soldiers kicking cut off heads like soccer balls

http://english.alarabonline.org/display.asp?fname=2006%5C06%5C06-03%5Czculturez%5C972.htm&dismode=x&ts=03/06/2006%2012:26:50%20%C3%A3


"We was going along the Euphrates River," says Joshua Key, a 27-year-old former U.S. soldier from Oklahoma, detailing a recurring nightmare -->
Joshua says he was ordered to look around for evidence of a firefight, for something to rationalize the beheaded Iraqis. "I look around just for a few seconds and I don't see anything." But then he noticed the sight that now triggers his nightmares. "I see two soldiers kicking the heads around like a soccer ball. I just shut my mouth, walked back, got inside the tank, shut the door, and it was like, I can't be no part of this. This is crazy. I came here to fight and be prepared for war but this is outrageous. Why did it happen? That's just my question: Why did that happen?"

He's convinced there was no firefight that led to the beheading orgy -- there were no spent shells to indicate a battle. "A lot of my friends stayed on the ground, looking to see if there was any shells. There was never no shells, except for what we shot. I'm thinking, Okay, so they just did that because they wanted to do it. They got trigger happy and they did it. That's what made me mad in Iraq. You can take human lives at a fast rate and all you have to say is, say, 'Oh, I thought they threw a grenade. I thought I seen this, I thought I seen that.' You could mow down 20 people each time and nobody's going to ask you, 'Are you sure?' They're going to give you a high five and tell you that you was doing a good job."

He still cannot get the scene out of his head. "You just see heads everywhere," he says. "You wake up, you'll just be sitting there, like you're in a foxhole. I can still see Iraq just as clearly as it was the day I was there. You'll just be on the side of a little river running through the city, trash piled up, filled with dead. Heads and stuff like that. I don't sleep that much, you might say. I don't sleep that much."

His wife, Brandi, nods in agreement and says he cries in his sleep.
-snip-
-------------------------------


we have a corrupt military - top down

they don't take care of the men and women under their charge. they corrupt them.

Iraqi heads around, that they had cut off--and now he's having nightmares about it. His account could not be clearer.

Heads.

pre-date civilization and politics and morality and government and religion.

You know in your gut that, if human heads can be kicked around in the streets, there is nothing to prevent the heads being you and yours. This is profoundly frightening. Some people react to that fright by kicking heads in the street, others react by trying either directly or indirectly to end the kicking.

soccer balls are FReeptards. That is the kind of sick antics they would love to engage in. Mentally ill bastards.

:think: :patriot: :think:

supported him. Holding that thought will surely calm his anguished soul.

There are at least a dozen video tapes of Islamists beheading helpless victims so I KNOW that happens.

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in threads not related to accusing the troops of anything, or praising Chavez lie he was the Second coming. My views are pretty much like yours.

I post my thoughts or beliefs and nothing else. Sometimes, in my defense of the troops, I take the unpopular side in a thread.

I have never called someone anything, blamed their opinion on stupidity or breeding. I place my own thoughts and opinion out there. On the hand I have been called unenlighted, an idiot, a freeper and such.

I post my opinon and that is all. Sometimes it is unpopular. Ido not belittle anyone else's opinion. I truly respect your opinion, whether you agree with me or whether you are wrong. :)

My question stands.

if you go into the threads about the troops you will find me defending them until overwhelming evidence makes it impossible to.

You talking about the Condi and Bush having an affair thread? I found that childish.

I am a Democrat. I have no agenda other than to take part in discussions. I do not consider myself important enough to change anyones opinion through the force of my charisma (I have none).

I just put forward my opinion on things. True, there are some "progressive" issues that are personally too "progressive" for me, but does that equal me having an agenda?

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tahhm?"

Of course he didn't and the fact you have to exaggerate and misquote said poster says a lot about you.

It also says a lot about the holier then thou set on DU that they simply accept this without any corroboration.

