U.S. military takes Iraqi women hostage to force relatives to surrender

E-Z-B

E-Z-B

CAGiversary!
Is it any wonder why the Iraqis hate us?

US accused of seizing Iraqi women to force fugitive relatives to give up

Rory Carroll in Baghdad
Monday April 11, 2005
The Guardian

American forces were yesterday accused of violating international law by taking two Iraqi women hostage in a bungled effort to persuade fugitive male relatives to surrender.
US soldiers seized a mother and daughter from their home in Baghdad two weeks ago and allegedly left a note on the gate: "Be a man Muhammad Mukhlif and give yourself up and then we will release your sisters. Otherwise they will spend a long time in detention."

It was signed Bandit 6, apparently a military code, and [size=+2]gave a mobile phone number. When phoned by reporters an American soldier answered but he declined to take questions and hung up. [/size]
Salima al-Batawi, 60, and her daughter Aliya, 35, were blindfolded, handcuffed and driven away in a Humvee convoy on April 2, leaving the Arab Sunnis of Taji, a suburb north of the capital, incandescent.

Instead of surrendering, her three sons, Ahmad, Saddam and Arkan, alerted the media. None of them are called Muhammad, but it is believed that the note referred to Ahmad and that the Americans wanted all three brothers.

The brothers have spent time in Abu Ghraib jail, but have never been charged and say they are citrus farmers with no connection to the insurgency.

Lieutenant Colonel Clifford Kent, of the 3rd infantry division, said the women had been seized as suspected insurgents in their own right and not as a bargaining chip.

"We do not take hostages. Sources told us the women were present during meetings to plan attacks against coalition forces and that they had knowledge of terror cell leaders and the location of weapons caches in the area."

He said there was a separate inquiry into Bandit 6's note, which was handwritten in Arabic.

After six days in a US jail near Baghdad airport the women were released without charge but could be rearrested if implicated in an ongoing investigation, Lt Col Kent said.

Nicole Choueiry, of Amnesty International, said: "I do not think it is the first time. It is against international law to take civilians and use them as bargaining chips."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1456774,00.html

I'm sure I know how this investigation will end. :roll:
 
The worst punishment they seem to get, unless you are a high profile criminal, is a dishonorable discharge and maybe a year in jail, and that's for murder. These guys are sure to get at least a good lecture.

Though, to argue the middle ground, it's possible both versions of events are accurate. They women could be believed to have some information and have given support, so they were arrest could be seen as valid on the soldiers part. At the same time the soldiers realized what they had and the 3 men may have essentially been the "big fish", they use the women to lure the men out, but it isn't using an innocent hostage, but guilty people to lure out an even guiltier ones. Now, even if this argument is true, this says nothing about actual guilt, just whether the u.s. thinks the people are involved in the insurgency.
 
I figure we ought to train the Iraq army to do this sort of thing. Then we can by just like Saddam and keep our hands clean at the same time. At this point who gives a hell if the Iraq's like you? It's far more important to leave a stable government in charge so we can continue to get our oil, be it a democracy or a ruthless dictatorship.
 
It's interesting and it hinges on what the women's involvement in the whole incident was and I dunno all the laws there right now, but it seems similar to police tactics in a way. People can often be detained (though not for 6 days) on suspicion of aiding and abedding (sp?) fugitives and while they may not really be charged or not they are there for breaking the law in some way, then they are technically used as leverage for interrogation or information.

Even if it's a suspicion of an illegal act they can be detained (personally I don't care if they are women, women can break the law same as men) and not charged in the end. In the end it'll be interesting to see how this plays out but I think the issue of whether or not the women aided, knew the locations of, or the plans of any insurgent forces family or otherwise is key and apparently the article doesn't resolve that, only saying they weren't officially charged. Then again this isn't the first time this has come up either.
 
Everyone knows the old saying that "those who ignore the teachings of history are doomed to repeat it," and as a people, we seem to be too incredibly thick-headed to learn from the past. Even the -relatively- recent past. Nobody enjoyed hearing comparisons of our invasion of Iraq to our ill-fated incursion into Vietnam when this started, but once again our troops find themselves surrounded by hostile natives they're supposedly there to help.

How can you keep your hands clean when your troops are getting ambushed by daily attacks from folks they can't distinguish easily from passive civilians? When natives strap explosives to children to send them into your midst, then what choice do you have when native children appear on the morrow? You can die or you can commit monstrous acts. Now, the troops have been getting blown up on a daily basis, and they know that invisible portions of the native population hate them and blame them for their situation. Conventional & ethical methods of operation consistently result in daily body counts, and in some form or other, they're going to face a similar choice that their parents/grandparents did.

