Posted on 11/17/2004 3:10:14 AM PST by WmShirerAdmirer
FALLUJAH, Iraq - On a dusty field outside Fallujah, where wounded American soldiers were rushed off the battlefield, a young Sudanese man lay bleeding and trying to talk his way out of trouble.
Mohammed Khalid had a small spot in his left shoulder where an American bullet had entered and a large gaping hole on his biceps where it had exited. The identification number "14-5" was written on his chest in black marker. Khalid, a gaunt 19-year-old with a scraggly beard, screamed as a doctor dressed his wounds.
"I came here for the work," he said. "I know nothing about Iraq."
The troops who brought Khalid in said he and the three other foreigner fighters lying on field stretchers were found with weapons in a covered ditch. A Marine Corps intelligence sergeant, who wouldn't give his name, said the men "came out of their holes and just surrendered."
There was no talk here about video footage that purportedly shows an American Marine killing a wounded insurgent, an incident that Marine officials are investigating. Military personnel here didn't know about the video or the incident.
The conversation focused on how different a wounded American's treatment might have been had he been captured in a city where Western kidnap victims were videotaped having their heads cut off with large knives.
"Undoubtedly if any of them had gotten any of us, the situation wouldn't be the same," said 1st Lt. Gregory McCrum, a battalion medical officer for the Army's 1st Infantry Division. "I don't know what their fellow insurgents tell them or what the Arab media tells them, but certainly we don't rape women and children and torture them."
A group of soldiers gathered around the four foreigners - two Jordanians, the Sudanese and a Palestinian - and stared as McCrum, 33, tended to the wounded.
Someone yelled, in an angry voice, "these were the guys that were shooting RPGs at us," referring to rocket-propelled grenades.
An Army chaplain, Capt. Ric Brown, walked around the stretchers and held the insurgents' hands as they writhed.
"We're all human, and there is that initial thought of why would we want to treat these guys," said Brown, 37, from Reno, Nev. "But I've had the opportunity to talk with the average Joe Iraqi, and they say the Quran teaches tolerance, tolerance of others and peace. ... Islam is not what these guys made it out to be."
When the pain subsided, Khalid, with a black cloth blindfold over his dirt-streaked face, began telling his story. He said he'd gone to Syria from Saudi Arabia and then crossed the border into the Iraqi town of al Husayba. From there, he said, an insurgent intermediary took a group of men and him by minivan to Fallujah.
"I was in a house with no food, no water, nothing," he said. He wouldn't discuss the fighting he'd been in.
On a nearby cot, Abbas Yousef, an 18-year-old Jordanian with a shattered femur, said he left home because he wasn't getting along with his parents. He was smuggled into Iraq, he said, and was taken to a hotel in Baghdad where he worked for a short time before being shipped to Fallujah for the fight. He said he was paid $100 a month to shoot at Americans.
An Iraqi soldier peppered him with questions about Omar Hadid, a reputed insurgent leader in Fallujah who reports suggested was killed with dozens of other fighters in an artillery strike.
"He was injured in the shoulder," Yousef said.
The medics cut the conversation short. The four men were carried to an ambulance.
Yousef yelled, "Don't take me to my father's house."
The insurgents hiring these foreigners have none, Margaret Hassan is reported to have been shot to death in the head in a video tape released yesterday.
This is not a holy war. There is no religion involved here with the hired help, only economics. "When the pain subsided, Khalid, with a black cloth blindfold over his dirt-streaked face, began telling his story. He said he'd gone to Syria from Saudi Arabia and then crossed the border into the Iraqi town of al Husayba. From there, he said, an insurgent intermediary took a group of men and him by minivan to Fallujah."
"I was in a house with no food, no water, nothing," he said. He wouldn't discuss the fighting he'd been in.
On a nearby cot, Abbas Yousef, an 18-year-old Jordanian with a shattered femur, said he left home because he wasn't getting along with his parents. He was smuggled into Iraq, he said, and was taken to a hotel in Baghdad where he worked for a short time before being shipped to Fallujah for the fight. He said he was paid $100 a month to shoot at Americans."
Yet if Americans shoot now and ask questions later, it is an outrage.
In the Middle East money talks to incite violence anywhere(Saddam Hussein using Oil for Food money to pay families of suicide bombers)and the takers are ignorant foreigners.
