The last moments of Saddam's grandson

[Rhiannon12866]

14-year-old may have fought on after anti-tank rockets killed the adults

Saddam Hussein's 14-year-old grandson, Mustafa, may have been the last to die in Tuesday's four-hour siege on a house in Mosul, and kept shooting even after Qusay and Uday Hussein, his father and uncle, had been killed, US military officials said yesterday.
According to a detailed account of the assault on the house given by Lt General Ricardo Sanchez in Baghdad, a volley of 10 anti-tank missiles near the end of the siege "wound up killing three of the adults" in the house. But when US troops made their third and final assault on the building, a sole survivor kept firing until he was shot dead.

US officials believe that the last defender was a teenage boy, identified as Mustafa Hussein, who was known to be travelling with his father.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1004749,00.html

[Archae]

1. Darwin award candidate!

Gawd, what a total asshole.

His relatives are all dead, lots of US troops all heavily armed are charging in, yet he keeps shooting.

STOO-PID!

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

2. what would you do smart guy?

wuss out?
not me

Brave little guy he was
may God bless his soul.
He did no wrong. now he's dead.

Only blind blood loving idiots cheer murder and genocide.
really, ..... Whooo's Stooo-pid ?
No reason to kill.
Teargas would have worked fine.
Darwin award goes to you my friend !!!

[Archae]

5. Tossed down my gun...

Stuck my arms up and yelled "I surrender!"

Better a live chicken than a dead duck.

But Christ on a crutch.

I was NOT "cheering murder."

But you've got this kid pegged as this "poor, little innocent martyr" to those EEEE-VIL soldiers.

Fo all we know he might have been in on Uday and Ousay's version of "fun."

We DO know he wanted to kill Americans.

And whether those troops were sent there by the Asshole-In-Chief for his 2004 campaign, the fact is this little prick was fucking SHOOTING at them.

What is a soldier supposed to do when a 14-year old boy is shooting at him? Spank him?
Hell no.
They shoot back.

[Sick of Bullshit]

7. You are way off base on this one

The kid has two choices-- 1) Die like a martyr to give his people inspiration (remember the Alamo?) and get a free ticket into heaven, or

2) Surrrender and get a free ticket to Gitmo (they're taking kids now).

[markses]

10. Archae - That's unbelievably despicable

There's something seedy about your post.

It has no sense of honor.

Yes. He was shooting at the US soldiers - who are, by the way, invaders of his home (sickening as his father and uncle and grandfather are). Yes, the US soldiers SHOULD HAVE shot back. Yes, they HAD TO shoot him. I agree with all these points.

But to call him stupid, or a Darwin award candidate, is simply without honor. It shows a narrowness of mind and experience, an inability to empathize, a disgusting and smug little jingoism, a burning sense of petty resentment. An ugliness, through and through. An ugliness. Without honor.

Since I have valued your posts in the pasts, I am saddened that your pettiness and provincialism in this case will define all future posts I see from you. They will all be marked by a stupid, smiling vindictiveness that is thoroughly without honor.

[Spentastic]

11. Well said.

This boy had just seen his father killed. He was confronted with people trying to kill him. I agree that the troops had little choice (after deciding on the course of action they did). But gloating about it seems remarkably harsh.

Any chance you'll recant?

[NNN0LHI]

14. Were the Jews doing the right thing in 1940's Germany when they...

...took the Gestapo's orders to just walk into the cattle cars too? Or should they have fought back?

Don

[Sirius_on]

16. 14 year olds in Iraq are different

14 year old boys in Iraq fight like adults. Its hardly an innocent kid. I am sorry anyone had to die, but anyone traveling with these two butchers has a shakey fate to begin with.

[NNN0LHI]

18. That is BS and you know it

We have had 14 year old American kids who have murdered, raped, and any other number of unimaginable things. The only real difference here is this kid was an Arab kid and was unlucky enough to have been born to a father we wanted dead.

Don

[w13rd0]

3. Actually...

...by going down as a martyr, he assured himself a place in a future Iraq very different than that of a refugee on the run in a US occupied Iraq.

[montana_hazeleyes]

4. My G-d, We don't know what this kid

was thinking. Maybe the adults told him he would be totured or something if taken in alive. He was surrounded by these scarey outsiders alone at this point, if this is true. HE WAS 14 FOR CRAPS SAKE!

[Archae]

6. That is possible.

However I have seen first hand, 14-year old boys that were so callous they would kill you if they wanted something you have.

Was the boy brainwashed by Uday, Ouday and whatnot?
I have no doubt he was.

So if a soldier is facing a fanatical, brainwashed 14-year old who wants to kill "infidels," and the kid is shooting at him, what should he do?
Spank him? Ground him? Send him to his room?
Nope. He's going to shoot back.

[Rhiannon12866]

9. I agree that he was probably not a typical 14-year-old

His own father committed his first murder at 13, at the behest of his father, Saddam. Who knows what sort of indoctrination that this kid was subject to? But it is still very sad that the entire might of the U.S. fighting force was directed at a 14-year-old. Did you see the number of bullet holes in that house? Nothing was left to chance. This kid stood no chance, either against the U.S. military or because of the family he was born into.:shrug:

[blondeatlast]

15. I don't think the soldiers knew it was a 14 yr old boy . . .

they just knew they were still being shot at.

Tough call, this--I hardly think the kid could have been that innocent in that family.

[Rhiannon12866]

26. That's a very good point

However, weren't they tipped off by the owner of the house? If they knew that Uday and Qusay were in there, they were probably told who was with them.:shrug:

I read an article yesterday that pointed out that there is much we will never learn now that they are dead. Also, we have deprived the Iraqi people of their revenge. These were reprehensible men, but with the technology we have at our disposal, there must have been a better way of going about this than unleashing a firestorm of bullets until no one is left standing.:shrug:

[Ani Yun Wiya]

12. Just how...

Brainwashed were the soldiers?
I have heard many of these express their desire to "kill those towelheads".

