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mohammed farah
08-22-2007, 02:45 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Five-year-old Youssif is scarred for life, his once beautiful smile turned into a grotesquely disfigured face -- the face of a horrifying act by masked men. They grabbed him on a January day outside his central Baghdad home, doused him with gas and set him ablaze.

It's an act incomprehensibly savage, even by Iraq's standards today. No one has been arrested and the motive remains unknown.

In a war-ravaged city torn by sectarian violence and marked by acts of vengeance, this attack's apparent randomness stands out as an example of what life has become in a place where brutality -- even against young children -- is a constant.

"They dumped gasoline, burned me, and ran," Youssif told CNN, pointing down the street with his scarred hands where his attackers fled.

As he sucked his thumb, he repeated, "I was burning." He tried to put the flames out himself.

It looks as though this boy's face melted and then froze into rivers cutting through swollen hard flesh. It's hard to see the energetic outgoing child his parents describe beneath the sullen demeanor that defines Youssif today.

"He's become spiteful, I am not sure why," said his mother, Zainab. "He is jealous of everyone. If I say the slightest thing to him, he cries. He's sensitive." Watch the mother describe how she cries at night wracked with guilt »

Even things like eating have become a chore. His face contorts when he tries to shovel rice into his mouth, carefully angling the spoon and then using his fingers to push the little grains through lips he can no longer fully open.

He has also become jealous of the baby sister he used to dote on. "I sit sometimes at night and cry," Zainab said, her voice heavy with guilt. "If only I hadn't let him go outside, if only I hadn't let him play."

It was on January 15 that masked men attacked her boy, their identities still unknown. Zainab said she was upstairs at the time.

"I heard screaming. I thought someone was fighting or something," she said.

She ran downstairs, saw her son and fainted. When she came to, she barely recognized her child. "His head was so swollen, you couldn't see his eyes, and his nose was pushed in."

"There was blood," she added, shuddering slightly. "The skin was melted off."

He spent two months in the hospital recovering from the severe burns. These days Youssif spends most of his time indoors, in front of the computer. It's only then that traces of the 5-year-old in him emerge. "He can't play outside with the other kids," Zainab said. "The other day they were playing, and he came in crying. I asked him, 'What's wrong?' and he said, 'They won't play with me because I am burned.'"

She said he once wanted to be a doctor and he loved kindergarten. "He used to be the one who would wake me up every morning, saying let's go to school," Zainab recalled.

She coaxed him to tell me the few words he knows in English. "Girl, boy, window, fan," he said, his voice barely audible, the words barely intelligible.

Doctors told the family there is little more they can do to help Youssif. The family can't afford care outside Iraq.

So Zainab has taken a massive risk by telling her story to the world. Her husband works as a security guard, and it's too dangerous for him to talk to the media.

"I'd prefer death than seeing my son like this," Zainab said.

All she wants is for someone to help her little boy smile again.

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/...ml#cnnSTCPhoto

The pictures of the boy and the mother is in the link!
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IbnAbdulHakim
08-22-2007, 02:57 PM
i didnt click on the link...

laa hawla wa laa quwwata illah billah, Allah is well aware of this atrocity, and inshaAllah recompense will be paid on yawmal qiyaamah.


grrrrr...> STUPID BUSH OESHF£)*WRH"£(Q$E"OIENDSJ :grumbling:


... :'(
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Pk_#2
08-22-2007, 03:07 PM
AsalamuALaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh,

a little child!!!!!! :'( :(

Allah (Subhana wa ta'ala) sees and helps, May Allah (swt) help the child and family. Ameen (say Ameen)

:( That was soo horrible.
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IbnAbdulHakim
08-22-2007, 03:08 PM
Ameen :(
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Kittygyal
08-22-2007, 06:28 PM
May Allah (swt) help the child and family. Ameen (say Ameen)
Amin thumma amin ya rabbil alameen :cry: :cry:
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Science101
08-23-2007, 03:25 PM
Can someone please explain to me how these men can do something like that. And I would also like to know how one can blame George Bush for grown men setting a child on fire, or for that matter all of the other Muslim against Muslin violence that is often over minor religious differences that has been happening since Saddam took power, probably longer.
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wilberhum
08-23-2007, 04:28 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Science101
Can someone please explain to me how these men can do something like that. And I would also like to know how one can blame George Bush for grown men setting a child on fire, or for that matter all of the other Muslim against Muslin violence that is often over minor religious differences that has been happening since Saddam took power, probably longer.
how these men can do something like that? Simple, Hate.
how one can blame George Bush? Must people will not accept the responsibility for the evil they do, so they just blame someone else. Also, it is always blame someone you hate.

In my opinion, hate is the base for most all of this kind of stuff.
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Science101
08-23-2007, 04:48 PM
I like your answer wilberhum. Especially the "Also, it is always blame someone you hate." part.

Saddam was giving families of suicide bombers 25000 US dollars for each child that blew themselves up, made suicide bombing seem heroic, and that only encouraged the violence we are now seeing.
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wilberhum
08-23-2007, 05:27 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Science101
I like your answer wilberhum. Especially the "Also, it is always blame someone you hate." part.

Saddam was giving families of suicide bombers 25000 US dollars for each child that blew themselves up, made suicide bombing seem heroic, and that only encouraged the violence we are now seeing.
There are many things "that only encouraged the violence we are now seeing".
Giving money to the families who have a child who killed himself so that he could kill innocent people, is only one of them.
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Science101
08-24-2007, 01:17 AM
And once again, the USA comes to the aid of a victim of violence in a very violent part of the world.:D

When informed of the news in Baghdad, Youssif ran around his house, saying, "Daddy, daddy, am I really going to get on a plane?!"

Youssif's father was also cheered by the news. "I feel like I am going to fly from happiness," his father told CNN's Arwa Damon, who reported the story on what happened to Youssif.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/...olo/index.html
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Keltoi
08-24-2007, 02:35 AM
It is understandable that many will try to find something or somebody to blame for this, but the reality is that the occupation doesn't make someone set a child on fire. Evil is the only culprit here, and those that carried out this brutal attack are obviously evil.
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snakelegs
08-24-2007, 02:41 AM
i wouldn't hesitate to call both evil. no good guys anywhere in sight.
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Science101
08-24-2007, 02:54 AM
I 100% agree Keltoi. And in my opinion the evil ones spread their evil by making it seem like it's the fault of the USA that they do this kind of sick minded thing, when in fact the USA is one of the few countries trying to end this sickness.

The Muslim world might in time be living in shame for what is now happening. Like in World War Two, the USA saved entire countries from a madman pretending to be a holy-man while others in the area went along with their madness. Ironically, many of the same countries that did nothing then, are doing nothing now.
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mohammed farah
08-24-2007, 03:07 AM
Who has America saved? Oh yea Afganistan, Iraq, Somalia! Somalia had peace for 6 months thanks to an Islamic group and what do the U.S. Govermant do? Start a rumour about Somalia harbering Al- Qaeda members. They back the Eithopian govermant to Invade Somali and now Somalia once again is in caos thanks to the U.S.
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Science101
08-24-2007, 03:29 AM
Here's a brief history of WW2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II

The USA and England saved France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Poland, and many more. Eventually had to conduct the "Berlin Airlift" to save the people of that German city who were being starved by the Soviets with a punishing blockade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Blockade

After the war the countries that the US liberated did very well. Japan that sent suicide bombers after us, became a superpower. Those who feel under Soviet control ended up dirt poor and hungry, oppressed, and that didn't end until they were able to liberate themselves (with help from the USA of course).

And it was Adolf Hitler who started a mass migration of Jewish war refugees into Palestine. The USA got stuck in the middle of that conflict too.
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Science101
08-24-2007, 03:40 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by mohammed farah
Who has America saved? Oh yea Afganistan, Iraq, Somalia! .
And I must add that none of the conflicts you mentioned have ended.

format_quote Originally Posted by mohammed farah
Somalia had peace for 6 months thanks to an Islamic group and what do the U.S. Govermant do? Start a rumour about Somalia harbering Al- Qaeda members. They back the Eithopian govermant to Invade Somali and now Somalia once again is in caos thanks to the U.S.
Somalia has always been in chaos. I believe that Al-Qaeda was very active there. But I do not understand enough about that conflict to comment on it, like I can about WW2 which I studied in much more detail.
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mohammed farah
08-24-2007, 04:45 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Science101
And I must add that none of the conflicts you mentioned have ended.



