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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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August 11th,
2007 - The Resort to Indiscriminate Killings |
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The Resort to Indiscriminate
Killings By Ghali Hassan Middle East Online August 11, 2007 The indiscriminate killings of
Iraqi civilians have increased during US massive military assaults in 2006
and 2007, including the recent US ‘surge’, a euphemism for increase in
armours and troop numbers. Before each military assault, towns and villages
were cut-off, bombed and besieged, and civilians were prevented from leaving
their homes, says Ghali Hassan. “Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a
translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them: If we must begin a
military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your
country and not against you”. - US President George W. Bush [1]. To prove the sincerity of
his message to the Iraqi people, Bush indiscriminately bombed the al-Nasser
market in the al-Shu’la [al-Sholeh] residential area in Baghdad on the morning
of March 28, 2003, killing more than 60 innocent civilians and injuring many
more. This followed by the “Shock and Awe”, the most murderous form of
barbaric terrorism. Thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians were killed every
day in one of the most premeditated and unprovoked acts of aggression in
history. Why the US is resorting to indiscriminate killings of Iraqi
civilians? Professor Marc Herold of the
University of New Hampshire in the US documents in details the March 2003
wanton destruction of Iraq, mass murder of innocent civilians and acts of
terrorism committed by the Anglo-American fascist forces against the Iraqi
population [2]. Except for the building of the Iraqi Oil Ministry, the Iraqi
State was destroyed and the complete looting and burning of the capital
Baghdad was rightly described by many people as an “Iraqi Holocaust”. The atrocity in Iraq exposed
the reality of Western “progressives” and their “anti-war” movements. Once
the atrocity began, Western moral conscience evaporated. The so-called
“Second Superpower” to counter US terror, fell silent and melted away like
snow under the summer sun. The new fabricated pretext to justify the silence
is Saddam Hussein (and his alleged crimes). Saddam provides a “compass” to
normalise and justify greater and more horrendous crimes by the invading
forces. Just few months into the
illegal invasion, the UN Security Council – the instrument of US terror
against the Iraqi people – rushed to legitimise the Occupation and conquest
of Iraq. By legitimising an illegal occupation that was opposed by the
majority of the world population, the UN acted against its Charter. It is a
true tragedy for world peace that the UN has become a complicit in war crimes
against the Iraqi people. In order to mask the Occupation
and manipulate public opinion at home, the US Government installed a
Vichy-like puppet government, through fraudulent elections, of course. Those
who are close to the Occupation constitute a collection of imported conmen,
extremists and thugs, while others are just opportunists. The puppet
government has no power and is totally discredited by all Iraqis. Its main
role is to play the role of an ‘Arab façade’ serving US imperialist interests
and legitimises and illegitimate Occupation. It is proved to be so useful
that its incompetence is blamed (by the Bush Administration) for all the
Occupation-generated crimes, from the violence and lack of security, to
sectarian divisions and mass corruption. After more than four years
of Occupation and countless pretexts to justify the bloodbath, the
Occupation, the Occupation is sold as a “war” against “al-Qaeda”, a
US-created proxy. The use of al-Qaeda as a bogeyman is designed to fuel a
campaign of anti-Muslim hatred and keep the public in a state of fear. More importantly,
the use of al-Qaeda obfuscates the presence of a legitimate Iraqi National
Resistance and justified the ongoing Occupation of Iraq. Indeed, George Bush seemed
to be obsessed by al-Qaeda and is using it with increased frequency. George
Bush claim that the US is fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq is simply ludicrous. “We
all know now that the US military is using the name of al-Qaeda to cover-[up]
attacks against our National Resistance fighters and civilians who wish
immediate or scheduled withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq”, Hilmi Saed,
an Iraqi journalist from Baghdad told Ali al-Fadhily of Inter Press Service
(IPS) in Ba’aqubah. Of course, there is no hard
evidence of al-Qaeda’s presence in Iraq. The current extremism in Iraq is the
result of US Occupation. It is encouraged because it provides the US and its
collaborators with a pretext and as an alternative to the Iraqi Resistance.
Even if al-Qaeda exists in Iraq, its deliberately exaggerated presence and
role serve US aim to cover-up the deliberate destruction of Iraq, the
indiscriminate mass murder of over a million innocent Iraqi civilians and the
looting of Iraq’s oil wealth. As I write these words, US
occupying forces and their collaborators, supported by attack helicopters,
are sweeping through the province of Diyalah, indiscriminately bombing towns
and villages, killing hundreds of innocent civilians and destroying
properties. “Most of the dead are women and children”, an Iraqi eyewitness
told journalists of McClatchy Newspapers. In nearby town of Husseiniya north
of Baghdad, US helicopters attacked a residential area killing 18 civilians
and injured 21 more in a deliberate and unprovoked act of aggression. As
usual, the town is now “under total siege” by the US military. Meanwhile, in
Baghdad, Occupation-sponsored terrorists attacked crowds of Iraqis
celebrating the Iraqi national soccer team’s defeat of South Korea at the
Asian Cup, killing at least 50 innocent civilians and setting one community
against the other. Of course it was a “suicide bomber”, so we are told. Never
in its pre-Occupation history has Iraq experienced level of violence. Furthermore, the
indiscriminate attacks on civilians and the wanton destruction of Iraq are
forcing more than two thousand Iraqis every day to flee their homes.
