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[Wilse]

Here is a first-hand account of a bizarre incident, by a US Civil Affairs officer, Captain Oscar Estrada, that appeared in the Washington Post on June 6 : "A unit ahead of us had reported taking fire and we rushed to the scene. Other patrols and M1 tanks soon arrived and we sat and waited, pointing our weapons into a date palm grove to the north. A small column of Humvees moved down a dirt road toward the grove, and all hell broke loose. I never heard a shot fired from the grove, but someone did, and then everyone was firing. "Hey, what the hell are we shooting at?" I screamed at my buddy as I continued to squeeze off rounds from my M-16. "I'm not sure! By that shack. You?" "I'm just shooting where everybody else is shooting." But everybody else was shooting all over the place. Small puffs of white erupted in front of us as our own soldiers lobbed grenades at the grove but came up short; tracers from .50-caliber machine guns flew past us, and the smell of cordite filled the air. Then, as suddenly as it had
started, the tumult ended. We sat in silence and listened to the crackling radios as a patrol dismounted from a couple of armored Humvees and began to search among the trees.

[Then came the radio transmissions.] "Dagger, this is Bravo 6. Do you have anything, over?" "Roger. We're going to need a terp [interpreter]. We have a guy here who's pretty upset. I think we killed his cow, over." "Upset how, over?" "He can't talk; I think he's in shock. He looks scared, over." "He should be scared. He's the enemy." "Uhm, ahh, Roger , 6 . . . he's not armed and looks like a farmer or something." "He was in the grove that we took fire from ; he's a [expletive] bad guy!" "Roger"."

You now doubt that the US Army indulges in deceit and deliberate lies?
The free-fire zone still exists in some military minds, and it now has
its being in Iraqi date palm groves rather than Vietnamese paddy
fields. Otherwise what's changed, except that there are no body
counts? Dead Iraqis don't count ; literally and figuratively.

[KennyR]

Yeah, Uncle Ho sure used their own trigger happiness against them. And how.

[Fade]

Curb your cow, or there will be steaks on the barbie tonight. :-D

[KennyR]

It was definitely the cow's fault, it was trying to pretend it was a squadron of enemy soldiers. Just like those stupid British disguising their distinctive APCs flying a union jack as being Iraqi battle tanks, and those idiot Canadians pretending to be Taliban, and those people trying to look like hostiles by sneakily getting married. Kill the lot of 'em!

Eyetests should possibly be given to all American soldiers by this point, I think. Or lobotomies.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

KennyR wrote:
Eyetests should possibly be given to all American soldiers by this point, I think. Or lobotomies.

or cyanide.