Post by Moses on May 22, 2004 22:08:03 GMT -5
May 22, 2004
Nightmare
* Iraq tragedy worsens
wvgazette.com/section/Editorials/200405218
DAY AFTER day, more grotesque news emerges from President Bush’s needless Iraq war.
Wednesday, U.S. aircraft mowed down more than 40 Iraqis — reportedly including 10 women and 15 children — at what Iraqis said was a wedding party. Military officers contend that the group were terrorists slipping into Iraq.
Thursday, a Florida National Guardsman, Sgt. Camilo Mejia, went on trial on a charge of desertion. He says he applied for conscientious-objector status and refused to return to Iraq because his superiors had ordered him to torment and abuse incarcerated Iraqi suspects.
By now, it is clear that the sickening humiliation of prisoners was an official White House plan. The current Newsweek contains a long report saying President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft all approved a secret strategy to inflict sexual and other degradation on suspects to “soften them up.”<br>
On Sunday, The Sacramento Bee printed a monstrous interview with a former Marine, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey from North Carolina, who said his squad repeatedly killed Iraqi civilians and families trying to flee from danger.
Massey said intelligence officers warned his platoon that oncoming cars and trucks were likely to contain suicide bombers intent upon destroying Americans. Several times, his group mowed down families whose cars failed to stop at roadblocks, but no explosives were found in any of the vehicles. Once, his men killed an Iraqi who had gotten out of his car with his hands up.
Another time, he said, officers ordered his Marines to open fire on young men who were demonstrating on a street in the outskirts of Baghdad. Massey said he spared one wounded demonstrator, letting him run away with “half of his foot trailing behind him.”<br>
The sergeant said he finally told his lieutenant “We’re committing genocide,” and the angry officer put him under house arrest. He was sent back to America and discharged.
All these ghastly evils are to be expected in war. But the dismaying thing is that no genuine reason existed for Bush’s war, and the whole tragedy easily could have been avoided. If the president hadn’t used trumped-up exaggerations to drag America into the attack he craved, Americans would have been spared the nightmare reports now emerging.
Nightmare
* Iraq tragedy worsens
wvgazette.com/section/Editorials/200405218
DAY AFTER day, more grotesque news emerges from President Bush’s needless Iraq war.
Wednesday, U.S. aircraft mowed down more than 40 Iraqis — reportedly including 10 women and 15 children — at what Iraqis said was a wedding party. Military officers contend that the group were terrorists slipping into Iraq.
Thursday, a Florida National Guardsman, Sgt. Camilo Mejia, went on trial on a charge of desertion. He says he applied for conscientious-objector status and refused to return to Iraq because his superiors had ordered him to torment and abuse incarcerated Iraqi suspects.
By now, it is clear that the sickening humiliation of prisoners was an official White House plan. The current Newsweek contains a long report saying President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft all approved a secret strategy to inflict sexual and other degradation on suspects to “soften them up.”<br>
On Sunday, The Sacramento Bee printed a monstrous interview with a former Marine, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey from North Carolina, who said his squad repeatedly killed Iraqi civilians and families trying to flee from danger.
Massey said intelligence officers warned his platoon that oncoming cars and trucks were likely to contain suicide bombers intent upon destroying Americans. Several times, his group mowed down families whose cars failed to stop at roadblocks, but no explosives were found in any of the vehicles. Once, his men killed an Iraqi who had gotten out of his car with his hands up.
Another time, he said, officers ordered his Marines to open fire on young men who were demonstrating on a street in the outskirts of Baghdad. Massey said he spared one wounded demonstrator, letting him run away with “half of his foot trailing behind him.”<br>
The sergeant said he finally told his lieutenant “We’re committing genocide,” and the angry officer put him under house arrest. He was sent back to America and discharged.
All these ghastly evils are to be expected in war. But the dismaying thing is that no genuine reason existed for Bush’s war, and the whole tragedy easily could have been avoided. If the president hadn’t used trumped-up exaggerations to drag America into the attack he craved, Americans would have been spared the nightmare reports now emerging.