28-Jul-17: In Jordan, a choice among honor and pride and those lying security cameras

Innocent blood spilled by a Jordanian again and the word on

their minds - again - is "honor". Their own honor. [Image Source]

There's a lot to be learned about having a neighbour like Jordan. And about how truth is perceived when the issue is really about honor - Jordanian honor.

Three recent events triggered recent Jordanian responses that are worth trying to understand.

• The cold-blooded murder of three US Green Berets
• The stabbing attack inside the Israeli diplomatic residence
• The unprovoked fatal shooting attack launched on the Temple Mount by three members of the same clan. 

We are focused on the first of those now: the November 4, 2016 murder of three Green Berets at the entrance to the King Faisal Air Base at al-Jafr in the desert of southern Jordan:

As one of the United States’ staunchest allies in the Middle East, the Jordanians and their military installations are no strangers to U.S. forces coming and going from their gates. Yet in the hours and initial weeks after the attack, Jordanian officials painted a murky picture of what had happened. Immediately following the shootout, they indicated that the Americans had run the gate, failing to stop as instructed. When U.S. officials questioned that account, Jordanian authorities suggested there had been an accidental discharge in one of the Americans’ vehicles that led to the shootout. ["Five minutes and a gunfight for survival: An anatomy of the attack on U.S. Green Berets in Jordan", Washington Post, July 27, 2017]

Relatively little attention was paid in the news media to the murders when they happened. But we certainly noticed. And wrote these posts:

• 18-Nov-16: American service personnel killings in the Mid East get scant reporting and even less comprehension
• 28-Apr-17: Calling the Jordanians to account for the cold-blooded murder of three Green Berets; and 
• 29-May-17: In Jordan, lives, deaths and separating truth from politically-correct illusions

The initial report carried by the New York Times downplayed the circumstances:

The Jordanian military said the trainers failed to stop as they approached a gate at the air base in the southern part of the country... A Jordanian military official, who declined to be identified discussing a matter that is now under investigation, said the trainers had tried to enter the base in a vehicle without heeding the orders of guards at the gate to stop... Jordanian officials said privately that initial indications suggested the shooting at the King Faisal air base near Al Jafr on Friday stemmed from some sort of confusion rather than deliberate targeting of the Americans. But American military officials had questions about this version of events. American soldiers certainly know to slow or stop at military base gates, whether in Jordan or anywhere else in the world. It was not clear whether the Americans who were killed were driving or being driven... Security experts in Washington and Amman were concerned that the shooting might reflect increasing radicalization in Jordan... [New York Times. November 4, 2016]

The first and absolutely irrefutable comment that has to be made is this: All the factual claims by the Jordanians now turn out to be nonsense.

This Jordanian security video footage [used to be here but now inexplicably removed from YouTube; we have found it here and here] of the entire sequence of events - which was not shown to the Jordanian military court or published before the trial - is chilling even without a sound track. Be warned that it makes for hard viewing.

But all the way back in November 2016. the Jordanians didn't think they had much to explain - or to apologize for. Except perhaps what they termed a "split-second" mistake might have been made by their man:

Jordanian officials originally blamed the U.S. troops for breaking protocol when trying to enter the military base, but an investigation later determined the soldiers “were acting in compliance with all procedures and accepted practices,” according to a statement from a U.S. Special Operations Command in March. The Green Berets were in al-Jafar to help train Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State. ["Video shows Jordanian military guard gunning down three US Army Green Berets", The Blaze, July 26, 2017]

And as recently as March 6, 2017, Jordan's official voice in Washington DC - its ambassador, Dina Kawar, a career diplomat - wrote a confident, uncompromising rebuttal addressed to Congressman Ted Poe [letter online here - backup-archived here] denying any and all suggestions that Jordan or any Jordanian was to blame:

The incident was the result of implementation of military rules of engagement following hearing gunshot near the main entrance to the base and the subsequent belief of an ongoing attack. [The shooter] was tasked with swift response...

The shooter and the demands of his tribe: "Freedom for
the hero!" [Image Source]

But eventually, largely because of the determination of the families of the dead US soldiers, the shooter was put on trial in a Jordan military court.

Turns out there was no evidence of a split-second mistake. Instead the evidence shows in the clearest possible way

a six-minute hunt in which Abu Tayeh stalked the lightly armed Green Berets, despite repeated attempts by the Americans to show they were friendly... [Los Angeles Times, July 25, 2017]

Putting it cruelly but factually, the Green Berets were sitting ducks.

