Ethan McCord

Ethan McCord is a former US soldier who served in Iraq, and is one of the soldiers who appear on the wikileaks video that I discussed earlier.

He was interviewed recently, and claims, among other things, that:

Our rules of engagement were changing on an almost daily basis. But we had a pretty gung-ho commander, who decided that because we were getting hit by IEDs a lot, there would be a new battalion SOP [standard operating procedure].

He goes, “If someone in your line gets hit with an IED, 360 rotational fire. You kill every motherfucker on the street.” Myself and Josh and a lot of other soldiers were just sitting there looking at each other like, “Are you kidding me? You want us to kill women and children on the street?”

And you couldn’t just disobey orders to shoot, because they could just make your life hell in Iraq. So like with myself, I would shoot up into the roof of a building instead of down on the ground toward civilians. But I’ve seen it many times, where people are just walking down the street and an IED goes off and the troops open fire and kill them.

I strongly suspect this isn't true, and although he admits to emotional problems from his time in service, this would not excuse lying. I'll explain.

I'm also in the Army. Unlike McCord, I'm still in the Army. I've been to Iraq - twice, including just before McCord was there. I've also been in a convoy hit by an IED. Not only have I not seen it, I've never even heard of any unit with such a ridiculous "policy".

If an officer actually gave an order like that, it would be illegal, and would end his career (or send him to jail) if anyone found out. It's very unlikely he would announce it so openly, and even more unlikely that the Battalion commander wouldn't do anything to stop it, since he could be held liable also (remember that every commander in the Army has a commander himself). Anyone following it could also be prosecuted.

I'm not defending the wikileaks incident, but - here's what bothers me. Former soldiers like McCord, who are against the war, get star-studded media attention, while the 99.99% who claim they didn't commit atrocities (like me) are ignored.

I would also like to respond to this. McCord wrote a letter of apology of sorts, for the incident, because:

We wanted the Iraqi people to know that not everybody sees them as being dehumanized and that there are plenty of Americans and other people who care for them as human beings and wish for them to live long and happy lives and don’t agree with the war and the policies behind it.

I do support the war, but I also care very deeply for Iraqis as human beings, and consider many of them my good friends. I still correspond with them today. McCord is just saying the things the anti-war protestors want to hear, and the interviewer is eating it up.

I tried to find McCord through the Army's email database, but he is not listed, most likely since he's no longer in the service. If he would contact me, I would love to interview him myself.

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Lawsuits for All

City Museum, wire tunnel, by Daniel Ramirez

Justice means, among many other things, equal protection for all. People tend to forget that this applies to tort actions as well.

In the United States, whenever someone sues a large business or a government agency, the first thing you normally hear in the press is the accusations by the Plaintiff's attorney. You rarely hear the defendant's side until much later (if at all), because they are afraid of saying anything that could hurt their case. The "no comment" usually comes in the form of: "Mr. [blank], a spokesman for [blank agency/company] claims they cannot comment on pending litigation".

Well, the thing is, it turns out that the United States has a 1st Amendment, and you can comment on it.

The City Museum in Saint Louis, (which has several interactive sections) got tired of this policy and has started naming and shaming people who are suing it. It's about time. Legitimate suits are one thing, but frivolous suits only serve to drive up costs for everyone else. Money Quote:

“Just to give you a quick glimpse into what we go through at the City Museum, a couple of years ago our rock fell 4 feet. The next day we had over 12 people call and tell us they were injured when the rock fell. To investigate these claims, we reviewed the video of the rock falling and we posted the video clearly showing that there was no one next to the rock when it fell on our website. When this was brought to several of the caller’s attention they either hung up or changed their stories.”

So the real issue here is, what has happened in similar incidents where the plaintiff in question didn't have happen to have video to protect itself?

Personally, I think the museum should have waited to announce the existence of the video only after people had officially filed their paperwork, so that they could then be prosecuted for filing false claims.

I'm very curious to see what affect this new policy has on future litigation at the museum.

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Arizona illegal immigration bill controversy

The Arizona governor signs a new bill to crack down on illegal immigration, and predictably, the usual suspects file lawsuits to prevent it from taking effect.

I have a question for Mexico, MALDEF, the ACLU, and others: Tell us then, is it ever legal to enforce immigration laws???

I understand concerns about racial profiling, but let's get real. When police encounter an individual who doesn't speak English, yet his clothes are in very poor condition so it's unlikely he's a foreign tourist, then it's just common sense that they should be allowed to ask questions.

