Want some honesty? (Falluja)

[Bragi]

I'll give you some honesty: from what I can decipher from the few fragmented and non-censored reports out of Falluja, the majority of US troops in Iraq are now "just following orders" which clearly entail commiting war crimes against the Iraqi civilian population. They are behaving collectively in a truly despicable and monstrous manner in Falluja.

If you think there aren't juiced US soldiers having a merry old time "lighting up the enemy" (i.e. killing and maiming anyone in Falluja) then wake up. Even American TV reports from embedded media video-stenographers show your soldiers cheering and celebrating whenever they think that massive, deadly rounds fired into a civilian apartment complex have "scored." The background sound in many of the embedded TV reports from combat situations sounds more like people cheering at a sporting event, than thoughtful people sadly engaged in the serious and tragic business of war.

Here's another bit of honesty: as of Falluja, it's now so officially over for the US in Iraq that you'd have to be deranged to think the US can can do any good staying there longer. Bush's blathering about elections and democracy is obscene in light of what's happening on the ground. With the slaughter and destruction of Falluja, the Iraqis now hate you more than ever. That will not change for generations, if ever.

Continuing with the theme of honesty, the American left could do with a bit of this itself. This means demanding that the troops come home immediately, and dropping the political pretense that people of conscience should "support our troops". The left should instead call on US soldiers of conscience in Iraq to lay down their arms now, and to take the consequences, because that is the right thing for them to now do. The left should assemble legal funds to defend soldiers who refuse to fight in this immoral war. They should also take active steps to make further call-ups difficult and unreliable, including advocating and organizing refusals, and mounting legal cases, for those who are called up and don't want to fight this appalling war.

Finally, if the left wants to be truly honest, they also have to demand that any US troops suspected of engaging in war crimes be prosecuted under the US War Crimes Act, from the top brass to the street level soldier-bots who appear to think its exhilerating, great fun to kill people, as at a turkey shoot. It may have been an unfair and horrid process that turned so many of your young men and women into monsters, but they are now what they are. They must be prosecuted for their war crimes.

- B

[Ardee]

1. To be alone

is to be powerless.

War sucks and ,believe me, I know......terrible things happen in wars. I might agree with your point if you stopped at those soldiers who participated in the torture of helpless prisoners but will not join in your diatribe against those in harms way. Ive been there, have you?

[getoffmytrain]

3. very very few

of these 'troop poopers' have been anywhere near a combat zone yet they make unbelievable statements about soldiers who are under fire. OH well, there are assholes no matter where you go.

[Ardee]

14. Not assholes

Just , not having seen the elephant, they do not understand those of us who have.

I never supported the Viet Nam war, ever, even while I was there
yet I go, once a year and stand before that wall speaking to my friends.......

[fugue]

6. I don't think Bragi meant lying down their guns in mid-battle

I think the point was that they should go to their commanders and say, "This is an immoral war, and I refuse to participate in it further."

I agree. I also agree that the left should mobilize great loads of cash and lawyers to help defend such soldiers.

I grant that I have not been in battle myself, but the American military code requires soldiers to refuse immoral orders, and the people who wrote that code knew what war is. We need to remind all American military personnel--and the American public--of that duty.

[Ardee]

12. If you haven't been there.....

you just don't know.
Having said that you refuse to carry out such orders you would be forever burdened by the deaths of those who died in that battle. A crushing burden to carry through life.

You would also be in federal prison for a pretty long time, not everyone is a martyr of that magnitude.

Whatever happened to that platoon that refused to resupply a base due to inadequate equipment?

[oldlady]

17. pssstt...let me tell you

although the media reported that those who refused orders were 'reassigned'--- someone I know has received email from a friend stationed in Iraq that he is currently 'guarding' those refusers.

[Ardee]

21. Oh yeah they are being guarded

Couldnt have that bit of news during an election cycle now could we...They will be ,in all probability, dishonorably dishcharged. Quietly.

[fugue]

23. And the deaths of the civilians are not an equally crushing burden?

Personally, I would find them more so. First, more of them are dying, and second, those people had no choice about being there. It's their home.

