Bombs Kill 127, Wound Dozens in Baghdad, Now 157 Dead and Counting

This is horrible, the total keeps climbing 183 in Baghdad and a total of 233 across Iraq just today.

LINK

BAGHDAD - Suspected Sunni insurgents penetrated the Baghdad security net Wednesday, hitting Shiite targets with four bomb attacks that killed at least 183 people — the bloodiest day since the U.S. troop surge began nine weeks ago.


Nationwide, the number of people killed or found dead on Wednesday was 233, which equaled the highest death toll since The Associated Press began recording daily nationwide deaths in May 2005.

Iraq has become a lose-lose situation. I agree theres basically no way to really make Iraq a safe place to live now. For every "insurgent" you kill off another 2 step up and take his place, whether it be a relative/etc deciding to join the cause to avenge said death or just a new recruit... then on top of that you have a deep seeded hatred bewteen members of two religious groups which finally has a chaotic enough environment in which their thirst to hurt or kill eachother can be realized.

However, I'm also worried about not just the current situation and the people dieing right now but the future implications this failure in Iraq has and what a retreat would cause. I think this war basically shown us that with the rise of "terrorism" and the growing popularity of suicide attacks.. its become almost impossible to occupy a country which has any citizens in it that hate you. Long gone are the days of the biggest form of "terrorism" being a remote case of an assassination or the like. Gone are the days when you take a capital city or 2 over, the enemies leader waves a white flag and then basically all fighting stops.

Anyways what I'm trying to get at is...... what does this mean for future wars? If there comes along something that causes another war, espeically with a middle east nation, I will be very worried.... It seems like the conclusion some leaders might come to is that...... the only way to win a war now is total annihilation, since we can all see that attackin strategic assets and then trying to occupy the country will not work in the modern world. Which makes me worried that the next war of any decent size.... might result in the use of nukes etc.... which leads us quickly down a slope of no return. On the other hand... I guess this realization by leaders might make the world more peaceful, as they see that even a realitively weak nation (like Iraq compared to the US), can pretty much prevent a real victory due to insurgency, suicide attacks etc.
But..... given humankind's nature.. I doubt peace will be the conclusion world leaders come to

[edit on 18-4-2007 by nybaseball44]

Originally posted by selfless
You know what's sad about this?

People will hear about the 33 dead in Virginia for the next 100 years but they will forget about the 178 or more dead in Baghdad in a few hours.

In fact, i bet not many people know of the 178 or more dead in Baghdad....

That's just sad.

[edit on 18-4-2007 by selfless]

Agreed. Im rather irritated/annoyed over the VT shootings. Yes it was a tragic incident,but the news media is acting like its 9/11 the sequel. Every news channel,all day the same stuff. Usually when the major news networks were/are covering un-important topics (Anna nicole),i could at least turn to cnn international for some real news. No,not recently.

I just happened to catch this story from watching the ticker on the bottom of the screen. 178 dead,mostly civillian. Surely this is newsworthy? Apparently its not,wolf blitzer has to keep with his routine of,"why,what what cause someone to do this sort of thing?".

Sorry for the rant The sad thing is,the situation in iraq is being seriously overlooked right now,even more so than afghanistan. We do remember Afghanistan dont we?

Its also odd, when just 1 american soldier dies, you get to know his name, his family etc, but when 150 Iraqis die, you dont get to know ANY of them, who they were, mothers fathers? kids? Teachers? Who are these people, just statistics?

Originally posted by JacKatMtn

Pack it up and bring our troops home.

www.guardian.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 2007/4/18 by JacKatMtn]

Are you nuts, you know how much more oil we would be giving away to IRAN if the US leaves.

Without US control of Iraq the US would have no oil in 50 years, at that time oil will be more prescious than water.

We need to stay in Iraq till all the terrorists kill each other off and then create the 51st state. Even if it takes 25 years, it needs to be done for the sake of national security.

I wonder if John McCain will tour this area as well. I'm sure it will be considered progress though.

brill

Originally posted by DaVillen
Are you nuts, you know how much more oil we would be giving away to IRAN if the US leaves.

Without US control of Iraq the US would have no oil in 50 years, at that time oil will be more prescious than water.

I don't think I am nuts, I am more willing to sacrifice some oil then sacrifice any more of our servicemen/women's lives to a war which obviously by your post is about oil.

Let the oil companies in the US fund their own army if it is that important, and you can sign up.

I'm shocked by the lack of people on this thread as well.

Maybe we should put all our troops in bunkers, close the borders and wait it out while they kill each other off? No sense in protecting people who want to kill themselves. I'm not so sure closing the borders and containing them while they work it out is not a good idea.

I'm starting to think their is an environmental reason for this. A parasite or a virus that affects the ability for the brain to make rational decisions. My mind can not come to grips with this ideology. The concept of strapping a bomb to your own child to blow up your neighbors makes my skin crawl. How could anyone defend that? Boggles the mind.

