US Marine Committing War Crimes in Iraq

On May 4 2006, a thought-provoking article titled Message from a Vet of My Lai Time: "Our Descent Into Hell Has Begun" by Tony Swindell appeared on Counterpunch. He first addressed his concerns over the atrocities against the Iraqi people and predicted an explosion in America's face compared to which the Abu Ghraib incident would be a mere "fraternity beer bust".

In Iraq, our descent into hell, our "Apocalypse Now" moment, has begun. First there was Gitmo, then the global rendition program, then Abu Ghraib, then the pulverizing of Fallujah, and now trigger-happy raids that are filling multitudes of sandy graves with men, women and children. Has "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" become the mission in Babylon? Can't anyone remember Vietnam, where we left behind more than a million dead civilians?

He talked about the psychological trauma of soldiers who commit these crimes and went on to give an account of his experience in Vietnam, a country where the United States was responsible for mass genocide. And by the relation of Iraq with Vietnam, it was more convincing than ever the terrible suffering the Iraqi people were putting through. And two days ago, another article titled Lawmaker: Marines Killed Iraqis ‘In Cold Blood’ by Jim Miklaszewski and Mike Viqueira surfaced on NBC.

A Pentagon probe into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of Haditha will show that U.S. Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood," a U.S. lawmaker said Wednesday.

From the beginning, Iraqis in the town of Haditha said U.S. Marines deliberately killed 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children.

One young Iraqi girl said the Marines killed six members of her family, including her parents. “The Americans came into the room where my father was praying,” she said, “and shot him.”

On Wednesday, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said the accounts are true.

Military officials told NBC News that the Marine Corps' own evidence appears to show Murtha is right.

A videotape taken by an Iraqi showed the aftermath of the alleged attack: a blood-smeared bedroom floor and bits of what appear to be human flesh and bullet holes on the walls.

The video, obtained by Time magazine, was broadcast a day after town residents told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes on Nov. 19 and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.

There seems to be a behavioural pattern of soldiers in wars as they plunder, murder and raid -- and as Tony Sindell writes:

I listen in vain to hear the voices of young Americans who will be directly and immediately affected. Current events in the Middle East should be a paramount issue, but, inexplicably, the kids are completely nonchalant. Raised on the Internet and X-Boxes, maybe Iraq is just another Hollywood-style media production to them.

When innocent people of the world are denigrated and thought of as sub-humans or lower by any group or coalition, we have a bomb ticking somewhere in our collective humanity.