9 Americans dead including 4 brutally burned alive and hung!

[East Street Trader]

It is not human nature.

Respect for the bodies of the dead lies very deep in all of us.

It used to be commonplace for warriors to defile the bodies of those killed in battle - but that died out long ago.

I can well understand a proud Iraqi resisting those who occupy his country. But there is nothing to be proud of in the actions of these despicable creatures. On the contrary their behaviour is an afront to the dignity of all men, Iraqi as well as the rest of us.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Seeker
WWJD?

What Would Julius Caesar Do in this situation?

He'd pay the worst of the Shia militia to "police" Fallujah.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
Published on Tuesday, April 29, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Fallujah - A Shooting Too Far?
by Felicity Arbuthnot

The shooting of protesters outside a school at Fallujah, approximately 30 miles west of Baghdad - where US troops were apparently billeted - by US troops reportedly from the 1st Battalion of 325th Airborne Infantry Division of the 82nd Airborne Division, may be an outrage too far and return to haunt the US and UK troops. Iraq is a country where historical memory is immediate and like Ireland, perceived or actual injustices never fade.

Out of a crowd of two hundred, it seems seventy five were injured and thirteen to fifteen killed - nearly half maimed or dead.

Fallujah was seized by the British under General Stanley Maude on 19th March 1917. He is buried in Baghdad's Rashid Cemetery. More recently Fallujah was provided by the UK, in the 1980's with a fourteen million £ chemical factory to produce chlorine and phenol, named the Tariq plant. The deal was allegedly concealed from Parliament by the then Trade Minister, Sir Paul Channon.

When the Gulf war disrupted production at the Fallujah plant, Iraq successfully claimed three hundred thousand pounds compensation from the UK government"s Export Credit Guarantee Department. However, later Tariq became subject of UN weapons Inspector"s (UNSCOM) scrutiny and accused of producing chemical weapons, was destroyed.

Fallujah is seared into Iraq's collective psyche as completely as the attack on the Ameriyah civilian air raid shelter, bombed by US planes during the Gulf war. Also in 1991, the market in Fallujah was bombed, reportedly by US planes flying very low. Other reports say the UK planes were also involved. When residents ran to help the injured and seek the dead, in a familiar pattern, the planes returned and bombed the rescuers.

Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark visited shortly after and reported at least two hundred civilian deaths and a stunning five hundred injured.

The attacks also leveled an Egyptian owned hotel and a row of modern, concrete five and six story apartments with a further (estimated at the time) two hundred dead. Military spokespersons later said they were aiming for a bridge, but Human Rights Watch reported that: "All buildings for four hundred meters on either side of the street - houses and market, were flattened."

"The term 'collateral damage' is inapplicable", says Ramsey Clark, pointing out that the attacks were in broad daylight, when much of the area would have been at its most populated. He states that attacks on civilians were stated by the military (then as now) were to "demoralize".

To visit Fallujah is to be shamed - and stoned. The only place in Iraq I have ever experienced hostility. It is a hostility easy to understand. A tour of the re-established market - or anywhere else, reveals traders with amputated limbs who survived the attack - and not a person, seemingly, who has not lost one or more of their family.

The Tariq plant at Fallujah was one of the stated reasons for the slaughter and invasion of Gulf War Two. "Iraq had embedded key portions of its chemical weapons infrastructure" Colin Powell is reported as saying, with Prime Minister Blair faithfully repeating the allegation last Autumn. (How they love that "embedded" word, does the Pentagon/State Department not have a Thesaurus?)

I visited the plant in 1999 and another cited chemical weapon plant at Al Doura in a suburb of Baghdad. Both had been completely trashed by UNSCOM. Days before Colin Powell and Tony Blair made their allegation, Count Hans von Sponeck, a former UN Assistant Secretary General and UN Co-ordinator in Iraq, visited both plants with a crew from German state television. He told this writer: "They are in the same trashed state as when you and I visited in 1999. There is one difference: the undergrowth is higher."

"Hearts and minds" are being lost in Iraq with stunning speed. This further slaughter by an unwelcome, invading force, of a "liberated" crowd, may, I predict, mark the beginning of the end for the "coalition." "They stole our oil, now they are killing our people', said one grieving relative.

Writing this, I remembered the word on the street in Iraq, when I was there little over a month ago. It was encapsulated by a western educated Iraqi graduate of the Sorbonne, an intellectual who speaks numerous languages, a true international. "Let them come", she said "we have been burying invaders for centuries - and we have plenty of spaces next to General Maude."

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0429-11.htm

Yea, that poor town built on the blood of the greater part of Iraq. Did she have to clean the saliva out of her typewriter after writing this?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking


Any reasonable "western" person in a "developed" nation.

I can distinguish. You can distinguish.

The point someone made is that mutilating a dead body violates a universal standard.

I say that many cultures would find it normal to mutilate the body or a war victim - cut off their ears as trophies, maybe cut off their head. But find it abnormal to cut up the body of a loved one for any purpose.

