Iraqis start burning each other alive infront of army posts

[Diamond Cross]

Actually, during basic training our troops are desensitised to killing. One of the problems of the military up through Vietnam was soldiers pretending to fire at an enemy but not really shooting to kill because they couldn't kill. Up to the Vietnam Era, it was said only half to two thirds of all soldiers actually shot at the enemy to kill. During and after Vietnam that number has risen to over 80% thanks to modern desensitising techniques.

[SpicyMcVoodoo]

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

Actually, during basic training our troops are desensitised to killing. One of the problems of the military up through Vietnam was soldiers pretending to fire at an enemy but not really shooting to kill because they couldn't kill. Up to the Vietnam Era, it was said only half to two thirds of all soldiers actually shot at the enemy to kill. During and after Vietnam that number has risen to over 80% thanks to modern desensitising techniques.

Yeah, but killing and sadistic torture are two very different things. I have no doubt all soldiers could and would kill someone without getting too emo about it. But sawing off a guys head? Burning someone alive? Especially when that person is a civilian? That's a whole 'nother level, a level I suspect goes into Dahmer land.

[Diamond Cross]

I wasn't talking about torture, I mean the average infantryman point weapon aim and shoot.

[thatguyoverthere]

Originally Posted by avsp

Hasnt this been obvious for some time?

Wasnt it always an obvious risk, even from before the get go?

Why was this risk, seemingly, totally ignored by the planners of the operation? And why was no remedial action taken?

How widespread is the realisation that "we're f*cked"?
Does it matter that, seemingly, it isnt incredibly widespread?

You've asked a lot of great questions in this thread.

I think the realization that we're fucked IS widespread. I'm not sure who doesn't think we're fucked in one way or another over there.

As for why they didn't plan for it (it being the difficulty of stabilzing Iraq), I think it's because Bush himself didn't know the difference between Sunni, Shia, and Kurds. I guess he thought Iraqi people were just one people and they would all join together and work in harmony after Saddam was removed.

Bush only knows what his advisors tell him, so I'll give him a pass on that, but the guys that organized and planned the war (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, ect.) I can't imagine why they didn't see this coming. Maybe they didn't realize the animosity between the three, or didn't imagine that it would escalate the way it would. (Well, it's obvious they didn't.)

From what I've gleaned; during the pre-war run up, Rumsfeld treated any suggestions of postwar planning with great disdain. It seems that he was of the mind set that "there will be no postwar problems" and even suggesting to plan in case it turned out to be otherwise was somehow tempting fate.

[JaJae]

They are now saying there is no evidence of this story brought forward and it may be another Reuters slip. A story fabricated by Sunni militants and run all over the world as propaganda by Reuters. The person who broke the story was capt. Jamil Hussein who has lied repeatedly about stories in the past to victimize Sunnis.

[infinite loop]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

I'd saying dying American soldiers is a problem and saving their lives is a solution

how does that help the iraqi's being burned alive?

[avsp]

Originally Posted by SpicyMcVoodoo

Well it's an interesting question...what % of people generally have sociopathic urges? Whatever the % may be, probably most of them never act on those urges in civilized society because to do so would mean throwing your life away.

It is possible to be a 'well-adjusted' sociopath. Such people make the best bomb-dispoal engineers. I'll try to find a link for the research, but it might by covered by the UK Offical Secrets Act, ..., I know about it coz the research was carried out by the faculty I was at

I feel its likely that there was less scope for sociopaths to be 'well adjusted' in Saddams Iraq than in, say, UK in the 70's (when IIRR) the research was done.i

[avsp]

Originally Posted by JaJae

They are now saying there is no evidence of this story brought forward and it may be another Reuters slip. A story fabricated by Sunni militants and run all over the world as propaganda by Reuters. The person who broke the story was capt. Jamil Hussein who has lied repeatedly about stories in the past to victimize Sunnis.

Its being chased up here Reutersgate 2? Baghdad Burnings Remain Unconfirmed | NewsBusters.org as well as elsewhere.

Either way the very fact the situation is so bad that we are willing to see such stories as 'believible' is truely depressing

The hugely credible Salam Pax has had numerous accounts of such hideous attrocites, ..., so much so that I've, for the good of my mental health, had to stop reading his blog shut up you fat whiner! (I have found his 'newsvine' useful)

[avsp]

Originally Posted by thatguyoverthere

Bush only knows what his advisors tell him, so I'll give him a pass on that, but the guys that organized and planned the war (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, ect.)I can't imagine why they didn't see this coming. Maybe they didn't realize the animosity between the three, or didn't imagine that it would escalate the way it would. (Well, it's obvious they didn't.)

From what I've gleaned; during the pre-war run up, Rumsfeld treated any suggestions of postwar planning with great disdain. It seems that he was of the mind set that "there will be no postwar problems" and even suggesting to plan in case it turned out to be otherwise was somehow tempting fate.

PNAC certainly knew of the animosity. IIRR some PNAC type put forward the idea of promoting a civil war to provide cover during the initial invasion.

I think they thought that the situation wouldnt escalate coz they believed their own hype about the 'wonderfullness' of democracy. They assumed that people look at the world thru eyes similar to their own.

