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There's an interesting book called Aberration In The Heartland of The Real about Tim McVeigh (the OKC bomber) that talks about his role prior to the bombing on

There's an interesting book called Aberration In The Heartland of The Real about Tim McVeigh (the OKC bomber) that talks about his role prior to the bombing on the front lines of the Iraq War and what he and his Bradley fighting vehicle unit did as they charged into Iraq: https://www.amazon.com/Aberration-Heartland-Real-Timothy-McVeigh/dp/1634240030 https://www.amazon.com/Aberration-Heartland-Real-Timothy-McV... They literally bulldozed thousands of fleeing and surrendering Iraqis and buried them alive. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19910912&slug=1305069 https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19910912&slug... It wasn't a war, it was a slaughter. The book ties this and other atrocities to the mindset that led to Tim McVeigh (and 2 others from his squadron) participating in the OKC bombing.

runjake 3y ago
> They literally bulldozed thousands of fleeing and surrendering Iraqis and buried them alive. Not to excuse anything, but the Seattle Times article does not indicate they buried surrendering or fleeing Iraqis. In fact, it states the opposite. Does the book make this claim?
- throwawayx134ax 3y ago
  Not replying directly to you, except the "excuse anything" part: It's a funny idea that you owe your opponent in a war a "fighting chance", when in fact the exact OPPOSITE is true. You, in fact, owe your own soldiers every reasonable effort to eliminate your opponent's ability to fight back, as that ability directly translates to your soldiers getting hurt or killed. One other point of clarification. Fleeing is NOT surrendering. You can't let your enemy flee unhindered only to regroup later.
  - runjake 3y ago
    Yeah, I am a (POG but offensive) veteran of that conflict (different unit), so I have similar thoughts but did not want to alienate the largely civilian audience with them.
- pierat 3y ago
  It does make that explicit claim. https://archive.org/details/aberrationinhear0000pain/page/188/mode/2up?q=bulldozed https://archive.org/details/aberrationinhear0000pain/page/18... https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=D1EE3B68F6738516CB38837A4F2F2440 https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=D1EE3B68F6738516CB38837... The last paragraph indicates that the Iraqis were surrendering. Killing surrendered opponents in a war engagement is a war crime, and also against US Army policy regarding surrendered opponents. -------------------- "The incident, or series of incidents, occurred near the Saudi-Iraqi border as the First Mechanized Infantry Division, in their breaching effort, tore through over seventy miles of barbed wire, minefields, bunkers and trenches about three-feet wide and six-feet deep, defended by, according to division estimates, eight thousand Iraqi soldiers. After Howitzers and rocket launchers “rained hell” upon Iraqis in their trenches, the heavily armored Abrams and Bradley vehicles broke through, “and the real slaughter began.” During what came to be known as the Bulldozer Assault, Abrams tanks, outfitted with plows and scrapers, broached the trenches, shoveling mounds of sand into them, burying alive the Iraqis inside. Vulcan armored carriers and Bradley vehicles drove alongside the trenches, firing upon those attempting to surrender and others who continued to return fire with small arms. The Armored Combat Earthmovers (ACEs) cleaned up the horrifying scene afterwards by burying the scattered arms and legs still in view, so that none of the journalists arriving thirty-six hours