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| Middle East |
| WaPo thinks it's found an atrocity... |
| 2002-03-31 |
Looks like amateur forensics coming up. Lessee, here. Could it be a case of one-round splitting headaches? Possibly. It could also, and I'd guess more likely, be a case of five guys, possibly wearing body armor - no mention of that in the article - firing from a crouch. Head shots aren't real difficult across the width of a room, and only idiots stand up in front of God and everybody like they they do in the Rambo pictures. Unless they've just kicked open a door, of course, in which case it would leave the Israelis standing, the Palestinians crouching, with a downward trajectory for some pretty quick-taken rounds. The killings at the British Council have struck particular fear in Palestinians because they suspect the men were assassinated. Israeli officials said the men were killed in a "close firefight." The Palestinians jump at the assassination charge at every opportunity. So is it really a wolf this time? Which side of the heads did the bullets enter? I've always found that a fairly obvious clue. In fact, it's the first one I'd look for. The Post writer and his "witness" don't seem to have looked... On Friday, at least 19 police officers with the National Forces, a unit that handles traffic and border duty for areas under Palestinian jurisdiction, had taken refuge in the building. Traffic cops? Why execute traffic cops? Would you recognize the last guy who gave you a ticket? That night, Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers roared up to the seven-story structure, built in the mid-1990s, when peace between Israel and the Palestinians appeared likely. At 10 p.m., gunshots sounded. Maher Shalabi, Abu Dhabi television's bureau chief in Ramallah, waited in his office on the sixth floor until dawn today while the building shook from the blasts of stun and anti-personnel grenades and the sharp staccato of rifle and machine-gun fire. Shalabi said an Israeli soldier searching the television offices told him, "We killed five police." This morning, Shalabi discovered the bodies on the fourth floor. Ever notice how tanks and APCs always "roar" or "rumble"? Just an observation on the vagaries of journalistese. Anyway. So the "witness" might be, shall we say, partisan?And he didn't actually witness anything? Why tell him you'd killed five coppers if you had something to hide? That'd be pretty stupid. And they weren't shooting people indiscriminately, 'cause they didn't shoot Mr Shalabi. Shalabi said the five men had been hiding and were executed or shot when Israeli soldiers rounded the corner into the hall. There were no signs that the Palestinians had fired from their last position. Their bodies were found in the hallway in front of offices of the Center for the Dissemination of Democracy, but it did not appear that they had tried to take refuge there. "You see these five, and you know it is useless to fight, useless not to fight," Shalabi said. Witnesses said 14 other policemen surrendered, and the Israelis drove them away in armored troop carriers. So I'm tromping through the darkened hallway of an enemy building full of fanatical Bad Guys and I come upon five guys crouching in the dark. And I have my shootin' arn with me because I'm not an idiot. Do I say, "Hi, fellows. Howzit goin'?" Or do I blow 'em away. Lemme think real hard, here... And the other 14, who surrendered, were loaded into the paddy wagon and taken away. Guess they didn't engage in the kind of behavior that draws return fire. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |