My Lai Revisited: Getting Away With Murder

Posted on June 1, 2006 by Mash

 

My Lai Massacre

 

What is the appropriate punishment for murdering 504 innocent men, women and children? Death penalty? Life in prison? House arrest? If you answered house arrest than you win a cookie. Only one man received punishment for the slaughter of innocents at My Lai village in Vietnam on the morning of March 16, 1968. His punishment was 3 and a half years of house arrest. Many are now comparing the Haditha killings in Iraq with the massacre at My Lai. If the comparison holds then once again war criminals will escape unpunished. I for one hope that in the case of Haditha there will be justice where there was none in My Lai.

Now let me tell you the story of what happened one morning in a village in Vietnam…

On the evening of March 15, 1968, Captain Ernest Medina informed the men of Charlie Company that their orders were to destroy the village of My Lai the next morning. Medina said that there would be no women and children in the village at the time and they were likely to find the 48th Battalion of the Viet Cong in the village. Their mission would be to destroy the enemy, kill the livestock, poison the wells and set fire to My Lai.

My LaiOn the morning of March 16, 1968 shortly before 8 a.m. helicopters carrying the men of Charlie Company landed just outside the village of My Lai. By 8 a.m. the first platoon of Charlie Company commanded by 24-year-old Lt. William Calley entered My Lai. The platoon began their search and destroy mission and found that the only people left in the village were old men, women and children. No one of fighting age was left in the village. The orgy of killing began. A man was stabbed in the back with a bayonet. Another man was thrown down a well and a grenade followed. Fifteen to twenty older women were gathered together and shot in the back of their heads. Eighty people were herded together in the village plaza and mowed down by Lt. Calley and a soldier named Paul Meadlo. Young children and babies were shot. Little girls’ breasts were fondled. An army photographer named Ronald Haeberle arrived in My Lai as the third platoon of Charlie Company moved in. He photographed and witnessed about 30 GIs kill about 100 civilians.

Lt. William Calley gathered about 80 civilians near a drainage ditch on the edge of the village. Calley ordered his platoon to throw the old men, women and children into the ditch. Most of his men refused but 3 or 4 obeyed. Calley ordered his men to shoot the civilians in the ditch. Some refused and some obeyed. Calley joined the soldiers in slaughtering the civilians in the ditch. One 2-year-old child tried to escape and ran toward the village. Calley grabbed the child, threw him into the ditch, and shot him.

Chief Warrant Officer Hugh ThomsonChief Warrant Officer Hugh Thomson was piloting a helicopter above My Lai and saw the horror unfolding below. He landed his helicopter near the ditch and put himself between Calley and the civilians. He instructed his crew chief to gun down the Americans if they opened fire on the civilians again. Thomson managed to evacuate 10 civilians, including 5 children and a baby who was still clinging to her dead mother.

By noon the carnage was over.

Hugh Thomson filed a complaint alleging numerous war crimes at My Lai. The complaint went nowhere. The official Army version was that 128 enemy were killed and 20 civilians were inadvertently killed. However, word started to spread about the massacre from the GIs of Charlie Company. Some GIs of Charlie Company talked to a soldier named Ronald Ridenhour. Ridenhour decided to send a letter about the My Lai massacre to President Nixon, the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the State Department and some members of Congress. Almost all of his letters were ignored. One recipient of the letter, Representative Morris Udall, urged a full investigation of Ridenhour’s allegations.

Lt. William CalleyEventually the Army charged 26 enlisted men and officers, including Lt. Calley and Captain Medina, with crimes related to the My Lai massacre. The charges against 25 enlisted men and officers would eventually be dropped. In March 1971 Lt. Calley was convicted by a military court martial of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison. Two days later, however, President Richard Nixon ordered Calley released from prison and confined to house arrest instead. On November 9, 1974 the Secretary of the Army paroled Calley and he was released from house arrest. In total, Lt. William Calley, the only man ever punished for the My Lai massacre, spent 3 and one half years under house arrest.

The oldest human being murdered at My Lai was 82 years old and the youngest was 1 year old. Lt. Calley spent a little under 3 days under house arrest for each civilian murdered at My Lai. President Nixon called the My Lai massacre "an isolated incident."

The public sentiment in the United States was overwhelmingly against the conviction of Lt. Calley. According to an opinion poll conducted for President Nixon on April 1, 1971, 79% said that the sentence of life imprisonment for Lt. Calley was "too harsh".

