformation into the realm of absurdity. The venerable Washington Post can usually be relied upon to exemplify what I’m talking about. They’ve come through yet again, this time with a piece by Jackson Diehl titled “There’s Good News in Mosul—For Now.” Published on Christmas, well after the human rights reports I’ve summarized above were made available, the column draws a sharp distinction between the situations in Aleppo and Mosul. Indeed, Diehl actually uses his lede to lament the fact that our media’s obsession with Aleppo has distracted from the feel-good story of Mosul. “Humanitarian agencies and human rights monitors,” Diehl informs us, “say they have been shocked—in a good way—by the behavior of the US-backed Iraqi forces that are slowly recapturing the city from the Islamic State.” He goes on: “There is no indiscriminate bombing or shelling of apartment buildings; no executions of women and children; no mass disappearances of men.”

Sweet mother of Christ! I wonder which human rights groups exist in Diehl’s alternate reality?....

up
0 users have voted.
Submitted by Linda Wood on Thu, 03/23/2017 - 1:23pm

@CB @CB
photographs to my computer of the refugee crisis in Mosul, as well as in Syria and elsewhere in this rampage of violence. I don't know how to post them here if they are not individual files. If I did, I would probably be over-doing it, so to speak. Photographs do make a difference in the consciousness. In searching for them, to my surprise, I see that they are published extensively online and in newspapers. My San Francisco newspaper has none of this.

In response to your quotes, I have seen myriad photographs of "... indiscriminate bombing or shelling of apartment buildings..." He's lying.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/05/02/death-destruction-iraq-...

up
0 users have voted.
Submitted by CB on Thu, 03/23/2017 - 2:01pm
CB's picture

@Linda Wood
than words. That is why the MSM will not publish them unless they suit their propaganda. The current theme is "massacre in Syria" "collateral damage in Iraq".

Here's something to alleviate some of the pain caused by all the warmongering going on. You will NEVER see these on American MSM.

up
0 users have voted.
Submitted by Linda Wood on Thu, 03/23/2017 - 1:26pm

http://www.readingthepictures.org/2016/12/why-photos-dont-stop-the-war/

December 19, 2016

Why Photographs Don’t Stop the War

Because it’s the photographs’ fault, apparently.

Last week, the New York Times featured Michael Kimmelman’s impassioned critique of the lack of public response to the carnage in Syria. “They keep coming, both the bombs and the images from Aleppo, so many of them.” The theme, and pathos, of the article is that while the bombs are effective, the images are not. Worse, they are not as effective as other images from previous catastrophes. Referring to photographs such as the Accidental Napalm icon from the Vietnam War, we are told that those images “drove news cycles for weeks, months, years, helping tip the scales of policy.”

The question naturally becomes, what’s wrong with us?

up
0 users have voted.
Submitted by CB on Thu, 03/23/2017 - 2:52pm
CB's picture

@Linda Wood
of the worst "papers of record" when it comes to documenting wars initiated by the American war machine. Many of the stories linked to at the NYT are actually propaganda being used in order to escalate the conflict in Syria. Two of the images are false and a third is misleading. THAT is why these photographs do not serve to stop war. Their intent is to manipulate the minds of the public. Unfortunately, as we can readily see, it works very well.

Noam Chomsky: The New York Times is pure propaganda
The celebrated linguist says our paper of record has carried the government's water, from Laos to the Middle East

New York Times a “Propaganda Megaphone” for War, Says Former Reporter
...
Raines wrote that the Times was “the indispensable newsletter of the United States' political, diplomatic, governmental, academic, and professional communities.” To Simpson, though, the former executive editor was basically admitting that "he sees his newspaper as being this propaganda megaphone for those who run the world."
...

Here we go again. This time it is Russia in the NYT propaganda cross-hairs.


New York Times’ narrative of Russian hacking: War propaganda in the guise of news
...
On Wednesday, the New York Times published a banner article, covering five columns on its front page and four inside pages, purporting to be a definitive account of Russian government intervention in the US elections through the hacking of Democratic Party emails.

“Hacking the Democrats: How Russia Honed Its Cyberpower and Trained it on an American Election,” by Eric Lipton, David Sanger and Scott Shane, is pure propaganda. It is full of unsubstantiated assertions, innuendo and unfounded conclusions, all of which serve one essential purpose: to pollute public opinion and create conditions for military aggression against Russia.

