U.S. BOMBS CIVILIAN HOMES IN BAGHDAD, KILLS WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Juan Cole points me to this McClatchy story by Hannah Allam and Jenan Hussein about the casualties from a U.S. air raid against two homes in the northern outskirts of Baghdad. Residents claim it was women and children who died in their beds. The U.S. military claims it killed six "insurgents."

"The U.S. military said the dead were insurgents and the homes in the Husseiniya district probably served as weapons depots; troops observed seven or more secondary explosions after the air assault. By the military's tally, six fighters were killed and five wounded.


"Iraqi residents told a different version: the dead came from two Shiite Muslim families who lived in an area controlled by the powerful Mahdi Army militia. The bodies pulled from the rubble, locals say, were ordinary parents killed with their children in the middle of the night. Locals counted 11 corpses - two men, two women, and seven children. Another 10 were injured. Some Iraqi authorities put the death toll as high as 18."

I have called for an end to U.S. bombing raids before. See here and here and here. The U.S. military has no justification in sending war planes and/or attack helicopters to bomb and strafe residential neighborhoods. I don't care whether the generals think there are insurgents hiding out somewhere in the vicinity. Bombing and killing civilians is a war crime that should never happen.

I repeat what I wrote back on June 30, 2007,:

"Because of incidents like the above, my solution is simple. Ban all war planes, do away with the American squadrons, retire everyone in the Air Force. Air planes must be restricted to peaceful purposes, such as commercial aviation. No one should be allowed to shoot a cannon from an air plane, or drop a bomb."

The U.S. needs to ground all of its bombers, all of its killing machines that fly. Otherwise this slaughter of civilians in their beds will continue until the last soldier has left Iraq.