..Israel is not alone.
I thought that this doc on the US use of WP was already on the sift, but if not:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Fallujah-The-Hidden-Massacre-US-use-of-White-Phosphorus

Clearly Personification:

Face it most of us will die of something like this:

Heart disease: 652,091
Cancer: 559,312
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 143,579
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 130,933
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 117,809
Diabetes: 75,119
Alzheimer's disease: 71,599
Influenza/Pneumonia: 63,001
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 43,901
Septicemia: 34,136
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/FASTATS/lcod.htm

http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/toptens/accidents/accidents4.html

Face the fact that you will die some time, and most likely it will not even be noble or the way you would like to go.

Most of us will leave behind work that needed to be done, family, friends, legacies, what ever the mortal coil. Embrace the fact, and live every day like it is the last. That means just do what you normally do so long as you enjoy it.

My High School Economics Teacher was something else.
(Paraphrase from memory)
He said: Life is like economy and money markets. One moment its all there, they next your dead. Some of you will go on to be big shots, some of you little shots. Some of you will go on to be normal people. Some of you in here will die in a car accident, some you will die in a ditch in Fallujah, some may even die by police gun fire.

There is one sure risk, that can be an asset: Death.

If Im gonna be a statistic I at least wanna be one thats interesting. Something like: Accidental Suffocation: by large bosoms, or death by Treacherous Cake

We can't be sure about that. Snipers are known to do strange things. The sniper at fallujah(i think) for example: killed one soldier, and held his fire until they evacuated him. Then he just up and left.

>> ^SDGundamX:
The news is claiming this was a sniper attack, but given that it was a single shot and no further shots were fired (when everyone is standing around in the open like sitting ducks), I'm inclined to believe this was just a stray bullet. I think the news crew realized it too, due to the nonchalant reactions they had to the incident. If they seriously thought they were under fire, like the BBC crew they would have jumped in the van and gotten the hell out of there immediately.

What has been done to Iraq and its civilians is a clear and defined story. What is not defined is what this meaningless war has done to the best volunteer army in the world, it has shatter the lives of thousands of people who gave their hearts, sweat and blood to make something out of the cluster fuck they were assigned, if not killed, they are horribly injured, if not injured they have PTSD and have to deal with the VA whose funding is not sufficent and the general bureaucracy of the military.

They have done incredible things, from pacification of Fallujah, Sadr Army, Fedayukin, all while riding around from the threat of unseen enemy fighting on tactics designed for confrontation of a uniformed army.

Now they are there trying to make something out of the sacrifice of lives already lost. I feel sorry for what the US Army and Marine Corp and all other uniformed forces had to bear because their leadership and command structure was too weak to argue against a ridiculous assignment by a joke of a president and secretary of defence and national security.

>> ^nickreal03:
This is not a game these are people's life. Nothing wonderful about killing anyone. Get a life!


Oh but there is something wonderful about getting shot at.

In the words of Winston churchill, "there is nothing like being fired upon with no effect"

Also you gotta love snipers.

I posted this because its a interesting counter point in reportage style with the other posts I made about the Battle of Fallujah.

I noticed something worthy of resurrecting this old clip. Farhad posted the entire documentary this originated from. http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Second-Battle-of-Fallujah

In part 3, found here http://youtube.com/watch?v=KsmiceTjbAE , the reporter describes how translators called to the men in arabic to lay down their weapons. You can also watch other points throughout the entire fight for Fallujah where numerous measures are taken to avoid unnecessary loss of life. The final decision to level the building was made after attempts at reason failed, and the chanting made the Marines worry that this was going to be a suicide bombing.

Oh cry me a river of Iraqi blood.

Am so tired of this nonsense that the US military forces are great and we should cheer them as they bomb, shoot and house search through their way to democracy in Iraq. The use of military force should reflect a failure of all other means, but that was not the case in Iraq, its a cowboy misadventure paid by the lives of Iraqi civilians and US force casualties.

Yes individually the US military is comprised of sons, daughters, mothers and fathers and am sure most of them are great humans beings (even though a minority has committed war crimes) and I would love to have beer with them. But ultimately they are an apparatus of death being a military force, representing an occupational force in Iraq. Thoughts of democracy, bringing peace, playing with Iraqis flies out the window the moment someone starts shooting at you, the military is composed of individuals who serve but one purpose at the end of the date. Force elimination.

