The NY Times has a story about our Air Force enforcing the US occupation, although the headline is wrong:

U.S. Attack Kills 34, Including 15 Civilians

BAGHDAD, Oct. 11 (AP) — An attack by American forces killed 19 insurgents and 15 civilians, including 9 children, northwest of the capital on Thursday, the United States military reported. It was one of the heaviest civilian death tolls in an American operation in recent months.

The military said its targets were senior leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni militant group that American intelligence believes has foreign leadership.

“We regret that civilians are hurt or killed while coalition forces search to rid Iraq of terrorism,” said Maj. Brad Leighton, a spokesman for American forces in Iraq, in reference to the deadly airstrike on Thursday.

“These terrorists chose to deliberately place innocent Iraqi women and children in danger by their actions and presence.”

The military’s statement detailing Thursday’s air and ground assault said soldiers were acting on intelligence reports about a Qaeda in Mesopotamia meeting in the Lake Tharthar region, about 50 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Let’s take a look at this, because it is a key point in how the Bu$h malAdministration, and the US military, is now talking about the crushing of resistance in Iraq.

The article notes “34” dead bodies, including “15” civilians, with 9 children. If there are that many dead children you may be certain there were women present. That would be the other 6 “civilians.”

The implication here is that all except women and children are legal targets. The mention of the dead woman and children as civilians implies to someone with military experience that the other 19 were not civilians and were in fact uniformed combatants, possibly under arms, but yet they are described as “terrorists.”

Can one assume they carry terrorist ID cards? Do you get an al Qaeda union card when you sign up? If not, then how do we (or MNF-I) determine they are terrorists?

We’ve been through this before. When US planes have killed people at weddings, friendly indigenous politicians, or just unlucky bystanders.

We’ve also been through this in Viet Nam, when entire villages were wiped out through bad orders, bad map reading, sloppiness, carelessness, or just-don’t-give-a-fuckness.

Soldiers have no damned business killing civilians. Soldiers don’t kill civilians, Barbarians kill civilians. Huns kill civilians. The Mongol Horde kills civilians. Ghouls kill civilians. Honorable men do not.

In our lust for Iraq’s oil the Bu$h malAdministration, and its dog-slaves among our military “leaders” has become so frustrated that apparently a decision has been made that any grouping of two or more Iraqis is suspect, and has become a target to be destroyed.

We are now completely engaged upon the Viet Nam body count syndrome.

Viet Nam Rules: A dead male over 14 is a “terrorist” If the dead body is female, or under 14, then it was a “terrorist sympathizer,” or “terrorist supporter” if there is any kind of shopping bag near the body. If there is a weapon on the ground between two dead bodies, you hit the jackpot! It was a “terrorist cell.”