As intended, the Times article set the tone for a wave of war-mongering commentary in the American media. Lipton was interviewed on the cable news channels and the Public Broadcasting System’s evening news program. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin declared on MSNBC that the US had been “attacked by Russia.” He called for an independent commission, citing the bipartisan panel set up after 9/11.
...

up
0 users have voted.
Submitted by MrWebster on Thu, 03/23/2017 - 3:08pm

I was looking at figures for the damage of the Iraq war, and for some reason compared them at the time to Rwanda. About 800,000 people were killed in one hundred days roughly in Rwanda. In 2011 study found 500,000 killed in Iraq--six years ago. But add in the number of children killed due to sanctions and exceeds Rwanda.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131015-iraq-war-deaths-s...

Just realized the carnage may now be exceeding Pol Pot who killed 1.5 million people.

up
0 users have voted.
Submitted by CB on Thu, 03/23/2017 - 4:20pm
CB's picture

@MrWebster
was allowed to happen due to US policy of deliberate indifference. The genocide under Pol Pot was due to massive illegal US bombing of Cambodia and his subsequent support by US government.

I hold the US government directly responsible for both of those atrocities. Since WWII the US has been responsible, directly or indirectly, for the majority of the carnage and destruction of wars, small and large, that have been inflicted upon the world.

The US was born and bred from genocide, fratricide and slavery. Maybe that is why it replicates this throughout the world.

up
0 users have voted.
Submitted by native on Thu, 03/23/2017 - 4:29pm

of all reporting on and from active war zones. It is very prone to being used for propagandistic purposes. War is hell -- I already know that, and I don't need any more photographic documentation of it to convince me. I'm not sure that an endless stream of "war porn" images accomplishes much in the way of either stopping or explaining any war.

That Paste article is a very good synopsis of recent US policy in Syria and Iraq!

Is it absolutely necessary to violently wrest control of Mosul from the hands of the jihadists?
- I think probably, yes it is.
Will doing so kill and maim innumerable civilians?
- Of course it will. That is what all wars do.
Should the USA be involved at all, in anti-ISIS military operations?
- That question does not have a simple answer.

up
0 users have voted.
—

native

Submitted by CB on Thu, 03/23/2017 - 5:30pm
CB's picture

@native
Americans are shielded from "war porn" by the MSM, unlike the people in MENA countries who get more realistic images. If Americans would have seen the true carnage of the Iraq War and occupation, Bush would never have had a chance for a second term. That war was media managed from the very start.

The majority of Americans don't have a clue of what is really happening in the rest of the world by their government. What is even sadder, they don't even give a fuck.

up
0 users have voted.
Submitted by SnappleBC on Thu, 03/23/2017 - 6:28pm
SnappleBC's picture

@CB on that video link ended up for me at Ray McGovern. Now I'm sure that for many of you more experienced folk this is old news but I'd never run into him before. OK, I know that in this case the guy is saying stuff most people here want to hear. But who's got more info in his overall credibility? He sure sounds like a voice of knowledge and sanity in this video:

[video:https://youtu.be/wnITcUQiK1Y]

From what I understand Ray has focused on geo-political angles but there are also economic petro-dollar aspects to this story. What Ray never touched was why, exactly, our government is so tied to Israel.

up
0 users have voted.
—

A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

Submitted by divineorder on Fri, 03/24/2017 - 8:48am
divineorder's picture

@SnappleBC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_McGovern

Arrested for silent protest at Clinton speech

During a speech on February 16, 2011, at George Washington University by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton he stood silently with his back turned during her remarks, leading to his arrest for disorderly conduct[14][15] and inclusion on the State Department's Diplomatic Security "Be On the Lookout" (BOLO) list of potential threats to Clinton due to his "considerable amount of political activism, primarily anti-war," with instructions to Law Enforcement to detain and question him.[16][17] The charges were subsequently dropped,[16] and in 2014 he won an injunction against the BOLO on First and Fourth Amendment grounds.[17][18] The complaint leading to this injunction[17] also listed George Washington University and its Police Department as defendants for their arrest of him, and that part of the case against them was still in process as of November 2016.[18]
On Julian Assange

When asked on TVNZ whether Julian Assange was a hero or villain, he replied "hero,"[19] and has co-written an open letter of support for WikiLeaks and Assange.[20]

