The Price Of Looting

[Andy_Copland 0]

http://www.break.com/index/you_loot_we_shoot_and_then_some.html

I like to take everything with a couple of bucket fulls of salt that i see regarding Iraq but if this is true then i seriously dont like what im seeing.

There is doing your job and then there is enjoying being a cunt.

1338

People aint made of nothin' but water and shit.

Until morale improves, the beatings will continue.

[D22369 0]

There is doing your job and then there is enjoying being a cunt.
***

wow...... WOW

what i saw was thieves receiving punishment. What did you see? What would you have rather seen? A handslap? perhaps a stern talking to.....?
Maybe it was over the top (slightly) But to curb looting the punishment has to be severe enough to make others think....."hey, thats a baaad idea"

cause and effect at its finest.

Roy

They say I suffer from insanity.... But I actually enjoy it.

[billvon 2,470]

>cause and effect at its finest.

Unfortunately they seem to have learned the same lesson.

[PhreeZone 15]

I think the same thing as here in the states. Prision time or other punishment as deemed approriate if found guilty in their court system. There is a point where street justice like this does nothing to further our goals and only serves to further incite the people. Let the locals hand out the punishment.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[freethefly 6]

And, what was said on April 11, 2003 concerning looting in Iraq;

Rumsfeld and Myers on Anarchy and Looting ("Catastrophic Success") in Iraq:
"Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. For suddenly the biggest problem in the world to be looting is really notable."
Following are excerpts from an April 11, 2003 press briefing by Rumsfeld and Myers
http://www.dod.gov/transcripts/2003/tr20030411-secdef0090.html

Q: Mr. Secretary, you spoke of the television pictures that went around the world earlier of Iraqis welcoming U.S. forces with open arms. But now television pictures are showing looting and other signs of lawlessness. Are you, sir, concerned that what's being reported from the region as anarchy in Baghdad and other cities might wash away the goodwill the United States has built? And, are U.S. troops capable of or inclined to be police forces in Iraq?

Rumsfeld: Well, I think the way to think about that is that if you go from a repressive regime that has -- it's a police state, ... and then you go to something other than that -- a liberated Iraq -- that you go through a transition period ...

With respect to the second part of your question, we do feel an obligation to assist in providing security, and the coalition forces are doing that.

The San Francisco Chronicle on the same day reported:
The medical system in the capital has "virtually collapsed," the committee said in its statement. Of the 40 hospitals in the city, 39 have been looted or closed. The ICRC, the only international organization functioning in Baghdad this week, said its workers were able to venture outside their offices for only a limited time on Friday.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/12/MN90334.DTL

The Independent reports:
The group of young men standing at the gates of Al- Kindi hospital in blue surgical gowns were not doctors or medical orderlies. The giveaway was the Kalashnikov automatic weapon each of them nursed. "We are volunteers who are protecting the hospital from looters and thieves," said Hayder Daoud, a 30-year-old engineer with close-cropped hair and several days' stubble. "The British and American forces will not protect us so we have to protect ourselves. None of us work here, we just organised ourselves. Some of us are from the neighbourhood, some are from farther away."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=396396

Q: How quickly do you hope to do that? Isn't that a pressing problem?

Rumsfeld: Wait. Wait. your question... suggests that, "Gee, maybe they were better off repressed."

Let me say one other thing. The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you think, "My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?"

Q: Do you think that the words "anarchy" and "lawlessness" are ill-chosen --

Rumsfeld: Absolutely. And here is a country that's being liberated, here are people who are going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a vicious dictator, and they're free. It's just unbelievable how people can take that away from what is happening in that country!

Q: I think the question is, if you -- if a foreign military force came into your neighborhood and did away with the police, and left you at the mercy of criminals, how long would you feel liberated?

Rumsfeld: Well, that's a fair question. First of all, the foreign military force came into their neighborhood and did not do away with any police. There may have been some police who fled, because the people didn't like them, and because they'd been doing things to the people in the local community that the people wanted to have a word with them about. But we haven't gone in and done away with any police. In fact, we're looking for police in those villages and towns who can, in fact, assist in providing order, to the extent there are people who can do it in a manner that's consistent with our values.


A marine has been extensively quoted in the press as saying while observing the widespread looting, "Hell, it ain't my job to stop them, goddamn Iraqis will steal anything if you let them." This quote will likely forever be cited as representative of the US's shameful inactions as the country that they first "liberated" by blowing it apart continued the destruction by tearing it apart on their own. So I don't even feel the need to cite a reference. Google will be my reference on this one.


