US Troops Accused of Mosque Massacre:

[grandpa]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117...11-401,00.html

US troops have mounted two raids against Iraqi Shiite forces in Baghdad, killing up to 20 gunmen in a raid on a radical mosque and arresting more than 40 Interior Ministry personnel guarding a secret prison. Details were sketchy today, but the two operations looked like US strikes against sectarian Shiite militias of the kind the US ambassador has said must be eliminated if Iraq is to form a unity government and halt a slide toward civil war. The news came amid separate reports that Iraqi police and soldiers had found 30 bodies, most of them beheaded, near a village north of Baghdad. There was no immediate word on the identities of the victims or those responsible for the slaughter, which had been reported by residents in Mullah Eid. Meanwhile, the US military made no immediate official comment on the raids by its troops, and a senior Interior Ministry official denied the arrests of its personnel at a facility in central Baghdad where government and political sources said US troops freed 17 foreign prisoners.

I'm sure this will improve relations.

Grandpa h.

[Allas]

You simply drip bias, Grandpa. Opinion and current discussion aside, you discredit yourself better than anyone on this forum ever could. Your mechanical bias on this issue derails any point you make - in my eyes at least.

the two operations looked like US strikes against sectarian Shiite militias of the kind the US ambassador has said must be eliminated

Until more is known, drawing conclusions based soly on speculation is sheer folly.
I, for one, will wait until more details are released until i condemn either side.

[Matt W]

More from the BBC:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/4850108.stm

From the article:-

News footage taken after the attack seemed to belie US assertions that troops had not entered or damaged any sacred building during the raid. The room where the killing occurred appeared to be a prayer hall. The floors are carpeted and the walls covered with religious posters. The tape showed a tangle of male bodies and spent 5.56mm bullet casings on the blood-smeared floor - the kind of ammunition used by the US military. "In our observation of the place and the activities that were going on, it's difficult for us to consider this a place of prayer," said US military spokesman Barry Johnson. "It was not identified by us as a mosque, though we certainly recognised it as a community gathering centre. I think this is frankly a matter of perception," he added.

I'd agree with the spokesman - it's a matter of perception. And unfortunately, I'd say that most Iraqis will automatically assume the worst. Even worse, this was a raid against Shia militia - who have been fairly restrained in comparison to the Sunnis. Not good.

[rmnunez]

Yes, attacking a Shia mosque (or community centre) is problematic if the insurgency is Sunni. Interior Ministry personnel guarding captives in illicit prisons is very fishy, government toes have been tread upon.

[Scribbler1]

From what I briefly heard on the radio, the Iraqi government is telling the US to back off from this and let the Iraqi government investigate. No US involvement at all if I heard right. It would seem the people in the government WE installed don't believe us.

That's gratitude for you.

[bishop]

maybe this is our exit strategy... force the iraqis to hate us so much that they demand we leave.

and in the time leading up to that demand, we can continue sacrificing american lives and run the debt up even more... after all, pawns are to be sacrificed to protect the king and queen, and as for the money, it's all monopoly money anyway.. pass go and borrow another $200 billion...


on a slightly less sarcastic note, assuming that we did conduct this raid one guess is that we did it to combat groups thought to be players involved in iraq's budding civil war.. in the process, we can avoid a civil war (only temporarily of course), by giving both sides some americans to shoot at. good stabilization plan, soon to join the pile of previous plans that have failed.

what a great decision this war was...

[Jack]

With people pressing to make the U.S. government "officially christian", this will soon become another religious war between christians and the muslims. For christians, I believe this would amount to self-fulfilling prophecy.
So will religion ultimately save us all or destroy us all? I expect the latter.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: bishop maybe this is our exit strategy... force the iraqis to hate us so much that they demand we leave.

That makes sense. Some of these skinbags in Congress are making noises about the Iraqis not "doing enough" to run Iraq by themselves . Yup, invade a country, depose the dictator, install a half-assed government in the middle of a CIVIL WAR and then complain that the people in charge who have never BEEN in charge before and have never known democracy aren't getting results fast enough to suit us. If that isn't a sign that the helicopters are starting to land on the embassy roof I don't know what is.

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: Isherwood With people pressing to make the U.S. government "officially christian", this will soon become another religious war between christians and the muslims. For christians, I believe this would amount to self-fulfilling prophecy. So will religion ultimately save us all or destroy us all? I expect the latter.

When has religion done anything ELSE?

