Did An Iraqi Soldier Kill US Troops for Kicking a Pregnant Woman?

[marmar]

from AlterNet's PEEK:



Did An Iraqi Soldier Kill US Troops for Kicking a Pregnant Woman?

Posted by Siun , Firedoglake at 9:32 PM on January 6, 2008.

"His blood rose and he asked the occupying soldiers to stop beating the woman. Their answer: 'We will do what we want.' So he opened fire."




Yesterday there were a flurry of reports about an Iraqi soldier shooting and killing two US soldiers during a joint mission. Reported as the first time this has happened, the reports in the American press may tell only half the story.

The rather startled reports repeated assertions that the attack was for "reasons unknown." Iraqi reports say the US soldiers were kicking a pregnant Iraqi woman when shot. Here's what we've been able to learn so far.

On December 26, two American soldiers were killed during a "joint Iraqi-U.S. patrol undertaking security duty in al-Haramat area, western Mosul."

The Multinational Force press office initially reported these deaths on December 28:

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died Dec. 26 in Mosul, Iraq, of wounds suffered from small arms fire during dismounted combat operations.

Yesterday the MNF changed the story, releasing a new statement:

Two US Soldiers killed during a combined Iraqi Army and CF operation in Ninewah province on Dec. 26, were allegedly shot by an Iraqi Soldier.

For reasons that are as yet unknown, at least one Iraqi Army Soldier allegedly opened fire ... The incident occurred as US and Iraqi Army Soldiers were conducting operations to establish a combat outpost. Three other US Soldiers and one civilian interpreter were wounded in the attack.

The Iraqi Soldier who allegedly opened fire fled the scene but was identified by other Iraqi Army personnel and was then apprehended. Two Iraqi Army Soldiers are More...now being held in connection with the incident.

Coalition and Iraqi investigations into the incident are underway.

The AP reported on the new version - but did not mention that the MNF had previously given a very different account and repeats Green Zone government claims that:

Initial results from an Iraqi investigation indicate that the soldier who opened fire may have links to local militants, said Brig. Mutaa Habib Jassim al-Khazrachi, commander of the Iraqi army's 2nd Division, who did not elaborate.

They leave out the part of the story which is capturing attention in Iraq.

Aswat Al Iraq provided the initial lead that there was more that was not being reported here:

The U.S. side denied that this Iraqi soldier opened fire at U.S. servicemen because they sexually harassed an Iraqi girl,, affirming that the scene where the incident took place was void of any civilians. (emph added)

Thanks to help from Dubhaltach of GorillasGuides who has looked at the Arabic media for us, we have the following additional information from several sources including Yagen and Al Akhbar (Lebanon):

The reports are that during searching the woman's house the Americans assaulted her and when she was on the ground started to kick. The soldier who is named Caesar Saadi Al-Jibouri asked them to stop beating her and when via interpreter they refused saying that could do as they wished he went to one of the patrol vehicles and opened fire. (via email)

......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/72895/

[hobbit709]

1. When you start behaving like the Waffen SS

you shouldn't be surprised when the reaction comes. And our "Fearless Leader" has given them carte blanche to act any way they want with no accountability.

[Marrah_G]

3. You are awful quick to judge

You know nothing about the people involved or the situation, but none of that matters as long as you get to express your outrage at the "Nazi" Americans, right?

[ck4829]

5. Yep, there might have been some perfectly good reason why they were doing that

Kicking an Iraqi woman on the ground who they already shot, right?

I, too, will wait for more information. But, if it turns out that the Iraqi soldier saved her life from the soldiers, then it will only be one more abuse in a long line of abuses, too many to just say "Oh, it's only some bad apples who are doing it."

[Breeze54]

7. You don't know wtf happened !!

And over 500,000 soldiers have been in and out of that country.

Are you trying to say there have been 500,000 attacks like this on Iraqi's?

That's a whole boat load of crap and you know it!

[Echo In Light]

17. The problem is, when somebody knows one of the "bad apples," they don't see them as such

Seriously, when I've gotten into this debate with anyone, the only ones who get defensive about castigating the role of a military occupation are those who have family/friends enlisted. From there the equation is simple to determine. They're in denial that the system intentionally produces "bad apples."

