We're from the Army, and we're here to help you.

[DaveB]

It seems that American Medical personnel refused to treat three Iraqi children who had been seriously burned.

I want to hear from you guys again how it is that we warred against Iraq to save its people.

As an aside,

My own Father was blown up in a tank at Kasserine Pass - he was the only crewman to survive. The Germans saved his life - one leg was blown off - and kept him in POW hospitals until the end of the war. Germany could not afford to feed its own people during the war, but I'm here because of their willingness to treat a captured American with humanity.

Here's the article:

"We're just so proud that he tried, he tried to help them," Bucks says. Sergeant David Borell explains his frustration in an E-mail to NBC 24.

Borell says Friday an Iraqi father came to the army base in Balad pleading for medical treatment for his two daughters and son.

"Most of his legs and arms were singed clean of the top layers of flesh," Borell writes of the boy. "His face was contorted with the same manner of burns. I can only imagine the intensity of the pain he was in."

But Borell says military doctors would do nothing. The GI claims he was told unless wounds are life-threatening, limb or eyesight, or have been caused by Americans, local nationals are not to be treated.

This is from http://www.nbc24.com/Global/story.asp?s= 1321807

This makes me so angry I can't sit still.

db

 

[Preacherman]

Dave, please understand the wider situation. The US military has come under all sorts of fire from Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq about treating women and girls, which means that their bodies are exposed to the "infidel" gazes of the men of our forces. This is completely unacceptable to Islam as a general rule. As a result, now that Iraqi hospitals - staffed with Muslim doctors and nurses - are once again in operation, it was announced some time ago that all non-life-threatening injuries to Iraqi civilians were to be treated in their own hospitals, to avoid the "conflict of interest" which concerns the mullahs and fundamentalists. I'm sure that if these injuries had been more serious, they would have been treated immediately: but the doctors obviously checked them out and told the family to go to an Iraqi hospital, in accordance with the treatment guidelines laid out by their superiors.

 

[cordex]

If your father had been fighting against the Americans in this war, and was injured as you report, he too would have been treated.

One question ... does Nazi Germany's positive treatment of one POW (your pop) make them decent chaps? I mean, despite that little "unpleasantness" with the Jews?

Similarly, I wouldn't judge the entire American invasion of Iraq because doctors refused to treat a non-life-threatening injury.

Still ... is it sad? Yeah, it is.

 

[brownie0486]

DaveB:

Ya I guess you probably have it right here, we aren't there to help the Iraqi people and have done nothing toward that end since entering their country in the last 14 months.

I guess all those people I saw on CNN that were dancing in the streets of Baghdad were not rejoicing at our entering the city and liberating them from the despot they were ruled/torutured/killed/executed/mutilated by in the past.

Seeing as the despot murdered and killed his own people to the tune of what? 500,000 over the last two decades who were not afforded medical care before we entered the fray I guess they are accustomed to being told no to healthcare.

The shipments, measured in tons, of food and supplies which have been handed out to the Iraqi population was just a ploy to look good for the press while we systematically have slaughtered them when no one was looking.

We're there to kill the population off and take their oil, is that it?

As to your dad, god bless him for the service to his country and the suffering endured by him and all the others who were part of that war.

Do you believe the germans never killed American captives in their charge? Ever? Never ?

Better rethink that position of yours sir. If we had had a melle mouth like Gore running the show we surely would have been better off by not entering the country and ferreting out the BG's to effect change in that country. Then we would only have to wait for hem to attack us here on these shores or train others in the camps to come here and do their bidding.

Yup, it's all been a big conspiracy since 9-11 to use that dates events as reasons to go there and steal their oil, right?

Citing one example without knowing all the political implications and why those decisions have been made doesn't sound like objectivity to me but more your subjective views which can be expounded on here due to three children not getting care, where they had none before to begin with.

Brownie

 

[DaveB]

I appreciate what you guys have posted, but I cannot accept that the occupiers of a defeated country do not have an obligation - legal, moral and medical - to render treatment.

Yes, the Germans did not always treat their captives well - being a Russian POW in the hands of the Germans was, in effect, a death sentence.

My point was not that the WWII Germans are to be held up as a model of kindness and humanity... But that we are (or were).

db

 

[brownie0486]

DaveB :

I don't believe we have an obligation to take care of all the civilians in that country just because we are there.

