Back to Main
September 19, 2005
WB: Body Counts
Comments
That graphic b, is worth a million words.
Again, I feel sadness because of what I know is represented by that thin red line. Still it would be instructive to see the line representing the insurgents superimposed on the graph
Posted by: Juannie | Sep 19 2005 18:38 utc | 2
That’s just stupid. Assinine. How can they even consider it? Just look at the simple numbers, 1,534 killed or detained, compared to….1900 US fatalities? (according to icasualties.org/oif/). Leave alone the fact that it’s insulting and inhuman to ignore the 100k+? civilian deaths, or that saying ‘look how many bad guys we took out’ is no measure of success when 10 more muhjs get recruited for every one killed, but how can they be proud of a number that CLEARLY shows the US troops to be losing?
Posted by: Yevgyeni | Sep 19 2005 18:59 utc | 3
I’m remiss. A little more empathy from me would like to include the line representing the civilians. Lets look at the full blood costs.
Posted by: Juannie | Sep 19 2005 19:17 utc | 4
What puzzles me in all this discusion is ; The US forces an allies unleashed an unimagineable quantity of bombs, missiles, shells, napalm etc in the drive for Baghdad against the Iraqi armed forces.
Someone somewhere can give the figures.
What were they bombing , sand ?
The scale of killing and casualties MUST have been in 10’s of thousands. Plus the bombing that had been secretly going on for nine months prior to invasion.
Posted by: Edward Teague | Sep 19 2005 19:52 utc | 5
Ed … Ten YEARS prior to the invasion (II). 500,000 civies dead.
Posted by: Larry Ellison | Sep 19 2005 20:01 utc | 6
From the TinFoilHat media department – WaPo?!:
British Soldiers Clash With Iraqi Police in Basra
Heavy clashes erupted Monday between Iraqi police and British soldiers based in Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, witnesses said.
The clashes are the latest in surging tensions in Basra, a Shiite-dominated city that had long been one of Iraq’s calmest. Attacks have targeted Britons and Americans there.
Monday’s clashes stemmed from the arrest by Iraqi police on Sunday of two British soldiers, whom Iraqi police accused of planting bombs. Iraqi officials described the two as undercover soldiers dressed in civilian clothes and said a shooting incident broke out when police stopped their civilian vehicle.
So the British are also working the Salvadorian option? Well, nothing new here, move on.
This is the New Way. us govt. has discovered it can do anything it wants as long as it hides the bodies. We’ll never again know the true deaths their policies cause. Another way that Operation WreckIraq II is coming home. But they’ll splash headlines everywhere if some poor wretches kill citizens in a robbery.
Posted by: jj | Sep 19 2005 20:31 utc | 8
Is this the same story as b’s post or a different version?
UK soldiers ‘storm’ Basra prison: 2 british soldiers, presumably special forces shot at police, were arrested. then the brit army (this in basra) wanted them. police refused, a RIOT broke out, one brit tracked vehicle burned, 3 personnel injured. 100+ prisoners escaped when the British broke a wall down in the jail Okay, I’m pretty sure this could have been handled differently…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 20 2005 0:05 utc | 9
Yet another version:
British Soldiers Free Two From Basra Jail Anybody, smell <*)))>< ?
Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 20 2005 0:15 utc | 10
This is actually a fantastic story. Here, as best as I can tell, is what happened:
Two SAS troops ignored Iraqi police orders to stop at a checkpoint
There was an exchange of gunfire between the two sides
The SAS men got arrested (which says a lot for the Iraqi cops)
The Brits went mental, because the Basra police is famously riddled with insurgents (see NYT journalist who reported on this then promptly disappeared/DIED?). Insurgents would love to get their hands on two SAS men, especially for the publicity.
Unclear from here on:
They busted them out with ten tanks and a helicopter
(according to Governer of Basra and countless eyewitnesses)
They negotiated their release
(according to a presumably sleepy and disconnected MoD press officer)
150 other Iraqi prisoner escaped (according to witnesses)
Nobody else escaped, but the Brits were busted out
(according to Iraqi interior ministry)
God damn certain:
The fan prepared for a lot of shit.
But, what really matters is that Blair told Uncle Rupert that the BBC hates America…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 20 2005 0:18 utc | 11
Superb british tv coverage of incident available here:
Channel 4 News
Vigilanteism – 1
Rule of Law – 0
Also, see Au story
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 20 2005 0:34 utc | 12
Channel 4 news saying the effort to recover both soldiers failed. at least one other british soldier (fiery tank occupant) also unaccounted for.
also mentioned; undercover soldiers were apparently dressed as arabs and apprehended with car loaded with arms and high explosive. story is getting wierder every second…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 20 2005 0:37 utc | 13
Story I heard was Undercover Brits, dressed as Arabs. Busted. Arabs weren’t too enthusiastic about releasing them. Crowd gathered around prison. Occupiers encircled it w/tanks. Ah, The hell w/this bullshit…lets just rip out a wall. Then everyone in the prison escaped!! That’s one way to effect a prisoner exchange!!
But isn’t this the first we’ve heard of Occupiers dressed as Arabs? Wonder how many operations they’ve pulled off dressed that way that were blamed on Al Z??
