Sunday I watched a serious international affairs programme on our 1st channel (public entity, like BBC, serious journalism, great care in research, avoiding speculative stuff).
Anyway, what they showed was an 8 mins. report . The film crew accompanied a platoon of US soldiers of special unit that belongs to the famous 82 Airborne on its daily duty. This unit of soldiers hides somewhere in an abandoned or forced flat on Baghdad's Haifa Street and with the help of high precision guns shoots (to kill) any suspicious person within sight! Without warning or challege... They shoot a driver (who dies during the filming) who the soldiers state had a gun (but is not there when the film crew gets to him).
Quite chilling, but worse was to come: when asked if they'd also shoot children an officer and a sergeant answered without hesitation that they would. If a kid of 15 would be seen carrying an AK 47 even with muzzle down they'd shoot him.
The area - Haifa Street - was for a long time one of the most violent districts in the area. Obviously the US command in Iraq has not the slightest concept of how to handle an occupation and is resorting in some cases to means that remind of darkest colonial times. It is certainly no way to make friends nor to convince anybody of higher Western morality.
I saw the report with my elder daughter who has history lessons at college about the liberation of Europe from the Nazis by soldiers with the same flag on their jackets as these sanctioned hitmen have ... what might she think deep down ..?
Anyway, what they showed was an 8 mins. report . The film crew accompanied a platoon of US soldiers of special unit that belongs to the famous 82 Airborne on its daily duty. This unit of soldiers hides somewhere in an abandoned or forced flat on Baghdad's Haifa Street and with the help of high precision guns shoots (to kill) any suspicious person within sight! Without warning or challege... They shoot a driver (who dies during the filming) who the soldiers state had a gun (but is not there when the film crew gets to him).
Quite chilling, but worse was to come: when asked if they'd also shoot children an officer and a sergeant answered without hesitation that they would. If a kid of 15 would be seen carrying an AK 47 even with muzzle down they'd shoot him.
The area - Haifa Street - was for a long time one of the most violent districts in the area. Obviously the US command in Iraq has not the slightest concept of how to handle an occupation and is resorting in some cases to means that remind of darkest colonial times. It is certainly no way to make friends nor to convince anybody of higher Western morality.
I saw the report with my elder daughter who has history lessons at college about the liberation of Europe from the Nazis by soldiers with the same flag on their jackets as these sanctioned hitmen have ... what might she think deep down ..?
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