Times (UK) : Iraqi Civilians Killed by US Troops "On Rampage"

How Bad Things Have Gotten, Part III

Shades of My Lai.

So last week an incident at Abu Sifa resulted in accustations that US troops deliberately murdered innocent and unarmed Iraqi civilians.

According to Iraqi police, 11 bodies were pulled from the wreckage of the house, among them four women and five children aged between six months and five years. An official police report obtained by a US reporter for Knight Ridder newspapers said: “The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people.”

It seems that this is part of a developing trend among US troops, the killing of civilians in revenge for insurgent attacks and roadside bombs that kill US troops.

It was on November 19 last year that a US marine armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb that killed a 20-year-old lance-corporal. According to a marine communiqué issued the next day, the blast also killed 15 Iraqi civilians and was followed by an attack on the US convoy in which eight insurgents were killed. An investigation by Time established that the civilians had not been killed by the roadside bomb, but were shot in their homes after the marines rampaged through Haditha. Among the dead were seven women and three children.

"But," Howie will say, "they're the enemy. They lie. They're trained to lie."

This IS getting to be Vietnam. Who is the enemy, Howie? Everyone? Even the civilians? There ARE civilians, you know. Or there were....

While many allegations of US atrocities have later turned out to be exaggerated or false, the Abu Sifa incident was supported by hospital autopsy reports that said all the victims had died from bullet wounds. A local Iraqi police commander — supposedly co-operating with US forces — confirmed that the bodies had been found with their wrists tied.

But maybe the days are gone when we can consider any Iraqi to be a civilian, such is the job we have done winning hearts and minds...

In January, 12 year old Abdul Rahman was killed by US gunfire when his father failed to stop at the demand of soldiers, a demand he swears he never heard.

Soldiers approached the car and told Rahman he had failed to stop when ordered to do so. Rahman said he had never heard an order to stop. The soldiers searched the car and, as they departed, they threw a black body bag on the ground. “They said, ‘This is for your son,’ and they left me there with my dead son,” he added.

Rahman claimed he had had nothing to do with the insurgency until that moment. "But this is America, the so-called guardian of humanity, and killing people for them is like drinking water. I shall go after them until I avenge the blood of my son.”

This is how bad things have gotten.