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U.S. confronts brutal culture among its finest sons
(Paul Harris and Peter Beaumont, The Observer, June 4, 2006)
American veterans of the war in Iraq have described a culture of casual violence, revenge and prejudice against Iraqi civilians that has made the killing of innocent bystanders a common occurrence. . . . The US military is now involved in at least three separate investigations into its own soldiers' conduct in Iraq that may illegally have led to the deaths of Iraqi civilians. It is widely expected that more incidents will be uncovered. . . . Last week it was revealed that two more incidents have also been under investigation. The first is the death of 11 Iraqis during an American raid near Balad in March. The dead included five children. . . . Some American veterans have expressed little surprise at the latest revelations. 'I don't doubt for one moment that these things happened. They are widespread. This is the norm. These are not the exceptions,' said Camilo Mejia, a US infantry veteran who served briefly in the Haditha area in 2003. . . . American veterans have told The Observer of a military culture that places little practical emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties in the heat of battle . . . We dehumanise the enemy under these circumstances,' said Mejia. 'They called them gooks in Vietnam and we called them Hajis in Iraq.' . . . Mejia described an incident in Ramadi when his unit was manning a roadblock near a mosque. When one car refused to stop, US soldiers opened fire on it. Then the American unit came under fire from elsewhere. In the resulting firefight, however, no insurgents were killed while seven Iraqi civilians stuck at the roadblock died. No weapons were found in the car that had refused to stop. 'There was no sense in it. There was no basic humanity. They were all civilians and we didn't kill any insurgents,' Mejia said. . . . At the heart of the issue is a culture of violence against Iraqi civilians that has been present in large measure since the moment US forces crossed the border into Iraq - an inability and unwillingness to distinguish between civilians and combatants that as three years have passed has been transformed, for some, into something more deliberate. . . . From the shootings of civilians in Nasiriya by marines during the US advance to similar shootings by the Third Infantry Division on the outskirts of Baghdad during the so-called 'Thunder Run' into the city, the same pattern has reasserted itself. . . . And as the occupation and insurgency have dragged on, the sense of unaccountability has only increased. . . . It is a lack of discipline that has been commented on with horror by British officers - representing an army that itself has seen its own soldiers seriously mistreat Iraqi civilians. . . . In the days since evidence of the Haditha killings emerged, media organisations, including The Observer, have been contacted with details of other incidents that Iraqis have long claimed involved the execution of civilians by US troops. . . . Among them is an alleged massacre at Makr al-Deeb, near the town of Al-Qaim on the Syrian border, where marines were alleged to have bombed a wedding party and then shot a number of survivors. . . . However, the impact of the scandals is likely to have a damaging impact on American attitudes towards the war. They have emerged in the wake of the prisoner abuse incidents at Abu Ghraib, which greatly damaged US public opinion about events in Iraq and deeply affected troop morale. . . . But many believe that the new scandals, in particular Haditha, will have a much larger political and military effect than Abu Ghraib. 'It will be bigger than Abu Ghraib. That was torture. At Haditha we are talking about people being killed. It will be a huge blow to US efforts,' said Aidan Delgado, a veteran whose unit served at Abu Ghraib. . . . The emerging picture of US military behaviour in Iraq is likely to shatter America's image of its soldiers, even in the midst of the 'war on terror', when extreme patriotism has become a growing facet of American public life. . . . They make it look like Abu Ghraib, that it was just some bad soldiers who went crazy - they were the bad apples,' said Mejia. Yesterday, however, Pentagon sources suggested that even before the Haditha court martials take place some senior officers may be relieved of their commands. . . . Mejia believes the problem is a systemic one. He points out that both the Abu Ghraib scandal and the Haditha massacre have only come to light because either locals or US soldiers took photographs of the crimes or their aftermath. If left to the army alone, they would never have been uncovered. . . . 'These things are just the ones we know about. Just think about how much else has gone that we don't know about. Civilians are dying there almost every day,' he said.

posted by LoZo 4:56 AM