From the CNN wire:
As part of its search for three missing American soldiers, the U.S. military was draining a canal Sunday after receiving a tip from local Shiite Iraqis that they saw two heads floating in the water, U.S. military officials told CNN.
So far, the search of the canal, which leads from the Euphrates River to the village of Janabi, has turned up nothing of interest to the military.
Janabi—once a Sunni insurgent stronghold—is about 7 miles from the site where the soldiers were last seen after a deadly ambush on May 12.
Four American soldiers and an Iraqi soldier were killed in the attack on a U.S. military observation post just outside Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, in an area known as the Triangle of Death.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Janabi and a police official in Mahmoudiya dismissed the local farmers’ claim that two heads were seen floating in the canal, telling CNN that some of the reports given to the military are not credible.
Perhaps. But the story does seem to jibe with this report from MEMRI:
According to a rumor posted on Islamist websites, the American forces have discovered the headless bodies of two of the kidnapped American soldiers. The reports stated that the bodies were found on May 18, after six days of searching, and that the search for the third soldier, whose fate remains unknown, is still continuing. Sources in the Mahmudiyya police force stated that the bodies were found near one of the parks in the city and bear signs of severe torture.
If this turns out to be true—and we’re fortunate enough to catch the butchers responsible—let’s be sure to give them first world accommodations, providing them with Korans and prayer mats and special meals and soccer facilities while they await trial in a civilian court.
Because we wouldn’t want to send the message that torture—you know, like the use of fake menstrual blood, or Israeli flag waving, or topless women, or underwear on the head—is okay. After all, that’s the kind of thing that keeps jihadists from treating US prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
It’s our fault. Always.
Blowback.
And if we wish to save our country’s soul, the only way to do so is to show our enemies (and, of course, the finger-waggers in the UN) that we’re not barbarians like them, which we can accomplish by, oh, rolling over and showing them our necks, I suppose. Because evidently it’s better to have your “soul” than your head—though I should probably come up with a better way of phrasing that so it doesn’t sound all, like, religiony.
Christianity is already a major part of the problem, pissing off the pan-Arabists like it does. Wouldn’t want to rock the boat anymore than we have to, right?
Because of the nuance.
(h/t Curt)
As a Dantiste, I’m kind of into the contrapasso thing, but that’s probably because I’m evil.
I should think it would be rather more barbaric to not shoot terrorists than so to do.
I really like the way this guy thinks. My favorite bit:
I’m sure the human rights herd here will spring the length of its chain should our guys be found to have been murdered by AQI goons. After all, they are fastidious monitors of the Geneva Conventions, right?
Doesn’t really matter either way.
Me, personally I can’t wait for the 60+ days of front page outrage, pictures & coverage in the NYT for the real torture, maiming, beheading & outright violation of the captured American soldier’s rights guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions.
No, no, no, see, the American soldiers shouldn’t even have been there anyway, imposing American imperialist values on the poor benighted Iraqis, so it’s quite understandable, from their cultural point of view, how they might react to these American oppressors. I mean, really, the soldiers practically had it coming.
BTW, I support the troops!
[As Jeff says, it’s all about the nuance.]
Did you capture and behead US soldiers? Take photos and tell us about it!
Should the perpetrators be captured, I think a little ‘tune up’ is in order on the way to lockup.
(My best Chicago accent)
Jeeze. Yer honah. While da suspect was inroot to da detention facility,da guard ah, accidentally dropped his, ah, weapon and it accidentally went off. Tree times. Honest to got, yer honah. I don’t know how it happened. Over by dere.
Sure hope they put up a fight.
Happyfeet…couldn’t help but notice your underlined response here. You did the same thing to me when I asked for help with a poem/short story. I’d just like you to know that I’m not a troll
That is all….Squack7700 and have a nice day
Nonono – very sorry Blitz – just thought the Edwards thing made a nice ironic leitmotif. I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.
Hand them over to the Bangladesh “Rapid Action Battalion” and say they’re communists. The RAB will take them out into the woods, and the monsters will be shot trying to escape.
It’s cool Happyfeet, that’s what I thought but just in case….and it IS funny,see my last entry in Dan’s “Fan Mail” post
Me, personally I can’t wait for the 60+ days of front page outrage, pictures & coverage in the NYT for the real torture, maiming, beheading & outright violation of the captured American soldier’s rights guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions.
THIS hit the nail on the head. Sarcasm aside, this is the true outrage. There won’t be those things. Why? Why? Why?
Good God, what is wrong with this country????
I could scream just thinking about it.
RWS? because the term”If it bleeds it leads” does NOT apply to our people…only brown people who are (tortured?) by not having enough entertainment in their cell at Gitmo are important enough…..
I know,it makes ME scream every day too…but I’m TRYING to do my part…volunteered to do a printout and a Memorial day meet and greet at my daughters 8th grade assembly….I really HOPE the other two parents aren’t moonbats,but here in Mass???…
I don’t understand why they allowed themselves to be captured. They know a quick death fighting to the last is better than torture and decapitation.
They could have been stunned or otherwise incapacitated from the initial explosion.
None of the horrific tales of the fate of the U.S. soldiers has proven true; that’s the unfortunate state of indeterminate internet gossip. Of course, happyfeet gets exercised over the slightest terrorist twitch. Whip it good.
Cynn? I know of no tales that haven’t been ultimately proven true regarding the Islamics beheadings/torturing/mutilations. Now in THIS case, not all info is in and I’ll go with you on that but there is NO need to chastise anyone here.
and Terrorist twitch?? Is that the feeling you get in your panties every time a soldier is killed??
LOL!!! Can’t let this one go…Cynns size29 panties are all in a bunch!!
but if its a warm memorial day weekend cynn will be panicked about the pending global warming crisis
yeah, I’ve got major thongs inna bunch here, if that’s possible. I say let’s get the mofos and kill em dead, like the wasps in my eaves.
Ah. None of the “tales” in this case have proven true. So we shouldn’t get worked up about it.
Ever heard of Matt Maupin? Do you know what happened to him?
We take terrorists VERY seriously here at happyfeet HQ, cynn. Specially the twitchy ones. Had a particularly shifty fella here the other day. Unfortunately, Mom called during the waterboarding and I got distracted… but he was up to somethin’… twitchy bastard.
That doesn’t ring a bell. Please elaborate.
Hmmmm…. Waterboarding?? That ain’t torture. Torture is listening to the left scream about waterboarding….as if they didn’t know that our Servicemen and WYMMEN(for you Cynn)undergo that treatment as part of their training…SHEESH!! Torture?? Torture is a weekend with Dan, or maybe a Friday without an Armadillo!!
KIDDING DAN!!!
Happyfeet
Those “twitchy” ones are the worst but just make SURE you don’t put them in with the hobos or all hell will break loose!! I guess putting them in the other cell with the mimes is ok though…
Matt Maupin …..Ok,I just tried 9 ways to Sunday to add a link….can anyone tell me how??
Or…
Cutting open a man’s penis
Beating a detainee to death
Sodomizing an innocent man with a foreign object
But hey, it’s all good when you do it in the name of FREEDOM and LIBERTY!!
ABJ – Wow! Thanks for the links! I can’t tell you how much better I feel. I thought those twits in the Senate had intimidated all of the common sense out of our covert operations. Thank God someone out there has some balls.
Madonna should write a song for those guys, AJB. For the healing.
If torture is so fucking effective, when will it end this thing? Without our “enhanced interrogation techniques,” what’s the timetable for getting out of that shithole, 2020? What’s the timetable for our exit with the immensely important usage of torture, 2016?
Our use of torture only proves how fucking unable we are to figure out those people over there. We torture because we are impotent when it comes to decoding the Who’s Who in Mideast Terrorism book. It’s a fucking lack of balls to bully the weak under our power and they know it well because that’s the way those assholes have operated for centuries. I’m glad we no longer use the bullshit language of freeing Iraq to justify our post-overthrow actions, but I’m not not about to write the President a Thank You card over our new candor.
Progress through torture? Probably as effective as all the other metrics regarding success in Iraq. Becoming like Saddam will go a long way in making them comfortable, I bet.
Should we have deposed Saddam? Hell, yes. But everything since then has been one syphilitic clusterfuck after another.
Hmm. I shared your story with a friend on messenger AJB…
She can be insightful, that one.