This past Sunday the shooter was convicted... leading to explosions of violent outrage on the part of his Jordanian tribesmen:

The soldier, 1st Sgt. Marik al-Tuwayha, pleaded not guilty and said he did not resent the Americans stationed at the base in al-Jafr, the Associated Press reports. He said he opened fire on the American convoy because they failed to stop at the gate, and he thought the base was under attack. After the verdict was read Tuwayha said, "I have all the respect for the king, but I was doing my job..." [NPR, July 17, 2017] 

His clan, the al-Haweitis, also called the al-Huwaytat, stand emphatically with him:

The text of an on-screen banner: "We continue our civil disobedience until justice is done for the hero. Freedom for the hero Maarek Abu Tayeh Al-Howeit."
Protester: "The trial that was held for our son, who defended the homeland and the honor of the Jordanian armed forces, which is within the soldiers' duty... He faced an American court, even though he was defending the homeland. The Americans were killed by the Free Syrian Army, which they were training at the King [sic] Faisal Air Base. It was not Maarek who did this..."
Another protester: "Everybody here understands that the court ruling was political, and had nothing to do with the legal system. The proof is that all the people of Jafr, all the eye-witnesses, saw that the clash was between the Americans and the Free Syrian Army they were training."
Yet another protester: "That soldier, Maarek Abu Tayeh, was defending the honor of Jordan, and the honor of the Jordanian armed forces. He did his duty in keeping with the rules of engagement of the Jordanian army. We had expected him to be acquitted, not to receive a life sentence..."
Woman: "All that Maarek did was his duty. He joined the army when he was 18... They know that he is brave. They know that he is a real man. He is loyal to the King and to the state. Does he deserve to be sentenced for life and to be denied of his mother?"
["Tribal Protest in Jordan following Conviction of Soldier for Murdering Three U.S. Green Berets", video clip with English translation by MEMRI, July 19, 2017; transcript here]

From the Jordanian security cam video: The Green Berets in that first
vehicle were killed instantly shortly after this image was
captured [Image Source]

Unfortunately for the Tuwayha/Al-Haweiti clan, that Jordanian security camera we mentioned above captured a six minute long high definition video record of the killings.

That video was released a few days ago in order, it seems, to shut down the tribe's protests. That might prove to be hopelessly optimistic.

Here's what the people at the New York Times ["U.S. Soldier Who Survived Shootout in Jordan Tells His Story", NYT, July 25, 2017] saw when they watched it:

