U.S. Soldiers Commit War Crimes at One-Ninth the Price
Private security companies in Iraq have come under political attack after mercenaries for Blackwater USA fired upon unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, killing 17 and wounding 24. Angry Iraqis, including collaborationist officials of the U.S.-backed occupation regime, have complained that swaggering rent-a-soldiers operate with callous disregard for the safety of Iraqis. A 27-year-old ex-paratrooper for Blackwater even stands accused of–but faces no possibility of prison time for—shooting, while in a drunken frenzy, a man who was guarding Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi.
A media pile-on has ensued.
Condi Rice, whose State Department is a major Blackwater client, ordered cameras mounted on vehicles in the company’s convoys. The House of Representatives, normally so divided it can’t agree that torture is bad or that sick kids need doctors, came together as one–389 to 30–to pass a bill that would subject mercenaries to criminal prosecution when they blow away foreigners in a war zone. Now the presidential contenders are weighing in.
“We cannot win a fight for hearts and minds when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors,” said Barack Obama. “To add insult to injury, these contractors are charging taxpayers up to nine times more to do the same jobs as soldiers, a disparity that damages troop morale.”
Obama may be onto something. Why pay for employed by private corporations, when you can get the same cowboy antics at one-ninth the price?
Pundits and politicians are scapegoating Blackwater and other private security firms to help sell the continuation of the Iraq War. Some mercenaries shoot at anything that moves. They endanger locals with crazy practices like speeding down jammed highways on the wrong side. (Memo to Secy. Gates: Ban screenings of “Ronin.”) Rein in these Rambo wannabes or fire them, the argument goes, and Iraqi commuters will warm to their friendly public-sector replacements in the United States Armed Forces. A thousand roses will bloom. Soon we’ll be awash in that staple of postwar gratitude, Iraqi war brides.
But it isn’t just Blackwater. Official U.S. soldiers are no less stupid or vicious or trigger-happy than their private counterparts.
In 2003 U.S. troops manning a checkpoint in Karbala repeatedly fired a 25-millimeter cannon at a Toyota containing 13 people trying to flee the fighting. At least seven people, including five children age five or under, were killed. “You just f—ing killed a family because you didn’t fire a warning shot soon enough,” a captain radioed to his platoon leader moments later. Checkpoint shootings of innocent civilians became a daily occurrence, due to rules of engagement that placed more value upon the lives of American troops than those of the Iraqis they were supposedly there to liberate.
Often the “checkpoints” were invisible to Iraqi motorists. American soldiers would hide in buildings near an intersection and fire “warning shots” at the engine blocks of approaching vehicles. Assuming that they were being ambushed by bandits, Iraqi drivers would floor the accelerator. Soldiers then treated them as potential suicide bombers, turning them into Swiss cheese. “Many U.S. officials describe…the military’s standard practice of firing at onrushing cars from their checkpoints in Iraq,” reports The Washington Post.
“We fired warning shots at everyone,” said one soldier. “They would speed up to come at us, and we would shoot them. You couldn’t tell who was in the car from where we were. We found that out later. We would just look in and see they were dead and could see there were women inside.”
That’s what happened to Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari. After obtaining the release of a journalist from insurgents who had held her hostage for one month, Calipari accompanied her to a checkpoint near the Baghdad airport. U.S. soldiers opened fire. The warning shot missed the engine block. Calipari died; the reporter was wounded. Though their Iraqi driver insists that he was driving their Toyota Corolla (memo to travelers to Iraq: consider a Honda) under 25 miles per hour, the Pentagon said he was “speeding.”
A lot of professional U.S. soldiers have screamed their contempt for Iraqis since the beginning of the war. “For almost a year,” reported the East Bay Express in 2005, “American soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been taking photographs of dead bodies, many of them horribly mutilated or blown to pieces, and sending them to [a pornographic website]. American soldiers have been using the pictures of disfigured Iraqi corpses as currency to buy pornography.”
If you’ve just eaten, stop reading now.
The Express describes the photos: “A man in a leather coat who apparently tried to run a military checkpoint lies slumped in the driver’s seat of a car, his head obliterated by gunfire, the flaps of skin from his neck blooming open like rose petals. Six men in beige fatigues, identified as U.S. Marines, laugh and smile for the camera while pointing at a burned, charcoal-black corpse lying at their feet.”
There’s more.
“[A] person who posted a picture of a corpse lying in a pool of his own brains and entrails wrote, ‘What every Iraqi should look like.’ One person posted three photographs of corpses lying in the street and titled his collection ‘DIE HAJI [a racist slur for Iraqis used by U.S. soldiers] DIE.'”
Google the Express story. It gets even uglier.
Blackwater’s hired goons are exempt from prosecution. So, apparently, are real soldiers. Atrocity after atrocity goes unpunished or rewarded with a slap on the wrist.
Specialist Jorge Sandoval, 22, was acquitted of murdering two Iraqis, one on April 27, the other on May 11 near Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad. However, a military court-martial found him guilty of planting detonation wire on the first victim to make him look like an insurgent. If he was innocent, why did he try to cover up the shooting?
Specialist James Barker, 23, of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, admitted that he held down a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in 2005 while another soldier raped her, then shot her several times in her Mahmudiya home. He dowsed her with kerosene and set her on fire. According to CNN, “he was not sure if he penetrated the girl, because he was having trouble getting an erection.” He and five fellow soldiers also murdered her parents and her 7-year-old sister. Thanks to a plea bargain, said The New York Times, “he could be released on parole in 20 years.”
The same crime committed in the U.S. would earn life in prison, or the death penalty.
A Marine Staff Sergeant charged in the massacre of 24 people in Haditha, The New York Times reports, will not face murder charges because investigating civilian deaths isn’t a military priority. “Prosecuting the Haditha case has posed special challenges because the killings were not comprehensively investigated when they first occurred,” says the Times. “Months later, when details came to light, there were no bodies to examine and no Iraqi witnesses to test.”
The 2005 Express piece contains this tragicomic gem: “[Disrespect for Iraqi deaths] could become an international public-relations catastrophe.” Internationally, the “war porn” scandal was merely one of a string of stories that confirmed our reputation as brutal neocolonialists. Here in the United States, however, “supporting the troops” means turning a blind eye to their actions–or blaming them on private contractors.
16 Comments.
Superb column this week, Ted. We as a nation must never forget the atrocities committed on our dime by our tacit permission, by way of volunteer tool/killers.
It has often been said that "war is hell". The uglieness of Vietnam, should have taught us something. Why are we in Iraq, when our enemy is in Pakistan? Bush, and his croonies are to blame. Why have they not been impeached? What will it take for the American people to pull together?
Blackwater being scapegoated?
Gimme a break.
From the first "security contractors" being burned in Fallujah right up to the 2 women killed today, these guys should be called out for what they are. Blood-thirsty mercenaries. Ex-special forces guys who didn't get to kill enough under the military rules of engagement. Not only are they mercenaries, they aren't accountable under Iraqi or U.S. law.
The murderers in uniform are at least accountable under the UCMJ.
That they aren't convicted is a whole other story.
What's worse is Secy Gates has just proposed changing the military's main focus from fighting large armies (aka defense of our Nation). To fighting smaller groups (aka dominating civilians and puting down rebellions). Unless congress get's off it's collective ass, and do it's constitutional duty, the carnage will continue to escalate.
Ted,
When talking about atrocities, your brush is often overly broad. I have good friends who are veterans, and who are neither war criminals, thugs nor goons.
That being said, I appreciate your efforts to highlight the atrocities being done in our name.
mark,
If you haven't realized it yet, Ted vehemently hates the troops. Your "good friends" are nothing but thugs and murderers to Ted Rall.
Just keeps getting better and better. luckily, the insurgency will save us.
http://www.tshirtinsurgency.com
Mark,
I agree with your statement. I am in the Coast Guard and have worked along side many good people from all branches of service. Unfortunatley there are quite a few people who will judge the entire military on what a small portion of it does in Iraq.
dtaylor72,
"Murderers in uniform"? It is a shame that you look on the military like that. I take personal offense at your remark. Many of us are hard working individuals who take pride in our service to the Unites States. While I am not a chest thumping uber-patriot I certainly to not look on the entire military as murderers in uniform.
Again we need to bring the hyperbole down just a little here. Most of the men and women in the military are good, honest people. A tiny percentage are the assholes who get all the negative attention.