Jon – Why in such a hurry to leave? It’s just getting started over there. We may have another half century of work to do to clean up that sewer. And. if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes.
Tell me – what’s more important than getting that done? If we leave, it’s over for us, pal. Maybe not next week, or next year, or next decade, but it’s over. They aren’t as impatient as you are. I don’t know about you, but I want my kids and grnadkids to experience the joy of freedom.
Look, like it or not, we’ve a job to do, so you need to get your head right about it.
AJB,
Horrifying stuff. Of course, the subject here was soldiers and the military. I suppose that telling the difference between the Army and the CIA is a little too nuanced for your impressive intellect.
The first and third pretty well follow the usual pattern: no corroborative evidence, and a story that hews closely to script of “recommended accusations” al Qaeda put out a couple of years ago. If your firm policy is to assume that every accusation of vile behavior against Americans is valid regardless of source, all I can do is shrug.
The second one is actually the most problematic from my point of view. If you have more about it I’d like to see it. As ex-military myself, and having had some more or less trivial brushes with the CIA, if you wanted to shoot them all and start over I’d have a hard time coming up with a really vigorous defense. But if you think any of it is new, or particularly characteristic of the Bush Administration, you probably also believe in the Tooth Fairy and Nigerian “Spanish Prisoners”.
Regards,
Ric
We won’t have freedom unless we torture Iraqis? What the fuck? You are aware that “one eyed man” is a euphemism for “dick”?
Now tell me how our presence is actually cleaning out that sewer. Is it like a wound that needs to have filthy pus followed by clean pus followed by a scar that eventually fades? Because I don’t think the billions and lives and all the rest we are paying is worth it to play the World’s Hydrogen Peroxide and Band-Aid.
Why waste the oxygen?
Indeed. And as for Khaled el-Masri, the innocent man of the tortured penis, it seems he’s been playing with matches.
It also appears that the German authorities aren’t so convinced of his innocence.
You forgot barking doggies. It’s ok, you’ve had a rough week. Wouldn’t your dealings with that woman constitute torture?
Jon – I infer from your response that you assume there would be no consequence to the US or its allies if we left Iraq. Do you really think that if we withdraw, the world, and our lives here in the US, return to those halcyon days of Oval Office blow jobs? Me thinks not. We leave Iraq and you’d better grab your helmet Pacho because you and I are going to war. Why? Well, do you really think that when those goons know that the US has lost its balls that they’ll just crawl back in their caves? And, are France and Germany going to do something (anything?) to fight those goons? And, all that Tel-Aviv talk is just posturing..
Second, you need to rethink your assumption about our lack of success in Iraq. We’ve accomplished 84% of sewer cleaning. Yeah, the last 16% will be tough, but what’s our alternative? Put Harry Reid & Co. in charge? [As a side note, where are you getting your news, the NYT? I cancelled that rag when my canary died…from the torture of “viewing” it each day.]
So, like it or not, we’ve got a job to do. Thank God we’ve volunteers willing to do it while you and I engage in idle chit chat. If those boys get pulled out of there, you’d better saddle up. By the way, ever handle a rifle? Bet you have…
The reality is that the sane response to this silly “torture” debate is that we should not be using torture as a policy for a myriad of reasons – all of which are in fact why we don’t.
But far more important is that we cease the silly debate because the debate itself is 90% of the time those condemning “torture” are usually misrepresenting both the subject and their motivations. They are misrepresenting the subject by equating every inconvenience or discomfort as “torture” and they are misrepresenting their motivations because the sole purpose is to paint their opponents as inhuman monsters so they don’t have to think about the true monstrosities that are our enemies.
Great post, Jeff. Thanks.
Hizzoner da Mare ain’t gonna be too please about dis.
Jon,
Sorry for coming late to all this – I haven’t had a chance to weed through the comments in depth, but your statement did catch my eye:
I just wanted to know if you were talking about deployment of troops to the Balkans or Afghanistan – or if you had something else altogether different in mind, like peacekeeping in Darfur.
Thanks,
BRD
Robin Roberts: what he said.