I'm sorry, but as I said, the folks who wrote the military code had been in battle and yet they still saw fit to include the duty to disobey immoral orders. Clearly their experience of battle didn't change their minds on that point. Why should I believe you over them?

Yes, I grant the federal prison issue. That's why we need to mobilize cash and lawyers for those who do show the courage to disobey immoral orders. Hold them up as heroes to our youth. Do our damnedest to make sure they don't go to prison while making sure those who commit war crimes--all of them--do.

[TheFarseer]

20. I totally agree with you

I've never been in combat. I'm certainly not going to pick on our troops that don't want to be there, have no specific mission, and just don't want to get killed. These guys are in a bad situation, it's not their fault and they need our support. My worst fear is that they come home and get shunned and derided as baby-killers like after Vietnam. That would be totally wrong even if there is truth to it. We need to go after the leaders that sent them there. IMO whatever tragic events unfold in Iraq is the fault of bush and his minions and that is who we should be relentlessly attacking.

[mike_c]

26. that's the "good German" argument....

It would have exonerated the guys dumping Zyklon B into the showers, for instance, and the murder of millions of civilians by the Nazis. It would have excused all the Imperial Army who participated in the brutal subjegation of China. Only the leadership is responsible for atrocities? The Wehrmacht deserves our unflagging support. Pay no attention to all those murdered civilians....

[TheFarseer]

30. I think you've got to

keep it in perspective and differentiate between degrees. Intentionally gassing innocent civilians is different than cutting water to a city to smoke out insurgents and firing into an apartment complex where there could be civilians but there are definitely enemy snipers. Of course, I don't think many people will argue that sodomizing prisoners to death with broomsticks(Abu Grab) is wrong and should be prosecuted.

[mike_c]

37. how are "intentionally gassing civilians" and...

...intentionally bombarding civilian neighborhoods any different? the problem with keeping it "in perspective" is that that argument presupposes some level of atrocity that is acceptable, that it's okay to "light up" vans full of women and children but not okay to fill vans with civilians and choke them on the exhaust. Over 100,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq since the invasion. How many is "acceptable?" Have U.S. forces already crossed the line into an unacceptable number of civilian deaths or not? Are they close to it?

Cutting off food and water to a city containing non-combatant civilians is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, just as sending fleeing civilians back into that combat zone is a war crime, and denying them access to medical attention is a war crime.

[getoffmytrain]

2. Troops

have cheered in combat since the beginning of warfare, this is not a phenomenon that started with the assault on Fallujah. Generally, soldiers are excited when they neutralize threats during combat, because it means they lived through one more firefight.

[DS1]

19. adrenaline

I'd cheer too - is there any greater form of competitiveness than combat? Even if it is seemingly lopsided.

[getoffmytrain]

22. Absolutely,

any normal human being would.

[dmac]

4. Are the things you list

really possible? I would support what you said - especially giving soldiers of conscience an out.

However, I fear it is possible that some of these soldiers have been "juiced" as you call it, deliberately with certain drugs to make them more aggressive. I remember reading 3 years ago about one of the malaria drugs causing soldiers to be volatile and/or suicidal. The suicide rate at that time was quite high - not a statistic I saw in the mainstream press but on some Vet site that I had followed a link to.

Having 19 and 15 year old sons, you can be sure I will never sacrifice my sons to this war. It would be different if it were a real war with a real, legitimate cause (like taking on our own government). I can't tell you how many nights I have laid awake, in agony thinking of either of my boys losing their souls to war. These are agonizing, painful times we are living.

[mike_c]

10. welcome to DU, dmac....

I have a 24 year old daughter. The bastards will have to kill me before they'll take her.

[dmac]

13. we would die together but let's hope we don't have to.

[datasuspect]

5. thank you

for saying this.

i live in an area that supplies a good many of the "cannon fodder."

and i know in too many instance that many of these people are racist, homophobic god-fearing types. the general repulsion i feel toward them doesn't change the minute they don an american military uniform to protect my "freedom."

that's not to say everyone in the military is a redneck, but rednecks aren't the exception either. and we need to stop painting the troops as hapless weekend warriors who just wanted to go to college. the majority of people who join the military are from backwaters and poverty-stricken areas. they join because there is no other option. get them all fucked up in the military mindfuck machine (where the sole aim is train, develop, and support KILLERS) and grunts high-fiving each other in fallujah after sending obscene amounts of ordnance into urban areas is the result.

i never had a beef with any iraqi person, any arab, or any muslim. if anything, my interactions with people from the middle east have been largely positive.

support the troops? jury is out on this.

