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Posted by: 2-Delta

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two U.S. Army soldiers face murder charges in a military trial in Baghdad for shooting and killing a badly wounded Iraqi teenager mistaken for an insurgent by U.S. troops, the Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday on its Web site.

The newspaper quoted the two Army staff sergeants as saying they shot and killed the Iraqi boy in a "mercy killing" as he lay moaning on the ground in an August incident in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City.

The two soldiers told U.S. officials that they killed the teenager in order to "put him out of his misery," the newspaper said.

But Iraqi witnesses, including a relative of the dead boy who had pleaded for U.S. troops to help him, were enraged by the killing, which seemed certain to reignite a debate about the conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

The boy was shot as U.S. medics rushed to treat a half dozen or so of those wounded when U.S. troops opened fire on a garbage truck after mistakenly concluding that it was planting roadside bombs, the newspaper said, quoting Iraqi witnesses and U.S. military officials.

The truck exploded into flames and about seven Iraqis were killed in the Aug. 18 incident, including the boy shot on the ground, the newspaper said.

Staff Sgt. Cardenas Alban, 29, of Carson, California and Staff Sgt. Johnny Horne Jr., 30, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina both of the Army's 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment face military court proceedings in Baghdad to determine if there is enough evidence for court martial, the Los Angeles Times reported.

If convicted, they could receive the death penalty.

U.S. military officials told the newspaper that they could not identify the dead Iraqi boy because they did not collect information at the scene and had lost track of his body.

Citing Iraqi witnesses, the Los Angeles Times identified the victim as Qassim Hassan, 16, who had been working the night shift on the garbage truck with his brother and several cousins.

None of those named in the newspaper's report or their representatives could be immediately reached for comment.



Give me a g*ddamn break!

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Posted by: briand911

I do not even want to start this one off I wanna see where everyone else will go with this one !!!! But heres a hint

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Posted by: Deuce

waste of ammo, shoulda let the fuc*er suffer...

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Posted by: lancegoodthrust

and America and freedom is safer today because these two killed a 16 year old garbage boy.

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Posted by: kateykakes

The death penalty? They can't be serious. I feel for the soldiers, espeically knowing it could have been my brother, who has been in Iraq for two months, put in that postion.

Yeah, I feel for the kid also, but this is war, and nobody ever said war was pretty.

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Posted by: lancegoodthrust

I thought we were there to liberate and protect the Iraqi people.

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Posted by: kateykakes

Quote:

Originally Posted by lancegoodthrust @ Mon Nov 08, 12:22 I thought we were there to liberate and protect the Iraqi people.

It's a little difficult to liberate and protect when the insurgents are constantly trying to kill you. It's not as easy as you make it out to be. There are MANY that are loyal to Al-Zarqawi and it's not always that easy to spot the enemy first hand.

Somehow I think some of who think our soliders should be brutally punished for this would feel differently IF you were actually in the thick of all this BS yourselves. JMO.

Take a look at what our military are up against:

Yahoo.com news article

A Look at Possible Iraq Insurgency Groups
By The Associated Press

Iraqi, Kurdish and U.S. officials have spoken of possible links between Iran and Iraqi insurgent groups. Here's a look at the various parties:

_ TAWHID AND JIHAD: Headed by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has proclaimed his allegiance to al-Qaida. Claimed responsibility for several beheadings and car bombings in Iraq. Believed to be based in the central Iraqi city of Fallujah.

_ ANSAR AL-ISLAM: Formed in the Kurdish parts of Iraq. Later believed to have incorporated Arab al-Qaida members fleeing U.S. strikes on Afghanistan (news - web sites). Group had bases along Iranian-Iraqi border that were bombed and attacked by Iraqi Kurdish and U.S. Special Forces at the start of the Iraq war. Al-Zarqawi is believed to have played a key role in the group after he fled Afghanistan.

_ IRANIAN GOVERNMENT: Led by theocratic clerics but with a reformist government that is struggling to assert itself.

