I just hope he gets lucky. I would not be surprised if anything–up to what SenorBeef said–happened. OTOH, the bottom line is this,
This makes the possibility of a set up that much more likely. But, that’s an affirmative defense we must prove in the court of public opinion. No problem. :dubious:
I admit I have no facts to base that assesment on. It’s just that someone asked what their motive would be, and I thought about it a bit, and that actually seemed like a pretty good plan for the fedeyene (or however you spell it). They want to rally anti-American sentiment, and giving something to the Arab world to galvanize them against the Americans is far more effective than killing a few soldiers.
It might not apply in this particular case, but I fail to see why that’s such a whacked out conspiracy theory sort of deal. It seems like a perfectly reasonable plan, given their dedication to the cause and motivation.
dee52269:
Finally someone who takes matters into his/hers own hands! I wish i had done that. I’m looking forward to see what comes of this.
sailor:
Again, it sounds very likely that the situation were like that. If that information is from the spanish story I am grateful to you for providing it. I also wish that something like this will materialize in english soon, because i’m getting fed up with my favourite news agencies.
But. Tea party? Excuse me who the h**l are you talking about? What are you talking about?
I certainly do not believe this was no tea party. I’d also find it very unprobable that US soldiers would just fire into a peaceful crowd for no reason.
I made a summary of those statements of Col Frick of the US army, that i had posted earlier, that implied warning shots were fired and that after that a decision was made to fire at the crowd. As opposed to McDuffs scenario of random firering by individual soldiers. I can presently not say which is correct, neither can any of us. I hold neither of these to be more likely than the other.
But you should rather compare your spanish reporters account to that of US military official Charles Owens above. He does not mention aggression from the crowd when describing the shootings, only one/several unidentified gunmen on a roof.
And also note that Charles Owen claims now has been completely erased from the Yahoo story linked to above! So I guess his statements might not have been very accurate, then.
Well i know it was a speculation, and I acknowledge your right to speculate.
Your scenario:
Anti-american gunmen choosing to shoot into the anti-american crowd hoping that the crowd (and others) will believe that the americans did it. Right? In your last post you added that the gunmen would be fedayeen.
Some reasons why i think it is very very unlikely, and in fact bordering on conspiratorial:
You presume that anti-american arabs think that killing other anti-american arabs for propaganda reasons is justifiable.
If the shooters were accurately identified by the crowd the effect would be the exact opposite of the one wished for.
You have no indication that the shooters were “fedayeen”.
Beef, Beagle:
Some other kind of setup is not quite so unlikely. But no indications towards that yet. And maybe raging feelings, and things got out of hand in one way or another.
Randy, the reason it was reported in Spanish forst may just be pure luck that a Spanish reporter was there and i would commend those stations who choose to not report until they have something reliable than start reporting what to them is still on the level of rumor. It seems there was a Spanish reporter and maybe the American networks did not have any there at the time.
At any rate, my comment was just intended to give the correct impression of the atmosphere there. It was chaotic and bordering on being a riot. It seems one of the bodyguards of the guys in the building panicked and open fire, The Spanish reporter reports hearing a US officer shouting “Don’t shoot! Don’t Shoot” but he shot anyway.
I think the isolated snipers on the roof scenario is much less probable that the demonstration that got out of hand. And I definietly trust an independent reporter over the US officer who, after all, is an interested party. Why would the US troops fire into the crowd if the shots were coming from the roof? The story as reported in Spanish seems most likely to me. And, as I said, I do not see any direct responsibility by US forces. It just seems the kind of thing which is likely to happen under the circumstances.
**
Well, I admit that’s unsavory, but if these are die-hard anti-American militant Islamic type (the sort I’ve had the impression were flowing into Iraq before the war to fight Americans), they might see it as acceptable casualties if the result is a galvanized middle eastern hatred towards America - breaking a few eggs for an omellete, and all that.
**
True, that would be the biggest practical flaw - but if you’ve got an anti-American crowd in the first place, there’s a good chance most of them are going to place the blame on the Americans regardless of what they see.
True - I was just speculating on the motive. It seems that those still resisting are die-hard Iraqi nationals who don’t want to see US influence in their country, or perhaps a militant anti-American Islamic type, of the sort that came into the country right before the war. In the former case, it’s unlikely that they’d injure and kill their fellow countrymen to cause such a reaction - but if it were the latter, the overall response might be worth it, in their view.
…human shields–mortaring civilians fleeing Basra–soldiers forced to fight at gunpoint–soldiers fighting because they fear for their families–destroying the water treatment plant at Basra–storing weapons in schools, hospitals, and homes–SAMs, howiters, or tanks placed by all the preceding locations–suicide vests–torture chambers–Saddam’s Lion Cubs…
What is implausible about a regime loyalist shooting into the crowd again? Other than the lack of any actual evidence, of course.
I should just make the point that it is possible for american soldiers to have been shot at and hit without being hurt, thanks to the body armor they wear. It’s really quite impressive, these days.
I’d like to throw in a couple more news stories in case anyone still thinks this is someone’s fictional creation.
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6291696^1702,00.html
Seriously, did anyone out there really believe the American occupation would go down smoothly with the locals? I hardly think it is a surprise. What would be a surprise is if this is the last story of its kind.
Mosul is predominantly Sunni and Arab. A good part of Iraq’s officer corps supposedly came out of Mosul. It is quite tense right now as it borders on the Kurdish enclaveand the area has a large Kurdish presense, but majority sentiment there is pretty anti-Kurdish ( or at least anti-Kurdish control ). Apparently it got pretty ugly when Kurdish fighters entered the city a few days ago. I’m not surprised it is particularly tense.
That link pretty much sums it up as
SenorBeef, Beagle:
I don’t wan’t to go any further into discussing the likelyness of things happening in the particular way of SenorBeefs speculation above. I have stated the main reasons why I think it is far-fetched. I note that you acknowledge them all as valid. I do believe that you would agree that there are more likely scenarios. So let’s hang on to our personal assessments on this, and move on.
Beagle:
Your enumeration of atrocities mixes confirmed fact with alleged fact. Thats not the right path, young Grasshopper.
Sailor, lander:
Yep that link seem based on the original AFP story.
A thing that has pissed me off with on-line news reporting while following the evolvement of this story:
It seems that texts are changed continually, with no record of the changes, as new facts / claims emerge. This is in my book against the spirit of balanced, accurate and unbiased reporting. Any thoughts on this?
…but the NY times seem to be handling things the right way and keep all different versions online. Here are updated accounts of the incident, painting a similar picture to sailors spanish story:
So what to make of the issue of Mr. Jabouri then? It does seem likely that he was there, held a speech, and that the americans wanted to appoint him governor. To me. What do you guys think?
Link to new NY times version:
Tamerlane: thanks for the info!
Posted by Duck Duck Goose in the other thread on this subject
So it seems that everyone but CNN are on the train now.
And CNN. Posted by aahala.