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U.S. Soldiers Kill Iraqi Governor's 17-Year Old Son

By Ahmad al-Taii, Azzaman. Posted July 22, 2008.


The provincial authorities in the relatively peaceful region have warned of "immediate measures" to avenge the killing.
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The killing by U.S. troops of the son and cousin of the Governor of Saladin Province is likely to disturb the relative quiet this once violent region has enjoyed recently.

The provincial authorities have warned of "immediate measures" to avenge the killing and Governor Hamad al-Qaisi has said the "murder" of his son "will not go in vain."

The governor's son, 17-year-old Husam, and another close relative, Uday Khalaf, were asleep when a U.S. force stormed their residence in Tikrit, the provincial capital of Saladin.

U.S. troops have issued a statement alleging that the house was a hideout for an al-Qaeda fugitive and that the two victims were armed.

The authorities have dismissed U.S. claims, saying the victims were not armed and the killings were yet another "blunder" of trigger-happy GIs.

Abdullah Hussain, a senior provincial official said U.S. troops contacted the provincial council and have admitted the killing.

But he said the authorities were not happy with their explanation of the event.

"The authorities will soon take unspecified measures" against the presence of U.S. troops in the province, he said.

U.S. troops are keeping the bodies of the victims at their base in Saladin and have arrested another person in the same house on suspicion of links with al-Qaeda.

But the authorities said the seized man, identified as Khalaf Issa, was innocent and U.S. troops were holding him to justify their raid on the house and the killing of the young men.

Hussain described the raid, in which three people were also injured, as "barbaric and inhuman."

The governor has demanded an "immediate investigation". The incident has grabbed media attention because of the killing of his son.

Iraqi government officials, refusing to be named, say hundreds of such incidents happen across the country and go unreported.

U.S. troops do not keep counts of Iraqis they kill, whether civilians or gunmen.

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See more stories tagged with: iraq, iraq occupation, iraqi civilians, al-qaeda, tikrit, hamad al-qaisi

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View:
"GIVE US THAT OIL AGREEMENT & BASES OR....~!"
Posted by: BlueBerry PickN on Jul 23, 2008 9:49 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
imagine being a government official or community leader in Iraq...

trying to BE a responsible representative & resource steward for the PUBLIC resources of their Peoples...

while the American WHINSEC-trained or privatized squads stalk & stomp through your nation...

DO YOU THINK YOU'D BE SCARED FOR YOURSELF, FAMILY & FRIENDS?

hell yeah.

┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄
BlueBerry Pick'n
can be found @
ThisCanadian
┄┄
"... tolerance of intolerance is cowardice" ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
"We, two, form a Multitude" ~ Ovid.
┄┄
"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"
┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: Sorry for your loss Posted by: PakiBoy
» RE: Sorry for your loss Posted by: richholland
» Get over yourself Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» no - YOU get over yourself Posted by: Cesco8
» RE: no - YOU get over yourself Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» RE: no - YOU get over yourself Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» RE: no - YOU get over yourself Posted by: mitcht34
» RE: Get over yourself Posted by: leafsong1
» RE: Get over yourself Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» Not necessarily Posted by: brunowe
» RE: FU Get over yourself! Posted by: greenPuker
» RE: FU Get over yourself! Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» RE: FU Get over yourself! Posted by: britknee
» Trust or bust Posted by: alternetrose
Hearts and minds...
Posted by: maestra on Jul 24, 2008 3:51 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...NOT

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Killing?
Posted by: leafsong1 on Jul 24, 2008 7:30 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Can we please call it what it is: assasination? Or perhaps, summary execution? Or murder? Calling it a killing implies that there could possibly be some legitimate explanation.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

A Nation of Bestial Killers
Posted by: greenPuker on Jul 24, 2008 8:07 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
But of course...
U.S. troops do not keep counts of Iraqis they kill, whether civilians or gunmen.

Everything that moves or sits still in a car or is walking with ANY object in their hands, our brave bestial killers will blow away. Bush has created a free fire zone and populated it with twenty year old bestial killing cretins. I think what our killer soldiers discuss over breakfast is how MANY can we blow away today. During dinner, they discuss how one pull from their weapon laid open the skull of a "dirty ragtop" to his brain. We have bred a nation of twenty year old killers. I'm sooo proud!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» You're an idiot Posted by: robbie.seal
Extremists hurt the anti-war movement
Posted by: Illiteratilumen on Jul 24, 2008 8:35 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I already said much of this in an earlier thread but given the amount of hateful rhetoric from extreme idealists that is floating out there today I wanted to make my own post for this topic.

Everyone who calls the soldiers in Iraq war criminals, bestial killers, murderers and other is doing absolutely nothing positive. Nothing at all. I don't know where you people are from but the soldiers are my neighbors, my friends, my co-workers and my cousins. Most of them are still just kids. They signed up with the best intentions to serve their country, to help themselves and their families lead a better life and then they got sent to Iraq. Into a fucking war-zone okay? I can't speak from experience but I know that war-zones can sometimes fuck with people pretty bad.

Most Americans want this war to end so the people we know and love can just come home. When I see or hear people like many of the posters above say that every U.S. soldier deserves to die I get disgusted. These are ordinary people who got caught up in a living hell for everyone who is in it. People like the posters above disgust me as much as the fuckers who sent the soldiers over there in the first place. I've never actually met anyone like that but the internet allows for all kinds of scum to crawl out of the woodwork. In all of the anti-war protests I have gone to the criticism is directed at our nation's leaders, not our nations soldiers.

If you bums are really interested in ending the war get on the fucking bandwagon with the rest of us and leave the kids who are stuck in that hellhole alone. If you want to keep spouting your vile rhetoric then please stay at home and post your hate on the internet while the rest of us go about the business of actually trying to end the war.

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» Credibility? Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» Thanks for linking that, by the way. Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» RE: Thanks for linking that, by the way. Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» Read English much? Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» RE: xtremists hurt the anti-war movement Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» RE: xtremists hurt the anti-war movement Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» Another real-life example Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» RE: xtremists hurt the anti-war movement Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» RE: xtremists hurt the anti-war movement Posted by: Illiteratilumen
» GREAT POST!!! Posted by: robbie.seal
I don't rail against the troops...
Posted by: Pirate1 on Jul 24, 2008 10:30 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
All my outrage goes to the government that puts them in harms way or in a position where something tragic like this occurs. Those fat assed "planners" of this fiasco should be tied to a stake on individual chunks of rapidly melting arctic ice and forgotten.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Leave the blame where it actually belongs - with the GOP
Posted by: jontan88 on Jul 24, 2008 12:45 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In their relentless drive for power and profit, the GOP has sacrificed the lives of thousands of people. Their attempts have been successful thanks to a compliant media and overwhelming financial superiority. How else can a president who ignored the warnings of an imminent attack suddenly garner skyhigh poll ratings in the aftermath of 9/11? If anybody is to blame, it is the GOP and it is to them that our efforts must target. First get them out of office and then ostracize them and their supporters from the civilized world. They should not be able to retire to cushy profitable careers after what they have done to the country and to countless millions. They should be treated like the pariahs and immoral lepers they are.

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Illiteratilumen and legions of illiterate lights
Posted by: oldwoman on Jul 24, 2008 6:26 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Usually, I'd rather have a root canal than issue an ad hominem attack, but, you, Illiteratilumen, are such an idiot I can't help myself. You've used damned near every fallacious argument in the book to assert irresponsible and reprehensible positions, and then backpedalled by trying to sound like you actually know what a reasonable argument sounds like when other posters call you on those positions.

I thought my brain would burn right through my skull when you yelled something like "Well, finally!! Somebody who knows how to argue..." or whatever manipulative flattery you concocted. And the responding poster fell for it to some extent by backing off from his or her very reasonable objection to your crap about not criticising soldiers. As I recall, that poster argued--quite correctly, I believe--that soldiers do indeed earn criticism by failing to become informed. I--and the other poster I mention, as well, no doubt--do recognize, however, that many of the poor suckers can probably barely read the basics of the contract they signed--let alone the fine print--since they've effectively been bred as cannon fodder and dis-encouraged, shall we say, with regard to education. Hence, these poor doomed creatures do indeed deserve compassion, but hardly praise.


It’s often been said that someone with a little education is dangerous, and apparently you’ve had just enough to be able to bandy about such phrases as “semantic quibbling” and “out of context”--and probably to shoot your own foot off, to boot. But when you start going on about “irrelevant (for godsake) historical tidbits [of] U.S. foreign policy” and questioning “[w]hat [that has] to do with the American soldier on the ground in Iraq today” in the face of Pakiboy’s researched information on US declared and undeclared wars, police actions, coups, etc., your ignorance ignites the heavens from here to the next galaxy.

My god, people like you make me sick—not the least because they often float to high positions in government—and we know all too well what floats best.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Winning hearts and minds where ever we go...
Posted by: TJColatrella on Jul 24, 2008 11:09 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's the American way...

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Winning hearts and minds for the decider.
Posted by: mclame on Jul 25, 2008 1:49 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Good ole Bushy will have destroyed two countrys before he leaves office, Iraq and the U.S. What's another dead person to him. He will just make another stupid joke and move on.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Is it really possible?
Posted by: xmvince on Jul 25, 2008 8:49 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Is it really possible to be someone's son and cousin at the same time?

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» RE: Is it really possible? Posted by: modeler
» RE: Is it really possible? Posted by: xmvince
Shoot first
Posted by: modeler on Jul 25, 2008 11:13 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
but don't ask questions, rather invent reasons and excuses, you bringers of freedoom (from life) and democracy (used to be in the USA once before Bush).

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Your focus on 'killer approach' for your soldiers is quite inappropriate and historically inaccurate
Posted by: Squarehead on Jul 26, 2008 10:53 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I have read, with a kind of appalled interest, what Illiteratilumen has to say about war, about the need for and the kind of military forces a nation should have.

Your focus on 'killer approach' for your soldiers is quite inappropriate and historically inaccurate. That is, that successful armies have not 'won' simply on that basis.

The most successful practitioners of war have not used the means you advocate, or at least not as primary response and first resort. There is something distinctively American about your beliefs; not every American, but very many, seem to share the impulses you glorify. I realise you would indignantly deny that comment 'glorify', but it is the only logical response to your beliefs. You all are in a nation with a very disturbed psyche; a bad conscience. I am reminded of the words of John Brown, at his trial after the events at Harper's Ferry, wherein he said (I paraphrase) "I am certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood."

You have killed your way through several nations, with an ideology of superiority, amended to suit the given historical times. I write as someone who admires a great deal of the American experience.

AS regards 'How to win wars', your belief in terror and torture is not supported by real historical experience. Your belief that you should 'have an army of killers, not of gentle philosophers' does not address what armies have been, and soldiering continues to be; the most gentle of philosophers can make excellent soldiers, the bullying thug might or might not be a good soldier. There is a concept in the German Army, from the time of Frederick the Great (so called), of 'awareness of plan throughout the command structure, down to the private soldier level', which is still referred to. (Can't remember the German word) It was spectacularly successfully applied in WW2; the atrocities that some of the same men carried out did not help their cause, and eventually contributed to their defeat.

A healthy society will not encourage the behavior you wish for; a healthy military does not need that behavior. Any group of men, will mostly be of a relatively low quality as soldiers; they don't need to be any better; the small number(5%?) who do the stuff are all that is needed. They don't need to be thugs to do it; they do need to have very high morale.

"of what it takes to win a CI war, especially given the conditions in Iraq in June of 2007. CI warfare is gruesome business. Winning those kind of wars, like the British did all the time, is particularly gruesome.

You are damn right I would advocate inflicting horrible atrocities and torture on the enemy if the enemy ever stepped foot on American soil.

You will continue to spew your hate of all things American, and I will continue to stand by my country (not my government)"

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» No Grenade here... Posted by: robbie.seal
» RE: No Grenade here... Posted by: Squarehead
» Amazing... Posted by: robbie.seal