Iraq War Inquiry, Day 14 {With an Article Change Note}

Drip, drip, drip............... more from the faucet of recent history coming out from across the pond. When following this Inquiry, especially in viewing, insert American faces of those known from the cheney/bush administration and multiply the known and unknown ten, twenty, thirty..........times as they were the ringleaders and intelligence manipulators seeking justification to invade and destroy an innocent people and their country.

Just think how long before the Brits found out about the following did our administration and probably many in the 'lockstep rubber stamping congress' know:

Brits 'knew of abuse at Abu Ghraib', says MI6 boss

Britain knew about abuse of Iraqi prisoners, the MI6 boss said yesterday.

Sir John Sawers told the Iraq inquiry UK officials learned of "difficulties" at Abu Ghraib jail in mid-2003. But he said the scale of mistreatment by US troops was "way beyond" what they expected.

He added: "The revelations were definitely a shock to us, as they were to everybody on the American side as well as across the world....>>>>>

MI6 chief reveals advance warning of Abu Ghraib problems

British officials were aware of possible violence against Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison almost a year before revelations of torture and abuse finally emerged, the head of MI6 has revealed.

Sir John Sawers said that poor conditions and possible violent mistreatment of inmates by the US troops running the prison were known within months of the invasion in March 2003. It was not until the Spring of 2004 that cases of physical, psychological and sexual abuse were exposed publicly.

Snip

However, he insisted that the extent of the abuses that eventually came to light were “way beyond” anything that British officials in Iraq had imagined. “We knew of difficulties in the conditions for detainees dating back to June, July of 2003,” said Sir John, who arrived in Baghdad in May 2003 to represent Tony Blair in the Iraqi capital. “But the revelations at Abu Ghraib were definitely a shock to us, as they were to everybody on the American side as well as across the world.”

He added: “We thought the basic problems were about poor conditions and possibly unnecessary violence, but Abu Ghraib was an extra dimension.” Eleven US soldiers were convicted of committing abuses against prisoners within the facility. Two soldiers were sentenced to ten years and three years in prison.

Sir John said that the high-profile inquiry in 2004 into the torture claims at Abu Ghraib marked the low point for the British team working to try to rebuild Iraq after the invasion. “It was then that we realised the scale of the task that was ahead of us and the need to really put our heads down and be in it for the longer term because the insurgency and the violence was clearly not at a peak,” he said. “The Abu Ghraib issues just added another nasty twist to the difficulties that we faced.”...>>>>>

This was already known, and spreading, in Iraq! Any atrocity, any perceived atrocity is known about and word spreading quickly in any occupied country. This not only causes some in these occupied countries to pick up arms and join the fight but it raises the support of the population to that fight keeping an insurgency against an invading occupying force alive and growing. These incidents, while hawks and especially those not willing to serve cheer them on, they bring on devastating blowback of killing and maiming of the soldiers ordered into these theaters and most trying to stabilize and help the innocent people. One incident causes any steps forward to be quickly erased and not forgotten moving any good back into the negatives, many incidents greatly compound the death and destruction.

Every decade or so it seems a few come along and think they're going to do War and Occupation better then any previous actions carried on by megalomaniacs of power and wealth:

Tony Blair might have been put off Iraq war by violent aftermath, says adviser

{Note From the Guardian: This article contained a mistake by the Guardian, which they have now corrected. It attributed incorrectly a quotation to Nigel Sheinwald. As the Guardian explain on their website: "This article was amended on Thursday 17 December 2009. We quoted Sir Nigel Sheinwald as saying Britain was concerned about the prospect of "US marines going in with all guns blazing". In fact he did not use that phrase: it came from a question posed to him by Sir Lawrence Freedman, a member of the Chilcot inquiry. This has been corrected." See Here}

• Government shocked by level of post-war violence

• Inquiry asks if invasion hurt Britain's reputation

The Blair government might not have invaded Iraq had it envisaged the scale of violence it might provoke, Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6 and former adviser to the prime minister, said today.

Very few observers predicted the violence produced by a combination of jihadists, former Ba'athist officials who had melted away immediately after the invasion, and Shia extremists supported by Iraq, he told the Chilcot inquiry.

"Frankly, had we known the scale of the violence, it might well have led to second thoughts about the entire project," said Sawers. "It was not thought through."

Sawers, who was an adviser to Tony Blair and spent three months as Britain's special envoy in Baghdad in 2003, said the only person he could think of who got it right was Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who warned the conflict would create "100 new Bin Ladens".

