Home > Examples of How Innocent Iraqis are Killed
Edito Wars and conflicts International USA
by : Dionne Searcey, Newsday, MOSUL
The shootings rarely make news outside the towns where they occur. The military does not make a practice of publicizing cases of "collateral damage" unless by chance reporters are embedded with units and write about the events they witness. And no one at the Pentagon nor at the U.S. Central Command keeps a comprehensive tally of the incidents, according to senior officials in both locations, who say that all operations in general are periodically reviewed.
The examples that follow are a sampling.
From April to October a unit of Arkansas infantrymen was involved in at least eight shootings at roadblocks or in convoys that ended in civilian deaths, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. In one instance, the paper reported, a driver was killed and his pregnant wife wounded; in another a girl died after being struck by bits of metal from a shot intended to disable the car engine.
In mid-November, a family driving across battle-weary Fallujah encountered a company of Marines that opened fire, wounding a 23-year-old woman and killing her mother, media accounts reported.
In Baghdad the following month, a young man drove up to an Army base with his dead mother and two siblings, said Airborne Capt. James Shaw. Americans had shot up the car, the man said, and didn’t even stop. Airborne officers from the 2nd Battalion, 325th Infantry, who were not responsible for this shooting, have been working to compensate the family.
And about three weeks ago, a nervous National Guard unit rolled into Mosul for the first time after patrolling calmer outlying areas. Soldiers came under mortar attack when they stepped out to investigate a body on the street. The onslaught had just ended when a car sped toward them with a 55-gallon drum in its opened trunk. It failed to slow despite warning shots, according to a soldier who was there.
Worried the vehicle was packed with explosives, troops peppered it with bullets, killing the driver. The drum, however, was empty and the driver was not armed.
Minutes later, another vehicle swung around the corner and headed toward the scene. Soldiers immediately shot it up, too. A mother got out of the car, her hand severed by bullets. In her arms was her dead 7-year-old girl. Her young son also was injured.
"She was sitting on the curb, holding her daughter, rocking, not crying, just in shock," the soldier said.
Troops told their superiors they fired warning shots at the second vehicle, but the soldier disputed that. "The shots were into the cab" of the car, he said. "They were well-placed."
Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.
Forum posts
9 February 2005, 01:58
So many innocents killed so a few can make a profit. Where is the outrage among americans to this daily slaughter of men, women and children. Oh I forgot the media does’t cover these brutalities and the pentagon does not count the bodies of the innocent. Oh and I forgot the right wing thug kooks say Saddam would have killed far more innocents by now. The fact is few in america care about the slaughter . I only can hope in the furture these neo-con criminals running this country will be jailed like they all deserve.
10 February 2005, 19:26
Jailed for freeing 25 million people? No wonder the Dem’s lost. Their party is no longer a party that represents the interests of everyday Americans. They’re lead by whiney America haters.
11 February 2005, 00:39
I don’t think the problem is that few people in America (U.S.) care about the slaughter. It is that few people hear much about it. Occasionally a picture gets through, but the impact is softened by the details. For example, I remember the photos of the one family with, I think, five children. The father was driving them home and, according to the captions, didn’t stop at a roadblock. So he and the mother in the front were killed and the children left orphans. The story with the photos emphasized all the suicide bombers and how the soldiers couldn’t possibly have known why the driver wasn’t slowing down - essentially laying the blame at the feet of the father who was driving.
I’d only heard of a couple of the above incidents, and I don’t limit my news to the controlled media. The only way to get the kind of outrage you want is to humanize the victims. One idea would be a web site listing the names of every person killed, their nationality, the circumstances of their death, the family they leave behind. An obituary, of sorts, to make the deaths more real than a number (which the media is also careful not to make mention of unless it is unavoidable). We’ve heard more about deaths from the tsunami, and the tragic tales of those who survived, than we hear about Iraq.
Also, such a website should avoid trying to make a political statement - which would immediately turn away those who need to see the human cost. Better a charitable site that accepts donations to help survivors rebuild their lives.
16 February 2005, 00:07
Im an American living in Tampa Florida.
From what I can see, no one here cares how many people die, civilians, or US military.
We have become morally bankrupt braindead sheep.
As long as the cable TV keeps working, no amount of torutrue, death, or destruction will rouse Americans from their Lazy boy chairs.