US Marines to be punished for massacre

by Seán Ryan Sun May 28, 2006 16:21

Hi RP,

Not a bad article. I disagree with you in some areas though (no surprise there I guess).

The current death-count for the men, women and children massacred is at least 24.

Three top brass were indeed removed. This happened in April, probably around the 10th. Why is the story only breaking now?

I'd suggest that the coverup was ongoing from April and that this massacre is only coming to light because a young Iraqi student-journalist captured the aftermath of the alleged massacre on video camera. He made it public. Not the Marine Corps(e) or the American aministration.

You suggest that the US military "operates to the highest professional standards." I'm not sure what you mean by 'professional,' but I trust you don't mean to say that the US military is either an agent of morality or an ethical (in the legal sense) operator.

It should also be pointed out to you that many a medal has been pinned on the chests of American troops too. Many an innocent civillian was killed in illegal bombing and illegal targetting of civillian infrastructures. You guys like to term these innocents as 'collateral damage,' I term them as 'illegal victims' of 'first degree murder,' ie. premeditated and deliberate murder.

As an additional piece of info, not so long ago, Gen Michael W. Hagee, the boss of the Marines, had to remove some ribbons from his own chest as he was not entitled to be wearing them. there's professionalism for you. Not to mention his underling, Gen. James N. Mattis at one point blathering in the media that, "Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."

He added, "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil."

General Mattis continued: "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/04/politics/04marine.htm...rland

Some more links from Indy on this massacre/coverup

Marines perpetrate atrocity in Iraq? http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76299
Was the General restrained or was he forced? - http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76318

by Mr. T. Sun May 28, 2006 18:27

I don't know enough about the evidence in this case to say one way or another if the Marines are guilty of murder. However, I'm intrigued as to what reaction a guilty verdict and death sentence will have on anti-war and anti-death-penalty activists.

Will they hold noisy public vigils and host fund raising events in support of the alleged murderous soldiers? I wonder how many of the "human-rights" dilettantes who campaigned to release Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted cop killer, will stand in rain, snow etc. with placards demanding the release of these Marines. How many Hollywood airheads will donate millions of dollars to the Marines legal defense costs and full page NY Times adverts? How many T-Shirts with these Marine's likeness will be sold to trendy dreadlocked smoked-salmon socialist south- co- dublin suburbanites?

Or more importantly, when the switch is thrown on the Marines how many will be quietly satisfied that the bloodthirsty killers are getting their just desserts?

by MichaelY - iawm Sun May 28, 2006 19:03

Perhaps it is not so surprising to see apologists of the Empire and what its foot soldiers are doing in Afghanistan and Iraq try to turn the tables on anti-war activists when their own racist barbarism gets found out and publicised. Yet, this rant emanates a terrible smell of decay...
What we have here is ignorant and possibly poor foot soldiers of the Empire, scared out of their wits, in a country they don't know, fighting a war they don't understand, faced with an enemy that does not fit into their 'military education'....they get hit by a roadside bomb-- a couple of their mates get hit....and what do the Marines do? They apply the type of 'justice' they saw in the cowboy v Indian and gangster movies back home when they were growing up. They apply their art of combat. They shoot and kill everything that moves around them! Women, kids, older and younger men! Gooks are they not? Collective punishment....The death penalty to the deserving enemy.....one problem: an Iraqi is shooting a video....we have a witness they don't notice and thus his life is spared.
It has probably happened many many times in iraq...this incident - they get found out.
Now our Mr 'T' here - what does he do? What does he rant about? Do you see any word of compassion for the victims of the death penalty? The mothers and sisters and wives, if any of them have been spared, who will be burying their kids and husbands and brothers? Or indeed is there any compassion for the perpetrators of this barbarism?
No - what there is a rotten spewing of venom against those who oppose the war.... demonising them....as if the 100,000 plus who marched against the war here in Dublin were all millionnaires, salmon eating southsiders.....as if the 350,000 who marched against the war in New York two weeks ago were all Hollywood stars...as if all sections of our society had no right to be sensitive and look for justice...and, the most horrible part of it, as if our working class brothers and sisters are all honkies like Mr T - their representative and intelligent spokesperson. Do us all a favour and go back to your hole sunshine....

by Mr. T. Sun May 28, 2006 19:58

I wasn't ranting. I am asking a simple and serious question which you didn't bother to answer. In the case that these marines are convicted and sentenced to death, will you donate funds and stand outside the US embassy to support their pardon?

I see this as a genuine dilemma for those who with deeply held believe in anti-death-penalty values. I also see this as shining a spotlight on those whose values conveniently alter depending upon the politics of the individual being put to death.

I'm personally against the death penalty. I'm also personally against the war in Iraq and always have been. I feel very sorry for the innocent who are killed in Iraq. But these matters are not relevant to the point I was making, and frankly just another cheap trick by you to smokescreen the issue.

My intent was to suggest there is a high level of hypocrisy masquerading as leftist activism, both within the anti-war and anti-death penalty causes. Witness the number of soviet star and che t-shirts worn by so called "anti-war" demonstrators who probably don't even understand the irony of their wearing such obviously imperialistic and militaristic symbols to an anti-war demo of all things. They're not anti-war, they're simply anti-western democracy... or simply falling in step with popular opinion of their social classes...

So I guess once these boys are convicted and sentenced to death, your progressive and consistently thinking organisation will set up a task force to work on their pardon? How soon after sentencing will your organisation issue a press release summarising their position?

by MichaelY - iawm Sun May 28, 2006 20:22

Now, we have clarified one issue - we are both against the war. This, you must agree wasn't very obvious from your first message - not a word for the victims of the killings, not a slither of sympathy.....
On the issue of your 'dilemma'....the chances of these Marines getting to trial, getting convicted and getting sentenced to death is as high as Ireland winning the World Cup...the 2010 World Cup I mean....you saw what happened to the Abu Ghraib animals. Or the scumbags who use pepper spray against the Guantanamo hostages. So this is a theoretical dilemma which, if I was that way inclined, I could take it as a smokescreen.
However, and speaking strictly personally, if these killers, foot soldiers of the Empire, were to be sentenced to death, yes, unequivocally I, and I believe the IAWM, would be against the death penalty. So Mr T, your view of the anti-war movement is slightly skewed....not that there are no eejits passing themselves for being anti-war....but to smear a movement of tens of thousands globally smacks of hypocricy.
Finally, as the issues here are crystal clear, lets leave this debate behind us. If and when your Marines get sentenced to death give me a call....we can pray together for the salvation of their soul....in the meantime we will be doing our best to stop the Empire and the collaboration of our Government in this war...what will you be doing?

by TheTroll Mon May 29, 2006 03:59

While this slaughter of civilians was admitted, it is not the first alleged. Iraqis claim many times that coalition forces slaughtered civilians.

next thing you know, some iraqis will be claiming coalition forces gassed six million Iraqis. And if the media were prejudicaly inclined to buy into the allegation, they might report it as fact.

by Righteous Pragmatist Mon May 29, 2006 12:14

During combat, ideally soldiers will kill in order not to be killed themselves and those that they kill will always be enemy soldiers. But in the real world that just doesn't happen.
Anyone who saw Saving Private Ryan will remember the scenes following the capture of the bluffs above the beach when German soldiers put their hands up and are mown down regardless. This often happens in the war when attacking forces were pinned down by a fortified position and sustained heavy casualties before flushing the enemy out of the open and cut them down mercilessly. A similar scene is repeated during the battle for a bombed out town when a German soldier running past a wounded American pauses to shoot him dead.

On January 30th 1972, 14 unarmed civilians were shot dead by British paratroops. This is what happens when soldiers are sent to do the job of policemen. Law and order had broken down in many areas of Northern Ireland and the RUC had lost the respect of a Catholic population on the brink of insurrection. On top of that the Parachute Regiment, a unit who were trained for airdrops behind Soviet lines, were sent to police a civilian demonstration and it was expected that armed gunmen would be among them - this was actually the case, IRA were seen with guns by locals - however the people actually targetted and killed by soldiers were unarmed men huddling behind rubble or crawling while under fire - the classic stance that real gunmen would have adopted in that situation. But while the first shootings might have been "mistakes" the paratroops clearly lost the run of themselves and callously murdered more unarmed civilians as if for sport. Soldiers are trained killers not policemen.

These Marines may well have been veterans of the two Fallujah battles of early and late 2004 when Marines fought a pitched street by street battle with heavily armed and dug in insurgents and Al-Qaida fighters. After the civilian population had been evacuated these soldiers had carte blanche to kill anything that moved. Thousands of insugents were annihilated and no doubt during the battle many innocent civilians were killed by artillery, bombs and bullets during the fierce exchanges of fire between US forces and the insurgents and jihadists.

I am speculating now but it is possible these soldiers once they lost some of their comrades with whom they fought through Fallujah simply broke down psychologically and took out their rage these innocents. After the experience of surviving intense combat one feels one is invulnerable with absolute power over life and death or else one suffers from profound cynicism and indeed contempt for conventional morality or hatred towards ordinary civilians.
When there is an ethos of murderous hatred toward conquered populations, as among the Waffen SS, combined with the esprits de corps of elite military units, this can unleash the worst in human beings who ordinarily would never consider violence against anyone.

But these Marines cannot excuse their actions. They acted like cowards and murdered entirely innocent people.
They have disgraced themselves, their uniform, their country and the just cause they were supposed to be fighting for.
If they are proven guilty of murder they should pay the ultimate price - death.
Pour encourage les autres - if anymore murderous individuals in the US Army seek to ignore the rules of engagement they should think twice.

Likewise the people of Iraq must be shown that crimes against them by whatever army must be punished.

by Seán Ryan Mon May 29, 2006 12:51

Maybe the marines were using a very old and very effective tactic. And maybe the tactic itself is worth sacrificing a few marines for.

Here's how it works:

A sniper shoots a soldier. Soldiers hose the whole area around from where the shot came from. The more civillians killed the better. Insurgents now understand that their actions kill their own people (as they see them). On the other side of this nasty coin, civillians also see that the actions of insurgants cause civillian causualties. This tactic effectively marginalises and smears insurgants and will eventually render them impotent.

I'm not an expert on the marine corps by any stretch of the imagination, so forgive my possible stupidity when I ask: I remember from the early days in the second invasion and occuation of Iraq that soldiers wore video cameras on thier battle helms. Is this no longer the practice?

I take your point on the 'heat of battle' and on those who suffer from 'shellshock' or whatever this is currently called today. This is why leadership is important and it is why leadership must bear responsibility.

E.g. If I unlock the door to your house and loose a few tigers into it and close the door behind them - well - I as instigator bear the brunt of the responsibility. The tigers bear some guilt too I suppose, but they are acting as nature intended and this is mitigating.

To reverse Mr. T's question somewhat.

I wonder what the pro-death penalty crowd will think when the time comes to fry, needle or dangle Bush and Co.?

Btw, the only weapons carried on Bloody Sunday, were carried by British personell.

by MichaelY - iawm Mon May 29, 2006 13:20

A few details I wasn't aware of when I first wrote my message above:

A number US Marines could in fact face the death penalty after it was discovered that it was one of their number who took horrific photographs of the massacre in Haditha on his mobile phone. Abu Ghraib all over again. Our hero sending momentos to mum and cutie-pie back home!!! Having a lovely time here!
The photographs, seized by the US Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), show many victims shot at close range in the head and chest, execution-style. One image shows a mother and young child bent over on the floor as if in prayer. Both have been shot dead. Democrat John Murtha, a former Marines colonel who has retained close links to the military despite his denunciation of the Iraq occupation, says Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood". Another anti-American softie him......

We knew there were eyewitness accounts by local people and a video shot by an Iraqi journalism student that had already called into question the Marines' version of events in Haditha. But the photographs by the Marines themselves could prove the crucial piece of evidence in an investigation that is now expected to result in charges of murder, dereliction of duty and making false statements against up to a dozen Marines. The men involved have since been rotated back to their home base of Camp Pendleton, California. Most of the fatal shots appeared to have been fired by only a few of the Marines, possibly a four-man "fire team" led by a sergeant. The same sergeant filed a false report, blaming the bomb explosion for most of the deaths and claiming that Marines entered the Iraqis' homes in search of gunmen firing at them.

The incident is now being described as potentially the worst war crime since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, comparable to the Abu Ghraib scandal and reminiscent of the massacre of several hundred Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968. There is no question in my mind that these findings raise the prospect that other incidents reported to have involved the killing of "insurgents" actually involved the death of civilians. To follow.....

by redjade Mon May 29, 2006 13:58

When the media did report this - the ProWarriors like Righteous were saying the media is 'anti-American' - today he pretends that at the time he was just the good german and 'didn't know.'

'Months after the killings were uncovered by the press, the U.S. military finally appears ready to admit that a massacre took place in an Iraqi village last November 19 and then was covered up by soldiers or officers.'
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_di...76401

I don't expect Righteous to be answering anymore questions on this thread.

by righteous pragmatist Mon May 29, 2006 14:29

The so-called anti-war movement NEVER ONCE protest against the slaughter of thousands of innocent men women and children by Iraqi insurgents and Al-Qeada in daily car bombings.

NEVER ONCE!

But when a few Marines are involved in an isolated massacre of innocents we never hear the end of hysterical condemnation of the liberation of the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein.

by redjade Mon May 29, 2006 14:37

Righteous,

I've been to many many protests where violence by all sides in this war has been condemned.

As always, you are quite misinformed.

Righteous' Friend Helping Saddam Liberate the Iraqi People in 1983

by Seán Ryan Mon May 29, 2006 14:37

Speaking of car bombings RP how many thousands of innocent civillians were killed by car bombs during Saddam's reign?

Isn't it the case that the car bomb is only in Iraq because Uncle Sam is in there stealing resources and enslaving a people?

Let's not divert to a different subject.

This is about American marines butchering innocent civillians for no other good reason than they could do so. And if Uncle Sam had his way, we'd have never have known.

by MichaelY - iawm Mon May 29, 2006 15:27

Hot off the news and as predicted above:

The US Army is conducting another criminal investigation into a "second" incident, the death of civilians on April 26 last, involving Marines in Hamandiyah, west of Baghdad.
What's the odds that this is going to unravel further?

by MichaelY - iawm Mon May 29, 2006 15:53

Hey RP,

Opposing the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq by the Empire, by the coalition of the willing Crusaders', has not meant and will never mean that the anti-war movement worldwide, or in Ireland, was a friend/supporter of Saddam. Indeed, it was Rumsfeld who was shaking hands and supplying weaponry and materials to the Saddam regime in the '80s, encouraging him to attack Iran. And you're right...it wasn't the US alone that encouraged and helped/supported the dictator....it was Germany and France and the UK and China and the USSR.
The very same way that the UK is at the moment encouraging and helping the Shiite militias in Basra and the environs...the very same Shiites that Bush Senior left to the barbaric wishes of Saddam after the First Gulf War. And watch it as the Italians withdraw, as they will, and the Kurdish peshmerga militias run the show in the north.....and instead of exporting our western values and democracy and justice and solidarity and compassion (all this from the Tony Blair speech in Georgetown University on Friday last) the Empire will end up dividing Iraq into warring but smaller and more malleable statelets. And then it will probably be the turn of Iran and Syria.....
Surely, being an informed and educated man, you must have seen the same movie in the Balkans in the mid-90s when Yugoslavia was bombed out of existence and then divided and split into little statelets. With Albania and FYROM becoming US friendly statelets where the CIA has bases today and sends militants for torture through rendition flights. So what the anti-war movement opposes is the Empire's expansionist policy and its barbarism - period. In other words, we sit on the opposite side of the rainbow from where you're standing. You remind me of a few people who were arguing with us when we opposed the Vietnam War. Where are they now?

by righteous pragmatist Mon May 29, 2006 15:55

There were no carbombings when Saddam was in power because he was President of Iraq.
He simply ordered the security services and the army to slaughter hundreds of thousands of people.
At Halabjah he gassed thousands of Kurds.

Saddam had stolen Iraq's resources and enslaved his people.

The US removed him and gave Iraq democracy.

by Righteous Pragmatist Mon May 29, 2006 16:04

Those who opposed the Vietnam War rejoiced when the NVA took over Saigon.
What they didn't want to know about was the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese by the Viet Cong, the enslavement of the people of South Vietnam, the collapse of the economy and impoverishment of the country and the hundredsof boat people who took to the seas looking for sanctuary in democratic countries who drowned or were preyed upon by pirates.

Those who supported the war to defeat the communists in the 1960's were those who reversed the disastrous policies of Jimmy Carter, stood up to the Soviets with Star Wars, helped thje Mujihadine defeat the Soviet Army in Afghanistan, supported Solidarity and brought down the Berlin Wall and brought freedom to Eastern Europe and Russia itself.

by Seán Ryan Mon May 29, 2006 16:18

Bush is in power in the US. He hardly supported Vietnam, unless you consider desertion to be something that can further a military campaign.

Now back to the topic at hand.

As I said in another article the link of which is in my first comment: General W. Hagee the top general in the Marines was in Haditha on the 10th of April this year. From Michael's earlier post it can be seen that other atrocities were being committed even as this one was being investigated. Indeed it was Gen. Hagee's mission when he flew from Washington last Thursday to tell the troops in Iraq to stop committing war crimes. Even though he should have but didn't do this in April (at the very very least).

by MichaelY - iawm Mon May 29, 2006 16:33

The US foreign policy programme outlined by RP is no other, of course, than the Trilateral Commission/Brzezinski draft - tweaked and completed by the neo con cabal around Bush.
Won't go there as we will leave the subject of the thread.....
One question: thje Mujihadine (your spelling RP!!) in Afghanistan...would they have, by any chance, cloned to become the Taliban? The very same Taliban, btw, who have been curiously omitted from the latest Washington list of "terrorists" ? Just wondering....
Have you noticed RP today's news about what happened in Kabul when three Humvees, carrying heroic Marines, went into a crowd of cars and civilians? So far, about 20 people killed and an unknown number injured. How grateful the Afghani people must be both for the US presence today and the support to the Taliban earlier.....
Tell us more RP, educate us more.....

by Righteous Pragmatist Mon May 29, 2006 16:49

He was a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard, one of the last lines of defence against long range Soviet nuclear bombers. For this reason it was not rotated to fight in Vietnam.

