U.S. Accused in More Iraq Civilian Deaths
AP News - Fri Jun 2, 10:14 AM
A third set of allegations that U.S. troops have deliberately killed civilians is fueling a furor in Iraq and drawing strong condemnations from government and human rights official. "It looks like the killing of Iraqi civilians is becoming a daily phenomenon," the chairman of the Iraqi Human Rights Association, Muayed al-Anbaki, said Friday after video ran on television of children and adults slain in a raid in Ishaqi in March. ...
In March, the U.S. military said four people died when they attacked from the ground and air a house suspected of holding an al-Qaida operative. The house was destroyed.
But video shot by an AP Television News cameraman at the time and previously unaired shows at least five children dead. The video shows at least one adult male and four young children with obvious entry wounds to the head. One child has an obvious entry wound to the side caused by a bullet.
Local Iraqis said there were 11 total dead, and charged that they were killed by U.S. troops before the house was leveled.
The video includes an unidentified man saying "children were stuck in the room, alone and surrounded."
"After they handcuffed them, they shot them dead. Later, they struck the house with their planes. They wanted to hide the evidence. Even a 6-month-old infant was killed. Even the cows were killed too," he said. ...
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June 2, 2006
The Meaning of Haditha: Murderous depravity and empire-building go hand-in-hand
by Justin Raimondo
... [War critic/USMC apologist John Murtha] is full of excuses for American soldiers who murder children as young as 1 year old:
"They were so stressed out, they went into houses and killed children, women and children. 24 people they killed. Now this is the kind of stress they are under. Listen, I don't excuse it, but I understand what's happening and the responsibility goes right to the top. This is something that should not have happened, that should have been investigated, they've already relieved three commanding officers … but this is the kind of stuff … stress is going to cause these kind of things. That's why I'm so upset about it."
"Stress," my a**. We are not talking about National Guard units, here: these are U.S. Marines, highly-trained killing machines who know the rules of war, know the difference between a woman with a baby in her arms and a group of insurgents, and know, furthermore, that the war they are fighting is supposed to be against terrorism. Would they succumb to "stress" like some housewife who's run out of vacuum-cleaner bags, go ballistic, and slaughter 24 innocents, including women and very young children, if they didn't think they could get away with it? In short, would they have done it if it wasn't policy – directed, encouraged, and condoned by their commanders?
Hell, no.
Yes, Murtha is right: those Marines aren't going to take the fall all by themselves, the responsibility does go right to the top – but they, as individuals, are not absolved. They pulled the trigger, they slaughtered children, fer chrissake, executed them in cold blood. So they're responsible – right? If they were Iraqis, there wouldn't be any question about that: we wouldn't be talking about "stress," now would we? Does the fact that they're Americans somehow ameliorate their crimes? I don't think so.
Last year, I wrote about the "El Salvador option" – the emerging strategy of this administration in fighting a losing war, which amounts to throwing off all constraints and simply terrorizing the Iraqi people into cowed submission. We are now seeing the results of this policy of desperation in practice. Haditha is not just an "isolated incident," but evidence of a new strategic orientation by the U.S. military – a scorched-earth policy designed to stave off the humiliating prospect of impending defeat. ...
<http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9081>
Carl