POW rescued!

[Ronn_Bman]

You're right pritchke. I'm certainly glad she's safe, and I can't wait to hear her story.

Masklinn, I understand. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[Timber Loftis]

SKUNK: you can quit your quoting of various treaties. A local Iraqi handed marines a note of her location and stated specifically that she was being tortured. Now, if you'll recall our few female POW experiences from 1991, you'll know that this means, among other things, RAPED REPEATEDLY. She had 2 broken legs and a broken arm when rescued. Oh, and BTW, 2 decoy attacks on military targets were made and apparently no civilians were killed.

Insinuating that they should have left her there is bad form at best, and inhumane as well. Just because you are being tortured in a hospital does not make it okay. You'll also note that 9 of her buddies were found dead in the hospital's morgue. If all of the other (male) prisoners were killed, I wonder what one purpose they were keeping her alive for. [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

You really picked one where our troops wore the white hats to do you complaining. Pick your battles better in the future. Waiting until you have more facts helps, of course.

From Today's NY Times.

AN NASIRIYAH, April 2 — The dramatic rescue of a U.S. Army private held by Iraqi forces was tempered Wednesday by the fact that elite U.S. forces also found 11 corpses — at least some of which are bodies of American soldiers, military sources told NBC News. In addition, NBC’s Kerry Sanders reported from the town where Pfc. Jessica Lynch was found that he received word she had been tortured.

NINE BODIES were found in a grave area and two in the morgue of a hospital where Lynch had been held, Brig. Gen. Vince Brooks told reporters at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar.
Brooks said U.S. troops were taken to the sites by an Iraqi who had been taken into custody during the operation.
Forensic experts are now trying to determine “who they might be,” he said. But military sources told NBC News that at least some were American soldiers.
Brooks added that U.S. forces engaged in a firefight on the way into and out of the hospital overnight Tuesday, but there were no coalition casualties. Ammunition, mortars, maps and a terrain model were found at the hospital, he said, along with “other things that made it very clear it was being used as a military command post.”
Lynch, 19, suffered two broken legs and a broken arm, said Capt. Jay La Rossa, a spokesman for the 15th Marine Expeditionary Force.
She was one of eight soldiers who vanished after a maintenance convoy was attacked in An Nasiriyah on March 23.
Planning for the rescue started when an An Nasiriyah resident passed Marines a note that said she was being held at a hospital being used as a headquarters by Iraqi forces, Sanders reported. The note even mentioned what room she was in.
The commando raid included Air Force pilots, Marines, Navy SEALS, Army Rangers — “loyal to the creed they know that they never leave a fallen comrade,” Brooks said.

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U.S. forces rescue soldier
April 1, 2003 — April 2 — A resident of An Nasiriyah handed Marines a note telling them where the missing soldier was being held. NBC’s Kerry Sanders reports.

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‘SHE’S BEING TORTURED’
Separately, Sanders was approached by an English-speaking resident who said a female U.S. soldier was being held at the hospital.
“Please make sure the people in charge know that she’s being tortured,” the resident claimed.

Brooks said he had no information of torture. Lynch, of Palestine, W.Va., was to be flown later Wednesday to a U.S. military hospital in Germany.
Sanders reported that Lynch was originally held at another nearby hospital used by Iraqi forces and where Marines last week found a bloody uniform used by U.S. servicewomen. They had also found a room with a bed and large battery next to it, indicating to Marines that it had been used as a torture chamber.
Lynch’s rescue leaves 16 American soldiers, including another female, still listed as missing. Seven others, including one female, are known POWs in Iraqi hands. The Pentagon said Tuesday that 46 soldiers had been killed. Britain said 27 of its troops had died since the war started on March 20.

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Jessica’s father on her freedom
April 2, 2003 — Greg Lynch, father of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, tells Katie Couric he and his wife first thought news of her rescue was an April Fools' joke.

