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Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Writing history in real time: A speculation on an evolving war story

In my last post, I wrote about an off-the-tracks column that was frantically making Iraq War myths out of left-over Vietnam War stories and also apparently just making stuff up.

In the process, I wound up following up a bit on a story she referenced in one sentence about a 12-year-old with an Uzi story. Because it sounds to me like an urban legend in the making. Or maybe war folklore might be a better term.

The following is the sentence, from Hippies still trying to ruin the country by Jenean Mcbrearty Lexington Herald-Leader 11/12/06 (I commented on the "whose life is more valuable?" aspect in the Blue Voice post):

Whose life is more important: the 12-year-old Iraqi firing an Uzi or a soldier from Kentucky?

The bit about the 12-year-old with the Uzi may be related somehow to this anecdotally sourced story, THIS is why the Soldiers hand out toys.... Tanker Brothers blog 11/20/06. In this story, said to be from a soldier in Iraq:

2 weeks ago, we received a message from our command to be aware that Iraqi children have been reported to be garnishing a plastic toy AK-47 assault rifles at coalition forces. This message had been put about because unfortunately, a young Iraqi boy had been mistakenly shot and killed by Coalition Forces. While no one wanted this to happen, it is war and these things DO happen. Some people might even think that the child got what he deserved for aiming a toy weapon in a war zone at soldiers. However, there is more to the story. Our team joined up with another team to an operation and they provided more details to this tragedy. They showed us the plastic AK-47 Assault Rifle and a note that was attached to the stock of the gun. The toy guns were given out free to the children of that village and the note said if you aim and fire at the American convoy they will give you candy. The boy was 12 years old. In the same village they questioned a grammar school teacher who told his class anyone that throws rocks at the Americans would receive a high mark in class. This is the enemy we face.

Following is a somewhat similar report from 2003 by Jason at the Countercolumn blog, Toy Guns 11/26/03. I'm quoting the relevant part at some length here because it reads far more credibly than the Tanker Brothers account, for reasons discussed below. This account is in first person from the blogger Jason:

Unfortunately, some of the parents are giving their children toy guns.

This is incredibly dangerous.

I almost shot someone myself last July. I was going through Ar Ramadi on some mission or other, in the middle of a convoy of trucks. About 30 meters to the left side of the highway, I saw a kid - possibly fifteen years old - standing out in front of an apartment building, surrounded by four or five younger children, grinning and pointing what appeared to be an AK-47 at the vehicle in front of me.

I leveled my weapon and drew a bead on the kid’s chest. I had worked in a psychiatric ward for several years, and had learned a thing or two about what people look like when they’re intent on killing you. In this case, there was something about this kid’s expression that didn’t seem threatening. He didn’t have a wild look about him, nor did he have a tremendously hyper-focused expression of concentration on his face—with a furrowed brow and set jaw.

I knew I could hit him with the first shot at 30 meters. He was standing still and we weren’t traveling that fast. I sure didn’t want to take ANY risk with the surrounding children, though—including the risk that the SAW gunner standing right behind me in the same vehicle would open up in the same direction.

Nevertheless, the kid was pointing a weapon at U.S. troops. I couldn't ignore that.

At the very last second I saw that the weapon was a toy.

I pointed right at the kid and gestured for him to lower the weapon. He did.

I have no idea how I processed all that crap in three or four seconds.

I always travel with my weapon on ‘Safe.’ Somewhere along the line, I flipped my selector switch from ‘Safe’ to ‘Semi.’ I can never remember doing that. I just look down right after a near-contact like that one, and there it is. Spooky.

Well, now there’s a bunch of kids out around Ar Ramadi with toy guns. They don’t have orange barrels, here, either.

Our battalion supply officer ran into a child with one out on the road today, and went through the exact same experience I did. He didn’t fire either, thank goodness.

Later today, when he briefed what he saw at a command and staff briefing, another officer made a comment: "You should have shot him, anyway."

