* Read Part One

 

 

To frame in concrete terms the issue of the American violence in Iraq since the invasion and through the ongoing occupation, one needs to know first its basic traits. For instance, it is elementary that attacking anyone who is not attacking you is, per se, a pure act of violence.

 

In a global setting, violence begins when an imperialist power such as the United States attacks a defenseless, smaller country with the specific purpose to conquer it. In a practical setting, violence with all its macabre manifestations divides into many protagonists acting collectively on the stage of death: bombs raining down on cities; rubble concealing the “irrelevancy” of murder; hospitals that are prevented from saving life; all while the desolate face of despair and destruction becomes the unforgettable gift of “liberators.” 

 

Keep in mind, that if the idea of invading Iraq was not to conquer it, then why has the United States been trying to dismantle Iraq, partition it, write a constitution for it, ignite a sectarian war, and force it to adapt to the needs of its global colonialist imperium under the direction of US imperialists and Zionists?   

 

Violence in Iraq is not abstraction. It is daily death and scattered body parts. It is the destruction of established civilian and economic infrastructures. It is the collapse of family and social relations. It is the brutalization of the Iraqi personality. It is the American concept of Iraqification where Iraqis kills Iraqis so the occupier can rule undisturbed. And finally yet importantly, it is the defilement of Iraqi women and girls including the rape and torture of children. [1] Violence in Iraq is Abu Ghraibs spread all over the country, but people never read about it in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, or the Washington Post. Violence in Iraq is the very conservatively estimated 11,000 Iraqis that a fascist US detains in its Iraqi gulags. Violence in Iraq is the over 100,000 people (excluding the 45,000 Iraqi military killed during the initial phase of the invasion) that mainly US troops have killed so far. 

 

If this description is only a minute part of the true face of American violence in Iraq, then how do the American people understand it, and why do the majority of them support it? Before answering these questions, an examination of what American NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) thinks is in order. [2] The following are just a few points:
 

1) HRW held that the US military is culpable for the atrocities committed by its people in Iraq. Being in a war zone, contended HRW, “does not absolve the military from its obligations to use force in a restrained, proportionate and discriminate manner, and only when strictly necessary.”

Comment: In essence, HRW does not disapprove of the violence and takeover of Iraq on the condition that said violence is “restrained, proportionate, and discriminate.”  What are HRW’s definitions of these parameters and based on what principle is it that the Iraqis must continue to die because a Zionist-controlled HRW gives its guidelines on how US forces must conduct their violence, so that it or the American people can accept it?

2) HRW noted Baghdadis’ complaints of “aggressive and reckless behavior, physical abuse, and theft by US troops.” HRW also found the US used “overwhelming force” and “operate[d] with virtual impunity in Iraq” displaying an attitude that suggested, “civilian casualties are not a paramount concern.” [italics added]

Comment: HRW now becomes just a watcher and commentator! If the above-mentioned violence does not require the convening of special tribunals, American or foreign, then what is the purpose of looking at the spectacle of murder without taking steps to stop it? Would HRW expect US Defense [sic] Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or soon-retiring Under Secretary of Defense [sic] for Policy Douglas Feith to feel embarrassed and order the troops to withdraw from a land they willingly devastated?

3) HRW then concluded by stating that there was “a pattern of alleged illegal deaths that merit investigation.”

Comment: HRW now enters in the boundless territory of imperialist arrogance and toning down the crimes of the United States. What is “a pattern of alleged illegal deaths that merit investigation” supposed to mean? Is HRW trying to say that the mass killing in Fallujah, Samarra, Kerbala, Najaf, Mosul, Baquuba, Kut, Ramadi, Qaim, Najaf, Mosul, Takrit and other Iraq cities does not merit investigation because it was a deliberate act of killing while the killing of Iraqis on individual bases merits a self-righteous, imperialist investigation?  

 

Although HRW immersed its language in abstract and superficially critical language, it avoided any reference to the United States as the military occupier of Iraq -- which is a violation of the Iraqi people’s right to self-determination. The point here is that even a biased NGO such as HRW, at the service of mitigating “assumed excesses” of the United States, felt somewhat obliged to report on American atrocities -- albeit in oblique and in miniature.

