Shenali Waduge

In a world that has been taken over by those wanting to profit by any means, we are unlikely to see sanity prevail in spite of appeals to end wars and to allow people to live in peace. It has become a trend to occupy countries and completely devastate life beyond levels of tolerance. Occupational armies send troops too young to understand the dynamics of what actually motivates nations, their leaders and those financing the wars. By the time they discover the truth they have been psychologically affected and return home very much a victim of the system. As we take stock and count the unimaginable acts by troops of the First World weƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  begin to realize that their actions in reality stems from a history that has evolved from convicts and illegal immigrants.

Thus as international media discloses photographs when it sees fit to enable enough media attention to catch the attention of the world we must be able to pick much more from the images that are being released.

None of the countries that are experiencing conflict could have escaped what they experiencing today. It is because the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-interventionsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ that have led to the arrival of ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-allied troopsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ were already pre-planned and mapped out to facilitate the intervention. Even the UN is a tool of this mechanism, an international body that cannot even stop wars from occurring, stop countries invading and stop invading countries from killing.

While every photo being released depicts nothing short of sadism the facts that these acts are not random and reveals a consistent pattern of behavior cannot deny that much of the cruel and inhuman incidents taking place are as a result of soldiers being ordered to do such crimes by their senior officers. That these acts are often excused and punishment given are barely minimal also depicts that Government heads and officials have little regard for the victims and prefer to simply put the matter aside by a formal excuse.

When a soldier possibly in their late teens or early twenties have been taught too feel angered by 9/11 and told to take revenge they enter these nations with a preconceived notion of wanting to destroy the enemy. However, there was no Iraqi responsible for 9/11 but upon their arrival when orders are given to shoot everything in sight, to treat as hostile action someone holding a mobile phone and to fire ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦naturally these soldiers would have privately wondered what was really going on.

Nevertheless, in a country large as the US, amongst allied troops from other parts of the First World, it is natural for soldiers not to share their inner thoughts but simply take orders. It is these orders that have resulted in the blatant disregard for human life where US troops have thrown candy from traveling vehicles and when children running to pick them up are fired upon. It is no different to the sniper teams that place objects for people to pick and troops fire upon them. Even people who have simply gazed at US troops have been fired upon for no reason. We will never know the numbers of civilians that the US and allied troops have killed. Just as combatants are burned against Geneva laws all we can do is guess how many civilians are dying on a daily basis though often it is excused for enemy attacks. Can the US really blame IraqiƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s or Afghans for hating them.

Nevertheless, the high rate of soldiers returning from war unable to withstand the pressures of realizing what they are doing is wrong have turned them into mentally dysfunctional citizens of no use to the US. They are psychologically affected by the orders they have been given and as more and more are now coming out to speak the truth we begin to realize what exactly is going on in these invaded nations. Listen to this clip to find out the horror of what the US troops have been ordered to do. These incidents of inhuman acts piling up against US troops have come to light by US soldiers who have been unable to keep secret the manner colleagues have been functioning against civilians of other nations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEMKwY1vF_8&feature=related ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ (9 US troops speak out)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7CmIEH-BIk ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ (in Afghanistan)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P82rmAvM0Ro&feature=related ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Australian soldiers kill 5 Afghan children

When the Los Angeles Times released pictures of soldiers of 82nd Airborne division grinning over the body of a killed Afghan insurgent on 18 April 2012 it was not the first such incident. In March, a US soldier killed 16 Afghans including 9 children and 3 women). Then the month prior US soldiers at the Bagram airbase were seen desecrating the Quran. The UN response was that it was a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-sad mistakeƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚, while US marine sniper team posing in front of a flag with a Nazi logo was excused as a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-naƒÆ’†’ƒ”š‚¯ve mistakeƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ by the Marine Corps.

In 2010 a group of US soldiers from Bravo Company went on a shooting spree in Kandahar killing 15 year old Gul Mudin in cold blood, then posing alongside his dead body and cutting off the boys pinkie to keep as a memento. It was the soldiers of the same platoon that threw toffees and fired at children running to pick them up. Then came the photos depicting 4 soldiers urinating on three dead bodies and insulting the dead with jokes. The response by US Defense Secretary was ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-this is war. I know that war is ugly and its violent and I know that young people sometimes caught up in the moment sometimes make very foolish decisionsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Such responses naturally do not add to any discipline or change the manner that entire units treat natives of the countries that the US has invade.

