MSNBC: US Troops Fire on Iraqi Wedding, More Than 40 Killed

Congrats Mac B you've allowed tattles to hijack your own thread (again).

 

Macbeth's rationale:
Maybe since we might use props in other situations that has really nothing to parallel the thinking here, then it is ok for the terrorists to utilize props to shoot at us...It's the same thing

 

Apparently, what happened is that the people at the wedding fired shots in the air out of joy and the US troops thought they were being attacked and shot them. At least that is what the German media is reporting (with pictures, the people who were shot do look like wedding guests).

 

The latest from the military press guy is the wedding party/insurgents (take your pick) were shooting directly at an AC-130 (not in the air), and the AC-130 fired back.

 

Enjoying your freedom and democracy yet? Seriously, this is sad.

 

I wonder what would happen to me here in LA if I celebrated a major life event by shooting at a large military aircraft?

 

I thought this was over with all the firm denials by Kimmitt, but this gets more and more interesting.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20040523/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_attack_5


AP: Video Shows Iraq Wedding Celebration

44 minutes ago Add Top Stories - AP to My Yahoo!


By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer

RAMADI, Iraq - A videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck.

The U.S. military says it is investigating the attack, which took place in the village of Mogr el-Deeb about five miles from the Syrian border, but that all evidence so far indicates the target was a safehouse for foreign fighters.

"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."

But video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent.

The wedding videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert escorting the bridal car — decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a Western-style white bridal dress and veil. The camera captures her stepping out of the car but does not show a close-up.

An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video — which runs for several hours.

APTN also traveled to Mogr el-Deeb, 250 miles west of Ramadi, the day after the attack to film what the survivors said was the wedding site. A devastated building and remnants of the tent, pots and pans could be seen, along with bits of what appeared to be the remnants of ordnance, one of which bore the marking "ATU-35," similar to those on U.S. bombs.

A water tanker truck can be seen in both the video shot by APTN and the wedding tape obtained from a cousin of the groom.

The singing and dancing seems to go on forever at the all-male tent set up in the garden of the host, Rikad Nayef, for the wedding of his son, Azhad, and the bride Rutbah Sabah. The men later move to the porch when darkness falls, apparently taking advantage of the cool night weather. Children, mainly boys, sit on their fathers' laps; men smoke an Arab water pipe, finger worry beads and chat with one another. It looks like a typical, gender-segregated tribal desert wedding.

As expected, women are out of sight - but according to survivors, they danced to the music of Hussein al-Ali, a popular Baghdad wedding singer hired for the festivities. Al-Ali was buried in Baghdad on Thursday.

Prominently displayed on the videotape was a stocky man with close-cropped hair playing an electric organ. Another tape, filmed a day later in Ramadi and obtained by APTN, showed the musician lying dead in a burial shroud — his face clearly visible and wearing the same tan shirt as he wore when he performed.

As the musicians played, young men milled about, most dressed in traditional white robes. Young men swayed in tribal dances to the monotonous tones of traditional Arabic music. Two children — a boy and a girl — held hands, dancing and smiling. Women are rarely filmed at such occasions, and they appear only in distant glimpses.

Kimmitt said U.S. troops who swept through the area found rifles, machine guns, foreign passports, bedding, syringes and other items that suggested the site was used by foreigners infiltrating from Syria.

The videotape showed no weapons, although they are common among rural Iraqis.

Kimmitt has denied finding evidence that any children died in the raid although a "handful of women" — perhaps four to six — were "caught up in the engagement."

"They may have died from some of the fire that came from the aircraft," he told reporters Friday.

However, an AP reporter obtained names of at least 10 children who relatives said had died. Bodies of five of them were filmed by APTN when the survivors took them to Ramadi for burial Wednesday. Iraqi officials said at least 13 children were killed.

Four days after the attack, the memories of the survivors remain painful — as are their injuries.

Haleema Shihab, 32, one of the three wives of Rikad Nayef, said that as the first bombs fell, she grabbed her seven-month old son, Yousef, and clutching the hands of her five-year-old son, Hamza, started running. Her 15-year-old son, Ali, sprinted alongside her. They managed to run for several yards when she fell — her leg fractured.

"Hamza was yelling, 'mommy,'" Shihab, recalled. "Ali said he was hurt and that he was bleeding. That's the last time I heard him." Then another shell fell and injured Shihab's left arm.

"Hamza fell from my hand and was gone. Only Yousef stayed in my arms. Ali had been hit and was killed. I couldn't go back," she said from her hospital bed in Ramadi. Her arm was in a cast.

She and her stepdaughter, Iqbal — who had caught up with her — hid in a bomb crater. "We were bleeding from 3 a.m. until sunrise," Shihab said.

Soon American soldiers came. One of them kicked her to see if she was alive, she said.

"I pretended I was dead so he wouldn't kill me," said Shihab. She said the soldier was laughing. When Yousef cried, the soldier said: "'No, stop," said Shihab.

Fourteen-year-old Moza, Shihab's stepdaughter, lies on another bed of the hospital room. She was hurt in the leg and cries. Her relatives haven't told her yet that her mother, Sumaya, is dead.

"I fear she's dead," Moza said of her mother. "I'm worried about her."

Moza was sleeping on one side of the porch next to her sisters Siham, Subha and Zohra while her mother slept on the other end. There were many others on the porch, her cousins, stepmothers and other female relatives.

When the first shell fell, Moza and her sisters, Subha, Fatima and Siham ran off together. Moza was holding Subha's hand.

"I don't know where Fatima and my mom were. Siham got hit. She died. I saw Zohra's head gone. I lost consciousness," said Moza, covering her mouth with the end of her headscarf.

Her sister Iqbal, lay in pain on the bed next to her. Her other sister, Subha, was on the upper floor of the hospital, in the same room with two-year-Khoolood. Her small body was bandaged and a tube inserted in her side drained her liver.

Her ankle was bandaged. A red ribbon was tied to her curly hair. Only she and her older brother, Faisal, survived from their immediate family. Her parents and four sisters and brothers were all killed.

In all, 27 members of Rikad Nayef's extended family died — most of them children and women, the family said.

 

Man, it is unreal how technology is effecting the war in Iraq. It was TV that first caused war to be seen up close and personal in Vietnam, but who would've ever predicted the impact of hand held video cameras, cell phones, digital cameras, etc?

We go now from myth to reality with a few million pixels.

 

Woofer, that story about the Mother watching her son die, seriously brought tears to my eyes..

 

Let me see how susicipous this is:
A. It was 3 AM in the fricking morning. When have you gone to a wedding at 3 AM in the fricking morning?
B. It was 10 miles from the Syrian border and 80 MILES from the nearest city. When have you gone out in the desert.....at 3 AM, to have a wedding?

Even if it was a wedding (not likely), don't shoot your damned guns in the air! What idiots. I know the liberals here are rejoicing because they think that if we can lose in Iraq, which they'd love to see, it would make Bush unelectable. I know you guys want us to run away just as we did from Mogadishu in disgrace. Hopefully, we can actually win this war before the media turns public opinion into thinking we are losing badly. During the Tet offensive, the U.S. wiped out the Viet Cong as an effective fighting force and largely destroyed the NVA, yet the media treated it as if we lost! The same situation is developing in 2004 in Iraq.

 

Not only are you a despicable racist, but you are unimaginably obtuse. I know I like to make sort of lighthearted fun of you from time to time, you know, joshing you for your Snuffy Smith routine and all, but I'm serious now. You are flat-out ignorant.

Also, your persistent politicization of events like this is disgusting. My immediate reaction to news of the wanton murder of civilians is not informed by my opinions of Bush. That you paint horror at this atrocity as a 'liberal' attempt to smear Bush is most telling, susicipous even.

 

Let me see how susicipous this is:
A. It was 3 AM in the fricking morning. When have you gone to a wedding at 3 AM in the fricking morning?
B. It was 10 miles from the Syrian border and 80 MILES from the nearest city. When have you gone out in the desert.....at 3 AM, to have a wedding?

Perhaps one day, you'll learn that everyone in the world is not like you, and that other cultures might have different traditions than ours. Until then, I guess you'll keep making stupid statements like this.

 

Hey, it isn't cool when TJ or bamaslammer do this to others, and it isn't cool when you (or anyone else) does it to them. If you want to make a point, make it. This is not the way to do it.

Want to know how? Just read Major's post. THAT is how to argue a point without calling people "despicable racists."

 

My point was simply that BS is ignorant and that his input should be scorned. Apologies to Major, but I assumed, incorrectly, apparently, that his very valid assessment would be readily inferred by anyone here.