U.S. Soldiers Fire Into Baghdad Crowd

AP via Yahoo News ^ | 13 Aug 2003 | TAREK AL-ISSAWI

[El Gato]

Why isn't the headline something like. "Insurregents Fire RPG at US Troops, Crowd Caught in the Crossfire?"? Of course we all know why, don't we?

[King Prout]

cropdusters tanked up with molten lard?

[paul51]

U.S. Soldiers Fire Into Baghdad Crowd

Effective mob control

[King Prout]

"whoa, sh*t!" ping

[SJackson]

Thanks for the ping. This is not a particularly good development. Unfortunately the tactic of firing from a crowd (I can't saw for certain that's what happened here) is well developed, and effective in both mobilizing world opinion and changing the method of response.

If this happens a few times, and if it was deliberate it will, I fear the rules of engagement will change to our troops disadvantage.

[al_possum39]

[King Prout]

I agree. The one thing we cannot do is hose down crowds of "innocents" to nail one or two insurgents - that'd kill us.
I don't know what can be done about this achilles heel, but I hope someone with a large salad bar does.

[The Duke]

The title of the article is obviously contrived to conjure up images of American soldiers firing indiscriminately into a crowd of innocents.

The reality is that, had that been the case, there would be hundreds dead and not one dead and four injured.

[SJackson]

King Prout: I agree. The one thing we cannot do is hose down crowds of "innocents" to nail one or two insurgents - that'd kill us...I don't know what can be done about this achilles heel, but I hope someone with a large salad bar does.

The Duke: The title of the article is obviously contrived to conjure up images of American soldiers firing indiscriminately into a crowd of innocents.

It's possible this was random, someone just happened to have an rpg handy and took a shot.

If not, the headline was the objective.

Dealing with it? We could use recent Israeli tactics, water cannon, rubber bullets, accept the stone throwing and even the random casualities. Or we could go after the head of the snake. Rallies of 3,000 don't happen by themselves, they're organized, and if armed terrorists continue to show up in their midst thats no accident.

[MatthewViti]

ya think they don't want us there?

[King Prout]

I cannot offer an opinion on this, as it is beyond my training and experience. I reckon you are right about the overall strategy to pursue. The question then becomes, how do we get the American public to understand what is going on and what we are doing?

[BOOTSTICK]

We are simply not killing enough baathists and their families.

[marron]

There are people who cannot be ruled except by brute force, and brute force dictatorships develop the kind of people that can only be ruled by brute force. It is circular and self perpetuating. We have taken it upon ourselves to try and break the circle, and it isn't going to be easy, and the results aren't going to be as pretty as we would like. And at the end of the day the people we have helped aren't going to thank us. And for the privilege of liberating these folks who don't want to be liberated we are going to bleed.

The flip side is that they are nihilists wired for war, and they have discovered us, and are going to find their way to our door in any case. Better to meet them and stop them on a battlefield of our choosing, and better that their targets are young men with guns who are ready and able to shoot back.

In the end, we must either lead them to a lawful democracy, or they will be abandoned to the mercy of yet another brute dictatorship. It remains to be seen if this brute will be a transitional modernizer who will use brute force to lead the country into the modern world, or another Saddam, who will use it for his own self-agrandizement. They are getting their one chance at democracy right now; but democracy and freedom are two different things. In some cases, in some cultures, you are more free under a strong ruler, a Shah Pahlevi, for example, than you are in a democracy that cannot take root for want of fertile ground.

It took a Pinochet to give us a free Chile, it took a Shah Pahlevi to give us a modern Iran (which has since been thrown away), and it may take a similar interval and a similar individual to give us a free Iraq.