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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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November 13th, 2006 - Vets Warn
War Stress will Fuel Atrocities |
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Vets Warn War Stress will Fuel
Atrocities Increase is predicted as fighting drags on By Mark Sauer and Rick Rogers San Diego Union-Tribune November 13, 2006 Angry. Fearful. Frustrated. Loyal.
Proud. Ambiguous. Iraq war veterans say a maelstrom of emotions engulfs U.S.
troops fighting in the Middle East. The 43-month conflict –
nearly as long as the United States fought in World War II – increasingly
raises basic questions: Can we win? Do we have enough troops to do the job?
How long will it take? Combat veterans say tensions
arising from such questions are contributing to alleged atrocities for which
troops are being tried. They and military analysts
predict that more war-crime cases will emerge as the Iraq conflict drags on
and U.S. combat casualties continue. A major case is playing out
at Camp Pendleton, where eight service members are accused of kidnapping and
killing a civilian in Hamdaniya, Iraq, last spring. Last week, Lance Cpl. Tyler
A. Jackson became the third Hamdaniya suspect to plead guilty in exchange for
a lighter sentence. He and another Marine, Pfc. John J. Jodka III, are
scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. The three are expected to
testify against their co-defendants. “The world may be shocked
that our troops could mow down an innocent man, but I'm not. If I served on a
jury, I'd feel so much the hell they and other Marines go through in Iraq
that I might not convict them,” said Jay Rodriguez of San Diego, who served
two combat tours in Anbar province before leaving the Marine Corps in August. Rodriguez, 22, and other
Marines said morale is low in Iraq. “When you see more buddies
getting shot up and more kids blown apart for no good reason, you start
praying for an end to the war,” he added. “Not re-enlisting was the easiest
decision of my life.” Military investigators and
prosecutors contend that breakdowns in discipline and moral behavior led to
war crimes on the urban battlefields of Iraq this year. “Too many people have done
too many tours in a war that has lasted far too long,” said Marine reservist
Tony Pham of Corona, who suffered injuries in the December 2004 suicide
bombing of a mess hall near Mosul, Iraq, that killed 22 U.S. service members
and wounded 70. “It is hard to be there for
a whole year and not have some sort of breakdown. It's pretty much insanity
over there,” said Pham, 30, now training to become a police officer after six
years in the reserves. The latest incidents being
investigated include: The Hamdaniya killing, which took place
April 26. Naval investigators accuse the eight defendants of murdering Hashim
Ibrahim Awad, then trying to disguise their act as self-defense against an
insurgent planting a roadside bomb. Four soldiers accused of raping a
14-year-old Iraqi girl and then killing her and her family. The alleged crime
occurred in March in Mahmudiya, a town 20 miles south of Baghdad, and
involved members of the Army's elite 101st Airborne Division. Four other soldiers from the same division
being court-martialed on charges of plotting the deaths of three Iraqi
detainees during a May raid on suspected insurgents near Tikrit. A Camp Pendleton unit being probed on what,
if proven true, would be the most notorious war crime in Iraq since the
hostilities began with the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The Marines
allegedly shot to death 24 civilians a year ago in Haditha, in western Iraq,
after one of their own was killed in an ambush. U.S. military personnel are
exasperated by protracted guerrilla warfare in Iraq, said veterans who fought
there. “The troops get fed up. They
catch a guy and (Iraqi) intelligence lets him go,” said Marine Cpl. Carlos
Gomez-Perez, 24, of El Cajon. “After being there a long time, it just
stresses you out, and you just want to get even.” Gomez-Perez was injured
during the first battle for Fallujah in spring 2004. He received the Silver
Star, the nation's third-highest award for combat heroism. He and other service members
said people who have never experienced combat tend to have unrealistic
expectations in judging wartime conduct. “I think the grunts would
sympathize,” said Gomez-Perez, referring to the Hamdaniya case. “But if a
military jury is made up of support troops or officers who've never seen any
fighting, they will throw the book at (the defendants) because they have no
idea what happens on the other side of the wire.” The other side of the wire. The phrase means going from
a relatively safe encampment into danger-filled territory. In Iraq today, the
entire country is on the other side of the wire, Pham said. “Random mortar fire landed
on our base all the time. . . . You don't know who the enemy is, you can't
see him and he is smart, constantly adapting,” he said. “If a kid with a
backpack (goes by) and you tell him to stop and he keeps going, what do you
do? From a Marine's point of view, you take him out. From a civilian's point
of view, that's murder.” Such circumstances differ
from the Hamdaniya case, in which the suspects allegedly plotted to execute
the Iraqi civilian. “Killing people over there
and making it look like a combat action is easy to do, but that is not the
reason we are there,” said Robert Talley, 45, of Temecula. The former Marine
staff sergeant, who also saw action in Fallujah, retired last month after 22 years
of service. As disturbing as the
underlying charges may be, courts-martial for alleged war crimes can
ultimately have positive effects, said Charles Moskos, professor emeritus at
Northwestern University specializing in military sociology. “If we didn't have these
trials, the world would say we're no better than a bunch of Nazis,” Moskos
said. “We will always have people doing evil things in combat, particularly
in a place like Iraq where you don't know friend from foe. But we need people
to adhere to the highest moral standards, and the military is quite correct
in punishing culprits behind such atrocities.” As the Iraq war approaches
its fourth anniversary, he said, Americans should brace themselves for more
cases involving detainee abuse, slayings and other atrocities. “The blurring of the killing
line gets worse in Iraq the more casualties we suffer,” Moskos said. “The
threshold of what is acceptable in such a killing place gets lower the longer
we are there.” Courts-martial are good for
the public but bad for military morale, said David Segal, director of the
Center for Research on the Military Organization at the University of
Maryland. “They impose upon the public
a sense of reality about the true nature of war,” Segal said. “We have not
been getting enough of that from Iraq, so for the country this is a healthy
thing. But for soldiers and Marines, it probably has a demoralizing effect.” Segal said people should
understand that while “the veneer of civilization is very thin and tends to
crack in war, the overwhelming number of men and women in uniform perform
honorably and well.” Rodriguez, the former Camp
Pendleton corporal, said he hopes the Iraq conflict will end with some sort
of redemption. “Hundreds of thousands of
proud men and women have risked their lives in this war,” he said. “Some good
has got to come out of it. We can't be remembered for war crimes.” External link:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20061113-9999-1n13marines.html |