How stories start
: Zeyad tells a story of a young Iraqi allegedly murdered by U.S. troops. Glenn Reynolds brings together comment, most skeptical. But all agree that this should be investigated and with dispatch. If true, we need to show that American justice prevails. If false, we need to get the truth out there quickly.
16 responses to “How stories start”
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I read this in the am and one thing confused me how if they were tied up did the jacket float free? I mean you tie someeones hands together and the jacket couldn’t come off. Right?
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In the update Zeyad posted this afternoon, he says “And as to the handcuffs, according to the cousin the soldiers untied them before asking them to jump in the water.”
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Too me it just makes it sound more suspect. They want to kill them by making them jump into the river, yet they take the cuffs off? For what? To actually give them the chance (however small it might be) of fighting their way out of there? Not to mention all the other stuff, like soldiers actually going through the trouble, and danger, of kidnapping two kids, driving them 3 km out of their way just to throw them into a river, searching them with FLASHLIGHTS (what a dumb thing too do in the middle of the night in the Sunni triangle), instead of just shooting them on the spot and claiming self defense.
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Hellaciously improbable, but not impossible. An investigation should be done.
If the car/truck was crushed, why leave it around in any condition? Dump it in the water, burn it, whatever, but crushing seems both extreme and silly: prints, blood, etc. won’t be destroyed that way, and any US soldier has seen enough TV to know that, so why bother doing something to make an investigation more likely? -
I’m intrigued by the 50km distance to the Tharthar dam, or the possibility that they meant a smaller dam nearer to Samaarra.
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Sherlock Holmes could not analyze this case any better than all the commenters here and at Insta. If this story, from an Iraq blog, is untrue, it damages the blogosphere. That’s unfortunate, truly unfortunate.
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Gee, lk, for someone who can’t seem to stay away from this site’s blog comments, you sure seem to have a hate-on for blogs. I don’t know why; there is nothing stopping you from getting your own. Or… do I smell a threatened member of the traditional media? If so, I wouldn’t worry, lk: people will always need something to line the bottom of their bird cages with.
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It doesn’t damage blogs, true or false.
Do I believe the story is true? I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense, but then again, it doesn’t make sense to me that a guy would kill his ex-inlaws and his baby daughter, then kidnap his 3 kids and go to TN. But that’s happened in the news.
But I damn well believe that Zeyad has heard the story, and thus the story is floating around Iraq. And so it is news, and important, true or false. -
Can’t start my own blog. I have plenty of time (unemployed), but no money. Perhaps I can set up a PayPal account to receive much needed money? I do have a lot to say, all of which is worthy. Indeed.
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Jeremy had a good point: this story is bad news either way.
If it is true, then we have people committing atrocities trying to rebuild Iraq and a system in place that shelters them.
If it is false, the story is believable enough that generally pro-American Iraqis such as Zeyad are deeply troubled by it. Just think what other Iraqis who aren’t so pro-American may be inclined to do when they hear stories such as this. -
“Can’t start my own blog. I have plenty of time (unemployed), but no money.”
You don’t need money to start a blog. -
May the gods return us all to human
from the frozen statues we’ve become.
Remember: Zeyad knows these people.
He’s related to these people.
Whatever has happened: Zaydun is missing
and presumed drowned. His poor mother.
Her letter is not a police report:
it is a letter of appeal from a mother
whose heart is breaking.
I hope she gets some answers
and that they find Zaydun soon. -
lk: blogger is free. The only thing you spend is your time. You’ve got no excuses.
But I think your lk’s larger point is correct. If this story turns out to be bogus then it will show up the blogosphere as a vehicle for irresponsible rumor-mongering.
Regarding whether the incident warrants a full-fledged investigation…no, not yet. I think there should be something preliminary to that. I cannot think of a better way to throw a very monkey wrench into the CPA’s functioning than to demand a full-fledged investigation into every complaint. What would happen if 25 million Iraqis, all started waving a clutch of letters alleging mistreatment at the hands of US military personnel? -
I think the blogosphere is a vehicle for exposing irresponsible rumor-mongering.
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Blog-city and bloghorn both offer free blog space with basic service which seems better than blogspot. Permalinks work. The cost of premium service is minimal; I just got a year at blog-city for $27.50, mostly to cover image storage and detailed stats.
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“But I damn well believe that Zeyad has heard the story, and thus the story is floating around Iraq. And so it is news, and important, true or false.”
Stories like this are reported almost daily from Iraq, people.
Some you were fond of asking, as a leading question before the war, “will you support the Iraqi people?” You’re now being held to that account yourselves. If the Iraqi people tell you your soldiers are killing them unnecessarily (as one Sunni man bluntly put it, Saddam would kill you in private, the Americans will kill you in public), are you going to listen to them? Or spend your time dismissing their accounts in advance as “irresponsible rumour-mongering?”
That’s the test this, and many similar stories, constitute for you. Good luck with it.
