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| Iraq |
| U.S. Troops Fire on Iraqi Protesters NYTimes |
| 2003-04-30 |
Excerpts follow.In Monday's incident Iraqis said the soldiers opened fire, unprovoked, while the Americans — who were positioned in a school — said they were fired on first and then carefully counterattacked.An unruly angry crowd, shouting and waving automatic weapons, with shots occasionally ringing out, should not provoke anyone, of course. What's the difference between protestors and rioters? Three hospitals, two in Falluja and one in Ramadi to the west, reported 15 dead and 65 injured. Captain Davidson said that his soldiers recovered nine automatic rifles, two pistols and 2,000 rounds of ammunition from the houses across the street, and that the roofs were littered with spent cartridge cases.Empty cartridge cases in the middle East are like confetti in Times Square on New Year's Day. People just celebrate differently there. Residents said their anger stemmed from a general opposition to having American soldiers in a residential neighborhood as well as complaints that the soldiers used their binoculars and night-vision equipment to look at women, who are veiled and by Islamic tradition stay out of public, and had shown children pornography — an allegation that the soldiers strongly denied.If the women stay "out of public" the soldiers will have to use their Xray vision equipment. NYTimes is rarely this ungrammatical. "Pornography" is anything the unnamed Islamists behind this statement choose to object to. A soldier may have shown an Iraqi child a photo of the soldier's wife, unveiled, an act of unspeakable pornography to a true Muslim believer. "Our soldiers returned deliberately aimed fire at people with weapons, and only at people with weapons," Captain Riedmuller said.Has anyone else noticed the drastic decrease in the quality & quantity of information about the situation in Iraq, both in regular media, and on the internet, since Saddam's statues fell? Events like these will prove very important in determining the outcome of the overthrough of Saddam, and the US military and Iraqi civilians will continue to die and be injured for some time to come. |
| Posted by:Tresho |
| #8 Again in NYTimes: "Attackers lobbed two grenades over a wall and into a compound of U.S. troops in Fallujah on Thursday, wounding seven soldiers" This occurred at 0100 local time, reported 0405 EDT. Only took 11 hours for AP to report it. |
| Posted by: Tresho 2003-05-01 03:24:05 |
| #7 Tresho, for a second your headline had me excited. I thought it said "U.S. Troops Fire on Iraqi Protestors, NY Times" rather than "U.S. Troops Fire on Iraqi Protestors NY Times." |
| Posted by: Tibor 2003-04-30 16:30:15 |
| #6 I would kill as many as necessary to prevent the death or injury of even one of our soldiers. The instigators and fodder have just learned a lesson although it took two sessions to get into their tiny heads: f*&k with weapons around us and we'll defend ourselves....the consequences will bear much more harshly on you |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-04-30 15:47:01 |
| #5 After a few more 'protests' the smart ones will stay away. If anyone believes that kids were protesting at 10:30pm to go to school, I have some land I want to sell you. What they should do is ban all protests in Saddam strongholds and see how they like that. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2003-04-30 15:02:51 |
| #4 Sounds like the best course of action would be to cordon them off, let 'em fight it out, then kill any survivors. |
| Posted by: Fred 2003-04-30 13:57:56 |
| #3 These "protests" are obviously being used by factions with their own agenda for control of Iraq. We are going to have to get nasty with the leadership of these factions and we are going to have to fill the authority vacuum real soon, or there will be more and more of these "incidents." |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-04-30 13:54:29 |
| #2 newsflash - trouble in Baquba (predominantly Sunni Arab city, northeast of Baghdad toward Iranian border) players appear to include SCIRI, Iranian exile Mujahaddin, Baathists, and Kurds. Not much love lost among these groups, could be nasty. No real US presence yet, 4th ID nearby. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-04-30 13:23:42 |
| #1 difficult line to walk - crack down too hard, and gain hatred as occupiers. Go too soft and gunnies, some from old regime, will spread anarchy and make it hard for iraqis to build new regime and society. Note - Fajullah, in Sunni arab heartland, and backbone of Baathist regime. Lets put enough people on the ground - including MP's and civil affairs, and coalition of willing peacekeepers, and Iraqi police. Quickly move to establish not just policing, but full legal system - need judges and prosecutors. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-04-30 12:54:12 |