Summer massacres

"The firefight lasted from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Ali and other witnesses said the helicopters fired about 10 missiles at the house during the last hour. Most of the upper floor, which bore the brunt of the assault, was reduced to smoking rubble. Ten large shell holes pockmarked the north side of the house.
Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, U.S. military commander, said three of the four men, including Uday and Qusay, probably were killed by TOW missiles. Sanchez refused to comment on reports that the last holdout was Qusay's son Mustafa, 14."
Husseins' host couldn't refuse, St. Petersburg Times, 07/24/03

"On the night of July 17, 1918 the Romanovs were told to dress and were lead from their rooms to a small room in the basement . They were told to wait for the motorcars, which would be taking them to a safer place because the White Army was approaching. As they entered the basement they were told to gather for a picture by Yurovsky, who, unbeknownst to them, was the head executioner. This was to dissolve the rumors of the family’s death. Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks, gave the order for the execution of the Imperial family. This order was carried out by Yurovsky and eleven armed men. As recounted by Massie:

Yurovsky said to the Romanov family, “In view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you.” Nicholas turned quickly to look at his family, then turned back to face Yurovsky and said, “What? What?” Yurovsky quickly repeated what he had said, then jerked the Colt (a gun) out of his pocket and shot the Tsar, point-blank. (5)
Each of the eleven men were previously assigned who they were to kill, for the sake of efficiency. As firing began, some members of the family fell dead in an instant, while others attempted to avoid the gunfire. Alexis, clinging to his late father’s shirt, was approached by Yurovsky and shot twice in the ear. (Massie 6) The murderers loaded the family of corpses, wrapped in bed sheets, onto a waiting truck. The ordeal took all of twenty minutes"
A. Algmin and K. Demchuk, The Romanovs - Together in life and death

 
Peace Tide?

"Nothing could hurt him more than the loss of his sons. Not the loss of Iraq. Not even his own death. For all those who longed for revenge upon Saddam, this is it. If he is still alive, the deaths of Uday and Qusay are the greatest torment that could be visited upon him.

His fall, his suffering - his punishment - are almost Biblical in their resonance. Pharaoh has lost his first-born and more. The prodigal sons will not return in this telling. He who sowed the wind has reaped the whirlwind. [...]

The tide of peace has turned as decisively as the tide of battle did some months ago."
Ralph Peters, END OF A DYNASTY, The New York Post, 07/23/03

"Then came the successor of Facus, Tiberius Alexander. He was the son of Alexander, the chief customs officer of Alexandria, one of the most influential men of his age, both for his family and wealth. He was also more eminent for his piety than his son Alexander, for the latter did not continue in the religion of his country. Under this prefect a great famine happened in Judaea, and queen Helena of Adiabene bought corn in Egypt at a great expense, and distributed it to those that needed it. Besides this, the sons of Judas the Galilean were executed; I mean that they were the sons of that Judas who caused the people to revolt when [the governor of Syria] Quirinius came to take an account of the estates of the Jews. The names of those sons were James and Simon, whom Alexander commanded to be crucified.
[Flavius Josephus, Jewish antiquities 20.100-103]
This is what the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote at the end of the first century. The two men he had executed were probably nationalist rebels of the type that was later known as Zealots. Some twenty years earlier, Josephus had written another book, The Jewish war, in which he had merely stated that Alexander respected the customs of the country and that the people lived in peace (2.220). The two statements support each other: because Alexander arrested the two men the peace remained in the land of Israel."
Livius.org, Tiberius Julius Alexander

 
WMD: Piece of Yellowcake

" GENERAL "BUCK" SCHMUCK
Good morning, Mister President.

The PRESIDENT scowls.

PRESIDENT MUFFLEY
Now, what the hell's going on?

Four-Star Air Force General, "BUCK" SCHMUCK, stands and
assumes his maximum dignity.

GENERAL "BUCK" SCHMUCK
Well, Mister President.

