On March 12, 2006 a gruesome crime took place in a farmhouse in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. A 14-year-old girl was raped and murdered. Her parents and her 5-year-old sister were shot in the head in another room. Their bodies were then burned to hide the evidence. A discharged United States soldier has been charged with one count of rape and four counts of murder stemming from the this crime. Four other soldiers who were allegedly involved in the killings and rape have also been charged.
The first person to arrive at the scene of the crime described the horrors he saw:
"Never in my mind could I have imagined such a gruesome sight," Abu Firas Janabi said of the day in March when his cousin, Fakhriya Taha Muhsen; her husband, Kasim Hamza Rasheed; and their two daughters were slain and their farmhouse set ablaze.
"Kasim’s corpse was in the corner of the room, and his head was smashed into pieces," he said. The 5-year-old daughter, Hadel, was beside her father, and Janabi said he could see that Fakhriya’s arms had been broken.
In another room, he found 15-year-old Abeer, naked and burned, with her head smashed in "by a concrete block or a piece of iron."
"There were burns from the bottom of her stomach to the end of her body, except for her feet," he said.
"I did not believe what I was seeing. I tried to fool myself into believing I was in a dream. But the problem was that we were not dreaming. We put a piece of cloth over her body. Then I left the house together with my wife."
As regular readers may have noticed, I have not been posting with the regularity I normally do. That is because after I wrote the above paragraphs I hit writer’s block. I had to step away from this post for a number of days before I could return to it. I also realized that if I don’t finish this post I wouldn’t be able to focus enough to write other posts. I have chronicled many atrocities and deaths in Iraq since I started blogging, but what happened in Mahmoudiya struck harder than all others. Sometimes it takes a concentrated act of insanity to give clarity to the surrounding madness. The rape and murder of a 14-year-old child and the cold-blooded murder of her 5-year-old sister is that act of insanity. American soldiers are accused of this insanity. It is time for an accounting.
Over 2500 American soldiers have died, perhaps a hundred thousand Iraqis have died, a country is in tatters, neighbors are slaughtering neighbors. This is George W Bush’s Iraq. This is America’s Iraq. Who is responsible for the chaos in Iraq? The Bush Administration is fond of saying that the Iraqis must learn to defend their own country; that they must show the will to fight for their country – and when they stand up, we will stand down. Although this kind of rhetoric makes for good campaign slogans it also shirks responsibility. The responsibility for the chaos in Iraq lies with the United States and more specifically it lies with George W Bush, our Commander-in-Chief.
President Bush insists that he has a "responsibility" to "stay the course". But he has shirked his most basic responsibility – that is, the protection of the civilian population of Iraq. The Law of Occupation as codified in the 1907 Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Conventions make it the responsibility of the occupying power to ensure public order and safety. The United States is the occupying power in Iraq. It is therefore subject to Article 43 of the Hague Regulations:
The authority of the legitimate power having in fact passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all the measures in his power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country.
The Law of Occupation has been adopted by the United States Military. Article 43 is explicitly stated in the U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare. The Manual’s chapter on Occupation states:
363. Duty to Restore and Maintain Public Order
The authority of the legitimate power having in fact passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all the measures in his power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country.(HR, art. 43.)
The United States has failed in its primary responsibility as the occupier in Iraq.
Instead of public order and safety, we have car bombs and death squads. We have Iraqis committing atrocities on Iraqis. We have Iraqis committing atrocities on Americans. We have Americans committing atrocities on Iraqis. George W Bush has lost all control in Iraq. The people of Iraq, who Mr. Bush claims to have liberated, are dying by the dozens every day.
Three years after he declared "Missions Accomplished", the Pax Americana in Iraq has brought murder and mayhem instead of public order and safety. It is not the responsibility of the Iraqis to restore order after an invasion by a hostile force; it is the responsibility of the United States. Every time President Bush says "stay the course" he is shirking his responsibility as the Commander-in-Chief of the occupying forces to protect the Iraqis. Having failed to restore order for the past three years, President Bush has encouraged and condoned continued violence in Iraq by saying "stay the course".
On Mr. Bush’s watch, people are being beheaded, shot through the head, and blown up. Children are being raped and murdered in cold blood. That is the accounting in Iraq. The account is large and getting larger still. We have turned many corners in Iraq. The latest corner sees American soldiers accused of being rapists and murderers of children. How many more corners must we turn before this atrocity of an occupation is brought to an end?
