Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed
*
BAGHDAD, Apr 19 (IPS) - The new clashes between Shia militiamen dressed
in Iraqi military and police uniforms and resistance fighters and
residents from the Sunni Adhamiya district of Baghdad have convinced
many that what Baghdad is witnessing is no less than a civil war.*
For long now, some leaders from both Shia and Sunni communities have
been making peace moves, but this has done little to check escalating
sectarian violence following the Feb. 22 bombing of the Shia Golden
Mosque in Samarra.
Over several weeks before new clashes Monday and Tuesday this week,
Adhamiya residents had been barricading streets with tyres and the
trunks of date palm trees to keep kidnappers and "death squads" away.
But clashes broke out about 12.30 am Sunday night following a 'police'
raid on the area.
"We'd had sporadic fighting for several nights before, but nothing like
this," a man who asked to be referred to as Abu Aziz told IPS.. "My
family and I thought a war was happening because so many heavy guns,
mortars and rocket propelled grenades were being used."
IPS saw the sky over the area glow red through the night, as U.S.
military helicopters hovered above.
Residents said the attack was clearly carried out by Shia militia.
"I have seen these members of the Badr militia and Mehdi Army wearing
Iraqi Police (IP) uniforms and using IP pick-up trucks roaming our
streets," said Abu Aziz, "They tried to reach our sacred Abu Hanifa
mosque, but they were stopped before they could do so, thanks to god.
Some were just wearing civilian clothes with black face masks, others
were definitely commandos from the ministry of interior."
Last month Iraq's minister of interior Bayan Jabr told reporters that
"the deaths squads that we have captured are in the defence and interior
ministries.. There are people who have infiltrated the army and the
interior."
The Badr Organisation is the armed wing of the Shia Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the Mehdi Army is the militia of the
fiery Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Through the attack, in which scores of 'IP' men drove up to attack the
district, at least six IP vehicles were burned, and at least one of the
Shia militia members was killed, local residents told IPS.
They also reported that at least 10 residents including at a woman were
killed in the clashes. This round of fighting continued until 12.30 pm
Monday.
One resident wrote to IPS to say: "Men in police uniforms attacked the
neighbourhood. The ministry of interior claimed the uniformed men don't
belong to the puppet (Iraqi government) forces, but local residents are
quite sure they are special forces from the ministry of interior,
probably Badr brigades. The neighbourhood was sealed off and the mobile
phone network was disconnected until 10.45 pm. Electricity was cut off
from 10 am."
Resistance fighters with sniper rifles, Kalashnikov machine guns and
rocket-propelled grenade launchers lined rooftops to thwart the
onslaught by the Shia militiamen, he said.
His note added: "When the uniformed forces entered the neighbourhood,
the National Guards that are usually patrolling the streets left. Young
armed men from the neighbourhood fought side by side with mujahedin
against the attacking forces to protect al-Adhamiya. Several residents
have been killed in the streets, but there are currently no figures
available. U.S. troops also entered the neighbourhood. At first, they
only stood by and watched; later on they too fired at the locals, who
tried to repel the attacks."
No independent confirmation of the account was available. Shia groups
officially deny that they have been attacking Sunni targets in the guise
of the army and police. And while the minister of the interior
acknowledged earlier that these groups and infiltrated the police and
army, it is rarely possibly to obtain independent or official views on
every clash.
But U.S. forces were clearly involved in the fighting. The Associated
Press reported that "Army officials said they had suffered no
casualties, and planned to raid homes to search for the gunmen."
Residents said the U.S.. forces arrived to provide back-up support to
the Shia militiamen wearing Iraqi Police uniforms and army fatigues.
The U.S. military spokesperson in Baghdad did not respond to phone calls
and email messages from IPS requesting comment on the clashes.
The clashes have continued.. Scores of men wearing white robes and
carrying guns, in a manner of suicide martyrs, arrived in Adhamiya
Tuesday morning and moved to attack the Sunni Jalal mosque. Witnesses
said the men fired at the mosque, and this led to clashes that lasted
until 1 pm before the men were forced to retreat.
Other armed groups approached Adhamiya from three directions, but were
repelled before they could reach the Abu Hanifa mosque. Clashes erupted
near the al-Anbia mosque in the area. Fierce fighting broke out on one
of the two main thoroughfares into Adhamiya, the Omar Abdul Aziz Avenue.
Tension has remained high in the area. Just across the Tigris river from
the Adhamiya neighbourhood is the predominantly Shia Khadimiya area.
Sporadic gunfire was heard Tuesday across various locations in Adhamiya.
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed
*
BAGHDAD, Apr 19 (IPS) - The new clashes between Shia militiamen dressed
in Iraqi military and police uniforms and resistance fighters and
residents from the Sunni Adhamiya district of Baghdad have convinced
many that what Baghdad is witnessing is no less than a civil war.*
For long now, some leaders from both Shia and Sunni communities have
been making peace moves, but this has done little to check escalating
sectarian violence following the Feb. 22 bombing of the Shia Golden
Mosque in Samarra.
Over several weeks before new clashes Monday and Tuesday this week,
Adhamiya residents had been barricading streets with tyres and the
trunks of date palm trees to keep kidnappers and "death squads" away.
But clashes broke out about 12.30 am Sunday night following a 'police'
raid on the area.
"We'd had sporadic fighting for several nights before, but nothing like
this," a man who asked to be referred to as Abu Aziz told IPS.. "My
family and I thought a war was happening because so many heavy guns,
mortars and rocket propelled grenades were being used."
IPS saw the sky over the area glow red through the night, as U.S.
military helicopters hovered above.
Residents said the attack was clearly carried out by Shia militia.
"I have seen these members of the Badr militia and Mehdi Army wearing
Iraqi Police (IP) uniforms and using IP pick-up trucks roaming our
streets," said Abu Aziz, "They tried to reach our sacred Abu Hanifa
mosque, but they were stopped before they could do so, thanks to god.
Some were just wearing civilian clothes with black face masks, others
were definitely commandos from the ministry of interior."
Last month Iraq's minister of interior Bayan Jabr told reporters that
"the deaths squads that we have captured are in the defence and interior
ministries.. There are people who have infiltrated the army and the
interior."
The Badr Organisation is the armed wing of the Shia Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the Mehdi Army is the militia of the
fiery Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Through the attack, in which scores of 'IP' men drove up to attack the
district, at least six IP vehicles were burned, and at least one of the
Shia militia members was killed, local residents told IPS.
They also reported that at least 10 residents including at a woman were
killed in the clashes. This round of fighting continued until 12.30 pm
Monday.
One resident wrote to IPS to say: "Men in police uniforms attacked the
neighbourhood. The ministry of interior claimed the uniformed men don't
belong to the puppet (Iraqi government) forces, but local residents are
quite sure they are special forces from the ministry of interior,
probably Badr brigades. The neighbourhood was sealed off and the mobile
phone network was disconnected until 10.45 pm. Electricity was cut off
from 10 am."
Resistance fighters with sniper rifles, Kalashnikov machine guns and
rocket-propelled grenade launchers lined rooftops to thwart the
onslaught by the Shia militiamen, he said.
His note added: "When the uniformed forces entered the neighbourhood,
the National Guards that are usually patrolling the streets left. Young
armed men from the neighbourhood fought side by side with mujahedin
against the attacking forces to protect al-Adhamiya. Several residents
have been killed in the streets, but there are currently no figures
available. U.S. troops also entered the neighbourhood. At first, they
only stood by and watched; later on they too fired at the locals, who
tried to repel the attacks."
No independent confirmation of the account was available. Shia groups
officially deny that they have been attacking Sunni targets in the guise
of the army and police. And while the minister of the interior
acknowledged earlier that these groups and infiltrated the police and
army, it is rarely possibly to obtain independent or official views on
every clash.
But U.S. forces were clearly involved in the fighting. The Associated
Press reported that "Army officials said they had suffered no
casualties, and planned to raid homes to search for the gunmen."
Residents said the U.S.. forces arrived to provide back-up support to
the Shia militiamen wearing Iraqi Police uniforms and army fatigues.
The U.S. military spokesperson in Baghdad did not respond to phone calls
and email messages from IPS requesting comment on the clashes.
The clashes have continued.. Scores of men wearing white robes and
carrying guns, in a manner of suicide martyrs, arrived in Adhamiya
Tuesday morning and moved to attack the Sunni Jalal mosque. Witnesses
said the men fired at the mosque, and this led to clashes that lasted
until 1 pm before the men were forced to retreat.
Other armed groups approached Adhamiya from three directions, but were
repelled before they could reach the Abu Hanifa mosque. Clashes erupted
near the al-Anbia mosque in the area. Fierce fighting broke out on one
of the two main thoroughfares into Adhamiya, the Omar Abdul Aziz Avenue.
Tension has remained high in the area. Just across the Tigris river from
the Adhamiya neighbourhood is the predominantly Shia Khadimiya area.
Sporadic gunfire was heard Tuesday across various locations in Adhamiya.
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed
*
BAGHDAD, Apr 19 (IPS) - The new clashes between Shia militiamen dressed
in Iraqi military and police uniforms and resistance fighters and
residents from the Sunni Adhamiya district of Baghdad have convinced
many that what Baghdad is witnessing is no less than a civil war.*
For long now, some leaders from both Shia and Sunni communities have
been making peace moves, but this has done little to check escalating
sectarian violence following the Feb. 22 bombing of the Shia Golden
Mosque in Samarra.
Over several weeks before new clashes Monday and Tuesday this week,
Adhamiya residents had been barricading streets with tyres and the
trunks of date palm trees to keep kidnappers and "death squads" away.
But clashes broke out about 12.30 am Sunday night following a 'police'
raid on the area.
"We'd had sporadic fighting for several nights before, but nothing like
this," a man who asked to be referred to as Abu Aziz told IPS.. "My
family and I thought a war was happening because so many heavy guns,
mortars and rocket propelled grenades were being used."
IPS saw the sky over the area glow red through the night, as U.S.
military helicopters hovered above.
Residents said the attack was clearly carried out by Shia militia.
"I have seen these members of the Badr militia and Mehdi Army wearing
Iraqi Police (IP) uniforms and using IP pick-up trucks roaming our
streets," said Abu Aziz, "They tried to reach our sacred Abu Hanifa
mosque, but they were stopped before they could do so, thanks to god.
Some were just wearing civilian clothes with black face masks, others
were definitely commandos from the ministry of interior."
Last month Iraq's minister of interior Bayan Jabr told reporters that
"the deaths squads that we have captured are in the defence and interior
ministries.. There are people who have infiltrated the army and the
interior."
The Badr Organisation is the armed wing of the Shia Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the Mehdi Army is the militia of the
fiery Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Through the attack, in which scores of 'IP' men drove up to attack the
district, at least six IP vehicles were burned, and at least one of the
Shia militia members was killed, local residents told IPS.
They also reported that at least 10 residents including at a woman were
killed in the clashes. This round of fighting continued until 12.30 pm
Monday.
One resident wrote to IPS to say: "Men in police uniforms attacked the
neighbourhood. The ministry of interior claimed the uniformed men don't
belong to the puppet (Iraqi government) forces, but local residents are
quite sure they are special forces from the ministry of interior,
probably Badr brigades. The neighbourhood was sealed off and the mobile
phone network was disconnected until 10.45 pm. Electricity was cut off
from 10 am."
Resistance fighters with sniper rifles, Kalashnikov machine guns and
rocket-propelled grenade launchers lined rooftops to thwart the
onslaught by the Shia militiamen, he said.
His note added: "When the uniformed forces entered the neighbourhood,
the National Guards that are usually patrolling the streets left. Young
armed men from the neighbourhood fought side by side with mujahedin
against the attacking forces to protect al-Adhamiya. Several residents
have been killed in the streets, but there are currently no figures
available. U.S. troops also entered the neighbourhood. At first, they
only stood by and watched; later on they too fired at the locals, who
tried to repel the attacks."
No independent confirmation of the account was available. Shia groups
officially deny that they have been attacking Sunni targets in the guise
of the army and police. And while the minister of the interior
acknowledged earlier that these groups and infiltrated the police and
army, it is rarely possibly to obtain independent or official views on
every clash.
