CHILDREN SUICIDE BOMBERS ON RISE IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

A new phenomenon is sweeping across Iraq and Afghanistan---children suicide bombers.

The growing number of children suicide bombers in both war zones has been ignored by the mainstream media in the United States.

U.N. Grapples With Suicide Attacks by Children

By Thalif Deen

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41008

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 30 (IPS) - The United Nations is expressing "serious concern" over the growing number of suicide attacks involving children, specifically in Afghanistan and Iraq."This is a relatively new phenomenon, and the United Nations has documented several high-profile cases of children involved in attacks," says a new 45-page report on "Children and Armed Conflict" released Wednesday.

Pointing an accusing finger at insurgent groups, including al Qaeda and its affiliated militias in Iraq, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the study says the United Nations is unable to get any commitments from any of these groups or organisations to end the practice. Asked for her comments, U.N. Under-Secretary-General Radhika Coomaraswamy, special representative of the secretary-general on children and armed conflict, told IPS that suicide bombings involving children raise a whole host of new issues. "We are grappling with the problem of how to deal with this phenomenon," she said. First, are suicide bombers "combatants" in the sense of the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of prisoners of war?

Are potential suicide bombers "soldiers" and are these suicide bombers deemed child soldiers? she asked.

"Secondly, one purpose of U.N. Security Council resolution 1612 is to enter into action plans with military commanders and get child soldiers released. But how do we do that with suicide bombers or potential suicide bombers?" she asked.

Thirdly, those using suicide bombers, such as al Qaeda and others, are the least likely to engage in a dialogue with the United Nations about the release of children, as is done with governments and other insurgent groups accused of recruiting child soldiers

Go back to link to read the full story....

U.S. AIR FORCE BOMBS IRAQ--NOBODY CARES

THE IRAQ WAR---"THE FORGOTTEN WAR II"

The coverage of the war in Iraq has sunk to such a level that even the U.S. Air Force unleashing tons of bombs on a farming community in Iraq no longer is covered by the mainstream media in the United States.

The Iraq War has now officially become "The Forgotten War--II," a reference to the Korean War which was the first "Forgotten War."

The pack mentality of the mainstream press in the United States has been obsessing on the race for POTUS. The war in Iraq is now just a distant memory.

Bombs Away Over Iraq
Looking Up
Normalizing Air War from Guernica to Arab Jabour By Tom Engelhardt

http://www.tomdispatch.com/

A January 21st Los Angeles Times Iraq piece by Ned Parker and Saif Rasheed led with an inter-tribal suicide bombing at a gathering in Fallujah in which members of the pro-American Anbar Awakening Council were killed. ("Asked why one member of his Albu Issa tribe would kill another, Aftan compared it to school shootings that happen in the United States.") Twenty-six paragraphs later, the story ended this way:

"The U.S. military also said in a statement that it had dropped 19,000 pounds of explosives on the farmland of Arab Jabour south of Baghdad. The strikes targeted buried bombs and weapons caches.

"In the last 10 days, the military has dropped nearly 100,000 pounds of explosives on the area, which has been a gateway for Sunni militants into Baghdad."

And here's paragraph 22 of a 34-paragraph January 22nd story by Stephen Farrell of the New York Times:

"The threat from buried bombs was well known before the [Arab Jabour] operation. To help clear the ground, the military had dropped nearly 100,000 pounds of bombs to destroy weapons caches and I.E.D.'s."

Farrell led his piece with news that an American soldier had died in Arab Jabour from an IED that blew up "an MRAP, the new Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected armored vehicle that the American military is counting on to reduce casualties from roadside bombs in Iraq."

Read More by clicking on link above.....

BUSH SAYS AL QAIDA ON THE RUN IN IRAQ, BUT FACTS DIFFER

UPTICK IN VIOLENCE IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

This is getting to be so repetitious.

Everyday we watch as President Bush, Fox News, the parrot for the Bush White House, and most of the mainstream media see who can outdo whom in avoiding telling the American public what is really happening Iraq and Afghanistan.

