Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
Now Available!
Today's
Stories
May 1 / 3, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Watching Niagra: Stupid Leaders, Useless
Spies, Angry World
April
29 / 30, 2004
Dave
Zirin
A Pawn in Their Game: the Unlonesome Death
of Pat Tillman
Kathy
Kelly
The Warden's Tour
Greg
Weiher
Fallujah and the Warsaw Ghetto: the Banality
of Evil
Michael
S. Ladah
Terrorism and Assassination: the Ultimate
Depception
Patrick
Cockburn
The Fallujah Mutinies
April
28, 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
Meet Congressman Know-Nothing:
Tom Tancredo
Wendy
Brinker
The Politics of the Numb
Faisal
Kutty
The Dirty Work of Canadian Intelligence
John
Chuckman
Seeking the Evil One
Mike
Whitney
Flag-Draped Coffins and the Seattle Times
Tom
Mountain
Rwanda and the F***** Word
Graeme
Greenback
The Iraqi Alamo: a CNN/CIA Production
Tracy
McLellan
The War Comes Home
M.
Junaid Alam
We are the Barbarians
William
Loren Katz
Iraq, the US and an Old Lesson
April 27, 2004
James
Davis
The Colombia 3 Acquitted
Dave
Lindorff
Chalabi as Prosecutor
Bruce
Schneier
Terrorist Threats and Political
Gain
Cockburn
/ Sengupta
British Generals Resist Calls for
More Troops to Aid Americans in Iraq
Walt
Brasch
Presidential Letters: The Day I
Was Asked to Feed an Elephant
Saul
Landau
The Empire in Denial and the Denial
of Empire
April 26, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Crossing the Shia Line: US Troops
Prepare to Enter Najaf
Wayne
Madsen
Trading Places: Will the US Go the Way of the USSR?
Grover
Furr
Protest, Rebellion, Commitment
Elaine
Cassel
Lies About the Patriot Act
Mickey
Z.
Inspired by Pat Tillman?
Greg
Moses
Bremer's De-De-Ba'athjfication Gambit
Gila
Svirsky
Anarchy in Our Souls
Uri
Avnery
Vanunu and the Terrible Secret
April 24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
April 23, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
The Only Solution is Immediate Withdrawal
Dave
Lindorff
Imagination Deficit Disorder
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Contractors and Mercenaries: the Rising Corporate Military Monster
Norman
Solomon
Country Joe Band, 2004: "What Are We Fighting For?"
Cynthia
McKinney
All Things Are Not Equal: the Perils of Globalization
CounterPunch
Wire
A Bitch Called Wanda
Karyn
Strickler
Sierra Club, Inc.
Hammond
Guthrie
Yellow Caked in the Face
Paul
de Rooij
Graveyard of Justifications: Glossary
of the Iraqi Occupation
April 22, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
When Terror Came to Basra: "I
Saw a Minibus of Children on Fire"
Tanya
Reinhart
The Wall Behind Disengagement
Lance
Selfa
Why is Kucinich Still in the Race?
Josh
Frank
Street Fighting Man? Kucinich's Pulled Punches
Sen.
Robert Byrd
Bush Owes America Answers on Iraq
William
S. Lind
Why We Get It Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Undoing the Latches
Robert
Jensen
Why They Fast: Remembering the Victims of the World Bank
John
L. Hess
The New York Times from 30,000 Feet
April
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Yeats on Iraq
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia's Forgotten Prisoners
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's Taliban Drug Deal
William
A. Cook
George 1 to George 2
Jack
Random
Iraq and Vietnam
Jean-Guy
Allard
Alarcon Meets the Editors
Mike
Whitney
Charade in the Desert
Bill
Christison
Only Major Policies Changes Can
Help Washington Now
| Weekend
Edition
May 1 / 3, 2004
An Army Vet on Prisoner Torture in
Iraq
Abu
Ghraib as My Lai?
By DIANE REJMAN
I
just viewed images of American soldiers torturing and abusing Iraqi
prisoners. My first thought was, "Is this the My Lai of Iraq?"
On March 16, 1968, in the village of My Lai, Vietnam, a group of American
soldiers, under the command of platoon leader Lt. William Calley, killed
several hundred Vietnamese civilians, including women and children.
A witness to this turned them in. A year later, charges were brought
against Calley and his troops. He was sentenced to prison, and was released
after only a few years.
Why
was he released so soon? Because of the uproar that occurred across
the United States, a big part of which came from other Vietnam veterans.
They had seen this kind of massacre all too often. It was more common
in Vietnam than anybody in authority was willing to admit. The protests
focused on this, arguing that Calley should not have even been court-martialed
for doing something that was encouraged by military leaders.
The
Winter Soldier hearings of 1971 came about in a big way to show the
world and America that murdering Vietnamese civilians and burning their
villages was a common occurrence, and sometimes even expected.
Jump
forward to 2004. Photographs of American soldiers torturing and abusing
Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib surface. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, Deputy Director
of coalition operations in Iraq, is interviewed by Dan Rather on 60
Minutes: Soldiers in the photos are now facing court-martial. My question--how
common is this? I'd previously read other stories of abuse by American
soldiers in Iraq, and at Guantanamo Bay.
