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Duncan
Supporter
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 6438
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Friday, June 2, 2006 - 2:32 pm: | 
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Man this sucks.
Quote:BAGHDAD, Iraq - A third set of allegations that U.S. troops have deliberately killed civilians is fueling a furor in Iraq and drawing strong condemnations from government and human rights officials.
"It looks like the killing of Iraqi civilians is becoming a daily phenomenon," the chairman of the Iraqi Human Rights Association, Muayed al-Anbaki, said Friday after video ran on television of children and adults slain in a raid in Ishaqi in March.
Al-Anbaki's comments came a day after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki upbraided the U.S. military over allegations that Marines killed two dozen unarmed civilians in Haditha, calling it "a horrible crime." They were his strongest public comments on the subject since his government was sworn in last month.
U.S. commanders have ordered new ethics training for all troops in Iraq. But the flow of revelations and investigations threatens to undermine Iraq's new government and public support in America for President Bush's management of the war.
Iraq's government also began its own investigation of the deaths in Haditha.
In addition to the Haditha case, in which Marines are alleged to have gunned down 24 civilians in a rage of revenge for a bombing that killed a Marine in November, seven Marines and a Navy corpsman could face murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges as early as Friday in the April shooting death of an Iraqi man, a defense attorney said Thursday.
Military prosecutors plan to file the charges against the men, who are being held in solitary confinement at Camp Pendleton, Calif., Marine Corps base, said Jeremiah Sullivan III, who represents one of the men.
The Los Angeles Times and NBC News said troops may have planted an AK-47 and a shovel near the body to make it appear as if the man was an insurgent burying a roadside bomb. Neither suggested a possible motive.
The U.S. military had no additional comment Friday on the accusations stemming from a raid March 15 in the village of Ishaqi, about 50 miles north of Baghdad.
In March, the U.S. military said four people died when they attacked from the ground and air a house suspected of holding an al-Qaida operative. The house was destroyed.
But video shot by an AP Television News cameraman at the time and aired on March 15 shows at least five children dead. The video shows at least one adult male and four young children with obvious entry wounds to the head. One child has an obvious entry wound to the side caused by a bullet.
The March report spelled the village's name as Isahaqi.
Local Iraqis said there were 11 total dead, and charged that they were killed by U.S. troops before the house was leveled.
The video includes an unidentified man saying "children were stuck in the room, alone and surrounded."
"After they handcuffed them, they shot them dead. Later, they struck the house with their planes. They wanted to hide the evidence. Even a 6-month-old infant was killed. Even the cows were killed, too," he said.
The video included shots of the bodies of five children and two men wrapped in blankets.
Other video showed the bodies of three children in the back of a pickup truck that took them to the hospital in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's former hometown.
Police Capt. Laith Mohammed said the March 15 attack that hit Ishaqi involved U.S. warplanes and armor.
Riyadh Majid, who identified himself as the nephew of Faez Khalaf, the head of the household who was killed, told AP at the time that U.S. forces landed in helicopters and raided the home.
Khalaf's brother, Ahmed, said nine of the victims were family members who lived at the house and two were visitors.
The U.S. military, which said in March that the allegations were being investigated, said it was targeting and captured an individual suspected of supporting foreign fighters of the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist network. It had no further comment Friday.
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said at a news conference Thursday that "about three or four" inquiries were being carried out around the country, but he would not provide any details.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Friday defended the training and conduct of U.S. troops and said incidents such as the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians shouldn't happen.
"We know that 99.9 percent of our forces conduct themselves in an exemplary manner. We also know that in conflicts things that shouldn't happen, do happen," he said. "We don't expect U.S. soldiers to act that way, and they're trained not to."
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales called the allegations "very, very serious" and said the world will see a thorough military investigation.
"If people are found to have committed crimes, those people will be held responsible and they will be held accountable," Gonzales said Friday in an interview with WOAI-AM, a radio station in San Antonio. "The president expects that, and I know the leadership in the military wants to see that happen as well."
Iraqi officials and relatives also said U.S. forces killed two Iraqi women _ one of them about to give birth _ when the troops shot at a car that failed to stop at an observation post in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.
The U.S. military said coalition troops fired at a car after it entered a clearly marked prohibited area near an observation post but failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory warnings. It said the incident was being investigated.
