Incidents like this are always sad and unfortunate. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at the cowardly Fadayeen who seem to be perfectly happy to blur the lines betwwen civilians and soldiers. It's unfortunate, but I'm sure it will happen again. How sad..

Also of note, when I read about this incident on another site it was reported that a van had tried to run through a US checkpoint. I have to say that the next vehicle to run through the checkpoint should be shot also.

TO: ATS
RE: Dead Women & Children

I understand that the vehicle they were in tried to 'run the checkpoint'.

One has to wonder just what was going on when a van full of women and children does such a stunt in a war-zone.

I'm curious if there were any other occupants. Occupants that were not reported. Perhaps a male driver? In his early twenties?

Regards,

Chuck(le)

Laurence, honey, where is the link? Anyway, I'd like to see who and what else was in that van.

Can you imagine how difficult it must be to discern the "good guys" from the "bad guys" over there?

Here's one at Sky..

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1085820,00.html

I wish I'd had the time to comment on this this morning.

When I was in the Middle East it was clear that nobody stopped until they were right on top of a checkpoint, even if people were waving guns at them.

This is going to happen over and over again until the word gets around: Stop where the stop-sign is or the Americans will kill you.

The report I saw on the news said it was the US local commanders who said that the vehicle did not stop after repeated warning shots ... but that when they investigated, there were not any signs of hostile intent.
That being said, there's nothing to say that it wasn't a test of the defenses so to speak.

there goes the propaganda war.

This is a sad incident, but the soliders were in the right, if the story truly played out the way it's described here. There were warning shots fired, and the car continued to go forward. There is nothing else the troops could have, or should have, done, IMO.

This one seems to have more details...

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20030331_1539.html

From the BBC Blog:

Peter Hunt :: Doha, Qatar :: 2130GMT

This afternoon, a vehicle, possibly a van, approached a military checkpoint near Najaf.

Soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division signalled for to stop. It didn't. They fired warning shots and then fired into the engine.

The vehicle continued moving towards them. As a last resort, according to a Central Command spokesman, they fired into the passenger compartment.

There were 13 women and children inside. Seven of them were dead.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/2003/reporters_log/

lets not forget, jhad for propaganda is jhad none the less.
You have to understand the mentality of Islam.
Propaganda jhad is still a blow to the Invader.
Women, dragging their children, and "martyring" themselves serves the same perpose to loyalists.

Anyone remembers the incident in the West Bank when at a check point explosives were found in an ambulance under the stretcher? Something to keep in mind.

The vehicle was repeatedly challenged, and the first warning shots were aimed at the engine, not the occupants. Still it didn't stop.

Another sad story, but it is an indication of fanaticism rather than any real fault of the troops.

But it will no doubt play well on Al Jazeera and in the Guardian

I wonder if the women weren't dead long before the van reached the checkpoint...

Welcome to the Middle East.

This really pisses me off, because this is a direct consequence of Iraq not following the Geneva Conventions.

When you dress as civilians, and use suicide attacks, soldiers have to suspect the worse.

Yet no one outside the US military complains about this

I knew this would happen, but hoped it would not.

The Iraqi 'leadership' is more than happy to spend the lives of its citizenry for miniscule gains. In this case, the propaganda value is immense.

As the regime's desperation increases, do not be surprised that it employs increasingly desperate tactics.

Can't wait for the "media" to get into this one. A check of the websites:

Drudge: Seven Iraqi women, children killed by U.S. forces at checkpoint
MSNBC: U.S. troops fire into van - 7 women, children dead
CNN: U.S. soldiers fire into van carrying 13 women and children after it fails to stop at checkpoint, Central Command says. Seven killed, two wounded. Details to come.
ABC: Seven Iraqi Civilians Killed, Two Injured at U.S. Military Checkpoint
Fox News: nothing.

Who would have thought that CNN would have had the least inflammatory headline. Go figure.

I certainly wouldn't second-guess these soldiers, it's not their fault, and 99.9999% of the blame lies with Saddam's feyadeen, but man, if you're a parent, it's hard to think of shot-up kids as "I know this is sad, but..."

It's just sad.

Look at this:
"7 dead and 2 wounded... and were they all wearing their seat belts?"

" be mad at the cowardly Fadayeen "

"I wonder if the women weren't dead long before the van reached the checkpoint..."

"Women, dragging their children, and "martyring" themselves serves the same perpose to loyalists."

"I'm curious if there were any other occupants. Occupants that were not reported. Perhaps a male driver? In his early twenties?
Regards,
Chuck(le)"

"The Iraqi 'leadership' is more than happy to spend the lives of its citizenry for miniscule gains"
--------------
Firstly, there was no male in his "early 20's" in the van, only women and children.
Now I don't blame the soldiers one whit, but some people here seem to be very callous. There is no evidence that this was a suicide attack or a probe. It is much more likely that there were frightened people on both sides misunderstanding each other. Let's at least be sorry these people died, it is perfectly likely they all may have been completly innocent.

nOW i DON'T BLAME THE

Sad news, but how do we know this wasn't another "human shields" incident? If the Iraqi's are willing to walk civilians out in front of their soldiers, stand them in front of their artillery pieces, or use them to shield their command bunkers, what's to stop them from loading those same civilians into a van and running a checkpoint. Or, perhaps more importantly, how are our soldiers to know the difference.

thanks vern... i agree

It becomes all the more important to remove the regime that dresses its soldiers in civilian clothes, attacks from a flag of surrender, uses women and children as human fields, drives suicide taxi-bombs toward military checkpoints, and uses vans as mobile mortar launchers. It becomes very urgent to topple the Baath regime, and keep third parties from entering the fray.