FACT.

Bill Clinton meanwhile avoided military service altogether. He was too busy getting laid.
John Kerry got himself a Purple Heart for getting a band aid cut on his arm after messing about with a mortar and looked for and got an early discharge and never showed for his duties in the Navy Reserve after the war. He sold his comrades down the river by throwing away his medals and calling them baby killers on national television so he could get a career as a Democratic Senator.
Al Gore got himself a cushy job as an Army journalist so he wouldn't have to hump through the jungle and get shot at by baby killing communists guerillas.

If Gen. Hagee was knew about atrocities or tried to cover it up he should be relieved of his command and severely disciplined.

America has always for fought for the good of innocent people fighting tyranny throughout the world.
America has fought for Bosnian Muslims when the EU stood back by bombing Serbian positions around Sarayevo and breaking the seige.
America fought for Kosovar Muslims and forced the Serbs to withdraw.
America supported Lebanese politicians as they threw off the Syrian yoke.
America forced Ghaddaffi to give up his WMD programs.
America liberated the Kuwaiti people from the Iraqi occupation.
America overthrow Saddam and gave Iraqis democracy as the expense of over 2,400 of its service men and women and billions of dollars.
America liberated the people of Afghanistan and gave them democracy.
America has for many years encouraged a peaceful settlement between Israel and Palestine.
America intervened to encourage peace in Northern Ireland by enouraging the IRA to give up terrorism.

Where are is American imperialism when critics of the war harp on about "too few troops"?

If the war was about oil why then have oil prices skyrocketed?

Saddam used weapons of mass destruction against the Kurds in Halabjah. He refused to allow Hans Blix free access to investiage his WMD programs.
The late Dr. John Kelly believed that the 45 minute claim was sexed up but he still believed that Saddam had to go because Saddam was actively lobbying France and Russia with oil contracts in return for removing sanctions which would have allowed him to renew his weapons stock piles.

The UN Security Council met because all the nations including France, China and Russia who opposed the invasion of Iraq believed that at that time Saddam did indeed have WMD stockpiles.

The only way of knowing for sure was to remove him from power and allow inspectors access.
We could not have depended on the word of a facist dictator that he had destroyed them.

This was the dictator who was the only leader apart from Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, who praised the attacks of 9/11.

by pat c Mon May 29, 2006 16:53

"He was a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard, one of the last lines of defence against long range Soviet nuclear bombers. For this reason it was not rotated to fight in Vietnam."

The USA would certainly require the blessings of the Lord if it were depending on the Texas Air National Guard to defend it. This wasnt even a proper Airforce Reserve Unit. It trained on and used outdated Fighters. Do some simple calculations on range/fuel and tell me how likely it is that Soviet Bombers flying over the North Pole would reach Teaxas?

by redjade Mon May 29, 2006 16:55

'...reversed the disastrous policies of Jimmy Carter, stood up to the Soviets with Star Wars, helped thje Mujihadine defeat the Soviet Army in Afghanistan...'

Aid to the Mujahideen started under Carter, Righteous, I know you prefer to exist in a fact-free universe, but you shouldn't embarass yourself so much.

Also, the US-Mujahideen operation started before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan - or so says Zbigniew Brzezinski, but what would he know?

go read....
'The Making of Afghanistan'
By Pankaj Mishra
http://groups.google.com/group/miscrandometc/browse_thr...566c2

——————

Back to the Viet Nam War - the war that Bush supported so much that he joined the Texas Air National Guard to defend Texas from Oklahoma.

Latest info just released from the classified archives is that in 1972 Kissinger told the Chinese that America could accept a communist takeover of South Vietnam.

So, RP, would you like to tell your American Vet friends how many Americans and Vietnamese had to die as Nixon secretly knew the war was lost?

So, please RP - do not feed us that BS that somehow the 'Anti-Americans' are to blame for the US losing the War in Vietnam or Iraq - it was lost in the White House, first.

Read more at
More Vietnam War Papers Released
Kissinger Told China U.S. Could Accept Communist Takeover
http://groups.google.com/group/miscrandometc/browse_thr...290a7

by Richey Mon May 29, 2006 16:58

"helped thje Mujihadine defeat the Soviet Army in Afghanistan"

Glad to see you remember that the Reagan administration created the network of jihadi fanatics that would become Al-Qaeda. The 9/11 victims must be very grateful to them, along with the other victims of jihadists in Algeria, Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the Muslim world.

by righteous pragmatist Mon May 29, 2006 17:04

The deaths in Kabul should also be investigated.

The Taliban were never supported by America.
America supported the Mujihadine which were a broad tribal coalition who fought the Soviets.
The Taliban extremists were Wahhabists, the brand of Islam which rules Saudi Arabia and is also the ideology of Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Millions of petrodollars flowed from Saudi into Taliban coffers in order that Al-Qaeda could train its terrorists in Afghanistan.
It was the Taliban who overthrow the Mujiahdine and took control of the heroin trade.
Meanwhile Pakistan used jihadist fighters to conduct its war with India over Kashmir also allowed Islamic fundementalist parties freedom for fear of toppling the military government.
Bin Laden had dreams of mortally wounding America, toppling the Saudi shieks and becoming the new Mahdi of the Middle East

by Richey Mon May 29, 2006 17:10

Trying to draw the line between "good" jihadists that were supported by America, and "bad" jihadists that it opposed is self-serving nonsense. The pre-Taliban warlords who ruled Afghanistan in the nineties were every bit as bad, every bit as brutal, every bit as repressive and fanatical.

The jihadist movement was spawned during the Afghan war with America's support. The USSR realised it had screwed up by sending troops into Afghanistan and wanted to pull out, but Washington supported the jihadists to keep them tied down. Al-Qaeda is the bastard offspring of America's "triumph" in Afghanistan, whether you care to admit it or not.

by Righteous Pragmatist Mon May 29, 2006 17:19

The constant defeatism and propaganda of the Democrats had made the war unpopular.
The Republican administration began negotations to withdraw because the American people had caved even though in reality the Viet Cong were an almost entirely spent force and the NVA were unable to breakthrough and invade South Vietnam. The political situation had been stablised.
When Nixon was removed in 1974 after his stupidity over Watergate the Democrats cut aid to South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese recieved new weapons and equipment from China and Russia and invaded South Vietnam by 1975.
The ineffectual Ford and Carter administrations weakened America, encouraging the soviet backed iranian revolution and the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops.
Carter began the fight back but by then he had done more harm than good and almost destroyed the US economy.
Reagan stood up to the evil empire.

Since 1992 Clinton did nothing about Saddam, he did nothing about Iran, he did nothing as al-Qaeda bombed US soil almost toppling the WTC in 1993, blew up embassies in Africa and almost sunk the USS Cole.

In 2001 America has woken up to the threat from a worldwide Islamic terrorist network bent on toppling democratic governments throughout the world and rogue nations developing WMD programs and using them as bargaining chips with short sighted Russians and Chinese nungry for resources.

by redjade Mon May 29, 2006 17:25

Wahhabism is not some little thing that Osama likes - its the official brand of Islam of the Saudi Royal Family - That's George W's friends, Righteous.

'In 1924 the Wahhabi al-Saud dynasty conquered Mecca and Medina, the Muslim holy cities. This gave them control of the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage, and the opportunity to preach their version of Islam to the assembled pilgrims.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism

and how many of those highjackers were Wahhabis?, ahem!, I mean Saudis?....

King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz (A friend of George W is a friend of Righteous, no?)

by Righteous Pragmatist Mon May 29, 2006 17:26

Ok al-Qaeda is America's bastard offspring.
Clinton took his eye off the ball and allowed Al-Qaeda to gather its forces.
When Bin Laden declared holy war on America he did nothing.

Ok then we should have left the Soviets in Afghanistan wedged between Pakistan and Iran?
Soviet forces in Afghanistan would have helped Iran to crush Iraq and swallow Saudi Arabia.
They would have encouraged Pakistan to step up its conflict with India while it reeled after the assassination of Indira Ghandi hopeful that India who erupt in Hindu fanaticism and mass uprisings just as Iran erupted in 1979 the same year that Soviet military action commenced in Afghanistan.

by Righteous Pragmatist Mon May 29, 2006 17:28

The US military no longer has a presence in Saudi Arabia.

by Righteous Pragmatist Mon May 29, 2006 17:42

The problems of the Middle East have their root in fanatical Islamic fundementalism and auhocratic dictators which America were foolish enough to think they could appease or play one off against the other for short term global security.
The simple fact is that the world will never be peaceful while backward medieval societies sit upon such enormous resources and use them to fund world domination and threaten Western democracy with annihilation with terrorism and WMD.