But U.S. forces were clearly involved in the fighting. The Associated
Press reported that "Army officials said they had suffered no
casualties, and planned to raid homes to search for the gunmen."
Residents said the U.S.. forces arrived to provide back-up support to
the Shia militiamen wearing Iraqi Police uniforms and army fatigues.
The U.S. military spokesperson in Baghdad did not respond to phone calls
and email messages from IPS requesting comment on the clashes.
The clashes have continued.. Scores of men wearing white robes and
carrying guns, in a manner of suicide martyrs, arrived in Adhamiya
Tuesday morning and moved to attack the Sunni Jalal mosque. Witnesses
said the men fired at the mosque, and this led to clashes that lasted
until 1 pm before the men were forced to retreat.
Other armed groups approached Adhamiya from three directions, but were
repelled before they could reach the Abu Hanifa mosque. Clashes erupted
near the al-Anbia mosque in the area. Fierce fighting broke out on one
of the two main thoroughfares into Adhamiya, the Omar Abdul Aziz Avenue.
Tension has remained high in the area. Just across the Tigris river from
the Adhamiya neighbourhood is the predominantly Shia Khadimiya area.
Sporadic gunfire was heard Tuesday across various locations in Adhamiya.
29.4.06
The War on Truth in Iraq
By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 18 April 2006
/*The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from
which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been
tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad
communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far
worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and
inefficient than the public knows ... We are today not far from a
disaster.*-- T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia), The Sunday
Times, August 1920/
On Monday, April 17, my sources in Baghdad reported fierce fighting in
the al-Adhamiya neighborhood of the capital city, as well as fighting in
the al-Dora neighborhood. One source, who lives in the predominantly
Sunni area of Adhamiya, had been telling me the situation was
disintegrating for days leading up to this. There had been clashes every
day for four days leading up to yesterday's huge clash there, with
sporadic fighting between Sunni resistance fighters and members of the
two largest Shia militias. The armed wing of the Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Badr Organization, and Muqtada al-Sadr's
Mehdi Army have been launching ongoing attacks against fighters in the
neighborhood. There is a shorter version of this description.
Civil war.
Yet we don't hear it described as such in the corporate media, nor from
the Cheney administration. Their propaganda insists that Iraq is not yet
in a civil war.
But in Adhamiya, every night now for several weeks roads have been
closed with tires, trunks of date palm trees and other objects to
prevent "kidnappers and Shia death squads" from entering the area,
according to one source, whom I'm keeping anonymous for security reasons.
His description of the fierce fighting in his neighborhood is quite
different from the reporting of it in mainstream outlets.
"Sunday night at 12:30 a.m. clashes started just like on the four
previous nights, but it was very heavy and from different directions. It
was different from the other nights in quantity and quality; it was
truly like the hell which I haven't seen even in the battles of the war
between Iraq and Iran during the eighties," wrote my source. He added
that mortars and rocket-propelled grenades were used, and so much
ammunition that the sky was "glowing red." The situation went on until
Monday morning. He said, "I usually have my cup of coffee in my small
backyard to drink it in a good atmosphere, but the minute I opened the
door someone from the interior ministry commandos shouted at me, telling
me to get inside or he'd shoot me. Of course I stayed inside and the
shooting continued in a very heavy way until 12:30 p.m., when the
American forces came to start helping the militia's attack on
al-Adhamiya after they were watching the scene from their helicopters."
He went on to state very clearly that "these were members of the Badr
militia and Sadr's Mehdi Army who were raiding the neighborhood."
Another witness at the scene wrote, "Men in police uniforms attacked the
neighbourhood. The Ministry of Interior claimed the uniformed men don't
belong to the puppet [Iraqi government] forces, but local residents are
quite sure they are special-forces from the Ministry of Interior,
probably Badr brigades. The neighbourhood was sealed off and the mobile
phone network was disconnected until 10:45 p.m. Electricity was cut off
from 10 a.m. on."
Meanwhile, Reuters obediently parroted
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060417/ts_nm/iraq_clashes_dc;_ylt=A0SOwkvr2ENEqXUBAxBZ.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA-->
the US military by reporting that "Insurgents mount bold attack in
Baghdad," and saying, "About 50 insurgents mounted a brazen attack on
Iraqi forces in Baghdad on Monday, prompting U.S. troops to provide
support in a battle that lasted seven hours, a U.S. military spokesman
said. The guerrillas attacked Iraqi forces in the mostly Sunni Arab
district of Adhamiya in northern Baghdad overnight. Five rebels were
killed and one member of the Iraqi forces was wounded. There were no
U.S. casualties, said the spokesman."
While this press report quoted an Iraqi police official as saying,
"Adhamiya residents have taken up arms to prevent the Shi'ite militia
from entering," and "Adhamiya residents said Shi'ite militiamen
accompanied the Iraqi forces," it added that this could not be confirmed.
An Iraqi in Adhamiya confirmed this immediately after the clashes ended
by writing, "When the uniformed forces entered the neighbourhood, the
National Guards that are usually patrolling the streets left. Young
armed men from the neighbourhood fought side by side with mujahedin
against the attacking forces to protect Al-Adhamiya. Several residents
have been killed in the streets, but there are currently no figures
available. US troops also entered the neighbourhood. At first, they only
stood by and watched; later on they, too, fired at the locals, who tried
to repel the attacks. Later in the day, rumours circulated that another
fierce attack of Al-Adhamiya is planned on Wednesday, but ... couldn't
confirm this information."
Other news outlets directly contradict the aforementioned statement by
the US military spokesman, when one reported
<http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/article_1155952.php/US_assault_on_Fallujah_leaves_three_Iraqi_civilians_dead>
that "gunmen clashed with residents in Baghdad's Aadhamiya district."
Of course, the military spokesman also failed to mention that on the
same day, "Four gunmen attacked a Sunni mosque
<http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L17701162.htm>killing a guard
in the Adhamiya district of the capital."
Instead, we hear reporting that "[US] Army officials said they had
suffered no casualties, and plan to raid homes in search for the gunmen
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060417/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_violence>."
Disturbingly, this obvious US-backed Shia militia invasion of a Sunni
neighborhood may well be a prelude to what the US military is calling a
"second liberation of Baghdad" which they will carry out with the Iraqi
army when a new government is installed.
The Sunday Times reports
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2136297,00.html> that US
commanders both in Iraq and at an army base in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,
are planning a "carrot-and-stick" approach by offering suffering
populations "protection" from sectarian violence in exchange for
"rooting out insurgent groups or Al-Qaeda."
Sound like mafia tactics to you?
The article states that "Sources close to the Pentagon said Iraqi forces
would take the lead, supported by American air power, special
operations, intelligence, embedded officers and back-up troops.
Helicopters suitable for urban warfare, such as the manoeuvrable AH-6
"Little Birds" ... are likely to complement the ground attack."
This is disturbingly similar to what just occurred in al-Adhamiya.
Another glaring example of the Cheney administration/US military's
ongoing war on truth in Iraq is the open wound which is Fallujah.
Heavy-handed assaults by the US military continue in Fallujah, where as
recently as this Monday three Iraqi civilians were killed, along with 10
wounded in the Jebail district of the city. Of the 10 wounded, three
were women and two were children. According to Mustafa Karim
<http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/article_1155952.php/US_assault_on_Fallujah_leaves_three_Iraqi_civilians_dead>,
with an Iraqi security force in the city, "US forces fired on houses in
the district following confrontations with armed groups in the
vicinity." Karim added that residents of Fallujah have been demanding an
easing of the tight security procedures imposed by Iraqi and US armed
forces on the region since November 2004, which have obstructed the
passage of civilians into and out of the region, and "Fallujah has been
recently witnessing a renewed escalation of armed confrontations between
US forces and armed Iraqi groups."
In fact, fierce fighting in Fallujah has been ongoing since just a few
months after the November 2004 US attack, which destroyed most buildings
and homes in the city of 350,000 people.
But the US military doesn't want people to see that American soldiers
are dying there on nearly a daily basis as of late. Rather than calling
it Fallujah when soldiers die there, they prefer a sort of Bermuda
Triangle approach and use "Al-Anbar Province" for the location of these
deaths.
Let's have a brief glance at some soldiers killed recently in "Al-Anbar
Province":
* April 17, Department of Defense (DOD) announced (hyperlink 'announced'
with http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2006/nr20060417-12834.html )
the death of a Marine who "died April 14 from a non-hostile motor
vehicle accident in Al-Anbar province, Iraq."
* April 16, CENTCOM announced
<http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Lists/Casualty%20Reports%201/DispForm.aspx?ID=1212&Source=http%3A//www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Lists/Casualty%20Reports%201/Current%20Reports.aspx>:
"Camp Fallujah, Iraq - A Marine ... died due to enemy action while
operating in al Anbar Province April 15."
* April 16, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - Multi-National Forces (MNF) Iraq
announced <http://www.mnf-iraq.com/Releases/Apr/060416h.htm>: "Three
Marines ... died due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar
Province April 15."
* April 15, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - MNF Iraq announced
<http://www.mnf-iraq.com/Releases/Apr/060415b.htm>: "Two Marines died
and 22 were wounded due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar
Province April 13 ... Ten wounded Marines ... were evacuated to a
medical facility at Camp Fallujah."
* April 15, DOD announced
<http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2006/nr20060417-12833.html>: "four
Marines died April 15 when their HMMWV struck an improvised explosive
device during combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq."
* April 11, DOD announced
<http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2006/nr20060411-12793.html>: "Lance
Cpl. Juana NavarroArellano, 24 ... died April 8 from wounds received
while supporting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq."
* April 10, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - CENTCOM announced
<http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Lists/Casualty%20Reports%201/DispForm.aspx?ID=1198&Source=http%3A//www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Lists/Casualty%20Reports%201/Current%20Reports.aspx%20>:
"A soldier ... died from wounds sustained due to enemy action while
operating in al Anbar Province April 8."
* April 10, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - CENTCOM announced
<http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Lists/Casualty%20Reports%201/DispForm.aspx?ID=1199&Source=http%3A//www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Lists/Casualty%20Reports%201/Current%20Reports.aspx%20>:
"Two soldiers ... died due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar
Province April 9."
* April 8, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - MNF Iraq announced
<http://www.mnf-iraq.com/Releases/Apr/060408d.htm>: "A Marine ... died
from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar
Province April 7."
Note the clue that several of these are issued from "Camp Fallujah, Iraq."
This is hardly a complete list of US soldiers killed in Fallujah, and
some of the aforementioned may not have actually been killed inside that
city. However, military announcements of the deaths of soldiers in other
places mention the name of specific cities, whether they occur in
Samarra <http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2006/nr20060417-12836.html>
or Tal Afar
<http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2006/nr20060410-12790.html> or
elsewhere.
Obviously the US military is being intentionally vague when it comes to
their admittance of losing American soldiers within the city limits of
Fallujah. An email I received Monday from one of my sources in Fallujah
sheds much light as to why this is the case, not only in Fallujah, but
throughout Iraq.
"Resistance [in Fallujah] is very active and all the destruction to the
city by American soldiers did not succeed to stop them. You know the
city was totally destroyed in the November attack and is still
surrounded and closed for anyone other than citizens of the city. What
is going on now is that the Americans are trying to conceal their
failure here by not letting anybody in. There were at least five
explosions today and more than one clash between resistance fighters and
US soldiers. So all the military procedures, together with the thousands
of casualties, were in vain. In short, the American Army seems to be
losing control in this country and God knows what they will do in
revenge. I expect the worst to come."
--
This article originally posted on Truthout <http://www.truthout.org/>.
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 18 April 2006
/*The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from
which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been
tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad
communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far
worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and
inefficient than the public knows ... We are today not far from a
disaster.*-- T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia), The Sunday
Times, August 1920/
On Monday, April 17, my sources in Baghdad reported fierce fighting in
the al-Adhamiya neighborhood of the capital city, as well as fighting in
the al-Dora neighborhood. One source, who lives in the predominantly
Sunni area of Adhamiya, had been telling me the situation was
disintegrating for days leading up to this. There had been clashes every
day for four days leading up to yesterday's huge clash there, with
sporadic fighting between Sunni resistance fighters and members of the
two largest Shia militias. The armed wing of the Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Badr Organization, and Muqtada al-Sadr's
Mehdi Army have been launching ongoing attacks against fighters in the
neighborhood. There is a shorter version of this description.
