U.S. Troops Fire on Iraq Protesters Again

[Chemical Ollie]

It's a Somalian militiaman. Also called Skinnie.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Winston
Well said Tingkai.

He sounded like he was being sarcastic.

[Winston]

Well, Urban Ranger there are some who sound that way whenever they post...

BTW, if you don't have anything to add to a thread, why post at all? If you thought a bit about it, you'd get an awful lot of spare time.

[Jaguar]

Re: U.S. Troops Fire on Iraq Protesters Again

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
U.S. troops opened fire on anti-American demonstrators for the second time this week as Iraqis marched Wednesday to protest the previous shooting.

Black humor alert.

[uh Clem]

U.S. troops opened fire on anti-American demonstrators for the second time this week as Iraqis marched Wednesday to protest the previous shooting.

That does have an Onion-esque quality to it.

This situation is just the US has always badly needed: our very own West Bank. Yippee.

[Wraith]

Okay, this was an airborne division. Not MPs, right?

Guess what. They're soldiers. They're trained to shoot things and blow things up. A bunch of people start throwing things at them, possibly shooting, what do you think they're going to be doing?
Say you're in what's effectively enemy territory, where you know others on your side have been experiencing terror attacks. You're bored and suddenly you hear things hitting the side of your building. First reaction? I bet it isn't breaking out your guitar to go sing Kumbaya.

This is pretty much one of those Darwin Award things.

Wraith
"Now dance for your diplomat! Dance! Now Riverdance!"
-- Dogbert ("Dilbert")

[Kropotkin]

Yes, Wraith is correct. The american soldiers have no training in handling this sort of situation. The US army has a dismal track record when it comes to peace keeping instead of peace making. Other countries with a long running experience with peace keeping under the UN flag on average handles things like this much better.

Now, the important thing is how the US army handles it. I don't expect them to tell the world that what their troops did was wrong (if it in fact was wrong). Instead they should conduct a fair and balanced evalution and see what can be done to stop things like this from happening. Random targetshooting on crowds will benefit no one. Ignoring problems will not make them go away. If the mission if the troops in Bagdad is to bring peace, democracy and order to Iraq this is hardly a good way to do it.

[uh Clem]

How the local media portrayed the event:

[DinoDoc]

Bump.

[Sava]

"The evildoers are deliberately placing at risk the good civilians. These are deliberate actions by the enemy to use the population as cover," said Green.

from the AP repor... I dislike the term evildoers. This isn't a freaking comic book.

[Felch]

Oh wow, someone who tries to use civilians as human shields is just doing his own thing, he certainly isn't committing an act that could be described as "evil."

He is doing something evil. Hence he is an evildoer. If the AP describes things in a factual manner, in this case, quoting what someone said, and that person happened to think that shooting at non-threatening troops and using peaceful protesters as human shields is evil, then you're just going to have to live with it.

There is evil in the world Sava. Some people are more willing to recognize it than you and are willing to call it when they see it.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Sava
from the AP repor... I dislike the term evildoers. This isn't a freaking comic book.

Nonetheless...

[Sava]

Felch, don't be silly. As a supposedly respectable military commander, certainly the guy could have used a better term. Like gunmen, or terrorist. But the term "evildoer" is just stupid.

Semantics aside, I just heard a rumor on talk-radio that the "gunmen" were firing in the air. Just like the Afghan wedding that "coalition" troops bombed. Evildoers indeed.

[monkspider]

Perhaps it is time to reopen the discussion on indicting American war criminals for the attrocities committed in this war. To anyone who knowingly supports troops who would slay the innocent, you should be ashamed to your very soul.

[RGBVideo]

About the "evildoers"... It doesn't mean anything, but the way I see it, these people who call themselves "patriots" are trying to create a word, so their current hero, George W. Bush wouldn't look like an idiot.
I think it's extremely humorous, and at the same time quite disturbing, that they're ready to change fundamental rules to alter the truth.