First, the good news: PFC. Jessica Lynch was rescued yesterday by a team of USN SEALS and US Army Rangers in a hospital in the town of An Nasiriyah. MSNBC reports the following on how she was found:
"Military officials in Qatar told NBC’s David Shuster that U.S. Marines got a lead on Lynch’s whereabouts Monday during a raid into Shatra, just north of An Nasiriyah, in search of Ali Hassan al-Majeed, a cousin whom President Saddam Hussein was believed to have put in charge of the southern front. Al-Majeed is known by the nickname “Chemical Ali” for overseeing the use of poison gas that killed 5,000 Kurdish villagers in 1988.Accounts vary as to what shape Lynch is in. Some reports have her sporting several gunshot wounds. Others say she is "fine" and "unhurt.""While searching a headquarters building in Shatra, the Marines developed intelligence that at least one U.S. prisoner was being held in Saddam Hospital near An Nasiriyah. Military officials said they believed Lynch was held in the hospital for the entire time since she was captured March 23."
Now for the darker news...
Various posters over on the Freerepublic.com are relaying cable reports that nine dead American servicemen were also in the same headquarters/ hospital as Lynch.
Now Reuters is reporting 11 American bodies.
I fear the following things are true:
1) Americans prisoners shown on Al Jazeera, as well as the Apache pilots captured later, were all tortured and then executed.
2) There are snuff videos of their torture/execution that will soon go into circulation on the Arab street.
3) Lynch was reatedly gang raped and only survived because a senior Al Qaeda/Fedayeen wanted to keep her as a "trophy."
I don't think we will find out if my suspicions are true until we are fighting in Baghdad, and not until Bush and CENTCOM ready to "take the gloves off."
I hope I am wrong about this, but I fear that my gut instinct is right.
Admin. Note: We can conjecture, but we can't know. Beyond a certain point, I'm not sure it's necessary to know. Someone from Wirt County makes a very good set of points in the comments - before you post a comment of your own, read them.
So - let's just assume that Trent is right. The points I'd like to see addressed are more along the lines of: What to do about it? Does this affect the concept of sending women into combat-possible positions? If we do, how should we prepare them? What kinds of responses might deter future enemies from even considering such things? That sort of thing. Iraq won't be the last time the USA deals with such opponents, after all.
Updates:
Lynch has multiple gunshot wounds, two broken legs and a broken arm.
I have seen this story parroted on multiple sites, alledgedly by an Iraqi pharmacist, talking about how Lynch was crying she wanted to go home. Yeah, right, the bastards.
More information about how allied forces found out where she was. This Iraqi gentleman is a hero in every sense of the word - not just telling them where she was, but then going back to draw maps and help plan the commando raid. He and his family are now in protective custody. This man deserves a medal - AND green cards for his family, if he wants them. (Hat Tip: Donald Sensing)
I wouldn't bet against you. This will surely become part of the debate about women in the military - though one wonders if being tortured to death is a significantly better fate ("Bula Bula!" joke punchline now running through my head).
I hope Ms. Lynch comes through this OK. And I hope coalition soldiers routinely stand aside and allow surviving Baathists to be massacred by the Iraqi populace... an act that would be both proper retaliation and a contribution to allied war aims.
Shoot em' down and bayonet twice any Iraqi soldier who does not surrender.
Better than bayonetting them if Mr. Telenko's fears are indeed realized, is that our troops should riddle them bullets, hack off their arms and legs with rusty axes, disembowel them with sharpened army pack shovels, feed the entrails to stray Iraqi dogs, run over them three or four times with our tanks using their blood to lubricate the treads, drag them behind humvees through the streets at 50 mph... then we should kill them.
How come they can rescue the white chick but not the black chick?
@ Tablunga - Perhaps because the "black chick" is dead? Did you read the comments above, or just decide to jump straight to sharing your wit with us?
Just cuz he says so it don't mean shit to me.
Personally, I don't believe the captured soldiers they showed on TV are dead. I certainly hope not..
Trent, I sadly share your fears and your hopes.