Civil war.
Yet we don't hear it described as such in the corporate media, nor from
the Cheney administration. Their propaganda insists that Iraq is not yet
in a civil war.
But in Adhamiya, every night now for several weeks roads have been
closed with tires, trunks of date palm trees and other objects to
prevent "kidnappers and Shia death squads" from entering the area,
according to one source, whom I'm keeping anonymous for security reasons.
His description of the fierce fighting in his neighborhood is quite
different from the reporting of it in mainstream outlets.
"Sunday night at 12:30 a.m. clashes started just like on the four
previous nights, but it was very heavy and from different directions. It
was different from the other nights in quantity and quality; it was
truly like the hell which I haven't seen even in the battles of the war
between Iraq and Iran during the eighties," wrote my source. He added
that mortars and rocket-propelled grenades were used, and so much
ammunition that the sky was "glowing red." The situation went on until
Monday morning. He said, "I usually have my cup of coffee in my small
backyard to drink it in a good atmosphere, but the minute I opened the
door someone from the interior ministry commandos shouted at me, telling
me to get inside or he'd shoot me. Of course I stayed inside and the
shooting continued in a very heavy way until 12:30 p.m., when the
American forces came to start helping the militia's attack on
al-Adhamiya after they were watching the scene from their helicopters."
He went on to state very clearly that "these were members of the Badr
militia and Sadr's Mehdi Army who were raiding the neighborhood."
Another witness at the scene wrote, "Men in police uniforms attacked the
neighbourhood. The Ministry of Interior claimed the uniformed men don't
belong to the puppet [Iraqi government] forces, but local residents are
quite sure they are special-forces from the Ministry of Interior,
probably Badr brigades. The neighbourhood was sealed off and the mobile
phone network was disconnected until 10:45 p.m. Electricity was cut off
from 10 a.m. on."
Meanwhile, Reuters obediently parroted
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060417/ts_nm/iraq_clashes_dc;_ylt=A0SOwkvr2ENEqXUBAxBZ.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA-->
the US military by reporting that "Insurgents mount bold attack in
Baghdad," and saying, "About 50 insurgents mounted a brazen attack on
Iraqi forces in Baghdad on Monday, prompting U.S. troops to provide
support in a battle that lasted seven hours, a U.S. military spokesman
said. The guerrillas attacked Iraqi forces in the mostly Sunni Arab
district of Adhamiya in northern Baghdad overnight. Five rebels were
killed and one member of the Iraqi forces was wounded. There were no
U.S. casualties, said the spokesman."
While this press report quoted an Iraqi police official as saying,
"Adhamiya residents have taken up arms to prevent the Shi'ite militia
from entering," and "Adhamiya residents said Shi'ite militiamen
accompanied the Iraqi forces," it added that this could not be confirmed.
An Iraqi in Adhamiya confirmed this immediately after the clashes ended
by writing, "When the uniformed forces entered the neighbourhood, the
National Guards that are usually patrolling the streets left. Young
armed men from the neighbourhood fought side by side with mujahedin
against the attacking forces to protect Al-Adhamiya. Several residents
have been killed in the streets, but there are currently no figures
available. US troops also entered the neighbourhood. At first, they only
stood by and watched; later on they, too, fired at the locals, who tried
to repel the attacks. Later in the day, rumours circulated that another
fierce attack of Al-Adhamiya is planned on Wednesday, but ... couldn't
confirm this information."
Other news outlets directly contradict the aforementioned statement by
the US military spokesman, when one reported
<http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/article_1155952.php/US_assault_on_Fallujah_leaves_three_Iraqi_civilians_dead>
that "gunmen clashed with residents in Baghdad's Aadhamiya district."
Of course, the military spokesman also failed to mention that on the
same day, "Four gunmen attacked a Sunni mosque
<http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L17701162.htm>killing a guard
in the Adhamiya district of the capital."
Instead, we hear reporting that "[US] Army officials said they had
suffered no casualties, and plan to raid homes in search for the gunmen
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060417/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_violence>."
Disturbingly, this obvious US-backed Shia militia invasion of a Sunni
neighborhood may well be a prelude to what the US military is calling a
"second liberation of Baghdad" which they will carry out with the Iraqi
army when a new government is installed.
The Sunday Times reports
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2136297,00.html> that US
commanders both in Iraq and at an army base in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,
are planning a "carrot-and-stick" approach by offering suffering
populations "protection" from sectarian violence in exchange for
"rooting out insurgent groups or Al-Qaeda."
Sound like mafia tactics to you?
The article states that "Sources close to the Pentagon said Iraqi forces
would take the lead, supported by American air power, special
operations, intelligence, embedded officers and back-up troops.
Helicopters suitable for urban warfare, such as the manoeuvrable AH-6
"Little Birds" ... are likely to complement the ground attack."
This is disturbingly similar to what just occurred in al-Adhamiya.
Another glaring example of the Cheney administration/US military's
ongoing war on truth in Iraq is the open wound which is Fallujah.
Heavy-handed assaults by the US military continue in Fallujah, where as
recently as this Monday three Iraqi civilians were killed, along with 10
wounded in the Jebail district of the city. Of the 10 wounded, three
were women and two were children. According to Mustafa Karim
<http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/article_1155952.php/US_assault_on_Fallujah_leaves_three_Iraqi_civilians_dead>,
with an Iraqi security force in the city, "US forces fired on houses in
the district following confrontations with armed groups in the
vicinity." Karim added that residents of Fallujah have been demanding an
easing of the tight security procedures imposed by Iraqi and US armed
forces on the region since November 2004, which have obstructed the
passage of civilians into and out of the region, and "Fallujah has been
recently witnessing a renewed escalation of armed confrontations between
US forces and armed Iraqi groups."
In fact, fierce fighting in Fallujah has been ongoing since just a few
months after the November 2004 US attack, which destroyed most buildings
and homes in the city of 350,000 people.
But the US military doesn't want people to see that American soldiers
are dying there on nearly a daily basis as of late. Rather than calling
it Fallujah when soldiers die there, they prefer a sort of Bermuda
Triangle approach and use "Al-Anbar Province" for the location of these
deaths.
Let's have a brief glance at some soldiers killed recently in "Al-Anbar
Province":
* April 17, Department of Defense (DOD) announced (hyperlink 'announced'
with http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2006/nr20060417-12834.html )
the death of a Marine who "died April 14 from a non-hostile motor
vehicle accident in Al-Anbar province, Iraq."
* April 16, CENTCOM announced
<http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Lists/Casualty%20Reports%201/DispForm.aspx?ID=1212&Source=http%3A//www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Lists/Casualty%20Reports%201/Current%20Reports.aspx>:
"Camp Fallujah, Iraq - A Marine ... died due to enemy action while
operating in al Anbar Province April 15."
* April 16, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - Multi-National Forces (MNF) Iraq
announced <http://www.mnf-iraq.com/Releases/Apr/060416h.htm>: "Three
Marines ... died due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar
Province April 15."
* April 15, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - MNF Iraq announced
<http://www.mnf-iraq.com/Releases/Apr/060415b.htm>: "Two Marines died
and 22 were wounded due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar
Province April 13 ... Ten wounded Marines ... were evacuated to a
medical facility at Camp Fallujah."
* April 15, DOD announced
<http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2006/nr20060417-12833.html>: "four
Marines died April 15 when their HMMWV struck an improvised explosive
device during combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq."
* April 11, DOD announced
<http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2006/nr20060411-12793.html>: "Lance
Cpl. Juana NavarroArellano, 24 ... died April 8 from wounds received
while supporting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq."
* April 10, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - CENTCOM announced
<http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Lists/Casualty%20Reports%201/DispForm.aspx?ID=1198&Source=http%3A//www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Lists/Casualty%20Reports%201/Current%20Reports.aspx%20>:
"A soldier ... died from wounds sustained due to enemy action while
operating in al Anbar Province April 8."
* April 10, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - CENTCOM announced
<http://www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Lists/Casualty%20Reports%201/DispForm.aspx?ID=1199&Source=http%3A//www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/Lists/Casualty%20Reports%201/Current%20Reports.aspx%20>:
"Two soldiers ... died due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar
Province April 9."
* April 8, Camp Fallujah, Iraq - MNF Iraq announced
<http://www.mnf-iraq.com/Releases/Apr/060408d.htm>: "A Marine ... died
from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in al Anbar
Province April 7."
Note the clue that several of these are issued from "Camp Fallujah, Iraq."
This is hardly a complete list of US soldiers killed in Fallujah, and
some of the aforementioned may not have actually been killed inside that
city. However, military announcements of the deaths of soldiers in other
places mention the name of specific cities, whether they occur in
Samarra <http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2006/nr20060417-12836.html>
or Tal Afar
<http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2006/nr20060410-12790.html> or
elsewhere.
Obviously the US military is being intentionally vague when it comes to
their admittance of losing American soldiers within the city limits of
Fallujah. An email I received Monday from one of my sources in Fallujah
sheds much light as to why this is the case, not only in Fallujah, but
throughout Iraq.
"Resistance [in Fallujah] is very active and all the destruction to the
city by American soldiers did not succeed to stop them. You know the
city was totally destroyed in the November attack and is still
surrounded and closed for anyone other than citizens of the city. What
is going on now is that the Americans are trying to conceal their
failure here by not letting anybody in. There were at least five
explosions today and more than one clash between resistance fighters and
US soldiers. So all the military procedures, together with the thousands
of casualties, were in vain. In short, the American Army seems to be
losing control in this country and God knows what they will do in
revenge. I expect the worst to come."
--
This article originally posted on Truthout <http://www.truthout.org/>.
27.4.06
Subject to the Penalty of Death
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 25 April 2006
This weekend I received an email from a friend in Iraq. It read, "Salam
Dahr, I was in Ramadi today to ask about the situation. I was stunned
for the news of a father and his three sons executed in cold blood by US
soldiers, then they blasted the house. The poor mother couldn't stand
the shock, so she died of a heart attack."
Sounds unbelievable, until you consider this short clip
<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5365.htm> from CNN,
which shows a war crime being committed by US troops in Iraq. In this
clip, shot on October 26, 2003, Marines are seen killing a wounded Iraqi
who was writhing on the ground, and cheering. One of the murderers then
told CNN, "These guys are dead now you know, but it was a good feeling
... and afterwards you're like, hell yeah, that was awesome, let's do it
again."
This clip alone is evidence of violations of several domestic and
international laws. In effect, all US soldiers, up to and including
their Commander in Chief, who commit these violations, like the man in
the aforementioned clip and the ones responsible for what my Iraqi
friend reports from Ramadi, are war criminals.
*The US Uniform Code of Military Justice*
It is important to note that US policy with regard to the treatment
accorded to prisoners of war and all other enemy personnel captured,
interned, or otherwise held in US Army custody during the course of a
conflict requires and directs that all such personnel be accorded
humanitarian care and treatment from the moment of custody until final
release or repatriation. The US Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)
states clearly that the observance of this Code is fully and equally
binding upon US personnel, in whatever capacity they may be serving,
whether capturing troops, custodial personnel or any other. The UCMJ
applies equally to all detained or interned personnel, whether their
status is that of prisoner of war, civilian internee, or any other.
/It may be added here that it applies regardless of whether they are
known to have, or are suspected of having, committed serious offenses
that could be characterized as war crimes. The administration of
inhumane treatment, even if committed under stress of combat and with
deep provocation, is a serious and punishable violation under national
law, international law, and the UCMJ./
Soldiers who murder Iraqis are not the only ones violating the UCMJ. All
those who are witness to the atrocities but fail to report them to
concerned authorities are to be held equally guilty of violation.
The UCMJ clearly states that violations of this Code may result in an
individual being prosecuted as a war criminal, and that anyone observing
a violation of law, or suspecting one has happened, has a positive legal
obligation to report it to appropriate authorities. Failure to do so is
a violation in itself.
