I really want to see that report. Can you paste a link?
I’d like to see this report, too. You seem to be really avoiding Occam’s Razor here; which do you think is more likely:
(1) We found Zarqawi, dropped two 500-pounders on/near his house, and he staggered out of the wreckage to die a few moments later, or
(2) Jordanian Intelligence Agents killed him, Photoshopped the bullet hole off his face, and asked the United States to “fake up” some F-16 footage?
So you’re British, therefore terrorists should fake their deaths… therefore Zarqawi not being hurt should scare his associates… therefore we’ve infected Osama with AIDS? Okay, I guess I can buy that logic.
I hope you’re not saying you’d beat the guy to death, knowing how extraordinarily valuable he might be if captured. I mean, I sympathize, but you’re not putting soldiers in a very good light by saying that.
I’m not saying it would be a good idea, but I’m not saying it’s inconceivable. I do believe in the Law of Land Warfare/Geneva Convention/treating captives humanely. But every once in a while, you run across a special case.
I completely understand that a lot of soldiers wanted this sucker dead. But I have to object to the generalization that “if you were a soldier, you would too.” There are a LOT of soldiers-turned-pacifists who’ve come home from Iraq, not to mention people who believe the best punishment is rotting in jail forever.
Moreover, Nick Berg’s father condemned the death. Whatever you may he think about his comments, he’s in a much more direct position than any of us. Some relatives of victims want him dead, some don’t. My point is, just because someone’s not a soldier doesn’t mean their disagreement is somehow invalid. There are soldiers and survivors who disagree too.
Do you have a link for that? From what I’ve read, he says he takes no happiness or satisfaction from Zarqawi’s death, but he hasn’t condemned the bombing as far as I know.
You are right, I am not a soldier, but I have been around long enough, and met enough of the type, to be sure that the guys checking out the site would be top class.
If they had been ordered to kill him, he would not need kicking
and there would have been no witnesses (not that I believe the ‘witness’)
also it would have been painful, but have left no marks.
@??
The Jordanian link was in the UK Observer page 30 11th June
I was surprized by it, it is clearly a UK ‘plant’, a clear message that Jordan is not at all keen on their people cooperating with Al Qaeda, which is not that surprizing.
A few weeks before they ran an interview with a youngish Yemeni who has a taste for Qaat (sp ?) and had wandered around a bit. The article was deliberately sympathetic, and pointed out that the State of Yemen did not mind them provided they retired and did not make trouble.
Personally I don’t much mind ‘embedded reporting’, it normally tells you more about the situation than you’ll get from a news report written 500 miles from the site.
you just have to read it slideways
Perhaps I believe in conspiracy theory
possibly I believe in ‘black propoganda’ as taught me by my uncle from WWII
this smells competent - competent disinformation is amplified truth
@Samuel Clements (Mark Twain - or ‘watch it - shallow water’)
You misunderstood, or are making a joke.
My latest update is that Iraqi Police were first on site, followed up 30 mins later by US troops
source BBC World Service Radio circa 02:00 GMT last night
(they are reliable - they don’t lie, but they don’t tell everything
often they release stuff you don’t hear anywhere else)
Personally I would not have expected him to be alive - with 500lb bombs
also if (as stated elsewhere) ground troops used Lasers to guide the bombs.
This is some sort of public relations exerciSe (happy Mark ?) designed to implicate the supposed finders with something …
That was either an operation that went right, or one that went wrong, in a peculiar way, perhaps the percussion (not explosive) bombs dropped a stone on his head.
@LeeFromTexas
It is ridiculous that they are making so much fuss about that village
everybody over the age of seven, and under the age of seventy would have known exactly what was going on when the bomb was planted.
They would have known where the secondary ambush was.
Probably three well armed guys dropped from the roof space when things had quietened down - probably wearing Iraqi uniforms
I would check the roof spaces
In WWII they just used flame throwers
cite: my uncle
I’m not sure what village you’re talking about. Zarqawi’s or the Marine incident? I’ve only been home from Afghanistan for a month and haven’t really watched any news. If you’re talking about the Marine incident, then I absolutely believe it should be investigated and if the Marines killed innocent civilians, they should be punished.
Zarqawi is a different case, however. There was no doubt that he’s an insurgent leader. That’s why I said he’s a special case.
Have I released videos encouraging Americans to kill Iraqis? Am I the leader of an insurgent group dedicated to killing Iraqis? Have I released videos of myself or my cohorts cutting the heads off innocent civilians? Have I encouraged people around the world to kill Iraqis/Muslims/Arabs in the name of God? (or for any other reason?) Has a government offered a $25,000,000 reward for information leading to my capture or killing? Has a government dropped a pair of bombs on my house to kill me?
If the answer to any of the above is yes, then by all means, cut my head off. :wally
I said he’s a special case. I didn’t say he’s some god damned farmer plowing his field who deserves to die because a soldier got a “Dear John” letter. I didn’t say he’s some kid playing with his dog when an IED is detonated nearby who deserves to die because a soldier saw one of his buddies die.
There’s a big difference between hitting a house and hitting the person inside. Walls, doorways, rooms, corners, and pretty much anything between the blast and the person is going to soak up overpressure and stop blast fragments. Other rooms in the house might receive a shock wave, heat, and a big cloud of dust and smoke a moment later. Put simply, a bomb hitting the far eastern edge of a house will not necessarily kill everyone on the western edge of the house.