This is perhaps understandable & forgiveible if very stupid.

However once it became clear that the ISF, largely, hadnt stayed in place & wasnt going to be able to provide security, especially after the IA was disbanded. Why werent more troops sent?

Its almost as if they wanted the coalitiuon stuck in this mess.

I think the realization that we're fucked IS widespread. I'm not sure who doesn't think we're fucked in one way or another over there.

Why then did the dems (& some gops) campaign on a 'pull out timetable' ticket? ..., presumably they did so coz they felt that it was whay the electorate wanted to hear.

However the Coalition is f*cked precisely because it cant leave without (at the very least) a significant risk, (& more likely currently, a very great likelyhood), of escalation geographically.

It seems to me that nearly everybody is concentrating on only the most immediate of criteria, (body counts etc).

It worries me immensely that a more long term view isnt taken, even if my own worries are seen as unwarrented.

Its like 'lets fail to plan for all likely outcomes again'

It maybe the the continued presecence of Coalition troops IS exacerbating thye situation & a pullout ASAP would be benefical in many respects, ..., but what steps to prevent escalation are to be made? Let alone what it means for the credibility of the wests power.

[JaJae]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Dear Associated Press:

On Nov. 24, 2006, your organization published an article by Qais Al-Bashir about six Sunnis being burned alive in the presence of Iraqi Police officers. This news item, which is below, received an enormous amount of coverage internationally.

We at Multi-National Corps - Iraq made it known through MNC-I Press Release Number 20061125-09 and our conversations with your reporters that neither we nor Baghdad Police had any reports of such an incident after investigating it and could find no one to corroborate the story. A couple of hours ago, we learned something else very important. We can tell you definitively that the primary source of this story, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not a Baghdad police officer or an MOI employee. We verified this fact with the MOI through the Coalition Police Assistance Training Team.

Also, we definitely know, as we told you several weeks ago through the MNC-I Media Relations cell, that another AP-popular IP spokesman, Lt. Maithem Abdul Razzaq, supposedly of the city’s Yarmouk police station, does not work at that police station and is also not authorized to speak on behalf of the IP. The MOI has supposedly issued a warrant for his questioning.

I know we have informed you that there exists an MOI edict that no one below the level of chief is authorized to be an Iraqi Police spokesperson. An unauthorized IP spokesperson will get fired for talking to the media. While I understand the importance of a news agency to use anonymous and unauthorized sources, it is still incumbent upon them to make sure their facts are straight. Was this information verified by anyone else? If the source providing the information is lying about his name, then he ought not to be represented as an official IP spokesperson and should be listed as an anonymous source.

Unless you have a credible source to corroborate the story of the people being burned alive, we respectfully request that AP issue a retraction, or a correction at a minimum, acknowledging that the source named in the story is not who he claimed he was. MNC-I and MNF-I are always available and willing to verify events and provide as much information as possible when asked.

Very respectfully,
LT XXXXXX

XXXX X XXXXXXXX
Lieutenant, U.S. Navy
MNC-I Joint Operations Center
Public Affairs Officer

This whole story was just more propaganda for the Terrorists and our liberal media outlets

[infinite loop]

Originally Posted by JaJae

This whole story was just more propaganda for the Terrorists and our liberal media outlets

i didn't hear a word about it from any of our "liberal" media outlets.

in any case, good to know it didn't really happen. not being burned alive ft uhh w?

[JaJae]

Hot Air » Blog Archive » The American Press and Enemy Propaganda

Very questionable to say the least.

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by avsp

Do you not feel that the coalition forces are, at least to some extent, keeping the lid of the sectarian violence?

Or do you feel that this is not a good rerason to stay?

Do you not recognise the risk of the conflict escalating & sucking in the direct involvement of neighbouring states? Oir does this not matter?

If you read todays news the Bipartisan Study Group wants to recommend a "gradual" pull back. Obviously to see the effects without a total pullout. If we are the cause of violence by our presence in certain areas it should be proven soon enough.

[avsp]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

If you read todays news the Bipartisan Study Group wants to recommend a "gradual" pull back. Obviously to see the effects without a total pullout. If we are the cause of violence by our presence in certain areas it should be proven soon enough.

so, more 'suck it & see' than 'sock it to me' then?

Probably a good idea, the risks are high & the uncertainty great.

However, supposing a gradula pull-out starts & violence escalates? Wouldnt the political pressure for the pull out to continue both in the US & iraq still be almost unstoppable?

Even if this isnt a problem & the security on the street improves would the questions of who is providing the order & how they're doing it matter?

I very much suspect that coaltion forces may have to stay & protect Sunni areas & allow the shias to finish their own power struggle. The problem is that the Sunnis may still attack the coalition forces.

However, IMO, the aim must be to avoid direct intervention by neighbouring states which is only really possible be placating them before hand.

