Iraq Police Units: Bad Boys, Bad Boys

Politics International Politics
21

Let’s look at my post starting this thread:

Gunmen driving a police car. What is it you would like me to “retract”?

As to the rest of your tantrum, it would seem that you’ve hit upon several areas in which your arguments were weak. Perhaps in your response to this point, you could write the following:

“Would you like to retract it? Along with your statement that the Boston Red Sox won the World Series last year? That Taipei 101 is a very tall building? That Everest is a very tall mountain? That gravity exists? That many guavas are green? That many oranges are orange?”

22

While this does not explicitly support MGFR’s assertions, one can conclude that if the Islamist Shiites have filled the police force, and local gov’t - and are also responsible for assassinations, and violating civil rights of women, then it’s quite plausible that Iraqi police were responsible for the reporter, Steven Vincent’s death.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/index.ssf?050228fa_fact

[quote]The religious parties occupied public buildings in Basra, installed their militias, and organized faster than any of the local groups, except for the mostly impoverished, violent followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical scion of Iraq

23

Heard an interview with Vincent’s wife a few days back; she denied the affair story, but didn’t mention the interpreter’s claim that Vincent promised to marry her to get her to the States.

One thing she did point out was that in the case of honour killings by relatives the woman is always killed; that’s the whole point- the stain on the family can only be expunged by the death of the woman. The man involved is sometimes killed, sometimes not, as in a recent case from Afghanistan:

news.amnesty.org/index/ENGASA110052005

That he was killed and “Layla” only wounded would seem to suggest that he was the main target- then again, to the Sadrists, an American man and a Muslim woman simply associating would be enough grounds for execution.

I’ve got to admit, I don’t see the argument over this- unless some people are denying that the police in Basra are heavily infiltrated by fundamentalist militias, and that a lot of summary executions are going on.

24

I’m sorry but did someone say they had proof that the Iraqi cops committed this murder?

25

I’m sorry but did someone say:

26

MFGR:

So you have no proof that the cops did this? No? Well then? Nice diversionary tactic, but we all know how you operate. Do you have proof that the cops did what you suggested that they did? Yes or No. Simple question. Answer it. But you cannot and I know that you cannot or you would have a long time ago. Yet, another allegation. Yet again, no proof. Bye bye.

27

A police car hauled off a journalist known for criticizing the infiltration of the police by Shi’ite killers. The journalist shows up dead.

Just curious, but in your hometown was it common for the police to lend out their cars to anybody?

28

Mofa -
Got Proof?

29

MFGR:

Was it a police car or a car that is commonly used by off-duty Iraq police? My understanding of the article was that it was a white Volvo commonly used by off-duty policemen but not an official police car. Back to you. Again, do you have any proof that the Iraqi cops did this? I am all ears if you do but you seem to jump the gun on many of your never-ending allegations. I am just asking if you for a change can prove it this time. Simple question. Answer it. Yes MFRG has proof. No MFGR is just engaging in idle speculation before having all the facts as usual.

30

Perhaps you and OJ can go look for the “real killers” in Iraq together. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you about the police cars.

31

So OJ? I guess that means no proof right? MFGR? Right? OR alternatively, show us what your proof is. PROOF? It ain’t just for breakfast no more.

I believe you could be right, but you don’t know anything. When you do, let me know and I will re-examine this just like I will be happy to hear about the Rove leak with Plame. Got any proof on that either?

32

[quote]Since the formation of a government this spring, Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, has witnessed dozens of assassinations, claiming members of the former ruling Baath Party, Sunni political leaders and officials of competing Shiite parties. Many have been carried out by uniformed men in police vehicles, according to political leaders and families of the victims, with some of the bullet-riddled bodies dumped at night in a trash-strewn parcel known as The Lot. The province’s governor said in an interview that Shiite militias have penetrated the police force; an Iraqi official estimated that as many as 90 percent of officers were loyal to religious parties.

[and on another note . . . . see below]

Across northern Iraq, Kurdish parties have employed a previously undisclosed network of at least five detention facilities to incarcerate hundreds of Sunni Arabs, Turkmens and other minorities abducted and secretly transferred from Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city, and from territories stretching to the Iranian border, according to political leaders and detainees’ families. Nominally under the authority of the U.S.-backed Iraqi army, the militias have beaten up and threatened government officials and political leaders deemed to be working against Kurdish interests; one bloodied official was paraded through a town in a pickup truck, witnesses said.[/quote]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082000940.html

Looks like there’s proof of MGFR’s assertions right here. What do the naysayers have to say?

Bodo

33

[quote]While Iraqi representatives wrangle over the drafting of a constitution in Baghdad, the militias, and the Shiite and Kurdish parties that control them, are creating their own institutions of authority, unaccountable to elected governments, the activists and officials said. In Basra in the south, dominated by the Shiites, and Mosul in the north, ruled by the Kurds, as well as cities and villages around them, many residents have said they are powerless before the growing sway of the militias, which instill a climate of fear that many see as redolent of the era of former president Saddam Hussein.

