Haditha is the tip of the iceberg - Iraq atrocities continue

Thanks Rich23. Going to sleep now after a good chuckle.

Can't condone killing civilians, and any soldier who overstepped the line should receive punishment.

But... they didn't ask to be there, and if an Iraqi tried to kill me while I was driving along then I might be slightly p*ssed about it too.

Originally posted by rich23
Was that short enough for you?

nice

tried in iraq...i think definitely not...icc doubltful as well...o well hopefully itll be sorted out soon...

Why not in Iraq? Don't you think they'd get a fair trial? And if not, why not?

And please answer the same questions wrt the ICC.

Originally posted by Moley
Can't condone killing civilians, and any soldier who overstepped the line should receive punishment.

But... they didn't ask to be there, and if an Iraqi tried to kill me while I was driving along then I might be slightly p*ssed about it too.

No. They didn't ask to be there. However, in war crimes, obeying orders is no excuse.

It's a shame. They were lied to and manipulated, and they do, imo, deserve some sympathy. But there are so many instances of soldiers being "trigger-happy" that for the military to prosecute them all would be a blow to morale and manpower.

Alleged pictures, alleged crime, alleged story. All alleged. Who is the judge, jury, and executioner? I will stand for justice, but not on allegations. Truth in media is a joke, to say the least. What really happened, if anything, is anyones guess at best.

Originally posted by smokenmirrors
Alleged pictures, alleged crime, alleged story. All alleged. Who is the judge, jury, and executioner? I will stand for justice, but not on allegations. Truth in media is a joke, to say the least. What really happened, if anything, is anyones guess at best.

I'm sorry, but that's just a load of wind and bluster with no thought behind it whatsoever. "I will stand for justice, but not on allegations." Well, the thing is, until a claim is substantiated, it's an allegation. You have to start with an allegation before anything else. If it is disproved, then fine. But the photographic evidence (go on, have a look, I dare you. It's pretty strong stuff) suggests that something happened there.

I'll tell you this: truth from your government or military is a joke. I actually shouldn't have to point this out to you, but I clearly must.

"Who is the judge, jury and executioner?" As it stands, the employer of the people alleged to have done the dirty work. And surprise!, they've let the men off!

Would we have let the Nazis investigate their own war crimes? I think not. If a police force is corrupt, do they investigate themselves? No.

And to help you out, here's a quote from the article linked above:

"We know that two Iraqi police officials, Major Ali Ahmed and Colonel Farouq Hussein – both employed by the U.S.-backed Iraqi government – told Reuters that the 11 occupants of the house, including the five children, had been bound and shot in the head before the house was blown up," Floyd added. "We know that the U.S.-backed Iraqi police told Reuters that an American helicopter landed on the roof in the early hours of the morning, then the house was blown up, and then the victims were discovered. We know that the U.S.-backed Iraqi police said that an autopsy performed on the bodies found that "all the victims had gunshot wounds to the head." We know that the U.S.-backed Iraqi police said they found "spent American-issue cartridges in the rubble."

It's not allegations by just one person. It's government officials - a government you would claim has validity.

I mean what is it with you lot? You support an illegal invasion, you install a government calling it "bringing democracy" to Iraq, and then you get all antsy when they turn around and don't act like puppets.

[edit on 4-6-2006 by rich23]

Generally, due process guarantees the following (this list is not exhaustive):

Right to a fair and public trial conducted in a competent manner
Right to be present at the trial
Right to an impartial jury
Right to be heard in one's own defense
Laws must be written so that a reasonable person can understand what is criminal behavior
Taxes may only be taken for public purposes
Property may be taken by the government only for public purposes
Owners of taken property must be fairly compensated

Friend, you are bringing all allegations and supposed evidence to the table which is fine, however, there is no defense whatsoever, and the implied message is guilty, period. I am an American, in the USA one is presumed innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.

And I repeat, if a marine, or several marines, committed a crime, including murder, they should be brought to justice, but to condemn them to the electric chair at this point is simply wrong.

