Collective punishment is expressly prohibited under the terms of the 1949 Geneva Conventions....While the Iron Hammer and Ivy Cyclone operations are a massive escalation of collective punishment, it's not a new policy. After the fall of Baghdad, strict curfews and mass arrests were two of the tactics used by US forces to try to crush resistance to the occupation.
In mid-October, the Independent's Patrick Cockburn reported, “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”. According to the farmers, 50 families lost their livelihoods. ...architect of the “shock and awe” campaign Harlan Ullman described its intent:..You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In two, three, four, five days, they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted.”
The CORDS agency, established in 1967..involved the destruction of entire Vietnamese villages and the creation of a police system “to create a climate of absolute terror”...special `rebuilding' efforts to `reward' persons willing to accommodate the Americans....comparable process was occurring throughout Iraq. GNN reporter Gert Van Langendonck described how money poured has been into the Shiite town of Balad, “US$1.2m so far — providing help with the water and electricity supply, and fixing up schools”. But in the surrounding Sunni villages, “where the Americans get shot at get slapped with an early 7pm curfew; they get four hours a day of electricity and very little in terms of reconstruction projects”....Weekly Standard, also urged the Pentagon to consider assassination programs like those the US carried out in Vietnam....
http://www.greenleft.org.au/current/563p14.htm
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