Undercover British Forces Shoot Iraqi Security.

[bolshiebhoy]

Crap! - More like the Brits capture two leaders that had been formenting trouble in the area.

I know. Bloody foreigners causing trouble. They ought to fuck off home. Oh no that's not the Mahdi army is it, it's the Brits.

 

[FifthFromFront]

Because the average Iraqi doesn't see these squaddies as their 'mates'. And having been told they now run their own country they need a little of explanation when the real masters of the situation start smash and grab operations on the civilian administration's buildings!

I don't think any amount of spin would convince the average Iraqi anything. They know that their country is under occupation. They know that the coalition is the real power masters and that their own assembly can do little without the consent of the occupying force. The spin is definitely not for them. Its for us in the UK. Maybe people in the Uk can be convinced for a few more months that we aren't an occupying force - thats what the spin seems to be aimed at. But surely everyone can see through this spin??! Can't they?

FFF

 

[oi2002]

I am Royal Signals mate, trust me - that is not what the regular Royal Signals soldiers in Iraq do. The ones who got killed in Belfast (Cpls Howes and Wood) were two technicians from the Forward Repair Team of 39 Brigade, based at Thiepval Barracks, Lisburn. They were out on a repair job, weren't briefed about the funeral and got lost when they couldn't use their normal route to wherever they were going. Surveillance is not part of normal Royal Signals work (I've worked in NI to, it's not a normal job for R Sigs over there either).

I stand corrected. After that one happened us natives assumed any British military covert listening cock up was signals, a foul slur.

I see CNN is saying they were Marines which does cover some special chaps even if Hereford thinks they are crap. They seem to have got in a scrap with an Iraqi crowd including a traffic policeman.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

Also impressive is the continued might of the molotov. I know warriors in the past have survived multiple hits from RPG and T-72 tank fire and yet a few molotovs seems to have disabled one of them and forced crew to abandon it.

All hail the cocktail

FFF

The hatches were open, if they were shut i'd have expected very different results.

Still, they are very nasty, using them is technically a war crime if my memory is correct. They are definitly part of the list that's banned by the Geneva Convention, they are incendary weapons along with napalm.

 

[MikeMcc]

I know. Bloody foreigners causing trouble. They ought to fuck off home. Oh no that's not the Mahdi army is it, it's the Brits.

Why let small thinks like facts get in the wayt of a good rant, eh?

 

[moono]

It reads like a chapter from Rudyard Kipling. Dashed natives getting uppitty, what ?

 

[Brainaddict]

It reads like a chapter from Rudyard Kipling. Dashed natives getting uppitty, what ?

Good old Stalky! Still out there holding the Empire together

 

[Phototropic]

The pictures were certainly rather symbolic. Especially when that soldier had to jump out into the corwd and peg it...

I woke up this monring to hear they have chnaged their tune. Why oh why do they try and contain such things when only a few hours later they are going to be a bit more forthcoming and show that what that had already said was not a strictly accurate picture?

 

[MikeMcc]

For a more accurate statement than that produced by the media acting on 'eye-witness accounts':

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1788850,00.html

 

[oi2002]

Still, they are very nasty, using them is technically a war crime if my memory is correct. They are definitly part of the list that's banned by the Geneva Convention, they are incendary weapons along with napalm.

I don't think the GC covers the conduct of armed mobs.

Regarded as a rather sporting weapon in Belfast:

 

[MikeMcc]

I wonder if the same silly rules-of-engagement still apply. You can shoot at someone about to throw a petrol bomb, but not once it's left his hand! RoEs are purely a big umbrella job for the politicians to duck responsibility!

 

[ViolentPanda]

I believe the MOD account of these events just as much as I do the Met's take on the death of Menezes.

Mmmm, but while there's plenty of hard evidence disproving the Met's account of de Menezes' murder, there isn't the same volume of facts about this incident, so perhaps your lack of belief is due to political/ideological reasons rather than being derived from reasoned analysis?

Just wondering, like.

 

[james_walsh]

Still, they are very nasty, using them is technically a war crime if my memory is correct. They are definitly part of the list that's banned by the Geneva Convention, they are incendary weapons along with napalm.

