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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:32
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quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Apparently, there's some subtle distinctions you miss. Not the conditional predicate clause "**** with the best" - the implication is that if you don't fulfill the condition, you won't "die like the rest."
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Innocent civilians leaving work ended up dead like the rest. They weren't "**** with the best".
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:32
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And while the Americans are gloating over their victory, but of course not the deaths, maybe they should question whether their government's version is accurate.
From the NY Times:
"While American commanders said the Iraqi body count [54 KIA] had come from precise reports filed immediately after a close-range battle, hospital officials said Monday that they could account for, at most, eight dead, with most of those probably civilians."
The commanders said they were not surprised by the dearth of bodies. They do not routinely collect the enemy's dead from the battlefield, they said, and the guerrillas were unlikely to take their dead to the morgues."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/02/i.../02IRAQ.html?hp
Regardless of what actually happened, this fight was a no-win situation for the American soldiers from the beginning. They had to defend themselves, but in the end alienated more Iraqis. It's the classic problem of fighting a guerrilla war: Every battle won is one step closer to losing the war.
"If I had a gun, I would have attacked the Americans myself," said Satar Nasiaf, 47, a shopkeeper who said he had watched two Iraqi civilians fall to American fire. "The Americans were shooting in every direction."
Sheik Khatan al-Salem, a Samarra town official with a decidedly anti-American bent, predicted that the battle on Sunday would ultimately prove to be something less than an American victory.
"Why is the resistance increasing now?" the sheik asked. "Simply because the Americans misbehave with the people."
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Guynemer
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quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
MrFun:
Yes.
If you read my posts, you'll notice that I see nothing shocking in that the troops defended themselves and killed their attackers. Also, despite being a supposedly raving anti-american leftist, I consider the US troops not to be responsible at all for the civilians dead or wonded caught in the crossfire.
I think the Iraqi guerilla is wrong. That it fights a lost cause, and that it will achieve nothing else than worsening the situation for everyone. I am glad to see the guerilla has suffered a defeat today.
Once again, I am opposing the fact that people gloat over the dead. To kill the enemy is normal. To gloat about it is not.
I remember Paiktis was banned for a week, in the past, for having gloated about casualties. I wonder what has changed these last 7 months. |
This was precisely the point I was trying to make way back around reply #55 or so; however, this is a far more eloquent and elegant explanation of my feelings. Thank you, Spiffor.
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Sava
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GO GO GO!
Mar 2001
time: 23:32
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quote:
No bodies found after Iraq gunfight
From correspondents in Samarra
02Dec03
THE US military has said it believes 54 insurgents were killed in intense exchanges in the northern Iraqi town of Samarra on Sunday but commanders admitted they had no bodies.
The only corpses at the city's hospital were those of ordinary civilians, including two elderly Iranian pilgrims and a child.
US Brigadier General Mark Kimmit told a Baghdad press conference 54 militants were killed, 22 wounded and one arrested.
Challenged about what had happened to the bodies, Gen Kimmitt said: "I would suspect that the enemy would have carried them away and brought them back to where their initial base was."
Asked about reports from senior police and hospital officials in the town of eight civilians killed and dozens more wounded, the US general insisted: "We have no such reports whether from medical authorities or police.
A few hours earlier, Colonel Fredrick Rudesheim, who heads the 3rd Combat Brigades that was involved in Sunday's bloody clashes, told reporters his troops had killed 46 and captured another 11.
"Are you asking me to produce (them)?" he asked, when asked by reporters about the absence of any militants' bodies at Samarra's single hospital or on the city's streets.
"This is a good question and I think perhaps if you can interview the Fedayeen (a disbanded militia of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime) or whoever attacked us, you might get a better answer."
Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Gonsalves, who commands the 166th Armoured Battalion in Samarra, also said his troops were not in possession of the bodies.
The death toll, he said, was "based on the reports we got from the ground".
Lieutenant Joseph Marcee, who took part in Sunday's combat, said he saw several of the attackers lying dead on the ground.
"There was no time to pick up the bodies. We were receiving fire from other locations," he said.
