Terrified Soldiers Terrifying People

Terrified Soldiers Terrifying People

*Inter Press Service*
Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily

*FALLUJAH, Iraq, Jan 8 (IPS) - Ten-year-old Yassir aimed a plastic gun
at a passing U.S. armoured patrol in Fallujah, and shouted "Bang! Bang!"*

Yassir did not know what was coming. "I yelled for everyone to run,
because the Americans were turning back," 12-year-old Ahmed who was with
Yassir told IPS.

The soldiers followed Yassir to his house and smashed almost everything
in it. "They did this after beating Yassir and his uncle hard, and they
spoke the nastiest words," Ahmed said.

It is not just the children, or the people of Fallujah who are frightened.

"Those soldiers are terrified here," Dr. Salim al-Dyni, a
psychotherapist visiting Fallujah told IPS. Dr Dyni said he had seen
professional reports of psychologically disturbed soldiers "while
serving in hot areas, and Fallujah is the hottest and most terrifying
for them."

Dr. Dyni said disturbed soldiers were behind the worst atrocities. "Most
murders committed by U.S. soldiers resulted from the soldiers' fears."

Local Iraqi police estimate that at least five attacks are being carried
out against U.S. troops in Fallujah each day, and about as many against
Iraqi government security forces. The city in the restive al-Anabar
province to the west of Baghdad has been under some form of siege since
April 2004.

That has meant punishment for the people. "American officers asked me a
hundred times how the fighters obtain weapons," a 35-year-old resident
who was detained together with dozens of others during a U.S. military
raid at their houses in the Muallimin Quarter last month told IPS.

"They (American soldiers) called me the worst of names that I could
understand, and many that I could not. I heard younger detainees
screaming under torture repeating 'I do not know, I do not know',
apparently replying to the same question I was asked."

U.S. soldiers have been reacting wildly to attacks on them.

Several areas of Fallujah recently went without electricity for two
weeks after U.S. soldiers attacked the power station following a sniper
attack.

Thubbat, Muhandiseen, Muallimeen, Jughaifi and most western parts of the
city were affected. "They are punishing civilians for their failure to
protect themselves," a resident of Thubbat quarter told IPS. "I defy
them to capture a single sniper who kills their soldiers."

Many of those killed in the ongoing violence are civilians. The biggest
local complaint is that U.S. forces attack civilians at random in
revenge for colleagues killed in attacks by the resistance.

More than 5,000 civilians killed by U.S. soldiers have been buried in
Fallujah cemeteries and mass graves dug on the outskirts of the city,
according to the Study Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, a
non-governmental organisation based in Fallujah.

"At least half the deceased are women, children and elderly people,"
group co-director Mohamad Tareq al-Deraji told IPS.

Overstretched U.S. soldiers appear to be punishing civilians while
suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. IPS reported
Jan. 3 that new guidelines released by the Pentagon last month allow
commanders now to re-deploy soldiers suffering from such disorders.

According to the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes, service
members with "a psychiatric disorder in remission, or whose residual
symptoms do not impair duty performance" may be considered for duty
downrange. It lists post-traumatic stress disorder as a "treatable" problem.

Steve Robinson, director of Veterans Affairs for Veterans for America
told IPS correspondent Aaron Glantz that "as a layman and a former
soldier I think that's ridiculous."

"If I've got a soldier who's on Ambien to go to sleep and Seroquel and
Qanapin and all kinds of other psychotropic meds, I don't want them to
have a weapon in their hand and to be part of my team because they're a
risk to themselves and to others," he said. "But apparently, the
military has its own view of how well a soldier can function under those
conditions, and is gambling that they can be successful."