US soldiers bulldoze farmers' crops (trying to make them talk)

[donsu]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=452375

US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.

-snip-

"They made a sort of joke against us by playing jazz music while they were cutting down the trees," said one man. Ambushes of US troops have taken place around Dhuluaya. But Sheikh Hussein Ali Saleh al-Jabouri, a member of a delegation that went to the nearby US base to ask for compensation for the loss of the fruit trees, said American officers described what had happened as "a punishment of local people because 'you know who is in the resistance and do not tell us'." What the Israelis had done by way of collective punishment of Palestinians was now happening in Iraq, Sheikh Hussein added.

-snip-

The children of one woman who owned some fruit trees lay down in front of a bulldozer but were dragged away, according to eyewitnesses who did not want to give their names. They said that one American soldier broke down and cried during the operation. When a reporter from the newspaper Iraq Today attempted to take a photograph of the bulldozers at work a soldier grabbed his camera and tried to smash it. The same paper quotes Lt Col Springman, a US commander in the region, as saying: "We asked the farmers several times to stop the attacks, or to tell us who was responsible, but the farmers didn't tell us."

Informing US troops about the identity of their attackers would be extremely dangerous in Iraqi villages, where most people are related and everyone knows each other. The farmers who lost their fruit trees all belong to the Khazraji tribe and are unlikely to give information about fellow tribesmen if they are, in fact, attacking US troops.

Asked how much his lost orchard was worth, Nusayef Jassim said in a distraught voice: "It is as if someone cut off my hands and you asked me how much my hands were worth."
--------------------------------------

well they recently said they were studying Israel's program of intimidating the Palastinians to use on the Iraqis.

we americans will pay for our inhumanity.

[Cha]

1. Oh Boy! I smell backfire!

[AntiCoup2K4]

2. WTF?? Is Sharon training OUR troops now?

This sounds like IDF terrorism, not the USA

[DuctapeFatwa]

16. Actually, yes, the IDF has been training US Crusaders in their techniques

I don't have a link, but it is no secret and you can google it.

[NaMeaHou]

3. The policy of state endorsed terrorism hasn't worked for Israel

and won't work for the US either. This is obviously no way to win the hearts and minds. Instill fear, create hunger and deprivation. Show them who's in control, by god. What a way to win the peace.

edit: All war is obviously state sponsored terrorism.

[Malikshah]

4. Scream this from the mountaintops!

I know we'd been studying Israel's tactics (previous reports)--but WTF?

This is vile.

This is disgusting

THIS

IS

OCCUPATION.


Shame on every last one of those soldiers who did this. I will support our troops--but NOT when the use these tactics.

[Frances]

5. This is the saddest article about Iraq that I have ever read.

The American soldier who broke down and cried reminds me of the young Americans I talked to when they were just getting back from Vietnam. I wish I could bring every single American soldier home now.

[xJlM]

22. Vote for Kucinich

Nobody realistically wants to keep our soldiers in Iraq, yet Dennis Kucinich is the only candidate with a plan to bring our boys home. Everybody else seems to feel we need to stay there, including all the Democratic candidates except Kucinich and Al Sharpton.

[DemBones DemBones]

6. Did you see Frontline the other night? They showed footage of

American troops punishing Iraqis caught "looting" by making them get out of their car and watch while an American tank drove over the car several times.

A GI narrated the whole thing for the camera, explaining that this would teach them not to loot and steal.

So these Iraqis must have stolen something of great value, right? Wrong. Just some lumber they'd strapped on top of the car.

[Malikshah]

11. Naked Looters was just as bad

A Norwegian paper-- Dagbladet? Had a report of our troops stripping looters naked, writing Ali Baba, Thief on their chests in Arabic and making them run through the streets.

For the report-- go to www.memoryhole.org

Sorry--this and the astroturf "letters" from the front need to be pushed in the face of every supporter of this travesty.

[ShaneGR]

7. You haven't seen ANYTHING yet

Mark my words, we will start to relocate all of those people to areas of Iraq that currently pose no problem for us. We did the same thing in Vietnam, having relocated tens of thousands of Vietnamese farmers in an attempt to starve the VC of new soldiers because they were conscripting the farmers.

[ChewToy]

8. I fear the day when we hear reports of reprisal shootings

I pray we're out of Iraq before that happens.

[NicoleM]

9. this makes me sick.

One of the reasons I was against the war was that I was afraid we would breed a whole new generation of terrorists, little kids who would only remember the Americans as the people who killed their parents.

It's turning out even worse than I feared. The damage we've done, to them and to ourselves, is going to take generationS to reverse.

[MisterP]

10. kick

for this horror

[DuctapeFatwa]

12. They will also be ending the UN Food Distribution program

I don't remember the exact % of Iraqis who depend on it for survival, but it is obviously huge since the Crusaders ended most means of livelihood in the spring.

Destroying the crops is just a routine operation to stamp out food accessibility and reduce the population, it really has very little to do with whether they "talk" or not.

[MrPrax]

13. Truly Sad, Illegal and Kicked

[leftchick]

14. this is just heartbreaking...

I read it this AM in LBN and keep thinking about it. The pain and suffering we are inflicting upon these poor people is just unbelievable. I noticed in the LBN thread too someone posted the aljeezrha (sp?) version of events. They claim the fields were wiped out to reduce the use of them as camouflage for the terrorists. Sounds an awful lot like a Vietnam redux. :(

[MUAD_DIB]

15. The more they try and cut down the resistance

the faster it will sprout up around them.

When did our troops become the Nazis?


Give Iraq over to the U.N. before it is too late.

[lumpy]

17. And the warmongers are still claimimg that Iraq

is better off than before the US invasion. Bushco's grand plan has deteriorated into a mishmosh of vengeance, scorched-earth policy ,indiscriminate killing, and war profiteering. We are going to pay dearly for the irresponsibility and desparate ruthlessness exhibited by Bush and his loyal minions.

[bring_em_home_bush]

18. ~

The retaliation is apt to be in monstrous disproportion to the supposed offense; for when in anybody was revenge in its exactions aught else but an inordinate usurer?
Herman Melville

[Astarho]

19. Let's see

The Occupiers are encountering a resistance movement, so they go to the people they are occupying and DESTROY THEIR FARMS and suddenly expect the occupied to help? Anyone with a simple understanding of logic would realize this would drive these people into the Resistance.

Karma's gonna be a bitch.

[gratuitous]

20. Gee, I remember when the U.S. fought against this sort of thing

I feel very, very old reading this. Shame on this corrupt administration.

[Mairead]

21. Vote for Dennis, folks. He's the best choice to get us the hell out of it

Collective punishment is a full, all-stops-out war crime.

"Those who can protest and do not, are accomplices in the crime"

Vote for Dennis. He's the only sane choice.

[devinsgram]

23. Well, so much democracy,

don't they understand they only making it worse.