16 US troops commit suicide in Iraq

reply to post by Midav


My bad which one is it that you are talking about
57th Aviation Company
Valorous Unit Award—14 Aug 69–20 Jan 70, DAGO 43, 72
Meritorious Unit Commendation—Dec 65–Jun 66, DAGO 17, 68
RVN Gallantry Cross w/Palm—22 Feb 67–17 May 68, DAGO 21,
69; 1 Apr–26 Jun 70, DAGO 11,73
RVN Civil Actions Honor Medal, FC—1 Jul–21 Dec 70, DAGO 5,
73

57th Infantry Platoon
RVN Gallantry Cross w/Palm—24 Aug–31 Dec 69 and 31 Mar–30
Jun 70, DAGO 42, 72; 1 Apr–30 Jun 71 DAGO 6, 74; 1 Mar–9 Oct
71 DAGO 6, 74

but for real this needs to get moved to the skunk works section.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
reply to post by MarkAkaSilent

 

"...There is no "57th Unit of the Airborne Division". The story is a hoax... Not even very well written. I suggest not spreading the article around, since there's no evidence at all whatsoever to support the claims made."

this is a hoax

I cant seem to find the article that says 57th unit, the link in the OP only says "Sixteen US troops from the a unit of the Airborne Division have committed suicide"
Despite the grammatical error, I cant seem to find the mention of 57th, was the article changed or what? and when? is there another article that mentions the 57th?

Interestingly enough both Drudge and yahoo had this headlined this morning. It has been removed.
There is far more to this story. Far more.

reply to post by jpm1602

There is far more to this story. Far more.

I think you may be right there. Especially if it got as deep into the mainstream as Yahoo. A failed attempt at counter-propoganda perhaps?

Wow. Sounds like someone gave them a heads up, because the article has NOW changed, and no *edit* had been mentioned.


I still cant believe people are believing this story. First they give out false info. Then the edit their info and dont even tell the readers they did so.



First version:

Sixteen US troops from the 57th Unit of the Airborne Division have committed suicide inside a military base in Iraq, security sources say.

New version:

16 US troops commit suicide in Iraq
Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:48:50 GMT


Sixteen US troops from the a unit of the Airborne Division have committed suicide inside a military base in Iraq, security sources say.

The troops' motivations for suicide are not known but according to Iraqi sources the servicemen belonged to a unit of the US Airborne Division that was behind the massacre of several Iraqi families-- mostly women and children-- in northern Baghdad, said Ali al-Baghdadi an Iraqi security official.

Still no mention of names, no mention of hospital or the base. Yet, they are so certain this took place.

Hmmmm.

If there is anything fishy, I believe its the author of that article.

[edit on 9/9/2008 by greeneyedleo]

[edit on 9/9/2008 by greeneyedleo]

reply to post by ppskylight


Kind of sad to note that your posts are getting a ton of flak from the mods when all you are doing is pointing out the lack of validity from the obviously UNRELIABLE news source the OP posted. That may not be the fault of the OP. But a suggestion I would make is this.

If someone defends their country (US, Canada, etc) and gets a few nice little links at the bottom of their posts - do it across the board for all the patriots - and come to think of it, why not also for the people who bad mouth other countries? Corrupt governments, blah blah blah. Kind of shows the mods true colors too.

As for the OP - I've been in the US Army for 7 years now. Believe me. If that number of soldiers killed themselves over there, we would have known about it and quick. That kind of thing is unheard of. When I was there on one of my two rotations - sure - we had several suicides (over the course of the year). But never anything that large. It would be on MSM almost immediately if that many killed themselves.

Hope that helped to quell some fears.

Bemusedly awaiting the "punishment" I'm sure to receive....

Why is the OP getting so many stars for linking us to Iranian Propaganda articles?

IF THIS WERE TRUE IT WOULD BE ALL OVER THE NEWSWIRES!!!!!

Come on people, use some common sense.

reply to post by NOTurTypical


Just because it gets starred doesn't mean that people necessarily "buy" the story. It just means that they find it interesting.

This is from the article:

according to Iraqi sources the servicemen belonged to the 57th Unit of the US Airborne Division that was behind the massacre of several Iraqi families-- mostly women and children-- in northern Baghdad

Ignoring the '57th unit' aspect, does anyone remember hearing anything about an Airborne unit making an attack in Baghdad resulting in civilian casualties?