Its very easy to imagine that privately they may rejoice in the coalition being stuck their protecting those they diposed who really hate the coalition


As for the report itself, ..., i doubt it can say anything but the obvious anyway, ...,

• "its too late to send more troops & we dont really have them anyway unless other nations can be presuaded to join the CoW, ..., which is incredibly unlikely"
  
• "we'll leave as soon as secirity is establised, which should be ASAP, ..., a phased area withdrawl should be based upon measurable criteria not a date-based timetable, ..., so overall no change there then"
  
• "training of ISF should proceed as fast as possible, ..., as if this isnt being done now"
  
• "Iran & syria could stop supporting the insurgents if we cut them in"

I suppose it could say something about the actual tactics of the troops, but everything has been tried given the resources, ..., currently it seems to be a pull back from the 'oilspot' strategy back to a more 'force protection & less pro-active one.

The main purpose of the report is probably that it allows post-election face-saving all round domestically in the US, ..., which is a good thing, ..., especially if in the slightly longer-term theres a greater realisation of why this cock-up occurred so that such idiocy can be avoided again, (till the next time)

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by CentCom

[W]e have some of the respected news outlets that deal with news fast and have a relation with many TV channels and the media in general, who distributed a story quoting a person called Jamil Hussein. Afterward, we searched our sources in our staff for anyone by this name– maybe he wore an MOI uniform and gave a different name to the reporter for money. And the second name used is Lt. Maythem…

[Y]ou should contact MOI PAO for all your needs to get real, true news. Based on that, we strongly deny any relation with those two names. In order to serve you better and strengthen the relationship with MOI, do not take statements that have no meaning and do not represent any official…

[W]e ask our people, please do not take any news or give it credibility, except from a well-known source with a name and an address that is part of the security ministries, etc., such as a minister or police station commander. Or if it is from the MOD or MOI, the name of the officer, his rank, his unit, etc. It is not enough to say “a source from the ministry of interior.”

Doing otherwise, you will end up helping the spread of the rumors and make them reality, even thought it was a false rumor. This rumor business — if a large issue, it will take a long time to cover it, but the purpose of the rumors is to disrupt life and make the security apparatus busy with other things than its main tasks. We will end up following rumors instead of hunting terrorists and criminals.

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The Lede - Breaking News - New York Times Blog

In the evening, a resident named Imad al-Hashemi said in a telephone interview on Al Jazeera, the Arab news network, that gunmen had doused some people with gasoline and set them on fire. Other residents contacted by telephone denied this.

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USATODAY.com - On Deadline | Archives | Iraqi official calls AP's atrocity story a 'rumor;' AP stands by its work

Gen. al-Kenani said … [t]hat the story of the burnings “is another rumor; we dispatched our forces to the area where the rumor claimed the burning took place and found nothing. We also sent a team to al-Dab Aladly (medical center) and I was in touch with this center. No one can confirm any burned, dead body was received. (The Ministry of Defense) also has no information about this incident, either.”

More anonymous sources on this case doesn't add to their credibility when their primary source is blatantly false and there is absolutely no evidence of this case.

[Thorgrim]

This account of one of the most horrific alleged attacks of Iraq's sectarian war was confirmed, AP said, on Tuesday in separate interviews with residents of a Sunni enclave in the largely Shiite Hurriyah district of Baghdad.

The Associated Press first reported on Friday's incident last weekend, based on the account of police Capt. Jamil Hussein and Imad al-Hashimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriyah, who told Al-Arabiya television he saw people who were soaked in kerosene, then set afire, burning before his eyes. AP Television News also took video of the Mustafa mosque showing a large portion of the front wall around the door blown away. The interior of the mosque appeared to be badly damaged and there were signs of fire.

However, the U.S. military said in a letter to the AP late Monday, three days after the incident, that it had checked with the Iraqi Interior Ministry and was told that no one by the name of Jamil Hussein works for the ministry or as a Baghdad police officer. Lt. Michael B. Dean, a public affairs officer of the U.S. Navy Multi-National Corps-Iraq Joint Operations Center, signed the letter, a text of which was published subsequently on several Internet blogs. The letter also reiterated an earlier statement from the U.S. military that it had been unable to confirm the report of immolation.

"The attempt to question the existence of the known police officer who spoke to the AP is frankly ludicrous and hints at a certain level of desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident in question," AP International Editor John Daniszewski said in a statement in response.

...

The witnesses refused to allow the use of their names because they feared retribution either from the original attackers or the police, whose ranks are infiltrated by Mahdi Army members or its associated death squads.

Two of the witnesses — a 45-year-old bookshop owner and a 48-year-old neighborhood grocery owner — gave nearly identical accounts of what happened. A third, a physician, said he saw the attack on the mosque from his home, saw it burning and heard people in the streets screaming that people had been set on fire. All three men are Sunni Muslims.

AP Defies Military, Bloggers on Story of 6 Iraqis Set on Fire

A primary source means they actually saw events for an article, so the people afraid of being power-drilled in their head are just as credible

Whatever the case, they certainly have enough to stand by their stories...and originally charges against the AP are just overzealous right-wingers...which isn't a crime or a slur but lets call s spade a spade

[Diamond Cross]

Pictures? Video?

No proof no burnings.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by Diamond Cross

Pictures? Video?

No proof no burnings.

That wouldn't even work in a court of law when the standard of proving guilt is ridiculously high

You can't just keep cameras away and then do whatever you want