Army Brig. Gen. Donald Campbell, the chief of staff of the Multinational Corps-Iraq, said at a briefing Friday that incidents of misconduct could result from the stress and fear of battling an enemy that doesn't abide by the rules of war, and often cannot be distinguished from the civilian population.
"It doesn't excuse the acts that have occurred, and we're going to look into them. But I would say it's stress, fear, isolation and, in some cases, they're just upset. They see their buddies getting blown up on occasion, and they could snap," Campbell said.
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joel dranove
Citizen
Username: Jdranove
Post Number: 553
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Friday, June 2, 2006 - 3:13 pm: |
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More:
From Sister Toldjah, (blogger)
Have you noticed the steady drumbeat from the media and the hardcore anti-war left with regards to the allegations of what happened at Haditha? There are harsh condemnations before the final reports have even been released, and there’s a distinct stench in the air as they leap from the condemnations to using what allegedly happened as an excuse to delegitimize the entire Iraq war.
If attrocities (alleged or actual) committed by US troops automatically disqualifies a war as being illegitimate, I guess this means that every single war the US has ever been involved in - including WW’s I and II, were ‘not worth fighting.’
Allahpundit, who has been a blogging machine this week, explains it well:
To cover it, as we’ve done here, in order to find out what went wrong is one thing; to exploit it in hopes of delegitimizing the entire war, and in particular the heroism of the rest of the troops in the field, is something else entirely. And it’s already begun, both on television and in print.
[…]
If nothing else good comes from this incident, perhaps at least it’ll spell the end of the knee-jerk compulsion from some quarters to insist they “support the troops” while ignoring or dismissing out of hand their every accomplishment. I’ve always thought part of the reason Bush is despised so viscerally is because pacifists no longer are permitted to blame the soldiers who actually carry out the killing; as Henninger says, America is too ashamed of how Vietnam vets were treated to allow that again. So Bush becomes the lightning rod, taking not only his own heat but the heat that would have been spent on the troops themselves if this were 1970.
The Henniger he refers to is Daniel Hennigner from the Wall Street Journal. Henninger puts in context some of the ways this war is similar, yet different, from the Vietnam war. Read on:
This Memorial Day week the news is preoccupied with stories of the Marine squad that allegedly killed civilians at Haditha, a town in Iraq. The narrative of this story has pretty much set in already: It’s another My Lai, we all know they did it, the brass covered it up, and prison sentences for homicide are merely a formality.
Haditha is indeed the new Abu Ghraib. What this most importantly means is that any U.S. military action overseas now, no matter its level of justification, can be taken down by the significance assigned to events by the modern machinery of publicity. This explains why the U.S. commanders in Iraq announced yesterday that all soldiers in the next 30 days would take what the headlines are calling “ethics training.” Of the some 150,000 U.S.-led troops there, Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the U.S. combat commander in Iraq, said “99.9% of them perform their jobs magnificently.” Yes, and 99.9% of them, after all they’ve been through, will deeply resent the clear inference they lack “core values.” Is that different than standard “Corps values”?
Stories of apparently malfeasant U.S. troop behavior are arriving daily now. A military truck whose brakes failed from overheating crashed and killed Afghan civilians. Press reports are now fly-specking whether the troops shot over or at the rock-throwing mob of more than 300 that surrounded them. Every one of these troops surely knows the story of Mogadishu. Been there, never again. But there will be investigations of their behavior.
Finally came the even more lurid pregnant-woman shooting. As transmitted around the world by the BBC: “A pregnant Iraqi woman in labor and her cousin were shot dead by U.S. forces as they rushed to a hospital along a closed road, police and relatives say.” The BBC’s next four sentences neatly sum up the common story line now in play around U.S. troops: The soldiers said the car failed to heed a stop warning in a prohibited area; the driver said he heard no warning; U.S. troops will be “trained in moral and ethical conduct” and this “comes in the wake” of the Haditha allegations.
In El Paso, Texas, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, whose death from a roadside bomb is the event said to have precipitated the Marine shootings at Haditha, said simply: “I don’t even listen to the news.” This may be the widespread reaction as the Haditha story overwhelms all else–enough, I don’t want to hear about it.
And there begins the Iraq Syndrome.
Some elements of the newly ascendant Democratic left may welcome it, but no serious person in American politics should.
