POWs

[Paul Victorey]

Originally posted by Vlad16 Wow, 5 lucky shots, all in the forehead during the course of battle. The coalition should just walk away if the Iraqi soldiers are such good shots.

It's not that surprising to have a lot of head shots, Iraq has a huge number of snipers. Sniping is in fact one of Iraq's main methods of fighting during this war.

[Force Flow]

I don't believe they have the weaponry, military support or gumption to to battle otherwise.

Couldn't really say if that's good or bad...

[edit]: I guess what it really boils down to is which way would the least amount of lives be lost? It all depends on how many and how good the snipers are. Just look at what happened in Washington DC...

[Force Flow]

Hmm... I guess my statement no longer applies because of the recent battle between the two sides...

[ZANEY123]

from what i heard today from a guy that works down at dover air force base that our pow's have been exucuted. I hope it is just hearsay for their family sake.

Zaney123

[Paul Victorey]

I doubt that anyone in the united states truly has information on executed POWs, except possibly the highest brass, but I don't think we'll truly know what happens to POWs until we get some POWs back.

[jessho]

I doubt that anyone in the united states truly has information on executed POWs, except possibly the highest brass, but I don't think we'll truly know what happens to POWs until we get some POWs back.

Five dead soldier with head shots indicates a kill shot after they were wounded or an execution. The terror on the faces of the hostages indicates they witnessed what happened. If Iraq is not torturing these prisoners, why are they not shown in current videos showing their humane treatment? What are they scared of? These are support soldiers without any special combat training after boot camp.

[Paul Victorey]

Five dead soldiers with head shots also could indicate that they walked into a kill zone of Saddam Fedayeen snipers, and ANYONE would be scared s***less as a POW. The Iraqi POWs look every bit as terrified as ours, does that mean we're executing POWs too?

The Red Cross expects to be able to have access to POWs soon, on both sides, so they can act as neutral observers as to the treatment of POWs.

[jessho]

Five dead soldiers with head shots also could indicate that they walked into a kill zone of Saddam Fedayeen snipers, and ANYONE would be scared s***less as a POW. The Iraqi POWs look every bit as terrified as ours, does that mean we're executing POWs too? The Red Cross expects to be able to have access to POWs soon, on both sides, so they can act as neutral observers as to the treatment of POWs.

Sniper teams don't work that way. The Red Cross, for some strange reason, won't have access to those prisoners. You know that we don't execute P.O.W.'s. unless they try to excape or attack soldiers.

Try some other line of reasoning. The one you are using isn't working.

[Tiretool]

While I do believe that it's conceivable that Iraqi snipers scored head shots on our soldiers, I don't think it's probable. If I were a betting man, my money would be on our soldiers were ambushed and resisted, resulting in them being wounded and then shot in the head point blank range. The ones who had some sense and didn't try to play commando are the ones we saw being questioned. I found the recording of the POWs on the internet, and actually only two of the four who were questioned seemed really scared. Two of them seemed to be holding up quite well, not giving the captors the satisfaction of seeing them show signs of fear. They spoke very clearly and calmly and didn't seem to want to show any sign of being scared.

[drisley]

I wonder if the Red Cross will be objective. It seems so many wish to blame the US for a guys hair being disheveled, yet Saddam's guys put a bullet between someone's eyes and it kind of goes under the radar.

Truth is, these guys are probably safer and better cared for as our POWs than they were working for Saddam, even in peacetime.

[Strider]

While it is shocking and revolting that POW's might have been killed, this is War. Not every Country follows the code of the Geneva Conference, take WWII the Japanese didn't believe in it and did torture/kill POW's. 60 some years later, Japan and the United States have friendly relations with each other. While the Japanese did face war crime trials against these leaders and major perprators, there were many that went unpunished. The same thing is going to happen to those in Iraq that gave orders to kill and torture these POW's. The one thing the United States did wrong is they didn't follow the Golden Rule - "Never underestimate your enemy".

I just hope and pray that this war is over soon, so innocent people won't be killed (This applies to both sides of the war).

[Paul Victorey]

Well, Geneva was specifically created because of WW2, and the atrocities on all sides. During WW2 it was common practice for all sides, including the US, to kill civilians. It was considered a perfectly acceptable strategy in war. Geneva came about specifically because of the human rights abuses by both Axis and Allies during WW2. Hopefully, all nations, including the USA, will decide to fully comply with the Geneva convention and that shameful period of war will be behind us.