Snip

There was concern that the US would exacerbate Sunni and Shia insurgencies in both the centre and south of Iraq. The issue was "one of the key things" on the agenda of Blair's agenda at a meeting with George Bush in the US in April that year, Sheinwald told the Chilcot inquiry. It was known, and reported, at the time, that defence chiefs urged Blair to warn Bush of the consequences of US attacks on Falluja, including the use of white phosphorus {my highlight}.

According to previously leaked documents about the April 2004 White House meeting between the two leaders, Bush was so angry about attacks on US soldiers that he allegedly suggested that the offices of the Arabic satellite TV station al-Jazeera should be bombed.

Snip

Referring to the abuse of Iraqi detainees by US soldiers, he added: "The Abu Ghraib issues just added another nasty twist to the difficulties that we faced." As for Britain's role in occupying southern Iraq, Sawers told the inquiry: "We had no plan for handling Basra when we went in"....>>>>>

One needn't have gone back in history to far of the powerful against weaker thought of foes, the Afghan/Soviet debacle, to see what results when invading and not quickly stabilizing and working towards re-building to see what develops. And as the leading power of might bringing in others to be the backups, us here in the United States, have our own very recent history who's lessons were ignored and those welding the push to war this time didn't serve in with many of us. We saw what was to come why didn't they!

Iraq inquiry – live

Two of Tony Blair's foreign policy advisers and the former Ministry of Defence policy director give evidence to the Chilcot inquiry

5.27pm: There are a couple of other quotes that are worth putting up in full. They are from the exchange at 3.41pm. At one point Sawers read out a passage listing the objectives the government had set itself for Iraq in early 2003.

A stable, united and law-abiding Iraq, within its present borders, cooperating with the international community, no longer posing a threat to its neighbours or international security, abiding by all its international obligations and providing effective, representative government, sustainable economic growth and rising living standards for all its peoples.

Sawers said Iraq had achieved those goals.

But Chilcot disagreed. He told Sawers:

The picture that is painted in that statement of objectives is not, I think, what you would find in Iraq today.

5.19pm: Here's what Chilcot said at the very end of the hearing.

I think we have talked a lot about potential, if not final judgements, at any rate provisional judgements about the whole six years. And I think the committee itself is extremely ... aware of the casualty list, the blood. Treasure you can rebuild. Blood you can't get back. I don't know whether at this stage we shall come to the kind of final judgement that these last questions have raised. This may be the first draft of history. But we are conscious throughout of that cost that has been incurred by humankind. I think I'll close with that.

Very curious. What does he mean by that? It didn't sound like a ringing endorsement of the war to me ....>>>>>

Scarlett accused of misleading inquiry

Former MoD expert contradicts claim that Iraq evidence was reliable

Britain's former spy chief has misled the Iraq inquiry by exaggerating the reliability of crucial claims about Saddam Hussein's ability to launch weapons of mass destruction, according to the leading Ministry of Defence expert who assessed the intelligence behind the decision to go to war.

Sir John Scarlett, who was responsible for drafting the Government's controversial 2002 dossier outlining the case for invading Iraq, claimed last week that intelligence indicating Iraq possessed missiles that could be launched within 45 minutes was "reliable and authoritative". But Scarlett's evidence is contradicted by the most senior WMD analyst who saw the original intelligence. Brian Jones said that it was vague, inconclusive and unreliable....>>>>>

Now Blair's key Iraq war aides desert him: Spy chief and top envoy tell inquiry of their doubts

The head of MI6 and Britain's top diplomat yesterday refused to back Tony Blair's assertion that the war in Iraq was worth the human and financial cost.

In testimony to the Chilcot Inquiry, spymaster Sir John Sawers and Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Britain's ambassador in Washington, both admitted they now agonise over whether the UK should have joined the invasion.

They warned that, in doing so, Britain had damaged its reputation around the world.

Snip

Sir John was forced to correct evidence that he gave last week after the panel made clear that his claims were disputed by official documents.

