# 12 years old, both arms blown off, family dead, but hey - he's FREE! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 9, 2003, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517 "2003-04-09T09:57:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/141 "2003-04-10T14:02:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > \*\*I read the article and it is indeed a terrible thing that happened to the boy. Not just the arms, those burns have to be horrible, and I wonder if he will survive. I guess it depends on the level of his care and the extent of the burns but my guess is that they extend over his whole lower body. If that’s the case it would be questionable whether he would survive even with the best of care. > > I feel very sorry for him. What a horrbile thing. The pain, the trauma, the loss of family, the loss of both arms, and a very limited and perhaps abbreviated future. > > I’m not sure I accept the story that is being told at face value though. I don’t know whether I doubt it, or not, but I am skeptical. > > I am not an expert in wounds or trauma by any way shape or means, but I wonder how a bomb would do what has been done to that poor kid. Specifically, his face is fine. I don’t understand how a bomb can explode with such force that it would remove a person’s arms but leave their face and upper body intact. The arms are on opposing sides of the body. How does what is in the middle get left intact? > > Additionally, there is the severe burns on the lower body, but not the upper body. It looks like his body was scorched by fire. > > His injuries appear to be the loss of two arms, which would seemingly to me represent localized trauma, or perhaps something else that I will get to in a moment. The burns suggest he was partially shielded from fire. > > Not being a forensic expert this doesn’t seem consistent with a bomb. > > The scenario that seems consistent with his injuries is that he was trapped in a fire of some kind and found partial shelter. Survival instinct will cause him to lodge as much of his upper body in the shelter he finds and use his arms to ward off the fire, or push objects out of his way or onto his lower body to protect it. In any event it is likely that his arms would be most exposed and damaged in attempting to survive a conflagration. > > It also appears to me from the consistency of the bandaging that his arms were amputated, not blown off. That too, would be consistent with the aftermath of a fire. > > So, I wonder if it was a burning vehicle or building in which he sustained his injuries. I suppose that is possibly the aftermath of a bomb, but it doesn’t look like a bomb blast did the damage to the child. \*\* This is possibly the most loathesome, callous post i’ve ever read here, and that’s against some pretty stiff opposition. Crocodile tears and baseless insinuations based on the wish to deny responsibility. Arms look amputated? You’re a trauma surgeon? I’m not either but I know that you amputate badly damaged limbs to prevent gangrene. You wanted war, now look at the consequences. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/142 "2003-04-10T14:11:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Ooner do you “_shrug_” at every injury and death from this war? Prick. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/143 "2003-04-10T14:13:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Ooner do you “_shrug_” at every injury and death from this war? Prick. Not called for. No one can be indefinitely empathetic. > [@](#): > > [Snort] very well, I challenge you to resurrect my old GD thread trying to settle the score on this question once and for all. I hate historical revisionism. Moreover, I despise those who crusade for good by ignoring real evil. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/144 "2003-04-10T14:49:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tagos \* > **This is possibly the most loathesome, callous post i’ve ever read here, and that’s against some pretty stiff opposition. Crocodile tears and baseless insinuations based on the wish to deny responsibility.** Callous? I thought **Scylla** ’s post was the first really objective response in this whole thread. I didn’t see baseless insinuations; I saw an **attempt** to figure out what had really happened to this kid. He also didn’t express a clear-cut opinion, due to the fact that he lacked enough evidence to draw a conclusion. Do you see him as having made insinuations just because he didn’t happen to fall in line right behind you? \*\* > [@](#): > > Arms look amputated? You’re a trauma surgeon? I’m not either but I know that you amputate badly damaged limbs to prevent gangrene.\*\* And your point is? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/145 "2003-04-10T15:00:30Z")
> [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Before the war I did not regard America as my enemy. Now I do. War should be against the military. America is killing civilians. > > - > > I feel horrible for the kid. I don’t trust the accuracy of the reporting of the people propagandizing his plight. If Iraq “accidently” dropped a bomb on a building in the US, killing hundreds of civilians, you don’t think we would hear interviews from people saying the same thing about Iraq? What were they supposed to say in a situation like this? “God bless America”? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/146 "2003-04-10T15:04:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rilchiam \* > \*\*Callous? I thought **Scylla** ’s post was the first really objective response in this whole thread. I didn’t see baseless insinuations; I saw an **attempt** to figure out what had really happened to this kid. He also didn’t express a clear-cut opinion, due to the fact that he lacked enough evidence to draw a conclusion. Do you see him as having made insinuations just because he didn’t happen to fall in line right behind you? > > \*\* > > And your point is? \*\* My point is the kid himself said what happened to him and here is this guy fantasising about alternative explanations that lets him believe the kid or all the journalists who have covered this story fabricated an explanation for propaganda purposes. Perhaps your dictionary has a different definition of callous? ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/147 "2003-04-10T16:15:48Z")
The kid was asleep when the bomb hit and unconscious when he was brought to the hospital. The article doesn’t offer detail about exactly how he sustained those injuries, apart from the rather broad statement that a missile “obliterated” his home and “[blew] off both his arms”. **Scylla** was not **fantasizing**. He was not concocting an **alternative** explanation; he put forth **one possible** explanation. All the article really says is “A bomb fell”. He wasn’t denying that **fact** , just daring to suggest that the fact that the bomb didn’t kill the kid instantly might have been a mercy\*. \*No offense, **Scylla** , if I’ve interpreted your post incorrectly. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/148 "2003-04-10T18:03:38Z")
I’m not saying one way or the other, but we know that photos and stories can be faked, or twisted to serve a political agenda. I don’t think we should take _anything_ at face value in this day and age. Skeptical investigation is good thing. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/149 "2003-04-10T18:39:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spooje \* > I’m not saying one way or the other, but we know that photos and stories can be faked, or twisted to serve a political agenda. I don’t think we should take _anything_ at face value in this day and age. Skeptical investigation is good thing. I was saying the same thing after Colin Powell made his presentation at the UN to try and justify the war, but the hawks wouldn’t listen. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/150 "2003-04-10T22:24:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tagos \* > \*\*This is possibly the most loathesome, callous post i’ve ever read here, and that’s against some pretty stiff opposition. Crocodile tears and baseless insinuations based on the wish to deny responsibility. > > Arms look amputated? You’re a trauma surgeon? I’m not either but I know that you amputate badly damaged limbs to prevent gangrene. > > You wanted war, now look at the consequences. \*\* Well, you have quite a bit of keyboard courage, don’t you? Don’t presume to challenge me on my motivations or assign “crocodile tears” to my empathy for this child. I assure your that after **my** personal experiences in the burn ward when I was not much older than this kid, I have a much more genuine inkling of what he’s going through than you do. And, if I didn’t learn my lessons through personal experience I learned them through years of subsequent volunteer work at Mountainside Hospital and a visit to the burn center at Shriner’s Children’s hospital. Stage magic is a hobby of mine, and I got started with card and coin tricks as a way to regain the dexterity I had lost after I was burned, and it was an honor and a privilege to be allowed to visit those children and show them stupid tricks and entertain them while pain washed over their burned limbs like a tide that never goes out. Perhaps it meant something as well, as it was proof that the pain actually does end, recovery actually does begin, and it is possible to regain what is lost. My burns while severe were relatively minor in that they covered a small percentage of my body, and I required only minor grafting. I suffered no major side-effects or infections, and only moderate scarring and loss of dexterity. Yet, it was all that I could bear and more. I saw much worse. So don’t you fucking dare to presume that I am insincere in my sympathy for this child’s plight. I **know** in a way that you cannot possibly understand unless it has happened to you a little bit about what he is going through. I doubt you can say the same. That being said, it in no way alters my skepticism concerning the statements and assertions made in that article. They are seperate issues. It’s cheap and demeaning to waste the benefit of my breath on this subject on someone who demonstrates such casual stupidity in their accusations as yourself. But, if you walk around making such stupid assertions about other people you know nothing about there will come a day when you will well and truly step in shit. I think today is that day asshole. While it demeans me to talk about it this way, I thought you should know. -Scylla ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/151 "2003-04-10T23:33:44Z")
And while I’m at it, your playing at moral outrage in order to pimp your political agenda to this kids suffering is pornographic. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2003, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/152 "2003-04-10T23:48:39Z")
And while I’m at it, your playing at moral outrage in order to pimp your political agenda to this kids suffering is pornographic. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/153 "2003-04-11T00:23:12Z")
Well, now, **Scylla** , ask yourself this question: how would you respond if someone were to suggest you were, perhaps, making this stuff up about your own personal suffering. In an attempt to pimp your political agenda. (_“Doctor, would you look at this, please?” "Yes, of course, what seems to be the…Good God! This man’s head has actually **exploded!** _" Your claim to know that he is “playing” at moral outrage goes beyond mere clairovoyance, you are peering into the soul of a stranger and taking the inventory. I too find your insinuation of fakery and propaganda mildly offensive, but I know you better than he, I know what I regard as moral outrage you are inclined to see as simply a rather vigorous form of Darwinism. But its rather moot, isn’t it? If this kid didn’t get his arms blown off (I don’t know, maybe he gnawed them off in a fit of lefty hysteria) another kid got his head blown off, we know that. We know that because that’s what happens when we play war like grown-ups. Anybody who doesn’t already know that war is the most vile expression of human depravity won’t have his mind changed by this sad child. And anyone who believes that this brutal excercise in _geopolitick_ is justified by Fearless Misleader’s regiment of lies protecting a precious half-truth is unlikely to be dissuaded as well. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/154 "2003-04-11T01:08:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CrankyAsAnOldMan I’d still like to think, however, that with some good ol’ fashioned American ingenuity (and $75 billion dollars!) we could have offed this guy in a way that put a stop to his cruelty to his own people and ended his threat to the rest of the world. All without hurting anyone else, except maybe a few of his closest pals and henchmen. Surely for that money we could have hatched a nefarious, clever plan? And still had enough money leftover to throw a kick-ass luau for millions of newly-freed citizens in Baghdad? [/quote] 'scuse me, **Cranky** , but are you suggesting that the US get back into the business of assassinating foreign leaders? Because I’ve got Isabel Allende on line two, and she’d like to have a word with you. > [@](#): > > That’s the problem. I lack the ingenuity to plot how to topple despots. But I know we’ve got some damned clever, sneaky, mean people in Washington who can do it. Trained by the same cunning geniuses who overthrew the Castro regime in the '60s, I assume? Overthrowing a hostile and despotic regime by any means short of invasion is so difficult as to be impossible. It’s not enough to say “You people are smart; figure out a better solution!” when there simply _are_ no better solutions. Sanctions don’t work. Sanctions _never_ work, because no country is so poor that the biggest thug in it can’t still live like a king while everyone else starves. Short of outside intervention, the only way Saddam was ever going to be deposed was by someone even more dangerous and depraved. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/155 "2003-04-11T01:11:36Z")
GeeDubya? ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/156 "2003-04-11T01:17:45Z")
You gotta be kidding, **elucidator**. **Scylla** responds to **tagos** ’ accusation of “crocodile tears” with proof of the ability to empathize, and provides a base for his **theory** , proving that it’s that, and not an insinuation, and the best you can come up with is “Well, why should we believe you”? > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Scylla_ > **Pain actually does end, recovery actually does begin, and it is possible to regain what is lost.** Perhaps you overlooked that. Perhaps because it doesn’t fit **your** agenda. Based on what **Scylla** said, just now and at earlier times when he talked about his burn trauma, it’s not uncommon for a burn victim to feel suicidal. But I’ve just seen proof that it doesn’t have to be that way forever. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by elucidator_ > **War is the most vile expression of human depravity** Really? The American Civil War, which preserved the Union and gave rise to the Emancipation Proclamation? WWII, which stopped Hitler from taking over the world? Who was vile and depraved—the guy who sentenced people to concentration camps, or the people who liberated them? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/157 "2003-04-11T01:26:59Z")
Dammit. That whole first paragraph was supposed to be **Cranky** ’s, up to where you can see the end quote. [sub]The one fucking time you don’t preview…[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/158 "2003-04-11T01:33:48Z")
Oh, please. Tell me your knowledge of history is not so shallow that you actually believe America went to war to save the Jews? As for Mr. Lincoln, I stand second to no man in my admiration for him, but he was a man of his time, not a plaster saint for animatronic displays. He himself said that he cared very little for freeing the slaves, he regarded that as a historical inevitability. As he said, if he could have saved the Union by freeing the slaves, he would have done so, by not freeing them, or by freeing some and not others, he would have done so. He mourned his war as no President before or since. He stayed up nights signing pardons for foolish young soldiers who had fallen asleep on guard duty and composing _personal_ letters to the family of the fallen. He agonized over consenting to Grant’s brutal machinery of war, and then only because he believed that it was the best path to the shortening of a monstrosity. And when it was over, he shocked the hard-eyed men of his Cabinet by rushing to bind the wounds of a fallen enemy, to forgive our once and future brothers. Enlisting him in your tawdry cause is like using MLK to sell fried chicken. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/159 "2003-04-11T02:00:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > \*\*The culpability for the thousands who died during the sanctions lies with the countries who _imposed_ those sanctions. \*\* Tell it to the South Africans. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517/160 "2003-04-11T02:04:05Z")
We should have invaded South Africa? Dunno, **Shodan** , sounds a little extreme to me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/12-years-old-both-arms-blown-off-family-dead-but-hey-hes-free/167517.md?page=9)