XPost: uk.politics.misc, alt.politics.british, alt.conspiracy   
   XPost: alt.conspiracy.new-world-order, alt.america, alt.conspira   
   y.america-at-war   
   XPost: us.politics   
   From: oO@oO.com   
      
   In late November, 1969, Time, Life and Newsweek magazines reported   
   extensively on the My Lai massacre, the premeditated murder of 500 civilians   
   in the Quang Ngai Province of South Vietnam. In early 1970, as a young   
   antiwar activist, I remember how this single event more than any other   
   contributed significantly to turning millions of fence-sitting Americans   
   against Nixon's illegal war and subsequently swelled the ranks of the   
   antiwar movement.   
   If not for investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reporting on the   
   revelations of the soldier Ronald Ridenhour-and the willingness of the media   
   at the time to publish the story-chances are the My Lai Massacre would   
   slipped under the wire and never made it on the public radar screen.   
   Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird wanted to "sweep under the rug the   
   atrocity photographs" and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger agreed,   
   but since the newspapers had the photos and planned run them, Kissinger and   
   Laird decided to blame a "low-level officer, who must have been insane" (The   
   Kissinger Telcons, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No.   
   123). The "low-level officer" was William Calley and on March 31, 1971, he   
   was sentenced to life in prison. Calley served three and a half years of   
   house arrest in his quarters at Fort Benning, Georgia.   
      
   Fast-forward nearly four decades: "The US military is investigating two   
   incidents in which American soldiers killed at least 26 Iraqi civilians and   
   then claimed that they were either guerrillas or had died in cross fire,"   
   writes Patrick Cockburn for the UK Independent. "The growing evidence of   
   retaliatory killings of unarmed Iraqi families, often including children, by   
   US soldiers seemingly bent on punishing Iraqis after an attack, will spark   
   comparisons with the massacre of Vietnamese villagers." In fact, reports of   
   the attack on civilians in Haditha sound disturbingly similar to the My Lai   
   Massacre.   
      
   "According to eyewitnesses and local officials interviewed over the past 10   
   weeks, the civilians who died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a   
   roadside bomb but by the Marines . who went on a rampage in the village   
   after [an IED attack on Kilo Company], killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their   
   homes, including seven women and three children. Human-rights activists say   
   that if the accusations are true, the incident ranks as the worst case of   
   deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. service members since the war   
   began," writes Tim Mcgirk for the Media Channel.   
      
   Bassem Mroue, writing for the Associated Press, describes a videotape of the   
   aftermath of the revenge killings. "A videotape taken by an Iraqi shows the   
   aftermath of an alleged attack by U.S. troops on civilians in their homes in   
   a western town last November: a blood-smeared bedroom floor and bits of what   
   appear to be human flesh and bullet holes on the walls.. The video, obtained   
   by Time magazine and repeatedly aired by Arab televisions throughout the   
   day, also showed bodies of women and children in plastic bags on the floor   
   of what appeared to be a morgue. Men were seen standing in the middle of   
   bodies, some of which were covered with blankets before being placed in a   
   pickup truck."   
      
   Of course, there is a big difference between 26 dead Iraqi civilians and the   
   500 slaughtered Vietnamese peasants at My Lai. However, the incident in Iraq   
   demonstrates the same grisly dynamic at work-once normal young men, thrown   
   into the chaotic environment created in Iraq by the Straussian neocon   
   dominated Pentagon, are turning into psychotic revenge killers in short   
   order. Moreover, there are numerous incidents of U.S. soldiers killing   
   innocent Iraqis for fun (we know this because "trophy" videos have emerged   
   showing both soldiers and contractors engaged in the disgusting practice).   
      
   In America, few people seem to care about all of this (the above link points   
   to a video of a soldier killing an Iraqi-down on the ground and apparently   
   unarmed-a video taped by CNN and presumably run on the news network and thus   
   viewed by thousands, possibly millions of Americans). If the dismal turn out   
   at last week's antiwar demonstrations across the country means anything, it   
   is that less and less people care about the illegal and immoral-it is a war   
   crime to kill civilians, "trophy" or otherwise-Iraqi invasion and   
   occupation. It appears the longer the occupation continues, the more   
   apathetic people become, even though polls show clear majorities of people   
   are opposed to the war.   
      
   Of course, when these boy next door psychopathic killers return home and   
   become police officers-veterans receive preferential treatment at police   
   departments around the country-average Americans will be alarmed and   
   outraged when these former soldiers abuse citizens the same way they abused   
   Iraqi civilians. Some may even wish they did something a lot sooner after   
   their cars are shot up at the local "screening point" (as recommended by   
   Bush's whitewash commission)-that is if they live to tell the story.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)