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Bush doesn't give a damn about our soldiers getting killed.
NBC News and news services
Updated: 5 minutes ago
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The bodies of two U.S. soldiers reported captured last week have been found and the men appear to have been “killed in a barbaric way,” a senior Iraqi general said Tuesday. A statement posted on a militant Islamic Web site said the two men were killed by the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.
U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the remains, found late Monday by American troops, were believed to be those of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore.
Caldwell said the cause of death was “undeterminable at this point,” and that DNA tests would be conducted to confirm the iden ies.
The two disappeared after an insurgent attack Friday at a checkpoint by a Euphrates River canal south of Baghdad and near the town of Youssifiyah. Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed. The checkpoint was in the Sunni Arab region known as the “Triangle of Death” because of frequent ambushes there of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi troops.
The three men were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
'Barbaric' deaths
The director of the Iraqi defense military’s operation room, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed, said the bodies showed signs of having been tortured. “With great regret, they were killed in a barbaric way,” he said.
Mohammed also said the two bodies were found on a street near Youssifiyah. The U.S. military could not confirm that account.
The bodies are to be flown to the military’s forensics lab in Dover, Del., for autopsies and to make positive identifications, U.S. military officials said. Any formal declaration of death will be withheld until the bodies are positively identified.
U.S. soldiers found the bodies based on a tip from a reliable Iraqi source, military officials told NBC News. U.S. forces had to literally fight their way to the bodies; enemy forces laid a series of improvised explosive devices, also known as IEDs, on the primary route to the bodies.
“The news is going to be heartbreaking for my family,” Ken MacKenzie, Menchaca’s uncle, told NBC’s “Today” show. He said the United States should have paid a ransom from money seized from Saddam Hussein.
“I think the U.S. was too slow to react to this. Because the U.S. did not have a plan in place, my nephew has paid with his life.”
Claims of kidnapping, killing
On Monday, the Mujahedeen Shura Council said it was holding two U.S. privates captive and taunted the U.S. military for failing to find the soldiers despite a search involving more than 8,000 Iraqi and American troops.
A statement posted on a militant Islamic Web site Tuesday said the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq killed the soldiers.
The statement, which could not be authenticated, said the two soldiers were “slaughtered,” suggesting they had been beheaded. The Arabic word used in the statement, “nahr,” is used for the slaughtering of sheep by cutting the throat and has been used in past statements to refer to beheadings.
U.S. officials believe the new leader is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the chief bombmaker for al-Qaida in Iraq. NBC VIDEO
• GI's uncle
June 20: Ken Mackenzie, an uncle of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, talks with "Today" show anchor Matt Lauer.
Today show
The group offered no video, identification cards or other evidence to prove that they kidnapped or killed the soldiers. The group had vowed to seek revenge for the June 7 killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, in a U.S. airstrike.
The council also said it was responsible for the June 3 kidnapping of four Russian Embassy workers. The two separate postings could not be authenticated, but they appeared on a Web site known for publishing messages from insurgent groups in Iraq.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, when asked about the claim by the Shura Council that it was holding the soldiers, said: “We have no independent confirmation of that report.”
Ahmed Khalaf Falah, a farmer, has told The Associated Press that he witnessed seven masked gunmen seize the soldiers near Youssifiyah, about 12 miles south of Baghdad.
Dangerous area
Besides the troops, the U.S. military said Monday it has deployed fighter jets, helicopters, unmanned drones, boats and dive teams in the hunt for the soldiers.
The area is among the most dangerous in Iraq for U.S. troops and mostly populated by minority Sunni Arabs, the backbone of Iraq’s 3-year-old insurgency. The two soldiers were missing after an attack on their traffic checkpoint that left one of their comrades dead.
Also, just hours before the two soldiers went missing Friday, a U.S. airstrike killed a key al-Qaida in Iraq leader described as the group’s “religious emir,” he said.
Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani, or Sheik Mansour, was killed with two foreign fighters in the same area where the soldiers’ bodies were found, the U.S. spokesman said. The three were trying to flee in a vehicle.
Al-Mashhadani was “a key leader of Al Qaida in Iraq, with excellent religious, military and leadership credentials” and tied to the senior leadership, including al-Zarqawi and his alleged replacement, Caldwell said.
Leader captured before
U.S. forces captured Mansour in July 2004 because of his ties to the militant groups Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Sunna, but the military let him go because he was not deemed an important terror figure at the time.
A witness to the attack Friday told The Associated Press on Sunday that insurgents swarmed the checkpoint, killing the driver of a Humvee before taking two of his comrades captive.
Ahmed Khalaf Falah, a farmer, said three Humvees at the checkpoint came under fire from many directions. Two Humvees went after the assailants but the third was ambushed.
He said seven masked gunmen, one carrying a heavy machine gun, killed the driver and took the two other U.S. soldiers captive. His account could not be verified independently.
Kidnappings of U.S. service members have been rare since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, despite the presence of about 130,000 forces.
U.S. troops patrol only in convoys. Foot patrols, while common in parts of Iraq during 2003 and 2004, have become rare because of roadside bombs, snipers and ambushes.
The last U.S. soldier to be captured was Sgt. Keith M. Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, who was taken on April 9, 2004 after insurgents ambushed his fuel convoy. Two months later, a tape on Al-Jazeera purported to show a captive U.S. soldier shot, but the Army ruled it was inconclusive.
Six soldiers, including Pvt. Jessica Lynch, were captured in an ambush in southern Iraq in the early days of the war — March 23, 2003. Lynch was rescued April 1, 2003, the others 12 days later.
Bush doesn't give a damn about our soldiers getting killed.
We sure do let terrorists off the hook around here, don't we?blood on Bush's hands
dubya/Repugs phony Iraq war sucked in, "brought them on", 1000's of terrorists, jihadists, and de-stabilized and destroyed a stable country that was no threat to the USA.
US military, poor ers, dying for Repug lies.
The le of this thread should be: Terrorist Show Their True Colors One More Time.
And JimCS, Stick it up your ass, asshole. Bush had nothing to do with this.
The terrorist killed them. Not Bush. Put the blame where it lies. I would love
to get you in the chair and do a little drilling without the pain killer.
Yes, we've heard that rant before.
Just once I'd like to see someone in the anti-war crowd show some kind of anger towards the people responsible for committing these barbaric acts. I don't care if you think the war was justified or not. You have every right to believe it's not... but that shouldn't prevent you from being disgusted by this sort of brutality.
I think it's offensive when Bush apologists like xrayzebra question the patriotism of anyone who speaks against the war, but you guys don't make it easy on yourselves. Every event, whether it's the death of an actual or supposed terrorist leader or the death of a soldier, is used as an excuse for political/partisan soapboxing. It gets ing old.
Nice...I like it when you make terrorist threats.
Another thing you and the terrorists have in common: you see the world in terms of black and white. Very dangerous.
Yeah, and guess you forum name explains it all. Need a tapon.
I am considered a terrorist, while you are a good old boy. What a friggin joke you
are.
Here is the latest update. Read how they are bragging about killing the
crusaders. Jim I want you to think about this. For a man with a good education
you sure don't show much common sense.
BREITBART.COM - Just The News
NEWS WEB
BREITBART FINANCE
Bodies of Missing U.S. Soldiers Recovered
Jun 20 1:44 PM US/Eastern
By KIM GAMEL
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq
The bodies of two U.S. soldiers reported captured last week have been recovered, and an Iraqi defense ministry official said Tuesday the men were "killed in a barbaric way." The U.S. military said the remains were believed to be those of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore.
U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said U.S. forces _ part of a search involving some 8,000 American and Iraqi troops _ found the bodies late Monday near Youssifiyah, where they disappeared Friday.
Troops did not recover the bodies until Tuesday, however, because U.S. forces had to wait until daylight to cordon off the area for an ordnance team for fear it was booby-trapped, Caldwell said.
Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for killing the soldiers, and said the successor to slain terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had "slaughtered" them, according to a Web statement that could not be authenticated. The language in the statement suggested the men had been beheaded.
The checkpoint attacked Friday was in the Sunni Arab region known as the "Triangle of Death" because of frequent ambushes there of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi troops. Caldwell said troops encountered a lot of roadside bombs and other explosives during the three-day search, including in the area where the bodies were found.
The checkpoint attacked Friday was in the Sunni Arab region known as the "Triangle of Death" because of frequent ambushes there of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi troops. Caldwell said troops encountered a lot of roadside bombs and other explosives during the three-day search, including in the area where the bodies were found.
The cause of death was "undeterminable at this point," and the two bodies will be taken back to the United States for DNA tests to confirm the iden ies, Caldwell said.
