Well, this isn't good news

[JR]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1152079.ece

The US military is investigating whether American soldiers raped an Iraqi woman and then killed her and three members of her family, including a child, south of Baghdad in March, officials said yesterday.

 

[Breakyoself]

so much for promoting good will amongst the Iraqis - who are deeply religious (or most of them are). This is not good at all.

 

[HejiraHenry]

so much for innocent until proven guilty ...

 

[shotglass]

Yes, I'm sure the U.S. military is launching an investigation off an anonymous phone call.

 

[Outta Here]

I don't think anyone's convicting them just yet, but Breakyoself was pointing out that the news that such an event may have transpired isn't going to sit well. And with our troops in a tough spot to start with, the mere fact such an atrocity MAY have occurred is enough to make a bad situation even worse for the troops.

 

[JR]

so much for innocent until proven guilty ...

Still not good. From the NYT

One soldier has admitted his role and has been arrested; others have had their weapons taken away and are confined to their base in Mahmudiya, American officials said. The soldiers under investigation are apparently from the same platoon as the three killed in Yusufiya.

Complete story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/01/w...&en=2d6fbe6d9ab88fae&ei=5094&partner=homepage

This is Vietnam all over. Time to get out.

 

[dog428]

so much for innocent until proven guilty ...

Time to get out.

You think? Whatever prompted you to take such a radical stance, JR?

It just gets worse, doesn't it? I do hope that anyone who has ever even entertained the idea that history will look kindly on this war is now kicking himself.

The very idea that we could invade a country and use brute force to spread democracy was possibly dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Guns and killing work for a lot things -- getting one country to stop bombing another, running one country's soldiers out of another country, making sure a country never again makes the mistake of bombing your country -- but when it comes to spreading a way of life, it just fails miserably. Tough to blame the Iraqis. Some guy shows up in my neighborhood and starts killing people, he's pretty much the last person I'm gonna model my life after.

It's never worked before, and, what do you know, it's not working now. Time to pack it in, cut and run, retreat, leave, get the hell out.

 

[Smallpotatoes]

What happened here was wrong but...
They're doing worse stuff to us. It's a war and our soldiers have a nanosecond to determine if these people pose any threat to them. They're terrorists, they deserve to be treated badly.
Bottom line: Whatever we do is OK. Whatever the Islamofascists do is not OK.

 

[sportschick]

What happened here was wrong but...
They're doing worse stuff to us. It's a war and our soldiers have a nanosecond to determine if these people pose any threat to them. They're terrorists, they deserve to be treated badly.
Bottom line: Whatever we do is OK. Whatever the Islamofascists do is not OK.

You're scarcasm font had soooooo better be on >:(

 

[JRoyal]

I second that, SC. :o

And to repeat a phrase:
"Killing for peace is like ****ing for virginity."

That last line is hilarious.

 

[Smallpotatoes]

What happened here was wrong but...
They're doing worse stuff to us. It's a war and our soldiers have a nanosecond to determine if these people pose any threat to them. They're terrorists, they deserve to be treated badly.
Bottom line: Whatever we do is OK. Whatever the Islamofascists do is not OK.

You're scarcasm font had soooooo better be on  >:(

I'm not sure how to use it but it was intended to be sarcasm.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

. . . but . . . but. . . what about the oilllllllllll?

 

[HejiraHenry]

so much for innocent until proven guilty ...

Time to get out.

You think? Whatever prompted you to take such a radical stance, JR?

It just gets worse, doesn't it? I do hope that anyone who has ever even entertained the idea that history will look kindly on this war is now kicking himself.

The very idea that we could invade a country and use brute force to spread democracy was possibly dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Guns and killing work for a lot things -- getting one country to stop bombing another, running one country's soldiers out of another country, making sure a country never again makes the mistake of bombing your country -- but when it comes to spreading a way of life, it just fails miserably. Tough to blame the Iraqis. Some guy shows up in my neighborhood and starts killing people, he's pretty much the last person I'm gonna model my life after.

It's never worked before, and, what do you know, it's not working now. Time to pack it in, cut and run, retreat, leave, get the hell out.

Wow. I think the history books written by the children of the millions of people freed in Iraq will look damned kindly on the war.

What short-sighted rubbish you peddle here.

 

[PeteyPirate]

This story was about four people who won't be writing any history books.

 

[D-Backs Hack]

But . . . we found the WMD! Rick Santorum said so! Fox News said so!

Raping an Iraqi woman and killing her family? Hell, it's nothing worse than a fraternity prank!

Those soldiers were probably celebrating the fact they weren't among the tens of thousands that all those Democratic politicians said would die in the first week of the invasion.

 

[Double J]

I second that, SC. :o

And to repeat a phrase:
"Killing for peace is like ****ing for virginity."

Please, give till it hurts. :D

 

[dog428]

so much for innocent until proven guilty ...

Time to get out.

You think? Whatever prompted you to take such a radical stance, JR?

It just gets worse, doesn't it? I do hope that anyone who has ever even entertained the idea that history will look kindly on this war is now kicking himself.

The very idea that we could invade a country and use brute force to spread democracy was possibly dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Guns and killing work for a lot things -- getting one country to stop bombing another, running one country's soldiers out of another country, making sure a country never again makes the mistake of bombing your country -- but when it comes to spreading a way of life, it just fails miserably. Tough to blame the Iraqis. Some guy shows up in my neighborhood and starts killing people, he's pretty much the last person I'm gonna model my life after.

It's never worked before, and, what do you know, it's not working now. Time to pack it in, cut and run, retreat, leave, get the hell out.

Wow. I think the history books written by the children of the millions of people freed in Iraq will look damned kindly on the war.

What short-sighted rubbish you peddle here.

One big-ass assumption there, Henry -- that they'll be "freed."

But just for the sake of arguing, let's say they are. You're telling me that the books those people write will outnumber the books written by the families of the thousands of American soldiers' who died? Or the ones from the families of the tens of thousands of Iraqis who died?

I'm guessing they won't. And I'm also guessing that all of those other books will devote many a page to the lies and half-truths this administration used to get us into the war and quite a few more pages on the horrors of that war -- from both sides.

It'll be one helluva dark day in this country when we look back with pride on a war in which thousands of our citizens were killed for absolutely NO REASON. Very dark.

 

[HejiraHenry]

One would wish to balance, I think, the supposed "thousands of Iraqis who have died" since the war began against the provable hundreds of thousands who died under Saddam -- who, contrary to South Park, was not a laughble litle troll.

We'll revisit this question.

I'm out of work for two weeks and intend a full-court press.

Stand by.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

There's an easy way to solve this. Let us allow the Iraqi people a plebiscite on the continued presence of American troops in their country. Let's let them vote on our 14 permanent bases, and our carving up the oil reserves, and our embassy that's bigger than Rhode Island and fortified like something out of the Middle Ages. Let them vote on all of it and let us abide by the result.

 

[NoOneLikesUs]

The military will claim she was a stripper. The troops e-mails regarding their need to rape an Iraqi woman will be disregarded as a simple joke.