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?
The one-month stay of execution for Mirza Tahir Hussain has 
