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On the subject of human rights abuses by U.S. military

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sr_pacifica Donating Member (775 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-17-04 08:00 PM
Original message
On the subject of human rights abuses by U.S. military
This is report from a man named Tom Cornell who had spent much time in Iraq before the current war. This is from a visit he made to Baghdad in February of this year. For the full article see:

http://www.catholicworker.org/roundtable/essaytext.cfm?Number=196

"Human rights violations by U.S. military are widespread, severe and unreported by mainstream media. I tagged along with the Christian Peacemaker Team to a small village in the countryside to interview a family, with an interpreter. The head of the farming family is a white haired, white bearded old man, his face dried and creased by the sun. We sit on the floor, on rugs and cushions. The house is brick, fairly substantial, with high ceilings, no wall decorations. Children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews run in and out. The lady of the house serves soft drinks. The men smoke."

There had been an attack on a U.S. military convoy nearby, no fatalities, some injuries. The following Friday, helicopters buzzed the local mosque to assemble the townspeople. The military swooped in and entered houses at random, took what cash they could find and arrested the men, dragged them by their collars, their hands cuffed behind their backs, to the scene of the attack, then forced them to kneel and demanded to know who was responsible. Black hemp sacks were placed over the men’s heads. They were kicked and beaten. Grandfather asked for water. A soldier beat him over the head with a water jug. He fell. A soldier then kicked him, lifted him up and threw him down again. The other men were told to face a wall. Their heads were bashed into the wall. Then they were forced to lie on their stomachs, their hands still cuffed behind their backs the next twelve hours. Grandfather and his son claimed this went on for four days. Marks of the plastic handcuffs were still visible on their wrists."

The thirty year old son told how he was interrogated on the third day of his detention. He was told to face a wall. His hood was removed. He was told to look neither to the left or the right, neither up or down or at the translator. He claimed the U.S. soldiers beat him on the shoulders, neck and head with their hands and fists, that he fell, that he was dragged to his feet by his neck and placed with his back to the wall this time. To show us what happened next, he took his ten year old boy and placed him back to the wall, separated his legs and then raised his foot as if to kick! He said that he was told that if he continued to refuse to cooperate, the soldiers would then go to his home, take all the women, strip them naked and put their photographs on the Internet. Absurd, but what are these pious Shiites to think?"

Grandfather asks our ages. I tell him 70. I ask his. He is 52. I could be his father yet he looks much older than I. He seems an honest and honorable man. “Allah does not want us to lie. I do not lie.”"

At some point during the time of these men’s detention, all the other men of the village were assembled and told to look at the ground, not at the soldiers. Men whose eyes strayed were forced to kneel. Soldiers pressed their heads downward and took photographs of then humiliated. “We come as friends,” a commander said. “Make us enemies and then see what we will do.” That called to mind the words of Col. Nathan Sassaman, battalion commander of the village of Abu Hishma, about fifty miles north of Baghdad: “With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them.”"

<snip>

"There are so many reports easily available on the Internet from Amnesty International, Christian Peacemaker Teams and from Occupation Watch of egregious human rights violations, eye-witness accounts of shootings, wild gunfire into crowds, abandoning Iraqi wounded civilians to die, prevention of aid to the wounded, failure even to record civilian deaths estimated to be up to ten thousand, mass arrests with no recourse to legal counsel and no specific charges, the disappearance of detainees, and theft by U.S. military, that I refer the reader to those sources and report only what I myself have seen and heard."

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Maat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-17-04 08:04 PM
Response to Original message
1. Wow. What a sad account.
This seems worse than Vietnam. I was 14-15 when we pulled our of 'Nam. Vietnam vets?
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mmonk Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-17-04 08:09 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. I wouldn't say worse
My buddies had some bad stories when they got back home. I didn't go as Nixon cancelled the draft right after I received my invitation.
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knowbody0 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-17-04 08:16 PM
Response to Reply #1
4. i weep knowing we judge which was worse now
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Rumba Donating Member (277 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-17-04 08:13 PM
Response to Original message
3. Quote of the f***ing day...


“With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them.”"
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Maat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Nov-17-04 10:12 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. Wow again.
I hope that I can show my daughter that war is absurd, and should only be undertaken under the direst of circumstances.
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