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Racial stereotypes that Europeans and Americans had applied to non- whites for centuries: during the conquest of the New World, the slave trade, the Indian Wars in the United States, the agitation against Chinese immigrants in America, the colonization of Asia and Africa, the U.S. conquest of the Philippines at the turn of the century.
Further, American racism and racialism didn’t end on the battlefield, but instead continued one the fight was over — in contravention of the laws of war. During the Indian Wars, U.S. troops were known to execute injured combatants. The Philippines Insurrection saw continued executions and the copious use of water torture techniques on prisoners carried out by or under the supervision of American soldiers. Not surprisingly, the murder of prisoners continued during the U.S. interventions in Haiti and Santo Domingo and brutal treatment continued through the Korean and Vietnam Wars as well, with the employment of electrical torture and water torture techniques being utilized regularly in the latter conflict.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3204508.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3204508.stm
In connection to the latest incident, according to a Marine Corps spokesman, Major Clark Paulus has been charged with negligent homicide, assault, cruelty and maltreatment, dereliction of duty and making false statements. Lance Corporal Christian Hernandez was also charged with negligent homicide. Another Lance Corporal, William S. Roy is accused of assaulting Hatab as well as of the mistreatment of prisoners, dereliction of duty and assaults on other Iraqi detainees. Major William Vickers is accused of dereliction of duty; Sgt. Gary Pittman stands accused of both assault and dereliction of duty; Sgt. Albert Rodriquez-Martinez is accused of assault and false official statements; Lance Corporal Andrew Rodney stands accused of assault; and Lance Corporal Konstantin Mikholap has been accused of both assault and making false official statements.
Its structured cruelty.
Only by moving beyond the rhetoric of considering each atrocity to be an isolated incident and an exceptional case can a true picture of such war crimes come to light and steps be taken to curb the abuse in the present and future.
In the week that George Bush took to fantasising that his blood-soaked “war on terror” would lead the 21st century into a “shining age of human liberty” I went through my mail bag to find a frightening letter addressed to me by an American veteran whose son is serving as a lieutenant colonel and medical doctor with US forces in Baghdad. Put simply, my American friend believes the change of military creed under the Bush administration - from that of “soldier” to that of “warrior” - is encouraging American troops to commit atrocities.
From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo to Bagram, to the battlefields of Iraq and to the “black” prisons of the CIA, humiliation and beatings, rape, anal rape and murder have now become so commonplace that each new outrage is creeping into the inside pages of our newspapers. My reporting notebooks are full of Afghan and Iraqi complaints of torture and beatings from August 2002, and then from 2003 to the present point. How, I keep asking myself, did this happen? Obviously, the trail leads to the top. But where did this cult of cruelty begin?
So first, here’s the official US Army “Soldier’s Creed”, originally drawn up to prevent anymore Vietnam atrocities:
“I am an American soldier. I am a member of the United States Army - a protector of the greatest nation on earth. Because I am proud of the uniform I wear, I will always act in ways creditable to the military service and the nation that it is sworn to guard. No matter what situation I am in, I will never do anything for pleasure, profit or personal safety, which will disgrace my uniform, my unit or my country. I will use every means I have, even beyond the line of duty, to restrain my Army comrades from actions, disgraceful to themselves and the uniform. I am proud of my country and it’s flag. I will try to make the people of this nation proud of the service I represent for I am an American soldier.”
Now here’s the new version of what is called the “Warrior Ethos”:
“I am an American soldier. I am a warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the Unites States and live the Army values. I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade. I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills. I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself. I am an expert and I am a professional. I stand ready to deploy, engage and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat. I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life. I am an American soldier.”
Like most Europeans - and an awful lot of Americans - I was quite unaware of this ferocious “code” for US armed forces, although it’s not hard to see how it fits in with Bush’s rantings. I’m tempted to point this out in detail, but my American veteran did so with such eloquence in his letter to me that the response should come in his words: “The Warrior Creed,” he wrote, “allows no end to any conflict accept total destruction of the ‘enemy’. It allows no defeat… and does not allow one ever to stop fighting (lending itself to the idea of the long war’). It says nothing about following orders, it says nothing about obeying laws or showing restraint. It says nothing about dishonourable actions…”.