He admitted that the Department for International Development was 'not substantially involved' in Iraq policy in the two years before the war after denying claims from aid officials on Friday....>>>>>

Civil servants intent on evading all responsibility

Chilcot has heard a litany of excuses. Officials are out to blame others

Whatever else the Chilcot inquiry does – and I still believe it won't be much – it will at least have served to remind people just what a disastrous exercise the whole invasion of Iraq was and how Tony Blair must carry the personal responsibility for it. In overall terms the evidence so far has changed little of the picture we already knew. But in testimony after testimony of the players involved it has filled out the picture of war that was fought on the flimsiest of excuses, conducted with the minimum of preparation and pursued in blithe disregard for its consequences.

Which is why, of course, Tony Blair is apparently so furious that Chilcot has rained on his parade just as he was hoping to become President of Europe. And it is why presumably he has chosen to come out and say in a BBC interview last Sunday what we had all suspected but never quite believed would come out in the open – that he was determined on regime change in Baghdad come what may and that, if he hadn't had weapons of mass destruction as a reason, he would have found another....>>>>>

Scarlett will be asked to justify reliability of 45-minute claim

John Scarlett's evidence to the Iraq inquiry has been questioned by a WMD analyst

Pressure on inquiry witness after Independent revealed doubts about his evidence

The Iraq inquiry committee has come under pressure to recall Britain's former spy chief to give further public evidence after allegations that he misled them over Saddam Hussein's ability to use weapons of mass destruction.

Sir John Scarlett, who oversaw the drafting of the government's controversial 2002 dossier outlining the case for invading Iraq, had claimed that intelligence indicating that Iraq could launch missiles within 45 minutes was "reliable and authoritative". But Dr Brian Jones, the most senior WMD analyst who saw the original intelligence, told The Independent that it was vague, inconclusive and unreliable.

MPs from all parties raised concerns about the evidence given by Sir John....>>>>>

Nailing the Iraq Lie

How right Edward Gibbon was when he said history is little more than the register of crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind. But perhaps no register is enough to chronicle the crimes double-speaking and double-dealing politicians routinely commit against humanity.

Look at Tony Blair. You would think two years out of power would have narrowed down the gap between the former British prime minister and what is commonly known as common sense. But then there’s no antidote to hubris.

In the countdown to the Iraq invasion and long since, Blair insisted ad nauseam that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Speaking in the world’s oldest parliament, a grim faced Blair solemnly warned the British public — and the world — that Saddam had the capability and the intent to launch a WMD attack against Britain “within 40 minutes.”

In fact, with his gift of the gab the man once known as Britain’s most successful politician played a crucial role in building the case for Iraq war, and gifting the much-needed legitimacy to with-us-or-against-us Bush and his cowboy coalition....>>>>>

Replace the names and faces of the British Inquiry with those from here, the ringleaders of war, and multiply by whatever high number as to involvement and guilt and we're watching our own Inquiry we fear to hold!!

Watch the Inquiry Live when in Session

Written Transcripts by Date

Oral: The Video's by Date

See how the Inquiry is unfolding on the Sky News Timeline

BBC Iraq inquiry - day by day timeline of evidence given

Nov. 20 1969, Forty Years Ago: "A clump of bodies"

My Lai photographer Ron Haeberle exposed a Vietnam massacre 40 years ago today in The Plain Dealer

November 20, 2009

Lisa DeJong, The Plain Dealer Ron Haeberle, a Fairview High School graduate, was a combat photographer in Vietnam. He was in the village of My Lai in 1968 when 300 Vietnamese civilians were killed by American troops. Haeberle, who still lives in Northeast Ohio, has finally broken his silence about got the photos and the impact they have had on his life and the history of his country.
Forty years ago today, black-and-white photographs of slaughtered women, children and old men in a Vietnamese village shocked the world -- or that portion of the world willing to believe American soldiers could gun down unarmed peasants and leave them to die in streets and ditches...>>>

Only speaking up brought light onto a reality of War and Occupation:

The Plain Dealer front page on Nov. 20, 1969
View full size
It was too hard, too painful, to comprehend.

But the atrocities committed by soldiers in the U.S. Army's Charlie Company were captured by combat photographer Sgt. Ron Haeberle, a Fairview High School graduate who'd been drafted after college.

The Army did not begin investigating My Lai until the spring of 1969, a year after the killings, after a former member of Charlie Company sent a letter to government officials, including President Richard Nixon and numerous members of Congress...>>>

The Plain Dealer's original My Lai coverage

Haeberle: Some photos destroyed

"First, I showed all the good we did there, what the medics did, and photos of Vietnamese people smiling. And then I'd go to the My Lai photos, and there'd be dead silence," says Haeberle today, in one of his first U.S. interviews in many decades...>>>

For any of the good to win hearts and minds they are quickly wiped out in the atrocities of war and the killing and maiming of the innocent citizens of any occupation, survivors don't forget, some join the battles to rid their land of those that occupy.

