I do not understand why some people have the need to come up with unlikely explanations so contrived to be utterly ridiculous. Saying the Iraqis would fire on their own people just to blame it on the Americans is pretty ridiculous, especially when all evidence shows it was the US troops who fired. Why would you go to such lengths to find such unlikely explanations? To me it is like the people who said the 9/11 attacks were the work of Israel. Bloody unlikely if you ask me.
In this incident I do not see any direct responsibility by the US troops at the scene, who seemed to be defending themselves from the angry crowd. But there is a general and political responsibility of the US government who was obviously mistaken in their belief that the Iraqis would be happy with what the USA was going to do. There have been quite a few anti-American demonstrations and the USA needs to wake up to the fact that many Iraqis are not happy with the occupation.
For the record, SenorBeef, I don’t consider your speculated scenario all that whacked-out. If some Islamic extremist had half a brain and was inclined to prioritize his own cause above human life, such an act would serve his purposes well. I think that the American occupation is corrupt and lawless but I don’t think that corruption and lawlessness is confined to American politicians alone. Your scenario is no less likely than the theory that some American or Israeli interests had something to do with 9/11. It’s based on the same principal and if anyone is naive enough to believe that movers and shakers don’t resort to such heinous means to meet their ends then I suggest you take a fresh look about you.
I have no doubt that government and groups would be willing to do such things. I am extremely cynical about governments and the means people would use to acquire or keep power. Extremely. And that includes all of them but let us not become paranoid and see conspiracies everywhere. I may believe the American government or some extremist group would be willing to do such things and lie. I certainly believe this is true. BUT, let us use some common sense. It is almost impossible to do it in this case and have the truth not get out.
This was a spontaneous demonstration against the proclamation of a pro-American governor. Anti Americans would want more and not less of this and if they could convince the world that the Americans did it, it would discourage similar demonstrations. Furthermore, there was really no time to plan such a scheme. But the main thing is that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people there, including foreign journalists, who saw what happened. Unless you kill them all there is no way the truth is not going to get out.
To counter the reports of reporters who were there, and which seem very plausible, with such conspicracy theories is just silly.
I’m probably old enough to be your dad (in Arkansas). Moreover, it’s all document-able, as I pulled it all out of various news stories.
The point is:
Nothing about shooting into a crowd is even slightly worse than any other strategy the Iraqis are alleged to have empoyed so far.* It’s this silly argument that the Iraqi regime cares about sacrificing human life in an obvious way that is killing the logical part of my brain.
There is NO proof, evidence even. Fine, I accept that. This is the third time I’ve said as much.
*The Iraqi government issued statements rejecting the rules of war and embracing suicide bombing. Only after pressure did they say they would follow the rules regarding POWs. Which they didn’t. They did do better than I predicted: beatings, but no torture. No Red Cross, but they were fed and got medical treatment. So on and so forth.
OH Puh-lease, the Arab news media and Al Jazeera have been coming up with contribed explainations since before day one of this war. I presented a a possible explaination and it is quite viable. I had no other hard evidence to the contrary other the the NYTimes article which I only recently read. I never meant to imply that snipers fired on their own people intentionally. In my opinion, the snipers fired with careless disregard for the people below. From what I can gather from both articles, calling them snipers was inaccurate. It would be more accurate to call them gunmen on rooftops. They were probably armed demonstrators who went up for a better shot.
An 11 year old child was shot at the rooftops, which would seem to indicate that aimed fire was directed at an elevated angle signifying gunmen upthere. The armed crowd may have started firing when the US soldiers fired at the rooftops. After some warning shots to the crowd, the US soldiers fired back.
The catalyst to this all seems to be this Mr. Jabouri character who came out of Syria. HE says he is the governor of Mosul and HE says the Americans said so. Both claims denied by the US. The US troops had to be there. What was all this clamor about the US having the responsibility of maintaining order? They came in a near riotous situation and they quelled it as only soldiers can. What now?
Well, the USA assumed the role of policeman in Iraq quite voluntarily. If they run into problems like this its not like they have anyone to blame. And my guess is that we might be seeing more of this type of situations. We are already seing daily demonstrations asking the USA to go home. Some might be peaceful but the mix is a recipe for disasters like Mosul. There’s little the troops can do once they have been put in the middle of a mess but the US government who creeated the mess does have a responsibility.
I don’t believe I ever noticed you points were valid in that they invalidated what I said, which is what they were meant to do.
**
Sure. I’ve made it clear that I wasn’t speculating on this particular incident, necesarily - but someone asked what the motive would be if they were firing into the crowd. I outlined that motive.
