For One Family in Falluja, a Simple Drive Turns Deadly

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/20/international/middleeast/20family.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 19 - The drive was supposed to take no more than 15 minutes, a quick dash across a few rubble-strewn blocks of Falluja to spirit Sahar Muhammad Abdullah, 23, and her family to safety in a house near a mosque.

But hundreds of feet short of their destination, the family stumbled into a company of marines who had transformed the mosque into a temporary fortress, with snipers and machine gunners perched on the roof. They spotted the gray car carrying the family, inching along.

A barrage of bullets followed. Minutes later, Ms. Abdullah's mother lay bloodied and dying in the rear seat, glass shards strewn about her. Ms. Abdullah, hit in the back by a bullet, collapsed into her mother's lap. Three men in the car were lightly wounded.

The family's journey ended there, and a much longer one began.

more

[Eric J in MN]

1. The link goes to a different news story (nt)

nt

[Sabriel]

2. Linky not working

It goes to a different story.

[AuntPatsy]

3. try this one, war is hell

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/20/international/middleeast/20family.html?oref=login

[glarius]

4. Didn't you just hear Bush on CNN telling the Apec members his country

is bringing "peace and liberty" to the citizens of Iraq?....(sarcasm)...Actually every time I hear one of these incidents or about a young, American soldier killed in this ungodly war, I have to cry....And Bush just goes blythly on, smugly proclaiming his inane rationale for this war....

[saigon68]

5. And the SHEEP GEAR UP TO WATCH THE NECKCAR RACE

or football--- I said it here before---until your kid gets wasted or has his leg blown off, this is a fun X-Box adventure.

This war will go on for a long time.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[fsbooks]

6. obviously they were not civilians

Did I not hear from a US government spokesperson that no civilians have been killed by American forces in Falluja?

[daleo]

8. A surprisingly good story, with some insight into Iraqi puppet troops

The story mostly keeps the focus on these Iraqi civilians. It doesn't exactly criticize the U.S. marines but it doesn't exactly exonerate them either.

The Iraqi forces that were with the U.S. forces come off poorly, though. They are quoted as advising the U.S. marines to shoot the Fallujah civilians and refer to them as dogs. If true, it makes you wonder just who the Iraqi puppet troops were and where they were drawn from. Were they from an ethnic group who hated Fallujans or Sunnis? Or is it that the type of people who join the occupiers puppet armies have sociopathic tendencies - a sort of "bottom of the barrel" phenomenon?

[NNN0LHI]

9. "Were they from an ethnic group who hated Fallujans or Sunnis?"

Kurdish peshmergas.

Don

[daleo]

10. I thought perhaps that was the case

Thanks for the info.