*The Geneva Conventions*
The US happens to be a signatory of the Geneva Conventions and is
therefore subject to all injunctions thereof. The video clip incident is
in violation of Geneva Convention I of August 12, 1949, for the
Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and the Sick in Armed
Forces in the Field
Interestingly, the video clip on the said web site was accompanied by a
comment by one Capt. James Kimber: "The current policy in Iraq is to
SHOOT ON SIGHT ANYBODY emplacing [sic] IEDs [Improvised Explosive
Devices] ... <http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5365.htm>"
If Kimber is to be believed and this has been the policy in Iraq, then
the higher-ups giving the orders may be held as directly implicated in
all such atrocities: read murders.
As for what happens if at some point Kimber is brought to trial for his
crimes, Marjorie Cohn, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law
in San Diego, has this to say, "Self defense is a defense to a homicide
prosecution only if the shooter had an honest and reasonable belief that
he had to defend himself or others from imminent death or great bodily
injury. The question is how imminent the danger would be from a planted
IED. There is also a factual question about whether the Marines were
telling the truth."
These comments of Professor Cohn are equally relevant in the Haditha
incident.
*Representations*
Roughly three years after the date of the video clip incident, this same
Capt. James Kimber appeared in a news story on April 10, 2006. The AP
wrote
<http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/14310414.htm>
that "three Marines have been relieved of their commands in connection
with problems during their deployment to Iraq." The three men relieved
were involved in the infamous Haditha incident on November 19, 2005, in
which 15 Iraqis from two families were slaughtered by Marines from their
battalion who went on the rampage after a roadside bomb killed one of
their colleagues.
A video taken by an Iraqi student of journalism that was obtained and
brought to wider public attention by Time Magazine showed a bedroom
floor smeared with blood and chunks of human flesh and bullet holes in
the walls of a room in one of the homes. The dead included seven women
and three children, including a three-year-old girl.
The three Marine officers are Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, commanding
officer of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment; Capt. James S. Kimber,
commanding officer of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment; and
Capt. Lucas M. McConnell, commanding officer of Company I, 3rd
Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.
While the recent AP story noted that no charges had been filed against
these men, "about a dozen 3rd Battalion Marines are being investigated
for war crimes in connection with the November 2005 incident in Haditha,
to determine if they violated the rules of military engagement."
Meanwhile, according to Lt. Lawton King, spokesman for the 1st Marine
Division at Camp Pendleton in California, Kimber and the others were
reassigned to new duties within their division because of a "lack of
confidence in their leadership abilities." He also said of the decision
to relieve the men of their command that, "It stems from their
performance during the entire deployment."
While the Naval Criminal Investigative Service has launched a criminal
investigation to determine whether the Iraqis were intentionally
massacred by the Marines, there has been little mention of this in the
media, or of the fact that there is a second investigation on to examine
the misleading explanations given by the military about the Haditha
killings.
*Mis-Representations*
What is remarkable is that Kimber's blanket statement suggests that all
Iraqis killed during the occupation, including those at Haditha, are
killed because they are found "emplacing" IEDs. It must be recognized
that officers like Kimber and those above him play an important role in
training Marines to behave the way they do in Iraq. Consequently,
officers who give these orders are as guilty of war crimes as those who
execute the orders in the field.
The responsibility of creating a situation in Iraq in which war crimes
are the norm and not the exception lies squarely with the officers and
commanders of the US Army, starting with the Commander in Chief, George
W. Bush.
*Admissions*
The prevailing mindset of American soldiers in Iraq is the one we see in
Kimber, that of a war criminal. Jody Casey, a 29 year-old veteran of the
occupation of Iraq, said, "I have seen innocent people being killed.
IEDs go off and [you] just zap any farmer that is close to you. You
know, those people were out there trying to make a living, but on the
other hand, you get hit by four or five of those IEDs and you get pretty
tired of that, too."
While he didn't participate in such killings himself, Casey said that
the overall atmosphere in Iraq was such that "you could basically kill
whoever you wanted - it was that easy. You did not even have to get off
and dig a hole or anything. All you had to do was have some kind of
picture. You're driving down the road at three in the morning. There's a
guy on the side of the road, you shoot him ... you throw a shovel off."
According to Casey, his unit had been advised by troops who had
previously served in the area [al-Anbar province] to keep shovels on
their vehicles. Each time an innocent Iraqi is killed, a shovel thrown
next to the body is evidence that the dead civilian, when killed, was in
the act of digging holes to plant roadside bombs.
Michael Blake, another veteran who was in Iraq the first year of the
occupation, revealed that the message US troops are given prior to their
deployment is: "Islam is Evil," and "They hate us." The 22-year-old
veteran, now a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War
<http://www.ivaw.net/>, said, "Most of the guys I was with believed it,"
confessing that he had witnessed innocent civilians killed
indiscriminately. He said that he did not partake of the atrocities, but
that it was true that "When IEDs would go off by the side of the road,
the instructions were - or the practice was - to basically shoot up the
landscape, anything that moved. And that kind of thing would happen a
lot ... so innocent people were killed."
*Law of the Land and Other Laws*
To keep the perspective right, let me repeat: it is the high ranking
officials in the Bush administration who are primarily responsible for
creating a situation in Iraq in which war crimes have been normalized.
According to the US Constitution, Article VI, paragraph 2: "This
Constitution, and the Law of the United States which shall be made in
Pursuance thereof; and /all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under
the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the
Land/; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing
in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding." (Emphasis added.)
To name just a few of the international laws broken by the
aforementioned atrocities, "All Treaties made" includes the Nuremberg
Tribunal Charter <http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-nurem.htm>, Principle VI (b),
which states "War crimes: ... murder, ill-treatment ... of civilian
population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of
prisoners of war," and (c), "Crimes against humanity: Murder,
extermination ... and other inhuman acts done against any civilian
population ... when such acts are done ... in execution of or in
connection with any crime against peace or any war crime."
"All Treaties made" also includes the Geneva Conventions, Protocol 1,
Article 75: "(1) ... persons who are in the power of a Party to the
conflict ... shall be treated humanely in all circumstances ... (2) The
following acts are and shall remain prohibited ... whether committed by
civilian or by military agents: (a) violence to the life, health, or
physical or mental well-being of persons ... " and Protocol I, Art. 51:
"The civilian population ... shall not be the object of attack. Acts or
threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror
among the civilian population are prohibited." Article 57: ... parties
shall, "Do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be
attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects ... an attack shall
be cancelled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is
not a military one ... "
Since the entire catastrophe in Iraq is primarily the handiwork of the
Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces, let it be noted
that under US Federal Law, the War Crimes Act of 1996
<http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002441----000-.html>
makes committing a war crime, defined as " ... a grave breach in any of
the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any
protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party ... "
punishable by being " ... fined under this title or imprisoned for life
or any term of years, or both, /and if death results to the victim,
shall also be subject to the penalty of death/." (Emphasis added.)
I rest my case.
/Mike Ferner, a Vietnam-era vet and member of Veterans For Peace,
contributed to this article./
Due to the hineous nature of REALITY of this article, I am supporting Dahr in posting it several times. The Public NEEDS TO KNOW, what US Government is hiding.
*Also published at kmwittig -Global and Local Affairs
By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 25 April 2006
This weekend I received an email from a friend in Iraq. It read, "Salam
Dahr, I was in Ramadi today to ask about the situation. I was stunned
for the news of a father and his three sons executed in cold blood by US
soldiers, then they blasted the house. The poor mother couldn't stand
the shock, so she died of a heart attack."
Sounds unbelievable, until you consider this short clip
<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5365.htm> from CNN,
which shows a war crime being committed by US troops in Iraq. In this
clip, shot on October 26, 2003, Marines are seen killing a wounded Iraqi
who was writhing on the ground, and cheering. One of the murderers then
told CNN, "These guys are dead now you know, but it was a good feeling
... and afterwards you're like, hell yeah, that was awesome, let's do it
again."
This clip alone is evidence of violations of several domestic and
international laws. In effect, all US soldiers, up to and including
their Commander in Chief, who commit these violations, like the man in
the aforementioned clip and the ones responsible for what my Iraqi
friend reports from Ramadi, are war criminals.
*The US Uniform Code of Military Justice*
It is important to note that US policy with regard to the treatment
accorded to prisoners of war and all other enemy personnel captured,
interned, or otherwise held in US Army custody during the course of a
conflict requires and directs that all such personnel be accorded
humanitarian care and treatment from the moment of custody until final
release or repatriation. The US Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)
states clearly that the observance of this Code is fully and equally
binding upon US personnel, in whatever capacity they may be serving,
whether capturing troops, custodial personnel or any other. The UCMJ
applies equally to all detained or interned personnel, whether their
status is that of prisoner of war, civilian internee, or any other.
/It may be added here that it applies regardless of whether they are
known to have, or are suspected of having, committed serious offenses
that could be characterized as war crimes. The administration of
inhumane treatment, even if committed under stress of combat and with
deep provocation, is a serious and punishable violation under national
law, international law, and the UCMJ./
Soldiers who murder Iraqis are not the only ones violating the UCMJ. All
those who are witness to the atrocities but fail to report them to
concerned authorities are to be held equally guilty of violation.
The UCMJ clearly states that violations of this Code may result in an
individual being prosecuted as a war criminal, and that anyone observing
a violation of law, or suspecting one has happened, has a positive legal
obligation to report it to appropriate authorities. Failure to do so is
a violation in itself.
*The Geneva Conventions*
The US happens to be a signatory of the Geneva Conventions and is
therefore subject to all injunctions thereof. The video clip incident is
in violation of Geneva Convention I of August 12, 1949, for the
Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and the Sick in Armed
Forces in the Field
Interestingly, the video clip on the said web site was accompanied by a
comment by one Capt. James Kimber: "The current policy in Iraq is to
SHOOT ON SIGHT ANYBODY emplacing [sic] IEDs [Improvised Explosive
Devices] ... <http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5365.htm>"
If Kimber is to be believed and this has been the policy in Iraq, then
the higher-ups giving the orders may be held as directly implicated in
all such atrocities: read murders.
As for what happens if at some point Kimber is brought to trial for his
crimes, Marjorie Cohn, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law
in San Diego, has this to say, "Self defense is a defense to a homicide
prosecution only if the shooter had an honest and reasonable belief that
he had to defend himself or others from imminent death or great bodily
injury. The question is how imminent the danger would be from a planted
IED. There is also a factual question about whether the Marines were
telling the truth."
These comments of Professor Cohn are equally relevant in the Haditha
incident.
*Representations*
Roughly three years after the date of the video clip incident, this same
Capt. James Kimber appeared in a news story on April 10, 2006. The AP
wrote
<http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/14310414.htm>
that "three Marines have been relieved of their commands in connection
with problems during their deployment to Iraq." The three men relieved
were involved in the infamous Haditha incident on November 19, 2005, in
which 15 Iraqis from two families were slaughtered by Marines from their
battalion who went on the rampage after a roadside bomb killed one of
their colleagues.
A video taken by an Iraqi student of journalism that was obtained and
brought to wider public attention by Time Magazine showed a bedroom
floor smeared with blood and chunks of human flesh and bullet holes in
the walls of a room in one of the homes. The dead included seven women
and three children, including a three-year-old girl.
The three Marine officers are Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, commanding
officer of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment; Capt. James S. Kimber,
commanding officer of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment; and
Capt. Lucas M. McConnell, commanding officer of Company I, 3rd
Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.
While the recent AP story noted that no charges had been filed against
these men, "about a dozen 3rd Battalion Marines are being investigated
for war crimes in connection with the November 2005 incident in Haditha,
to determine if they violated the rules of military engagement."
Meanwhile, according to Lt. Lawton King, spokesman for the 1st Marine
Division at Camp Pendleton in California, Kimber and the others were
reassigned to new duties within their division because of a "lack of
confidence in their leadership abilities." He also said of the decision
to relieve the men of their command that, "It stems from their
performance during the entire deployment."
While the Naval Criminal Investigative Service has launched a criminal
investigation to determine whether the Iraqis were intentionally
massacred by the Marines, there has been little mention of this in the
media, or of the fact that there is a second investigation on to examine
the misleading explanations given by the military about the Haditha
killings.