[Marrah_G]

22. And you know they were kicking her how?

[tuckessee]

27. Due to the lack of independent reporters in Iraq

and the fact that the US military has been caught lying about everything we don't know a thing about what's going on in Iraq.

Using your standards, it would impossible to comment on anything.

[Marrah_G]

30. That is my point

No one said "If they did it" people here just assume that any report coming out of areas we KNOW hate America ( with good reason) are going to be correct.

I don't know if they did or did not do it. I am certainly not going to spit on the bodies of a couple dead soldiers because of some half-baked information on the web.

[ck4829]

33. I don't know

"I, too, will wait for more information."

This shouldn't die though. It should be investigated.

I don't know what happened, and that's why it needs to be found out.

And although I don't know what happened, I do know that the potential for abuse is there. If a person could talk to Abeer Qassim Hamza, then they would find out that this is the truth.

[Marrah_G]

34. That is exactly what I was saying

We don't have enough information to brand these dead soldiers as monsters.

[hobbit709]

9. You're not too slow yourself in judging

My outrage is against anyone who uses brutal tactics for any reason. I could have used other examples-like Wounded Knee, Sherman's March through Georgia, Haymarket Square and other incidents from our history. The point is that brutality generates a reaction-and it usually isn't pretty.

[Marrah_G]

24. Your gut was to absolutely believe the arab paper and not the American/Iraqi troops

So yes you are quick to judge.

[Bandit]

19. We know American soldiers are in Iraq illegally and are not

at all liked or respected there. Is this a surprise to you that something like this would accur. If we were not over there it would not have occured..

[Marrah_G]

25. It is a surprise the you would automatically believe an arab paper you know nothing about

And brand a couple American soldiers as brutal woman beaters who deserved to die when frankly you know NOTHING about what actually happened.

None of us know what happened. You are going on a knee jerk reaction from something you read on the internet.

[KansDem]

29. The American military wanted once to kill us in order to invade Cuba...

U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba

In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.
--more--
ABC News

So why wouldn't I want to believe an Arab paper?

[Marrah_G]

32. Why would you?

Why would you automatically believe papers from people who hate us ( often with good reason)and join in the spitting on the memory of a couple dead soldiers with no other basis then that provided 3rd and 4th hand via the internet?

How would you feel if that was your son, father, brother, friend who was being talked about like that without any sort of proof.

[Echo In Light]

2. Just one of a long list of reasons I don't mindlessly "support" the "heroes." Ugh

[Marrah_G]

4. A little quick to judge aren't you?

You should never mindlessly believe any group are all heroes. But you also shouldn't mindlessly believe they are all devils either.

We don't know what really happened. To assume the dead Americans are the villains ad the Iraq soldier is some kind of saint is truly unfair.

[Bonobo]

6. You don't think any of our soldiers would do that? Wake up.

[Breeze54]

8. Nobody said that there haven't been incidents

but to jump before you know any facts at all is BS!

Marrah is right!!

[DLnyc]

12. I think you are a little quick to excuse

Given the power balance, the control of the media, and past experience, logic and objectivity says the full story is likely worse, not better. I don't think you really have a clear picture of what happens when you put 130,000 kids into a horribly stressful, violent situation and don't set clear guidelines and limits against brutality. The reality is almost certainly that type of brutality is going on ALL THE TIME in Iraq.

[Marrah_G]

28. Excuse what?

Please tell me the facts in this case. Please relate to me something other then a blurb you read off the internet.

American and Iraqi troops have said that is not what happened. Iraqi intelligence has said the guy was an extremist.

But you should to jump right on the wagon with everyone else, stomping on the memory of a couple dead soldiers because someone somewhere said they deserved to die.

I don't know what happened and neither do you.

[DLnyc]

35. Facts in the case

The US is occupying a country. The troops are very severely overextended, are involved in a culture that they really don't know much about. are put in a position of being targets and building up fear, anger and resentment. Over and over, there have been incidences of US troops (and mercenaries) committing acts of excessive brutality. Far from trying to reign in and control these acts (which can be expected under the circumstances), the * administration has gone to great lengths to NOT condemn, investigate or punish these acts. Past acts have INVARIABLY been initially denied and obfuscated by US military and government sources, and local and alternative sources have turned out to have been correct. Under these conditions, a rudimentary knowledge of human nature says that more and more brutality on the part of US soldiers and mercenaries will occur.

