Another Iraq massacre (by US troops) emerges.

RedPlanet

"The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians.

The video appears to challenge the US military's account of events that took place in the town of Ishaqi in March.

The US said at the time four people died during a military operation, but Iraqi police claimed that US troops had deliberately shot the 11 people."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5039420.stm

I suspect we'll be finding out more and more of these dark little secrets of the conduct of US troops in Iraq.

dahamsta

All of these incidents - the one where a US soldier filmed his colleagues beating the crap out of Iraqis being the most blatant example - seem to suggest that US soldiers have had any sense of responsibility, dignity, of even a simple ability to manage their tempers hammered out of them. Not all that surprising I know, but you'd think things would have improved over the years, not worsened.

bonkey

RedPlanet wrote:

The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible
...
I suspect we'll be finding out more and more of these dark little secrets of the conduct of US troops in Iraq.

I notice that the source you quote expresses far more uncertainty about what has actually happened than you do.

zuma

Is this another "incident"?

This will happen and continue to happen.....I wonder how many of these "punishment" killings have already occured?

lostexpectation

John Simpson and footage shot while the flames were still burning seem as sure as they can be
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/bbc_iraq_new_massacre_tape_060601a_320x240.wmv

Manic Moran

Looks like this thread is over before it began.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060602/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_haditha;_ylt=Ar3LsqXX6w3xNqIMO1Zwq_is0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A military investigation into allegations that U.S. troops intentionally killed Iraqi civilians in a March raid in Ishaqi, a village north of Baghdad, has cleared the troops of misconduct, the military said Friday — despite dramatic video footage of slain children.

Article continues.

NTM

Sgt Sensible

They can do what they like. Anyone see the newsnight programme where veterans admitted killing innocent people because it was normal procedure?

Sgt Sensible

Manic Moran wrote:

Looks like this thread is over before it began.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060602/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_haditha;_ylt=Ar3LsqXX6w3xNqIMO1Zwq_is0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A military investigation into allegations that U.S. troops intentionally killed Iraqi civilians in a March raid in Ishaqi, a village north of Baghdad, has cleared the troops of misconduct, the military said Friday — despite dramatic video footage of slain children.

Article continues.

NTM

However, US troops have been instructed to undergo 'ethics training'. Pourquoi?

Manic Moran

Sgt Sensible wrote:

However, US troops have been instructed to undergo 'ethics training'. Pourquoi?

PR, is my guess.

It's not as if troops don't know the difference between right and wrong, it's an issue of getting the point across that the standards need to be enforced: an issue for NCOs and junior officers. I'm not talking about massacre-level-things here, just daily, everyday business such as traffic manners. Most troops are fine, but are you going to remember the 200 HMMWVs that stopped for you, or the one that rammed you? They probably just need to be reminded "Look, you don't like it here, right? Well, the more you piss off the locals, the longer we'll be here and the more tours you do"

It's a little more complicated than all that, but I've seen troops run the gamut from extremely courteous through "I am king"

NTM

A Dub in Glasgo

Manic Moran wrote:

Looks like this thread is over before it began.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060602/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_haditha;_ylt=Ar3LsqXX6w3xNqIMO1Zwq_is0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A military investigation into allegations that U.S. troops intentionally killed Iraqi civilians in a March raid in Ishaqi, a village north of Baghdad, has cleared the troops of misconduct, the military said Friday — despite dramatic video footage of slain children.

Article continues.

NTM

US military clears US military of misconduct... lol

tallus

I'd feel a lot better about an investigation if it was conducted by a neutral body of some sort.

lostexpectation

Manic Moran wrote:

Looks like this thread is over before it began.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060602/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_haditha;_ylt=Ar3LsqXX6w3xNqIMO1Zwq_is0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A military investigation into allegations that U.S. troops intentionally killed Iraqi civilians in a March raid in Ishaqi, a village north of Baghdad, has cleared the troops of misconduct, the military said Friday — despite dramatic video footage of slain children.

Article continues.

NTM

oh come on, thats what he supposed to say, you don't really believe that 100% without any doubt do you?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

you seem to believe the other side of the story 100% without any doubt, so let's just all agree to be gullible and wait 20-30 years to see what the history books have to say about this

tallus

Mordeth wrote:

you seem to believe the other side of the story 100% without any doubt, so let's just all agree to be gullible and wait 20-30 years to see what the history books have to say about this

That will be cold comfort to the relatives of the dead people.

tallus

Mordeth wrote:

you seem to believe the other side of the story 100% without any doubt, so let's just all agree to be gullible and wait 20-30 years to see what the history books have to say about this

cold comfort to the relatives of the dead people.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i doubt there is much that can be done to comfort the relatives of the dead people, out and out hysteria probably won't be as helpful as people suppose though I'm thinking

tallus

closure might be an issue to the relatives. I'm not on the 100% blame side for either party but I think that an issue of that nature should be investigated by an independant body of some sort. Personally I dont believe that we will get an honest outcome from the U.S. Military, but that's only my opinion, and I would have that opinion about any body that investigates itself. As you have said Mordeth, in 30 years time we might know but in that case I'd hate to be one of the relatives waiting to find out, or if in fact they manage to live that long.

