February 01, 2005

Shooting in Tal Afar

Posted by Kieran

Somehow I missed this appalling sequence of photographs of a shooting in Iraq a few days ago, probably because they were running in newspapers outside the U.S. on inauguration day. I want to know whether any of them — especially this one — ran anywhere in the U.S. media?

Look, I know I’m asking for trouble. I don’t want the comments to degenerate into angry whataboutery. All kinds of terrible things happen — purposely and by accident — in war zones. These photos are just awful. That’s all.

Posted on February 1, 2005 09:21 PM UTC
Comments

This exact pattern of behavior has been replicated numerous times since the early part of the invasion. US troops manning a checkpoint, a car that refuses to stop. Troops fire. Dead civilians who were just to spooked to obey orders. It’s like a syllogism. It’s horrible each time whether pictures were taken or not. But how could it be corrected?

Posted by Dick Thompson · February 1, 2005 11:41 PM

BoingBoing linked to the Newsday version of them here.

I can’t prove it, but I suspect that a certain pundit had a post half-written, too. “The media would be all over this if it were US tr… oh, wait… it WAS US troops. Heh. Don’t read the whole thing.”

Posted by Mill · February 1, 2005 11:47 PM

The photographs are on the Newsweek website, along with an audio commentary from the photographer, Chris Hondros. One of the pictures, showing the pulverized body of the father, is obscured on the BBC site, but Newsweek shows the gore.

He gives some context for the pictures, although he couldn’t get much specific information about the family because the Iraqi military translator working for the US didn’t speak english very well (go figure).

Posted by Yuri Guri · February 1, 2005 11:57 PM

But what about the schools that are open now?

Posted by paul · February 2, 2005 12:19 AM

As to prevention, I wonder how common this is with UK troops. Frankly I have no idea, except that Brits have avoided such stuff in the past.

Posted by John Isbell · February 2, 2005 12:19 AM

So, does the estimated war cost to the U.S. include increased future likelihood of violence against the U.S., or the mental health scars to returning servicemen?

The costs to Iraqis are beyond me.

Posted by Blinking Deer · February 2, 2005 12:26 AM

It was apparently on page A5 of the LA Times on Jan 19th according to Doc Searls. That is where I first heard about it at least.

Posted by Jonah Duckles · February 2, 2005 12:41 AM

It was apparently on page A5 of the LA Times on Jan 19th according to Doc Searls. That is where I first heard about it at least.

Posted by Jonah Duckles · February 2, 2005 12:42 AM

Man that is heartbreaking. All political and strategic considerations aside, this goddamn war cannot end too soon.

I do remember one brief moment, maybe for two or three days after the fall of Baghdad, when millions of Iraqis really did greet the Coalition as liberators. American troops walked the streets openly and mingled with Iraqis, and road checkpoints were more like traffic stops than fortresses. Then came a rash of point-black assassinations and suicide car bombs, and all that touchy-feely stuff ended real quick, and we learned that we were in a real war. I hope we are closer to the end than the beginning.

Posted by George · February 2, 2005 12:47 AM


Steve Gilliard
posted the pics.

“Every day in Iraq brings a tragedy like this. The kids who are expected to make life and death decisions. The kids who suffer from them. The kids who don’t come back. A cycle of misery which was preventable and may never end. What happens to these people? The soldiers who have to live with a nightmare of a decision, the image of a toddler screaming in pure terror and covered in blood. The children who are orphaned by this.”

“I don’t think for a second that everyone involved wouldn’t like to take back that moment, do something different, so they didn’t kill a family or get killed. But there are no do overs in life.”
SG

Posted by Peggy · February 2, 2005 01:15 AM

Kieran, why should it be “asking for trouble” to post these photographs and ask why and how something like this can happen? When people say “Well, it’s war, and terrible things happen in war,” to me, that’s totally begging the question. It’s a total evasion of the issue. It’s the same as if people in Afghanistan or Iraq or Iran said, after 9/11, “Well, it’s terrorism, and terrible things happen with terrorism.” Yeah, man, right. That’s why terrorism and war (really the same thing) are WRONG.

