"We're committing genocide in Iraq"...

Iraq veteran Jimmy Massey speaks...
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov2004/vet-n11_prn.shtml

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Massey entered Iraq as part of the initial US invasion in March 2003. He witnessed--and in some cases participatedin--the killing of innocent civilians. During a single 48-hour period, he says, he saw as many as 30 civilians killed by US gunfire at highway checkpoints.

The brutality of the US military's retaliation against the growing resistance of the Iraqi people transformed his view of the occupation and changed him for life. Massey, horrified and unable to reconcile himself to what was taking place, began to speak out to his superiors. He was eventually medi-vaced out of Iraq and diagnosed with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Labeled as a conscientous objector by his commanders, Massey sought legal counsel and won his honorable discharge in December 2003.
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Massey's disillusionment with the military began as a recruiter, when he started to question the methods used by the Marines in preying on young people from economically depressed areas. His feelings would soon be deepened by his experience in Iraq.
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"Boot camp is designed to dehumanize and desensitize a person to violence. I was a Marine Corps boot camp instructor for two-and-a-half years, and I know that it is designed to strip you down and rebuild you. The only purpose of the Marine Corps is to meet the enemy on the battlefield and destroy them."
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"I'll be honest with you, when you're in the military, it's a lot like being in a mafia family. You don't step outside the family, and it's a very sheltered environment. I mean, you're taken care of. You've got a guaranteed paycheck on the 1st and the 15th, and when you're living on a Marine base, it's a bit like utopia. But with the utopia comes the conformity to the ideology, which allows the utopia to continue. If you break away from the family, they're gonna do what ever they can to keep you quiet."
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In Iraq, Massey was brought face to face with this involvement. The initial invasion took on the character of a one-sided slaughter, with the world's strongest military power armed with the most technologically advanced weapons, on the one hand, and a disarmed and virtually defenseless military of a country already devastated by a decade of sanctions on the other.
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"We were like a bunch of cowboys who rode into town shooting up the place. I saw charred bodies in vehicles that were clearly not military vehicles. I saw people dead on the side of the road in civilian clothes. As a matter of fact, I only remember seeing a couple of bodies in military uniform the whole time."

more...
http://www.wsws.org

The discussion goes further into the callosnousness of the military commanders, as well as the president. This man definitely has no use for Bush, Tommy Franks, and the rest of the butchers involved!

likes it.

I called it genocide when the 100,000 number was first released and I said it was no different then what Hitler did, only different motives.

They are disinfranchising people who would probably not be voting for Bush's candidate in the upcoming elections. I don't think they handed out any absentee ballots.

Our glorious military wouldn't have it any other way, since they are essentially a mercenary force made up of guys who couldn't make a living
in the free marketplace.

Maybe a tour of Darfur.....

If George is unchecked, it may well devolve to genocide, because George doesn't care how many die as long as he gets his way...and these stubborn people seem determined to resist his greatness.

But the current raft of atrocities (much more appropriate word) is just soldiers getting to hate people they can't trust who keep trying to kill them. There are very few wars where it doesn't happen.

His words were powerful.