*Mis-Representations*
What is remarkable is that Kimber's blanket statement suggests that all
Iraqis killed during the occupation, including those at Haditha, are
killed because they are found "emplacing" IEDs. It must be recognized
that officers like Kimber and those above him play an important role in
training Marines to behave the way they do in Iraq. Consequently,
officers who give these orders are as guilty of war crimes as those who
execute the orders in the field.
The responsibility of creating a situation in Iraq in which war crimes
are the norm and not the exception lies squarely with the officers and
commanders of the US Army, starting with the Commander in Chief, George
W. Bush.
*Admissions*
The prevailing mindset of American soldiers in Iraq is the one we see in
Kimber, that of a war criminal. Jody Casey, a 29 year-old veteran of the
occupation of Iraq, said, "I have seen innocent people being killed.
IEDs go off and [you] just zap any farmer that is close to you. You
know, those people were out there trying to make a living, but on the
other hand, you get hit by four or five of those IEDs and you get pretty
tired of that, too."
While he didn't participate in such killings himself, Casey said that
the overall atmosphere in Iraq was such that "you could basically kill
whoever you wanted - it was that easy. You did not even have to get off
and dig a hole or anything. All you had to do was have some kind of
picture. You're driving down the road at three in the morning. There's a
guy on the side of the road, you shoot him ... you throw a shovel off."
According to Casey, his unit had been advised by troops who had
previously served in the area [al-Anbar province] to keep shovels on
their vehicles. Each time an innocent Iraqi is killed, a shovel thrown
next to the body is evidence that the dead civilian, when killed, was in
the act of digging holes to plant roadside bombs.
Michael Blake, another veteran who was in Iraq the first year of the
occupation, revealed that the message US troops are given prior to their
deployment is: "Islam is Evil," and "They hate us." The 22-year-old
veteran, now a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War
<http://www.ivaw.net/>, said, "Most of the guys I was with believed it,"
confessing that he had witnessed innocent civilians killed
indiscriminately. He said that he did not partake of the atrocities, but
that it was true that "When IEDs would go off by the side of the road,
the instructions were - or the practice was - to basically shoot up the
landscape, anything that moved. And that kind of thing would happen a
lot ... so innocent people were killed."
*Law of the Land and Other Laws*
To keep the perspective right, let me repeat: it is the high ranking
officials in the Bush administration who are primarily responsible for
creating a situation in Iraq in which war crimes have been normalized.
According to the US Constitution, Article VI, paragraph 2: "This
Constitution, and the Law of the United States which shall be made in
Pursuance thereof; and /all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under
the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the
Land/; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing
in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding." (Emphasis added.)
To name just a few of the international laws broken by the
aforementioned atrocities, "All Treaties made" includes the Nuremberg
Tribunal Charter <http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-nurem.htm>, Principle VI (b),
which states "War crimes: ... murder, ill-treatment ... of civilian
population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of
prisoners of war," and (c), "Crimes against humanity: Murder,
extermination ... and other inhuman acts done against any civilian
population ... when such acts are done ... in execution of or in
connection with any crime against peace or any war crime."
"All Treaties made" also includes the Geneva Conventions, Protocol 1,
Article 75: "(1) ... persons who are in the power of a Party to the
conflict ... shall be treated humanely in all circumstances ... (2) The
following acts are and shall remain prohibited ... whether committed by
civilian or by military agents: (a) violence to the life, health, or
physical or mental well-being of persons ... " and Protocol I, Art. 51:
"The civilian population ... shall not be the object of attack. Acts or
threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror
among the civilian population are prohibited." Article 57: ... parties
shall, "Do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be
attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects ... an attack shall
be cancelled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is
not a military one ... "
Since the entire catastrophe in Iraq is primarily the handiwork of the
Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces, let it be noted
that under US Federal Law, the War Crimes Act of 1996
<http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002441----000-.html>
makes committing a war crime, defined as " ... a grave breach in any of
the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any
protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party ... "
punishable by being " ... fined under this title or imprisoned for life
or any term of years, or both, /and if death results to the victim,
shall also be subject to the penalty of death/." (Emphasis added.)
I rest my case.
/Mike Ferner, a Vietnam-era vet and member of Veterans For Peace,
contributed to this article./
Due to the hineous nature of REALITY of this article, I am supporting Dahr in posting it several times. The Public NEEDS TO KNOW, what US Government is hiding.
*Also published at kmwittig -Global and Local Affairs
15.4.06
Baghdad Morgue Overflowing Daily
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed
http://DahrJamailIraq.com
*BAGHDAD, Apr 14 (IPS) - As sectarian killings continue to rise in Iraq,
the central morgue in Baghdad is unable to keep up with the daily influx
of bodies. *
The morgue is receiving a minimum of 60 bodies a day and sometimes more
than 100, a morgue employee told IPS on condition of anonymity.
"The average is probably over 85," said the employee on the morning of
April 12, as scores of family members waited outside the building to see
if their loved ones were among the dead.
The family of a man named Ashraf who had been taken away by the Iraqi
police Feb. 16 anxiously searched through digital photographs inside the
morgue. He then found what he was looking for.
"His two sons were killed when Ashraf was taken," said his uncle,
50-year-old Aziz. "Ashraf was a bricklayer who was simply trying to do
his job, and now we see what has become of him in our new democracy."
Aziz found that the body of Ashraf was brought to the morgue Feb. 18 by
the Iraqi police two days after he was abducted. The photographs of the
body showed gunshot wounds in the head and bludgeon marks across the
face. Both arms were apparently broken, and so many holes had been
drilled into his chest that it appeared shredded..
A report Oct. 29, 2004 in the British medical journal The Lancet had
said that "by conservative assumptions, we think about 100,000 excess
deaths or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq."
In an update, Les Roberts, lead author of the report said Feb. 8 this
year that there may have been 300,000 Iraqi civilian deaths since the
invasion.
Such findings seem in line with information IPS obtained at the Baghdad
morgue.
Morgue official said bodies unclaimed after 15 days are transferred to
the cemetery administration to be catalogued, and then taken for burial
at a cemetery in Najaf. As he spoke, three Iraqi police pick-up trucks
loaded with about 10 bodies each arrived at the morgue.
At the cemetery administration, an official told IPS: "From February 1
to March 31, we've logged and buried 2,576 bodies from Baghdad."
Requests by IPS to meet with administration officials at the Baghdad
morgue were turned down for "security reasons."
Several surveys have pointed to large numbers of civilian deaths as a
result of the U.S.-led occupation.
Iraqiyun, a humanitarian group affiliated with the political party of
interim president Ghazi al-Yawir reported Jul. 12 last year that there
had been 128,000 violent deaths since the invasion. The group said it
had only counted deaths confirmed by relatives, and that it had omitted
the large numbers of people who simply disappeared without trace..
Another group, the People's Kifah, involved hundreds of academics and
volunteers in a survey conducted in coordination with "grave-diggers
across Iraq." The group said it also "obtained information from
hospitals and spoke to thousands of witnesses who saw incidents in which
Iraqi civilians were killed by U.S. fire."
The project was abandoned after one of the researchers was captured by
Kurdish militiamen and handed over to U.S. forces. He was never seen
again. But in less than two months' work, the group documented about
37,000 violent civilian deaths up to October 2003.
The Baghdad central morgue alone accounts for roughly 30,000 bodies
annually. That is besides the large number of bodies taken to morgues in
cities such as Basra, Mosul, Ramadi, Kirkuk, Irbil, Najaf and Karbala.
Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed
http://DahrJamailIraq.com
*BAGHDAD, Apr 14 (IPS) - As sectarian killings continue to rise in Iraq,
the central morgue in Baghdad is unable to keep up with the daily influx
of bodies. *
The morgue is receiving a minimum of 60 bodies a day and sometimes more
than 100, a morgue employee told IPS on condition of anonymity.
"The average is probably over 85," said the employee on the morning of
April 12, as scores of family members waited outside the building to see
if their loved ones were among the dead.
The family of a man named Ashraf who had been taken away by the Iraqi
police Feb. 16 anxiously searched through digital photographs inside the
morgue. He then found what he was looking for.
"His two sons were killed when Ashraf was taken," said his uncle,
50-year-old Aziz. "Ashraf was a bricklayer who was simply trying to do
his job, and now we see what has become of him in our new democracy."
Aziz found that the body of Ashraf was brought to the morgue Feb. 18 by
the Iraqi police two days after he was abducted. The photographs of the
body showed gunshot wounds in the head and bludgeon marks across the
face. Both arms were apparently broken, and so many holes had been
drilled into his chest that it appeared shredded..
A report Oct. 29, 2004 in the British medical journal The Lancet had
said that "by conservative assumptions, we think about 100,000 excess
deaths or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq."
In an update, Les Roberts, lead author of the report said Feb. 8 this
year that there may have been 300,000 Iraqi civilian deaths since the
invasion.
Such findings seem in line with information IPS obtained at the Baghdad
morgue.
Morgue official said bodies unclaimed after 15 days are transferred to
the cemetery administration to be catalogued, and then taken for burial
at a cemetery in Najaf. As he spoke, three Iraqi police pick-up trucks
loaded with about 10 bodies each arrived at the morgue.
At the cemetery administration, an official told IPS: "From February 1
to March 31, we've logged and buried 2,576 bodies from Baghdad."
Requests by IPS to meet with administration officials at the Baghdad
morgue were turned down for "security reasons."
Several surveys have pointed to large numbers of civilian deaths as a
result of the U.S.-led occupation.
Iraqiyun, a humanitarian group affiliated with the political party of
interim president Ghazi al-Yawir reported Jul. 12 last year that there
had been 128,000 violent deaths since the invasion. The group said it
had only counted deaths confirmed by relatives, and that it had omitted
the large numbers of people who simply disappeared without trace..
Another group, the People's Kifah, involved hundreds of academics and
volunteers in a survey conducted in coordination with "grave-diggers
across Iraq." The group said it also "obtained information from
hospitals and spoke to thousands of witnesses who saw incidents in which
Iraqi civilians were killed by U.S. fire."
The project was abandoned after one of the researchers was captured by
Kurdish militiamen and handed over to U.S. forces. He was never seen
again. But in less than two months' work, the group documented about
37,000 violent civilian deaths up to October 2003.
The Baghdad central morgue alone accounts for roughly 30,000 bodies
annually. That is besides the large number of bodies taken to morgues in
cities such as Basra, Mosul, Ramadi, Kirkuk, Irbil, Najaf and Karbala.
7.4.06
Justices Decline Terror Case of a U.S. Citizen
Justices Decline Terror Case of a U.S. Citizen
Thats NOT Justice.
WASHINGTON -- Jose Padilla, the American citizen held for more than three years in military custody as an enemy combatant, fell one vote short on Monday of persuading the Supreme Court to take his case.
Four votes are necessary for the court to take a case, and Mr. Padilla's appeal received only three. The result was to leave standing a decision by the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., that endorsed the government's power to seize a citizen on United States soil and keep him in open-ended detention.
Thats NOT Justice.
WASHINGTON -- Jose Padilla, the American citizen held for more than three years in military custody as an enemy combatant, fell one vote short on Monday of persuading the Supreme Court to take his case.
 Jose Padilla, center, held as an 'enemy combatant' for more than three years, is escorted by federal marshalls in this file photo upon his arrival in Miami, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2006. The government transferred Padilla from military to civilian custody in January. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz) |
Nonetheless, the outcome was not the unalloyed victory for the Bush administration that it might have appeared to be.
Three justices who voted not to hear the case — Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and John Paul Stevens, along with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. — filed an unusual opinion explaining their position. They noted that Mr. Padilla, who is now out of military custody and awaiting trial in federal district court in Miami on terrorism-related charges, was entitled to a criminal defendant's full range of protections, including the right to a speedy trial.
Most significant, the three justices warned the administration that the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, stood ready to intervene "were the government to seek to change the status or conditions of Padilla's custody."
The comment was clearly a reference to the sequence of events last fall, when the administration, days before it was due to file a brief in response to Mr. Padilla's Supreme Court appeal, announced that it had obtained a grand jury indictment and planned to shift him to civilian custody.