Like the thread about troops not having food to eat in Iraq.

Opposing Bush doesn't mean accepting every tale told on the internet.

he said "There are at least a dozen video tapes of Islamists beheading helpless victims so I KNOW that happens."

Not really an exaggeration, whether or not it says a lot about me depends on how brilliant you are at determining my personality from a couple of sentences.

And as for believing anything that comes across on the net, I said "suggests" (meaning I don't accept every tale on the internet). I didn't say proves.

Who's flying off the handle here, really? I just rebut RW talking points when I come across them, that's all.

In fact, the biggest dust ups are because I find the murder of civilians by both American troops and Insurgents equally disgusting. I have never said that our troops deserve a pass.

I'm just trying to figure out your stance, really. Is it your opinion that DU'ers hate the troops?

I just made a point that there are always dozens of threads when American troops are accused of the murder of civilians and hardly any mention or outrage when Insurgents murdered civilians.

To me the murder of civilians by whoever it may be is equally vile.

That was what I asked.

I did not know it was a right wing talking point to treat murdered civilians equally.

What, exactly, is rightist about pointing out and denouncing the fact that various insurgent and sectarian factions in Iraq kill a great many civilians, including women and children?

engage in murderous behavior, including the factions you mentioned.


What IS a rightwing talking point is to continuously imply that it is, and that only Democrats and DUers ignore the murders of civilians by anyone but US troops. Especially when it is repeated ad nauseum from thread to thread despite having been debunked numerous times.

In fact it is the claim that ONLY rightists are horrified by civilian deaths caused by factions other than US troops, that is the RW talking point.

It seems necessary to point out in the interests of accuracy that within the last week several killings of civilians en masse by those various factions have occued in Iraq. The threads that cover them in Breaking News generally attract little notice, and a part of that notice will be comments to the effect that nothing else can be expected since it is a legitimate resistance to occupation, and among these will be mixed denunciations of U.S. forces, and even claims the action was actually carried out by U.S. personnel. Any people has a right to resist invasion and occupation, just as groups within any country have a right to wage civil war on one another, but neither of these things conveys a right to commit the criminal act of aiming military effort against civilians. My own standards on the matter are fairly lenient, so that strikes against men lined up to enlist in the goverment forces, or to take their physicals, for example, it is my inclination to regard as attacks combatants rather than on pure civilians, but any number of attacks are committed in market-plaves and other neighborhood centers where even this sort of rough indulgence cannot really be extended.

some comments reflecting suspicion as to who is killing civilians in Iraq, certainly doesn't mean it is condoned. All acts of violence against civilians in Iraq now, are the fault of this administration. None of it would be happening had we not gone there.

There are reasons also to question the upsurge in those attacks. Negroponte being one, reports from independent journalists are another. Added to which are at least two documented reports of British troops being caught dressed as Arabs with cars loaded with bombs, fortunately stopped before they could complete their 'mission', drive off and leave eyewitnesses with the impression that the bombers were Iraqis and would have been reported as such.

Then there are the relatively recent reports that the British Secret Service had used these same tactics, and admit to even engaging in the murder of some of their own people, during the 'troubles' in N. Ireland, and it's only natural that more confirmation is needed to determine who these people are who are murdering civilians, before condemning, possibly, the wrong people, and falling for a possible scheme not at all unheard of in relation to both US and British tactics.

In fact, I invited a poster who made this claim that 'DUers don't care about other groups killing civilians' (a specious claim) to start a thread so that we might discuss it in depth, and find out what exactly DUers did think about it rather than continuing his practice of dropping this RW talking point into threads that were not about this at all. My invitation was turned down.

I concluded he prefers to simply repeat something (DUers condone the murder of civilians) that is not true, and if challenged, simply use the argument you made in your post. Finding out the truth would make it way more difficult to do that.

If you have spent any time in 'discussions' with freepers, this is a recurring diversionary tactic, the talking point dropped into any topic that deals with what our own troops are charged with, ie, Abu Ghraib, eg.