I don't think the term "inhumane" applies to the treatment of a corpse. I'm not sure it was callous.

It was intended to communicate a total lack of respect, a deep-seated hatred. Do you think it was effective?

You've been virulently wrong too long and too much:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/02/international/middleeast/02IRAQ.html

Mix of Pride and Shame Follows Killings and Mutilation by Iraqis

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Published: April 2, 2004




FALLUJA, Iraq, April 1 — As the rage cooled in Falluja on Thursday and the burned and beaten bodies of four American civilians were wrapped in white cloth, many townspeople said they were torn between pride in the attack and shame over the mutilations.

Many said they supported the killing of four security consultants because they were Americans and Americans are despised.

But some of those same people said they felt embarrassed when mobs tore the bodies apart afterward and dragged them through the streets, turning this town in the heart of the Sunni Triangle into a symbol not only of resistance but of barbarity. The macabre celebration was televised worldwide.

"This is a bad advertisement for everything we stand for," said Muhammad Khalifa, a spare-parts trader who closed his shop during the disturbance in a sign of disgust. "We may hate Americans. We may hate them with all our hearts. But all men are creatures of God."

In the morning, a team of American officials rushed to a meeting with Falluja's mayor and top clerics. American officials said the clerics promised to issue a fatwa, or religious edict, at Friday Prayer to condemn the ambush and the grisly aftermath. One of the gravest sins in Islam is desecrating the dead.

Meanwhile, military commanders acknowledged that the violence on Wednesday would make it more difficult for them to stick to their low- key approach.

"We were going to roll in there all quiet like the fog," said Col. J. C. Coleman, chief of staff for the First Marine Expeditionary Force. "Now these people are invigorated. They're all stirred up. They've gotten worldwide press. It makes our job harder."

Marines took over the Falluja area from the Army just last week and announced a shift away from aggressive tactics. They wanted to win friends by doling out $540 million in reconstruction projects. Now, commanders say, they will have to root out the insurgents.

In Washington, administration officials said that the attacks in Falluja could hamper the entire reconstruction effort by making it harder to persuade Spain and other countries to keep troops in Iraq or to convince allies like India and Pakistan to send forces.

"This raises the difficulty level for everything, including our ability to reach a political solution to the governance of Iraq," an official said.

Falluja has been one of the most difficult spots to occupy in Iraq, a place where support for Saddam Hussein runs strong. Mr. Hussein built a powerful network here, handing out choice jobs and privileges to tribal elders and powerful sheiks. At a traffic circle downtown, there are still signs that read, "Viva Saddam!" and "Long live Falluja, the cemetery for invaders."

Sometimes, it seems as if American overseers have few friends. But on Thursday, a group of clerics and policemen helped the American authorities recover the bodies of the four security consultants. After the four were shot, they were yanked from burning vehicles by a jeering mob and dragged to a bridge over the Euphrates River where at least two bodies were strung up by a rope and dangled over the water.

The families of three of the victims confirmed their identities. They were Jerry Zovko, 32, an Army veteran from Willoughby, Ohio; Michael Teague, 38, an Army veteran from Clarksville, Tenn.; and Scott Helvenston, a Navy veteran from Big Bear, Calif. The company the men worked for, Blackwater U.S.A. of Moyock, N.C., declined to identify them.

Neither American forces nor the Iraqi police responded to the chaos. More than 4,000 marines are stationed near Falluja, 35 miles west of Baghdad. Marine commanders on Thursday defended their decision not to intervene. "Should we have sent in a tank so we could have gotten, with all due respect, four dead bodies back?" said Col. Michael Walker, a civil affairs commander. "What good would that have done? A mob is a mob. All we would have done was provoke them."

An Iraqi policeman said he and his colleagues were united about what to do when the violence started. "We had to stay away," Muhammad al-Esawi said. "What happened was between Americans and insurgents. If we got involved, we would have been killed."

On Thursday, the violence continued. An Iraqi employed by the Marines was shot in the neck as he was leaving work. He was in critical condition Thursday night. Also on Thursday, a Marine Humvee was attacked — twice. First it was disabled by a roadside bomb, which wounded three marines. Then, after the marines abandoned the vehicle, a crowd set it on fire in a scene reminiscent of the blazing vehicles on Wednesday. A roadside bomb killed five soldiers on Wednesday.

American troops have pulled back to the outskirts of the city. American military commanders, though, said they were not retreating from Falluja.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld held a series of meetings at the Pentagon with his top advisers, including the commander in the Persian Gulf, Gen. John P. Abizaid, to discuss Iraq and how to deal with Falluja. The director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, also attended the meetings.

A senior military official said that American forces in Iraq were already planning an "appropriate response" to the grisly killings and overall violence in Falluja. "We're not getting panicky over this," the senior official said.

In Iraq, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations director for the occupation forces, said: "We will respond. It's going to be deliberate, it will be precise and it will be overwhelming."

He added, "We will pacify Falluja."

