US shoots two dead at start of softer rule

[sujan]

US snipers shot dead two Iraqis and injured at least two others they claimed were selling weapons at a street market in Saddam Hussein's home town, Tikrit, yesterday.
It happened after senior officers said they were scaling down the iron-fisted way their forces have been policing the country, which has alienated even moderate Iraqis.

In Baghdad the death toll from Thursday's car bomb outside the Jordanian embassy continued to rise, hospital officials saying it was believed that as many as 19 people were killed by the blast.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1015317,00.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. They're going "compassionate!"

(snip) Snipers were placed around the market in Tikrit after the Americans heard that weapons and ammunition were sold there every Friday, Lieutenant Colonel Steve Russell of the 22nd Infantry Regiment said.

Witnesses said women ran screaming from the market after shots rang out and a man unloading AK-47 assault rifles from the back of a red car fell to the ground.

A second man was shot in the head and died at the scene. One of the wounded men escaped and the other was taken for treatment at a nearby hospital.

It seems that the men were not given a warning or a chance to surrender.

"We did not give them the chance to engage," Col Russell said, standing next to a cache of weapons and ammunition laid out on a tarpaulin. (snip/...)

[sujan]

2. good to see the 'liberation' is still going on

[short bus president]

3. Jeebus! They're not even "fighting!"

They're "hunting."

"My country, 'tis of Thee, sweet land of..."

[BigLed]

4. These soldiers

are going to need a lot of help when they return home. There will be so many of them in even worse shape than the Viet Nam vets were/are. They are slowly being driven mad by what they are being forced to do, too long a tour doing too much evil. AArggghhh.

They should be refusing these orders as illegal but they learn to love the killing. I'm not a vet (4F) but I am of the Viet Nam era and had friends who came back....changed. One I had deer hunted with when I was young. We both quit hunting, me because it finally offended by sensibilities, he because it wasn't enough of a thrill to kill a mere deer.

[Dem2dend]

5. War is a hunt

It appears that if the soldiers are there, they have to take whatever precautions are necessary to stay alive.
In one thread we're mourning those soldiers that are being killed by snipers and on another we're dissing them for taking precautions against people who are selling guns,

These are exactly the sort of comments that ends up in Repuke articles that say that we are anti-American, against the troops and that we want to see more casualties in order to "prove" the war is wrong.

Yes we want the troops home but when we complain about what they're doing to stay alive, we are, in essence, supporting the enemy.
Don't think our protests don't make it to Iraq and strengthen the will of those who oppose our soldiers.

We can actually help to make this war a quagmire simply by declaring it as such. Is this what we want?

[BigLed]

6. It's complicated ain't it?

As I understand it the citizens of Baghdad claim to need the guns for self protection from looters. Are some of the weapons being used against soldiers as well? Probably. Are we conducting war or peacekeeping or policing? If we hope to get citizen support wouldn't policing be better than sniping in the middle of a market? Is it any more legal to do this than the preemptive killing of civilians in Nam was?

Are we not to criticize based on your argument that we give succor to the enemy by doing so? If we accept your argument what do you suggest we do instead?

If it is justified to snipe in a market to "stay alive" as you say or would something akin to policing accomplish the same thing?

Isn't this war a quagmire already whether we describe it as such or not?

[Dem2dend]

8. Hmmm

All of our information is coming from the press. Some of it is speculation, some of it is based on "need to know" information from the army.
Based on my judgement, no one on our forum has the information necessary to make an informed guess as to how to keep the soldiers and the Iraq people safe.
A quagmire doesn't happen in 6 months, if we give up on our military and called this a quagmire it will all come back to haunt us when this is over inside of a 18 months.
A quagmire would be a hopeless situation, I don't see it as such, what is ironic is that we would attempt to tell our military what they are doing wrong when we don't have 1/8th of the information they have.

Wouldn't you agree?

[BigLed]

10. A quagmire

is defined by how long it takes to get out, not how long it takes to get in. If I thought we can get out in 18 months I would not call it a quagimre either. That's get out with the country being left with an intact, self sustaining government and economy. Iraq I mean not us. (g) I think it is hopelessly naive to think that we will be out that soon unless we just abandon it and leave it as another Beirut.

My thoughts are based on accepting this news bit as true. Whether it is or not is another discussion.

[lumpy]

7. Yes, this is a Bush- born quagmire

What Bushco has wrought is a quagmire. Denying it won't make it anything else. I have no sympathy for the " Army of One " who takes it upon himself to become a one-on-one killer of those who become his personal enemy.

[VolcanoJen]

9. Dupe... locking

Please continue discussion about the 2 U.S. casualties by posting within the earlier, original thread on this topic, which can be found here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=57482&mesg_id=57482

Sujan, your link to the Guardian's version of events would be very helpful within the original thread.

Thanks! :-)
VolcanoJen
DU Moderator