3/30/2003: US soldier carries injured Iraqi soldier

MSNBC Week in Pics had this one.

Sometimes you look at a photograph and it brings up more questions than answers. The caption answers some of those questions, but then makes you ask a hundred more questions.

"U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Marcco Ware of Los Angeles carries an Iraqi soldier who was shot three times during an attempted ambush of the 3rd Battalion, Fifth Regiment convoy on March 25, in central Iraq. One Marine was killed and one injured during the attack, which left about 40 Iraqi soldiers dead and 30 others in prison compounds."

It sure sounds like, in a day of severe inhumanity, this was a moment of humanity. How can someone go from trying to kill you, to trying to save you, in a matter of minutes? What's going through both their heads right now? Does the Marine think of it as an act of kindness, or just a part of his job? What will they both think if they look back on this moment in a few years?

One thing is for certain, here...the Iraqi who has been wounded, captured and subsequently carried on the back of the American Imperialist Dog (tm) has not yet been strapped to a bed frame and electrocuted nor yet had a gun placed to his forehead and the trigger pulled.

That is gonna hurt tomorrow.

And they're executing our guys.

I heard our frontline troops were short of food. Is he taking him to the cook? Naw, he's the typical soft hearted american schmuck taking pity on everyone. If the tables were turned, I'd bet he'd be dragged by the heels or just shot. Also, if he had a weapon on his belt near where the prisoners hand is he'd be in trouble.

Who pissed in your popcorn?

Don't call our soldiers schmucks.

Who pissed on my popcorn? The Iraqis, the Somalies, the Serbs, the Croations, the Vietnamise the Koreans, The Japanese, the Germans and every other bastard that's murdered an American GI that tried to show some compassion. This is not "Cops". This
is not entertainment or a cockfight. My friends are dying and I don't think that's smething to be flip about.

Um, I bet saving the wounded is part of his orders. One of the main points of this war is to make a good impression on the locals, right?

I think Bruce was being sarcastic, and him calling our soldiers shmucks was an affectionate statement, NBN. I think we're all pissed off that despite being a conquering force, we're attempting to minimize the inhumanity (if that is possible in war) and we are being kidnapped and executed for our trouble.

Sorry.
Must be that time of the month.

I find that some motrin, and an hour or so on the range sorts me out.

The only problem with the "they are executing our guys" thing is that this "news" is coming from places like fox and cnn, which aren't the most crediable IMO. Now that's the only place I've heard things like that though, if there is a source that doesn't come off like a reality tv show, I will stand corrected, but lets not take anything seen on TV (especially from "The War Room") as fact

I heard a reporter on CNN say that he personally saw footage of the American POWs, and that some of them were most certainly dead (shot in the head). But of course, they aren't showing the footage of the POWs out of concern for the families. Anyway, his word is good enough for me. He's wasn't just passing on something that some official told him -- he saw it himself.

(Please, no CNN jokes. )

Sometimes, it just feels good to save someone, anyone, even if they may have been just trying to kill you.

Quote:

Originally posted by arcterex The only problem with the "they are executing our guys" thing is that this "news" is coming from places like fox and cnn, which aren't the most crediable IMO. Now that's the only place I've heard things like that though, if there is a source that doesn't come off like a reality tv show, I will stand corrected, but lets not take anything seen on TV (especially from "The War Room") as fact

"War crimes"

The sad thing is that they're depending on the USs relative decency in order to commit these acts. The ideas of certain actions as war crimes didn't come about for any noble purpose -- it started as pure tit-for-tat self-interest.

You don't execute POWs because you don't want the other side to execute YOUR POWs; after all, you want those people back after the war, to fight the next one or perhaps to do heavy lifting in civilian fields.

You don't disguise your troops as civilians because you don't want to give the other side reason to slaughter your real civilians.

You don't fake surrenders because in doing so you invite the enemy not to accept your surrender, should the war go badly.

The Iraqi leaders know the US won't respond to POW executions by executing Iraqi POWs. They know the US won't start slaughtering their civilians (and they probably wouldn't care much if we did). And they'd probably love it if the US stopped accepting surrenders, because it would force their own regulars to fight to the last man.

The Chinese-Russian Coalition invades your part of the USA, with bombers, tanks, cruise missiles,... the whole conventional shebang,... in overwhelming numbers.
Your neighbor, who owns a gun and knows how to use it, sees an enemy soldier sneaking across his back yard and shoots him in the leg.
Now, honestly, what do you think your neighbor is going to do next?
a) leave the soldier alone, and risk calling unpleasant attention to the area?
b) stash the soldier in the basement, and give him scarce food and medicine?
c) stash the soldier in the basement, but don't give him scarce food and medicine?
d) shoot the soldier in the forehead at close range?

And by the way, is your neighbor wearing a regulation military uniform and name tag, per the Geneva Conventions?

Lots of Iraqi soldiers are scum who oppress their own people. Maybe these guys even cheered when a bunch of Saudis took down the WTC. But it's worth remembering that our soldiers are FOREIGN INVADERS. Why should we expect the Iraqi's to be any nicer than your neighbor?

Its the hearts and minds campaign. Looks like a tough sell, but for everyone's sake, I hope it works.

I am amazed at the differences between the equipment of the American soldier and the Iraqi soldier. I really hope that they stripped the Iraqi soldier down before the picture, and that wasn't how we was supposed to be all the time.

No shoe!

You don't need shoes when you live on a beach.

Photoshoped

Note the Healthy glow around the Soldiers, I don't mind that this was edited though, because its Content is the same It looks like all the Photoshoping did was change the back ground. Wich could be understandable considering what could be back there. There could be a bunch of dead and bloody soldiers, or a city sky line that will give away the location of those troops, lots of things.
In the end it is still just a photo of a Soldier carring a wounded enemy soldier. Wich i think is proof positive that we are not there with compleatly melificent intentions.

Some of our soldiers are good kind folk. That's what the picture displays.

It says nothing about the possibly maleficient intentions of the Administration.

(edit: grammatical error)

The reason why the rest of the world doesn't invade us is partly due to you, quzah [and partly due to the hillbillies and aircraft carriers]. I myself am not sure what I can add to a conversation that would not make the rest of the world hate us, other than "Could I please have some more hummus and pita, and another cup of Turkish coffee". Any viewpoint has it's supporters here in the good old US of A. That's the part I'm proud of, that's the part I don't really see elsewhere in the world.

Any one single leader can fuck up only so far in secret. We have people like Noam Chomsky -- whom I'm not it agreement with in every point he makes. Amnesty International believes, and rightly so, that casting light on wrong doings makes leaders very nervous, and not likely to repeat. You're no Chomsky; that last post was very emotional, a bit simplistic, and revealed nothing really new, but you add to the voice.

That being said, I really, really do like the idea of dropping concrete on Iraqi tanks from 10,000 feet! YEE-HAW! *Blam, blam, blam*

Maybe we will develop 'smart blocks' of concrete that have computer guided accuracy, so that our concrete blocks aren't wasted on splashing sand.

Yes, they are essentially the BDU (bomb dummy unit) version of a bomb body with a guidance kit on it. The result a steerable concrete bomb. By the way, there are quite a few of these guidance kits nowadays - I saw some for 500 pound Mk 82s the other day.

The problem is that even smart weapons have a miss distance (a CEP - circular error probable) and with a non-blast/non-frag/non-penetration version of the weapon if it missed even by an inch it misses completely. Not to say that this is an ineffective method but it harkens back to multiple bomb runs to attack a target a la WWII.

I read at another discussion board about a mission late last week wherein one of these weapons was deployed against a MiG parked in a schoolyard. It seemed very unlikely to me given the "facts" that were included in the story (nevermind how a Mig was in a schoolyard to begin with), but others were quick to say that these bombs were there and were being used.

The MiG was obviously there as a training aid to the ttech school...teaching aspiring airplane mechanics to work on aircraft!

They must start em young over there tho.

:p

Brian

I'll bet the kid who spent ALL YEAR picking up parts from the desert and reassembling that thing was PISSED when his final project got creamed.

