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This sad and horrifying article is written by a Viet Nam veteran who has been in Iraq recently. We must get our people out of there.
Collective Penalties in Iraq
On Their Way to Abu Ghraib
By MIKE FERNER
ABU SIFFA, IRAQ.
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(December 16, 2003, 2AM)
Soldiers from the Army's 4th Infantry Division rounded up two attorneys, 15 schoolteachers, men in their 80's, a blind man, police officers, young teens, and an elderly man so frail he had to be carried by the soldiers, Al-Tai said. In all, 83 men disappeared that night, virtually every male in the village.
His description of that night continued. "They destroyed the doors of the houses and of the rooms. At night usually the doors of the bedrooms are locked, so they kicked the doors in and destroyed them by their weapons. After that they gathered the men, beating them severely. One was an old man and they smashed his glasses, and for that old man they had to guide him."
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No men were apprehended this time (December 31, 2003), Al-Tai said; "there were none left." The purpose of the return visit was made clear when the Bradley gunners opened fire with the 25mm Bushmaster chain gun and the 7.62mm machine gun, blasting holes large and small into the brick and cement-block home.
On January 2 the military came back. Al-Tai showed us the rear of another vacant house where he said four brothers, now all in Abu Ghraib, once lived. Still visible were the tracks the Bradley made as it approached the home of Hamis, Abd Kadir, Mohammed and Jasim. As with the previous raid, there was no resistance, Al-Tai said. After another display of firepower the soldiers left. The uninhabitable home, a flattened brick outhouse, a pile of 25mm shell casings and a steel door shot off its hinges, bleeding rust stains from dozens of bullet holes, spoke of that night's violence. As the CPT delegation listened, one of the villagers added, "The soldiers warned the people that they will make this area 'just like the land of the moonit will not be good to plant...it will be like the desert.'"
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And so on, including American soldiers stealing money and cars from the people.
about the author:
Mike Ferner returned to Iraq this year for two months to write on developments since his trip just prior to the war with Voices in the Wilderness. He served as a Navy Hospital Corpsman during Vietnam, is a member of Veterans for Peace and a former member of Toledo City Council.
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