Documents Show Soldiers Disregard Rules

Obviously the US military has some work to do on its regulations.

Newly released documents regarding crimes committed by U.S. soldiers against civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan detail a troubling pattern of troops failing to understand and follow the rules that govern interrogations and deadly actions.

The documents, released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union ahead a lawsuit, total nearly 10,000 pages of courts-martial summaries, transcripts and military investigative reports about 22 incidents. They show repeated examples of soldiers believing they were within the law when they killed local citizens.

The killings include the drowning of a man soldiers pushed from a bridge into the Tigris River as punishment for breaking curfew, and the suffocation during interrogation of a former Iraqi general believed to be helping insurgents.

How anyone could think drowning a man in a river was legal is anyone's guess.

Via Guardian.

Disuptes over US Airstrike in Baghdad, Blackwater Shooting of Iraqi Driver

Gas line - Iraq

I've read in a couple places how the news coming out of Iraq almost never seems to include airstrikes even though you know damn well they're taking place. I'd noticed that too.

Blackwater is also rarely mentioned.

And they certainly won't report about air strikes on innocent people in line to buy fuel.

Several controversial incidents involving US forces and US-contracted guards show up in today’s Sunday papers, including an airstrike in Sadr City which the American military says frustrated an ambush on a US-Iraqi raiding party, and which locals say struck civilians waiting to refuel their cars.

Two other controversial incidents involved Blackwater, the largest security contractor in Iraq, which was involved in two shooting events last week, including the killing of an Iraqi motorist which led to a standoff with Iraqi forces.

...

Did US forces thwart an ambush or did they kill five people waiting in Baghdad’s notoriously long lines for gasoline? A US-Iraqi raid in Sadr City on Saturday morning targeted a suspected smuggler of weapons and fighters between Iraq and Iran. After the operation, US forces called in airstrikes on vehicles in the area as they withdrew. The US military said that “nine vehicles moved into the target area and were positioning themselves to block and ambush," but eyewitnesses, a Mahdi Army leader, and an Interior Ministry official said that the five who died in the strikes were not insurgents, as US forces claimed, but were cars lined up at a gas station, according to accounts in both the Times and the Post.

(read more)

File under "no shit"

In an attempt to ensure no Democratic candidates will elicit my services in their races for office I chose the above title. I'm sure it will work.

OMG, what was I thinking? I could use the money.

Anyway, surprise, surprise. US forces are facing more sophisticated weapons. Duh!

A helicopter operated by a private security firm came down in Iraq last week, U.S. officials said on Thursday, an incident that marks the sixth downing of a helicopter in three weeks.

Reports of the January 31 incident, in which no one was killed, come a day after seven crew members and passengers aboard a U.S. Marine helicopter were killed when it crashed near Baghdad, possibly after being hit by ground fire.

The U.S. military, concerned that militants have changed tactics or are using more sophisticated weapons, has said it is adjusting its tactics.

(read more)