PRESIDENT MUFFLEY
What kind of trouble?"
Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove Screenplay

"For nearly three weeks, hundreds of villagers who live in the shadow of the high earthen berm and barbed-wire fences that surrounded the labyrinth of the Iraqi nuclear program here bathed in and ingested water laced with radioactive contaminants from the barrels..
The barrels, Iraqi and foreign experts say, had held uranium ores, low-enriched uranium 'yellowcake,' nuclear sludge and other dirty by-products of Saddam's nuclear research..
Some villagers fell ill with nausea. Others developed rashes that made them itch..
Although no qualified medical experts have examined them, some contracted ailments that they now attribute to radioactive contamination. It may take years to determine the health effects from the radiation poisoning that occurred here before U.S. military forces arrived to seal off this nuclear complex..
Questions have been raised by international inspectors about why, despite U.S. assurances that coalition forces had secured this installation, an army of looters roamed freely for days, ransacking vaults and warehouses that contained enough radioactive poisons to manufacture an inestimable quantity of so-called dirty bombs..
Tuwaitha has been the most conspicuous element of Iraq's nuclear research program since its inception in the 1970s."
Patrick E. Tyler, Iraqis seeking water ingested nuclear waste , IHT, 06/09/03
.

 
WMD Hunt: The Farce Goes On

Farce: a light dramatic composition marked by broadly satirical comedy and improbable plot (Merriam-Webster OnLine)

"A team of UN nuclear experts arrived in Baghdad today to begin a[nswering] a growing crisis at Iraq's largest nuclear facility, left unguarded by American troops during the early days of the war and then looted by villagers.
[...]
The United States tried to keep the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) out of post–war Iraq. But it reluctantly agreed to allow the agency's return under pressure from the arms–control community, which was concerned about Tuwaitha's safety and American capability to secure the area and account for its contents.
[...]
US troops involved in the hunt for weapons of mass destruction said recently that at least 20 per cent of the barrels containing low–grade or natural uranium appeared to be gone.
[...]
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said some 3,000 barrels were stored there under the agency's watch. Last week, American troops accompanied by Iraqi health workers ordered residents from the surrounding villages to sell back barrels for $3 each. Pentagon officials said that more than 100 barrels had been retrieved."
Bold Mine
AP, Health crisis looms over looted Iraqi nuclear plant, The Guardian, 06/06/03

 
Guerrilla for Dummies

"Gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles have attacked an American military convoy in the neighborhood where Saddam Hussein made his last public appearance on April 9, the day the capital fell to allied forces..
At least one American soldier was wounded and one Iraqi civilian was killed in the firefight that erupted late Sunday on the busy square in front of the Abu Hanifa Mosque, according to an Iraqi hospital official who treated the wounded. Other medical workers said three Iraqi civilians were wounded..
'This is just the beginning!' shouted a woman who identified herself as Shahrezad, a bank manager."
Patrick E. Tyler, U.S. soldier wounded in Baghdad firefight, International Herald Tribune, 06/02/03

"In the words of a leader of the Huk guerrilla movement of the Philippine
Islands: 'The population is always impressed by weapons, not by the terror that
they cause, but rather by a sensation of strength/force. We must appear before
the people, giving them the message of the struggle.' This is, then, in a few
words, the essence of armed propaganda."
Central Intelligence Agency, Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare

 
World-Class Accidents

"''World-class organizations do not tolerate preventable accidents. Our accident rates have increased recently, and we need to turn this situation around"
Donald Rumsfeld, quoted on Pentagon concerned about deadly accidents in Iraq, MSNBC News, 06/03/03

"Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics:
Things get worse under pressure."
Murphy Laws Site

 
The Counterforce

"A force of more than 1,500 US troops, backed by tanks and armoured vehicles, is to take control of two towns near Baghdad that are thought to be sheltering Iraqi fighters still loyal to Saddam Hussein.
In the next 10 days, battle-hardened troops of the US army's 3rd Infantry Division will be sent into Falluja and Habaniya, west of Baghdad. The troops, who led the invasion of Iraq and the capture of Baghdad, will be backed up by 88 Abrams tanks and 44 Bradley fighting vehicles.
They will saturate the area with checkpoints and conduct search operations, targeting Ba'ath party supporters and other militias from the towns."
Rory McCarthy, US prepares battle force to wipe out hardline Iraqi resistance, The Guardian, 06/03/03

"Dialectically. . .some counterforce would have had to arise"
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, 1973, page 536.