This is interesting. Channel 4 News of the UK has obtained a video that shows Iraqi soldiers (no doubt Shia) beating three Sunni Arab men who were caught with mortars in their cars. The beating took place in the Sunni Arab neighborhood of Amriya, the same neighborhood my uncles lived in for decades until they received letters from the 'mujahideen' in the summer of 2005 threatening to kill them if they did not leave. The video is being circulated on other blogs and through comments, and many people are pointing to this video as evidence of the brutality of Iraqi soldiers against Sunni Arabs. One commentator on another blog called it a 'genocide' of Sunni Arabs, with American complicity.
Later in the video they show the body of a 16 year old Shii in a formerly mixed neighborhood of west Baghdad. Apparently that's not as brutal as an Iraqi Army soldier beating up Sunni Arabs caught with mortars. After that a Sunni Arab man, married to a Shii woman, is shown talking to US soldiers in Amriya about a letter he received from Sunni insurgents saying that they must leave (final warning!) or the mujahideen will cut out their tongues, behead them, and eradicate their entire family. The letter was signed in the name of 'Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate' by four Sunni militia groups. It makes me wonder if people who are trying to use this as evidence of the brutality against Sunni Arabs by Iraqi soldiers have seen the entire video. Even the title of the YouTube video (Shia Iraqi soldier beat Sunnis as US trainers watch) suggests that the person who uploaded the video did not watch the whole thing. So if you watch this, watch ALL of it!
Having said this, I'm glad that people are hodling the Iraqi Army to high standards.
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