If wanton murder is essential to the campaign in Iraq, it's time to leave

[muriel_volestrangler]

Gary Younge, The Guardian:
...
So it is with the slew of alleged atrocities committed by the US military in Iraq. Many have produced their own investigation, occasionally their own sanction, and inevitably their own version of shock and bore among the American public. Amazement that American soldiers could be involved in such despicable actions is soon followed by a lack of interest in the consequences.

Last week the US military charged eight marines with kidnapping and murdering a disabled Iraqi civilian in Hamdania on April 26. According to the charges, they dragged Hashim Ibrahim Awad, otherwise known as "Hashim the lame" because of the metal plate in his leg, from his home and bound his feet and hands. Locals say the marines then shot him four times in the face. According to prosecutors they put an AK47 and a shovel next to his body to make it look as though he had been digging a hole to plant a roadside bomb.

This is not to be confused with the alleged execution of 11 Iraqi civilians, including four children, near the city of Balad. Or the investigation into the murder of three Iraqis held in custody in Salahaddin province, north of Baghdad. Or the two soldiers charged in connection with the murder of an unarmed man near Ramadi who then placed an AK47 next to his body. Which, in turn, should not be mistaken for the atrocities at Haditha, where marines killed 24 civilians - including 10 women and children and an old man in a wheelchair.
...
To treat even these few incidents as isolated chapters is to miss the broader, enduring narrative. For these are not the unfathomable offshoots of this war but the entirely foreseeable corollaries of it. This is what occupation is; this is what occupation does. There is nothing specifically American about it. Any nation that occupies another by force will meet resistance. For that resistance to be effective, it must have deep roots in local communities where opposition to the occupation is widespread. Unable to distinguish between insurgent and civilian, occupiers will regard all civilians as potential insurgents and all territory as enemy territory. "Saying who's a civilian or a 'muj' in Iraq, you really can't," one marine under investigation told the New York Times recently. "This town did not want us there at all." Under these circumstances, dead women, children and disabled people are the price you pay for being invaded.
...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1805802,00.html

[Redstone]

1. "That is what occupation is," indeed. Yes, indeed.

Redstone

[mike_c]

2. and has been from the very beginning....

Keeping the peace is what cops are supposed to do-- the point being that police violence notwithstanding, their job description doesn't involve killing people as a first resort, and they come under immense scrutiny whenever they kill anyone. That is just not consistent with the training or behavior of garrison troops in a hostile occupation. "Threats" escalate from commonplace incidents in seconds, because no one can afford to seek non-violent solutions. The long and short is that combat troops are poorly trained-- and should be-- for the role they're being used for.

[Briar]

3. Wanton murder

is what troops are trained for. Time we stopped being hypocritical about soldiers and accepted that when we send armies to war, we are going - inevitably - to kill ten innocent civilians (if not more) for every so-called "enemy". When we glorify the soldier, we glorify the killer.