A troll like jon: you are torturing me. You don’t post rational comments to convince, you post troll comments to be annoying. This is nothing but sadism, the root emotion of the most objectionable torture. So, I guess you really do understand torture after all.
torture(n.):
4: the act of distorting something so it seems to mean something it was not intended to mean
This should be easy enough to prove. Funny how that story doesn’t offer any proof.
And the torturers in that story weren’t Americans. They were Moroccan. If you’re going to hold the US responsible for the actions of other countries, well, can we hold France responsible for the what happens in Zimbabwe?
I don’t think torture is the answer. Just drown the bastards in pig urine and be done with it.
I am so sick and tired of this debate!
I am sick and tired of the sarcastic whining from the likes of jon about expressing utopion ideals in wartime against an enemy that is dogged in its pursuit of status as “least likely to care about any human life.” Geez, the “light on the hill” used to carpet bomb cities for the purpose of breaking the will of the people but apply some moderately heavy handed techniques to terrorist suspects and one would think that we’ve frogmarched all of the angels into a ditch and set them on fire.
I’m tired of it all.
I’m tired of the “let’s just leave Iraq” crowd, whether it be immediate withdrawal (waving the “exact langusge” of the AUMf) or creative redeployment (either to fortified bases or tropical Pacific islands.) Very few want to talk about the consequences of this for the Iraqi’s (except for AE who flat said he didn’t care.) God forbid there should be some flexibility of thinking and some startegic nuance rather than blanket declarations of defeat by Senate leaders.
National honor, American the dependable and military pride? Fugetaboutit!
I’m sick and tired of listenting to people wax poetic about the pure evilness of this administration and the US in general while having barely a word for the followers of Wahab and Taymiyya, yearning for the glorious days when the world will be an eighth century paradise without even an inkling of individual liberties. Let’s just hunker down and defend our borders but not Mexico as those illegals reflect our immigrant tradition. We can absorb another attack or two and even if it devastates our economy and causes unknown hardships for millions or more at least the utopian ideals that we proclaim are in place and we can beat our chests and shout over the ruins of some subway/neighborhood/city that we’re better than them because we didn’t compromise our vision. Then we can sit back and watch the appeal process for those that are caught, if any, all the while worried about the color of the prayer rugs or whether the food is sufficiently
kosherorthodox for our poor, misunderstood brothers in humanity.Yea, yea, I know the above is heated and maniacal but I’m just tired this morning of the yammering over details when we should all take a minute and proclaim our solidarity in the task of wiping these people from the face of the earth, Old Testament style.
Yikes, I need to find a small wild animal to strangle…
Jon seems to think there’s morality in war. It’s a streetfight jon. There are no rules. The object is to be the one to get up off the ground with the fewest injuries and leave your opponent laying there.Preferably dead.
But, but, but…we’re better than that! We can win a war with hugs and kisses, because of our morality! And because they won’t be angry with us if we’re nice to them!
Right?
tw: dark25
Damn right it’s a streetfight. But torture is wrong, ineffective, and counterproductive. I’d like us to win and get the hell out, but I don’t see it happening. I do see us staying until 2010 no matter who gets elected, and until at least 2014 even if Cheney decides to run and wins. I don’t, however, see any reason for optimism regarding change in either Iraq or the region. Unless we let the Iraqis handle their mess in their own way. (I guess that would involve torture, massacres, kidnappings, and the creation of three states within what is now known as Iraq. In other words: what is already happening, if not for those meddlesome Yanks.)
Here’s the status quo as I see it: we are bogged down (I won’t say “quagmire” because Vietnam allusions are stupid, even though, like Vietnam, isn’t not a quagmire because we can leave anytime we want,) we are spending shitloads of money for little security, we are creating more sympathy for terrorists in the region (and elsewhere,) and we are heading for a Democratic presidency. If you are satisfied with all of those things, fine. But I’m not sure it’s all worth it, with one exception.
But given that we’re fighting an enemy that would as lief rip out our throats should we bare them by retreating, what would you propose we do instead, jon?
That’s the sticking point for me. I’d like that we weren’t in the middle of a very long war myself, but my general perception is that if we pull out now, it isn’t merely going to result in the settling of the situation as you propose (which I doubt), but also the emboldening of our enemies. “Look, the American juggernaut can be beaten, not by force of arms, but bad press, fomenting rebellion on the home front, and killing enough of their people to scare them! Our tactics are working!”
