Iraqis Say We Kill Civilians, While Central Command Says, No Way

by James Glaser
May 20, 2004

I will try to explain this the best I can. One fall day a few years ago I was at the gas station in town during Bear Hunting season and Hunters were bringing in their bears to be weighed and registered. One man had shot a little cub and I asked him if he was embarrassed. He said when he shot that bear he thought it was a couple hundred pounds, it weighed out at 55.

A couple years ago in Afghanistan, American troops opened fire on a wedding party killing 48 people and wounding 117. It is a custom in the Middle East to fire guns in the air in celebration of a wedding. Our troops thought that fire was an attack, so they called in air strikes and we slaughtered the wedding party.

The same thing happened Wednesday in Iraq. The Associated Press quoted Lt. Col. Ziyad al-Jbouri, a deputy police chief in Iraq, as saying 42-45 people were killed at a wedding party by American forces. 15 of the dead were children and 10 were women.

As horrible as this is, I don't think our troops decided to wipe out this wedding party on a whim. You have to put yourself in their place to understand what is going on now in Iraq. Our troops are scared shitless. Not when they are out on patrol, but just before they head out and any time they have time to think about what they are doing.

Many of our troops have been there too long. They are doing their best and many units did a fine job up until their go home date, but now they have been extended and they know all the troops that are getting killed or wounded now, should be back in the States where it is safe.

Just like that Bear hunter, our troops can think somebody is going to kill them, and because they are so stressed, they open up and kill before they really know what is what. I am sure those guys are heart broken when the realize that they killed a kid or some old women, but when they shot, for sure they were shooting a terrorist that wanted to kill them.

Everybody is on a hair trigger and I am sure the thought is, it is better to error on the side of safety and kill whoever, than get some American trooper shot. After you pass by that go home date, you start to think you will never go home and you will do what ever it takes to protect your life and the lives of your comrades.

The longer we stay in Iraq, the more civilians there will be that get killed or wounded by mistake. Our troops will pay for these mistakes with a lifetime of guilt. The politicians who sent them over there and kept them there when they were exhausted and prone to make mistakes will never now what is going on, because almost to a man, none of them have ever been to a real war.


BACK to the Politics Columns.