Somalia has always been in chaos. I believe that Al-Qaeda was very active there. But I do not understand enough about that conflict to comment on it, like I can about WW2 which I studied in much more detail.
I don't think you know much about somalia! En wikipedia would be a start for you. Somalia was in peace, Somalia had peace, They got colonized by the Frence, English and Italians. Got independence in from the UK and Italy on July 1, 1960. Had peace for 15 years then had a war with Eitopia over the Ogaden region. afterward still had peace up too 1988 and after that, The chaos started. But then last year The Islamic Courts Gave Somalia peace. More Somalis were coming bakc to visit. The country had turned more Islamic and was following the sharia law. The U.S. Does did not like it one bit, And start a rumour about Somalia harbouring Al-Qaeda. Now Somalia is back to chaos,!
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Science101
08-24-2007, 05:04 AM
I had to admit that I don't understand the Somalian crisis as well as others. What I am now wondering is how the rumor led to chaos.
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Intisar
08-24-2007, 05:25 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Umma Wasat
AsalamuALaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh,

a little child!!!!!! :'( :(

Allah (Subhana wa ta'ala) sees and helps, May Allah (swt) help the child and family. Ameen (say Ameen)

:( That was soo horrible.
:sl: Ameen sis, and may Allah(SWT) make him and his families days more bearable. The poor kid got his childhood taken away from him. They should make a charity, and insha'allah the Ummah can donate to the family for better care for Yousiff. :happy:
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Intisar
08-24-2007, 05:27 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Science101
Somalia has always been in chaos.
You're right brother, that's why we're all dispersed around the world. We can't go back home because of the situation in Somalia. We've never had peace.
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Science101
08-24-2007, 06:00 AM
Thanks Sister-Ameena. It sounds like you have personal experience with Somalia, or at least know a lot about it. From what I understand, it has been run by warlords that will not allow a peaceful government to form. These militia groups keep fighting each other for control, the people are always stuck in the middle.
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Intisar
08-24-2007, 06:10 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Science101
Thanks Sister-Ameena. It sounds like you have personal experience with Somalia, or at least know a lot about it. From what I understand, it has been run by warlords that will not allow a peaceful government to form. These militia groups keep fighting each other for control, the people are always stuck in the middle.
No problem brother, and I'm of Somali origin that's why I know so much lol. We've never really hard a true government and when we did, it was a dictatorship. We're a country in ruin, and insha'allah we will become a stabilized Islamic country! :)
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Science101
08-24-2007, 06:28 AM
I'm hoping that it can happen soon. Countries in chaos not only make the lives of the people who live there miserable, it makes this a dangerous world for all of us.

Do you have any ideas, what can be done to help Somalia?
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Science101
08-24-2007, 06:29 AM
I'm hoping that it can happen soon. Countries in chaos not only make the lives of the people who live there miserable, it makes this a more dangerous world for all of us.

Do you have any ideas, what can be done to help Somalia?
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Malaikah
08-24-2007, 08:28 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Science101
And I would also like to know how one can blame George Bush for grown men setting a child on fire, or for that matter all of the other Muslim against Muslin violence that is often over minor religious differences that has been happening since Saddam took power, probably longer.
He created the situation in which criminals like those guys could get away with their evil. Him and his stupid illegal war.

Sure there might have been tension in Iraq before, but at least people weren't blowing each other up all the time back then!
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mohammed farah
08-24-2007, 02:17 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Sister-Ameena*
You're right brother, that's why we're all dispersed around the world. We can't go back home because of the situation in Somalia. We've never had peace.
Somalia didn't exist from 1990!:heated:
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mohammed farah
08-24-2007, 02:19 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Science101
I'm hoping that it can happen soon. Countries in chaos not only make the lives of the people who live there miserable, it makes this a more dangerous world for all of us.

