State Of Emergency Declared In Iraq

[Diamond Cross]

Wednesday, November 8, 2006 · Last updated 9:42 p.m. PT
Iraq lawmakers extend state of emergency

By BASSEM MROUE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

An Iraqi youth, a mortar attack victim, is treated in Sadr City's hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2006. A pair of mortar rounds slammed into a soccer field while young men were playing a game in a Shiite district of Baghdad on Wednesday, as more than 60 people were killed in attacks nationwide. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Beset by rampant sectarian violence, Iraq's parliament voted Wednesday to extend the country's state of emergency for 30 more days, as at least 66 more Iraqis were killed or found dead.
Wednesday's deaths included those of eight soccer players and fans cut down by a pair of mortar rounds that slammed onto a field in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood.
The U.S. military, meanwhile, announced the deaths of a soldier and a Marine, raising the number of American forces killed this month in Iraq to 21 in the first eight days of November.
Lawmakers present for a closed-door meeting attended by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki voted unanimously to extend the emergency measures, said legislators Ammar Touama and Kamal al-Saidi.

The state of emergency has been renewed every month since it was first authorized in November 2004. It allows for a nighttime curfew and gives the government extra powers to make arrests without warrants and launch police and military operations. The measures are implemented in all areas of the country apart from the autonomous Kurdish region in the north.

Under sunny skies, mortars struck the Sadr City playing field just after 4:30 p.m. during a game between young men from the sprawling Shiite slum that is home to about 2.5 million people, said a captain with the local police force, Mohammed Ismail.

Twenty others were wounded in the attack, which came after days of mortar barrages launched by rival Sunni and Shiite groups on residential areas that have killed dozens in the capital.

Wounded players were brought to the area's al-Sadr Hospital still wearing their blue uniforms.

Full Article here:

Iraq lawmakers extend state of emergency

Well, gotta take the good with the bad.

[Nonphixion]

"Gotta take the good with the bad"

What good is being represented here?

[thatguyoverthere]

Yes, Diamond Cross. What good is being represented here?

[thatguyoverthere]

Someone is alive today in Iraq who will be dead tomorrow. All because of this war of choice. The blood is on the hands of the people who support this war.

We should recoil at the very concept of war. Thinking that we must still settle our differences with explosive force is primitive and barbaric. Immoral, too.

[Diamond Cross]

And you're right, In an ideal world people would setttle their diffderences through discussion and not violence. We wouldn't have things like partisan politics. But this isn't an ideal world, people are uncompromising because compromise is not a value and all people care about is using the government to protect there own interests. People would be more fair and more open minded.


But this isn't an ideal world. You can't be fair to people who won't be fair to you. You can't compromise with people who won't compromise with you.