the subject of nightmares
The implications of this are astounding, and I sure hope some significant part of the story turns out to be mistaken:In perhaps the boldest and most sophisticated attack in four years of warfare, gunmen speaking English, wearing U.S. military uniforms and carrying American weapons abducted four U.S. soldiers last week at the provincial headquarters in the Shiite holy city of Karbala and then shot them to death.
The U.S. military confirmed a report earlier Friday by The Associated Press that three of the soldiers were dead and one was mortally wounded with a gunshot to the head when they were found in a neighboring province, about 25 miles from the compound where they were captured. A fifth soldier was killed in the initial attack on the compound.
The new account contradicted a U.S. military statement on Jan. 20, the day of the raid on an Iraqi governor's office, that five soldiers were killed "repelling" the attack...
In a statement issued late Friday, the military said two of the soldiers were handcuffed together in the back seat of an SUV near the southern Iraqi town of Mahawil. A third dead soldier was on the ground nearby. The fourth soldier died on the way to the hospital...
Iraqi officials said the approaching convoy of black GMC Suburbans was waved through an Iraqi checkpoint at the edge of the city. The Iraqi soldiers believed it to be American because of the type of vehicles, the distinctive camouflage American uniforms and the fact that they spoke English. One Iraqi official said the leader of the assault team was blond, but no other official confirmed that.
posted by Chris Bray @ 5:39 PM
2 Comments:
Sorry, the story is true. I'm almost afraid to read the wingnut sites to see how this is spun as actually being good news or, alternatively, evidence that the Democrats have emboldened the enemy.
The way it's being spun is that it was a sophisticated attack, therefore Iran did it. Because, after all, where else would an attacker get a U.S. Army uniform? And obviously only an Iranian super-secret terror agent would be able to buy a Chevy.
But I'm also baffled by how the big blogs on the left -- Eschaton, Daily Kos, and so on -- played the thing, which was to simply note that the U.S. military initially lied about the way the soldiers were killed. They compared it to the Pat Tillman story, and that was that.
And, I mean, how can anyone not spot all of the holy shit elements of this story? Very first horrified reaction: Imagine dying in handcuffs, powerless. Second reaction: The door is now open for a surge in fratricide, and a massive increase in operational friction, as every U.S. soldier now has to squint suspiciously at every U.S. soldier he doesn't know personally.
And so on. I'm amazed that this story got so little attention, and I'm amazed at the way it was framed. This struck me as a shit-your-pants story, and nobody seemed to notice.
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