Q: Given how predictable the lack of law and order was, as you said, from past conflicts, was there part of General Franks' plan to deal with it? And --

Rumsfeld: Of course.

Q: Well, what is it?

Rumsfeld: This is fascinating. This is just fascinating. We did... recognize that there was at least a chance of catastrophic success, if you will, to reverse the phrase ... and that we needed to be ready for that; we needed to be ready with medicine, with food, with water. And, we have been.

From VOA news on the same day:
Red Cross spokeswoman Nada Doumani on April 11, 2003 stated of the situation in Baghdad: "No hospital is any more functioning properly, normally in the capital, We have even heard about hospitals which have closed down. They have just shut the doors."
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=9B530C0F-F7C6-4BCF-8A94B1736ADB946D

Q: Yes, but Mr. Secretary, I'm asking about what plan was there to restore law and order?
And, you say, "Well, what was it in the plan?" The plan is a complex set of conclusions or ideas that then have a whole series of alternative excursions that one can do, depending on what happens. And, they have been doing that as they've been going along. And, they've been doing a darn good job.

Q: Yes, but Mr. Secretary, I'm asking about what plan was there to restore law and order?

Rumsfeld: Well, let's just take a city. Take the port city, Umm Qasr -- what the plan was. Well, the British went in, they built a pipeline bringing water in from Kuwait; they cleared the mine of ports (sic); they brought ships in with food; they've been providing security. In fact, they've done such a lousy job, that the city has gone from 15,000 to 40,000. Now think of that. Why would people vote with their feet and go into this place that's so bad? The reason they're going in is because they're food, there's water, there's medicine and there's jobs. That's why. The British have done a fantastic job. They've done an excellent job ... and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."

Q: Can I do a quick follow-up?

Q: Mr. Secretary?

Q: Mr. Secretary?

Rumsfeld: I think I'll go over here.

Q: How about my follow-up, Mr. Secretary?

Rumsfeld: Well, we're considering it.

Q: There's some additional specificity here. While you have just expressed yet again your dismay at the international news media, in fact, the reporting does factually show there are some certain number of Iraqi citizens that have spoken on-camera quite directly about their own concerns about the safety and security in Baghdad and that situation. There have also been absolutely verified reports that it is not just regime targets but indeed hospitals, banks, other facilities essential to society. The ICRC has been on TV today saying that hospitals are being looted, not regime targets you're speaking of, and that they can't even get there to resupply these essential hospitals.

Now, my question is, General Brooks said this morning that the military -- U.S. military -- did not want to reconstruct the Iraqi police force in Baghdad because the feeling of the U.S. military is that that Iraqi police force has been operating against the U.S. military. He didn't feel that was a secure solution. So with some specificity, what type of Iraqi force can you bring to bear in Baghdad to have Iraqis help restore security? And, what types of specific tasks are you now going to assign the U.S. military to do to help restore the situation, which the people of Baghdad appear to be concerned about?

Myers: (Laughs.)

Q: But I guess what I'm not hearing here is, either one of you gentlemen, what tasks, with some specificity if you can, what U.S. military forces in Baghdad will now be doing to help calm the situation, or do you just --

Rumsfeld: ... for suddenly the biggest problem in the world to be looting is really notable.

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

[livetofall 0]

so see..theres this pile of wood and he comes up to the taxi driver and says
"Hey, i need a ride, but on the roof...it hurts to sit with these knots in my back."

[Botellines 0]

I wonder if the IED below the Humvees are the rightful response that the Iraquis offer to the U.S for the state sponsored looting going on.

[AdamLanes 1]

What about innocent until proven guilty?!? How do we know that those men didn't have the authority to move that construction material. It is obvious from the video that there is a communication breakdown between the Americans and the Iraqis. This video is disturbing.

[Andy9o8 0]

You people are all missing the big picture. They showed mercy on that car by shooting it before they ran it over.

[Scoop 0]

Yeah, it was a good job they shot it before running it over with a tank

Why did they do that you think? So if they rebuilt it with a bit of panel beating skills they still couldn't see out the windscreen

[pincheck 0]

that confused me as well perhaps shooting it before crushing it lessened the cars pain

Billy-Sonic Haggis Flickr-Fun