Between the horror that just happened here and this I'm not so sure the Human Race deserves to survive. I just came from a thread where someone thinks the mass murder at the college might have been a government conspiracy. No reason to believe that or evidence to suggest it. Whatever happened to rational thought.

Maybe this is genetic and its natures way of reducing our numbers when we become overpopulated. There would be a large body of evidence to back that up I think. I read recently that more than 5% of our species are Sociopaths. Makes me stop and think. Most other animals, and we are animals, eat their own young if there is not enough food. I would give my food to the young and starve myself. I don't know anymore what my neighbor would do.

If I've drifted off topic please forgive me. Between the thread I read before this and what happened here and in Iraq my head is spinning. My opinion of the human race is at an all time low right now. I've had enough bad news and conspiracies for one day I think. I'm going to put in a good comedy to put the world back into perspective. Sorry for the rant.

Originally posted by _Phoenix_
Its also odd, when just 1 american soldier dies, you get to know his name, his family etc, but when 150 Iraqis die, you dont get to know ANY of them, who they were, mothers fathers? kids? Teachers? Who are these people, just statistics?

I understand your frustration. These horrors are hard to digest. I think lots of people care its just that they feel helpless to do anything about it. How do you stop hundreds of years of generation after generation of brainwashing? Hardly a day goes by I don't thank God I live where I do and that I was raised to respect human life and peoples feelings. Sometimes we have to just accept the things we can not change and do our best to not be part of the problem and hope in the end sanity and decency will prevail. Otherwise we would all jump off a bridge.

Are you nuts, you know how much more oil we would be giving away to IRAN if the US leaves.

Theres another point. Americans obsessively pitting themselves against Iran as if it were the spawn of satan.
Don't forget that Iran offered their help in Iraq, and the US refused to hear any and all offers from Iran, regardless of what they were.

Iran wants their nuclear program BECAUSE OF THEIR LACK OF OIL.
Their oil reserves are diminishing and will be non-existant within the decade. Which means they have to look for an alternative energy supply. The only feasable one was nuclear.
If they get an extended oil supply, THEN THEY DONT NEED THE REACTORS!

Originally posted by bodrul

the US started this mess by invading the country on faulse pretenses
with the help of the UK

The US should sort the problems out before it leaves

But they do not want us there. Thats like saying you would trust a burglar to re-arrange your house after he just ransacked it. They obviously don't want us there and they will not follow any requests. I dunno if you can blame them. You can't just say after several years of bombings and occupation "Ooops we made a mistake" and expect people to have any admiration or respect for you afterwards.

Not for nothing but immediately following the fact that there were no wmd's or al-queda training camps they should have called a mistrial and released Saddam Hussein and left the country with our hats in hand and a coat over our head hiding our face. This is not something to be proud of and saying it was a mistake as though you can just use white out on a piece of paper is just ridiculous.

Originally posted by Peruvianmonk
The U.N thing was a joke. There are alot of middle eastern muslims in our country, there are in Southampton anyway. Obvoiusly they shouldn't be there but they are so that's what we should be dealing with.

"Obviously"? Not half as obviously as we shouldn't be in Iraq. They're not plundering our resources for the benefit of another country's elite. They're not toting guns through the streets and trying to effect "regime change".

And why "obviously"? What's so obvious about why Muslims shouldn't be able to live in the UK?

The Shiites shouldn't be given the opportunity to commit a genocide and then become as one with Iran, that's no good for anyone.

The Shiites and the Sunnis were united against the invaders until May 2003, when the US and UK clandestine forces started blowing up mosques and other operations designed to inflame sectarian violence, a process that has now spiralled out of control.

Originally posted by rich23
US and UK clandestine forces started blowing up mosques and other operations designed to inflame sectarian violence, a process that has now spiralled out of control.

This is the first i've heard about that. I was under the impression that the US and UK tried very hard to avoid damaging mosques.

Is this ever gonna stop.. Leaving Iraq.. what will that entail, all citizens that have adapted to the new regime being killed?.. stay- More of our troops get killed? and more more friction with other eastern countries such as Iran potentially starting further conflict.

Has the time come to look after our own?

If it wasn't for greedy governments none of this mess would of happened but like always it's the people suffering. Hey if America invaded the UK and killed members of my family, occupied this place.. Yes i'd be pissed, wouldn't you?

Originally posted by Anjin
This is the first i've heard about that. I was under the impression that the US and UK tried very hard to avoid damaging mosques.

Remember the British troops who were arrested by the Iraqi police in civilian disguise, with a car full of weapons and explosives? They had to be broken out of jail by a military operation... there was a lot of fuss about it at the time but WHY they were in jail was rather glossed over. Also, the al-Ansar mosque was demolished by "people in Iraqi army uniforms"- in other words, people under the control of the US.

Naturally, this was not widely reported at the time.