The Vietnam Syndrome, a loss of confidence in the efficacy of American military engagement, was mainly a failure of U.S. elites. But it’s different this time. This presidency has been steadfast in war. No matter. In a piece this week on the White House’s efforts to rally the nation to the idea of defeating terrorism abroad to thwart another attack on the U.S., the AP’s Nedra Pickler wrote: “But that hasn’t kept the violence and unrest out of the headlines every day.” This time the despondency looks to be penetrating the general population. And the issue isn’t just body counts; it’s more than that.
The missions in Iraq and Afghanistan grew from the moral outrage of September 11. U.S. troops, the best this country has yet produced, went overseas to defend us against repeating that day. Now it isn’t just that the war on terror has proven hard; the men and women fighting for us, the magnificent 99%, are being soiled in a repetitive, public way that is unbearable.
The greatest danger at this moment is that the American public will decide it wants to pull back because it has concluded that when the U.S. goes in, it always gets hung out to dry.
Two major military reports will come out soon on the Haditha incident, and no one will gainsay justice if that is required. But the atmosphere around this event is going to get uncontrollably manic, and that will feed the dark, inward-turning sentiments already poisoning the country’s mood over issues like the immigration debate.
Good for Democrats? Don’t count on it. After this, the public appetite for a Democratic president’s “humanitarian” military intervention in a Darfur or East Timor will be close to zero.
One suspects that U.S. troops were party to some awful events in the Pacific and European theaters of World War II, all gone in the mists of history and the enemy’s defeat. Not now. Gen. Chiarelli’s magnificent “99.9%” notwithstanding, it’s the phenomenon of the so-very-public 0.01%–at Abu Ghraib, on an Afghan street, at Haditha–that is breaking America’s will this time.
Bingo.
And just who is is that helps perpetuate the myth that .01% = all of the US military? Shouldn’t be too hard to figure out, now should it (scroll)? Nope, not at all. |
Duncan
Supporter
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 6441
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Friday, June 2, 2006 - 3:18 pm: |
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Yes Joel. A news story from the AP vs an opinion piece (Blogger). Thats fine, but what about the content of the piece.
Had the internet and 24 hour news been around in the '40s and 50's do you think they would not have reported on what was happening if events like this happened with the same regularity?
I am not sure what to make of your post. All I said was that it sucked and you post that the media is in some sort of feeding frenzy trying to break the will of America???
Okey Dokey. |
The Notorious S.L.K.
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1561
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, June 2, 2006 - 3:34 pm: |
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Duncan,
Not a feeding frenzy, but a little self-restraint would be nice now and then.
-SLK |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 1399
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, June 2, 2006 - 3:35 pm: |
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Yes Joel indeed. The fact is that as soon as the American people are truly informed about what we are really doing in Iraq and the true reasons for invading, that the will to be there will be totally gone. Fact of the matter is that the is totally gone now. With Bush's approval at 1/3 of the population, it means 2/3 disagree with his policies. That would mean at the top is Iraq.
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Mustt_mustt
Citizen
Username: Mustt_mustt
Post Number: 576
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 2, 2006 - 3:36 pm: |
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What I find ironical is that this ethically challenged administration is actually going to impart ethics training to the soldiers. |
The Notorious S.L.K.
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1563
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, June 2, 2006 - 3:48 pm: |
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mustt mustt-
can you please define "ethically challenged administration..", or at least provide examples?
-SLK |
Mustt_mustt
Citizen
Username: Mustt_mustt
Post Number: 577
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 2, 2006 - 3:56 pm: |
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SLK-
An administration that has not been ethical in conducting the affairs of the nation, especially with regard to the war against Iraq which was based on lies, manipulation of intelligence to suit its own purposes, not to forget that plans for the war were initiated even before 9/11/01 against a nation that did not have anything to do with events on 9/11.
If that doesn't work please refer to previous threads on Iraq and the like. |
Duncan
Supporter
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 6444
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Friday, June 2, 2006 - 8:56 pm: |
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SLK...restraint is exactly what has wrecked journalism in the last 10 years. Since Monica, the press is afraid to ask hard questions for fear of not getting access to the "anonymous sources in the White House". And the Bush WH has been notoriously guilty of that practice. Nevermind what you think of Helen Thomas, the way Bush has ignored her and then dismissed her is a direct result of the restraint of which you speak. |
The Notorious S.L.K.
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1566
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Friday, June 2, 2006 - 9:51 pm: |
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Mustt mustt-
I figured you would say that. It has become nauseously predicatable these days.