 

In the meanwhile, as Bush keeps braying on about Iraq’s “liberation”, as Rumsfeld keeps barking on about Iraq’s “terrorists”, as US Secretary-of-State Condoleezza Rice keeps howling on about Iraq’s “democracy”, and as countless lawmakers keep jabbering on about Iraqi issues of which they are morally ignorant, the Iraqis continue to die at the hand of killers wearing US military uniforms. Having stated that and in order to discuss the notion of “supporting the troops,” what are the basic elements that have characterized US aggression on Iraq?

* The armed forces of the US, UK, and dependent vassal states invaded and occupied Iraq based on fabrication of a hypothetical danger posed by Iraq and its involvement in activities deemed contrary to US government interests. [3] Prior to and since then, the government of the US and other collaborationist governments have wreaked all kinds of military, environmental, and economic havoc on the inhabitants of Iraq to the extent that some Iraqis, to survive, sell their own blood or body part. [4]

* Controlling the country with what many experts consider the second largest oil resources in the world has been one among many other reasons for attacking Iraq. [5] This does not mean that other geo-strategic considerations were insignificant factors. [6] Meanwhile, a strategic beneficiary of the occupation of Iraq is a scofflaw state that is in contradiction of the very pretext under which Iraq was supposedly aggressed. [7] To top it off, multinational corporations are profiteering at the expense of war-ravaged Iraqis. [8]

 

* The US scrapped international law and left it either to wither or to abide by the whims of the hyper-power. [9] Violations of the Geneva Conventions such as torture, rape, and even killing of prisoners are widespread. Yet, at one point, Rumsfeld had the temerity to fulminate about a breach of the Geneva Conventions, correctly stating that it was illegal for a country attacked by the United States to parade American prisoners-of-war as that would humiliate and violate their human rights. [10] Rumsfeld utterly contradicted himself when he tried to justify showing pictures of trophy prisoner Saddam Hussein undergoing medical checks. “If lives can be saved by physical proof that that man is off the street, out of commission, never to return, then we opt for saving lives,” proffered Rumsfeld. [11] The Abu Ghraib scandal would later abjectly juxtapose a blatant US contempt and hypocrisy for Geneva Conventions.

 

* The invasion and occupation are an arrant humiliation of the Arab world. The New York Times was even so forthright as to declare that the unstated “real reason” for the aggression “was that after 9-11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world.” In other words, the invasion was the instinctive reaction of a bully lashing out. Furthermore, it insinuated that any Arab-Muslim target would be okay: “Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world.” [12] The op-ed deceptively presented the invasion as confined to toppling Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, whereas, while Hussein is still alive, US troops have criminally slaughtered tens-of-thousands of Iraqis. 

 

* The hyper-power and its minions set about recording the abasement of Iraqis: parading Iraqis about naked, [13] releasing photos of the former dictator in undress, [14] and there are those infamous photos of Abu Ghraib detainees that so far have managed to reach the public domain. [15] Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, in a speech to the American Civil Liberties Union, said, “And I can tell you it was much worse, and the government knows it’s much worse, than they’ve even told you. There are worse photos, worse videotapes, worse events.” [16]

 

* Some of the happenings are still largely unknown, but, according to Hersh, eventually it will all come out. Said Hersh:

 

Some of the worst things that happened that you don’t know about. OK? Videos. There are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at [Abu Ghraib], which is about 30 miles from Baghdad -- 30 kilometers, maybe, just 20 miles, I’m not sure whether it’s -- anyway. The women were passing messages out saying please come and kill me because of what’s happened. And basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children, in cases that have been [video] recorded, the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking. That your government has, and they’re in total terror it’s going to come out.

* The US desecration and destruction of the 6000-year old history and cultural heritage of the Cradle of Civilization, [17] and the fascist disregard for Iraqi lives, family ties, customs, private property, public property, institutions, public health, and religion. [18]

 

Yet, despite this Iraqi holocaust, and despite declining support for the wars of the Bush regime, the media and the public are still offering unwavering support for the troops. Indeed, a large segment of the US public contends the troops deserve unconditional support in times of war -- even though this undeclared war contravenes the US Constitution in that the Congress did not declare it. To make matters worse, even some progressive thinkers participate in this cacophonic refrain of “support the troops,” despite full awareness of the atrocities committed by these same troops. 

