The U.S. military announced the deaths of nine more American troops killed in bombings and combat in Iraq, raising the death toll half way through October to 67.

Eight U.S. soldiers and one Marine were killed by roadside bombs and enemy fire in and around Baghdad on Tuesday, the military reported.

The highest death toll in one month was in November 2004 during the famous battles in Felluja when 137 U.S. troops died.
October's death toll would make this month the deadliest for American forces since then if it continues in this way. At least 2,779 members of the U.S. military have died and estimates say more than 18,000 injured since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

So that's about 3 thousand Americans and 650 thousand Iraqi who lost their lives as President Bush brings his democracy to Iraq. Isn’t this looking more and more like a sick joke?

A coroner ruled Friday that U.S. forces unlawfully killed a British television journalist in the opening days of the Iraq war. Terry Lloyd a 50 year-old veteran reporter for the British television network ITN was shot in the back by Iraqi troops who overtook his car, then died after U.S. fire hit a civilian minivan being used as an ambulance and struck him in the head.

"Terry Lloyd died following a gunshot wound to the head. The evidence this bullet was fired by the Americans is overwhelming," the coroner said. " There is no doubt that the minibus presented no threat to the American forces. There is no doubt it was an unlawful act of fire."

Gunmen stormed into a new Sunni television station in Baghdad and fatally shot 11 people including technicians, two guards and the head of the station's board of directors, police said.

The station moved into the building in July and has not yet gone on the air. The raid on the southeastern Baghdad offices of Iraq's Shaabiya satellite station came at around 7 a.m., police Maj. Mahir Hamad said.

Remember in July when Castro was sick for what was claimed to be abdominal surgery? Well, Cuban officials have maintained that the country's leader will return to his post. "We will again have him leading the revolution," said Foreign Minister Felipe Roque just two days ago.
But U.S. officials tell TIME Magazine that many in the U.S. government are now convinced that Castro, at 80 years old, has terminal cancer and will never return to power.

George Bush, the guy who has all the nukes and bombs in the world, has sharply criticized North Korea for conducting a nuclear test today saying it was a threat to international peace.
"The transfer of nuclear weapons to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States," Bush said. "And we would hold North Korea fully accountable to the consequences of such action."
Pretty noble of him isn’t it?

More blasts rocked Baghdad, more people dead in Iraq's worst week for bombings since the US invasion!!!

And as American casualties continued to mount, four more soldiers were killed on Wednesday in southwest Baghdad when their unit was attacked by gunfire and mortars.

Since Monday, 14 American soldiers have been killed, mostly in Baghdad, in a spike in casualties that brought the number killed since March 2003 to 2,729, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.
Please note, that’s ‘Pentagon figures’! The actual number may never be known!

Two Marines charged in the alleged murder of an Iraqi man in the village of Hamdania pleaded ‘not guilty’ in a base courtroom today….why am I not surprised?
Along with their squad mates, they’re charged with murder, kidnapping, conspiracy and related offenses in the April 26 death of 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad.
So if they’re not guilty, I guess Awad just tided himself up and took their M16 rifle and shot himself to make it look like a murder!!

In a speech addressed to the United Nations, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called President George Bush “the devil” saying that Bush acts like he owns the world.
Way to go Chavez!
Finally somebody said it load and clear!
"Yesterday, the devil came here," Chavez said, referring to Bush's address in front of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. "Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of."
Ahmedinejad also made a speech at the UN General Assembly the previous day. He also mentioned how the US was creating tensions around the Iranian Nuclear Program but didn’t get personal. Chavez took it one step further.

Being a media specialist, I understood the Western media’s mistake in publishing the disgusting cartoons about Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) in Denmark some time ago. I also understood why Westerners refused to apologize for their democratic system of freedom of speech, not that I agree with it. But why does someone like Pope Benedict go off and do something like he did in Germany, I really don’t understand.
He made a speech at the University of Bonn where he once lectured and quoted from a book speaking of a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said. "He said, I quote, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Danish cartoons might cost the Danish government over 800 million Euro!
Angry protesters around the world are targeting embassies of the countries who published the cartoons like the Danish and the Norwegian embassies.
People around the world have become divided because of these cartoons.

In a strongly worded statement, a U.S. State Department spokesman said that, despite respect for the freedom of expression, the publication of cartoons that incite religious or ethnic hatreds is unacceptable.

A massive car bomb exploded Monday on the outskirts of Fallujah, killing seven U.S. marines and wounding several others in the deadliest attack on Americans since May.

The attack, 15 kilometres north of Fallujah - a stronghold for Sunni insurgents - destroyed two Humvees, witnesses said. U.S. officials said medical teams in helicopters swept into the dusty, barren site to ferry away the injured, and troops sealed off the surrounding area...

Who would have guessed it?
Saddam Hussein on trial!
The man that ruled Iraq since 1979 with an iron fist is facing an Iraqi court for the crimes he committed during his bloody years of rule.

Chained and unshaved, the mighty dictator was brought into the hearing facing a young judge...

Paul Marshal Johnson was beheaded by al Qaeda members who took him hostage in Saudi Arabia. An Islamist Web site showed three pictures of what appeared to be Johnson's severed head...

Nicholas Berg, 26, from West Chester, Pennsylvania murderd in Iraq in a very horrible way ... !
We don't usually write about such subjects on WALEG.com but the execution and the video clip of Nickolas decapitation was barbaric & horrible...