The Nation blows the lid off in "The Other War"

[Rose Siding]

It's a brutal read. EVERY member of Congress needs to be alerted to this piece of journalism.

Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians.....Their stories, recorded and typed into thousands of pages of transcripts, reveal disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops in Iraq. Dozens of those interviewed witnessed Iraqi civilians, including children, dying from American firepower. Some participated in such killings; others treated or investigated civilian casualties after the fact. Many also heard such stories, in detail, from members of their unit. The soldiers, sailors and marines emphasized that not all troops took part in indiscriminate killings. Many said that these acts were perpetrated by a minority. But they nevertheless described such acts as common and said they often go unreported--and almost always go unpunished......

This Nation investigation marks the first time so many on-the-record, named eyewitnesses from within the US military have been assembled in one place to openly corroborate these assertions.....

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/hedges

The results of this report are shocking. Sickening. Rules of engagement are described as "fluid": "Someone could look at me the wrong way and I could claim my safety was in threat."

This is bad bad bad.

We heard a few reports, in one case corroborated by photo­graphs, that some soldiers had so lost their moral compass that they'd mocked or desecrated Iraqi corpses. One photo, among dozens turned over to The Nation during the investigation, shows an American soldier acting as if he is about to eat the spilled brains of a dead Iraqi man with his brown plastic Army-issue spoon.

"Take a picture of me and this motherfucker," a soldier who had been in Sergeant Mejía's squad said as he put his arm around the corpse. Sergeant Mejía recalls that the shroud covering the body fell away, revealing that the young man was wearing only his pants. There was a bullet hole in his chest.

"Damn, they really fucked you up, didn't they?" the soldier laughed.

The scene, Sergeant Mejía said, was witnessed by the dead man's brothers and cousins.

Heaven help us. There's worse, of course, involving live Iraqis (and their pets) but this excerpt was so complete, with the dark and portentous detail about the man's relatives observing the obscene behavior.

I'm walking this one in to my rep's office on Monday. And I am so AT the next vigil/protest.

Hoo boy, Noonan and her "American exceptionalism" crowd can bite me.

[Spinzonner]

1. Maybe we should have Colin Powell investigate

:sarcasm:

[mmonk]

4. Yep.

With his work concerning My Lai and more recently the propaganda circus he gave at the UN on weapons of mass destruction and "mobile labs", he has the right "integrity" for the job.

[roxnev]

49. I say it should be another joke

Let Scooter do the investigation :dunce:

[FogerRox]

51. Touche~ Spinzonner good one...

On his 2nd tour as head of the Americal division in Vietnam, Colin coveredup a certain now famous massacre.

[Mythsaje]

2. War has always brought out the worst in human beings...

It's always been the case. Read the Old Testament, for example, or study the history of the various wars in Europe and elsewhere. Something inherently inhuman raises its ugly head in any extended conflict and people go hideously wrong.

Not all, certainly. But some people seem more vulnerable to it and they are one of the reasons that war should ALWAYS be the last resort.

[G_j]

33. war IS the worst in human beings n/t

[bjobotts]

45. It also attracks the worst humn beings.

I've known many sadistic, bullying assholes who join the military. Just because they are in uniform doesn't mean they are honorable by any means. They need to be looked at individually rather than as a group and should always be accountable and not given a free pass because they wear a uniform. The same with cops.

This is exactly how the nazis troops started acting...like they could do anything to the sub-humans who weren't German arian race.

Some have the nerve to come back here and brag about it. Some love war because it gives them the chance to kill and torture and many support it because it makes them feel power. I have no sympathy or respect for rapists and murderers. People who torture are worse than murderers because they kill the spirit and will and leave the mind and body alive to suffer it for the rest of their days.
God may forgive them but I sure as hell can't. Everyone involved in Abu Graib(however you spell it)should be in prison. Following orders don't cut it as an excuse because you just know somethings are plainly wrong.

[Mythsaje]

46. All true...

Cops and soldiers are alike in this. Give anyone weapons and the right to use them in specific circumstances and SOME people will gravitate to the job like iron fillings to a magnet because it offers them the chance to play their power games.

