I wrote this Sunday while traveling in Pennsylvania, but was without Internet access, so I’m just posting it now:
I read in this morning’s paper – The Sentinel in Carlisle, Pa., to be
exact – that once again, terrorists have rounded up a group of Iraqi policemen
and executed them.
Here’s what the Associated Press story said about it: “In another attack in
the same region, insurgents rounded up eight police at a checkpoint outside the
western city of Ramadi, then marched them into their office and shot them to
death on Friday, police said Saturday.”
This sounds awfully familiar, and whenever similar atrocities happen, the reports are
far too sparse on details even to begin to answer the questions such news
naturally provokes.
Basically, how does such a thing happen? I mean, step by step. What
is done, what is not done, and what is going through the minds of the victims
at the time?
Do you ever hear of a group of eight U.S. Marines being “rounded up” and
herded into their own command post and shot? Of course not. If
eight Marines are killed, it’s usually by an explosive device taking out the
vehicle they’re all riding in -– no chance to react, just sudden death. It would
take a major engagement for as many as
eight Marines to be killed by small-arms fire -– as these policemen were -– and
they would take many of the enemy with them. They wouldn’t die all at once.
It would be one here, a couple there.
Why? Because the Marines will fight. And while there’s a long way to go with training and equipping Iraqi police and soldiers, we have seen that they will fight too. So why didn’t they this time?
These men had the courage to sign
up for the police force, knowing how that would paste gigantic targets on their
backs. They had to be on their guard at all times. So how did they get “rounded up?” It’s a real tactical challenge to simply
“round up” eight armed adversaries, without a fight first that kills a
bunch of people on both sides. I don’t see how you pull off a thing like this
without combat first. Oh, maybe once, with total surprise. But not more than once -– and especially not after the word gets around among the police that if
you let them capture you, they will shoot you like a dog.
As I write this, I’m about a stone’s throw from the U.S. Army War College.
Maybe somebody over there could tell me how you do this, but I
sort of doubt it.
Were the police unarmed? Maybe, but the sketchy report doesn’t indicate that. If the report hadn’t been so sketchy, perhaps I wouldn’t have so many questions; perhaps the "why" would be obvious. But as things stand, I’m left guessing. (My searches of the Internet, since I got back, have produced
nothing more detailed; if you have found something, please let me know.)
Were they talked into defecting to the
other side, only the offer to defect was a cruel trick? I have no idea. Were they betrayed by "friends"?
It can’t simply be the lack of the will to fight. No one is that apathetic. You don’t just shrug and
say, “OK, I quit,” when you know the almost certain outcome will be a bullet in
the back of the head. You don’t have to believe in Iraqi democracy or anything
like that to defend yourself in such a situation. You don’t even have to be brave; it’s a matter of
self-preservation.
So the question remains, how does this happen?
Related Posts