Further, to take a quarter million U.S. servicemen and women and imply they are all murderers, or that they are all killers, or any such stretch of the imagination is just delusional. I know many, I have spoken to many who have been to Iraq, possibly your opinion would mature should you speak to a few.

Due process huh? Why are people in favor of due process for american soldiers, but so against it for those in Gtmo? It seems like some people pick and choose when to use real american values when it suits their needs.

I would like to ask, how did those bullet wounds end up in those childrens heads? Who else had the guns?

well we can all see why now the americans did not want to join the international criminal court.

I don't get it
If this is a cover up they did a p*ss poor job, this kinda seems like a set up
I have no proof just speculation
The insurgency(sp) is no doubt inside the Iraqi police, they know how most Americans feel about the war. The quickest way to get us (USA) out is to make look no better Saddam.
I know all the membering nations of NATO use the same ammo, hell the magazines for the British, French and American assualt rifels are interchangible. They did that on purpose for obvious reasons.
Now after having typed that, the evidence of American rounds being in the rubble could mean nothing as far a proof as to who/whom (I don't rember which to use) pulled the trigger. Innocent until proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The only information given are articles written by both sides of the argument. I say information because evidence will be given (maybe) in court not newspapers.
I hope ther's an independant investigation by the UN. But, that seems unlikely too.
This happend back in Nov. so any chance of finding out what really happend that day is nill.
I will say this much, if guilty they should burn, but I'm not ready to start the fires yet I need hard facts and physical evidence before I get all worked up and start piling wood.
peace

Originally posted by dubiousone

To Atomic:

True, my statement is as applicable to the militant Muslims. But we aren’t the militant Muslims, are we? We’re talking about what we're doing in a country where we are an occupying force which contains far more non-militant civilians whom we have a duty to treat with human dignity.

[edit on 6/3/2006 by dubiousone]

Yes, we are talking about militant Muslims. That's who they are fighting there, instead of in the US. I don't believe the US plan is to attack civilians, seeing how that would quickly lose the people of Iraq and the war. The military does treat the civilians with human dignity the best they can in a war zone. The soldiers are not cops, they are not social workers, they're guys with guns who are looking to kill the militants.

Yes there is a problem with the strategy in Iraq. I think there is a 3 prong approach to 1) kill militants and destroy their infrastructure 2) create a democracy to limit the militants, and have a "western" friendly govt in a dictatorial region 3) build schools and infrastructure to promote goodwill.

But, you can't kill 10 people one day and better the lives of a thousand the next and then kill 20 the next day. It's just like business...one unhappy customer hurts a month of great advertising. And yes the answer for why is: OIL. But I also think the West, Russia, and China have realized that nukes are an issue as Iran is now demonstrating. And people bent on jihad with nukes don't care about peace and love talk if you aren't going to agree with their way of thinking.

The solution, though not simple, is to finish training the Iraqi police and military NOW. Get it done. The troops sole mission should be to train them and get out, not fighting the scattered militants. The militants will always be there, you can't totally win. Iraq was run down before the US invaded, I'm sure the US and UK can be paid by the Iraqis if they want them to continue rebuilding their country. The US will create more goodwill by ending the shooting and just keep building. If Iraq can not protect the builders then they will leave. If Iraq can not protect its people then maybe a split country based on religious differences is what needs to happen. You can't force people to like each other.


I do have a problem with your broad stroke of "drones", and not mentioning names but instead those that supposedly did something. I am not accusing you of this, so let me be careful...some people like to use "US Military" almost as a racist term, where you could almost replace it with: "blacks" or "hispanic" or "white trash". A group is condemned for the actions of a few. That is why I have a real problem with sites like Information Clearinghouse and those that like to rip on the military, but wonder where its at during Hurricane Katrina to save them. Makes me sick.

Yes the military's main job is to kill, but their mission should be to create a civil, free, and safe society...if they are failing in that then they are probably either the wrong tool to use, or being used the wrong way, which I agreee that Bush and his cabinent are doing. I am not a Bush sympathizer nor do I think he's that smart, but I will choose him over Osama Bin Laden every day of the week.