[Scribbler1]

Quote by: rdnor Yes I have seen some armchair generals in my time but you guys are that best ! First , all this crap is whipped up by the press/al jazeera/US/Euopean it does not matter . From what I have seen of the usual suspects , they have a willing following right here and on other liberal forums . It would be nice if you folks would TRY giving OUR troops the benifit of the doubt for a change . Wait for the inevitable investigation and THEN form an opinion . :rolleyes:

I don't see any wholesale trashing of troops here. When these things come out we discuss them. What ELSE would you have a DISCUSSION forum do?
However, among Americans here (And we are not ALL Americans, BTW.) the troops are almost always given the benefit of the doubt. It looks more like your version of that is to look the other way at all times, no matter what. Our military is pretty much a cross-section of the country, you have good soldiers and you have bad ones. The bad ones have been getting a lot of press lately and it's been that way since Vietnam.

And when "the inevitable investigation" usually ends in "we didn't do anything wrong" with a mountain of evidence to the contrary you'll forgive those of us who don't put a lot of faith in the government's own judgement of itself.

Most of us "armchair generals" here give the troops a LOT of respect and support. But we don't ignore the bad and I don't see many here condemning the entire military for the actions of a relative few. For myself, I always give the troops a great deal of respect sight unseen for the jobs they do and the responsibility and risk they volunteered for. However, once given, respect can be lost depending on the circumstances and often when it is lost the real responsibility is that of the politicians who RUN the wars.
Too many right wingers, IMO, call "supporting the troops" blanket support for everyone all the way up to Rumsfeld and Bush.

[bishop]

Quote by: rdnor Yes I have seen some armchair generals in my time but you guys are that best ! First , all this crap is whipped up by the press/al jazeera/US/Euopean it does not matter . From what I have seen of the usual suspects , they have a willing following right here and on other liberal forums . It would be nice if you folks would TRY giving OUR troops the benifit of the doubt for a change . Wait for the inevitable investigation and THEN form an opinion . :rolleyes:

you sound like a mindless robot.. speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil...

the criticism you're reading has much less to do with the troops, and almost everything to do with the leadership - both political and military... things in iraq are not going well, no matter how much patriotic hoo-rah bullshit you spew.

[Scribbler1]

It looks very much like a recycling of the pro-Bush propaganda of a few years ago. After this mess in Iraq began the scenario was almost always the same. Anyone who had even a MILD criticism of Bush was met with "OH, so you don't support the troops", or "If you criticize the Commander in Chief you are eroding support for the troops." Bush or his own actions could not be defended so the troops were used as a tool to maintain support for Bush.

Now that things seem to have gone past the point of no return for the President it's back to attacking the critics.

[Matt W]

Rdnor, are you willing to actually speculate on what we do know? Actual footage from the mosque/meeting house? The fact that the ruling Shia party in Iraq are putting the blame squarely on the US Army? The fact that it was a Shia militia meeting area that was being raided? That's what we're doing. No-one (well, very few) here believe that the US Army would tie up unarmed civilians in a mosque and shoot them - but we are examining the reactions of the Iraqis. If you'd rather just rant against 'liberals' and the media, then you appear to have the wrong discussion. Don't contribute if you can't add anything. :rolleyes:

[Mr.Vicchio]

U.S. commanders in Iraq on Monday accused powerful Shi'ite groups of moving the corpses of gunmen killed in battle to encourage accusations that U.S.-led troops massacred unarmed worshippers in a mosque. "After the fact, someone went in and made the scene look different from what it was. There's been huge misinformation," Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, said. --- An Iraqi was freed who had been taken hostage that day and threatened with death if he did not pay a $20,000 ransom, he said. Three fighters were wounded and 18 other people detained. Chiarelli insisted the compound was not a mosque but an office complex. Neighbors and aides to Sadr call it a mosque and say it was once offices for Saddam Hussein's Baath party. "There was gunfire from every room," he said. Major General J.D. Thurman, whose division controls Baghdad, said: "If it was a mosque, why are they using it as a place to hold hostages?" He added that weapons, including 34 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades were also found.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060327/...osque_usa_dc_1

[Matt W]

Standing up for the military isn't the debate, though, is it? At least, not at the moment - the debate is focussed on the reactions within Iraq in an already volatile situation.

