Iraq Civilian Killings: Who Is Reponsible?
I wonder how long the United Nations and the world leaders go on looking the other way despite mounting evidence during the past four years of the crimes being committed against the civilian population in Iraq, directly attributable to the occupation of the country by the US forces.
Are we living in 18th or 19th century when the masters were allowed to do whatever with their slaves? Has the United Nations and world leaders come to the conclusion that Iraq is a colony of the United States and beyond the ambit of the comity of nations?
Can the Secretary-General and the Security Council members of the UN be absolved of their complicity in the crime/genocide going on in Iraq? It appears that the UN is not even concerned about the Iraq civilian killings. Read here…
Even investigations conducted by the US military has blamed its own members for indulging in murder, mayhem and worse.
Here is the latest from The New York Times: “A military investigation has found that senior Marine Corps commanders in Iraq showed a routine disregard for the lives of Iraqi civilians that contributed to a ‘willful’ failure to investigate the killing of 24 unarmed Iraqis by marines in 2005, lawyers involved in the case said.
“The report, completed last summer but never made public, also found that a Marine Corps general and colonel in Iraq learned of the killings within hours that day, Nov. 19, 2005, in the town of Haditha, but failed to begin a thorough inquiry into how they occurred.
“The 130-page report, by Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell of the Army, did not conclude that the senior officers covered up evidence or committed a crime. But it said the Marine Corps command in Iraq was far too willing to tolerate civilian casualties and dismiss Iraqi claims of abuse by marines as insurgent propaganda, according to lawyers who have read it.
Well, well, well…Is it not a crime that the corps command tolerated military excesses ??? The Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, sitting in the safety of the White House, brazenly maintains that the situation in Iraq is ‘improving’ while hundreds of civilians are massacred every month, if not week.
“ ‘All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics,’ General Bargewell wrote in his report, according to two people who have read it. ‘Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get the job done no matter what it takes’.â€?
Pray how is George W. Bush, or the USA, any different from Saddam Hussein & Co for an average Iraqi civilian? In fact the US occupation has aggravated the situation and led to a blood bath involving Sunnis and Shias.
It will be criminal and unfair if only the US Marine officers were punished. Mr Bush and the top echelons of the US administration cannot be allowed to go scot-free as their hands are as much tainted with the blood of Iraqi civilians as anyone else. The US Marines are being sacrificed to satisfy the lust and greed for Iraqi oil.
The complicity, right up to the C-in-C in the White House, becomes all the more glaring because civilian casualties are rising every day as the excesses of the US forces are being overlooked, as the report indicates.
Come to think of it, at least during Saddam Hussein’s rule there was no such anarchy, murders and mayhem that are now being witnessed in Iraq non-stop for the past four years.
For my earlier post on Iraqi civilian casualties please click here…
65 Responses to “Iraq Civilian Killings: Who Is Reponsible?”
Davebo can’t even understand what he reads, or deliberately twists what he does to suit his twisted agenda.
…he says
…then he quotes part of the following
…he IS NOT saying they don’t report it. He is saying, quite rightly, that they DO NOT make a big deal out of it. Everyone knows they report it, which is all your links show. And everyone also knows that unless someone is blowing it up in the MSM, it’s AS IF it were never reported. And the ONLY time those HR types EVER make a BIG fuss, is about the USA and Israel.
It’s one thing to write a report and another to try to do something about it.
They howled for months about America’s detention of terrorists, but barely made a peep when Saddam or his sons went wild. And what America has done to the terrorists is NOTHING compared to what Saddam did to innocent women and children. THAT’S the point, slick.
JUST KEEP TELLING THE LIE, OVER AND OVER AND OVER . . .
NO, we do not! They are still alive, many released and returned to terror. They all still have all their body parts. They may have been scared and humiliated, but that’s a far cry from the evil of Saddam It’s like Halloween when compared to the Inquisition. NO COMPARISON.
But in order for you to vent your hate, you have to demonize the USA, because otherwise you would have no excuse. So, the most humane country in the history of the world becomes for you no better than Saddam’s Iraq.
You are really sick.
Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo were oh so terrible, right J.S.?
Well, if you can show me factual evidence that you are right, I’ll admit it. But you are the one who cannot be reasoned with, because you make ridiculous unsubstantiated claims, ignore the facts I present, and then say “I can’t reason with him.”