The very notion that DUers would support the murder of anyone is simply a lie. I know why I opposed this war. It was BECAUSE I knew that civilians would die in great numbers. And that once a war is launched, every criminal WILL take advantage of the situation and that various warring factions would be free to kill each other. It was to prevent any killing at all, that most opposed this war.

So, while it may be legitimate to ask why some news gets more attention than other news, there is simply no way anyone can say that anyone on this site condones the murder of civilians. And I wonder about the motives of anyone who does.

And could not respond to your challenge here even if he wished to.

The reason for the present pitch of hostilities in Iraq between sectarian, ethnic, and political factions owes to the increased stakes represented by the solidification of native governing authority occuring simultaneously with the open stages of civil war. All factions in Iraq understand the U.S. presence is on a waning course. The stakes are therefore becoming more serious for those who will certainly remain, and all are seeking to occupy the most advantageous possible position from which to press for their own goals against their rivals once the thing can begin in earnest.

The machinations of secret services, particularly foreign secret services, are highly over-rated, not least, perhaps, by those agencies themselves. Hostilities on the scale present in Iraq cannot be constructed out of whole cloth by a few provocatuers: they can only arise where a sufficient number of people amongst a populace are disposed, for their own reasons, to engage in them, and where this is the case, a sufficient number of militant persons will arise to press them, and enjoy mass support when they do. Efforts by an outside force will have all the effect of a flea on an elephant. They will be unable to change the direction of the thing, or even to effect its pace. A coup can be contrived, on occassion, by an outside agency, but that is about the limit of the thing.

to my invitation to explore the issues of Iraqis killing Iraqis. His response was that he was not interested.

I agree with your assessment of the situation as it stands now. This was predicted by many before the war, that Iraq could devolve into civil war if there wasn't sufficient planning beforehand to establish order after the initial invasion.

Because this seemed to be more than likely, it was a big factor in the opposition to the war itself by many ~ the possibility of a huge loss of civilian life, not only from the Invasion, but from a possible civil war.

The point I tried to make re the RW talking point, was that since it is no surprise to those of us who opposed the war to see this level of violence (and were called many names for stating such an opinion) this may be why stories on the state of affairs now in Iraq receive far fewer comments than others such as US troops killing Iraqis.

Despite my complete opposition to the war and fears of a huge loss of life, one thing I never expected was that US troops would be involved in the kind of activities we are now being made aware of, such as the massacre in Haditha or Abu Ghraib. It is shocking to see this for most Americans. We never blamed the troops for the war, always the blame was placed on this administration. Now, it seems that at least some of them have committed acts that cannot be condoned, although such acts presumably could not happen if there was proper leadership.

When Sgt. Kevin Benderman spoke out publicly about his reasons for refusing to return to Iraq he said that he received orders to 'shoot children', orders he refused to follow. I was shocked and not sure what to think. Now, it is far easier to believe that what he said was the truth. He is spending 15 months in prison, rather than be placed again in a position to kill people who, he said 'were not my enemies'. To me, he is acting in accordance with the oath he took.

One other factor contributing to the violence in Iraq is the private army of mercenaries which the American were not told about. Military Generals and Iraqis alike have stated that these 'contractors' are 'running around Iraq like cowboys' and are 'answerable to no one'. This what the neocons wanted. Not to be answerable. Bremer set up laws protecting all US employed lawbreakers in Iraq, before he left. Ultimately though, the Bush administration is responsible for all the killing in Iraq.

