30 May 2006
Written by Rainer
US Army covering a massacre
Monday was a memoir day in US for the soldiers killed in action. This year the day was shadowed by the cruelty of US soldiers - the massacre of Haditha [Time’s March edition].
According to the Time magazine [June edition], the US troops had been attacked with a car bomb that then had killed one soldier. The soldiers went rampage and searched for vengeance. Near the scene of explosion lived a 76-year old, wheel-chaired Abdul Hamid Hamid Hassan Ali with his family. Hamid was shot nine times. His nice escaped with her two month old baby. Five and eight year old kids were wounded. Every one else, including a 4 year old child, were killed to the spot.
The slaughter then continued in the two other houses. The soldiers shot in a berserk and “cleared” the rooms with grenades. One of the victims was a one year old girl and four brothers, of whom one was carrying a hand gun that was never shot.
While the houses were being cleared of potential threats a cab drove in with four students. The driver noticed what was happening but was too late; they all were killed to the spot after the soldiers opened fire to the car.
Couple of days after the “incident” the marines announced that a roadside car bomb killed one soldier and 15 civilians in Haditha. Also, according to the marines, eight enemy fighters were killed in a battle after the explosion. According to local inhabitants no shooting happened after the bomb triggered (excluding the US soldiers), nor there was any trace of it.
The whole “incident” was forgotten until Time investigated it, based on a request of Iraqi human rights activists. Time published what happened in Haditha in their March 2006 issue and only after that the original research was admitted to be slightly inadequate.
Member of congress’ defence committee [democrat] and a military specialist John Murtha demanded a full investigation of the marines’ actions and of the covering what happened. “The marines knew what happened in Haditha in just few days. Who ordered such covert operation? The Haditha must be investigated throughly as well as the whole line of command.”
On the other hand John Warner [republican], chairman of the defence committee, was interviewed with Murtha in ABC’s This Week and while Murtha kept the massacre as an obvious case, Warner tried to keep him down and stated that, though this is serious, it shouldn’t be classified as a massacre or use of excessive force before the investigation.
Apparently nothing has been learned from the previous mistakes; you can’t hide a massacre. This is one of the reasons why a military goverment and military presence should always be monitored by objective civillian board. Once again the USA has another My Lai on their hands which would’ve stayed as “regular” incident with the opposing forces if the military could’ve made the judgement. I just wonder how this will be classified and how the guilty side will be punished. This can’t be classified as a war crime because “the war in Iraq is over”.
categorised as » Current Affairs, USA, Middle-East
9 Comments currently posted.
rahina . info | b l o g » Blog Archive » Haditha = uusi My Lai says:
Rainer says:
The prime minister of Iraq Nuri al-Maliki has announced that his patience with the “explanations” United States is offering has worn out for the killing of the civillians. “Mistakes can happen but there has to be a acceptable explanation for them”, Maliki announced and informed that Iraq will start the investigations of it’s own on the shocking incident that happened at Haditha.
Jakob says:
It’s quite obvious that the military isn’t equipped to deal with this - they weren’t in Vietnam and they’re not now. I saw a quite interesting the other day which I think is relevant to this - basically, the army needs to de-humanize the enemy their fighting in order to fight efficiently. Obviously, the problem then arises when what started out as a war turns into a campaign for winning hearts and minds.
Notably, the English seem to fuck up a little less often than the Americans, and I think their experience of patrolling Belfast, Derry and other areas in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
Jakob says:
It’s quite obvious that the military isn’t equipped to deal with this - they weren’t in Vietnam and they’re not now. I saw a quite interesting link the other day which I think is relevant to this - basically, the army needs to de-humanize the enemy their fighting in order to fight efficiently. Obviously, the problem then arises when what started out as a war turns into a campaign for winning hearts and minds.
Notably, the English seem to fuck up a little less often than the Americans, and I think their experience of patrolling Belfast, Derry and other areas in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
Jakob says:
This just in: Americans shot a pregnant woman. I’m guessing the Iraqis won’t be all that pleased considering the what they’ve just heard about Haditha. Apparently this was by mistake, but I don’t think the population will believe that.
Rainer says:
I was just writing of it. A Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat added the news as an “ironic” response from americans to the speech of Prime Minister al-Maliki.
From HS (01.05.2006):
“The Prime Minister al-Maliki said on tuesday that his patience with the “mistakes”, as in killing of civillians, by the US soldiers is wearing out.
Almost as a responce the US Army announced informed that they had killed two Iraqi woman heading to the maternity clinic. Both of the women were killed in fire because the cab wasn’t stopping fas enough”
The English are patrolling in the Basra and they have had quite easy sob so far but now the violence has increased and the English have started to get heavy casualties. The Prime Minister al-Maliki announced a month lasting emergency state to Basra just resently.
al-Maliki seems to like to make speeches that are nice to quote: “We strike with iron fist to those who jepoardice the safety. The safety is the on our list of important matters the first, second and third”
-al-Maliki then refused to tell what is the fouth important matter when our courageus reporter asked in the front line of journalists with more important questions and then shooed the reporter of rahina.info away-
Rainer says:
Although no mistakes has yet been confessed the US army is issuing new order for the marine traing in “core warrior values” -what are those?-.
The sad fact is that it most likely won’t have any kind of affect on the individuals who perform these actions not included in the “warrior code”. The Haditha killer-marines were all well trained and all had server several “tours” in the line of duty in Iraq, the leader was on his 7th “tour” (if I recall correctly). They were veterans of house-to-house combatting, not rookies.
Like Jacob said the key is to de-humanize the enemy. Killing another human is against normal behaviour and it requires psychological defect to perform such actionm, the reason why most soldiers who have killed get traumas. Having a veteran on his/hers X+nth tour is most likely a good fighter but there has to be something wrong in his/her head.
But to be honest, the army is not looking for the emphatic intellectuel criticising the the current system but an efficient fighting machine capable of killing in a heart beat.
Rainer says:
BBC covers the new ethics traing as well. But will the 30 days of ethic lessons really help? And what does Lt-Gen Peter Chiarelli mean by his statement “As military professionals, it is important that we take time to reflect on the values that separate us from our enemies” ?
Confused? So are we. These and many other questions will be answerred in the next episode of “There’s something about the Haditha massacre”.
The Corner Blog » Blog Archive » Ghosts of Haditha says:
[…] Time has publiced pictures from the Haditha massacre house. […]
[…] Kirjoitin tästä jo toisaalle rahina.infon Corneriin [eng]. Enemmän tarinaa ja taustaa siellä. […]