According to Jed Babbin in his War blog over at NRO in a post he made a couple or three days ago, there was an hour-long and much more gruesome version of the 6-minute Al Jazeera film that was aired on the internet which featured those captured from the 507th.
I SO hope we're wrong.
Those bodies are those of our soldiers, though, regardless. God rest them.
And I hope the rest of our troops are heavily into righteous punishment and payback.
Damn those bastards.
Oh, and Tablunga, there was yet another woman, in addition to Jessica and Shoshana Johnson, taken prisoner in that group--a Native American (Hopi) and mother of 2 small children named Lori Piestewa from Arizona.
Payback needs to pay the right people back. The regular Iraqi army are not the folks we're talking about here. As for the Fedayeen and Ba'athists, rest assured the Iraqis will take care of them in fine style if we just look the other way. This would let Iraqis play a uiseful role in the making of the new Iraq, keep allied soldiers out of the mess, and remove the Ba'athists all in one go.
Don't think U.S. forces will be taking a lot of surrenders in the coming battles near Baghdad and around Nasariyah, though.
This is the official press release from CENTCOM on the bodies they found.
I saw reports over on the Free Republic that two bodies were thought to be American from their uniforms. They are using DNA tests on all of them because they are all unrecogizable.
These Iraqi ghouls like to 'play' with their victims after they are dead, it seems.
---------------
NEWS RELEASE
HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND
7115 South Boundary Boulevard
MacDill AFB, Fla.
33621-5101 Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894
April 2, 2003
Release Number: 03-04-15
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AMERICAN POW RESCUED YESTERDAY; UNIDENTIFIED REMAINS FOUND
Camp As Sayliyah, near Doha, Qatar - Coalition forces rescued Pfc. Jessica Lynch at a hospital yesterday in An Nasiriyah. Lynch is a member of the 507th Maintenance Company whose convoy was ambushed on March 23 by enemy forces in Iraq. Coalition forces are currently assessing her medical condition.
Also, according to initial reports from last night's rescue operation in Iraq, 11 human remains were found at or near the hospital rescue site. Efforts are underway to identify the remains and more information will be released as soon as it is available.
PFC Lynch reportedly has two broken legs and a broken arm.
The racist remark about not rescuing the black soldier is horrible. Anyone who takes a moment to research the news would know that the only way we got to rescue this woman yesterday was because the local Iraqis passed a note to the millitary through a journalist. If you insist that it's racist I guess the Iraqi's must not like blacks,
but I'm sure if they knew the whereabout of any other POW's they would have tipped us off to those as well.
To Barry and Gagazote, urging mayhem on Iraqis, whether meant seriously or as trolls--
War by nature is ugly, ugly, ugly. Adding to this, using their years of experience, the Ba'athists are trying hard to make life intolerable for civilians. We can only urge such restraint as is possible on our soldiers, for obvious moral and practical reasons.
If you don't understand this, your grasp of the situation is so weak that you have no business commenting. Think, read, and think some more. Then apologize.
If you do understand and chose to write anyway, then your morals are reprehensible. I hope Joe Katzman bans you from this site.
AMac, I don't ban people for stuff like that - that isn't how this place works. People put their positions out there, and others can meet them in debate.
I've deleted posts that posed an active threat to someone's safety, and I've banned an IP address for spamming. To date, those are the only instances where I've used administrator powers to intervene.
To Amac:
I apologize to you that you are unable to grasp what you should have clearly seen as sarcasm in my post.
I don't believe that I urged mayhem on any specific Iraqis other than those who Mr. Telenko feared mught have committed atrocities.
Of course war is as you said, "ugly, ugly, ugly" but did you draw this conclusion all by yourself?
Regardless of whether my post was intended as my true feelings or sarcastic in nature, I doubt you'd ever understand it.
If atrocities were committed, do you believe that those responsible should first be read a War Crimes Tribunal equivalent of 'Miranda Rights'? And if they are not, should we then dismiss charges against them?