Do you have any ideas, what can be done to help Somalia?
Easy, Hold an election. TFG vs Islamic Union Court. Who ever wins countrols the country and Eitopia must leave. The more Eitopia stay's there, The more the militiant will fight for them to leave.
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wilberhum
08-24-2007, 05:25 PM
[MAD]Back on topic[/MAD]
I just heard on CNN that several US charities will provide all the financial needs and a US hospital will do all the procedures for free.
They are also stating that he will be a lot of physical help too.
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00:00
08-24-2007, 05:29 PM
^^Good News. Alhamdulliah.
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IbnAbdulHakim
08-24-2007, 05:34 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by wilberhum
[MAD]Back on topic[/MAD]
I just heard on CNN that several US charities will provide all the financial needs and a US hospital will do all the procedures for free.
They are also stating that he will be a lot of physical help too.
Alhamdulillah ! all relief is from Allah
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wilberhum
08-24-2007, 05:36 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by IbnAbdulHakim
Alhamdulillah ! all relief is from Allah
Then why didn't he stop it in the first place?:mad:
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aamirsaab
08-24-2007, 05:53 PM
:sl:
format_quote Originally Posted by wilberhum
Then why didn't he stop it in the first place?:mad:
It is not upto God to stop the mistake of mankind, it is upto mankind.

I hope whoever committed this crime against humanity is caught and put into a prison cell for a very long time.
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Intisar
08-24-2007, 07:26 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Science101
I'm hoping that it can happen soon. Countries in chaos not only make the lives of the people who live there miserable, it makes this a more dangerous world for all of us.

Do you have any ideas, what can be done to help Somalia?
Kicking out the warlords who killed civilians during the civil war would be a start. They're the ones actually in power right now, which is just unbelievable! Can't stand knowing that someone who was a fiscal part of my grandfather's death (AUN) is apart of the gov't!!

format_quote Originally Posted by mohammed farah
Somalia didn't exist from 1990!:heated:
That's exactly what I'm saying bro. The civil war started then, and that's when all hell broke loose. Our country is in ruin and everyone's wants a peice of land to claim as their own so they can make their own 'country'.
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mohammed farah
08-24-2007, 07:38 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by wilberhum
[MAD]Back on topic[/MAD]
I just heard on CNN that several US charities will provide all the financial needs and a US hospital will do all the procedures for free.
They are also stating that he will be a lot of physical help too.
Fantastic news:)
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mohammed farah
08-24-2007, 07:39 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Sister-Ameena*
Kicking out the warlords who killed civilians during the civil war would be a start. They're the ones actually in power right now, which is just unbelievable! Can't stand knowing that someone who was a fiscal part of my grandfather's death (AUN) is apart of the gov't!!



That's exactly what I'm saying bro. The civil war started then, and that's when all hell broke loose. Our country is in ruin and everyone's wants a peice of land to claim as their own so they can make their own 'country'.

Thats true!
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AmarFaisal
08-24-2007, 07:42 PM
It's so hard to beleive...what r these culprits made of ? Are they humans like us ? Do they have a heart or feelings ?
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Na7lah
08-24-2007, 08:08 PM
:sl:

omg thats sooooooo sad i mean how can some1 do something like that to a
FIVE year old
May Allah make it easy 4 him and his family
Ameen!

Ma'salamah
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جوري
08-24-2007, 08:49 PM
probably the culprits are the same ones offering help now?.. everything for good publicity!
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wilberhum
08-24-2007, 08:54 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by PurestAmbrosia
probably the culprits are the same ones offering help now?.. everything for good publicity!
Right! All evil is committed by your country. :-\
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Keltoi
08-24-2007, 08:55 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by PurestAmbrosia
probably the culprits are the same ones offering help now?.. everything for good publicity!
Aww, I was wondering how long it would take for someone to point to a conspiracy. ^o)
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جوري
08-24-2007, 09:01 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by wilberhum
Right! All evil is committed by your country. :-\
format_quote Originally Posted by Keltoi
Aww, I was wondering how long it would take for someone to point to a conspiracy. ^o)
You are barking up the wrong tree fellows...
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Science101
08-24-2007, 09:10 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by PurestAmbrosia
probably the culprits are the same ones offering help now?.. everything for good publicity!
It's sometimes done for revenge, by one of the religious groups. More children were reported taken yesterday by Al Qaeda.
By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Al Qaeda fighters kidnapped 15 Iraqi women and children after rival Sunni Arab militants repelled their attack on two villages in a fierce battle on Thursday in which 32 people were killed, police said.