I do not blame the US troops, the blame falls squarely on Iraq's terrorists.

That being said, I wonder if it's logistically possible to consider something like spike strips?

I know US troops aren't cops, but if it helps in any way save children without risking troops, I'm all about it.

Another good reason for the "embeds." Without them, this could be left for speculation to what occured, with some of the less sympathetic media outlets fanning the flames of outrage.

Vern - yeah, we're callous. We just dug four dismembered American Marines out of a shallow grave near a torture center. Forgive us for not suspecting the worst of our enemies.

We are fighting a war that we intend to win, and you can't win a war without breaking a few eggs.

Finally, and most importantly, we gave the inhabitants of that van every chance to save their lives. We didn't take their lives - they threw them away. There is a difference.

"and were they all wearing their seat belts?"

Come now, you guys can be a tad bit more professional than that. Bias is one thing, crudeness another.

On a more positive note, it now appears that the Syrian bus struck from the air by a missile was carrying combatants to fight against the coalition forces.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/278957.html

I doubt that spike strips are normally issued to combat troops.

I'm not sure spike strips would work anyhow. To protect the checkpoint they'd have to be laid out quite some distance ahead of it. Spike strips are not obvious, and would probably not be recognised by Iraqis. I don't imagine police under Sadaam being that subtle. Every vehicle that came to the checkpoint would wind up with shreaded tires. If the vehicle had been loaded with explosives the driver would not have cared about its condition, and thuys could have ignored a spike strip. Drunk Americans have driven for tens of meters past spike strips at the cost of ruining the wheel rims. If the driver and vehicle were going to explode violently anyhow this would be of no concern. No barrier capable of stopping a vehicle whose driver had no concern for safety could be moved aside after a vehicle had been checked.

"That being said, I wonder if it's logistically possible to consider something like spike strips?"
Doubt it, at least in the short term. Besides, if someone wants to blow up a whole car (and himself), what does he care if the tires/wheels are ruined?

As far as the propaganda war: This is a setback if the point is to convince the Arabs that we're sweet and kind; it's a base hit if we're trying to overcome the perception that we are the world's doormat and won't fire at anything that isn't an obvious military vehicle full of uniformed soldiers brandishing weapons.

In the long run, our willingness to fire on civilians under such circumstances will save civilian lives. The tactical benefit of their use as human shields and the like is greatly reduced. (Why are the words "Human Shields" painted on some Bagdad buildings? Because the Baathists think we won't bomb any building so marked.)

Let's see van doesn't stop at a military checkpoint in a war zone in spite of several attempts on soldier's part to get the van to halt, including firing into the engine block.

There's a war on, what were they supposed to do, write a traffic ticket?

I'm wondering why they didnt fire at the tires? Wouldn't it have made sense to pop one of the tires that way it would have either flipped and in which case maybe not as many people would have been killed or they would have come to a stop considering the problems they would have had while driving without one of their front tires.

There are many possible explanations here, some of which don't seem to have been considered by the folks commenting here. For example, let's assume they were fleeing the Fedayeen; think about how desperate one must be to keep driving after warning shots have been fired in the air and into your engine. Or what if the brakes weren't working? Who knows what actually happened there? I do wholeheartedly agree that the soldiers followed orders and can also not be faulted for responding in that manner in the wake of the suicide attack. Moreover, the new rules of engagement not only permit this, but mandate it. That said, I guarantee you those young warriors were crushed to find that they had killed women and children, and that memory will haunt them forever; they are not gloating, and neither should we. This is an ugly business, but let's not stoop to the level of our enemy by relishing the death of women and children. Even if we assume that all of the women in the car were bloodthirsty terrorists, the children are blameless, and the children always suffer in war.

"For example, let's assume they were fleeing the Fedayeen; think about how desperate one must be to keep driving after warning shots have been fired in the air and into your engine."

I didn't post about it, but I thought from the beginning that was a highly likely scenario. But as you indicate, it doesn't change the equation from the standpoint of the soldiers on the ground.

I don't see anyone gloating here, SDD; any expressions of emotion have been limited to "sad, "tragic" and like words. It falls under the category of necessary evil. Our guys' actions were made necessary because the evil tactics of the enemy. That doesn't make any of us happy. But it's some small relief knowing that our military is waking up to the danger and acting appropriately.

BBC World Service is running this as their top story at present. Typical !

Ah they were probably already dead or dying in the back anyway. The truck and people were probably sent as propaganda/terror tools.

However you imagine it, this is a tragedy. The hideous paradox is that we hope they were dead/ tortured/ threatened beforehand. But it is a tragedy nonetheless.

There will be more such before this war is (mercifully) through.

It is so sad that some thing like this happened. Now we can always say they could have done this and that. But what else would the dead scared soldiers pissing their pants at a checkpoint do?

I guess the marines raped the women and molested thir children before killing them.

I see a few people have picked up on the 'seatbelt' comment, decrying it as insensitive.

Well maybe it is. And maybe that's the worst you can say about the post, so that's what you promptly do.

What is or is not mindly out of taste hardly matters... that doesn't mean a thing to you. Because you aren't here to get informed, you are here to pick and snipe and find any problems you can and shout and underline and harry the eeeevil rightwingers.

In short, you are on the other side, just looking for ammo, and even petty crap will do in a pinch. Grow up or go the hell away.

Want some real analysis? Forget the "fleeing from feyadeen while surrounded by U.S. soldiers" idea. It's stupid. Most likely this is either a darwinesque "acting stupid around armed people looking for terrorists", or simply a case of someone slamming on the gas instead of the brakes. It happens all the time, ask your insurance company... and its especially common when the driver is distracted.