[RyomaSakamoto]

7. If the US refuses to PROSECUTE it's war crimminals the WORLD COURT will

http://www.un.org/News/facts/iccfact.htm

What crimes will the Court try?

The Court has a mandate to try individuals rather than States and to hold them accountable for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community - genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and, eventually, the crime of aggression. A common misperception is that the Court will be able to try those accused of having committed such crimes in the past, but this is not the case. The Court will have jurisdiction only over crimes committed after 1 July 2002, when the Statute entered into force.

...

What is the relationship between the international Court and national courts?

The Court's jurisdiction is very carefully set out in the Statute. The entire premise of the Court is based on the principle of complementarity, which means that the Court can only exercise its jurisdiction when a national court is unable or unwilling to genuinely do so itself. The first priority always goes to national courts. The International Criminal Court is in no way meant to replace the authority of national courts. But there may be times when a State's court system collapses and ceases to function. Similarly, there may be governments that condone or participate in an atrocity themselves, or officials may be reluctant to prosecute someone in a position of great power and authority.

more...
http://www.un.org/News/facts/iccfact.htm

abu gharib should bring down the whole admin!

[TheFarseer]

27. I thought we refused to participate

in the court. Am I thinking of somthing else?

[RyomaSakamoto]

35. we did but that doesn't mean we can't be tried in absentia

the UN has already declared this war of aggression ILLEGAL and even if its only for show its still important to hold the US accountable even if only on paper.

force our country to wake the fuck up and isolate it's murderous foreign policy leaders.

peace

[formernaderite]

8. I remember watching the pre-game locker room chants..

...feeling very uncomfortable, this isn't a football game. It's a war.

[mike_c]

9. hear, hear!

Thank you for your honesty!

[radwriter0555]

11. Well someone got all pissed off when I said that the soldiers are killing

for a paycheck. I have no pity, respect or sympathy for any of them. They're just nazis for the GOP.

[DS1]

24. Wow - guess I was a Nazi too

as was my brother.

[Hippo_Tron]

39. They're following orders...

Some of them believe in the cause, others don't. Regardless, they get court marshalled and thrown in prison of they don't. This isn't the troops' fault, it's Bush's fault, Rumsfeld's fault, and the fault of the officers that they put in place. Despite the fact that we shouldn't be in Iraq, we still do need men and women in uniform to defend the country and I honor those who do.

[bigtree]

15. This is the responsibility of their leaders

They create and nurture these killing machines. I don't think for a moment that the bravado these soldiers display is anything more than jazz to get themselves pumped up for killing. And I don't think for a moment that these same soldiers won't be scarred for life for their ignorance.

[Cocoa]

16. share some of those reports with us

if you would.

It's hard to discuss war crimes when we don't know the facts.

Regarding our fate in Iraq, after Fallujah, I agree. The feeling of futility deepened this morning listening to McCain and Gingrich lamely tell us it's going to be OK, when clearly they themselves know it's not, but can't admit it.

[liberalmuse]

18. I blame the assholes who sent them there.

It's not really surprising the repulsive stories we're hearing about our troops behavior coming out of Fallujah. Such is war, and this is why we should never, ever go to war unless it is absolutely necessary. Human beings will do what they have to do in order to get through the bloody, pornographic atrocity that is war, whether it be making a game of popping civilians or cheering the destruction of a city. It is sickening, as it should be.

War is heinous, and there is nothing more heinous than a group of ugly old men sending our young ones to kill and die in a needless, senseless war from which they and their friends will be profitting from for years to come. I blame them. Our troops will have to live with their actions, and with their fragmented minds, souls and bodies. That is punishment enough. I want to see the mother-fucking sick bastards who started this war on trial for war crimes.