However, the My Lai massacre eventually caused the public to sour on the Vietnam War. Support for the war rapidly dissipated after the horrors of My Lai seeped into the American consciousness.

The lessons of My Lai are still relevant today. We learned at My Lai that soldiers are capable of and sometime do commit atrocities during war. We learned that even in the bleakest of times, and perhaps because of them, heroes emerge. We learned that war crimes sometimes go unpunished even when the evidence is overwhelming. We learned that political expediency can trump justice when a President wishes it.

After My Lai the expectation is not great that if the soldiers involved in the Haditha killings are found guilty that they will be given anything more than a slap on the wrist. There was plenty of public outrage and international outrage after My Lai, but the punishment did not come close to matching the magnitude of the crime. There is likely to be public outrage over Haditha, but public outrage is not enough.

This time justice must be served. For the victims, for the American people, and for the sake of humanity. Otherwise massacres like My Lai and Haditha will continue to occur and the guilty will continue to go unpunished. The lesson will continue to be that our ideals state that we do not do these things but our actions tolerate these atrocities with a wink and a nod.

Posted in Human Rights, Vietnam | 3 Comments

Hearts And Minds In Iraq

Posted on May 31, 2006 by Mash

Iraqi Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie with President Bush[Via AMERICABlog] The new Iraqi Ambassador to the United States, Samir Sumaidaie, presented his credentials to President Bush yesterday. With him however he brought more than his credentials, he also brought with him a personal story of the quagmire the United States finds itself in Iraq. Mr. Sumaidaie brought with him the story of his cousin’s death at the hands of American Marines.

After meeting with President Bush, the Iraqi Ambassador discussed his cousin’s killing with Wolf Blitzer on CNN:

BLITZER: But even months before the incident in November, you lost a cousin at Haditha in a separate battle involving United States Marines.

SUMAIDAIE: Well, that was not a battle at all. Marines were doing house-to-house searches, and they went into the house of my cousin. He opened the door for them.

His mother, his siblings were there. He led them into the bedroom of his father. And there he was shot.

BLITZER: Who shot him?

SUMAIDAIE: A member of the Marines.

BLITZER: Why did they shoot him?

SUMAIDAIE: Well, they said that they shot him in self-defense. I find that hard to believe because, A, he is not at all a violent — I mean, I know the boy. He was [in] a second-year engineering course in the university. Nothing to do with violence. All his life has been studies and intellectual work.

Totally unbelievable. And, in fact, they had no weapon in the house. They had one weapon which belonged to the school where his father was a headmaster. And it had no ammunition in it. And he led them into the room to show it to them.

BLITZER: So what you’re suggesting, your cousin was killed in cold blood, is that what you’re saying, by United States Marines?

SUMAIDAIE: I believe he was killed intentionally. I believe that he was killed unnecessarily. And unfortunately, the investigations that took place after that sort of took a different course and concluded that there was no unlawful killing.

I would like further investigation. I have, in fact, asked for the report of the last investigation, which was a criminal investigation, by the way.

[Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq] is aware of all the details, because he’s kept on top of it. And it was he who rejected the conclusions of the first investigation. I have since asked formally for the report, but it’s been nearly two months, and I have not received it.

This is a serious charge and you may be tempted to believe that the Ambassador is simply jumping on the Haditha bandwagon to score some political and decidedly undiplomatic points. However, Sumaidaie raised this incident with the United States military nearly a year ago while he was the Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations. In addition to raising the issue with the US military the Ambassador also sent a letter to his colleagues. According to the BBC:

In a letter to colleagues, Mr Sumaidaie explained in detail what happened to his cousin Mohammed al-Sumaidaie on 25 June in the village of al-Sheikh Hadid.

He said Mohammed, an engineering student, was visiting his family home when some 10 marines with an Egyptian interpreter knocked on the door at 1000 local time.

He opened the door to them and was "happy to exercise some of his English", said the ambassador.

When asked if there were any weapons in the house, Mohammed took the marines to a room where there was a rifle with no live ammunition.

It was the last the family saw him alive. Shortly after, another brother was dragged out and beaten and the family was ordered to wait outside.

As the marines left "smiling at each other" an hour later, the interpreter told the mother they had killed Mohammed, said Mr Sumaidaie.

"In the bedroom, Mohammed was found dead and laying in a clotted pool of his blood. A single bullet had penetrated his neck."

