U.S. Troops Kill Five Civilians in Iraq (3 were a father and his two sons)

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031112/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_civilians_killed&cid=540&ncid=1473

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. troops opened fire on a truck carrying live chickens near the tense town of Fallujah, killing five civilians aboard the vehicle, including a father and his two sons, relatives said Wednesday.

The shooting took place at a roadblock Tuesday night, they said. Fallujah is the site of numerous anti-American attacks and U.S. soldiers in the area have been on a high state of alert.

"They went to bring chickens ... and they came back at 9 or 10 at night and we were waiting for them," said Khalid Khalifa al-Jumaily, whose two nephews were killed on the truck. "The Americans fired on them."

On Wednesday, reporters saw U.S. troops delivering one body from an Army ambulance to waiting families. In the morgue, reporters saw several bodies with what appeared to be gunshot wounds.

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[Resistance]

1. It's the new IDF-style approach

Just shoot at whatever you feel like shooting at without consequences.

[IndianaGreen]

8. The IDF has never engaged in indiscriminate shootings

and they are better disciplined than our troops. I suspect that our troops are tired, frightened, piss off, and are taking their anger on the people they were send to "liberate."

FUBAR, SNAFU, what other acronyms can we use to describe the mess Bush got us into?

[pinerow]

13. uhhh...read your history or rather that of the IDF, it has on more than

one occasion fired upon and killed innocent civilians.
Had you spent your time researching the IDF, you would have discovered that there have been many occasions when individual members of the IDF refusing to serve in the occupied territories; as a matter of fact, while I forget his name, a high-ranking member of the IDF refused to to lead attacks into Gaza and and other occupied territories.

[IndianaGreen]

16. The key word is "indiscriminate"

When the IDF has shot civilians, it was deliberate and not the result of a shoot-first-ask-questions-later.

On a strategic level, the IDF is not out to win the hearts and minds of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, security being paramount. The US military has to win the hearts and mind of the Iraqis or else face the same fate of other colonial occupiers.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

21. So, deliberately shooting kids for throwing rocks at tanks is okay?...

Does that mean that you also believe that shooting peace activists and journalists is okay, too, and just part of the "deliberate" plan??

[IndianaGreen]

24. We were discussing the lack of command and control

not the philosophical aspects of occupation, which is a different topic altogether.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

26. You used the word "indiscriminate", not me. I'd also wager a guess that..

...the command and control functions of the IDF and the U.S. Army are quite similar. That would tend to cancel out command and control as a factor in trying to understand how civilians appear to be getting indiscriminately shot.

And exactly what do you mean by the "philosophical aspects of occupation"? Please explain.

[Spentastic]

14. Er

Apart from those flechette rounds fired from tanks?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

22. Oh, but that was "deliberate" as opposed to "indiscriminate"....

...gotta love semantics.

[Spentastic]

23. Hmm I'm afraid

Even that won't fly in this case.

The Flechette round is indiscriminate.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

27. Maybe they're trying to reclassify the Flechette round as a "smart bomb"..

...which would allow them more leeway in calling those shootings "deliberate".

You do know that I'm being completely cynical as well as sarcastic about this subject, don't you?

[IndianaGreen]

28. and so are cluster bombs

but there is a difference, and an important legal difference, between undisciplined troops firing at will into a crowd (as it happened at Kent State), and disciplined troops acting under orders firing into a crowd as it happened in 1919 when British General Dyer ordered his troops to fire on 10,000 men, women, and children in Amritsar, India.

[Spentastic]

29. I still don't get the defence of the IDF

Don't they tend to retroactively apply these orders since there is never any comeback?

So by your definition they are all targeted indiscriminate shootings.

[IndianaGreen]

30. Undisciplined troops are individually responsible for their acts

Undisciplined troops are individually responsible for their acts, and can be prosecuted for crimes. While I believe that their officers are also liable under the Yamashita principle, the truth is that Yamashita was only used once.

Disciplined troops acting under orders makes their superiors, including their political leaders, liable for prosecution for war crimes.

Without getting into an I/P discussion, which would take us outside the topic of this thread which is the trigger happy US troops, consider this:

If a sniper shoots a peace activist in the head, is the sniper acting on his own, or is the sniper following orders from his superiors to liquidate peace activists? All I am saying is that there is a difference between indiscriminate and deliberate, is not just semantics.

[Spentastic]

31. I'm really not trying to start a ruck either

But do you believe that the IDF has perfect command and control? Or in some circumstances are "orders" retroactively given in order to justify an outcome?

[IndianaGreen]

32. I think that IDF has more command and control than the US has in Iraq

and I also believe, that some acts of violence against civilians by the IDF were acts committed by an individual acting on his own.

