BS: IRAQ: Bloody Sunday (American Style, 2003)

Subject: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: GUEST,Botticelli
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 07:24 AM

13 dead, and who fired the first shot?

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 07:58 AM

This of course was to be expected and is the flip side of Dumbya'a "cheering crowds." Soldiers justifiably paranoid in a strange land of suicide bombers and a native people feeling the pressures of a new control, this time by American troops. Who fired first? Does it matter? The blame falls at the top. It comes down on Iraqi leadrs unable to calm their people and on an American president who has put both groups in an untenable situation. Rest assured, it will happen again.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 09:20 AM

Iraqis killed in anti-US protest"

Iraqis killed in Falluja protest
There were angry scenes at the funerals of those killed in Falluja Thirteen Iraqis were reportedly killed when US forces opened fire on demonstrators on Monday night in the Iraqi town of Falluja.
There are conflicting reports as to what happened in the town, which lies 50 kilometres (35 miles) west of Baghdad.
US paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division started shooting after coming under fire from approximately 25 armed civilians mixed within a crowd of some 200 protesters outside a compound they were occupying in the town, a statement from US Central Command (CentCom) said.
But Iraqi witnesses said the protesters were unarmed and that the soldiers opened fire without warning on a peaceful crowd, which was protesting against the US forces' use of a school as their barracks.

"A US spokesman said soldiers started shooting after people in the crowd fired on them - but Iraqi witnesses said the protesters were unarmed.

How could anyone compare this to Bloody Sunday? After all, it happened on a Monday...

And while I waas lookihg for the link to that, here's another one I found on the BBC site: Iraq's cancer children overlooked in war

"With Iraq's hospitals in disarray, the long-term sick are being passed over in a frantic effort to treat emergency cases. For the thousands of young leukaemia victims, the outlook is bleaker than ever."

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: ard mhacha
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 09:56 AM

I know who to believe and it isn`t the trigger happy scum that fired into an unarmed crowd, three 11 year olds included, in this mass murder. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Amos
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 10:12 AM

As Spaw said, it was to be expected that some slice of awful violence would pop up somewhere. Lessons fron 'Nam: politicians can turn war on and off with the flick of a compromise. Those who have to wage it cannot flick a switch at a moment's notice and turn from adrenalin soaked warriors to diplomats. This is one of the grimy facts aboiut war that people like GWB overlook.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Amos
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 10:35 AM

CNN's Karl Penhaul said he talked to a pair of U.S. soldiers who said protesters opened fire first, shooting at American forces with AK-47s. The soldiers said the troops fired back.

In Washington, Pentagon officials also reported that soldiers took aim after shots were fired at them. The incident is under investigation, Pentagon officials said.

U.S. Central Command said soldiers came under fire from Iraqis armed with AK-47 assault rifles. "The unit exercised its inherent right to self defense and returned fire," the Central Command statement said.

Central Command denied the accuracy of reports from the Qatar-based, Arabic-language news network Al-Jazeera that U.S. soldiers fired unprovoked into a crowd.

(from CNN's web page)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 10:38 AM

Dumbya and the BuShites don't 'overlook' it, Amos. They simply don't give a shit- not the same thing at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 10:40 AM

Pedantic point - three children aged less than eleven. And 75 people injured. No news of any injuries to the soldiers.

These guys in crowds who set these things off by firing at the army seem to be terrible shots.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 10:53 AM

Just awhile back there was a movie with Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson that dealt with a very similar scenario.

There is plenty of blame to go round here.   American troops at a high level of intensity, angry Iraqis wanting the Americans out....but the real blame here is for the ones who put both in the position they were in. And much as I'd like to blame Bush and his cronies, the Iraqi leaders are not without fault.   They too need to keep their folks under a bit of control. Loud and angry rock throwing protests in the face of a nervous bunch of people with rifles is not a wise move either.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 12:00 PM

Spaw -- what Iraqi leaders? There is no leadership in Iraq right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Mark Clark
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 12:03 PM

Which Iraqi leaders would those be? The ace of clubs? The jack of diamonds? The mayor of Baghdad? Troops can't be used as policemen, they're trained only to kill not to make value judgements. Value judgements in battle are often fatal. The troops must be replaced with well-trained civilian police very quickly if more such tragedy is to be avoided.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: mexican
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 12:05 PM

Why do people bring their children to these protests?