You’re right about that. You can’t reason with anyone. Not by spouting propaganda against facts.
yonason – The WorldNutDaily isn’t a reputable conservative news source. Washington Times or Jerusalem Post OK, 700 Club not OK. The NIH and other studies were on rats and animal tissue. Rutz takes studies he cannot fathom and conflates soy products with being gay and some fetishes about teen puberty. Please show how NIH and university studies back up the nut jobs claims, maybe even find a NEJM article instead of alien abduction from the Enquirer.
Final
If America were as evil a place as Saddam’s Iraq, many of your heads would have long ago been in a dumpster behind some WalMart.
Good night.
To help JS:
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/etn/misc/factsheet.htm#_ednref1
http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/06221-etn-hrf-dic-rep-web.pdf
How many death during torture and custody are justified for the GWOT?
RUDI WATCH
(I’m baaaack, but only for a moment.)
I don’t trust Rudi’s references.
They lie about Israel
,…
[Not telling the truth, by leaving out massive violations, is the equivalent of a lie, and in this case a particularly massive and cruel one.]
…so it’s no stretch to believe they lie about the US as well, especially when they seem to favor the terrorists over our own citizens, as Marlowe correctly asserted above.
No, those references, until confirmed by a truly objective [which the "rights" groups have clearly shown they are not] third party, aren’t worth the legal pad they are scribbled on.
Rudi,
I’m not even going to bother addressing the other person who has been making posts that ignore facts and make up statements by other people, including myself. I’ve found that as much as some here claim that I am purely a partisan there is a point at which some people on both “sides” should just be ignored. After all, did you claim that the United States is as bad as Saddam’s Iraq? No, you didn’t. Neither did any other person writing here. Yet that is what another writer claims we believe. He is completely incapable of actually reading what is written by someone who disagrees with his worldview. There is no one in the free world outside of the extreme right wing in this country who believes that there was nothing wrong with Abu Ghraib and is nothing wrong with Guantanamo. It is those people who cannot be reasoned with. The entire series of posts by this individual shows that.
To all you nutbag conservadips…..we WILL be pulling our troops out of Iraq. Nothing you dead-enders can do about it now. lol
JS I am in complete agreement. I asked the question of the far Right here – How many deaths/killings of Iraqis/Afghanistan prisoners is justified. The person in question ignores this and brings up lies about Israel from a group I didn’t even discuss or use as a link.
With the US and Israel being advanced developed nation I expect them to behave better than the “enemy”. In the case of the US, Rummy, Gonzales and Yoo have used twisted logic to justify torture and then deny this when MSM or the SCOTUS rules against them. The US should tear down Saddam’s prisons, not use them as a tool in the GWOT.
Back to my question, I don’t expect ZERO deaths of detainees, just something close to ZERO. I don’t want to hear the Rummy words “stuff happens” or “you go to war..”.
As for the events in Haditha, they truly were horrible actions committed by our military. That does not make them routine. You should check out the following article from the Nov/Dec 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs:
RUDI, HELP, SAVE ME FROM THE NEOCONS
It tis to laugh.
And I wonder just what “facts” he would be referring to? All I’ve seen Miss Hoboken do is blather on in pursuit of “Miss Clueless, ’07.” And he will be well on his way, if only Cris will keep his mouth shut.
You know, Rudi and Hobo, I like you. (O.k., no, but I want to help – does that count?)
You’re energie vortices seem to be really out of wack. You probably need the touch of a Reiki master to heal your thinking, not to mention your other lower bodily functions.
Or, you can do it yourself in the privy of your choice. (Careful, it may involve crystals or other hard objects).
Operators are standing by. . .
Hey, I’m funnier than Bill Maher, and a LOT less nasty.
(no one’s taking me seriously, so why the heck shouldn’t I have some fun with this?)
Scott,
I don’t consider the events in Haditha to be routine. I just consider them to have been something that should never have happened that then added to the other things that were condoned by upper levels of our government to further lower our standing in the world. Aberrations such as Haditha wouldn’t have the force they do in world opinion if it wasn’t for Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
[...] (For my earlier post “Iraq Civilian Killings: Who Is Responsible” please click here…) [...]
Jim,
I don’t know what you wrote, but the tone of Shawaaj’s enitire post implied that it was. Take for instance this line, “‘All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics,’ General Bargewell wrote in his report.” Are those civilian deaths a result of coalition actions or a result of insurgent actions? Another fact is that that was not so across all divisions, even with the broader definition of civilian casualties at the hands of the insurgents. One of the division commanders who fit that description is now in charge of all forces in Iraq.