• Jordanian officials at first portrayed the episode as an accident and blamed the Americans, saying that they had broken the protocol for approaching the base, and later saying that they had accidentally fired a weapon, leading the Jordanian guard to believe he was under attack.
• But surveillance video released by the Jordanian military on Monday and an interview with the 30-year-old American staff sergeant who survived the shootout shows a far more troubling scene: a five-minute clash during which the Americans fired back, crouched behind barriers and waved their hands desperately to stop the shooting, before the Jordanian charged with an assault rifle to try to finish them off.
• The episode has sent a chill through the normally warm relations between the United States and Jordan, one of its closest Arab allies, and spurred protests in Jordan by members of the gunman’s influential tribe, who believe he is being punished to placate a powerful ally....
• Training missions at the military base in Jordan had become so routine that the American Special Forces soldiers there wore baseball caps instead of helmets. Most of them had been in a war zone, and Jordan felt far from one. But as their convoy crept toward an entry gate on a sweltering Friday in November, gunshots erupted from a guard post, inciting a shootout that killed three Americans, drove a wedge between crucial allies and ended with a 39-year-old Jordanian soldier sentenced to life in prison for murder.
• “We kept yelling in English and Arabic, saying we were friends. And he kept shooting,” said the lone American soldier to survive the attack, speaking publicly for the first time about that day. “Eventually, we realized it wasn’t an accident.”
• The gunman, First Sgt. Ma’arik al-Tawayha, a member of the Jordanian Air Force, was wounded in the fight and sentenced last week by a Jordanian military court to life in prison for the killings of Staff Sgt. Matthew C. Lewellen, 27, of Kirksville, Mo.; Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 30, of Tucson; and Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty, 27, of Kerrville, Tex.
• The soldier who survived reviewed the video with a reporter from The New York Times on Monday evening, helping to piece together what took place that day. “We were just terrified and confused,” he said. “We didn’t know what was happening, or why, or how many guys were going to come after us.”
• The video first shows a stark desert road leading to a gate to the King Faisal Air Base in the southern Jordanian town of Al Jafr, where the American soldiers were training Syrian rebels as part of a covert program run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Four trucks are returning from morning mortar training and slowly approach the gate as a Jordanian soldier removes two roadblocks. Standing just off camera was Sergeant Tawayha, a familiar presence at the base, who had probably seen Special Forces pass through the gate twice a day, according to the staff sergeant.
• For reasons still in dispute, Sergeant Tawayha suddenly began to fire, peppering the second truck with at least 30 shots at close range, killing Sergeant Lewellen and Sergeant McEnroe.
• The video has no sound, but the staff sergeant said the gunfire that followed was punctuated with screaming from both sides, with the gunman telling them to put their hands up, and the Americans yelling back that they are friends. To try to appease the gunman, they pop their heads up, raising their arms without their guns to indicate a cease-fire, then duck quickly as explosions of dust show bullets hitting the barricade inches from their heads. “I put my gun down, raised my hands a little and he took a shot at me,” the staff sergeant said. “That is when we decided this probably was not an accident.”
• The soldiers were trapped... “We were trying to wave and we’re getting shot at,” the staff sergeant said. “I gave up with trying to figure stuff out and told him we should just try to kill this guy.” Both had two full magazines left — a total of 60 rounds — but they needed a better defensive position. After nearly four minutes, they sprinted behind their trucks to other concrete barriers farther from the gate... The video shows Sergeant Tawayha run toward the trucks with his rifle leveled. He hides behind the first truck, firing at the Americans, then walks to the second, slowly trying to flank them. Finally, Sergeant Tawayha rushes the Americans with a burst of fire. Both Americans fire their pistols at point blank range, but Sergeant Tawayha shoots Sergeant Moriarty, who slumps to his knees, then collapses...
• They kept yelling in Arabic and English that they were friends and offered to go away if the guard stopped shooting, but clouds of dust continued to explode as shots hit the barricades.

There are societies and cultures where a high-resolution video record would have an influence on what people understand actually happened. But not in Jordan and not for these Jordanians:

The release has done little to calm Sergeant Tawayha’s tribe, the Howeitat... Many still believe that Sergeant Tawayha was doing his duty and is being punished to please the United States... “It is not right, but our government is looking for cash and they’ll do anything to get it [from the Americans presumably],” his brother, Abdul-Rahman Abu Tayeh, said in an interview... “But since the ruling, they are not welcome here.” [The bullet points above are all direct quotes from "U.S. Soldier Who Survived Shootout in Jordan Tells His Story", New York Times, July 25, 2017] 

Army Sgt. 1st Class Matthew C. Lewellen, 27, of Lawrence, Kansas with his parents

Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 30, of Tucson, Arizona

Staff Sgt. James F. (Jimmy) Moriarty, 27, of Kerrville, Texas

The heavily-armed Jordanian kills three of his country's guests, men whom he encountered daily in his work as a guard, while they - for all practical purposes unarmed and lacking armor - shouted "We're Americans! We're friendly!"

And it's his people - the gunman's backers - who are furious, raging, demanding justice.

Sergeant Tawayha's story is shown to be self-serving, exaggerated, inaccurate, impossible, wrong. But for the Jordanians, all that is of no significance. They want vengeance from those he murdered. And it's they themselves who have been wronged in their way of looking at things.

On that note, please - if you haven't already - see what we wrote here yesterday ["26-Jul-17: We listened carefully to Jordan's minister and we have 10 questions"]. It addresses the painful issue of the yawning chasm between Jordan's aggressive demands for justice and morality and (let's not forget) honor, and the justice and morality and lack of elementary respect the Hashemite Kingdom actually practices.

[Image Source: Stars and Stripes]

UPDATE December 27, 2018: We have come across a painful and awkward, but extraordinarily revealing, video on YouTube [here], evidently posted there by people friendly with the families of the three murdered US Green Berets.

The video captures the full conversation conducted at a private meeting between Her Excellency Dina Kawar, Ambassador of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to the United States, and Brian McEnroe, the father of slain US Green Beret Staff Sgt. Kevin McEnroe.

