Blackwater Shooting

I've been reading accounts of the Blackwater shooting that happened in Mansour district of Baghdad on Sunday 9/16/07 - Something just doesn't sound right here.

Why would these people start firing on civilians unprovoked? Are we to assume that Blackwater hires monsters that love killing innocent civilians? From what I know, Blackwater hires former military personnel. These people are highly trained with clean records and clean military service. Why would they, all of a sudden turn into murderers? The didn't and they're not. What we are seeing here is a text book insurgency play. We've saw it last summer in the Israel Lebanon conflict. The terrorists hide in plain sight wearing civilian clothes. They fight from within crowds or women and children, they use them as shields. The when the soldiers return fire to defend themselves and a civilian is hit they point their fingers and say the soldiers (Israeli soldiers or Blackwater contractors in this cases) are targeting civilians. This is an old tactic and I'd be willing to bet, some of these "civilians" are actually terrorist/insurgents.

Like this guy, Hasan Jaber Salman (see picture above) he claims the contractors fired on civilian, unprovoked. He was shot in the back while he was fleeing in his car.

But Salman claims the attack was unprovoked.

"No one fired at them, they were not attacked by gunmen, they were not targeted by an explosion," he said.

Now he's suing Blackwater.

Okay here's where it gets weird. The same thing happened to his son in 2005.

The lawyer said he intends to sue Blackwater, which he already did in 2005 after his son was involved in a similar incident outside al-Muthana Air Base near Baghdad's international airport. That lawsuit has not yet been resolved, he said.

Here's the account of what allegedly happened to his son:

Laborer Abul-Raheem Amir said he was on his way to a job when the minibus he was in got caught in a traffic jam caused by an explosion.

"A security company called Blackwater, they got out and kept on firing randomly at people, starting with the people walking or working the street -- even the traffic policeman, even the people who work in the area," Amir said.

"People at first thought we were safe in the minibus, but when they realized they were not, they started getting out and went to other places to save themselves," he recounted. "Unfortunately that did not work. As they got out, people were shot and killed."

He said he tried to make a run for it after the driver and two women next to him on the minibus were shot.

"I ran about 50 meters [about 55 yards] and then was shot, the first bullet. Still I kept running, but the second bullet dropped me to the ground. ... It broke my bones, and the third one made me start crawling."

Some people helped get him off the street and away from the carnage. The shooting lasted for about a half-hour, and there were some 30 bodies in the street, he said.

"I remember people strewn on the streets, children, elderly, young men, elderly women. ... The street turned into the street of the dead, a graveyard," he said.

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This Blackwater group must be a well honed civilian killing machine. They strike at kids, elderly and women with surgical precision. All that shooting and it's the only thing that they killed.

This little tid-bit screams of propaganda. If you listen to people like these guys Iraq is just a country full of innocent elderly women and children doing the right thing being all innocent and saving puppies puppies and crap.

By the way, for those of you that want to read the State Department's incident report on this, here is a link. I'll give you a quick rundown:

A Blackwater Security team was escorting a convoy of US State Department vehicles en route to a meeting in western Baghdad with United States Agency for International Development officials when a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device exploded close to the meeting point.[46] The security team then evacuated the officials, however as the convoy passed through Nissor Square, between the Sunni controlled al-Mansour and al-Yarmukh neighborhoods, it was attacked. According to Blackwater VP Marty Strong, it was hit with "a large explosive device" and "repeated small arms fire" disabling one of the vehicles.

I guess small arms fire isn't provoking enough for Mr. Salman. I wonder how Mr. Salman would explain the disabled Blackwater vehicle? I bet he'd claim the shot it up themselves.

The State Department report states that eight to ten attackers then opened fire "from multiple nearby locations, with some aggressors dressed in civilian apparel and others in Iraqi police uniforms".

Like I said, straight from the play book. dress in civilian clothes, or if you can get them, Iraqi military uniforms. These people are sub-human. Anyone who fights and uses civilians, women or children as shields doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as normal folks.

'Dozens died in Syria-Iran missile test'

Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in Jane's Defence Weekly, which reported that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.

According to the report, cited by Channel 10, the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a Scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas.

Reports of the accident were circulated at the time; however, no details were released by the Syrian government, and there were no hints of an Iranian connection.

The report comes on the heels of criticism leveled by the Syrians at the United States, accusing it of spreading "false" claims of Syrian nuclear activity and cooperation with North Korea to excuse an alleged Israeli air incursion over the country this month.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1189411428847&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Neil K. Lai, A True American

Seeking Political Stability

In 1958, Neil K. Lai left Shanghai by himself at the age of 16. His father was dead, and his mother wanted Neil to flee for security to Hong Kong. Their family had been turned upside down by the Communist Party rule that started in 1949. Mr. Lai's father, a former factory owner, had been branded a capitalist. Neil Lai worked for two years in his uncle's tailor shop in Hong Kong before attending night school. He learned English, which landed him a series of relatively well- paying jobs through the mid-1970's. But the sight of Vietnamese boat refugees in the waters around Hong Kong made him realize that the Asian political situation was unstable. So at the age of 34, he came to the United States to study at a community college in Arizona. He transferred to Arizona State University, where he studied accounting a skill that eventually led to his job at the New York State Office of Taxation and Finance. Mr. Lai wanted his two teenage children to maintain straight A's in school. "His experience had told him education is a path to success," said his wife, Yvonne.

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on November 13, 2001.

Think your safe from the Mujahideen?

Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war, do not embezzle the spoils; do not break your pledge; and do not mutilate (the dead) bodies; do not kill the children. When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them....If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them.

(Sahih Muslim 4294)

Sure, you're safe. As long as you do 1 of three things.

1. Convert to Islam
2. If not, pay the "tax" The Jizya
3. Fight

What's your choice? I know what mine is. In the past, I have never been a big fan of war. Those days are gone. Actually, I'm looking forward to this one. I served during the Gulf War and I'm ready for this one.

U.S. Officials Analyzing Usama Bin Laden Video

CAIRO, Egypt — The U.S. government obtained a new video of Usama bin Laden before Al Qaeda could release it to the world to mark the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Officials on Friday were analyzing the tape, which could contain the first new images of the Al Qaeda leader in three years.

Soon after Washington announced it had the video, all the Islamic militant Web sites that usually carry statements from Al Qaeda went down and were unaccessible, in an unprecedented shutdown.

The reason for the shutdown was not immediately known. Evan H. Kohlmann, a terrorism expert at globalterroralert.com, said he suspected it was the work of Al Qaeda itself, trying to find how the video leaked to U.S. officials.

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