The soldiers circled nearby homes and shot whomever they ran into. An elderly man in a wheelchair was shot in the chest, as was a four-year-old child. A thirteen-year-old boy survived by hiding under the bleeding body of a younger sibling.
The atrocities committed by American forces in the Iraqi town of Haditha might as well have been mental derangement. There are continuing revelations about the circumstances in which U.S. soldiers, angry at how their comrades had been killed in an explosion, deliberately murdered civilians in retaliation.
The attitude of the U.S. military after an incident that took the lives of 23 innocent civilians is as heinous and arrogant as can be. The military said the deaths were the unfortunate result of combat action and hid the truth, all the while giving hush money to the families of the deceased. The military’s official announcement would have buried the incident, had the press not exposed the horrifying truth. The U.S. Congress is even pursuing the question of whether there was a cover-up, and yet the military is still not coming clean.
It is estimated that between 40,000 to 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of off-target bombs and other instances of getting caught in the crossfire. The U.S. military still calls civilian deaths "collateral damage" and does not even keep an official count of how many have been killed. When, by chance, crimes are exposed, there is no punishment. The soldier who shot an Italian intelligence agent and the marine who targeted wounded persons in Falluja were never made to stand in court. The soldiers who abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib were found guilty of simple assault. All the American military is doing in response to the revenge killings is to produce a plan for "core values" education.
The "Haditha massacre" reminds you of the massacre at My Lai, which led, in part, to the withdraw of American troops from Vietnam. Even within the halls of U.S. legislature, it is being said that America’s moral standing and leadership will collapse because of this incident, but the Bush Administration is ignoring the issue. It was quite recently, after all, that U.S. president George W. Bush and U.K. prime minister Tony Blair declared things are going "in the right direction." Even when the Iraqi government says it plans to draft a schedule for the withdraw of foreign forces, they say there will be no such withdraw in the near future.
It has been some time now since the war in Iraq has come to be seen as a "dirty war" brought about by American hegemonic ambitions instead of something that is part of "spreading freedom and democracy." The countries that sent troops to participate in this unjust war are hurrying on their way out of Iraq. Korea is the only nation doing nothing about having thousands of troops there. Are we going to continue to aid and abet this kind of killing?
[Editorial] Killing civilians is spreading democracy? |
