Posted on 11/22/2004 3:38:17 PM PST by WmShirerAdmirer
MOSUL, Iraq - “Some of the people out there spit in our faces and others welcome us,” says a young Iraqi soldier newly deployed in Mosul, after the bodies of at least 10 of his fellow fighters were discovered in the northern city.
Other soldiers confront Hussein Mohammed, 21, from the oil city of Kirkuk to the east, and urge him to stay quiet, as they start talking about their “duty to fight the terrorists who blow up innocent people.”
“But it’s true, why should we pretend, a lot of people out there are not convinced yet about our role,” insists the lean and dark-skinned Kurd dressed in khaki and chocolate colour-dotted military fatigues.
He is part of a force of about 500 regular army soldiers from different units that moved to a US base in Mosul from their barracks in Al-Kisk to the west starting a week ago to help restore order in the city after the police force abandoned its stations following rebel attacks.
Some were even dragged to Mosul while they were still in basic training.
US military officials now fear that the dead soldiers whose bodies were found over the past two days shot and dumped in an industrial zone may belong to the units brought to Mosul and shake their morale.
None of them appear to have heard about the executions yet.
Since they arrived, they have been manning intersection points throughout the city and going on patrol with US troops.
“A lot of Iraqis are scared, but when they see their soldiers out there they get comforted a little,” said Major Don Hagan, who is part of a US team of officers training Iraqi forces throughout the country.
The slaying of the soldiers is the latest chapter in a bloody and relentless campaign by insurgents to cripple the interim government’s efforts to build up its fledgling security forces.
At the end of October, 49 soldiers were slain and dumped on the side of a road in eastern Iraq as they travelled to their homes.
All the bodies in Mosul were found in civilian clothing. A US commander said the soldiers might have been snatched at illegal checkpoints while they were either returning from or going on leave.
The wrath of insurgents...
Iraqi National Guard found the body of one of the soldiers, who had his army identification card on him, on Sunday morning on the side of a busy street lined with ironsmiths in the New Mosul neighbourhood.
The body and that of another man, whose identity has yet to be confirmed, were covered with a an empty white flour sack when US soldiers arrived on the scene as stone-faced shopkeepers looked on from across the street.
“For them to sit there and look at them (bodies) is enraging to me,” says Lieutenant Colonel Michael Kurilla, who commands the 1-24th infantry regiment, responsible for western Mosul.
People say they would suffer the wrath of the insurgents if they came anywhere near the bodies.
“They would slit my throat,” says Ali Abdullah, 60, sitting in his flour distribution shop surrounded by five other elderly men in traditional Arab robes fiddling with their colourful worry beads.
He says he saw the bodies when he opened his shop.
People looked on from the sidelines with the same mood of numbness and silence on Saturday as a convoy of 12 Iraqi national guard pickups and a flatbed truck, escorted by US troops and watched over by two Apaches overhead, rolled down a wide street split by railway track.
Piles of garbage surround the first two bodies they find. Four national guardsmen lift them up onto the truck.
“They are Iraqis not Jews, why did not you alert us about it,” Lieutenant Colonel Ammar Abdul Hadi hectors the owner of a nearby wheat and barley storage depot as the man lowers his head in silence.
Several grain silos and flourmills are located in the area referred to as Ras al-Jalda.
Another body was found further down the road, two others on the side inside garbage piles and four, which were shot and torched, were found across from a veterinary hospital.
In regards to Iraq being one nation, after reading this report I have my doubts. This is a sad situation.
(Don't know if Lieutenant Colonel Ammar Abdul Hadi is quoted out of context here, possibly, I left the quote as it is in the article.)
What makes me so mad, is that when lefties call the murdering terrorists "freedom-fighters", they should mean they are fighting AGAINST freedom, not for freedom. They are killing their own people, much more than Americans.
It is discouraging when you read things like that.
Sounds like a returning Vietnam vet
Hang in there young Iraq soldier. American soldiers were also spit upon by the left-wing fascist democrats, but continued to serve our country. When you win your war for freedom you will be a hero to your people.
I know, I felt weird about leaving the qoute as is, but it is so telling about the prejudices and the mentality (?).
Someone else during the weekend posted an article or reply about Iraqi soldiers' bodies being dumped and left in the street somewhere, and no one would touch them. I remember reading that they were out there for hours and how no one would even cover them up. It sickened me. First the barbarity of the insurgents (foreigners like Zaqwari) and then the betrayal by their own.
These young men are fighting and dying to bring freedom to their own people. God bless them. As for the "Jews" comment by the Iraqi Lt. Colonel...it proves there's still a long way to go.
Foreigners like Zarqawi cannot be insurgents. If anything they're a form of "occupying force" which Iraqis SHOULD unite and fight against. Unfortunately, they were born and raised to know nothing but fear, apathy and how to take advantage of a corrupt system in order to survive. That is slowly changing, but it will take at least a generation adn the expulsion of all Arabs (IMO) to allow Iraqi society to heal itself.
I thought I got it wrong when I wrote insurgents, for it seems it is more of the doings of Zarqawi. I have not for so long been able to understand why they don't turn on this guy and his cohorts, but what you write makes sense.
Do you think that if they ever know peace, prosperity and are able to become a democratic society that they will relish it rather than yearn for the old days like some Eastern European people who feel they were better off before they became free of the State's control and protection?
1) Old habits die hard, as we American's know of our own racist attitudes. It only took a civil war and about 130 years before we got to the point where we are now, i.e. only occasional race riots and race-based deaths.
2) There may have been some cultural context there, i.e. where this Lt. Col. may have been communicating, regardless of how he felt, that no Iraqi had any right doing this to another Iraqi, i.e. "it's not like this guy was your worst, most hated enemy..".
Not to justify this, and I'm certain these guys are getting ethics training, but peace, prosperity, and education can change a lot of cultural attitudes.
That said, I'm of the mind that God (i.e. Jesus Christ) is the only one who can reach mans soul from outside-in, and change him. Education can lead a man to "truth" (or in the Christian perspective, Jesus, "the Way, the Truth, and the Light", but it can't make him drink.
More than just training will be required to change these hateful, evil attitudes.
SFS
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