US Training of Death Squads in Iraq? - War Is A Crime .org

http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/editorialsU.S. Death Squads #9Baghdad bomb kills 22 - But Who Is to Blame?Signs of the TimesEditorial: Baghdad bomb kills 22 - But Who Is to Blame?By Joe Quinn21/02/2006In what has tragically become a commonplace event, today yet another car bomb exploded inBaghdad. The UK Guardian reports:Baghdad bomb kills 22 At least 22 people were killed and 28 wounded when a car bombexploded in a busy outdoor market in the Iraqi city of Baghdad today. Iraqi police said the bombexploded at 4.45pm local time in Dora, a south-west district of the city. It is believed the attackwas aimed at a police patrol but missed its target. The injured were taken to hospital where asource said the death toll could be much higher. Dora is one of the most dangerous parts ofBaghdad, with car and roadside bombings occurring daily since a Sunni-dominated insurgencybegan in the summer of 2003.Notice that a "Baghdad bomb" killed at least 22 Iraqi civilians today, and that "car and roadsidebombings occur almost daily". In reading this account, you could be forgiven for coming awaywith the impression that "Baghdad bombs" have a life of their own and need no help from anyhuman agency to wreak their bloody carnage. Perhaps that problem is that no one ever seems tobe claim responsibility for these attacks, and journalists and commentators are just as mystifiedabout which "Iraqi insurgent group" could possibly want to kill their own neighbors - the verymembers of their support base that they rely on to resist the American occupation.The fact is that these type of anonymous bombings are not new. All over the world over the pasthalf century (and longer) bombs have been exploding and killing innocent civilians, leaving theirfriends and families not only traumatised, but completely confused as to why such violence wascommitted against them. For example, in 1998, 29 civilians, including 9 children and a womanpregnant with twins, were killed when a car bomb exploded on a busy shopping area in the townof Omagh in Northern Ireland. It was the worst single atrocity in 30 years of conflict in NorthernIreland. Now one might expect that, in keeping with the lines along which the conflict had beenfought for 800 years, a very large majority, if not all, of the victims would be from one side ofthe community or the other. But the strange thing about the Omagh bombing was that the deadwere almost equally distributed between the Irish Catholic and British protestant populations.Not only that, but a warning that was telephoned to police 40 minutes before the bomb detonatedcontained apparently incorrect information about where the bomb was, and led police to'evacuate' civilians towards the bomb rather than away from it. In doing so, maximum bloodshedwas assured. The bombing came at a time when the 'peace process' was in full swing and effortswere being made by the warring parties to come to some form of final resolution. In the end, thebombing was placed at the door of a shadowy dissident Republican outfit called 'the Real IRA', a128