So I guess the two independent investigations that cleared Dubya of "lying" about Iraq are lying too?
Can you please provide me proof that he lied? And can you please tell me his purpose for lying?
Thanks.
-SLK
It sounds to me you have watched F911 one too many times.... |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3544
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Friday, June 2, 2006 - 10:15 pm: |
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I am sorry, I can't stay up and argue as I am exhausted. I must ask, however, how can we be asked to "wait for the legal process to take its course" when these events may go on indefinitely? For goodness' sake. Everyone just woke up and realized war is murder. Women and children? Let's just get out. Why run the risk that this kind of murder will continue?
Keep waking up, America. A little bit more to go... |
Albatross
Citizen
Username: Albatross
Post Number: 850
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Friday, June 2, 2006 - 11:01 pm: |
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Quote:Why run the risk that this kind of murder will continue?
Because of the high potential that murder will occur on a greater scale following an American withdrawl at this point in time. America has managed to take responsibility on itself to see Iraq through to greater stability, for better or worse :-/. However irresponsible the start of the war, it's what we're left with. |
joel dranove
Citizen
Username: Jdranove
Post Number: 557
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 5:49 am: |
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Up early.
Yep, the media has kept secret why we are in Iraq.
Must be their pre-publication restraint, in face of the proven death squads roving our nation after the Iraq war thought tribunals were set up by the vast right wing oil conspiracy.
Hugo Chavez excepted.
jd |
sylvester the investor
Citizen
Username: Mummish
Post Number: 135
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 7:16 am: |
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Take a seat......you are wrong. No wrong doing found in Ishaqi. Try again.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060603/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_haditha;_ylt=AhtSOlF.tyFaCiLuOP_sHCMDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBhZDJjOXUyBHNlYwNtdm5ld3M- |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3545
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 8:41 am: |
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Right. No murder there!!
PS: Albatross: By your logic, we stay and continue the murder so we are the murderers and not the Iraqi warring factions. We have already helped to foment social upheaval and even, some would say, Civil War in Iraq. And you would have us stay and see what more we could do to "stabilize" this country.
Unbelievable. We are the only ones who know how to bring peace and stability to a region. Yup. Just like we did in Viet Nam. Very peaceful. When we got out of Viet Nam, some killing may have continued, but in general, it stopped. When Britain left India/Pakistan, a war broke out, but Britain wasn't in it, even though their colonial rule led to it. Let's get out before we do more damage. If you imply that we are the global doctors here on this earth to heal world unrest, let's follow the Hyppocratic Oath, and do no (more) harm.
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llama
Citizen
Username: Llama
Post Number: 790
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 8:57 am: |
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Sylvestor;
Either you're reading comprehension needs to be examined, or you didn't read the artical. |
The Notorious S.L.K.
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1568
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 9:22 am: |
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tulip-
"Some killing" occured in post Vietnam but in general it stopped?
So you define Pol Pots/Khmer Rouge (who?) rampage (taking out millions) as "some killing?" Never saw the Killing Fields?
What, don't believe me?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot
I swear to god I am going to start compiling the top 10 most ignorant MOL statements and post them at the end of each year.
Oh, BTW, summing up 140k troops based on the action of a few is prejudicial. I wonder how long it would take me to get banned (again-remember our pact Jamie)if I start doing the same with black America or gays?
In other words, you don't throw the entire car out if y ou need an oil change, Tulip...
The most annoying thing about left wingers of your type is your deliberate inability to see through your own BS. You regurgitate and nothing more.
And remember that matter no matter how much you despise war it is a necessary evil at times. While you sit all comfty in your nice warm house and sending a complaint to Jamie (take note: telephone calls are not necessary) about me please keep in mind that war has gotten you to such a point.
-SLK
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Albatross
Citizen
Username: Albatross
Post Number: 851
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 10:16 am: |
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Yes, we have already helped forment social upheaval, but like I said above, that's a function of past irresponsibility. Our goal should be to minimize the number of deaths, no matter what their origin. I think you'd agree that this country is largely responsible for destabilizing Iraq. Depending on how you see it, that may have been wrong or right, but either way it's our mess and we should help clean it up. It doesn't mean that we're the only ones who can bring stability to the region, but that said, who should we hand it off to?
