Killing a child: 'I did what I had to do'

Yet, the neighborhood kids are getting killed. If the ball goes into the street, don't chase after it right away before looking both ways, and looking up.

idjeff, your utter lack of sympathy for the peope of Iraq tells me you either a) are a cruel person or b) don't know what the *** you are talking about.

No, America allowed Saddam to get the power he holds, they should be obligated to take him out of power, and the costs of doing that is on their hands.

Don't you think it's kind of fuked up that twenty years ago, Drumsfeld was shaking hands with Saddam Hussein??

"I wanted to become an army officer when I grow up, but not anymore."

i think the pre-emptive strikes are working! he won't be fighting for sure...
and look at the smile on his face, if he had arms he would be waving the stars and stripes.

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtm...storyID=2517852

I lost track. Are we supporting the UN this week or ignoring them?

I must have missed the part where the US went to the UN and said "Look, Saddam committed genocide a few years ago so we want to invade Iraq and free the Iraqi people". Or perhaps it didn't happen. Perhaps the US went to the UN with incredibly flimsy (and partially fabricated) information on WMD and were politely told to shove it.

And perhaps now that the US isn't finding warehouses full of WMD marked "To Osama love Saddam", the US government is starting to pretend this is actually about freeing an oppressed people.

It isn't.

If we had invaded under that pretense we would be in all kinds of trouble right now.

Killing children is not good, and this incident is very unfortunate, but when ANYBODY points an RPG at you, you have no choice but to kill them. The people to blame here are the ones that put the child there in the first place.

Don't forget: This is all about "preemptively" saving the US from "potential" attacks.

80% of Americans "now accept the Bush administration's contention... that Hussein has 'close ties' to al-Qaeda. And 60% say they believe he bears at least some responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"More than three-fourths of Americans � including two-thirds of liberals and 70% of Democrats � now say they support the decision to go to war. And more than four-fifths of these war supporters say they still will back the military action even if allied forces don't find evidence of weapons of mass destruction."

"...many might endorse action against Iran or Syria."

This is the second time in this thread that someone has implied that the kid posed a direct threat to Boggs i.e. he was pointing an RPG launcher at Boggs. The article says: Later on the article says: Correct me if I'm wrong, but a "rocket propelled grenade" is a little thing that looks like a mini bomb. It needs to go into an RPG launcher to be of any use. The article says the kid was picking up a "rocket propelled grenade" (not a launcher) which suggests he was one of the majority who are weapons collectors (in this case collecting ammo). In any event, he hadn't picked up whatever it is he was going for and certainly hadn't aimed it at anyone, so he wasn't a direct threat to Boggs at the time of his death. The US Army considers weapons collectors legitimate targets. In all likelihood he was killed because he was recovering weapons not because he was a direct threat to Boggs.

I really, really want to agree with you. But don't forget that after picking up the grenade he'd be handing them to somebody with the hardware needed to use use it. So in a way that does make ammunitions collectors legitimate targets. Although I daresay that the boy had very little idea of what he was doing and why he was doing it. Or why he got killed.

I'm not suggesting he wasn't a legimitate target; I just think people should stick to the facts and not say that he was killed because he was aiming an RPG at Boggs.

Actually, I think it's more f*cked up that they both have the same hair styles two decades later.

Both the north and the south tried. They were massacred. In the Shia south alone, it is estimated that Saddam's troops killed between 30,000-80,000 people to put down the updrising. I've heard similiar numbers for the north...and I've heard larger numbes for the north.

They tried to rise up and change thier government in '92, and it didn't work.

I wonder....

If an armed child approached you in the mall, and you had a chance to kill him, and prevent him from most likely killing you and others (he says he hates everyone there).....

Would you take the shot?

Or would you let him shoot you?

US Troops generally refer to the entire weapon as an RPG. Nobody that I know distinguishes between an RPG and an RPG launcher in ordinary conversation. In fact, I'm not even sure if the launchers are reusable. Most hand-held anti-tank weapons are fire and throw away. At least, the American equivalents to the Soviet RPG are. I had the same training as these troops and I have zero familiarity with the operation of an RPG. I just know roughly what they are.

It should also go without saying that it is even less likely that a journalist would be precise in his use of military terminology. They have even less familiarity with the weapons. In this war I have lost track of the number of times I have seen Bradleys and Warriors called "tanks," British troops referred to as Americans. SKS and AKMS referred to as "AK-47s," Al-Samouds referred to as "Scuds" and so on.

Anyway, the bottom line is that there isn't enough information here to draw the conclusion you make. The article refers to an RPG, which could easily have been a ready-to-go weapon for all we know.


Note: this post responds only to the quoted portion above. I am not commenting on the entire thread.

Like you said If the article refers to the RPG as "ready to go" then I think he is in his right to defend himself if he felt there might be a threat. It's like a cop in the city, if a kid pulls a gun even if it is a toy how do you know it's not real or loaded or not? A cop probably wouldn't kill the kid but it is the same type of thing. Maybe I'm a cruel person, but to me it doesn't matter who pick up the RPG if it's loaded and ready to go it's a threat to me, therefore its going to be either them or me.