I cannot look at that picture, or so many more like it, without feeling like my insides are being ripped out. And it will never be over, for that girl.

I don’t know if you read warblogging.com, but George Paine, who writes that blog, had a photograph very similar to the one you posted. It was the same situation. Soldiers ordered a car to stop, fired warning shots, and then shot up the car. It was a girl and her parents. Both her parents were killed. Shot dead in front of her eyes. And she was covered in blood, with her mouth open, screaming.

Posted by Kathy · February 2, 2005 03:38 AM

One of these pictures was all over the liberal blogosphere. Jeanne d’Arc linked it to the New York Times and also linked the photographer’s account at Newsday.

I don’t remember seeing it in the L.A. Times, but then I would have seen it on line before the paper arrived.

Posted by bad Jim · February 2, 2005 04:45 AM

Estimated 100,000 innocent Iraqi’s killed in this war, half of those were children. I wonder how many times that scene was repeated without cameras to capture it.

Posted by Dawna · February 2, 2005 05:38 AM

“One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”

Looks like Uncle Joe was smarter than we give him credit for.

And these photos seem a lot less awful than they could be - you don’t see this after most suicide car bombings, for instance. For what it’s worth, which is not much.

Posted by Jake McGuire · February 2, 2005 06:01 AM

It’s important to attach (ugly) realities to abstract, distant constructs like “curfew”, “lockdown”, “maximum security” etc.

Posted by Matthew · February 2, 2005 08:58 AM

It was on the front of the Boston Globe, if I remember correctly, and the front of the Irish Times too.

Posted by billyfrombelfast · February 2, 2005 03:22 PM

>> Brits have avoided such stuff in the past.

Lee Clegg?

Posted by Rich · February 2, 2005 03:55 PM

Didn’t Lee Clegg & Co fire at a stolen car, as it came at their check-point, claiming self defence - he was then done for firing a couple of rounds at the car as it drove off, which was deemed not to be self defence (although I think he had his charge quashed in the end).

Not quite the same, but I admit that was my first thought when I read the comment.

Posted by RS · February 2, 2005 04:15 PM

Oh, should point out that Clegg killed someone, he didn’t just fire at the car.

Posted by RS · February 2, 2005 04:33 PM

fyi: i saw the photos online and the next day i saw them shown in sequence on, i think, cnn. i belive it was either on paula zahn or 360. but definately the whole series. then the discussed them briefly and provided a quote by someone in the military saying that as bad as it was we should remember that as soon as the soldiers realized what happened the sprung into action to help the children. not to be snide, but i’m sure that made the children feel a lot better. i feel sorry for everyone in this situation, children and soldiers. there plenty of nightmares to go around.

Posted by bryna · February 2, 2005 07:32 PM

That one of the little girl kind of makes it hard to breath.

Posted by jet · February 2, 2005 08:05 PM

I saw picture #4 in Newsweek, next to (or a few pages apart from) a picture of the Bush twins in ball gowns for the inaguration. I have a son and daughter the same age as the Iraqi children, and the pictures make me want to cry.

Posted by Robert Ramsdell · February 2, 2005 09:36 PM

1 there wasnt a ROADBLOCK

2 again stupid GIs kill without reason, only no babies this time

Posted by aghast · February 7, 2005 07:54 AM

1 there wasnt a ROADBLOCK

2 again stupid GIs kill without reason, only no babies this time

Posted by aghast · February 7, 2005 07:56 AM
Followups

→ Interview with a blog spammer.
Excerpt: Thanks to people like these, I eventually decided to turn off comments in this weblog. (via comment in Crooked Timber). I had over 50 trackback spams yesterday. But MT 2.6x makes deleting spam much simpler. But wading through this stuff is still very i...Read more at Random Notes
→ Followup on Tal Afar.
Excerpt: More correspondence, this time from a soldier stationed in Iraq who saw my recent post about the terrible shooting in...Read more at Kieran Healy's Weblog

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.