Predictably, President Obama condemned the bill, and tried to twist it into another reason why we need to grant a general amnesty:

"Indeed, our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others. And that includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona, which threatened to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.

"In fact, I've instructed members of my administration to closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation. But if we continue to fail to act at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country."

Arizona Senator John McCain responded thus:

“If the president doesn’t like what the Arizona Legislature and governor may be doing, then I call on the president to immediately call for the dispatch of 3,000 National Guard troops to our border and mandate that 3,000 additional Border Patrol [officers] be sent to our border as well...

And that way, then the state of Arizona will not have to enact legislation which they have to do because of the federal government’s failure to carry out its responsibilities, which is to secure the borders.”

But as Bill S. at Red State asks, where was this McCain during the 2008 election?

Gov. Bill Richardson from neighboring New Mexico, who is Hispanic himself, loudly complained about the bill. Probably because he knows it will drive more illegal immigrants into his state, forcing him to have to do actually do something himself.

Incidentally, I give President Obama and the Democrats a hard time on this issue, but the truth is, President Bush did little to secure the border as well. The border hasn't been effectively patrolled since the days of President Eisenhower (who deported as many as 1 million illegal immigrants during his term).

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Lightning + Volcano

Wow! This is one hell of a photo - Lightning bolts captured around the plume of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Southern Iceland! This embedded image doesn't do it justice - click on it to see the full picture. It comes through NASA's "astronomy picture of the day", so I'm reasonably certain it's genuine. This photo was taken by Marco Fulle.

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April Round up

Spring in Amsterdam, by Claudio Mufarrege

Not the most noteworthy headlines, but things you may have missed:

USA: Here we go again. Former President Clinton warns of violence due to "right wing blogosphere and media", and references the Oklahoma City bombing. Left-wing threats are never mentioned, of course. Nor is Clinton even challenged on this point by interviewers.

World: It's about time. The first mass produced, affordable electric car, the Nissan Leaf, is coming later this year. More here.

USA: An Army doctor questions Obama's citizenship and refuses to deploy. Strangely, on left wing web sites, the comments are nearly unanimous in declaring him a traitor and calling for his head. Strange... these are the same folks who were so sympathetic toward other officers refusing to deploy, such at Lt. Watada. In any case, both these types of objectors are wrong. You don't refuse to serve because of who the commander-in-chief is. After all, you are not part of his private army; you belong to the country as a whole (anti-Bush protestors also often didn't understand this distinction). When you sign up, you also don't get to pick and choose where you serve, which is what Watada didn't understand.

USA: A US Marine has been warned about posting statements supportive of the Tea Party protests. The article says: "military personnel are prohibited from sponsoring a political club, writing anything that solicits votes for a political cause or speaking at any event that promotes a political movement". That's not true. Servicemembers are not allowed to do those things while in uniform - there's a huge difference. Otherwise, we are free to support any cause we want. After all, we are Americans too. However, to avoid misunderstandings like this is one reason why I write under a pen name.

USA: Speaking of Marines, a blind, double-amputee Marine, Cpl. Matthew Bradford, just re-enlisted for four more years. He plans to work with other servicemembers who are recovering from the effects of war. While I absolutely admire his spirit, I just don't think this is a good idea. Anyone who enlists in the military must be prepared to go to war. Obviously, Cpl Bradford cannot. It makes more sense to medically retire him (with disability pay), and then allow him to work this job as a civilian employee. But if keeping him in uniform inspires others, then more power to him. He's also one of the best examples of an American that I can find.

Australia: Reason #113 not to wear a burkha: Woman strangled to death by burkha in freak go-kart accident.

Maine: Commission on Human Rights wants to ban male and female restrooms in schools as "discriminatory".

Canada: A lesbian takes offense at humor at a comedy club, so she files an official criminal human rights complaint. Humor always offends someone, so one day, it will all be banned. Ridiculously, there has been an explosion in such cases in Canada, even though there aren't any reports of mass killings, concentration camps, or hate crime victims fleeing south to the United States.

UK: Manga and Anime, among other forms of comics, stand to be banned in the UK altogether under a misguided attempt to prevent the depiction of abuse of children.

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Email address book was hacked

Somehow the address book for my email address (johnrohan ~at~ hotmail . com) was hacked into, and some spam messages were sent out to everyone in the book appearing to be from my address. Not surprisingly, the email was pitching for a pharmaceutical web site dealing in viagra. Ironically, the web site had a link to complain about spam email. I started filling it out, but it asked for my email address. Sorry, but no way was I going to let them scam me again.

