crossposted at Over the Line, Smokey!
Hidden in a story which is primarily about Turkey is this much more important information. Washington Post has these accounts of US attack on Warsaw, 1941 Sadr City, in Baghdad:
U.S. Reports 49 Fighters Dead in Sadr City Raid; Residents, Officials Say Victims Are All Civilians
The U.S. military said its troops killed 49 fighters in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, one of the highest death tolls for a military operation since President Bush declared an end to active combat in 2003.
,,,Iraqi officials and residents of the vast Shiite enclave, loyal to powerful anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, said 13 people were killed and all of the victims were innocent civilians, including children.
According to the military, U.S. troops entered the neighborhood at 4 a.m. to target a militia chief responsible for an extensive Iranian-backed [of course] kidnapping ring. ....
Gunmen then began firing automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades at the U.S. troops, the military said. It said ground forces returned fire, killing 33 fighters, then called in helicopter gunships, which killed six more.
As U.S. soldiers left the neighborhood at 7 a.m., they struck a roadside bomb but continued returning fire, killing 10 more, the military said. ...
But Sadr City residents and Iraqi officials said the only victims were civilians -- whom they described as 13 dead and 52 injured.
"I have seen the dead children," said Abu Zahara, an official in the local Sadr office. "We are a peaceful people. We are just sitting in our homes. We don't want anything to do with the Americans. Just leave us alone."
He said among the dead were a woman and four children, including a 4-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy. Their 1-year-old brother was seriously wounded, he said.
"Why are the American soldiers fighting women and children?" said Abu Hawra, a local religious leader. "The American occupation forces started bombing the city for no reason."
...
Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman for Sadr in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, called the raid a "barbaric action" and a "crime" that should lead to criminal charges.
...
Mohammed Chaloub,...said he watched the raid from his roof and saw the damage it left: a bombed-out primary school, several destroyed shops and 18 burned cars. U.S. gunfire prevented firefighting vehicles from reaching the area, he said.
He said Sadr City residents were furious at the U.S. troops. "If you woke up in the morning and saw your entire family killed and your house burned out, what would your reaction be?" he said. "Nobody would accept that."
You tell me; who's lying?
Couldn't be the US military. After all, Dick Cheney himself saidyesterday:
The war on terror is, after all, more than a contest of arms and more than a test of will. It is also a battle of ideas. To prevail in the long run, we have to remove the conditions that inspire such blind, prideful hatred that drove 19 men to get onto airliners to come kill us. Many have noted that we're in a struggle for the "hearts and minds" of people in a troubled region of the world. That is true and it should give us confidence. Outside a small and cruel circle, it's hard to imagine anybody being won over, intellectually or emotionally, by random violence, the beheading of bound men, children's television programs that exalt suicide bombing, and the desecration of mosques. The extremists in the Middle East are not really trying to win hearts and minds, but to paralyze them, to seize power by force, to keep power by intimidation, and to build an empire of fear.
We offer a nobler alternative. We know from history that when people live in freedom, have their rights respected and have real hope for the future, they will not be drawn in by ideologies that stir up hatreds and incite violence. We know, as well, that when men and women are given the chance, most by far will choose to live in freedom. That's the cause we serve today in Afghanistan and Iraq -- helping the peoples of those two nations to achieve security, peace, and the right to chart their own destiny. Both peoples face attack from violent extremists who want to end democratic progress and pull them back toward tyranny. We are helping them fight back because it's the right thing to do, and because the outcome is important to our own long-term security.