Hobbes

closure would be least of the worries. If anyone who knew those people wasn't an insurgent/terrorist you can bet the chances of them being so or helping them has increased dramatically.

lostexpectation

Mordeth wrote:

i doubt there is much that can be done to comfort the relatives of the dead people, out and out hysteria probably won't be as helpful as people suppose though I'm thinking

how is it hysteria??? Im sick of these army blokes telling us that war is hell and **** happens and us liberal keyboard warriors would never get it and then in their next posting tell us that they don't kill innocent civilians by the houseload?

ok thats hysteria

Sand

The U.S. military investigated, tried and convicted the Abu Gharrib crowd without any need for "independant" investigators tbh. I dont see any grounds for feeling that theyre incapable or unwilling to investigate and punish crimes carried out by their troops - if anything limits on their investigation are placed by the families of the deceased, such as the families in the linked article rejecting the offer to exhume the bodies.

zuma

Sand wrote:

The U.S. military investigated, tried and convicted the Abu Gharrib crowd without any need for "independant" investigators tbh. I dont see any grounds for feeling that theyre incapable or unwilling to investigate and punish crimes carried out by their troops - if anything limits on their investigation are placed by the families of the deceased, such as the families in the linked article rejecting the offer to exhume the bodies.

That was only after clear evidence was published in US newspapers and people demanded that someone be blamed.

Sand

That was only after clear evidence was published in US newspapers and people demanded that someone be blamed.

Newspaper reports that were based on information leaked from the ongoing US investigation? US military were investigating Abu Gharrib long before it hit the headlines.

Hobbes

Sand wrote:

The U.S. military investigated, tried and convicted the Abu Gharrib crowd without any need for "independant" investigators tbh. I dont see any grounds for feeling that theyre incapable or unwilling to investigate and punish crimes carried out by their troops

Charles Graner - 10 years.
Ivan Frederick - 8 years.
Jeremy Sivits - 1 year.
Armin Cruz - 8 months.
Sabrina Harman - 6 months.
Megan Ambuhl - dropped to private, drop in pay.
Lynndie England - 3 years.
2 others not charged.

And the Brig. General of the jail got demoted (who claims that the top general for Iraq knew what was going on). Impressive a whole prison run by 10 people.

What is interesting in all these is that none of them are of any serious rank (except the Brig. General), yet the Top brass in the US military knew full well of what was going on a good 6-7 months before the story broke, yet nothing happened to any of these people until the media broke the story.

I don't think they have the credibility to investigate the issue themselves.

godfather69er

its a guerrilla war thats what happens get over it, if these people want to stay safe they should distance themselves from the insurgants and report them to allied forces, its all fair and well saying its bad(which it is ,it defo aint good)however when you are in a guerilla war everybody is your enemy unless they are clearly with you, sure kids can fire a ak47 it aint too hard just point and pull the trigger. give the yanks a break.

Lemming

godfather69er wrote:

its a guerrilla war thats what happens get over it, if these people want to stay safe they should distance themselves from the insurgants and report them to allied forces, its all fair and well saying its bad(which it is ,it defo aint good)however when you are in a guerilla war everybody is your enemy unless they are clearly with you, sure kids can fire a ak47 it aint too hard just point and pull the trigger. give the yanks a break.

Y'know ... your post reminds me of a phrase I saw on the yahoo news article discussion forum (always both an entertaining and utterly shocking read)

"These were necessary murders"

Wtf?!! I'm sorry .... I didn't realise that it was perfectly acceptable for anyone to murder someone else (assuming of couse that this did in fact happen as such). Exactly how the f*ck do you distance yourself from an insurgency in your own country? Please, I'm all ears. I'm sure there are a few million Iraqi's that are all ears too ....

As for giving the yanks a break? Why? They were sent there on foot of a lie, by a chickenhawk who side-stepped his own national service when his country apparently "needed" him back during the Vietnam war.

tallus

godfather69er wrote:

its a guerrilla war thats what happens get over it, if these people want to stay safe they should distance themselves from the insurgants and report them to allied forces, its all fair and well saying its bad(which it is ,it defo aint good)however when you are in a guerilla war everybody is your enemy unless they are clearly with you, sure kids can fire a ak47 it aint too hard just point and pull the trigger. give the yanks a break.