According to UN Children’s Fund, an estimated 4.2 million Iraqis, half of
them children, have fled their homes either as internally displaced refugees
or to neighbouring countries: especially Syria and Jordan. Most of them are
living in crowded camps under harsh conditions and deprived of their basic
human rights. In Iraq, “Iraqis are
suffering from a growing lack of food, shelter, water and sanitation, health
care, education, and employment,” revealed a new report by the British
charity group, Oxfam and the NGO Co-ordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI). Some
eight million Iraqis are in need of immediate emergency aid, with at least
half of the population are living in “absolute poverty”, said the Report. In
addition, Iraq is now completely brain-drained and lacks adequate and
sufficient human resources to service and care for its citizens. The policy
is part of US broader goal in Iraq which is the destruction of Iraq as an
independent and civilised society, replaced by a dependent and divided Iraq
ruled by fiefdoms separated from each other. Let’s not forget that the
situation in Iraq today is the result of an unprovoked act of aggression
based on pretexts proved to be fabricated lies. American leaders (supreme
criminals) and their lackeys (Blair, Howard et al.) used and continue using
the events of 9/11 in the US to provoke and justify wars of aggression
against peoples and nations who had nothing whatsoever to do with the events
of 9/11. They are committing war crimes and should be held accountable and
put on trial for their crimes. The few soldiers who are on display in a show
trial are merely a propaganda ploy to divert public attention away from the
supreme criminals. The majority of US soldiers
serving in Iraq are poor underprivileged White and Black and Hispanic
Americans who have been enlisted to escape poverty; others are illegal
immigrants lured by the attraction of a green card or US citizenship in
exchange for service in Iraq; increasing numbers of US military are convicted
criminals (‘felons’) who have been offered to choose between going to prison
and serving in the army. According to the New York Times; “The sharpest
increase was in waivers for serious misdemeanors, which make up the bulk of
all the US Army’s moral waivers. These include aggravated assault, burglary,
robbery and vehicular homicide”, (NYT, 14 February 2007). Nick Turse of TomDispatch
describes US military in these words: “US ground forces are increasingly made
up of a motley mix of under-age teens, old-timers, foreign fighters,
gang-bangers, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, ex-cons, inferior officers and a
host of near-mercenary troops, lured in or kept in uniform through big
payouts and promises”, (Asia Times, 16 September 2006). Overall, they are
skilfully brain-washed and indoctrinated in a culture of violence and racism
reinforced once the soldiers arrived in Kuwait. “We make our heroes out of
clay. We laud their gallant deeds and give them uniforms with colored ribbons
on their chest for the acts of violence they committed or endured. They are
our false repositories of glory and honor, of power, of self-righteousness,
of patriotism and self-worship, all that we want to believe about ourselves.
…” writes Chris Hedges in Adbusters magazine in Vancouver, Canada. It is no
longer a national army force defending the motherland; but a heavily-armed
mercenary force trained to commit crimes against defenceless peoples. In addition, the Pentagon
use of “private army” of mercenaries has increased the atrocity in Iraq.
There are more mercenaries in Iraq now than soldiers. Their number range from
160,000 to 180,000. They are immune from prosecution and operating outside
the law. Since their arrival in Iraq to serve the Occupation, mercenaries
have been involved in heinous crimes against Iraqi civilians. The
indiscriminate murder of peaceful Iraqi protesters in Najef in April 2004 by
Blackwater mercenaries was a case in point. No one has been brought to
justice. According to Jeremy Scahill,
(author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army);
“For the [mercenaries] in Iraq, immunity and impunity are welded together”.
