Please don't let me say anything that will get me killed by the Americans

[JohnyCanuck]

3 U.S. commanders relieved of duty as Iraqi town mourns its dead
By Nancy A. Youssef
Knight Ridder Newspapers

HADITHA, Iraq - In the middle of methodically recalling the day his brother's family was killed, Yaseen's monotone voice and stream of tears suddenly stopped. He looked up, paused and pleaded: "Please don't let me say anything that will get me killed by the Americans. My family can't handle any more."

The story of what happened to Yaseen and his brother Younes' family has redefined Haditha's relationship with the Marines who patrol it. On Nov. 19, a roadside bomb struck a Humvee on Haditha's main road, killing one Marine and injuring two others.

The Marines say they took heavy gunfire afterwards and thought it was coming from the area around Younes' house. They went to investigate, and 23 people were killed.

Eight were from Younes' family. The only survivor, Younes' 13-year-old daughter, said her family wasn't shooting at Marines or harboring extremists that morning. They were sleeping when the bomb exploded. And when the Marines entered their house, she said, they shot at everyone inside.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/14298263.htm

[Burning Water]

1. War

is certainly Hell.

A sad story, indeed.

[Schema Thing]

2. er, war is one thing, this another thing altogether.

This has not one thing to do with "war".

[IndyOp]

6. Massacres, soldiers out of control, death of innocents -

Is a part of every war.

To say that there is any such thing as a 'good war' is a lie -- women are raped, children shot, people tortured, communities and societies are destroyed in every war.

I am a pacifist. I want the lies about war stopped. It always turns ugly. Sending soldiers to war makes them do ugly things. Some get to keep their hands clean, but not the troops on the front lines. If we embrace the truth about the overwhelming ugliness of war then maybe we can end it.

:(

[Burning Water]

9. Well said n/t

[file83]

14. You guys got it all wrong...Democracies are PEACEFUL countries...

Don't take my word for it, listen to this guy explain it.

[wtmusic]

16. Then you must disagree with Geneva

because the whole idea was to establish basic rules that *even* during wartime there are actions which the international community will not accept. You and Alberto Gonzales would have a lot to talk about.

What if your country is attacked? You have no right to defend it? And if you do, the sky's the limit? Any actions are acceptable?

Working for peace is a wonderful thing. Assigning moral equality to military actions and the wholesale slaughter of civilians is not.

[Burning Water]

18. True, of course

the Geneva Conventions are an attempt to alleviate the severity of war, and do not, more than any other piece of paper, affect the reality of it at all. Yet even the Geneva conventions recognize that there can be civilians killed in war by accident, or because they were in the killed because they were present when a legitimate military action was occurring. AS I said, and Sherman before me, "War is Hell".

[Memory Container]

3. I remember this story...

I saw the pictures.

They just went in the house and slaughtered an entire family. Men, women, elderly, children.
May the animals that did that burn in hell.

[etherealtruth]

4. How can anyone not be moved ...

by the pain of inncoent Iraqi's?

[ooglymoogly]

5. we have to face reality

at least 20%of our population are knowingly and proudly cheering on mass murder under the the bloody banners of jerry falwell, pat roberts and other neo nazi leaders. another 30% like ww2 germans are willing and happy to follow closing their ears and eyes to the truth while the reich wing corporate media and their pundits get up on our airwaves lying misrepresenting and spinning the new holocaust into oblivion. thats 50% of our population who support mass murderers and perhaps another 45% who know it is wrong and would vote against it but do not want to get actively involved. then there are the less than 5% of us screaming from the rooftops of the internet, signing petitions, marching, supporting alternate candidates and generally doing everything we know, desperately trying to stop the killing, the gross, criminal insanity and alas that sound we are making in the wilderness is growing by leaps and bounds as we literally force the truth on un hearing and unseeing murka.

[IndyOp]

7. I think you are right that only 5% understand the long-term pattern

-- Iraq is just another senseless notch in the belt of the US military imperialist brigade.

The number of US citizens who are willing to believe that Iraq is an anomalous 'bad war' and that it should be ended is much higher -- and we need to use this 'teachable moment' to show the reality of US foreign policy: American Holocaust.