Oh, and if my morals are 'reprehensible' as you implied, would it not be better to let me express them in an open forum such as this and get shot down for them or should we all read warm & cuddly thoughts instead? Think about this as you sip your coffee and compose your next letter to the Editor of your paper crying out your belief on the crackdown of dissent in this country by conservatives.
Joe Katzman (4:31 pm):
Point taken.
Gagazote (4:47pm):
> you are unable to grasp what you should
> have clearly seen as sarcasm in my post.
What you wrote (6:11am) isn't funny. Let's let other readers judge for themselves.
> I don't believe that I urged mayhem on
> any specific Iraqis...
Sarcastic or serious, just make up your mind.
> did you draw this conclusion [war is ugly]
> all by yourself?
No. I read. History and fiction. Your point?
> If atrocities were committed...
If
> ...read a War Crimes Tribunal equivalent
> of 'Miranda Rights'? [Or] dismiss charges
> against them?
I don't get what you're saying, but let me hazard a serious answer. For both moral and political reasons, we have to minimize US casualties and the suffering of Iraqi civilians while defeating armed resistance. For the current fight and for Iraq's future, it's also important to identify and neutralize (kill/injure/detain) Ba'athist supporters operating outside the 'rules of war' (notably, anti-civilian terrorists). On an active battlefield, faced with a hostile population, these objectives run at cross purposes to one another. Given Ba'athist actions, tragedies are inevitable. I hope that planners thought through these problems, and have given combat units some ability to deal with them (MP platoons, translators).
> ...would it not be better to let me express
> them in an open forum such as this...?
Per Mr. Katzman, point taken.
> Think about this as you sip your coffee and
> compose your next letter to the Editor of your
> paper crying out your belief...
How could you tell I'm drinking a latte?
How'd you read my handwriting!
> These Iraqi ghouls like to 'play' with their victims after they are dead, it seems.
In fact this is very common in warfare. Don't kid yourself that Americans are somehow immune to it.
Anthony Swofford testifies to it in his excellent memoir of GWI, "Jarhead":-
Near our bivouac, Crocket has found a corpse her particularly disagrees with. He says the look on the dead man's face, his mocking gesture, is insulting, and that the man deserved to die and now that he's dead the man's corpse deserves to be fucked with. And Crocket goes to the corpse again and again, day after day, and with his E-tool he punctures the skill and with his fixed bayonet he hacks into the torse. And he takes pictures. Johnny Rotten orders Crocket to stay away from the corpse, but he doesn't, Crocket is being driven mad by that corpse. I understand what drives Crocket to desecrate the dead soldier--fear, anger, a sense of entitlement, cowardice, stupidity, ignorance. ... Crocket--hacking at the dead Iraqi soldier and taking pictures of the waste--is fighting against our lack of satisfaction.
I find the fantasy about Pvt. Lynch having been "repeatedly gang raped" to be quite interesting..
Regarding Trent's fears:
1) I suspect that the 507th was taken by Fedayeen, but the Apache pilots were taken by Republican Guards, and their treatment (at least initially) may be quite different. The pilots seemed unharmed in the video shown.
2) Snuff videos? Perhaps. I don't equate the Fedayeen with the bloodthirsty al Qaedans who killed Pearl, though. I wouldn't be surprised if there are videos for sale showing the dead bodies, but arranging for a videotaped execution is purely speculative on your part and doesn't seem likely given the circumstances.
3) I think you're projecting movie-based fantasies here, especially with the "trophy" bit. (And it's changed my opinion of your coolheadedness, to tell the truth.) We know that Cornum was fondled by one of her captors but he was also influenced by the presence and apparent disapproval of others (although he wasn't influenced by her unresponsiveness and injury). Nevertheless Cornum wasn't gang-raped. We do know that Saddam uses rapes as a means of control /of others/, but would the same people be involved here and use the same technique for not much purpose? That's an unknown. True, the Fedayeen and other of Saddam's thugs are known to be ruthless, so there's a whole range of possibilities here, but I don't see the jumping to worst-case scenario as justified. Ultimately her presence in a hospital indicates that at least some consideration for her situation was extended.