The real outrage is the double-edged sword the Americans are up against in Iraq. Fighting for a peoples' freedom with the sword and dying by the sword of a treacherous evil that lives among the Iraqis. "Someone yelled, in an angry voice, "these were the guys that were shooting RPGs at us," referring to rocket-propelled grenades."
The battles in Fallujah and everyday elsewhere in Iraq are not Crusades but are truly in reality battles of war between a merciful Western God and his soldiers and the unmerciful Devil of pure hate, vengence, deceit and mercenary foreign blood.
This guys were slaves. Islam approves slavery, and is very common in the islamic world.
In a word, horseshit! They were fighting against our troops. I don't care what the reason was. If they have actually, openly surrendered and laid down their arms, they should be treated humanely, as they are in the article. If they have not actually, openly surrendered and laid down their arms, they should be hunted down like (and with) dogs and exterminated as the vermin they are: you don't think for a heartbeat they wouldn't wantonly kill if left alive, do you?
Dupe with diferent tilte. Some good coments
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1281857/posts
Thanks for reply, had not thought of it as the way you put it. Are you saying that it is still a war of Christians vs. Islam because it is permissable to hire slaves to kill in wars?
I was hesitant about writing the God and mercy thing, but couldn't in my own mind understand the social dynamics of the blood and guts reality there that our guys are fighting these foreign guys who have no idea other than money of what's going on.
I think we are there in Iraq fighting the War on Terrorism, I also think that we are and have always been a nation of idealist, and good hearted people. As I guess in all Twentieth century wars we have fought, the enemy's face is different, but the evil slaughtering the innocent is always the same. I'm not saying we have always been the "good guys" but when it comes down to the moment of truth in every battle, most American soldiers have principle behind them and wear their hearts on the sleeves. We are not a nation of cold-blooded, blood-thirsty killers.
No, you're right they would have killed our guys given the chance. I don't feel sorry for them. I just feel for our guys because they've got this ethical thing that they have to deal with in every instant of every moment. I understand our soldier killing that wounded insurgent who he said was "playing dead", I'd probably do the same thing (also heard on Fox the insurgents are booby-trapping dead bodies, injuring our guys), so it comes down to kill or be killed in a split-second decision.
How do you win a war against the worst of mankind in such a convoluted pack of wolves?
Thanks for your reply. Was heartened to read the comments at your suggestion. It seems this quality of mercy has always been strained for us in war, but we adhere to our innate and genuine Christian-Judaic values and sense of justice under the law.
Again thanks for the link.
It's actually pretty simple, just rather awful to contemplate, perhaps even harder to steel oneself, let alone a civilized society, to actually do it. The German word is Vernichtung. In French, guerre a l'outrance. In plain English, you exterminate them.
I'm not sure $100/Month is enough compensation for the job of shooting at U.S. Marines and Soldiers.
Maybe a dental plan and lots of life insurance.
Like you said, pretty awful to even contemplate (something Truman had to think about right?). Thanks for insight in your reply.
We Americans can be such chumps.
Mercenary.
I remember when I bought Berlin Diary (and read it nightly until I sleepingly couldn't read another sentence) I was totally amazed that I read and enjoyed reading with avid interest such a lengthy tome! You're right about it being useful as a historical document, and I found I could understand better the twist and turns of the Third Reich governing than I could when I had the dry, boring European history and political science classes in college. I always admired Shirer because as a journalism major and writer I thought he was good at what he did and he was able to flesh out a story well. I started championing Wm Shirer within the last few years because he was an old breed of journalist who wrote straight hard news reports without all the commentary and (puffery disquised as insight) that permeates journalism and the news media today. He was, as many others of his day, a true war or foreign correspondent, he wrote in the style of what they use to teach as Journalism 101, "Reporting". college journalism curriculum and books which I suppose was dumped into the trash heap, shortly after Peter Jennings showed up in Dallas (Oswald taken into police custody, (Jennings)he's a very young reporter in the police station hallways) and Dan Rather arrived in Vietnam.
Went long here. Hopefully we'll all be able to use our background, interest, intelligence, our historical knowledge and our pursuit for truth and understanding to keep each other and other browsers abreast of important news and astute and intelligent analysis and discussion of it.
Thanks again for responding, have to get to work.
I think I must be odd, I have never found European history courses dry or boring. Political science (an oxymoron!) courses are another matter.....
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