Earlier today I posted this clip from the Times of London that reported that “21 Shia market workers [from the market John McCain visited the day before] were ambushed, bound and shot dead.”
Now, we know that people get killed in Iraq every day. And there are inter-sectarian murders for various retaliatory, symbolic or terroristic reasons. But 21 workers from this same market attacked, bound and shot in what sound like execution style killings? Right after McCain was there the day before in a walkaround to demonstrate the success of the surge?
This hadn’t occurred to me until I saw this email from TPM Reader KT who wrote. “Do we know whether the ambushed market workers were the ones who had done business with McCain’s group, and therefore with the US military? I really hope not.”
I don’t know if claims of collaboration would have to be the issue. It could be as simple as sending a counter-message.
Before going any further, let me say clearly that I don’t know anything about this particular market. How big it is. Whether things like this happen there routinely or whether this incident stands out in a particular way. More local knowledge could quickly show these two events are totally unrelated. But if the Times report is accurate, I think this bears more scrutiny.