The fighting, rare on such a large scale, underscored the growing split between Sunni Arab militant groups and al Qaeda that U.S. forces have sought to exploit as they try to quell sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/COL337167.htm
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جوري
08-24-2007, 09:13 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Science101
It's sometimes done for revenge, by one of the religious groups. More children were reported taken yesterday by Al Qaeda.
Revenge by a religious group? If I wanted corporate media news.. I'll know where to get it..
Thank you and peace!
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Science101
08-24-2007, 09:18 PM
Then can you explain why these events are so common in Iraq? Without blaming the coalition forces for what is clearly "sectarian violence"?
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جوري
08-24-2007, 09:27 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Science101
Then can you explain why these events are so common in Iraq? Without blaming the coalition forces for what is clearly "sectarian violence"?
I am under no obligation to offer you any explanation, however given your kind demeanor here is one of many.. BTW Fisk is a winner of many awards, as I tend to know the approach when people don't like what is written, they go for some character assassination... I am not sure what America is doing in Iraq?... but even if people are to work out their diffrences without these satanist help, I imagine they'd have reached some resolution in spite of their 'barberism'...
peace!

Robert Fisk: Seen through a Syrian lens,

'unknown Americans' are provoking civil war in Iraq

By Robert Fisk

04/29/06 "The Independent" -- - In Syria, the world appears through a glass, darkly. As dark as the smoked windows of the car which takes me to a building on the western side of Damascus where a man I have known for 15 years - we shall call him a "security source", which is the name given by American correspondents to their own powerful intelligence officers - waits with his own ferocious narrative of disaster in Iraq and dangers in the Middle East.

His is a fearful portrait of an America trapped in the bloody sands of Iraq, desperately trying to provoke a civil war around Baghdad in order to reduce its own military casualties. It is a scenario in which Saddam Hussein remains Washington's best friend, in which Syria has struck at the Iraqi insurgents with a ruthlessness that the United States wilfully ignores. And in which Syria's Interior Minister, found shot dead in his office last year, committed suicide because of his own mental instability.

The Americans, my interlocutor suspected, are trying to provoke an Iraqi civil war so that Sunni Muslim insurgents spend their energies killing their Shia co-religionists rather than soldiers of the Western occupation forces. "I swear to you that we have very good information," my source says, finger stabbing the air in front of him. "One young Iraqi man told us that he was trained by the Americans as a policeman in Baghdad and he spent 70 per cent of his time learning to drive and 30 per cent in weapons training. They said to him: 'Come back in a week.' When he went back, they gave him a mobile phone and told him to drive into a crowded area near a mosque and phone them. He waited in the car but couldn't get the right mobile signal. So he got out of the car to where he received a better signal. Then his car blew up."

Impossible, I think to myself. But then I remember how many times Iraqis in Baghdad have told me similar stories. These reports are believed even if they seem unbelievable. And I know where much of the Syrian information is gleaned: from the tens of thousands of Shia Muslim pilgrims who come to pray at the Sayda Zeinab mosque outside Damascus. These men and women come from the slums of Baghdad, Hillah and Iskandariyah as well as the cities of Najaf and Basra. Sunnis from Fallujah and Ramadi also visit Damascus to see friends and relatives and talk freely of American tactics in Iraq.

"There was another man, trained by the Americans for the police. He too was given a mobile and told to drive to an area where there was a crowd - maybe a protest - and to call them and tell them what was happening. Again, his new mobile was not working. So he went to a landline phone and called the Americans and told them: 'Here I am, in the place you sent me and I can tell you what's happening here.' And at that moment there was a big explosion in his car."

Just who these "Americans" might be, my source did not say. In the anarchic and panic-stricken world of Iraq, there are many US groups - including countless outfits supposedly working for the American military and the new Western-backed Iraqi Interior Ministry - who operate outside any laws or rules. No one can account for the murder of 191 university teachers and professors since the 2003 invasion - nor the fact that more than 50 former Iraqi fighter-bomber pilots who attacked Iran in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war have been assassinated in their home towns in Iraq in the past three years.

