A third mass killing

[#juan]

More allegations of U.S. war crimes in Iraq
Last Updated Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:38:42 EDT
CBC News

U.S. President George W. Bush says he's "troubled" by recent reports American forces may have committed atrocities in Iraq.

Bush's comment followed news reports of another possible massacre of civilians by U.S. troops, the third such set of allegations to have come to light in recent weeks.

The latest incident happened in March, in the village of Ishaqi, north of Baghdad. Two western news agencies broadcast video taken after the attack that shows 11 family members, including five children, shot dead.

It's the third such incident involving U.S. troops, and the Iraqi government has launched its own investigation.

Just hours after the allegations were made, the U.S. military said it had already investigated the charges and that they are unfounded. The Pentagon says its investigation found the deaths happened after American soldiers were fired on from a house and called in aircraft to bomb the building.

The BBC was the first Western media organization to broadcast new video which challenges the American version of events in Ishaqi.

Initially, a U.S. military spokesman said just four people died in the raid. But local police and relatives dispute that. They say there were 11 deaths, including the children.

link

There seems to be a pattern here: First the lies, and then denials, and then the promise to punish the few bad apples

 

[mabudon]

Damn bad apples, if only there were some way to weed them out- maybe simply introducing policy AGAINST this sort of thing might work??

I couldn't believe the arc of this story- it basically came to light wednesday, then was completeley officially denied, and now this... very interesting, thanks for posting this as I did not know that the dismissal of the story was in fact old news...

I really hope that someone gets punished for war crimes, and I don't think hanging scapegoats out to dry (as in the "few bad apples") will do it, it is amazing that anyone would believe this kind of thing is limited- so far, we only know about the stuff that has "accidentally" been caught on camera, who knows how bad the reality is- tho an educated guess would say "MUCH worse"

So many bad apples you might as well lock up the baker for serving up such a rotten pie :

 

[dekhqonbacha]

how come they commit such killing knowing that they would be questioned and possibily imprisoned?

 

[#juan]

At Haditha, a colonel and two captains have been relieved of their commands and there are charges pending on them, and a number of enlisted people who were involved in the killings in that town. They always end up saying it was a "few bad apples" but I would suggest that we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg here. I won't go over all the news reports, but if I did I'm sure I wouldn't have any trouble finding another few hundred dead Iraqis who were shot. One or two dead civilians every day if they are far enough apart, might go unnoticed, but a dozen or two dozen is too obvious.

 

[dekhqonbacha]

one death is tragedy, 100 death is statistics.

 

[aeon]

link

There seems to be a pattern here: First the lies, and then denials, and then the promise to punish the few bad apples

honestly , i dont remember when us officials has ever tell the truth.

 

[DurkaDurka]

honestly , i dont remember when us officials has ever tell the truth.

You make the point painfully clear in your posts. You need to watch the x-files some more...

 

[thomaska]

Lemme see what the Canadians have done in the way of civlized warfare:
1993- Unarmed Somali executed by Canadian troops, lots of CANADIAN officer lied to cover this up...
1994-portrayal of the Somalia atrocities as the work of a few bad apples had been undermined by a series of devastating leaks. It was learned that army officers had promised to reward the first soldier to kill a Somali. Scores of Canadian troops had heard the cries of 16-year-old Shidone Arone as he was beaten to death over several hours, yet none intervened. Snapshots and video tapes surfaced that showed Canadian troops engaging in barbaric hazing rituals and using racist epithets to describe Somalis and otherwise mocking and humiliating them.
Not sure what year this was but: The January 18th New York Times reported that 47 Canadian UN troops who served in Bosnia were accused of "drunkenness, sex, black marketeering and patient abuse at a mental hospital they were guarding." The soldiers had been assigned the "humanitarian" chore of guarding a mental hospital at Bakovici in order to secure it for the staff’s return. "The hospital instead became the setting for heavy drinking; sex between soldiers, nurses and interpreters that violated regulations; black-market sales; and harassment of the patients...."

I'm sure I could find more...your moral high ground doesnt look so high anymore...Or were those just isolated cases of "bad apples"?

 

[darkbeaver]

Nobody's talking about morals, we're talking about murder, and nobody does it better than the US military. America is #1
when it comes to terrorism and war crimes. Compare all you want, you've covered just about the whole list of Canadian war crimes in a paragraph. That would be a below average day for American's.

 

[#juan]

Admittedly, the death of the young somallian was a discrace.

But are you comparing that incident, and few dozen soldiers getting drunk, with the mass killings that went on in Haditha and several other places in "Operation Iraq Freedom"? Sorry, you are comparing apples and oranges.

 

[thomaska]

You're not minimalizing the incidents are you? Are you saying that American misconduct is worth more on the cosmic scale of wrongdoing than Canadian? Or are you saying that the Somali is worth less than the Iraqi? A human being murdered by Canadians is somehow in your logic not as bad as anyone murdered by an American? Ill throw this back in your face, since the incidents have just been recently discovered, this must be the tip of the iceberg according to the America haters. You have to apply the same logic to your own murdering military then, dont you? My point was anyone can slap together isolated incidents and say ,"LOOK, its a trend, the US military is worse than the Totenkopf branch of the SS.
You shouldnt sling stones from inside that glass house...

 

[Outta here]

imo, it's a moot point who did it and how many times they did it. It's wrong no matter who's committing the crimes... all participating past or present are culpable, and comparing one country vs another in the number of incididents doesn't eradicate the point that this is going on, right now.

My question is more around whether or not the American powers that be will do something concrete about this, or pay some PR lip service to it....
right now, my hunch is they're going to pull out a few weeds to scape goat them in an attempt to create the appearance of dealing with it... I hope I'm proven wrong.