PFC Lynch did not have two broken legs and a broken arm prior to capture. She had them when she was freed. They were most likely result of torture. This is SOP for both Saddam's regime thugs and Al Qaeda. And anyone who bothered to pay attention to the doings of Talaban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan knows that rape of enemy women was also part of their sick game plan.
As for doubts of there being snuff videos of our murdered prisoners, this is from Jed Babbin's NRO column of March 27th:
"I have confirmed that the Al-Jazeera tape, all twelve minutes of it, is merely an excerpt of the hour-long version being shown regularly in Egypt and elsewhere. The short version shows the interrogation of some U.S. soldiers and the defamed dead bodies of others. The longer version includes all that, plus the murders and later abuse and mutilation of the bodies. Apparently, the whole thing is out there on the internet. I don't want to watch it tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning, when the mind is fresher, more able to withstand it."
http://www.nationalreview.com/babbin/babbin032703.asp#006193
My interest in this is more at the level of policy impact in theater than personal details. That said, Trent's post may be conjecture but it is hardly baseless conjecture. Consider:
After watching the Pearl video and knowing that similar tapes were made in Chechnya and Afghanistan (Soviet invasion), the snuff video supposition is not a stretch. Especially if one believes that al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorists are part of the Fedayeen. Snuff videos seem to have become part of Islamist culture. And of course, Trent refers to a longer form of the 6-minute clip shown on Al-Jazeera.
The supposition of rape is not illogical if you assumed, as I did, that Gulf War I prisoner Cornum was raped when she said sexual assault - though detailed research as a result of Dan's post clarified. Still, one is dealing with the SS of a regime that has "violator of womens' honor" as formal job description... and the Fedayeen are lower creatures even than the Iraqi army of Gulf War I. It's not a slam dunk, therefore, but neither is it an improbable supposition.
Combine all that with the fact that the only survivor of what seems to be a tortured and executed platoon is the pretty blonde... no, not an exceptional supposition at all. Jen Taliaferro drew the same set of conclusions around the time of Lynch's capture.
At this point, we don't know 100%. It would be nice if these conclusions were wrong, but the pointers aren't great. Nor are the pointers re: the rest of the platoon, incl. the torture hospital linked above.
There is, I think, a place for moral outrage even in war. On an in-theater policy level, it's time to take the kid gloves off with the Saddam Fedayeen and their ilk. Make sure that if captured they (who are beyond the protection of the Geneva Conventions) do not survive. Failure to do so only encourages the Fedayeen's behaviour. It ensures similar atrocities and tactics, and thus significantly greater civilian death rates in future conflicts. It also destabilizes the future Iraq, as we have seen with released Talibani in Afghanistan.
That does NOT strike me as a moral or sensible response - and what we need is both, implemented immediately.
Lynch was tortured. See this link.
The story about Lynch's gunshot wounds and stab wound are untrue.
Her parents did not confirm the Wash Post's story about a wildcat fight.
They did say she has no feeling in her feet.
Also, nine of the 11 bodies found with her are American.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/889604.asp
We are fighting Arabs. What do you expect? Civilised behaviour?
Aaron,
We are fighting for Arabs, as well as fighting them. Some have risked their families and lives on our behalf -- in particular, helping Pvt. Lynch, according to this gripping DoD report.
Where possible, blame to individuals and credit to individuals. Like it or not, we are midwifing the birth of a new Iraq; let's do what we can (against long cultural odds) to make it a decent place.
I cringe everytime I see a Jessica-related news conference, afraid that someone -- probably a man -- will ask "..so, was she raped?"
It also makes me very,very sad to think about when she's back home, and all her teenage friends demand to know the details of what happened.
I think it's a certainty she was beaten and raped. One newspaper linked to from this site says:
============== Her broken bones are a sure sign of torture, said Amy Waters Yarsinske, an ex-Navy intelligence officer and an expert on POW treatment. "It's awfully hard to break both legs and an arm in a truck accident," Yarsinske said. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's thugs are known to use steel bars to bash their prisoners' limbs, she said. ================Also, whether we want to think about it to feel comfortable or ignore it so we can be polite, Jessica had to ENDURE it. I almost feel like I owe it to Jessica to acknowelege what happened and share her pain.