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 12:12 PM

"Why do people bring their children to these protests? "

Perhaps because it didn't occur to them that a "liberating army" was going to fire on an unarmed crowd.

I hope that there were television crews there filming, to help sort out what actually happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: DougR
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 12:20 PM

Right. Believe the bad guys instead of our troops. So typical of so many of you. Oh well.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 12:29 PM

"The bad guys," Doug? So Iraqi civilians are "bad guys," now?

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Amos
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 12:48 PM

Iraqis with AK47s, interested in applying them to others, are the bad guys du jour. The claims that the crowd was unarmed is kind of incompatible with the claim that a firefight went on for some time. You think these troops were duckshooting, or fighting with themselves? Not. But the whole story is not known, for certain.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 12:53 PM

"The bad guys" - according to this report the dead included Isix children aged seven or eight - U.S. Command Confirms Firefight in the Iraqi Town of Falluja

The thirteen dead is provisional - the Red Cross puts it higher, and with all those wounded it seems unlikely there won't be more deaths.

It seems more likely to be a panicky cock-up, rather than a deliberate massacre to give the protestors a lesson - that's one difference from Bloody Sunday. The other difference being the killing of little children this time.

There should an investigation into what happened, not just carried out by the army. But there won't be, any more than there will be for the shootings at checkpoints and road blocks.

Maybe it'll be included in the movies they make about all this.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Ringer
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 01:03 PM

Why spend £200M on a Saville enquiry when McGrath of Harlow knows that what really happened was "a deliberate massacre to give the protestors a lesson"?

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 01:06 PM

Just hope those damned anti-second-amendment liberals won't use this incident to argue that Iraqi civilians should be denied free access to firearms. Or am I confused?

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Amos
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 01:12 PM

"The BBC also reported a witness saying a man on a motorbike had opened fire on the U.S. soldiers.

A total of 13 people were killed and at least 75 wounded, Reuters reported, citing Falluja hospital director Ahmed Ghanim. Some local people gave higher estimates, Reuters said. International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai in Geneva said 15 had died. The Red Cross has sent relief supplies to hospitals for the wounded, whose exact number isn't known, Alrifai said. "

Given all the confusion, the man-on-the-motorbike report seems to make a lot of sense. The fog of war is not like an academic analysis. If there was a jerk on a moped using an AK47 on troops and they fired back, not knowing immediately where he was, it could have started the whole ruckus.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: GUEST, heric
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 01:22 PM

>>"Why do people bring their children to these protests? "

Perhaps because it didn't occur to them that a "liberating army" was going to fire on an unarmed crowd. <<

I hope I am not viewed as impolite for saying that I admire this as impressive doublespeak. (Bringing their children to protest a liberating army.)

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 01:30 PM

"If" There were plenty of reports along those lines on Bloody Sunday. Naturally. Other reports say that the shooting started when someone chucked a stone at the school the soldiers were using as a barracks.

And the reason why thgere'd have been children in the crowd or so, as mexican asked, would have been because the protest was calling for the soldiers to give back the school building.

Whether or not Bloody Sunday was a deliberate massacre or not, that was a reasonable suspicion, Ringer. I doubt if that particulalr explanation of what hapened on Monday would be very plausible, that's what IO meant.

Reports put the crowd involved at about 200. Nearly eighty wounded, 13-17 dead. And not one of the dead or wounded from among teh soliers it seems. That is a rather comprehensive shoot-out. It doesn't sound like professionals carefully shoopting at a handful of armed opponents. It sound like people with automatic weapons just blazing away.

