[Subvertistas] The Civilians We Killed

[brent]

An article from The Guardian by Michael Hoffman, co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War.  Hoffman makes some interesting points in the article about the perspective of US soldiers, how this perspective increases their likelihood of committing inhumane criminal acts, and most importantly about who bears the responsibility for these acts.
 
One of the current charades in our public media today is to pretend that it (the media) is performing its vital role of holding public and otherwise government officials/workers accountable for their actions.  Scapegoats, therefore, wind up being publicly paraded to pacify (i.e. silence) the cry for justice by advocates of peace.  
 
We make a huge media event of putting Martha Stewart in jail and pretend something is being done about "corporate crime" while Ken Lay (and many other publicly known and unknown criminals) walk free.  We wring our hands and denounce the horrific murder of an injured and unarmed man in a mosque by a US soldier.  Maybe we even cry for a war crime trial.  
 
Yet we don't question that this is an official policy being dictated by the administration?  We don't ask who gives the orders to bomb and otherwise attack places of worship (protected places under the Geneva Conventions), and then send footsoldiers in--placing them in a situation where they are likely to commit such acts?  (For those of you who have an internal dialogue running like "I didn't see them bomb or attack the mosque in the video footage I watched," just take a look at the condition of the mosque, with debris and concrete strewn everywhere--this obviously happened before the soldiers went in on foot.  Therefore how are they to prop up their insufficient argument that it is okay to attack places of worship if we just say weapons are being held there?  Maybe the spy....ahem, guy on the ground who they don't shoot had something to do with it.  You know, the one who speaks to the soldiers, something like "I was the one who was talking to you.")
 
All that being said, here's the article, from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1364244,00.html
 
The civilians we killed 

If only those who sent us to Iraq lay awake at night 

Michael Hoffman
Thursday December 2, 2004
The Guardian 

The chaos of war should never be understated. On the way to Baghdad, I saw bodies by the road, many in civilian clothing. Every time a car got near my Humvee, everyone inside braced themselves, not knowing if gunfire would suddenly erupt out of it. When your enemy is unclear, everyone becomes your enemy. 
I will not judge the marine who killed the wounded Iraqi. I do not know what was going on around him or what he experienced in the hours before. But I do know what the stress of combat will do. I remember talking to a friend who told how, after a greatly loved lieutenant was killed in Nassiriya, the unit started shooting anyone that got close. I remember when a pickup truck got too close to my convoy, the armoured vehicle up front shot the passenger to get the message to the driver. Just as these marines should face charges, then those that put us in these situations should have to answer for their actions. 
In his book The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien said: "You can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromised allegiance to obscenity and evil." This is something people in the US have forgotten after years of watching CNN. War is dirty, always wrong, but sometimes unavoidable. That is why all these horrible things must rest on the shoulders of those leaders who supported a war that did not have to be fought. 
I know the commitment it takes to serve your country, but I also know this war has nothing to do with protecting my country. My sergeant put it best a week before we left for the Middle East: "Don't think you're going to be heroes. You're not going for weapons of mass destruction. You're not going to get rid of Saddam, or to make Iraq safe for democracy. You're going for one reason, and that's oil." 
War for oil: is a term the troops in Iraq know well. That is the only reason left for this war, leaving those on the ground with only one reason to fight - get home alive. When this kind of desperation sinks in, it is easy to make the person across from you less then human, easier to do horrible things to them. 


Did the soldiers who committed those acts in Abu Ghraib view Iraqis as equals? Those who committed these acts will have to live with the memories - just as I wonder how many Iraqi children were killed by my artillery battery, or how many Iraqis were trapped in burning vehicles on the road to Baghdad. These are the thoughts that keep me up at night: the bodies of children and the burned remains of Iraqi troops that couldn't get out in time. 
But those who put all of us there will never understand this. That is why they need to be judged. But they will never receive the most just punishment: feeling what myself and all the other veterans of this hideous war will deal with for the rest of our lives. 
· Michael Hoffman took part in the invasion of Iraq as a US marine and is co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War (www.ivaw.net). He is speaking in London on Sunday 

End of Article.




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Progress and improvement are not always synonyms. A people may grow in Gall instead of grace. I measure a century by its men rather than by its machines, and we have not, since civilization took its boasted leap forward, produced a Socrates or a Shakespeare, a Phidias or an Angelo, a Confucius or a Christ. This century runs chiefly to Talmages and Deacon Twogoods, pauper dukes and divorce courts--intellectual soup and silk lingerie. 
WCB
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