Or so sez Jon:
I’m curious when that’s
admittedacknowledged by the can’t-shoot-straight Leftists, however. At ten million points?Our enemy is so craven it will celebrate whether we stay or go. Anything is a victory to the true believers of their idiotic crusade. We pull out? Victory! We stay for a long time? Victory! We kick their asses? Victory and Martyrdom! We torture them? Victory and Martyrdom and Page One! We destroy their nation? Victory and Less Work (since the world will send relief supplies!)
Whatever we do, they “win”. And no, Oneyedman, I’m not concerned about them invading the US and putting us under Sharia law. All the illegal Mexican immigrants would cut the bastards’ throats and leave them along I-19 and I-10 if the terrorists even so much as thought about it.
Our enemy is so craven it will celebrate whether we stay or go. Anything is a victory to the true believers of their idiotic crusade. We pull out? Victory! We stay for a long time? Victory! We kick their asses? Victory and Martyrdom! We torture them? Victory and Martyrdom and Page One! We destroy their nation? Victory and Less Work (since the world will send relief supplies!)
You forgot several, jon:
“We whine about the war lasting too long? Victory! We display a short attention span? Victory! We demand instant gratification? Victory!”
Now go back to watching your police dramas, where serial killers of long standing are brought to justice in just 1 hour, including commercials.
What will we be creating more of for the terrorists if we leave? Do you think they will suddenly be out of a job, and just blend back in to respectable society? How will the general popluace feel about them if we turn tail and run, and what will that develop into down the road?
This is the way real reality-based people think, jon. Actions have consequences.
Missed this the first time through or I wouldn’t have been so civil.
jon, you are an idiot.
That is truly some vile shit.
The remarkable thing about the Islamists’ style of warfare is not that barbarity is their last resort – it’s that barbarity is their first resort. And that’s not unique to Al-Qaeda – you should take a look at an easy, accessible history of the French war in Algeria. Alastair Horne’s A Savage War of Peace is in some respects deficient, but doesn’t miss the element of brutality that was inherent in the FLN’s plan of campaign from the very beginning.
This brutality is, I think, inherent in Islam. And at some point, we’re going to have to start asking whether the whole notion of a “war on terror” isn’t mistaken, and whether it ought not to be, in fact “a war on Islam.” That doesn’t mean that we’re going to be at war with every single Muslim, but it does mean that we should be thinking about ways of de-legitimizing the religion in the eyes of its adherents and sympathizers.
Why be civil to a bigot?
Shorter Jon – It is hard ! We must quit !
Yes. And I think that gets back to the point of Jeff’s original post before it got sidetracked into (yet another) discussion about torture by Americans and their allies.
I’ve been in a couple of wars and more than a few goat ropes, and this is the first “war” in which we try to apprehend the bad guys.
Capture and try the beheaders? No. Shoot them. Shoot them again. Bayonet them to make sure they are dead. All legal stuff under the Law of Land Warefare.
Will they recruit more? Sure. But death DOES tend to reduce recidivism.
JeffS got it, but let’s nail it down: that’s TV show mentality. Dammit, it’s already third commercial break, and we still don’t know where the bomb is! Get off your butt, Jack!
It occurs to me to wonder if the reason we don’t seem to have problems getting recruits is video games. The Army already acknowledges that Quake, Doom, etc. sharpen hand-eye coordination skills and make weapons training easier; they even generate or commission some themselves. But what I’m talking about is the meta-lesson, viz., that it can be right, even proper and virtuous, to kill monsters, rescue princesses, and amass game points, even when you know for sure that the Designer has rigged the game so that you can’t really “win” in any absolute sense—all you can do is complete the level.
LIFEâ„¢
©0 UT, 4976 BC, 32 BC, 700 AD
Yahweh, Yeshua, & Shaitan LLP
#1 City of God, Heaven CP 00000
Welcome to The Iraq War, jon!
Edit character
Display Status
Choose side [DEFAULT: Enemy]
Join another scenario
Return to top-level scenario
—there is no sAve, Quit is grayed out, and choosing another scenario just means accepting NPC status in this one, part of the scenery Wizbreath the Warrior passes on his way to more interesting things. It’s more fun to hook up the joystick and participate. “Out of the game” isn’t one of the choices.