The three families are currently suing the government of Jordan: see "Families of slain Green Berets sue Jordan, charging a cover-up attempt in 2016 deaths", Stars and Stripes, November 16, 2018.

18-Nov-16: American service personnel killings in the Mid East get scant reporting and even less comprehension

A US soldier (in green) and his Afghan counterpart (blue) in a joint patrol
near Kandahar, Afghanistan, [Image Source]

Relatively little attention gets paid in the mainstream news media when American military personnel come under attack from so-called friendly forces while they serve in the Middle East. That's a shame became those killings tend to throw light on tendences that ought to be better understood.

A couple of recent examples.

Case number one: Two men - Army Sgt. Douglas J. Riney, 26, of Fairview, Illinois, and Michael G. Sauro, 40, a civilian employee of the US Army from McAlester, Oklahoma - were shot to death by "hostile enemy forces" in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, according to a US the military announcement in late October, quoted by the Chicago Tribune.

But how hostile were they?

According to a Military Times report, the attack happened at Camp Morehead, an ammunition supply point outside Kabul:

The shooter was reportedly wearing an Afghan Army uniform. The Riney’s unit was at the base to determine whether the Afghans were tracking their ammunition inventories properly, defense officials said. [Military Times, November 4, 2016]

So was the shooter an Afghan soldier? Merely dressed up as one? And does that count as hostile enemy action? Or was this the result of so-called friendly fire? We will probably never know since "the attacker was later killed", according to this source.

But we know there are precedents. For instance, it was announced back on September 15, 2012, that four International Security Assistance Force personnel "died... in southern Afghanistan following an insider attack suspected to involve members of the Afghan police". As later became via a Talbian report, the American soldiers were killed by policemen "loyal to the movement" in "a carefully premeditated attack on six US troops at a vulnerable observation post by a team of six Afghan policemen working with them that night." [Long War Journal, May 15, 2013]

Case number two: Three US military personnel were killed on November 4, 2016 in an attack at the gates of an air base in southern Jordan. The Al-Jafr air-field, in a remote desert location near the southern Jordanian city of Ma'an (population: 50,000) and closer to Saudi Arabia than to Iraq, supports US air operations in the region. Called the King Faisal Airbase in the Jordanian media, it also serves as the venue for joint US/Jordan training operations. The shooter fired at a car carrying the Americans as they were entering the base. A Jordanian officer was wounded.

The Americans were in Jordan on a training mission, officials said. The U.S. military typically maintains about 2,000 U.S. forces on the ground in Jordan to support training with the Jordanian military and operations against the Islamic State in neighboring Iraq and Syria... Pro-Western Jordan is a key member of a U.S-led military coalition against the Islamic State group, which controls parts of neighboring Iraq and Syria... The United States has spent millions of dollars to help the kingdom fortify its borders. For the West, any sign of instability in Jordan, a key ally, would be of great concern. ["Officials say three U.S. service members killed in Jordan attack", Military Times | Andrew Tilghman | November 4, 2016]

Was this a terrorist attack? Could be, now it's revealed the shooter was not only dressed as a member of "friendly" forces but actually was one.

U.S. officials are investigating the fatal shootings of three American soldiers at a Jordanian air base earlier this month as a possible act of terrorism. “Investigators are considering all potential motives and reasons for why American service members came under fire and they have not yet ruled out terrorism as a potential motive,” the American embassy in Jordan said in a statement Wednesday, the New York Times reported... Jordanian officials told reporters soon after the shooting that the vehicle carrying the service members failed to stop at the security gates. Two days after the incident, the Pentagon said the service members were killed when their vehicle came under fire as it was entering a Jordanian military base, indicating there was no issue with the vehicles failing to heed orders to stop. The Jordanian soldier who initiated the exchange of fire was wounded in the incident and remains in custody... The U.S. military has hundreds of trainers in Jordan, a close American security partner, to help bolster the country’s defenses against threats stemming from the Syrian civil war and terrorists in the region... [U.S. Investigating Deaths of American Soldiers in Jordan as Terrorist Attack | Natalie Johnson | Washington Free Beacon | November 17, 2016]

Here's how Jordan's government paints the killings:

A senior official on Saturday described the killing of three US instructors in a shootout at an airbase a day earlier as “unfortunate”. In remarks to The Jordan Times, Minister of State for Media Affairs Mohammad Momani extended Jordan’s condolences to the families of the persons who lost their lives. Meanwhile, Momani, who is also the government’s spokesperson, stressed that Jordan values its relationship with the US, reiterating that an investigation into the incident is under way... A Jordanian non-commissioned officer was injured, said the source, who warned against circulating the names of any of those involved in the incident, whether they are Jordanians or foreigners, threatening legal action against violators...  In a statement released Friday, a spokesperson for the US embassy in Amman said more information will be reported “when available and appropriate”... [Jordan Times, November 5, 2016]

At the risk of offending the Hashemite regime and violating its threats, the American victims are Staff Sgt. Matthew Llewellyn, 27, of Lawrence, Kansas, Staff Sgt. Kevin McEnroe, 30, of Tucson, Arizona, and Staff Sgt. James Moriarty, 27, of Kerrville, Texas. All are from the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky from where its men and women specialize in operations in the Middle East, Persian Gulf, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa.

President Barack Obama said the US took the attack "very seriously", according to a BBC report.

Seriously or not, a reasonable person might wonder how likely it is that a full expose of what happened will ever be done by the Jordanian authorities, given their disdain for informing the public. If we knew the name of the injured Jordanian, we would certainly publish that too.

As to whether some of the blame attaches to the American victims, as Jordanian voices have said, a spokesperson for the US embassy in Amman said this past Wednesday that the investigation continues to be "ongoing and has not yet reached any conclusions... [and the Americans] appreciate the assistance of the government of Jordan... Contrary to press reports, there has been absolutely no credible evidence to suggest that US personnel acted contrary to orders or established procedures when accessing the base...” [Jordan Times, November 16, 2016].

Eric Barbee, the Embassy spokesperson, was evidently referring to this:

...Jordanian state media reported that the servicemen, from the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Fort Campbell, Ky., sparked the incident by disobeying orders from Jordanian soldiers... ["U.S. refutes claim its soldiers sparked Jordan shooting", USA TODAY, November 17, 2016]

The ongoing inability to solve the mystery of the October killings is less understandable once two especially notable previous Jordanian killings are considered.

• 2015: At least five people, including two Americans, two Jordanians and a South African, were killed after a Jordanian police officer opened fire at a US-backed police training facility near Amman, before being shot dead himself. At least four other people, including two more Americans, were injured in the attack, according to US officials. The attack took place at the Jordan International Police Training Center in al-Muwaqqar, on the outskirts of Amman... President Obama addressed the shooting before a White House meeting... “We take this very seriously and we’ll be working closely with the Jordanians to determine exactly what happened, but at this stage I want to just let everyone know this is something we’re paying close attention to... ["At least five killed by Jordanian police officer in training centre shooting", The Guardian, November 9, 2015]. Though the killings took place on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist human-bomb attacks on three Amman hotels, the Jordanian authorities declared the shooter to be "a lone wolf", "not a terrorist", and motivated by "financial pressures" [source]. By contrast, at least one Western news report quoted "security sources" saying the shooter was "a sympathiser of Islamic State with strong anti-Western feelings".
• 1997: A Jordanian soldier opened fire on a large group of about 40 Israeli schoolgirls from grades 7 and 8 at the AMIT Fuerst School in Beit Shemesh who were on a class excursion to the so-called “Island of Peace” at Naharayim, a scenic peninsula on the Jordan River near the Israeli border. He killed seven of them and injured six others. The Wikipedia account says he "expressed pride for his actions, was imprisoned by Jordanian authorities, but was later called a "hero" by the Jordanian Justice Minister, Hussein Mjalli, and Parliament, who called for his release". They were not alone. As an Alarabiya news report from 2011 observes, "Jordan's powerful Islamist movement and the country's 14 trade unions, which have more than 200,000 members, have repeatedly called for Dakamseh's release... The motives of Dakamseh [the shooter]... were never clear... [In the words of a letter handed to the government] demanding Dakamseh's release "We cannot imagine that a great fighter like Dakamseh is in jail instead of reaping the rewards of his achievement..."

The confusion and doubt about the involvement of "friendly forces" in the cold-blooded killings (sometimes called "blue-on-green" attacks - and here's a list of some others) of US service personnel on active duty in Moslem countries, and about their motivations, very likely contributes to the success of the terrorists rather than to their defeat. We shudder to think what it does to the feelings of the bereaved families back home.