I can not read that article and write off those soldiers as immoral idiots or rash hotheads. Nor, can I convince myself that those Iraqi natives are ruthless insurgents. I can only believe that when everyone is caught in a chaotic situation, everybody lies and the innocent & the guilty alike fall to blades in the shadows. The only clear anger that reports like this DOES stir in me is directed toward my brainless countrymen who continue to support the administration that stirred up this hornet's nest and continues to feed its fires with unabashed self-righteousness.
 
You know the old saying, "Alls fair in love and war". Granted under normal circumstances this would very unacceptable. But I think that in times like this, they have to do whatever they can to get the people they need to get. I'm not a fan of Bush or the war itself, but I think that if we have troops over there, they should do what they need to in order to be safe and to get a resolution as quickly as possible.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']The worst punishment they seem to get, unless you are a high profile criminal, is a dishonorable discharge and maybe a year in jail, and that's for murder. These guys are sure to get at least a good lecture.

.[/QUOTE]

The ABu Gharib people got a lot more than a year. A year sentence is not the max murder will net you 30-50 years easily. Shit I just saw someone get 3 years for assualt. The military is not about gfiving light sentence and I would say hands out harsher sentence than their civilian counterparts.
 
[quote name='jlarlee']The ABu Gharib people got a lot more than a year. A year sentence is not the max murder will net you 30-50 years easily. Shit I just saw someone get 3 years for assualt. The military is not about gfiving light sentence and I would say hands out harsher sentence than their civilian counterparts.[/QUOTE]

Refer to the mentioning of "high profile", and I didn't say max in that sense, I meant the most people seem to get is a year or so.
 
[quote name='PapiChullo']You know the old saying, "Alls fair in love and war".[/QUOTE]

That's probably what the Nazis said in WWII.
 
As someone sitting in Baghdad who has had a lot to do with detainee ops I can only tell you 90% of you are incredibly misinformed.

CTL
 
[quote name='E-Z-B']That's probably what the Nazis said in WWII.[/QUOTE]

Actually, WWII was fought between Europeans and Westerners, so there was less violation of the "rules of engagement" as compared to other wars.

Granted, the Nazis did some evil things but that was more related to their social policies.
 
[quote name='camoor']Actually, WWII was fought between Europeans and Westerners, so there was less violation of the "rules of engagement" as compared to other wars.

Granted, the Nazis did some evil things but that was more related to their social policies.[/QUOTE]

what?

so, the Japanese were... westerners or europeans?

and the Russians (including all of the new countries) were... westerners or europeans?

and the Chinese were... westerners or europeans?

the Nazi's killing of 6 million jews is a social policy?

alls fair in love and war, but this isn't a war at all last i checked. congress has not declared war, check the ole constitution.

if you're really interested in the state of affairs in Iraq, i suggest you read this before making any concrete claims
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040901faessay83505/larry-diamond/what-went-wrong-in-iraq.html
 
[quote name='Sleepkyng']what?

so, the Japanese were... westerners or europeans?

and the Russians (including all of the new countries) were... westerners or europeans?

and the Chinese were... westerners or europeans?

the Nazi's killing of 6 million jews is a social policy?

alls fair in love and war, but this isn't a war at all last i checked. congress has not declared war, check the ole constitution.

if you're really interested in the state of affairs in Iraq, i suggest you read this before making any concrete claims
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040901faessay83505/larry-diamond/what-went-wrong-in-iraq.html[/QUOTE]

I'm not really sure what camoor was referring to, but for much of the earlier part of the war the nazis actually weren't that bad (relative to how they treated other) with captured european western prisoners. They did follow the geneva conventions with them, mostly. For example, prisoners were allowed to try to escape, and some of the prisoners escaped from the nazis, were caught, brought back and escaped again, caught, brought back (heard of a few doing this up to 4 times), without being punished (which is how it was supposed to work, since running a way was a right according to it). This changed later, when they said they'd kill anyone who did this though. But, for a while, they did basically follow the geneva conventions with europeans. Hitler also had a strong respect for the british and was hoping to at least get them to stay on the sidelines in the beginning, he didn't really want to fight them at first.
 
[quote name='CTLesq']As someone sitting in Baghdad who has had a lot to do with detainee ops I can only tell you 90% of you are incredibly misinformed.

CTL[/QUOTE]

And what's misinformed? That this happened or that the women were innocent? If it's that the women weren't innocent, you'd have no way of knowing that. You can only speek for what you've seen and what your company does, and would have no idea as to that.
 
[quote name='CTLesq']As someone sitting in Baghdad who has had a lot to do with detainee ops I can only tell you 90% of you are incredibly misinformed.

CTL[/QUOTE]

How else could it be? We rely upon media reports and what's posted online, and this isn't a website dedicated to military or political matters, so we're not here because our hobbies include being in "the know" about these matters.