Shame on America for allowing this to happen. I marched for peace, or rather, against this war, and it was probably the most useless endeavor I've ever been a part of, because it didn't help a goddamned bit. Most of this nation voted to continue this godforsaken war. The blood be on their heads.

[manic expression]

25. Very true

I agree with just about everything said there. We need to prosecute the many war criminals in the U.S. Military, and "following orders" doesn't cut it. The military must refuse to carry out this criminal war.

[tomreedtoon]

28. Bragi, have you ever been in a war?

I ask this because you're applying angry motives to soldiers in a war. This may come as a surprise to you, but war changes everything.

Soldiers might have all kinds of motivations for being soldiers - serving their country, defending a higher cause, avoiding going to prison, whatever. But when they're in war, and people are shooting at them, they can only respond by shooting back.

A soldier has only one motivation. He wants to stay alive in a place where the person at his elbow has just been killed. He is not the emotionless killing machine that propaganda and presumptuous people like to claim. He is scared and desperate.

Sure, they cheer and scream when they've killed the enemy. They're alive in a moment when they might have been killed. That'd make me happier than a Red Sox fan.

And in a guerilla war, like Vietnam or Iraq, when the enemy melts into a civiian population, and even children can be enticed to carry a live grenade to a soldier, of course they are going to shoot civilians. Of course it's ugly. It's war.

War changes everything. It's not exactly a secret, except in official position papers, but men trapped in combat, especially under heavy fire, quite often have sex with one another. It's not homosexuality or even really sexuality; it's sheer tension and fear and the need to feel alive amidst death. That's also the reason for most rapes committed on the civilian population. That's what war does to people.

Attacking soldiers for being soldiers, and acting like soldiers, is the worst legacy of the American New Left of the 1960's. I personally think it was the frustration of the lefties that they were so impotent at changing American policy, because they didn't understand how politics or people's emotions worked. (The protests at Chicago 1968 got Nixon elected, and brought five more years of war. Good job, guys.) So, they attacked the target in front of them, the poor tortured dogface just off the boat.

How about focussing your anger on the real reason this war is continuing; that Democrats and liberals have all kinds of good ideas, but no way to reach the hearts and souls of most common people? How about understanding how ordinary people are frightened into stampeding, and offering them some hope, some inspiration - some love? The things the Right can pretend to provide, but never really deliver?

[mike_c]

33. the problem with this analysis is that it ignores the criminal nature

...of the war itself and the way it's being conducted by the U.S.

First, let's establish that war is ugly and that it not only brings out the worst in people, it depends upon our worst instincts, at least most of the time. Effective soldiers employ brutality the way an artist wields a brush. The object of war from a soldier's perspective is to injure, maim, and kill others on demand.

Second, lets establish that such brutality is a part of human nature. One need only note that armed conflict-- war at some level-- is a constant on the Earth. There is always fighting somewhere.

Third, there is occasionally legitimate need for conflict. Nations must defend themselves (Iraq no less than any other). Despots must sometimes be prevented from exporting brutality to innocent neighbors, and so on.

In this context, one standard that professional armies should be judged by is their ability to reduce their enemy's capacity to fight in as quick and as efficient a manner as possible. When called upon to defend us, we want our military to be effective. Nonetheless, they bear an equal responsibility to protect the lives of civilians-- the easiest way to "win" a conflict is simply to annihilate an enemy's territory completely, but humanity is rightfully turned its back on such uncontrolled brutality.

So there are two additional matters that distinguish the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq from some other conflicts that we've engaged in, and more to the point, which rob it of it's legitimacy and the military of their authority to kill in our names.

The invasion was a war crime from its inception as defined at Nuremberg. It is a war of aggression against a nation that was no threat to the U.S. In that respect it is no different from the Nazi invasion of Poland. Any argument that we should "support the troops" just because they wear our uniforms and act under our authority would equally justify the destruction of Europe by the Nazis or the rape of Asia by the Japanese Imperial Army.

During both the invasion and the ongoing occupation, U.S. forces have consistently ignored the constraints demanded under the Geneva Conventions for protection of civilian populations, in many instances deliberately, e.g. "lighting up" civilian transport, targeting civilian neighborhoods for bombardment, torturing "suspected" resistance fighters or others to obtain information, preventing access to medical care for the injured, sending fleeing civilians back into combat zones, and using starvation, thirst, and collective punishment against civilians trapped by combat. These are all war crimes.