Unbelievable massacre still reverberates

On March 16, 1968, American soldiers, "the good guys," who were not under fire, entered a village where residents were eating breakfast, rousted them from their homes, raped young girls and then killed them, their siblings, parents and grandparents. When the injured moved among the corpses they lay with, they were shot again until they were still...>>>

What was the My Lai massacre?

* The My Lai massacre occurred on March 16, 1968, less than three months after the start of the Tet Offensive, a series of surprise attacks by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese on U.S. troops.

* By the time the U.S. Army's Charlie Company headed for My Lai, it had lost several men to mines and booby traps. The soldiers were warned that "VC" could be anyone and were hiding everywhere.

* That set the scene for the unit's attack and shootings that left hundreds dead in the village of My Lai..>>>

In Vietnam, a shocking memorial

In 2000, Haeberle went back to Vietnam for the first time. He bought a number of original works by Vietnamese artists, which hang in his living room today. Most are abstracts; one is a black-and-white, delicately needleworked portrait of a woman, gracefully reaching one arm toward the sky.

He and a group of cyclist friends biked 775 miles from Hanoi to Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, with stops along the way.

One was at My Lai, where women still push and pull water buffalo alongside green rice fields and where there is now a museum and peace garden memorializing the dead.

Haeberle's traveling friends knew of his role in My Lai's past. "But we just kept it quiet. They were protective."

He walked into the small museum -- "It's beautiful," he says -- and was shocked to see the 16-by-20-inch photos on the wall. The massacre photos were all his, some color, some black-and-white; there was even a black-and-white shot of him.

"I never gave them the photos," he explains. "So the Army must have."

He won't say he got choked up, exactly, but he was affected by being in that space, his own powerful images of horror looking back at him from the walls.

"I found myself making an apology for what happened," he says. "I walked around by myself. No one else was around, and I was making silent amends.

"For something that didn't have to happen, but did." ...>>>>>Rest Here

The war photographs that should have changed history

The lessons were widely discussed, in particular what they revealed about the GI's attitude to the enemy they were fighting. Name-calling and indoctrination had dehumanized the Vietnamese in their minds to the extent that even violence against civilians seemed uncontroversial.

It would be good to think that this lesson stuck, but the pictures of Iraqi prisoners being tortured and humiliated at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad show it's a mind set that has never been eradicated.

After Haeberle's photographs were published, anti-war protests took on a new momentum, but just as vocal were the protests from "patriotic" Americans against the premeditated murder conviction and life sentence given to Calley. A year after the court martial, Nixon caved in to their uproar and had him freed pending a case review....>>>>>

Last night, November 20, 2009, on the Bill Moyers Journal LBJ'S PATH TO WAR

Bill Moyers considers a President's decision to escalate troop levels in a military conflict. Through LBJ's taped phone conversations and his own remembrances, Bill Moyers looks at Johnson's deliberations as he stepped up America's role in Vietnam. Explore a multimedia timeline.

The origins of the Vietnam War lie in 1945, when the British ignored Ho Chi Minh's declaration of independence and restored French rule to the country.

After a protracted conflict with Ho Chi Minh's nationalist forces and a massive defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French left Vietnam in 1954.

During the Cold War many foreign policy analysts subscribed to "The Domino Theory" — which contended that should one country come under communist rule, its neighbors were likely to follow suit. President Eisenhower, worried about the spread of communism, sent U.S. advisors to train forces in South Vietnam in 1956, and President Kennedy increased American forces significantly, with 12,000 U.S. military advisors stationed in Vietnam by 1962.

But it was under President Johnson that the U.S. escalated the conflict to a full scale war...>>>>>

Times are different now and have been since our long ocupation of Vietnam, of which I served In-Country '70-'71. The Vietnamesse, wanting their Freedom, just wanted the invaders and occupiers of out of their country, first the French then the United States and the few coalition forces who joined us.

Since then the failed policies towards the smaller less powerful countries, by the powerful, have caused what we now refer to as terrorism and those that lash out terrorist, everybody not us.

The criminal acts of terrorism, knowing no borders, have taken untold numbers of lives of innocents of the countries carrying out their failed policies in the names of those they lead.

