As a matter of factual accuracy it is not yet clear on the issue of shooting.
Abstracting away from that as I am sure, knowing Arab style celebrations, there were people -at minimum- firing off guns, one needs to be worried about these incidents. If the Iraqis, or some large percentage of them become ‘the enemy’ then you have serious bloody problems.
I am not sure this is actually the case, what was the case is it was a dump fo rmaterials gathered from the surrounding district – such that much of it was Iraqi materials housed in civilian areas, the size of the dump however was an American creation.
Pointing the finger at Sadaam is highly convenient, and goes over well here. Not there, so again an issue that needs to be addressed.
All Iraqis are the enemy now? Well, again American forces story is someone fired into the dump. Locals claim that there had been demolition at the dump and it went wrong.
Either way, rather obviously better measures need to be taken as accumulating incidents work against US forces, not for them and excuse that make you feel warm and fuzzy do not go down lwell on location.
“US soldiers have shot and killed at least one Iraqi demonstrator in the town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, this morning. The American troops opened fire on around 1,000 protestors who had marched to a US base in the town to demonstrate against the killing of at least 13 demonstrators by US soldiers on Monday night. The soldiers apparently opened fire at around 10.30am local time after the protestors threw stones and shoes at their compound during the demonstration. At least one Iraqi, a 30-year-old man, was killed and at least 16 others were injured. The US has suggested that the protestors may have opened fire on the Americans, but local residents said they saw or heard no shooting coming from the crowd.”
You seem to be in denial, sir. The size and repeated nature of the anti-American protests seem to be a definitive indication that the Iraqis want the Americans out of the country yesterday. If they held a democratic referendum tomorrow asking the Iraqi people if they wanted the American forces to stay or leave, what do you think would be the result?
How about imposing a government by dictating who the candidates are in the election. It is done in America itself so why would anyone expect the scene to be different in Iraq? “Free and fair elections” is a childish pipe-dream that hasn’t been realized in America, let alone Iraq. From what I understand, the 60% Shiite majority is backing an ayatollah to lead the country. Do you think the US is going to let that democratic majority rule?
I guess you’re right. It was premature to condemn the US for initiating an invasion based on fictitious grounds because it was based upon mistakes we believe they’d make in the future. I, sir, would start condemning the US Gov for continuing on a path that is pure folly and which can only lead to further mistakes in the future. You really think that the US administration went to all this effort and expense to let some other anti-American government into power? I think that would qualify as naïve at best.
>> It was ATTACKED by opposition forces (they’re called Iraqis).
This may be true and it may be not true. The only ones saying this are the US forces and they would have an interest in lying. The US has been caught lying blatantly, plenty and repeatedly so forgive me if I distrust them. The reliability of information coming from the US government is extremely low. That’s what happens when you lie a lot.
At any rate, the problem is that people warned that trying to occupy and rule Iraq was going to be messy and the US were not going to be seen as welcome occupiers by a large part of the Iraqis. The fact that now it is showing to be true and that all the alternatives are bad (pulling out vs staying) does not excuse anything. The US knew or should have known what they were getting into. The USA started this whole mess and it is no excuse to say “well, I can’t pull out now”. You should have thought about that before you went in.
It’s hard to imagine anything more stupid than shooting an AK-47 in the presence of American soldiers. It’s also hard to imagine anything more unlikely than a modern American soldier (post Kent State) shooting a civilian for no reason. My money goes on outside agitator hoping to disrupt stability. Paying five to one.
Stupid or not, the situation is quite unstable and more incidents like this are exceedingly unhelpful.
However, it is not clear how to exit from them, other than get non-American security forces involved and/or rapidly begin addressing Iraqi concerns re collapse of authority. That is, of course, being attempted.
It’s hard to imagine anything more stupid than America invading a predominantly Muslim nation and expecting to be accepted with open arms. It’s also hard to imagine the American government allowing the Iraqis to elect their leader which seems inevitably destined to be another ayatollah. My money goes on America supplying the election candidates for the Iraqis to vote upon. Paying ten to one.
The rejoinder is not really on point, the crowd likely firing off weapons was ‘stupid’ – although the domestic reference is a bit absurd on his part, as it does not seem to me that many of the kids there will be familiar either with crowd control or the history of Kent State. They are combat troops trained for the same. There perhaps needs to be some crash courses from the British based on the Northern Ireland experience.
excuse me? To learn what? the exact same thing: shooting at unarmed civilians in a protest march?
May I remind you kindly that the Bloody Sunday Enquiry hasn’t finished yet, indeed could only be started after about 30 years after the facts?
