Posted on 11/17/2004 2:54:24 AM PST by kattracks
DUBAI (Reuters) - Arabs were torn between seething rage at images of a U.S. soldier shooting dead a wounded Iraqi in a mosque and dismay at Iraqi insurgents in Falluja for turning holy mosques into battlegrounds.Viewers said images, which Arab televisions aired repeatedly of a Marine killing a severely injured Iraqi, fueled growing hatred against America and helped create more "terrorists."
"I am not a jihadist, I am just a normal Muslim but such scenes are pushing me to Jihad," said Dubai-based engineer Abdallah. "We don't expect this from the representative of democracy in the world."
"This is one of the things we saw on TV. God knows how many crimes they have committed which we have not seen," he added."
In Saudi Arabia -- the birthplace of Islam and of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whose group carried out bombings in the country -- residents said insurgents were to blame for taking their battle into mosques.
"If I was in the U.S. soldier's place I would have killed all the insurgents because they are mercenaries," said Saudi Zaher al-Saleh, a 32-year-old teacher. "They have turned the mosques into battlefields and they're killing civilians."
Islamist extremists called for revenge through their Web sites and cursed pro-U.S. Muslim leaders for remaining silent.
"Oh God your enemies have killed your believers in one of your houses. God take revenge for us," one chatter said.
PERSONAL AFFRONT
Some Muslims saw the killing as a personal affront.
"It's as if they had killed every one of us. Today, it's that poor man, tomorrow, it will be me," said Sherine Mohamed, 27, a financial analyst. "Even if militants didn't respect mosque sanctities, U.S. soldiers should have done so because they claim to help Iraqis."
Muslims said pictures showing Marines lounging with their guns in a Falluja mosque were "insulting."
They said soldiers "sullied the ground with their boots" at the mosque where Muslims are obliged to take off their shoes in respect for the house of God.
"They are entering dangerous waters. If they think they are getting rid of terrorists this way, they are mistaken. They are creating more terrorists than killing them," added Abdallah.
International human rights groups said the killing could amount to a war crime and showed the need to better train U.S. forces about the laws of war.
The U.S. military opened an investigation into whether the Marine acted in self-defense, broke U.S. military law or committed a war crime in the fatal shooting of a wounded Iraqi in Falluja, the scene of fierce fighting between U.S. forces and Iraqi and Islamist militants in the past week.
That shooting was caught on videotape by an NBC television crew embedded with the Marines.
The United Arab Emirates' Al-Ittihad newspaper said the killing was "shocking and provocative" and demanded Washington investigate the "horrifying crime."
"If this crime goes unpunished it will set a dangerous precedent in U.S. policies and will destroy everything (good) it has done for Iraq," it added.
Arab animosity toward U.S. presence in Iraq has ratcheted up since the Abu Ghraib prison scandal that resulted in the sentencing of several U.S. soldiers.
Lebanon's Shi'ite Muslim Hizbollah TV al-Manar led its newscasts with the shooting and said it showed "the ugliness of the actions that occupation forces are carrying out in Iraq."
"U.S. forces violating laws and committing atrocities is not new. What has surfaced is only a small part of what Iraqis are facing," said Shehab al-Ahdal, editor-in-chief of Yemen's al-Nahar newspaper.
I flipped over to America Left on XM to listen in on the enemy and low and behold Ed Schultz was defending the Marine! And Brian and E.D. on FOX had really gone out of their way to put things in context. Brian now regularly calls the dead guy a terrorist.
Arabs Enraged
Somewhere there, I stopped reading.
It's like reading Zogby polls. Same old Sh*t.
Yawn...
ya' know...like I care what arabs are enraged over...they seem always enraged. You'll never hear them talk about using a mosque for cover, killing innocent people (what a beheading is no problem). If their a terrorist they are better off dead to me. They don't come back and kill innocents again.
The are enraged at everything we do. Who cares?
R.O.P.O.S.(religion of piece of $h!t)
Apparently he first worked for CNN, then NBC.
Our troops will learn the lesson we learned in previous wars: You can never trust a journalist to give a fair accounting of anything he sees or hears. A journalist will arrive on the scene with a preconceived and biased agenda and will look for and report only those things that support his agenda. Never talk to a journalist. They will take your words and reconstruct them out of context to appear to support whatever agenda they are pushing. Never let them see you operate, as they will only video those things that will, when taken out of context, embarrass you, your unit, and your country.
When are we going to bomb Al Jazerra and knock them off the air?
Hey islamanazis...we are just getting warmed up!
another mushroom cloud fan!
Arabs are either asleep or enraged!
Enraged?
They must have gotten it wrong.
Spare us the crocodile tears. If the arabs had any intestinal fortitude of their own, then American soldiers wouldn't have to do their dirty work for them.
If that's what it takes to send a message to these fanatics, I'm all for using nukes on them. Better yet, first soak the entire area with pig blood, guts and lard. Then, use the nukes.
The Arabs were looking for a ride and they are going to get one. Before its over a whole lot more Arab males will be meeting the virgins.
Oh, the irony!
Wasn't a big MSM complaint about the Iraq War that it would foster more anti-American hate that would help terrorist organizations gain recruits?
If that is such a concern, then why does our hypocritical MSM do everything they can incite the masses?
Just a question.
Maybe we should just cut off all of our prisoners heads or hang 'em from bridges, that is if they're already pissed and all?
When we went into Afghanistan, I remember listening to veterans from the former Soviet army talking about the fate of their comrades who fell into the hands of the mujahideen. Suicide was preferable. I also remember newsclips showing the advance of the Northern Alliance. NA fighters came across a man on the road they suspected to be taliban -- or, someone they held a grudge against. They castrated him on the spot and left him bleeding on the road.
Civilized behavior and self-control in war is a standard imposed only upon the West. So, it would seem.
Turkey bears some watching -- but since our press chooses not to report on their doings, I don't know how we'll do any watching. There may come a time, once the insurgency settles down, when the Iraqi Kurds face off against the Turks. A sample from 1995:
According to the applicants, a group of shepherds from the village of Azadi in Sarsang province near the Turkish border left the village on the morning of 2 April 1995 to take their flocks to the hills. They encountered Turkish soldiers who were allegedly carrying out military operations in the area and who immediately abused and assaulted them. The women were told to return to the village and the men were led away.
Subsequently representations were made to the local Turkish commanders with a view to obtaining information about the missing shepherds’ whereabouts and securing their release, but without success.
Following the withdrawal of the Turkish troops from the area, the bodies of the shepherds were found. The bodies had bullet wounds and were severely mutilated. Five bodies were found on 3 April close to where the shepherds had last been seen. The remaining two bodies were found two days later.
The Government confirmed that a Turkish military operation had taken place in northern Iraq between 19 March 1995 and 16 April 1995. The Turkish forces had advanced to Mount Medina. The records of the armed forces did not show the presence of any Turkish soldiers in the area indicated by the applicants, the Azadi village being ten kilometres south of the operation zone. There was no record of a complaint having been made to any of the officers of the units operating in the Mount Medina region.
Right. And, of course, the Armenian genocide never happened, either.
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