Posted by: jj | Sep 20 2005 1:05 utc | 15
this murderous circus is like a matchbox full of bloody grasshoppers
i believe now that everything & anything is possible under this empire’s insane & criminal aegis
but this, as field marshall cohen says, everybody knows
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 20 2005 1:06 utc | 16
Sounds like romantic SAS intellegence type brought up with the stories of John Buchan and the tales of Lawrence of Arabia. Go native! I thought they learned (to their cost) the difficulty of this type of work when they tried to infiltrate Provo circles in the pubs of West Belfast and Derry in the 1970s. You stick out like a sore thumb and get killed for your troubles.
Posted by: theodor | Sep 20 2005 3:34 utc | 17
They negotiated their release
Look at the picture I posted at Whiskey Bar, and tell me if it looks like anybody is negotiating.
Brit: Let our guys go and we won’t fire our main tank guns at you.
Iraqi: Sorry, can’t do that. But here’s our counteroffer: Get the fuck out of here right now, and we won’t set any more of you on fire.
Posted by: Billmon | Sep 20 2005 4:51 utc | 18
Billmon, glad you posted that one…Independent, not known for its online photography, has a big one of it too.
They noted in accompanying art. that Brit. govt. extremely worried they’re getting caught in their own Vietnam!! they’re just now getting worried??? Guess it took awhile for them to join the reality-based community..
Posted by: jj | Sep 20 2005 5:10 utc | 19
British in Basra: the plot thickens
This week’s issue of Socialist Worker includes an interview with Sheikh Hassan al-Zarqani, a spokesperson for rebel Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who explains why exactly Iraqi police arrested two British soldiers in Basra on Monday:
Sheikh Hassan told Socialist Worker that the two undercover soldiers seized by Iraqi police last Monday were armed with explosives and a remote control detonator. The soldiers were disguised as members of Sadr’s militia, the Mehdi Army.
The trouble started when a senior Sadr official was arrested on Sunday. “We called a protest outside the mayor’s office on Monday demanding the Sheikh be released,” Sheikh Hassan said. “This protest was peaceful.”
“But events in our city took a sinister turn when the police tried to stop two men dressed as members of the Mehdi Army driving near the protest. The men opened fire on the police and passers-by. After a car chase they were arrested.”
“What our police found in their car was very disturbing — weapons, explosives and a remote control detonator,” Sheikh Hassan said. “These are the weapons of terrorists. We believe these soldiers were planning an attack on a market or other civilian targets, and thanks be to God they were stopped and countless lives were saved.”
Sheik Hassan also gives a markedly different account of events leading up to the soldiers’ release:
“The two men were taken to the police station to answer questions about their activities. That afternoon the British army came in with tanks and armoured cars, demanding the two be released.”
“The police refused as they were considered to be planning terrorist attacks, and as they were disguised as members of the Mehdi Army, the police wanted to know who their target was. Thousands of people gathered to defend the police station. British troops opened fire and the crowds responded with stones and firebombs.”
“The soldiers drove a tank into the police station and threatened to kill the police officers if they did not hand over the two terrorists. It is only then, to save any further loss of life, that the men were released.”
He has some sharp questions for the British Army:
“Why were these men dressed as Mehdi Army? Why were they carrying explosives and where were they planning to detonate their bomb? Were they planning an outrage so that they could create tensions with other communities?”
And he calls on the British people to oppose the occupation:
“We have only the warmest regards for the British people, who have protested in their tens of thousands against the occupation of our country. We fear that the British government plans to send more troops. We appeal to the British people to oppose this as it can only deepen our problems”
Also see: Carry on Killing
Finally, I find it hard to believe that Zarqawi is anything other than an example of what the tinfoil hats call “al CIAduh” (to be more exact, Rumsfeld’s , P2OG
needless to say, One way or another, nothing you could cook up down there explaining this could make less sense than the official version, where soldiers dressed like terrorists were shooting at terrorists dressed like police officers.
“Now at midnight all the agents, and the superhuman crew,
Come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do” – Bob Dylan
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 20 2005 20:39 utc | 21
I’ve been reading too much Viet Nam prose lately, and this passage has been haunting me. I pass it on to you…
“The immediacy of the last explosion—three legs, ten minutes ago—make me ready to burn the midsection of this report, the flippant itemization of these killer devices… If land is not won and if hearts are at best left indifferent; if the only obvious criterion of military success is body count and if the enemy absorbs losses as he has, still able to lure us amid his crop of mines; … if legs make me more of a man, and they surely do, my soul and character and capacity to love notwithstanding; if any of this is truth, a soldier can only do his walking, laughing along the way and taking a funny crooked step.
… “Those who point at and degrade his bitterness, those who declare that it’s all a part of war and that this is a job which must be done—to those patriots I will recommend a postwar vacation to this land, where they can swim in the sea, lounge under a fine sun, stroll in the quaint countryside, wife and son in hand. Certainly, there will be a mine or two still in the earth. Alpha Company did not detonate all of them.”
“If I Die in a Combat Zone”, 1975, Tim O’Brien
Posted by: mac | Sep 21 2005 6:05 utc | 22