The parties and their armed wings sometimes operate independently, and other times as part of Iraqi army and police units trained and equipped by the United States and Britain and controlled by the central government. Their growing authority has enabled them to control territory, confront their perceived enemies and provide patronage to their followers. Their ascendance has come about because of a power vacuum in Baghdad and their own success in the January parliamentary elections.[/quote]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082001317.html

Hmmm . . . . cat got your tongue? you boys are arguing over whether or not a reporter was in fact the victims of these Shiite Death Squads. The real story is that these Death Squads exist, that they’re tolerated by the Coalition forces, and that the Iraqis are clearly not better off than before Saddam at least in the political sense - if you disagree with the ruling strongmen, then you get a one-way ticket to “the lot.”

Bodo

34

[quote]It wasn

35

Methinks the Iraqi police is a big mess. Even Barney Fife would be an improvement. At least he was just incompetent, not actually out there trying to do harm.

36

One of the blogs I occasionally visit has a letter from Steven Vincents wife. It might clear up some of the controversy that has sprouted here. The web site owner has done his best to verify thats its the real deal.

[quote]“It’s called courage”
August 21, 2005
I received this as a comment on a post noting Juan Cole’s theories about the murder of Steven Vincent. It’s from Vincent’s wife, and she thinks, well, I’ll let you read for yourself. I’m posting it here in its entirety, and it’s worth every bit. All emphasis is mine:

I thought you might like to see the email I sent Juan Cole in response to his August 8th post about my husband. Sorry if it runs a little long -

   [quote] "Was American journalist Steve Vincent killed in Basra as part of an honor killing? He was romantically involved with his Iraqi interpreter, who was shot 4 times. If her clan thought she was shaming them by appearing to be having an affair outside wedlock with an American male, they might well have decided to end it. In Mediterranean culture, a man's honor tends to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from seduction by strange men. Where a woman of the family sleeps around, it brings enormous shame on her father, brothers and cousins, and it is not unknown for them to kill her. These sentiments and this sort of behavior tend to be rural and to hold among the uneducated, but are not unknown in urban areas. Vincent did not know anything serious about Middle Eastern culture and was aggressive about criticizing what he could see of it on the surface, and if he was behaving in the way the Telegraph article describes, he was acting in an extremely dangerous manner."[/quote]Mr. Cole -

(I refuse to call you professor, because that would ennoble you. And please change the name of your blog to “Uninformed Comment”, because that is precisely what the above paragraph is.)

I would like to refute this shameful post against a dead man who can no longer defend himself against your scurrilous accusations, a dead man who also happened to be my husband. Steven Vincent and I were together for 23 years, married for 13 of them, and I think I know him a wee bit better than you do.

For starters, Steven and Nour were not "romantically involved". If you knew anything at all about the Middle East, as you seem to think you do, then you would know that there is no physical way that he and she could have ever been alone together. Nour (who always made sure to get home before dark, so they were never together at night) could not go to his room; he could not go to her house; there was no hot-sheet motel for them to go to for a couple of hours. They met in public, they went about together in public, they parted in public. They were never alone. [b](excert from blog)[/b]

murdoconline.net/archives/002697.html <- link to article[/quote]

added: A very good letter. I hope those involved in this thread will read it.

37

Thanks, TC, that cleared up some things she didn’t mention in the interview.

Though I agree that Juan Cole’s speculations went over the top and were indeed bordering on slander, if you read Vincent’s diaries you find quite a few occassions where, if he wasn’t ignorant of the local culture, he was certainly aggressively challenging it (and he didn’t speak much Arabic either, apparently).

Check out the entries for July 9th and June 24th

spencepublishing.typepad.com/in_the_red_zone/

(BTW, Juan Cole is a Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at University of Michigan and has lived for extended periods in the Middle East) www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/jcpers.htm

I can see why those who are anxious to put on the rose-colored glasses about Iraq (“just a few isolated fanatic Sunnis; Iranian influence ? no big deal”) might want to downplay what Steven Vincent and his wife were saying.

38

So I show a lot of speculation yet about how THIS man was killed. When you have proof that THIS man was killed by rogue police then let’s talk, but no one knows yet. It COULD have also been an honor killing. No one knows yet. So like we always have to do in all these other threads, we have to wait until we know. MFGR always comes out firing all four guns then hems and haws until the subject disappears. When you KNOW something, please be sure and let me KNOW so that we can all KNOW for a change.

39

Mr. Smith, IV -
It is my opinion that Mr. Vincent was killed by an opportunistic organized criminal element. They may operate under a thin veil of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ or ‘freedom fighter against the Western Occupation’ but they are essentially just gangs of thugs with guns.
Quite a common occurence in just about all areas of warfare and conflict.
Mr. Vincent was in the wrong place at the wrong time and maintained too high a profile.
That is my opinion.

40

I agree with TC that Vincent was in the wrong place at the wrong time and maintained too high a profile. TC’s information is helpful, and I appreciate the information he’s contributed to this thread.

What I don’t understand is how on earth Fred decided that he needs to try to paint the most nuttily optimistic possible interpretation of killers driving about in police cars snatching and murdering a journalist. The fact that the journalist had been writing about the infiltration of police units with Islamic fighters using their position to murder people seems to fit in with his death. Seems that other posts have also raised the fact that this is a problem. Now, when somebody tries to blow smoke up my keister with the basic assumption that it is somehow normal for killers to cruise about in cop cars, I have to wonder what on earth is going on.