Things still FUBAR in Iraq

kos for Daily Kos

Daily Kos Staff

Friday October 15, 2004 · 9:03 AM PDT

2004/10/15 · 09:03

Now they're arresting entire platoons of guardsmen.

A 17-member Army Reserve platoon with troops from Jackson and around the Southeast deployed to Iraq is under arrest for refusing a "suicide mission" to deliver fuel, the troops' relatives said Thursday.

The soldiers refused an order on Wednesday to go to Taji, Iraq -- north of Baghdad -- because their vehicles were considered "deadlined" or extremely unsafe, said Patricia McCook of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Larry O. McCook.

Sgt. McCook, a deputy at the Hinds County Detention Center, and the 16 other members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company from Rock Hill, S.C., were read their rights and moved from the military barracks into tents, Patricia McCook said her husband told her during a panicked phone call about 5 a.m. Thursday.

The platoon could be charged with the willful disobeying of orders, punishable by dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay and up to five years confinement, said military law expert Mark Stevens, an associate professor of justice studies at Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, N.C.

Things are not "improving" in Iraq when entire platoons are being arrested for insubordination. Oh, and then there's the matter of 1,092 dead U.S. soliders, 34 in the last two weeks alone. Suicide attacks in the Green Zone, etc.

Things still FUBAR in Iraq

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