Anyway, if you got a strange email from me, that is the reason. I have deleted my address book, and taken some extra precautions. If this happens again, I may have to change my address.

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Richard Dawkins and Chrisopher Hitchens will "arrest" the Pope [Updated]

Disclaimer: I am a Catholic. The truth is, small men usually hide behind their keyboards:

Richard Dawkins, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain “for crimes against humanity”.

Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

Isn't it strange how prominent atheists always prefer to attack Christian leaders? Would it ever have occurred to them to have similarly call for the arrest of people like Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during their visits to the UN?

In any case, the alleged "cover up" is the fact that in 1985, the Pope, then a Cardinal, recommended carefully studying the case of a pedophile priest rather than immediately defrocking him. That's a rather weak claim for "crimes against humanity".

Additionally, exactly what qualifies Dawkins and Hitchens to be the point men here? Are they international lawyers? Are they victims of abuse? Are they even members of the Catholic Church??

The answer is "No" to all the above - they're just two guys with opinions about the Pope (like anyone else). In fact, they were both extremely hostile to the Church even before this "scandal" broke.

Moreover, this part is really obtuse:

Dawkins and Hitchens believe the Pope would be unable to claim diplomatic immunity from arrest because, although his tour is categorised as a state visit, he is not the head of a state recognised by the United Nations.

Irrelevant. He's the head of state of a nation recognized by virtually every country on Earth, including the United Kingdom. The fact that the Vatican is not a member of the UN doesn't make any difference. Under international law, nations aren't required to join the UN.

One other odd thing about the Times Online article - many of the comments there support Dawkin's view of evolution and denounce Creationism, as if this somehow refutes the Pope. Their ignorance is evidence to all: the Catholic Church embraced the idea of evolution a long time ago, and has long rejected literal Creationism.

Incidentally, for two other examples of Chris Hitchen's inane hyperbole, look here and here.

Update 1: Richard Dawkins now claims that he was misquoted, and is not seeking to "arrest" Pope Benedict. He does claim he supports legal action against the Pope however:

I did NOT say "I will arrest Pope Benedict XVI" or anything so personally grandiloquent. You have to remember that The Sunday Times is a Murdoch newspaper, and that all newspapers follow the odd custom of entrusting headlines to a sub-editor, not the author of the article itself.

What I DID say to Marc Horne when he telephoned me out of the blue, and I repeat it here, is that I am whole-heartedly behind the initiative by Geoffrey Robertson and Mark Stephens to mount a legal challenge to the Pope's proposed visit to Britain.

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The Un-Truthout [Updated]

There's a very disturbing article at Truthout.org that I will respond to. It claims that the killings in the wikileaks video were a common occurrence. It's basically recycled propaganda that's been refuted before, and features such Iraqi vets such as Garett Repenhagen, Jason Hurd, and Adam Kokesh, and Scott Ewing. Notice a pattern here? They all come from the group Iraq Veterans against the War, a wildly anti-military organization that openly supports deserters.

Scott Ewing, who served in Iraq from 2005-2006, admitted on one panel that units intentionally gave candy to Iraqi children for reasons other than "winning hearts and minds.

"There was also another motive," Ewing said. "If the kids were around our vehicles, the bad guys wouldn't attack. We used the kids as human shields."

This statement is so specious I hardly know where to start. There was no tactic, written or otherwise, to use children as "human shields" and that wouldn't matter to most insurgents anyway. He's likely mistaking a joke a fellow soldier made and turning it into some kind of policy.

Garret Reppenhagen served in Iraq from February 2004-2005 in the city of Baquba, 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) northeast of Baghdad. He said his first experience in Iraq was being on a patrol that killed two Iraqi farmers as they worked in their field at night.

"I was told they were out in the fields farming because their pumps only operated with electricity, which meant they had to go out in the dark when there was electricity," he explained, "I asked the sergeant, if he knew this, why did he fire on the men. He told me because the men were out after curfew. I was never given another ROE during my time in Iraq."

Really? Well, here's the problem with that: It was a theater-wide policy for all soldiers to have a printed copy of the ROE (rules of engagement) on their persons at all times. These were printed out as wallet cards and handed out to everyone. It's possible that Reppenhagen's immediate leadership failed to obtain any, but that would be a reflection on them, not on the national policy. In any case, I doubt that Reppenhagen was lacking a copy. On any base you could see stacks of them lying around in every unit headquarters. It's more likely that he's forgetting to mention it because it would weaken his story. Incidentally, there was never any policy to shoot people merely for being out after curfew.

