Will US soldiers shoot Iraqi women?

[SlowwHand]

Five left alive, from the convoy.
I believe 4 from Texas, 1 from New Mexico.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Kirnwaffen
Official policy is that coalition forces will not fire unless fired upon. Realistically, I think it's safe to say that anyone with a weapon who appears threatening in the least will probably be shot, women and children included.

The " not fire until fired upon" policy would be totally ludicrous if applied strictly. I have images of a platoon watchiing a group of armed Iraqis walk up to them with weapons pointed.

Obviously the policy muct be some variation of "armed and/or threatening". As for killing armed women and children, troops will have no choice.

Wouldn't you kill an armed 12 year old in preference to seeing you and your family killed ??

[Kirnwaffen]

The " not fire until fired upon" policy would be totally ludicrous if applied strictly. I have images of a platoon watchiing a group of armed Iraqis walk up to them with weapons pointed.

I understand that, and I fully support whatever (reasonable) policy the coalition forces adopt to protect our troops.

[SlowwHand]

And this is where it gets flucked up.
When military members pose as civilians.

[Kirnwaffen]

When it comes down to it, you have to trust the troops in the field to make the right call. This is what they've trained for. I've no doubt that there will be a few nervous, trigger happy GIs out there, and that's unfortunate, but I have every confidence that our troops will do everything within their power to prevent civillian casualties.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


Yea, thank god there are no women in the US army.

The differences are that the women in the US Armed Forces, although trained and qualified on weapons for self defense purposes, are not intended to be in combat - they are restricted to combat support and combat support services, although **** does happen.

We don't "train" groups of women civilians by showing them how to handle a weapon once, letting them fire a few rounds on the range, and then tell them months or years later, "OK, you're expected to take these weapons and fight in the cities against that invader with tanks, IFVs, aircraft and heavy weapons out the wazoo."

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Flubber


The " not fire until fired upon" policy would be totally ludicrous if applied strictly. I have images of a platoon watchiing a group of armed Iraqis walk up to them with weapons pointed.

Obviously the policy muct be some variation of "armed and/or threatening". As for killing armed women and children, troops will have no choice.

Wouldn't you kill an armed 12 year old in preference to seeing you and your family killed ??

In the field, it often gets down to "when in doubt, wipe 'em out."

If you see civilians moving and carrying weapons, particularly if they're women or kids, you'd likely try (with every weapon you have covering them to help make sure they understand) yelling and gesturing at them to get them to disarm and surrender or move off. If they raised their weapons to a firing position, swung 'em towards you, or just ignored you and kept moving toward you, you're going to respond as necessary to keep you and your unit safe.

[SlowwHand]

And if they had children wired with explosives in Vietnam, a radical Muslim will have them wired, too.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Next "joke" like that, and you're gone for a week, horsie.

Okay - I thought it was a bit ripe myself. No harm intended. I'll delete it.

[MichaeltheGreat]

No problem. I deleted my quote.

[Alexander's Horse]

Don't forget MTG - someone close to you has a birthday coming up

(i got one of those icq reminder things)

[Ned]

I had friends who served in Vietnam who said they shot women and children. When they approach you and refused to obey your orders, well....

Vietnam was a very ugly place for Americans.

[KrazyHorse]

It was worse for Vietnamese.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Frogger
It was worse for Vietnamese.

At least they could understand all that constant jabbering.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ned
I had friends who served in Vietnam who said they shot women and children. When they approach you and refused to obey your orders, well....

Vietnam was a very ugly place for Americans.

My brother was a Spc-4 door gunner on a Huey, in an independent Helo company that did a lot of insertion and extraction for SF and LRRP teams, as well as providing fire coverage for Ranch Hands.

He took a lot of photos there, and one of the things he did was make a little rig he attached to the air-cooling frame on his M-60, along with a remote shutter release, so he could train the gun around and position the camera that way. It worked great as long as things were cool, because once the gun started firing, he couldn't use the camera.

One of the photos he took was a Soviet made 13 mm AAMG, crewed by Viet Cong, with about 20 villagers standing in front of it as human shields, kept in place by three more VC standing behind them. That was the last photo of that scene, because he had to go to work. He figured that at least half, maybe one to three more than half, of the villagers got away, but he did waste the two gunners and the three other VC *******s. Against a heavy machine gun like that, there's just no choice.