The fact is that her uniform was found in ANOTHER BUILING. Do you really think the Iraqi pigs gave her a bathrobe for her modesty?
My guess is that the the brave little girl -- a SUPPLY CLERK like Radar O'Reilly -- shot and killed the bastards until she ran out of ammo, then struggled, kicked, and bit when taken prisoner.
If this had happened to a male, 25-year-old Marine, he would CERTAINLY get the Congressional medal.
We saw on CNN that they stripped her of her clothes. My guess is that they embarrased her, humiliated her, and tried to rape her.
I like to think that at least she kicked one of them in his smelly Iraqi BALLS (or better, tore them off) before the bastards beat her with a metal pipe until they broke her foot, ankle, and legs. The broken arm came from Jessica trying to defend herself. Finally she couldn't fight back: she had run out of ammo again.
Whatever happened next was something that makes me cry when I think about it. Broken-bone pain is so unspeakably HORRIBLE that she may have not even known she was being raped.
The one thing even tangentially good about any of this is that her youth and beauty may have saved her life. So did running out of ammo before the nightgown-wearing, ass-wiping-with-their-hands SAND DEVILS shot her to death.
I'm just glad that the new, civilized, Army (I'm from the 'Nam days) has special psychiatrists for situations like this. I only hope Jessica's shrink is a woman.
-d
PS:
As for the press calling her "Jessica", I HOPE they do. She's America's little girl. Every man here is her dad, and every woman, her mom. I for one, am proud of her.
where the hell did you come up with that? were you there watching? well, why didn't you help her then? oh, what's that?... you just dreamt it up? turn the tv off dude it's wastin your mind. why does everything have to be so dramatic? beat her with a metal pipe eh? why not a wooden stick or a piece of rebar or an aluminum baseball bat or an axe handle or maybe the had a camel sit on her..yeah that's it - those smelly bastards and their smelly camels sat on her and pulled her hair with green rubber-handled pliers etc etc... jesus buddy you sound like this is your spank stuff, like you enjoy imagining details of how she was humiliated. don't speculate get some facts. think critically. we have not been given much info yet. i'm sure the truth is scarry enough without embelshment.
> where the hell did you come up with that?
most of this message board consists of speculation about what happened to her.
> beat her with a metal pipe eh? why not a wooden stick or a piece of rebar or an aluminum baseball bat or an axe handle or maybe the had a camel sit on her.
Because:
"Her broken bones are a sure sign of torture", said Amy Waters Yarsinske, an ex-Navy intelligence officer and an expert on POW treatment". "Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's thugs are known to use steel bars to bash their prisoners' limbs", she said.
That's why.
> buddy you sound like this is your spank stuff
You're one SICK motherfucker. I know it's only a sample of two, but my wife, sitting next to me as I type, thinks you're a sick motherfucker too.
Folks,
We're way off topic here. This stuff may have happened. It may not. We can conjecture, but we can't know. Beyond a certain point, I'm not sure it's necessary to know.
The points I'd like to see addressed are more along the lines of: what to do about it? Does this affect the concept of sending women into combat-possible positions? What kinds of responses might deter future enemies? That sort of thing.
This won't be the last time the USA deals with such opponents, after all.
I am a Scotsman and feel very proud to hear of Jessica Lynch's bravery. Bush , should as per previous post award her the highest gallantry medal available and give every assistance to her and her family to aid her recovery. Blair should do the same to her and the Black Watch soldier in the form of the Victoria Cross for ' Courage and Gallantry in the face of the enemy '. With all my heart I pray she was not raped. Somehow deep within, I feel she was..
I dont' want to be a hard knuckle, as we call it here, but all this speculation is what starts the rumors.
I live here in Wirt county, I know the Lynch family and have seen first hand what all this speculation has done to them.