There are serious doubts even within the occupying power about America's choice to send Chilean mercenaries, many trained during General Pinochet's vicious dictatorship, to guard Baghdad airport. Many South Africans are in Iraq illegally--they are breaking new laws, passed by the government in Pretoria, to control South Africa's booming export of mercenaries. Many have been arrested on their return home because they are do not have the licence now required by private soldiers.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5976.htm

It is a pleasure to be in substantial agreement with you, and to make your acquaintance here.

came across them and will continue to do so in the future ~ :-)

first off, this thread initially had nothing to do with insurgent beheadings, per se. it had everything to do with reports of troops kicking heads around like soccer balls. the equivocation comes in when the attitude of "wull, look what they do to us and we have it on video so. . . not only did this not likely happen but if it did so what they behead us all the time". I really don't have the energy to repeat my sentiments, if you don't notice the equivocation I'm not going to be able to point it out for you.

Nothing's rightist about pointing it out on its own, what is rightist about it is pointing it out when somebody's criticizing our troops actions. It's the rabbit-in-the-hat they always pull out when criticism shifts to our troops.

And, as far as I know, members of FR refer to themselves as 'freepers'.

As to your opinion of the troops being 'unpopular'? Only if it excuses US troops breaking the law, either military or International law.

Or, when you wrongfully accuse DUers of not supporting the troops when they are acting in accordance with the law, which I've seen you do, and be corrected for, several times.

I don't know what that soldier saw, but his story is not at all unusual coming from others returning from Iraq. Eg, one soldier asked his mother if she ever heard the sound a child makes before it dies. His family had tried to get help for him. The next day, he killed himself.

These stories are increasing, and if the soldier in the OP is telling the truth, he is the kind of soldier who deserves great credit for his humanity and he deserves all the help he can get to deal with the nightmares. If he is not being truthful, there is some reason for his nightmares, verified by his wife. She doesn't say he was having them before going to Iraq.

but have already logged more posts here, so that should tell you something. I like their freeper canteen with music dedications to the troops. I participate in gun discussions. The rest I really do not have anything to do with

being called a freeper. I made the point that if you are member of that vile board, you actually are a freeper since that is what they call themselves. I wondered why you objected therefore, to being addressed as something you yourself have admitted to.

As for your statement that you have racked up over 600 posts here in just two weeks, while far fewer on FR? I have read many of your posts here and most of what I read have been potshots at Duers ~ granted, subtle potshots, but nevertheless that's what I saw.

I think it took me nearly a year to get the number of posts you have here. I was content to read rather than post most of the time ~ since there wasn't much to add to some of the excellent posts with which for the most part, I agreed.

However, when posting on the rightwing board I belonged to for a long, long time, I posted way, way more since I disagreed with most of what I saw there. No need to post too much when others are already saying what you agree with, but maybe far more need to post when an opposing POV is not allowed, or present. Does that make sense to you?

I haven't seen much in your posts to be honest that identifies you as a person who opposes this administration's policies since you only post, from what I've seen, in certain threads. Threads that offer the opportunity to, say, subtly promote false impressions of Democrats in general. That's why I wasn't surprised when you said you were a member of FR. Maybe I just haven't been reading your posts the right way. :eyes:

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That's the very fucking least the next president can do for these guys.

Those guys should be made to stand trial and be held accountable.

he said he saw iraqi troops kicking a head around like a soccer ball, i heard this around january

with heads on poles as our convoys drove by. Never saw Americans doing such things.

at least one iraqi's head. there was some sick captioning about "soccer" or "football". that's the reason hearing this did not suprise me. the pics were posted here, and there were a ton of them. anyone else remember?

sense of humor that happens sometime in combat. My squad took some pics of an Iraqi in the hatch of a BMP that had been nailed by a missle. The guy looked like this dark, ashy charcoal briquet in human form. We put sunglasses on him, a boonie hat. This was before the ground war started.

One of my soldiers had a sister at an air force base camp and he got the film to her. One of the photo intelligence guys developed them for her and we got them back with in a couple of weeks.

Before going out on a patrol our platoon sergeant ordered a shakedown and the pictures were found.

While nothing "official" came of it, it was made clear that there would have been hell to pay if we had gotten captured by the Iraqis and they had found those photos on us.

It was a stupid thing to do.

sense of humor that happens sometime in combat

oh bullshit!!!!!!!!!!!

enough of the bullshit!

fly

at justifying just about anything. Whether its an invasion of a tiny nation, or a war crime.

A recognition it is possible something like the incident described above may have occured.

That beheading of captives is routinely practiced by jihadist elements, and by contending factions in the civil war underway in Iraq, is certainly true. Very few people bestir themselves even to attempt to deny it.

It often seems to me people mistake the source for much of the commentary here on a matter like this. The real root of it is a feeling that we in this country are better than this, that people who act in this manner while wearing our country's uniform are letting down the side. What you say about the moral effects of combat are pretty widely known, and most people who are shocked by things like this are aware the persons behaving montrously are not really themselves any different from anyone else, and would never have behaved this way except for having being placed in the face of death and the need to kill to stay alive themselves. Thus, their comments are rooted really more in sympathy and even in the old saw, "There but for the grace of God go I," rather than in hate for the men involved. That is generally reserved for those who put them there, for no purpose of benefit to our country and its people.

of our soldiers kicking around heads to prove that it ocurred?

To know the root source of the articel. That is unclear from the post introducing it here. People get to make their own assessments of whether a claim presented is worth credence.

If it happened, you can bet somebody took pictures.

on one hand we have "show me the proof"

on the other "happens all the time" - it's a "morbid sense of huumor". How far away is "morbid sense of humor" from "its a simple frat prank".

coming forward all of the time, or deserters, or Iraqis holding up pieces of munitions that are not part of the US inventory, video is about the only credible thing now.

the point of a simple rumor.

You need either that, or multiple, credible witnesses.

of a dead Iraqi like a soccer ball? Both take an incredible amount of dissociation from the horror of death. Both equally believable. You attest to truth of one but wish to deny the other? I have no knowledge that the story is verifiably true. I do have knowledge leading me to believe it is immensely possible - maybe even probable given the level of dehumanization occuring in this war AND the stress of stop-lossing our troops.

head kicking and dress up incidents have happened. I do have my doubts that if the head kicking incident happened, it was Americans who killed the Iraqi. No proof, just a gut feeling.

We did not kill the Iraqi we took pictures of either.

I have located photographic evidence of our troops "sense of humor"...see my link below. And head-kicking, I HAVE to believe does occur. I do not know about who our troops do and do not kill. War is killing.

The President took the lead when he stated from the outset that he wanted our troops exempted from conviction for war-crimes, and when he declared that terrorists were not protected by the Geneva convictions. According to polling, the troops believe they are in Iraq as payback for 9-11 (among other things). I think the conditions are right for atrocities to occur...

...the "message" from the CIC and SOD...the stop-loss and resulting fatigue (mental and physical)...the unpredictable nature of the insurgency tactics...the gore, the language barriers, the resentment of the Iraqis at our prolonged presence and the problems brought by the insurgency; I could go on and on, but you get the idea. no - not the majority of our troops. but what is .1% of 130,000 (or how ever many troops are there)? Answer: 130...........how many incidents can occur with the presence of that many "bad apples"?

"I am pretty sure that head kicking ... incidents have happened. I do have my doubts that... it was Americans who killed the Iraqi."

Your doubts are based on what? Oh yeah, "no proof, just a gut feeling".

The dehumanization of the "enemy," of anyone different. How else do you get a common kid off the street of any city in the world to kill another kid? "Them" and "us." Truly sad.

how are we supposed to believe that happened? You get my point, i hope.

There was very, very little video in the theater and no digital cameras. They were taken with a regular film camera. Like I said, when their existence was discovered, our platoon sergeant confiscated them.

They were not mine, but they belonged to one of the soldiers in my squad. I was their sergeant so I got the biggest ass chewing.

I thought you were a paid Blackhawk employee (what most call 'mercenaries').

How are soldiers 'yours'?

I was Army then.

Both stories are sickening. :puke:

it was on that navy seal pics page where seals had collected pics and posted them on, yes, a public server.

i remember there being some outrage over the existence of these pictures in what was a photobucket (or similar) site. so our best hope is a mirror that was created.

check out my link below.........

saw the torture pictures, and read the Taguba Report. Before this war, I would never, ever have expected to hear such horrors committed by US troops as happened in those jails. There's certainly no doubt about that ~

Regardless of whether, because of the proven atrocities (torture and the deaths of detainees in US custody) one beleives every story, the fact is this whole war is based on a lie and ONE such incident is one too many.

invading troops. I can't imagine why.

In fact, maybe they're even regarded as heroes, seeking to defend their people and their country against the troops of an occupying superpower. Now there's a thing... Furriners and their queer ideas! Bah!

That'll learn em. And its a sure-fire way to spread freedumb and end the war on terra.

Please remember that the Bush Administration isn't the only group spewing out propaganda to dehumanize the other side...

Opposing Bush and the NeoConservative Empire Builders doesn't mean blindly accepting tales told over the internet with no corroboration.

come really close to what was being described (kicking heads around like soccer balls).

So I find the tale believable (possible), which is NOT the same as saying that I believe it did in fact happen in the instance and the manner and at the time related by the teller.

I hope you will try to verify it.

i met a US army guy who said iraqi coalition troops were kicking around the head of an "insurgent"

Horrible atrocities, stressed out troops, coverups by the government and the military -- does any of this sound familiar?

Now.

There seem to be sufficient actual, documented atrocities to talk about--not sure it serves any purpose to deal in mere allegation, at this point. But maybe that's just me.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1339631
First commissioned officer to refuse orders to Iraq. Please kick that thread, to the website and sign your name, get your friends and family to do the same.

http://tomjoad.org/WarHeroes.htm
The most comprehensive list on the web.

This is reminiscent of the stories in WWI of german troops raping nuns and bayoneting babies in Belgium.

I'm suspicious

Part of our justification for going into Kuwait the first time. A total lie perpetrated by the first Bush administration.

The incubator tale, for those who missed it the first time round: http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p25s02-cogn.html

I think it's wise to investigate, calmly, thoroughly, precisely, and come to solid conclusions based on facts as opposed to emotions. We're the party that doesn't rush to judgment, after all.

If there's something there, there's something there. If not, we don't want to adopt the smear tactics of the right. We're better than that.

about WMDs and all the other questionable propaganda that led to this war! Some people sadly, refusing to listen to the contradictory evidence that Iraq was already disarmed, supported a lying administration and made it impossible for those of us who were far less gullible to stop the atrocity that is this entire war.

We had been fighting a war of attrition with them since Gulf War I. So we starve a country to death and then unleash the full fury of our military might. That is the most dishonorable thing imaginable. The real kicker is when people say, you have to "support the troops" "Support the troops" is such a joke. It means they want to own you psychologically. The most powerful military in the history of the planet with a annual budget of over 400 billion dollars needs my support? It's all propaganda.

corroborating information here. It may have happened, it may not have happened. We do know about Haditha, so there's that "If this, then that" mindset at play.

If there's anything to this, it will come out, eventually. If there's not, that will become evident as well.

boy I wish i thought that.

We thought those events were the end of 'democracy as we know it,' too, and that the truth would never be known. I continue to have hope for the system we have here in America. The Monkey's poll numbers are proof that not all of us are goose-stepping morons.

Otherwise, I'd be living in Spain or France.

I suppose one has to go back 30 years to find some hope.

There was fear and gloom and doom. But we came through because people didn't give up.

We simply can't give up, now, either. The stakes are too high.

thanks for your words of encouragement.

It can get frustrating at times, and exhausting, but campaign season is right around the corner. One way of being too pooped to get frustrated, frightened or anxious is to do some precinct walking for a candidate of your choice. It's a good way to get a little exercise and meet people, too! As a young fella, if you're single, you do know that single women (and men, too) often don't bother to vote.

