The best course of action was to put him out of his misery ...

Assistance Required

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Gosh, is it the 3rd already.
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That means Iraq will be having its first 'free and fair' elections in less than four weeks' time. Presumably the freedom loving Iraqis will vote for that Tony Soprano look-alike who's currently running the regime and all will be well.
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Once the elections are over our job will be done and our troops can finally come home. I appreciate that Iraq was in an awful mess at one point but it seems pretty much cleared up now. I know this because, last month, my government dished out a series of honours and titles to 50 people in recognition of their successful efforts in rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure.
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The honours included …

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Pentonville prison governor Gareth Davies, who was director of law and order for southern Iraq, was made an OBE, as was Mandana Hendessi, who helped set up the women's rights group Women's Higher Council in Iraq.

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The Bank of England's Simon Gray was appointed OBE for his work with the Iraqi central bank, as was CPA director of reconstruction Ronald Matthews.

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West Yorkshire Police chief superintendent Philip Read was made an OBE for helping to train the new Iraqi police force.

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Kevin Thomas and Warwick Weeks were appointed MBEs for helping to restore water, sanitation and fuel to Basra.

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Mark Clark, Scots manager of the Iraqi football team which reached the Olympic semi-finals in Athens, becomes an MBE.

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David Keen, of the Highways Agency, was appointed an MBE for helping rebuild roads and bridges in Iraq.

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It's all nonsense isn’t it? Presumably, all of these guys will do the decent thing and turn up to the awards ceremony in disguise with a bucket on their heads and collect the awards certificates in plain brown paper envelopes.
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The situation in Iraq is clearly getting worse every day and, God forgive me for saying it, the tsunami story must have come as a welcome distraction from Iraq for the Bush and Blair administrations. Such a welcome distraction that I predict some loon in bacofoil underpants will shortly float the theory that the tsunami was actually caused by Bush. It wouldn't be that difficult actually. A 200mt nuke in set off at sea floor level would have done the job nicely. As it happens, during the Cold War, the Russians did consider targeting the US and UK coastlines with nuke-inspired tsunamis. Imagine the North Sea as a swimming pool and the Russian nuke as a very large fat kid with no friends bombing into the pool and you get the general gist of what was planned.
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And the news from Iraq is terrible. Not only have the insurgents started following the proven principles of the likes of Mao, Ho Chi Minh and Sung Tzu they've always picked up a few tricks from such classic military treatises as Speed and The Specialist. They've now taken to luring security forces into prepared buildings and blowing them all up once they're inside. They've killed dozens that way. The streets of places like Mosul and Baghdad are littered with increasingly clever booby traps. Unlike suicide bombers, the smarter guys setting these traps are benefiting from all that practice and can only get better at what they do. Buses are being destroyed every day and policemen lined up against walls and executed by the dozen. It's a nightmare. The insurgents also appear to be working to an overall plan as well. Most of the American forces are located inland, at the end of long supply lines. The insurgents are targeting those supply lines. If the insurgents ever manage to pick up some 2nd hand anti aircraft missiles from a friendly power and target planes as well trucks, life will become extremely interesting for the coalition forces.
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One of the many Iraq stories that barely dented to mainstream media was the news that US Staff Sgt Johnny M. Horne Jnr. Was found guilty last month of murdering a 16 year old Iraqi civilian earlier this year.
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Apparently, US forces, acting on a tip off, opened fire on a rubbish truck in Sadr City. One of the injured civilians from the truck was so badly wounded that Sgt. Horne decided:

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"the best course of action was to put (the victim) out of his misery."

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So he did. In front of witnesses and in spite of the fact that the injured man's brother was begging Sgt. Horne not to. So much for morphine then. Hands up anybody who would want to serve in Sgt Horne's platoon? 'Ouch! Sergeant I've caught my thumb on my Humvee door … Bamm Bamm Bamm!'
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Sgt. Johnny plea bargained, was found guilty and got three years. Despatch an innocent wounded Iraqi kid with no more compassion than for an injured dog or horse and get three years. That's really going to go down well with the locals isn’t it?
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In the few instances where this story surfaced in the US and UK media, the circumstances surrounding the murder were usually reported along the lines of …

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Previous military court hearings have heard that several troops fired on a group of Iraqi men placing home-made bombs along a road in Sadr City, an impoverished Baghdad neighbourhood. Soldiers from the same battalion arrived on the scene to find a burning truck and casualties around it.

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which is classic Bush/ Blair style spin. Even though there was absolutely no connection between the bomb planters and the truck you are invited to believe there was by the simple act of placing two sentences next to each other. It's not really lying is it? But it's not telling the truth either.
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I'm not suggesting that American soldiers are any more murderous than anyone else. Look at it from their point of view. Everything around them has the potential to blow up at any minute. The locals hate them as occupiers. They are surrounded by an utterly alien language and culture. There's no solution to the mess in sight. They're twitchy, jumpy and nervous and just want to make it home in one piece. As one wag recently put it 'We've stopped trying to win Iraqi hearts and minds and are making do with putting bullets into Iraqi hearts and minds'.
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I am slightly jealous of the Iraqis and their situation for one small reason though. Imagine the potential of living under occupying troops who will act on tip offs but are too nervous to check if the tip-offs are accurate and just blaze away regardless. The people who live in the flat upstairs from me have been really ticking me off lately. If we were living in Baghdad I could supply the army with high quality Intel about their subversive activities, pocket a few hundred dollars reward and withdraw to a safe place before the artillery got going.
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Now there's a cheerful thought.
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