But maybe there are facts we don't know yet.That's why a proper investigation by independent investigators is needed, and needed fast.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: beadie
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 01:53 PM

This sounds vaguely reminiscent of the Boston Massacre (paranoid occupying troops in a hostile environment surrounded by angry locals and no one knows for sure who fired first).

Of course, in the original, the British submitted to having their troops tried for crimes arising from the incident in an American Colonial court. Defended by a Boston brewer and sometimes lawyer (and cousin of the second President) named John Adams, the troops were acquitted of the most serious of the charges brought and none were imprisoned. I wonder if that would happen in this case?

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 02:49 PM

Just got back and to answer the Iraqi leader question......Even now there are individuals and religious leaders coming to the fore. Although they are not the classic leadership, they are filling that role to a lot of Iraqi citizens who would prefer their own people to the Americans. I am not saying they are responsible for this or that they are or will be a part of whatever Iraq is to become, but simply that they are at the present looked upon as some sort of leader by the Iraqis. It's only natural. for those in that position it would be wise not to twist the dragon's tail and work toward a peaceful settlement and establishment of a real leadership to get the Americans out asap.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: ard mhacha
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 03:06 PM

I find it amazing that the words of an invading army can be held as truth.
I seen enough of the lying scum here in the sick six, the truth eventually comes out, but with the time elapsed, no one gives a damm.
The US troops in Vietnam murdered civilans, but who the hell cares now.
Get your brain-washed trigger happy scum out of this mess of their making and leave the Iraq people to settle their own affairs, oh, how bloody stupid of me, the oil, I forgot about the oil. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: GUEST,Steve
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 03:46 PM

"leave the Iraq people to settle their own affairs"

unless, of course they decide to elect another dictator who insists on one-party rule, or an ultra-religious government intent on 'Islamifying' the country and blowing up Ziggurats etc that is...whither democracy then?

This is from Reuters:

"Lieutenant Colonel Eric Nantz, speaking at the school, said his men had been on the lookout for trouble from diehard Saddam supporters as Monday was the vanished dictator's 66th birthday.


What Nantz described as "celebratory firing" accompanied a crowd which was first dispersed from outside a U.S. base in the centre of town by an American show of force. When the crowd reformed at the school, however, shots were aimed at the troops.


"There were a lot of people who were armed and who were throwing rocks. How is a U.S. soldier to tell the difference between a rock and a grenade?" Nantz said.

- doesn't one go bang? -

arguing about whoever shot the first round is really irrelevant - a return to playground politics "well he started it" - it would seem that the American troops were disproportionate in their response in an already volotile region.

The sooner they're withdrawn, and some semblance of order is established the better for all involved. Failing that I can only foresee more incidents like this.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 04:05 PM

blowing up Ziggurats I don't think the Iranians ever got round to blowing up pre-Islamic monuments and all that. The Taliban were a pretty different mob, with a very different ideology.

If Iraq did go for an ultra-religious government, it seems generally agreed that it would pretty definitely be more like their neighbours and fellow Shi'ites in Iran, which is a lot closer to being a democracy than most places around the region.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: gnu
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 04:21 PM

"The bad guys" are the guys with the AK's, Lepur Rex. The good guys are the ones who risked their lives to liberate the Iraqi civilians. You remember the "good men" ?

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 04:29 PM

So why did "the good guys" mow down half the crowd?

There was an army guy on the news saying "It was like the Alamo". Sounded more like Wounded Knee to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: gnu
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 04:36 PM

I think you should be in charge of the next platoon to come under fire in such a situation so that you could run into the crowd and wrestle down the trigger without firing a shot.

Are the coalition suppose to retreat and leave the looters and criminals to return ? Well... are they ?

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 04:57 PM

Two hundred in a crowd. Seventeen dead. Seventy-five wounded.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: GUEST,Botticelli
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 06:11 PM

It makes me wonder though, that we may not know the truth of this (and other) 'excesses' until 30 years and much more than £200m later.