War is hell. What an understatement.

 

[#juan]

Sorry thomaska

You don't understand. That young Somallian(sp) was the only one. There are no others to look for.

Do you have any idea how many innocent civilians Americans have killed since, and including the Korean war? The figure is somewhere around four million. You generally do it from the safety of a high altitude bomber but dead is dead whether it was a bomb or a bullet. Canada wisely stayed out of VietNam where Americans squandered 65 thousand young men for God only knows what purpose. Canada stayed out of Iraq as well. Most would agree that "operation Iraq Freedom" is not going according to expectations either.

This topic is not about moral high ground. It is about real people being slaughtered by American soldiers who invaded Iraq ostensibly, for higher moral purposes.

 

[thomaska]

Mmmm K...the only one. I wont even bother to google that. You must be right.

Vietnam was 58,178, but hey it was only Americans, I'm not surprised you wishfully thought it was 65K.

You know what? I have no issue with your bitching about the Iraq war, IMO, screw Iraq. I dont think we should be there either, but I did go there. Not in frontline unit but as part of a civil affairs group. I never fired a round while I was there, all I did was help supply the locals to get their water and electricity flowing. Built a couple of schools, and housing to replace what the Saddamites and, insurgents(who strangely enough for the most part are from algeria, saudi, jordan and syria) destroyed.
If I were in charge, would I have invaded Iraq? No. I would have flattened the Al Qaeda harboring Afghanistan though, but thats another arguement. I'm just saying it is irresponsible to sit there and cut and paste articles that paint us all as butchers. I actually made a lot of Iraqi friends over there, two of whom were beheaded for selling things like food to us or just even being associated with us.
I made it over there for 13 months without managing to murder anyone in cold blood. I also know alot of other Marines who managed to do so. Probably way more than you would like to imagine since it doesnt fit your picture of the American military.

 

[EagleSmack]

Welcome to the forum Thomaka... I am sure you will find the discussions here are similar to this one.

Remember the USA is ALWAYS at fault... and if there is blame to go around it belongs to America and Bush.

I hope that you will stick around for awhile as an active member of this forum.

 

[#juan]

You still dont understand.

I accept your numbers on VietNam. I didn't wish for more American dead. Hell, both my parents were American. Over half my relatives are American. I could have had dual citizenship but I don't believe in it. Better to be a good Canadian than a poor American, or vice versa.

The consensus in the UN was that we try to avoid an invasion. The U.S. is now the only super power since the USSR self destructed. It makes a lot of countries nervous when Americans, at least under Bush, feel they can just go in anywhere with guns blazing. I didn't think "shock and Awe" was a good fit for "Operation Iraq Freedom"

I don't believe all American soldiers are cold blooded murderers. I do believe some American soldiers are poorly trained and poorly led. That, at least, will be apparent in the next month or two.

 

[aeon]

honestly , i dont remember when us officials has ever tell the truth.

You make the point painfully clear in your posts. You need to watch the x-files some more...

Sorry, but tv are for weak minded peoples :wink:

 

[thomaska]

You still dont understand.

I accept your numbers on VietNam. I didn't wish for more American dead. Hell, both my parents were American. Over half my relatives are American. I could have had dual citizenship but I don't believe in it. Better to be a good Canadian than a poor American, or vice versa.

The consensus in the UN was that we try to avoid an invasion. The U.S. is now the only super power since the USSR self destructed. It makes a lot of countries nervous when Americans, at least under Bush, feel they can just go in anywhere with guns blazing. I didn't think "shock and Awe" was a good fit for "Operation Iraq Freedom"

I don't believe all American soldiers are cold blooded murderers. I do believe some American soldiers are poorly trained and poorly led. That, at least, will be apparent in the next month or two.

The UN is a bigger joke than the League of Nations...with that said..

We're cool then, and actually I think that my ire was misdiricted at you. I respect your opinion on this subject. Here's my take on it though and you tell me what you think. I dont think it is the Marines, or Army or any of the other lesser services(sorry, that was a cheap shot but its good natured) that are training us to act like these few did. I think it is the individuals themselves, and their own natures. People who are hard-wired to be assholes, are going to be assholes no matter their profession.

The people who commited these war crimes imo if convicted should be put underneath a jail somewhere. The US military attracts some of the finest people on the planet, it attracts some of the biggest douchebags also. Get a few of the douchebags together in one company/battalion/..whatever and you get things like Abu Ghraib, Haditha and the like.

Just my two cents...

Darkbeaver, you have fallen for my plan, you got "Ann Coultered", While i can have a decent discussion with Juan, I think the best way to deal with your type of forum troll is to just say things that get you sputtering, and livid to the point of breaking the armrests off of your cheeto stained recliner...We're #1 at terroism and warcrimes, eh? I think I might have found our competition below..

Since you fly the lil UN flag perhaps you could explain why your beloved world government wanna-be has these great examples of human kindness and compassion as members of the human rights council...

China
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
Russian Federation
Cuba
Jordan

I really dont care if you explain or not or even reply. You should have Juan or some of the others preview your stuff before you post it...you make your "side" look kinda silly.

Sorry this was so long, Blame it on "Dubya"

 

[EagleSmack]

You're learning Thomaska. Juan, although I disagree with him on just about everything has the ability to discuss and debate with a level head and does not stoop like others.

But you will find that some others are just full of nonsense. But sometimes they can be fun to observe like people observe clowns. They are entertainment at best and it is always fun to tease a clown at times.

 

[Jersay]

So are you talking about yourself. :lol:

Or some other people.