_ REVOLUTIONARY GUARD: Shock troops of Iran's Islamic Revolution. A well-funded force of 200,000 that is independent of the armed forces and answers directly to the Islamic leadership and not elected officials.

_ MAHDI ARMY: Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, only insurgent group based among Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority.

_ PATRIOTIC UNION OF KURDISTAN, KURDISTAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY: The leading Kurdish groups in northern Iraq. Groups are both secular and have supported the United States in Iraq.

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Posted by: Officer Dunngeon

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson

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Posted by: lancegoodthrust

This may just be a mis-comunication. I have no problem with the soliders blowing up the truck. They must have felt that it was a threat and needed to be delt with. I have a problem with american soliders who I hold in the highest reagrd shooting a wounded person to "put him out of his misery"
The two soldiers told U.S. officials that they killed the teenager in order to "put him out of his misery," the newspaper said.
The other part is the spin that can be put on this. We get our side of the story, but people in Iraq may only get the fact that americans killed a wounded boy, insted of helping him.

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Posted by: dcs2244

They shoot horses, don't they?

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Posted by: mkpnt

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two U.S. Army soldiers face murder charges in a military trial in Baghdad for shooting and killing a badly wounded Iraqi teenager mistaken for an insurgent by U.S. troops, the Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday on its Web site.
If they did anything wrong they should be tried in America by our military...And you notice I said IF!
The newspaper quoted the two Army staff sergeants as saying they shot and killed the Iraqi boy in a "mercy killing" as he lay moaning on the ground in an August incident in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City.
If you ran over a cat and it clearly was suffering would you finish it off?? Who knows what any one of us would do in that same situation. That is until you are actually in it. Also WHY would they tell the newspaper this, that's a little shady!!

The two soldiers told U.S. officials that they killed the teenager in order to "put him out of his misery," the newspaper said.
Again with "the newspaper said." Has this been confirmed??

But Iraqi witnesses, including a relative of the dead boy who had pleaded for U.S. troops to help him, were enraged by the killing, which seemed certain to reignite a debate about the conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.
I wouldn't trust what the Iraqi witnesses say. I believe they will say whatever makes us look bad to the Muslim world!

The boy was shot as U.S. medics rushed to treat a half dozen or so of those wounded when U.S. troops opened fire on a garbage truck after mistakenly concluding that it was planting roadside bombs, the newspaper said, quoting Iraqi witnesses and U.S. military officials.

The truck exploded into flames and about seven Iraqis were killed in the Aug. 18 incident, including the boy shot on the ground, the newspaper said.

Staff Sgt. Cardenas Alban, 29, of Carson, California and Staff Sgt. Johnny Horne Jr., 30, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina both of the Army's 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment face military court proceedings in Baghdad to determine if there is enough evidence for court martial, the Los Angeles Times reported.

If convicted, they could receive the death penalty.
The death penalty??...this is time of war..SHIT HAPPENS!!! We need to stop trying to be PC!!!

U.S. military officials told the newspaper that they could not identify the dead Iraqi boy because they did not collect information at the scene and had lost track of his body.

How can you have a solid case without the body???

Citing Iraqi witnesses, the Los Angeles Times identified the victim as Qassim Hassan, 16, who had been working the night shift on the garbage truck with his brother and several cousins.

None of those named in the newspaper's report or their representatives could be immediately reached for comment.

They are too busy planning the next insurgent attack!!

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Posted by: NACop

Cops or Soldiers are trained how to treat/handle/care for PRISONERS. Call for the bus or whatever, or get a damn good JAG Lawyer

This might be BS too?

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Posted by: lancegoodthrust

OK forget witnesses, lack of a body. How about the statement: "The two soldiers told U.S. officials that they killed the teenager in order to "put him out of his misery," the newspaper said" These two would have been better off killing him when they blew up the truck, or letting him suffer.

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Posted by: stm4710

Yes, cant get no witnesses more impartial than Iraqi citizens that Michel Moore interviewed!