No, actually, the bottom line is that there isn't enough information here to draw the conclusion others made namely that the kid was aiming an RPG at them. That was my "conclusion". I merely pointed out that on a balance, the information that we do have suggests that the kid was a weapons collector and that was the reason why he was killed.

I specifically dealt with the point that it may have been an RPG he was going for OR an RPG plus launcher. The journalist mentions specifically that the majority of the kids out there are weapons collectors and that this kid was shot while stooping to pick up. Both of those facts suggest to me that he was shot because he was a potential rather than a direct threat to their security. Now, if you disagree I'd be keen to hear what conclusion you draw from the facts as we know them.

OK, if that is your point, then I agree. There is no evidence here that conclusively shows what happened. We don't know what the status of the weapon was, and we certainly don't know whether the kid pointed it at anyone. Neither do we know that he didn't.

Basically, I don't trust a single journalist's description enough on these things to draw any solid conclusion. Most of the journalist's reports I have seen thus far are more or less sloppy and inaccurate. That's not necessarily their fault, it is just that very few journalists have any military training. I therefore wouldn't make anything of his use of the term RPG, and nor the soldier's since that just conforms to normal lingo.

More importantly, like eyewitnesses reports to the police after a cime, what he thinks he saw, and what he actually saw may not be quite the same thing. One report therefore doesn't tell us enough to dissect what really happened.

On prior practice (e.g. Somalia), if the situation is in any way doubtful, there will be an investigation at some later point when things have calmed down. I do not presume to prejudge that investigation (if there is one) in any way. However, if that investigation concludes that this was an armed civilian (even a child), it will conclude that the civilian was in fact a combatant and a threat to the troops in the area. If so, he was a legitimate target and the soldier was right to shoot. If that is the case, then the legal and moral culpability for this child's death lies with those who pressed a child into military service, not with the soldier confronted with a horrible dilemma.

apparently tis isnt too big a deal...might be cause the kid isnt an American.

killing children (as long as they arent American) is alright in the name of 'peace' or 'stability' or 'freedom' or 'anti-terrorism' or 'liberation'....

OK, seems there's two points that should be addressed. The first is the issue of pre-emptiveness. In this particular instance, are you saying that this kid (or whoever) MUST shoot you first in order for you to justify a response? If we did that, we would have lost hundreds or thousands of more troops. Or, as General Patton said so eloquently, "You don't win a war by dying for your country; You win a war by making the other SOB die for his country."

Second is the point of this kid being a child. Now, I would have probably hesitated, but obviously, even if this kid was just picking it up, he would have probably given it to somebody who WOULD have used it. Hey, it's a tough call. Different soldiers probably would have done different things.

As for the rest of your post about "Brown men" I'm not sure what you were trying to get across there.

I agree with you partially. If someone is endangering my life; if it's a me or him situation, I pop him first. For me, the real point of this article is that American troops consider 10 year olds that AREN'T aiming at them, but are scouting or collecting weapons to be legimitimate targets and they feel that they are entitled to kill those targets BEFORE they pose a direct threat.

Okay, I'll give my take on this and open myself to the inevitable assault. If it was me, I'd keep my sights trained on the kids, but I'd wait. If one of them starts lifting that RPG onto his shoulder, I'd open fire (short burst, I don't "unload" on the kid and I go for legs and arms). If the kid starts running away with the RPG, I leave him alone. Given the difference in relative power of the two forces, 500 RPG's extra in their hands isn't going to make a difference and that's much more than this kid is going to be able to collect. With our attrition rate sitting at below 0.05%, and them having a supply of RPG's already, the chances of THAT particular RPG doing any damage to our side are remote to say the least. On a balance, killing a child versus the potential harm that may be caused by an Iraqi soldier getting hold of another RPG, for me comes out in favour of preserving the life. Besides, there is a remote (note, I say remote) possibility that this kid has entirely different intentions. Maybe this kid thinks he's picking up a toy, maybe he thinks he needs to take a weapon home to protect his family, maybe someone will kill his Mom if he doesn't bring them the RPG.

This site explains what an RPG is and how it works. You'll see that the Soviet version of the launcher is reusable and it's a rather bulky, heavy (10kg is a big weight for a 10 year old) shoulder launched thing, that I doubt a 10 year COULD even operate.

No, I don't mean to really tell you that at all.

I'm saying, if a kid is going to shoot me, then I will shoot him.

I do think it's horrible that the military even considers using children on the battelfield for whatever reason. It's horribly sad.



I just hope you're right.



Who are you referring to as innocents? The miniscule percent of the population who force their kids to the battlefield? As difficult as that is, if the kid has the intent of killing me, is it not logical that I should try to preserve my own life? What do you suggest?

I don't think killing innocents IS justified like you said.