Today, as has been for long before the Sept 11th '01 attack within our borders, and many other countries before and since, the invasions and occupations as well as the continued failed foreign policies lead not only to extreme destructive attacks within the borders of the occupied countries but a greater occurance of same anywhere, especially towards those who's governments and more try to force their ideologies or seek the resources of others for themselves.

Lessons Never Learned, and Now we've created the destructive future for those who follow us!

I Would Strongly Suggest

If you didn't watch last night, that you visit the Bill Moyers Journal and watch both video's or read the transcripts of.

Knowing it seems hard for many to do, as you watch, listen or read, think of the present and place yourselves in those past times and now!!

5 Life Sentences - Good!!

I've been wondering why I hadn't caught anything more about this.

Ex-Soldier Gets 5 Life
Sentences for Iraqi Girl Rape, Family Murders

A former soldier received five consecutive life sentences Friday for his role in the rape and murder of an Iraqi teenager and the slaying of three of her family members.

"What the defendant did was horrifying and inexcusable," U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell said in sentencing to Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas. "The court believes any lesser sentence would be insufficient."

A civilian jury in western Kentucky convicted Green in May of raping Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, conspiracy and multiple counts of murder.

Green shot and killed the teen's mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape her before shooting her in the face. Her body was set on fire March 12, 2006, at their rural home outside Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.........Rest Here

Not only did he do what he did to Abeer and her family, but the blowback on his fellow soldiers started shortly after that, those numbers will never be known but as happened in 'Nam it happened in Iraq, and any war, especially when outright atrocities occur!!

RIP Abeer and your family, RIP!!

Murder Inc.!!!

KO follows with another report about what 'Blackwater' is accused of doing In-Theater by two ex employees of, mercs!! What's coming out covers much of what is known about 'mercs' or suspected, not just blackwater, but through history!

If even a small portion of the accusations are true, these Acts Killed and Maimed U.S. Soldiers in the Blowback from Iraqi Insurgents, and will be carried into Criminal Terrorist Attacks Against Innocents, anywhere!!



Yesterday on NPR's Talk of the Nation they had a discussion on Civilian Casulties of War and Occupation

Civilian Casualties And The Rules Of War

Today we begin in Afghanistan, then widen the conversation on civilian casualties and the rules of warfare.

Snip

Maj. Gen. DAVIDSON: They are, but we also have a vastly smaller army in Afghanistan. We had 527,000 troops in Vietnam at the height of the war. Big difference, though, I think, General Westmoreland thought he could win the war by killing people. And we now understand, and Petraeus knows this to his fingertips, you have to win their hearts and minds. Killing people will not win this war for anyone in Afghanistan...............

You can listen To the discussion with this link, transcript is above link.

Not only did Westmoreland believe the killings would win the war, so did many of the soldiers, for many every Vietnamese was an enemie combantant, thus prolonging the war and getting their brothers and themselves killed and maimed in greater numbers!!

Blackwater (Xe): Murder Inc.

Causing the Deaths and Maiming's of our Soldiers in the Blowback, easing the recruitment of more insurgent fighters and support for same, and in the long term will cause the blowback of criminal terrorism anywhere, and done on our dime, we share the guilt of their actions even if these statements aren't true!

Most of these mercs are ex-soldiers, yet for their good paydays they fought on an ideology completely uncaring of their brothers and sisters still serving!

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

The former employee, identified in the court documents as "John Doe #2," is a former member of Blackwater's management team, according to a source close to the case. Doe #2 alleges in a sworn declaration that, based on information provided to him by former colleagues, "it appears that Mr. Prince and his employees murdered, or had murdered, one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct." John Doe #2 says he worked at Blackwater for four years; his identity is concealed in the sworn declaration because he "fear[s] violence against me in retaliation for submitting this Declaration." He also alleges, "On several occasions after my departure from Mr. Prince's employ, Mr. Prince's management has personally threatened me with death and violence.".........Rest Here

Whether this is true about prince and Xe or not, and many of us who understand mercs already know that answer, Everything that these mercs did, In-Theaters, especially perceived by the innocents occupied as atrocities caused Blowback on the military troops! They were no different then those our military are fighting, no different! So they not only were killing Iraqi's, or in Afghanistan, they caused the deaths of American Troops and any so called coalition, same goes for the Torturing that was known going on there long before we ever heard about it here! The same happens when the extremely few American Soldiers who commit outright atrocities, as perceived by the populace occupied!