It is easy to see that these acts are not random incidents and we recall the 2004 photos released from the Abu Ghraib Iraqi prison where troops from the 372 military police were photographing themselves physically and sexually abusing detainees. Prisoners were put on dog leashes, hooded and wired while others were stacked one on top of the other naked.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a petition against the US on behalf of 3 Afghans and 3 IraqiƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s in detention between 2003-2004. The same team of lawyers sued then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2005 and 3 senior military officials in a federal court for torture and abuse but the case was dismissed on immunity grounds.

In March 2006 wikileaks revealed how US troops handcuffed and brutally executed 11 Iraqi civilians including an infant and a 70year old woman in the town of Ishaqi and covered up the killings by carrying out an airstrike. This expose was combined with the confirmation by Philip Alston, UNƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions that the murdered civilians were all handcuffed and shot in the head. These conclusions were carried out after autopsies were completed and not by looking at photos like the Channel 4 forensic experts. US troops are also accused of running ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-killing squadsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ murdering Afghan civilians and collecting body parts to keep as ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-trophiesƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚.

In one of the most brutal of killing sprees was the 2005 Haditha incident where US staffƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  sergeant Frank Wuterich took 45minutes to kill 25 IraqiƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s breaking into homes and shooting the sleeping men, women and children including an elderly man in a wheelchair.

After taking 6 years to investigate the Haditha killings of 24 innocent Iraqi civilians all that Staff Sgt Frank G. Wuterich who pleaded guilty received in terms of justice was a demotion and a pay cut. Wuterich had ordered his troops to ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-shoot first, ask questions laterƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚. In view of pleading guilty charges of manslaughter and assault were dropped and he escaped facing 152years in prison on 9 counts of involuntary manslaughter, 2 counts of assault with a dangerous weapon and 3 counts of dereliction of duty in 2005. For the victims it was a case of how unjust the US judicial system was simply because of a pre-trial agreement.

In 2004 Sergeant Jeffrey Waruch was angered by an improvised bomb going off and went half a mile from the explosion and shot a woman and her two daughters who were weeding a beanfield. Waruch was simply discharged citing no evidence to prosecute him.

In what is likely to be a signal to any others planning to blow the whistle on fellow comrades for their sinful and sadistic acts, the US soldier who gave away his colleagues wrong doings was severely beaten up by 10 members from the 2nd Infantry Divisions Fifth Stryker Brigade in Kandahar in 2007. Joshua Keys seeking asylum in Canada has claimed that he and his comrades were told that international law was just a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-guidelineƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ and orders were to ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-shoot first, ask questions laterƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  This may well explain the string of startling behaviors of troops and the pattern of aggressive tactics, the indiscriminate shooting even so far as to order 360 degree shooting.

While we can empathize with these soldiers who are in climates that are far from what they are used to, most possibly just out of college andƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  completely clueless about the terrain they are in it is understandable the type of stress they would be experiencing not knowing who or what they are to go after. None of this however can explain or excuse what happened in any of the barbaric and sadistic crimes that were committed not just by single soldiers but by entire units.

How much of these war crimes have the media actually exposed? How many of these crimes have the media chosen to cover up and how many more photos are being kept for suitable times?

When can we see an end to deaths of civilians who are simply excused for ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-collateral damageƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚.

Is this type of sadism to remain or are the international bodies really interested to take action.

Have these murders any deep-rooted reasons? For one thing US history is one of atrocities. Slaughter, starvation, slavery, exterminations were all part and parcel of life in America. Some of the most inhuman and unimagineable acts of punishment became the fates of black slaves by their American masters. Waterboarding was no different to water torture upon Filipinos during Roosevelts time and certainly no different to the 1995 Presidential Decision Directive 39 by Bill Clinton authorizing extraordinary rendition for interrogations and torture.

It appears war crimes by US and allied troops are actually a way of life. Feeling superior to the people in other parts of the world, they seem to believe that they can do what they like and they are above justice and what they do is justified.

But can this type of actions continue to be tolerated? When troops accused of atrocities walk away without punishment we know that the leaders of the First World have scant regard for the human rights of others especially people of the nations it targets. This is perfectly displayed in the manner US deploys unmanned drones which have killed thousands of civilians.

The real reason for US to invade Afghanistan was to build a 1080 mile long gas pipeline across Turkenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (TAPI) and that pipeline is to be complete in 2014, the year US troops are to be withdrawn from Afghanistan. It was to facilitate the construction of this gas pipeline that thousands of US and allied troops were deployed on the pretext of a war and the casualties take place exactly on the route of the proposed gas pipeline (Helmand and Kandahar). India and Pakistan will receive 1325 million cubic feet per day of gas while Afghanistan will receive only 500.

All the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-warsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ and ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-invasionsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ are nothing but a hoax and sooner than later just as some US soldiers are beginning to realize others are likely to as well.

Shenali Waduge