Official: Kidnapped soldier was beheaded

[sabra]

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/14869884.htm

Official: Kidnapped soldier was beheaded

WASHINGTON - At least one and possibly both of the soldiers who were mutilated and killed in Iraq last weekend was beheaded, a U.S. military official said Wednesday.

The description by the official, who was in Washington, confirmed fears that were raised by other U.S. and Iraqi officials who have said the mens' bodies showed sign of brutal treatment.

The official requested anonymity because the final report on the bodies' conditions has not been formally released.

[bullimiami]

1. just wait til bush, cheney, rummy and rice start playing high and mighty

how they keep on without laughing at the irony is amazing to me.
this has to be the greatest group of actors ever to take over this country.

[stellanoir]

2. "freedom is on the march"

Ughhh. . .freedom need never march. . .freedom just is.

Can't imagine the pain his family is enduring. . .for what ends?

The further enrichment of crashcart?

This is truly abhorrent.

[rodeodance]

3. umm.. this is AP article.

Official: Kidnapped soldier was beheaded
LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press

[MADem]

4. Well, surprise, surprise....no doubt we will be treated to a news blitz

of horrific video images, right up to, but not including, the actual event once those murderous bastards put the images up on the web. I can just hear the primped and pampered talking heads now, saying portentiously, 'These images MAY be DISTURBING....' as they show them, over, and over, and over again.

They'll show that shit, but they won't show the equally disturbing images of aluminum personnel transfer tubes, covered with flags, being offloaded at Dover.

Hypocritical bastards. They are equally complicit, all of them.

[saigon68]

46. Visit Haditha

[rodeodance]

5. I think lots of people were/are wondering if this took place.

[elehhhhna]

6. If they'd just been blown up by IEDs it would be no biggie though.

Just a number.

[undeterred]

7. did they "cut and run"?

stay the course

we're in the last throes

freedom is breakin out all over

:sarcasm:

[coalition_unwilling]

21. You forgot "Light at the end of the tunnel" (n/t)

[WinkyDink]

38. Mission Accomplished.

[TomInTib]

8. I cannot fathom why these guys allowed themselves to be captured

What did they exect?

I would have gone down.

Where were the non-coms? Who left these poor guys stranded and backed into a corner?

[MichiganVote]

9. I've wondered this too..and it seems to me that were inexperienced

and/or waiting for their guys to come back and rescue them. Tain't the Jessica Lynch days in Iraq anymore and somebody needs to get the memo out pdq.

[TomInTib]

19. I have been in a lot of close-in combat. You just do not leave

green guys alone. These were two pfc's and a spc. The two pfc's must have just freaked and froze up.

They were backed into a confluence of canals, no where to go once they were cornered.

Someone screwed up.

[w8liftinglady]

29. do you get the impression that this is becoming more commonplace?

As more experienced soldiers are not re-enlisting,you have more kids out there with little experience.From the snippits I've heard,menchaca was already showing signs of PTSD,and had already escaped several attacks.

[TomInTib]

40. Yes, I do.

This is part and parcel of the grinding horror that this mess has become.

These troops are engaging at least 250 days in a one year deployment.

Troops in Vietnam were exposed less than 180 days in a thirteen month tour (except in extreme cases - like mine).

Troops in the Pacific Theater in WWII saw an average of 40 days of action per year.

Today's troops are being pushed far past the accepted limits of normal human beings. These poor kids were NOT Special Forces, just average grunts.

I am just appalled at the breakdown in the field in this instance. There is absolutely no excuse for it. They are not playing T-Ball. This is effing Life and Death.

[MadMaddie]

41. Thanks for the explanation....

My neighbors kid just went to Army boot camp and he will be a combat soldier....I told her that I would keep him in my thoughts and she looked at me....with the look of why would I say that!! She doesn't understand that as soon as he finishes his boot camp and MOS training he is going to Iraq.....I was just sad.....

[MichiganVote]

32. I agree. This was a screw up. But, of course, no one's talking

and in the meantime, two guardsmen are dead and died badly.

[Chipper Chat]

14. Could have been a dusty road or motor trouble.

Could have been maybe they stopped to toke one without being seen. Maybe the driver just fell asleep after being up 72 hours straight. The whole episode will probably be "Jessica Lynched" by Rumsfeld and Fox News.

[TomInTib]

20. From what I understand..

they were hemmed in by irrigation canals. Easily trapped.

[Virginia Dare]

10. I would assume that the heads were not recovered...

Bush is fond of taking heads as trophies himself.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1467288

I'm incredibly sad for the families of these men.

