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GPS TRACKING? The body of one of the three missing U.S. soldiers was found south of Baghdad in the Euphrates River yesterday. The soldier has been identified as 20-year-old Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr. "Hassan al-Jibouri, 32, said he saw the body with head wounds and whip marks on its back floating on the river Wednesday morning."
If these "head wounds" are drill holes from a power tool, a form of torture common to ethnic kidnappings, this could mean that Anzack was tortured to death with a power drill and a whip. This is a common approach among the Iraqi death squads, as this piece from U.S. News & World Report details:
Jaish al-Mahdi [was the] battalion commander who led a 'punishment cell' set up to detain, torture, and kill Iraqis for alleged infractions of Islamic law. Their armed band…is accused of some of the most gruesome crimes in Baghdad, including the kidnapping of 14 Iraqi soldiers in May. When the soldiers' bodies were found, their skulls had been burned with a hot iron, then punctured repeatedly with a power drill. Residents say this group has killed over two dozen people, including a young, pregnant wife whose fetus was cut from her womb.The kidnapping incidents makes me wonder why the Defense Department doesn't insert temporary, GPS-trackable chips into our soldiers and Marines -- not all of them, but at least those non-support units serving in forward positions -- to help locate our servicemen and women if they are kidnapped. I know this idea sounds like a James Bond-like gimmick, and it wouldn't be cheap. But doing so can't be much more expensive than the cost of all the man-hours and equipment presently being dedicated to the desperate search for the two remaining soldiers. In any event, let's hope the other two missing soldiers turn up alive, and soon.
--Tom Schaller