I would dought that there banned under the Geneva Convention, every state was using flamethrowers during ww2, and what about the vapor bombs being developed(by atleast GB/US/Russia).And some weapons ain't aloud to be used as (direct)anti personnel but are aloud as area and/or anti vechicle etc.ie 50mm calibre weapons.

 

[cemertyone]

I am Royal Signals mate, trust me - that is not what the regular Royal Signals soldiers in Iraq do. The ones who got killed in Belfast (Cpls Howes and Wood) were two technicians from the Forward Repair Team of 39 Brigade, based at Thiepval Barracks, Lisburn. They were out on a repair job, weren't briefed about the funeral and got lost when they couldn't use their normal route to wherever they were going. Surveillance is not part of normal Royal Signals work (I've worked in NI to, it's not a normal job for R Sigs over there either).

Bollocks our kid ..If that`s the case then why did they pass through 5 separate checkpoints on the way to Andersonstown that day from the city centre out wards??????
Why where they " Allowed" to pass through the final checkpoint at Kennedy Way when all other cars where stopped and their drivers questioned at length????. They must have had to show their identification and would ( under normal circumstances have been directed onto another route)???
I was there that day, less than 30 feet from where they where caught.....and the idea that they stumbbled into the fuernal by " mistake" is pure and utter fucking bollocks.....

 

[cemertyone]

I We all know how good 'eye witness accounts' are - remember Mr Menezes, the man who was supposedly wearing a heavy jacket and hurdled the ticket barriers?

yeah and those "reports" you mention actually came from the police..not as you suggest members of the public...get your facts right sunshine....

 

[Khardran]

*Gets coat, runs for the hills*

 

[cemertyone]

For a more accurate statement than that produced by the media acting on 'eye-witness accounts':

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1788850,00.html

shit so the Times is the font of all truth....FFS..

 

[bolshiebhoy]

For a more accurate statement than that produced by the media acting on 'eye-witness accounts':

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1788850,00.html

How can the statement of a military occupier be taken as the definitive statement of truth about something as complex as the lasr 24 hours in Basra? How blinded by loyalty are you?

Amazingly, Lorimer manages to avoid the minor matter of Iraqi deaths and doesn't deem it necessary to say that there will an investigation into how under cover British troops came to fire on the "Iraqi security forces whose capabilities we are helping to develop". By shooting them up when they flag you down?

The only thing he's inetersetd in pursuing is why his soldiers weren't handed back by the uppety natives when they were told. How is it he puts it: "handed over to MNF as Iraqi law (CPA Order 17) says that they should have been." CPA i.e. US imposed Order 17. Which now is Iraqi law by dint of US and UK might and nothing else.

 

[cemertyone]

I wonder if the same silly rules-of-engagement still apply. You can shoot at someone about to throw a petrol bomb, but not once it's left his hand! RoEs are purely a big umbrella job for the politicians to duck responsibility!

yeah and they equally allow you and your squadiee mates to get away with murder..fisher and wright come to mind....good at shooting people in the back....but would you expect anything less...

 

[cemertyone]

How can the statement of a military occupier be taken as the definitive statement of truth about something as complex as the lasr 24 hours in Basra? How blinded by loyalty are you?

Amazingly, Lorimer manages to avoid the minor matter of Iraqi deaths and doesn't deem it necessary to say that there will an investigation into how under cover British troops came to fire on the "Iraqi security forces whose capabilities we are helping to develop". By shooting them up when they flag you down?

The only thing he's inetersetd in pursuing is why his soldiers weren't handed back by the uppety natives when they were told. How is it he puts it: "handed over to MNF as Iraqi law (CPA Order 17) says that they should have been." CPA i.e. US imposed Order 17. Which now is Iraqi law by dint of US and UK might and nothing else.

yeah i know... hes starting to sound like Rachimm18..."who us we not the trouble its all those terrorists"....fucking pathetic little soldierboy...

 

[oi2002]

Juan comments:

The entire episode reeks of "dual sovereignty," in which there are two distinct sources of government authority. Social historian Charles Tilly says that dual sovereignty signals a revolutionary situation.

Note that in Basra, a city of about 1.3 million, largely Shiite, the Muqtada al-Sadr group is not very big. Most Sadrists belong to the rival al-Fadila party, led by Muhammad Yaqubi. But small groups can cause a lot of trouble.