If you were ordered to fire your howitzer at a Fallujah because terrorists were hauled up in there, would you stop and think about civilian casualties? Or would you just fix deflection and firing quadrant and shoot? Shrapnel doesn't differentiate between civilians and enemy combatants. Your statement about no collateral damage flies in the face of those killed through artillery bombardment, air force strikes and those who get killed through suicide bombers that were not there before the war.

The criticism is not leveled at the troops here, but at the commander in chief who decides to send them into a war zone with a false premise, unprepared for post invasion reconciliation and inadequately trained for basically being a occupational force. You've been handed a political reconciliation (WMD prior to that) mission that has no real way of being won through military means, and your paying for it in blood of young Americans and Iraqis.

Here are some examples of videos that demonstrate what our soldiers are going through without the thrilling fun of showing them get killed to pieces or that are more documentary/reporting/informative style and less "hey, watch these guys get blown to shit!" style:
http://www.videosift.com/video/US-Army-fight-with-insurgents-in-Fallujah-from-War-Tapes
http://www.videosift.com/video/Weapons-of-US-soldiers-in-Iraq-plagued-with-problems
http://www.videosift.com/video/IED-blows-up-road-in-middle-of-convoy-no-injuries
http://www.videosift.com/video/Jubilation-as-IED-misses-target-completely
http://www.videosift.com/video/I-get-blown-up-US-troops-and-their-up-armoured-Humvee-get-hit-by-IED-and-everyone-survives-nsfw-language
Etc, etc.

QM is funny comparing World War 2 with the current quagmire in Iraq. Al Qaeda is not a formal army, but a terrorist organization. Thus it's impossible to kill every last one of them, because unlike the Nazi's and the Imperial Army of Japan they don't go wearing uniforms.

>>> You misunderstand me. When I say "kill every last one of them," I mean whole cities. Let the people know if they don't cease hiding and harboring these scum, they'll be vaporized along with them. For example, fallujah should've been erased from the earth.

>>> Ultimately Iraqis will decide whether they want to live free. I believe they can and will take up the fight. If they choose the old ways, there's nothing we can do about that. If you are a Muslim who wants to see other Muslims enslaved, what does that make you?

>>> al qaeda is suffering heavy losses. Every time there's a firefight they lose. this isn't our vietnam. it's theirs. osama thought there'd be no response after 9-11. He was surprised, and continues to be surprised. The war is being fought in their sandbox, not here. They didn't expect that, either. If these scum are "winning" why do they beg Hillary for us to pullout?

>>> The red menace collapsed in the face of superior firepower and force, not because a bunch of hippies sang kumbaya. Random terrorism can only be contained, but when terrorism is a continuous, unanswered disruption of normal life, it must be addressed.

>>> We know which "religion" remains a primitve cult of murder and mayhem, don't we? Its barbaric followers are ready to die because they have made life worthless for themselves. They deserve destruction, but of no one else but themselves.

As the final joke, democrats will also not be pulling troops from Iraq, should one of their phonies like Fluffilocks or Her Thighness take the White House. You're still screwed.

As you may know Ive created a playlist of many of the dead videos on the sift. As its been there for awhile, and there have been quite a few views of it, very few vids have been fixed or discarded. I thought a list just of yours might be of some help. The list below are all your videos on my playlist. There may be a few errors, but I gave it my best shot.


http://www.videosift.com/video/Sprint-Ringtones-Mad-TV
http://www.videosift.com/video/Bill-Maher-Scientists-Have-Decided-to-Cut-and-Run-on-Pluto
http://www.videosift.com/video/Aretha-Franklin-Think-Blues-Brothers
http://www.videosift.com/video/Macaca-Strikes-Again-George-Allen-STEALS-an-Amendment
http://www.videosift.com/video/CKY3-Fart-on-Face
http://www.videosift.com/video/Americas-Governments-Got-Talent
http://www.videosift.com/video/Midnight-Cowboy-Everybodys-Talking-Nilsson-II
http://www.videosift.com/video/Marx-Brothers-Lydia-the-Tattooed-Lady
http://www.videosift.com/video/Rubber-Stamp-Congress-Project
http://www.videosift.com/video/Fallujah-the-Hidden-Massacre
http://www.videosift.com/video/Andy-Griffith-and-Don-Knotts--Grape-Nuts-Commercial

"Code Pink"

* is the group that championed military deserters
* cheered Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez
* traipsed around the Jordan-Iraq border last year condemning America
* prayed for the "people of Fallujah"
* doled out $600,000 in aid to what they called "the other side" (terrorists killing U.S. Troops)
* was founded by Medea Benjamin, a communist considered to be a chief organizing force behind the 1999 Seattle riots that caused millions of dollars worth of senseless destruction
* hides its true beliefs, just like modern-day liberals hide what they really stand for, until (foolishly) elected

Liberals own defeat. They want America to lose this war, to be humiliated.