In Iraq it seems that we have more of a shoot first mentality at play. I don't recall a single instance in which the order to "Fire" was given by an officer or a senior NCO, perhaps because none were present.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

20. "The IDF has never engaged in indiscriminate shootings"???

You're kidding, right?

[soleft]

2. What the hell???????????

"This weekend, U.S. jets dropped three 500-pound bombs near Fallujah after three U.S. paratroopers were wounded in an ambush. "

When did this happen - HOW MANY CIVILIANS WERE KILLED?

[IndianaGreen]

9. Lucky we didn't use a B-52 strike to take out the town

We are about to lose this war!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

25. Since we couldn't find enough body parts to identify, the only logical...

...conclusion is that no civilians were injured or killed during the air strikes.

It's getting worse by the second, isn't it?

[pinkpops]

3. This is the new "get tough" policy ?

They were not exactly kind before, so how do you get tough? By killing not just perpetrators, but innocents as well.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. Exactly. Shoot first, let someone else ask questions later....

...and heavily influence still more Iraqis to join the resistance.

[teryang]

4. No explanation necessary

...apparently. Just wipe a family. No reason given. This is bound to add to the so-called progress.

[Aidoneus]

6. Grozny on the Euphrates..

:puke:

[Barrett808]

34. Yes, and that's worked so well for Putin n/t

n/t

[lumpy]

7. Could the 'get tough' policy

get any worse. I suppose so with the past US history of subjegation and slaughtering of blacks and native americans.

[0007]

10. Terrible and sad that anyone has to die!

Who can bear to watch?

[kayell]

11. WTF

More madness, these troops are on a hair trigger. What on earth happened? Maybe some of the chickens squacked and the soldiers mistook it for small arms fire? :eyes: They thought they were facing poultry of mass destruction? The more our military ignores and excuses these "incidents" (murders) the more they will happen. Damn, damn, damn. :grr: :mad: :cry:

[DivinBreuvage]

12. Hate

I offer no comments on the following from Soviet propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg, writing during WWII:

"The Germans are not human beings. Henceforth the word 'German' is to us the most terrible curse. Henceforth the word 'German' shall trigger your rifle. We will not speak any more. We will not get excited. We will kill. If you have not killed at least one German a day, you have wasted that day. If you cannot kill your German with a bullet, kill him with your bayonet. If there is calm on your part of the front, if you are waiting for the fighting, kill a German before combat. If you leave a German alive, the German will hang a Russian and rape a Russian woman. If you kill one German, kill another - there is nothing more amusing for us than a heap of German corpses. Do not count days; do not count miles. Count only the number of Germans you have killed. Kill the German -- this is your old mother's prayer. Kill the German -- this is the plea of your children. Kill the German -- this is the cry of your Russian earth. Do not waver. Do not let up. Kill."

Françoise

[jmcgowanjm]

15. "We havethe capabilities and equipment,"Zere vill be reprisals!"

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j111203.html

Three factors hurt the American empire.

First, the United States quickly leaves the
countries it occupies. Consequently, why
would anyone in those countries collaborate with the Americans?

Second, the United States follows the Wal-Mart
principle of offering the cheapest possible
price-the takeovers are done at the lowest
cost, which obviously ensures poor quality
of the occupation.

Lastly, Americans work unilaterally, and the
United States needs allied support and a
helping hand from the European Union.

http://www.aei.org/events/filter.,eventID.428/summary.asp

[pinerow]

17. Was this written before or after the thirteen month siege

of Moscow or the relentless bombardment and siege of St, Petersburgh. You know, the one where millions of Russians and Jews died at the hands of the German fighting machine along with the anti-Russian Lithuanians, Romanians, Serbs and Croats, Latvians etc?

[DivinBreuvage]

18. You really don't have to try very hard...

to find examples of German brutality in Russia, and it would be a mistake to assume that the sieges of Moscow or Leningrad were particularly heinous or extraordinary examples. If you think my point was to criticize Ilya Ehrenburg for writing this you would be wrong.

The piece was written in 1942, although I don't know which month, but probably during the seige of Leningrad.

Françoise

[Cocoa]

19. major combat operations have officially resumed

Before Bush landed on the carrier, there were quite a few stories of our troops killing entire Iraqi families.

[omshanti]

33. Gotta watch out for dem terr'ist chickens!

Seriously though, this is horrible -- there seems to be an increase of reports of troops firing at vehicles lately.

[pinniped]

35. Does that squatter ahole ever apologise for the indiscriminite killing...

of the newly "liberated" civilians?

May the ghosts of many thousands of dead "liberated" Iraqi's haunt that ahole forever. That squatter belongs in an insane asylum in the Hague.