The two soldiers disappeared after an insurgent attack Friday at a checkpoint by a Euphrates River canal, 12 miles south of Baghdad. Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed. The three men were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Ky.
The director of the Iraqi defense ministry's operation room, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed, said the bodies showed signs of having been tortured. "With great regret, they were killed in a barbaric way," he said.
The claim of responsibility was made in the name of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of five insurgent groups led by al-Qaida in Iraq. The group posted an Internet statement Monday claiming it was holding the American soldiers captive.
"We give the good news ... to the Islamic nation that we have carried God's verdict by slaughtering the two captured crusaders," said the claim, which appeared on an Islamic militant Web site where insurgent groups regularly post statements and videos.
"With God Almighty's blessing, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer carried out the verdict of the Islamic court" calling for the soldiers' slaying, the statement said.
The statement said the soldiers were "slaughtered," suggesting that al-Muhajer beheaded them. The Arabic word used in the statement, "nahr," is used for the slaughtering of sheep by cutting the throat and has been used in past statements to refer to beheadings.
The U.S. military has identified al-Muhajer as an Egyptian associate of al-Zarqawi also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
The killings would be the first acts of violence attributed to al- Muhajer since he was named al-Qaida in Iraq's new leader in a June 12 Web message by the group. Al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike on June 7.
Al-Zarqawi made al-Qaida in Iraq notorious for hostage beheadings and was believed to have killed two American captives himself _ Nicholas Berg in April 2004 and Eugene Armstrong in September 2004.
Caldwell said that Iraqi and American troops involved in the search for the missing soldiers killed three suspected insurgents and detained 34 in fighting that wounded seven U.S. servicemen.
Also, just hours before the two soldiers went missing Friday, a U.S. airstrike killed a key al-Qaida in Iraq leader described as the group's "religious emir," he said.
Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani, or Sheik Mansour, was killed with two foreign fighters in the same area where the soldiers' bodies were found, the U.S. spokesman said. The three were trying to flee in a vehicle.
Al-Mashhadani was "a key leader of Al Qaida in Iraq, with excellent religious, military and leadership credentials" and tied to the senior leadership, including al-Zarqawi and his alleged replacement, Caldwell said.
U.S. forces captured Mansour in July 2004 because of his ties to the militant groups Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Sunna, but the military let him go because he was not deemed an important terror figure at the time.
A witness to the attack Friday told The Associated Press on Sunday that insurgents swarmed the checkpoint, killing the driver of a Humvee before taking two of his comrades captive.
Ahmed Khalaf Falah, a farmer, said three Humvees at the checkpoint came under fire from many directions. Two Humvees went after the assailants but the third was ambushed.
He said seven masked gunmen, one carrying a heavy machine gun, killed the driver and took the two other U.S. soldiers captive. His account could not be verified independently.
Kidnappings of U.S. service members have been rare since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, despite the presence of about 130,000 forces.
The last U.S. soldier to be captured was Sgt. Keith M. Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, who was taken on April 9, 2004 after insurgents ambushed his fuel convoy. Two months later, a tape on Al-Jazeera purported to show a captive U.S. soldier shot, but the Army ruled it was inconclusive and remains listed as missing.
Caldwell said that in addition to the two soldiers, a dozen Americans _ including Maupin and 11 private citizens _ are missing in Iraq. In addition, Capt. Michael Speicher, a Navy pilot, remains listed as missing in Iraq since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he said.
___
Associated Press writers Ryan Lenz in Balad, Iraq, and Nadia Abou el- Magd in Cairo, Egypt, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
There is a tremendous amount of outrage today over the fate that befell these young men. There should be. What happened to them is cruel, barbaric and goes against everything we and other civilized societies believe in.
Prior to discovering what had happened, the news was filled with the report that these men had disappeared and it was suspected they had been kidnapped. This is the kind of story that gets lots of play because it personalizes what is happening. You look at the photos of those guys and you can't help but think of a neighbor or friend or someone you may have run into at the supermarket.
What adds to the tragedy is the politicizing of it. Both sides are stepping over the bodies to advance their political views of the U.S. involvement in Iraq.
I am out and about today and have heard quite a bit of right wing talk radio today and of course they are using this tragedy to smear Democrats and other people who speak out against the war. What I find curious is they are having a highly emotional reaction to this episode and one of the most common critcisms they make of liberals is they react to emotionally.
