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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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March 13th,
2007 - Casualties of War - Who Weeps for Abeer? |
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Casualties of War - Who Weeps
for Abeer? By Helen Zia San Francisco Chronicle March 13, 2007 As the anniversary of the
Iraq invasion approaches, another milestone has quietly passed, leaving a
window into the protracted and unimaginable human costs of this war in Iraq
and here at home. A year ago, 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Al-Janabi was stalked,
gang-raped, shot in the head and her corpse burned in her own home in
Mahmoudiya, Iraq. Four U.S. soldiers and one former soldier are charged with
the crimes. The soldiers were so confident
of their abilities to achieve their intended crimes that they rounded up the
Al-Janabi family from their daily chores in broad daylight. Pfc. Stephen
Green allegedly shot Abeer's parents and 5-year-old sister to death in the
room next to where she was being raped by Sgt. Paul Cortez. His buddy, Pfc.
James Barker held the struggling, crying teenager down while two other
soldiers, Pfc. Jesse Spielman and Pfc. Bryan Howard, reportedly stood watch. All this in the middle of
the day under the hot afternoon sun, March 12, 2006. Such are the unpleasantries
of invasion, war and occupation. The medical journal Lancet estimated in 2004
that at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed, more than half of them
women and children. Today, in the absence of accurate figures, that number
likely has been far surpassed. To Americans, far from Iraq, these are
presented as the sanitized statistics of collateral damage. But the Al-Janabi
rape and murders were too well documented to ignore, just as the souvenir photos
taken by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison forced Americans to see the
torture being committed by their own troops. The U.S. government and
military are prosecuting the five accused men - a sixth was charged with
dereliction of duty - without an inquiry into the pressures and rules of
engagement that led "a really good kid," as Cortez was called
during at his court-martial, to commit war crimes against civilians. In his
sworn testimony describing how he and the others planned and carried out the
rape and murders at the Al Janabi home, Cortez pointedly stated that he and
his fellow defendants "weren't the only soldiers who talked about having
sex with Iraqi women." In Islamic Iraq, "having sex" in this
context can only mean rape. Numerous observers, including
soldiers themselves, say that abuses of Iraqi civilians are not uncommon. A
report by Code Pink and the Global Exchange describes incidents where U.S.
soldiers tortured female detainees, among them young girls, in the form of
sexual abuse and rape, including stripping them naked, then burning their
skin or dousing them with water. Sometimes women were tortured in prison
cells near their husbands so that their screams could be used to torture the
Muslim male detainees. Under the War Crimes Act of 1996,
which Congress passed overwhelmingly so that the United States could, under
the Geneva Convention, prosecute North Vietnamese who tortured U.S. soldiers
during the war in Vietnam, it is a federal crime for any U.S. national,
whether military or civilian, to violate the Geneva Convention by engaging in
murder, torture or inhuman treatment. Significantly, the statute applies not
only to those who carry out the acts, but also to those who order it, know
about it, or fail to take steps to stop it. Yet no officers or military brass
have been questioned for their gross failure to stop the crimes in Abeer's
home - let alone for any military policies that contributed to these abuses.
This is not surprising in an administration that has demonstrated, time and again,
its predilection for blaming a fall guy and refusing to hold accountable
those higher up in authority. The White House and Pentagon
choose to eschew prosecution for such crimes under the War Crimes Act,
because it could implicate their own responsibility. However, their failure
to recognize such war crimes also makes it impossible to acknowledge the
psychological harm done to the soldiers who have been placed in horrific
situations that can turn a really good kid into a war criminal. Where will returning
soldiers get the treatment they need if they have been witnesses to or
participants in war crimes and abuse of Iraqi civilians? Family counselors and
military mental-health workers have long recognized the psychological trauma
exhibited by veterans of Iraq - and that too little help is available for
them. Only six counseling sessions are allowed for soldiers who are referred
for service. Soldiers can also get counseling services through mental-health
clinics, but mental-health visits are noted on their military records - and
thus can be used against them. For example, airborne soldiers cannot fly if
they are being treated for depression, a career ender for troops in the 101st
Airborne Battalion - to which the five soldiers involved in the rape and killing
of Abeer and her family belonged. About 1.4 million soldiers,
reservists and National Guard have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. So have
several hundred thousand private contractors, such as truck drivers, who must
traverse roads laced with Improvised Explosive Devices. Because of low levels of
enlistment, more than 125,000 "moral waivers" have been granted to
enlistees who previously would have been rejected for service - some because
of criminal backgrounds. All are subject to the serious effects of
post-traumatic stress disorders and other mental health problems, yet the
resources to help them and their families are too few. Even as politicians call for
national probes into the lapses at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the
medical treatment of returning soldiers, little mention is made of their
mental health needs. If these veterans and private contractors don't get
treatment for their invisible wounds, all of society will suffer with them. At the end of his
court-martial, Cortez apologized to brothers of Abeer Qassim Al-Janabi for turning
them into orphans. His sentence for the capital war crimes he committed: 100
years, with possible parole in 10, minus his time served. For committing the
gang rape of Abeer and four murders, he could be out in nine years. One can
only hope that he receives the treatment he needs during his confinement
before he rejoins the general population. Cortez paused to wipe his
tears at several points during his testimony, becoming most emotional when he
expressed his remorse for letting his fellow soldiers down. But one year
after the war atrocities that took her young life with violence and terror,
who weeps for Abeer? Helen Zia, a Bay Area
writer, attended the court- martial of Sgt. Cortez in Ft. Campbell, Ky., for
the Women's Media Center. External link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/03/13/EDGOJN7AUD1.DTL |