I've a hunch the Brits are getting out manuovered in Basra and it's probably by the Iranian assets that have gained almost complete control of the cities security apparatus since the election. These, mostly Badr, people will be the Brit's main source of intelligence and so can shape Brit actions. Al-Sadr been mouthing off about Tehran's dominance of the new goverment. Setting the Brits and Al-Sadr on collision course would be a very Persian strategem.

This all kicks off within days of the Brits scraping the plan for withdrawing their troops from Southern Iraq. Something Tehran had pressed for via its proxies in the Shia lists. If Basra burns for a little while it could serve several useful purposes for the mullahs.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

I would dought that there banned under the Geneva Convention, every state was using flamethrowers during ww2, and what about the vapor bombs being developed(by atleast GB/US/Russia).And some weapons ain't aloud to be used as (direct)anti personnel but are aloud as area and/or anti vechicle etc.ie 50mm calibre weapons.

You aren't allowed to use incendary weapons on people according to the UK rules of war, no idea where it's set down but that's what i was told. Maybe on vehicles it's different, i know you are allowed to use White phosphorous, a very nasty thing indeed, to put down a smoke screen, but you aren't allowed to use it as an anti personell weapon (think napalm but far worse).

FAE's or thermobaric weapons don't kill by burning, they kill by overpressure (blast) and by sucking all the air out of an area (Although you'd probably be dead from the overpressure anyway).

 

[Bob_the_lost]

yeah and those "reports" you mention actually came from the police..not as you suggest members of the public...get your facts right sunshine....

"He had a baseball cap on and quite a sort of thickish coat - it was a coat you'd wear in winter, sort of like a padded jacket. He might have had something concealed under there, I don't know. But it looked sort of out of place with the sort of weather we've been having, the sort of hot humid weather.

Riiiiiight.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

The Met Commissioner was on the telly within hours of the killing giving us half-truths and inuendo about the poor bugger.

Lorimer is on the telly and in the exalted pages of the Times telling us partial truths about Basra and the difference is?

 

[cemertyone]

Riiiiiight.

Thats one alleged "report" out of hundreds sunny jim....and it could well be that this person you mention was actually a police officer involved in the operation..have you actually considered that..because the IPCC have.....but maybe it don`t suit your agenda to say so..

 

[Bob_the_lost]

The Met Commissioner was on the telly within hours of the killing giving us half-truths and inuendo about the poor bugger.

Lorimer is on the telly and in the exalted pages of the Times telling us partial truths about Basra and the difference is?

Obviously none, the warrior APCs must have been used to carry out covert surveilance on suspected suicide bombers. They probably diguised them by attaching a baseball cap to the gun.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

Thats one alleged "report" out of hundreds sunny jim....and it could well be that this person you mention was actually a police officer involved in the operation..have you actually considered that..because the IPCC have.....but maybe it don`t suit your agenda to say so..

Report? That's the fucking quote. I have considered the possiblity that he was a police officer, but i've seen nothing to support it other than paranoia.

Maybe it doesn't suit your agenda to think that anyone other than the police/army can pass out incorrect information.

 

[Barking_Mad]

For a more accurate statement than that produced by the media acting on 'eye-witness accounts':

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1788850,00.html

Ahh cheers, a UK military explanation. Go back to bed folks, nothing more to see here..........

 

[oi2002]

You aren't allowed to use incendary weapons on people according to the UK rules of war, no idea where it's set down but that's what i was told. Maybe on vehicles it's different, i know you are allowed to use White phosphorous, a very nasty thing indeed, to put down a smoke screen, but you aren't allowed to use it as an anti personell weapon (think napalm but far worse).

FAE's or thermobaric weapons don't kill by burning, they kill by overpressure (blast) and by sucking all the air out of an area (Although you'd probably be dead from the overpressure anyway).

Protocol III of the Geneva Convention does ban incendiary weapons. Several nations have not signed up this protocol including the US.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

The irony will probably be lost on the military types but this was Lorimer defending the arrest of the Mahdi leaders at the weekend:

the Iraqi police service has been prevented from bringing the criminals to justice by people who clearly oppose law and order

Course thanks to Order 17 only Iraqis can commit crimes against Iraqis, everyone else is immune from the demands of law and order.