Each day now, I come across new examples of American military cruelty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here, for example, is Army Specialist Tony Lagouranis, part of an American mobile interrogation team working with US marines, interviewed by Amy Goodman on the American Democracy Now! programme describing a 2004 operation in Babel, outside Baghdad: “Every time Force Recon went on a raid, they would bring back prisoners who were bruised, with broken bones, sometimes with burns. They were pretty brutal to these guys. And I would ask the prisoners what happened, how they received these wounds. And they would tell me that it was after their capture, while they were subdued, while they were handcuffed and they were being questioned by the Force Recon Marines… One guy was forced to sit on an exhaust pipe of a Humvee … he had a giant blister, third- degree burns on the back of his leg.”
Lagouranis, whose story is powerfully recalled in Goodman’s new book, Static, reported this brutality to a Marine major and a colonel-lawyer from the US Judge Advocate General’s Office. “But they just wouldn’t listen, you know? They wanted numbers. They wanted numbers of terrorists apprehended … so they could brief that to the general.”
The stories of barbarity grow by the week, sometimes by the day. In Canada, an American military deserter appealed for refugee status and a serving comrade gave evidence that when US forces saw babies lying in the road in Fallujah - outrageously, it appears, insurgents sometimes placed them there to force the Americans to halt and face ambush - they were under orders to drive over the children without stopping.
Which is what happens when you always “place the mission first” when you are going to “destroy” - rather than defeat - your enemies. As my American vet put it: “the activities in American military prisons and the hundreds of reported incidents against civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere are not aberrations - they are part of what the US military, according to the ethos, is intended to be. Many other armies behave in a worse fashion than the US Army. But those armies don’t claim to be the “good guys” … I think we need… a military composed of soldiers, not warriors.”
Winston Churchill understood military honour. “In defeat, defiance,” he advised Britons in the Second World War. “In victory, magnanimity.” Not any more. According to George W Bush this week “the safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad” because we are only in the “early hours of this struggle between tyranny and freedom”.
I suppose, in the end, we are supposed to lead the 21st century into a shining age of human liberty in the dungeons of “black” prisons, under the fists of US Marines, on the exhaust pipes of Humvees. We are warriors, we are Samurai. We draw the sword. We will destroy. Which is exactly what Osama bin Laden said.
In the first picture, how do I know that the label is acurate?
none of the rest are war crimes. We americans have the right to speak against islam if we wish. So what if a cross was painted on a koran? Is your religon so weak that a simple cross on a koran damages it? If the alternative to the us marines is jihadis, i will take us marines any day. The “freedom fighters” in iraq regulary violate the laws of land warfare to include using human shields, using mosques as military bases, murdering civilians via suicide bombings, rape, torture, execution of POW’s, deliberate targeting of civilian inferstructure, and beheading inoccents. Take your fake outrage and shove it. I will never submit to your barbarian religon.
In the week that George Bush took to fantasising that his blood-soaked “war on terror” would lead the 21st century into a “shining age of human liberty”
Anonymous American.
Above sayings of your president is true or the picture you painted is the actual face of American?
Look this is what fundamentalism is and Christians are full of that, as you proved.
Tell me was there no rap in vietnam, was there no killing there. Who authorize you to be Universal soldiers? You are thirsty people eager to eat all resources of the globe. You plant people use them and then kill them so that they do not tell what the truth was?
This is because of our attitude but you have done nothing less to start a world war # 3, You have the right to keep WMD, no one else, you have the right of Neuclear proliferation no one else have, you have the right to invade which country you want, you have the right to ask a president to leave the thrown other wise we will invade? who you are “terrorist”,”Fundamentalist”,”Extremist”,”indulged in War crimes” and what not else.
hey anonymous…what do you think?Our religion commands us not to interfere or speak ill of any other religion.You cant understand what matters if the cross was painted on our Holy Quran because it’s all the matter of respect and obedience,which i suppose you people do not possess.you think yourself as powerful?And thats why i suppose you think it superiorty to kill innocent people?But you are absolutely wrong here.Tell you what, your condition is really pitiful.What right do you have to invade Iraq killing innocent people, just of some EXUSE?And you expect the Muslims to just keep quite and not defend themselves?In that case it is you”beheading innocents”not us.I would like to suggest you to TAKE YOUR FAKE OUTRAGE AND SHOVE IT.As for what you wrote in the end ,I am not out of my mind to critise one’s religion;As we Muslims have great respect for our’s
Dear Fatima,
you are right when you say we have the right to raise voice. We are doing that. As far as the cross on The Holy Book is concerned mind it who did that shall get replied as a matter of fact the responsibility of safety of this book is with The Almighthy. Yes we strongly slam who did it.
Generally I do not post on blogs, but I would like to say that this post really forced me to do so, really useful information.