Killing by the numbers

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/05/09/snipers/

In 2007 elite U.S. snipers executed an unarmed Iraqi prisoner in cold blood. Have the insidious tactics that led to atrocities in Vietnam reemerged in Iraq?

By Mark Benjamin and Christopher Weaver

May 9, 2008 | Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, an Iraqi vegetable farmer, walked down to the ramshackle pump house along the banks of the Euphrates. Each day at midmorning, he would start the seven-horsepower pump to water his crops.

Khudair passed through the tall grass and palm trees of his farm in Jurf as Sakhr, a predominantly Sunni area 30 miles south of Baghdad dominated by sprawling patches of farmland, irrigation canals and regular eruptions of lethal violence. Daytime temperatures had lately been over 115 degrees, and it was already sweltering as he crossed the 500 meters for the last time.

As Khudair approached the pump house on May 11, 2007, he stumbled upon a team of five sweat-soaked U.S. Army snipers, dazed with heat and fatigue, hidden in the grass of a small hill. It's hard to say who was more surprised, the Iraqi or the American troops. The sniper on guard at the "hide" was so shocked to see Khudair wander up to his position that he froze for a moment, staring. Then he approached Khudair and pointed a 9 mm pistol at the farmer's head.

Meanwhile, Khudair's 17-year-old son, Mustafa, was at the family home when he learned that a cousin had been killed in an accident. Mustafa hurried from the house to find his father in the fields and tell him the horrible news.

[Bucky]

1. My writing teachers always told me to avoid rhetorical questions in essays

"Have the insidious tactics that led to atrocities in Vietnam reemerged in Iraq?"

As a student (or, I guess now, as a teacher) of history, I felt this was inevitable. One can NOT occupy a hostile country against its will and manage to avoid atrocities. Military rules of engagement are far more englightened and evolved from the days of Vietnam. That still won't keep occupiers from needlessly killing civilians. It's the cost you accept when you take over someone else's country.

[Bandit]

2. Aren't they all pretty much civilians, or have we found some uniformed soldiers to fight?

:shrug: Our Army must be so damn proud to kill all those civilians..