It is certainly becoming more and more clear why the Iraqi government wants a date for the withdrawal of our troops from their territory. The U.S. military has admitted that it killed a man and two women on their way to a bank by spraying their car with hundreds of rounds. Moreover, it is now clear that the military gave false information after the killings to the public and the media. Iraqi officials are now calling it murder while the military insists that the soldiers acted correctly.
The attack occurred when a convoy made a wrong turn and went down the main road used by civilians to get to the airport. The Iraqis had already submitted to the standard stop and search when they proceeded down the road to the bank. The military says that warning shots were fired before the soldiers sprayed the vehicle.
The military now admits that “a thorough investigation determined that the driver and passengers were law-abiding citizens of Iraq.” However it still insists that the soldiers exercised proper “escalation of force” measures before they opened fire on the people in the car. It is a bit curious how three innocent people can be raked with hundreds of rounds, but the entire affair was handled entirely properly. Obviously, these soldiers have only a short time to respond to cars that fail to yield. There is a clear danger of car bombs. However, they had just pulled mistakingly onto the main public road and the car had just stopped at the checkpoint earlier.
The military is also scrambling to explain why, in the aftermath of the shooting, it released a statement that “a weapon was recovered from the wreckage.” It now admits that no weapon was found and that one soldier with the Fourth Infantry Division merely reported seeing an Iraqi officer place something in the ambulance when the bodies were removed. It appears that such a sighting (which could have been anything from a purse to a clipboard) was conveniently converted into a weapon.
The military also claimed that one vehicle sustained a bullet hole in the attack. It cited “bullet hole damage” as part of its initial public account . It admits that “We now know there were no weapons in the car, and there were not any shell casings.” Once again, the release of the initial report seems calculated to defuse attention and concern in the first round of coverage. It is unclear whether anyone is being disciplined for the false accounts given to the public.
For the full story, click here.
mespo727272
1, July 28, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I know you’ve seen enough basketball to spot a head fake when you see it
We’ve certainly seen enough to spot your fake head.
I guess when you’re the world’s best force and “free” millions of people; you get the privilege of raping and torturing a few children and murdering their families.
The US only recruits the best felons and high school dropouts – what could go wrong.
Josh:
On our good friend dundar and his need to blame any and every one else except those responsible for atrocities, I know you’ve seen enough basketball to spot a head fake when you see it.
Of course, I don’t think he could have built a fence high enough to keep my old boy out.
😐
Then again, neither could the Iraqi’s.
In a perfect world Raff, in a perfect world.
😀
Bartlebee,
Or the farmer could just get a higher fence!
Course, the other moral of the story is if you think your dogs going to go after the flock, it might be best just to tie him to a tree.
When I was a young man, I had a wonderful dog, who unfortunately liked to chase farmers stock in the local community where I lived.
That dog was fast, and I worked like the devil to keep him from the farmers livestock, but I just couldn’t bring myself to tie him up to tree.
One day, I was walking outside and the dog just bolted, jumped the fence, and started chasing the farmer next doors sheep. Man that herd moved, lol. It was like a scene from “Wild Kingdom”. Sheep zig zagging this way and that, trying to avoid what looked like a hungry wolf on their tails. Finally, the dog grabbed a smaller ewe by the neck and did the little tuck and tumble roll with it, taking it down in a cloud of dust. I immediately yelled as loud as I could for the dog to come to me, and he did, surpisngly. He let the sheep go, and came back tail between legs, and crawled under a hole in the fence and came up to me wagging his tail. I could see the sheep was ok, but at the same time, the farmer had come out, and I heard him say to his son “boy, go get my gun”.
Now I knew the law permitted the farmer to shoot my dog, and if I didn’t let him, he’d just have the sheriff come out and do it. This was farming community and they had different laws with regards to dogs and livestock.
Not wanting to see my dog shot, I looked at the farmer, who was now taking a winchester lever action rifle from his son and starting to walk our way. I loked at the farmer, looked at the dog, and then, hauled off and belted that dog, right across the mouth.
Mean huh? Thats right I hit him, and I hit him hard. I hit him so hard in fact, that he literally flipped over, yelping like a stuck pig. The dog got up and bolted for the house.
I looked up at the farmer, the farmer looked at me, rifle in hand, and said “next time boy…..next time…. I’m gonna do it”.
He took the rifle, and walked back to his place.
I didn’t like hitting my old hound dog, nor did I want to. But if I hadn’t done it myself, to show that farmer I was going to reign in my little Wile E. Coyote, then he was going to do it for me. And his way, the dog wouldn’t have gotten back up. I didn’t hit him to punish him, I did it to save his life. If I hadn’t, then there would have been nothing I could have done for him to save him from the farmers bullets.
Moral of the story? Obvious isn’t it? If we don’t show the world we are capable of reigning in our Executive branch run amuck, they’re gonna do it for us.
Watch.
I guess the Americans will stay until they’re greeted with flowers (Chaney, Wolfowitz, Feith, Frum, Perle…) and oil is at $20 per barrel (Murdoch, countless “experts”) and pumped exclusively by American companies.
The really sad part here is, all you have to do is go listen to to the interviews of the soldiers taken in Iraq, right after the initial invasion.
You can find them on the movie “Farenheit 911”.
In these interviews, many performed right after events, the soldiers openly admit, adreniline still pumping, how they “shot anything that moved”.