The Ambassador’s own story highlights the confused and tragic situation of the United States military in Iraq. The Ambassador is no insurgent sympathizer. He is Western educated and is a supporter of the US military intervention. The killing of the Ambassador’s cousin, the killings in Haditha, and another killing that is also under investigation in Iraq just add to an emerging pattern of civilian killings and intimidation occurring in Iraq.

We have placed a heavily armed fighting force in the middle of a large civilian population who have been declared friendly by our Government. Our military is fighting a largely unseen insurgent force whose weapon of choice is the IED. In this circumstance the easiest target of revenge is the civilian population. It is tempting to kick down doors and interrogate and harass the population to try to gain intelligence about the insurgency. It is the way of heavy-handed counter-insurgency campaigns. It is also the surest way to lose the battle for hearts and minds. We have to ask ourselves if we are doing more harm than good in Iraq. We cannot destroy the village to save it.

The Bush Administration needs to step back and take a good look at its Iraq policy. Instead of writing off Abu Ghraib, Haditha and other atrocities as isolated incidents, it needs to ask itself if our policy in Iraq is leading to these atrocities. Upon examination I think the answer is likely to be yes. Then the question really is, "Are we as a nation willing to accept the loss of our moral authority to further our policy in Iraq?" I know what my answer to that question is; what is yours? Our collective answer as a nation will determine whether the United States withdraws from Iraq or continues down its current path.

Posted in Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Iraq | 4 Comments

The Great Game

Posted on May 30, 2006 by Mash

 

Remnants of an Army

 

On January 13, 1842 a wounded and battered British military doctor, Dr. William Brydon, riding atop a dying horse arrived at the British garrison in Jalalabad. He was the only survivor of the 16,000 strong British Army that was in full retreat from Kabul. The remaining soldiers had been slaughtered by the Afghanis in the snowy mountain passes between Kabul and Jalalabad.

The British discovered in 1842 what every other conquering army has come to learn – that Afghanistan is easily taken but never kept. Since the time of Alexander The Great conquering armies have made forays into Afghanistan only to find that it is the graveyard of occupying armies. Nonetheless in the 19th century the British and the Russians competed for control of Afghanistan in what has come to be known as The Great Game. This Game has always been played with the foreign power installing a puppet regime in Afghanistan, which eventually is destroyed by local forces. As The Great Game has been played out the Afghan distaste of foreign occupiers has grown.

The Great Game continued in the 20th Century with the Americans replacing the British as Russia’s adversary after the Second World War. On Christmas day in 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and installed a puppet regime. With that action The Great Game between the United States and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan was launched in earnest. Over the next 10 years the Soviets unsuccessfully battled an insurgency, the Afghan Mujahideen, backed by the Central Intelligence Agency. The Soviet Army lost over 15,000 soldiers in Afghanistan while over a million Afghans lost their lives in the same period. Yet after 10 years of fighting the Soviet Union was unsuccessful in breaking the back of the insurgency. On February 15, 1989 the battered and demoralized Soviet Red Army completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan. The humiliation of the Afghan campaign and the financial strain put upon the Soviet economy by the invasion and occupation played a significant part in the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union. The 10-year Soviet occupation also left the economy and society of Afghanistan in tatters.

More than a decade later the United States finds itself as the occupying force in Afghanistan playing The Great Game once again. In response to the attacks of September 11th 2001, on October 7, 2001 the United States launched an aerial bombing campaign in Afghanistan that led to the rapid collapse of the Taliban regime. After the routing of the Taliban the United States installed the government of Hamid Karzai in power. Subsequently an election was held that legitimized the Karzai government.

As in previous occupations of Afghanistan what appeared initially as a routing of the local forces is beginning to appear as anything but that. Over the past few years the seemingly defeated Taliban have regrouped into an ever more potent insurgency. As the Afghan population has soured of the continued foreign occupation the Taliban have regained support as the defenders of Afghanistan. In recent weeks there has been heavy fighting between the American military and the Taliban in the South of Afghanistan. This renewed fighting has led to significant loss of civilian life. With each additional civilian death the United States is rapidly losing hearts and minds in Afghanistan. The inexorable logic of occupation is leading to ever growing resentment of the occupier amongst the local population.