Blaming America for keeping the lid on the boiling kettle in the past and since 2001 trying to put out the fire itself will not eliminate the problem.

America bashing is the sport of European countries who opt our of military alliances for fear of disturbing their relationships with the regimes in the middle east especially Iran who seek to destroy you.

Europe went to war with itself in WW1 and WW2 and it was the US who saved them while their empires crumbled.
It has been the USA who has had to deal with a post colonial world preventing a dark age of soviet hegemony and presently uprooting the roots of new barbarism.

The fall of Saddam is only the begining of the change in the Middle East.

All you can talk about is doom and gloom.

What do the people of the Middle East see on their TV screens despite the hysteria of Al-jazerra?

They see American soldiers fighting and dying for the right of Muslim Arabs to vote and they see their own corrupt governments gloating as they remain in power while Islamic terrorists show their true colours by killing and beheading.

If Iraq succeeds the rest of the Middle East will follow the example of the Iraqi people.

by Seán Ryan Mon May 29, 2006 17:45

Wasn't it the 'Commie' North Vietnamese who put a stop to the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror in Cambodia?

Twas cool to bomb the shit out of the place in order to 'take out' fleeing North Vietnamese soldiers. But to stop an atrocity happening.............Where's the money in that?

America has never had a good record with regard to anything that doesn't further American interests. They even went sofar as to invalidate the Genocide Convention, by attaching neutralising conditions to it, when they eventually signed it, more than a century after it was first proposed in America by Raphael Lempkin.

Speaking of propaganda RP. Do you know what the singlemost scummy act of propaganda that has happened thus far in Iraq. So scummy that I'm only bringing in to light now - thanks for reminding me.

Remember in the run up to the invasion of Iraq? Leaflets were dropped all over the shop to let Iraqis know they weren't the enemy (Yah... right!).

Q. Why did these leaflets have their message in many languages?

A. Because the press have been dumbed down and humbled and wouldn't have had the gumption to translate the propaganda on behalf of the American War machine.

Now can we talk about atrocities in Iraq again. We could spend forever discussing American atrocities committed elsewhere.

by pat c Mon May 29, 2006 18:03

"Wasn't it the 'Commie' North Vietnamese who put a stop to the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror in Cambodia?

Twas cool to bomb the shit out of the place in order to 'take out' fleeing North Vietnamese soldiers. But to stop an atrocity happening.............Where's the money in that?"

Dont forget that for almost 2 decades after the Khmer Rouge were overthrown they kept Cambodias seat at the UN thanks to the US veto. How does RP explain that?

by Mr. T. Mon May 29, 2006 21:18

when attaching blame for Pol Pot there's plenty to go around... but it almost exclusively falls into the lap of the Chinese communists.

The Khmer Rouge was a direct offspring nurtured and fattened up with weapons, training, funding and supplies by the PRC. Pol Pot and his followers were fanatical purist Maoists. The PRC used the Khmer Rouge to punish Vietnam, with whom they had frequent border military clashes. Blaming the US for exploiting and furthering the chaos in a region due to Maoist policy is pretty lame.

And by the way, speaking of genocides, where is the IAWM on Darfour - why the complete and utter silence on the topic? Why no marches and shrill outcry? Why no cutesypie t-shirts? It illustrates the reasons for my contempt for the organised Irish Anti-War movement - when America in particular and the West in general isn't the villain slaughtering helpless civilians, the atrocity is ignored. Guess it's just not trendy to criticise islamist genocidal maniacs when it's so much more fun to paint black shamrocks on light-posts, boycott or loot Starbucks and piss on the American flag.

Oh, and MichaelY - you can find yourself another "prayer partner" - as an Athiest, I don't waste my time on religion or other fairy tales. I've marched in that large anti-war parade in Dublin, but I swore never to do so again once I noticed all the hammer and sickle flags and other soviet paraphanalia carried by the poorly groomed but very wealthy looking and sounding suburban "activists". But I would gladly participate again in anti-war demonstrations as long as there aren't any swastikas, hammer and sickle red flags, or other symbols of bloodsoaked despotic dictatorship being carried prominently by those in the demo. I don't march with Nazi's and I don't march with Commies. To me they're the same filth.

by redjade Mon May 29, 2006 22:31

Mr T: 'The Khmer Rouge was a direct offspring nurtured and fattened up with weapons, training, funding and supplies by the PRC. Pol Pot and his followers were fanatical purist Maoists'

Mr T is right about this. And in Carter's and then Reagan's twisted logic of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' the US ended us supporting Red Chinese foreign policy of supporting Pol Pot and his military/political alliance. truly amoral surreal stuff.

I tried to have a discussion about this on Richard Waghorne's Blog [ http://siciliannotes.blogspot.com/ ] when he accused Chomsky of being an apologist for the Khmer Rouge - but he refused to discuss it and (i think) bringing this up helped him in the decision to no longer allow comments on his blog.

The cognitive dissonance that his hero St. Reagan was funding and arming ultra-whacko Maoist Communists was a bit too much for him, i think. So better not be faced with questions about it ever again.

RP and RW may agree on many things - but the difference is that RW, to his credit, at least tries to have some ideological clarity and moral compass (flawed as it may be) - whereas RP lives in a comic book universe where supporting fascism really is freedom and doesn't see anything particularly ironic about that, at all.

Robert Parry has a good essay tonight about this massacre:

Bush's My Lai
& the Milosevic Precedent
by Robert Parry
''By exaggerating the threat that Iraq posed to the United States, Bush also set the conditions for atrocities.

While every soldier is responsible for his or her own actions in a war, it is the duty of the top levels of the chain of command – including the Commander in Chief – to take every possible precaution to ensure that troops on the ground do not commit war crimes.

Indeed, commanders and politicians who lay the groundwork for abuses often are held responsible along with the actual perpetrators. The late Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic was put on trial at the Hague not for direct participation in the slaughter of Bosnian Muslims and Croats in the 1990s, but for aiding and abetting the crimes.

Milosevic’s violent rhetoric and deceptive propaganda were two factors cited in his indictment. One count alleged that the fiery Serb leader “controlled, manipulated or otherwise utilized Serbian state-run media to spread exaggerated and false messages of ethnically based attacks by Bosnian Muslims and Croats against Serb people intended to create an atmosphere of fear and hatred among Serbs.” ''

go read the whole thing at
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/052906.html

by Richey Mon May 29, 2006 22:41

"Blaming the US for exploiting and furthering the chaos in a region due to Maoist policy is pretty lame."

Blaming the US for giving $80m of military aid to the Khmer Rouge and voting to give their rep Cambodia's seat at the UN is not "lame", it's elementary logic. China, of course, was allied to the US, and they joined forces to support Pol Pot's men and punish Vietnam for the sin of winning the war.

by Mr. T. Tue May 30, 2006 00:00

Cambodia - and to a lesser extent, Vietnam - was a casualty of the proxy war between PRC and USSR. The PRC weren't "punishing" Vietnam for winning against the US - they were punishing the USSR for backing them. There was a lot of bad blood between PRC & USSR leading to a bloody regional power struggle and series of proxy wars. Following their humiliation in Vietnam, the US had a very light diplomatic and no official military footprint in the region during time of the Killing Fields and the Sino-Vietnamese war.

And as for your claims of US funding instruments of genocide: even for Cambodia, and even for that time $81M was a drop in the bucket compared to what USSR pumped into Vietnam and what PRC pumped into Cambodia. And I'm not sure where you got that number in the first place - a reference would be appreciated.

I'm not saying the US is blameless or righteous with respect to Cambodia and Pol Pot - they're certainly not. What I am saying is that they weren't the active orchestrator or architect of the killing fields - they just let it develop and did nothing to stop it. And Redjade is completely correct - it was a contemptible and reprehensible policy decision.

by redjade Tue May 30, 2006 00:40

Mr T: Cambodia - and to a lesser extent, Vietnam - was a casualty of the proxy war between PRC and USSR.

There is much to agree with in this statement - even if purposely simplistic.

20 years from now, after the US is firmly booted out of the middle east, resulting in only Allah knows what... {the karma to be gotten for this war will be extreme, i fear to say}

I think 20 years from now historians will write that the US of A was suckered into a proxy war between the Sunni/Wahabbi Saudis and the a Armageddon believing brand of Shia (cant recall their name at the moment, sorry) who's figure head was Ahmadinejad.

The Gulf region was stuck in a cold war of sorts between radical sunni-ism and radical shia-ism - the US invasion of Iraq broke the ice and the gates of Hell opened up - with a fury of Nuclear ambition and chemical weaponry (that we have yet to see - and its sitting in warehouses in Saudi Arabia right now).