[SoonerPride]

3. The returning veterans will have many mental problems for many years

Damaged goods I'm afraid.

Very bad indeed.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. I cringed 3 times just reading the OP...

I don't have the stomach for the full article. :(

thanks... I think. :cry:

[Bruce McAuley]

8. It was the hardest article to read I've come across recently...

I had to force myself to read it to see what percentages of the troops supported the main thesis, and it looks to me like most of them do, and killing and "accidents" happen commonly.
I can almost begin to see how 600,000 or more Iraqis have died.
Gruesome, and revealing.
Kudos to The Nation for having the balls to print this, I really didn't want to read it at all, and can empathize with those who can't read horror like this.
Impeachment is too good for Cheney and Bush for starting this deadly quagmire.

Bruce

[Strelnikov_]

10. "38 percent of marines agreed that civilians should be treated with dignity and respect"

Much of the resentment toward Iraqis described to The Nation by veterans was confirmed in a report released May 4 by the Pentagon. According to the survey, conducted by the Office of the Surgeon General of the US Army Medical Command, just 47 percent of soldiers and 38 percent of marines agreed that civilians should be treated with dignity and respect. Only 55 percent of soldiers and 40 percent of marines said they would report a unit member who had killed or injured "an innocent noncombatant."

[Danieljay]

32. The military has been quite successful at ripping the humanity from our men and women in uniform...

What the hell are we doing? God forgive us...

[Decruiter]

22. This article took me hours to get through, it was long, 11 pages. It should not

have taken more than 1 hour, it took me 3. Hard Hitting and Honest.

[mzmolly]

42. I don't either, but I am recommending it.

:(

[cui bono]

6. War is not healthy for children and other living things.

:cry:

[zabet]

7. So disturbing on so many levels.

"The Geneva Conventions don't exist at all in Iraq, and that's in writing if you want to see it."
:scared:

[Strelnikov_]

9. "The Geneva Conventions don't exist at all in Iraq, and that's in writing if you want to see it."

Spc. Patrick Resta, 29, a National Guardsman from Philadelphia, served in Jalula, where there was a small prison camp at his base. He was with the 252nd Armor, First Infantry Division, for nine months beginning in March 2004. He recalled his supervisor telling his platoon point-blank, "The Geneva Conventions don't exist at all in Iraq, and that's in writing if you want to see it."

We will be paying for the crimes of the Fascist leadership for generations.

[Swede]

11. And these damaged soldiers will be coming home.

Coming home.

[EFerrari]

12. It gets increasingly hard to click on these tough, truthtelling threads.

:(

K&R

[w8liftinglady]

13. if you can swing it,consider subscribing to "The Nation"

they need all the support they can get

[Drum]

37. I do, and am glad every week that The Nation is around.

:thumbsup:

[mod mom]

14. We need to bring the Commander in Chief to justice in a world court if we are

ever to regain credibility again.

[enough]

15. Rose Siding, thank you for posting this link and figuring out how to describe it.

"A brutal read" certainly says it.

Heaven will not help us.

[truedelphi]

16. My father gave me the key to understand this. As a child of seven

I spent an entire day hearing the nuns at my Catholic grammar school tout the fact that our fathers, almost all of whom had fought in WWII, were heroes.

For most of mid 1944 through Spring 1945, my dad was slinging Howitzers at the German army (and of
course unfortunately the German countryside and its towns and cities).

He often spoke of it as "the war where they made me go and shoot my cousins."

After the nuns hepped me up to the notion of my very own father's heroics, I met him at the train station on my bike. He got off the commuter train with his briefcase and looked pleased to see me. He did wonder and asked what the big deal was that I would meet him for his walk from the train station home.

"Daddy! The nuns say that you are a hero!"

"Why?" He wasn't Catholic - and I assume looking back on it that maybe he figured that finally someone had noticed that he spent long hours putting food on the table.

"Why for fighting in the war and killing Germans and all that!"

He went totally white. He looked angry. My father was among the most gentle of people I have ever known but the look that came over him was scary.

Although he had never ever hit me, I thought for a moment that he might.

