Here is one example of our honorable "nation building" in Iraq:

[tedzbear]

Business As Usual

A few days ago, I wrote of a soldier who had ordered an ill Iraqi detainee, Nagem Hatab, dragged by his neck out of his cell -- the detainee, who was also beaten up, died when his neck broke. (Medical evidence, however, was not introduced in the trial because we lost parts of this man's body. Yes, we lost parts of his body after killing him by breaking his neck by dragging him by the neck when he was too ill to stand up. Let me write that again: we lost parts of this man's body after killing him by breaking his neck by dragging him by the neck when he was too ill to stand up:

On Monday, Paulus testified that he ordered a lance corporal to drag Hatab by the neck because it was the only area that wasn't covered with feces. But under questioning from the military judge, Col. Robert Chester, Paulus acknowledged that Hatab's arms were clean. He said he didn't think to order his men to drag the inmate by his arms.
Here's what happened to Nagem Hatab's body parts:

The Army pathologist who autopsied the Iraqi, Nagem Hatab, found his larynx in her freezer at an Army base in Germany. An unmarked rib cage that may be Hatab’s was found at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C.
...

Hatab’s organs, which were removed during the autopsy, were destroyed when they were left for hours in the blazing heat on an Iraqi airstrip. A summary of an interrogation the Marines conducted with Hatab shortly before his death at the camp also is missing, as is a photo of Hatab taken during questioning.



Then, we acquitted the man who ordered this of the most serious charge so his punishment is ... nothing. He will be dismissed from the service. That's all. That's it:

Paulus, 36, of the Philadelphia suburb of Buckingham, Pa., commanded the Marine detention facility at Camp Whitehorse in southern Iraq. He was accused of ordering a subordinate to drag Nagem Sadoon Hatab by the neck out of a cell in June 2003 after the man suffered a bout of diarrhea.
Hatab was stripped naked and left outside for seven hours before he was found dead.

The jury deliberated for about six hours before finding Paulus guilty Wednesday.

...

Paulus was acquitted of the most serious charge of assault and battery.

...

A jury of Marine Corps officers on Wednesday found a major guilty of maltreatment and dereliction of duty in connection with the death of an Iraqi prisoner and sentenced him to be dismissed from the service.



And the men who did the beating and the dragging? He was sentenced to 60 days of hard labor and demoted to private. Yes, that's it.

This isn't even news, of course. You'd be hard-pressed to find it in your paper; perhaps it will be a paragraph somewhere down in page seventeen. It will probably not even be mentioned on television.

But this man has a family. He has a country. People will know, even if we don't.

Now, I don't know about Nagem Hatab. Maybe he was one of the 70 to 90 percent of the detainees estimated by the Red Cross to have been simply swept up in raids. I know he was a member of the Baath party -- but I don't know if he was one of the large numbers of people who joined the party because you pretty much had to? All we know is that he was accused of having sold a rifle that was believed come from a convoy of American soldiers that were ambushed.

Roy testified Wednesday that Pittman struck Hatab in the chest a day after the inmate arrived at Camp Whitehorse. Hatab fell to the ground, asked in English ``Why? Why? Why?'' and told the guards he had 11 children.
Roy said he replied: ``What about those people who were in the ambush you got this rifle from? What about their children?''



In the end, we don't know much about Hatab and we probaby won't know. What we do know is that we have joined the ranks of countries where this is "business as usual." The "accused" that come from among the ranks of the untermenschen get tortured and killed without much thought or punishment. Guilt is presumed. The right to kill them is assumed.

----underthesamesun.org

[eleny]

1. kick

[pacalo]

2. That is barbaric.

Every precaution should be taken by military leadership to ensure the Geneva Conventions is being followed.

Why?

The U.S. signed the Geneva Conventions so that our own troops will be protected should they become prisoners of war.