Quzah said: "Iraq has done exactly what evil in the last decade? Oh, that's right, nothing."

I was watching MSNBC yesterday. They did ten minutes at an Iraqi jail where people claim to have been tortured. The guys were demonstrating how they were bound by their wrists with hands behind their backs, and hoisted off the floor before being beaten. I've read interviews with tortured Iraqi athletes who were flailed and forced to swim through raw sewage afterward because they lost a soccer game. I've heard worse tales.

<sarcasm>But since they are only torturing their own citizens, we really don't have anything to say about it, I guess. They haven't done anything really bad like allow terrorists to train in their country, and even if they did, it doesn't mean anything to the US.</sarcasm>

From here on out, if I hear any mouthbreather mention anything about the 2000 election in tandem with this war, I will only be able to assume that they truly are unintelligent.

Spode, I saw that MSNBC bit.. here's the accompanying story.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/897497.asp?0cv=CA01

Our very own russotto has described, in detail, how the votes would have had to have been counted for Gore to win. And none of them make sense. It's been examined, and Bush won Florida. I'm not going to re-post it, because I don't feel like digging it up, but if you're truly interested, pull up russotto's posts and look for comments on the topic. Shouldn't take too long.

Yup...that's the one. Un-fucking-believable. But clearly true. No one can train people to act that well in a short time. This shit happened to them, and for my money, stopping the SOB Hussein and his sadistic cronies from inflicting this sort of treatment on his fellow beings is why we are there. I'm sure there's oil, power and politics entangled in all of this as well - I'm not Pollyanna - but at least the new regieme will have to look over their shoulders before they do the same shit.

And, because *someone* is going to say "Yeah, but we're blowing up innocent women and children while we're stopping him", I hereby reply in advance with the following:

Peace is not the inherent state of humanity. People are animals; animals with opposable thumbs and intellects sufficient to envision ways to use them, but still, animals. As animals, we are violent by nature, predators and dominators clear down to the bone. That we seek peace and tranquility is testament to our spirit and our vision as a species. But vision and spirit do not stop those who are firmly in the grasp of their baser instincts. Therefore, strength and the willingness to do what must be done is the only way to create peace out of the chaos which comes naturally to us as animals. And that often means waging war, with all that goes with it, whether we like it or not.

We asked Saddam to stop being a dickhead and leave. He didn't, so we made him. I think it was necessary.

Hope I don't trip getting down off of my soapbox...someone might mistake me for a statue of Saddam!

One Day at a Time...can Killaholics Anonymous borrow that from AA, you think?

Hi my name's Mike.

Hi Mike!

I'm a Killaholic. It started about ten years ago; I started small with .22 LR, back of the head type stuff ...

later

... So now I've been kill-free for 3 years. By the way, who dinged my car door?

Quote:

Originally posted by Elspode We asked Saddam to stop being a dickhead and leave. He didn't, so we made him. I think it was necessary. Hope I don't trip getting down off of my soapbox...someone might mistake me for a statue of Saddam!

It's been pointed out to me repeatedly throughout my stay here at the Cellar that you cannot make generalizations without some debate-monger getting all up in a tizzy.

Just doing my part.

Amen.

(I'm the only one who finds semantic rebuttals boring?)

No you're not; sometimes I wish we had A section dedicated for the semantic rebuttal arguments.


*sigh* ---editing; Most of the time i don't care about this type of stuff cause i'm in too much of a hurry or my mind is too busy with the content to care about the gramatics. But your right Elspode
that was lazy and sloppy of me... I'm a sloppy, sloppy Bitch. --er Bastard.
See I prefer the Shut-up and agree, Because your not going to change any one's mind, method than to bother with the whiney, beligerant rehtoric.

Sometimes is properly spelled as a single word, the appropriate contraction for 'you are' is you're, it would have been more proper to use a semicolon following 'your not', the personal pronoun 'I' should be capitalized, and a proper sentence is begun with a capital. {insert icon of someone ducking here}.

Kidding! I'm kidding!!!

Glad to see we have recovered our composture