Long rant complete.

"Innocent until proven guilty" only applies to a court of law. I've seen some of the evidence posted here and while I certainly don't know what happened for sure, it's obvious that something went down and even if I thought 100% for sure that U.S. Marines murdered civilians, it's my right to think that. If I don't want to, I don't have to wait for the investigations to complete. That would be unwise... but I can do that. The only person who can't presume these soldiers' guilt pre-conviction/acquittal is the judge and/or the jury.

Also... I'm sick of those who are so quick to jump on the marine bandwagon. Granted, they're mostly good men and women who have supposedly received the best training in the world. But EVERYONE knows there are bad apples. So when I hear these people calling in to CSPAN or posting on ATS that "our soldiers would never do that... there's no way" It's gross. They're so brainwashed by our government that they simply refuse to believe that there are bad people in the Armed Forces... it's gullibility at its lowest.

Originally posted by firebat
...EVERYONE knows there are bad apples. So when I hear these people calling in to CSPAN or posting on ATS that "our soldiers would never do that... there's no way" It's gross. They're so brainwashed by our government that they simply refuse to believe that there are bad people in the Armed Forces... it's gullibility at its lowest.

I'm glad that you think that there is brainwashing going on, but the point that I'm really trying to put across in this post is exactly against the "bad apple" theory.

PLEASE DON'T GET ME WRONG. I'm NOT trying to say that every soldier out there is evil. What I AM trying to say is that they're ordinary people put (by WAR CRIMINALS) into a situation in which they themselves find it easy to become war criminals. Their superiors encourage dehumanisation of the "hajj" (this decade's "gook") and it's made clear, in ways subtle and unsubtle, that retribution will not come to most of those who create "collateral damage". (A euphemism for the murder of innocent people. Let's just be clear about this.)

In today's Independent, Robert Fisk pulls together many stories (which I have referenced on other threads) and actually poses the question of this thread - is Haditha the tip of the iceberg? His article is reprinted in its entirety here.

I remember clearly the first suspicions I had that murder most foul might be taking place in our name in Iraq. I was in the Baghdad mortuary, counting corpses, when one of the city's senior medical officials, an old friend, told me of his fears. "Everyone brings bodies here," he said. "But when the Americans bring bodies in, we are instructed that under no circumstances are we ever to do post-mortems. We were given to understand that this had already been done. Sometimes we'd get a piece of paper like this one with a body." And here the man handed me a U.S. military document showing with the hand-drawn outline of a man's body and the words "trauma wounds."

I also began a thread on the Baghdad morgue a little while ago, because it seemed relevant: Who Is Faik Bakir and why has he left Iraq? It might be worth checking out, as with the threads (referenced earlier in this thread) on death squads in Iraq.

Originally posted by smokenmirrors
Generally, due process guarantees the following (this list is not exhaustive):

Right to a fair and public trial conducted in a competent manner
Right to be present at the trial
Right to an impartial jury
Right to be heard in one's own defense
Laws must be written so that a reasonable person can understand what is criminal behavior
Taxes may only be taken for public purposes
Property may be taken by the government only for public purposes
Owners of taken property must be fairly compensated

I think this piece of windbaggery deserves a thorough reply. Though heaven knows much of it is irrelevant.

Here are some rights Iraqis should enjoy:

The right to the sovereignty of their country.
The right to safety in their own homes.
The right to drive the roads of their own country without getting shot for overtaking.
The right to their own oil.
The right to sow and maintain their own seed stock.
The right to make their own laws.
The right to own their own infrastructure.
The right to uninterrupted supplies of water and electricity.
The right to safety in their own streets, rather than being the victims of car bombings. (Some of which are the result of US or UK agents provocateurs.)

All these rights and more have been taken from them by the US.

And here's another:

The right to redress, and to prosecute US soldiers who commit criminal acts in their country.

No-one asked the US and UK to invade. A handful of UK soldiers have even refused to serve there alongside US troops who treat Iraqis as Untermenschen.

After three months in Baghdad, Ben Griffin told his commander that he was no longer prepared to fight alongside American forces.

He said he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" - the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human.

Not that I am defending all UK troops, or condemning all US troops either, as careful reading of my posts will show. UK troops have committed crimes and been cleared of them in just the same way. However, I'm under no illusions about who's in the driver's seat of this vile military campaign.

Friend, you are bringing all allegations and supposed evidence to the table which is fine, however, there is no defense whatsoever, and the implied message is guilty, period. I am an American, in the USA one is presumed innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.

I am making two points: one, that there is most certainly a case to answer, no matter how much you may try to brush it off with thinly disguised contempt for Iraqi life as opposed to the vastly more valuable lives of the US troops; and two, that the US is neither fit nor the right party to be judge in its own case.

And I repeat, if a marine, or several marines, committed a crime, including murder, they should be brought to justice, but to condemn them to the electric chair at this point is simply wrong.

Did I mention the electric chair at any point in my posts? Please feel free to point out where I have. I'll make the point, AGAIN: if your leaders prosecuted every single soldier who killed an innocent Iraqi, you wouldn't have much of an army left, between depletion of numbers and drastically lowered morale. How many times do I have to keep saying this before it sinks in?

Further, to take a quarter million U.S. servicemen and women and imply they are all murderers, or that they are all killers, or any such stretch of the imagination is just delusional. I know many, I have spoken to many who have been to Iraq, possibly your opinion would mature should you speak to a few.

When you say "many", how many, roughly? Did none of them kill any Iraqis at all out there? Were none of them on patrol? Did you ask them what they did when they drove past an IED? Or were all of them just painting schools?

Of a quarter million troops, how many actually go out on patrol? What proportion of them are in support services? I mean, I know Halliburton and KBR have privatised quite a lot of that, but not all of those quarter million are actually out on the streets of Iraq, are they?

Of course I'm not implying that they are all murderers. But a significant number are.

Oh, yes. I've just noticed the "owners of taken property must be compensated" item earlier on. Perhaps you should tell that to the Iraqis who have had money, computers and weapons (which they actually need for self-defence in the lawless new state of much of Iraq) confiscated by US soldiers. This is a consistent theme of the Iraqi side of accounts of US patrols. This goes all the way back to 2003 and comes up all the time. In the Japanese film about Fallujah 2004 which can be viewed in this thread, the brother of a man killed by US troops during a raid on a farmhouse shows the camera the wallet of the victim, alleging that it was emptied of money by US troops. Hardly a unique occurrence, IF you pay any heed to the Iraqi side of the story... which you clearly don't. You'd rather retreat underneath the comforting duvet of falsehood which your military and government provide.

[edit on 4-6-2006 by rich23]

My question is this.

We hear in the media people talking about "how many American soldier deaths are too many in Iraqi before we decide to pull out?" --Basically implying that if we lose enough soldiers, we will abandon "the mission" regardless of what progress has been made.

I happen to think this is true. But what about the Iraqis. How many Iraqi civilian deaths are too many? What is the cutoff? Many posters here like to give the usual "war is hell" routine, somehow thinking they're justifiying the deaths of innocents, whether through accidental missile-strikes or the alleged intentional murder committed by a handful of scumbags who've flipped their wigs. Will there ever be a point where we, as Americans, decide that our presence in Iraq is just too costly and too dangerous to the Iraqi people? Will we ever come to the point where we're tired of seeing Iraqis blown up as they're shopping for their groceries? You all can blame the insurgents all you want.... but AT SOME POINT, we're going to have to either get rid of the insurgents or leave Iraq ourselves. Which will come first? The insurgents CLEARLY aren't going anywhere and I think as long as we provide a target for these guys, they'll keep coming. And it's not even that we're up against a static force. As soon as we kill or capture an insurgent, another will step forward and pick up the first's weapon. This war is exactly what these guys want. We're providing a stream of propaganda that these terrorists are using to recruit more people every day. I know that some of you may be comfortable with this... "at least we're fighting them over there rather than over here." But I find that position to be morally reprehensible. We've lost almost, what, 2500 good men and women.... but these people signed up and knew the risks. The Iraqis are dying by the dozens, every day, just because they HAVE to come out of their houses to find work or food or to just live their lives. They don't deserve this and we shouldn't have engaged in such a seemingly hopeless war. We have no right to decide who loses their lives, "accidentally", in a war that, on the surface, is advertised to the American people as one that is necessary to protect ourselves. What a selfish nation we are... we accept civilian casualties almost flippantly and then explain it as "this is what war's all about". Utterly reprehensible.

