# Incompetent American troops in Iraq **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 16, 2007, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767 "2007-08-16T01:53:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/21 "2007-08-16T14:36:33Z")
[correction police]they **were** unfired,[/correction police] ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/22 "2007-08-16T15:29:07Z")
[QUOTE=BubbaDog] Since they unfired the bullets must have been thrown at her house. [/QUOTE] Don’t discount slingshots. That’s another possibility. ---
**Author:** ![Omegaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/23 "2007-08-16T15:31:51Z")
I haven’t seen any NATO ammunition in a while but I remember it having a green anti-corrosion coating on it. Or I could be on crack. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/24 "2007-08-16T16:06:15Z")
Or maybe the green coating could be crack, did you think about that? I mean, that might explain why they were throwing their bullets at houses. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/25 "2007-08-16T16:08:04Z")
[QUOTE=Squink] Here’s the same shot at [American Thinker](http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/08/when_dullards_run_enemy_propag.html); top photo. [/QUOTE] Ah, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Omegaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/26 "2007-08-16T16:12:50Z")
That would make sense. Olive drab crack. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/27 "2007-08-16T17:17:19Z")
When I was running around with an M16 (never in war - lucked out with service that ended just before our first Bush foray into the Middle East), my shooting positions were regularly decorated with unspent rounds. I didn’t drop them. The damned things were duds. I swear, one round in 100 would not fire, jam the pea-shooter, I would have to eject it and go through the reset process. Cheap-ass ammo… When it was time to qualify, many of use would smuggle in nice boxes of Federal Premium rounds, rather than trust our scores to the USMC’s lowest bidder. SO - some poor GI Joe ejects a round that once against jammed his rifle. In frustration, he picks it up and throws it at her house! Very plausible. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2007, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/28 "2007-08-16T22:48:02Z")
[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi] Back in the Nam … (No, I wasn’t here, how old do you think I am?) … the US used to spread AK rounds on battlefield certain the thrifty enemy would police them up. They were designed to explode in the chamber. [/QUOTE] Confirm - mostly. My father was peripherally involved with this effort, at a low level. The bullets and charges were pulled, the charge replaced with ball powder (which burns at a substantially faster rate than the original powder, and thus generates HUGE chamber pressures), then the bullet reseated - resulting in serious damage to the firing weapon, if not outright destrution and serious injury to the firing soldier. However, they weren’t scattered about, so much as they were salted into otherwise-sound munitions stashes that the troops had found. The idea was to lower morale, by lowering the ememy’s confidence in their arms and munitions. To this day, my father will not use surplus 7.62x39 amunition. ---
**Author:** ![Hirundo82](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/919ad9/32.png) [@Hirundo82](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hirundo82)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2007, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/29 "2007-08-17T00:03:32Z")
[QUOTE=phouka] What’s the difference between a round and a bullet? [/QUOTE] The bullet is the projectile only. A round or cartridge is the entire asssembly which goes in the firing chamber–the bullet plus the casing containing the gunpowder. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2007, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/30 "2007-08-17T01:48:51Z")
Believe me, I’ve got no dog in this particular fight, but I can suggest a possible scenario that fits: fired bullets did hit her house, but she likely would have had a hard time recovering them, as they could have been deeply embedded in whatever they hit. So looking around outside, she finds a couple of unfired rounds (perhaps duds,as **Algher** mentioned) and displays those instead. In such a case, the caption should have read “…two bullets _of the type_ she says hit her house…” and everything would be fine. Sloppy editing I find more likely than out-and-out propagandising by AFP. Feel free to consider the above plausible or not. I’m not gonna get too worked up about this one. ---
**Author:** ![dnooman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2007, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/31 "2007-08-17T03:18:32Z")
I doubt anyone checked those rounds for a firing pin dent. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2007, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/32 "2007-08-17T15:17:36Z")
This reminds me of a particularly sad bit of propaganda footage used in the first (1991) Gulf War. The news (and I forget which news outlet was showing this, but it was mainstream television) showed a fruit stand with a plywood board for a roof…hardly more substantial than Lucy’s psychiatry booth in _Peanuts._ The board was sagging down about two feet, bent or damaged in the middle, although it had not broken in half, nor had the sticks holding it up been destroyed. The reporter gravely informed us that this fruit stand had been “destroyed by a direct hit from an American Tomahawk cruise missile.” Yeah, that’s the one with the 1,000 pound warhead of high-detontation-rate military-grade explosive, flying at 400+ miles per hour, in a projectile also filled with jet fuel. _Totally_ bent that plywood. That’ll be a bitch to fix…take upwards of 10 minutes, unless there’s two of you. Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2007, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/33 "2007-08-17T15:45:50Z")
In general, I find the media to be grossly incompetent where it comes to reporting on matters military. True, a lot of military news is essoteric and requires a bit of education, background, and context to report accurately, but even such simple and obvious fucks-up, such as described by **Sailboat** are common. There are a few who either know by personal experience (Michael Yon), or by dint of research and dedication (the late Mr. Bloom) get it right, but even _simple_ stuff is screwed up royally by even well-respected names, such as Amanpour and Blitzer - even now, after years of exposure. I spent a good chunk of GW1 screaming at the tube over the various reporters’ fucks-up, before I became resigned to their stupidities. GW2, I was expecting it, and merely spent a lot of time shaking my head. I still don’t know _why_ so many of them must _remain_ incompetent; It takes very little to learn the basics. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2007, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767/34 "2007-08-17T15:57:20Z")
> [@dnooman](#): > > I doubt anyone checked those rounds for a firing pin dent. Good point. My problem is the picture itself. I’m picking up a lot of error level around the hand and ammo, plus the backdrop is changed. The pic is possibly a fake. At the very least, it’s quite doctored. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incompetent-american-troops-in-iraq/415767.md?page=1)