Call it a sick sort of chemotherapy. |
Duncan
Supporter
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 6446
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 10:32 am: |
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Written in 1999 and still really valid today.
The Philosophy of Loss--Emily Saliers
Quote:welcome to why the church has died
and the heart of the exile and the kingdom of hate
who owns the land and keeps the commands
and marries itself to the state
modern scribes write in jesus christ
everyone is free
and the doors open wide to all straight men and women
but they are not open to me
who is teaching kids to be soldiers
to be marked by a plain white cross
and we kill just a little to save a lot more
the philosophy of loss
now there are a few who would be true
out of love and love is hard
and don't think that our hands haven't shoveled the dirt
over their central american graveyards
doctors and witch hunters stripped you bare
left you nothing for your earthly sins
yeah but who made this noise just a bunch of boys
and the one with the most toys wins
and who is teaching kids to be gamblers
life is a coin toss
and of course what you give up is what you gain
the philosophy of loss
whatever has happened to anyone else
could happen to you and to me
and the end of my youth was the possible truth
that it all happens randomly
so who is teaching kids to be leaders
and the way that it is is meant to be
the philosophy of loss
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tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3546
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 11:05 am: |
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and we kill just a little to save a lot more
the philosophy of loss
In two lines, that summarizes my problem with this whole thing.
If these were your children, you would not like this philosophy.
SLK: You are right about Pol Pot. We all know about the relationship between the vacuum of power and how it breeds opportunists who have no other goal but power. If you look at the entire history of this planet, when an occupying army leaves a occupied region, the vacuum of power breeds opportunistic tyrants such as Pol Pot, or civil war, such as Pakistan and India. As France, Portugal, Spain, England, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy gradually pulled out of Asia, Africa and Latin America, regions that seemed "stabilized" by the military and socioeconomic power of the European occupiers did not fare well at first, either through war or poverty, but gradually got to their own feet. The fact is, that independence requires the one thing that Bush is not giving Iraq, and that is, the time it takes to become independent. The time it takes to stand on their own feet, find their OWN leadership, not the one we want them to have, and the time it takes to build back their OWN society, not the one we want them to have.
Keeping countries on the defensive does not help them to become independent. They become enraged, much as Iraq is becoming, and much as Iran became beginning with the coup manufactured by the CIA to put the Shah into power.
Dream on SLK. Also, I don't recall calling Jamie about you. I don't know where that came from. Oy, what silly rumors fly!!!
Albatross: The chemotherapy is not going to work. We really have to start the process of disengagement, for reasons I mentioned here. It's so late in the game to realize that there are serious mistakes being made. The whole thing is a serious mistake, and so many innocent lives on both sides have been lost. If we want to give those innocent lives their justice, we'd take a lesson from their loss and remove ourselves before we create too much of a power vacuum.
It is visible throughout history that the greater the power that has occupied, the longer it has occupied, the greater the power vacuum when they leave, and the more disastrous (ie Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Pappa Doc Duvalier, Manuel Noriega, the list is endless) the replacement.
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3ringale
Citizen
Username: Threeringale
Post Number: 225
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 11:41 am: |
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War is war and atrocities happen in war. On both sides. Even in "good" wars, like WW II. We are asking our troops to do a job they are not really equipped to do, i.e. be an army of occupation. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but if an investigation shows that our troops have done these things, then those responsible should be punished according to our rules of military justice.
As far as withdrawing from Iraq goes, I don't see why we need to stay there since our stated objectives have been met. Our objectives were: 1-Regime change and 2-Elimination of Iraq's WMD programs. We toppled Saddam and killed his sons and there were no WMDs, so it looks like Mission Accomplished, to coin a cliche.
We could start securing our own borders and and try to restore some semblance of reason to our fiscal affairs. If a government emerges from the chaos in Iraq that seems reasonably stable, it would be morally incumbent on us to give them some money to help rebuild the infrastructure that we destroyed. Of course, the lives lost are irreplaceable.
Cheers |
Albatross
Citizen
Username: Albatross
Post Number: 852
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 11:58 am: |
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I never said I like it. Quite the opposite is true.
You're absolutely right about the process of disengagement. I still think that the process should foster and be incumbent on self-sustaining stability in Iraq. I'm not opposed to disengagement so much as I'm opposed immediate and unconditional disengagement. At this point, a measured withdrawl is likely to afford better results than an unconditional one.