Sergeant Nicholas Mullen, who fired rounds from an Abrams tank on Sunday, offered yet another explanation for the army's inability to locate the corpses. "We don't stick around," he said.
The mystery, which borders on solving a mathematics equation, further deepened with Col Gonsalves' report.
According to him, a total of 60 militants, divided into two groups, attacked two convoys escorting new Iraqi currency to banks in the city.
Another four assailants in a BMW attacked a separate engineering convoy.
If the US troops killed 46 and captured 11 of them, only three of the survivors would have been left to pick up the corpses.
On Kimmit's figures the calculus becomes even hazier - with 54 killed, 22 wounded and one captured, 13 militants remain unaccounted for, although both commanders did say the cash convoys also came under attack on their way in and out of the city.
As to how the troops came up with their casualty figures, Rudesheim said it was by counting their weapons.
"We don't indiscriminately engage people, only those who engage us with AK 47s and RPGs. That's how we determine the number of people we are engaging and, after talking with each soldier, we can tell just how many people are returning fire at us."
Residents in Samarra said they had not seen any of the militants' bodies, 46 or 54.
The head of the local hospital, Abed Tawfiq, reported eight dead civilians but no insurgents.
Ambulance driver Abdelmoneim Mohammed said he had not ferried any combatants wounded or killed and wearing the black Fedayeen outfit which US soldiers said their assailants wore.
"If I had seen bodies, I would have picked them up. It's not like the Americans would have done it.
"If the death toll had reached that announced by the Americans, the atmosphere in Samarra would be quite different."
Salaheddin Mawlud, a colonel in the former Iraqi army, who now heads Samarra city council's complaints office, said the American toll does not work.
"If there had been so many dead, we would have seen people rushing to the hospital, the police station or here, and it just didn't happen."
Abdelrizek Jadwa, who owns a grocery 50m from the scene of one of the attacks, said he did not have the shadow of a doubt.
"After the firing, I went out of my shop. There were no wounded, no killed on the streets. Where could they have disappeared?"
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from http://www.news.com.au/common/story...635%5E2,00.html
interesting development...  but our government wouldn't lie to us, right?
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Zylka
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Really embarrassing development. I'd like to hear from experienced soldiers to confirm how such a situation normally works... but NO bodies?
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:32
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quote:
Originally posted by DinoDoc
Thank you Tinky. I was wondering where Roland got his info from. Still waiting for the name of the reporter you mentioned earlier though. |
Sophie Claudet with AFP
See
http://www.news.com.au/common/story...55E1702,00.html
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:32
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quote:
Originally posted by Zylka
Really embarrassing development. I'd like to hear from experienced soldiers to confirm how such a situation normally works... but NO bodies? |
Estimates of the number of attackers are the spottiest number of all - you can see those who are firing, get an rough idea if you see movement, but that's it. In a guerilla situation, you can have far more "support" elements, people blending as civilians, all sorts of things. Presumably if these guys intended to get the money, they'd have getaway vehicles to haul it off - they sure as hell wouldn't try to drive a US Army issue 5 ton down the main highway. Those getaway vehicles wouldn't be in the fight, nor would their drivers be, but they'd be available just out of sight.
Ammo bearers, mortarmen, anti-helo spotters, lookouts and couriers would also be likely to be part of the guerilla support force, but wouldn't likely be seen or numbered in with the attackers. So there's plenty of people out there who could haul off bodies, again for psychological effect. Given the spate of assassinations of Iraqi "collaborators" and even a member of the governing counsel, I would expect civilians in the area, who still have to live in the area, to give "massaged" statements and reports friendly to the insurgents, whether they really want to or not.
Ultimately, only the eyewitnesses and immediate chain of command really know the situation, but an absence of bodies and local denials are completely possible and not particularly surprising given the nature of the conflict.
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HershOstropoler
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So now they say no bodies, but initially they had bodies with fedayeen uniforms? I suppose this is another Jessica Lynch story - it will take months to know what happened, and what we have now is propaganda based on chaotic information.
But that doesn't matter much in the big picture. As I said in the beginning, MtG has been cheering an own goal.
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02-12-2003 08:25
Yes, and they had a peace-loving benevolent government that reflected their popular will, too. 
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