Amid this chaos, a colleague of my source asked me, how could Syria be expected to lessen the number of attacks on Americans inside Iraq? "It was never safe, our border," he said. "During Saddam's time, criminals and Saddam's terrorists crossed our borders to attack our government. I built a wall of earth and sand along the border at that time. But three car bombs from Saddam's agents exploded in Damascus and Tartous- I was the one who captured the criminals responsible. But we couldn't stop them."

Now, he told me, the rampart running for hundreds of miles along Syria's border with Iraq had been heightened. "I have had barbed wire put on top and up to now we have caught 1,500 non-Syrian and non-Iraqi Arabs trying to cross and we have stopped 2,700 Syrians from crossing ... Our army is there - but the Iraqi army and the Americans are not there on the other side."

Behind these grave suspicions in Damascus lies the memory of Saddam's long friendship with the United States. "Our Hafez el-Assad [the former Syrian president who died in 2000] learnt that Saddam, in his early days, met with American officials 20 times in four weeks. This convinced Assad that, in his words, 'Saddam is with the Americans'. Saddam was the biggest helper of the Americans in the Middle East (when he attacked Iran in 1980) after the fall of the Shah. And he still is! After all, he brought the Americans to Iraq!"

So I turn to a story which is more distressing for my sources: the death by shooting of Brigadier General Ghazi Kenaan, former head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon - an awesomely powerful position - and Syrian Minister of Interior when his suicide was announced by the Damascus government last year.

Widespread rumours outside Syria suggested that Kenaan was suspected by UN investigators of involvement in the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in a massive car bomb in Beirut last year - and that he had been "suicided" by Syrian government agents to prevent him telling the truth.

Not so, insisted my original interlocutor. "General Ghazi was a man who believed he could give orders and anything he wanted would happen. Something happened that he could not reconcile - something that made him realise he was not all-powerful. On the day of his death, he went to his office at the Interior Ministry and then he left and went home for half an hour. Then he came back with a pistol. He left a message for his wife in which he said goodbye to her and asked her to look after their children and he said that what he was going to do was 'for the good of Syria'. Then he shot himself in the mouth."

Of Hariri's assassination, Syrian officials like to recall his relationship with the former Iraqi interim prime minister Iyad Alawi - a self-confessed former agent for the CIA and MI6 - and an alleged $20bn arms deal between the Russians and Saudi Arabia in which they claim Hariri was involved.

Hariri's Lebanese supporters continue to dismiss the Syrian argument on the grounds that Syria had identified Hariri as the joint author with his friend, French President Jacques Chirac, of the UN Security Council resolution which demanded the retreat of the Syrians from Lebanese territory.

But if the Syrians are understandably obsessed with the American occupation of Iraq, their long hatred for Saddam - something which they shared with most Iraqis - is still intact. When I asked my first "security" source what would happen to the former Iraqi dictator, he replied, banging his fist into his hand: "He will be killed. He will be killed. He will be killed."
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
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Science101
08-24-2007, 10:06 PM
You have to read these things with caution. In war, propaganda is sometimes one of the most important weapons. Al Qaeda is good at that.

In this part, there are obvious problems.

The Americans, my interlocutor suspected, are trying to provoke an Iraqi civil war so that Sunni Muslim insurgents spend their energies killing their Shia co-religionists rather than soldiers of the Western occupation forces. "I swear to you that we have very good information," my source says, finger stabbing the air in front of him. "One young Iraqi man told us that he was trained by the Americans as a policeman in Baghdad and he spent 70 per cent of his time learning to drive and 30 per cent in weapons training. They said to him: 'Come back in a week.' When he went back, they gave him a mobile phone and told him to drive into a crowded area near a mosque and phone them. He waited in the car but couldn't get the right mobile signal. So he got out of the car to where he received a better signal. Then his car blew up."
You can first tell it is a biased report, against the coalition forces, with its use of the phrase "Western occupation forces". An unbiased reporter would have never used those words.