 

What is the matter? Are the serpentine tentacles of sick patriotism penetrating the American mind at large? While acknowledging that there is a substantial dissenting bloc within the US, one wonders whether people are witnessing a collective megalomaniacal dementia where the average American thinks she is the ultimate authority on matters of life and death in other nations! Or could it be that neocons, Zionists, imperialists, and clashers-of-civilizations have indeed succeeded in dissolving what remained of the simplest norms of morality?   

 

There are two underlying assumptions of this phenomenon: (1) “our” soldiers just follow orders; therefore, they bear no responsibility for their actions, and (2) they are inherently good. That is, “our” men and women do what they do as only as result of the abomination of war, blithely disregarding the fact that the abomination was US-initiated. This is a convenient but baleful diffusion of collective responsibility at all levels. A readily apparent flaw in such thinking is that, if there is any validity at all to the notion of “all men being created equal,” it must equally apply to the state-designated enemies.

 

The savage and immoral actions of a rogue hyper-power are only possible insofar as its trained killers willingly comply in the unleashing of violence against state-designated enemies.

 

While the US military is a “volunteer” force, it is also true that those enlisted tend to come predominantly from the lower socio-economic strata of American citizens or from foreign nationals hoping for a better economic future as citizens of the United States.  Poverty or aspiration for a better life, however, is not an alibi for killing and committing war crimes.

 

As for the excuse of “just following orders,” this is not an acceptable alibi and cannot serve as vindication of one’s innocence. In fact, the Nuremberg Tribunal thoroughly discredited such a plea. [19] This does not matter to the United States, even though it was sitting on one of the benches during the prosecution of Nazi war criminals. It is curious to note that in matters of international tribunals such as at Nuremberg, big powers busy themselves in writing moral edicts for others but never for themselves. One such hypocritical edict reads:

 

Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore [individuals] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.

 

When instigated immorality abounds, it is not surprising that even behavior revered among military types would revert to its antithesis. Soldiers who would take part in the killing of vastly out-gunned fighters -- as well as unarmed civilians -- must have their bravery called into question. [20] The murder of civilian women, children, elders, and others is emblematic of a rattled military -- a military that is diffident of its regard in the eyes of those it claims to protect.

 

This is manifest in the case of treatment of people arrested during war. Prisoners personify humans in a most vulnerable, defenseless condition. Because of that, maltreatment of prisoners symbolizes a most dastardly and base act on the part of the incarcerators. Yet systematic maltreatment is a euphemism for the actions of an extant and not isolated segment of the “coalition” forces. [21] Among those having been imprisoned, are many women, children, and old men -- ranging from a six-year-old boy to a 99-year-old man. [22] It is neither moralizing nor preaching morality to aggressors, but to humiliate, torture, rape, and murder people in captivity is sheer cowardice; and, as in the homeland of the US, in the case of Iraq, this wholesale imprisonment, definitely, epitomizes racism.

 

To wit, if, on an international scale, the hyper-power can derive imperialistic satisfaction for being capable to wage war without retaliation, then its soldiers can derive self-satisfaction from inflicting suffering on the people their government aggresses and occupies. For example, at the Bagram military detention center in Afghanistan, US soldiers arrested a young taxi driver, identified as Dilawar, where the guards “pummeled him” for days on end until his legs were rendered inflexible. When Specialist Corey E. Jones struck the knees of the Dilawar, he cried out painfully to Allah (God). Jones said, “Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny.” Hundreds of blows later, Dilawar died in custody. [23]

 

The disdain for outside-the-group humans is undeniable from the comments of US soldiers bombarding Iraq. Lt. Stan Wilson confessed, “We know we’re killing people. We don’t talk about it, don’t worry about it.” Cmdr. Jeff Penfield of the Super Hornet squadron said, “I don’t think about it as human life. I aim at hard things, and if there are people around, I don’t think about it.” [24]

 

Such accounts are myriad, so whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, the preceding is not exceptional. The accounts of US crimes are too extensive to categorize. This must be very gratifying for a hypocrite commander-in-chief who, some time ago, reveled in goading on the Iraqi resistance.

 

In Part 3, two aspects of US troops’ violence in Iraq and in Afghanistan will be discussed: (1) are US soldiers the “heroes” of empire, or undiscerning paid killers? And (2), is America’s war, especially in Iraq, the dirtiest and the most aberrant act of necrophilia in history? 

 

Kim Petersen is a writer living in Nova Scotia, Canada. B.J. Sabri is an Iraqi-American antiwar activist. You can reach them at: petersen_sabri@hotmail.com.