Iraqi kicked to death by UK soldiers: report

[Aidoneus]

short piece..

Iraqi kicked to death by UK soldiers: report
Sunday 04 January 2004

Eight young Iraqis arrested in the southern Iraqi town of Basra last year were assaulted by British soldiers, and one of them died of his injuries a British newspaper has reported.

Baha Mousa's body was returned to his family covered in bruises and with his nose broken, after he and seven other men were arrested by British forces in September 2003, according to the Sunday edition of the Independent newspaper.

--snip--

The newspaper said in its report by veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk that it had seen military and medical records of the case showing that the father of two suffered his injuries in a severe beating.

--snip--

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A3553607-C38A-41E3-9F9B-8B8515D47451.htm

The paragraph after the 2nd segment above is probably the sickest--the British tried to pay off the family if they'd just not hold them responsible for the beating death! The British forces, as lackeys for the US occupation or on their own, have no business running al-Basrah, whether it be 80yrs ago, today, or tomorrow.

(and fyi, Fisk's full report in the Independent is a pay article for now.. it may show up elsewhere within a day or two.)

[IndianaGreen]

1. As we have learn from the Israelis, occupation brutalizes

As we have learn from the Israelis, occupation brutalizes and dehumanizes the occupation forces as well as the occupied. I am sorry to see that the same brutality that has been too widespread among American troops has also extended to the British.

[AP]

2. Even with a gun in hand, the Brits prefer the booting.

Fascinating.

I'm not so critical of the attempted pay-off. The Brits and the Americans SHOULD get in the frame of mind that they're going to average Iraqis monetary compensation for what they're doing.

[wtmusic]

4. That's a pretty fascinating POV, AP

Just what would the money be for then: to shut up, or for the pleasure of kicking ass?

[AP]

5. Do damage. Pay for damage. I'd rather see the money change hands

than see nothing happen at all.

It'd be best if they weren't even there in the first place. But if someone dies, someone should pay.

[wtmusic]

6. Instead of giving them a little token

how about sending the Brit to prison for war crimes? This is straight out of Geneva 3.

[AP]

7. I'm sure governments would sacrifice a few soldiers to prison, so

long as they weren't paying for it.

I'm not saying that the civil remedy should be to the exclusion of the criminal remedy.

All I'm saying is that it's good when money changes hands. That's the way things will really change. Well, that and when people much higher up the ladder start going to jail, when jail is appropriate.

[Clark4VotingRights]

3. I wonder if we'll see this in the US media.

I won't hold my breath of course.

[IndianaGreen]

8. Gas, chemicals, bombs: Britain has used them all before in Iraq

Our last occupation

Gas, chemicals, bombs: Britain has used them all before in Iraq

Jonathan Glancey
Saturday April 19, 2003
The Guardian

No one, least of all the British, should be surprised at the state of anarchy in Iraq. We have been here before. We know the territory, its long and miasmic history, the all-but-impossible diplomatic balance to be struck between the cultures and ambitions of Arabs, Kurds, Shia and Sunni, of Assyrians, Turks, Americans, French, Russians and of our own desire to keep an economic and strategic presence there.

Laid waste, a chaotic post-invasion Iraq may now well be policed by old and new imperial masters promising liberty, democracy and unwanted exiled leaders, in return for oil, trade and submission. Only the last of these promises is certain. The peoples of Iraq, even those who have cheered passing troops, have every reason to mistrust foreign invaders. They have been lied to far too often, bombed and slaughtered promiscuously.

Iraq is the product of a lying empire. The British carved it duplicitously from ancient history, thwarted Arab hopes, Ottoman loss, the dunes of Mesopotamia and the mountains of Kurdistan at the end of the first world war. Unsurprisingly, anarchy and insurrection were there from the start.

The British responded with gas attacks by the army in the south, bombing by the fledgling RAF in both north and south. When Iraqi tribes stood up for themselves, we unleashed the flying dogs of war to "police" them. Terror bombing, night bombing, heavy bombers, delayed action bombs (particularly lethal against children) were all developed during raids on mud, stone and reed villages during Britain's League of Nations' mandate. The mandate ended in 1932; the semi-colonial monarchy in 1958. But during the period of direct British rule, Iraq proved a useful testing ground for newly forged weapons of both limited and mass destruction, as well as new techniques for controlling imperial outposts and vassal states.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,939608,00.html

[Moderator]

9. Dupe... locking

Please continue discussion within the original LBN thread on this topic, which can be found here:

UK Soldiers Kicked Iraqi Prisoner to Death - Report (poster:Flagg)

Thanks!

DU Moderator