Originally posted by rich23
Here are some rights Iraqis should enjoy:

The right to the sovereignty of their country.
The right to safety in their own homes.
The right to drive the roads of their own country without getting shot for overtaking.
The right to their own oil.
The right to sow and maintain their own seed stock.
The right to make their own laws.
The right to own their own infrastructure.
The right to uninterrupted supplies of water and electricity.
The right to safety in their own streets, rather than being the victims of car bombings. (Some of which are the result of US or UK agents provocateurs.)

All these rights and more have been taken from them by the US.

lol are u serious...so no one overtakes in iraq lol...cmon

safety on their streets?...do u think the americans are the ones building and placing ieds on the roadside...

No, but Americans are the ones who shoot them when they're walking home late. THey're also the ones who will shoot a housefull of people and collapse a building on top of them.

Originally posted by SpanishFly

lol are u serious...so no one overtakes in iraq lol...cmon

safety on their streets?...do u think the americans are the ones building and placing ieds on the roadside...

I'm going to repeat what I said in my last post because its relevent to what you just said. YES, the insurgents are the ones planting the bombs. Yes, they're the ones who are generally targeting civilians. Yes, the insurgents are the bad guys.

But at some point, we've to got to accomplish what we've set out to do. And in addition to toppling Saddam, part of our responsibility is to ensure the safety of Iraqis, as we went ahead, like boneheads, and dissolved the Iraqi military when we invaded. Right now, it is up to our guys to be the police AND military in Iraq. They're not trained for that... but thats what the situation is. So, we've got to start making progress. At some point, we have to at least approach something close to defeating the overall insurgency and its associates. That is why we're still there, afterall.

And it appears, with each day, that we are not completing this mission. The proof is in the reports of dozens of Iraqis being killed every day. Yes, the INSURGENTS are the ones carrying out the attacks. But at some point, we have to take responsibility for the safety of the Iraqis. We took on that job when we got rid of their existing police and military, for right or for wrong.

Liken it, if you want, to the NYPD. Let's say that there is some sort of insurgency in New York City, for WHATEVER reason. Mass rioting, etc. We would expect the NYPD and maybe even the NY National Guard to be able to handle such a situation. Now, let's say that it turns out that they're not doing so good a job... the rioting, killing, stealing etc has been going on for several weeks or months. Not only would we blame the people doing it, we would blame the authorities for not handling the situation. We would be calling for people's heads (figuratively). It's the same with Iraq. We invaded Iraq, disbanded any sort of stability the Iraqis had, and more or less promised that we'd fix everything. Well we haven't and ultimately, we will face the decision of whether we pull troops out and leave that mess to be solved by the Iraqis, or we keep sending good men and women over to die, in addition to putting the Iraqis at risk.

Originally posted by rich23
Pawnplayer - what you have posted is simply off the point. I have not referred to UN troops AT ALL. All that came from the mysterious recesses of your own psyche. The point that I am trying to make is that Haditha is but one in a long line of "incidents" (to use a term verging on the euphemistic in its neutrality) and that the "rotten apple" approach is being applied here.

.



Nice spin there, richboy. You're just making a long-winded excuse to justify your hatred and criticism of American troops' roles in Iraq.

It is appeared that you're using this thread to blah-blah your long-winded blasts against American troops. I'm outta here, richboy. Go bug a UN peacekeeping soldier while you're at it.

[edit on 6/4/2006 by pawnplayer]