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A good start would be to frankly tell the American people and the world for that matter that he and his cronies miscalculated and that the subsequent mess is his (our) fault.
Because of their arrogance they won’t go there, but it’s a more likely dream than getting them to admit why we really went there.
Well said, wished that those who will vote Republican the next time and see it as a ‘must do’ and who are just too hardenened by the propaganda and patriotic irrelevant nonsense, that they would think about this. they are easily persuaded that it’s the victim’s fault..how interesting that that is a common thread with such mentality..shirking is putting it nicely but you are absolutely correct with all the statements you made. I’m with you 100%..
Ingrid
I think I found all the things I used to love about Americans and the USA, the honesty and compassion,in your statement. Thank you very much for that. To know what l”liberated” Baghdad is like now, you may want to read: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2268585,00.html
I still think Hussein ousted is really good riddance, but trying to do it on the cheap wasn’t a good idea. The Administration claimed, you break it, you own it, when they said they had no intention of bungling it. Well, they broke it. Now the poor Iraqis and all the honest young men and women in your army have their share, too. I long for the moment, when Cheneybushrumsfeldrove pay the price. And I mourn for every Iraqi and American kid who will not live to see the day. Right now your President is enjoying a barbecue with our chancellor in Germany. He had to travel that many miles to find friends! MASH, go on doing what you are doing so well!
Good job my friend. Your compassion and generosity is deffinatly rare in this world.
Good post, Mash. The real question is this: what incoming President will have to clean up the mess after 2008? This lame duck administration won’t do a thing but “stay the course”.
Guys, this is not the “compassionate conservatism” that we were conned with in 2000.
Robbie, you are right about 2008. Whoever inherits this mess is going to be cleaning up for a long time.
I forgot to add that whomever we elect better get two terms. It might take that long, possibly longer, to make things right.
The longer the Iraq war continues with the uncritical support of much of the right wing, the more I sense a world getting further out of whack. I guess during the Vietnam War we faced the same issues and polarizations and I’m simply too young to remember. Then it was communism, today it’s Islam (no matter what the Decider says about it not being a war on Islam). So maybe it’s simply an updated messed up world?
I do not understand how a rational person can look at Iraq and conclude that “staying the course” is a strategy or will do Iraq or the West any good.
Doro said “I still think Hussein ousted is really good riddance,” which in the first couple of years was the rallying cry of the supporters of the war – no WMD, but would you rather have Saddam in power? As the war drags on, I hear less of that – we’ve kind of forgotten about Saddam, especially now that Bush is forced to try diplomacy with two countries that pose more serious threats to the US than Iraq – Iran and Korea.
Looking at Iraq and more importantly the US responsibility for turning it into a living hell, I would strongly suggest that no, we are not better off without Saddam. During his war with Iran and the follow up to the first gulf war he killed at even greater levels than the US’s Iraq. Of course, he was funded by the US and hugged by Rumsfeld when he was killing Iranians and Iraqis by the hundreds of thousands in the 80s. But day to day, outside the two wars, Iraqis could drive to work without being kidnapped, tortured and killed.
If Saddam was killilng innocnet Iraqis at checkpoints at the rate the US has since the war began, those killings alone would have led to charges of crimes against humanity in his current trial. I’m no pacifist, but this is no way to wage a war.
Looking at the current state of Iraq, who’s better off today than they were with Saddam? Stockholders and combat pay employees of Haliburton don’t count. Tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would still be alive (they’re not important enough to track that closely, just ask the US). We managed to take one of the most secular nations in the Middle East and turn it into a cauldron of religious hatred and warfare – and that’s before talking about the Jews and Christians…
I don’t know that the US will ever recover from the damage we’ve done to our image with Muslims, but especially Arabs, with our heavy-handed, racist and deadly occupation of an Arab country.
http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/20060627_occupation_iraq_hearts_minds/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/07/AR2006070701155_pf.html
Whew!
http://www.docstrangelove.com/smilies/yahoo_clap.gif
beautifully stated.