Regards,
Ric
Actually, a lot of our Mexican friends “visiting” here, doing the jobs we wont do, are converting to Islam.
Let’s, for now, put aside the complexities of our war on islamofascists and focus on what is clear.
We face an implacable enemy who would gladly cut your head off. There is no winning his heart or his mind. He must be found and killed.
The tactical problems are formiddable, but let’s not lose sight of the strategy.
Discussions of this kind always remind me of a remark I once read on “Gates of Vienna”: “we’re about to see what happens when a culture with a history of unlimited symbolic violence comes up against a culture with a history of unlimited violence.” Coming from a German, those words are more than a little alarming. But they’re not necessarily an incorrect reading.
As modern conventional warmakers, Muslims are generally miserable failures, although the ones who spent enough time under the tutelage of the British Army are marginally better (the Paks, and the Jordanians are the principal examples of this). For the most part, terrorism probably represents the upper limits of the level of violence that the totality (those “one billion” we’re forever hearing about) of the Muslim world can generate. Increase their outrage, and it’s not going to increase our dead very much, unless they get their hands on a nuke.
The violence Western armies are inflicting in Iraq or elsewhere is, by historical standards, pretty much the lower end of what they can do. They’re restrained right now by societal norms, and the recognition that there’s a strong presumption against them in their own countries – not overwhelming, but strong enough that it has to be taken into account. Nine-eleven altered that calculus, and dropped the Western world’s concern for casualties in the Muslim world considerably, but the gloves are still on. Let the attacks keep coming without a countering escalation, and the inevitable, unavoidable response will not be surrender, but an angry nuclear spasm that translates as, “give our regards to the Carthaginians and the citizens of Nagasaki, haji.”
I think we want to avoid this, and not just because Rome labored under the Punic curse. Atrocious conduct exacts a penalty over the long term, in that the sense of guilt it lays on society tends to inhibit the will to self-defense in the future – this is the practical, as opposed to the moral, reason why we want to avoid atrocity: it will cripple our ability to defend ourselves in the future. There is a middle ground between what we’re doing and “kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out.” But we’re still a long way short of raising the pain level to where it would cause a societal repudiation of terror and, as I have mentioned here before, of the religion itself.
And btw, I will add – let them try it in France, and I think Sarko might just drop Le Grand Un on Mecca himself, in a last angry spasm of affronted Gallic grandeur.
When I read that paragraph I was wondering “Which culture is which?” After reading the rest of the comment I gather that the west is the one with the true culture of non-symbolic violence in the comment. And I agree. The west has visited atrocities on the itself that would make the hardiest blanch – if you rile them up enough.
At this point the population in the western nations is uneasy (I think) but does not actually believe it is in true existential danger. 9/11 was a jolt, but wasn’t followed up with enough to arose that danger feeling. A series of coordinated attacks or a real WMD attack on a western city with mass casulaties by The Sword of the Beard of the Prophet (or whatever group dejour) may get the existentialist feeling running. And if so, then God have mercy on the Islamic world; their foes won’t. So long as western intelligence agencies and security services can contain the actors, then this half a war, quarter of a war stance can be maintained.
But really put people in fear for their lives, then watch out – it will be bloody.
To who? A blanket statement like that shows that you’re just spouting off talking points. Torture IS productive, that’s why so many damn people use it to get information. Ignoring that fact only highlights your ignorance of history. It’s the morality of it’s use that’s in debate. Let me give you an example:
I find two jihadi twits, capture them, and torture them just for fun – definately immoral.
I find two jihadi twits who I know to be from a group that’s captured two of my soldiers. I torture them to get information on my troops, resulting in a sucessful rescue mission. Is that moral?
We can debate all you like on the morality of torture. But let me tell you this – if you knew where my troops were, and you weren’t giving up that information, I would have absolutely no qualms about taking my knife to your fingers, one knuckle joint at a time. It’s doubtful I would do so, since such actions are illegal. But legal does not equal moral, or vice versa. My personal moral code wouldn’t be bothered one bit if I could rescue my troops.