Two Iraqi policemen shot dead by US soldiers

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1514&e=1&u=/afp/iraq_us_police_toll

BAGHDAD (AFP) - US soldiers in Baghdad on Saturday shot dead an Iraqi policeman they mistook for an attacker, killed another as he tried to surrender to them and beat a third, a survivor of the incident told AFP.

The three Iraqi officers were firing from their unmarked car at a suspect vehicle they were chasing when the Americans opened fire on them in a western suburb of the capital, Sergeant Hamza Atiya Muhsen, who said he was driving the car, told AFP on Monday.

Lieutenant Colonel Muayad Farhan, deputy head of Al-Yarmuk police station where the dead officers were based, confirmed that two of his officers had been shot by coalition forces.

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Whoops!

What have we become???

this we, and neither should you.

Part of the we that got us into an illegal occupation of Iraq is hanging out on a long-deserved vacation in Crawford or skulking around in the caves of Washington D.C. somewhere.

The real WE have never supported this kind of shit and never will.

The Gang that Can't Shoot Straight?

Or renegades with an opposition agenda that had to be taken out?

file this under "freedom is messy."

"US soldiers in Baghdad on Saturday shot dead an Iraqi policeman they mistook for an attacker, killed another as he tried to surrender to them and beat a third..."

Geneva convention anyone? Sounds like things are unravelling over there.

Usually it is the resistance that shoots collaborators, not the occupiers.

From the lead article,

The three Iraqi officers were firing from their unmarked car at a suspect vehicle they were chasing

This how the US mil is training the 'new' Iraqi police to pull over cars?

maybe they train them with "Miami Vice" reruns.

havent seen it in awhile

Start with sensible leadership! Rummy the Dummy can't seem to get it right. With a CIC like Dumbya ultimately calling the shots based on very, very bad intel ("We took Bagdhad. Let's declare victory. It can be really big, with you on, ah, an aircraft carrier...How about you landing on the carrier..?")

I don't blame the soldiers at all. It is really FUBAR and they are up to their necks in it. More than the brass and the suits. Given the putch in the Army (last week?) it looks like anybody with a lick of sense has been told to go home and start a hobby.

I don't know what the best solution is, but pulling out is starting to look like a plausible option. Pulling out the current misAdministration is only the best case scenerio.

For the troops on the ground. This ain't nation-building and this ain't liberation and this ain't about September 11th. They got wives and kids and family back home -- and all they want to do it get out alive. Believe me, they're going to shoot first and ask questions later.

Is it the right thing to do? Given the monstrous evil of having them there in the first place, I'd say we're in the middle of a moral gray area.

"Three soldiers surrounded me. I got down on my knees, hands in the air, holding my badge. One of them kicked me in the back and I fell to the ground. Another one kicked me twice in the face. They put their boots on my head and pressed it into the ground.

"I kept saying "police, police," I don't speak English but it's the same word in Arabic," said Muhsen, who said the beating lasted several minutes.

...The US military said it was aware of an incident but unable to provide information.

Ain't liberation great?

rocknation

don't understand english.

When asked by reporters about U.S. troops killing Iraqi policemen he responded, "Is Baghdad a messy place? Yes. Do we like this kind of thing? No. Can we expect more of it? Yes. Do I sound like an insufferable idiot interviewing myself like this? Yes."

be cause for a public inquest and much soul searching about America's mission in the world? But it won't. This story and all those like it will be underreported - will it even make broadcast news? - and most who will read it will have been conditioned to accept it as the "new reality", "price of freedom", or some such bullshit.

We don't even need to connect the dots anymore. The dots alone are outrageous enough.

The beating received by the Iraqi policeman is probably SOP for "suspect detentions." Wonder if we're setting the German shepards on the suspected guerillas yet, or simply throwing them out of the helicopters....

It's beginning to sound like some of our soldiers are losing touch with reality. They're in such a situation and under such stress that they just don't give a shit about human life anymore. Could it be that they're starting to think, "Hey, if I just go nuts on these people and start shooting and beating the crap out of everything in sight, maybe I'll get out of here."

It's not beyond the realm of possibility. We know that some soldiers are so far gone that they're committing suicide. That same level of sheer desperation might lead another person to murder.

The answer seems to be: "Well, ignoring the fact that they no longer have water, electricity, and medical care, at least they are not being tortured before they are murdered."

A Russia AK-47 from Iraq will be not only be a souvenir item but a collectors item that will be worth thousands of dollars once we get these wild Iraqis rounded up and put on the reservation.

Fuck' they're worse than those savage indians. Not too domesticated or cultivated, 'eh?

Oh' Hum!

...are just loving the USA right now. Maybe they can get some army hats for souvenirs?

:eyes:

This was reported a couple of days ago. Arms dealers were selling AK-47's on the streets of Tikrit, and American soldiers just mowed them down. They didn't even try to arrest them. The story said that the moment the dealers touched the weapons, they were considered enemy combattants and were to be shot on sight.

Sounds like more of the same policy here.