Their reasons for FEELING this way are varied: IMO it's an admixutre of callow rebel posturing, idolizing Hollywood dumbasses, ignorance of history and in America, 12+ years of liberal propaganda in government-run socialist schools.

The only reason more people aren't outraged by the moonbats is they can't or won't believe fellow Americans would think or act against their own country, hoping for its defeat against islamofascist thugs or whomever else.

If you want to know which ideology treats people like toys to be thrown away, to the tune of 100 million murdered, google communism.

News from Al-Jazeera English, recorded at 20:00 hrs on January 11, 2007. Reaction to George Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq, Afghanistan events, Bangladesh events, intervention in Somalia.

Al Jazeera (Arabic: الجزيرة‎, meaning "The Island", is a television network headquartered in Doha, Qatar. Al Jazeera initially launched as an Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel of the same name, but has since expanded into a network of several specialty TV channels.

The original Al Jazeera channel's willingness to broadcast dissenting views, including on call-in shows, created controversies in autocratic Arab Gulf States. The station gained worldwide attention following the September 11, 2001 attacks, when it broadcast video statements by Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders.

In 1999, New York Times reporter Thomas L. Friedman called Al-Jazeera "the freest, most widely watched TV network in the Arab world." The station first gained widespread attention in the west following the September 11, 2001 attacks, when it broadcast videos in which Osama bin Laden and Sulaiman Abu Ghaith defended and justified the attacks. This led to criticism by the United States government that Al Jazeera was engaging in propaganda on behalf of terrorists. Al Jazeera countered that it was merely making information available without comment, and indeed several western television channels later followed suit in broadcasting portions of the tapes.

On 25 March 2003, two of its reporters covering the New York Stock Exchange had their credentials revoked. NYSE spokesman Ray Pellechia claimed "security reasons" and that the exchange had decided to give access only to networks that focus "on responsible business coverage". He denied the revocation has anything to do with the network's Iraq war coverage.

While prior to September 11th, 2001, the United States government lauded Al Jazeera for its role as an independent media outlet in the Middle East, US spokespersons have since claimed an "anti-American bias" to Al Jazeera's news coverage. In 2004 the competing Arabic-language satellite TV station Al Hurra was launched, funded by the U.S. government.

On January 30, 2005 the New York Times reported that the Qatari government, under pressure from the Bush administration, was speeding up plans to sell the station.

On November 22, 2005, the UK tabloid The Daily Mirror published a story claiming that it had obtained a leaked memo from 10 Downing Street saying that U.S. President George W. Bush had considered bombing Al Jazeera's Doha headquarters in April 2004, when U.S. Marines were conducting a contentious assault on Fallujah.

In light of this allegation, Al Jazeera has questioned whether it has been targeted deliberately in the past — Al Jazeera's Kabul office was bombed in 2001 and a missile hit its office in Baghdad during the invasion of Iraq, killing correspondent Tariq Ayoub. Both of these attacks occurred despite Al Jazeera's provision of the locations of their offices to the United States.

Al Jazeera cameraman Sami Al Hajj was detained while in transit to Afghanistan as an "enemy combatant" in December 2001, and is now held without charge in Camp Delta at Guantánamo Bay.

- More @ <ahref="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_jazeera">Wikipedia. http://english.aljazeera.net/News.

I am somewhat surprised that Al Jazeera or Iraqi TV didn't have the full snuff film available. Yet.

We all know that American TV is reluctant to show the filthier aspects of war (because the advertisers hate that crap), but if you can show contractors mutilated in Fallujah, then you can certainly show a mass murderer swinging by his neck and surrounded by people in Halloween costumes.

Juan Cole does nail it. The Bush Administration's negligence, malfeasance, and simple boobery in Iraq is really breathtaking.

Wumpus

Well said. A friend's husband returned this year from JAG duty in and around Fallujah and has expressed that service in Iraq is extremely difficult now. The upside is that he no longer finds DC summers to be hot or unpleasant.

From the outside looking in, it appears that the military has safeguards, oversight, and accountability to deter torture and abuses. I don't believe that either the civilians creating policy or the CIA possess or appreciate these safeguards.

Hostel is pure snuff as well as Torture with a capital T and I hope that I am baptized on Fox TeeVee before I ever have to see it again.