If ever the phrase "out to lunch" was applicable it should be tagged on to the mainstream media in the United States who have taken a hike and refuse to report on the growing violence in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Below is just a partial list of what happened on Thursday, January 31 in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

For additional information on what is happening in Iraq, you can log onto my blog CORKSPHERE at http://corksphere.blogspot.com/ anytime and read all the latest news from the two war theaters where we have a total of 200,000 young men and women serving in the United States military.....Bill Corcoran, editor and host of CORKSPHERE


Thursday, January 31, 2008

War News for Thursday, January 31, 2008
Baghdad:#1: A roadside bomb went off near a police patrol near the Zaiyouna bridge in eastern Baghdad's Baladiyat neighborhood, damaging a police vehicle and wounding three policemen on board in addition to three passing civilians, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.Three policemen and three civilians were killed by a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol in the Zayouna district of eastern Baghdad, police said

.#2: He said that another roadside bomb detonated near the Musa Bin Nassir fuel station in Karradah neighborhood in central the capital, wounding two civilians

.#3: The source quoted Iraqi police patrols as saying that a U.S. armored vehicle was set on fire before dawn when a roadside bomb struck the military patrol on the al-Qanat street that passes through al-Amin neighborhood in eastern Baghdad. The burning vehicle ignited several secondary explosions more than two hours after the roadside bomb attack, the source said.

#4: Two roadside bombs detonated near the convoy of an Iraqi deputy minister of electricity in eastern Baghdad on Thursday, wounding two bodyguards and a civilian, an Interior Ministry source said. "Two roadside bombs detonated simultaneously near the convoy of Salam al-Qazaz, deputy minister of electricity, in the al-Aqari neighborhood near the Palestine Street, wounding two of his bodyguards and a civilian," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity

.#5: In a separate incident, a roadside bomb went off in the al-Ghadeer neighborhood in eastern the capital wounding four people, the source added

.#6: One person was killed and four wounded when a car bomb exploded in Kadhimiya, a Shi'ite district in northwestern Baghdad, police said.Diyala Prv:

Baquba:#1: Clashes between gunmen and police in al-Tahrir neighbourhood, central Baquba left 2 civilians wounded#2: 2 women, ages 50 and 55, cousins to the governor of Diyala, Raad al-Mulla were abducted by gunmen who had put up a false checkpoint between al-Abbara area and Baquba city last night. Their fate remains unknown.Khamqeen:#1: Two policemen were wounded on Thursday morning in an armed attack by scores of al-Qaeda gunmen on a governmental building in Khanqeen in Diala, a police source said. "Dozens of al-Qaeda gunmen waged an armed attack at dawn on the headquarters of al-Saadiya district in Khaneqeen, northeast of Baaquba, injuring two policemen and causing some material damage to the building," the source, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq#2: Suspected al-Qaeda armed men set up a fake checkpoint on the road linking Balad Ruz to Mendli district in Khaneqeen city, where they stopped a civilian car and took its six passengers to unknown place," the source, who preferred anonymity, told Aswat al-IraqBasra:#1: Rockets slammed into the British base near the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Thursday, slightly wounding three British soldiers, a spokesman said.A spokesman for the Multi-National Forces in southern Iraq said on Thursday a British helicopter was destroyed when the British base at Basra international airport came under attack and two soldiers were wounded."News indicated that a British chopper had been destroyed at the Basra international airport were groundless," the spokesman told Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq- (VOI) over the phone.Spokesman for the Multi-National Forces in southern Iraq Captain Finn Aldrich had said earlier a British helicopter was destroyed when the British base at Basra international airport came under attack and two soldiers were wounded.Sulaiman Pek:#1: A severed head was found in the town of Sulaiman Pek, 160 km (100 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.Baiji:#1: A father and his son were shot to death by gunmen near al-Zaitoon restaurant in the north of Baiji. The man was a labourer from the village of Albu Jwari, 5 kn to the north of Baiji.

Afghanistan:#1: A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing Helmand province's deputy governor and five other people, officials said. The bomber struck while people were praying inside the mosque in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said. Helmand's deputy governor, Pir Mohammad, was killed in the blast, said Nisar Ahmad, a provincial health official. The blast killed five other people and wounded 18 others, seven seriously, Andiwal said.