The situation in Afghanistan has become increasingly more volatile. Any act or accident by the United States is now viewed by the Afghans as an act of provocation. In this context the fatal traffic accident in Kabul yesterday involving an American military truck was the spark that was needed to set ablaze Afghan frustration. Yesterday’s riots will undoubtedly be brought under control by the Afghan Government. But by doing so, the Government will inevitably kill or injure Afghan civilians. Any heavy-handed Government tactic will be viewed by the Afghan people with suspicion. The Government will be seen as doing the bidding of the United States. In appealing for calm President Hamid Karzai may have done more harm then good by calling the rioters enemies of Afghanistan:

Karzai, speaking on national television Monday night, condemned "opportunists" for exploiting a simple traffic accident and said people responsible for the violence would be sought and treated severely. "Accidents happen all over the world," he said. "This is not a reason to fight or destroy. Those who have done this are the enemies of Afghanistan." [Emphasis added by me.]

Karzai will be seen more as an American puppet in the aftermath of yesterday’s riots in which Government troops killed up to 20 people. The Washington Post reports on the underlying resentment brought to the fore by the traffic accident:

The riots exposed the bitter resentment that many Afghans harbor toward the U.S.-led military forces that have been stationed here since the Taliban was driven from power. It also reflected the deep ambivalence many Afghan Muslims feel toward the growing Western influence here that includes high fashion and fast-food shops, sprawling aid compounds and even rap music.

The public mood has also been tense since a U.S. airstrike killed at least 16 civilians last week in a village in southern Afghanistan, the scene of heightened fighting this spring. Afghan and U.S. officials blamed Taliban insurgents who had taken shelter in village compounds and then fired at U.S.-led forces.

This is a situation ripe with danger for the United States at a time when it is preoccupied with the worsening civil war in Iraq. The United States and the Karzai Government are in a no win situation. If they allow the rioting and unrest to continue unchecked Kabul and perhaps the rest of the country will become destabilized. On the other hand if the Karzai Government clamps down on the population, as it has begun to do, it will lose any legitimacy it may have and will be seen as a tool of the occupier. Either way the Karzai Government is likely to go the way of other Governments that were installed by occupiers in Afghanistan.

The United States occupation of Afghanistan will come to an end at some time in the future. The only unknowns are whether or not the American military will suffer the fate of previous occupiers and what kind of society the Americans will leave behind in Afghanistan. The Soviets endured 10 years of pinpricks from the Afghan insurgency before the cost of occupation became too great to bear. What will be the breaking point for the United States? The challenge for the United States is to break the cycle of The Great Game and leave behind a functioning Afghan society that does not lead to future interventions and instability. Meeting this challenge requires the United States to be fully engaged not only militarily but also diplomatically. History has shown that foreign militaries have never been able to impose their will on the Afghan people for an extended period of time. If there is a recipe for success in Afghanistan it does not lie in the use of force. With the United States preoccupied in Iraq, the situation in Afghanistan promises to slip away toward failure. Urgent attention is required and may not be forthcoming from the Administration of George W Bush. Thus another predictable chapter of The Great Game may be written.

Posted in Afghanistan, Foreign Policy | 10 Comments

Tim Russert Calls For Blood In Nir Rosen’s Killing Fields

Posted on May 29, 2006 by Mash

Tim Russert lives in the faux reality created by George W Bush about Iraq. He is apparently convinced that America will stand down when Iraqis get mowed down.

Appearing on CNN’s Late Edition Russert left the comfortable inanity of being a moderator to wade into foreign policy punditry. That led to the following manly exchange between Blitzer and Russert:

BLITZER: He’s trying to balance a realistic assessment. At the same time, he uses the phrase "a turning point," which may or may not happen.

RUSSERT: We do not know if this will be a turning point. The reason is, are there enough young Iraqis who will step forward and say, "I believe in this new democracy. And to prove that, I’m willing to shed my blood and give my life."

It is then and only then can Americans start coming home. That’s the unanswered question. Do the Iraqis believe, across the board, in their government and willing to take on the insurgency without any question? [Emphasis added by me.]

How noble of Russert to offer up the blood of young Iraqis so that Mr. Bush’s war on reality can be won. It would be noble if it reflected even a basic understanding of the situation in Iraq. The Iraq mess moved well beyond a fight between insurgents and Americans a long long time ago. It is now a civil war with militias on all sides carrying out ethnic cleansing, torture and wholesale massacres. In this civil war the American military are merely another militia. But unfortunately for Russert, instead of seeing reality, he has bought hook line and sinker Mr. Bush’s talking points about "suiciders".

