U.S. Raid Herds Iraqi Old and Young in Barbed Wire

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030901/wl_nm/iraq_raid_dc&cid=574&ncid=1473

HAMREEN, Iraq (Reuters) -<snip>The youngest of 30 or so detainees inside the circle of barbed wire was a 15-year-old boy, released after some hasty consultations. The eldest was a grandfather with a walking-stick who could only shuffle a few feet at a time.

About half of the men were blindfolded, adding to their discomfort as they sat under the sun for several hours.

Grandfather Muawer Mehisin Ali, who gave his age as anywhere between 80 and 100, was philosophical but clearly upset.

"I am an old man. What can I do? I have never hurt anyone," he said, before adding: "I am thirsty. I need water."

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[Tom Yossarian Joad]

1. A sad state of affairs....

"The Americans said they came to free us, so why do they humiliate and insult us?"

[Karmadillo]

2. "To catch a single fish you have to cast a big net"

The US has plenty of experience in casting a big net. It's hard, though, to have faith we won't get carried away in our search for single fish. One tends to tire of civilians who keep getting in the way of the search for evildoers.

http://www.infotrad.clara.co.uk/antiwar/warcrimes/index.html

<edit>

We can now look back over the failure of the ‘peace movement’ to sustain and intensify its protest over the past four years. By now, defoliation has been carried out over an area the size of Massachusetts, with what effect no one has any real idea. The bombardment of Vietnam far exceeds the bombardment of Korea or anything in the Second World War. The number of Vietnamese killed or driven from their homes cannot be seriously estimated.

It is important to understand that the massacre of the rural population of Vietnam and their forced evacuation is not an accidental by-product of the war. Rather it is of the very essence of American strategy. The theory behind it has been explained with great clarity and explicitness, for example by Professor Samuel Huntington, Chairman of the Government Department at Harvard and at the time (1968) Chairman of the Council on Vietnamese Studies of the Southeast Asia Development Advisory Group, ultimately responsible to the State Department. Writing in Foreign Affairs, he explains that the Viet Cong is ‘a powerful force which cannot be dislodged from its constituency {32} so long as the constituency continues to exist’. The conclusion is obvious, and he does not shrink from it. ‘We can ensure that the constituency ceases to exist by “direct application of mechanical and conventional power”... on such a massive scale as to produce a massive migration from countryside to city’, where the Viet Cong constituency - the rural population - can, it is hoped, be controlled in refugee camps and suburban slums around Saigon.

Technically, the process is known as ‘urbanization’ or ‘modernization’. It is described, with the proper contempt, by Daniel Ellsberg, a Department of Defense consultant on pacification in South Vietnam, who concludes, from his extensive on-the-spot observations, that ‘we have, of course, demolished the society of Vietnam’, that ‘the bombing of the South has gone on long enough to disrupt the society of South Vietnam enormously and probably permanently’; he speaks of the ‘people who have been driven to Saigon by what Huntington regards as our “modernizing instruments” in Vietnam, bombs and artillery’.4 Reporters have long been aware of the nature of these tactics, aware that ‘by now the sheer weight of years of firepower, massive sweeps, and grand forced population shifts have reduced the population base of the ..... .’5 so that conceivably, by brute force, we may still hope to ‘win’.

One thing is clear: so long as an organized social life can be maintained in South Vietnam, the NLF will be a powerful, probably dominant, force. This is the dilemma which has always plagued American policy, and which has made it impossible for us to permit even the most rudimentary democratic institutions in South Vietnam. For these reasons we have been forced to the solution outlined by Professor Huntington: to crush the people’s war, we must eliminate the people.

<EDIT>

[Pocho]

7. DO YOU SUPPOSE SIMILAR THOUGHTS MAY HAVE OCCURED

to the warriors now labelled terrorists of 9/11, that they might also have also read or otherwise think along similar lines (as edited)?

"Writing in Foreign Affairs, he explains that the Viet Cong (ed: military of corporate America) is ‘a powerful force which cannot be dislodged from its constituency so long as the constituency continues to exist’. The conclusion is obvious, and he does not shrink from it. ‘We can ensure that the constituency ceases to exist by “direct application of mechanical and conventional power”..."

[RainDog]

11. Isn't this the same Samuel Huntington

who wrote The Clash of Civilizations? --which is about the conflict between the "west" and the middle east?

I didn't know he was also pontificating on mass murder back during Vietnam, but I'm not surprised.

From what I hear, he has been very influential in shaping thought about dealing with terrorism, heaven help us all.

