US military metes out collective punishment to Iraqi city

[Tinoire]

US military metes out collective punishment to Iraqi city
By Peter Symonds
22 December 2003

Despite the attempts of the Bush administration and international media to claim the capture of Saddam Hussein as a major breakthrough in suppressing armed resistance, events on the ground in Iraq speak otherwise. As the attacks on US troops and Iraqi collaborators continue unabated, the response of the US military has been to intensify its heavy-handed repression aimed at terrorising the Iraqi people into submission.

Just days after Hussein’s detention, some 2,500 US soldiers sealed off Samarra, a city of 200,000 people, in the early hours of December 17 and set about smashing their way into homes and factories in search of “insurgents”. It was a classic reprisal raid, not unlike those carried out by Israeli troops against the Palestinian population, or for that matter by the Nazis against villages and towns accused of harbouring resistance fighters in occupied Europe.

The Pentagon identified Samarra as a “hotspot” after two separate US convoys were ambushed simultaneously on November 30. American troops responded and claimed to have scored “a significant victory” by killing 54 of the attackers. However, journalists who later questioned hospital staff and local residents, found an entirely different story: that US soldiers had fired indiscriminately, killing nine civilians including a child and an elderly Iranian pilgrim, and wounding others.

On December 15, US troops were ambushed again. Military spokesmen claimed that 11 “insurgents” had been killed, but like the earlier clash, failed to produce any evidence. According to veteran Middle East journalist Robert Fisk, the only dead man to be found was a vegetable seller. The following day, American soldiers raided a nearby village and detained more than 70 people, including an alleged rebel commander Qais Hatten.

<snip>

The rest of this, most reluctantly snipped,interesting story here

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/dec2003/iraq-22d.shtml

[tom_paine]

1. If true, not surprising

Totalitarian Regimes like Imperial Amerika enjoy collective punishment.

Not that other regimes don't use things like strategic bombing, etc. that tends to provide collective ounishment, but direct punitive expeditions are features of Totalitarian States from the Roman Empire to Nazi Germany.

So many things that were old are new again in Imperial Amerika, including the punitive expedition...

[htuttle]

2. Article 33, Section 1

Art. 33. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited. Pillage is prohibited. Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.
-- 4th Geneva Convention

(BTW, while we're at it, look at Article 34)
Art. 34. The taking of hostages is prohibited.

(I think that includes wives and daughters of 'high value targets')

Actually, after looking it over, I think the US is in violation of over a dozen items in the 4th Geneva Convention in Iraq alone.

[tom_paine]

7. Sure they are, but since when do Empires bow to Law

especialyy International Law.

Empires like Amerika are about dominance, control, power, not about any touchy-feely stuff like freedom, treaties, and international conventions.

When we lost the Old American Republic, we perhaps lost the best hope for humanity.

[zbdent]

3. If it walks like a Nazi, talks like a Nazi, goose-steps like a Nazi

why shouldn't we call this regime a Nazi?

This misAdministration sounds so much like the Nazis, it's unfreakinbelieveable.

Didn't the Nazis shoot bunches of Jews in the streets for each German soldier attacked/killed?

[Sinistrous]

4. Yep ! But the junta has learned only half the history lesson.

They have become masters at repression and murder, but they never got to the part that shows these tactics are ineffective, if not counterproductive.

[bvar22]

5. The tactics of repression and terror will work....

...if the US is willing to stay the course.

These tactics worked against the Native Americans, but only after the US killed or imprisoned on reservations 99% of the Native population.

These tactics were working for Nazi Germany in Poland after the Nazis killed or imprisoned in ghettos the majority of the Polish population. If the Soviets hadn't stepped in, Poland would have been successfully pacified.

How much blood will we allow to be shed by supporting those who insist on staying the course or winning the war in Iraq?
Anybody here support a Final Solution for the problems in Iraq?? Palestine???

[Bandit]

9. "These tactics worked against the Native Americans"

Over a hundred years later and many Native Americans still despise the American government. Hatred isn't eliminated by force. "The beating will continue until morale improves".

[xchrom]

6. we obviously

haven't shocked and awed them enough.

[Beaker]

8. Time magazine's Men Of The Year...

:eyes: