licentious radio

Friday, April 25, 2003
[6:43:56 PM]

We get all these reports that US soldiers promoted looting and burning in Baghdad. Clearly, they didn't *prevent* looting -- until there was nothing left.

But can we believe that US soldiers actually encouraged looting and burning? Wouldn't that match the psy-ops bit about pulling down statues or shooting them up?

Brave British soldiers in their tanks were sent on a special mission to destroy a statue in Basra. Americans and British were clearly trying to promote vandalism of Saddam-alia. There's no doubt the Iraqis would have gotten around to the statues eventually, but Rumsfeld needed the propaganda of falling statues, even if the tanks had to pull them down, and the Iraqi spectators had to be flown in from Kuwait.

From Kathy Kelly [electronicIraq.net]:

He also encountered a US tank in front of a huge storage site, where one to two years worth of grain and rice were stored. He heard a US officer with a Kuwaiti accent order the tank to blast open the entrance and then tell people standing there, "Take what you need. Then you can burn it."

[9:29:09 AM]
Oopsy. Iraqi civilians protesting. US Marines shooting civilian protestors. This in the town where 10,000 British soldiers were once massacred.

From a Guardian article:

"We stopped about four metres in front of the troops. First they poked Daoud with the barrel of a gun, then they fired."

Lieutenant-Colonel Doug Fairfield confirmed that a death had been reported, but added: "We have contacted all our marine units and are satisfied that no shots were fired by the marines."