UK troops accused of executions and torture in Iraq

[maddezmom]

Source: Reuters

LONDON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Lawyers for five Iraqis have accused British soldiers of mass executions and torture and called for a police investigation into an "atrocious episode" in British army history.

Phil Shiner and Martyn Day, who have brought several cases against the British military for its actions in Iraq, produced statements on Friday from five men who say they were detained by British forces after a battle in southern Iraq in May 2004.

The men, who were blindfolded and bound, said their captors repeatedly beat and abused them, including forcing them to strip naked. While detained, they said they heard the systematic torture and execution of up to 20 other detainees.

"On the basis of the evidence currently available, we are of the view that our clients' allegations -- that the British were responsible for the torture and deaths of up to 20 Iraqis -- may well be true," Day told a news conference.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2223181.htm

[Tempest]

1. Ireland

The Irish know fully well the war crimes the British military are capable of.

[LynnTheDem]

2. And most the world knows the war crimes the US is capable of.

Actually, it's what war breeds...war crimes and barbaric behaviour.

And if the public of either nation got to see what's done every day in their names, we wouldn't be so quick to want to invade other nations.

[JohnyCanuck]

5. And not just the British military

Book Review: The Deserter's Tale
Nonfiction
by Mark Biskeborn | February 21, 2008 - 2:45pm

A Memoir: The Story of An Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq
By Joshua Key

SNIP


Despite his deception by recruiters, he keeps his head down, follows orders, serves his country, and hopes to return home to his family. As a private in one of the first divisions to enter Iraq, spring of 2003, Key participates and observes first-hand the breaking of promises made to Iraqis, the spiraling hatred of Americans and the self-defeating tactics the chain of command encourages among his fellow soldiers as they move throughout Iraq.

Conscience Catches Up

And then he pulls himself out of the hell his country condemns him to: his grandfather’s role-model helps him to rise above the military’s and the country’s own unraveling.

“My own moral judgment was disintegrating under the pressure of being a soldier, feeling vulnerable, and having no clear enemy to kill in Iraq. We were encouraged to beat up on the enemy; given the absence of any clearly understood enemy, we picked our fights with civilians who were powerless to resist. We knew that we would not have to account for our actions.”

Boot camp trains him to treat all Iraqis as terrorists. Following orders, Key’s most common duty adds up to more than 200 night raids to ransack houses in residential neighborhoods, terrifying the occupants, and beating males over five feet tall and sending them away, never to be seen again. At the end of so many raids, he reports that he and his comrades find not one weapons cache, not one cabal of terrorists. It unleashes the worst in him and his comrades as they terrorize innocent men, women, and children. He realizes that he and his comrades become evildoers, terrorists.

“... the American military had betrayed the values of my country. We had become a force for evil, and I could not escape the fact that I was part of the machine.”


http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12995

[pattmarty]

3. It's like a virus; one gets it and everybody gets it (the torture "virus").

[grahamhgreen]

4. Let's hope they follow these orders up the chain-of-command.