What is described is not how "Americans" are authorized to do training. They have a system and this unnamed person would have gone through it if it were run by the coalition forces. The training they claim to have received would have raised suspicion.

It is also a known fact that some of the factions dress in police and military dress and impersonate them as one of their tactics. The article offers no evidence that this unnamed person was being trained by the group they claim it was. It could have just as easily have been Al Qaeda.

The coalition forces would not need him to phone in that they were in place. They have more reliable ways of knowing, not have to take his word for it.

The entire article reads like a classic propaganda piece. Are many clues that it is not true. In my opinion this reporter was set up to report fake news. Besides, the USA wants to get out of Iraq. Creating chaos is not in this countries interest, but an article like this very much serves the other side.
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جوري
08-24-2007, 10:16 PM
Robert Fisk is Britain’s most highly decorated foreign correspondent. He has received the British International Journalist of the Year award seven times, most recently in 1995 and 1996. His specialty is the Middle East, where he has spent the last twenty-three years. Currently the Beirut correspondent for the London Independent, Fisk has covered the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, the Persian Gulf war, and the conflict in Algeria. He is the author of Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War (Atheneum, 1990), and his reporting from Lebanon has brought him international attention. He was the one who broke the story about the Israeli shelling of the U.N. compound in Qana, Lebanon, in 1996.
That is the author of my article.. I think I can recognize propoganda when I see it..but thanks for the heads up!

peace!
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snakelegs
08-24-2007, 10:35 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Science101
You can first tell it is a biased report, against the coalition forces, with its use of the phrase "Western occupation forces". An unbiased reporter would have never used those words.
erm....what would you call them exactly? "western neighbours"? "western friends?" "western companions?" western saviors?" "locally based westerners in uniform"?
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Science101
08-24-2007, 10:42 PM
The proper unbiased term is "Coalition forces".
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Science101
08-24-2007, 10:48 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by PurestAmbrosia
That is the author of my article.. I think I can recognize propoganda when I see it..but thanks for the heads up!

peace!
Yes, I checked to make sure he existed and discovered that they have done a lot of mainstream writing. But that still does not mean that everything he says is true. Many reporters broadcast the "sensational" in order to build a reputation. His use of language is very biased. Even in US elections things that were not true were believed to be fact. In the last presidential election the Democratic Party was saying things like "Bush created long lines at Al Qaeda recruitment centers" and "The number of terrorists are growing exponentially" which is kinda funny because if it were true then there would be more "terrorists" than there are humans on this planet.

Just don't believe everything you read, no matter who it comes from. There are people telling you what you want to hear, and getting awards for it.
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جوري
08-24-2007, 10:51 PM
The blatant irony is, I can say the same of you.. but hopefully you are a grown man and can decide for yourself?.. I don't need robert fisk to tell me what I can verify with my own eyes and from friends who live in those countries.. I believe nothing beats an eye witness account!
let's leave it at that!

peace!
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Keltoi
08-24-2007, 10:56 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Science101
Yes, I checked to make sure he existed and discovered that they have done a lot of mainstream writing. But that still does not mean that everything he says is true. Many reporters broadcast the "sensational" in order to build a reputation. His use of language is very biased. Even in US elections things that were not true were believed to be fact. In the last presidential election the Democratic Party was saying things like "Bush created long lines at Al Qaeda recruitment centers" and "The number of terrorists are growing exponentially" which is kinda funny because if it were true then there would be more "terrorists" than there are humans on this planet.

Just don't believe everything you read, no matter who it comes from. There are people telling you what you want to hear, and getting awards for it.