When asked whether Julian Assange was a journalist, he replied "Yeah, actually, with all due respect, I think you should be following his example,"[21] to the CNN reporter.
2016 Presidential election
November 7, 2016 he wrote in an e-mail to the supporters of Jill Stein "I am in Europe now, but voted for Jill Stein, as a matter of conscience, before departing the U.S." and "I thought of my grandchildren, in deciding to cast my vote for Jill Stein, knowing that she and the Greens are hard at work trying to assure that my grandchildren will have the clean air and pure water that most of us “grown-ups” still take for granted.".

up
0 users have voted.
—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by SnappleBC on Fri, 03/24/2017 - 12:09pm
SnappleBC's picture

@divineorder But knowing that he's a serious anti-war activist doesn't tell me whether he's:

a) actually knowledgeable
b) telling the truth

I'm working on the back research for the video I posted. I just thought some folks here might already know the answer. If the guy is legit then I see him as a huge resource.

edited to add
I forgot to mention the fact that apparently now you get on the BOLO list for turning your back on someone important or thinking that war is a sub-optimal solution for most problems?

"Hi, I'm an American and I'm a genocidal maniac." seems like the appropriate notion.

up
0 users have voted.
—

A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

Submitted by CB on Fri, 03/24/2017 - 2:03pm
CB's picture

@SnappleBC
can be found by examining the websites where his articles and reports are published and who he hangs with.

Here's a (partial) list where you can find Ray McGovern on a regular basis:

http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/
https://www.democracynow.org/appearances/ray_mcgovern
http://www.counterpunch.org/search-authors/?as=Ray+McGovern
http://www.commondreams.org/author/ray-mcgovern
http://www.truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/44768
https://www.alternativeradio.org/collections/spk_ray-mcgovern#
https://www.opednews.com/author/author2452.html
http://www.truthdig.com/search/results?q=raymcgovern
http://warisacrime.org/blog/25697

All those sites should be in your bookmarks folder if you are progressive anti-war.

up
0 users have voted.
Submitted by SnappleBC on Fri, 03/24/2017 - 4:02pm
SnappleBC's picture

@CB Some of those I'd already run into in my click-work on that video. I'm definitely keeping that list handy.

up
0 users have voted.
—

A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

Submitted by Linda Wood on Fri, 03/24/2017 - 11:10am

@native
in part because you're someone I have respected for a long time. I know people reading and writing at caucus99percent don't need much awakening about the war and its effects on innocent people. I should be posting the photographs elsewhere.

As to whether we have to bomb ISIS out of Mosul is of course a harsh question. I don't know the answer. We shouldn't have armed them, we shouldn't be arming their supporters. John McCain should have sturdied the Terrorism's Most Wanted list before meeting with Al Baghdadi and giving him money. But now we're here, and I understand your question.

up
0 users have voted.
Submitted by native on Fri, 03/24/2017 - 2:27pm

@Linda Wood
I have long respected you as well. And I'm sure we both agree that US foreign policy has contributed greatly to the rise and continuance of Daesh. Nonetheless, this morally diseased cult has evolved into such a virulently toxic scourge on the world at large, that to just ignore it, to simply let it be, is not a realistic option. And neither is diplomacy. Wahhabi jihadists do not negotiate, and they do not compromise.

My conscience is torn in regard to the violent "liberations" of Allepo, Mosul, and other Daesh-domminated cities. I've always believed that war is the worst of all possible human evils. However Daesh has managed to convince me that war can, under certain circumstances, be both evil and necessary.

up
0 users have voted.
—

native

Submitted by Linda Wood on Fri, 03/24/2017 - 4:45pm

@native
a better way, that's all I can say. Siege starves children and their families also. I hear you. This should never have happened.

up
0 users have voted.
Submitted by riverlover on Thu, 03/23/2017 - 8:41pm
riverlover's picture

Stories aren't covered because they reflect badly on the USA. And we can't go there. But we don't want our children to know we have been involved in undeclared wars since before they were born.

up
0 users have voted.
—

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Submitted by CB on Fri, 03/24/2017 - 2:09pm
CB's picture

@riverlover
in undeclared wars before even I was born - and I'm almost as old as dirt!

up
0 users have voted.
Submitted by divineorder on Fri, 03/24/2017 - 8:51am
divineorder's picture

up
0 users have voted.
—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Submitted by divineorder on Fri, 03/24/2017 - 9:02am
divineorder's picture

@divineorder

up
0 users have voted.
—

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.