Democracy, WMDs, Al Q and so on - this is not what the real polics of the Gulf region were about - its was about Sunni vs Shia, as it always had been - and which version of Islam will be fueled by Oil and the Atom.

This and the race against time - the impending reality of Peak Oil and how scarcity will fuel islamic whackos to do gawd knows what in the near future....

this is my developing thesis, feel free to add to or knock it down. preferably by people who know what they are talking about, unlike RP

by Seán Ryan Tue May 30, 2006 02:29

A good friend of mine, an Egyptian, some years back made a very reasoned argument that follows along the lines you've just proposed Redjade. He's a Muslim but has an interest in Christianity like me, you should hear this guy put an argument together - incredible stuff, he's got a grasp of Christianity that few could match. Anyway, he explained the complexities of Muslim traditions and the deathmatch for control. He added that smaller sects within the Muslim world, 'boxed above their weight' because of this. Not so much in terms of assuming power but in exerting pressure on the beligerant forces. The counter effect of this results in intolerance for other religions and beliefs as either Muslim faction sees the area of contention dwindle. It's the classic 'three body rule,' - chaos. I think you're right when you use the term 'suckered,' but I think this needs a bit of elaboration. You've described the Muslim and the Communist influence. I think history itself plays a massive influence, once history is a part of the picture, one trys to repeat it or avoid repeating it. Greed it goes without saying (and need too to a much lesser extent) plays a dominant roll.

Forces like the American war machine attempt to exploit this mechanism by agitating and aiding the beligerants and by offering protection to the smaller sects. Not because its outcome can be predicted with regard to who the eventual victor will be, but for the simple mathematics of it. If you want their resources, get them to fight each other until they no longer care about their resources or so that what remains is too weak to protect their resources. It's all about depletion, and it's all about reaching depletion in as fast a time as possible with as little hinderance as is possible. What with the oil drying up there's now a definite time limit on achieving success.

I suppose if it were to be reduced to simplistic terms (no offense to redjade meant here, tis a massively complex subject and in truth I'm a rank amateur with more an interest than an understanding, but I understand the mechanics, chaotic they may be, but they're simple nonetheless) I'd say it all condences into the motto, 'divide and conquer.' And it's manifestations are everywhere, especially in the Emerald Isle. Everything from Shell plundering our natural resources to Human Beings starving themselves in order to highlight the point that Afghanistan is not a safe place to be forced to go to.

However I don't want to broaden this thread out of all relevance, so back to the topic at hand.

My three bodied rule idea is very much condensed. It can be expanded by thinking about the Middle East since the time of Mohamed. There's always been the minority religions and there's always been the larger sized 'shit stirrers' (Governments usually).

What I'm going to say next reminds me of that famous quote (the person who said it I cannot remember), 'If God didn't exist, we'd need to invent him [or her]"

It wont be too long till someone flies the Black Standard in Mecca. If this were to happen, and I'd argue that history but especially the current situation is building towards it, if it were to happen; the US and those who exploit these fellow human beings, would experience hell on earth.

Hope I haven't made this sound too much like a conspiracy theory. I'm not arguing the supernatural, I'm arguing a natural progression and a natural defensive mechanism.

by Righteous Pragmatist Tue May 30, 2006 11:09

A US military truck accidentally crashed into a line of cars killing five people.
A crazed mob turned up and tried to stone the soldiers to death so they were forced to open fire and defend themselves.

by Caobhin Tue May 30, 2006 11:37

So you were there then were you , I mean you wouldn't be regurgitating septic propaganda now would you?

by Righteous Pragmatist Tue May 30, 2006 11:58

Go read the newspapers.

by MichaelY - iawm Tue May 30, 2006 12:54

We are veering sharply away from the subject of this thread - but RP has a habit of trying to score points either about things he knows very little about or, most likely, trying perceptibly to confuse and blur the issues under discussion.
Re: Kabul yesterday. Hundreds of demonstrators rampaged through the Afghan capital, torching foreign aid agencies and looting businesses in a wave of violence that killed at least 14 people and wounded another 142. The riots brought the unrest, which has raked southern Afghanistan in recent months, within the gates of Kabul - hitherto seen by some as "an island of stability".
The protest was sparked early Monday when a US military convoy was involved in a traffic accident with a cargo truck that had experienced a mechanical failure. The resulting 12-car pileup killed at least five people, the US military said in a statement. US soldiers fired warning shots over the top of the crowd that had gathered around the accident. There was no question that their lives were threatened when they started shooting at people. A survey of the city's hospitals found that at least 11 more people were killed over the course of the day's rioting, shot by soldiers and Afghan police, which caused millions of dollars of damage and left a trail of destruction along the route the protesters travelled.
With violence in southern Afghanistan at its worst levels since the fall of the Taliban, the Kabul riots reflect a growing nationwide resentment about the foreign military presence in the country.
"There is a large reservoir of discontent and people are now just looking for a reason to vent their rage," says a Western diplomat who requested anonymity. [These people are the 'crazed mob' according to our RP commentator"]. All of them Taliban? Or perhaps anti-war protesters?
Demonstrators set the offices of CARE and other foreign aid agencies ablaze, but also torched a Chinese brothel and Afghan businesses as the demonstrations escalated into looting. "Many people hate the NGOs because they see all this money coming into the country and they have not been able to get jobs. They were waiting for a day like today," says Ehsan, an Afghan security officer. The road accident Monday morning follows a bloody two weeks of fighting around the country that has left nearly 400 people dead. Around 30 civiliarns were killed in an airstrike in southern Afghanistan last week during a battle with the Taliban, stoking public resentment already inflamed by the way Coalition forces drive around the country.
Incidentally, this is the country that some of the Afghan hunger strikers may be sent abck to if MMcD has his way

by righteous pragmatist Tue May 30, 2006 16:33

Your own story just proves it!

They attacked NGO's, aid agencies and other people who have come to help the impoverished war torn country.

To restore order the troops opened fire on them.

The two weeks of fighting have been a crackdown on Taliban forces who are attempting to reestablish their tyranny.
Surely its right to stop them?

I honestly don't see what your complaining about.

You clearly demonstrated in this news clipping that a violent mob was on the rampage and they appear to have acted in retaliation for Taliban defeats - but then you imply the shootings were unjustified because these people were supposedly innocent and had nothing to do with the Taliban?

You are clearly very confused.

by SH Tue May 30, 2006 16:40

"You clearly demonstrated in this news clipping that a violent mob was on the rampage and they appear to have acted in retaliation for Taliban defeats"

"You are clearly very confused".

RP you are as usual completely off the rails. To suggest that the troubles in Kabul were retaliation for Taliban defeats is by far the most ridiculous and amusing thing I have heard in a while. Thank you RP for making me laugh so much. Either you are a gullible fool or just an outrageous apologist for murderers. Your other quote is very suited to you.

by pat c Tue May 30, 2006 16:52

"The Khmer Rouge was a direct offspring nurtured and fattened up with weapons, training, funding and supplies by the PRC. Pol Pot and his followers were fanatical purist Maoists. The PRC used the Khmer Rouge to punish Vietnam, with whom they had frequent border military clashes. Blaming the US for exploiting and furthering the chaos in a region due to Maoist policy is pretty lame."

But the Khmer Rouge would never have been in a position to seize power if it hadnt been for the clandestine bombing of Cambodia by the US. The fact remains that the US maintained the Khmer Rouge as the "legitimate" government by keeping them in Cambodias seat at the UN General Assembley.

