Children of Abraham - Death in the Desert
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Hat tip - commenter Bob at "Today in Iraq"
Did American Marines murder 23 Iraqi civilians? If you read this article in the UK Independent the answer to that question is seems to be "yes." The last paragraph which reads as follows:
"There appears to be a distinct pattern of misinformation," complained Lt-Col Johnson. "This is another clear sign of that happening, making allegations for the sake of prompting media reporting and attempting to discredit coalition operations. This is a pattern we've seen the terrorist-backed insurgency use repeatedly."
My heart is breaking for poor Lt-Col Johnson - no really …
Then there's this from the UK Times:
Iraqis killed by US troops ‘on rampage’
THE villagers of Abu Sifa near the Iraqi town of Balad had become used to the sound of explosions at night as American forces searched the area for suspected insurgents. But one night two weeks ago Issa Harat Khalaf heard a different sound that chilled him to the bone.
Khalaf, a 33-year-old security officer guarding oil pipelines, saw a US helicopter land near his home. American soldiers stormed out of the Chinook and advanced on a house owned by Khalaf’s brother Fayez, firing as they went.
Khalaf ran from his own house and hid in a nearby grove of trees. He saw the soldiers enter his brother’s home and then heard the sound of women and children screaming.
“Then there was a lot of machinegun fire,” he said last week. After that there was the most frightening sound of all — silence, followed by explosions as the soldiers left the house.
Once the troops were gone, Khalaf and his fellow villagers began a frantic search through the ruins of his brother’s home. Abu Sifa was about to join a lengthening list of Iraqi communities claiming to have suffered from American atrocities.
According to Iraqi police, 11 bodies were pulled from the wreckage of the house, among them four women and five children aged between six months and five years. An official police report obtained by a US reporter for Knight Ridder newspapers said: “The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people.*”
[snip]
The problem for the Pentagon is that every new incident involving civilian deaths triggers a new wave of anti-American fervour.
Last week Jalal Abdul Rahman told this newspaper about the death in January of his 12- year-old son Abdul. It was a Sunday evening and father and son were driving home after buying a new game for the boy’s PlayStation.
They were a few hundred yards from their home in the Karkh neighbourhood of Baghdad when — according to Rahman — US forces opened fire on the car, killing Abdul.
Soldiers approached the car and told Rahman he had failed to stop when ordered to do so. Rahman said he had never heard an order to stop. The soldiers searched the car and, as they departed, they threw a black body bag on the ground.
“They said, ‘This is for your son,’ and they left me there with my dead son,” he added.
Rahman claimed he had had nothing to do with the insurgency until that moment. “But this is America, the so-called guardian of humanity, and killing people for them is like drinking water. I shall go after them until I avenge the blood of my son.”
Yes truly my heart is breaking for poor Lt-Col Johnson - it must be so difficult to repeat the stuff he repeats and keep a straight face. …
* Quote from the attribution to the Knight Ridder story:
"Three Knight Ridder Newspapers special correspondents contributed to this report. Their identities are being withheld for security reasons."
I wonder who they're afraid of do you? |