[LSparkle]

12. I cannot even fathom what it must be like for the relatives

I'm already hearing that the Oregon soldier's family is saying he died for "freedom," while the family of the soldier from Texas are blaming the government for his death -- I expect the Oregon family will get the "propaganda" treatment in the days ahead, as Asshat Dimson and his cabal try and use this young man's death as a rallying cry to "stay the course" in this bloody awful occupation. Sickening ...

[madmunchie]

13. This really puts a new view of hanging animal heads on your walls

for trophys, doesn't it?

[sinkingfeeling]

11. "..confirmed fears that were raised by other U.S. and Iraqi officials "??

What fears? That the population of American sheep will become aroused? And then what? We'll stay the course of this immoral, illegal occupation? Besides, didn't Rumsfeld tell us that 'stuff happens' in war?

[Disturbed]

15. The Insurgency has been accused of playing to the

TV audience of America by Busholini. It doesn't seem that slaughtering these soldiers was an attempt to garner any sympathy of the American public toward their cause.If it was an attempt to push more Americans to want the US out of Iraq it certainly didn't achieve that. It caused more to be disgusted and angry at the Insurgency and outraged the US Troops. Maybe the Insurgency is not concerned about US Public opinion and is gearing their actions toward their own following.

[coalition_unwilling]

22. Please stop calling them an "insurgency" -- they're a

legitimate and justified Resistance, akin to the National Liberation Front (aka "VietCong").

It didn't cause me to be disgusted and angry at them. It caused me to remember the Vietnam phrase: "Payback is a motherfucker."

[Pavulon]

34. We lost 57000

people in that war. They lost 1 million. Payback benefits no one.

Terrible loss for the families. The loss of life by all sides is terrible.

Are they justified in killing by faction? Most deaths are sectarian killings.

I am disgusted with any force (side) that kills captured combatants or civilians.

[coalition_unwilling]

35. I agree that an "eye for an eye" leaves everyone blind. What I

take issue with is the specific word choice of "insurgent," a word which connotes that at some distant Golden Age, the said person was actually happy with the U.S. invasion and occupation and then suddenly underwent a sea change and became an "insurgent."

On the contrary, history will show (and Seymour Hersh has already provided preliminary documentation in the "Epilogue" to "Chain of Command") that the Iraqi Resistance was formed by Saddam Hussein and the general staff of Iraq before the invasion began. (N.B. Hersh interviewed a former Iraqi general in Jordan after the so-called "fall" of Baghdad, who told him that Hussein had concluded as early as January, 2002 that he would be invaded and instructed his general staff to start reading up on the Vietnam War and altering military-intelligence structure to cell-based guerilla structure, IN ADVANCE OF OUR INVASION.)

I can't say it often enough -- this is a Resistance, not an Insurgency.

[Pavulon]

37. Correct

The fedayeen was well planned before the invasion. CobraII covers this topic in detail.

[Toots]

52. Then why are they killing each other

Why the religious aspect? Why the Shia against the Shiites? Is it just opportunity? War going on so settle old scores or what is in play?

[coalition_unwilling]

53. I think you may have made a typo in your post -- did you mean

to write "why the Sunni against the Shiites?" instead of "Why the Shia against the Shiites?"

To my knowlege, the Iraqi Resistance is predominantly an anti-occupation movement and only marginally an ethnic phenomenon. That's not to say that the Iraqi Interior ministry hasn't been thorougly infiltrated by Shia death squads (thanks, no doubt, to Negroponte's ambassadorial efforts), nor to say that Zarqawi (a Sunni) wasn't intent on attacking Shiites en masse. But it is to say that the Iraqi Resistance, while its Mujahedeen Council encompassed Zarqawi, is way more than Zarqawi. The fact that Zarqawi's successor "made his bones" by capturing and executing two American soldiers may suggest that even Al Quaida in Iraq is now focussing on the occupation as the principal enemy.

It's like this epistemological black hole, though, I'll grant you. Most times, I honestly don't know what I know and what I don't know and what I don't know that I don't know (apologies to Rumsferatu). What I do remember, b/c I worked for one of its subsidiaries at the time, is that the "LA Times" made a deliberate editorial decision to stop referring to the "Resistance" (because of its heroic connotations of the French Resistance in World War II) and start referring to the "Insurgency" (because said heroic connotations were not there).

[Igel]

31. That's a thought.

That we're not at the front and center of their concerns and they may actually have minds and issues of their own.

Of course, that's properly the default assumption; possibly we could be one of their concerns, since that could drive the US out and that group would then claim victory. But it seems more to be that particular group re-establishing their street cred, al-Muhajer's in particular.

[berner59]

16. I truly feel sorry for these soldiers families...

But is it any more horrific than the other 2500 deaths?? All the coverage last night and the sad music put to their pictures and all I kept thinking of are the other families of soldiers who died getting their heads blown off or burned alive in their Hummers...isn't it all the same?? Where is the talk about "this is how all the families feel" and isn't this finally enough reason to get out of the mess???