Men. Women. Children. Dogs. Cats. Anything.
It all went down. Anything they saw on the street, anything they saw in a car, anything, got killed.
Thats a fact, and just because Americans can’t face up to that fact yet (because we’ve got flag waving braindead “patriots” like dunbar here to deny it for them) the international community will not be so forgiving, I am sure.
This incident today, while horrific, pales in comparison to the wholesale slaughter of civilians thats been going on since the day our “little fuhrer” sent them in.
Like the SS in Poland, we’ve turned a healthy city into our own little bloodsoaked version of the “Warsaw Ghetto”, and just like the Pols did trying to drive the Nazi war machine from their homeland using homemade explosives, so to the Iraqi’s have fought to drive our occupying war machine from their homeland.
This isn’t about the troops, not the bigger picture. The troops do and will do what WE tell em to. What Bush tells them to. Bush via our votes. And guys like Dumbear here are just shills for Bush and the war machine, trying to always make our comments about “the troops” when in fact, they’re about the leaders who control the troops, and not the men and women themselves.
So the blood, at the end of the day, is on all our hands. We’re the ones who let the litte tyrant ABUSE the troops, by sending them into an uneccesary and illegal invasion of a sovereign nation, and we’re the ones who haven’t apparently made enough outcry, to bring them home.
Now Senator Obama’s talking about “the right wars” , as if he too wants to keep fueling the bloody war machine.
I worry about America. Having studied the rise and fall of Nazi germany in great detail since I was a young man (WWII Family) I see the same signs, tokens and pitfalls, that led Germany down a similar path to eternal infamy.
dundar
1, July 28, 2008 at 11:34 am
American soldiers are the worlds best trained force
Ahh, I love the smell of strawdogs in the morning.
😀
You do realize here that this statement is erroneous, right?
I mean you do know that no one here suggested they weren’t well trained, right?
Dundar,
Three innocents are dead,and you are mad at the media? You point out that the military insists that the troops followed protocol, but so too did the now deceased Iraqis. Have you nothing to offer but contempt for the media? I would even accept a call for better mapping systems for the troops, so that our soldiers no longer find themselves on main roads, but this is not an invite to attack an unrelated entity. That’s how we got into the Iraq war in the first place.
Dundar,
Your comments never cease to amaze me. No one is claiming that the U.S. military is not well trained and the best. However, it has been shown multiple times in Iraq and Afghanistan(and Vietnam) that the military authorities have a tendency to cover their back side and then have to admit later on that they were wrong. This wasn’t a media error issue. This was an intentional attempt, initially, to cover up a tragic mistake on the part of our soldiers, by the hierarchy of the military. This “My country right or wrong” mentality continues to get the United States into trouble and you have falllen into the right wing mantra that we can do no wrong. By no means, don’t let the facts get in your way.
Dundar,
I think the problem that people are having is with the cover up. The Media probably played a part, but if they’re told by an official “There was a gun taken from the car” and that turns out to be wrong, should we blame the media for quoting the official or the official for lying?
After reading and re-reading this article and others like it regarding this incident it is obvious that the errors & ommissions are the result of poor reporting on the part of the media in their (typical) rush to get the story our regardless of the facts as they think they have ascertained then.
The media never waits for the investigation, they run with what they can put together for their 24/7 10 minutes after the event full story. Then when they are found to be wrong they blame the military for giving them incorrect information and start claiming coverup.
American soldiers are the worlds best trained force and have freed tens of millions from tyranny with a civilian loss rate during warfare unheard of since recorded time.
I rather doubt anybody with a son or daughter in Iraq would say not to follow procedure. It is apparent procedure was followed, warning shots followed by immediate massive response to protect American soldiers, some Americans just don’t like military procedure I guess.
“The military is also scrambling to explain why, in the aftermath of the shooting, it released a statement that “a weapon was recovered from the wreckage.” It now admits that no weapon was found and that one soldier with the Fourth Infantry Division merely reported seeing an Iraqi officer place something in the ambulance when the bodies were removed. It appears that such a sighting (which could have been anything from a purse to a clipboard) was conveniently converted into a weapon.”
*************************
Rumor has it we have now changed the official acronym of the U.S. Army from USA to CYA.
This kind of error is bound to happen when you have foreign soldiers(US) in an occupied country far longer than they should be. There is no excuse on the military’s part in their initial whitewashing of the event. This has happened far too often. This unfortunate case is a glaring example why we must leave Iraq sooner than later. These soldiers have been put in harms way far too long when they could be utilized more effectively in Afghanistan, or better yet, at home. I wonder how long these particular soldiers had been in the country when this incident occurred. Sometimes if they are inexperienced they can get trigger happy and fire too soon and sometimes if they have been there far too long they can become callous and uncaring because their only thoughts are getting out of Iraq safely. I can understand both situations, but it is still not acceptable.
This is really bad. Our people were not even supposed to be on that road. To make up a CYA story is the worst possible course of action. If the military knew it was 9 out of 18 soldiers who fired, that’s a lot of detail about the incident. It means they knew what happened and lied about it.
In an occupation I don’t see how this kind of thing doesn’t happen and it is one of the many reasons we should get out of there. As we’ve insisted on staying, whether we’re wanted or not, then we must be accurate, upfront when these types of events happen. It would show we take our responsibility to the people of Iraq seriously.