Atrocities during wars are as old as war itself. But one would expect the army of the country that says it’s bringing ‘democracy’ and ‘civilization’ to the world, to behave in a civil way. Off course that is just wishful thinking. And where else than Iraq would the modern atrocities occur. One would expect that the US soldiers would have learned from the infamous My Lai massacre in 1968 during the Vietnam war, but now the US is faced with another scandal of this magnitude: a massacre (and a possible cover-up) at Haditha, Iraq in 2005. Time Magazine was one of the first to report on the events that occured at Haditha. The details of the incident are pretty gruesome and bare a resemblance with the My Lai case.
Here is what Times wrote about the case:
On the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, a roadside bomb struck a humvee carrying Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, on a road near Haditha, a restive town in western Iraq. The bomb killed Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, from El Paso, Texas. The next day a Marine communique from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported that Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast and that “gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire,” prompting the Marines to return fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one other. The Marines from Kilo Company held a memorial service for Terrazas at their camp in Haditha. They wrote messages like “T.J., you were a great friend. I’m going to miss seeing you around” on smooth stones and piled them in a funeral mound. And the war moved on.
Now, what (supposedly) really happened is another story altogether. CNN:
(…) the Marines immediately suspected four Iraqi teenagers in a taxi and shot them, along with the driver, when the Marines said they failed to lie on the ground as ordered.
The hunt for the bombers then moved to a nearby house, where seven people — including two women and children — were killed. Then eight people, including six women, were shot next door, while women in a third house were not harmed, the sources said. In a fourth house, four men were killed.
If this doesn’t sound grim enough, according to Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and former Marine “It’s much worse than reported in Time magazine. And there were about twice as many [deaths] as originally reported by Time.”
So far it seems established that 24 civilians died in a hail of gunfire, including 11 women and children.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Pace told CNN there are actually two investigations: “One has to do with what happened. The other investigation goes to why didn’t we know about it sooner than we knew about it.”
One things seems clear to me: this is not ‘just’ a case of collateral damage. In essence it is just as bad as the whole Abu Ghraib scandal.
Off course the worst of all still is Camp X-ray at Guantanamo Bay. I am sure that this will turn out to be the US biggest scandal. It is a shame the world has allowed the US to even set up and maintain such a camp.
The US just tosses all human rights out of the window whenever they feel like it. They have become the beast they say they are fighting.