Massacre at Samarra

The mystery of what actually happened at Samarra is becoming clearer. It appears that a few resistance fighters did engage the Americans in their usual way by firing on them and then disappearing. The Americans then freaked out and reacted in their usual way by going on a rampage. The Americans fired randomly in an urban area, destroying buildings and killing civilians. The locals then took up arms to defend themselves, which led to a further American reaction. The result was 8 Iraqi civilians dead, many injured, and a significant amount of property damage. Around 20 of the injured sustained their injuries while worshipping at a mosque during sunset prayers, and it appears that an American rocket actually hit the mosque. A kindergarten was damaged, apparently with tank shells. Ibrahim Jassim, a guard at the kindergarten, said:

"Luckily we evacuated the children five minutes before we came under attack. Why did they attack randomly? Why did they shoot a kindergarten with tank shells?"

This massacre is a PR disaster. What does the Pentagon do? They make up a long lie about the ambush by the Saddam supporters, and come up an exact number who were killed. They add the story of the bank notes for some additional color. They can't help embellishing the lie by describing the fact that the attackers were wearing uniforms, so that they can blame the resistance on organized Baathists and thus continue the American fable that the resistance is from Saddam supporters rather than the whole Iraqi population. We know the story is a lie for a number of reasons:

1. The locals are quite angry at the fact that the Americans attacked civilians, and have a consistent story for what happened.


2. The local hospitals and morgues have only 8 bodies, all civilians.


3. The Americans, incredible as it might seem, have no bodies of the supposedly killed ambushing Baathists. Their explanation for this is that the bodies were taken away by their comrades, but no one saw this, and the number of resistance fighters left after the numbers the Americans said were killed would not have been sufficient to remove all those bodies. Local ambulance driver Abdelmoneim Mohammed said:

   "If I had seen bodies, I would have picked them up. It's not like the Americans would have done it. If the death toll had reached that announced by the Americans, the atmosphere in Samarra would be quite different."

   Salaheddin Mawlud, a colonel in the former Iraqi army, who now heads Samarra city council's complaints office, said:

   "If there had been so many dead, we would have seen people rushing to the hospital, the police station or here, and it just didn't happen."

   Abdelrizek Jadwa, who owns a grocery 50 meters from the scene of one of the attacks, said:

   "After the firing, I went out of my shop. There were no wounded, no killed on the streets. Where could they have disappeared?"

It appears that we have yet another war crime, and yet another Pentagon lie to cover it up. It is a good thing that the Pentagon officials are such lousy liars, but with the disgusting American media on the job, they don't have to be good.