Archive for June 2nd, 2006


The logic of war crimes in a criminal war

From the national ANSWER Coalition listserv comes this clear explanation of why the massacres of civilians in Iraq is no aberration.

By: Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Brian Becker (Verheyden-Hilliard is a civil rights attorney and co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice. Becker is the National Coordinator of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition.)

The logic of war crimes in a criminal war 

When U.S. marines carried out the savage and systematic execution of Iraqi families and small children in Haditha last November, it was initially reported as a “battle” with “insurgent casualties.” A photo of a kneeling Iraqi civilian moments before he was murdered was taken by a Marine using his cell phone camera. Other pictures of the corpses of small children, families lying in pools of blood in their homes, students gunned down in a taxi are all part of the documentary evidence.

The massacre in Haditha took place one year after a much larger massacre of civilians in Fallujah. Four to six thousand civilians are estimated to have been killed in Fallujah in November 2004, according to credible independent sources reporting from the ground. The truth of Iraq is that there were other massacres almost every week in between the events that have made Haditha and Fallujah famous cities: famous in the way no city wants to become well known throughout the world. The attack on the people of Iraq and ensuing occupation by the United States government has caused the deaths of well over 100,000 Iraqi people (the British medical journal, The Lancet, reported an excess of 100,000 dead eighteen months ago).

“Ethics Training” to Prevent Massacres

Now that the butchery in Haditha is making headlines in the United States, high ranking officials in the Pentagon as well as the President are promising an investigation. They have even announced “ethics training” for combat troops. The implication is that something unusual happened when unarmed civilians, including terrified small children and their mothers who were trying to shield them, were riddled with bullets by U.S. soldiers. Were they rogue soldiers lawlessly breaking ranks from an otherwise pristine mission aimed at liberating Iraqis? That is pure fiction. Those who criticize the management of the war are talking complete nonsense when they say that the actions of these Marines will make it “harder to carry out the mission in Iraq.”

The Haditha massacre will not make the Iraqis think differently about the United States or Bush. It will only confirm their view, an outlook shaped by the cruel, cold-hard reality of the past years.

A Routine Phenomenon

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For the sake of the nation

Someone give Bush a blow job so we can impeach him

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Ishaqi massacre: more slaughter

New ‘Iraq massacre’ tape emerges

The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians.

The video appears to challenge the US military’s account of events that took place in the town of Ishaqi in March.

According to the Americans, the building collapsed under heavy fire killing four people - a suspect, two women and a child.

But a report filed by Iraqi police accused US troops of rounding up and deliberately shooting 11 people in the house, including five children and four women, before blowing up the building.

The video tape obtained by the BBC shows a number of dead adults and children at the site with what our world affairs editor John Simpson says were clearly gunshot wounds.

Video

(If video doesn’t play, click the “international users” info, then it’ll play. At least it did for me.)

[tags]ishaqi massacre[/tags]

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Hamandiya: Marine Corps to file murder charges

Yet a third case. Haditha. Ishaqi, and now Hamandiya.

The Marine Corps will file criminal charges, including some murder counts, against several enlisted Marines and a Navy corpsman in the fatal shooting of an Iraqi civilian in April, officials close to the investigation said Thursday.

The Marines and the corpsman were brought back to Camp Pendleton in recent weeks as the Naval Criminal Investigative Service probed the April 26 fatal shooting of a man in Hamandiya.

[tags]Hamandiya murder[/tags]

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Chronology of Haditha massacre

A useful reference

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