Real Shock & Awe: After 15 Years War, Sanctions 1,000,000 Iraqis Dead
<http://journals.democraticunderground.com/IndyOp/4>

Finally - I don't think we can force truth on anyone... We do have to be very, very persistent so that as many people as possible will WAKE UP.

[vickitulsa]

8. I agree. If all the Americans who backed the invasion of Iraq

before it was launched could have somehow been made to think about the fact that they were supporting turning a great many young Americans, their own fellow citizens serving in the military, into KILLERS, I wonder if it would have made a difference?

Perhaps not, but I hope at least those same civilian supporters are thinking about it NOW.

The longer this insanity in Iraq goes on, the more I am flashed back to the insanity in Vietnam, what it did to those who had to fight, what it did to all of us here at home, how high a price was paid by so many -- first and foremost the people of Vietnam.

Can you say "My Lai"? Can you say "destroy the village to 'save' it"?

War is the cruelest and dirtiest of all dirty businesses ... and sadly the truth of it is just that: it IS BUSINESS to certain powerful and wealthy persons.....

[ooglymoogly]

19. what i meant by forcing the truth was

calling the corporate media on the lies, distortion and propaganda and the cheer leading of the gop and this war.

[countryjake]

11. Some people rabidly support "a strong war" and see no innocents...

A letter to the editor yesterday, in my small town newspaper, was from a guy who believes we should let the Marines wipe out all those villages where "insurgents" are hidden and supported. The guy was foaming at the mouth, saying he believes in fighting fire with fire. His most famous quote in our paper, to date, "Give me more torture pictures!"

[countryjake]

10. Here's the CBS story on that massacre, from last month...

Watch the news clip (on the right panel) and they show portions of the video which disputes the original story given by those Marines.


In One Village, Video Tells A Story
Lara Logan BAGHDAD March 20, 2006
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/20/eveningnews/main1419509.shtml

~snip~

At first, U.S. Marines said 15 civilians and 8 suspected insurgents who died in the village of Haditha, Iraq, last November were killed by a roadside bomb. Later, a video turned up – not of the incident, but of the village the next day - including the villagers talking about what happened.

CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports the video sparked three investigations, one of which has already disproved the initial report about the bomb being to blame for the deaths of the civilians and suspected insurgents.

The U.S. military confirmed to CBS News that it has paid compensation to the families of those killed in this incident - and compensation is only paid when the dead are not enemy combatants.

[JohnyCanuck]

12. Semper Fi babykillers.

The U.S. military confirmed to CBS News that it has paid compensation to the families of those killed in this incident - and compensation is only paid when the dead are not enemy combatants.

I am sure the money will go a long way to erasing memmories like this:

Yaseen said that Safa told him that four soldiers came into the bedroom, but only one did the yelling. Her mother, who had heard the shooting asked: "What did you do to my husband?" Her sisters, mother and aunt were crying. And then the one soldier who had been yelling started shooting.

Frightened, Safa fainted. She thought she had died. When she awoke, she remembered seeing her mother still lying in bed. Her head was blown open. She looked around and heard her 3-year-old brother, Mohammed, moan in pain. The blood was pouring out of his right arm.

"Come on, Mohammed. Get up so we can go to uncle's house," she told her brother. But he couldn't.

In the same room where her mother, aunt and sisters lay dead, Safa grabbed the toddler, sat down and leaned his head against her shoulder. She put his arm against her chest and held it to try to stop the bleeding. She kept holding and talking to him until, like everyone else in the room, he too was silent. And then she ran next door.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/14298263.htm

[renate]

13. that story is excruciating to read

It's unbearable to think about what those innocent people went through.

There just aren't words. How can this happen to civilians? To CHILDREN?

[wtmusic]

17. Interesting to find out what the compensation was

The US believes a dead Italian is worth about $2M. Something tells me a brown-skinned Iraqi is worth substantially less. :eyes:

[IndyJones]

15. OMG, how could you not be moved to tears after reading that?:(

It makes me so sad to think of the hell those people are living right now. When will it end?!!