US soldiers kill 10-year-old Iraqi girl

Originally posted by Freqzer0
news.bbc.co.uk...

The US makes mistakes, as does everyone. We don't do things intentionally such as this.

Mistakes ?

Like these ?

The US military is investigating two incidents in which American soldiers killed at least 26 Iraqi civilians and then claimed that they were either guerrillas or had died in cross fire.


The growing evidence of retaliatory killings of unarmed Iraqi families, often including children, by US soldiers seemingly bent on punishing Iraqis after an attack, will spark comparisons with the massacre of Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968.

US troops have been notorious among Iraqis for their willingness to shoot any Iraqi they see in the aftermath of an insurgent attack. But it is only now that convincing and detailed information is becoming available about the killings.
www.independent.co.uk...

Originally posted by jaamaan

Originally posted by jerico65
reply to post by jaamaan

 

We aren't forcing the insurgents to use women and children in their battles. They are. They are the ones to put them into harms way, not the US.

They know that the deaths of women and children will get the public up in arms over what's happening over there more than if it were just combat between US troops and insurgents.

Could you show me of an example where the resistance of Iraq used children as shields.

Surely not in the case of the 10year old girl.

Defensee Link

Wash post

videos



[edit on 13-3-2008 by Freqzer0]

reply to post by Freqzer0


I can not find any conclusive evidence, in all the links you posted, that these where cases of human shields.

Could be all propaganda stories to fit the video's

I screwed up the news links in my previous post. They've been edited and should be working.

Originally posted by jaamaan
I can not find any conclusive evidence, in all the links you posted, that these where cases of human shields.

Could be all propaganda stories to fit the video's

Seems like any info that goes against an individual's beliefs is automatically "propaganda", on both sides here.

The TRUTH is, the insurgency operates out of civilian areas and wears no uniforms identifying who they are, that's what gives them any chance at all of killing US soldiers of course, because they are poorly trained and would be flattened in short order if they were to fight our soldiers head on, like men. So, they knowingly hide amongst the civilian populations, and hit soldiers when their backs are turned. That in itself puts woman, children, and other innocent civilians in danger of being caught in the crossfire, plain and simple. It also makes the soldiers very jumpy, because they want to see another day, so their trigger fingers are itchy for good reason, the insurgents are by no means above indoctrinating and arming children to fight the soldiers. The Iranians did it against Iraq. My heart breaks anytime a child is caught in the middle of adult BS.

Originally posted by 27jd
The TRUTH is, the insurgency operates out of civilian areas and wears no uniforms identifying who they are, that's what gives them any chance at all of killing US soldiers of course, because they are poorly trained and would be flattened in short order if they were to fight our soldiers head on, like men. So, they knowingly hide amongst the civilian populations, and hit soldiers when their backs are turned. That in itself puts woman, children, and other innocent civilians in danger of being caught in the crossfire, plain and simple. It also makes the soldiers very jumpy, because they want to see another day, so their trigger fingers are itchy for good reason, the insurgents are by no means above indoctrinating and arming children to fight the soldiers. The Iranians did it against Iraq. My heart breaks anytime a child is caught in the middle of adult BS.

I dont have a uniform in my house, in case a country (US) invades here.
I would be wearing my own clothes, so would my daughter.
And when i visit the house of a friend, i might leave my daughter on the doorstep.
It seems that Nato would see her as a human shield, or use the video feed for human shield propaganda.
www.nato.int...

[edit: some spelling]

[edit on 13-3-2008 by jaamaan]

Originally posted by jaamaan
I can not find any conclusive evidence, in all the links you posted, that these where cases of human shields.

What? You're obviously joking.

DefenseLink:

"During the firefight, one of the terrorists used a small child to shield himself as he fired on coalition forces. The child was slightly wounded during the exchange of gunfire. The child and wounded terrorist were evacuated and are being treated at a local field hospital. Both are expected to recover from their wounds, officials noted.

Coalition forces then moved to a second suspected terrorist safe house, where they were again met with small-arms fire. They killed one terrorist, and several other terrorists fled the safe house into a third house nearby, where coalition forces killed four more terrorists, officials reported.

The coalition forces did not see one of the terrorists pick up a small child as he was fleeing the second safe house. During the firefight, the hostage-holding terrorist was shot. The same bullet that killed him also killed the child as it exited the terrorist's body, officials said."

One kid was lucky, the other one wasn't. Noticed that in the first case, both the child and the insurgent were taken to the field hospital.

Originally posted by NewWorldOver

Originally posted by DalairTheGreat
Some of you guys act like little bitches..
Your crying over a report about a child that got killed..