[Athena]

Quote by: Allas You simply drip bias, Grandpa. Opinion and current discussion aside, you discredit yourself better than anyone on this forum ever could. Your mechanical bias on this issue derails any point you make - in my eyes at least. Until more is known, drawing conclusions based soly on speculation is sheer folly. I, for one, will wait until more details are released until i condemn either side.

Well the leader of Seria who Charley Rose interviewed last night, was very dipolmatic about this. He left room for the possibility that the US didn't do this, but said appearence is all important, and that things do not appear good. I am of the opinion that it is
despicable to violate a holy place. It is right up there with torture.

[Allas]

Quote by: Athena Well the leader of Seria who Charley Rose interviewed last night, was very dipolmatic about this. He left room for the possibility that the US didn't do this, but said appearence is all important, and that things do not appear good. I am of the opinion that it is despicable to violate a holy place. It is right up there with torture.

As far as i am concerned, a "holy place" ceases to be holy the SECOND any activity that does not involve worship or charity like activity takes place. We simply cannot give these militants an automatic safehouse in every "holy" place. It is in no way fair nor justifiable.

[bishop]

Quote by: rdnor Ok , I will go all out then . I am of the opinion that IF they found weapons , snipers , ect...then the mosque should be leveled . Of course if we were heartless tyrants we could also take their oil as well . I do not understand the willingness to believe that our military is evil , unless you are supporting the other side(s).

it seems that you are more of a reactionary than an objective thinker... ever consider that people aren't calling the military personnel evil, but rather, they are laying the criticism down on the decision makers? sure doesn't seem like you've made that consideration, even though it would be wise to do so...

you know.. the dumb shit decision makers who fed us all the lies about wmd... or the people who said that reconstruction would be funded by iraqi oil sales.. the people who ignored all rational arguments warning about the consequences of an invasion. or the people who said we'd be greeted as liberators with flowers and candies... the people who went into iraq without ANY post-invasion plan. the people who decided to de-baathify iraq only to reverse that policy shortly thereafter... the people who STILL don't have any real plan and the people who STILL haven't found any WMD's...

if you think that the criticism against the war is leveled against the soldiers, rather than against the decision makers then you're either stupid, or you've been drinking the administration's kool aid by the gallon. stories like this should be looked at as part of the entire iraq story - one where there is no end in sight, where there's been a civil war brewing for the past 2 years, where the administration/establishment does everything in its power to minimize or ignore stories about american casualties/wounded and the tens/hundreds of thousands of iraqi civilians that have either died and/or been tortured by american hands.

that said, i agree that if they were being attacked by insurgents in a mosque, that our people should do everything in their power to protect themselves - even if that means toasting the mosque.. it's just a building after all...

but, when you take a step back and objectively analyze the situation, this is just one more example of our failing and flailing policies at work in iraq... the only accomplishment we're really making is to solidify iraqi opposition against us.. our popularity amongst iraqis has not improved on iota, not even after these worthless elections - elections where great people like al sadr were elected.

[jose]

"At evening prayers, American soldiers accompanied by Iraqi troops raided the Mustafa mosque and killed 37 people," said Abd al-Karim al-Enzi, the security minister, who belongs to the Dawa party of the prime minister, Ibrahim al Jaafari. "They [the victims] were unarmed. They went in, tied up the people and shot them all. They did not leave any wounded."
"Just before prayers at 6.15, we were surprised by US and Iraqi national guards raining fire on us. Anyone who went out was shot dead," Ihssan Kamel Ali, who was in the mosque at the time, said yesterday. "The national guard came in first, then the Americans. They had a man with a Lebanese accent with them. He sneered at us and said what we were reading was not the Qur'an. I heard sounds of explosions. I saw between 17 and 20 bodies. What upset me most was that there was a wounded man. An Iraqi soldier asked an officer what to do with him. The officer said 'Just finish him off'."

Iraqi police identified seven of the dead as members of the Mahdi army, a militia formed by the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Salam al Maliki, the transport minister who heads a group of 30 MPs loyal to Mr Sadr, said Shia leaders suspended discussions yesterday on forming a new government in protest at the assault.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1741014,00.html
IMO Moqtada al-Sadr will be the next leader of iraq he´s been holding back his followers the ¨Mahdi army¨and until now the Americans have left him and his followers alone, how things can change in a day

[Matt W]

Shall we stop throwing this old stuff around and get back on topic, or shall I close this thread? Your choice, gents. :rolleyes:

Do not respond to me within this thread. PM myself or Sean for details.