If these crimes were committed against our people we would be outraged, and justifiably so. Why then should we not be outraged when they are committed against others? When they are committed by our military in our names we have a DUTY to protest, and to demand justice for the victims.

[RyomaSakamoto]

36. anyone who commits a war crime must be held accountable

and you never need to have experienced war to know that and if you haven't you can thank that standard for that.

if we don't adhere to those standards anymore the whole world will experience the horrors of war as never experienced before in history.

[Upfront]

29. Bull

The left told the American people the war was wrong, and no evidence of WMD or ties to 9-11 well before this war started. Millions marched all over the world and here at home to not go to war. The American people listened to the President and his Neo-cons. Now I say bring it on. The left should do no more then they have already done. If the right doesn't like the way this war is going, perhaps they should do something about it, it is after all, there war.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

31. Cannon fodder following orders. Neither heroes or villains.

I respect your post and it's frustrations. Yes they are murderers. As are all soldiers. Americans, Iraqis, Israelis, Russians, whatever.
That is what soldiers do.

Just poor, mostly adolescent, saps doing the master's bidding as they are ruthlessly trained to do.

It's mighty easy to condemn them all if you've never been one. I didn't see any combat in my 4 years of servitude. I refused to extend my enlistment to "go to Vietnam and kill commies". But, had I been ordered to, I probably would have gone. Not because of some great love of my comrades, certainly not to "kill commies", or any such other blather. But, to save myself from imprisonment and the scorn of my peers.

The military runs on fear. Also known as "discipline" and misnamed as "pride".

The average G.I. is an, usually, ignorant (not stupid), adolescent, terrified of being thought "different", under trememdous pressure to conform, hiding his fear under a cloak of bravado, and wishing he were somplace else. There are certainly real psycopaths, misfits, and the completely brainwashed. But, for the most part they are scared kids trying to just get along.

They are cannon-fodder for the ambitions of politicians and the greed of capitalists. Glorify them? No. Villify them, No. They are the enforcers used by, and later ignored by, the rich and powerful.

[Martin Eden]

32. Honestly, I think it would be a mistake for the Left

to approach the ussue of Iraq from the "war crimes" angle and to focus on prosecuting our troops for war crimes. How much popular support do you think this strategy would have?

While I fully agree the invasion of Iraq and our subsequent actions are indeed war crimes, I am also a realist in terms of American politics and what we need to do to reclaim the electoral majority from the Republicans. The war crimes strategy would be a trmendous gift to the right-wingers who have already been quite successful at painting the left as not only weak on defense but also anti-American.

The honesty you are advocating would help them perpetuate their lies, and damage the electoral prospects of the left for the foreseeable future.

I'm not suggesting for one minute we be dishonest or go along with the criminals who have us mired in Iraq. We need to expose the lies that got us into this war, the true agenda behind it, the egregious mismanagement of the occupation, and above all else we have to offer a better course of action and to convince the general public of the need for change. Otherwise, we're we're just shouting our righteous indignation among a shrinking circle of like-minded fools. We need more than honesty -- we need a successful strategy for reclaiming our country from the neocon and corporate criminals who are expanding their control over it.

For the truth to be heard, people must be willing to listen. If our campaign to spread the truth is prefaced with demands for prosecuting our troops for war crimes, very few will listen. In their minds, it will discredit everything we say afterwards. Once we succeed in gaining peoples ears and getting them to open their eyes and minds, our next step is to offer postive solutions they are willing to support. Until we do this and get our country back, there is zero chance for the war criminals of the Bush administration to be brought to justice.

[zippy890]

34. Thanks for speaking out and well said

Lets demand our troops out now!

[Deja Q]

38. Many of our kiddies in uniform grew up on X-Box and Quake III Arena

and probably got desensitized.

While, as a FPS gamer myself, there is a catharsis in virtual blow-em-ups, I lack the (stupidity?) to project the same thing into reality.

So, what got our soldiers to do this?

And will any justice come out of this?