js7a's Journal: "Defending Our Country"

From the Economist:

...bilingual notices that American soldiers tack to their rear bumpers in Iraq: "Keep 50m or deadly force will be applied"... Sometimes, they say, they fire on vehicles encroaching within 30 metres, sometimes they fire at 20 metres: "If anyone gets too close to us we fucking waste them," says a bullish lieutenant. "It's kind of a shame, because it means we've killed a lot of innocent people."

...marines say they shoot at any Iraqi they see handling a phone near a bomb-blast. Bystanders to an insurgent ambush are also liable to be killed. Sometimes, the marines say they hide near the body of a dead insurgent and kill whoever comes to collect it...

...marines rarely see their attackers. When fired upon, they retaliate by blitzing whichever buildings they think the fire is coming from: charred shells now line Ramadi's main streets. "Sometimes it works in the insurgents' favour," admits Rick Sims, a chief warrant officer. "Because by the time we've shot up the neighbourhood, then the guys have torn up a few houses, they're four blocks away, and we just end up pissing off the locals."

American marines and GIs frequently display contempt for Iraqis, civilian or official. Thus the 18-year-old Texan soldier in Mosul who, confronted by jeering schoolchildren, shot canisters of buckshot at them from his grenade-launcher. "It's not good, dude, it could be fatal, but you gotta do it," he explained. Or the marines in Ramadi who, on a search for insurgents, kicked in the doors of houses at random, in order to scream, in English, at trembling middle-aged women within: "Where's your black mask?" and "Bitch, where's the guns?" In one of these houses was a small plastic Christmas tree, decorated with silver tinsel. "That tells us the people here are OK," said Corporal Robert Joyce.

...Pleased to find an enemy [a captured insurgent] who understood English, marines say they queued up to taunt him; one told him he would be gang-raped in Abu Ghraib...

...they detained 70 men from districts identified by their informant as "bad". In near-freezing conditions, they sat hooded and bound in their pyjamas. They shivered uncontrollably. One wetted himself in fear. Most had been detained at random; several had been held because they had a Kalashnikov rifle, which is legal. The evidence against one man was some anti-American literature, a meat cleaver and a tin whistle. American intelligence officers moved through the ranks of detainees, raising their hoods to take mugshots: "One, two, three, jihaaad!" A middle-tier officer commented on the mission: "When we do this," he said, "we lose."

Like that crap isn't going to grow the insurgency.

shooting at children

[artifex2004]

Maybe they think that because the Israelis get away with it, so can they.

I like how

[Safety Cap]

... in Iraq, a raised hand, palm out, means "hello," but in the United Occupying Force of America, it means, "Stop, or we'll kill you, you damn foreigner!" So when civilians inadvertently drive towards a military convoy, they are greeted with the familiar gesture for greetings, then blown away.

In one of these houses was a small plastic Christmas tree, decorated with silver tinsel. "That tells us the people here are OK," said Corporal Robert Joyce.

What if every Iraqi put a crucifix on his door, and w

Re:I like how

[TPFH]

So when civilians inadvertently drive towards a military convoy, they are greeted with the familiar gesture for greetings, then blown away.

Reminds me of an early episode of Space 1999 (the 2nd or 3rd I think) where one of the future Voyager probes would broadcast "We are from the earth and we send this message in the name of peace." but the engines of the probe would annialate entire planets.

"Stop, or we'll kill you, you damn foreigner!"

Do people in any country besides the USA consider the locals

Growing the insurgency

[daveo0331]

Iraqi insurgents outnumber U.S. forces [washingtontimes.com]