The Guardian: Gunmen, children, brutality and bombs - Iraq's dirty war

[maddezmom]

At first they are ghost figures in the weapons' system monitor, glowing with body warmth and two-dimensional. From inside the American Bradley fighting vehicle approaching Burhiz, an insurgent neighbourhood of Baquba, you quickly acclimatise to the reality of this representation of human life.
Boys on bikes cycle backwards and forwards on a footbridge over a small canal lined with houses and groves of date palms. Women in headscarves look anxiously in groups from windows. Men walk with shopping bags. A gunman, clutching an AK-47, bobs his head around the corner of an alleyway close to a school.

Once. Twice. On the third occasion a child, a boy seven or eight years old, is thrust out in front of him. The gunman holds him firmly by the arm and steps out for instant into full view of the Bradley's gunner to get a proper look, then yanks the boy back and disappears.

~snip~
This is the horrible reality of a brutal and unconventional war in Iraq's north - where jihadi fighters use human shields and force children to run weapons for them.

The Iraqi army leading the fight appears to have been infiltrated by those it is fighting. In this "clearing" operation led by two battalions of the Iraqi army supported by a few squads of US troops, the fighters in Buhriz appear to have had ample warning.


more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2018528,00.html

[tblue]

1. Everyday another outrage. Everything about this war is evil and unholy.

How 29% of Americans can back this still is beyond me.

[bemildred]

2. Gee, who could have predicted this? nt