The administration then filed a brief arguing that the appeal had to be dismissed as moot, since Mr. Padilla was getting the relief he requested when he filed his original petition asking to be released from custody or charged with a crime.
The Miami indictment charges him with providing material support to terrorists as part of a cell that is said to have sent money and recruits overseas. He is being held without bail; a trial is scheduled for Sept. 9.
In simply turning down Mr. Padilla's appeal, Padilla v. Hanft, No. 05-533, the court did not make a formal determination that the case was moot. But Mr. Padilla's transfer from military custody to the civilian justice system rendered his legal claims, "at least for now, hypothetical," Justice Kennedy said in the explanatory opinion, which the two other justices signed.
"Even if the court were to rule in Padilla's favor, his present custody status would be unaffected," Justice Kennedy said.
In shifting Mr. Padilla to civilian custody, the government said that it reserved the right to redesignate him as an enemy combatant and send him back to military custody. His lawyers argued that for that reason, the Supreme Court should hear his case.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed, filing an opinion on Monday dissenting from the court's refusal to hear the case.
"Nothing the government has yet done purports to retract the assertion of executive power Padilla protests," Justice Ginsburg said, adding that "nothing prevents the executive from returning to the road it earlier constructed and defended." She said she was "satisfied that this case is not moot."
Justices David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer did not sign Justice Ginsburg's opinion, noting only that they, too, had voted to hear the case.
Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., who voted against hearing the appeal, neither signed Justice Kennedy's opinion nor offered an explanation of their own. It is possible that they objected to the language in the Kennedy opinion about the court's readiness to intervene "promptly to ensure that the office and purposes of the writ of habeas corpus are not compromised" if the administration were to change Mr. Padilla's status once again.
The silence of these three justices was only one of several mysteries surrounding the court's disposition of the case, among the most prominent of the cases generated by the administration's handling of those it has labeled enemy combatants.
One mystery is what took the court so long. Mr. Padilla's appeal had been pending for months, and had been taken up by the justices at their weekly closed-door conference eight times since mid-January. That length of time was hardly needed to produce the four pages of opinions, three for Justice Kennedy and one for Justice Ginsburg, that the court issued on Monday.
Another mystery is the role played by Justice Stevens, who signed Justice Kennedy's opinion rather than provide a crucial fourth vote to his natural allies — Justices Ginsburg, Souter and Breyer. Two years ago, Justice Stevens wrote for Justices Ginsburg, Souter and Breyer in dissent from an earlier ruling in Mr. Padilla's legal saga.
That was a 5-to-4 decision holding that the federal appeals court in New York, which had ordered Mr. Padilla released, lacked the authority to decide the case. The five justices in the majority then required Mr. Padilla to file a new habeas corpus petition seeking release in South Carolina, where he was held in the Navy brig in Charleston.
Justice Stevens, dissenting, criticized the majority as failing to address the merits of Mr. Padilla's case, which he said "raises questions of profound importance to the nation."
In her dissenting opinion on Monday, Justice Ginsburg quoted those words, identifying them as those of Justice Stevens. As a careful writer, not given to wasting words herself, Justice Ginsburg appeared to be sending a signal of her dismay at Justice Stevens's failure to join her in dissent this time.
The two mysteries — the lengthy consideration and the role of Justice Stevens — may not be unrelated. It is possible that the Kennedy opinion was the result of a long negotiation, and that the price Justice Stevens exacted for not giving the dissenters the crucial fourth vote needed to hear the case was insertion of the language that can be read as warning the administration not to presume on the court's patience.
The test may come if Mr. Padilla is acquitted by a jury in the Miami federal case or receives and serves a short sentence. The government would then have to decide whether to set him free or find a way to keep him confined.
The federal court charges against him bear little if any relationship to the accusations the administration made after he was arrested after arriving at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago on a flight from Pakistan. He was then described as an operative for Al Qaeda on a mission to detonate a dirty bomb in the United States.
In another development on Monday, the court agreed to resolve a dispute among the lower courts with implications for thousands of deportation and criminal sentencing cases. The question is whether a drug offense that is only a misdemeanor under federal law, but that an individual state's criminal code treats as a felony, is deemed an "aggravated felony" for purposes of immigration law or for adding time to a federal sentence.
The issue is particularly important in immigration law because deportable aliens with "aggravated felonies" on their records are ineligible for administrative discretion, making their deportation essentially automatic, no matter the individual circumstances. To resolve the issue, the court accepted two cases, Lopez v. Gonzales, No. 05-547, and Toledo-Flores v. United States, No. 05-7664.
Return My Work, Says Guantánamo Poet
Return My Work, Says Guantánamo Poet
by Declan Walsh in Peshawar |
| The Americans can't return the three years that Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost lost, locked in a cell in Guantánamo Bay. But they could at least give back his poetry. "Please help," said Dost, who says he penned 25,000 lines of verse during his long imprisonment. "Those words are very precious to me. My interrogators promised I would get them back. Still I have nothing." The lost poems are the final indignity for Dost, a softly spoken Afghan whom the US military flew home last year, finally believing his pleas of innocence. Accused of being an al-Qaida terrorist, Dost had been whisked from his home in Peshawar, northern Pakistan, in November 2001. Five months later he was shackled, blindfolded and flown to Cuba. Wearing an orange jumpsuit and trapped inside a mesh cage, the Pashtun poet crafted his escape through verse. "I would fly on the wings of my imagination," he recalled. "Through my poems I would travel the world, visiting different places. Although I was in a cage I was really free." Inmates were forbidden pens or papers during Dost's first year in captivity. So he found a novel solution - polystyrene teacups. "I would scratch a few lines on to a cup with a spoon. If you held it up to the light you could read it," he said. "But when the guards collected the trash they threw them away." It was only when prison authorities provided awkward rubbery pens - so soft they could not be used as weapons - that Dost wrote in earnest. His themes were love of his homeland, poetry and his children, and especially his hope of release. Sitting in his library, he quoted a couplet from a favourite poem: "Handcuffs befit brave young men/Bangles are for spinsters or pretty young ladies." Dost lampooned his military captors, mocking what he perceived as ridiculous - women with men's haircuts, men without beards. "In the American army I could not see a real man," he said. "And they talk rudely about homosexuals, which is very shameful to us." The satires delighted fellow inmates, who passed them from cage to cage using a pulley system fashioned from prayer cap threads. Some even passed Dost their two-sheet paper allowance so he could write some more. But invariably the poems were confiscated during cell searches. Early last year Dost was brought before a military tribunal - which he describes as a show trial - and then flown back to Afghanistan in shackles, with 16 other detainees. The US military said he was "no longer an enemy combatant". Dost was allowed to keep his final sheaf of poems and was told the rest would be returned on arrival at Bagram airbase, near Kabul. But they were not, and he was set free without apology or compensation. His brother had been freed six months earlier. Now Dost has written his an account of Guantánamo, The Broken Chains, which is being translated into English. He estimates $300,000 in losses, mostly from confiscated gemstones and cash that were never returned. But his greatest loss was his writing. "It is the most valuable thing to me," he said. |
4.4.06
How Massacres Become the Norm
How Massacres Become the Norm
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 04 April 2006
US soldiers killing innocent civilians in Iraq is not news. Just as it
was not news that US soldiers slaughtered countless innocent civilians
in Vietnam. However, when some rare reportage of this non news from Iraq
does seep through the cracks of the corporate media, albeit briefly, the
American public seems shocked. Private and public statements of denial
and dismissal immediately start to fill the air. We hear, "American
soldiers would never do such a thing," or "Who would make such a
ridiculous claim?"
It amazes me that so many people in the US today somehow seriously
believe that American soldiers would never kill civilians. Despite the
fact that they are in a no-win guerrilla war in Iraq which, like any
other guerrilla war, always generates more civilian casualties than
combatant casualties on either side.
Robert J. Lifton is a prominent American psychiatrist who lobbied for
the inclusion of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders after his work with US
veterans from Vietnam. His studies on the behavior of those who have
committed war crimes led him to believe it does not require an unusual
level of mental illness or of personal evil to carry out such crimes.
Rather, these crimes are nearly guaranteed to occur in what Lifton
refers to as "atrocity-producing situations."
Several of his books, like /The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the
Psychology of Genocide/, examine how abnormal conditions work on normal
minds, enabling them to commit the most horrendous crimes imaginable.
Iraq today is most certainly an "atrocity-producing situation," as it
has been from the very beginning of the occupation.
The latest reported war crime, a US military raid on the al-Mustafa Shia
mosque in Baghdad on March 26th, which killed at least 16 people, is
only one instance of the phenomena that Lifton has spoken of.
An AP video of the scene shows male bodies tangled together in a bloody
mass on the floor of the Imams' living quarters - all of them with
shotgun wounds and other bullet holes. The tape also shows shell casings
of the caliber used by the US military scattered about on the floor. An
official from the al-Sadr political bloc reported that American forces
had surrounded the hospital where the wounded were taken for treatment
after the massacre.
The slaughter was followed by an instant and predictable disinformation
blitz by the US military. The second ranking US commander in Iraq, Lt.
Gen. Peter Chiarelli, told reporters "someone went in and made the scene
look different from what it was."
On March 15th, 11 Iraqis, mostly women and children, were massacred by
US troops in Balad. Witnesses told reporters that US helicopters landed
near a home, which was then stormed by US troops. Everyone visible was
rounded up and taken inside the house where they were killed. The
victims' ages ranged from six months to 75 years.
The US military acknowledged the raid, but claimed to have captured a
resistance fighter and insisted that only four people had been killed.
Their claim would have held good but for the discrepancies that the
available evidence presents. For one, the photographs that the AP
reporter took of the scene reveal a collapsed roof, three destroyed cars
and two dead cows. The other indictment comes from the detailed report
of the incident prepared by Iraq Police. It matches witness accounts and
accuses the American troops of murdering Iraqi civilians.
"The American forces gathered the family members in one room and
executed 11 persons, including five children, four women and two men.
Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed the
animals." The report includes the observation of local medics that all
of the bodies had bullet wounds in the head.
Ahmed Khalaf, the nephew of one of the victims said, "The killed family
was not part of the resistance, they were women and children. The
Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death." AP
photos of the aftermath showed the bodies of five children, two men and
four others covered in blankets being driven to a nearby hospital.
Reminiscent of Vietnam?
Another appalling example of the effect of an "atrocity-producing
situation" was experienced last November 19th in Haditha. American
troops, in retaliation against a roadside bomb attack, stormed nearby
homes and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a
three-year-old girl.
US military response? All 15 civilians were killed by the blast of the
roadside bomb.
In this case, reality refuted their claim when a student of journalism
from Haditha showed up with a video tape of the dead, still in their
nightclothes.
Killing Iraqis in their homes
<http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album28&id=Image35>
and while they are in bed
<http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album28&id=Image36>
is not news either, for during the aftermath of the November 2004
assault on Fallujah, scores of Iraqis were killed by US soldiers in this
manner
<http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album28&id=Image8>.
Neither is it news that the US military regularly targets ambulances and
medical infrastructure <http://www.brusselstribunal.org/DahrReport.htm>.
Khaled Ahmed Rsayef, whose brother and six other relatives were killed
by the troops, vividly described the blind frustration of the American
soldiers and their impulsive revenge at losing one of their own.
"American troops immediately cordoned off the area and raided two nearby
houses, shooting at everyone inside. It was a massacre in every sense of
the word," said Rasayef. While he was not present at the scene, his
15-year-old niece was and her story was corroborated by other residents
of the area who witnessed the carnage.
A quick scan of some Arab media reportage for last month exposes further
atrocities carried out by US forces in Iraq which find no mention in the
corporate media.
March 20, the Daily Dar Al-Salam reported: "US forces destroyed houses
in Hasibah and displaced the inhabitants. Also, a source at Abu Ghurayb
Secondary School said that US forces raided the school for the third
time and arrested the guard."
In December 2003, I personally witnessed US soldiers raid a secondary
school in the al-Amiriyah district of Baghdad and detain 16 children.
March 19, Al-Arabia reported: "In another development, seven people,
including a woman, were killed in a raid carried out by joint
American-Iraqi forces in Al-Dulu'iyah at dawn today. The US Army has so
far not confirmed this information."