As far as the nations you mentioned, the reasons for their failings are varied. I think that to lump them all under one broad statement doesn't give credit to the unique situations and actions in each case. In the cases of Uganda, Haiti and Panama, however, lack of forethought by the occupying power in its policies and withdrawl clearly played a part in the subsequent events in each. |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3547
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 12:35 pm: |
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In any case, re. Ishaqi, many Iraqi citizens disagree with the US findings.
Iraqi Condemns Probe Clearing U.S. Troops of Misconduct; New Footage Shows Children Among Victims
By KIM GAMEL
Associated Press Writers
(AP) 11:28:47 AM (ET), Saturday, June 3, 2006 (BAGHDAD, Iraq)
An Iraqi whose brother was killed by American troops during a raid north of Baghdad condemned on Saturday a U.S. military investigation that cleared forces of wrongdoing, as new footage showed that at least four children were among the victims.
The U.S. military said Saturday it found no wrongdoing by American troops accused of intentionally killing civilians during a March 15 raid in Ishaqi, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. As many as 13 Iraqis were killed.
The investigation concluded that U.S. troops followed normal procedures in raising the level of force after coming under fire while approaching a building where they believed an al-Qaida terrorist was hiding, said Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S military spokesman.
Caldwell also acknowledged there were "possibly up to nine collateral deaths" in addition to the four Iraqi deaths that the military announced at the time.
He said Saturday there had been a great deal of attention concerning "coalition forces killing innocent Iraqi civilians. However, each case needs to be examined individually."
Issa Hrat Khalaf, whose brother was killed in the ensuing air strike, demanded an independent investigation and said the U.S. forces responsible for the killings should be executed.
"Where are the terrorists? Are they the old lady or the kids?" he said in a telephone interview, referring to the fact that women and children were among the victims. "It looks like the lives of the Iraqis are worthless."
The bloody aftermath of the attack was captured at the time in the footage shot by an AP Television News cameraman. The video became the focus of attention Friday when the BBC aired it in the wake of recent allegations of U.S. troops killing unarmed civilians.
The footage shows at least one adult male and four of the children with deep wounds to the head that could have been caused by bullets or shrapnel. One child has an obvious entry wound to the side and the inside of the walls left standing were pocked with bullet holes. A voice on the tape said there were clear bullet wounds in two people.
The investigation of the attack in Ishaqi, near Samarra in the Sunni Arab heartland north of Baghdad, was one of three probes into possible misconduct by American troops in Iraq. U.S. Marines also are accused of deliberately killing two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians in the western town of Haditha on Nov. 19 after one of their own died in a roadside bombing.
Besides Haditha and Ishaqi, seven Marines and a Navy corpsman could face murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges in the April shooting death of an Iraqi man west of Baghdad.
Robert Ford, the U.S. Embassy political counselor, promised during a briefing for Iraqi reporters that "all information about what happened in Haditha will be shared with the Iraqi people."
"What is happening in Haditha is being fully investigated and American soldiers will face military justice if wrongdoings are found," Ford said in Arabic.
Army Brig. Gen. Donald Campbell, the chief of staff for U.S. forces in Iraq, said Friday the military will cooperate with the Iraqi government in its own investigation of Haditha and other incidents of alleged wrongdoing by U.S. troops.
New footage shot by AP Television News in Haditha and broadcast Saturday showed walls pockmarked with bullet holes inside a stone house belonging to those killed. There also was a dusty TV with an apparent bullet hole.
Iman Walid Abdul-Hameed, a 9-year-old girl who said she was in the house when the shootings occurred, said her brother and several other relatives were killed.
"We want the Americans to be hurt just like us," she told the cameraman from her cousin's house, where she is now living.
The New York Times reported Saturday that commanders learned within two days that civilians in Haditha were killed by gunfire and not a roadside bomb, quoting a senior Marine officer it did not name. The officer said officials had no information suggesting the civilians had been killed deliberately and saw no reason to investigate further.
The U.S. military in Baghdad declined to comment on the report Saturday because the investigation is ongoing.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Thursday upbraided the U.S. military for "a horrible crime" in Haditha and accused U.S. troops of habitually attacking unarmed civilians. His office had no immediate comment on the exoneration of the troops in the Ishaqi killings.
