The World in Brief (3/21/06)

Iraqi police report details civilians’ deaths at hands of U.S. troops

Matthew… Iraqi police report details civilians’ deaths at hands of U.S. troops

Matthew Schofield, Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraqi police have accused American troops of executing 11 people, including a 75-year-old woman and a 6-month-old infant, in the aftermath of a raid last Wednesday on a house about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

The villagers were killed after American troops herded them into a single room of the house, according to a police document obtained by Knight Ridder Newspapers. The soldiers also burned three vehicles, killed the villagers’ animals and blew up the house, the document said.

A U.S. military spokesman, Major Tim Keefe, said that the U.S. military has no information to support the allegations and that he had not heard of them before a reporter brought them to his attention Sunday.

“We’re concerned to hear accusations like that, but it’s also highly unlikely that they’re true,” he said. He added that U.S. forces “take every precaution to keep civilians out of harm’s way. The loss of innocent life, especially children, is regrettable.”

Accusations that U.S. troops have killed civilians are commonplace in Iraq, though most are judged later to be unfounded or exaggerated. Navy investigators announced last week that they were looking into whether Marines intentionally killed 15 Iraqi civilians – four of them women and five of them children – during fighting last November.

But the report of the killings in the Abu Sifa area of Ishaqi, eight miles north of the city of Balad, is unusual because it originated with Iraqi police and because Iraqi police were willing to attach their names to it.

The report, which also contained brief descriptions of other events in the area, was compiled by the Joint Coordination Center in Tikrit, a regional security center set up with United States military assistance. An Iraqi police colonel signed the report, which was based on communications from local police.

Europe still beckons students, but many are drawn elsewhere

Dara Bramson, Knight Ridder Newspapers

Jessica Serrano, a student at the University of Miami, is no stranger to travel. Last summer she backpacked through Europe; in 2004, she studied in New Zealand and Australia. This year, she’s going to Southeast Asia, a new destination that she feels would benefit most from her tourist dollars, especially areas damaged by the 2004 tsunami.

She isn’t the only student you’ll see roaming the world.

In any foreign country this summer, you’re guaranteed to see at least a handful of U.S. students. An easy way to identify them: They’ll be carrying maps, English-something dictionaries and seam-split backpacks overflowing with souvenirs and dirty clothes.

For decades, college students have ventured out of the United States for a summer of backpacking. Some travel because they seek insight into an unfamiliar culture, others are eager to celebrate summer, graduation or final months of freedom.

“The overall trend for college-age students is Europe,” said Sarah-Jane Wilton, communications coordinator at STA Travel, a discount student travel company. Though students tend to gravitate toward traditional European favorites like Britain, Italy and France, travel experts say young people also like to go to places that have been in the public eye.

“We saw a huge increase in Athens trips after the summer 2004 Olympics in Athens,” said Jaimee Shield, a marketing specialist at Contiki, a California-based travel tour company specializing in all-inclusive adventure packages for 18-to-35 year olds. “We are now seeing a hike in our Italian trips … because of the Olympics.”

Military plans to retrieve Navy pilot killed in 1944

Kirsten Scharnberg, Chicago Tribune

THE KOOLAU RANGE, Hawaii – Harry Warnke’s F6F-3 Hellcat slammed into these lush, jagged mountains on June 15, 1944.

A memorial service was held for the 23-year-old Navy ensign, and official notification was sent to the pilot’s heartsick parents in Gary, Ind. And, as happens during wartime, Warnke’s squadron members returned to their flight training, rehearsing the same bombing maneuvers that had killed their comrade. A week later, they shipped out to serve in World War II.

Six decades passed.

Because of the crash’s remote location, Warnke’s Hellcat was left to deteriorate in the tropical heat and rain.

Because of an extraordinary confluence of events, including the fact that Warnke had crashed into what are considered sacred Hawaiian grounds, his remains never were recovered, though they lay within miles of four active military installations where troops are indoctrinated to never willingly leave a fallen comrade behind.

“From that June day in 1944 until now, Harry Warnke has been essentially lost in time,” said Colin Perry, a Hawaii aviation historian and retired U.S. Air Force pilot.

This summer that is expected to change. The military is planning to launch a high-tech – and highly controversial – forensic mission to recover Warnke’s remains and return them to northern Indiana, where a tombstone engraved with his name stands sentry over an empty plot.

On its face, the upcoming recovery mission simply seems to be a long-overdue attempt to bring closure to a family that paid the ultimate price of war – particularly to an elderly sister who wants nothing more than to see her brother brought home before she dies.

But much more has been revealed during the years of planning Warnke’s retrieval from the Hawaiian hills.

Warnke’s case has helped bring to light the nearly 3,000 military aircraft that went down in Hawaii with little public knowledge during the 1940s. It has pitted two federal statutes – one demanding recovery of dead service personnel and one protecting cultural and historic sites – against one another. And it has exposed the fault lines that exist between native Hawaiians who consider the Koolau Range sacred and the federal government they deeply resent for appropriating miles of prime land for military use in the decades since the attack on Pearl Harbor.

“This story is about a lot more than Harry Warnke,” said Mahealani Cypher, a Hawaiian activist who is against the recovery mission. “It is another example of the concerns and traditions of the Hawaiian people being overshadowed by the military and the government.”

Democrats turn to ex-soldiers for some wartime credibility

Dick Polman, Knight Ridder Newspapers

PHILADELPHIA – Democrats think they’ve finally figured out a way to put some machismo into their party image and thereby erase the widely held perception that they lack the requisite toughness to defend America in wartime.

Will you please welcome the “Fightin’ Dems.”

That’s the nickname, popularized in liberal circles, for the dozen or more ex-soldiers from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who are running for Congress as Democrats in 2006. Several dozen more vets, having served stateside during those wars, are also running for Congress as Democrats. At last count, only two recent war vets are running as Republicans.

Liberal activists and Democratic operatives are thrilled by the idea that these vets, simply by wearing the Democratic label, will vet the party on national security and make it tough for Karl Rove’s Republican campaign apparatus to play the wimp card yet again.

They’re convinced that these candidates – there are several in Pennsylvania, including Patrick Murphy, who’s seeking a suburban Philadelphia seat – are virtually unassailable, just by dint of who they are. In the words of Iraq vet John Soltz, who runs a Washington group that’s raising money for seven of these candidates: “They have instant credibility. The No. 1 experts on the war in Iraq are the people who have fought there.”