Mr. Russert might have benefited by listening to the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq Barham Salih, a Kurd, who was on Late Edition before Russert. In a telling exchange Salih balks when Blitzer asks him if the Kurdish militia, the peshmerga, should have to disarm:

BLITZER: The British defense secretary said this on Tuesday. Des Browne said, "Armed militias are widespread and a grave threat to the stability of Iraq and the rule of law. Any government, if it is to survive, must establish a monopoly on the use of force. At the moment the Iraqi government clearly lacks this."

Is the new Iraqi government of Prime Minister al-Maliki taking steps already, right now, to disband, to disarm the various militias?

SALIH: The prime minister made this issue a priority. And this is one of the most difficult issues that will face this government and perhaps this government will be judged by.

We know who the terrorists are. And the terrorists are on one side and the rest of the people of Iraq are on the other. Everybody should be united in tracking the terrorists.

But the issue of organized armed groups who are acting outside the state and outside the law are becoming a serious problem for our politics and our society. And we have to deal with it.

The prime minister has committed to taking serious steps in that direction. And all the key parliamentary blocs are supporting him in this mission.

I cannot say that this will be done easily because we have a serious problem in that context and certainly in certain areas of Iraq. But the prime minister and the government are determined and committed to resolving this issue.

We know that it will be a bit difficult, but we are committed to doing so because without that, there will be no stability in Iraq.

BLITZER: Let me play for you what the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, told me last Sunday here on "Late Edition." Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZALMAY KHALILZAD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: Well, it’s still a challenge, an important challenge.

The prime minister has said, and we agree with him, that those ministries should be occupied by people who are unifiers, that are not people with ties to militias, people who are broadly accepted by the Iraqis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: This militia issue, clearly a critical issue. I assume you want the Badr militia, the Mahdi militia to be disbanded. What about the Peshmerga?

You’re a Kurd. The Peshmerga is the militia of the Kurds in the north, some 70,000 militia members in the Peshmerga.

Will that be disbanded as well?

SALIH: I’ve just come back from Kurdistan. I was on a short trip to Sulaymaniyah and Erbil. Thank God the situation there is stable and secure because the Peshmergas have been enrolled in the security services, the police.

And in accordance with the Iraqi constitution, there is a provision that every federal region in Iraq can have its regional guards, very much like your National Guards in the United States.

So the Peshmerga is really not an issue in dispute as such. The issue of militias and the issue of bringing in people in charge of the security portfolio that are unifiers and are seen by most Iraqis as competent and non-sectarian will be an important challenge for this government.

And this is why the prime minister really has taken his time and is consulting and consulting. And I hope, at the end of this process, we will bring in people who can do this difficult task. And we’ll deal with the issues of militias by laying ahead of us a road map for rehabilitation and reintegration of these people back into public life of Iraqi politics or Iraqi state.

BLITZER: So let me just press you on this point. So there’s one standard, as you see it, for the Peshmerga, which will be integrated into the new Iraqi security force, another for the Shiite militias, the Badr militia, the Mahdi militia?

Is that what you’re saying? Those militias should be disbanded but not necessarily the Peshmerga?

SALIH: No, I’m not saying that at all. The Peshmerga — and you have to remember the historical context as well. The Kurdistan regional government has been in existence over the last 14 years. And this issue of militias has been dealt with for almost a decade now. That has been dealt with, by and large.

But even with the Iraqi constitution that was ratified a few months back, there is a single provision calling for the establishment of regional guards, very much like the United States, where you have a national guards for the states.

But these, all military units of Iraq, including the Peshmergas or the regional guards of Kurdistan, will be going back to the same chain of command, ending in Baghdad at the ministry of defense and the prime minister.

This is where the crux of the problem in Iraq lies. The Kurds want the Shia and Sunni to disarm. The Shia want the Sunni and Kurds to disarm. The Sunni want the Shia and Kurds to disarm. Iraq has fractured across sectarian lines with each ethnic group with its own militia. A so-called "Unity" Government cannot survive if, as you just heard from the Deputy Prime Minister, each group wants an exception to protect their militias from disarming. This, Mr. Russert and Mr. Bush, is a recipe for a civil war.

Against this backdrop comes an incisive article in The Washington Post written by Nir Rosen. Mr. Rosen has spent nearly two years in Iraq following the disintegration of Iraqi society. His article is a gripping first hand look into the heart of the problem:

Every morning the streets of Baghdad are littered with dozens of bodies, bruised, torn, mutilated, executed only because they are Sunni or because they are Shiite. Power drills are an especially popular torture device.