In Guerilla Insurgencies and Occupations the idea is that the invaders and occupiers win the Hearts and Minds of the populace, even when justified invasion, it's an uphill battle right from the initial death and destruction from the beginning of an invasion, many innocents are caught up in and killed. Atrocities, or perceived, bring support for the Blowback to the occupiers, and in todays world the Blowback to the countries of, Criminal Terrorism Flourishes as it builds it's ranks!!

A Mass Grave In Afghanistan Raises Questions

The subject title comes from an important discussion on the NPR show 'Freshair' today, 7.23.09.

I caught this earlier, if you didn't you really should listen in to the Discussion, it's a needed report added to those that have started coming out, Finally, we cannot forget, nor let pass, these Atrocities committed because of and under the previous administration!!

In 2001, shortly after the American invasion of Afghanistan, hundreds or possibly thousands of Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners surrendered to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord on the payroll of the C.I.A.

Over the course of three days, the captured prisoners were allegedly packed into shipping containers without food or water. Many suffocated, while others were reportedly shot by guards.......more can be found here with a linkback to an '02 report and ability to listen in, or you can click on this link to bring up the NPR player.

There's also a writeup here with further linkbacks on more information.

To give light on Atrocities, abiding by what we say we are and as we condemn others for, as we did and tried to do while in or after 'Nam, helps minimize the damage done to us as a Nation, our moral souls!

But more importantly, as the occupations are ongoing, it helps save others lives, our soldiers and supporters in-country, from the known coming 'Blowback' by an insurgency or just rage from relations and friends!

But as they touch on in this report, this is extremely important for the Afghans themselves as they try and move forward as a country, someday!!

Where is HE Now?

Does Obama have a back room deal in place to protect George W. Bush from criminal prosecution? If not, why is Bush flaunting his escape from justice so brazenly? This shocking montage contrasts gushing footage from CNN about the life of luxury Bush has mapped out for himself, with the trail of bodies he leaves in his wake.

The REALITY: Will We Get It Now!!

We already know that those that Ordered what went on don't and won't Get It, nor care, just as they've accused others for same!!

Ex-inmate recalls days of abuse at Abu Ghraib

"But, at the end, the American people are responsible for everything that happened," Abu Ahmed said, referring to the war that he believes turned his life upside down.

Abu Ahmed spent a total of 20 months in U.S. custody, between Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca, outside Basra in southern Iraq.

He then returned home, where he spent less than five months with his family before being arrested again, this time by the Iraqi army in yet another sweep through his neighborhood.

He says his treatment inside Iraqi facilities was even worse than what he faced at the hands of the U.S. military. His Iraqi captors, Abu Ahmed says, beat him with cables and pipes; he even had a cement block hung from his genitals.

Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi


RIP Abeer and your family, saying Sorry is not enough for what you were put through that ended your precious life, RIP!!

Iraqis unhappy about life for U.S. rape soldier

"What the American soldier did is a terrorist act and he deserves execution," said Ahmed Samir Jaber, 27, a mechanic, from underneath the bonnet of an old car he was fixing in Mahmudiya, a dusty trading town on the edge of the desert.

"The court has not delivered justice. If I killed an American girl, the American court would have executed me."..........

Will we as a Country Now Finally Get It, I Doubt It, but remember this word "Blowback!"!!!

We Are All To Blame

April 28, 2004: Abu Ghraib

The first photos of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal were shown on CBS's ''60 Minutes II.'' The photos had been taken by U.S. military personnel responsible for detaining and interrogating Iraqi prisoners arrested following the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, Torture at Abu Ghraib
American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?, who helped break the story.

About Standard Operating Procedure, a new documentary by Erroll Morris on Abu Ghraib

A transcript follows.

Morris directed the Oscar-winning "The Fog of War," " Fast, Cheap and Out of Control," "The Thin Blue Line" and other noted documentaries.

About Standard Procedure - Trailer


Mary Mapes: Looking Back at Abu Ghraib 5 Years Later

We had gathered interviews, anecdotes and documents that indicated American soldiers there were regularly committing acts that violated military law, international treaties and moral boundaries. More ominously, there were signs that these men and women were acting on orders from higher ups.

All we needed to prove the story were the awful pictures we'd heard so much about.

Atrocities In Theaters of Occupations get your brothers and sisters killed, long before the outside world learns of them!!

