yahwehyadayada

Mods, I wasn't quite sure where to put this, so I settled for here.

I was reading an article yesterday about the POWs that were found--the group that included Shoshana Johnson. The article had this in it:
They said: 'If you're an American, stand up.' We stood up and they hustled us out of there." They didn't want to believe at first that Specialist Johnson, who is black, was an American, but demurred after her fellow prisoners vouched for her.

I don't know what to make of this. Did the troops that broke the door down think she was an Iraqi? I've seen pictures of Ms. Johnson, & she is very dark-skinned. Are there any Iraqis with that dark of a skin tone? This article upsets me. Am I missing something?
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=397381

Cap'n Jack

Just curious is this reported similarly on any other news source?

Gurdur

Some Iraqis --- not all that many --- are extremely black indeed.

Persia and Iraq were end-stations of the African slave trade from 300 A.D. to 1500 A.D.

It's quite possible an unsophisticated village Iraqi might think all Americans are light-skinned, and be confused by a very dark-skinned one.
What's so disturbing about this ?

I've had similar experiences from the other side in my own travels, even in London, and they make funny stories.

BTW, from your news report:
Interesting.

Amen-Moses

Personally one of the things that has really grated about this "war" (actually it should be more correctly termed "massacre") is the constant attempts at demonising the other side. I remember the demonising that went on during the Falklands conflict and GWI and this time it took centre stage with most news reporters quite happily going along with it.

The truth is that every POW I've seen was treated well by the "enemy" even when medical facilities were stretched to breaking point.

To my mind it was far more telling on the morality of each side when a 19 year old soldier with several broken bones was airlifted out to Germany quickly at great expense whereas a 12 year old with no arms and severe burns had to wait until public opinion forced the coalition to act. The big difference in the cases of course being that the soldier was just doing her duty ("hero" be damned!) whereas the boy was an innocent bystander!

I wish we could throw away this nationalistic crap and report evenly, i.e I want to see news reports showing the heroic Iraqi POWs being returned to their families!

Amen-Moses

Henry-Finland

Amen-Moses!
(bolding mine)

Heroic? They were just defending their country.

That does not count! :banghead:

The agressors are The Heroes!
If You do not believe me, ask The Ministery of Truth!

punta

These weren't unsophisticated village Iraqis. These were the Marines.

[edited for clarity ( less words)]

Gurdur

Whoops !!!

My mistake ! I went back and re-read the report carefully.

My full apologies to yahwehyadayada --- I can damn well now see why yahwehyadayada was disturbed over the report !

fatherphil

maybe she was unable to stand due to her injuries.

also since when is being kicked & beaten considered nice treatment?

Zar

Being kicked and beaten isn't nice treatment. True enough. But we can see that they came out of it okay so it couldn't have been too severe. But bad is bad, and I condemn doing such things. They should never have done that. Still, I am glad for those who treated them humanely after that.

You know, the U.S. hasn't always been too good to its prisoners, either. These U.S. soldiers got much better treatment than some Afghan prisoners got under U.S. watch. And there are also those reports of Afghan soldiers being summarily executed inside hot, asphyxiating trailers under U.S. observation. These allegations haunt the U.S. reputation.