When this Truthout reporter was in Baghdad in November 2004, my Iraqi interpreter was in the Abu Hanifa mosque that was raided by US and Iraqi soldiers during Friday prayers.

"Everyone was there for Friday prayers, when five Humvees and several trucks carrying [US soldiers and] Iraqi National Guards entered," Abu Talat told Truthout on the phone from within the mosque while the raid was in progress. "Everyone starting yelling 'Allahu Akbar' (God is the greatest) because they were frightened. Then the soldiers started shooting the people praying!"

Here he's neglecting to give any context, such as the history around that mosque, or that the Imam had just called for a holy war against the Americans. Supposedly, between 2-4 people were killed, most likely by Iraqi soldiers (US soldiers never entered mosques except in very unusual circumstances). I know that the US soldiers didn't just jump in "shooting the people praying", because then there would have been a hell of a lot more than four people killed.

Cliff Hicks served in Iraq from October 2003 to August 2004.

"There was a tall apartment complex, the only spot from where people could see over our perimeter," Hicks told Truthout, "There would be laundry hanging off the balconies, and people hanging out on the roof for fresh air. The place was full of kids and families. On rare occasions, a fighter would get atop the building and shoot at our passing vehicles. They never really hit anybody. We just knew to be careful when we were over by that part of the wall, and nobody did shit about it until one day a lieutenant colonel was driving down and they shot at his vehicle and he got scared. So he jumped through a bunch of hoops and cut through some red tape and got a C-130 to come out the next night and all but leveled the place. Earlier that evening when I was returning from a patrol the apartment had been packed full of people."

I don't know what unit "Cliff Hicks" served in, but this seems too much coincidence to be a different incident; I'm strongly certain I was there. In late 2003, a large building overlooking the main gate to Camp Slayer was destroyed by an AC-130 gunship. Unlike what Mr. Hicks said, the building was mostly gutted, structurally unsound, and only occupied by a few people. More importantly, they had been warned more than once to get out (I know because I was told to give one of these warnings myself, and informed the Iraqis that the building would be destroyed from the air that night). Moreover, it was more than just the scene of random sniper fire; the building was ordered destroyed after a night attack in which three french-made 68mm rockets were set to a timer and fired from this building into our camp.

To this day, I still have one of the rocket transport tubes that I found in the building afterwards.

Update Apr 8: This article also appears at Political Theatrics, a rabidly Anti-American site. The author, Dahr Jamail, runs his own blog, and yesterday I contacted him with my concerns (no response so far). Incidentally, one of his articles claims that the Baghdad Museum lootings were a deliberate US policy, apparently not realizing that this was exposed as a hoax several years ago.

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"Collateral Murder"

The above is an Apache helicopter video which was released by Wikileaks after accessing it from the US government under the Freedom of Information Act. The entire video is rather disturbing; it shows a scene on the Eastern side of Baghdad on July 12, 2007 (I was not in Iraq at that time), in which several people, likely innocent, were killed by the gunship's 30mm cannons. These include a Namir Noor-Eldeen and a Saeed Chmagh, who were working for Reuters.

At first glance, it looks like the pilots mistook the camera equipment and tripods the men were carrying for AK-47 weapons and RPGs (although at least one of them did have an actual weapon). A short while after the initial salvo, a van pulls up to load one wounded person inside. This van has two children in it (what in God's name that driver was thinking in doing this, I'll never know!). The pilots believe that insurgents are arriving help their buddies escape and so they destroy the van. The children were wounded and they were taken to an Iraqi hospital. What happened after that is unknown.

It's very easy to condemn this and hindsight is always 20/20. The usual talking heads are all over this already. But without knowing the full context of the situation in that neighborhood at that time, it's really impossible to make an informed judgment. Had there been incidents on that street for the last several days? Who knows? Unfortunately, making this problem even worse, a shorter and edited version, titled Collateral Murder (a less than objective title) is making the rounds of the liberal blogosphere. It adds in it's own narrative, making it even less reliable. One innocent death is too many. But we should be careful; I've seen too many incidents such as this distorted and spun out of control.

It may behoove the Pentagon to release the intelligence reports prior to the incident and the investigation afterwards to give us a more complete picture. The Jawa Report has some thoughts that echo my own.

Update: The mainstream media are now reporting this as a front page story.

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