Then he regained his composure. "But the nuns have never fought in a war, Sweetheart. And once you fight in a war, you realize that its the most de-humanizing experience in the world. And everything
that people now say that the Germans did - well I happen to believe that if we Americans had had to keep fighting for years or even months longer, then we would have been capable of those
atrocities too.

"You know, in a war, sometimes when one of your friends is killed, part of you
goes nuts and you could easily take out a squadron of captured enemy or an entire town of innocent people and it wouldn't make any difference. You would probably feel it was justified."

He paused then added (and I get a chills when writing this part out)
"People here don't realize that the German people would have never
done any of this IF THEIR COUNTRY HAd NOT BEEN TAKEN OVER BY
MAD MEN AND THUGS!"

After that remark, he quickly changed the subject to the White Sox or Cubs. But I learned a great deal from him that day.

Carol

[NoFederales]

23. A lesson all citizens should be exposed to, not the breast-pounding laudatory

nonsense that hails continuously from the radio and TV. This spectator Nation doesn't have a clue about the reality of "participation", it's all Hollywood, or gameboy software violence--the horror of emotion and violence that people do to one another in the name of _______ completely escapes them.

Thank you for sharing your story.

NoFederales

[tbyg52]

34. Please post this as an OP! nt

[thereismore]

44. Thank you. nt

[Blue_Tires]

17. k+r

[dEMOK]

18. Rec...

Murtha gets it.

[frogcycle]

24. and John Kerry gets it

what the salivating breast-beating hatemongers who condemned him for speaking out never got - that he was on 'our' side. He never said American troops were intrinsically evil; he said war was.

Drag it on and on like they are doing with this one, and you fuck up more and more people's heads. Shit, you might as well be waterboarding them as far as how you affect their ability to reason, their connection with the civilized world.

[orleans]

19. American Troops Can Leave "any time they want."

so what the hell are we waiting for? let's get the fuck outta there!

BAGHDAD—Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shrugged off U.S. doubts of his government's military and political progress on Saturday, saying Iraqi forces are capable and American troops can leave "any time they want."
One of his top aides, meanwhile, accused the United States of embarrassing the Iraqi government by violating human rights and treating his country like an "experiment in a U.S. lab."
http://www.mercurynews.com/nationworld/ci_6375947

[PurpleChez]

20. "American exceptionalism"?

I need to learn more about this. Sounds offensive, though.

[Decruiter]

21. I left DU early this am and went over to another sight. This article from the Nation was there.

I pulled it up and I read through all 11 pages at The Nation. I am a fast reader, I skim through lots, this took me most of my morning to get through. I did not even want to get near this article, this report, this expose. I had to pause between pages. I know some of these women and men. My heart breaks, this war, "THIS WAR ON TERROR" is wrong. We are killing our kids. Here and in the Mid-East.

[seemslikeadream]

25. And I said, 'These are some of our soldiers desecrating somebody's body

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/hedges

[Garrett]

26. Covered on Democracy Now

This was the main topic of Amy Goodman's Democracy Now program on Thursday, July 12. There is an audio and a video version. This is the link to a more detailed description and access to the program. I thought it was very informative without bashing the troops, but criticizing their lack of leadership. She interviews one of the writers (Laila Al-Arian) and four Iraqi veterans who were in the "study."

http://www.democracynow.org/index.pl?issue=20070712

[YankmeCrankme]

27. this article goes hand and hand with that one

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070715/ap_on_re_us/marines_iraq_shooting

It seems the brutality and violence perpetrated against the Iraqis is systemic. Many people here warned and complained about this for a long time and the "support the troops" meme would be used to try and cudgel them into submission. The sad part is there is a large proportion of the US public that is fine with this using the rationale that if our troops FEEL threatened in any way it is better to be safe than sorry and the other meme "it's better to be judged by twelve than carried by six", though only a small number of these incidences are even investigated and less make it to some sort of court so that isn't even a consideration. Basically, these acts are done with impunity. But the price we pay in our individual and collective psyche will be harsh and probably long lasting.

[malaise]

28. K & R

History will condemn these goons.