Robert Fisk is hardly a mainstream journalist. He is a leftist icon of course, as he says the things they want to hear. However, his journalistic career is full of politically charged rhetoric and biased reports without proper sourcing or verification.
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جوري
08-24-2007, 11:03 PM
It is a sad thing and a dent in his reputation indeed, that he doesn't corroborate his stories and verifies them with fox and other stations promoting Republican criminality and scandals in the guise of humanitarian efforts! :rollseyes
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Science101
08-24-2007, 11:04 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Keltoi
Robert Fisk is hardly a mainstream journalist. He is a leftist icon of course, as he says the things they want to hear. However, his journalistic career is full of politically charged rhetoric and biased reports without proper sourcing or verification.
I stand corrected! But in this case I like the way you describe him even better than I did with my "unbiased" wording! :giggling:
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Keltoi
08-24-2007, 11:09 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by PurestAmbrosia
It is a sad thing and a dent in his reputation indeed, that he doesn't corroborate his stories and verifies them with fox and other stations promoting Republican criminality and scandals in the guise of humanitarian efforts! :rollseyes
Sourcing and verification means the story you are publishing is actually the truth, meaning there are verifiable witnesses or documents, and not simply a biased story describing the personal reflections of a journalist's political leanings.
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جوري
08-24-2007, 11:16 PM
please don't patronize me -- You wrote what you wanted, I think it sufficed-- do you really want to hammer it in? People don't get granted awards for writing for the national inquirer-- ( I don't know how you do it, but I'd be ashamed to defend the spying and scandals of the repuke party) at this point believe what you want and leave it amicable as I tend to lose interest fast with folks who have a clangorous need for self-righteousness humbug, while causing the demise of millions on the side!
This isn't world affairs -- how far w've strayed from the doused kid amongst the millions killed by your boys in an illegal war!

peace!
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Keltoi
08-24-2007, 11:22 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by PurestAmbrosia
please don't patronize me -- You wrote what you wanted, I think it sufficed-- do you really want to hammer it in? People don't get granted awards for writing for the national inquirer-- ( I don't know how you do it, but I'd be ashamed to defend the spying and scandals of the repuke party) at this point believe what you want and leave it amicable as I tend to lose interest fast with folks who have a clangorous need for self-righteousness humbug, while causing the demise of millions on the side!
This isn't world affairs -- how far w've strayed from the doused kid amongst the millions killed by your boys in an illegal war!

peace!
Who brought up the Republican Party? It wasn't me. If you base your trust of journalists on awards, you should be happy to know that Bill O'Reilly has won many of them. I suppose you will be soaking up his editorials like sponge on water from now on? :D

As for straying from the point of the thread, that tends to happen when one puts forth conspiracy theories.
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جوري
08-24-2007, 11:27 PM
one man's conspiracy theory, another man's truth.. I treated a woman who killed a 7 year old Iraqi boy-- I think that was enough to give me a descript picture of what goes on in Iraq..
later she felt the govt. had abandoned her.. oh, the irony-- we gave her amytriptalene because it is cheap and very effective, though deep inside, I wish the image of him would torture her for the rest of her natural life-- along with others like her, who feel it is ok to rob families of their children in the name of Bull!

I have in fact sponged up all I can take and reached my saturation point!
peace!
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Science101
08-24-2007, 11:39 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Keltoi
Sourcing and verification means the story you are publishing is actually the truth, meaning there are verifiable witnesses or documents, and not simply a biased story describing the personal reflections of a journalist's political leanings.
Excellent point Keltoi. It is not a matter of seeing if another news source is saying the same thing. It's making sure that what they are reporting is factual, that there is strong evidence it happened. Not having strong evidence to support these claims makes the article an "opinion" piece, not factual reporting.

We all have to beware of opinions like this, and of rumors that are circulating because of them that make it seem like it's the truth when many people are claiming the same thing. It would not be right to blame people who are innocent, and would only make the current conflicts even worse than they are now.

In the USA, troops and their families genuinely want to get out of Iraq and come home. It's in all of our best interest to work towards peace so this can happen. Arguing amongst ourselves only creates the kind of conflict that will get even more children stuck in the middle of fights between adults.

We have to try harder to understand this conflict for what it really is. Do what we can to avoid creating even more panic.


And thank you seeker_of_ilm for the edit of the last post!
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NoName55
08-25-2007, 11:55 PM
this queue jumping is going unnoticed for days, world affairs is everyplace including Islamic multimedia forum.

also it must be a "true" story since CNN says so. Big bad mozlems killing each other's babies despite the best efforts of Bush & CNN to save them. Yeah right!
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NoName55
08-26-2007, 12:01 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by PurestAmbrosia
probably the culprits are the same ones offering help now?.. everything for good publicity!
Nothing is beyond the bounds of possibility. Nothing surprises me these days.

:w:
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