An article I read listed the attack as comprising one laser-guided weapon followed by a GPS-guided bomb. GPS weapons are less accurate than laser-guided ones, so saying that either should have been a quick kill is putting it a little too strongly. There are any number of plausible ways that two bombs could hit a house and not kill one of the occupants instantly. Zarqawi was certainly lucky not to be killed on impact, but he was clearly in the blast radius, as evidenced by… well, his death.
“Public relations exercise”? To implicate “the supposed finders” with what, please? You still have not stated in plain language
(a) What you really feel happened (“this”, above)
(b) Why you think your version of events is more plausible than the one we’re seeing on the news (“designed [by whom?] to implicate [who?] with [what?]”, above)
(c) Any evidence other than sly sideways muttering for (a) and (b) above
If you’re going to dance around the edges of a conspiracy theory, at least tell us which conspiracy. Was it Jordan faking a US attack to discredit Syria? Or was it Iran and Al Qaeda working together to eliminate Zarqawi, who was actually on the UK payroll? Perhaps it was Israel acting to quash Zarqawi before he could meet with the US to discuss a truce? Professor Plum in the Undisclosed Location with a Daisy Cutter? Spell it out, please.
In… Haditha? Good one, but totally off-topic. Also, just because the civilians know that US troops are being targeted, and are complicit in the attacks, does not give our soldiers the right to execute them on the spot.
What makes you say that it’s “probable” that there were 3 people, or that they were wearing Iraqi uniforms, or that they were on the roof? My kingdom for a cite.
Wait, who is supposed to be checking the roof spaces? US soldiers, or the Iraqis? Or was it US soldiers in Iraqi uniforms? Or insurgents in stolen Iraqi uniforms? Maybe they’re the ones who killed Zarqawi. Seriously: if you think someone is hiding some deeper truth, and you have some evidence, then please let us in on the big secret. This is, after all, General Questions, where we provide solid evidence and cites for our theories.
Roadside bomb, by a village, a bunch of enraged US soldiers legged it out of the damaged first vehicle, and follow up vehicles. Where would you rather be ?
Inside a building or standing outside waiting for the grenade(s) to detonate.
Kick the door and risk it, or stick in the open ?
Insurgents don’t wear stolen Iraqi uniforms - they don’t steal them.
That is the problem.
It is not hard to work out where the secondary attack would have come from, the fact it did not happen indicates that they sloped away.
As for three people, that is the minimum number to ensure that they stick around.
Zarqawi was too valuable to kill
if he is dead, then it was an accident
if the BBC is right about 30 mins, then the helicopters must have been …
Military intelligence is not an oxymoron, it just takes about three years to oust the dead wood. My view is that we can expect some peculiar events.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but in 1979 I was saying we should have been helping the Russians in Afghanistan.
Sorry. It was your spelling of “surprized” and “surprizing.” I thought you were continuing a discussion from another thread. I didn’t realize that you spell things with a “z” no matter the accepted spelling.
FRDE, this is General Questions, not Rampant Speculation. You can posit unlikely situations in almost any of our other forums, but GQ is where we make clear statements of fact backed up by real evidence. A simple statement might be “the photo of al-Zarqawi was Photoshopped to remove a small, round head wound; here are links to the before and after photos. I speculate that the hidden wound is a bullet hole and it implies he was assassinated.” Really simple - assertion, evidence, then speculation based on the evidence you present.
Yes, I read the news too. But until you started mentioning Haditha, we were discussing the death of al-Zarqawi.
No, the problem is that the insurgents do not want us in Iraq, and we do not want them in Iraq. We exchange bullets and other unpleasant communiqués over this dispute daily. That is the problem.
This sounds suspiciously like the joke about elephants painting their toenails and hiding in trees – we know it works because of the lack of evidence. You’re asserting that there was a group of witnesses to Haditha, “wearing Iraqi uniforms”, but they ran off? Do you have any evidence for this extraordinary claim?
I’m also still waiting for you to assert who it is that you think was wearing Iraqi uniforms on the roof, and why they chose not to attack. I’ll set you up for free: pretend I’m an idiot. Spell it out for me in plain language.
Huh. And I would have picked four, if I were just making up numbers. Three of whom? Do you have any evidence for this claim?
Please, please, please clarify your claim about helicopters, whose they were, and where they “must have been”. And once you get around to making a claim, do you have any evidence for it?
Signs point to “yes”. Some “peculiar events” indeed. Maybe something weird will happen!
There is a distinct difference between ‘Opinion’, ‘View’ and ‘Fact’
My definitions are :-
‘Opinion’ - essentially value judgements, interesting, but … well blathering
‘View’ - interpretation of ‘Facts’
‘Facts’ - things that one has read/seen/heard about
that may or may not have happened
My speciality is assembling a group of ‘Facts’, spotting the inconsistencies, and building a hypothesis
it is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle
if anything it is the inconsistencies that are interesting
not the missing bits, but the bits that don’t fit
I suppose the nearest thing is pattern recognition.
Clearly, that is inappropriate here, which is fair enough, ‘House Rules’ rule