Much as you may not want to see it, the history, human nature and established patterns argue for the reality to be as bad or worse than reported by the local papers, and NOT anything as 'innocent' as the official US story.

It would be nice to have the luxury of "waiting until all the facts are in". But the US military and government has been and is continuing to run a very active, powerful propaganda program covering up the brutality that is going on. This cover-up both obscures the reality, and perpetuates and exacerbates it, by creating a climate where soldiers don't feel anyone is helping them restrain themselves. In these circumstances, "waiting until all the facts are in", when the US military pretty much controls most fact gathering, just leads to being snowed by the powers that be.

Sure, you want to be fair to the US troops. I assume you want to be fair to the Iraqi people, also. I think you should keep in mind that the US troops have a 600 billion dollar military budget behind them, pretty much total control of the US media, and a very well-funded propaganda campaign (see Lincoln Group, for instance). Meanwhile, the Iraqi people have mud huts, electricity occasionally, lack of food and water, a brutal occupation and daily humiliation. Personally, I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the weak in this case, not to the strong.

Sorry to rant, but I have yet to see a case like this turn out to be 'faked', and I have over and over seen such cases initially denied, slowly admitted bit by bit, and effectively procrastinated to death so that no effective punishment or prevention ever takes place. And that really angers me.

[Echo In Light]

14. Yet we do know that between sanctions in the 90s, and now with the occupation, the death toll...

Of Iraqis is astounding. God bless America? Don't count on it. God forgive America is much closer to the point...

[gratuitous]

10. A couple of things are very clear

One is that we don't have a very good idea of what happened in this incident. The second is that the American military doesn't have much credibility, thanks to everything from Kama Aido to Jessica Lynch to Abu Ghraib to Fallujah and Haditha. Which makes me inclined to believe that an Iraqi soldier might just turn on a couple of the occupiers for reprehensible conduct.

The bad news that will compound this incident is that if the Iraqi soldier's story pans out, we in the United States will hear damned little about it for at least a decade, because the Myth of American Exceptionalism and the Perfectness of Redemptive Violence must be maintained.

[here_is_to_hope]

11. Seems to be a few 'facts' in the OP and

...considering we will never know the 'facts' anyway...
I myself would shoot someone who was kicking a pregnant woman.

[Sugar Smack]

13. If I were to make any kind of guess

it would be that this is the result of PTSD. That shit fucks a lot of people up.

[tuckessee]

15. Wow! The Excuse & Apologist Brigade is already here.

Did you ever consider that sometimes certain individuals are just cruel?

[Echo In Light]

16. Especially ones who join the service as a vehicle to enable acting on their pathology

...not to mention the fucked up brainwashing they receive once they've enlisted: KILL! KILL! KILL!

Jesus saves...

[Sugar Smack]

18. OH, for Christ's sake-

I said "If I were to make any kind of guess". Yeah, there are cruel and sadistic people out there. For fuck's sake, I suggested PTSD may have had a hand in it.I'm not APOLOGIZING for any asshole behavior, if you can believe that.

[Sugar Smack]

20. What part of "If I were to make any kind of guess" didn't you understand?

Excuse and Apologist Brigade? I think not. GOD, get your own opinions. This was my thinking: someone's seeing violence 24-7 and doesn't react at all? BTW, I'm not in FAVOR of kicking pregnant women. Just so you know.

[tuckessee]

21. Did you also guess....

....that the pregnant lady and her unborn kid might have suffered a little dose of PTSD themselves?

[Sugar Smack]

23. Look, of course.

I hate that this shit's happening every bit as much as you.

[sakabatou]

26. Jeez

Both soldiers... man, how the hell to judge this?

[Richard Steele]

31. K&R

:popcorn:

[Heywood J]

36. It's things like these and gang-raping fourteen year old girls

that make me wonder if this was the inevitable conclusion of issuing so many criminal record waivers to meet recruitment quotas. Between that and the evangelical Christian supremacists in some of the services, this was bound to happen.