[Karmadillo]

15. FYI: Huntington's objections to the above and Chomsky's response

Here's part of Chomsky's response, but it's worth reading the entire exchange:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/11044

<edit>

I also commented that Mr. Huntington "does not shrink from" these conclusions. This comment could, in fact, have been strengthened. Thus he says that "forced-draft urbanization and modernization," Vietnam-style, may well be "the answer" in general to mass-based peasant revolutions. In fact, he expresses no qualms, no judgment at all about such methods (which clearly involve "war crimes" as defined by Nuremberg Principle VI, for example). His approach follows the principle stated by two counterinsurgency theorists in Foreign Affairs, October, 1969: "All the dilemmas are practical and as neutral in an ethical sense as the laws of physics." Thus Huntington uses such terms as "urbanization" to refer to the process by which we drive the Viet Cong "constituency" into refugee camps and cities, and he speaks of the "American-sponsored urban revolution," the "social revolution" that we have brought about in this way. So successful is "urbanization," he might have added, that the population density of Saigon is now estimated at more than twice that of Tokyo. Lucky Vietnamese.

Enough has been written about the conditions of life of the five million or so beneficiaries of "urbanization" so that further comment is unnecessary. A useful indication of the nature of the "American-sponsored urban revolution," as it affects the more privileged, is given in an observation by Luce and Sommer (Vietnam: the Unheard Voices):

When students at Saigon's teacher training college were asked to list 15 occupations in an English examination, almost every student included launderer, car washer, bar-girl, shoeshine boy, soldier, interpreter, and journalist. Almost none of the students thought to write down doctor, engineer, industrial administrator, farm manager, or even their own chosen profession, teacher. The economy has become oriented toward services catering to the foreign soldiers.
Huntington himself refers to the "often heart-rending" social costs of "urbanization" and writes that: "After the war, massive government programs will be required either to resettle migrants in rural areas or to rebuild the cities and promote peacetime urban employment." Such is the social revolution we have brought to Vietnam.

Mr. Huntington further claims that I said he "favors" eliminating the Viet Cong constituency by bombardment, whereas he only states that such "forced-draft urbanization" may well be "the answer to 'wars of national liberation' " that we have stumbled upon in Vietnam. The distinction is rather fine. One who insists on it must also recognize that I did not say that he "favored" this answer but only that he "outlined" it, "explained" it, and "does not shrink from it," all of which is literally true.

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[Kbowe]

3. The coming blowback will be undearable...

If this is Christianity in action...who needs it?

[Pocho]

4. PRAY THE LEADERS OF THOSE STORM TROOPERS ARE NOT REMINDED

of the final solution of a previous fascist force. But, then, would the profit driven bastards of the present so utilize natural gas when it could be sold instead to facilitate sustaining toys for good Americans, both those that cheer them on or raise mild objection while pretending its not they who bear fault?

[ninkasi]

5. I wonder how many

of the poor Iraquis feel that we came to liberate them? It's bad enough that we're there destroying their country, but to humiliate them in addition to everything else is insane.

They are human beings, they do not deserve to be treated in this shameful manner. My hatred of, and disgust for, Bush and his gang know no bounds.

[gratuitous]

6. Yup, winning those hearts and minds

One shuffling grandfather at a time!

Take a look at the whole story. The soldiers committing these terrorist acts* are getting short-tempered and they're scared. We haven't heard about any My Lai-style massacres, which doesn't mean one hasn't happened, but that one will happen seems almost inevitable.

*If you don't think this qualifies as a terrorist act, ask a friend to herd you into a barbed wire enclosure at gunpoint and make you sit in the midday sun for a few hours. See how charitably disposed toward your buddy you are after that.

[realFedUp]

8. kick

maybe someone should tell them the "mission was accomplished"

[xchrom]

9. the continuing american shame

and as always i'm angry at george bush -- but i'm equally apalled at the american citizenry for allowing this to continue.
you'd have to be a hermit not to realize by now that bush lied about the sort of threat iraq posed.
our countrys actions in iraq are wrong.

[Rose Siding]

10. American values

snip>
Major Eric Schwegler, in charge of the operation for 4th Infantry Division's 4th Battalion, 42nd Regiment, was unapologetic, saying the Iraqis understood such tough tactics were needed to find "the bad guys."

"What we are doing here may seem harsh," he said. "But we explain to them that to catch a single fish you have to cast a big net. They understand if they have nothing to hide, we will release them."
end snip>

The Iraqis understand? I don't. And did Ashcroft give them that "big net" rational? 'Cuz it has no place in American jurisprudence.

[sistersofmercy]

12. There's a picture on bbc from a few months ago, it shows a man...

behind a barbed-wire fence, white bag over his head, cradled in his arm is his approx. 4-5 year old son, his other hand loving placed on the child's forehead as they bake in the scorching sun! Bush Co cruelty knows no bounderies!

[gratuitous]

13. Bimp

g-style

[Karmadillo]

14. Bump

n/t