by MichaelY - iawm Tue May 30, 2006 18:00

Reports of the execution of up to two dozen Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in the city of Haditha last November have been floating around for a couple of months now. Until recently, Haditha generated a disinterested murmur barely louder than those of all the other reports of U.S. killings of numbers of Iraqi civilians that have surfaced in the last three years, primarily in Arabic-language media. But a Time magazine report and a subsequent U.S. military investigation have suddenly turned Haditha into a major story. So even our regular pro-war pundit RP has to comment on it.
But it was that Pentagon ally and war critic Democrat Jack Murtha who made headlines in America, and a few columns in our media, when he pronouced that Haditha had the potential to be "worse than Abu Ghraib" – “it would undermine the U.S. war effort", he added.
Let us first ask the simple question: "How can you undermine a complete disaster?" A disaster that has had, according to Dubya, about 7-8 "turning points", a disaster that was supposedly won by the Empire a couple of years ago and at least four times since, a disaster to which they're pumping another 1,500 Marines from Kuweit, to add to the 130,000 already there,as these lines are being written.
However, Murtha's reasoning needs to be examined further for it says an awful lot about both the American public's [and PR's?]idea of war and their patronizing and in the last instance racist conception of Iraqis.
We already know that nobody in Washington, Republican or Democrat, is judging the success of the war in Iraq by whether the American public supports it. Because they know less that 30% are for it! So the basic logic of Murtha's assertion, and others like him, is a calculation of the impact of Haditha -- both the executions and the Pentagon cover-up -- on Iraqis' perception of whether the presence of U.S. troops is a worthwhile thing. Whether it has brought or likely to bring democracy and western values to their land.
Every poll shows that a supermajority of the Iraqi public would like to see at least a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal, if not an immediate pullout. But somehow Murtha is concerned that Haditha will sour the opinions of Iraqis already largely opposed to the Empire’s presence.
But to suggest that the commission of an atrocity will all but doom the war effort isn't it to suggest that the war effort was, from the inception, all but doomed? Atrocities happen in every war. It's the nature of war. Counter-insurgency wars are especially barbaric. One should expect horrible things to happen when one makes a decision to go to war. If Haditha means that the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq in the future is unlikely to be productive, then what it means is that there was never any chance the Army's presence would be productive in the first place, because atrocities were all but inevitable. Which, I suspect, is not what Rep. Murtha was trying to say, although it may well be true. And in terms of "worse than Abu Ghraib," I get kinda fuzzy as to why the moral fallout from the actions of a dozen mostly low-ranking Marines would be worse than that of torture policies crafted and approved at the highest levels of U.S. government. Those who conceived of Abu Ghraib, those who made and continue to make decisions on Guntanamo, those who order and execute rendition flights and torture. And those of our lot that collaborate with it.
I'm also having a hard time understanding why the average Iraqi should care about the cold-blooded murders of a couple of dozen more civilians when somewhere between 100 and 200,000 civilians have already died as a result of this war. In modern warfare, 90 percent of casualties are civilian, a great percentage women and children, and Iraq appears no different. Since U.S. soldiers and bombers have been responsible for a significant number of those deaths already -- and through the launching of the invasion and the war the US is responsible for all of them with no exception-- what's the difference between cold-blooded executions and soldiers that proceed, as in Fallujah or Tikrit, despite the statistical certainty of massive "collateral damage"? The "oops, we weren't really aiming for them" defence might make Marines and a queasy American public feel better about civilian deaths caused halfway around the world, but to survivors, loved ones, and the Iraqis who will be the judges of whether U.S. soldiers' success has been "undermined," I doubt it makes much difference at all. Dead is dead. Executed is executed. Blown to pieces is final. If it's at the hands of a foreign occupier, how inclined would you be to either take an uninvestigated claim of "that was an accident" at face value, or to forgive the perpetrators? Never mind accept that they'rre trying to help you?
And then, there's the cover-up. This is even less of a shock than the original atrocity. From WMDs to Abu Ghraib to white phosphorus to Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch, virtually every major story in the last three years involving the war has involved either fanciful storytelling or serious ass-covering by the Pentagon. The very language of the DoD and White House is one of lies and misperception: "collateral damage," "enemy combatants," and so on. And the invasion of Iraq itself was based on White House lies and continues to be sold with the same cabal's crudely delusional fantasies. The tone starts at the top, and oozes down the chain of command, right low down to RP. Have Iraqis and the rest of the world caught on to the fact that official America lies routinely? Sure they/we have. It's patronizing and insulting to think otherwise.
Iraqis, and the Arab/Muslim world, are angry. We are angry about what happened at Hadith! But I very much doubt they are surprised, and we shouldn't be, either. This is what war smells like. And this why the anti-war movement opposes it! Iraqis are already well aware of what's been going on, even if Americans, and some Irish let us admit, choose to remain largely unconcerned and oblivious. That is why Iraqis' perceptions of whether the presence of U.S. troops is a worthwhile thing cannot be undermined much further. Turns out it really is difficult to undermine a complete disaster.
And confronted with a disaster, and if you want it to stop, you fight against it. By all means necessary.

by Mr. T. Tue May 30, 2006 19:34

Pat C.:

In the early 70's North Vietnam invaded Cambodia numerous times because they didn't want a pro-western government (FANK) on their border. The VC and N. Vietnam regular army occupied nearly a third of Cambodia at their peak well before Khmer Rouge were in control. Ho Chih Min had a grand plan to take over Laos and Cambodia to create a red Indochinese federation. So who started what? But anyway, to the point at hand - had Vietnam (as proxies for CCCP) not invaded Cambodia and slaughtered a huge number of pro-western Cambodian FANK troops, the Khmer Rouge would never had been capable of taking charge. So on this evidence the VC and CCCP's imperialistic goals were responsible for Pol Pot & Khmer Rouge sweeping into power - not the US.

And as far as US propping up Pol Pot in Cambodia in the UN in the 80's, it's far less black and white than you make it out, Pat C. The Soviets and N. Vietnamese proposal to the UN was to recognise a N. Vietnamese/Soviet stooge government rather than Pol Pot's coalition. And with respect to subsequent UN inaction on Cambodia, you can blame the Soviets as much as the US - the CCCP blocked resolutions calling for Cambodian ceasefire on the basis that the proposal called for all foreign forces (including VietCong) to leave Cambodia, and they wouldn't relinquish their occupation of Cambodia.

Personally, I think the French are responsible for fucking up that region and creating the social conditions for political mayhem that led to the VC and Pol Pot. Those political problems were a direct legacy of the French repressive colonial iron fist rule. During WW2 FDR despised the French and was secretly supporting Ho Chih Min in their fight against the Vichy, and word is there were promises made by US to support Viet Nam's independence from France after WW2. Ho Chih Min was not a commie yet - he even spoke of adopting a constitution based on the US'. But when Truman came on as pres, he wanted to help the post war french recover face (he should have put most of them on trial for nazi war crimes) so he supported them politically, logistically and otherwise, and later militarily in maintaining their Indochinese colonies. Ho Chih Min had no choice but to shop around for another sponsor - and that turned out to be the CCCP. So blame Truman.

Like I said, there's a whole lot of blame to go around with respect to Pol Pot. Where's the chicken and where's the egg, Pat C?

By the way, Darfour is a killing field not entirely dissimilar to Cambodia. What the hell are the left doing to stop it?

by Richey Tue May 30, 2006 23:05

Mr T, you could save us the trouble of such long-winded posts and just say "Everyone is to blame - except the US!". That's the gist of what you were saying. Regardless of what the North Vietnamese did or didn't do in Cambodia, it doesn't in any way legitimise the brutal, murderous bombing of rural Cambodia by the USAF, that claimed half a million lives. You haven't said a word against this bloody slaughter on this thread. And you have actually tried to justify Washington's full support for the Khmer Rouge at the UN. You can call the legitimate Cambodian rep a "Vietnamese puppet" all you like - but at least he was a human, representing a human government, that didn't systematically murder a million or more people. After he voted to back the Khmer Rouge, the US ambassador was approached by Ieng Sary (Pol Pot's man, and a notorious butcher in his own right) who shook his hand: the US guy said he felt like washing himself afterwards.

And if you really haven't heard about US military aid to the Khmer Rouge, which is a well-established fact, I suggest you do a bit of research before you adopt such an irritatingly self-assured tone. Try Ben Kiernan, the leading English-language authority on Cambodia, for starters.

by Mr. T. Wed May 31, 2006 01:01

I'm not apologising for the Yanks! Haven't you read anything I've written here? I'm not a fan of the Yanks. Besides killing lots of Cambodians, the relentless bombing turned the Cambodians - who gravitated towards the pro-Western politics - to embrace and support the Khmer Rouge. Beyond the savagery it was a counterproductive policy.

From the sounds of your droning on about the N. Vietnamese, you'd think the VC were just badly misunderstood bunch of lads you'd love to have a pint with, and but for the Yanks the children of Vietnam and Cambodia would be able to drink from the rivers of chocolate that flowed all throughout their beutiful peaceful lands. But you failed to mention that after the N. Viets signed the Paris accords all Cambodian bombing by the Yanks ceased immediately, but all N. Viet aircraft previously engaged with the Yanks were redirected at full force against the Cambodians. So your humanitarian N. Vietnamese decided that if carpet bombing was a good enough strategy for the Yanks it was good enough for Ho Chih Min's boys too. You have an interesting concept of what is "human".

And speaking of tiresome, I'm getting mighty sick of being required to ceremonialy throw shit on the Yanks every time a comment is submitted as if it's some secret handshake. The Yanks have done plenty to deserve disdain - but you seem to think there's a more humanitarian, more loveable, more moral, more just alternative. I'll tell you, sunshine, there ain't. The Yanks suck, they're immoral, they're bloodthirsty killers, they're money grubbing thieves. But I'll take them over any other alternative I've been presented with in my relatively short life. And you know what - I don't want to join your whinging club anyway, so you can keep your secret handshake.

Oh and one last thing - some folks seem to think your boy Kiernan was an agit-prop lacky working for the Khmer Rouge until they threw out all foreigners. They say the deportation sent him into a sulk and he decided to switch over to supporting the VC's Cambodian puppets - their initials escape me at the moment. Until then he was apparently writing articles rejecting the reports of genocide. I'm not saying he's a liar, but I am saying he's carrying baggage that requires some filtering. Even so, I was unable to find any attribution on the web or my personal library to this mysterious $80 Million in funding besides some stuff on some cryptic workers party propaganda website. So if it's real I'm sure you can provide a source for it, even if it's published this Kiernan chap.

by Richey Wed May 31, 2006 10:44

As I said - tiresome beyond belief. I'm off to do something more productive than argue with this indestructible egomaniac

by redjade Wed May 31, 2006 11:46

On CNN...