If * had not ordered this senseless and illegal adventure MANY more on both sides would now still be living.
If *'s dad and his wonderful organization had not installed the Ba'ath party forty years ago perhaps there would have been no Saddam to terrorize the population of Iraq.

[markus]

13. No one is questioning the soldiers.

They are questioning your original comments, which most reasonable people would find distasteful.

[glarius]

24. For god's sake the boy with 3 others was surrounded by 2 HUNDRED

soldiers....They invaded his home....My lord how can you think that way?....He was no doubt TERRIFIED!....Where's your compassion?....Forget that his father and uncle were monsters...He was a BOY!.....

[BoatsTwice]

19. Good for you

Root and branch people. Root and branch. There are a lot of weeds out there that need killing.

[Exultant Democracy]

27. They are not trees

they are people.

[VOX]

8. Events like this -- killing a determined 14-year-old -- really tell us...

...that we have no business being in Iraq. Yes, if Saddam's sons were in fact done away with, the world will not mourn them. Alas, the world is full of murderous, thieving, rapacious tyrants. When did the right-wing U.S. Government Inc. become Amnesty International? This brand of "doing right" would have no end, which is exactly what the gov't wants -- perpetual warfare and a frightened domestic population.

But think of it -- a child putting up a fierce fight! When the children, the women, and the old people do battle from the houses and the streets, it's time to pack up with all haste.

You can kill people, and we are deadly efficient at that -- but you cannot kill an idea, no matter how wrong-headed that idea may seem to us.

On edit: typos

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kentuck]

20. Therein lies the reason no photos of the 14 yr old for Iraqis to peruse..

Most probably don't yet know the 14 yr old was killed or the circumstances of his death. Would this piss you off if you were in their shoes? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the reaction to the killing of the 14 yr old and the manner in which he was killed...

[Blue_Chill]

21. no honor in this at all

Poor baby murdered by the US? I'm sorry but if you shoot at US troops you die. That's how it works, the kid knew it and more importantly his father knew it.

The kid was caught in a hard place and had his father given a damn about him he would have asked the boy be left out of it. A father that asks his son to die for him is disgusting. Had this kid had a father that gave a dman about lives other then his own this kid would be happily enjoying his life and this whole war would have never happened.

Some of you say this kid went down with honor. You are wrong. There is no honor in the death of a child because it is not his decision to die. He was told to do so or did so to please a father who never gave a damn about anyone but himself. A father who knew death was knocking and still failed to spare his son. Sadly there is no honor in this only sadness.

[JNelson6563]

23. I think the boy was doing what

he was taught was the honorable thing.

Perhaps he was a monster, who knows? We can know this though, he was not born that way, he was made into whatever he was when he died.

I agree the whole thing is just sad. A horrible reflection of how far we have to go yet as a species.

Julie

[Astarho]

25. On the flip side

but if you shoot at US troops you die. That's how it works,

Invade someone else's country and expect to get shot at. That is also how it works.

This kid probably expected to go down fighting, but also expected he would have been killed anyway if he surrendered, or he would have been shipped off to gitmo (a fate worse than death)

[Tinoire]

22. God bless his soul and damn the souls of those who

God bless his soul and damn the souls of those who planned, supported and cheer this barbarity.

There is NO excuse for this invasion or for the murder of a SINGLE Iraqi. I am really ashamed for my country when I see these actions excused and explained away!

Yeah, yeah, yippeee! Another dirty Eye-raki Towel-head, sand nigger dead! Is that the SICK ticket?

[seventhson]

28. I'm with Tinoire

This was like waco.

200 troops against 4 people?

It was a massacre. They could have waited them out.

They could have taken them alive.

They had them surrounded and vastly vastly outgunned.

The child died defending himself and, in terms of warfare, honorably.

We have become the Germans in 1933. A disgrace.

But I still have hope for America.


GORE!!!!

[nuxvomica]

30. Or Ruby Ridge

400 feds and one of them took out a 14-year-old boy who was firing at them. He was probably dangerous too, having seen his dog get shot.

W should ask himself "Is it worth it to have come to this?" It's not the act that bothers me as much as the aftermath. Why no sadness over the killing of a child, regardless of the circumstances?

[Rhiannon12866]

34. What a very apt post.

They could have done all those things, but didn't. There has been no press about the boy and far too many grisly photos shown of his murdered father and uncle. I am sad, folks on DU are sad, but the American public is unaware that such an act has taken place. What is wrong with the American press, that they are not reporting this?:-(

[Rhiannon12866]

31. As am I. I was discussing this with someone earlier today.

Whatever the circumstances, this still was a kid. I agree with nuxvomica that he was placed in extraordinary circumstances. I mourn his death and loss of innocence, whenever it may have occurred.:-(

[bpilgrim]

29. the story they wished they could tell about Jessica Lynch

though they may still, we still got the magic of hollywood, right?

yet they will wonder why he will become a hero in the eyes of arabs around the world.

peace

[Roon]

32. Could someone post a link of the picture of the Grandson's body?

Thank you in advance. :-)

[Rhiannon12866]

33. Even the current administration is not stupid enough to go there

The media overkill showing the graphic footage of the bodies of Saddam's two sons has been more than enough. Bush*'s approval rating has suddenly dropped since all this.

But I don't think you were serious. If the Bush* administration thought this would work to their advantage, somehow, I have no doubt that they actually would show it.
:puke: