Does the US use collective punishment in Iraq? Where is the proof?

[brainshrub]

Recently I sent this link to a conservative friend:

US resorts to collective punishment, Israeli style, in Iraq
http://www.payk.net/mailingLists/iran-news/html/current/msg02914.html

He replied:

"Regarding that supposed bulldozer thing. . .it was demonstrated to be wildly inaccurate if not a complete falsehood. Even the leftwing sites have backed away from this "report."

No interviewing of the US side, no independent followup or analysis by any other reporting organization or NGO (you KNWO they would luv to catch the US doing such a thing), and to allege the bulldozer would be driven by a young enlistee while he listens to "jazz," well, that is nonsense (Rap maybe, Hip-Hop, perhaps, maybe C&W, but Jazz? Come on. . .)"

Is this true? Has this story been debunked? Are there any other examples of collective punishment in Iraq?

[brainshrub]

1. kick n/t

I really need an answer to this. I can't find anything to debunk this story...but at the same time it does sound like a rumor.

[DUreader]

2. NPR Interviewed Military who Confirmed It. Snipers Hid in Groves

Write NPR or Search their site , it was a few weeks ago

[DUreader]

3. Also there is documentation of US buying some (6?) Bulldozers

from Israel for this type of Demolition.

[DuctapeFatwa]

4. That's all been put under cover ban

Personally, I think it is unfounded, but apparently there are people in Washington who believe that atrocities, like US casualties, could undermine support for the Crusade.

The voting class, especially regime loyalists, have an unslakable thirst for Muslim blood, and the elite among them have an unslakable thirst for petrodollars, and the majority of the troops that are put in harm's way are poor, and/or ethnic minorities, and therefore while their families grieve for them, they were considered undesirables before they joined the army and disposable after joining it.

Nevertheless, the regime wishes to err on the side of caution and keep the media on message: positive, upbeat, schools, roads, dead Iraqis enough to keep the viewers happy but how they died is cover-banned.

[DUreader]

5. Also collectively surrounding a town with barbed wire this week

[mike_c]

6. I'm looking for an article I read today...

...in the SF Chronicle in which an Iraqi in Falluja tells the reporter that the Americans came and told them that if any shots come from their neighborhood they will retalilate by shooting up EVERY house. I'll post the link as soon as I find it.

[bpilgrim]

7. there were reports of us arresting wives/mothers

relatives of suspects they wanted to talk to.

peace

[DuctapeFatwa]

9. yes they seize the wives and daughters, hold them hostage, etc

"Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said tougher methods are being used to gather the intelligence. On Wednesday night, he said, his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: "If you want your family released, turn yourself in." Such tactics are justified, he said, because, "It's an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54345-2003Jul27.html

[Minstrel Boy]

8. Read riverbend's Baghdad blog for Oct 13

Though your conservative friend would likely dismiss her contribution out of hand.

"One of the most famous streets in Baghdad is ‘shari3 il mattar’ or ‘The Airport Street’. It is actually two streets- one leading to Baghdad Airport and the other leading from it, into Baghdad. The streets are very simple and plain. Their magnificence lay in the palm trees growing on either side, and in the isle separating them. Entering Baghdad from the airport, and seeing the palm trees enclosing you from both sides, is a reminder that you have entered the country of 30 million palms.

"Soon after the occupation, many of the palms on these streets were hacked down by troops for ‘security reasons’. We watched, horrified, as they were chopped down and dragged away to be laid side by side in mass graves overflowing with brown and wilting green. Although these trees were beautiful, no one considered them their livelihood. Unlike the trees Patrick Cockburn describes in Dhuluaya.

Several orchards in Dhuluaya are being cut down… except it’s not only Dhuluaya… it’s also Ba’aquba, the outskirts of Baghdad and several other areas. The trees are bulldozed and trampled beneath heavy machinery. We see the residents and keepers of these orchards begging the troops to spare the trees, holding up crushed branches, leaves and fruit- not yet ripe- from the ground littered with a green massacre. The faces of the farmers are crushed and amazed at the atrocity. I remember one wrinkled face holding up 4 oranges from the ground, still green (our citrus fruit ripens in the winter) and screaming at the camera- “Is this freedom? Is this democracy?!” And his son, who was about 10, stood there with tears of rage streaming down his cheeks and quietly said, “We want 5 troops dead for each tree they cut down… five troops.” A “terrorist”, perhaps? Or a terrorized child who had to watch his family’s future hacked down in the name of democracy and freedom?"

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

Riverbend quotes Patrick Cockburn in The Independent, refers to the jazz blaring while the bulldozers uprooted the groves, and is reminded of how Saddam drained the wetlands to eliminate hiding places for Shiite opponents. She writes:

"Déjà vu, perhaps? Or maybe the orchards differ from the marshlands in that Saddam wasn’t playing jazz when he dried up the marshlands."

[smallprint]

10. The whole war is collective punishment.

And so were the 12 years of sanctions.

[KG]

11. thank you

for boiling it down to 2 short phrases. :(

[MrPrax]

12. blasts AC/DC rock music

After this particular sweep, in which 'Apache Troop' was searching for alleged terrorists, Nir Rosen of the Asia Times reported "From the list of 34 names , Apache brings in about 16 positively identified men, along with another 54 men who were neighbors, relatives or just happened to be around. By 0830, Apache is done, and starts driving back to base. As the main element departs, the psychological-operations vehicle blasts AC/DC rock music through neighborhood streets. 'It's good for morale after such a long mission,' Captain Brown says."

"But cooperative Iraqi informants may prove difficult to enlist in the zone of resistance around Baghdad, where resentment of the U.S. occupation runs deep. And Iraqi security forces - hastily trained, underpaid, themselves often resentful of the Americans - may prove a thin shield for a large foreign army far from home, an army whose troops travel in vulnerable convoys and low-flying Chinooks.
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/news/local/7166284.htm

BAGHDAD (AP) - In U.S. prison camps in Iraq forbidden talk can earn a prisoner hours bound and stretched out in the sun and detainees swinging tent poles rise up regularly against their jailers, recently released Iraqis said.

In the secretive camps in a scorched landscape, "they don't respect anyone, old or young," Rahad Naif said of his U.S. army guards.

He and others told of detainees in wheelchairs and of a man carried into a stifling hot tent in his sickbed.

"They humiliate everybody."
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/031101/w110174.html

I am sure americans are being respected everywhere