Personal insults are not allowed on ATS, take that garbage out of here.

You think caring about the death of children is 'being a little bitch?' I'm 6'2'' 250+ lbs kid... I could easily show you what a real man is. I doubt you would call me a 'liberal' afterwards.

Grow up. Nobody is 'crying' about the death of innocent children. It's called justice. If you're not for justice, you're not a real American. And if you think protesting the death of innocent children is 'being a bitch' you are not a real man.

NWOver....that was priceless. Star for that. You hit it out of the park.
It is all about the justification of the whole situation.

Sometimes this reminds me of the fight of the rebel alliance againsthe Galactic empire.

question is, who are we?

War is hell, and if you want to win, you have to fight as the other side fights and not worry about some vague idea of morality imposed upon your side by some "holier-than-thou" international war games ideal.
War sux, and I am not in favour of it, but if you want to win and not just provide an income for the sponsors, death to the opposition and take no prisoners always has worked in thousands of years of experience.

reply to post by jerico65


I cannot believe this from a militairy source that kills 10 year old children.
This could easely be complete made up.
And my best guess is that it is.

reply to post by jaamaan


I would hope you would get your daughter out of harms way in such an event. Not keep her around in the hopes it causes a soldier to hesitate long enough for you to kil him. I understand what you say about the uniform, I would be the same, but I would move my children as FAR from the action as I possibly could. And I wouldn't want "freedom fighters" or whatever you choose to call them to set up bases or carry out operations in major population centers, because the whole point is to protect your countrymen from the invaders, not to throw caution to the wind without regard how many women and children are killed as long as you get a couple of occupiers. If that's how it's done, you're worse than the occupiers regardless.

reply to post by 27jd


Yea I intended it to be a joke.

Originally posted by 27jd
reply to post by jaamaan

 

I would hope you would get your daughter out of harms way in such an event.

In the "Human Shield" video's shown, it looks like it was filmed by helicopters or aircraft.
These are most of the time up to a few miles away, you wont even hear them.
Plus when your whole country is in war, where is out of harms way ?

reply to post by jaamaan


Out of harms way, I guess, is to the best of your ability making sure they are not around congregations of insurgents, or using them as spotters and to signal that soldiers are coming for a roadside bomb detonation, etc. I'm not in Iraq, and if you aren't either, then we are both only taking second hand accounts, or somebody's side of the story. I would do my best to keep my children away from target areas, send them with the women far away from where the men are planning or carrying out operations, again, to the best of my ability. I understand the urge to fight foreign occupiers, but I detest the insurgency's apparent lack of concern for their own people...

Just like somebody stated at the beginning of this thread sometimes bad things happen. It's a war and nobody likes doing bad things but sometimes it has to happen in order to prevent other bad things from happening.

I don't know what happened in this situation so I can't say much about it... But neither can you guys really. Was the soldier right? If the girl was signaling for an attack then it dose not matter if it was a 5 year old girl, 10 year old girl, or a 20 year old Iraqi male, you stop the attack from happening. If they failed to do so then the entire convoy would be at risk of a possible complex attack.

Did the soldier make the right decision? That is something neither you or I have the right to decide. That was that soldier decision and I hope they made the right one because that is something that soldier will have to deal with.

I don't care how big a man thinks he is. Every soldier will tell you that size really don't make that much of a difference. I give props to the guys who have to make difficult decisions everyday. It something that most of the population would not be able to do.

Also, shame on the media for using this story to discredit the Iraq war. Shame on the media for putting this girls death out there amongst others because the death of a girl will bring negative fillings about this war and discredit the soldiers.

reply to post by Equinox99




Yeah, it was a good one. LA is pretty crappy in alot of places though, I must say.

Originally posted by jaamaan
Plus when your whole country is in war, where is out of harms way ?

Easy. You don't allow the insurgents to use your neighborhood or your home as a base of operations.

Great source for the Apache video footage. Too bad you seem to think it's all lies.

Whoever shot that girl surely didnt do it intentionally.
I mean, how can shooting a kid be justifiable?

Originally posted by jerico65
Easy. You don't allow the insurgents to use your neighborhood or your home as a base of operations.

Yeah ok. I guess the little girl and her mother should have been patrolling the streets and shooing away all the insurgents eh?

Silly Iraqis. If you don't want to die, you should just scare away the bad guys. After all, the military is not going to save you, they'll just as soon shoot at your mother for signalling for help

Sad.

And thanks, palehorse. This was an important thread.