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Spinning a War Crime
RON JACOBS
Counterpunch
Wednesday September 5, 2007
The sheer criminality of the entire project was plain for all
to see. Sunday night the CBS television show 60 Minutes re-broadcast
an interview with Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the patrol leader
in the massacre of twenty-four civilians in Haditha, Iraq on November
19, 2005. The overall tone of the 60 Minutes segment was relatively
objective, refusing to either exonerate the Marine patrol or condemn
the men and their leader. At the same time, it was a fair representation
of the thinking involved in the murder of civilians in modern
warfare--a phenomenon that not only occurs more often than those
of us in the homeland are led to believe, but is also part and
parcel of modern warfare. Why else would the term "collateral
damage" have been coined?
Sgt. Wuterich was apologetic for the deaths yet remains convinced
that he followed Marine engagement rules to the letter. Not only
do I believe him, I am also convinced that he followed those rules.
When the people you are supposed to kill are the people that live
in the cities and towns your troops move in to and take over their
homes and schools, then any one of those people is a potential
enemy. In a Clintonian moment, Scott Pelley asked if the killings
in Haditha constituted a massacre. Wuterich told Pelley and the
60 Minutes audience that "A massacre in my mind, by definition,
is a large group of people being executed, being killed for absolutely
no reason and that's absolutely not what happened here."
This discussion of nuance may seem peculiar in light of what was
being discussed (the murders of 24 men, women and children), but
when considered in terms of the spin dispensed daily by the White
House and Pentagon press offices regarding Iraq and Afghanistan,
it is not surprising.
(Article continues below)
There was no nuance involved, however, when Wuterich described
the process used by Marines to clear a house. After breaking down
the front door, the men "prepped" the inside rooms by
opening the door a crack and rolling a grenade inside. "But
when you roll a grenade in a room through the crack in the door,
that's not positive identification, that's taking a chance on
anything that could be behind that door," Pelley responded.
Wuterich's answer was clear. "Well that's what we do. That's
how our training goes." Just like the pilots of bombers and
helicopter gunships, the lives of those on the ground not in friendly
uniforms are not important. Their fate is determined by their
proximity to those buildings and people the imperial forces are
determined to destroy. Furthermore, many of the air wars targets
are primarily civilian in nature, but are destroyed in order to
prevent a country's ability to maintain basic services. Perhaps
the clearest evidence of this strategy can be found in the US
destruction of Iraq's water purification and electrical systems.
As most readers know, Iraqis continue to suffer from this destruction
unless they live in the fully serviced Green Zone.
As of this writing, only Wuterich still faces charges. The other
accused men on patrol that day have been cleared. Meanwhile, the
killing continues. And so does the criminality an dour complicity
as long as we do nothing to stop it.
Hakim to the Rescue?
The Los Angeles Times ran an article over the weekend of September
2, 2007 that spoke of the assumption of leadership of the Iraqi
Supreme Council by Ammar Hakim. For those of you who might not
recognize Hakim, he is a Shia cleric whose father was a sworn
enemy of Saddam Hussein and helped form the feared Badr Brigades.
It is the Badr Brigades that constitute much of the current Iraqi
security forces and are considered responsible for many of the
death squad killings in the past couple years. Ammar Hakim lived
in Iran from 1979 until the US invasion in 2003. He returned to
Iraq around the same time as Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, who was
killed shortly thereafter during a pilgrimage to Najaf. Ammar's
father stepped into the vacuum left by Baqir al_Hakim's death,
but is suffering from cancer. Since that time, the Badr Brigades
have consolidated their power while Ammar Hakim slowly rose to
the top of The Supreme Council (formerly SCIRI)--the party that
serves as the political wing of the Brigades.
During the US buildup to the 2003 invasion, the forerunners of
the SCIRI organization received US monies and were major players
in the Iraqi National Congress--the exile organization formed
by the White House and CIA designed to take over Iraq after Saddam
was taken down. Unlike Shia leader al-Sadr's organization, the
Supreme Council's appeal is to the Shia merchant class. This helps
explain their friendship with elements of the Iranian government,
given the dominance of that government by similar elements in
Iran. Indeed, in a general way, it is fair to say that the element
in Iran that financially supports Rafsanjani and other such clerics
is similar to the element that supports the Supreme Council in
Iraq. Likewise, the element that supports Iran's populist president
Ahmenijad is similar to those in the Iraqi Shia population that
support al-Sadr. The difference is not in religious beliefs but
in class differences.
Besides Hakim, there is Allawi. If one recalls this man, hew
was put in place by the US and could very well be the CIA's man
for the job if and when al-Maliki meets his fate. Secular to a
fault, this man not only has no support among Iraqis, his only
allegiance seems to be to Washington. Given this fact, if he does
end up taking over the Green Zone government, it's a pretty safe
bet that his tenure would be brief and his end might well be quite
bloody.
Back to that spin machine. George Bush landed in Iraq today for
a surprise visit. We all know he saw nothing of Iraq and very
little of the men and women he and his Congressional cohorts have
sent over there to install some kind of American dream. Nonetheless,
you can be certain that the visit was all part of the plan revealing
itself as Washington and its media machine prepares to release
the Petraeus report in the next ten days. It is a report that
will most likely guarantee the continued escalation of the war
accompanied by the requisite handwringing from Democrats elected
to end this debacle.
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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