....and yet, that doesn't make forums like this moot, does it? Why not? Because we are the people...the public. Our perceptions are what make up public opinion, and although you're in a situation to offer more relevant input, you're still one voice. A more meaningful voice, but one voice nonetheless.

For example, you could've said that this article is a wildly unrepresentative exception to the rule. That you have good reason to believe that this is a sensationalistic oddity, which contrasts with hundreds of detetion cases which are carried out in strict accordance with American policy. ...but even then, you'd be one man, and what percentage of these operations are you privvy to, even through heresay and other such indirect exposure?

I'd say that people are not worried about what's well done. If thousands of detention cases are carried out in a legitimate fashion, we expect that from our soldiers, as professionals. We are worried about what's ill done. If SOME scandalous methods are being adopted, then dammit that's awful.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']I'm not really sure what camoor was referring to, but for much of the earlier part of the war the nazis actually weren't that bad (relative to how they treated other) with captured european western prisoners. They did follow the geneva conventions with them, mostly. For example, prisoners were allowed to try to escape, and some of the prisoners escaped from the nazis, were caught, brought back and escaped again, caught, brought back (heard of a few doing this up to 4 times), without being punished (which is how it was supposed to work, since running a way was a right according to it). This changed later, when they said they'd kill anyone who did this though. But, for a while, they did basically follow the geneva conventions with europeans. Hitler also had a strong respect for the british and was hoping to at least get them to stay on the sidelines in the beginning, he didn't really want to fight them at first.[/QUOTE]

Precisely. I was talking about the Nazi's fight against England, America, and the rest of the allies. I was pointing out that it was an entirely different type of war between westernized nations, not between a western occupying force and a disorganized group of middle-east terrorists. I was not talking about the conflict between the allies and the Japanese (who were not Nazis). I was also not mentioning the Russians or Chinese for brevity.

The Nazi's killing of 6 million jews was the social policy of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (aka the Nazis). It can also be called a great deal of other things, but you cannot deny that the German government of the time officially supported the mass killing of German Jewish, homosexual, and handicapped people.
 
[quote name='CTLesq']As someone sitting in Baghdad who has had a lot to do with detainee ops I can only tell you 90% of you are incredibly misinformed.

CTL[/QUOTE]

As someone who has been there as well I concur
 
[quote name='camoor']Precisely. I was talking about the Nazi's fight against England, America, and the rest of the allies. I was pointing out that it was an entirely different type of war between westernized nations, not between a western occupying force and a disorganized group of middle-east terrorists. I was not talking about the conflict between the allies and the Japanese (who were not Nazis). I was also not mentioning the Russians or Chinese for brevity.

The Nazi's killing of 6 million jews was the social policy of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (aka the Nazis). It can also be called a great deal of other things, but you cannot deny that the German government of the time officially supported the mass killing of German Jewish, homosexual, and handicapped people.[/QUOTE]

It shouldn't be dismissed as policy, it was ideology becoming policy. The germans were still superior to the brits, swedes etc., but there wasn't a huge difference between them and other western europeans, and I don't believe there were any strong legal laws against swedes, brits etc. in nazi germany. Jews, gypsies, slavs, dissenters etc. were all persecuted, only pro nazi western europeans were spared. It had nothing to do with the nations fighting per se, it had everything to do with the ethnicity of the people they were fighting. The brutality of the war played a part in the soviets devestating tactics when they started pushing back the germans, but the germans based their tactics on the ethnicity of the people.

Though if you want a german hero, look at goerings brother, albert goering. Herman liked him and protected him, and albert basically did what he wanted (he was arrested a few times, but his brother always got him out). He openly denounced the nazis (in nazi controlled austria), directed an anti nazi film when he went to sweden temporarily, got the nazis to release resistance fighters, . He helped jews get travel documents, and, a few times, he even got his brothers guarantee that they (such as a famous composer) would be allowed to safely leave. One time, without anyone telling him to, he even started helping jews clean the streets after they had been ordered to. It's sad though, he was detained for years after the war due to his name, and basically died penniless, surviving with the help of those he had previously saved.

One time two nazi soldiers, who recognized him, came up to him and did the nazi salute, he responded with "you can kiss my ass".

Another interesting bit of history about nazi germany, showing hitlers awareness that his power rested in the public and that violence against germans would be dangerous to him, is the rossenstrasse protest. There was a movie done on this recently, but I haven't seen it. Basically, the jewish husbands of many german women in Berlin(these were the last to be rounded up) were arrested, and a few of them (about 2000) were sent to rossenstrasse in Berlin. Some of the women, when they found out they'd be going to camps, started protesting outside the prison. Each day more and more came to protest. In the end it was more than 5,000. Evenetually they were released, they were among the few german jews to survive, and practically all jews who did were married to germans.
 
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