MHB. Please let me explain. Over here we never believed in WMD’s and getting rid of Saddam was in our opinion the fallout of a war, that was started for corporate interests only. Still I’m glad there is one more dictator facing a court, stripped of his powers: A ridiculous querulous old man, nobody is afraid of. And Udai and Qusay are dead, and throw in the butcher Al-Sarkawi for good measure. I am convinced it would have been possible for an intelligent administration to get rid of Saddam without a war. Remember the Berlin disco bombings that Lybia masterminded? They pulled Gaddhafis teeth good and proper with sanctions, would have worked with Saddam, too. It had even strated to work out (guess why he hadn’t any WMD’s). The agenda of the Bush Administration landed hundreds of thousands of people in an unbelievable mess.I am no supporter of this or any other war, but yes I’m still glad Saddam is gone.
And yes I fully agree, whoever inherits this brave new bushworld, will have a lot of sorting to do. Where to begin???
Doro, I meant to add a sentence that I wasn’t lumping you in with the everything we’ve done has been worth it to get rid of Saddam crowd…
Well stated Mash. It’s the point that most people miss. Restoring order was the FIRST responsibility of the occupying force. It was their obligation under international law. Bush should never have invaded unless he could GUARANTEE that he could restore order.
He fell at the first fence because he assumed that democracy was the opposite of tyranny and that if he removed one the other would flow in and take it’s place.
His mistake was that anarchy is actually the opposite of tyranny and that is what he has unleashed.
I wonder, having just read your excellent post, if the Bush Administration’s adamant rejection of “occupying force” to describe US troops in Iraq is due more for legal reasons than political ones.
Rejecting the term would not only allow Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al to conveniently shirk their responsibilities, but would also give them room to confidently assert before the American public that neither the Hague Regulations, Geneva Conventions nor Article 43 of the U.S. Army Field Manual applies to our engagement in Iraq because, well, we are “liberators” not “occupants”.
MHB, that Nir Rosen article that you linked to is a must read for anyone trying to understand the situation in Iraq.
Kel, your point is rather important. Democracy does not grow organically and is not simply the absence of tyranny. Well put.
Alfredo, I would not be surprised because the Bus Administration has been parsing language for legalistic loopholes on just about everything.
doro, as far as Saddam was concerned. He was the butcher of Baghdad long before this war. Yet, curing a headache by killing the patient is a pretty dumb thing to do.
Mash writes: “[…] the Bus[h] Administration has been parsing language for legalistic loopholes on just about everything.”
Wait a second. Isn’t this the same administration that pledged to restore honor and dignity to the White House in response to Clinton’s penchant for legal loopholes?
😕
Alfredo, I think their slogan is “From Blow Jobs to Snow Jobs”
Mash
Thought provoking and well written blog. This post gives me a hollow gut.
“Losing Our Humanity One Atrocity At A Time”
or proving it?
Will, I hope we are not proving our (in)humanity – though I will admit things dont look too good these days. I simply cannot get the picture of that little girl out of my head. Mr. Bush should frame that picture and keep it in the Oval Office as a reminder of the human cost of war and why it should not be waged so cavalierly.
Mash,
I’ve been blabbing about Saddam, which brought a discussion well away from what you initially posted. Sorry for that. I just want to stress once more, that your post has affected me deeply. As long as there are people who speak up against torture and war crimes not all is lost. I like your well informed, compassionate and thorough style a lot. Keep on going.
Thanks doro
doro, please feel free to comment on anything you like. Comments belong to everyone and the post is just a starting point.
Thanks for reading my posts. This particular post was gut wrenching. Ever since I became a parent it has been especially difficult to see children suffer. Someone quoted in one of the comments about Jesus saying that children belong the Kingdom of Heaven. I wonder what kind of monster you have to be to rape a child and then kill her. And what kind of a monster do you have to be to put a bullet into the head of a 5 year old. I think of my own 5 year old and I want to just scream at this insane world.
Mash,
my boys are 8 and 9 I know exactly how you feel.
Peace
Now, what will happened to that two brothers who were just plain lucky to be at school on that day? I don’t know, the pain of losing two sisters, a mother and a father. I really don’t know. I wonder, if that girl will get justice, if those dirty sobs will be executed or something like that …
As a young muslim adult, I really like the idea, of, “Getting rid of Saddam hussein, and making iraq become a democracy”. But now, am just confused.
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