On Friday, White House press secretary Tony Snow said al-Maliki had told U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad that he had been misquoted. But Snow was unable to explain what al-Maliki told Khalilzad or how he had been misquoted.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended the training and conduct of U.S. troops and said incidents such as the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians at Haditha shouldn't happen.
"We know that 99.9 percent of our forces conduct themselves in an exemplary manner. We also know that in conflicts things that shouldn't happen, do happen," he said. "We don't expect U.S. soldiers to act that way, and they're trained not to."
In Haditha, the Marines, enraged by the loss of a comrade, stormed into nearby homes in the area and allegedly shot occupants dead as well as several men in a taxi that arrived at the scene of the blast, according to U.S. lawmakers briefed by military officials.
In one of the homes, Marines ordered four brothers inside a closet and shot them dead, said the Haditha lawyer, Khaled Salem Rsayef.
Rsayef said several of his relatives _ including a sister, brother-in-law, aunt, uncle and several cousins _ were killed. He and his brother, Salam Salem Rsayef, spoke to The Associated Press by telephone from the Euphrates River town of 90,000 late Thursday and Friday.
Despite the Iraqi government's insistence of cooperation between the U.S. and Iraqi investigations, the Rsayefs said they and other victims' families refused the request several months ago to exhume the bodies, which is prohibited in Islam.
The Rsayef brothers met at least four times with U.S. military investigators looking into the killings. They said the meetings began in February and were held at Samarra General Hospital. The next meeting is scheduled for Sunday, the two brothers said, suggesting that the U.S. investigations are not finished.
Khaled Salam Rsayef identified the four brothers killed in the closet as a car dealer, a traffic policeman, an engineer and a local government employee. He said the U.S. military did not compensate their families because the brothers were believed to be insurgents.
The lawyer said his account of what happened was based on his personal observations from the rooftop of his home and windows. He said his house is several dozen yards away from the three homes raided by Marines. The killings, which he did not witness in person, were recounted to him and other members of his family the following day by survivors, he said.
The Haditha attack came four months before the nighttime raid in Ishaqi.
___
Associated Press reporters Robert Burns in Washington and Hamza Hendawi, Patrick Quinn and Qais al-Bashir in Baghdad
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Paul Surovell
Supporter
Username: Paulsurovell
Post Number: 619
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 4:29 pm: |
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It is axiomatic that when soldiers are ordered to invade and occupy another country that much of the population will support armed resistance to the invaders. A British Ministry of Defense survey last August found that 45% of Iraqis believe it's OK to kill US soldiers.
http://www.beaboutpeace.com/archives/2005/11/post_9.html
This survey was one of the reasons cited by John Murtha in has call for the US to end its deployment in Iraq.
If the alleged massacres prove to be true, the soldiers should be held responsible, but they should also be treated as victims of a policy that made them unwanted and unwelcome occupiers of another country. Such a policy inevitably blurs the distinction between enemy combatants and civilians. Such a policy contradicts the fundamental values that America stands for.
If these massacres took place, the soldiers and their superiors are responsible, but a higher responsibility lies with the President and his advisers and every member of Congress who has failed to call for an end to this unmitigated national disaster.
And in placing blame for these alleged incidents, one consideration should be that since a February 2006 survey by Zogby, we have known that 29% of US soldiers want us to withdraw from Iraq immediately and 72% want us to withdraw by the end of 2006 (www.BeAboutPeace.com).
The fact that the President and the Congress have ignored this call for an end to the war by our troops in Iraq is further reason why a greater responsibility for the alleged massacres lies with the policy-makers than with the soldiers.
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Foj
Citizen
Username: Foger
Post Number: 1452
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 10:04 pm: |
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Bring the troops home, now, its past time. |
The Notorious S.L.K.
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 1571
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, June 3, 2006 - 11:14 pm: |
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Paul-
I don't even know where to begin so I won't.
One question though, is your motives to end this war purely about achieving peace or justice?
-SLK |
Paul Surovell
Supporter
Username: Paulsurovell
Post Number: 620
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 4, 2006 - 2:12 am: |
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SLK,
I oppose this war for moral, security, constitutional and economic reasons, in that order.
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llama
Citizen
Username: Llama
Post Number: 791
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, June 4, 2006 - 9:16 am: |
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After hearing all the reasons (or excuses) given to justify our going to war in Iraq, how would pulling out support any of them? Atrocities are a given in any war. War is the breakdown of human intelligence. |
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