"Sectarian violence, US presence took a heavy toll on civilians
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-- Your friends at Boston.com
That ain't good enough, Globe.
You made me GO to the TIMES WEBSITE and I can NEVER FORGIVE YOU for that!
"A Grim Portrait of Civilian Deaths in Iraq
The reports in the archive disclosed by WikiLeaks offer an incomplete, yet startlingly graphic portrait of one of the most contentious issues in the Iraq war — how many Iraqi civilians have been killed and by whom.
The reports make it clear that most civilians, by far, were killed by other Iraqis....
I'm so tired of the Zionist war lies.
Related: Occupation Iraq: Undercounting the Dead
Occupation Iraq: Death Toll Continues Climb
Every day.
The documents also reveal many previously unreported instances in which American soldiers killed civilians — at checkpoints, from helicopters, in operations. Such killings are a central reason Iraqis turned against the American presence in their country, a situation that is now being repeated in Afghanistan....
Yeah, took all of about two weeks of occupation. C'mon, folks; they DID NOT WANT US SMASHING THEIR COUNTRY and KILLING THEM!
We did that WITHOUT ASKING or LISTENING to IRAQIS (except that scum Chalabi)!
The pace of civilian deaths served as a kind of pulse, whose steady beat told of the success, or failure, of America’s war effort.
Oh, this is SICKENING!!!
Yeah, the BLOOD of IRAQIS is the MEASURE of SUCCESS, huh?
Then THIS THING has been a COLOSSAL FAILURE!
Americans on both sides of the war debate argued bitterly over facts that grew hazier as the war deepened....
Translation: everything you read in the Globe all these years has been bulls***.
In all, the five-year archive lists more than 100,000 dead from 2004 to 2009, though some deaths are reported more than once, and some reports have inconsistent casualty figures....
Try a COUPLE MILLION (if anyone cares)!!
According to one particularly painful entry from 2006, an Iraqi wearing a tracksuit was killed by an American sniper who later discovered that the victim was the platoon’s interpreter.
The archive’s data is incomplete.
It's like an AmeriKn newspaper.
The documents were compiled with an emphasis on speed rather than accuracy; the goal was to spread information as quickly as possible among units. American soldiers did not respond to every incident.
Or spread something.
And even when Americans were at the center of the action, as in the western city of Falluja in 2004, none of the Iraqis they killed were categorized as civilians.
Related: Deformed babies in Fallujah
Memory Hole: Willie Pete
Yeah, NEVER YOU MIND THOSE WAR CRIMES!
In the early years of the war, the Pentagon maintained that it did not track Iraqi civilian deaths, but it began releasing rough counts in 2005, after members of Congress demanded a more detailed accounting on the state of the war.
Oh, what do you know -- ANOTHER PENTAGON LIE!
In one instance in 2008, the Pentagon used reports similar to the newly released documents to tabulate the war dead.
This month, The Associated Press reported that the Pentagon in July had quietly posted its fullest tally of the death toll of Iraqi civilians and security forces ever, numbers that were first requested in 2005 through the Freedom of Information Act....
That's where the printed piece stopped.
The archive does not have a category for the main causes of Iraqi deaths inflicted by Americans.
Compared with the situation in Afghanistan, in Iraq aerial bombings seemed to be less frequently a cause of civilian deaths, after the initial invasion.
The reports were only as good as the soldiers calling them in. One of the most infamous episodes of killings by American soldiers, the shootings of at least 15 Iraqi civilians, including women and children in the western city of Haditha, is misrepresented in the archives. The report stated that the civilians were killed by militants in a bomb attack, the same false version of the episode that was given to the news media.
You know what that means, readers. YOU CAN NOT TRUST a DAMN WORD in them!
You know what that means, readers. YOU CAN NOT TRUST a DAMN WORD in them!
Civilians have borne the brunt of modern warfare, with 10 civilians dying for every soldier in wars fought since the mid-20th century, compared with 9 soldiers killed for every civilian in World War I, according to a 2001 study by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
--more--"
Related: Leaks shine light on Iran’s role as backer of Iraq’s Shi’ite militias (By Michael R. Gordon and Andrew W. Lehren, New York Times)
That's what took its place in the web version.