Even
Kimmitt admitted, "I'd like to sit here and say these are the only
prisoner abuse cases we're aware of, but we know there have been other
ones since we have been here in Iraq." I just don't believe soldiers
do any of this on their own. But let me go beyond this and discuss what
I have heard and read about part of the training our government provides
our young people. The word is: DEHUMANIZATION. It happened in Vietnam.
It's still happening. For a soldier to call an Iraqi a human--unacceptable.
Can you even train a person to kill other humans rather haphazardly?
I don't think so. But if you turn those people into gooks or ragheads,
or whatever non-human assignment you can think of, the soldier is no
longer murdering human beings. No, they are killing things, bugs, irrelevant
living creatures. Isn't this the attitude reflected in these photos?
I
saw similar pictures as these in the Winter Soldier hearings. Soldiers
had not just killed the enemy and murdered people. They had gone on
the hunt, and successfully bagged their prey. Imagine hunters throwing
their ducks on the back of their pickup truck. Imagine a fisherman having
his picture taken while standing next to his big fish hanging on a hook.
Imagine soldiers throwing their enemy in piles and having their pictures
taken giving a big "thumbs up" to the people at home. Oops--you
don't have to imagine that, we saw it on 60 Minutes. This is war. War
is not pretty or noble. This is what we are training our young people
to do in order to win. (by the way, can anybody tell me what we are
"winning" in Iraq?) I do not excuse them. But even more, I
do not excuse my government for providing them the kind of training
and leadership that would lead to them do this and make them even consider
they are doing the right thing.
The
blame needs to roll uphill, but unfortunately, it won't. Sgt. Chip Frederick
is one of those being court-martialed. "The way the Army was running
the prison led to the abuse of prisoners. We had military intelligence
(MI), all kinds of other government agencies involved - the FBI, CIA,
and other agencies we didn't recognize. We were helping the interrogators.
MI had encouraged us and told us 'great job.'"
Rather:
"How could a person such as Frederick, described almost universally
as a good guy get himself into this kind of jam."
Attorney
Gary Myers, and a Judge Advocate in Iraq: "The elixir of power.
The elixir of believing you are helping the CIA for god's sake, when
you're from a small town in Virginia, that's intoxicating. And so good
guys sometimes do things believing that they are being of assistance
and helping a just cause and helping people they view as important."
In
David Grossman's book, "On Killing," he describes a study
indicating that in WWII and Korea, soldiers had only fired their weapon
20 percent of the time. How inefficient! Military leaders realized they
needed to do something to insure the troops fired their weapons more.
If they could figure out how to do this, they could send fewer troops
into battle, reducing costs all around--salaries, benefits, uniforms,
and weapons. Well, they apparently succeeded.
I
think back to what happened to Rev, John Dear S.J. a Jesuit Priest in
New Mexico. He was awakened last November by soldiers standing in front
of his CHURCH chanting their war slogans, like "Kill! Kill! Kill!"
and "Swing your guns from left to right; we can kill those guys
all night." "Their chants went on for over an hour. They were
disturbing, but this is war. They have to psyche themselves up for the
kill. They have to believe that flying off to some tiny, remote desert
town in Iraq where they will march in front of someone's house and kill
poor young Iraqis has some greater meaning besides cold-blooded murder,"
said Dear.
This
same kind of brainwashing led many soldiers in Vietnam to randomly murder
women, children, the elderly and the sick. That has happened in Iraq.
Who do you think killed the 11,000 plus women, children, elderly and
sick civilians in Iraq?
But this isn't even what I intended to write about when I started this.
I
want to talk about the hypocrisy of General Kimmitt's comments on 60
Minutes II tonight. "This is wrong. This is reprehensible. But
this is not representative of the 150,000 soldiers that are over here.
I'd say the same thing to the American people. Don't judge your Army
based on the actions of a few." Hmmm... On September 11, 2001,
nineteen men hijacked four airplanes and crashed them into buildings
in the United States. It just so happened that these nineteen men were
all MUSLIMS. And what has happened in our country ever since? Muslims
have become the enemy. Muslims are the object of hate crimes. Muslims
have become the object of Bush's "war for freedom." The United
States used the nineteen men as a representative sample of the over
one billion Muslims in the world.
More
recently, when four mercenaries were murdered in Fallujah by a small
group of angry Iraqi men, our military, under the leadership of General
Kimmitt, laid siege to an entire city, murdering hundreds of women,
children, elderly and sick. In other words, the few people who killed
these well-armed, highly trained mercenaries were taken as representative
of the entire city.
In
other words, General Kimmitt is asking the American public, the world,
and the Muslims to do something the United States has either not been
able to do, or has refused to do. The hypocrisy is nauseating.
Former
Marine Lieutenant Colonel Bill Cowen said, "These people at some
point will be let out. Their families are going to know. Their friends
are going to know. We will be paid back for this."
How
can we expect them to distinguish between "good Americans"
and "bad Americans", when we are not willing to distinguish
between "good Muslims" and bad ones?
Diane
Rejman is amember of Veterans for Peace, Chapter 101 in San
Jose. I served in the US Army from 1977-80. I am listed in Who's Who
in America, and have been in Who's Who in the Media and Communication.
She can be reached at: yespeaceispossible@yahoo.com.
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