What is it, pray, that the US military needs to learn from the British forces?
Is it the constant brutality with which the RUC and British troops treated the Catholic Irish population in NI?
Because as much as the British troops were going on about winning “hearts and minds” of the Iraqi people, and how they were the ones that should go about it…they never won the hearts and minds of the Catholic Irish up north. and if you’ve heard of the Steven’s Report, than you know the catholics had good reason to distrust them.
Crash courses from the Brits, indeed.
How to alienate a population, yes, that’s what they’ll teach you.
Again, I disagree with the notion that they “made the best out of a bad situation”.
The occupation bit, yes, that I agree with
Characterization: I was referring to the Steven’s Report, that deals with collusion between the British government, the British army and unionist paramilitary organizations, and more to the point how they were being used as hitmen to kill off any Republican dissidents. Like Pat Finucane, the sollicitor who defended IRA suspects when they were on trial.
This happened up to the late 90’s, so the characterization is not “stuck in the 70’s and 80’s”
First of all, understand that a couple of thousand people protesting does not represent “all of Iraq” any more than the hundreds of thousands of people protesting the war here in the States represents all of America.
Second, whether we have a right to be there or not is irrelevant at this point. We are there now and as the de facto temporary government of Iraq we have a responsibility to make sure that we leave the country in a better condition than we found it.
Explain to me what is “oxymoronic” about imposing a democracy? We are “imposing” the mechanisms for the Iraqis to select their own form of government. Ideally, it will not be a government that, once elected, becomes another dictator for the next 20 years. Some people may buy into the “Squeeky Wheel Gets the Grease Doctrine” that states whoever can make the most noise should rule but I do not. There may in fact be a sizable group of Iraqis who do not want a Islamic fundamentalist government and those people should have a voice as well. If everyone thought the same exact way, there wouldn’t be a need for democracy.
The British have a lot more experience at these type of peacekeeping missions than we Americans. We’re good at responding with overwhelming force but that won’t achieve the desired results in this case. A couple of examples:
-The British in Basra would switch to soft-cover hats as soon as practical (compare to the typical American soldier in his Kevlar helmet and Oakleys which makes him look like a Stormtrooper).
-Being more experienced, the British are less likely to get nervous and overreact.
-The Brits also did a better job of getting out and about with the Iraqi people compared to the Americans who tended to stay inside or close to their Bradley vehicles.
I don’t want to get too touchie-feely here but it seems to me that a good way to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people is to not appear to treat them like they are a potential enemy.
Quite true, however everything I hear from multiple sources indicate no small degree of disaffection to outright hostility to American presence.
In short, as I warned in the lead up, through the war and apres, the situation is volatile and hostile. It can be won over, but the default assumption should be low grade hostility.
Quite correct.
There is an oxymoronic component to this in rebuilding and imposing, given the conditions extent in Iraq. I refer you to Martin Wolf’s superb column today in FT - I presume the American editions have it - on the issues involved.
Precisely what I was thinking of but was too lazy to lay out.
However, to be fair to the American soldiers:
(a) US military does not give much emphas. to this kind of duty in training.
(b) No matter the training, US soldiers are likely to attract more hostility than others, by sheer numbers and by fact America is perceived to be the driver in this situation – largely true of course.
For all that, the US military’s force on the ground has not been properly prepared for this, it seems evident, and should we not want to have the situation devolve as it did, for example in Somalia, into deeper hostility, there no doubt needs to be attention paid to these issues.
In further news, US forces killed three more Iraqis today in another demonstration protesting yesterday’s killings.
The argument that the demonstrators do not represent all Iraqis is silly. Nobody said they did. So what? The fact is that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis do not like to be ocupied by the USA. Anyone who would say the Iraqis like the occupation is seriously delusional.
Today’s follow-on highlights the issue, incidents can easily breed further incidents and get into a negative spiral.
Responses that simply point fingers at ‘outside agitators’ (who may be genuine outside agitators or not) miss the point. Allowing yourself to get into such situations moves the game into a lose-lose situation as inevitably innocaents will get hit, and those who are on the sidelines, perhaps merely mildly hostile become enraged and get converted to active opposition.
Obviously pro-active managment is necessary, regardless of whether there is a “silent majority” – although everything I hear points to a negative answer.
There is likely a moderate majority of people who resent occupation but will work with us in the end if real gains are demonstrated, and if incidents like these are minimized. It is not clear yet which way they will go.
Not particularly helpful today was the Sadaam letter that al-Quds al-'Arabi published.