I don’t see anything far fetched about it. There are die hard militants with a cause, there, and if any of them have half a brain, it would be likely that someone came across the idea of using such an incident to galvanize the Arab world against the Americans. To say that these people who are willing to die and to suicide bomb and such are too nice to kill people is just naive.
If you read what I said - someone said that the gunmen may have caused most of the deaths in the crowd. Someone asked, skeptically, what their motive would be if that were the case.
I gave a possible and plausible explanation of the motive, if that were the case.
I am always a bit puzzled when I see strong statements like this.
I presume the writer regularly follows, then, al-Jazeerah? Or the remaining Arab news media?
I would not defend the sometimes problematic fact checking on al-Jazeerah, but I would say that their standard of reporting has been decent, often better than Fox, and they give full time to both sides of the story (although often making it clear where their sympathies are).
In any case, I am hoping the position above is dependant on data.
In re the Fisk article, I think the language is too strong, although nota bene, I believe the explosiveness of the situation is real. I hope I covered the reasons why in my original thread.
Regardless of any theories as to what might have happened in Mosul, I think it is safe to say that many Iraqis don’t see the Americans as liberators but rather as invaders. The media can frame it how they wish, the President can prattle on with inane statements endlessly, but it will not change the fact that Iraq has been invaded and it was done out of US self-interest and the Iraqis know it.
Crap like what happened in Mosul will continue to happen and it makes no lick of difference that many Americans delude themselves into thinking that the US is helping Iraq. Many more people will likely perish and further volumes of bullshit will be disseminated by CNN and co. The sky is still blue and water is still wet.
“Document-able”, huh? Well, I pointed out that some of these stories are confirmed whereas others are alleged by some part in the conflict. And I do believe that keeping those two categories separated serves the greater good of “fighting ignorance”.
You do remember the infamous stories of Iraqi soldiers stealing babies from incubators in Kuwait during GWI. Back in the days easily pulled from news stories. “Documentable” in your sense of the word. But false, written by an american copywriter.
So let’s keep track of the claims and their sources, even when journalists dont, ok?
SenorBeef, Beagle on SenorBeefs speculation:
As i said earlier: I’m not that enthusiastic about going much further on this subject. Subsequent reporting of this incident has more or less ruled out your scenario, should no sensational facts emerge.
As you pointed out SenorBeef, your original remarks were a suggestion of one possible explanation in the case of a hypothetical event (gunmen on the roofs fireing at the crowd).
I find your explanation far-fetched, you and Beagle do not. Since no party has claimed that gunmen on the roof actually were fireing into the crowd, I suggest we leave this issue.
More information is coming out regarding the shooting incident by a tank of the Palestine Hotel where two foreign reporters were killed. The US Government has maintained all along that the tank was being fired upon with small arms and returned fire. This has been so clearly demonstrated as false that one would wonder why the US is so arrogant to maintain publicly what they know is false. To recap:
There is plenty of news footage from different networks and they most definitely prove no shots were fired from the building
All the reporters in the building deny any shots were fired
Two further bits of information have surfaced:
The tank commander was interviewed by (Belgian?) TV and asked about the incident. He confirms they never received any fire and never saw any arms. He was in communication with his superiors and mentioned he saw someone with binoculars in the building. After about ten minutes he was ordered to fire on the building. It is clear that (a) they never received fire and did not feel threatened in any way and (b) the order to fire was not his but came from his superiors located elsewhere.
Also, a German reporter embedded in another US unit says there was a request during those ten minutes for air bombing the hotel but the request was denied on account that the unit commander knew and said the building was where all the foreign reporters were staying.
After that request was denied, the tank commander was ordered by his superior to open fire, which he did.
It is clear from all this there should be an investigation into who and why gave the order. Either it was clear negligence or incompetence for which whoever gave the order should be held accountable or this was a deliberate act to silence the foreign “free” press. The last hypothesis has some credibility for several reasons:
a- The USA refuses to acknowledge the evidence and to order an investigation
b- The Al Jazeera reporter who was also killed in a separate “accident”
c- The incident happened when the US troops were in the process of taking Baghdag and were not certain how it may play out. There was certain unease that there may be days or weeks ahead of street fighting and the free reporters were becoming a nuisance with their critical reporting. Embedded reporters were much more sympathetic to the USA. If scaring the reporters into leaving was the aim then it certainly worked as many reporters left as fast as they could.
In any case, the government of the USA is maintaining publically what is clearly a lie. How can this be justified?
