Jittery U.S. Soldiers Kill 6 Iraqis

Yahoo ^ | Aug 10th 2003 | SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI

[easonc52]

I believe that since CanadianFella's account has been banned or suspended, it's probably not able to view all these responses.

[pierrem15]

It was a hot and steamy night...

[2111USMC]

If it looks like sh!t, smells like sh!t, feels like sh!t, it's probably sh!t!

[dts32041]

Yep I can say viet nam when are we going to bring the troops home from chicago and dc.

More deaths there than in iraq.

You know the rules you screw up you die.

BTW have you ever sat on a road bloack at night and have a vehcile moving towards you and won't stop, I have bye bye.

[rebel_yell2]

You forgot to use the codeword "quagmire". Didn't you get the memo from the DNC? Can you say TROLL? LOL!

[jnarcus]

The sky is falling the sky is falling....This ain't no Viet Nam and never will be one. Baghdad is still a Baathist stronghold and to me that says citizens beware of who is in your midst. When 50,000 are dead and the body bags are coming home 300 a week then MAYBE we can say Viet nam....not one minute before. Besides for the Islamists , this kind of weakness is what they count on. We are at WAR and we better face that or surrender immediately.

[skr]

Oops, aliens>natives.

[dwd1]

Like most the people that have friends and loved ones over there, I think job #1 is survival...Do your duty and get back home.... Our soldiers are not over there for line dancing or a popularity contest over there... They are there to win.... I grieve for innocent persons killed but I wonder if they are equally outraged when our soldiers get killed by these "Saddam loyalists".

Though I like to take a moderate position, I don't think on my most liberal moment I would take a position that supports the notion that the blood of these people in Iraq is more precious than the blood of the people (yes, they are human beings first) wearing the uniform of the US Air Force, Army, Navy, or Marines...

[Gigantor]

"If it looks like sh!t, smells like sh!t, feels like sh!t, it's probably sh!t!"

If it tastes like sh!t, too. Good thing we didn't step in it.

[montag813]

"We kept shouting, 'We're a family! Don't shoot!' But no one listened. They kept shooting,"

A little tip for ya: Try shouting it in English next time.

[Libertina]

First hand information such as you just gave deserves its own thread. Please post some of these comments so we all can pass around the TRUTH.

[King Prout]

there ya go! you git da QP doll!

[dwd1]

The eternal dilemna...To be judged by twelve or carried by six....

[anymouse]

Apparently the "innocent" Iraqies violated curfew and suffered the consequences of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I'm sure more than a few civilians in past wars likewise found out the hard way that Martial Law is inflexible when it comes to enforcing curfews.

[Eagle Eye]

Can we say Vietnam?

And the similarities are...? Not the climate, not the terrain, not a civil war, not a lineless conflict, not a containment policy.

We never took out the opposing government in Viet Nam as we did here.

So how is this like Viet Nam?

[pierrem15]

You gotta admit the name is amazing:

SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI

I can hear Rimsky-Korsakov (Opus 35) in the background.

But maybe the name should be: SCHEHEREZADE FARAMANAZI.

[clamboat]

So let's review our possible explanations, just from this thread alone.

Several people point note that the report is one-sided, implying that the reporter is at fault. No one seems willing to speculate the reporter may have sought a military response, but none of the commanders wanted to comment about such an obvious atrocity.

Terriergal suggests it was the civilians own fault for getting shot, because some Iraqies are attacking troops, so it should be OK to shoot civilians as a sort of payback.

Ursus arctos horribilis apparently didn't read the story, and again blames the victims (some of them dead) for running into the bullets. Ursus missed the part of the article where it was explained that the victims ran into unannounced, mobile roadblocks at night before curfew, and they didn't even know it was a checkpoint until it was too late.

dwd1 suggests "drivers ed" to solved the problem of our troops shoting unarmed, innocent Iraqi civilians. dwd1 casts doubt on the report because none of the shooters were willing, or perhaps allowed, to talk about it.

But the winner has to be frostbit, who actually suggests that it was Iraqis who shot the civilians, Iraqis in US uniforms driving US Humvees. Just can't get his head around scared, trigger happy troops who have been in the field too long. Can't imagine any US tropps perpetuating such an atrocity, so it must be those crafty Iraqis shooting their own people again.

The reality is someone screwed up, badly, and now commanders on the ground are going to scurry around to make sure there are no repercussions. The families will get $2500 per dead family member, $500 per injured family member (can you imagine getting $2500 in compensation if someone shot your daughter?). And we wonder why they attack our troops.

[dwd1]

I do not think this is like Vietnam but I do wish that Colin Powell was more involved in formulating policy there... There does seem to be the lack of an acceptable exit strategy...

Unless we are about to expand the United States and Welcome the 51st state into the Union....

[Eagle Eye]

Get the utilities going and the petrol flowing and the native restlessness will subside.

[pierrem15]

First of all, it wasn't an atrocity (which in my mind implies premeditation).

Second, you ignore the part about the explosion just prior to the car arriving on the scene.

What would you think about a car coming down the road and ignoring orders to stop in this situation, just after an explosion, and a day after a car bomb went off?

Trigger happy, or prudent?