THE WAR BEHIND ME:

Coming to terms with the reality and the lessons ignored for far too long, which ultimately by ignoring led us into the Deja-Vu of invasion and long term occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the failed leadership exposed!

Vietnam Veterans Confront the Truth About U.S. War Crimes
Inside, the book, the Army's Secret Archive of Investigations.

Atrocities, on all sides, are only a part of the story of the Tragedy of War and Occupation.

The rest we are once again observing and those serving and sacrificing in these theaters are living, along with their families.

We have never come to terms with Vietnam, Now we have Two More Long Running Occupations to Add to that, We Had Better Learn This Time, and come to terms as a Country and a Military Power, among other Countries!!

February 1968

A month before the infamous massacre at My Lai, a U.S. Army unit in central Vietnam came upon a tiny hamlet where they found nineteen unarmed civilians—women, babies, young children, and an old man. The soldiers’ orders that day were to “kill anything that moves.” They herded the villagers into a clearing and opened fire.
Read More

About the Author

Deborah Nelson is the Carnegie Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland College of Journalism. She was previously an investigative reporter at the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Seattle Times, and Chicago Sun-Times. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 1997 and was a project editor on Pulitzer Prize–winning investigations in 2001 and 2002. In 2006, she and military historian Nicholas Turse coauthored a series on U.S. war crimes for the Los Angeles Times. She currently serves on the board of the Fund for Investigative Journalism and the advisory board of the Investigative Reporting Workshop.
Listen to the podcast

The Book
The War Behind Me: Vietnam Veterans Confront the Truth about U.S. War Crimes

In 2005, Deborah Nelson joined forces with military historian Nick Turse to investigate an extraordinary archive: the largest compilation of records on Vietnam-era war crimes ever to surface. The declassified Army papers were erroneously released and have since been pulled from public circulation. Few civilians have seen the documents. The files contain reports of more than 300 confirmed atrocities, and 500 other cases the Army either couldn’t prove or didn’t investigate. The archive has letters of complaint to generals and congressmen, as well as reports of Army interviews with hundreds of men who served. Far from being limited to a few bad actors or rogue units, atrocities occurred in every Army division that saw combat in Vietnam. Torture of detainees was routine; so was the random killing of farmers in fields and women and children in villages. Punishment for these acts was either nonexistent or absurdly light. In most cases, no one was prosecuted at all. In The War Behind Me Deborah Nelson goes beyond the documents and talks with many of those who were involved, both accusers and accused, to uncover their stories and learn how they deal with one of the most awful secrets of the Vietnam War.

The Documents

The back reports from Deborah Nelson and Nick Turse from the LA Times in 2006.

Vietnam

The War Crimes Files

A Tortured Past
By Deborah Nelson and Nick Turse
Documents show troops who reported abuse in Vietnam were discredited even as the military was finding evidence of worse.
August 20, 2006

Lasting Pain, Minimal Punishment
By Deborah Nelson and Nick Turse
'Americans don't do things like this,' an officer thought when he learned of three villagers' deaths. His shock grew when the soldier convicted continued to serve.
August 20, 2006

Civilian Killings Went Unpunished
By Nick Turse and Deborah Nelson
Declassified papers show U.S. atrocities went far beyond My Lai.
August 6, 2006

Verified Civilian Slayings
By Nick Turse, Deborah Nelson and Janet Lundblad
Decades-old Pentagon records show that Army criminal investigators substantiated seven massacres of Vietnamese and Cambodian civilians by U.S. soldiers — in addition to the notorious 1968 My Lai massacre.
August 6, 2006

About this report
Deborah Nelson, who wrote these articles, is a former staff writer and Washington investigative editor for The Times. Nick Turse is a freelance journalist living in New Jersey.
August 20, 2006

Winter Soldier {1972}

Winter Soldier Investigation - Wikipedia

Film-Forward Review: WINTER SOLDIER (1972)

Winter Soldier - the DVD

Winter Soldier - VVAW - Vietnam Veterans Against The War

Winter Soldier - The Site

Trailer


Into the Present: Accountability for the Orders Given on Torture and Human Rights Violations by the bush administration and rubber stamped by Congressional Republicans and any Democrats!

bush administration: Torture! {telecast 1.09.09}

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CHAPTER 113C—TORTURE 18 USC - 2340A

War crimes 18 USC - 2441

Genocide 18 USC - 1091

Accountability Is A Must

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