later could report carnage. The record shows that as early as June 5, 1995 (weeks after McVeigh’s arrest) the Jones Team was aware of the Bulldozer Assault and had noted their need to determine whether any member of his platoon “actually ran over Iraqi trenches (burying soldiers in them)” or if they had seen evidence of this as they approached the trenches. If any of his fellow soldiers spoke to the defense team about it, no such documentation was located in the Jones Collection. However, upon closer inspection it becomes clear that McVeigh’s company, his Bradley among them, spearheaded the breaching operation and led the Bulldozer Assault. In the few reports about it, news outlets quoted at least two individuals whom McVeigh knew. In September 1991, one of them, Col. Anthony Moreno, who commanded the First Mechanized lead brigade against the most heavily defended trenches during the assault, described it, telling reporters “what you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with people’s arms and legs sticking out of them. For all I know, we could have killed thousands … as (Iraqi) soldiers saw what we were doing and how effective (ly) we were doing it, they began jumping out of their holes and surrendering. Our firepower kept the Iraqis down in their trenches. They were incapable of firing back.” No existing biography of McVeigh explores the horror of the Bulldozer Assault in any depth, or even mentions it as such. In his book, Stickney simply wrote, “A lot of shooting by the Americans was directed at the enemy’s dug-in trenches.” Hamm acknowledged that McVeigh’s “platoon was assigned to ‘roll up’ the trenches and nearby artillery bunkers supporting them. This involved rolling over them in Bradleys, tanks, trucks, and giant earthmovers, suffocating to death hundreds of Iraqi troops in the trenches. This tactic not only effectively killed the enemy, but the huge pile of corpses provided a sturdy foundation for a smooth crossing point for the invading forces.” Herbeck and Michel did not directly address the Bulldozer Assault, the bodies buried alive or McVeigh’s role in it. Rather, they allude to it obliquely by observing that the motto of the VII Corp was “If it’s in front of us, it dies” and “because of the sounds made by the tanks rolling over Iraqis, U.S. soldiers began to refer to the dead they’d created as “crunchies.” The handful of existing news reports about the incident provide further details. Participants later said that they had carefully planned and rehearsed the Bulldozer Assault weeks before it commenced, a claim confirmed by satellite photographs. One Captain described the psychological trauma he later suffered because of his role in the slaughter. The Iraqis, he said, had been throwing down their weapons and were begging the U.S. troops to take them prisoner. “I wish we could have,” he reflected, “[but] after [taking] so many thousands of prisoners, the order came down that it was endangering our men to capture anymore … so we called in the bulldozers.… I had to give the order, order men who drove the earthmovers to just cover up the trenches… I buried hundreds of men alive…if I’d disobeyed orders I should have been shot for insubordination on the battle field … that’s war.”"
- causi 3y ago
  He may be confusing action with Bradleys for the "bulldozer assault" where armored bulldozers were used to plow over a trench network rather than sending in ground troops to clear it out. Personally I don't see how getting hurt yourself has any impact on whether attacking someone is justified. There is no scenario in which killing someone with a knife is more justified than killing them with a gun or a bomb.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