You could do some good, and broaden your social life at the same time...no reason why ya can't have fun while on a mission to benefit humanity!!

There's a scene in which a group of "Kafiristani" warriors play polo with the head of a defeated warlord. I guess my point is that this whole things smacks a bit of urban legend.

were beheaded by US forces in Pakistan or Iraq, possibly Abu Ghraib, for political reasons (Pearl's father is a peace activist, for one), and there's been a steady stream of US attrocities reported on NPR and other places over the last three years, so this doesn't surprise me.

There is some speculation entertaining to some people along that line, but nothing at all that could be dignified with the term "evidence".

But then again I question everything released by our media on behalf of this government. Sometimes mulling over the many things that don't ring quite true is overwhelming, leading credence to Goebbels' "The bigger the lie, the more people believe it." I think a thorough investigation of this administration from day #1 will unearth some shocking, presently unthinkable things that perhaps even the most curious historians will be hesitant to broach. Ah, CTs, the lifeblood of the internets.

ONE of the sites I was recalling. (My search brought up a link to a different site called okaythisisfuckedup.com which apparently included war "porn" <and frankly i consider all this sort of photography pretty despicable> -- I clicked on it, because the name seemed familiar, but has now been taken over by a sherrif's dept. with a huge warning about pornography. So I'm serious about the DHS!!!)

This site is more legit. Link here: http://www.undermars.com/gallery78.html

I didn't keep going through the photos once I found one of two bodies run over by a tank with a pretty bad caption and an Iraqi man's detached head... so I don't know what else is there, and whether this particular site has the "head-soccer ball" pic or not...this is all more than i really care to think about, frankly, and if you want to go around with some idealized image of "our troops" go ahead. Just don't call me "gullible" because I find the horrendous shit being reported somewhat believable -- even if it might have required a few cases of alcoholic beverage to get them beyond their natural revulsion to the acts.

edited to clarify --

the photos i linked to are not fake...

posted. :shrug:

If you're out and about in town, you can, but they're blowing up liquor stores over there left, right and center. Same thing happened in Iran when the Shah was on his way out. Just last week:

Another bomb destroyed a liquor store in Baghdad in what appeared to be the third attack on the shop by militants determined to impose Islamic customs by closing down such establishments. The blast, one of three heard just past dawn, shook much of central Baghdad.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/17/iraq/main1623277.shtml

There is a general order that says service personnel are not permitted to drink, but it's not uniformly enforced. If you know someone at the embassy, hey, the world is yours, same if you know a contractor or two.

This is old info, culled from AP, but it provides a sense of what's going on:
http://inteldump.powerblogs.com/archives/archive_2004_06_13-2004_06_19.shtml#1087480562

it was all to maintain 'corp de epsri'...i do not condone any part of it to any degree...but these guys are too much & for the most part "burn let it burn, burn mother fucker burn" kids from the Gitmo, tapes from the region have been showing them driving over regular iraqi's vehicles with their tanks and shooting up shit & running amok for years now; maybe when you start thinking/believeing you actually ARE the jolly green giant your mind turns to mush & things go to hell

and putting men on 3-4 tours in impossible situations.


What else to expect but complete depravity?

Humanimals.

The marines kill the innocent Iraqi, lying half dead on the ground.

Then Cheer.

When so many progressives easily saw through the American propaganda about Iraqis killing babies in Kuwait during the first Gulf War.

Without collaborating evidence, I view this story as propaganda.

I see skepticism, but a depressing acknowledgment that worse has already been confirmed so much so that it's not a stretch to believe it happened.

the people involved are depraved enough to have done it, then the allegation is proof in itself. :sarcasm:

Why let facts get in the way of a good story?

Just ask Jessie MacBeth. Or Lason Leopold.

Seems a bit disrespectful towards the troops.