Whether or not the United States Administration cares to look into its actions will remain to be seen, but simply because they are 'Allies' does not mean to say that we should blindly believe that one soldier, or group of soldiers' personal predjudice does not come into the reckoning in the moments before such an event takes place.

Iraq must be heaven itself, for the Play Station 2 generation.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Wolfgang
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 06:34 PM

A couple of threads ago many here have demanded that the US army should have prevented looting of museums and other buildings. Are you really sure you would have liked to see an army tank or some foot patrol men in front of each museum, embassy, governmental building confronting an angry crowd they do not understand who tried for good or bad reasons to enter a building?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 06:38 PM

Here's a more detailed account from a reporter on the spot in the London broadsheet The Independent At least 10 dead as US soldiers fire on school protest

Strikes me as a scrupilously fair report, giving both sides, but also pointing out inconsistencies. For exmple:

According to Lt-Col Eric Nantz, the troops were being shot at and stones had been thrown. They tried to disperse the crowd with loudspeaker warnings but in vain, he said. Under threat, they fired back.

Yet there are no bullet holes visible at the front of the school building or tell-tale marks of a firefight. The place is unmarked. By contrast, the houses opposite – numbers 5, 7, 9, and 13 – are punctured with machine-gun fire, which tore away lumps of concrete the size of a hand and punched holes as deep as the length of a ballpoint pen. Asked to explain the absence of bullet holes, Lt-Col Nantz said that the Iraqi fire had gone over the soldiers' heads. We were taken to see two bullet holes in an upper window and some marks on a wall, but they were on another side of the school building.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Wolfgang
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 06:58 PM

Another inconsistency in the report:

Some Iraqis, both sides agree, were firing in the air is followed by interviews with Iraqis who insist that nobody in the crowd had guns.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 07:12 PM

As I said, it's a report that tries to lay out the various versions of what happened. Though the quote there isn't necessarily inconsystent. "In the crowd" are the key words.

Thee are an awful lot of guns around in Iraq I understand. Some kind of misunderstanding, combined with panicky over-reaction seems the most likely explanation of this massacre.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: greg stephens
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 07:24 PM

We are getting the usual predictable knee-jerk reactions here. Surely a fairly obvious point is that there are plenty of crowds of 200 Iraqis around in Iraq at the moment, and the wicked soldiers havent shot machine guns into all of them. Something happened here out of the ordinary. And we will never know what it was. People will believe what reinforces their pre-existing opinions, as is pretty universal, alas. Aybody changed their minds about Bloody sunday one way or the other, after £20m worth of enquiry? Precious few, I would guess.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: mexican
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 07:35 PM

It amazes me how you lot sitting in your safe european (western world) homes, seem to know exactly what happened!

I would not like to be a politically correct private confronted by a bunch of mad mustachioed islamic fundamentalists who, I know don't care about life in this world and will sure as hell blow me to bits along with their own children - for the promise of sanctity in the hearafter

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: mexican
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 07:43 PM

Don't get me wrong, but the soldiers are not to blame - it's the mad politicians who put these people in these situations. But we can't believe anybody, the truth takes years to come out.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 08:24 PM

The "bad guys" that Doug was referring to, gnu, were the (surviving) protesters, who were quoted by the press. Presumably, any "bad guys" with Kalshnikovs weren't hanging around to be interviewed, so... were the non-armed survirors "bad" for protesting? Or do you just have a problem with uppity sand-niggers?

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 09:34 PM

Mexican....If you'll take a good look, you'll see that was my point at the very outset of this thread. The blame is not with the soldiers or the crowd but with those who have put them in the position. These soldiers were on a razor's edge and used to the idea that some of their numbers had been killed by grenades and suicide bombers. The Iraqis were equally keyed up and wanting to be sure that the US got the message. Put yourself in either set of shoes, boots, sandals, or bare feet.