The battalion commander stood up, and read him the riot act in front of everyone. "I don’t care if you were joking or not, you do not make jokes about that! If you shoot a kid, and it’s just a toy gun, so help me, you’re going to jail."

Good deal. I'm glad the boss put his foot down about that. The officer was joking. But the commander has a responsibility to set a climate for his unit. You cannot tolerate even a hint of a cavalier attitude towards human life. There's enough killing around here as it is. The leadership has to be extremely careful to control it from the top, by letting subordinates know, in crystal clear terms, where they stand.

Nevertheless, there are some jumpy troops out there these days. And with children out there sporting toy guns as if they were stickball bats, we have a tragedy waiting to happen.

I haven't researched the "toy gun" story in detail, so I want to be clear here that I'm engaging in some speculation. I think of it as a sort of hypothesis to use in following this particular theme of child soldiers in Iraq, and specifically the "12-year-old shooting at American soldiers" theme.

The 2003 story from Jason reads very credibly. It also sounds like what you would expect to hear from a well-trained soldier. It's notable in that story that the narrator expresses approval for the officer who said emphatically, "If you shoot a kid, and it's just a toy gun, so help me, you're going to jail". In other words, it's clearly not a story someone made up to justify shooting Iraqi children.

The Tanker Brothers story has warning signs that it could be some kind of urban legend. Or maybe "war legend". For one thing, there's that tell-tale sourcing: "one of the Soldiers I communicate with" who is somewhere in Iraq with American forces. Then the specific part of the story about the toy AK-47's came from someone that the anonymous "one of the Soldiers I communicate with" ran into. So we're into the "my cousin knows a guy who lives in the town where this happened" territory on the sourcing. Then later the anonymous source who got the story from some other soldiers they ran into asks the reader, "Please pass this blog along to church groups, civil [sic] organizations, ect. [sic]" Which also suggests that what she received from "one of the Soldiers I communicate with" actually came from a blog that may or may not be written by the soldier she communicates with.

In short, the sourcing is screwy.

Then the way the details are laid out also sounds funny to me, like the way that several sentences after the mention of the boy who was allegedly shot, we get the detail, "The boy was 12 years old." It just reads like a story would that had sentences inserted as it was circulated around by e-mail.

Finally, there's the overt suggestion that shooting Iraqi children isn't such a big deal: "While no one wanted this to happen, it is war and these things DO happen. Some people might even think that the child got what he deserved for aiming a toy weapon in a war zone at soldiers."

Then we have a completely unsourced reference by the dingy columnist to a 12-year-old who actually shot an Uzi at American soldiers.

If I were researching this in more detail, I would assume that it was entirely plausible that children playing with toy guns might have been shot by American soldiers who thought they were a real threat. With all the guns available in Iraq, it's very likely that a child could get a real gun and point it at American troops. It's even possible that children that young are being used by the resistance, although I have not heard that reported before.

But here's an alternative scenario for how this story may have developed:

1. American troops in Ramadi and perhaps elsewhere in Iraq encountered children playing with toy guns, possibly even incidents occurring where Americans shot at them. Incidents like this do occur in American cities with police, so it's a believable story on its face. The Countercolumn account would be consistent with this; the child in that account was around 15.

2. The story circulates of a child having been killed by an American soldier. But now the toy guns are not given out by the parents (as in the Countercolumn version) but are handed out by resistance groups complete with notes taped to them. A teacher encouraging kids to throw rocks at soldiers gets into the story. The location is made so vague that it's just somewhere in Iraq. The kid becomes a 12-year-old. And a moral is added to the story that basically says it's no big deal to shoot Iraqi kids. (The version from Tanker Brothers.)

3. In the Mcbreardy column, it's shortened to a 12-year-old kid actually firing an Uzi and becomes an explicit tradeoff between the life of an American soldier and a kid trying to kill him with a weapon. And framed not as a tough call by the soldier on how to respond but as an obvious statement that the Iraqi kid's life is less important than the American soldier.

I would be interested to hear about other stories related to this.

posted at 2:46:00 PM by Bruce Miller

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