Author Topic: A Soldier Accused, But Few Answers In Death Of Iraqi Teens  (Read 575 times)

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Offline EC

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A Soldier Accused, But Few Answers In Death Of Iraqi Teens
« on: December 02, 2013, 08:33:42 am »
Via NPR: http://www.npr.org/2013/12/01/248089115/a-soldier-accused-but-few-answers-in-death-of-iraqi-teens

Quote
It sounds unthinkable, but there are times, according to the rules of war, when it's morally acceptable to shoot a child.

A 12-year-old can, of course, fire an AK-47, but the more gut-wrenching decisions revolve around ambiguous situations. Could a child with a cell phone be a lookout for insurgents or send a detonation signal to an IED bomb?

These were the types of scenarios our soldiers had to face in Iraq. Countless soldiers have returned haunted by civilians they killed because the civilians panicked and ran through a checkpoint or reached for something too quickly.

Last month, military investigators began a process to charge Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael Barbera in the 2007 fatal shooting of two deaf, unarmed Iraqi youths. It is an incident Carl Prine, a reporter with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, says still haunts the soldiers of Barbera's unit.

"Every man I talked to had the Purple Heart," Prine tells NPR's Arun Rath. "These are not the kind of guys who are wishy-washy soldiers ... and yet they were all scarred by this one event that had happened and they never quite recovered from it."

The Confusion Of War

It was a few years ago when Prine, who served in Iraq himself, began hearing stories from members of Charlie Troop, part of the 82nd Airborne, one of the most decorated units in Army history. Prine wrote about the investigation into the shootings for the Tribune-Review.

In March of 2007, a small team led by then-Staff Sgt. Barbera was on a reconnaissance mission outside the village of Asada, in rural Iraq. The night before, the soldiers set themselves up in a palm grove overlooking what they believed to be an insurgent safe house.

The following day, two boys were driving cattle toward the unseen soldiers. Prine says most of the soldiers took their fingers off the trigger when they saw that the boys weren't a threat, but that's when Barbera stood up and allegedly fired on the boys, killing them both.

"They didn't know at the time ... the boys were both deaf and dumb," he says. "They could not speak and could not hear. So they never heard the shots that killed them."

According to the soldiers, Prine says, Barbera was panicked and ran to a deeper part of the palm grove. While they were there, a third boy approached with what appeared to be a satchel. He reached for something and Barbera ordered his men to fire, and they did, killing the third boy.

It turned out the boy, a cousin of one of the other two boys, was bringing them their lunch. He was also deaf, Prine says.

Though insurgents have been known to use children, Prine says it is still unclear what led Barbera to fire on these boys.

"There doesn't seem to be any confusion among the witnesses that turned him in," he says. "Whether he had some confusion or not remains the question."

No Immediate Punishment

Though the incident haunted the men of Barbera's troop, no action was taken against Barbera himself. Prine actually went to Iraq to meet the families of the slain boys. He was shocked to discover he was not the first American to come asking questions.

More at link.

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