thugs beaten by UK soldiers in Iraq had it coming - Here`s the video
OK I saw the video and I read the story and the thugs deserved the mild beating they got. Let me tell you why:
On 10th Jan 2004, about 250 unemployed people demonstrated in the street in protest over a lack of jobs in Amarah. "When we reached the governor's office we were surprised by the presence of the British forces," said Bassem Shaker, 27. "We started throwing stones at them because we believed that they were behind all our misery." Interesting leap in logic.
Shots were heard coming from among hundreds of protesters who had gathered in front of the office of the U.S.-led coalition to demand jobs, and that Iraqi police, thinking they were under attack, opened fire.
British troops [with rubber bullets] and Iraqi police [with real bullets] had fired at armed, stone-throwing protesters, killing six people and wounding 11. British soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the Light Infantry then moved in with armored vehicles to support the police.
Some in the crowd lobbed three explosive devices at them; the British troops fired volleys of rubber bullets in a bid to disperse them and then rushed the crowd and arrested nine of the thugs, bringing them into the governor's compound where they begin to beat the crap out of them, deservedly so, and then released them a few hours later.
Now my own experience in these things [I was at the Paris-student revolt in Paris in 1968 and in Prague when the Soviets invaded the city] is that if I throw rocks at foreign armed soldiers and someone in my group lobs grenades at them, I can expect more than a wicked ass-whipping if I'm caught. And if all I got was a beating and let go, I'd say I came out pretty good, no complaints thank you.
What the Iraqi leadership in Basra needs to do is put up posters showing a young man poking a stick into a lion's eyes. The caption should read: "Antagonize at your own Peril - Don't be a Muslim Idiot"
Unfortunately, unfairly, Two more British soldiers, including a non-commissioned officer, were arrested yesterday in connection with the video-taped abuse of Iraqi teenagers