#2: A car bomb exploded next to an Afghan army bus in Kabul on Thursday, wounding four civilians and a soldier, a police officer said. The blast shattered the bus windows and badly damaged a passing taxi in Kabul's Taimani neighborhood, said police officer Jan Agha.

Casualty Reports

Pfc. Chris Parish recalled the day last June when the Humvee in which he was a gunner was struck by an explosively formed projectile as his convoy was traveling from one combat outpost to another in Iraq. "I would have bled out," he said, as the picture behind him showed the Humvee in flames, "if it hadn't been for my Battle Buddy. He obviously paid attention in the Combat Lifesaver Course."Pfc. Jesse Garza, who was riding in another vehicle that June day, rushed to the burning Humvee, tore off the canopy and pulled Parish to safety. "I was covered in blood and so was he. He laid me down in the back of a Bradley, applied pressure dressing and a tourniquet. In cutting off my pants legs, he cut into my right leg by mistake. I still have that scar. But I owe him my life." Shrapnel had shredded the 25-year-old soldier's left quadricep and hamstring and damaged his sciatic nerve. Parish has had 10 surgeries on his left leg with at least one more on the horizon.

U.S. Army Sgt. Joshua Cope lost his legs and full use of his right hand in a 2006 roadside blast in Iraq, is rehabilitating at Naval Medical Center San Diego.

And all this took place just on Thursday alone and yet President Bush goes on television and claims the "surge" is working.

SUICIDES WITH IRAQ WAR VETS AT ALL-TIME HIGH

The fallout from the war in Iraq continues to mount as a record level of veteran suicides were recorded for 2007.

Adding to the horrendous upsurge in veteran suicides is the alarming information that the Veterans Administration is woefully under-equipped and under-staffed to deal with all the mental health problems veterans are facing when they return from active duty in Iraq.

The Washington Post in its Thursday edition is reporting on an in-depth study that shows 121 Iraq war veterans committed suicide in 2007.

The Bush administration continues their swagger about how well the "surge" is going in Iraq, but the administration has failed miserably in dealing with the after effects of a war that has gone on now longer than World War II and is sending young men and women home without adequate mental health treatment for the alarming rate of suicide attempts that continue to soar.

This blogger was a Cpl. (E-4) in the Combat Engineers in the United States Army during the Korean War and personally saw several of my Platoon make an attempt at suicide. One young soldier drank a can of bore cleaner used to clean rifles and another tried to throw himself in front of an oncoming truck.

Nobody has any idea what war does to young men and women unless you have seen it firsthand.
The troops in Iraq are on their third and fourth rotations and the stress is enormous.
The Bush administration should hang their collective heads in shame for not taking better care of our wounded warriors returning from Iraq.

Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, a blog dedicate and devoted to telling the truth about what is happening to our soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Vet's battle with depression reveals effects of long tours, lack of resources

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22923548/

Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, a psychiatric outpatient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who was waiting for the Army to decide whether to court-martial her for endangering another soldier and turning a gun on herself last year in Iraq, attempted to kill herself Monday evening. In so doing, the 25-year-old Army reservist joined a record number of soldiers who have committed or tried to commit suicide after serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"I'm very disappointed with the Army," Whiteside wrote in a note before swallowing dozens of antidepressants and other pills. "Hopefully this will help other soldiers." She was taken to the emergency room early Tuesday. Whiteside, who is now in stable physical condition, learned yesterday that the charges against her had been dismissed.

Whiteside's personal tragedy is part of an alarming phenomenon in the Army's ranks: Suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980, according to a draft internal study obtained by The Washington Post. Last year, 121 soldiers took their own lives, nearly 20 percent more than in 2006.

Click on link above to read the full story of veteran suicides.

THE COST OF THE IRAQ WAR

We hear a lot of talk from the candidates for POTUS about what they are going to do about the Iraq war, but we seldom ever look at the cost of the Iraq war and what it could provide Americans back here in the United States.

Here is a short YouTube video that is breathtaking in just how much money is going to the Iraq war and what those tax dollars could purchase here in the United States.

It is worth watching.

http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/2008/01/cost-of-war.html