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RELIEF AT HOME
Relatives and friends said Lynch, a supply clerk who turns 20 later this month, joined the Army to get an education and follow her dream of becoming a teacher. Her older brother, Gregory, is a member of the National Guard.
“I got a phone call, and they told me, and I was tickled pink,” Lynch’s cousin Rita Lynch told MSNBC TV. “I was real worried. I didn’t think I would ever see her again.”
President Bush was told of the rescue during a briefing with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, spokeswoman Suzy DeFrancis said. The president responded, “That’s great.”
Lynch was one of 15 members of the Army’s 507th Maintenance Company, based at Fort Bliss, Texas, who were ambushed after taking a wrong turn.
The Army later listed two of the 15 as dead, five as prisoners of war and the eight others, including Lynch, as missing.
The dead bodies of what appeared to be several soldiers were displayed on Iraqi television last week; Pentagon officials charged that they had been executed, which Iraq denied.

The information about Lynch’s whereabouts was developed while the Marines were searching for Ali Hassan al-Majeed, a cousin of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein who was believed to have put in charge of the southern front.
Al-Majeed is known by the nickname “Chemical Ali” for overseeing the use of poison gas that killed 5,000 Kurdish villagers in 1988.
Lynch was rescued as Marines staged decoy attacks, including assaults on the headquarters of the local Baath Party and the Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary organization, both of which were destroyed.

[Magness]

Originally posted by pritchke: Boy are you guys [img]graemlins/offtopic.gif[/img] . I have always wanted to post that smile. I am glad she was rescued.

Oh, I'm thrilled that she was rescued as well.

And while this thread may be a bit off topic, discussing the status of hospitals, vis-a-vis the 4th Geneva Convention, is IMHO a worthy related topic.

[Mordenheim]

Funny how the happy news of a pow was rescued was sidelined by a certain few. A thread about the convention would have been better then spoiling the good feeling some of us have.

This is silly. I guess they should have went to the front door and asked to be allowed in. I wonder how many people would find that acceptable if it was their own family member. I saw on TV live tape of the hospital. It is going on fine.

I am very glad she was rescued. Some reports say she has a broken arm as well as both legs and gun shot wounds. Also that two other dead American soldiers were found with eight dead Iraqi's. I guess that got to her in time

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Mordenheim: I guess that got to her in time

Unfortunately, she had more "time" only because she could be repeatedly ravaged by rapists. I would dig up interviews with the female POW from the last war in Iraq, but I don't think it's appropriate to discuss here.

Let's not forget that we still have one more female POW who at this very moment is being tortured in this barbaric fashion.

[Mordenheim]

I don't want to think about it Timber. I can only imagine. The sooner we cut the throat of this regime the better off we all are.

[Djinn Raffo]

I saw a show on the CBC newsworld or on cnn or somthing talking about women in combat roles. They had interviewed various members of the military on the subject of women that have been captured and were now pow.

It seemed that the women were more accepting that a consequence of their military career path might involve being captured and raped, sexually abused repeatedly. It was the men who could not accept that knowledge that if they and several comrades were captured, one or more of them being women, the knowledge that they could be being raped in the next room would drive the men to insanity.

[khazadman]

Of course the men were driven to the point of insanity over the brutal treatment of our women. It's the nature of our culture.

[Skunk]

OK. I hear the arguments and I've taken them on board (honest!).

I'll make my last statement on this subject in this thread
intermingled with a couple of quotes from
George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' (1945).

In the US, we have seen that after 9/11 came the introduction of the
Patriot Act, the indefinite detention of 'criminals', state sanctioned assassinations
and even torture:
"As [the horse] looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If
she could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this
was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to
work for the overthrow of the human race. If she herself had had any
picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from
hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity,
the strong protecting the weak. Instead, they had come to a time when no
one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere,
and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to
shocking crimes."

We then go on to war and begin to display the very same disregard for life and
the law that our opponent does. By the end of the conflict, no-one is sure
anymore which is the good guy and which is the bad guy.
"No question, now, what had happened to the faces of
the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man,
and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but
already it was impossible to say which was which."

[Ronn_Bman]

Originally posted by Skunk: We then go on to war and begin to display the very same disregard for life and the law that our opponent does.

This just isn't true.