Quotes of the Morning: Values

“Suspected Sunni insurgents penetrated the Baghdad security net Wednesday, hitting Shiite targets with four bomb attacks that killed at least 183 people — the bloodiest day since the U.S. troop surge began nine weeks ago.
Nationwide, the number of people killed or found dead on Wednesday was 233, which equaled the highest death toll since The Associated Press began recording daily nationwide deaths in May 2005.”
-Associated Press, April 18, 2007

“Those weren’t American deaths. Those were ‘just’ Iraqis, but they were human beings. Each had a mother and a father. Most, if not all, of them were civilians. They were not involved in fighting the United States. They were just trying to get through their day. They failed.”
-Skippy

“Late Wednesday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the arrest of the Iraqi army colonel who was in charge of security in the area around the Sadriyah market where at least 127 people died and 148 were wounded in one of the Baghdad bombings.
[…]
Among the dead were several construction workers who had been rebuilding the mostly Shiite marketplace after a bombing destroyed many shops and killed 137 people there in February, the police official said.”
-Associated Press, April 18, 2007

“Let me get this straight.. In one market, in the last three months, there have been 264 people killed.. What was it you said about the market in Iraq you saw Representative Pence?”
-Skippy

“At a news conference shortly after their outing, McCain, a Republican, and his three congressional colleagues described Shorja as a safe, bustling place full of hopeful and warmly welcoming Iraqis – ‘like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime,’ offered Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, who was a member of the delegation.”
-New York Times, April 3, 2007

“Ah.. Indiana must be a little rougher than I remember it from my days there in college. Iraq will be safe though. We’re going to build walls around neighborhoods to keep the ‘bad’ people from getting in.”
-Skippy

“U.S. soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division in a Baghdad district are ‘building a three-mile protective wall on the dividing line between a Sunni enclave and the surrounding Shiite neighborhood,’ according to a U.S. military press release issued Wednesday.
Troops with the 407th Brigade Support Battalion began constructing the wall on April 10 and will continue work ‘almost nightly until the wall is complete,’ the release read.
‘The area the wall will protect is the largest predominately Sunni neighborhood in East Baghdad. Majority-Shiite neighborhoods surround it on three sides. Like other religiously divided regions in the city, the area has been trapped in a spiral of sectarian violence and retaliation,’ according to the release.
In January, when the new Baghdad security plan and troop ‘surge’ were announced, the ‘gated community’ concept was reported by several news agencies as one tactic to be used.
[…]
According to Wednesday’s news release from Multi-National Corps-Iraq, ‘the wall [in Adhamiyah] is one of the centerpieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence. Planners hope the creation of the wall will help restore law and order by providing a way to screen people entering and exiting the neighborhood — allowing residents and people with legitimate business in, while keeping death squads and militia groups out.’
A similar effort by U.S. troops in south Baghdad was reported earlier this month by the Wall Street Journal.
‘That community [in Adhamiyah] will be completely gated and protected,’ Lt. Col. Thomas Rogers, 407th Brigade Support Battalion, was quoted as saying in the release. ‘It’s really for the security of all the people of Adhamiyah, not just one side or the other.’
According to military officials, the Adhamiyah wall should be completed in the next month.”
-Stars and Stripes, April 19, 2007

“With only limited ways in and out of neighborhoods it will be easier to separate the different communities. We’ve already started to try to control access to some of the markets in order to make them more secure. Kind of a ‘divide and conquer’ method of dealing with the country. What could go wrong?”
-Skippy

“Abdullah, whose shop was damaged by flying shrapnel, said he took part in 18 funerals Thursday morning. ‘I cried a lot,’ he said.
The car bombing appeared meticulously planned. It took place at a pedestrian entrance where tall concrete barriers had been erected after the earlier attack. It was the only way out of the compound, and the construction workers were widely known to leave at about 4 p.m. — the time of the bombing.”
-Associated Press, April 18, 2007

“They’re Iraqis though, not Americans. Most Americans count more.”
-Skippy

“And tonight, a disturbing question about us. We mourn, appropriately, genuinely, compassionately as as many as 30 American kids are dead, violently, senselessly, pointlessly. Yet 30 American kids dead, violently, senselessly, pointlessly, is the story of the last 10 days of the war in Iraq.
Why is our national mourning so profound in the one case, but so muted in the other?
[…]
It is an unspeakable and overwhelming tragedy, up to 30 young Americans killed violently, pointlessly, and the rest of us left with an urgent and almost helpless feeling that somebody could have done something to prevent it, and that everybody must do something to protect the next potential victims.
Yet, the same number of young Americans of approximately the same age have died in Iraq in the last 10 days. Clearly, while one might take issue with the comparison, one can not ignore the similarities. Moreover, in a practical sense, the deaths in Iraq could have been much more readily prevented, and the desire much more easily fulfilled, to protect the next potential victims there.”
-Countdown with Keith Olbermann, April 17, 2007

“The math is simple. 30 college students > 30 American soldiers > 233 Iraqi civilians.”
-Skippy