Politics: Massacre in Iraq

Politics

The picture here is of the bodies of civilians, massacred by US marines last November, in a city called Haditha...in Iraq. The dead, numbering 24, included women and children, and many were members of one family.

The marines are described as "going bezerk", storming into a house, and killing everyone inside. The coverup that followed included stories of car bombs and snipers, but these reports proved to be untrue and the number of civilians killed was much higher than first reported. Much of the massacre was being filmed by an Iraqi film student who happened to be in the vicinity.


The massacre of these civilians was brought to the public notice by an ex-marine congressman named John Murtha, who made his allegations following a story in TIME magazine. An investigation by the military soon followed and charges are about to be brought against some of the marines involved.

Three officers, a lt. colonol and two captains, have been relieved of their commands, but as yet no charges have been brought against them.













The fact that over 100,000 Iraqis have been killed since the invasion, most of them civilians, seems to count for little in the hearts and minds of the Bush administration, nor do the 2400 plus American troops killed and many thousands wounded. Bush and his neoconservative mindless warmongering gaggle of goons appear to be a whole basket short of a picnic on the whole issue.

Massacres are nothing new to warfare. But, if you have God on your side as the Americans like to claim, then how in heaven's name can you condone, accept, ignore, or cover-up the kind of atrocities that the Bush whitehouse seems to actively encourage?












With the erosion of civil liberties in the USA and the ignoring of all international treaties concerning the treatment of prisoners and the conduct of war, this administration will have left a stain on American history that will be impossible cleanse.

Even when, or even if, these lunatics leave office there will be little that any new government can do to fix the damage that has been done to the world's perception of America. Far from bringing "freedom" to the Iraqis, they have brought just another brutal and destructive occupation.

To quote a CIA analyst, sent to Guantanimo Bay to find out what was going wrong, why there was little usefull intellegence forthcoming, he reported to his superiors: "We were making things worse for the United States, in terms of terrorism...if we captured some people who weren't terrorists when we got them, they are now." This might just be true for the whole of the Iraqi population by the time Bush is finished with them.

There is no concievable "exit strategy" for the United States in Iraq. The war in Iraq, like the war in Vietnam, will not end until the Americans just pack up and go home, leaving their puppet government behind to crumble. But will America ever go home? There are new wars on the horizon even as I write. The war machine that America has so heavily invested in for the last six decades, and that has put so much money into so few pockets, is, I'm afraid, going to be very busy..thanks to Mr. Bush and his neoconservative, born-again, draft-dodging cronies.