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Posted by: mkpnt

lancegoodthrust @ Tue Nov 09, 09:06 OK forget witnesses, lack of a body. How about the statement: "The two soldiers told U.S. officials that they killed the teenager in order to "put him out of his misery," the newspaper said" These two would have been better off killing him when they blew up the truck, or letting him suffer.

That question is answered by the words "the" and "newspaper". The media is biased against this war. The media also knows that only BAD headlines sell. Have you seen a positive story in the paper about the war, the soldiers or Bush???
Who knows if the paper has a reliable source, I will alway err on the side of the military, or police until the full story has been revealed.

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Posted by: PearlOnyx

MK,

You said:

"If you ran over a cat and it clearly was suffering would you finish it off?? Who knows what any one of us would do in that same situation. That is until you are actually in it."

To play devils advocate, and since this is a situation involving a human (presuming that this did actually occur), If you ran over a human, and it was clearly suffering would you finish it off?

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Posted by: Investigator25

One down, many to go

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Posted by: mkpnt

MK,

You said:

"If you ran over a cat and it clearly was suffering would you finish it off?? Who knows what any one of us would do in that same situation. That is until you are actually in it."

To play devils advocate, and since this is a situation involving a human (presuming that this did actually occur), If you ran over a human, and it was clearly suffering would you finish it off?[/quote]

Depends if it was a liberal or not!!!

But seriously, this is time of war. Of course, if I hit someone on the street I wouldn't finish them off. All I'm saying is that maybe, if this actually happened that way, that they did him favor. If he was beyond help and suffering this may have been for the best. I would give the soldiers the benefit of the doubt that they wouldn't do such a thing if he had any chance of surviving.

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Posted by: lancegoodthrust

I am going on the assumption that the article that has been posted above is close to if not entirely true. If there are others about the same story please post it. My point is that it is not the job of a solider or any man to euthanize people so they don't suffer. Would you kill an american solider who was in the same situation, or a state side civilian or god forbid a fellow officer? We don't allow assisted suicide in this county, which in essence is the topic at hand. The kid is probably better off being dead rather than an amputee, in a coma ect. The argument that we are at war is not a good one, because the kid (Based on the article) did not pose a threat when they killed him. Don't forget we are there to liberate Iraq, not defeat them to create the 51st state.
Also check out the post of photos of american soliders in Iraq.

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Posted by: dcs2244

Hey, if I ran over a cat and it was still alive, that's okay...you can still play "cat baseball"! But the question remains: what do you do with a damaged Iraqi? Or any mohammedan ?

Death, pure and simple. One less murderer of women and children by an adherent of the cult of death.

These creatures plan to reduce us to a non-viable gene pool...for me, no quarter asked or given. Period.

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Posted by: Sgt.berniedo

Without much information to go on, it's hard to say. He may have been in such a bad way, they thought it was the right thing to do at the time. How close was help? No, field medics can only do so much. Was the boy involved in insurgent acts?

In any case, the death penalty seems far too harsh for the circumstances. This happened in Viet Nam too, the My Lia incident with Lt. Calley, for one. Only this was a pit full of dead Vietnamese that they massacered according to the news but they did not get the death penalty.

"Two tragedies took place in 1968 in Viet Nam. One was the massacre by United States soldiers of as many as 500 unarmed civilians-- old men, women, children-- in My Lai on the morning of March 16. The other was the cover-up of that massacre."

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Posted by: dcs2244

The only tragedy was the death of GI's in a country that couldn't have cared less about democracy or liberty. Maybe the ragheads don't care either...but we have a better chance bringing the inventors of Algebra and Astronomy into the modern world than we did with the water-buffalo-as-an-engine crowd. One citizens opinion.

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Posted by: Sgt.berniedo

I agree DCS, these "innocent civilians' were deady, they were wired with bombs and tried all kinds of unspeakable acts against U.S. soldiers. The people bringing up the charges had no idea what the hell was going on over there either. The "enemy" could have been any one at any time, even kids.

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