How does one respond to this? I am not asking rhetorically but asking conservatives. Of course you do everything you can to find the responsible parties and well, you don't capture them alive, they just happen to get killed in action.
Or do you think they should be captured and tortured. Should they receive exactly the sort of treatment they afforded our guys?
Do you up the ante and try and kill their loved ones? Do you torture their families?
Violence begets violence and keep in mind, we need to be winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi population.
If you rely on your emotions to respond it may result in something that you don't want.
It's not an easy situation and there are no easy answers left for this terrible debacle.
I understand where the logic is in saying blood is on Bush's hands but it is an emotional response and doesn't help the situation. I understand why conservatives try to allign the animals who did this with anti-war people. That is not productive.
This incident does not change my view one iota. The war was wrong to start with and was sold to the American people under false pretenses. It is time to correct this error before more damage is done to our country and redeploy our troops and let the Iraqis sort this out. We cannot force a way of life on them without dictatorial suppression.
didnt say you were a terrorist.
thats not true.
i quoted you as you made a statement that was, legally speaking, a terrorist threat.
i also indentified that, like the terrorists, you are proudly and defiently anchored in a black and white world view.
"these barbaric acts."
No sympathy for the terrorists here, but we war/Repug dissenters expect the knee-jerk, Rovian smear.
The US military is simply, inarguably in the wrong place, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. 2500 lives wasted, and counting.
For the 1000th time, the Repugs and their bull Iraq war DO NOT EQUAL the USA.
You conservative and Repugs and red-staters have been listening to the Repug lies repeated for so long, you believe them.
To hear the truth repeated, "ranted", really sets you off.
The truth about the Repugs, the WHIG, the Iraq war is coming out, and you people will have not a single point to stand on.
Books such as "The One Percent Doctrine." by Ron Suskind are typical of the wave of exposes that will show how badly you people have been mislead.
another wave in the irresistable tsunami of truth about WH/Repugs:
"The new do entary is on PBS tonight, from Frontline, and it's called "The Dark Side," inspired by Cheney's interview with NBC's Tim Russert on Sept. 16, 2001, in which he spoke of military responses to terrorism then added prophetically: "We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will." "
"Sam Allis writes in a Boston Globe review: " 'Frontline' delivers a devastating look tonight at the efforts of Vice President Cheney to gain control of the war on terror after 9/11. In doing so, the show purports, he compromised the integrity of America's intelligence system. . . .
" 'Frontline' chronicles the brutal campaign by two consummate political in-fighters -- Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld -- to decimate the CIA, politically emasculate Secretary of State Colin Powell, and construct a near-limitless concept of executive power during war. While many of these strands are familiar, they have not been assembled as effectively before on television to present a coherent picture of what happened after 9/11." "
Last edited by boutons_; 06-20-2006 at 03:17 PM.
They were not kidnapped, they were captured. Like POW's. And treated
as crusaders. Beheaded. And we are emotional. Well what the
were you when someone put a dog leash on some terrorist who had no
country, no uniform and no government, but you wanted them treated
as POW's.
Damn right I am emotional. I am absolutely outraged. I think a little
bit of WWII should come into play. Take no prisoners. And everyone
was happy as with that policy.
A little bit of West Texas Justice, bring those guilty SOB in here and
we will try them. And you know the rest of the story.
What an old bitter asshole you have become over the years.
Nice.
Hey boutons, where they were you when the embassies, the Cole
and everything else was getting blown up. With Mr. Clinton, we will
bring these people to justice? Was that where you were at. Come on
were they wrong or is it just that Bush is the only one who is wrong.
Guess the terrorist weren't in those nations either. You got the
brains of a doorknob.
God help you jim. I never thought I would see the day you would postWhat an old bitter asshole you have become over the years.
Nice.
something like you have today. I have known you a long time and for
you to blame our own people for something like this is wrong and you
know damn well it is. Bitter, boy, that isn't the half of it. Any you damn
well know me to.
Oh, and the war is Bush and his oil company owning cronie's war.
There were never any weapons of mass destruction, there was no reason fro the US to invade Iraq and now all out sons and young men are paying with their blood, so Bush and his buddies can profit.
Wake up
Here we are coming up on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and the same guys that did that did the things you cite and they remain free making tapes mocking the leadership of this country.
Meanwhile, we invaded a toothless tiger in the middle east without provocation and proceeded to make the wrong decision whenever a decision came up to be made. While Osama is making tapes, the bulk of our ground forces are sitting in the middle of a civil war between opportunists who could give a damn about them or our country.