It's like cops—the vast majority are trying to do their jobs but a tiny minority screw it up, image-wise.
Or to take it a step further, most liberals are patriotic, reasonable, rational folks—it's the ones who act like lunatics who get all the attention AND make liberals look crazy.
Ted makes valid, smart points but why all the hate for everybody in uniform? I sense that somewhere in high school Ted got pushed around by the football players, hence the vitriol towards those who wear uniforms. It happened to me too, Ted: I was able to let go. Can't you do the same?
PLEASE DON'T BE TOO HARD ON RALL. HE'S A COMIC STRIP WRITER. CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW FRUSTRATING IT MUST BE FOR NO ONE TO TAKE HIM SERIOUS. ALL THIS VILE HATE FOR THOSE MEN AND WOMEN FIGHTING FOR HIS FREEDOM TO PRINT HIS WEIRD LITTLE COMICS IS VERY EVIDENT IN HIS WRITING. I'LL BET HE WAS MADE TO WEAR THE QUARTERBACKS' JOCK STRAP OVER HIS HEAD IN SCHOOL. I WAS NEVER IN THE ARMED FORCES, BUT I HONOR THEM FOR THEIR SACRIFICE FOR THIS COUNTRY.
You pea brains must not have seen the photos of Ted, on this site. He looks like he could have been a middle linebacker. I can't understand why some of you halfwits continue to pound Ted for taking examples of military injustice and expanding them in a comic. Anyone whom continues to spew this retoric about "Ted hates the service people" has not read his column very long, or often.
I've been reading Ted's columns for years. The military is always painted in the broadest of strokes. I think "Support our Thugs" was a phrase that was used mor ethan once.
Not all members of the miltary are angels—there are some messed up lunataics in the service. But just because there are a few wackos don't demean the vast majority who do their job with honor. It would be like saying that all communists are inhuman monsters because of Stalin.
How about showing some love, even if it's just once every year?
I think to say that "most of the mlitary is good and noble, etc…, and it's only a few bad apples", is almost as wrong as saying that most are psycho bigots.
I am thinking tha majority are neither. They may not go out and inteniotally kill innocent people, but at the same time they probably don't really care if they accidentally do. They won't go out of their way to avoid it.
In other words, theymay not intentionally aim their guns at civilans, but at the same time they won't try to avoid them in a fight. There are countless Iraqi reports of troops firing 360 degrees in the slightest panic.
Plus, we should never forget the famous "Stanford Prison Experiment", and what it shows us about what happens to "good people" when they are put in a position of power of others.
The term "murderers in uniform" does not mean everyone in uniform. It means those in uniform that commit murder.
there is something deeply wrong with militarism in us mainstream culture
"I have good friends who are veterans, and who are neither war criminals, thugs nor goons."
and how would you know this?
people said the same thing about the likes of eichmann for crying out loud!
since when did the moral makeup of u.s. soldiers become the guiding framework of any and all discussions about iraq?
the whole setup smells of us exceptionalism – it is quite impossible to talk about the moral makeup of soldiers of the wehrmacht without sounding apologetic, and for good reason…
when is the last time you heard mention of the the moral makeup of soviet soldiers in afghanistan?
you think your boys are any better than everyone else?
well, face it, they're not.
a murderous assault on a country after murderous sanctions by sending in a couple hundred thousand soldiers with unparalleled destructive power and killing techniques – and no knowledge about the people, their language, or even domestic police work for that matter. that was before they became sitting ducks. do the math…
regards
andreas
Thank you andreas! I am also concerned about the worship of violence and the miliatary-especially by those who have never fired a gun in anger. Because-you know what it means?-more civillian support for more (endless) bad wars. Meanwhile, the people who profit from endless wars can just roll out the patriotic bromides, which are lapped up.
War inevitably leads to atrocity, no matter what "training" or "education" or "policy memos" come down from on high (while secret memos explain what "the troops" are REALLY permitted and encouraged to do) So-the answer is not troop worship but fewer wars!
No…all soldiers are not monsters. They are human beings in a bad situation. But…especially now, anyone who joins the military to "defende our freedom" are have a degree of self delusion that it is hard to ignore.