Since the war in Iraq began, Falluja has been a hot spot of resistance. Last April, American soldiers killed at least 15 civilians at a demonstration. In November, insurgents downed an Army helicopter, killing 16. In February, gunmen blasted their way into a Falluja jail, killing 15 police officers and freeing dozens of prisoners. Last week, marines fought with insurgents in a battle that killed a number of civilians.

Osama Nafaa, who sells tires, said the attack against the four American security consultants might have been revenge. "People were still talking about the civilians the Americans killed," Mr. Nafaa said.

On Thursday, several Falluja residents spoke of the attack against the Americans in admiring terms. "It was a very good ambush," said Mr. Khalifa, the spare-parts seller. He said he was driving to work in downtown Falluja around 10 a.m. on Wednesday when he passed some men alongside the road who frantically waved at him and said: "Go back! Go back! Something is about to happen."

Mr. Khalifa, 38, said the men, some wearing masks, some carrying guns, cleared the streets so that when the security consultants rolled into town in two sport utility vehicles, they were the only cars on the road.

It is not clear what the four Americans were doing in Falluja. Their company, Blackwater U.S.A., said their job was to provide security for food deliveries in the area. Many Falluja residents said they did not believe the men were civilians, insisting they were plainclothes soldiers or spies. More than 10 foreign civilians have been killed in the past month.

Within seconds, Mr. Khalifa said, the gunmen blasted the cars, killing the Americans, and melted back into the streets. Then the mobs came. Iraqi television crews caught the end of the mayhem. The images beamed worldwide were reminiscent of scenes from Somalia in 1993, when a mob dragged the body of an American soldier through the streets of Mogadishu.

Some of the Iraqis who approved of the killings expressed deep dismay over the mob's actions. "I know these men, these insurgents," Mr. Khalifa said. "Even they wouldn't accept dragging bodies."

Mazem Hazem, a 20-year-old engineering student, said killing the Americans was acceptable but what was done to their bodies was not.

"I am satisfied that we killed them — they are Americans and they are foreigners on our land," Mr. Hazem said. "But I don't agree with what they did with their bodies. It is haram," he said, using the Arabic word for forbidden. "It is an embarrassment. And people will remember Falluja for this for many years."

[Dinner]

Remember these people were contractors and the terrorists target contractors because they are less well armed and have a harder time calling in back up then the military does.

[Tripledoc]

The Danish newspaper Politiken, says that an hitherto unknown group has taken responsibility for the killings of the four Americans. (Not neccesarily the subsequent mutilation) They said it was a revenge for the killing of the spiritual leader of Hamas Sheik Yassin by an Israeli airstrike.

[Arrian]

Neither American forces nor the Iraqi police responded to the chaos. More than 4,000 marines are stationed near Falluja, 35 miles west of Baghdad. Marine commanders on Thursday defended their decision not to intervene. "Should we have sent in a tank so we could have gotten, with all due respect, four dead bodies back?" said Col. Michael Walker, a civil affairs commander. "What good would that have done? A mob is a mob. All we would have done was provoke them."

Good to know that we have some cool heads in important posts.

-Arrian

[Dinner]

It's funny how they got that quote from a Civil Affairs CO. Like CA had anything to do with the decision what so ever.

Still, it was a good quote.

[Arrian]

I noticed the guy's title after I posted, and wondered about that. What does civil affairs have to do with combat ops?

But yeah, that's the proper reaction, IMO. I just hope the marines don't end up tearing that town apart when they go to "pacify" it. Searches for weapons and suspects are one thing, and a punitive operation is another.

-Arrian

[Dinner]

What does civil affairs have to do with combat ops?

CA has jack squawt to do with combat ops.

[East Street Trader]

The way for the Iraqi's to respond to this now is for the members of the mob who defiled the bodies to give themselves up to the civil authorities. And for their neighbours to turn them in if they fail to do so.

I know nothing of Iraqi law, but if there were such an incident in England I would be confidant of being able to frame a charge under our criminal law. And there is equally likely to be a charge available under Iraqi law - more likely in fact as arab law is much more influenced by religious matters.

Merely professing shame is an empty gesture.

I do not know what was done, once the mob dispersed, about the four men's remains. But if everything possible has not already been done decently to recover them and to get them into the hands of the men's families then the Iraqi authorities must bust a gut to do so.

For what little it is worth they can also profer an apology to the families.

[debeest]

Killing four people would get only a squib or a column on the bottom of the newspaper page, but chopping up the bodies and burning them and hanging them up to view gets several days of front page headlines and horrified TV coverage, and so far a 6-page thread here.

Those of you who are so worked up about the mutilation -- I'm just asking, don't you think those priorities are a little backward?

I guess I must be a barbarian.

[DinoDoc]

Well it is one of the gravest sins in Islam.

[debeest]

Just one of many reasons I'm not religious. My values are focused more on the living than on the already dead.

Just a barbarian, I guess.

[MOBIUS]

Interesting it was the civilians and not the insurgents that were responsible for the mutilations...