The U.S./coalition forces are there without a U.N. mandate, it's an illegal war. Why should they be given a break when the very reason they cooked up to start the war was proven to be untrue.
So far it appears that somewhere in the region of 100,000 civilians may have died there as a result of the war, but that figure is up for debate depending on where you get your information from. Those are innocent civilians, who dont have the luxury of distancing themselves from the conflict.

Manic Moran

They're obviously on the whole doing their own investigations before the public awareness hits. Abu Ghraib was already being investigated, and the Ishaqi investigation appears to have been completed before anyone in the public domain even heard about it.

I would submit that for Ishaqi that someone actually reads the results of the investigation before jumping on the 'Americans deliberately massacred children' bandwagon. You will note that the US aren't saying they didn't kill anyone, they're just clearing the troops of misconduct.

As for giving the yanks a break? Why? They were sent there on foot of a lie, by a chickenhawk who side-stepped his own national service when his country apparently "needed" him back during the Vietnam war.

The former is not the fault of the troops who are over there with their necks on the line. The latter is a questionable claim that has not been proven. (And it should be noted that some Guard units were sent to Vietnam)

NTM

lostexpectation

Sand wrote:

The U.S. military investigated, tried and convicted the Abu Gharrib crowd without any need for "independant" investigators tbh. I dont see any grounds for feeling that theyre incapable or unwilling to investigate and punish crimes carried out by their troops - if anything limits on their investigation are placed by the families of the deceased, such as the families in the linked article rejecting the offer to exhume the bodies.

Rumsfeld aint' been tried.

godfather69er

Lemming wrote:

Y'know ... your post reminds me of a phrase I saw on the yahoo news article discussion forum (always both an entertaining and utterly shocking read)

"These were necessary murders"

Wtf?!! I'm sorry .... I didn't realise that it was perfectly acceptable for anyone to murder someone else (assuming of couse that this did in fact happen as such). Exactly how the f*ck do you distance yourself from an insurgency in your own country? Please, I'm all ears. I'm sure there are a few million Iraqi's that are all ears too ....

As for giving the yanks a break? Why? They were sent there on foot of a lie, by a chickenhawk who side-stepped his own national service when his country apparently "needed" him back during the Vietnam war.

would you say that the soldiers killed in ww1 and ww2 were murdered?? war is war people die, in ww2 thousands died in english and german cities from bombing raids these were innocent civvies, now have you ever heared murder being used to describe these events. i have only heard 'x amount of people have been killed in y during a raid'
this post aint about whether its a legal war or not btw what the **** is a legal war(another heap of P.C bull**** no doubt) its about US soldiers who are fighting for their lives in war its either him or me i know who id choose.

tallus

godfather69er wrote:

would you say that the soldiers killed in ww1 and ww2 were murdered?? war is war people die, in ww2 thousands died in english and german cities from bombing raids these were innocent civvies, now have you ever heared murder being used to describe these events. i have only heard 'x amount of people have been killed in y during a raid'
this post aint about whether its a legal war or not btw what the **** is a legal war(another heap of P.C bull**** no doubt) its about US soldiers who are fighting for their lives in war its either him or me i know who id choose.

No nation can take it upon itself and invade a soverign nation such as Iraq or any other soverign nation for that matter. The U.N. was set up after WWII to avoid things of that nature from happening again, to stop any one nation from taking it upon themselves to invade where they want to.
Furthermore the OP wasn't about WWII either, and saying things like "war is war, and people die" is absolutely no justification for actually killing innocent civilians.
U.S. soldiers who are "fighting for their lives" have overwhelming superiority in every way militarily.
Germans were tried for war crimes after WWII.

lostexpectation

tallus wrote:

No nation can take it upon itself and invade a soverign nation such as Iraq or any other soverign nation for that matter. The U.N. was set up after WWII to avoid things of that nature from happening again, to stop any one nation from taking it upon themselves to invade where they want to.
Furthermore the OP wasn't about WWII either, and saying things like "war is war, and people die" is absolutely no justification for actually killing innocent civilians.
U.S. soldiers who are "fighting for their lives" have overwhelming superiority in every way militarily.
Germans were tried for war crimes after WWII.

a pefect a example of this ^^^ winners don't commit war crimes.

Im sick of these army blokes telling us that war is hell and **** happens and us liberal keyboard warriors would never get it and then in their next posting tell us that they don't kill innocent civilians by the houseload?


Ishaqi was in the news before as a US slaughterhouse, it just got resurrected again because of hadithi and John Simpson being given the video.

I was reading on another site how the bodycount for Israeli attacks on Palestian terrorist/fighters vs civillians killed is about 1:3, ie the news annouces that a helicoptergunship has fired rockets at a house with Hamas people in it killed two men suspected of being fighters and the bit they mention less is how their family is been killed too. 1:3.