I have spent nearly two of the three years since Baghdad fell in Iraq. On my last trip, a few weeks back, I flew out of the city overcome with fatalism. Over the course of six weeks, I worked with three different drivers; at various times each had to take a day off because a neighbor or relative had been killed. One morning 14 bodies were found, all with ID cards in their front pockets, all called Omar. Omar is a Sunni name. In Baghdad these days, nobody is more insecure than men called Omar. On another day a group of bodies was found with hands folded on their abdomens, right hand over left, the way Sunnis pray. It was a message. These days many Sunnis are obtaining false papers with neutral names. Sunni militias are retaliating, stopping buses and demanding the jinsiya , or ID cards, of all passengers. Individuals belonging to Shiite tribes are executed.

…

At first, the dominant presence of the U.S. military — with its towering vehicles rumbling through Baghdad’s streets and its soldiers like giants with their vests and helmets and weapons — seemed overwhelming. The Occupation could be felt at all times. Now in Baghdad, you can go days without seeing American soldiers. Instead, it feels as if Iraqis are occupying Iraq, their masked militiamen blasting through traffic in anonymous security vehicles, shooting into the air, angrily shouting orders on loudspeakers, pointing their Kalashnikovs at passersby.

Today, the Americans are just one more militia lost in the anarchy. They, too, are killing Iraqis.

…

The world wonders if Iraq is on the brink of civil war, while Iraqis fear calling it one, knowing the fate such a description would portend. In truth, the civil war started long before Samarra and long before the first uprisings. It started when U.S. troops arrived in Baghdad. It began when Sunnis discovered what they had lost, and Shiites learned what they had gained. And the worst is yet to come. [Emphasis added by me.]

If you still believe that the war in Iraq is about "suiciders" and fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here, read Nir Rosen’s article very carefully. It becomes quite clear that the "progress" made by the Green Zone politicians is restricted to the Green Zone only. On the streets of Baghdad and the rest of Iraq it is the militias who rule and dole out swift justice. With the Badr Brigade, the Mahdi Army and the Peshmerga firmly entrenched with their leaders occupying senior positions in the "Unity" Government; the stage is set for large-scale bloodletting.

I am reminded of the situation in Afghanistan after the Soviet backed Government collapsed in 1992. Then a so-called "Unity" Government was formed with the various militias occupying various ministries of the Government. The "unity" collapsed rather quickly as different warring ministries began to engage in full-scale warfare. The country plunged into anarchy. The result, as everyone knows, came in the form of security and stability provided by a fundementalist group known as the Taliban.

Though there are certainly differences in the internal dynamics of the various groups that exist in Iraq and those that existed in Afghanistan in 1992, the parallels are also quite striking. Afghanistan should serve as a cautionary tale for what can happen when well armed militias are "integrated" into a "Unity" Government. But as long as our leaders are focused on the "suiciders" the lessons of history will be ignored and we will be condemned to repeat the past.

Posted in Foreign Policy, Iraq | 5 Comments

Enduring Freedom At The Altar Of Infinite Justice

Posted on May 28, 2006 by Mash

What do we tell the Iraqi people now? What reason do we give to the Iraqi people for our continued occupation? How do we explain the occasional errant bomb that tears apart a family? How do we explain the lack of security? How do we explain the dead bodies with holes drilled into their skulls? How do we explain to a 9-year-old orphan why her parents are dead? How do we explain what happened at Haditha?

On the morning of November 19, 2005, one United States Marine was killed by a roadside bomb in the farm town of Haditha. Shortly afterwards 24 Iraqi civilians were gunned down by the Marines in retaliation. The dead Iraqis included members of 3 families and 4 college students. The oldest victim was a 76-year old diabetic who used a wheelchair and the youngest victim was a 1-year-old girl. The Washington Post details the killings:

In the house with Ali and his 66-year-old wife, Khamisa Tuma Ali, were three of the middle-aged male members of their family, at least one daughter-in-law and four children — 4-year-old Abdullah, 8-year-old Iman, 5-year-old Abdul Rahman and 2-month-old Asia.

Marines entered shooting, witnesses recalled. Most of the shots — in Ali’s house and two others — were fired at such close range that they went through the bodies of the family members and plowed into walls or the floor, physicians at Haditha’s hospital said.