March 9, Al Sharqiyah Television reported: "US troops opened fire at a
civilian vehicle as it passed by Al-Hadba district in the western part
of Mosul, northern Iraq. The three occupants of the vehicle were
martyred in the incident."
Throughout the three-year history of the US-led catastrophe that is the
occupation of Iraq, we have had one instance after another of brutality
meted out to innocent Iraqis, by way of direct executions or bombings
from the air, or both.
During an attack on a wedding party in May 2004, US troops killed over
40 people, mostly women and children, in a desert village on the Syrian
border of Iraq.
APTN footage showed fragments of musical instruments, blood stains, the
headless body of a child, other dead children and clumps of women's hair
in a destroyed house that was bombed by US warplanes. Other photographs
showed dead women and children, and an AP reporter identified at least
10 of the bodies as those of children. Relatives who gathered at a
cemetery outside of Ramadi, where all the bodies were buried, told
reporters that each of the 28 fresh graves contained between one and
three bodies.
The few survivors of the massacre later recounted how in the middle of
the night long after the wedding feast had ended, US jets began raining
bombs on their tents and houses.
Mrs. Shihab, a 30-year-old woman who survived the massacre, told the
Guardian, "We went out of the house and the American soldiers started to
shoot us. They were shooting low on the ground and targeting us one by
one." She added that she ran with her two little boys before they were
all shot, including herself in the leg. "I left them because they were
dead," she said of her two little boys, one of whom was decapitated by a
shell. "I fell into the mud and an American soldier came and kicked me.
I pretended to be dead so he wouldn't kill me."
Thereafter, armored military vehicles entered the village, shooting at
all the other houses and the people who were starting to assemble in the
open. Following these, two Chinook helicopters offloaded several dozen
troops, some of who set explosives in one of the homes and a building
next to it. Both exploded into rubble as the helicopters lifted off.
Mr. Nawaf, one of the survivors, said, "I saw something that nobody ever
saw in this world. There were children's bodies cut into pieces, women
cut into pieces, men cut into pieces. The Americans call these people
foreign fighters. It is a lie. I just want one piece of evidence of what
they are saying."
Hamdi Noor al-Alusi, the manager of al-Qa'im general hospital, the
nearest medical facility to the scene of the slaughter, said that of the
42 killed, 14 were children and 11 women. "I want to know why the
Americans targeted this small village," he said, "These people are my
patients. I know each one of them. What has caused this disaster?"
As usual, the US military ran a disinformation campaign saying the
target was a "suspected safe-house" for foreign fighters and denied that
any children were killed. The ever pliant US Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt
told reporters that the troops who reported back from the operation
"told us they did not shoot women and children."
Topping his ridiculous claim was the statement of Maj. Gen. James
Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division. "How many people go to the
middle of the desert ... to hold a wedding 80 miles (130km) from the
nearest civilization?"
Perhaps someone should have informed him that these farmers and nomads
often "go to the middle of the desert" because they happen to live there.
"These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naïve,"
Mattis stated before being asked by a reporter to comment on the footage
on Arabic television which showed a child's body being lowered into a
grave. His brilliant response was: "I have not seen the pictures but bad
things happen in wars. I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men."
If the US were a member of the International Criminal Court, Maj. Gen.
Mattis may well have been in The Hague right now being tried for aiding
and abetting war crimes. How can someone holding an official position
like Mattis publicly sanction atrocities?
It is about unnatural responses such as these that Dr. Lifton has
written extensively. In a piece he wrote for the New England Journal of
Medicine in July 2004, Lifton addressed the issue of US doctors being
complicit in torturing Iraqis in Abu Ghraib. This article sheds much
light on the situation in Iraq. If we substitute "doctors" with
"soldiers" it is easy to understand why American soldiers are regularly
committing the excesses that we hear of.
Lifton writes, "American doctors at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere have
undoubtedly been aware of their medical responsibility to document
injuries and raise questions about their possible source in abuse. But
those doctors and other medical personnel were part of a command
structure that permitted, encouraged, and sometimes orchestrated torture
to a degree that it became the norm - with which they were expected to
comply - in the immediate prison environment."
He continues, "The doctors thus brought a medical component to what I
call an "atrocity-producing situation" - one so structured,
psychologically and militarily, that ordinary people can readily engage
in atrocities. Even without directly participating in the abuse, doctors
may have become socialized to an environment of torture and by virtue of
their medical authority helped sustain it. In studying various forms of
medical abuse, I have found that the participation of doctors can confer
an aura of legitimacy and can even create an illusion of therapy and
healing."
I have personally experienced this. Standing with US soldiers at
checkpoints and perimeters of operations in Iraq, I have seen them curse
and kick Iraqis, heard them threatening to kill even women and children
and then look at me as if they had merely said hello to them. My status
of journalist did not deter them because they saw no need for checks.
Having stood with soldiers anticipating that each moving car would turn
into a bomb and each passerby into a suicide bomber, I have tasted the
stress and fear these soldiers live with on a daily basis. When one of
their fellow soldiers is killed by a roadside bomb, the need for revenge
may be directed at anything. And repeated often enough, the process gets
socialized.
It's about this attitude brought on by the normalization of the abnormal
under "atrocity-producing situations" that Dr. Lifton speaks. Unless of
course we consider Mattis and others like him to be rare sociopaths who
are able to participate in atrocities without suffering lasting
emotional harm.
And it is this attitude that is responsible for the incessant
replication of wanton slaughter and madness in Iraq today.
Back in November of 2004, I wrote about 12-year-old Fatima Harouz. She
lay dazed in a crowded room in Yarmouk Hospital in Bahgdad, feebly
waving her bruised arm at flies. Her shins had been shattered
<http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album18&id=1_G>
by bullets from US soldiers when they fired through the front door of
her home in Latifiya, a small city just south of Baghdad. Small plastic
drainage bags filled with red fluid sat upon her abdomen, where she took
shrapnel from another bullet.
Her mother, who was standing with us, said, "They attacked our home and
there weren't even any resistance fighters in our area." Her brother had
been shot and killed, and his wife was wounded as their home was
ransacked by soldiers. "Before they left, they killed all of our
chickens," she added, her eyes a mixture of fear, shock and rage.
On hearing the story, a doctor looked at me sternly and asked, "This is
the freedom ... in their Disney Land are there kids just like this?"
Another wounded young woman in a nearby hospital bed, Rana Obeidy, had
been walking home with her brother. She assumed the soldiers shot her
and her brother because he was carrying a bottle of soda. This happened
in Baghdad. She had a chest wound
<http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album18&id=2_G>
where a bullet had grazed her, unlike her little brother, whom the
bullets had killed.
There exist many more such cases. Amnesty International has documented
scores of human rights violations committed by US troops in Iraq during
the first six months of the occupation. To mention but a few:
US troops shot dead and injured scores of Iraqi demonstrators in several
incidents. For example, seven people were reportedly shot dead and
dozens injured in Mosul on 15 April.
At least 15 people, including children, were shot dead and more than 70
injured in Fallujah on 29 April.
Two demonstrators were shot dead outside the Republican Palace in
Baghdad on 18 June.
On 14 May, two US armed vehicles broke through the perimeter wall of the
home of Sa'adi Suleiman Ibrahim al-'Ubaydi in Ramadi. Soldiers beat him
with rifle butts and then shot him dead as he tried to flee.
US forces shot 12-year-old Mohammad al-Kubaisi as they carried out
search operations around his house in the Hay al-Jihad area in Baghdad
on 26 June. He was carrying the family bedding to the roof of his house
when he was shot. Neighbors tried to rush him to the nearby hospital by
car, but US soldiers stopped them and ordered them to go back. By the
time they returned to his home, Mohammad al-Kubaisi was dead.
On 17 September, a 14-year-old boy was killed and six people were
injured when US troops opened fire at a wedding party in Fallujah.
On 23 September, three farmers, 'Ali Khalaf, Sa'adi Faqri and Salem
Khalil, were killed and three others injured when US troops opened a
barrage of gunfire reportedly lasting for at least an hour in the
village of al-Jisr near Fallujah. A US military official stated that
this happened when the troops came under attack but this was vehemently
denied by relatives of the dead. Later that day, US military officials
reportedly went to the farmhouse, took photographs and apologized to the
family.
This last incident ended in a way similar to the one I covered in Ramadi
in November, 2003. On the 23rd of that month during Ramadan, US soldiers
raided a home where a family was just sitting down together to break
their fast.
Three men of the family had their hands tied behind them with plastic
ties and were laid on the ground face down while the women and children
were made to stand inside a nearby storage closet.
Khalil Ahmed, 30 years old, the brother of two of the victims and cousin
with a third, wept when he described to me how after executing the three
men the soldiers completely destroyed the home
<http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album07&id=ramadi_home>,
using Humvees with machine guns, small tanks, and gunfire from the many
troops on foot and helicopters.
"We don't know the reason why the soldiers came here. They didn't tell
us the reason. We don't know why they killed our family members." Khalil
seemed to demand an answer from me. "There are no weapons in this house,
there are no resistance fighters. So why did these people have to die? Why?"
Khalil told me that the day after the executions took place, soldiers
returned to apologize. They handed him a cake saying they were sorry
that they had been given wrong information by someone that told them
there were resistance fighters in their house.
This is only a very small sampling. The only way to prevent any of this
from being repeated ad infinitum is to remove US soldiers from their
"atrocity-producing situation" in Iraq. For it is clearer than ever that
the longer the failed, illegal occupation persists, the larger will be
the numbers of Iraqis slaughtered by the occupation forces.
http://dahrjamailiraq.com
By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 04 April 2006
US soldiers killing innocent civilians in Iraq is not news. Just as it
was not news that US soldiers slaughtered countless innocent civilians
in Vietnam. However, when some rare reportage of this non news from Iraq
does seep through the cracks of the corporate media, albeit briefly, the
American public seems shocked. Private and public statements of denial
and dismissal immediately start to fill the air. We hear, "American
soldiers would never do such a thing," or "Who would make such a
ridiculous claim?"
It amazes me that so many people in the US today somehow seriously
believe that American soldiers would never kill civilians. Despite the
fact that they are in a no-win guerrilla war in Iraq which, like any
other guerrilla war, always generates more civilian casualties than
combatant casualties on either side.
Robert J. Lifton is a prominent American psychiatrist who lobbied for
the inclusion of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders after his work with US
veterans from Vietnam. His studies on the behavior of those who have
committed war crimes led him to believe it does not require an unusual
level of mental illness or of personal evil to carry out such crimes.
Rather, these crimes are nearly guaranteed to occur in what Lifton
refers to as "atrocity-producing situations."
Several of his books, like /The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the
Psychology of Genocide/, examine how abnormal conditions work on normal
minds, enabling them to commit the most horrendous crimes imaginable.
Iraq today is most certainly an "atrocity-producing situation," as it
has been from the very beginning of the occupation.
The latest reported war crime, a US military raid on the al-Mustafa Shia
mosque in Baghdad on March 26th, which killed at least 16 people, is
only one instance of the phenomena that Lifton has spoken of.
An AP video of the scene shows male bodies tangled together in a bloody
mass on the floor of the Imams' living quarters - all of them with
shotgun wounds and other bullet holes. The tape also shows shell casings
of the caliber used by the US military scattered about on the floor. An
official from the al-Sadr political bloc reported that American forces
had surrounded the hospital where the wounded were taken for treatment
after the massacre.
The slaughter was followed by an instant and predictable disinformation
blitz by the US military. The second ranking US commander in Iraq, Lt.
Gen. Peter Chiarelli, told reporters "someone went in and made the scene
look different from what it was."
On March 15th, 11 Iraqis, mostly women and children, were massacred by
US troops in Balad. Witnesses told reporters that US helicopters landed
near a home, which was then stormed by US troops. Everyone visible was
rounded up and taken inside the house where they were killed. The
victims' ages ranged from six months to 75 years.
The US military acknowledged the raid, but claimed to have captured a
resistance fighter and insisted that only four people had been killed.