BLITZER: But even months before the incident in November, you lost a cousin at Haditha in a separate battle involving United States Marines.
AL-SUMAIDAIE: Well, that was not a battle at all. Marines were doing house-to-house searches, and they went into the house of my cousin. He opened the door for them.
His mother, his siblings were there. He led them into the bedroom of his father. And there he was shot.
BLITZER: Who shot him?
AL-SUMAIDAIE: A member of the Marines.
BLITZER: Why did they shoot him?
AL-SUMAIDAIE: Well, they said that they shot him in self- defense. I find that hard to believe because, A, he is not at all a violent -- I mean, I know the boy. He was a second year engineering course in the university. Nothing to do with violence. All his life has been studies and intellectual work.
Totally unbelievable. And, in fact, they had no weapon in the house. They had one weapon which belonged to the school where his father was a headmaster. And it had no ammunition in it. And he led them into the room to show it to them.
BLITZER: So what you're suggesting, your cousin was killed in cold blood, is that what you're saying, by United States Marines?
AL-SUMAIDAIE: I believe he was killed intentionally. I believe that he was killed unnecessarily. And unfortunately, the investigations that took place after that sort of took a different course and concluded that there was no unlawful killing.
I would like further investigation. I have, in fact, asked for the report of the last investigation, which was a criminal investigation, by the way.
General Casey is aware of all the details, because he's kept on top of it. And it was he who rejected the conclusions of the first investigation. I have since asked formally for the report, but it's been nearly two months and I have not received it.

Full Transcript
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0605/30/sitroom.....html

Watch the video probably wont be archived here forever
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/TSR_IraqiAmbassa.mov

—————— ——————

Bad enough that the Iraq puppet government agrees that Iran has the right to develop 'nuclear energy' but that this puppet govt's ambassador gets on CNN and claims war crimes against the USA, whew!.... things not going well these days for the Bushies, are they?

Pissed Off Puppet Bites Master's Hand

by Blue Rinse Wed May 31, 2006 22:15

05/31/06 "unison.ie" -- -- US soldiers have shot and killed a pregnant Iraqi woman and her cousin while they were driving to a maternity hospital north of Baghdad.

Iraqi police said the two women were travelling to hospital in Samarra when their vehicle came under fire from the Americans.

The US military issued a statement today saying the shots were fired "to disable the vehicle" after it entered a clearly marked prohibited zone near a US observation post.

It said the car failed to stop despite repeated "visual and auditory signals" and the loss of life was "regrettable".

by Robert Adcox Wed Jun 07, 2006 03:45

Liberals are chomping at the bit to see the Marines, who are charged with murder, convicted. The last time I checked, however, there were two sides to every story. I know that if I were in combat and some cowardly terrorists shot at me and then hid behind human shields, I'd go after terrorists and kill them. I'd try not to kill civilians, but in combat one surely has little time to make a decision. Why are these Marines shackled if they haven't been found guilty? This whole thing stinks. Maybe Time Magazine and John Murtha should be in chains instead.

by Mara Verheyden-Hilliard - Answer Coalition Wed Jun 07, 2006 12:32

When U.S. marines carried out the savage and systematic execution of Iraqi families and small children in Haditha last November, it was initially reported as a “battle” with “insurgent casualties.” A photo of a kneeling Iraqi civilian moments before he was murdered was taken by a Marine using his cell phone camera. Other pictures of the corpses of small children, families lying in pools of blood in their homes, students gunned down in a taxi are all part of the documentary evidence.

The massacre in Haditha took place one year after a much larger massacre of civilians in Fallujah. Four to six thousand civilians are estimated to have been killed in Fallujah in November 2004, according to credible independent sources reporting from the ground. The truth of Iraq is that there were other massacres almost every week in between the events that have made Haditha and Fallujah famous cities: famous in the way no city wants to become well known throughout the world. The attack on the people of Iraq and ensuing occupation by the United States government has caused the deaths of well over 100,000 Iraqi people (the British medical journal, The Lancet, reported an excess of 100,000 dead eighteen months ago).

“Ethics Training” to Prevent Massacres

Now that the butchery in Haditha is making headlines in the United States, high ranking officials in the Pentagon as well as the President are promising an investigation. They have even announced “ethics training” for combat troops. The implication is that something unusual happened when unarmed civilians, including terrified small children and their mothers who were trying to shield them, were riddled with bullets by U.S. soldiers. Were they rogue soldiers lawlessly breaking ranks from an otherwise pristine mission aimed at liberating Iraqis? That is pure fiction. Those who criticize the management of the war are talking complete nonsense when they say that the actions of these Marines will make it “harder to carry out the mission in Iraq.”

The Haditha massacre will not make the Iraqis think differently about the United States or Bush. It will only confirm their view, an outlook shaped by the cruel, cold-hard reality of the past years.

A Routine Phenomenon

Just this week, on May 31, US soldiers in Iraq “killed two Iraqi women — one of them about to give birth — when the troops shot at a car that failed to stop at an observation post in a city north of Baghdad." The AP reports that Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, 35, was being raced to the maternity hospital in Samarra by her brother when the shooting occurred Tuesday. Jassim, the mother of two children, and her 57-year-old cousin, Saliha Mohammed Hassan, were killed by the U.S. forces, according to police Capt. Laith Mohammed and witnesses. Her husband was waiting for her at the maternity unit of the hospital when Jassim, pregnant with their child, and her cousin were murdered.

Yesterday, the BBC disclosed new video evidence that U.S. forces massacred another group of Iraqi civilians in the town of Ishaqi in March. The story, carried by Knight-Ridder in March, and denied by the U.S. government thereafter, stated that U.S. troops had rounded-up villagers into a single room of a house and then “executed 11 people, including a 75-year-old woman and a 6-month-old infant.” BBC reported June 1 that of the eleven people murdered by U.S. troops, five were children. The soldiers then, “burned three vehicles, killed the villagers’ animals and blew up the house.”

In Afghanistan this week, large masses of people took to the streets throwing rocks at U.S. military vehicles following another incident in which U.S. military personnel raced through Kabul and then rammed passenger vehicles killing at least three people. A top Afghan police officer reported that U.S. soldiers then opened fire indiscriminately directly into the crowd killing at least four more people.

Rejecting the Disney Version of U.S. Foreign Policy

The perception of the U.S. in the Arab world is based on actual information and knowledge of the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. financing and support for the ongoing war waged by the Israeli military against the Palestinian people also contributes to the understanding of the U.S. role among the people of the Middle East. This perception is 100 percent different than the fantasy promoted in the United States. In the United States, facts are not allowed to stand in the way of the official legend.

All the mainstream media, the politicians and even some in the “peace movement” in the United States uphold the Disney version of U.S. imperialism: a fundamentally benign force, motivated by democratic values and a vision of freedom, that is suffering an unexplained outburst of criminality based on stress caused by poor management of the war. Haditha, and Fallujah before it, or Abu Ghraib, are registered as deviant behavior by out of control people. Conveniently they are all rank and file enlisted men and women. No Generals, Secretary of Defense or President need worry.

That every exposed crime is widely accepted to be “deviant” or aberrational in the United States is only a testament to the power of political indoctrination by the media and the government whose economic resources for “opinion-molding” are greater than that of any previous empire in human history.

The Perception of U.S. Imperialism from The Middle East

“The deaths in Haditha, a volatile town in western Iraq, have barely caused a stir in Iraq and much of the Arab world — where American troops are reviled as brutal invaders who regularly commit such acts,” writes AP reporter Hamza Hendawi, in a story filed on May 30, 2006.

The next day a dispatch from AP reporter Kim Gamel, reports the same sentiment, "People in Samarra are very angry with the Americans not only because of Haditha case but because the Americans kill people randomly especially recently," Khalid Nisaif Jassim said.

Closely connected by language, historical and geographic knowledge, and access to more comprehensive media reporting, the Arab people consider the entire war, including its unprovoked initiation by Bush on March 20, 2003, to be a criminal endeavor by large powers against a small but oil-rich nation. The racist character of the war itself is well recognized throughout the region. Having battled for a century against colonial and semi-colonial domination, the Arab people don’t derive their knowledge about the intentions of Britain or the United States from FOX News or the New York Times.

In the U.S. media, Iraq is treated as a low-intensity war. When U.S. soldiers are killed their deaths are accompanied by a small article. The fact that well more than 100,000 Iraqis have died does not merit blazing headlines. Iraqi suffering is minimized or usually attributed to “terrorists.” Thus, the people of the United States are shielded from that which the Arab people know all too well about the criminal character of the war of aggression.

