"if you start looking at them as humans, how are you going to kill them?"

[Benbow]

"Wednesday March 29, 2006
The Guardian
They are a publicity nightmare for the US military: an ever-growing number of veterans of the Iraq conflict who are campaigning against the war. To mark the third anniversary of the invasion this month, a group of them marched on Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. Inigo Gilmore and Teresa Smith joined them"

At a press conference in a cavernous Alabama warehouse, banners and posters are rolled out: "Abandon Iraq, not the Gulf coast!" A tall, white soldier steps forward in desert fatigues. "I was in Iraq when Katrina happened and I watched US citizens being washed ashore in New Orleans," he says. "War is oppression: we could be setting up hospitals right here. America is war-addicted. America is neglecting its poor."

<snip>

... this soldier less than a year ago was proudly serving his nation in Iraq.

The soldier was engaged in no ordinary protest. Over five days earlier this month, around 200 veterans, military families and survivors of hurricane Katrina walked 130 miles from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans to mark the third anniversary of the Iraq war. At its vanguard, Iraq Veterans Against the War, a group formed less than two years ago, whose very name has aroused intense hostility at the highest levels of the US military.

<snip>

Blake, an activist with IVAW for the past 12 months, is angry that American people seem so untouched by the war, by the grim abuses committed by American soldiers. "The American media doesn't cover it and they don't care. The American people aren't seeing the real war - what's really happening there."

<snip>

Casey told us how, from the top down, there was little regard for the Iraqis, who were routinely called "hajjis", the Iraq equivalent of "gook". "They basically jam into your head: 'This is hajji! This is hajji!' You totally take the human being out of it and make them into a video game." It was a way of dehumanising the Iraqis? "I mean, yeah - if you start looking at them as humans, and stuff like that, then how are you going to kill them?"

There is more bad stuff in this, I am afraid. The last-quoted guy, above (Casey) also says that he returned from Iraq and watched videos that he and other soldiers in his unit shot while out on raids, including hour after hour of Iraqi soldiers beating up Iraqi civilians. That is sick. He should hand that footage over to The Hague, the United Nations.

On BBC Radio 4 this morning, an American soldier - Josh Key - was interviewed about his appeal for asylum in Canada. He doesn't want to go back to Iraq but the military have told him that he either goes back to Iraq or goes to prison. He went into hiding with his family.

Listen again by following the link for the story broadcast at 07:23
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/index.shtml

[rwork]

1. Send bush* to Iraq.

He fixed it up with the National Guard to leave a year early and go to college.Why won't the press report this?