The second trip to Falluja and the courteous kidnappers

[gottaB]

Jo Wilding returns to the besieged Iraqi city with aid supplies, is kidnapped by insurgents, and lives to tell the urgent, compelling story.

Sergeant Tratner of the First Armoured Division is irritated. “Git back or you’ll git killed,” are his opening words.

Lee says we’re press and he looks with disdain at the car. “In this piece of shit?”

Makes us less of a target for kidnappers, Lee tells him. Suddenly he decides he recognises Lee from the TV. Based in Germany, he watches the BBC. He sees Lee on TV all the time. “Cool. Hey, can I have your autograph?”

Lee makes a scribble, unsure who he’s meant to be but happy to have a ticket through the checkpoint which all the cars before us have been turned back from, and Sergeant Tratner carries on. “You guys be careful in Falluja. We’re killing loads of those folks.” Detecting a lack of admiration on our part, he adds, “Well, they’re killing us too. I like Falluja. I killed a bunch of them motherfuckers.”

**

The second trip to Falluja and the courteous kidnappers....

[AZCat]

1. One of the guys Jo Wilding has been working with is Dave Martinez

his blog is here: http://vitw.us/weblog/archives/cat_david_martinez.html

Somebody posted his story "The Kill Zone: Moving Wounded in Fallujah", which is his narrative of the first trip to Falluja. If you read his and Jo Wilding's stories (hers is here: http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/View.jsp?id=1843) it provides an interesting opportunity- two narratives about the same events.

Sad, sad stuff. I wish Bush* would at least read accounts like these -- much less actually SEE the devastation he has caused -- before making jokes or flip comments about Iraq.

[gottaB]

5. You've probably also seen Empire Notes

Rahul Mahajan's account of hospitals under siege has been widely circulated.

http://www.empirenotes.org/hospitals.html

[AZCat]

7. Yes- Rahul's blog also deserves mention

I don't have a TV, so most of my impressions of the turmoil in Iraq come from blogs like this (I don't trust wire reports to give me much).

I can't help but think that blogs like this are pushing the two sides of American politics farther apart. Sites like DU promote alternative media sources (even if we do obsess over RW news) and it seems to me that most of us here seek out and read/watch/listen the sources linked by our fellow DUers. The other side seems to shun these sort of sources, and some claim they are 'propaganda'. If both sides are drawing their impressions of Iraq from diametrically opposed perspectives, how are we to ever engage in a constructive debate? Of course we're not going to agree- when Falluja is mentioned, we see people suffering and dying, and they see 'terrorists' working to derail democracy.

A recent example of this is the recent interview of Amhed Al-Sheik, editor-in-chief of Al-Jazeera by Daryn Kagan on CNN (link: http://www.fair.org/activism/cnn-aljazeera.html).

Note: Rahul's reporting is mentioned in the FAIR Alert.

[anarchy1999]

8. Rahul, Jo, Dahr, Robert Fisk and every other independent journalist

risking their lives to tell the story deserve our respect and our love. I know Rahul personally. Each and every day we pray for them all and for their safety. They are where they want to be and they deserve our support and then some. Without them we would have nothing but CNN >>>>>>>>>>>

[VolcanoJen]

2. David Kelley, is that you?

TOTALLY KIDDING!

[buddy22600]

3. as I said in an earlier post

what the hell is wrong with people

[Alpharetta]

4. crazy chick!

Google pointed me to a webpage that said the Iraqi temporary government banned her from Iraq on April 2

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2908991.stm

She's persistent, isn't she!

[gottaB]

6. 2003, eh? n/t

[Alpharetta]

9. oh. thanks! those darn leap years mess me up. :)

[saigon68]

10. Sergeant Tratner Army diplomat"I killed a bunch of them motherfuckers.”

Support the troops !!!!!!!!!!!!

Who is leading this rabble anyway ?????????



KRAZY KILLER KIMMITT, enforcer for the Viceroy Pontius Bremer I

His quote " if you don’t like watching women and children die, change the channel."

[Gman]

11. Its real hard to support the troops

when there is indiscrminate killing by our troops. You can only hope and pray that not all the troops do this. But to do so is probably denying what appears to be obvious.

[saigon68]

12. I have serious problems with the Leadership

If I was that guy's superior, he would be standing tall before the man, and if true would be finding his way on to an airplane for a General Discharge.

This NCO has a problem. His mind set is out of touch with the mission, and I would personally like to hear about 'ALL THE MOTHERFUCKERS HE'S KILLED" maybe though---- he's just a check point girly man trying to act tough.

And every time I point this behavior out here some righteous asshole here wants to pick a fight;

Like the last time when that Colonel decided to put a Plastic Sand Bag on dudes head and squeeze off a few rounds next to his ear, to get him to "TALK"

So bring it on and get banned

Support the Troops Oh Ya.

[AZCat]

13. Why are we surprised every time?

It seems like every time there's a 'war on', we act surprised to learn that occasionally U.S. troops behave barbarically when exposed to a combat zone.

I've read before that it's impossible to predict how someone's going to react when exposed to stressful, life-threatening situations (like a war) . Why should we expect that someone enlisting in the military automatically enables that person to deal with this sort of stress correctly?

[Gman]

14. Basic good morals say

you don't "blow out" an old, unarmed man's heart with a sniper shot through the back. You don't slit someone's throat that's laying in the road, unarmed and wounded in the leg. And, you don't pick off unarmed children. You don't shoot unarmed women.

There is no stress of battle when a sniper sits in his fortified nest and picks off civilian noncombatants as if he were shooting coyotes for fun.

[saigon68]

15. The Military isn't Surprized and neither is the JAG Corps

They have a four or five thousand of these "SWEET HEARTS" locked up at any one time.


Read about them here

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cpus9808.pdf

[SpeakEasy]

16. Do you have any proof of indiscrminate killing by our troops?

Or is that just your opinion?