In one of our threads on VietNam I explained that I went to jail because I did not want to be put in such a position as I am not a pacifist. Then I wrote:

I'd also like to change the thought process a bit as some of us looked at the situation then and other situations too, not as something worth dying for, but was and is it something worth killing for? That was at the heart of my thinking then and still remains so today. I am not necessarily a pacifist, though I admire many. However, if you have a gun and I have a gun and we're trying to kill each other, rest assured I am going to do my damndest to kill you first. This is what young people are asked to do in any war. I came to the belief that there was nothing worth killing for about VietNam. Others came to a similar realization after they were there and hence the abundant cases of post traumatic stress. Others wars are different and each one must be decided by the people involved.....Is it worth killing for? If you are going to put me in the situation of killing someone else before they kill me, you better have a damn good reason so I can live with myself afterwards.

I think that still applies for Iraq as well.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 10:20 PM

"the truth takes years to come out"

The only reason the truth takes years to come out is because the people whose duty it is to find out the truth collude in suppressing it. This happened on Bloody Sunday - and whatever uncertainty there might be because of the delays and the destroyed evidence, there is no doubt whatsoever that the cover-up took place. And the cost of that cover-up in terms of human suffering was terrible

It need not happen this time. I imagine that it will however - and the cost in terms of human suffering will be terrible.

It's not a question of fixing all the blame on the people who actually pulled the triggers. The people who put them in the situation, and the people who trained them and briefed them, and drew up their "rules of engagement" are in there as well.

Maybe there actually were some people shooting at them, or maybe they just thought there were and had some vision in their head such as mexican painted just now. All kinds of maybes. The authorities have a duty to find out the truth, and quickly, and to resist any attempt at a whitewash. They owe it to the families if the dead, and also to the soldiers involved and to the other soldiers who could well die as a result of this.

No doubt in the wake of this, young Iraqis are lining up to night to join the Iraqi equivalent of the IRA.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 30 Apr 03 - 03:24 AM

It happened because the so-called "coalition" forces haven't got the remotest legitimate excuse for being where they now are. Not even CNN can cover up the farcical nature of the claims that "freedom" [belatedly] was the over-riding motive for the attack on Iraq. And now Bush and Bushie-tail Blair want the U.N. to remove sanctions forthwith! What those two cretins have done is to split the world into two camps. Blair is going frantic now seeing the rising inclination of European countries to form their own military alliance. What the hell did they expect? If they effectively nullify/ignore the mandate of the United Nations and antagonise several of their NATO partners in doing so , then a look in a mirror will advise them as to who the wreckers are in this world. The dead of the Two Towers have been basely dishonoured through the use of their deaths as an excuse for the expansion of US-British power. And the "British' part is a chimera; poor silly Tony-----

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Hrothgar
Date: 30 Apr 03 - 04:18 AM

Beadie,

I thought that the John Adams who defended the British troops involved in the Boston Massacre was the second president of the US, not a cousin. Whichever Adams it was defended them well, but the important thing is that the verdict was generally accepted.

In this situation, however, it is going to be very difficult to reach a clear cut answer. Differences in legal systems, languages, and all the other factors are going to confuse the issue to the extent that I believe that it will never be satisfactorily settled.

I will keep an open mind on the issue - while remembering that "military intelligence" is an oxymoron.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: gnu
Date: 30 Apr 03 - 05:16 AM

I see that again, Lepur Rex, you rise to the occasion with complete and utter nonsense. And your attempt to put words, especially the racial slurs, in my mouth demonstrates your intentions : you, sir, and I use that term loosely, are a troll of the vilest nature. Don't bother to address me in any fashion in the future and I, pleasantly, will reciprocate. (In case you don't understand the foregoing, I shall put it in a form that I am sure you can comprehend : fuck off asshole.)

Spaw... well said. Even though I still support the war when your litmus test is applied. I beieve(d) Blair.

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: ard mhacha
Date: 30 Apr 03 - 06:43 AM

I seen and heard that US soldier refer to the peaceful demonstration as " just like the Alamo", now the Alamo had causalities on both sides, I didn`t hear of any dead or wounded on the US side.
Also this was very strange as there is always the possibilty of our old chestnut,"friendly fire".Very lucky for the British that they were not present. Ard Mhacha.