I know there will always be speculation, but doesn't it pay to get the facts first? All it does is hurt the innocent.
I am not trying to step on toes, but to Wirt County, the whole intire Coalation forces are HEROES! Each and every one of them.
I also wanted to say, We here in Wirt County, including Palestine and Elizabeth pray for those families who weren't as lucky as the Lynch's to find out their loved ones were alive. But, sometimes I also wonder if Jessie was the lucky one. How much of her life is ruined by what she indured, Will she ever lead a normal life?
I admit, to have her alive is great news to all of us, but ???
All my prayers to all the men and women fighting for what they believe in- us and our freedom, and the innocent who were forced to live life in Iraq under a Sadistic Evil Ruler.
May God bless them all.
What's with the speculation about whether or not she was raped in Iraq? If she'd gone to the Air Force Academy, you wouldn't need to speculate.
Our armed services, folks, one beer away from a sexual assault.
All rapists are scum ... and they're everywhere.
As Dap said at the end of Spike Lee's School Daze ... "Wake Up." (This quote may be lost on the Toby Keith crowd.)
Umm, sure looks like RealityCheck could use one. You might ask why I don't delete comments like that... it's because I prefer to have them parade their idiocy openly instead of hiding it for them.
Folks, one more time - further speculations of "was she or wasn't she" aren't productive. See the Wirt County commentator to understand why, and also my Comment up above.
Joe,
Knowledge Lynch's treatment at the hands of the Iraqis bears on two policy issues.
1) The role of women in our military.
2) The truely evil nature of our enemies.
We do not need the extremely personal details. We do need to know if female servicemen are going to be subject to additional horrors that male servicemen are not.
If only so women volunteering to serve know the extent of the dangers they face. And the services can undertake special training, like pilots get, to psychologically prepare female servicemen for such treatment as this war goes on.
Trent: the answer is yes, they will.
So yes, we should be putting programs in place to prepare women psychologically (RealityCheck was over the line, but I understand the temptation to insert an Air Force Academy joke here). I would hope that PFC Lynch will participate in that program once she's in better shape.
Regarding the evil nature of our enemies, I think we can make that point now and let PFC Lynch be. Childrens prisons, torture chambers, execution and torture of other POWs... it's all coming out now, and we should hammer them home every chance we get.
Which brings me to the question I asked earlier: What kind of responses would deter our enemies from such conduct?
>Which brings me to the question I asked earlier:
>What kind of responses would deter our enemies
>from such conduct?
Deterrence is not possible.
Only killing them first is.
Well, it seems that the POW's have been returned. Alive. Must be a pity for those who fantasise about 'atrocious arabs'. Perhaps there is humanity left after all. Or perhaps the "fear" of the executions and/or torture of the TV POW's was just useful PR for the ongoing hearts and minds campaigns to dull peoples minds.
Remember those people are PAID to do what they do, in my mind it is no comparison to the civilian equation.
Dogman, we're quite certain that some of the POWs were indeed executed and others tortured. That isn't in dispute. Fortunately, it ended better for some.
I'm shocked that recovered the Apache pilots and some of the 507th, but of course very gratified as well. The precendents in Chechnya, Lebanon and Gulf War I for that matter were not at all encouraging. What was encouraging this time was the heroism of that Iraqi lawyer, and the decency of the Iraqis who pointed the Marines at these POWs.
I was among those who felt great relief when PFC Lynch was rescued. What I do not believe was the way she was rescued as reported by CNN and others. I would like to know more about the report alluding to the fact that the Iraqis put her in an ambulance and tried to get her to the American authorities, only to be fired upon, requiring a hasty return to the hospital. Is this story factual? If so, it has certainly been played down. Mind you, true or not, this remarkable ending made us all feel so much better, as this teenager was adopted by all parents and her safety was our prime concern. She no doubt experienced an ordeal most of us don't want to think about. Our hopes and prayers are with her to have a happy life without the stresses and strains of the overly zealous media. She will need her privacy. I only wish that she is not placed in a fish bowl with the release of a movie depicting her ordeal.