A daughter-in-law, identified as Hibbah, escaped with Asia, survivors and neighbors said. Iman and Abdul Rahman were shot but survived. Four-year-old Abdullah, Ali and the rest died.

Ali took nine rounds in the chest and abdomen, leaving his intestines spilling out of the exit wounds in his back, according to his death certificate.

The Marines moved to the house next door, Fahmi said.

Inside were 43-year-old Khafif, 41-year-old Aeda Yasin Ahmed, an 8-year-old son, five young daughters and a 1-year-old girl staying with the family, according to death certificates and neighbors.

The Marines shot them at close range and hurled grenades into the kitchen and bathroom, survivors and neighbors said later. Khafif’s pleas could be heard across the neighborhood. Four of the girls died screaming.

Only 13-year-old Safa Younis lived — saved, she said, by her mother’s blood spilling onto her, making her look dead when she fell, limp, in a faint.

…

Moving to a third house in the row, Marines burst in on four brothers, Marwan, Qahtan, Chasib and Jamal Ahmed. Neighbors said the Marines killed them together.

Marine officials said later that one of the brothers had the only gun found among the three families, although there has been no known allegation that the weapon was fired.

Meanwhile, a separate group of Marines found at least one other house full of young men. The Marines led the men in that house outside, some still in their underwear, and away to detention.

The final victims of the day happened upon the scene inadvertently, witnesses said. Four male college students — Khalid Ayada al-Zawi, Wajdi Ayada al-Zawi, Mohammed Battal Mahmoud and Akram Hamid Flayeh — had left the Technical Institute in Saqlawiyah for the weekend to stay with one of their families on the street, said Fahmi, a friend of the young men.

A Haditha taxi driver, Ahmed Khidher, was bringing them home, Fahmi said.

According to Fahmi, the young men and their driver turned onto the street and saw the wrecked Humvee and the Marines. Khidher threw the car into reverse, trying to back away at full speed, Fahmi said, and the Marines opened fire from about 30 yards away, killing all the men inside the taxi.

What happened at Haditha was not war. It was not a war crime. It was murder. It was murder in an environment established by the words of our leaders. The gloves have come off. You are either with us or against us. The evildoers must be punished. Wanted dead or alive. Bring it on!

Iraqi lives do not count. They are animals that populate the landscape that must be cleansed of terrorists. Our President does not see the countless bodies piling up at the morgues of Iraq every day. Instead he sees only "suiciders" on the one side and Iraqi politicians on the other who are making "progress" toward a "free" and "liberated" Iraq. The Iraqi people see it differently:

"They are waiting for the sentence — although they are convinced that the sentence will be like one for someone who killed a dog in the United States," said Waleed Mohammed, a lawyer preparing a file for Iraqi courts and the United Nations, if the U.S. trial disappoints. "Because Iraqis have become like dogs in the eyes of Americans."

What is the United States doing in Iraq? Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Why are we killing the Iraqis in order to set them free? Is this what Donald Rumsfeld meant when he said that democracy was messy?

The United States cannot write off Haditha and Abu Ghraib as isolated acts carried out by a handful of rogue soldiers. These acts cannot be written off using the "war is hell" argument either. If the reason we are in Iraq is not because of weapons of mass destruction, if the reason we are in Iraq is to liberate the Iraqi people, then we must have moral authority. But the United States does not have moral authority in Iraq. It never did. The cassis belli for this war was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and was an imminent threat to the security of the United States. Once the WMD argument evaporated the United States lost any moral authority that it may have claimed in waging this war. You cannot in hindsight change your reasons for starting a war. Once your reason for launching a war is proved false the entire war becomes illegitimate. It is in the context of this illegitimate war that these acts of torture and murder are being carried out. Whether the Administration likes it or not, these acts are being carried out in the name of the United States of America.

It is time to end this folly and bring the troops home. Iraq is already plunging into civil war and the United States cannot be a party to it. The continued presence of the United States military will not prevent the daily killings that have now become part of the background noise of the Iraq war. It is time to end this illegitimate war.

It is time for the United States and Iraq to heal from this terrible upheaval that has been visited upon our times. The healing cannot begin until the United States ends its occupation of Iraq. It is time for the United States to regain its moral authority in the world. It is a long climb back from here but there is no other alternative. No more orphans. No more slaughter. No More.
Posted in Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Iraq | 18 Comments