runjake 3y ago

> They literally bulldozed thousands of fleeing and surrendering Iraqis and buried them alive. Not to excuse anything, but the Seattle Times article does not indicate they buried surrendering or fleeing Iraqis. In fact, it states the opposite. Does the book make this claim?

throwawayx134ax 3y ago
Not replying directly to you, except the "excuse anything" part: It's a funny idea that you owe your opponent in a war a "fighting chance", when in fact the exact OPPOSITE is true. You, in fact, owe your own soldiers every reasonable effort to eliminate your opponent's ability to fight back, as that ability directly translates to your soldiers getting hurt or killed. One other point of clarification. Fleeing is NOT surrendering. You can't let your enemy flee unhindered only to regroup later.
- runjake 3y ago
  Yeah, I am a (POG but offensive) veteran of that conflict (different unit), so I have similar thoughts but did not want to alienate the largely civilian audience with them.
pierat 3y ago
It does make that explicit claim. https://archive.org/details/aberrationinhear0000pain/page/188/mode/2up?q=bulldozed https://archive.org/details/aberrationinhear0000pain/page/18... https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=D1EE3B68F6738516CB38837A4F2F2440 https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=D1EE3B68F6738516CB38837... The last paragraph indicates that the Iraqis were surrendering. Killing surrendered opponents in a war engagement is a war crime, and also against US Army policy regarding surrendered opponents. -------------------- "The incident, or series of incidents, occurred near the Saudi-Iraqi border as the First Mechanized Infantry Division, in their breaching effort, tore through over seventy miles of barbed wire, minefields, bunkers and trenches about three-feet wide and six-feet deep, defended by, according to division estimates, eight thousand Iraqi soldiers. After Howitzers and rocket launchers “rained hell” upon Iraqis in their trenches, the heavily armored Abrams and Bradley vehicles broke through, “and the real slaughter began.” During what came to be known as the Bulldozer Assault, Abrams tanks, outfitted with plows and scrapers, broached the trenches, shoveling mounds of sand into them, burying alive the Iraqis inside. Vulcan armored carriers and Bradley vehicles drove alongside the trenches, firing upon those attempting to surrender and others who continued to return fire with small arms. The Armored Combat Earthmovers (ACEs) cleaned up the horrifying scene afterwards by burying the scattered arms and legs still in view, so that none of the journalists arriving thirty-six hours later could report carnage. The record shows that as early as June 5, 1995 (weeks after McVeigh’s arrest) the Jones Team was aware of the Bulldozer Assault and had noted their need to determine whether any member of his platoon “actually ran over Iraqi trenches (burying soldiers in them)” or if they had seen evidence of this as they approached the trenches. If any of his fellow soldiers spoke to the defense team about it, no such documentation was located in the Jones Collection. However, upon closer inspection it becomes clear that McVeigh’s company, his Bradley among them, spearheaded the breaching operation and led the Bulldozer Assault. In the few reports about it, news outlets quoted at least two individuals whom McVeigh knew. In September 1991, one of them, Col. Anthony Moreno, who commanded the First Mechanized lead brigade against the most heavily defended trenches during the assault, described it, telling reporters “what you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with people’s arms and legs sticking out of them. For all I know, we could have killed thousands … as (Iraqi) soldiers saw what we were doing and how effective (ly) we were doing it, they began jumping out of their holes and surrendering. Our firepower kept the Iraqis down in their trenches. They were incapable of firing back.” No existing biography of McVeigh explores the horror of the Bulldozer Assault in any depth, or even mentions it as such. In his book, Stickney simply wrote, “A lot of shooting by the Americans was directed at the enemy’s dug-in trenches.” Hamm acknowledged that McVeigh’s “platoon was assigned to ‘roll up’ the trenches and nearby artillery bunkers supporting them. This involved rolling over them in Bradleys, tanks, trucks, and giant earthmovers, suffocating to death hundreds of Iraqi troops in the trenches. This tactic not only effectively killed the enemy, but the huge pile of corpses provided a sturdy foundation for a smooth crossing point for the invading forces.” Herbeck and Michel did not directly address the Bulldozer Assault, the bodies buried alive or McVeigh’s role in it. Rather, they allude to it obliquely by observing that the motto of the VII Corp was “If it’s in front of us, it dies” and “because of the sounds made by the tanks rolling over Iraqis, U.S. soldiers began to refer to the dead they’d created as “crunchies.” The handful of existing news reports about the incident provide further details. Participants later said that they had carefully planned and rehearsed the Bulldozer Assault weeks before it commenced, a claim confirmed by satellite photographs. One Captain described the psychological trauma he later suffered because of his role in the slaughter. The Iraqis, he said, had been throwing down their weapons and were begging the U.S. troops to take them prisoner. “I wish we could have,” he reflected, “[but] after [taking] so many thousands of prisoners, the order came down that it was endangering our men to capture anymore … so we called in the bulldozers.… I had to give the order, order men who drove the earthmovers to just cover up the trenches… I buried hundreds of men alive…if I’d disobeyed orders I should have been shot for insubordination on the battle field … that’s war.”"
causi 3y ago
He may be confusing action with Bradleys for the "bulldozer assault" where armored bulldozers were used to plow over a trench network rather than sending in ground troops to clear it out. Personally I don't see how getting hurt yourself has any impact on whether attacking someone is justified. There is no scenario in which killing someone with a knife is more justified than killing them with a gun or a bomb.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]