Posted on 05/30/2003 7:15:28 PM PDT by MattAMiller
You think?
A total dunce would know better.
Exactly. I can't tell you how many articles I've read in UK papers over the last few weeks going on and on about how wonderful the UK troops are at relating to the people, giving candy to children, etc. while the Americans are a bunch of trigger-happy cowboys.
This is a horrible story, if true (which I suspect it is), but the one saving grace is it may get some of these Brit journalists off their high horse about their troops in relation to ours. Can you just imagine the outcry in the Guardian, etc if this was US troops?
The Sun?? Who lambasted Chiraq, if I remember? The Sun, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch - same owner as Fox News?
The Sun has been extremely pro-war. It's the Mirror that is avidly anti-war.
Not the same person. The last paragraph reads, "The Bartlam and Collins incidents are not connected."
Not the same guy. The end of the article tries to make this point but it can be a bit misleading reading it for the first time.
Our soldiers, as soon as circumstances allowed, regarded the local population with rough sympathy, helping them and generally treating them as fellow members of the human race. They stripped off their body armour and helmets as quickly as they could to make themselves less threatening.
The Americans still bristle with weapons and look like martial Teletubbies, swaddled in layers of kit. They seem frightened of everything and everyone and their overwhelming concern is staying alive. To them, every Iraqi is a potential enemy, an attitude that is reinforced by the endlessly instilled doctrine of the primacy of Force Protection.
This mindset has produced a catalogue of deadly blunders. American troops have shot and killed civilians who failed to understand the confusing signals operated by soldiers at checkpoints, fired recklessly into crowds of demonstrators and used batons to beat back crowds of old people trying to claim their pensions.
If military investigators are keen to comb over the conduct of the Allied forces during the Iraqi war there is no shortage of incidents involving American soldiers that demand examination. The alleged activities of Col Collins come a very long way down the list, and seem a peculiar place to start.
By Nick Britten and Michael Smith
(Filed: 31/05/2003)
The Telegraph (UK) A conservative newspaper
A British soldier was being questioned last night over photographs apparently showing an Iraqi prisoner being "tortured" during the Gulf war.
Gary Bartlam, 18, who serves with the 1st Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was arrested on Wednesday afternoon after a roll of film was dropped off for developing at a high street shop.
He is being held in military custody at Colchester and being questioned by the Army's Special Investigation Branch about the pictures, which are alleged to contain, among other images, a PoW bound and gagged and suspended from a forklift truck.
The photographs will cause severe embarrassment to the Army and the Government, which compared the professionalism of British troops with the brutality shown by the Iraqi regime towards prisoners to gain public support for military action.
Yesterday Bartlam's mother, Margaret, said she had not had any contact with her son since his arrest, and had no plans to try to see him.
She added: "He can sort it out. He joined the Forces, it's his problem. You'll have to talk to the military. We don't know anything about it."
Bartlam, who was on leave, was arrested a few hours after leaving a roll of film at Max Spielmann developers in Tamworth, Staffs.
Staff at the shop became concerned at the film's content and called the police, before phoning Bartlam at his home asking him to come in.
When he arrived he was arrested by three Ministry of Defence officials who took him, and the developed pictures, away.
The photograph of the alleged PoW, which appears to have been taken in southern Iraq, shows him bound and gagged and hung from a net on a forklift truck being driven by another British soldier.
Others pictures from the film are alleged to show soldiers committing sex acts near captured Iraqis. If they are found to be genuine, the incident could breach the Geneva Convention.
A senior defence source said: "We had hoped at first it was a hoax, but that is looking less and less likely.
"If it is true we are absolutely appalled and the likelihood is that those responsible will be jailed and then thrown out." The fusilier lives with his parents in the village of Polesworth, Staffs. Their house is part-converted into a general store called Maggies.
Bartlam attended the local secondary school and joined the Army after working as a lifeguard at the Peaks leisure centre in Tamworth.
His regiment is based in Celle, Germany, and he was stationed in Iraq as part of the peace-keeping force, although he saw action in Basra.
Shortly before he flew home from Iraq, his father said: "We were concerned when he was involved in some of the front-line action in Basra but we are very proud of him and his achievements."
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "We confirm an investigation is under way into allegations of photos depicting maltreatment of Iraqi PoWs.
"We cannot comment further. But if there is any truth in these allegations the MoD is appalled."
He added: "We take responsibility to PoWs very seriously."
A spokesman for Max Spielmann said: "Staff processed the film on site. They became concerned about its content and contacted the police. It is now a police matter."
Exactly. That and many others. There were articles like that one in every one of the UK papers I read online (Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent etc. ). In fact, that article by Patrick Bishop is the second one of it's kind in the Telegraph. There was also this one by Olga Craig, Unlike the American troops, we look the Iraqis in the eye.
It's become a recurring theme in the UK papers, who conveniently ignore the fact that the US troops were the advancing force, while the Brits pretty much sat outside Basra for 2 weeks until it fell from within. The US troops are also patrolling the most hostile, Sunni areas to which all the Baath members, Republican Guard and Fedayeen fled while the Brits patrol Basra (a friendly, Shiite city that hated Saddam). How nice for them that they can wear berets and hand out candy. The US troops are dealing with tougher stuff, and doing it admirably.
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