Hey, Kofi...don't you have something to say about this?
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Nah. That would require guts and integrity. |
Posted on 04/03/2003 1:34:43 AM PST by kattracks
Tip from Iraqi led to hospital roomJessica was being tortured.
That was the urgent word from an Iraqi man who alerted U.S. troops where to find Pfc. Jessica Lynch - and her injuries seem to bear out the allegation.
Lynch, who was flown to a military hospital in Germany yesterday, had her legs broken, one arm broken and at least one bullet wound, officials said.
The 19-year-old West Virginia private was able to call her parents yesterday for the first time since her rescue Tuesday. She was in good spirits but very hungry, her parents told CNN.
The rescue of Lynch, who was driving a water truck when she went missing after a March 23 ambush in Nassiriya, had added urgency when one of two tips to Americans said she was in danger.
One tip came when an English-speaking Iraqi man approached NBC reporter Kerry Sanders to tell him about the soldier being held captive.
"Please make sure the people in charge know that she's being tortured," he told Sanders.
Belying her country-girl smile and petite 5-foot-5 frame, Lynch put up a Rambo-worthy fight when her unit, the Army's 507th Ordnance Maintenance Co., came under attack, according to a new report.
Lynch opened fire on the Iraqi assailants, picking them off one by one until she ran out of ammunition, according to today's Washington Post.
She continued shooting - even after she was shot and stabbed and her unit members were killed all around her.
"She was fighting to the death," a U.S. official told The Post. "She did not want to be taken alive."
Yesterday, when Lynch was plucked from Saddam Hospital, Special Forces troops found a soldier in pain.
Her broken bones are a sure sign of torture, said Amy Waters Yarsinske, an ex-Navy intelligence officer and an expert on POW treatment.
"It's awfully hard to break both legs and an arm in a truck accident," Yarsinske said.
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's thugs are known to use steel bars to bash their prisoners' limbs, she said.
"In the first gulf action, they tried breaking their [captured U.S. airmen's] legs with steel bars," Yarsinske said.
Another clue that Lynch and other POWs were being tortured came Friday, when Marines raided a hospital near Nassiriya where other members of Lynch's unit were videotaped and later shown on Iraqi TV. Marines found at least one shredded woman's uniform spattered with blood and the name patch torn off. In addition to Lynch, two other female soldiers went missing after the ambush.
In one hospital room, Marines discovered a car battery next to a bed - a possible electrical shock torture chamber.
During the last Persian Gulf War, Iraqis attached wires to one American POW's jaw and shocked him, Yarsinske said.
An Iraqi pharmacist who works at Saddam Hospital told Britain's Sky TV he treated Lynch's leg injuries. He added: "Every day I saw her crying about wanting to go home."
The pharmacist, who gave his name only as Imad, said Lynch knew U.S. troops were on the other side of the Euphrates River, and "kept wondering if the American Army were coming to save her."
Lynch's hometown of Palestine, W.Va., continued its celebration of her recovery yesterday.
Her brother, Gregory Jr., who is also in the Army, told CNN his sister sounded "disoriented" when she phoned home. "Her voice was crackly and low. She sounded like she was sick."
West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise stopped by the Lynch's home yesterday and told her parents that their daughter, who had joined the Army to pay for college so she could become a kindergarten teacher, would not have to worry about tuition.
"There will be a full scholarship for her whenever she wants to go for college," he promised.
With News Wire Services
Will THIS bring it home to the left that their espousal of moral equivalence between the Iraqis and us is wrong?
It hasn't crossed my mind for for our involvement in Iraq because it has been very short; I'm not sure there would have been time for the question of torture to even arise yet. But in longer conflicts (such as in the Pacific during WWII) where the bitterness gained a momentum of its own, I'm sure there have been cases where Americans used torture on the battlefield.
I believe there may be many opportunities for our troops and our intelligence organizations to face these tough questions in the future, so it's worth discussing now.
This is war, and it's going to leave many who fight in it with issues that weigh on their consciences. I'm just a realist. People who have to face those issues in defense of our freedoms have my gratitude. Think about our forces being asked to take fire from civilians now. They have to identify a positive target before returning fire. That's tough! If a troop fails to live up to that ideal, I'm on his side.
Hey, Kofi...don't you have something to say about this?
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Nah. That would require guts and integrity. |
Indeed. When I heard about the ambush of her convoy, I was trying to imagine how it would feel to be there. I was thinking to myself that I wouldn't want to be captured, and that I would probably want to do everything I could to avoid it.
When I found out that was exactly what she did, I felt even more proud of her.
C'mon, give the girl some space here.
I doubt she'd want to relive that, even on film.
Hey, with enough makeup and film artistry, ANYONE can look 19 (or 99--though I'll admit that looking 99 is probably easier than 19).
And the woman you're torturing will tell you what you want to hear, or she'll be a hardcase and use the pain to supply a mental focus, and actually use your own torture techniques to resist interrogation, or you'll screw up and kill her, and you won't EVER get the info.
Torture is not operationally effective, contrary to what you see in the movies.
I could believe that.
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