They are not worse off for us being there but better off in my estimation.

Every effort has been made to work with their people to get them on their own feet and become useful to the world economy again.

I think the military's obligation should be in military issues [ which they are still working on ] and not to create a welfare state for every citizen at the US taxpayers expense just because they are there.

The country has problems, they will always have problems. We can't solve them all nor should we try. As a matter of fact many have posted views we should not be there to begin with as an occupier.

It's just too damned easy to expect uncle sam to come to the rescue of every civilian who needs help in that country. We were there to kill the despot and his regime commanders and armies, not to bring about a welfare state for the general population.

Brownie

 

[cordex]

Hey brownie ... we agree on something!

 

[lapidator]

Don't believe every thing you read in the news. Especially if the source is from WWW or EMAIL!

 

[OEF_VET]

lapidator,

Hear, Hear! Just because something is on the web, it's not always the truth. I'm not saying that this story isn't true, just saying let's not all get our panties in a wad over it.

I can say with certainty that we did provide medical care to civilians in both Kosovo and Afghanistan, I saw it with my own two eyes. However, there were times, particularly in Afghanistan, where we told the locals to go to the civilian doctors for aid. If we had provided all the medical treatment to the local civilians, our doctors would have been overwhelmed and our medical supplies would have dwindled to unacceptably low levels, especially since everything had to be brought in thru an airhead. Im my estimation, the U.S. military doctors probably made a decision that the child could be treated equally as well by local civilian doctors, thereby freeing American assets to be used on Americans or for more serious cases.

As for the authenticity of something being posted on the web, let's walk thru a quick scenario. I log on to the web using my @us.army.mil e-mail account, and send an e-mail to some TV reporter. In said e-mail, I tell the reporter that I'm a soldier in Iraq with the 101st and that such and such an event just happened. Now, having just recently left the 101, I'm still familiar enough with the SOP's and TO&E (Standard Operating Procedures and Table of Organization & Equipment) to fill the e-mail with some very believable info. Other than tracking my ISP address, how is the reporter on the end going to know otherwise. Not only that, how many reporters are going to actually verify a flamboyant story before they report on it. I mean, it obviously came from a reputable source, with a @us.army.mil address, so it must be authentic.

Just my 1/50 of a $1.00.

Frank

 

[RKCheung]

As occupiers, we do have an obligation to ensure that the citizens of the country do receive proper medical care. However, this doesn't mean WE have to provide it. The medical infrastructure in Iraq is at pre-war levels and probably better than pre-war levels. If the precedence is set that we are providing personal medical care than there would be thousands of Iraqis lined up to receive it instead of utilizing the existing medical infrastructure that we have bolstering with expertise and supplies. This is exactly what happened in the first few weeks of the war until people started realizing what was happening and along with religious leaders complaining about American interference did it change.

 

[Waitone]

Always, always be wary of unattributed stories.

May well be true. May well be partially true. May well be agi-prop. Can't tell from the source.

Regarding the media outlet. Can't trust anything there also. It is a demonstrable fact the major organs had deliberately adopted a policy of not running stories about the good things going on in Iraq. Now if the policy is actual true how can anyone believe anything coming out of that outlet?

Third, The story is at variance with other stories making it out about how our medical corps is treating Iraqi's.

As has been previously mentioned, Islam has customs which are at variance with western practice wen it comes to interaction with the sexes. If US forces are under orders to lower the friction, then it seems to me that if the story is accurate (which I doubt) then it is Islam and the potentates who run the show who bear responsibility for any suffering the local Iraqi's endure. At some point everyone has to deal with the consequences of their belief systems.

 

[Destructo6]

do not have an obligation - legal, moral and medical - to render treatment.

I don't know if they have a Status of Forces Agreement yet or not, but the one we had in Okinawa prohibited us (I was a Corpsman) from treating non-US personnel. If they were dropped on our doorstep, and sometimes were, we'd treat them until the Japanese ambulance crew arrived (I wouldn't call them EMTs or remotely similar). It worked both ways.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

Why didnt the Iraqi father take the children to an Iraqi hospital in the first place?

Where would he have taken them before we occupied Iraq?

Thats where they should have gone now.

My guess is that the injuries were not life threatening, and they were routed to the appropriate Iraqi facility.

 

[Malone LaVeigh]

The story's been reported by the AP.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0623-09.htm