Fallujah and Hue City, Vietnam

The issue of Fallujah is a case in point. Fallujah is emblematic of the war. It is well understood throughout the Arab world but treated like ancient history by the U.S. media.

On the eve of the assault on Fallujah, the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition sent out an email to anti-war activists (November 7, 2004) under the headline: “Top U.S. Marine in Iraq Calls for Massacre in Fallujah.” It reported that Sgt. Major Carlton W. Kent gave an emotional pep-talk to 2,500 Marines who were poised to attack the city. The marines had just notified the people of Fallujah that any male between the age of 15-55 who dared go outside would be automatically killed. “You’re all in the process of making history,” the Sgt. Major exhorted his soldiers. “This is another Hue City in the making. I, have no doubt, if we do get the word, that each and every one of you is going to do what you have always done kick some butt.” (AP, November 7, 2004)

Evoking the events in Hue by U.S. officers, as a motivation for today’s troops, shows the macabre criminality inherent in imperialism’s war for conquest.

Hue was a city in South Vietnam that was a scene of horrific war crimes by military personnel when it was captured by U.S.-led forces in March 1968. U.S. Under-Secretary of the Air Force, Townsend Hoopes, admitted that Hue was left a “devastated and prostrate city. Eighty percent of the buildings had been reduced to rubble, and in the smashed ruins lay 2,000 dead civilians …” (Noam Chomsky’s forward to the papers of the 1967 International War Crimes in Vietnam Tribunal.)

The Machinery of Racism

How can 100,000 people die, how can children be murdered, how can the devastation and destruction of an entire society occur at the hands of the U.S. government without there being a huge outpouring of indignation and condemnation in the U.S. mass media, much less even acknowledgment by so many in the “loyal opposition”? Because the U.S. mainstream media is a corporate dominated propaganda machine that is part and parcel of the imperial establishment and shares its interests. It uses the instrument of racism, a tool that has been fine-tuned by the forces of militarism in the United States for nearly four centuries. The racist demonization of conquered and targeted people has been crafted with the idea of dehumanizing the victims so as to prevent the forging of human solidarity in opposition to the crimes of conquest and Empire. The mass media, always willing to exploit the emotional appeal of death and tragedy that occurs within the United States, can ignore or define the experiences of the people of Iraq as somehow less worthy, the death of Iraqi children as less agonizing, their lives less valuable.

Bush Proclaims that Iraq “is only the beginning” of Endless War

The day after the NY Times front page story revealing the graphic details of the Haditha massacre, George W. Bush said these words about the Iraq war to the West Point graduating class of 2006: “This is only the beginning. The message has spread from Damascus to Tehran that the future belongs to freedom, and we will not rest until the promise of liberty reaches every people, in every nation.” Reiterating his and Cheney’s theme that the U.S. is now engaged in “endless war,” Bush told the young cadets: “The war began on my watch, but its going to end on your watch.”

While Bush was exhorting the next generation of privileged military officers to enthusiastically embrace his imperial crusade, the reality is that this administration sees in every rank and file enlisted man and woman nothing more than pawns. For the working class youth who make up the bulk of the military, the Bush administration has only callous disregard. Bush is willing to send these young people to kill and be killed while it carries out vicious cut-backs in education, job training and veterans benefits. The rich are always ready to have the working class and poor people do their fighting and dying.

The crimes of the U.S. soldiers in Iraq are as inevitable as the crimes committed by soldiers in imperial armies throughout history. The conquered people refuse to accept their fate. They rise up, they form resistance organizations. They take up arms and conspire to oust the foreign occupiers. They are then branded as terrorists and criminals by the Empire. To the extent that they enjoy popular support among the indigenous population, the population itself is considered “suspect” by the occupiers.

Civilians thus become a danger. Children and young teenagers can become the “enemy.” The vehicles carrying expectant mothers to the hospital can thus become a threat because they must travel quickly, too quickly for the comfort of the occupying soldiers who are fearful of car bombs.

A Pertinent Revelation this Week: 50 Years After the Fact

In the Korean War, U.S. soldiers gunned down hundreds and possibly thousands of South Korean civilians as they tried to escape the horrors of war. For five decades, the Pentagon and each successive U.S. administration denied these facts. South Korean survivors who tried to press their claims against the United States were labeled traitors and North Korean spies and put into prison for many years. After the killings of No Gun Ri in July 1950 were exposed decades later in the U.S. media, the Pentagon even carried out an “exhaustive” investigation and concluded that the actions were those of inexperienced soldiers. “The deaths and injuries of civilians, wherever they occurred, were an unfortunate tragedy inherent to war and not a deliberate killing.... Soldiers were not ordered to attack and kill civilian refugees in the vicinity of No Gun Ri.” (Department of the Army Inspector General, No Gun Ri Review, Jan. 2001)

But just this week, as the Pentagon begins its new “investigation” into Haditha, a document has come to light that not only reveals the truth of the massacre of Koreans but that it was an act of official U.S. war policy. The day of the mass killings, the US Ambassador to South Korea sent a letter to State Department official Dean Rusk about the military decision arrived at a meeting on July 25, 1950 announcing that Korean war refugees would be shot if they approached US lines. The day after the decision the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment killed hundreds of civilians at No Gun Ri in South Korea.

The Logic of War Crimes

There was a military rationale for killing the civilians at No Gun Ri and in scores of other sites throughout Korea during the war. The U.S. soldiers could not tell whether the civilians were sympathetic to the North Koreans or whether they would permit North Korean soldiers into their midst.

The Geneva Conventions expressly prohibit the targeting of civilians under any circumstances. But the Pentagon had a bigger political concern than adhering to international law. The fundamental fear of the Pentagon and the White House in Korea, as it was in Vietnam and during the first and current war against Iraq, was that public opinion at home would turn against the imperialist adventure and tie the hands of the warmakers. The logic of their political calculus was that U.S. public opinion would turn against the war directly as a result of a large number of U.S. casualties. This thought took them to the next murderous conclusion: if civilians pose even a remote risk to U.S. soldiers it is better to shoot the civilians first and ask questions later. Dead Korean or Vietnamese or Iraqi civilians will not be as politically damaging back home as dead American soldiers.

There is one more side to the logic of war crimes. If the civilian population is sympathetic to the resistance fighters it is necessary to terrorize the civilians as punishment for providing aid or shelter to a guerrilla army. This is not a new story. The Japanese wiped out whole villages and nearly some cities in China as a warning against aiding the communist-led resistance during World War II. The Nazi's policy in Serbia was to kill one hundred Serbs for every German soldier killed by the resistance. Under the direction of John Negroponte, current Director of US Intelligence services, the Salvadoran military carried out large-scale massacres of peasant communities that were considered supportive of the FMLN resistance fighters in El Salvador during the 1980’s. In Vietnam, the CIA organized the Phoenix Program, a clandestine war that assassinated as many 50,000 south Vietnamese who were considered to be members or sympathizers of the National Liberation Front.

The People of the United States Must Act to Stop Imperialist War

There is no investigation, no new training, or change in the way the war and occupation is administered that can stop massacres like Haditha, Fallujah and the day in and day out killings of Iraqis and destruction of their society. The only change that can bring about the hope of building a new future for Iraqis, one of self-determination and eventual peace, is to end the foreign occupation of Iraq and remove the invading army. Every day the U.S. and other troops remain in Iraq the situation grows more dire for the Iraqi people. We must demand that the troops be brought home now and reach out to our friends, families, co-workers and schoolmates to make this demand a powerful and undeniable force. The majority of people of the U.S. now oppose the war in Iraq - but at this very moment, many in the peace movement are urging that all focus turn towards the elections, just as they did two years ago. This is the road to irrelevance and it must be rejected.

The war in Vietnam was not ended because “better politicians” were elected. No one could assert that Richard Nixon was better than anything or anyone. What mattered was that millions of people used every avenue to intensify the mass struggle in the streets and in every community throughout the country. The Vietnamese people were clearly determined to fight until their homeland was free from foreign occupation. Ultimately, the U.S. soldier was only fighting to return to his or her home. The congruence of these factors and the ever-widening mass anti-war movement made the nearly genocidal conflict unsustainable for the Pentagon brass and the occupant of the White House. We must learn and re-learn these lessons and apply them to today. That is the challenge and obligation of the next period.

by Ford Maddox Ford Wed Jun 07, 2006 19:49

"Marines Innocent Unless Proven Guilty"

BUT

"Maybe Time Magazine and John Murtha should be in chains instead. "

So remind me again - what is this "democracy" you Americans speak of so much? Does it involve locking up people who express opinions you dislike? Shooting women and children in cold blood?

by whutdef**k Wed Jun 07, 2006 22:06

"The US military operates to the highest professional standards -
murder and looting will be severely punished."

Well now indeed ...

I have no doubt that the US military does operate to the highest professional standards.
But I fear you are going a little too far to say that murder and looting will be severely punished.
Surely those are its very raisons d'etre.

Have you never heard of Major-Gen. Smedley Butler ?

"I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm