News - 2 Articles
- From: "I Khan" <no1khan@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <imran_dist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 14:57:43 -0000
US Muslim soldier kills officer and wounds 16
uploaded 24 Mar 2003
A DISGRUNTLED US soldier who is a Muslim convert killed one of his officers and
wounded 16 other men, three seriously, when he lobbed grenades and fired into
three tents at a 101st Airborne Division base in northern Kuwait.
The attack was at Camp Pennsylvania, from where troops of the 101st Airborne or
"Screaming Eagles" were about to move into southern Iraq. The dead officer was
Captain Christopher Scott Seifert, 27.
Confusion was followed by disbelief and shaken morale when it became clear that
a fellow soldier was responsible for the attack. He was Sergeant Asan Akbar, an
engineer from the 326th Engineer Battalion, a spokesman said.
Sergeant Akbar, who has not been charged, had been "having what some might call
an attitude problem", the spokesman added. He had been disciplined for
insubordination and told he would be left in Kuwait when his unit moved into
Iraq. He had been under observation for erratic behaviour and had been placed
on sentry duty guarding vehicles.
The Pentagon said that the army criminal investigation command was examining
the day's events.
The sergeant made his attack on the 1st Brigade's tactical operations centre at
1.45am, just as Scud attack alarms were sounding. The centre is staffed by
officers and senior enlisted personnel. Among those hurt was the brigade
commander, Colonel Ben Hodges.
A Pentagon official said of the soldier, who has been attached to the division
for only a few months: "He's a Muslim, and it seems he was just against the
war."
Another military source said that the attack had been well- planned, with the
suspect first knocking out a generator that supplied electricity to the tents
and then lobbing grenades. He also allegedly fired his rifle.
Colonel Richard Thomas, the brigade surgeon, said that many of the injuries had
been caused by shrapnel. Three soldiers were evacuated to the 86th Combat
Support Hospital at Camp Udairi in northern Kuwait and seven were taken to the
47th Combat Support Hospital in southern Kuwait.
Jim Lacey, of Time magazine, who is with the Brigade, said: "I ran out of my
tent into total chaos . . . I walked over to the tent where the grenades had
gone off and saw two very badly wounded soldiers, one bleeding from his leg,
back and stomach. Sergeants were shouting orders to form a security perimeter.
Some of the younger soldiers were looking in a state of shock. Because a number
of officers had been hit, no one knew at first who was in charge."
After the attack two Kuwaiti contractors were seized amid fears that it was a
terror assault.
Quran Bilal, Sergeant Akhbar's mother, denied last night that her son would try
to take somebody's life. "He's not like that," she said. "He said the only
thing he was going out there to do was blow up bridges."
Mrs Bilal, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said that her son had worried about being
a Muslim in the Army. "He said, 'Mama, when I get over there, I have the
feeling they are going to arrest me just because of the name'," she said.
The Pentagon said that there were 4,070 Muslims in the US military, 1,940 in
the Army.
Source: Times Online (UK)
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American and British hypocrisy at its most blatant
uploaded 24 Mar 2003
NOTHING more clearly illustrates the cruel hypocrisy of America's war against
Iraq than Washington's reaction to the news that GIs have been captured.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld screamed "Geneva Convention! Geneva
Convention!" at the Iraqis for showing footage of US soldiers taken on the
battlefield.
He thundered that the film was "video propaganda" which violated their rights
as prisoners of war under international law.
How two-faced can you get?
Rumsfeld is the warmonger who ignored international legalities when the UN
refused to back the invasion of Iraq.
And he ruled that PoWs captured by the Americans in Afghanistan more than a
year ago have NO rights, and can be caged like animals at Camp X-Ray in
Guantanamo, Cuba.
Footage of 300 PoWs airlifted out of Kabul - with bags over their heads and
chains on every conceivable part of their body - was jubilantly shown on
American TV. The pictures were posted on the Pentagon's website.
That was OK. That was broadcast to satisfy the understandable American desire
for revenge for the attack on the Twin Towers.
Yet, it is not OK for Saddam Hussein to take a leaf out of the Yankee book.
When he does, he is "evil, evil" and his actions are an outrage.
But 18 months on, the Pentagon's PoWs - including nine Britons - are held as
hostages in Camp X-Ray with no access to lawyers or diplomatic representation.
Tony Blair connived in their unlawful treatment, as last night he joined the
chorus of condemnation of the Al Jazeera film.
At least the relatives of Edgar from Texas and James Reilly from New York know
where their loved ones are. At least they can hope for their release as part of
any deal to end hostilities.
The families of the lost legion of Camp X-Ray have no such hope. Only the
expectation that the Pentagon will keep their loved ones in barbaric
conditions, in clear defiance of the Geneva Convention - until they rot.
Of course, what Saddam is doing is inhuman and degrading. The Geneva Convention
forbids the deliberate humiliation of PoWs.
It is typical of his merciless nature and he is wrong to do it.
But two wrongs do not make a right, particularly in the moral maze of this war.
The Americans cannot go round screaming "breach of convention" when it happens
to their own, while they humiliate prisoners of the Afghan war on a daily basis.
American culture seeks to deny suffering. Islam, a religion of the desert,
almost revels in it.
That's why this conflict is more than simply a clash of arms.
Source: Daily Mirror (UK)
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