If we invalidate that aspect of the story, that would be another hard knock against the whole of it.

I was listening to the BBC World have your say last night and this caller tried to talk about US soldiers committing suicide but was not allowed.

www.bbc.co.uk...

this is the podcast page the heading is WHYS: The wrong approach in Afghanistan?

16 suicides or excecutions ?

After the first two Aussie soldiers committed suicide ( excecuted ) the MSM has stopped reporting selfharm cases.

Not reporting suicides has been standard issue for a while now , "official" reason is to prevent copycats.

WHY do so many want to close this thread and shut this up .

prayers for ALL soldiers .

peace

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy

If we invalidate that aspect of the story, that would be another hard knock against the whole of it.

Gonna be pretty hard to do that. Just about any time we make an attack there is someone there to claim that innoent women and children were killed. (Which is actually true a lot of the time I would think, busting into people's houses all the time makes that inevitable, right or wrong.)

Can you tell me how many women and children have been killed in the last year in Iraq? Probably not. Therefore it is safe to assume that some sort of attack did occur that could be attributed to being the subject of this article.

Originally posted by ROO-meh

WHY do so many want to close this thread and shut this up .

Because most people hate who their Government tells them to hate.

And so many ATS members see any news coming from Iraq or Iran as propaganda automatically. As if US sources never produce propaganda to slant the War.

reply to post by jackinthebox


Right, definetly. I figured if it was an Airborne unit though, that would narrow it down.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy

And so many ATS members see any news coming from Iraq or Iran as propaganda automatically.

I don't think that's fair to say. I happen to not be a very big fan of our government at all and think we went to war for some BS reasons, but I also happen to think that the OP's article is BS. Not because I don't think it's possible, I just don't think it happened because of the way it was reported.

I come to ATS because there are a lot more people here than any place else that are able to see through the MSM and the propoganda tossed at us from all sides.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy

I figured if it was an Airborne unit though, that would narrow it down.

If it were an entire division we might be able to get some info. But say it were a platoon or even company sized element involved, you're not going to get any info like that, and for good reason. OPSEC.

Im the original OP and im confirming that Press TV did in fact change the headline and some of the wording in the article. I sent an E-mail to them this morning asking them to check their source because there was no such division in the US Army as pointed out by so many others on this post. I received no reply but they obviously changed the article and i think it was because of my query. I don't know what to think now. How can they change a headline and story without posting the edit they preformed? You would think that they would of checked the facts of the original source before they reported this as news.

[edit on 9-9-2008 by MarkAkaSilent]

I love this site!!

You get yelled at for posting something that "may" be Iranian propaganda.

You get praised for you story about an "Alien Fishman" that attacked you at night.

How would any of the suicide statistics gives by CNN,CBS,ABC or even the American Military or American Government be any more believable than the Iranians?

Oh, that right! The American Government would NEVER lie or hide facts to make the American public believe something else...no.

[edit on 9-9-2008 by PeruvianNT]

[edit on 9-9-2008 by PeruvianNT]

reply to post by MarkAkaSilent

You would think that they would of checked the facts of the original source before they reported this as news.

I wouldn't think that anymore. There was a time I would have thought that, but not anymore. I have called some major networks on BS they were spouting in the past, and watched it be changed without any notice. Much easier to do with television news.

What gets reported as news so much of the time is never verified. It's all from some "reliable source." But really it's all just "well, I heard he had a hook on his foot."

Good to know that you have more integrity than they do.

Originally posted by alienj
reply to post by MarkAkaSilent

 

ATS Please Remove this post, this post caused my mother to almost have a heartattack because of its false lies, post like this can really hurt people......try having a love one overseas and then having some hatefilled OP post this to try and disparage troops and family members.
My brother is a part of the 57th Airborne Div. and I just got off the phone with him and he said this article is a joke.... No one committed suicide and if there have been any deaths, not saying there has been and of course not 16 there were not from suicide.... Why dont we just trust Fox, Cnn, and are local news channels, this is huge if it happened and if its not reported there then its not true. Some exceptions noted

Dude haven't you read the rest of the posts? There is no 57th Airborne Div. so what your telling us is lies. Please dont make little of real people with sons and daughters serving in Iraq.

[edit on 9-9-2008 by MarkAkaSilent]