[pansypoo53219]

29. the fish rots from the head

plus, when there's no exit and you are running around in circles.....


plus, do they even know what they are fighting for??? why are they there?

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Danieljay]

31. Stop it... our service men and women have been put in a terrible position, psychologically

damaging. The horror and reality of war does things to people beyond the scope of anyone's imagination. I hope we can focus our disgust and anger at those who put our men and women IN this predicament and not continue dividing this nation by labeling them ALL as babykillers.

Listen my friend, I read that paragraph two, about the two year old shot through the leg. I agree with you, there are some bullies as I've mentioned in another recent post that seem to get something out of hurting others but not all of our soldiers are like that. Those that are are pathological and should be brought to justice, and there are others, due to the psychologically damaging realities of war have been led down a nightmarish path to a hell that will be with them the rest of their lives.

The blood is on George Bush's hands, his administrations hands, and those that continue to pimp this war as some nobel cause that it isn't. Labeling all of our soldiers as Baby Killers does nothing but feed the vile putrid stench that comes out of the mouth of people like Bush, Coulter, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, and Savage.

[Hubert Flottz]

36. "been put in a terrible position, psychologically"

Just like the German soldiers who invaded and occupied Eastern Europe and Russia between 1939 and 1945.

Wars of occupation usually turn out just like Iraq has. The locals always fight back and nobody is safe from the killing. It's why I thought the war would turn out exactly as it has. If you will look back at some of my pre invasion posts on DU you will see that I said so. How the EXPERTS couldn't see this coming I have not a clue. Sometimes the movers and shakers should try reading a history book, instead of trying to star in the next one.

[Danieljay]

40. You are absolutely right....

I remember too before this war began. I lived in Wichita Kansas, and worked in the aircraft industry. I remember telling my coworkers that this war would create more terrorists, end up in an occupation, cost around a trillion dollars, result in he loss of thousands of lives, and ruin our reputation around the world. They laughed at me and said I didn't know what I was talking about.

And here we are...

[Karenina]

52. Iraqi=terrorist

Can you extend the same compassion to those whose country the U.S. is demolishing when the arm themselves and do whatever necessary to drive "your boys" out of their country?

[Danieljay]

53. what are you talking about? My boys? huh?

I'm not sure who or what you are referring to. If you ARE referring to me, you can bet your ass my compassion extends to ALL of thoes affected by the crimes of this administration.

[leftchick]

35. corroborates the Lancet's Study of Violent deaths of Iraqis

most due to gunshots.

http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf

[Joe Fields]

38. words cannot adequately express my outrage and sadness...

[guruoo]

39. I didn't think it would be that tough to read....

I was wrong.

[Just-plain-Kathy]

41. A while back, there was an article on Michael Moore’s website.

It reported how we use a napalm bombs in Iraq. He posted a photo of two Iraqi children with their skin burned off. Standing above the children were Iraqi adults tending to them.

We didn’t see or hear any coverage of this incident through any so-called “ligament” American news source.

I remember speaking to my sister about this at the time and she gasped, she told me her Italian mother-in-law told her about the napalm incident. It seems it was reported on the Italian News, and it was horrific.

We are defiantly being kept in the dark about a lot of news the rest of the world sees.

[Toucano]

43. Bush's Culture of Life. n/t

[AzDar]

47. Bush/Cheney are WAR CRIMINALS. Not only should they be removed

from office, but prosecuted to the fullest extent of the International Laws they've chosen to break time and time again.
A warning to future tyrants....

[Broadslidin]

48. After reading this report, do you mind if I write: My Country Can Go To Hell.

[progressoid]

50. This is where we (liberals) lose the war of rhetoric.

We have an 11 page, intelligently written piece that requires more than a medulla oblongata to comprehend.

They have Sean Hannity's plebeian phrases that use only monosyllabic words.

[Danieljay]

54. Well said! Cheers! n/t

[sandnsea]

56. So write the radio headline

And 60 second piece that will bring this home to the people. They know how to do it. There's no excuse for us not learning how to do it too.

[montanto]

55. oh man. i'm seriously gonna lose my breakfast

before i get through this article. really, really, sad.