Be nice if we actually put half the effort into going after al Qaeda that we do in screwing around in Iraq nationbuilding.
Hal, Bush turned the Iraqis into terrorists.
Until this war, 70% of all terroristskilling Americans ( 9/11, US Embassy, USS Cole bombings)were from Bush's biggest "ally" Saudi Arabia. But since we profit from the Saudis, Bush turns a blind eye on those terrorists, does'nt he????.
Wake up!!!
No jim, you need to wake up. This not a war about oil, although without it
you may not be able to make it to your game on the weekends.
There were WMD's, we just don't know what happened to them. He used
them, remember? Where did they go. He wouldn't tell us nor would he
let anyone in to really check. All the world knew he WMD, you are not
so stupid to believe otherwise. England, Germany, France and the USSR
as well as the United Nations thought he had WMD.
The next argument you will use was that the terrorist weren't in Iraq.
Well, when did the old boy we just killed go to Iraq. It was before we
invaded. Iraq was up to the eyebrows with the terrorist, sending money
to the families of those terrorist killed, remember.
No you aren't going to cop out with the dummies arguments, you have
more sense than that. Remember I know you better than that. You cant
use boutons arguments. You going to have to do a of a lot better
than that.
X-ray, I can't speak for Jim, but I suspect that you have him all wrong, and are taking this way too far.
It is not wrong to say that your country has some fault in a tragic incident. It is not wrong to blame the leaders of America. You said it once when speaking of the flag-burning that politicians come and go, that America is greater than that.
Well, you were partly right.
A true patriot questions authority and it's actions. People like Jim and I blame these politicians and hold them accountable because we truly do love America, and are thankful that we live here. Thankful that we live somewhere where we can question the authority. Well, we have that right and we will use the out of it.
Bush is simply a small player in the history of time. Historians will prove his actions to be either a great leap in the great American tradition, and will deem him a trailblazer who would stand up to any adversity, or it will decide that he was a ruthless cutthroat who let personal needs stand above the rest of the country. But you know what? It won't matter.
We are standing up in order to try and make a difference. We have no loyalty to people like Bush and Cheney, but to America. They are irrelevant. If they threaten this country and its ideals, and if they threaten the rest of the world, then we will rain down like s angels, eyes burning with the fires of vengeance. That is not un-patriotic.
I know that it is hard to listen to what these people are saying, especially with the era in which you grew up. You were a soldier you say, well thank God for you and people like you. I will support the average soldier until I die. But, my support is deep enough that I will place my full fury on every political and military leader who threatens their lives for their own good. I have allegiance to the soldiers, not the people who pull their strings.
So, please can the talk of patriotism and Al-quaida-ism and realize that we are just as patriotic as the men with flags painted on the back of their trucks who play Toby Keith on the way to work. We just go about it in a different way.
Where did they go????
Do you remember the Gulf War????
This is not accurate. Saddam did send money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Terrorists, true but nothing to do with the ones threatening us.
Zarqawi was in the Kurdish controlled part of Iraq prior to the invasion. We knew where he was but the administration made a conscience decision not to take him out as it would lesson the arguments for invading Iraq.
Think about that. We could have taken out al Zarqawi before the invasion and saved countless lives but Bush chose not to.
Iraq was not up to it's eyebrows with terrorists. Afghanistan, Saudi, Somalia, the Sudan, yeah, but Iraq nope.
Yes, the Saudis have their hands bloodied too. All the ME does. It is like
Mexico, corrupt as . Always has been and in my lifetime, always will be.
That is why the terrorist are able to operate as freely as they do. Buy
people off.
But when they took on the Royal family they screwed up big time. Got a
bunch of them killed, the terrorist. More than likely they are now back to
the old game plan, laying low and paying off everyone again.
the Mullahs also like all the power that this movement gives them. They
are in this crap right up to their eyebrows.
But we had to start somewhere and Iraq was a good a place as any. I
was disappointed and surprised that we didn't take the whole of the ME
on at the very beginning and some I talk to felt the same. Oil was one
big factor I'm sure. Keeping the American public happy was another,
we have become so jaded in our lifestyle that we don't want anything
to interrupt it. It is sad but true.
Well said.
Hal is an old bitter rose tinted glasses wearing flag waving fool. He will back anything that a US president does. He probably thought Watergate was just a couple of good ol boys having some laughs.
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