[Sadie5]

18. Sympathy to those involved

The freedom family probably are still in shock and want to see their son as a hero. Lets hope the shock wears off soon and that they see exactly what the other family in Texas is seeing. That this is a cold hearted brutal attempt to rule the world.

[Igel]

30. Cute pun.

Not intended, I'm sure, but cute pun.

That's essentially how the website announcing the throat-cutting/beheading put it. They didn't kill men, they killed animals, using the word reserved for killing animals (usually, by default, caprids), if the Arabists consulted were correct.

Nicely dehumanizing.

[kskiska]

17. This just shows how desperate they are.

It's almost over, folks.
:sarcasm:

[daleo]

23. Could this have been tit for tat for the Zarqawi killing?

I don't recall any cases like this before now. There was a report by an Iraqi witness that Zarqawi was captured, then beaten by U.S. troops before being killed (or dying of wounds from the bombing). I wonder if this was in retaliation - U.S. troops captured, possibly beaten, certain killed.

[slackmaster]

24. Brace yourselves for acts of revenge by US military people

It's going to get a lot uglier before things start getting better.

[saigon68]

51. Ya lets win their hearts and minds by killing a few more children

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

25. That is not surprising

and I'd expect it to happen again. What better way to thumb your nose at the most powerful nation in the world? By pulling this off, it means any group smaller than a squad is probably at risk for the same treatment.
Thank you and your administration, Mr. Bush, for creating this no-win quagmire called Iraq. :cry:

[MidwestTransplant]

26. wait until this shows up on the internet

[dailykoff]

27. By whom, I wonder.

Maybe the same people raising and confirming "fears"?

[warrens]

28. I really, really, really wanna...

Dump Smirk, Snarl, Rummy and Condo on a dark Basra street at midnight with big shiny BRING IT ON tshirts...

[frylock]

33. kidnapped?

Were these soldiers abducted from the backyard seesaw?

[madmark]

36. its bullshit that our people are put in these vulnerable situations;

note to these particular insurgents or al quada local franchisee (whatever they happen to be) you're dead men walking whether the US is occupying Iraq or not; note to Bushco, get our rank and file people the fuck out of this vulnerable, exposed shithole, reserve the right for over the horizon strikes, or special forces operations, on any al quada targets you can locate (include in the target list these assholes who just carved up our two guys), and be done with it. What the fuck are you gaining by the occupation?

[Nihil]

55. Which particular bit is bullshit?

> its bullshit that our people are put in these vulnerable situations

Is it that "our people" are ordered into situations (as opposed to choosing them)?
Is it that the situations are "vulnerable" (as opposed to well-defended)?
Is it that people are getting killed in a foreign land, for the greed & profit
of their leaders, far from the home that they are supposed to be defending?

Which bit is the bullshit that you object to?

As to the rest of the diatribe, please save it for FR or other places where
content-free threats like that are appreciated.

"you're dead men walking", "reserve the right for over the horizon strikes",
"assholes who just carved up our two guys" ...
:eyes:

[WhiteTara]

39. I wonder if the monkey will scream Geneva Convention? n/t

[MadMaddie]

42. Too little too late...they wanted to rule the world and they have

destroyed a part of it....at the cost of our American soldiers...all of the torture that the cabal allowed....they never thought that it would put our soldiers lives in danger.....and sadly it has.

[saigon68]

47. The little monkey takes the high ground

[The Straight Story]

43. I wonder if we here DU will? (nt)

[leesa]

44. Here we go with the beheading hysteria again. It is a quick way of killing

in the Middle East and possibly far less tortuous than imprisonment for years without charges and frequent beatings , or being burned to death with phosphorous or napalm.

I agree that the US will respond by leveling at least a small sized city with all its inhabitants though. Our usual rational approach.

[saigon68]

48. Another Fallujah

That will be fun for the Chimpanzee

[Tulum_Moon]

50. Yes beheading is humane

Gog forbid they had been taken prisoners. That would have just been unbearable!:sarcasm:

[Canuckistanian]

45. Jesus, how long does it take to do an autopsy?

A competent civilian pathologist would have had this done and the families informed within a day.

Why all the uncertainty and confusion?

[Tesha]

49. It takes a while to figure out how the toxicology report is...

It takes a while to figure out how the toxicology report is
supposed to turn out. Do they report the alocohol or THC?
The depleted uranium? And just how much is "believable but
not *too* much?"

Tesha

[Nihil]

54. Maybe the military pathologists ...

... aren't as good at jigsaw puzzles?

Flippancy aside, the time is taken in the wording of the report
to be published: the actual analysis would take very little
time in comparison but there are so many "interested" parties
here that the doc is walking his own little minefield with
every key he presses.