You know- I read this in todays paper, and I said to myself- “Self- there is going to be a thread about this is GD today, and you also know what- the dudes that will be screaming about the US firing on “innocent civilians” will somehow forget to mention that those “innocent civilians” were toting AK47s, and firing them”. And you know what? I was right.
Let us place this in a US city. There is a violent demonstration. Dudes are angry, throwing rocks, etc. This happens not uncommonly. But here is the big difference- many of these angry, violent dudes are also carrying assault rifles- and then they start firing them off. The Police think they are being fired AT. There is no doubt in my mind that the Police would fire at everyone with an AK47- and in such a crowd, many who are armed with no more than rocks & signs will also be hit.
Those are the facts. The only disputed issues is whether or not any of the AK 47 firing was directed AT the US Troops, and whether or not the US troops fired ONLY at armed rioters. I think both happened, although of course- even if you TRY to only fire at the guys with guns- if they are in a crowd- others will be hit also.
Start a violent riot, then start shooting? Hell yes- the Police/Military/whatever will begin shooting back.
Of course people hostile to US forces are firing on soldiers from within the crowds. Claiming that that American soldiers are firing on peaceful unarmed demonstrators just for the fun of it is pathetic. This is a standard tactic of resistance movements, to deliberately provoke occupation forces into killing civilians in order to radicalize the population against the occupation.
But the question is, what tactics should we use to counter this? During the invasion, a gloves-off aggressive approach was justifiable, since the sooner the war was won the less the Iraqi population would suffer. But the war is over, and the occupation begins. I’m not an expert in crowd control, but obviously we are going to have to change what we are doing. If this keeps happening the occupation will be impossible. It doesn’t matter that this is a deliberate provocation by people who are trying to get their fellow Iraqis killed to make a political point. What matters is how the average Iraqi is going to interpret the killings.
The obvious example is the famous “Boston Massacre” during the American Revolution. The incident was used effectively as propaganda by the independence movement, despite the fact that the soldiers were defending themselves from a hostile mob, were defended by John Adams, and acquited. If these similar incidents can be used as propaganda it doesn’t matter whether American soldiers are acting correctly or not.
But can we please stop this argument over “imposing democracy”? Anyone who thinks that we should let another dictator take over Iraq, please raise your hand? Anyone? Anyone? Is there no one who thinks that the Iraqis should get another dictatorship? If you don’t think that Iraq should be a dictatorship, then the only alternative I can see is some sort of “democracy”. By that I don’t just mean a regime where elections are held. I mean civil society, freedom of expression, limited police powers, separation of powers. Yes, Iraq isn’t exactly fertile ground for such things.
But does anyone wish to argue that just because there are some people in Iraq who wish to establish a new totalitarian state, that we should just wash our hands of the matter and let it happen? Either we work to establish forms of government and society that allow the average Iraqi some measure of freedom, within the limits imposed by the situation as it exists now, or we condemn another couple of generations of Iraqis to slavery.
Now, who’s raising their hands for slavery? I don’t think so. So no more talk about how we shouldn’t “impose” democracy.
Your right, the US military is consolidating lots of small caches of weapons in the city to storage depots. I was way too general with my statement. They are not on the other hand taking weapons out of military installations from unoccupied desert regions and moving them into neighborhoods. They are being moved from occupied areas in civilian areas where the Iraqis put them to a depots nearby in order to be destroyed. The logic still stands. Remove them from the market or wherever, transport them the shortest possible distance, then destroy them as soon as possible. It’s not perfect, but it’s a far cry from the evil imperialists purposely moving explosives into populated areas in order to put civilians at risk.
I did not predict any such thing, nor do I believe it to be the case. You are assuming my position, which is dumb. I believe the Iraqi people are very happy to be rid of a repressive regime, but not happy at all that it took a foreign power (least of all the US) to accomplish this. I also believe that they want to be free of our military personnel ASAP. Pulling up stakes and leaving the country in the present condition would not only be wrong, but a violation of the GC. there are varying degrees of interpretation both inside Iraq and around the world as to when “Possible” is. We have responsibilities as an occupying power under the GC. Those responsibilities are not relieved if the “conflict was unjust” or “the occupying power had no business there in the first place”.
lander2k2
Cite? Even if this is true, does 60% of the Shiite population constitute more than 50% of the Iraqi population? Cite?
There is one theory that the whole thing stemmed from tragic overreaction to the tradition of protesters firing guns into the air - which panicked US troops even though no one was actually aiming at them.