Mercenaries “fill a gap attributable to insufficient troop levels available
to an overstretched military”, wrote Scahill, quoting David Petraeus, the
general in charge of the Occupation. The use of mercenaries pacifies the
public and removes anti-war sentiment at home. There is no patriotism in
mercenary wars; the victims are “only Iraqis”. A recent investigation by
The Nation magazine [3] sheds a dim light on the deliberate war crimes
committed against Iraqi civilians and on the attitudes of the Anglo-American
fascist forces towards the Iraqi people. As Specialist Josh Middleton
described these attitudes to The Nation investigators; “[I]f they don’t speak
English and they have darker skin, they’re not as human as us, so we can do
what we want [to them]”. Any Nazi soldier or Schutzstaffel (SS) could have
said the same about Jews. The massacres of Iraqi civilians at Haditha,
Samarra, Fallujah were not aberrations, countless of massacres and war crimes
continue on a daily basis. There is no way the Bush
Administration didn’t know about these crimes. The dehumanisation of Iraqis
was an essential part of the aggression against Iraq. Like the torture and
abuses of Iraqi civilians, these massacres of innocent Iraqi civilians are
not the actions of “a few bad apples”; they are the responsibility of the
Bush Administration. According to investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh,
quoting a Pentagon consultant; the Bush Administration “basic strategy was
‘prosecute the [few] kids in the photographs but protect the big picture’”. In October 2006, the
peer-reviewed British medical journal, The Lancet published an
epidemiological study conducted by physicians Al-Mustansiriyah School of
Medicine in Baghdad and Bloomberg School of Public Health at John Hopkins
University. The study, which has been praised by the British government
scientific officer, found that an “underestimation” rate of 655,000 innocent
Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children were killed by US forces since the
March 2003 aggression. This means that at least 15,000 innocent Iraqis killed
every month during the 39 months of the Occupation covered by The Lancet
study. Figures released by the US military and other sources show that
between 300 and 500 Iraqi civilians killed each day by US troops and their
collaborators. However, despite all the evidence, the atrocity remains hidden
from the general public. Concerted efforts by Western
leaders and mainstream media blackout are keeping the public unaware and
misinformed about the atrocity in Iraq. The indiscriminate killings of
innocent Iraqi civilians are justified by portraying and framing Iraqis as
“insurgents”, “militants”, “terrorists” and “Islamists”. Indeed, journalists
who travel to the Middle East and pretend to write about the situation there
are unable to examine the root causes. They only see the Middle East through
an inherently imperialist and racist lens. Since the publication of The
Lancet study, the atrocity has increased dramatically and the death rate of
Iraqi civilians could be much higher. According to eyewitnesses, US soldiers
and mercenaries randomly and indiscriminately fired on cars and children. The
soldiers are often supported by attack helicopters indiscriminately firing on
any gathering of people resulting in many deaths. “The killing of unarmed
Iraqis was so common many of the troops said it become an accepted part of
[US-created] daily landscape”, revealed The Nation investigation [3]. Furthermore, the
indiscriminate killings of Iraqi civilians have increased during US massive
military assaults in 2006 and 2007, including the recent US “surge”, a
euphemism for increase in armours and troop numbers. Before each military
assault, towns and villages were cut-off, bombed and besieged, and civilians
were prevented from leaving their homes. Countless Iraqi towns and villages
were deliberately and indiscriminately bombed by US forces using legally
banned weapons of mass destruction, including White Phosphorous, Napalm
bombs, ‘Depleted’ Uranium (DU), killing large number of civilians and
destroying homes and vital infrastructures. (See: Field Artillery, March -
April, 2005; The Independent, 10 August, 2003). In addition, air attacks on
population centres have intensified in recent months. A fivefold in air
attacks on residential areas show that US aircraft dropped more bombs and
missiles in the first four and a half months of 2007 than all of last year.
At the same time, the number of Iraqi civilian casualties from US air strikes
appears to have increased sharply, a reminder of the US-made bloodbath in
Vietnam. Finally, the war on Iraq is
not “a vast and complicated enterprise” or “quagmire”, as the mainstream
media and Western pundits like to describe the atrocity. War has become a
euphemism for propaganda. There is no war in Iraq. Iraq is under a murderous
foreign Occupation; the highest form of fascist dictatorship. Iraqis are the
world’s most deprived people today. The US can and has the resources and
power to end the Occupation and stop the atrocity by implementing a full and
immediate withdrawal from Iraq. The US invaded and occupied
Iraq illegally by force of arms. Hence, the Iraqi armed Resistance is
necessary in the face of US armed aggression, as self-defence against foreign
oppressors. The Iraqi people had no option, but to resist the Occupation. It
is the only path to peace and freedom. President Bush’s 2003 declaration
of an open aggression on all Iraqis was a war crime. The US resort to
indiscriminate killings of Iraqi civilians in an attempt to pacify the Iraqi
population and defeat the Iraqi Resistance has failed. The only card left to play
safely is the immediate and full withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq.
While the Anglo-American leaders remain unindicted for the war crimes they
committed against the Iraqi people, they are obliged to pay reparations to
help Iraqis return to at least pre-invasion living conditions. Ghali Hassan is an
independent writer living in Australia. Endnotes: [1] George W. Bush. “Remarks
by the President in Address to the Nation”, The White House, 17 March, 2003. [2] Marc W. Herold. “The
evil, the grotesque and US lies”. Frontline, vol. 20 (9). April-May, 2003. [3] Chris Hedges & Laila
AL-Arian. “The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness”. The Nation, 30 July, 2007. External link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=21748 |