Their claim would have held good but for the discrepancies that the
available evidence presents. For one, the photographs that the AP
reporter took of the scene reveal a collapsed roof, three destroyed cars
and two dead cows. The other indictment comes from the detailed report
of the incident prepared by Iraq Police. It matches witness accounts and
accuses the American troops of murdering Iraqi civilians.
"The American forces gathered the family members in one room and
executed 11 persons, including five children, four women and two men.
Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed the
animals." The report includes the observation of local medics that all
of the bodies had bullet wounds in the head.
Ahmed Khalaf, the nephew of one of the victims said, "The killed family
was not part of the resistance, they were women and children. The
Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death." AP
photos of the aftermath showed the bodies of five children, two men and
four others covered in blankets being driven to a nearby hospital.
Reminiscent of Vietnam?
Another appalling example of the effect of an "atrocity-producing
situation" was experienced last November 19th in Haditha. American
troops, in retaliation against a roadside bomb attack, stormed nearby
homes and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a
three-year-old girl.
US military response? All 15 civilians were killed by the blast of the
roadside bomb.
In this case, reality refuted their claim when a student of journalism
from Haditha showed up with a video tape of the dead, still in their
nightclothes.
Killing Iraqis in their homes
<http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album28&id=Image35>
and while they are in bed
<http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album28&id=Image36>
is not news either, for during the aftermath of the November 2004
assault on Fallujah, scores of Iraqis were killed by US soldiers in this
manner
<http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album28&id=Image8>.
Neither is it news that the US military regularly targets ambulances and
medical infrastructure <http://www.brusselstribunal.org/DahrReport.htm>.
Khaled Ahmed Rsayef, whose brother and six other relatives were killed
by the troops, vividly described the blind frustration of the American
soldiers and their impulsive revenge at losing one of their own.
"American troops immediately cordoned off the area and raided two nearby
houses, shooting at everyone inside. It was a massacre in every sense of
the word," said Rasayef. While he was not present at the scene, his
15-year-old niece was and her story was corroborated by other residents
of the area who witnessed the carnage.
A quick scan of some Arab media reportage for last month exposes further
atrocities carried out by US forces in Iraq which find no mention in the
corporate media.
March 20, the Daily Dar Al-Salam reported: "US forces destroyed houses
in Hasibah and displaced the inhabitants. Also, a source at Abu Ghurayb
Secondary School said that US forces raided the school for the third
time and arrested the guard."
In December 2003, I personally witnessed US soldiers raid a secondary
school in the al-Amiriyah district of Baghdad and detain 16 children.
March 19, Al-Arabia reported: "In another development, seven people,
including a woman, were killed in a raid carried out by joint
American-Iraqi forces in Al-Dulu'iyah at dawn today. The US Army has so
far not confirmed this information."
March 9, Al Sharqiyah Television reported: "US troops opened fire at a
civilian vehicle as it passed by Al-Hadba district in the western part
of Mosul, northern Iraq. The three occupants of the vehicle were
martyred in the incident."
Throughout the three-year history of the US-led catastrophe that is the
occupation of Iraq, we have had one instance after another of brutality
meted out to innocent Iraqis, by way of direct executions or bombings
from the air, or both.
During an attack on a wedding party in May 2004, US troops killed over
40 people, mostly women and children, in a desert village on the Syrian
border of Iraq.
APTN footage showed fragments of musical instruments, blood stains, the
headless body of a child, other dead children and clumps of women's hair
in a destroyed house that was bombed by US warplanes. Other photographs
showed dead women and children, and an AP reporter identified at least
10 of the bodies as those of children. Relatives who gathered at a
cemetery outside of Ramadi, where all the bodies were buried, told
reporters that each of the 28 fresh graves contained between one and
three bodies.
The few survivors of the massacre later recounted how in the middle of
the night long after the wedding feast had ended, US jets began raining
bombs on their tents and houses.
Mrs. Shihab, a 30-year-old woman who survived the massacre, told the
Guardian, "We went out of the house and the American soldiers started to
shoot us. They were shooting low on the ground and targeting us one by
one." She added that she ran with her two little boys before they were
all shot, including herself in the leg. "I left them because they were
dead," she said of her two little boys, one of whom was decapitated by a
shell. "I fell into the mud and an American soldier came and kicked me.
I pretended to be dead so he wouldn't kill me."
Thereafter, armored military vehicles entered the village, shooting at
all the other houses and the people who were starting to assemble in the
open. Following these, two Chinook helicopters offloaded several dozen
troops, some of who set explosives in one of the homes and a building
next to it. Both exploded into rubble as the helicopters lifted off.
Mr. Nawaf, one of the survivors, said, "I saw something that nobody ever
saw in this world. There were children's bodies cut into pieces, women
cut into pieces, men cut into pieces. The Americans call these people
foreign fighters. It is a lie. I just want one piece of evidence of what
they are saying."
Hamdi Noor al-Alusi, the manager of al-Qa'im general hospital, the
nearest medical facility to the scene of the slaughter, said that of the
42 killed, 14 were children and 11 women. "I want to know why the
Americans targeted this small village," he said, "These people are my
patients. I know each one of them. What has caused this disaster?"
As usual, the US military ran a disinformation campaign saying the
target was a "suspected safe-house" for foreign fighters and denied that
any children were killed. The ever pliant US Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt
told reporters that the troops who reported back from the operation
"told us they did not shoot women and children."
Topping his ridiculous claim was the statement of Maj. Gen. James
Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division. "How many people go to the
middle of the desert ... to hold a wedding 80 miles (130km) from the
nearest civilization?"
Perhaps someone should have informed him that these farmers and nomads
often "go to the middle of the desert" because they happen to live there.
"These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naïve,"
Mattis stated before being asked by a reporter to comment on the footage
on Arabic television which showed a child's body being lowered into a
grave. His brilliant response was: "I have not seen the pictures but bad
things happen in wars. I don't have to apologize for the conduct of my men."
If the US were a member of the International Criminal Court, Maj. Gen.
Mattis may well have been in The Hague right now being tried for aiding
and abetting war crimes. How can someone holding an official position
like Mattis publicly sanction atrocities?
It is about unnatural responses such as these that Dr. Lifton has
written extensively. In a piece he wrote for the New England Journal of
Medicine in July 2004, Lifton addressed the issue of US doctors being
complicit in torturing Iraqis in Abu Ghraib. This article sheds much
light on the situation in Iraq. If we substitute "doctors" with
"soldiers" it is easy to understand why American soldiers are regularly
committing the excesses that we hear of.
Lifton writes, "American doctors at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere have
undoubtedly been aware of their medical responsibility to document
injuries and raise questions about their possible source in abuse. But
those doctors and other medical personnel were part of a command
structure that permitted, encouraged, and sometimes orchestrated torture
to a degree that it became the norm - with which they were expected to
comply - in the immediate prison environment."
He continues, "The doctors thus brought a medical component to what I
call an "atrocity-producing situation" - one so structured,
psychologically and militarily, that ordinary people can readily engage
in atrocities. Even without directly participating in the abuse, doctors
may have become socialized to an environment of torture and by virtue of
their medical authority helped sustain it. In studying various forms of
medical abuse, I have found that the participation of doctors can confer
an aura of legitimacy and can even create an illusion of therapy and
healing."
I have personally experienced this. Standing with US soldiers at
checkpoints and perimeters of operations in Iraq, I have seen them curse
and kick Iraqis, heard them threatening to kill even women and children
and then look at me as if they had merely said hello to them. My status
of journalist did not deter them because they saw no need for checks.
Having stood with soldiers anticipating that each moving car would turn
into a bomb and each passerby into a suicide bomber, I have tasted the
stress and fear these soldiers live with on a daily basis. When one of
their fellow soldiers is killed by a roadside bomb, the need for revenge
may be directed at anything. And repeated often enough, the process gets
socialized.
It's about this attitude brought on by the normalization of the abnormal
under "atrocity-producing situations" that Dr. Lifton speaks. Unless of
course we consider Mattis and others like him to be rare sociopaths who
are able to participate in atrocities without suffering lasting
emotional harm.
And it is this attitude that is responsible for the incessant
replication of wanton slaughter and madness in Iraq today.
Back in November of 2004, I wrote about 12-year-old Fatima Harouz. She
lay dazed in a crowded room in Yarmouk Hospital in Bahgdad, feebly
waving her bruised arm at flies. Her shins had been shattered
<http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album18&id=1_G>
by bullets from US soldiers when they fired through the front door of
her home in Latifiya, a small city just south of Baghdad. Small plastic
drainage bags filled with red fluid sat upon her abdomen, where she took
shrapnel from another bullet.
Her mother, who was standing with us, said, "They attacked our home and
there weren't even any resistance fighters in our area." Her brother had
been shot and killed, and his wife was wounded as their home was
ransacked by soldiers. "Before they left, they killed all of our
chickens," she added, her eyes a mixture of fear, shock and rage.
On hearing the story, a doctor looked at me sternly and asked, "This is
the freedom ... in their Disney Land are there kids just like this?"
Another wounded young woman in a nearby hospital bed, Rana Obeidy, had
been walking home with her brother. She assumed the soldiers shot her
and her brother because he was carrying a bottle of soda. This happened
in Baghdad. She had a chest wound
<http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album18&id=2_G>
where a bullet had grazed her, unlike her little brother, whom the
bullets had killed.
There exist many more such cases. Amnesty International has documented
scores of human rights violations committed by US troops in Iraq during
the first six months of the occupation. To mention but a few:
US troops shot dead and injured scores of Iraqi demonstrators in several
incidents. For example, seven people were reportedly shot dead and
dozens injured in Mosul on 15 April.
At least 15 people, including children, were shot dead and more than 70
injured in Fallujah on 29 April.
Two demonstrators were shot dead outside the Republican Palace in
Baghdad on 18 June.
On 14 May, two US armed vehicles broke through the perimeter wall of the
home of Sa'adi Suleiman Ibrahim al-'Ubaydi in Ramadi. Soldiers beat him
with rifle butts and then shot him dead as he tried to flee.
US forces shot 12-year-old Mohammad al-Kubaisi as they carried out
search operations around his house in the Hay al-Jihad area in Baghdad
on 26 June. He was carrying the family bedding to the roof of his house
when he was shot. Neighbors tried to rush him to the nearby hospital by
car, but US soldiers stopped them and ordered them to go back. By the
time they returned to his home, Mohammad al-Kubaisi was dead.
On 17 September, a 14-year-old boy was killed and six people were
injured when US troops opened fire at a wedding party in Fallujah.
On 23 September, three farmers, 'Ali Khalaf, Sa'adi Faqri and Salem
Khalil, were killed and three others injured when US troops opened a
barrage of gunfire reportedly lasting for at least an hour in the
village of al-Jisr near Fallujah. A US military official stated that
this happened when the troops came under attack but this was vehemently
denied by relatives of the dead. Later that day, US military officials
reportedly went to the farmhouse, took photographs and apologized to the
family.
This last incident ended in a way similar to the one I covered in Ramadi
in November, 2003. On the 23rd of that month during Ramadan, US soldiers
raided a home where a family was just sitting down together to break
their fast.
Three men of the family had their hands tied behind them with plastic
ties and were laid on the ground face down while the women and children
were made to stand inside a nearby storage closet.
Khalil Ahmed, 30 years old, the brother of two of the victims and cousin
with a third, wept when he described to me how after executing the three
men the soldiers completely destroyed the home
<http://209.97.202.24/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album07&id=ramadi_home>,
using Humvees with machine guns, small tanks, and gunfire from the many
troops on foot and helicopters.
"We don't know the reason why the soldiers came here. They didn't tell
us the reason. We don't know why they killed our family members." Khalil
seemed to demand an answer from me. "There are no weapons in this house,
there are no resistance fighters. So why did these people have to die? Why?"
Khalil told me that the day after the executions took place, soldiers
returned to apologize. They handed him a cake saying they were sorry
that they had been given wrong information by someone that told them
there were resistance fighters in their house.
This is only a very small sampling. The only way to prevent any of this
from being repeated ad infinitum is to remove US soldiers from their
"atrocity-producing situation" in Iraq. For it is clearer than ever that
the longer the failed, illegal occupation persists, the larger will be
the numbers of Iraqis slaughtered by the occupation forces.
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