2

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: InOBU
Date: 30 Apr 03 - 07:46 AM

Dear Friends:
As you know, Americans are often said to be lacking in historical grounding, or not being able to see shades of grey. Well, as to DougR refering to the protesters as the bad guys, well, that disproves the above. You see, Americans know, from a good sence of history, much of it from cowboy films, for the older guys, and rambo films for the ioounger fellows, you can tell the bad guys by their hats. Saddam wore a black berrett, while our guys wear light colored head gear. Now, as to the shades of grey, our guys hats are beige, and shaped like nazi head gear, this adds a sort of ... watch out for us, we are unpredicable to the scene so that if we are accused of shooting at protesters we can say, "So?..." or "Don't F*** with us!" and not look silly. Think of the Lone Ranger saying that, after one of his silver bullets killed some kid. Now, if he was wearing a grey hat, and had a believable snear, well... there you are!
Cheers
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: InOBU
Date: 30 Apr 03 - 07:47 AM

that should read, younger fellows, hit the wrong keys... Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Amos
Date: 30 Apr 03 - 10:22 AM

Boab:

Getting spun up like that on topics about which you have no actual control is kinda coutnerproductive, if you ask me! :>)

More important, this morning another similar incident has occurred.

We gotta settle these guys out. American soldiers are not supposed to inflict bodily harm on people because they are protesting. That's what the National Guard and the Republican party are for.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Sunday (American Style)
From: Teribus
Date: 30 Apr 03 - 11:12 AM

From the television reporting (mostly BBC World) and newspaper articles, the situation appears to be fairly unique in that no other instances have been reported of Iraqi's out "celebrating" Saddam Hussein's birthday. The protest appeared to be about the use of the school by US forces as their base in the town.

Factors to be taken into account include:
1. Fallujah is a town where the Ba'athist Regime enjoyed strong support.
2. The town was not affected to any great extent by military action during the recent war.
3. The town is the location of sites suspected of involvement with Saddam's weapons programmes.
4. When American forces arrived in the town, the mayor suggested they use the school building as a headquarters.
5. No Iraqi civilian police presence.
6. No interpreters present.
7. Troops involved are Airbourne (82nd)
8. The amount of "unauthorised" weaponry available
9. The method by which ex-Iraqi servicemen (Army, Republican Guard, Special Republican Guard and Saddam Feddayeen) returned to "civilian life".

As to what happened and why, no doubt the perception of damn near everyone who was there will differ to varying degrees. The one thing that will be consistant will be that each fully believed in their reasons for reacting as they did. The important thing for the future is to put in place the means by which repetition is rendered less likely.

"Hearts and Minds" programmes are tricky things to initiate and require a great deal of effort to make work. The American brass are not very good at it - they never have been. Airbourne troops do not make good "temporary policemen" in a civil environment, it is not their fault it is the fault of their training.

The demands of the residents for the Americans to quit the school, is, I believe, fairly reasonable and rational - they want life to return to normality - that includes children going to school. The coalition forces should have in place sufficient engineering units to throw up a secure base area that does not interfere with civilian life in Fallujah - that should be done as quickly as possible. The unit - in fact NO unit - should be operating without accompanying civilian Iraqi Police officers or Interpreters. Three very important things that seemed to be totally lacking in this situation - Dialogue, understanding and restraint.

From GUEST Steve above:

<<"There were a lot of people who were armed and who were throwing rocks. How is a U.S. soldier to tell the difference between a rock and a grenade?" Nantz said.

- doesn't one go bang? - >>

One of them certainly does go bang Steve - But by the time it does it is generally too bloody late for the squaddie that the Lt-Col is talking about.

MGOH says:

"No doubt in the wake of this, young Iraqis are lining up to night to join the Iraqi equivalent of the IRA."

In doing so they would be making the worst possible mistake of their lives. Not only for themselves but for their communities and their country in general.