US Soldiers Dragged To Death, Burned, Mutilated, Apparently All In Compliance With Common Article 3

We must observe the Geneva Conventions in all particulars, lest psychopathic death cultists suddenly get the idea that they, too, may bend the rules in the appropriate case.

To do less, John McCain tells me, is to expose captured US soldiers to the sort of treatment they've already been getting for 60+ years.

An al-Qaida-linked group posted a Web video Saturday purporting to show the bodies of two American soldiers being dragged behind a truck, then set on fire in apparent retaliation for the rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman by U.S. troops from the same unit. The Mujahedeen Shura Council _ an umbrella organization of insurgent groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq _ posted another video in June showing the soldiers' mutilated bodies, and claiming it killed them. It was not clear whether the video posted Saturday was a continuation of that footage, or why it was released.

It was impossible to identify the bodies, but the footage was believed to be of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Pfc. Thomas Tucker, 25, who went missing after being attacked by insurgents on June 16 at a checkpoint south of Baghdad. Their remains were found three days later, and the U.S. military said they had been mutilated.

The video showed masked men dragging the corpses, first by hand, then behind a truck, beheading one of them and then setting them on fire. Below the graphic footage is a subtitle: "The two soldiers belong to the same brigade of the soldier who raped our sister in Mahmoudiya."

Oh, PS: Mustn't engage in collective punishment, either. That might give the terrorists the idea to do what they've been doing since forever.

posted by Ace at 05:58 PM

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